elieved to be the essentials of both... On all subjects he spoke his mind, often, through whim or impatience, more than his mind, freely, without regard to consequences."
On a vacation in 1818 Hartley met the poet Chauncy Hare Townshend, who said the following of him:
"I cannot easily convey to you the impression of interest which he made on my mind at that time. There was something so wonderfully original in his method of expressing himself, that on me, then a young man, and only cognisant externally of the prose of life, his sayings, all stamped with the impress of poetry, produced an effect analogous to that which the mountains of Cumberland, and the scenery of the North, were working on my southern-born eye and imagination."
Wikipedia then says "He had inherited much of his father's character, and his lifestyle was such that, although he was successful in gaining an Oriel fellowship, at the close of the probationary year (1820) he was judged to have forfeited it, mainly on the grounds of intemperance.” Hartley suffered from a dependence on alcohol for the rest of his life.
He then spent two years in London, where he wrote short poems for the London Magazine, became a partner in a school at Ambleside, moved to Grasmere, wrote occasional essays for Blackwood's Magazine, wrote some biographies of Yorkshire and Lancashire ‘worthies’, and wrote poems which were printed as a volume in 1833.
From this time, except for two short periods in 1837 and 1838 when he acted as master at Sedbergh School, he lived quietly at Grasmere and (1840–1849) Rydal, spending his time in study and wanderings about the countryside. His figure was as familiar as Wordsworth's, and he made many friends among the locals [Reducing threats].
In 1839, he brought out his edition of Massinger and Ford, with biographies of both dramatists. The closing decade of Coleridge's life was ‘wasted’ in what he himself called "the woeful impotence of weak resolve." On the death of his mother in 1845, he was placed, by means of an annuity on his life, on a footing of complete independence, but he lived for only 3 more years. His poems are lovely.
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- Coleridge, David Hartley - Far from all measured space, yet clear and plain
- Coleridge, David Hartley - How long I sailed and never took a thought
- Coleridge, David Hartley - Let me not deem that I was made in vain
- Coleridge, David Hartley - Long time a child, and still a child, when years
- Coleridge, David Hartley - Oh! My dear mother, art thou still awake
- Coleridge, David Hartley - See, the blue smoke as a voiceless prayer
- Coleridge, David Hartley - She sat and wept, and with her untress’d hair
- Coleridge, David Hartley - Sure ‘tis a holy and a healing thought
- Coleridge, David Hartley - The insect birds that suck nectareous juice
- Coleridge, David Hartley - There is a fable that I once did read
- Coleridge, David Hartley - Till death no longer seemed a terrible thing