Derwent Coleridge Derwent Coleridge Derwent Coleridge (1800–1883), third child of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was a distinguished English scholar and author. Derwent Coleridge was born at Keswick, Cumberland, 14 September 1800 (Derwent Water is not far away). He was sent with his brother Hartley to be educated at a small school near Ambleside. The two brothers were in those days in continual intercourse with Southey and Wordsworth. Derwent was sent to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he formed intimate lifelong friendships with W. M. Praed, Macaulay, John Moultrie, Sidney Walker, Charles Austin, and Bulwer. In the autumn of 1822, he joined them as
Samuel Taylor Coleridge he ate from a teacup. His marital problems, nightmares, illnesses, increased opium dependency, tensions with Wordsworth, and a lack of confidence in his poetic powers fuelled the composition of "Dejection: An Ode" and an intensification of his philosophical studies. In 1802, Coleridge took a nine-day walking holiday in the fells of the Lake District. Coleridge is credited with the first recorded descent of Scafell to Mickledore via Broad Stand, although this was more due to his getting lost than a keenness for mountaineering. In 1804, he travelled to Sicily and Malta, working for a time as Acting Public Secretary of