"incessantly" and played by himself. He was close to his father and distant from his mother, a woman whom he would provoke in an attempt to receive her attention. At the age of seven, Coleridge ran away from home after an argument with his older brother Frank that provoked his mother to punish him. He would tell the story to his friends in his later years with particular emphasis on his mother and "how miserable my Mother must be" about him running away. A search party was formed with family friend Northcote eventually being the one to find Coleridge and bring him home. This event appeared in Coleridge's later poems including "Monody on the Death of Chatterton" (1829). John Coleridge died in 1781 when Samuel was 8 years-old. Since his father was a source of happiness for the young Coleridge, the death affected him deeply. He was also the only son left at home; Frank was enlisted in the Navy just prior to John's death and Coleridge's other brothers were busy with careers or their own families. One of the brothers, George, took responsibility for Coleridge. Of him, Coleridge declared that he was "father, brother, and every thing". Without his father around, Coleridge and his family were forced to move from the schoolhouse to a nearby home with a loss of their income. Soon after, one of John Coleridge's former students, Judge Buller, arranged for Coleridge to be sent to Christ's Hospital. Coleridge was accepted after his mother petitioned on 28 March 1782, along with Fulwood Smerdon, John Coleridge's successor, and Samuel Taylor, Coleridge's godfather, that he be accepted. After acceptance, he attended a school in Hertford to prepare him for Christ's Hospital. Education Christ's Hospital was founded in London by Edward VI in 1552 and intended to educate orphans and the poor. By the 18th century, it catered to educating the children of poor gentry. The age of the institution and the traditions of the school soon became a point of pride for Coleridge. He remained there throughout his childhood, studying and writing poetry, and it was at the school that he studied the works of Virgil and William Lisle Bowles. While at school, Coleridge was often in the school's sanatorium for a mild feverish condition and spent time by himself reading and studying classics. Although he was known for his speech aptitude, he was also known for his