He had little self-respect, and from stress of poverty he intended to
apprentice himself to a shoemaker; but friends who admired his learning
interfered to prevent this, and he was sent with a scholarship to Jesus
College, Cambridge, in 1791. Like Wordsworth and Southey, he was an
intense Radical at first; and on this account left college without his
degree in 1793. He then enlisted as a private in the 15th Light Dragoons;
but, although he was a favorite with his comrades, whose letters he wrote,
he made a very poor soldier. Having written a Latin sentence under his
saddle on the stable wall, his superior education was recognized; and he
was discharged from the service after only four months' duty. Eager for
adventure, he joined Southey and Lloyd in their scheme of pantisocracy,
to which we have already referred; and when that failed for want of money,
he married the sister-in-law of Southey--Miss Fricker, of Bristol. He was
at this time a Unitarian as well as a Radical, and officiated frequently
as a Unitarian minister.
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