future collection. The reception it met with was no doubt a very discouraging one, more particularly when contrasted with the vehement admiration which seems to have been expressed by all who saw it while yet in MS. Mr Coleridge, however, should remember that the opinions of the few who saw and admired Christabel then, may very well, without any overweening partiality on his part, be put into competition with the many who have derided it since. Those who know the secret history of the poem, and compare it with the productions of the most popular poets of our time, will have no difficulty in perceiving how deep an impression his remarkable creation had made on the minds of those of his contemporaries, whose approbation was most deserving to be an object of ambition with such a man as Mr Coleridge.

Christabel, as our readers are aware, is only a fragment, and had been in existence for many years antecedent to the time of its publication. Neither has the author assigned any reason either for the long delay of its appearance or for the imperfect state in which he has at last suffered it to appear. In all probability he had waited long in the hope of being able to finish it to his satisfaction; but finding that he was never revisited by a mood sufficiently genial-he determined to let the piece be printed as it was. It is not in the history of Christabel alone that we have seen reason to suspect Mr Coleridge of being by far too pas sive in his notions concerning the mode in which a poet ought to deal with his muse. It is very true, that the best conceptions and designs are frequently those which occur to a man of fine talents, without having been painfully sought after: but the exertion of the Will is always necessary in the worthy execution of them. It behoves a poet, like any other artist, after he has fairly conceived the idea of his piece, to set about realising it in good earnest, and to use his most persevering attention in considering how all its parts are to be adapted and conjoined. It does not appear that even the language of a poem can arise spontaneously throughout like a strain of music, any more than the colours of the painter will go and arrange themselves on his canvass, while he is musing on the subject in another room.

Language is a material which it requires no little labour to reduce into beautiful forms,-a truth of which the ancients were, above all others, well and continually aware. For although vivid ideas naturally suggest happy expressions, yet the latter are, as it were, only insulated traits or features, which require much management in the joining, and the art of the composer is seen in the symmetry of the whole structure. Now, in many respects Mr Coleridge seems too anxious to enjoy the advantages of an inspired writer, and to produce his poetry at once in its perfect form-like the palaces which spring out of the desert in complete splendour at a single rubbing of the lamp in the Arabian Tale. But carefulness above all is necessary to a poet in these latter days, when the ordinary medium through which things are viewed is so very far from being poetical-and when the natural strain of scarcely any man's associations can be expected to be of that sort which is most akin to high and poetical feeling. There is no question there are many, very many passages in the poetry of this writer, which shew what excellent things may be done under the impulse of a happy moment-passages in which the language-above all things-has such aerial graces as would have been utterly beyond the reach of any person who might have attempted to produce the like, without being able to lift his spirit into the same ecstatic mood. It is not to be denied, however, that among the whole of his poems there are only a few in the composition of which he seems to have been blessed all throughout with the same sustaining energy of afflatus. The Mariner-we need not say-is one of these. The poem Love is another-and were Christabel completed as it has been begun, we doubt not it would be allowed by all who are capable of tasting the merits of such poetry, to be a third-and, perhaps, the most splendid of the three.

It is impossible to gather from the part which has been published any conception of what is the meditated conclusion of the story of Christabel. Incidents can never be fairly judged of till we know what they lead to. Of those which occur in the first and second cantos of this poem, there is no doubt many appear at present very strange and disagreeable, and the

They moved in tracts of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.

Within the shadow of the ship
I watch'd their rich attire:

Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.

O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare :
A spring of love gusht from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware!

Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.

The self same moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.

It is needless to proceed any longer in this, for the principle of the poem is all contained in the last of these extracts. Had the ballad been more interwoven with sources of prolonged emotion extending throughout-and had the relation of the imagery to the purport and essence of the piece been

a little more close-it does not seem to us that any thing more could have been desired in a poem such as this. As it is, the effect of the wild wandering magnificence of imagination in the details of the dream-like story is a thing that cannot be forgotten. It is as if we had seen real spectres, and were for ever to be haunted. The unconnected and fantastic variety of the images that have been piled up before us works upon the fancy, as an evening sky made up of half lurid castellated clouds-half of clear unpolluted azure-would upon the eye. It is like the fitful concert of fine sounds which the Mariner himself hears after his spirit has been melted, and the ship has begun to sail homewards. Around, around, flew each sweet sound, Then darted to the Sun;

Slowly the sounds came back again,
Now mixed, now one by one.
Sometimes a-dropping from the sky
I heard the sky-lark sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seem'd to fill the sea and air
With their sweet jargoning!

And now 'twas like all instruments,

Now like a lonely flute;

And now it is an angel's song,

That makes the Heavens be mute.

It ceased; yet still the sails made on
A pleasant noise till noon,
A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.

The conclusion has always appeared to us to be happy and graceful in the utmost degree. The actual surface-life of the world is brought close into contact with the life of sentiment-the soul that is as much alive, and enjoys, and suffers as much in dreams and visions of the night as by daylight. One feels with what a heavy eye the Ancient Mariner must look and listen to the pomps and merry-makingseven to the innocent enjoyments-of those whose experience has only been of things tangible. One feels that to him another world-we do not mean a supernatural, but a more exquisitely and deeply natural world-has been revealed-and that the repose of his spirit can only be in the contemplation of things that are not to pass away. The sad and solemn indifference of er-and we feel that even after readhis mood is communicated to his hearing what he had heard, it were better to "turn from the bridegroom's door." O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been Alone on a wide wide sea: So lonely 'twas, that God himself

Scarce seemed there to be.
O sweeter than the marriage-feast,
'Tis sweeter far to me,
To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company!—
To walk together to the kirk,
And all together pray,
While each to his great Father bends,
Old men, and babes, and loving friends,
And youths and maidens gay!
Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man, and bird, and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all.

The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone; and now the Wedding-guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.
He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn :

A SADDER AND A WISER MAN,
HE ROSE THE MORROW MORN.-

Of all the author's productions, the one which seems most akin to the Ancient Mariner, is Christabel, a wonderful piece of poetry, which has been far less understood, and is as yet far less known than the other. This performance does not make its appearance in the Sibylline Leaves-but we hope Mr Coleridge will never omit it in any

future collection. The reception it met with was no doubt a very discouraging one, more particularly when contrasted with the vehement admiration which seems to have been expressed by all who saw it while yet in MS. Mr Coleridge, however, should remember that the opinions of the few who saw and admired Christabel then, may very well, without any overweening partiality on his part, be put into competition with the many who have derided it since. Those who know the secret history of the poem, and compare it with the productions of the most popular poets of our time, will have no difficulty in perceiving how deep an impression his remarkable creation had made on the minds of those of his contemporaries, whose approbation was most deserving to be an object of ambition with such a man as Mr Coleridge.

Christabel, as our readers are aware, is only a fragment, and had been in existence for many years antecedent to the time of its publication. Neither has the author assigned any reason either for the long delay of its appearance or for the imperfect state in which he has at last suffered it to appear. In all probability he had waited long in the hope of being able to finish it to his satisfaction; but finding that he was never revisited by a mood sufficiently genial-he determined to let the piece be printed as it was. It is not in the history of Christabel alone that we have seen reason to suspect Mr Coleridge of being by far too passive in his notions concerning the mode in which a poet ought to deal with his muse. It is very true, that the best conceptions and designs are frequently those which occur to a man of fine talents, without having been painfully sought after: but the exertion of the Will is always necessary in the worthy execution of them. It behoves a poet, like any other artist, after he has fairly conceived the idea of his piece, to set about realising it in good earnest, and to use his most persevering attention in considering how all its parts are to be adapted and conjoined. It does not appear that even the language of a poem can arise spontaneously throughout like a strain of music, any more than the colours of the painter will go and arrange themselves on his canvass, while he is musing on the subject in another room.

Language is a material which it requires no little labour to reduce into beautiful forms,-a truth of which the ancients were, above all others, well and continually aware. For although vivid ideas naturally suggest happy expressions, yet the latter are, as it were, only insulated traits or features, which require much management in the joining, and the art of the composer is seen in the symmetry of the whole structure. Now, in many respects Mr Coleridge seems too anxious to enjoy the advantages of an inspired writer, and to produce his poetry at once in its perfect form-like the palaces which spring out of the desert in complete splendour at a single rubbing of the lamp in the Arabian Tale. But carefulness above all is necessary to a poet in these latter days, when the ordinary medium through which things are viewed is so very far from being poetical-and when the natural strain of scarcely any man's associations can be expected to be of that sort which is most akin to high and poetical feeling. There is no question there are many, very many passages in the poetry of this writer, which shew what excellent things may be done under the impulse of a happy moment-passages in which the language-above all things-has such aërial graces would have been utterly beyond the reach of any person who might have attempted to produce the like, without being able to lift his spirit into the same ecstatic mood. It is not to be denied, however, that among the whole of his poems there are only a few in the composition of which he seems to have been blessed all throughout with the same sustaining energy of afflatus. The Mariner-we need not say-is one of these. The poem Love is another and were Christabel completed as it has been begun, we doubt not it would be allowed by all who are capable of tasting the merits of such poetry, to be a third-and, perhaps, the most splendid of the three.

as

It is impossible to gather from the part which has been published any conception of what is the meditated conclusion of the story of Christabel. Incidents can never be fairly judged of till we know what they lead to. Of those which occur in the first and second cantos of this poem, there is no doubt many appear at present very strange and disagreeable, and the

sooner the remainder comes forth to explain them, the better One thing is evident, that no man need sit down to read Christabel with any prospect of gratification, whose mind has not rejoiced habitually in the luxury of visionary and superstitious reveries. He that is determined to try every thing by the standard of what is called common sense, and who has an aversion to admit, even in poetry, of the existence of things more than are dreamt of in philosophy, had better not open this production, which is only proper for a solitary couch and a midnight taper. Mr Coleridge is the prince of superstitious poets; and he that does not read Christabel with a strange and harrowing feeling of mysterious dread, may be assured that his soul is made of impenetrable stuff.

The circumstances with which the poem opens are admirably conceived. There is in all the images introduced a certain fearful stillness and ominous meaning, the effect of which can never be forgotten. The language, also, is so much in harmony with the rude era of the tale, that it seems scarcely to have been written in the present age, and is indeed a wonderful proof of what genius can effect, in defiance of unfavourable associations. Whoever has had his mind penetrated with the true expression of a Gothic building, will find a similar impression conveyed by the vein of language employed in this legend. The manners, also, and forms of courtesy ascribed to the personages, are full of solemn grace.

-He kissed her forehead as he spake ; And Geraldine, in maiden wise, Casting down her large bright eyes, With blushing cheek and courtesy fine, Turned her from Sir Leoline; Softly gathering up her train, That o'er her right arm fell again, And folded her arms across her chest, And couched her head upon her breast. This is only one little example of the antique stateliness that breathes over the whole of their demeanour. But if these things are not perceived by the reader, it is altogether in vain to point them out to him.

The general import of the poem cannot yet be guessed at; but it is evident that the mysterious lady whom Christabel meets in the forest-whom she introduces by stealth into the castle of her father-and in whom her father recognizes the daughter of the VOL. VI.

long-estranged friend of his youth, Sir Roland De Vaux of Triermaine,is some evil being; whether demon or only demon-visited, we have no means to ascertain. Nothing can be finer than the description of the manner in which this strange visitant is first introduced.

The night is chill; the forest bare;
Is it the wind that moaneth bleak?
There is not wind enough in the air
To move away the ringlet curl
From the lovely lady's cheek-
There is not wind enough to twirl
The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can,
Hanging so light, and hanging so high,
On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.
Hush, beating heart of Christabel !
Jesu, Maria, shield her well!
She folded her arms beneath her cloak,
And stole to the other side of the oak.
What sees she there?

There she sees a damsel bright,
Drest in a silken robe of white;
Her neck, her feet, her arms were bare,
And the jewels disorder'd in her hair.
guess, 'twas frightful there to see
A lady so richly clad as she-
Beautiful exceedingly!

I

Mary mother, save me now!
(Said Christabel,) And who art thou?
The lady strange made answer meet,
And her voice was faint and sweet :-
I scarce can speak for weariness.
Have pity on my sore distress,
Stretch forth thy hand, and have no fear,
(Said Christabel,) How cam'st thou here?
And the lady, whose voice was faint and

sweet,

Did thus pursue her answer meet :-
My sire is of a noble line,
And my name is Geraldine.

Five warriors seiz'd me yestermorn,
Me, even me, a maid forlorn :

They chok'd my cries with force and fright,
And tied me on a palfrey white.
The palfrey was as fleet as wind,
And they rode furiously behind.

They spurr'd amain, their steeds were white;
And once we cross'd the shade of night.
I have no thought what men they be;
As sure as Heaven shall rescue me,
Nor do I know how long it is
(For I have lain in fits, I wis)
Since one, the tallest of the five,
Took me from the palfrey's back,
A weary woman, scarce alive.
Some mutter'd words his comrades spoke :
He plac'd me underneath this oak,
He swore they would return with haste;
I thought I heard, some minutes past,
Whither they went I cannot tell-

Sounds as of a castle bell.
Stretch forth thy hand (thus ended she),
And help a wretched maid to flee.

B