COLERIDGE'S CHRISTABEL—"CHRISTOBELL, A GOTHIC TALE."
(Vol. vii., p. 206.).
Your correspondent S. Y. ought not to have charged the editors of Coleridge's Poems with negligence, until he had shown that the lines he quotes were inserted in the original edition of Christabel. They have not the musical flow of Coleridge's versification, but rather the dash and vivacity of Scott. At all events, they are not to be found in the second edition of Christabel (1816), nor in any subsequent edition. Indeed, I do not think that Coleridge made any alteration in the poem since its composition in 1797 and 1800. I referred to two reviews of Coleridge's Poems published in Blackwood in 1819 and 1834; but found no trace of S. Y.'s lines. "An old volume of Blackwood" is rather a vague mode of reference. It is somewhat curious that, previous to the publication of Christabel, there appeared a conclusion to that splendid fragment. It was entitled "Christobell, a Gothic Tale," and was published in the European Magazine for April, 1815. It is dated "March, 1815," and signed "V.;" and was reprinted in Fraser's Magazine for January, 1835. It is stated to be "written as a sequel to a beautiful legend of a fair lady and her father, deceived by a witch in
the guise of a noble knight's daughter." It commences thus:
"Whence comes the wavering light which falls
On Langdale's lonely chapel-walls?
The noble mother of Christobell
Lies in that lone and drear chapelle."
The writer of the review in Blackwood (Dec. 1839) of Mr. Tupper's lame and impotent conclusion to Christabel, remarks that—
"Mr. Tupper does not seem to know that Christabel was continued many years ago, in a style that perplexed the public, and pleased even Coleridge. The ingenious writer meant it for a mere jeu d'esprit."
Query: Who was this "ingenious writer?"
While on the subject of Christabel, I may note a parallelism in reference to a line in Part I.:
"Her face, oh call it fair, not pale!"
"E smarrisce il bel volto in un colore,
Che non è pallidezza, ma candore."
Tasso, G. Lib. c. ii. st. 26.
J. M. B.
S. Y. is "severe over much" and under informed, in his strictures on the editors of Coleridge's Works (1852), when he blames them for not giving Coleridge the credit of lines which did not belong to him. The lines which S. Y. quotes, and a "great many more,"—in fact, a "third part of Christabel,"—were sent to Blackwood's Magazine in 1820, by the late Dr. William Maginn, as a first fruits of those imitations and parodies for which he afterwards became so famous. The success of his imitation of Coleridge's style is proved by the indignation of your correspondent. It is no small honour to the memory and talents of the gifted but erratic Maginn, that the want of his lines should be deemed a defect or omission in "one of the most beautiful poems in the English language." But in future, before he condemns editors for carelessness, S. Y. should be sure that he himself is correct.
A. B. R.
Belmont.