[252] Ibid., Vol. II, p. 132.
[253] Journal, Vol. I, p. 321.
[254] Review of Cromek's Reliques of Burns, Quarterly, February, 1809.
[255] Ibid.
[256] Ibid.
[257] Crabbe Robinson, in his diary (quoted by Knight in his edition of Wordsworth, Vol. X, p. 189), says that Coleridge and his friends "consider Scott as having stolen the verse" of Christabel. On this point see also a letter by Coleridge, given in Meteyard's Group of Englishmen, pp. 327-8. In 1807 Coleridge wrote to Southey: "I did not over-hugely admire the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel,' but saw no likeness whatever to the 'Christabel,' much less any improper resemblance." (Letters of Coleridge, ed. by E.H. Coleridge, Vol. II, p. 523.) Yet Mr. Lang seems to think that in this matter Scott "showed something of the deficient sense of meum and tuum which marked his freebooting ancestors." (Sir Walter Scott, p. 36.) Apparently Scott never dreamed that the matter could be looked at in this way. In Lockhart's Scott (Vol. II, pp. 77-8) we find described an occasion on which the two men once met in London, when they were asked, with other poets who were present, to recite from their unpublished writings. Coleridge complied with the request, but Scott said he had nothing of his own and would repeat some stanzas he had seen in a newspaper. The poem was criticised adversely in spite of Scott's protests, till Coleridge lost patience and exclaimed, "Let Mr. Scott alone; I wrote the poem." Coleridge's lines:
"The Knight's bones are dust
And his good sword rust,
His soul is with the saints, I trust,"
are probably much better known as they appear in Ivanhoe, incorrectly quoted, than in their proper form. Scott also added a note on Coleridge in this connection. (Ivanhoe, Chapter VIII.)