“Thy hour is past, thy spells I sever,—
Witch of the lake descend for ever!”
The most important continuation of Coleridge’s poem was written by the author of Proverbial Philosophy. It was entitled “Geraldine, a sequel to Coleridge’s Christabel,” by Martin Farquhar Tupper. London. Joseph Rickerby. 1838.
In his Preface, Mr. Tupper gives a short prose sketch of Coleridge’s beautiful but incomplete poem, and remarks that his excuse for continuing the fragment is to be found in Coleridge’s own words, “I trust that I shall be able to embody in verse the three parts yet to come, in the course of the present year” (1816), a half promise which he never redeemed.
Mr. Tupper’s poem is in three parts, and is written in serious imitation of Christabel, although he fully admits the temerity of his attempt to complete Coleridge’s masterpiece.
Another, but very inferior continuation appeared in Smallwood’s Magazine, June 1841 (London. E. Smallwood, Old Bond Street,) entitled “Christabel, continued from Coleridge,” by Eliza Stewart. There is a total absence of plot or interest in this poem, and some of the lines descend to the lowest depths of bathos.
Singularly enough, this poem is immediately followed, in the magazine, by an Italian ode “To a foggy day in England,” written by Gabriele Rossetti, father of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and William Michael Rossetti.
This brings to mind Mr. T. Hall Caine’s interesting “Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (London, Elliott Stock, 1882), in which a chapter is devoted to Rossetti’s opinions on the Lake poets, and particular prominence is given to his criticisms on Coleridge, and Christabel. First, the origin of the name is discussed, next the design of the poem, and whether Coleridge had intended (as some critics asserted) to show in the sequel that Geraldine was not a disconsolate maiden, but a man bent on the seduction of Christabel.