external effect, awake in her an internal sympathy with evil, and her dream is not so much a hideous apparition conjured up by external influence, as a shape far more terrible and real, inasmuch as it is the creation of the workings of the innate evil in herself.

Again she is forced to assume the very look of sin, through unconscious sympathy:

"The maid, devoid of guile and sin,

I know not how, in fearful wise,
So deeply had she drunken in

That look, those shrunken serpent eyes,
That all her features were resigned
To this sole image in her mind :
And passively did imitate

That look of dull and treacherous hate,
And thus she stood in dizzy trance,

Still picturing that look askance,

With forced, unconscious sympathy."

Now let us hear the conclusion. I think we may see in it a similar idea that of toying with the evil unlovely tendencies of our nature merely for the sake of the "sweet recoil;" tendencies which, though their charm seems to be broken, though they slumber, it is yet dangerous to mock.

"A little child, a limber elf,

Singing, dancing to itself,

A fairy thing with red round cheeks,
That always finds and never seeks,
Makes such a vision to the sight
As fills a father's eyes with light;
And pleasures flow in so thick and fast
Upon his heart, that he at last

Must needs express his love's excess
In words of unmeant bitterness.
Perhaps 'tis pretty to force together
Thoughts so unlike each other:

To mutter and mock a broken charm,
To dally with wrong that does no harm.
Perhaps 'tis tender too, and pretty,

At each wild word to feel within
A sweet recoil of love and pity.

And what, if in a world of sin

(O sorrow and shame should this be true!)
Such giddiness of heart and brain

Comes seldom save from rage and pain,
So talks as it is most used to do."

There is a peculiarity in the rhythm of "Christabel " -a peculiarity that now to us, who know Scott's poems and others of the same rhythm, does not strike us as remarkable. Let us hear what the poet himself says on this point: "The metre of" Christabel" is not, properly speaking, irregular, though it may seem so from being founded on a new principle, namely that of counting in each line the accents, not the syllables."

This irregularity is characteristic.

Coleridge cared very little for form. His idea

Το

of poetry was the very opposite of Pope's. Pope the verse itself-with its balanced periods, and

its melodious rhythm-constituted poetry. How different this was from Coleridge's idea may be seen from the fact that he has given us specimens of poems written in prose, and a good many poems which (as "Christabel ") are unfinished; that is to say, not cast into "requisite metre," as he calls it.

What would Pope have said to the following? It occurs in the preface to the "Solitary Date-tree," a short poem of which the first two stanzas are given in prose, the manuscript containing the original verses having been lost. "It is not impossible that some congenial spirit may find a pleasure in restoring 'The Lament' to its original integrity by a reduction of the thoughts to the requisite metre."

"Reliquum carmen in futurum tempus relegatum" (the rest of the poem is deferred for some future day): "to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow! -such is the exclamation that ends one of these unfinished poems. It was that "to-morrow that in some ways made his life so unhappy, so unfruitful. And yet I end as I began. We must not judge entirely by the substantial results. As a poet he stands very high-and would stand perhaps equally as high had he written nothing but the "Ancient Mariner" and that wonderful fragment, "Christabel." As a philosopher, though he has given us no perfectly rounded system (and indeed spoke with disregard of such systems) yet his influence has been very great. As a man, Coleridge was indeed to be

pitied for his "homeless aimless" life, and for the tormenting fiend that at one time nearly dragged him to the grave; but, taken all in all, he was a man who for poetic vision, for loftiness, at least, if not for steadfastness of aim, and for spirituality of character deserves our deepest admiration. The upward-soaring tendency of his mind is recognizable in his philosophical writings, but it finds its native element in poetry; and it is as a poet that he is truly great. Mrs. Browning in her “Vision of Poets" has expressed this characteristic by means of a fine simile, which will probably do more for us than volumes of disquisition

"And visionary Coleridge, who

Did sweep his thoughts, as angels do
Their wings, with cadence up the Blue."

CHAPTER VII.

WORDSWORTH.

THERE are various reasons which make me approach the subject of Wordsworth with very great diffidence. In the first place, he is a poet who, if he is read at all, is probably read much—and consequently many whom I address may have given as much study to his poems as I have myself,-I say study, for to have merely read all his poems is nothing more than most have done. Secondly, there are such numbers of essays and reviews on the subject, that there would seem to be very little left to be said. Thirdly, and especially, I feel that of all poets Wordsworth is one of whom one can write least satisfactorily. All reviews and essays are eminently unsatisfying and useless, unless the poems themselves have been beforehand studied and appreciated by the reader. And when one has read and does appreciate Wordsworth, all essays are still unsatisfactory; for these poems have this characteristic above all others, that they appeal-if they appeal at all—