the more real-this world, or that which lies around us beyond the veil? Coleridge draws his parable with marvellous richness of imagination. A stanza or two may be given, but they are ill separated from the context:

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,

The furrow followed free;

We were the first that ever burst

Into that silent sea.

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,

"Twas sad as sad could be ;

And we did speak only to break

The silence of the sea!

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.

This gives an instance of the descriptive beauty of the poem, not of its mysticism. The mysticism characterizes also Christabel and Kubla Khan. Neither poem was ever finished; both stand out like half-erected palaces. Christabel has been called

"distinct identification of the spirit of evil, an unseen harm and bane, working secretly in the dark places of the earth against white innocence, purity, and truth, and carrying on the continual It established conflict between good and evil.”

a new metre and it gave rise to Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel. Kubla Khan is simply a dream. The poet fell asleep one afternoon and composed the poem as he slept. Awaking, he began to write it down, was called away suddenly, and lost the rest of it forever. As it stands the fragment is a wonderful revelation of Coleridge's mind and an instance of his best poetry-mystical, and containing most beautiful cadences.

The shadows of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves,
When was heard the mingled measure
From the mountains and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw :

It was an Abyssinian maid,

And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such deep delight 't would win me,
That with music loud and long,

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome, those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

ceaseless work affected his own brain towards the close of his life, and for some time before his death he was practically out of his mind. He died in 1843. It is sad to think that his gentle, loving, and always helpful life should have been dogged by sorrow. Few men have deserved better of Fate.

Southey wrote more than will probably ever be collected together. But very little falls within the category of first-class work. He was most conscientious; he possessed a knowledge of books such as few men have had, and he always made absolutely sure of detail. Yet he lacked the something that should have put into his works the breath of immortality. His energy and originality led him to trust entirely to his own taste-which was not always good. Thus he did not perceive the set of the vast current that bore Wordsworth and Coleridge on. "He had got into a wild eddy of his own." His endless activity also moved him to take up a new work immediately upon finishing the old. This led to diffuseness and perhaps to lack of care -though Southey had an infinite capacity for taking pains. His poetical gifts, however, are various and not seldom high. His poems-though longdrawn-are full of good descriptive passages. And his prose style is clear and adequate. His chief poems were the epics Thalaba (1801), The Curse of Kehama (1810), and Roderick, the Last of the Goths (1814). Thalaba opened, in English poetry, the field of Eastern thought and imagery which was

later revived in Germany by Goethe's West-eastern Divan, 1819, and in England by Moore's Lalla Rookh, 1817. Roderick is mediæval in subject and sentiment; with the Curse of Kehama, it places before us a heroic deliverer, or still more heroic penitent," who struggles valiantly against the powers of evil and eventually triumphs. They are straightforward moral romances in which heroic virtue always gains the day." Their best portions are very good; but they evince a matter-of-fact touch that prevents the loftiest flights. Of Southey's voluminous prose may be mentioned: The History of Brazil, 1810–1819, and The History of the Peninsular War, 1822-1832. They combine a lucid style with a thorough knowledge of arrangement of historical material. Nor must The Life of Nelson be omitted. It appeared in 1813, and is its author's masterpiece the best short biography in English.

It was odd that Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey should have been bound together as members of a common school. They possessed very little in common-their work was upon different principles. Wordsworth preached his creed with obstinate perseverance and by means of some matchless verse; Coleridge opened the gate of German mysticism to England and sang his songs of strange and wayward beauty; Southey worked stoutly according to his own theory, clever, matter-of-fact, somehow never attaining the highest. But, dissimilar as they were, they carried on to its conclusion the pro

test that had been entered by Cowper and Burns. They struck the clinching blows for romantic poetry.

There was another poet, however, who really did more than any one else to make the romantic style popular-to bring its beauties home to the average reader. This was WALTER SCOTT. He is, of course, better known as a novelist than as a poet; but a poet he was, and one of a high order. Scott was born in Edinburgh. His childhood was hampered by sickness, which, though he outgrew it, left him a legacy of lameness. But any physical disability was compensated for by the unlimited opportunity for open-air life and for reading. Such conditions gave him the wonderful insight into peasant character and the knowledge of tradition which afterward bore golden fruit. He was educated at the High School and the University of Edinburgh; was trained as a lawyer, and called to the bar in 1792. His work, however, was not so enthralling but that he found time for many excursions into the country on sport or business. His first essay in literature was a translation (1799) of Goethe's Götz von Berlichingen, a "blood and thunder" play which had created an immense sensation in Germany. The translation was meritorious, but it appeared when English sympathy was not inclined toward German work, and met with small regard. About 1794 Scott was interested in the Volunteer movement, and three years later was made Sheriff of Selkirkshire.