an old oak-tree, a furlong from the castle-gate. Why she chooses this spot, we are not informed; but the fantastical personages of these authors have no doubt good reasons for their unreasonable actions, though we ordinary mortals cannot possibly guess at them. While engaged in her devotion, she hears a moaning near her; and, with more courage than we could have expected in a young lady frightened by dreams, she steals round to the other side of the oak, and discovers there a beautiful lady, richly attired.-This lady, in a most incoherent story, relates that her name is Geraldine, and that she has been carried from her father's castle by five warriors, of whose names, persons, motives, and intentions, she is totally ignorant. Christabel charitably makes the lady an offer of sharing her bed, and assures her of the protection of her father, Sir Leoline. She accepts the offer, and they steal home to the castle, "cautiously creeping up the stairs," lest they should awaken the Baron, who seems to be rather a testy old gentleman. They reach the chamber of Christabel, who retires to rest. But "so many thoughts pass to and fro" in her mind, that she cannot sleep: and she views the transformation of Geraldine into a sorceress, who lies down by her side, and mutters over her a fascinating spell. In the morning they arise; but Christabel remains disturbed by the charm of the sorceress, who has resumed ber original form. When they enter the hall, Sir Leoline discovers in Geraldine the daughter of Sir Roland de Vaux, who had been his friend in youth, and is sorely displeased by the jealousies of Christabel, who still remembers, with shuddering sensations, the adventure of the former night. Here the narrative breaks off. It is proposed by the author to finish it in the course of the present year.

The poem opens with the following lines, which introduce an interesting personage, who, as far as we remember, is entirely new to poetry:

"Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,
And the owls have awaken'd the crowing cock;
Tu-whit!-Tu-whoo!

And hark again! the crowing cock,

How drowsily it crew.

"Sir Leoline, the Baron rich,

Hath a toothless mastiff-bitch;

From her kennel beneath the rock

She makes answer to the clock,

Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour;
Ever and aye, sunshine and shower,

NO.XV.-VOL.III.—Aug.Rev.

Sixteen short howls, not over loud;

Some say, she sees my lady's shroud.

"Is the night chilly and dark?

The night is chilly, but not dark," &c.

-p. 3, 4.

Here is a spring-landscape, which we think is worthy of Mr. Wordsworth, in some of his " diviner moods:"

"The night is chill, the forest bare;
Is it the wind that moaneth bleak?
There is not wind enough in the air
To move away the ringlet curl
From the lovely lady's cheek-
There is not wind enough to twirl
The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can,
Hanging so light, and hanging so high,

On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky."-p. 6.

Can any thing be more truly simple and infantine than the passage which describes the entrance of Christabel and Geraldine into the castle? Mr. Coleridge's own "Ideot Boy" could not have made his conjectures about the howling of the old toothless mastiff-bitch, with a more natural lisp?

"The lady sunk, belike through pain,
And Christabel with might and main
Lifted her up, a weary weight,
Over the threshold of the gate:
Then the lady rose again,

And moved, as she were not in pain.

"So free from danger, free from fear,
They cross'd the court; right glad they
And Christabel devoutly cried,

To the lady by her side,

Praise we the Virgin all divine,

Who hath recued thee from thy distress!

Alas, alas! said Geraldine,

I cannot speak for weariness.

So free from danger, free from fear,

They cross'd the court: right glad they were.

Outside her kennel, the mastiff old

Lay fast asleep, in the moonshine cold.
The mastiff old did not awake,

Yet she an angry moan did make!
And what can ail the mastiff-bitch?
Never till now she utter'd yell
Beneath the eye of Christabel.
Perhaps it is the owlet's scritch:

For what can ail the mastiff-bitch ?"

-p. 11, 12.

Then we have an imitation of some of those parts of Lord

Byron's poetry which describe an utter desolation of mind—

intended, we doubt not, to be very original and energetic, but which appears to us to be the vilest jargon we ever had the misfortune to read:

"Alas! they had been friends in youth,
But whispering tongues can poison truth;
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny; and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain.
And thus it chanc'd, as I divine,
With Roland and Sir Leoline.
Each spake words of high disdain,
And insult to his heart's best brother:
They parted-ne'er to meet again!
But never either found another

To free the hollow heart from paining-
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between,

But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,

The marks of that which once hath been."

-p. 32, 33. After telling us, that the legitimate mode of expressing love is "in words of imminent bitterness," the poem concludes with these verses, which appear to us a good deal like the ravings of insanity

"Perhaps 'tis pretty to force together
Thoughts so all 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's most used to do."-

-p. 48.

We will now point out what appear to us to be beauties in this production; and we regret that there are many fine things which cannot be extracted, being closely connected with the grossest absurdities. The tares and the wheat grow up together so, that the eradication of the one would be the destruction of the other.

The first thing that strikes us as very good is, the description of the magnificent Gothic chamber with its decorations: "The moon shines dim in the open air,

And not a moonbeam enters here.

But they, without its light, can see
The chamber carv'd so curiously,
Carv'd with figures strange and sweet,
All made out of the carver's brain,
For a lady's chamber meet:

The lamp, with two-fold silver chain,
Is fasten'd to an angel's feet.

The silver lamp burns dead and dim," &c. p. 13, 14.

The manner in which the transformation of the sorceress is told, is excellent; and the obscurity in which the author has left the passage, has a powerful effect on the imagination:

"Beneath the lamp the lady bow'd,
And slowly roll'd her eyes around;
Then drawing in her breath aloud,
Like one that shudder'd, she unbound
The cincture from beneath her breast:
Her silken robe, and inner vest,
Dropt to her feet, and full in view,
Behold! her bosom and half her side-
A sight to dream of, not to tell!

And she is to sleep by Christabel."

p. 17, 18.

But the exquisite picture of Christabel is perhaps the finest thing in the collection; and reminds us, in attitude and expression, of some of the inimitable saintly figures of Guido Rheni and Dominichino :

"It was a lovely sight to see
The lady Christabel, when she
Was praying at the old oak-tree,
Amid the jagged shadows
Of mossy leafless boughs,
Kneeling in the moonlight
To make her gentle vows;
Her slender palms together prest,
Heaving sometimes on her breast;
Her face, resign'd to bliss or bale-
Her face, O call it fair, not pale,

And both blue eyes more bright than clear,
Each about to have a tear."

p. 20, 21.

We give, too, the awakening of Christabel from her in

chanted dream:

"And see, the lady Christabel

Gathers herself from out her trance;
Her limbs relax, her countenance.
Grows sad and soft, the smooth thin lids

Close o'er her eyes; and tears she sheds-
Large tears that have the lashes bright!
And oft the while she seems to smile,
As infants at a sudden light!"

p. 22.

The idea in the following passage is highly poetical, and is expressed by the author with considerable felicity, though too minutely:

"A snake's small eye blinks dull and shy,
And the lady's eyes they shrunk in her head,
Each shrunk up to a serpent's eye,

And with somewhat of malice, and more of dread
At Christabel she look'd askance!--

One moment-and the sight was fled!

The maid, alas! her thoughts are gone,
She nothing sees-no sight but one!
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 resign'd
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 forc'd unconscious sympathy
Full before her father's view-
As far as such a look could be,
In eyes so innocent and blue!"

p. 42, 43.

The idea of the character of Christabel is altogether very lovely, though there is nothing original or striking about it.

Kubla Khan is prefaced by the following extraordinary relation:

"In the summer of 1797, the author, then in ill health, had retired to a lonely farm-house, between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire. In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects of which he fell asleep in his chair at the moment that he was reading the following sentence, or words of the same substance, in Purchas's Pilgrimage: 'Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden thereunto. And thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall.' The author continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time be has the most vivid confidence that he could not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines; if that, indeed, can be called composition in which all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expression, without any sensation or consciousness of effort. On awaking, he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole; and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business, from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and, on his return to his room, he found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of