ver quite attains the weird charm
of _Christabel_ itself at its best, is more varied, better sustained,
and, above all, better suited to the story-telling which was, of course,
Scott's supremest gift. It is very curious to compare Coleridge's
remarks on Scott's verse with those of Wordsworth, in reference to the
_White Doe of Rylstone_. Neither in _Christabel_, nor in the _White
Doe_, is there a real _story_ really told. Coleridge, but for his fatal
weaknesses, undoubtedly could have told such a story; it is pretty
certain that Wordsworth could not. But Scott could tell a story as few
other men who have ever drawn breath on the earth could tell it. He had
been distinguished in the conversational branch of the art from his
youth up, and though it was to be long before he could write a story in
prose, he showed now, at the first attempt, how he could write one in
verse.

Construction, of course, was not his forte; it never was. The plot of
the _Lay_, if not exactly non-existent, is of the simplest and loosest
description; the whole being in effect a series of episodes strung
together by the loves of Margaret and Cranstoun and the misdeeds of the
Goblin Page. Even the Book supplies no real or necessary _nexus_. But
the romance proper has never required elaborate construction, and has
very rarely, if ever, received it. A succession of engaging or exciting
episodes, each plausibly joined to each, contents its easy wants; and
such a succession is liberally provided here. So, too, it does not
require strict character-drawing--a gift with which Scott was indeed
amply provided, but which he did not exhibit, and had no call to
exhibit, here. If the personages will play their parts, that is enough.
And they all play them very well here, though the hero and heroine do
certainly exhibit something of that curious nullity which has been
objected to the heroes nearly always, the heroines too frequently, of
the later prose novels.

But even those critics who, as too many critics are wont to do, forgot
and forget that 'the prettiest girl in the world' not only cannot give,
but ought not to be asked to give, more than she has, must have been,
and must be, very unreasonable if they find fault with the subject and
stuff of the _Lay_. Jeffrey's remark about 'the present age not
enduring' the Border and mosstrooping details was contradicted by the
fact, and was, as a matter of taste, one of those strange blunders which
diversified his often