peculiarities of versification, if no more. With Coleridge's playful
love of satirising himself anonymously, the continuation might even be
his own. Rossetti said:

I do not understand your early idea of _eyes_ in the bosom
of Geraldine. It is described as "that bosom old," "that
bosom cold," which seems to show that its withered character
as combined with Geraldine's youth, was what shocked and
warned Christabel. The first edition says--

A sight to dream of, not to tell:--
And she is to sleep with Christabel!

I dare say Coleridge altered this, because an idea arose,
which I actually heard to have been reported as Coleridge's
real intention by a member of contemporary circles (P. G.
Patmore, father of Coventry P. who conveyed the report to
me)--viz., that Geraldine was to turn out to be a man!! I
believe myself that the conclusion as given by Gillman from
Coleridge's account to him is correct enough, only not
picturesquely worded. It does not seem a bad conclusion by
any means, though it would require fine treatment to make it
seem a really good one. Of course the first part is so
immeasurably beyond the second, that one feels Chas. Lamb's
view was right, and it should have been abandoned at that
point. The passage on sundered friendship is one of the
masterpieces of the language, but no doubt was written quite
separately and then fitted into _Christabel_. The two lines
about Roland and Sir Leoline are simply an intrusion and an
outrage. I cannot say that I like the conclusion nearly so
well as this. It hints at infinite beauty, but somehow
remains a sort of cobweb. The conception, and partly the
execution, of the passage in which Christabel repeats by
fascination the serpent-glance of Geraldine, is magnificent;
but that is the only good narrative passage in part two. The
rest seems to have reached a fatal facility of jingling, at
the heels whereof followed Scott.

There are, I believe, many continuations of _Christabel_. Tupper did
one! I myself saw a continuation in childhood, long before I saw the
original, and was all agog to see it for years. Our household was all of
Italian, not English environment, and it was only when I went to school
later that I began to ransack bookstalls. The continuation in question
was by one Eliza Stewart, and appear