ed in a shortlived monthly thing
called _Smallwood's Magazine_, to which my father contributed
some Italian poetry, and so it came into the house. I thought the
continuation spirited then, and perhaps it may have been so. This must
have been before 1840 I think.

The other day I saw in a bookseller's catalogue--_Christabess_, by S. T.
Colebritche, translated from the Doggrel by Sir Vinegar Sponge (1816).
This seems a parody, not a continuation, in the very year of the poem's
first appearance! I did not think it worth two shillings,--which was the
price.... Have you seen the continuation of _Christabel_ in _European
Magazine?_ of course it _might_ have been Coleridge's, so far as the
date of the composition of the original was concerned; but of course it
was not his.

I imagine the "Sir Vinegar Sponge" who translated "_Christabess_ from
the _Doggerel_" must belong to the family of Sponges described by
Coleridge himself, who give out the liquid they take in much dirtier
than they imbibe it. I thought it very possible that Coleridge's epigram
to this effect might have been provoked by the lampoon referred to, and
Rossetti also thought this probable. Immediately after meeting with the
continuation of _Christabel_ already referred to, I came across great
numbers of such continuations, as well as satires, parodies, reviews,
etc., in old issues of _Blackwood, The Quarterly, and The Examiner_.
They seemed to me, for the most part, poor in quality--the highest reach
of comicality to which they attained being concerned with side slaps at
_Kubla Khan_:

Better poetry I make
When asleep than when awake.
Am I sure, or am I guessing?
Are my eyes like those of Lessing?

This latter elegant couplet was expected to serve as a scorching satire
on a letter in the _Biographia Literaria_ in which Coleridge says he
saw a portrait of Lessing at Klopstock's, in which the eyes seemed
singularly like his own. The time has gone by when that flight of
egotism on Coleridge's part seemed an unpardonable offence, and to our
more modern judgment it scarcely seems necessary that the author of
_Christabel_ should be charged with a desire to look radiant in the
glory reflected by an accidental personal resemblance to the author of
_Laokoon_. Curiously enough I found evidence of the Patmore version
of Coleridge's intentions as to the ultimate disclosure of the sex of
Geraldine in a review in the _Examiner_. The author was perhaps