At first, in his rage, he almost curses Geraldine; but after a time he too falls under the spell, and sends a friendly message to Sir Roland, bidding him come and fetch his daughter. But Christabel, fearing the influence of Geraldine's snake-like eyes, bids her father send the lady away. In rage, Sir Leoline turns and reproaches his daughter for what he thinks is woman's jealousy, which would have him dishonour himself by inhospitality.

12. Some of the sweetest verses Coleridge wrote are those called Love, and among the grandest is his Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni. Much of his poetry is very dreamy and difficult to understand, but the verse is very musical and sweet. Christabel is written in a strange measure-lines of irregular length, with accents falling at certain intervals. This metre greatly delighted Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott, both of whom imitated it. After Coleridge's death much of his conversation was collected and published as "Table-talk." It gives us some idea of the grand work he might have done had he chosen to exert himself more than he did.

13. A very different man from Coleridge was his friend Southey, one of the busiest writers of his own or of any time. Coleridge worked too little, Southey too much, and we scarcely know which was the greater mistake. His whole time was given to literature; each hour had its special task of writing or preparation for writing; his library was his world, his books were his dearest friends. He himself says,

"My days among the dead are passed;

Around me I behold,

Where'er these casual eyes are cast,

The mighty minds of old:

My never-failing friends are they,

With whom I converse night and day."

His writings are of many kinds-in poetry, history, criticism— and fill ten large volumes; while the unpublished verses which he burned were, he himself says, more in number than all he published during his lifetime.

14. Such was ROBERT SOUTHEY, Coleridge's friend and brother

in-law. He was educated at Westminster and Oxford, and had travelled in Spain and Portugal with his uncle. Before that he had been privately married to Miss Edith Fricker, the sister of Coleridge's wife. On his return from Portugal, Southey studied law; but his poet-mind found it dull and dry. His health failed, and he returned to Portugal for a year. When he came back he went to visit Coleridge at Keswick, in Greta Hall, the house which afterwards became his own. For a year Southey was a secretary under Government; but the work was distasteful to him, so he was glad to be unsecretaryfied. From that time he made writing his work, and went to live at Greta Hall, Keswick. He had a Government pension, but had to work busily to keep himself, his wife and family, and his wife's two sisters-Mrs. Coleridge, and the widow of the third young poet who had died soon after his marriage. In 1813 he became poet-laureate.

15. Till nearly the end of his life Southey kept on working hard, with scarcely any of the rest and change and out-door life he recommended so strongly for others. He could have become a member of Parliament and a baronet, but was too busy to care for either honour or power. A great trouble came on him. His wife became imbecile, and, after lingering for three years, died. The poet married again, his second wife being a poetess. This lady did all she could to brighten the last years of his life; but he had worked too hard, and now the busy brain became clouded and dull. He used to wander helplessly among his beloved books, talking to them as if they were alive and patting them, but not able any longer to understand them if he tried to read.

16. For three years he lived this sad life, then he died, leaving behind him one of the finest libraries in England. He had been a good father, a faithful, generous friend, and, in spite of his hard work, usually a cheerful, bright acquaintance. Wordsworth wrote a beautiful epitaph for his friend's grave. The closing lines are,

"His joys, his griefs have vanished like a cloud

From Skiddaw's top; but he to Heaven was vowed

Through a life long and pure; and steadfast faith
Calmed in his soul the fear of change and death."

17. Southey's longer poems are not much read now. Most of them are Eastern stories, full of pictures of Indian and Moorish scenery and life. The best are The Curse of Kehama and Roderick, the Last of the Goths. His prose works are now almost unread, and people know him best from his shorter pieces, such as The Inchcape Bell, Mary the Maid of the Inn, The Battle of Blenheim, Lord William, The Old Woman of Berkeley, and The Holly Tree.

CHAPTER XXVII.

SCOTT AND HIS FOLLOWERS.

1. More than a hundred years ago, in the city of Edinburgh, a boy was born of whom all Scotland was one day to be proud; prouder even than it was of its ploughman-poet Burns, or any of the sweet singers before him-Thomson, who wrote The Seasons, Hogg the Ettrick Shepherd, or Campbell, or any other of the long list of Scottish minstrels. WALTER SCOTT was the son of a Writer to the Signet, as a law-agent is called in Scotland. He was a delicate boy, slightly lame, and instead of being sent early to school he went to live with his grandfather near Kelso, in the beautiful romantic Border country.

2. Some one advised a strange remedy for the boy's lameness —that he should be wrapped in the skin of a newly-killed sheep. So the little fellow used to crawl about in this queer woolly dress like a Border lambkin. He got stronger, but the lameness still remained. He was always fond of ballads, and used to try to sing them, though he had never a very good ear for music. It is said that when he was about three years old he used to sing out the ballad of Hardyknut so loudly as to drown the minister's voice, which was a very fine one.

3. He was very fond of reading, and liked nothing better

than to wander off with some story or poetry book, and spend the summer day beside the silvery Tweed or in the shadow of the Eildon Hills. He would no doubt sometimes wander into the ruins of Dryburgh Abbey, where he now lies buried, and perhaps even there he made stories about the olden times when the abbey was first built. His favourite book was Percy's Reliques, which he used to read under a plane tree in an old garden at Kelso, and from this collection of old ballads he perhaps first got his desire to write poetry.

4. He delighted in ballads of all kinds, and if one were repeated to him only once he remembered it so well as to be able to say it by heart. Yet when he went back to Edinburgh and became a High School boy, for a while Scott was considered rather a dull boy, and later he used to declare that he had been the dunce of his class. He never liked his Greek lessons, but learned a good deal of Latin and of modern languages. But perhaps Scott learned more that was really useful to him in after life during a long illness, when he had to stay in bed.

He read every book of ballads and stories that he could get; and he sometimes amused himself by setting up pebbles in rows to imitate the soldiers in the battles he was reading about, arranging and re-arranging them as they were in the real fight.

5. After a year or two at Edinburgh University, Scott studied for the bar, and at the age of twenty-one became one of the many "briefless barristers or advocates (as they are called in Scotland) who then, as they still do, paced the floor of the Parliament House in Edinburgh. But dearly did he love to throw aside his gown and wig and be off on a "raid," generally into the Border country, making friends with the people, picking up ballads, stories, and legends, and getting to know the character and life of the people whom he afterwards in his novels described so well. One of Scott's friends who used to join him in his raids describes him thus:-"Eh me, sic an endless fund o'humour and drollery as he had wi' him! Never ten yards but we were either laughing or roaring and singing; wherever we stopped how brawlie he suited himsel' to everybody! He aye did as the lave [others] did-never made himsel' the great man, or took ony airs in the company."

6. At that time it became a fashion in Edinburgh to study German literature, and one of the first scholars of the language was Walter Scott. He was so delighted with two ballads called Lenore and The Wild Huntsman, that he sat up nearly all night to finish translating them with the help of a dictionary; and to the great surprise of the lady who had lent him the book, he returned it the next morning with a translation in verse. These translations were his first published works. A year afterwards he married and settled down in a cottage at Lasswade,1 to work hard with his pen. He translated a German play; and in the same year he was made Sheriff of Selkirkshire, with an income of about £300 a year. He then went to live at Ashestiel, a pretty house on the banks of the Tweed. Here he was very busy collecting Border ballads, which he published in three volumes, with some imitations made by himself.

1 Lasswade, 6 miles from Edinburgh.