The
year was 1816, the poem was begun in 1797, and finished, as far as it
goes, in 1800. If Coleridge ever knew what he meant, he had time to
forget. The chances are that his indolence, or his forgetfulness, was
the making of "Christabel," which remains a masterpiece of supernatural
suggestion.
For description it suffices to read the "Ancient Mariner." These
marvels, truly, are _speciosa miracula_, and, unlike Southey, we believe
as we read. "You have selected a passage fertile in unmeaning miracles,"
Lamb wrote to Southey (1798), "but have passed by fifty passages as
miraculous as the miracles they celebrate." Lamb appears to have been
almost alone in appreciating this masterpiece of supernatural
description. Coleridge himself shrank from his own wonders, and wanted
to call the piece "A Poet's Reverie." "It is as bad as Bottom the
weaver's declaration that he is not a lion, but only the scenical
representation of a lion. What new idea is gained by this title but one
subversive of all credit--which the tale should force upon us--of its
truth?" Lamb himself was forced, by the temper of the time, to declare
that he "disliked all the miraculous part of it," as if it were not _all_
miraculous! Wordsworth wanted the Mariner "to have a character and a
profession," perhaps would have liked him to be a gardener, or a butler,
with "an excellent character!" In fact, the love of the supernatural was
then at so low an ebb that a certain Mr.
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