Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/397

 9* B.X. NOV. 15,1008.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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missed the point of the anecdote. Taking the words "first termination" and "the other" to apply respectively to the first and second lines of the couplet, he inferred that, if Allsop's story were true, the text of ' Chris- tabel ' must at some early stage have run :

Sir Leoline, the Baron, which

Hath a toothless mastiff bitch.

But the truth is that the \W>rds in question respectively refer, not to the first and seconc lines of the couplet, but to the earlier ant later passages of the poem in which the wore "mastiff-bitch" is introduced i.e., to 11. 6-9 and 11. 144-8 of the original text. Coleridge in 1828 did actually change the earlier passage (11. 6-9) to

Sir Leoline, the Baron rich, Hath a toothless mastiff, which, From her kennel beneath the rock, Maketh answer to the clock.

But while doing so he left the later passage (11. 144-8), in which " mastiff - bitch " occurs twice over, unaltered ; thus demonstrating that the change he had effected in the earlier passage was no concession to the squeamish critics of the good old English word " bitch," but simply a device adopted to avoid the monotonous rhythm of the co-ordinate clauses in the original text. Be it clearly under- stood, then, that the lines,

Sir Leoline, the Baron, which Hath a toothless mastiff bitch,

never at any time formed part of the authentic text of 'Christabel.' They are merely the offspring of MR. SHEPHERD'S mis- taken interpretation of Allsop's anecdote. The passage in the first and second editions ran :

Sir Leoline, the Baron rich, Hath a toothless mastiff bitch ; From her kennel beneath the rock She makes answer to the clock, &c. ;

and thus it remained, till 1828, when it was altered to the version given above.

3. To relate fully the history of the foolish objections to Coleridge's use of the word "mastiff-bitch" would be to travel too far afield. Suffice it that in the Edinburgh Review of September, 1816, there appeared a notice of ' Christabel ' bearing in every line the im- press of William Hazlitt, which has been fitly described as " a standing disgrace to literary criticism, and indeed to the literary cha- racter." In this review, which represents ' Christabel ' as a tale with a covertly obscene purport the outcome of a drink-sodden brain the word in question supplies the critic with a handle for much coarse pleasantry, while another expression (1. 29, "Dreams, that made her moan and leap ") is made the

occasion for a filthy innuendo. The poem as a whole is pronounced to be " utterly desti- tute of value : it exhibits from beginning to end not a ray of genius." In disparaging thus a poem which he knew, and had indeed often declared, to be the finest of its kind in the language, Hazlitt was guilty of the one unpardonable sin, the sin (to borrow a phrase of Coleridge) against his own ghost against the convictions and the testimony of his own artistic conscience. The public, ever delight- ing in vilification, took their cue from the Edinburgh, and for some years it became the fashion to decry ' Christabel ' and its author. It is odd that, of "the pitiful crew who pro- fessed to be shocked at the word "mastiff- bitch," not one is to be found taking excep-' tion to Spenser's phrase ('Visions of Bellay,' ix. 9, 10) :

And at his feete a bitch- wolfe suck did yeeld To two young babes ;

or to Cowper's lines (' The Needless Alarm ' 11. 3, 4) : *

Adjoining close to'Kilwick's echoing wood, Where oft the bitch-fox hides her hapless brood.

It must not be supposed that Lamb con- curred with the objectors. Allsop had neither critical faculty nor sense of humour ; and his story doubtless furnishes but another instance of the flams which Elia so delighted in put- ting off upon his simple-witted friends.

4. To conclude, if H. T. desires to get a just notion of the textual history of ' Chris- ridge-Bibliographies " and study the notes in VIr. Dykes Campbell's edition, of the poet. MR. SHEPHERD'S notes (8 th S. vii. 361502) constitute a respectable attempt which, had le lived, he would no doubt have enlarged and corrected into a trustworthy work. But published in 1900, is of no use to the serious student ; for it teems with minute errors just of the kind most fatal in bibliography, and the reader who relies upon it will soon find himself involved in a tangle of uncertainties and obscurities. THOMAS HUTCHINSON.
 * abel ' he will do well to discard all " Cole-
 * he " revised " edition of his notes, which was

In compliance with H. T.'s request, I have pleasure in stating the copy of ' Christabel ' in his possession belongs to the first edition, and that the title-page is given correctly by him, except that a colon is omitted after "London." MR. R. H. SHEPHERD did not give verbatim copies of the titles, but they will be found in my revised edition of his ' Bibliography of Coleridge,' which was pub- lished separately in 1900. The line Sir Leoline, the Baron, which does not occur in any copy of the first edition