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 Géraldine in a review in the _Examiner_. The author was perhaps Hazlitt, but more probably the editor himself, but whether Hazlitt or Hunt, he must have been within the circle that found its rallying point at Highgate, and consequently acquainted with the earliest forms of the poem. The review is an unfavourable one, and Coleridge is told in it that he is the dog-in-the-manger of literature, and that his poem is proof of the fact that he can write better nonsense poetry than any man in England. The writer is particularly wroth with what he considers the wilful indefiniteness of the author, and in proof of a charge of a desire not to let the public into the secret of the poem, and of a conscious endeavour to mystify the reader, he deliberately accuses Coleridge of omitting one line of the poem as it was written, which, if printed, would have proved conclusively that Géraldine had seduced Christabel after getting drunk with her,--for such sequel is implied if not openly stated. I told Rossetti of this brutality of criticism, and he replied: