he meant ultimately to show _eyes_ in the _bosom_ of the witch. I fancied that if the poet had worked out this idea in the second part, or in his never-compassed continuation, he must have electrified his readers. The first part of the poem is of course immeasurably superior in witchery to the second, despite two grand things in the latter--the passage on the severance of early friendships, and the conclusion; although the dexterity of hand (not to speak of the essential spirit of enchantment) which is everywhere present in the first part, and nowhere dominant in the second, exhibits itself not a little in the marvellous passage in which Géraldine bewitches Christabel. Touching some jocose allusion by Rossetti to the necessity which lay upon me to startle the world with a continuation of the poem based upon the lines of my conjectural scheme, I asked him if he knew that a continuation was actually published in Coleridge’s own paper, _The Morning Post_. It appeared about 1820, and was satirical of course--hitting off many peculiarities of versification, if no more. With Coleridge’s playful love of satirising himself anonymously, the continuation might even be his own. Rossetti said: I do not understand your early idea of _eyes_ in the bosom of Géraldine. It is described as “that bosom old,” “that bosom cold,” which seems to show that its withered character as combined with Geraldine’s youth, was what shocked and warned Christabel. The first edition says-- A sight to dream of, not to tell:-- And she is to sleep with Christabel!