is concealed from view by the curtain. He throws the ball on the balcony and then gains admission to the house in order to re-obtain it. The girl is very pretty, and not at all bashful. The result of the interview is that the two young people decide upon matrimony. They hope to regularise this clandestine union by a formal marriage arranged by the parents, but a difficulty arises between the fathers, as each wants to secure the young man for the performance of funeral duties. The father of Hoahien will only give his daughter to a young man who will forsake his own family and take the position of a real son to his father-in-law. This proves a fatal obstacle, and at last the young man, in spite of his solemn promise to the girl, is induced by his father to marry another. On hearing of the wedding of her faithless lover, Hoa-hien falls into a trance, and is taken for dead and carried to the tomb. One of the servants, Li-Sin, struck with the beauty of the girl, returns at night to the cemetery, and as he kisses her discovers signs of returning animation. She awakens from her long sleep and learns what has happened, and the two decide that she shall not return home, but live with Li-Sin as his wife. The sale of the clothes and jewels with which she has been buried furnish them with the means of subsistence. Six months later the house in which they dwelt was burned down. Hoa-hien escapes into the street, and, losing sight of her husband, wanders distractedly about until she recognises her father's house. She knocks at the door and declares who she is, but is refused admission. The servants take her for a spirit, and

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promise that on the next day sacrifices shall be made for the repose of her soul. Then she goes to the next house, which is that of her lover. She tells the servant that she is Hoa-hien, and sends a message, mentioning the ivory ball, to his master. He also thinks it is a spirit, and orders the servant to burn some incense for its repose. Finally arming himself with a sword, he goes out, and Hoa-hien begs for pity. Still supposing the apparition to be a ghost, he adjures the spirit to return to the house of her father and mother, and to be content with the incense he has burned. He returns into the house, but Hoa-hien's cries continue, and Fan-Sieu issues forth again and strikes her head off with his sword. This in Chinese folklore has the reputation of being the best method of rendering ghosts harmless,-and it is certainly equally efficacious with human beings. The watch find the dead body of Hoa-hien, and her father has a dream in which she tells him of her death. He accuses Fan-Sieu as the murderer of his daughter, and the case is brought before Pao-Kung for adjudication. The magistrate has a placard posted over the city stating that the tomb of Hoahien had been violated, and that she had been found murdered, and offering a reward of a thousand pieces of silver to the person who had taken her from the tomb and brought her to life again, if he would come forward and reveal the truth. Li-Sin saw this notice, and revealed his share in the transaction. Pao-Kung, however, regarded him as the real cause of the catastrophe, and condemned him to be beheaded. Fan-Sieu was acquitted, but the memory of his broken vow and of the sad end

of his betrothed preyed upon his mind, and he died. after suffering a long and cruel malady.*

Thus we trace the story of the buried bride who came to life again, and find it in varying forms, pathetic or grotesque, in the literature or folklore of Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, and England. We find it in the valleys of Hindustan, and in the land of marvels, China. A story that has charmed the winter nights and whiled away the summer evenings of many climes, a story that fired the imagination of Boccaccio and Bandello, of Shelley and of Tennyson, appeals to the universal brotherhood, and has in it that touch of nature which "makes the whole world kin."

* Novelle Cinesi, tradotte da Carlo Puini,' Piacenza, 1871, p. 71. There is a modern Chinese poem which aims at expressing the emotions of a girl who has been buried alive by her father in revenge for an attempted elopement. See Chinesische Gedichte,' deutsch von Adolf Seubert, Leipzig (O. J.), p. 37.

+ Since this paper was in type the writer has had the pleasure of seeing the proof-sheets of the work in which Mr. Thos. J. Wise deals, in masterly fashion, with the intricate bibliography of The Lover's Tale,' and of Tennyson's other writings-a work which will earn the gratitude of the lovers and students of literature.

S. T. COLERIDGE AS A LAKE POET.

BY ERNEST HARTLEY COLERIDGE, M.A., HON. F.R.S.L.

[Read March 25th, 1903.]

I ONCE had the good fortune to meet at the Authors' Club the late William Morris, poet, printer, artist, art furnisher, and socialist. It was towards the close of his life, and the keen, vigorous spirit was affected by the near approach of mortal sickness,affected, but not changed or weakened. When I came up to the table where he was already seatedhis face buried in his hands-he looked up and greeted me in this wise: "Your grandfather wrote a few perfect poems, but as for that old lake-poet Wordsworth, he [I will not attempt to give the exact words]-he never wrote any poetry at all.” I hardly think he could have meant what he said about Wordsworth; if so (to adapt a phrase of Robert Browning's) the less William Morris he. But he certainly did hold, as his Kelmscott edition (now worth far more than its weight in silver) proves, that only a few of Coleridge's poems, a few gems, are worth preserving, and that the rest may be allowed to perish. This is, I think, a superstition of the moment-an eidolon columnarum, a ghost of the book-market, formidable but unsubstantial. True it is that between Coleridge in his early youth, not

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