s up to the unreal
impressions of the moment. The incredible circumstances of the
apparition are accepted without question or criticism; the impression
of the supernatural occurrences is alone thought of and enjoyed. But
now, let the same tale be read aloud after breakfast, from a newspaper,
with the affidavits of the witnesses of the apparition duly attached,
and only laughter can be the result.

Now let us apply the same test to romance. We open the "Morte d'Arthur";
we find ourselves at once in an unreal, almost nameless land; we meet
with knights whom we only know apart by their armor, and queens ambling
through pathless forests on white palfreys; we attend brilliant
tournaments and witness superhuman deeds of arms. Our minds, untroubled
by scepticism and thoughtless of unreality, yield themselves to the
poetical illusion. Who stops to think of the incredible when Sir
Bedivere hurls into the lake the dying Arthur's sword Excalibur?

Then Sir Bedivere departed, and went to the sword, and lightly took
it up, and went to the water side, and there he bound the girdle
about the hilts, and then he threw the sword as far into the water
as he might, and there came an arm and an hand above the water, and
met it, and caught it, and so shook it thrice and brandished, and
then vanished away the hand with the sword in the water.

But when we are introduced to the castle of Otranto, when we know its
dimensions and appearance, when we have become acquainted with its
inmates, and have been made to realize that they are flesh and blood
like ourselves, we cannot receive without a shock the account of the
supernatural occurrences by which they are affected. It is as if we
listened to a ghost story in the glare of daylight, and in the full
activity of our critical faculties.

"Thou art no lawful prince," said Jerome; "thou art no prince--go,
discuss thy claim with Frederic; and when that is done----" "It is
done," replied Manfred; "Frederic accepts Matilda's hand, and is
content to waive his claim, unless I have no male issue." As he
spoke these words three drops of blood fell from the nose of
Alfonso's statue.

"The Castle of Otranto" is an entertaining, well-constructed romance
which may absorb the attention of young people, and indeed of all
readers who delight in tales of superstitious horror. But looked upon
as a work of art, it contains discordant elements. The realistic manner