st, as the most extraordinary thing that had
happened in his day.[5] There is abundant evidence that the
people of the eighteenth century were extremely credulous, yet,
in literature, there is a tendency to look askance at the
supernatural as at something wild and barbaric. Such ghosts as
presume to steal into poetry are amazingly tame, and even
elegant, in their speech and deportment. In Mallet's _William and
Margaret_ (1759). which was founded on a scrap of an old ballad
out of _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_, Margaret's wraith
rebukes her false lover in a long and dignified oration. But
spirits were shy of appearing in an age when they were more
likely to be received with banter than with dread. Dr. Johnson
expresses the attitude of his age when, in referring to Gray's
poem, _The Bard_, he remarks:

"To select a singular event and swell it to a giant's
bulk by fabulous appendages of spectres and predictions
has little difficulty, for he that forsakes the
probable may always find the marvellous. And it has
little use; we are affected only as we believe; we are
improved only as we find something to be imitated or
declined." (1780.)

The dictum that we are affected only as we believe is open to
grave doubt. We are often thrown into a state of trepidation
simply through the power of the imagination. We are wise after
the event, like Partridge at the play:

"No, no, sir; ghosts don't appear in such dresses as
that neither... And if it was really a ghost, it could
do one no harm at such a distance, and in so much
company; and yet, if I was frightened, I am not the
only person."[6]

The supernatural which persisted always in legends handed down
from one generation to another on the lips of living people, had
not lost its power to thrill and alarm, and gradually worked its
way back into literature. Although Gray and Collins do not
venture far beyond the bounds of the natural, they were in
sympathy with the popular feelings of superstitious terror, and
realised how effective they would be in poetry.

Collins, in his _Ode on the Superstitions of the Scottish
Highlands_, adjures Home, the author of _Douglas_, to sing:

"how, framing hideous spells,
In Sky's lone isle, the gifted wizard-seer
Lodged in the wintry cave with Fate's fell spear
Or in the depths of Uist's dark forests dwells,
How they whose sight such dreary dreams engross