The ghosts have
therefore been laid, and the devil has been cast into
outer darkness."

The novel of terror has been destroyed not by its enemies but by
its too ardent devotees. The horrid banquet, devoured with
avidity for so many years, has become so highly seasoned that the
jaded palate at last cries out for something different, and,
according to Peacock, finds what it desires in "the vices and
blackest passions of our nature tricked out in a masquerade dress
of heroism and disappointed benevolence"--an uncomplimentary
description of the Byronic hero. Yet sensational fiction has
lingered on side by side with other forms of fiction all through
the nineteenth century, because it supplies a human and natural
craving for excitement. It may not be the dominant type, but it
will always exist, and will produce its thrill by ever-varying
devices. Those who scoff may be taken unawares, like the company
in _Nightmare Abbey_. The conversation turned on the subject of
ghosts, and Mr. Larynx related his delightfully compact ghost
story:

"I once saw a ghost myself in my study, which is the
last place any one but a ghost would look for me. I had
not been in it for three months and was going to
consult Tillotson, when, on opening the door, I saw a
venerable figure in a flannel dressing-gown, sitting in
my armchair, reading my Jeremy Taylor. It vanished in a
moment, and so did I, and what it was and what it
wanted, I have never been able to ascertain"

--a quieter, more inoffensive ghost than that described by Defoe
in his _Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions_: "A
grave, ancient man, with a full-bottomed wig and a rich brocaded
gown, who changed into the most horrible monster that ever was
seen, with eyes like two fiery daggers red-hot." Mr. Flosky and
Mr. Hilary have hardly declared their disbelief in ghosts when:

"The door silently opened, and a ghastly figure,
shrouded in white drapery with the semblance of a
bloody turban on its head, entered and stalked slowly
up the apartment. Mr. Flosky was not prepared for this
apparition, and made the best of his way out at the
opposite door. Mr. Hilary and Marionetta followed
screaming. The honourable Mr. Listless, by two turns of
his body, first rolled off the sofa and then under it.
Rev. Mr. Larynx leaped up and fled with so much
precipitation that he overturned the