tures of the Masque and of the
Lady Pauline are cast in Germany amid the confusion of the Thirty
Years' War. In _The Household Wreck_, published in _Blackwood's
Magazine_, January 1838, De Quincey shows his power of conveying
a sense of foreboding, that anticipation of horror which is often
more harrowing than the reality. Another tale of terror, _The
Avenger_, published in the same year, describes a series of
bloodcurdling murders which baffle the skill of the police, but
which eventually prove to have been committed by a son to avenge
dishonour done to his Jewish mother. For a collection of _Popular
Tales and Romances of the Northern Nations_, published in 1823,
De Quincey translated _Der Freischuetz_ from the German of J.A.
Apel, under the title of _The Fatal Marksman_. By means of
ill-gotten magic bullets the marksman wins his bride, but by one
of those little ironies in which the devil delights to indulge,
she is slain on the wedding-day by a bullet, which is aimed
straight, but goes askew. In _The Dice_, another short story from
the German, De Quincey once again exploits the old theme of a
bargain with the devil.

De Quincey's contributions to the tale of terror shrink into
unimportance beside the rest of his work, and are not in
themselves remarkable. They are of interest as showing the
widespread and long-enduring vogue of the species. It is
noteworthy how many writers, whose main business lay elsewhere,
have found time to make erratic excursions into the realms of the
supernatural.

So late as 1834--more than a decade after the appearance of
_Melmoth_--Harrison Ainsworth, whose imagination was steeped in
terror, sought once more to revive the "feeble and fluttering
pulses of old Romance." Among his earliest experiments were tales
obviously fashioned in the Gothic manner. His Imperishable One,
the hero of a tale first published in the _European Magazine_ for
1822, bemoans the burden of immortality in the listless tones of
Godwin's St. Leon, and is tempted by the fallen angel in the
self-same guise in which he appeared to Lewis's notorious monk.
In _The Test of Affection_ (_European Magazine_, 1822) a wealthy
man avails himself of Mrs. Radcliffe's supernatural trickery to
test the loyalty of his friends, whom he succeeds in alarming by
noises and a skeleton apparition. In _Arliss's Pocket Magazine_
(1822) there appeared _The Spectre Bride_; and in the _European
Magazine_ (1823) Ainsworth attempted a theme th