he striking
recollections of _The Castle of Otranto_, brought to mind by "the
deep shade in which some of his antique portraits were placed and
the lone sort of look of the unusually shaped apartments in which
they were hung."[19] We know how in idle moments Walpole loved to
brood on the picturesque past, and we can imagine his falling
asleep, after the arrival of a piece of armour for his
collection, with his head full of plans for the adornment of his
cherished castle. His story is but an expansion of this
dilettante's nightmare. His interest in things mediaeval was not
that of an antiquary, but rather that of an artist who loves
things old because of their age and beauty. In a delightfully gay
letter to his friend, George Montagu, referring flippantly to his
appointment as Deputy Ranger of Rockingham Forest, he writes,
after drawing a vivid picture of a "Robin Hood reforme":

"Visions, you know, have always been my pasture; and so
far from growing old enough to quarrel with their
emptiness, I almost think there is no wisdom comparable
to that of exchanging what is called the realities of
life for dreams. Old castles, old pictures, old
histories and the babble of old people make one live
back into centuries that cannot disappoint one. One
holds fast and surely what is past. The dead have
exhausted their power of deceiving--one can trust
Catherine of Medicis now. In short, you have opened a
new landscape to my fancy; and my lady Beaulieu will
oblige me as much as you, if she puts the long bow into
your hands. I don't know, but the idea may produce some
other _Castle of Otranto_."[20]

So Walpole came near to anticipating the greenwood scenes of
_Ivanhoe_. The decking and trappings of chivalry filled him with
boyish delight, and he found in the glitter and colour of the
middle ages a refuge from the prosaic dullness of the eighteenth
century. A visit from "a Luxembourg, a Lusignan and a Montfort"
awoke in his whimsical fancy a mental image of himself in the
guise of a mediaeval baron: "I never felt myself so much in _The
Castle of Otranto_. It sounded as if a company of noble crusaders
were come to sojourn with me before they embarked for the Holy
Land";[21] and when he heard of the marvellous adventures of a
large wolf who had caused a panic in Lower Languedoc, he was
reminded of the enchanted monster of old romance and declared
that, had he kn