t
story in the world. In the Hebrew writings fear is used to endow
a hero with superhuman powers or to instil a moral truth. The sun
stands still in the heavens that Joshua may prevail over his
enemies. In modern days the tale of terror is told for its own
sake. It has become an end in itself, and is probably appreciated
most fully by those who are secure from peril. It satisfies the
human desire to experience new emotions and sensations, without
actual danger.

There is little doubt that the Gothic Romance primarily made its
appeal to women readers, though we know that Mrs. Radcliffe had
many men among her admirers, and that Cherubina of _The Heroine_
had a companion in folly, The Story-Haunted Youth. It is remotely
allied, as its name implies, to the mediaeval romances, at which
Cervantes tilts in _Don Quixote_. It was more closely akin,
however, to the heroic romances satirised in Mrs. Charlotte
Lennox's _Female Quixote_ (1752). When the voluminous works of Le
Calprenede and of Mademoiselle de Scudery were translated into
English, they found many imitators and admirers, and their vogue
outlasted the seventeenth century. _Artamene ou le Grand Cyrus_,
out of which Mrs. Pepys told her husband long stories, "though
nothing to the purpose, nor in any good manner," is to be found,
with a pin stuck through one of the middle leaves, in the lady's
library described by Addison in the _Spectator_, Mrs. Aphra Behn,
in _Oroonoko_ and _The Fair Jilt_, had made some attempt to bring
romance nearer to real life; but it was not until the middle of
the eighteenth century, when the novel, with the rise of
Richardson, Fielding, Smollett and Sterne, took firm root on
English soil, that the popularity of Cassandra, Parthenissa and
Aretina was superseded. Then, if we may trust the evidence of
Colman's farce, _Polly Honeycombe_, first acted in 1760, Pamela,
Clarissa Harlowe and Sophia Western reigned in their stead. For
the reader who had patiently followed the eddying, circling
course of the heroic romance, with its high-flown language and
marvellous adventures, Richardson's novel of sentiment probably
held more attraction than Fielding's novel of manners. Fielding,
on his broad canvas, paints the life of his day on the highway,
in coaches, taverns, sponging-houses or at Vauxhall masquerades.
Every class of society is represented, from the vagabond to the
noble lord. Richardson, in describing the shifts and subterfuges
of Mr. B--and th