punished the false knight, overthrew or converted the infidel, restored
the exiled monarch to his dominions and the captive damsel to her
parents; he fought at the tournament, feasted in the hall, and bore a
part in the warlike processions."

There is nothing very startling in these conclusions. Scholars like
Percy, Tyrwhitt, and Ritson, who, as collectors and editors, rescued the
fragments of ancient ministrelsy and gave the public access to concrete
specimens of mediaeval poetry, performed a more useful service than mild
clerical essayists, such as Beattie and Hurd, who amused their leisure
with general speculations about the origin of romance and whether it came
in the first instance from the troubadours or the Saracens or the
Norsemen. One more passage, however, may be transcribed from Beattie's
"Dissertation," because it seems clearly a suggestion from "The Castle of
Otranto." "The castles of the greater barons, reared in a rude but grand
style of architecture, full of dark and winding passages, of secret
apartments, of long uninhabited galleries, and of chambers supposed to be
haunted with spirits, and undermined by subterraneous labyrinths as
places of retreat in extreme danger; the howling of winds through the
crevices of old walls and other dreary vacuities; the grating of heavy
doors on rusty hinges of iron; the shrieking of bats and the screaming of
owls and other creatures that resort to desolate or half-inhabited
buildings; these and the like circumstances in the domestic life of the
people I speak of, would multiply their superstitions and increase their
credulity; and among warriors who set all danger at defiance, would
encourage a passion for wild adventure and difficult enterprise."

One of the books reviewed by Miss Reeve is worth mentioning, not for its
intrinsic importance, but for its early date. "Longsword, Earl of
Salisbury, An Historical Romance," in two volumes, and published two
years before "The Castle of Otranto," is probably the first fiction of
the kind in English literature. Its author was Thomas Leland, an Irish
historian and doctor of divinity.[16] "The outlines of the following
story," begins the advertisement, "and some of the incidents and more
minute circumstances, are to be found in some of the ancient English
histories." The period of the action is the reign of Henry III. The
king is introduced in person, and when we hear him swearing "by my
Halidome," we rub our eyes and