in his solitary chamber. It must be admitted, however, that the public of those days, when the
were admirably seasoned for the action of superstition in all forms, and furnished, therefore, a most enviable audience for the melo-dramatic artist, whether dramatist or romance-writer. But all this is changed. No witches ride the air nowadays, and fairies no longer "dance their rounds by the pale moonlight," as the worthy Bishop Corbet, indeed, lamented a century and a half ago.
Still it may be allowed, perhaps, if the scene is laid in some remote age or country, to borrow the ancient superstitions of the place, and incorporate them into, or, at least, colour the story with them, without shocking the wellbred prejudices of the modem reader. Sir Walter Scott has done this with good effect in more than one of his romances, as every one will readily call to mind. A fine example occurs in the Boden Glass apparition in Waverley, which the great novelist, far from attempting to explain on any philosophical principles, or even by an intimation of its being the mere creation of a feverish imagination, has left as he found it, trusting that the reader's poetic feeling will readily accommodate itself to the popular superstitions of the country he is depicting. This reserve on his part, indeed, arising from a truly poetic view of the subject, and an honest reliance on a similar spirit in his reader, has laid him open, with some matter-of-fact
