gedians have introduce fome extraordinary perfonages for this purpose: not only the fhades of the dead, but the furies, and other fabulous inhabitants of the infenal regions. Collins, in his moft poetical ode to Fear, has finely enforced this idea.

Tho' gentle Pity claims her mingled part,

Yet all the thunders of the scene are thine.

THE old Gothic romance and the Eaftern tale, with their genii, giants, enchantments, and transformations, however a refined critic may cenfure them as abfurd and extravagant, will ever retain a most powerful influence on the mind, and intereft the reader independently of all peculiarity of tafte. Thus the great Milton, who had a strong biass to these wildnesses of the imagination, has with ftriking effect made the ftories "of forefts and enchantments drear," a favourite subject

with his Penferofo; and had undoubtedly their awakening images ftrong upon his mind when he breaks out,

Call

up

him that left half-told

The story of Cambuscan bold; &c.

How are we then to account for the pleasure derived from such objects? I have often been led to imagine that there is a deception in these cases; and that the avidity with which we attend is not a proof of our receiving real pleasure. The pain of suspense, and the irresistible defire of fatisfying curiofity, when once raised, will account for our eagerness to go quite through an adventure, though we suffer actual pain during the whole course of it. We rather chufe to fuffer the fmart pang of a violent emotion than the uneafy craving of an unfatisfied defire. That this principle, in many inftances, may in

vol.

voluntarily carry us through what we diflike, I am convinced from experience. This is the impulfe which renders the poorest and most infipid narrative interesting when once we get fairly into it; and I have frequently felt it with regard to our modern novels, which, if lying on my table, and taken up in an idle hour, have led me through the most tedious and disgusting pages, while, like Pistol eating his leek, I have swallowed and execrated to the end. And it will not only force us through dullness, but through actual torture-through the relation of a Damien's execution, or an inquifitor's act of faith. When children, therefore, liften with pale and mute attention to the frightful ftories of apparitions, we are not, perhaps, to imagine that they are in a state of enjoyment, any more than the poor bird which is dropping into the mouth of the rattlefnake-they are chained by the ears, and

fascinated by curiofity. Thus folution, however, does not fatisfy me with respect to the well-wrought fcenes of artificial terror which are formed by a fublime and vigorous imagination. Here, though we know before-hand what to expect, we enter into them with eagerness, in queft of a pleasure already experienced. This is the pleasure conftantly attached to the excitement of surprise from new and wonderful objects. A ftrange and unexpected event awakens the mind, and keeps it on the ftretch; and where the agency of invisible beings is introduced, of "forms unseen, and mightier far than we," our imagination, darting forth, explores with rapture the new world which is laid open to its view, and rejoices in the expansion of its powers. Paffion and fancy co-operating elevate the foul to its highest pitch; and the pain of terror is loft in amaze

ment.

HENCE

HENCE the more wild, fanciful, and extraordinary are the circumftances of a scene of horror, the more pleasure we receive from it; and where they are too near common nature, though violently borne by curiofity through the adventure, we cannot repeat it or reflect on it, without an over-balance of pain. In the Arabian nights are many most striking examples of the terrible joined with the marvellous: the story of Aladdin, and the travels of Sinbad, are particularly excellent. The Castle of Otranto is a very spirited modern attempt upon the fame plan of mixed terror, adapted to the model of Gothic romance. The best conceived, and most strongly worked-up fcene of mere natural horror that I recollect, is in Smollett's Ferdinand count Fathom; where the hero, entertained in a lone house in a foreft, finds a corpfe juft flaughtered in the room where he is fent to fleep, and

the