of the Northern Nations, published in 1823, De Quincey translated Der Freischuetz from the German of J.A.  Apel, under the title of The Fatal Marksman.  By means of ill-gotten magic bullets the marksman wins his bride, but by one of those little ironies in which the devil delights to indulge, she is slain on the wedding-day by a bullet, which is aimed straight, but goes askew.  In The Dice, another short story from the German, De Quincey once again exploits the old theme of a bargain with the devil.

De Quincey’s contributions to the tale of terror shrink into unimportance beside the rest of his work, and are not in themselves remarkable.  They are of interest as showing the widespread and long-enduring vogue of the species.  It is noteworthy how many writers, whose main business lay elsewhere, have found time to make erratic excursions into the realms of the supernatural.

So late as 1834—­more than a decade after the appearance of Melmoth—­Harrison Ainsworth, whose imagination was steeped in terror, sought once more to revive the “feeble and fluttering pulses of old Romance.”  Among his earliest experiments were tales obviously fashioned in the Gothic manner.  His Imperishable One, the hero of a tale first published in the European Magazine for 1822, bemoans the burden of immortality in the listless tones of Godwin’s St. Leon, and is tempted by the fallen angel in the self-same guise in which he appeared to Lewis’s notorious monk.  In The Test of Affection (European Magazine, 1822) a wealthy man avails himself of Mrs. Radcliffe’s supernatural trickery to test the loyalty of his friends, whom he succeeds in alarming by noises and a skeleton apparition.  In Arliss’s Pocket Magazine (1822) there appeared The Spectre Bride; and in the European Magazine (1823) Ainsworth attempted a theme that would have attracted Poe in The Half Hangit. The Boeotian for 1824 contained A Tale of Mystery, and the Literary Souvenir for 1825 The Fortress of Saguntum, a story in the style of Lewis.  Ainsworth’s first novel, Rookwood (1834), was inspired by a visit to Cuckfield Place, an old manor house which had reminded Shelley of “bits of Mrs. Radcliffe”: 

“Wishing to describe somewhat minutely the trim gardens, the picturesque domains, the rook-haunted groves, the gloomy chambers and gloomier galleries of an ancient hall with which I was acquainted, I resolved to attempt a story in the bygone style of Mrs. Radcliffe, substituting an old English squire, an old manorial residence and an old English highwayman for the Italian marchise, the castle and the brigand of that great mistress of romance...  The attempt has succeeded beyond my most sanguine expectation.  Romance, if I am not mistaken, is destined shortly to undergo an important change.  Modified by the German and French writers—­Hoffmann, Tieck, Victor Hugo, Alexander Dumas, Balzac and