writer's art.

[Footnote 15: Compare with Kipling's treatment of a similar theme in
_The Brushwood Boy_.]

As this history of the evolution of the English short-story commenced
with a poet, Chaucer,[16] who wrote all save two of his short-stories
in poetry, so it fittingly closes with a poet, the Ettrick Shepherd,
who wrote most of his short-stories in prose. It remained for yet
another poet, Edgar Allan Poe, who may never have heard the name
or have read a line from the writings of James Hogg, to bring to
perfection the task on which he had spent his labor.

[Footnote 16: The _Gesta Romanorum_ was written in Latin.]




THE APPARITION OF MRS. VEAL

_Daniel Defoe_ (1661-1731)


This thing is so rare in all its circumstances, and on so good
authority, that my reading and conversation have not given me anything
like it. It is fit to gratify the most ingenious and serious inquirer.
Mrs. Bargrave is the person to whom Mrs. Veal appeared after her
death; she is my intimate friend, and I can avouch for her reputation
for these fifteen or sixteen years, on my own knowledge; and I can
confirm the good character she had from her youth to the time of my