a great degree a historical mind; and perhaps there are few works which
show a keener critical insight into the value of old traditions than the
"Historic Doubts," directed to establish, not, indeed, Richard's
innocence of the crimes charged against him, but the fact that, with
respect to many of them, his guilt has never been proved by any evidence
which is not open to the gravest impeachment. His "Royal and Noble
Authors," and his "Anecdotes of Painting" are full of entertainment, not
unmixed with instruction. "The Mysterious Mother" was never performed on
the stage, nor is it calculated for representation; since he himself
admits that the subject is disgusting. But dramas not intended for
representation, and which therefore should perhaps be more fitly called
dramatic poems, were a species of composition to which more than one
writer of reputation had lately begun to turn their attention; though
dramas not designed for the stage seem to most readers defective in
their very conception, as lacking the stimulus which the intention of
submitting them to the extemporaneous ocular judgement of the public can
alone impart. Among such works, however, "The Mysterious Mother" is
admitted to rank high for vigorous description and poetic imagery. A
greater popularity, which even at the present day has not wholly passed
away, since it is still occasionally reprinted, was achieved by "The
Castle of Otranto," which, as he explains it in one of his letters, owed
its origin to a dream. Novels had been a branch of literature which had
slumbered for several years after the death of Defoe, but which the
genius of Fielding and Smollett had again brought into fashion. But
their tales purported to be pictures of the manners of the day. This was
rather the forerunner of Mrs. Radcliffe's[1] weird tales of supernatural
mystery, which for a time so engrossed the public attention as to lead
that "wicked wag," Mr. George Coleman, to regard them as representatives
of the class, and to describe how--