rebukes her false lover in a long and dignified oration. But
spirits were shy of appearing in an age when they were more
likely to be received with banter than with dread. Dr. Johnson
expresses the attitude of his age when, in referring to Gray's
poem, _The Bard_, he remarks:

"To select a singular event and swell it to a giant's
bulk by fabulous appendages of spectres and predictions
has little difficulty, for he that forsakes the
probable may always find the marvellous. And it has
little use; we are affected only as we believe; we are
improved only as we find something to be imitated or
declined." (1780.)

The dictum that we are affected only as we believe is open to
grave doubt. We are often thrown into a state of trepidation
simply through the power of the imagination. We are wise after
the event, like Partridge at the play:

"No, no, sir; ghosts don't appear in such dresses as
that neither... And if it was really a ghost, it could
do one no harm at such a distance, and in so much
company; and yet, if I was frightened, I am not the
only person."[6]

The supernatural which persisted always in legends handed down
from one generation to another on the lips of living people, had
not lost its power to thrill and alarm, and gradually worked its
way back into literature. Although Gray and Collins do not
venture far beyond the bounds of the natural, they were in