yield their place before the increase of knowledge, like shadows at the
advance of morn." ("Demonology." p. 183). "Tales of ghosts and
demonology are out of date at forty years of age and upward. . . . If I
were to write on the subject at all, it should have been during a period
of life when I could have treated it with more interesting
vivacity. . . . Even the present fashion of the world seems to be
ill-suited for studies of this fantastic nature: and the most ordinary
mechanic has learning sufficient to laugh at the figments which in former
times were believed by persons far advanced in the deepest knowledge of
the age." (_Ibid_., p. 398).

[50] See vol. i., pp. 249 and 420.

[51] "Postscript" to "Appreciations."

[52] For the rarity of the real romantic note in mediaeval writers see
vol. i., pp. 26-28, and Appendix B to the present chapter.

[53] See "Studies in Mediaeval Life and Literature," by Edward T.
McLaughlin, p. 34.




CHAPTER II.

Coleridge, Bowles, and the Pope Controversy.

While Scott was busy collecting the fragments of Border minstrelsy and
translating German ballads,[1] two other young poets, far to the south,