"not tear rocks from their foundations by

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means of steam, and hurl mountains, as the

giants are said to have done, against the

flaming mass?- and then we shall have

"traditions of Titans again, and of wars "with Heaven."

"A mighty ingenious theory," said I laughing, and was near adding, in the

"The sense that he was greater than his kind Had made, methinks, his eagle spirit blind With gazing on its own exceeding light."

Talking of romances, he said:

"The Monk' is perhaps one of the best "in any language, not excepting the Ger66 man. It only wanted one thing, as I told "Lewis, to have rendered it perfect. He "should have made the dæmon really in

"love with Ambrosio: this would have

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given it a human interest. The Monk' 66 was written when Lewis was only twenty, "and he seems to have exhausted all his

genius on it. Perhaps at that age he was "in earnest in his belief of magic wonders. "That is the secret of Walter Scott's in❝spiration: he retains and encourages all "the superstitions of his youth. Lewis "caught his passion for the marvellous, and "it amounted to a mania with him, in Ger

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many; but the groundwork of 'The Monk' "is neither original nor German; it is de"rived from the tale of Santon Barsisa.' "The episode of The Bleeding Nun,' "which was turned into a melo-drama, is "from the German.

"There were two stories which he almost "believed by telling. One happened to "himself whilst he was residing at Man

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"heim. Every night, at the same hour, he "heard or thought he heard in his room, "when he was lying in bed, a crackling noise "like that produced by parchment or thick paper. This circumstance caused enquiry, "when it was told him that the sounds 66 were attributable to the following cause: "The house in which he lived had belonged "to a widow, who had an only son. In "order to prevent his marrying a poor but "amiable girl, to whom he was attached, he 66 was sent to sea. Years passed, and the “mother heard no tidings of him, nor of the

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The

ship in which he had sailed. It was sup66 posed that the vessel had been wrecked, " and that all on board had perished. "reproaches of the girl, the upbraidings of "her own conscience, and the loss of her

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child, crazed the old lady's mind, and her only pursuit became to turn over the

"Gazettes for news.

Hope at length left

her: she did not live long, -and continued "her old occupation after death.

"The other story that I alluded to be"fore, was the original of his 'Alonzo and "Imogene,' which has had such a host of "imitators. Two Florentine lovers, who "had been attached to each other almost "from childhood, made a vow of eternal "fidelity. Mina was the name of the lady "-her husband's I forget, but it is not "material. They parted. He had been for "some time absent with his regiment, when, "as his disconsolate lady was sitting alone "in her chamber, she distinctly heard the "well-known sound of his footsteps, and

starting up beheld, not her husband, but "his spectre, with a deep ghastly wound

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across his forehead, entering. She swoon"ed with horror: when she recovered, the

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ghost told her that in future his visits "should be announced by a passing-bell, "and these words, distinctly whispered, "Mina, I am here!' Their interviews

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now became frequent, till the woman fan"cied herself as much in love with the

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ghost as she had been with the man. But "it was soon to prove otherwise.

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One fatal night she went to a ball-what business "had she there? She danced too; and,

"what was worse, her partner was a young

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Florentine, so much the counterpart of "her lover, that she became estranged from "his ghost. Whilst the young gallant con"ducted her in the waltz, and her ear drank "in the music of his voice and words, a

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passing-bell tolled! She had been accus"tomed to the sound till it hardly excited "her attention, and now, lost in the attrac"tions of her fascinating partner, she heard