laywright. The way in which he looks at the matter
suggests that he was thinking quite as much of the probability of
failure in his own case should he begin to write plays, as of the
subject of the memoir; for Fielding wrote his plays before his novels,
but the argument assumes a man who writes good novels first and bad
plays afterwards. One of his statements seems rather curious and hard to
explain,--"Though a good acting play may be made by selecting a plot and
characters from a novel, yet scarce any effort of genius could render a
play into a narrative romance." Perhaps he expected the "Terryfied"
versions of _Guy Mannering_ and _Rob Roy_ to hold the stage longer than
fate has permitted them to do. From another point of view also he was
interested in the connection of the novel and the drama. He felt that
the direction of the drama in the modern period had been largely
determined by the influence of successful novels; and he probably
overestimated the effect of the "romances of Calprenede and Scuderi" on
heroic tragedy.[211]

A subject which recurs even oftener than that of the distinction between
drama and novel is the question of supernatural machinery in novels.
Horace Walpole is commended for giving us ghosts without furnishing
explanations. Indeed the _Castle of Otranto_ is highly praised;[212] but
so also is Mrs. Radcliffe's work, except on the one point of the attempt
to rationalize mysteries. The kind of romance which she
"introduced"[213] is compared with the melodrama, and its particular
mode of appeal is analyzed in very interesting fashion. In the _Life of
Clara Reeve_ the proper treatment of ghosts is discussed at length, for
that author had contended that ghosts should be very mild and of "sober
demeanour." Scott justifies her practice, but not her theory, on the
following grounds: "What are the limits to be placed to the reader's
credulity, when those of common-sense and ordinary nature are at once
exceeded? The question admits only one answer, namely, that the author
himself, being in fact the magician, shall evoke no spirits whom he is
not capable of endowing with manners and language corresponding to their
supernatural character."

Scott writes with much enthusiasm about Defoe's famous little
ghost-story, _The Apparition of Mrs. Veal_, praising Defoe's wonderful
skill in making the unreal seem credible. In connection with this tale
Scott developed a very interesting anecdote to explain the fact tha