s wife's strength, they
summoned the assistance of the neighborhood. But the
vengeance of the visionary lady was perfect; the waters of
the lake had forced their way into the vault, and John,
after a year or two spent in draining and so forth, died
broken-hearted, the last Baron of Plenton.

Such is the tale, of which the incidents seem new, and the
interest capable of being rendered striking; the story
admits of the highest degree of decoration, both by poetry,
music, and scenery, and I propose (in behalf of my godson)
to take some pains in dramatizing it. As thus;--you shall
play John, as you can speak a little Scotch; I will make him
what the Baron of Bradwardine would have been in his
circumstances, and he shall be alternately ridiculous from
his family pride and prejudices, contrasted with his
poverty, and respectable from his just and independent tone
of feeling and character. I think Scotland is entitled to
have something on the stage to balance Macklin's two
worthies.[59] You understand the dialect will be only tinged
with the national dialect--not that the baron is to speak
broad Scotch, while all the others talk English. His wife
and he shall have one child, a daughter, suitored unto by
the conceited young parson or schoolmaster of the village,
whose addresses are countenanced by her mother,--and by
Halbert the hunter, a youth of unknown descent. Now this
youth shall be the rightful heir and representative of the
English owners of the treasure, of which they had been
{p.151} robbed by the baron's ancestors, for which unjust
act, their spirits still walked the earth. These, with a
substantial character or two, and the ghostly personages,
shall mingle as they may--and the discovery of the youth's
birth shall break the spell of the treasure-chamber. I will
make the ghosts talk as never ghosts talked in the body or
out of it; and the music may be as unearthly as you can get
it. The rush of the shadows into the castle shall be seen
through the window of the baron's apartment in the flat
scene. The ghosts' banquet, and many other circumstances,
may give great exercise to the scene-painter and dresser. If
you like this plan, you had better suspend any other for the
present. In my opinion it has the infinite merit of being