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 PREFACE. XIX

ture tampered with, or any thing hinted which should prevent us fairly throwing ourselves into its scenes, and viewing them in all the truth and reality of the picture ? Or who would care, again, to revel in the gorgeous scenery of an Arabian tale, if at every turn we must be dogged by some officious attendant, ready to put in some matter-of-fact remark which should bring us back to common life, and dash in a thousand pieces the enchanted mirror in which we were gazing with our whole souls ? The difference (we may here remark) between the two writers alluded to, appears sometimes even in those subordinate parts of their romances, where one might fairly expect it to be otherwise. Roth, for instance, oc- casionally work in old legends as episodes, by putting them in the mouths of some of the characters in the tale. These, at least, as remains of still more ancient days, might well be given in all their unexplained marvel,— just, in fact, as they were believed in at the time supposed. Fouque does so. Compare, for instance, the sin- cere way in which his little tale of the " Magician of Finland " ' is told, in the first volume of the " Magic Ring," with the legends which Scott incidentally introduces, but which are usually accom- panied by some hint as to the credulousness of the eige in which they were current, or some suggested explanation in accordance with what are called the laws of nature.

But, besides the mere interest and consistency of the story, it must be admitted that to reverential minds there is something cold and unsatisfactory in this habit of clearing away, — always, and as a matter of course, — whatever is mysterious and beyond the range of our senses and present experience. If we believe at all in the powers of the invisible world, we do not see why many things which men usually look upon as incredible, though beautiful ima- ginations, should not, after all, be deemed possible, and even pro- bable. We are not here pleading for a belief in any particular portions of works usually deemed fictitious ; nor are we concerned at present to find such instances. We are only suggesting whether we are not too apt, under the name of romance and fiction, to treat as incredible many things which, if we are believers in Holy Writ, we have at least no a priori rejison for rejecting as fabulous. There is such a thing as superstition ; but there is also an opposite and

1 This beautiful little story will be found in " Popular Tales and Le- gends." Burns, 1843.