chalked out a new system of tales and exhibitions, and instead of the probable, frequently substituted the marvellous. Some persons of great genius began, and others followed this style of writing. The Eloise of Rousseau rendered it very popular on the continent. It glided along all the eccentricities and easy extravagance of the French ingenuity, and was dragged through all the studied wildness of German labour. Genius relieved the marvellous by the probable, introduced its fanciful beings in circumstances which, diminishing or overpowering the incredible, gave full force to the appearance; while pains-taking dulness never failed to introduce such adjuncts and appendages as broke the spell, and shewed the improbable absurdity. Shakespeare could manage a ghost; but if he introduced a ghost, he brought such a being
