A century and a half later--1828--was published a much more pretentious work on the same theme. This was a novel written by Rev. George Croly. It was called: “Salathiel: a Story of the Past, the Present, the Future.” It was published anonymously and had an immediate and lasting success. It was founded on historical lines, the author manifestly benefiting by the hints afforded by the work of that consummate liar (in a historical sense) Westphalus--or his informant. Croly was a strange man with a somewhat abnormal faculty of abstraction. I used to hear of him from my father who was a friend of his about a hundred years ago. Being of gentle nature he did not wish to cause any pain or concern to his family or dependents; but at the same time he, as a writer, had to guard himself against interruption and consequent digression of his thoughts during the times he set apart for imaginative work. So he devised a scheme which might often be put in practice with advantage by others similarly employed. When settling down to a spell of such work--which as every creative writer knows involves periods of mental abstraction though of bodily restlessness--he would stick an adhesive wafer on his forehead. The rule of the house was that when he might be adorned in this wise no one was to speak to him, or even notice him, except under special necessity. The great vogue of _Salathiel_ lasted some ten or more years, when the torch of the Wandering Jew was lighted by Eugene Sue the French novelist who had just completed in the _Débats_ his story “Les Mystères de Paris.” As its successor he chose the theme adopted by Croly, and the new novel _Le Juif-Errant_ ran with overwhelming success in the _Constitutionnel_.