In "Howe's Masquerade" can be clearly seen the fact that he had not mastered the method of writing the short-story as we have it to-day. There is too much introduction and too much conclusion. He takes too long to get the story into motion, and he spoils the effect by tacking to the end a moral. These mistakes or crudities Poe did not make; however, each writer contributed to the development of the short-story some element of value, as has been pointed out in the Introduction. This story is one of "The Legends of the Province House," stories joined together by the scheme of having an old inhabitant tell them to some visitor. Such machinery with its prologues and end-links, more or less elaborate, has been often used, as is seen in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" and in Longfellow's "Tales of a Wayside Inn." The taste for this method has largely passed, though it has been recently revived by Alfred Noyes in "The Tales of the Mermaid Tavern." PAGE 93. WASHINGTON STREET: the scene is laid in Boston. OLD PROVINCE HOUSE: the term Province House is used somewhat in the same sense as State House. The building was erected when Massachusetts was a province and served as the headquarters and dwelling of the royal governor. Hawthorne represents it as having descended to the condition of an inn or inferior hotel, the most important part of which was the bar for the sale of liquor. 94. LADY OF POWNALL: the wife of Thomas Pownall, a royal governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony. BERNARD: Sir Thomas Bernard, another royal governor. 98. STEELED KNIGHTS OF THE CONQUEST: persons dressed as cavalrymen in steel armor of 1066, when William the Conqueror became King of England. PARTY-COLORED MERRY ANDREW: an old term for a clown dressed in garments having several colors. FALSTAFF: an important character in several of Shakespeare's plays. He is always represented as fat and ridiculous. DON QUIXOTE: the chief character of the celebrated Spanish satire "Don Quixote" (1605) by Cervantes. Don Quixote is a simple-minded man, whose head has been turned by reading the extravagant romances of chivalry then current, in which knights ride forth to redress wrongs. He feels himself called to such a mission and, armed with various ridiculous makeshifts and accompanied by a humorous squire, Sancho Panza, whose sayings have achieved an immortality nearly equal to his master's doings, he sallies out upon a course of adventures, which caused the world to laugh the dying remnants of false chivalry into its grave. COLONEL JOLIFFE: an imaginary character. WHIG PRINCIPLES: the people belonging to the patriotic party in the colonies were called Whigs. 99. REV. MATHER BYLES: an actual person (1706-1788). He was imprisoned in 1777 as a Tory; that is, as an adherent of the king. WIG AND BAND: Protestant clergymen of that day wore wigs and a strip of linen, called a band, placed about the neck with the ends hanging down in front.