[17] _Ethelwina, or the House of Fitz-Auburne_, by T. J. Horsley-Curties. It would be impossible to designate all the ghosts in Gothic fiction for there is wholesale haunting. They appear in the plot to warn, to comfort or command, and seem to have very human characteristics on the whole. Yet they are not so definitely personated, not so individual and realistic as the spirits in later fiction, though they do achieve some creepy effects. It is not their brute force that impresses us. We are less moved by the armored knight and the titanic adversary in Otranto than by the phantoms in the Hall of Eblis. The vindictive ghosts, mouldy from the vault, are less appalling than the bodiless voices of wronged women and children that haunt the death-bed and bring a corpse back to dreadful life. The specters with flamboyant personality, that oppress us with their egotistic clamor, may be soon forgotten, but the ghostly suggestiveness of other spirits has a haunting power that is inescapable. Some of the Gothic ghosts have a strange vitality,--and, after all, where would be the phantoms of to-day but for their early services? =Witches and Warlocks.= While not at all equal in importance to the ghosts, witches and warlocks add to the excitement in Gothic fiction. There is but little change from the witch of dramatic tradition, for we have both the real and the reputed witch in the terror novel, the genuine antique hag who has powers given her from the devil, and the beautiful young girl who is wrongly suspected of an unholy alliance with the dark spirits. In _Melmoth_, there is an old woman doctor who has uncanny ability. She tells fortunes, gives spells against the evil eye and produces weird results "by spells and such dandy as is beyond our element." She turns the mystic yarn to be dropped into the pit, on the brink of which stands "the shivering inquirer into futurity, doubtful whether the answer to her question 'Who holds?' is to be uttered by the voice of a demon or lover." In _The Albigenses_ three Weird Sisters appear that are not altogether poor imitations of Shakespeare's own. Matilda in _The Monk_ possesses dæmonic power of enchantment and in the subterranean passages of the monastery she works her unhallowed arts. The hag Carathis, in _Vathek_, is a witch of rare skill, who concocts her magic potions and by supernatural means forces all things to her will. There are several witches and warlocks in James Hogg's _The Hunt of Eildon_, who work much mischief but at last are captured and convicted. They have the choice of being burned alive or being baptized, but with wild cries they struggle against the holy water and face the flames. In Hogg's _Brownie of Bodbeck_, Marion Linton believes her own daughter is a witch and thinks she should be given the trial by fire or water. There is an innocent young reputed witch in _The Hunt of Eildon_, who is sentenced to death for her art.