stories as this that Peacock had in mind when he declared,
through Mr. Flosky, that the devil had become "too base and
popular" for the surfeited appetite of readers of fiction. Yet,
as Carlyle once exclaimed of the German terror-drama, as
exemplified in Kotzebue, Grillparzer and Klingemann, whose
stock-in-trade is similar to that of Lewis: "If any man wish to
amuse himself irrationally, here is the ware for his money."[51]
Byron, who had himself attempted in _Oscar and Alva_ (_Hours of
Idleness_, 1807) a ballad in the manner of Lewis, describes with
irony the triumphs of terror:

"Oh! wonderworking Lewis! Monk or Bard,
Who fain would make Parnassus a churchyard!
Lo! wreaths of yew, not laurel, bind thy brow,
Thy muse a sprite, Apollo's sexton thou;
Whether on ancient tombs thou tak'st thy stand,
By gibbering spectres hailed, thy kindred band;
Or tracest chaste descriptions on thy page
To please the females of our modest age;
All hail, M.P., from whose infernal brain
Thin-sheeted phantoms glide, a grisly train;
At whose command 'grim women' throng in crowds
And kings of fire, of water, and of clouds
With small grey men--wild yagers and what not,
To crown with honour thee and Walter Scott;
Again, all hail! if tales like thine may please,
St. Luke alone can vanquish the disease.
Even Satan's self with thee might dread to dwell,
And in thy skull discern a deeper hell!"[52]