The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-11-28

sical English" and other writers on English literature content themselves with calling it among the earliest ex- pressions of the romantic movement in England" But such characterizations are unsatisfactory and seem to call for Bome one to explain the explanation" That the story has an enduring place In English literature Is undoubted, and It is by '"rhs Castle of Otranto' and his Letters that Horace Walpole is now remembered. There is much trite- hess in the plot of the story-the miss ing heir and the forged will-and the supernatural machinery seems dragged in by main force. Yet there are action, power and human passions in the tale plentiful enough to have kept 1t alive, with all it's imperfections, for nearly two centuries and a half and to establish 1t permanently as one of those things D person who would be well read" in English literature is bound to peruse whether he wants to or not
 X MANFRED, Prince of otranto, held MI his throne as his father and \ grandfather had before him-by might of their good swords and basest treachery. In the convent church hard by the castle of Otranto's Prince, stood the gigantic staute of Alfonso the Good, the last of the direct line of the rightful lords of the principality, and beneath 1t In sculptured tomb reposed his bones, brought back from Palestine. In that Tar land had Alfonso died while advancing the Cross against the Crescent In the army of the Crusaders. His chamberlain, Ricardo, who had accompanied his loro to the Holy Land, brought back his mas fer's bones and exhibited a will by which Alfonso stated that he died without Issue or near relatives and bequearned to his chamberlain his power and princlpallty' "A stern and powerful man was Prince Ricardo, dark and dangerous to thwart in battle or in council, and his right none dare question openly. Large gifts he made the church when he assumed nis princely throne, and 1t was he who nao erected the great church and the monas- tery adjoining the castle-a church and monastery which he dedicated to St Nicholas and richly endowed
 But the gloom of some great secret some dark and hidden mystery, preyed continually upon the mind of Ricardo causing all the power and splendor to which his ambition had attained to be to him like the Dead Sea apple. fair to out ward view, but must and bitterness to the taste. When Ricardo came to die he told this secret to his son. who reigned after him, and that son. being in his turn gathered to his fathers, passed on the knowledge Of 1t to his son Manfred Manfred's family consisted Of his wife, the virtuous and charitable Princess Hip polita, their daughter Matilda, a. beautiful girl of IS summers and son, Conrad, three years younger, a sickly youth of no promising disposition.
 The daughter of the Marquis Of Vicenza Isabella, spirited and charming young lady of the same age as Matilda, was now an inmate of the castle. having been handed over to Manfred by her guardians, and the Prince had arranged for her speedy marriage with his son Conrad. The Marquis was absent in the Holy Land and rumor said that he had per ished there. The Marquis was nearest of kin among the living. IS everybody knew, to Prince Alfonso the Good. But he had contented himself, as his father had done, with merely making a formal claim for the principality. the lords of vicenza not being powerful enough to contend in arms against the mighty Prince of otranto.
 The birthday of young Conrad had been set for his marriage and the impatience with which Manfred awaited 1t was noticed not only by his household but was talked of among the peasants who attributed their princes haste in push ing forward this marriage to g. dread of seeing accomplished an ancient proph- ecy which said that the castle and lord ship of Otranto should pass from the present family whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit 1t. It was difficult to make any sense out of the prophecy and still more difficult to see what 1t had to do with the present marriage. Yet these mysteries or con- traditions did not make the populace sd- here the less strongly to their opinions. As for Isabella, she viewed the approach ing marriage with anything but pleasure able anticipations The only sentiment she felt toward Conrad was one of pity. while the dark and forbidding charac- ter of Manfred filled her with alarm. The gentle Hippolita once or twice ventured to represent to her lord the danger ot marrying their only son 50 early. con- sidering his great youth and greater in- firmfties. but was met with no other answer by Manfred than cruel reflections upon her own sterility, which had given him but one male heir.
 And now the day of the wedding was coming and great throng of guests filled the castle When the glittering company was assembled in the chapel it was found that Conrad was missing. A servant whom Manfred dispatched to hurry the running back frantic with fear, his eyes rolling and his mouth foaming. He could not speak for terror, but pointed to- ward the great court yard of the castle The guests were struck with amazemeni and Hippolita, foreboding that some greaI misfortune had happened to her son tainted away. Manfred excited to rag, by the delay rather than to anxiety fol the young Prince, imperiously demand ed of the varlet what has tho matter But the fellow could only gasp "The hel metl oh, the helmetr' and continue t' point toyard the court yard.
 On the floor of the court lay an Inn mense helmet of iron topped by sabl and dead, lay the body of his son. Horro