I don't know, but the idea may produce some
other _Castle of Otranto_."[20]
So Walpole came near to anticipating the greenwood scenes of
_Ivanhoe_. The decking and trappings of chivalry filled him with
boyish delight, and he found in the glitter and colour of the
middle ages a refuge from the prosaic dullness of the eighteenth
century. A visit from "a Luxembourg, a Lusignan and a Montfort"
awoke in his whimsical fancy a mental image of himself in the
guise of a mediaeval baron: "I never felt myself so much in _The
Castle of Otranto_. It sounded as if a company of noble crusaders
were come to sojourn with me before they embarked for the Holy
Land";[21] and when he heard of the marvellous adventures of a
large wolf who had caused a panic in Lower Languedoc, he was
reminded of the enchanted monster of old romance and declared
that, had he known of the creature earlier, it should have
appeared in _The Castle of Otranto_.[22] "I have taken to
astronomy," he declares on another occasion,
"now that the scale is enlarged enough to satisfy my
taste, who love gigantic ideas--do not be afraid; I am
not going to write a second part to _The Castle of
Otranto_, nor another account of the Patagonians who
inhabit the new Brobdingnag planet.
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