He, too, like Lady Ratcliffe, had read _Die Raeuber_; and he
translated Goethe's _Getz von Berlichingen_. He delighted in
Lewis's _Tales of Wonder_ (1801) where the verse gallops through
horrors so fearful that the "lights in the chamber burn blue,"
and himself contributed to the collection. He wrote "goblin
dramas"[112] as terrific in intention, but not in performance, as
Lewis's _Castle Spectre_ and Maturin's _Bertram_. His Latin
call-thesis dealt with the kind of subject "Monk" Lewis or
Harrison Ainsworth or Poe might have chosen--the disposal of the
dead bodies of persons legally executed. Scott continually added
to his store of quaint and grisly learning both from popular
tradition and from a library of such works as Bovet's
_Pandemonium, or the Devil's Cloyster Opened_, Sinclair's
_Satan's Invisible World Discovered_, whence he borrowed the name
of the jackanapes in _Wandering Willie's Tale_, and the
horse-shoe frown for the brow of the Redgauntlets, Heywood's
_Hierarchy of the Blessed Angels_, Joseph Taylor's _History of
Apparitions_, from which he quotes in _Woodstock_. He was
familiar with all the niceties of ghostly etiquette; he could
distinguish at a glance the various ranks and orders of demons
and spirits; he was versed in charms and spells; he knew exactly
how a wizard ought to be dressed.
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