Gothic Classics: The Castle of Otranto

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Introduction © 2022 Robert McCammon
Additional supplemental material © 2022 by Eric J. Guignard and
Leslie S. Klinger
Cover and internal design © 2022 by Sourcebooks
Cover design and illustration by Jeffrey Nguyen
Sourcebooks, Poisoned Pen Press, and the colophon are registered
trademarks of Sourcebooks.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information
storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing
from its publisher, Sourcebooks.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are
used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is
purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Poisoned Pen Press, an imprint of Sourcebooks
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
(630) 961-3900
sourcebooks.com
This text of The Castle of Otranto is from the 1766 third edition,
published by William Bathoe, London, UK.
This text of The Old English Baron is from the 1778 first edition,
published by Edward and Charles Dilly, London, UK.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Walpole, Horace. Castle of Otranto. | Reeve, Clara. Old
English baron.
Title: Gothic classics : The castle of Otranto and The old English
baron /
by Horace Walpole and by Clara Reeve.
Description: Naperville, Illinois : Poisoned Pen Press, [2022] | Series:
Haunted library of horror classics | Includes bibliographical
references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021023599 (print) | LCCN 2021023600 (ebook) |
(trade paperback) | (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Horror tales, English.
Classification: LCC PR1309.H6 G68 2022 (print) | LCC PR1309.H6
(ebook) |
DDC 823/.0872908--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021023599
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021023600
 Contents

Front Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction to the Novel: My Evening With Walpole

The Castle of Otranto

Preface to the First Edition

Preface to the Second Edition

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

The Old English Baron

Preface
 The Old English Baron: A Gothic Story

About the Author, Horace Walpole

About the Author, Clara Reeve

Suggested Discussion Questions for Classroom Use

Suggested Further Reading of Fiction

About the Series Editors

Back Cover
 This edition of Gothic Classics: The Castle of Otranto and The Old
English Baron is presented by the Horror Writers Association, a
nonprofit organization of writers and publishing professionals around
the world, dedicated to promoting dark literature and the interests of
those who write it.
For more information on HWA, visit: www.horror.org.
Introduction to the Novel: My
Evening With Walpole

I AM here in this candlelit library with the man of the moment, and
let me add that this library is truly huge, with a cathedral ceiling,
leather bound books from wall to wall, polite flames whispering in a
large white stone fireplace, overstuffed chairs, sofas and love seats,
Oriental rugs of many hues upon the timbered floors…yet there is a
heavy silence here, and a sense that shadows hang in the corners of
this chamber like intricate spiderwebs.
Yes, it is indeed true. One may call the architecture of this grand
castle Gothic. It is named Strawberry Hill, and its builder and owner
is sitting very comfortably—sprawled, actually—on a dark green sofa
before me, his dark eyes glinting with candlelight, the sides of his
equally dark hair standing out like the wings of an owl, and his
narrow face chalky white as is the fashion of the time (though I do
hear his pallor is so pale it alarms those who meet him). He is
dressed in a simple gray suit, a ruffled shirt, cream-colored
stockings, and small black shoes on rather small feet. The gentleman
has graciously agreed to this interview, and so without further
hesitation let us offer our first question to Horace Walpole, author,
politician, essayist, and some might say true visionary.
 Robert McCammon: I would like first to touch on your most
famous work, The Castle of Otranto. Do you consider it a horror
novel?
Horace Walpole: Pardon me? I don’t understand that question.
RM: Well, you would hardly know it now, but The Castle of
Otranto is destined to become very much more than you envisioned.
It’s going to be a Gothic touchstone. Edgar Allan Poe will—
HW: Who?
RM: Never mind that. I’m just saying that the Gothic influence of
The Castle of Otranto is going to be seen in thousands of books and
movies. If I was to try to list even a fraction of the titles, it would
take up far more pages than I’ve been given for this interview.
HW: I was going to offer you a glass of sherry, but obviously you
have over indulged before reaching my home. Or have you recently
escaped from Bedlam?
RM: Yes, you can point to the movie Bedlam, too, starring Boris
Karloff.
HW: I should wish to point you to Bedlam. What is a so-called
movie and what is this ghastly Boris Karloff?
RM: Um…we should proceed a pace. Will you tell me a bit about
yourself?
HW: I was born on the 24th of September in the year 1717. This
being the year 1766, my present age is forty-nine. I am the
youngest son of Robert Walpole, who was the first prime minister of
this great England. I was educated at Eton and at Cambridge. The
Castle of Otranto was first published in 1764. I have my own
publishing concern here, called Strawberry Hill Press. What else is
there to know?
RM: A lot, I think. I understand you have two pets, a spaniel and a
squirrel?
 HW: Had two pets. My dear spaniel was attacked and killed by a
wolf when I was travelling in the Italian alps. The squirrel escaped
its cage and is somewhere in the castle, Lord knows where.
RM: Oh. Well…about the castle. Gothic architecture, certainly. How
did it come about?
HW: Now you’re speaking of something I find interesting. Oh yes,
my Strawberry Hill! I bought the property when there was a single
cottage on it, and I was determined to build a home of which I
might be proud. Over the years it was built stone-by-stone, turret by
turret, tower by tower and battlement by…you know the rest. In fact
I doubt it shall be finished until 1776 or so, at which point I shall
allow tourists in to admire my efforts.
RM: Do you have a word to describe this castle?
HW: I do, and one of my own devising. Gloomth. A combination,
you see, of ‘gloom’ and ‘warmth’, which I find extremely comforting.
RM: It’s surely a big place.
HW: It is my refuge. Also there are the gardens. Do you know I
am considered a master gardener? My theory of gardening has been
taken up all over the land.
RM: What is that theory?
HW: That Nature abhors a straight line, therefore you will find no
straight lines in my garden. I don’t care much for straight lines
myself. I rather like complications…intrigue…the careful arrangement
of shadows in a chamber. To my tastes, a delight.
RM: Ah! Now you’re talking like a writer of what many consider
‘the’ first Gothic tale. What are your work habits?
HW: Some have accused me of lunacy, but I prefer to work in the
late hours. I begin writing at ten at night and work until two in the
morning. Would you consider that lunatic?
RM: Um…those are my working hours.
 HW: Then perhaps only one of us is the lunatic, sir. I do fortify
myself with many cups of coffee.
RM: So do I, but I thought people of your time drank mostly tea.
HW: Zounds, no! There’s a coffee shop on almost every corner in
London! I expect you wouldn’t understand such a wild frenzy for the
brew, in your era.
RM: Well…let’s go on. About The Castle of Otranto. What caused
you to write the book?
HW: I expect that as a writer—I suppose you’re really a writer,
though I have no evidence of your wit and intellect, so I shall let
that pass—you are asked a particular question, that being: do you
get your ideas from your dreams? In my case it was true. I had a
dream in which I thought myself in an ancient castle, a very natural
dream for a head like mine filled with Gothic story, and that on the
uppermost banister of a great staircase I saw a gigantic hand in
armor. That evening I sat down to write. And there it was. But I
might add, when the book was first published I played a grand joke
on the reading public. I did not present it as fiction, but as a genuine
account of something that had really happened, and that I had
simply discovered the manuscript. Wasn’t that delightful?
RM: I don’t know, but I can’t wrap my imagination around the
image of a giant helmet with black feathers falling out of the sky as
it appears in your book.
HW: Your failure of imagination, sir. Not mine.
RM: Just a minute. You said ‘a very natural dream for a head like
mine filled with Gothic story’. I thought you invented the Gothic
story!
HW: Is that what they say about me in your era? I am flattered, of
course, and perhaps they mean it in the sense that I refined it, but I
was very much influenced by those who came before me, as all
writers are. The plays of Shakespeare…the ghost stories of medieval
Europe…the folktales of the lands I happened to travel through…all
those went into…if I may be a bit grotesque…the brainpan. And
when I came across a tale that ignited my interest, I defined the
moment as another word I devised, that word being ‘serendipity’.
RM: You came up with that word?
HW: Indeed.
RM: I understand you’ve been quite a writer of letters.
HW: I have written thousands and hope to write thousands more.
I prize communication as one of the greatest gifts to mankind.
RM: Let me turn now to the manuscript I wanted you to read.
HW: Oh, yes. The Old English Baron by Clara Reeve. I understand
it won’t be published until 1778?
RM: Correct. What did you think of it?
HW: Hm. A difficult question to answer. I can see that it is highly
influenced by The Castle of Otranto, yet it takes a turn from the
Gothic into the world of what I term the ordinary, so it leaves me
somewhat faint. Tell me…in your era, do you have material that
purports to be about one thing but at a crucial moment turns out to
be about something else, much to the dismay of the reader who
expected that certain something to be about what they at first
thought it was about, but turned out not to be about?
RM: Yes.
HW: There you have it, then.
RM: But you do agree it has a modicum of historical interest?
HW: About that.
RM: Well, I should be getting back to my era. Thank you very
much for your time, and for giving us The Castle of Otranto. I have
the feeling that ‘Gothic’ is a state of mind, and that it involves the
convolution of imagination that dares to challenge the social
standards of the day, and uses its power to transport the reader or
viewer into a dream world…or, in some instances, a world of
nightmare in which one might roam but afterward return safely to
the land of reality. But hopefully with a heightened imagination and
sense of self.
HW: You’re a long-winded cuss, aren’t you?
RM: Do you have any final word for our readers?
HW: I shall offer what I once offered in a letter: ‘To act with
common sense, according to the moment, is the best wisdom I
know; and the best philosophy, to do one’s duties, take the world as
it comes, submit respectfully to one’s lot, bless the goodness that
has given us so much happiness with it, and despise affectation’. In
other words: find your happiness, and embrace it.
RM: Thank you, and good evening.
HW: I should like the last word as advice to your era. That being:
Read.

Robert McCammon
March 30, 2021
Birmingham, Alabama

Along with Joe and Karen Lansdale and Dean Koontz, Robert
McCammon is one of the founders of the Horror Writers Association.
The Castle of Otranto
by Horace Walpole
 Preface to the First Edition.

THE following work was found in the library of an ancient Catholic

family in the north of England. It was printed at Naples, in the black
letter,1 in the year 1529. How much sooner it was written does not
appear. The principal incidents are such as were believed in the
darkest ages of Christianity; but the language and conduct have
nothing that savours of barbarism. The style is the purest Italian. If
the story was written near the time when it is supposed to have
happened, it must have been between 1095, the era of the first
Crusade, and 1243, the date of the last, or not long afterwards.
There is no other circumstance in the work that can lead us to guess
at the period in which the scene is laid: the names of the actors are
evidently fictitious, and probably disguised on purpose: yet the
Spanish names of the domestics seem to indicate that this work was
not composed until the establishment of the Arragonian Kings in
Naples2 had made Spanish appellations familiar in that country. The
beauty of the diction, and the zeal of the author (moderated,
however, by singular judgment) concur to make me think that the
date of the composition was little antecedent to that of the
impression. Letters were then in their most flourishing state in Italy,
and contributed to dispel the empire of superstition, at that time so
forcibly attacked by the reformers. It is not unlikely that an artful
priest might endeavour to turn their own arms on the innovators,
and might avail himself of his abilities as an author to confirm the
populace in their ancient errors and superstitions. If this was his
view, he has certainly acted with signal address. Such a work as the
following would enslave a hundred vulgar minds beyond half the
books of controversy that have been written from the days of Luther
to the present hour.
This solution of the author’s motives is, however, offered as a mere
conjecture. Whatever his views were, or whatever effects the
execution of them might have, his work can only be laid before the
public at present as a matter of entertainment. Even as such, some
apology for it is necessary. Miracles, visions, necromancy, dreams,
and other preternatural events, are exploded now even from
romances. That was not the case when our author wrote; much less
when the story itself is supposed to have happened. Belief in every
kind of prodigy3 was so established in those dark ages, that an
author would not be faithful to the manners of the times, who
should omit all mention of them. He is not bound to believe them
himself, but he must represent his actors as believing them.
If this air of the miraculous is excused, the reader will find nothing
else unworthy of his perusal. Allow the possibility of the facts, and all
the actors comport themselves as persons would do in their
situation. There is no bombast, no similes, flowers, digressions, or
unnecessary descriptions. Everything tends directly to the
catastrophe. Never is the reader’s attention relaxed. The rules of the
drama are almost observed throughout the conduct of the piece.
The characters are well drawn, and still better maintained. Terror,
the author’s principal engine, prevents the story from ever
languishing; and it is so often contrasted by pity, that the mind is
kept up in a constant vicissitude of interesting passions.
 Some persons may perhaps think the characters of the domestics
too little serious for the general cast of the story; but besides their
opposition to the principal personages, the art of the author is very
observable in his conduct of the subalterns. They discover many
passages essential to the story, which could not be well brought to
light but by their naïveté and simplicity. In particular, the womanish
terror and foibles of Bianca, in the last chapter, conduce essentially
towards advancing the catastrophe.
It is natural for a translator to be prejudiced in favour of his
adopted work. More impartial readers may not be so much struck
with the beauties of this piece as I was. Yet I am not blind to my
author’s defects. I could wish he had grounded his plan on a more
useful moral than this: that “the sins of fathers are visited on their
children to the third and fourth generation.” I doubt whether, in his
time, any more than at present, ambition curbed its appetite of
dominion from the dread of so remote a punishment. And yet this
moral is weakened by that less direct insinuation, that even such
anathema may be diverted by devotion to St. Nicholas.4 Here the
interest of the Monk plainly gets the better of the judgment of the
author. However, with all its faults, I have no doubt but the English
reader will be pleased with a sight of this performance. The piety
that reigns throughout, the lessons of virtue that are inculcated, and
the rigid purity of the sentiments, exempt this work from the
censure to which romances are but too liable. Should it meet with
the success I hope for, I may be encouraged to reprint the original
Italian, though it will tend to depreciate my own labour. Our
language falls far short of the charms of the Italian, both for variety
and harmony. The latter is peculiarly excellent for simple narrative. It
is difficult in English to relate without falling too low or rising too
high; a fault obviously occasioned by the little care taken to speak
pure language in common conversation. Every Italian or Frenchman
of any rank piques himself on speaking his own tongue correctly and
with choice. I cannot flatter myself with having done justice to my
author in this respect: his style is as elegant as his conduct of the
passions is masterly. It is a pity that he did not apply his talents to
what they were evidently proper for—the theatre.
I will detain the reader no longer, but to make one short remark.
Though the machinery is invention, and the names of the actors
imaginary, I cannot but believe that the groundwork of the story is
founded on truth. The scene is undoubtedly laid in some real castle.
The author seems frequently, without design, to describe particular
parts. “The chamber,” says he, “on the right hand;” “the door on the
left hand;” “the distance from the chapel to Conrad’s apartment”:
these and other passages are strong presumptions that the author
had some certain building in his eye. Curious persons, who have
leisure to employ in such researches, may possibly discover in the
Italian writers the foundation on which our author has built. If a
catastrophe, at all resembling that which he describes, is believed to
have given rise to this work, it will contribute to interest the reader,
and will make the Castle of Otranto a still more moving story.

SONNET TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LADY MARY

COKE.5
THE gentle maid, whose hapless tale
These melancholy pages speak;
Say, gracious lady, shall she fail
To draw the tear adown thy cheek?
No; never was thy pitying breast
Insensible to human woes;
Tender, tho’ firm, it melts distrest
For weaknesses it never knows.
 Oh! guard the marvels I relate
Of fell ambition scourg’d by fate,
From reason’s peevish blame.
Blest with thy smile, my dauntless sail
I dare expand to Fancy’s gale,
For sure thy smiles are Fame.
—H. W.

1 This was a heavy, ornate printing style, also referred to as Gothic.

2 The Aragonese kings of Sicily and Naples ruled from the 13th to
the early 16th century.
3 An extraordinary thing or occurrence regarded as an omen, a
usage recorded as early as 1450.
4 Saint Nicholas (approximately 270–340 C.E.) is the patron saint of
many communities in Europe, and many miracles were attributed to
his intercession. His habit of secret gift-giving eventually transmuted
the saint in popular culture into Santa Claus.
5 An English noblewoman (1727–1811), a one-time friend of
Walpole, here mocked with pseudo-gallantry.
Preface to the Second Edition.

THE favourable manner in which this little piece has been received
by the public, calls upon the author to explain the grounds on which
he composed it. But, before he opens those motives, it is fit that he
should ask pardon of his readers for having offered his work to them
under the borrowed personage of a translator. As diffidence of his
own abilities and the novelty of the attempt, were the sole
inducements to assume the disguise, he flatters himself he shall
appear excusable. He resigned the performance to the impartial
judgement of the public; determined to let it perish in obscurity, if
disproved; nor meaning to avow such a trifle, unless better judges
should pronounce that he might own it without a blush.
It was an attempt to blend the two kinds of Romance, the ancient
and the modern. In the former, all was imagination and
improbability; in the latter, nature is always intended to be, and
sometimes has been, copied with success. Invention has not been
wanting; but the great resources of fancy have been dammed up, by
a strict adherence to common life. But if, in the latter species, Nature
has cramped imagination, she did but take her revenge, having been
totally excluded from old Romances. The actions, sentiments, and
conversations, of the heroes and heroines of ancient days, were as
unnatural as the machines employed to put them in motion.
 The author of the following pages thought it possible to reconcile
the two kinds. Desirous of leaving the powers of fancy at liberty to
expatiate through the boundless realms of invention, and thence of
creating more interesting situations, he wished to conduct the mortal
agents in his drama according to the rules of probability; in short, to
make them think, speak, and act, as it might be supposed mere men
and women would do in extraordinary positions. He had observed,
that, in all inspired writings, the personages under the dispensation
of miracles, and witness to the most stupendous phenomena, never
lose sight of their human character: whereas, in the productions of
romantic story, an improbable event never fails to be attended by an
absurd dialogue. The actors seem to lose their senses, the moment
the laws of nature have lost their tone. As the public have applauded
the attempt, the author must not say he was entirely unequal to the
task he had undertaken: yet, if the new route he has struck out shall
have paved a road for men of brighter talents, he shall own, with
pleasure and modesty, that he was sensible the plan was capable of
receiving greater embellishments than his imagination, or conduct of
the passions, could bestow on it.
With regard to the deportment of the domestics,6 on which I have
touched in the former preface, I will beg leave to add a few words.—
The simplicity of their behaviour, almost tending to excite smiles,
which, at first, seems not consonant to the serious cast of the work,
appeared to me not only improper, but was marked designedly in
that manner. My rule was nature. However grave, important, or even
melancholy, the sensations of the princes and heroes may be, they
do not stamp the same affections on their domestics: at least the
latter do not, or should not be made to, express their passions in the
same dignified tone. In my humble opinion, the contrast between
the sublime of the one and the naiveté of the other, sets the pathetic
of the former in a stronger light. The very impatience which a reader
feels, while delayed, by the coarse pleasantries of vulgar actors,
from arriving at the knowledge of the important catastrophe he
expects, perhaps heightens, certainly proves that he has been
artfully interested in, the depending event. But I had higher
authority than my own opinion for this conduct. The great master of
nature, Shakespeare, was the model I copied. Let me ask, if his
tragedies of Hamlet and Julius Caesar would not lose a considerable
share of their spirit and wonderful beauties, if the humour of the
gravediggers, the fooleries of Polonius, and the clumsy jests of the
Roman citizens, were omitted, or vested in heroics? Is not the
eloquence of Antony, the nobler and affectedly-unaffected oration of
Brutus, artificially exalted by the rude bursts of nature from the
mouths of their auditors? These touches remind one of the Grecian
sculptor, who, to convey the idea of a Colossus, within the
dimensions of a seal, inserted a little boy measuring his thumb.
“No,” says Voltaire, in his edition of Corneille, “this mixture of
buffoonery and solemnity is intolerable.”—Voltaire is a genius7—but
not of Shakespeare’s magnitude. Without recurring to disputable
authority, I appeal from Voltaire to himself. I shall not avail myself of
his former encomiums on our mighty poet; though the French critic
has twice translated the same speech in Hamlet, some years ago in
admiration, latterly in derision; and I am sorry to find that his
judgment grows weaker when it ought to be farther matured. But I
shall make use of his own words, delivered on the general topic of
the theatre, when he was neither thinking to recommend or decry
Shakespeare’s practice; consequently, at a moment when Voltaire
was impartial. In the preface to his Enfant Prodigue, that exquisite
piece, of which I declare my admiration, and which, should I live
twenty years longer, I trust I shall never attempt to ridicule, he has
these words, speaking of comedy (but equally applicable to tragedy,
if tragedy is, as surely it ought to be, a picture of human life; nor
can I conceive why occasional pleasantry ought more to be banished
from the tragic scene than pathetic seriousness from the comic), “On
y voit un mélange de sérieux et de plaisanterie, de comique et de
touchant; souvent même une seule aventure produit tous ces
contrastes. Rien n’est si commun qu’une maison dans laquelle un
père gronde, une fille occupée de sa passion pleure; le fils se moque
des deux, et quelques parents prennent différemment part à la
scène &c. Nous n’inférons pas de là que toute comédie doive avoir
des scènes de bouffonnerie et des scènes attendrissantes: il y a
beaucoup de très bonnes pièces où il ne règne que de la gaieté;
d’autres toutes sérieuses; d’autres mélangèes: d’autres où
l’attendrissement va jusques aux larmes: il ne faut donner l’exclusion
à aucun genre; et si on me demandoit, quel genre est le meilleur, je
répondrois, celui qui est le mieux traité.”8
Surely if a Comedy may be toute sérieuse, Tragedy may now and
then, soberly, be indulged in a smile. Who shall proscribe it? Shall
the critic, who, in self-defence, declares, that no kind ought to be
excluded from comedy, give laws to Shakespeare?
I am aware that the preface from whence I have quoted these
passages does not stand in Monsieur de Voltaire’s name, but in that
of his editor; yet who doubts that the editor and the author were the
same person? Or where is the editor, who has so happily possessed
himself of his author’s style, and brilliant ease of argument? These
passages were indubitably the genuine sentiments of that great
writer. In his epistle to Maffei, prefixed to his Mérope, he delivers
almost the same opinion, though, I doubt, with a little irony. I will
repeat his words, and then give my reason for quoting them. After
translating a passage in Maffei’s Mérope, Monsieur de Voltaire adds,
“Tous ces traits sont naïfs; tout y est convenable à ceux que vous
introduisez sur la scène, et aux moeurs que vous leur donnez. Ces
familiarités naturelles eussent été, à ce que je crois, bien reçues
dans Athènes; mais Paris et notre parterre veulent une autre espèce
de simplicité.”9 I doubt, I say, whether there is not a grain of sneer
in this and other passages of that epistle; yet the force of truth is
not damaged by being tinged with ridicule. Maffei was to represent a
Grecian story: surely the Athenians were as competent judges of
Grecian manners, and of the propriety of introducing them, as the
Parterre of Paris. “On the contrary,” says Voltaire (and I cannot but
admire his reasoning), “there were but ten thousand citizens at
Athens and Paris has near eight hundred thousand inhabitants,
among whom one may reckon thirty thousand judges of dramatic
works.”—indeed!—but allowing so numerous a tribunal, I believe this
is the only instance in which it was ever pretended that thirty
thousand persons, living near two thousand years after the era in
question, were, upon the mere face of the poll, declared better
judges than the Grecians themselves, of what ought to be the
manners of a tragedy written on a Grecian story.
I will not enter into a discussion of the espèce de simplicité, which
the Parterre of Paris demands, nor of the shackles with which the
thirty thousand judges have cramped their poetry, the chief merit of
which, as I gather from repeated passages in the New Commentary
on Corneille, consists in vaulting in spite of those fetters; a merit
which, if true, would reduce poetry from the lofty effort of
imagination, to a puerile and most contemptible labour—difficiles
nugæ with a witness! I cannot, however, help mentioning a couplet,
which, to my English ears, always sounded as the flattest and most
trifling instance of circumstantial propriety, but which Voltaire, who
has dealt so severely with nine parts in ten of Corneille’s works, has
singled out to defend in Racine;

De son appartement cette porte est prochaine,

Et cette autre conduit dans celui de la Reine.

IN ENGLISH,

To Caeser’s closet through this door you come,

And t’other leads to the Queen’s drawing-room.
Unhappy Shakespeare! Hadst thou made Rosencrantz inform his
compeer, Guildenstern, of the iconography of the palace of
Copenhagen, instead of presenting us with a moral dialogue
between the Prince of Denmark and the gravedigger, the illuminated
pit of Paris would have been instructed a second time to adore thy
talents.
The result of all I have said, is, to shelter my own daring under the
canon of the brightest genius this country, at least, has produced. I
might have pleaded that, having created a new species of romance,
I was at liberty to lay down what rules I thought fit for the conduct
of it: but I should be more proud of having imitated, however faintly,
weakly, and at a distance, so masterly a pattern, than to enjoy the
entire merit of invention, unless I could have marked my work with
genius, as well as with originality. Such as it is, the public have
honoured it sufficiently, whatever rank their suffrages allot to it.
—Horace Walpole.

6 A term that still is in use, meaning servants or attendants.

7 [Author’s note:] The following remark is foreign to the present
question, yet excusable in an Englishman, who is willing to think that
the severe criticisms of so masterly a writer as Voltaire on our
immortal countryman, may have been the effusions of wit and
precipitation, rather than the result of judgment and attention. May
not the critic’s skill, in the force and powers of our language, have
been as incorrect and incompetent as his knowledge of our history?
Of the latter, his own pen has dropped glaring evidence. In his
preface to Thomas Corneille’s Earl of Essex, Monsieur de Voltaire
allows that the truth of history has been grossly perverted in that
piece. In excuse he pleads, that when Corneille wrote, the noblesse
of France were much unread in English story; but now, says the
commentator, that they study it, such misrepresentations would not
be suffered—yet forgetting that the period of ignorance is lapsed,
and that it is not very necessary to instruct the knowing, he
undertakes, from the overflowing of his own reading, to give the
nobility of his own country a detail of Queen Elizabeth’s favourites—
of whom, says he, Robert Dudley was the first, and the Earl of
Leicester the second. Could one have believed that it would be
necessary to inform Monsieur de Voltaire himself, that Robert Dudley
and the Earl of Leicester were the same person?
8 [Editors’ note:] “One sees there a mixture of the grave and the
light, of the comic and the tragic; often even a single adventure
exhibits all these contrasts. Nothing is more common than a house
in which the father scolds, a girl occupied by her passions weeps,
the son ridicules both, some relations take a differing part in the
scene, etc. We do not infer from this that every comedy ought to
have scenes of buffoonery and of gravity. Now there is gaiety, now
seriousness, now a mixture. Then there are others in which
tenderness moves one to tears. We must not exclude any type, and
if I were asked which is the best I would answer, ‘the one which is
best made.’” From Voltaire’s L’Enfant prodigue (The Prodigal Son), a
1736 play.
9 [Editors’ note:] “All of these characteristics are naive. Everything is
convenient to those who introduce the scene and to the customs
that you give them. These natural familiarities would, I think, have
been well received in Athens, but Paris and our nation prefer another
type of subtlety.”
 Chapter I.

Manfred, Prince of Otranto,10 had one son and one daughter: the
latter, a most beautiful virgin, aged eighteen, was called Matilda.
Conrad, the son, was three years younger, a homely youth, sickly,
and of no promising disposition; yet he was the darling of his father,
who never showed any symptoms of affection to Matilda. Manfred
had contracted a marriage for his son with the Marquis of Vicenza’s11
daughter, Isabella; and she had already been delivered by her
guardians into the hands of Manfred, that he might celebrate the
wedding as soon as Conrad’s infirm state of health would permit.
Manfred’s impatience for this ceremonial was remarked by his
family and neighbours. The former, indeed, apprehending the
severity of their Prince’s disposition, did not dare to utter their
surmises on this precipitation. Hippolita, his wife, an amiable lady,
did sometimes venture to represent the danger of marrying their
only son so early, considering his great youth, and greater
infirmities; but she never received any other answer than reflections
on her own sterility, who had given him but one heir. His tenants and
subjects were less cautious in their discourses: they attributed this
hasty wedding to the Prince’s dread of seeing accomplished an
ancient prophecy, which was said to have pronounced that the castle
and lordship of Otranto should pass from the present family,
whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it. It
was difficult to make any sense of this prophecy; and still less easy
to conceive what it had to do with the marriage in question. Yet
these mysteries, or contradictions, did not make the populace
adhere the less to their opinion.
Young Conrad’s birthday was fixed for his espousals. The company
was assembled in the chapel of the Castle, and everything ready for
beginning the divine office, when Conrad himself was missing.
Manfred, impatient of the least delay, and who had not observed his
son retire, dispatched one of his attendants to summon the young
Prince. The servant, who had not stayed long enough to have
crossed the court to Conrad’s apartment, came running back
breathless, in a frantic manner, his eyes staring, and foaming at the
mouth. He said nothing, but pointed to the court.
The company were struck with terror and amazement. The
Princess Hippolita, without knowing what was the matter, but
anxious for her son, swooned away. Manfred, less apprehensive than
enraged at the procrastination of the nuptials, and at the folly of his
domestic, asked imperiously, “What was the matter?” The fellow
made no answer, but continued pointing towards the courtyard; and
at last, after repeated questions put to him, cried out, “Oh! The
helmet! The helmet!”
In the meantime, some of the company had run into the court,
from whence was heard a confused noise of shrieks, horror, and
surprise. Manfred, who began to be alarmed at not seeing his son,
went himself to get information of what occasioned this strange
confusion. Matilda remained endeavouring to assist her mother, and
Isabella stayed for the same purpose, and to avoid showing any
impatience for the bridegroom, for whom, in truth, she had
conceived little affection.
 The first thing that struck Manfred’s eyes was a group of his
servants endeavouring to raise something that appeared to him a
mountain of sable plumes. He gazed without believing his sight.
“What are ye doing?” cried Manfred, wrathfully. “Where is my
son?”
A volley of voices replied, “Oh! My Lord! The Prince! The Prince!
The helmet! The helmet!”
Shocked with these lamentable sounds, and dreading he knew not
what, he advanced hastily,—but what a sight for a father’s eyes!—he
beheld his child dashed to pieces, and almost buried under an
enormous helmet, a hundred times more large than any casque ever
made for human being, and shaded with a proportionable quantity
of black feathers.
The horror of the spectacle, the ignorance of all around how this
misfortune had happened, and above all, the tremendous
phenomenon before him, took away the Prince’s speech. Yet his
silence lasted longer than even grief could occasion. He fixed his
eyes on what he wished in vain to believe a vision; and seemed less
attentive to his loss, than buried in meditation on the stupendous
object that had occasioned it. He touched, he examined the fatal
casque; nor could even the bleeding mangled remains of the young
Prince divert the eyes of Manfred from the portent before him.
All who had known his partial fondness for young Conrad, were as
much surprised at their Prince’s insensibility, as thunderstruck
themselves at the miracle of the helmet. They conveyed the
disfigured corpse into the hall, without receiving the least direction
from Manfred. As little was he attentive to the ladies who remained
in the chapel; on the contrary, without mentioning the unhappy
princesses, his wife and daughter, the first sounds that dropped from
Manfred’s lips were, “Take care of the Lady Isabella.”
 The domestics, without observing the singularity of this direction,
were guided by their affection to their mistress, to consider it as
peculiarly addressed to her situation, and flew to her assistance.
They conveyed her to her chamber more dead than alive, and
indifferent to all the strange circumstances she heard, except the
death of her son.
Matilda, who doted on her mother, smothered her own grief and
amazement, and thought of nothing but assisting and comforting her
afflicted parent. Isabella, who had been treated by Hippolita like a
daughter, and who returned that tenderness with equal duty and
affection, was scarce less assiduous about the Princess; at the same
time endeavouring to partake and lessen the weight of sorrow which
she saw Matilda strove to suppress, for whom she had conceived the
warmest sympathy of friendship. Yet her own situation could not
help finding its place in her thoughts. She felt no concern for the
death of young Conrad, except commiseration; and she was not
sorry to be delivered from a marriage which had promised her little
felicity, either from her destined bridegroom, or from the severe
temper of Manfred, who, though he had distinguished her by great
indulgence, had imprinted her mind with terror, from his causeless
rigour to such amiable princesses as Hippolita and Matilda.
While the ladies were conveying the wretched mother to her bed,
Manfred remained in the court, gazing on the ominous casque, and
regardless of the crowd which the strangeness of the event had now
assembled around him. The few words he articulated, tended solely
to inquiries, whether any man knew from whence it could have
come? Nobody could give him the least information. However, as it
seemed to be the sole object of his curiosity, it soon became so to
the rest of the spectators, whose conjectures were as absurd and
improbable, as the catastrophe itself was unprecedented. In the
midst of their senseless guesses, a young peasant, whom rumour
had drawn thither from a neighbouring village, observed that the
miraculous helmet was exactly like that on the figure in black marble
of Alfonso the Good, one of their former princes, in the church of St.
Nicholas.
“Villain! What sayest thou?” cried Manfred, starting from his trance
in a tempest of rage, and seizing the young man by the collar. “How
darest thou utter such treason? Thy life shall pay for it.”
The spectators, who as little comprehended the cause of the
Prince’s fury as all the rest they had seen, were at a loss to unravel
this new circumstance. The young peasant himself was still more
astonished, not conceiving how he had offended the Prince. Yet
recollecting himself, with a mixture of grace and humility, he
disengaged himself from Manfred’s grip, and then with an obeisance,
which discovered more jealousy of innocence than dismay, he asked,
with respect, of what he was guilty? Manfred, more enraged at the
vigour, however decently exerted, with which the young man had
shaken off his hold, than appeased by his submission, ordered his
attendants to seize him, and, if he had not been withheld by his
friends whom he had invited to the nuptials, would have
poignarded12 the peasant in their arms.
During this altercation, some of the vulgar spectators had run to
the great church, which stood near the castle, and came back open-
mouthed, declaring that the helmet was missing from Alfonso’s
statue. Manfred, at this news, grew perfectly frantic; and, as if he
sought a subject on which to vent the tempest within him, he rushed
again on the young peasant, crying, “Villain! Monster! Sorcerer! ’Tis
thou hast done this! ’Tis thou hast slain my son!”
The mob, who wanted some object within the scope of their
capacities, on whom they might discharge their bewildered
reasoning, caught the words from the mouth of their lord, and re-
echoed, “Ay, ay; ’tis he, ’tis he: He has stolen the helmet from good
Alfonso’s tomb, and dashed out the brains of our young Prince with
it,”—never reflecting how enormous the disproportion was between
the marble helmet that had been in the church, and that of steel
before their eyes; nor how impossible it was for a youth seemingly
not twenty, to wield a piece of armour of so prodigious a weight.
The folly of these ejaculations brought Manfred to himself: yet
whether provoked at the peasant having observed the resemblance
between the two helmets, and thereby led to the farther discovery of
the absence of that in the church, or wishing to bury any such
rumour under so impertinent a supposition, he gravely pronounced
that the young man was certainly a necromancer, and that till the
Church could take cognisance of the affair, he would have the
Magician, whom they had thus detected, kept prisoner under the
helmet itself, which he ordered his attendants to raise, and place the
young man under it; declaring he should be kept there without food,
with which his own infernal art might furnish him.
It was in vain for the youth to represent against this preposterous
sentence: in vain did Manfred’s friends endeavour to divert him from
this savage and ill-grounded resolution. The generality were
charmed with their lord’s decision, which, to their apprehensions,
carried great appearance of justice, as the Magician was to be
punished by the very instrument with which he had offended: nor
were they struck with the least compunction at the probability of the
youth being starved, for they firmly believed that, by his diabolic
skill, he could easily supply himself with nutriment.
Manfred thus saw his commands even cheerfully obeyed; and
appointing a guard with strict orders to prevent any food being
conveyed to the prisoner, he dismissed his friends and attendants,
and retired to his own chamber, after locking the gates of the castle,
in which he suffered none but his domestics to remain.
In the meantime, the care and zeal of the young Ladies had
brought the Princess Hippolita to herself, who amidst the transports
of her own sorrow frequently demanded news of her lord, would
have dismissed her attendants to watch over him, and at last
enjoined Matilda to leave her, and visit and comfort her father.
Matilda, who wanted no affectionate duty to Manfred, though she
trembled at his austerity, obeyed the orders of Hippolita, whom she
tenderly recommended to Isabella; and inquiring of the domestics
for her father, was informed that he was retired to his chamber, and
had commanded that nobody should have admittance to him.
Concluding that he was immersed in sorrow for the death of her
brother, and fearing to renew his tears by the sight of his sole
remaining child, she hesitated whether she should break in upon his
affliction; yet solicitude for him, backed by the commands of her
mother, encouraged her to venture disobeying the orders he had
given; a fault she had never been guilty of before.
The gentle timidity of her nature made her pause for some minutes
at his door. She heard him traverse his chamber backwards, and
forwards with disordered steps; a mood which increased her
apprehensions. She was, however, just going to beg admittance,
when Manfred suddenly opened the door; and as it was now
twilight, concurring with the disorder of his mind, he did not
distinguish the person, but asked angrily, who it was?
Matilda replied, trembling, “My dearest father, it is I, your
daughter.”
Manfred, stepping back hastily, cried, “Begone! I do not want a
daughter;” and flinging back abruptly, clapped the door against the
terrified Matilda.
 She was too well acquainted with her father’s impetuosity to
venture a second intrusion. When she had a little recovered the
shock of so bitter a reception, she wiped away her tears to prevent
the additional stab that the knowledge of it would give to Hippolita,
who questioned her in the most anxious terms on the health of
Manfred, and how he bore his loss. Matilda assured her he was well,
and supported his misfortune with manly fortitude.
“But will he not let me see him?” said Hippolita mournfully. “Will he
not permit me to blend my tears with his, and shed a mother’s
sorrows in the bosom of her Lord? Or do you deceive me, Matilda? I
know how Manfred doted on his son: is not the stroke too heavy for
him? Has he not sunk under it? You do not answer me—alas! I dread
the worst!—Raise me, my maidens; I will, I will see my Lord. Bear
me to him instantly: he is dearer to me even than my children.”
Matilda made signs to Isabella to prevent Hippolita’s rising; and
both those lovely young women were using their gentle violence to
stop and calm the Princess, when a servant, on the part of Manfred,
arrived and told Isabella that his Lord demanded to speak with her.
“With me!” cried Isabella.
“Go,” said Hippolita, relieved by a message from her Lord.
“Manfred cannot support the sight of his own family. He thinks you
less disordered than we are, and dreads the shock of my grief.
Console him, dear Isabella, and tell him I will smother my own
anguish rather than add to his.”
As it was now evening the servant who conducted Isabella bore a
torch before her. When they came to Manfred, who was walking
impatiently about the gallery, he started, and said hastily, “Take
away that light, and begone.”
Then shutting the door impetuously, he flung himself upon a bench
against the wall, and bade Isabella sit by him. She obeyed trembling.
 “I sent for you, Lady,” said he,—and then stopped under great
appearance of confusion.
“My Lord!”
“Yes, I sent for you on a matter of great moment,” resumed he.
“Dry your tears, young Lady—you have lost your bridegroom. Yes,
cruel fate! And I have lost the hopes of my race! But Conrad was not
worthy of your beauty.”
“How, my Lord!” said Isabella. “Sure you do not suspect me of not
feeling the concern I ought: my duty and affection would have
always—”
“Think no more of him,” interrupted Manfred. “He was a sickly,
puny child, and Heaven has perhaps taken him away, that I might
not trust the honours of my house on so frail a foundation. The line
of Manfred calls for numerous supports. My foolish fondness for that
boy blinded the eyes of my prudence—but it is better as it is. I hope,
in a few years, to have reason to rejoice at the death of Conrad.”
Words cannot paint the astonishment of Isabella. At first she
apprehended that grief had disordered Manfred’s understanding. Her
next thought suggested that this strange discourse was designed to
ensnare her: she feared that Manfred had perceived her indifference
for his son: and in consequence of that idea she replied, “Good my
Lord, do not doubt my tenderness: my heart would have
accompanied my hand. Conrad would have engrossed all my care;
and wherever fate shall dispose of me, I shall always cherish his
memory, and regard your Highness and the virtuous Hippolita as my
parents.”
“Curse on Hippolita!” cried Manfred. “Forget her from this moment,
as I do. In short, Lady, you have missed a husband undeserving of
your charms: they shall now be better disposed of. Instead of a
sickly boy, you shall have a husband in the prime of his age, who will
know how to value your beauties, and who may expect a numerous
offspring.”
“Alas, my Lord!” said Isabella. “My mind is too sadly engrossed by
the recent catastrophe in your family to think of another marriage. If
ever my father returns, and it shall be his pleasure, I shall obey, as I
did when I consented to give my hand to your son: but until his
return, permit me to remain under your hospitable roof, and employ
the melancholy hours in assuaging yours, Hippolita’s, and the fair
Matilda’s affliction.”
“I desired you once before,” said Manfred angrily, “not to name
that woman: from this hour she must be a stranger to you, as she
must be to me. In short, Isabella, since I cannot give you my son, I
offer you myself.”
“Heavens!” cried Isabella, waking from her delusion. “What do I
hear? You! My Lord! You! My father-in-law! The father of Conrad!
The husband of the virtuous and tender Hippolita!”
“I tell you,” said Manfred imperiously, “Hippolita is no longer my
wife; I divorce her from this hour. Too long has she cursed me by
her unfruitfulness. My fate depends on having sons, and this night I
trust will give a new date to my hopes.”
At those words he seized the cold hand of Isabella, who was half
dead with fright and horror. She shrieked, and started from him,
Manfred rose to pursue her, when the moon, which was now up, and
gleamed in at the opposite casement, presented to his sight the
plumes of the fatal helmet, which rose to the height of the windows,
waving backwards and forwards in a tempestuous manner, and
accompanied with a hollow and rustling sound. Isabella, who
gathered courage from her situation, and who dreaded nothing so
much as Manfred’s pursuit of his declaration, cried, “Look, my Lord!
See, Heaven itself declares against your impious intentions!”
 “Heaven nor Hell shall impede my designs,” said Manfred,
advancing again to seize the Princess.
At that instant the portrait of his grandfather, which hung over the
bench where they had been sitting, uttered a deep sigh, and heaved
its breast.
Isabella, whose back was turned to the picture, saw not the
motion, nor knew whence the sound came, but started, and said,
“Hark, my Lord! What sound was that?” and at the same time made
towards the door.
Manfred, distracted between the flight of Isabella, who had now
reached the stairs, and yet unable to keep his eyes from the picture,
which began to move, had, however, advanced some steps after her,
still looking backwards on the portrait, when he saw it quit its panel,
and descend on the floor with a grave and melancholy air.
“Do I dream?” cried Manfred, returning. “Or are the devils
themselves in league against me? Speak, internal spectre! Or, if thou
art my grandsire, why dost thou too conspire against thy wretched
descendant, who too dearly pays for—”
Ere he could finish the sentence, the vision sighed again, and
made a sign to Manfred to follow him.
“Lead on!” cried Manfred. “I will follow thee to the gulf of
perdition.”
The spectre marched sedately, but dejected, to the end of the
gallery, and turned into a chamber on the right hand. Manfred
accompanied him at a little distance, full of anxiety and horror, but
resolved. As he would have entered the chamber, the door was
clapped to with violence by an invisible hand. The Prince, collecting
courage from this delay, would have forcibly burst open the door
with his foot, but found that it resisted his utmost efforts.
 “Since Hell will not satisfy my curiosity,” said Manfred, “I will use
the human means in my power for preserving my race; Isabella shall
not escape me.”
That lady, whose resolution had given way to terror the moment
she had quitted Manfred, continued her flight to the bottom of the
principal staircase. There she stopped, not knowing whither to direct
her steps, nor how to escape from the impetuosity of the Prince. The
gates of the castle, she knew, were locked, and guards placed in the
court. Should she, as her heart prompted her, go and prepare
Hippolita for the cruel destiny that awaited her, she did not doubt
but Manfred would seek her there, and that his violence would incite
him to double the injury he meditated, without leaving room for
them to avoid the impetuosity of his passions. Delay might give him
time to reflect on the horrid measures he had conceived, or produce
some circumstance in her favour, if she could—for that night, at least
—avoid his odious purpose. Yet where conceal herself? How avoid
the pursuit he would infallibly make throughout the castle?
As these thoughts passed rapidly through her mind, she recollected
a subterraneous passage which led from the vaults of the castle to
the church of St. Nicholas. Could she reach the altar before she was
overtaken, she knew even Manfred’s violence would not dare to
profane the sacredness of the place; and she determined, if no other
means of deliverance offered, to shut herself up for ever among the
holy virgins whose convent was contiguous to the cathedral. In this
resolution, she seized a lamp that burned at the foot of the
staircase, and hurried towards the secret passage.
The lower part of the castle was hollowed into several intricate
cloisters; and it was not easy for one under so much anxiety to find
the door that opened into the cavern. An awful silence reigned
throughout those subterraneous regions, except now and then some
blasts of wind that shook the doors she had passed, and which,
grating on the rusty hinges, were re-echoed through that long
labyrinth of darkness. Every murmur struck her with new terror; yet
more she dreaded to hear the wrathful voice of Manfred urging his
domestics to pursue her.
She trod as softly as impatience would give her leave, yet
frequently stopped and listened to hear if she was followed. In one
of those moments she thought she heard a sigh. She shuddered,
and recoiled a few paces. In a moment she thought she heard the
step of some person. Her blood curdled; she concluded it was
Manfred. Every suggestion that horror could inspire rushed into her
mind. She condemned her rash flight, which had thus exposed her
to his rage in a place where her cries were not likely to draw
anybody to her assistance. Yet the sound seemed not to come from
behind. If Manfred knew where she was, he must have followed her.
She was still in one of the cloisters, and the steps she had heard
were too distinct to proceed from the way she had come. Cheered
with this reflection, and hoping to find a friend in whoever was not
the Prince, she was going to advance, when a door that stood ajar,
at some distance to the left, was opened gently: but ere her lamp,
which she held up, could discover who opened it, the person
retreated precipitately on seeing the light.
Isabella, whom every incident was sufficient to dismay, hesitated
whether she should proceed. Her dread of Manfred soon outweighed
every other terror. The very circumstance of the person avoiding her
gave her a sort of courage. It could only be, she thought, some
domestic belonging to the castle. Her gentleness had never raised
her an enemy, and conscious innocence made her hope that, unless
sent by the Prince’s order to seek her, his servants would rather
assist than prevent her flight. Fortifying herself with these
reflections, and believing by what she could observe that she was
near the mouth of the subterraneous cavern, she approached the
door that had been opened; but a sudden gust of wind that met her
at the door extinguished her lamp, and left her in total darkness.
Words cannot paint the horror of the Princess’s situation. Alone in
so dismal a place, her mind imprinted with all the terrible events of
the day, hopeless of escaping, expecting every moment the arrival of
Manfred, and far from tranquil on knowing she was within reach of
somebody, she knew not whom, who for some cause seemed
concealed thereabouts; all these thoughts crowded on her distracted
mind, and she was ready to sink under her apprehensions. She
addressed herself to every saint in Heaven, and inwardly implored
their assistance. For a considerable time she remained in an agony
of despair.
At last, as softly as was possible, she felt for the door, and having
found it, entered trembling into the vault from whence she had
heard the sigh and steps. It gave her a kind of momentary joy to
perceive an imperfect ray of clouded moonshine gleam from the roof
of the vault, which seemed to be fallen in, and from whence hung a
fragment of earth or building, she could not distinguish which, that
appeared to have been crushed inwards. She advanced eagerly
towards this chasm, when she discerned a human form standing
close against the wall.
She shrieked, believing it the ghost of her betrothed Conrad. The
figure, advancing, said, in a submissive voice, “Be not alarmed,
Lady; I will not injure you.”
Isabella, a little encouraged by the words and tone of voice of the
stranger, and recollecting that this must be the person who had
opened the door, recovered her spirits enough to reply, “Sir, whoever
you are, take pity on a wretched Princess, standing on the brink of
destruction. Assist me to escape from this fatal castle, or in a few
moments I may be made miserable for ever.”
“Alas!” said the stranger. “What can I do to assist you? I will die in
your defence; but I am unacquainted with the castle, and want—”
“Oh!” said Isabella, hastily interrupting him. “Help me but to find a
trap-door that must be hereabout, and it is the greatest service you
can do me, for I have not a minute to lose.”
Saying these words, she felt about on the pavement, and directed
the stranger to search likewise, for a smooth piece of brass enclosed
in one of the stones.
“That,” said she, “is the lock, which opens with a spring, of which I
know the secret. If we can find that, I may escape—if not, alas!
Courteous stranger, I fear I shall have involved you in my
misfortunes: Manfred will suspect you for the accomplice of my
flight, and you will fall a victim to his resentment.”
“I value not my life,” said the stranger, “and it will be some comfort
to lose it in trying to deliver you from his tyranny.”
“Generous youth,” said Isabella, “how shall I ever requite—”
As she uttered those words, a ray of moonshine, streaming
through a cranny of the ruin above, shone directly on the lock they
sought.
“Oh! Transport!” said Isabella. “Here is the trap-door!” And, taking
out the key, she touched the spring, which, starting aside,
discovered an iron ring. “Lift up the door,” said the Princess.
The stranger obeyed, and beneath appeared some stone steps
descending into a vault totally dark.
“We must go down here,” said Isabella. “Follow me; dark and
dismal as it is, we cannot miss our way; it leads directly to the
church of St. Nicholas. But, perhaps,” added the Princess modestly,
“you have no reason to leave the castle, nor have I farther occasion
for your service; in a few minutes I shall be safe from Manfred’s rage
—only let me know to whom I am so much obliged.”
“I will never quit you,” said the stranger eagerly, “until I have
placed you in safety—nor think me, Princess, more generous than I
am; though you are my principal care—”
The stranger was interrupted by a sudden noise of voices that
seemed approaching, and they soon distinguished these words—
“Talk not to me of necromancers; I tell you she must be in the
castle; I will find her in spite of enchantment.”
“Oh, heavens!” cried Isabella. “It is the voice of Manfred! Make
haste, or we are ruined! And shut the trap-door after you.”
Saying this, she descended the steps precipitately; and as the
stranger hastened to follow her, he let the door slip out of his hands;
it fell, and the spring closed over it. He tried in vain to open it, not
having observed Isabella’s method of touching the spring; nor had
he many moments to make an essay.13 The noise of the falling door
had been heard by Manfred, who, directed by the sound, hastened
thither, attended by his servants with torches.
“It must be Isabella,” cried Manfred, before he entered the vault.
“She is escaping by the subterraneous passage, but she cannot have
got far.”
What was the astonishment of the Prince when, instead of
Isabella, the light of the torches discovered to him the young
peasant whom he thought confined under the fatal helmet!
“Traitor!” said Manfred. “How camest thou here? I thought thee in
durance above in the court.”
“I am no traitor,” replied the young man boldly, “nor am I
answerable for your thoughts.”
“Presumptuous villain!” cried Manfred. “Dost thou provoke my
wrath? Tell me, how hast thou escaped from above? Thou hast
corrupted thy guards, and their lives shall answer it.”
“My poverty,” said the peasant calmly, “will disculpate14 them:
though the ministers of a tyrant’s wrath, to thee they are faithful,
and but too willing to execute the orders which you unjustly imposed
upon them.”
“Art thou so hardy as to dare my vengeance?” said the Prince. “But
tortures shall force the truth from thee. Tell me; I will know thy
accomplices.”
“There was my accomplice!” said the youth, smiling, and pointing
to the roof.
Manfred ordered the torches to be held up, and perceived that one
of the cheeks of the enchanted casque had forced its way through
the pavement of the court, as his servants had let it fall over the
peasant, and had broken through into the vault, leaving a gap,
through which the peasant had pressed himself some minutes
before he was found by Isabella.
“Was that the way by which thou didst descend?” said Manfred.
“It was,” said the youth.
“But what noise was that,” said Manfred, “which I heard as I
entered the cloister?”
“A door clapped,” said the peasant. “I heard it as well as you.”
“What door?” said Manfred hastily.
“I am not acquainted with your castle,” said the peasant. “This is
the first time I ever entered it, and this vault the only part of it
within which I ever was.”
“But I tell thee,” said Manfred (wishing to find out if the youth had
discovered the trap-door), “it was this way I heard the noise. My
servants heard it too.”
“My Lord,” interrupted one of them officiously, “to be sure it was
the trap-door, and he was going to make his escape.”
 “Peace, blockhead!” said the Prince angrily. “If he was going to
escape, how should he come on this side? I will know from his own
mouth what noise it was I heard. Tell me truly; thy life depends on
thy veracity.”
“My veracity is dearer to me than my life,” said the peasant. “Nor
would I purchase the one by forfeiting the other.”
“Indeed, young philosopher!” said Manfred contemptuously. “Tell
me, then, what was the noise I heard?”
“Ask me what I can answer,” said he, “and put me to death
instantly if I tell you a lie.”
Manfred, growing impatient at the steady valour and indifference
of the youth, cried, “Well, then, thou man of truth, answer! Was it
the fall of the trap-door that I heard?”
“It was,” said the youth.
“It was!” said the Prince. “And how didst thou come to know there
was a trap-door here?”
“I saw the plate of brass by a gleam of moonshine,” replied he.
“But what told thee it was a lock?” said Manfred. “How didst thou
discover the secret of opening it?”
“Providence, that delivered me from the helmet, was able to direct
me to the spring of a lock,” said he.
“Providence should have gone a little farther, and have placed thee
out of the reach of my resentment,” said Manfred. “When Providence
had taught thee to open the lock, it abandoned thee for a fool, who
did not know how to make use of its favours. Why didst thou not
pursue the path pointed out for thy escape? Why didst thou shut the
trap-door before thou hadst descended the steps?”
“I might ask you, my Lord,” said the peasant, “how I, totally
unacquainted with your castle, was to know that those steps led to
any outlet? But I scorn to evade your questions. Wherever those
Another random document with
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here, in their characteristic depths, the Tetractinellida fall below the
Hexactinellida, and far below the Monaxonida in numbers. Again, the
Monaxonida are commoner than Hexactinellida in deep water of 201
to 1000 fathoms, and it is not till depths of 1000 fathoms are passed
that Hexactinellida prevail, finally preponderating over the
Monaxonida in the ratio of 2:1.

The Calcarea and Ceratosa are strictly shallow-water forms. It is a

fact well worth consideration that the stations at which sponges have
been found are situated, quite irrespective of depth, more or less in
the neighbourhood of land. In the case of Calcarea and Ceratosa
this is to be expected, seeing that shallow water is commonest near
land, but it is surprising that it should be true also of the
Hexactinellida and of the deep-water species of Tetractinellida and of
Monaxonida.

While the family groups are cosmopolitan, this is not true of genera
and species. The distribution of genera and species makes it
possible to define certain geographical provinces for sponges as for
other animals. That this is so, is due to the existence of ocean tracts
bare of islands; for ocean currents, can act as distributing agents
with success only if they flow along a coast or across an ocean
studded with islands. It is, of course, the larval forms which will be
transported; whether they will ever develop to the adult condition
depends on whether the current carrying them passes over a bottom
suitable to their species before metamorphosis occurs and the young
sponge sinks. If such a bottom is passed over, and if the depth is
one which can be supported by the particular species in question,
then a new station may thus be established for that species.

The distance over which a larva may be carried depends on the

speed of the current by which it is borne, and on the length of time
occupied by its metamorphosis. Certain of the ocean currents
accomplish 500 miles in six days; this gives some idea of the
distance which may intervene between the birthplace and the final
station of a sponge; for six days is not an excessive interval to allow
for the larval period of at any rate some species.

Distribution in Time.—All that space permits us to say on the

palaeontology of sponges has been said under the headings of the
respective classes. We can here merely refer to the chronological
table shown in Fig. 123:[281]—

Fig. 123.—Table to indicate distribution of Sponges in time.

Flints.—The ultimate source of all the silica in the sea and fresh-
water areas is to be found in the decomposition of igneous rocks
such as granite. The quantity of silica present in solution in sea water
is exceedingly small, amounting to about one-and-a-half parts in
100,000; it certainly is not much more in average fresh water. This is
no doubt due to its extraction by diatoms, which begin to extract it
almost as soon as it is set free from the parent rock. It is from this
small quantity that the siliceous sponges derive the supply from
which they form their spicules. Hence it would appear that for the
formation of one ounce of spicules at least one ton of sea water must
pass through the body of the sponge. Obviously from such a weak
solution the deposition of silica will not occur by ordinary physical
agencies; it requires the unexplained action of living organisms. This
may account for the fact that deposits of flint and chert are always
associated with organic remains, such as Sponges and Radiolaria.
By some process, the details of which are not yet understood, the
silica of the skeleton passes into solution. In Calcareous deposits, a
replacement of the carbonate of lime by the silica takes place, so
that in the case of chalk the shells of Foraminifera, such as
Globigerina and Textularia and those of Coccoliths, are converted
into a siliceous chalk. Thus a siliceous chalk is the first stage in the
formation of a flint.

A further deposition of silica then follows, cementing this pulverulent

material into a hard white porous flint. It is white for the same reason
that snow is white. The deposition of silica continues, and the flint
becomes at first grey and at last apparently black (black as ice is
black on a pond). Frequently flints are found in all stages of
formation: siliceous chalk with the corroded remains of sponge
spicules may be found in the interior, black flint blotched with grey
forming the mass of the nodule, while the exterior is completed by a
thin layer of white porous flint. This layer must not be confused with
the white layer which is frequently met with on the surface of
weathered flints, which is due to a subsequent solution of some of
the silica, so that by a process of unbuilding, the flint is brought back
to the incompleted flint in its second stage. In the chalk adjacent to
the flints, hollow casts of large sponge spicules may sometimes be
observed, proving the fact, which is however unexplained, of the
solution of the spicular silica. The formation of the flints appears to
have taken place, to some extent at least, long after the death of the
sponge, and even subsequent to the elevation of the chalk far above
the sea-level, as is shown by the occurrence of layers of flints in the
joints of the solid chalk.[282]
 COELENTERATA AND CTENOPHORA

BY

S. J. HICKSON, M.A., F.R.S.

Formerly Fellow and now Honorary Fellow of Downing College, Beyer Professor of
Zoology in the Victoria University of Manchester.

CHAPTER X

COELENTERATA

INTRODUCTION—CLASSIFICATION—HYDROZOA—
ELEUTHEROBLASTEA—MILLEPORINA—GYMNOBLASTEA—
CALYPTOBLASTEA—GRAPTOLITOIDEA—STYLASTERINA

The great division of the animal kingdom called Coelenterata was

constituted in 1847 by E. Leuckart for those animals which are
commonly known as polyps and jelly-fishes. Cuvier had previously
included these forms in his division Radiata or Zoophyta, when they
were associated with the Starfishes, Brittle-stars, and the other
Echinodermata.

The splitting up of the Cuvierian division was rendered necessary by

the progress of anatomical discovery, for whereas the
Echinodermata possess an alimentary canal distinct from the other
cavities of the body, in the polyps and jelly-fishes there is only one
cavity to serve the purposes of digestion and the circulation of fluids.
The name Coelenterata (κοῖλος = hollow, ἔντερον = the alimentary
canal) was therefore introduced, and it may be taken to signify the
important anatomical feature that the body-cavity (or coelom) and
the cavity of the alimentary canal (or enteron) of these animals are
not separate and distinct as they are in Echinoderms and most other
animals.

Many Coelenterata have a pronounced radial symmetry, the body

being star-like, with the organs arranged symmetrically on lines
radiating from a common centre. In this respect they have a
superficial resemblance to many of the Echinodermata, which are
also radially symmetrical in the adult stage. But it cannot be insisted
upon too strongly that this superficial resemblance of the
Coelenterata and Echinodermata has no genetic significance. The
radial symmetry has been acquired in the two divisions along
different lines of descent, and has no further significance than the
adaptation of different animals to somewhat similar conditions of life.
It is not only in the animals formerly classed by Cuvier as Radiata,
but in sedentary worms, Polyzoa, Brachiopoda, and even
Cephalopoda among the Mollusca, that we find a radial arrangement
of some of the organs. It is interesting in this connexion to note that
the word "polyp," so frequently applied to the individual Coelenterate
animal or zooid, was originally introduced on a fancied resemblance
of a Hydra to a small Cuttle-fish (Fr. Poulpe, Lat. Polypus).

The body of the Coelenterate, then, consists of a body-wall

enclosing a single cavity ("coelenteron"). The body-wall consists of
an inner and an outer layer of cells, originally called by Allman the
"endoderm" and "ectoderm" respectively. Between the two layers
there is a substance chemically allied to mucin and usually of a jelly-
like consistency, for which the convenient term "mesogloea,"
introduced by G. C. Bourne, is used (Fig. 125).

The mesogloea may be very thin and inconspicuous, as it is in Hydra

and many other sedentary forms, or it may become very thick, as in
the jelly-fishes and some of the sedentary Alcyonaria. When it is very
thick it is penetrated by wandering isolated cells from the ectoderm
or endoderm, by strings of cells or by cell-lined canals; but even
when it is cellular it must not be confounded with the third germinal
layer or mesoblast which characterises the higher groups of animals,
from which it differs essentially in origin and other characters. The
Coelenterata are two-layered animals (Diploblastica), in contrast to
the Metazoa with three layers of cells (Triploblastica). The growth
of the mesogloea in many Coelenterata leads to modifications of the
shape of the coelenteric cavity in various directions. In the Anthozoa,
for example, the growth of vertical bands of mesogloea covered by
endoderm divides the peripheral parts of the cavity into a series of
intermesenterial compartments in open communication with the axial
part of the cavity; and in the jelly-fishes the growth of the mesogloea
reduces the cavity of the outer regions of the disc to a series of
vessel-like canals.

Another character, of great importance, possessed by all

Coelenterata is the "nematocyst" or "thread-cell" (Fig. 124). This is
an organ produced within the body of a cell called the "cnidoblast,"
and it consists of a vesicular wall or capsule, surrounding a cavity
filled with fluid containing a long and usually spirally coiled thread
continuous with the wall of the vesicle. When the nematocyst is fully
developed and receives a stimulus of a certain character, the thread
is shot out with great velocity and causes a sting on any part of an
animal that is sufficiently delicate to be wounded by it.

The morphology and physiology of the nematocysts are subjects of

very great difficulty and complication, and cannot be discussed in
these pages. It may, however, be said that by some authorities the
cnidoblast is supposed to be an extremely modified form of mucous
or gland cell, and that the discharge of the nematocyst is subject to
the control of a primitive nervous system that is continuous through
the body of the zooid.

There is a considerable range of structure in the nematocysts of the

Coelenterata. In Alcyonium and in many other Alcyonaria they are
very small (in Alcyonium the nematocyst is 0.0075 mm. in length
previous to discharge), and when discharged exhibit a simple oval
capsule with a plain thread attached to it. In Hydra (Fig. 124) there
are at least two kinds of nematocysts, and in the larger kind (0.02
mm. in length previous to discharge) the base of the thread is beset
with a series of recurved hooks, which during the act of discharge
probably assist in making a wound in the organism attacked for the
injection of the irritant fluid, and possibly hold the structure in position
while the thread is being discharged. In the large kind of nematocyst
of Millepora and of Cerianthus there is a band of spirally arranged
but very minute thorns in the middle of the thread, but none at the
base. In some of the Siphonophora the undischarged nematocysts
reach their maximum size, nearly 0.05 mm. in length.

Fig. 124.—Nematocyst (Nem) of Hydra grisea, enclosed within the cnidoblast.

CNC, Cnidocil; f, thread of nematocyst; Mf, myophan threads in cnidoblast;
N, nucleus of cnidoblast. (After Schneider.)

When a nematocyst has once been discharged it is usually rejected

from the body, and its place in the tissue is taken by a new
nematocyst formed by a new cnidoblast; but in the thread of the
large kind of nematocyst of Millepora there is a very delicate band,
which appears to be similar to the myophan thread in the stalk of a
Vorticella. Dr. Willey[283] has made the important observation that in
this coral the nematocyst threads can be withdrawn after discharge,
the retraction being effected with great rapidity. The "cnidoblast" is a
specially modified cell. It sometimes bears at its free extremity a
delicate process, the "cnidocil," which is supposed to be adapted to
the reception of the special stimuli that determine the discharge of
the nematocyst. In many species delicate contractile fibres (Fig. 124,
Mf) can be seen in the substance of the cnidoblast, and in others its
basal part is drawn out into a long and probably contractile stalk
("cnidopod"), attached to the mesogloea below.
There can be little doubt that new nematocysts are constantly
formed during life to replace those that have been discharged and
lost. Each nematocyst is developed within the cell-substance of a
cnidoblast which is derived from the undifferentiated interstitial cell-
groups. During this process the cnidoblast does not necessarily
remain stationary, but may wander some considerable distance from
its place of origin.[284] This habit of migration of the cnidoblast
renders it difficult to determine whether the ectoderm alone, or both
ectoderm and endoderm, can give rise to nematocysts. In the
majority of Coelenterates the nematocysts are confined to the
ectoderm, but in many Anthozoa, Scyphozoa, and Siphonophora
they are found in tissues that are certainly or probably endodermic in
origin. It has not been definitely proved in any case that the
cnidoblast cells that form these nematocysts have originally been
formed in the endoderm, and it is possible that they are always
derived from ectoderm cells which migrate into the endoderm.

It is probably true that all Coelenterata have nematocysts, and that,

in the few cases in which it has been stated that they are absent
(e.g. Sarcophytum), they have been overlooked. It cannot, however,
be definitely stated that similar structures do not occur in other
animals. The nematocysts of the Mollusc Aeolis are not the product
of its own tissues, but are introduced into the body with its food.[285]
The nematocysts that occur in the Infusorian Epistylis umbellaria and
in the Dinoflagellate Polykrikos (p. 131) require reinvestigation, but if
it should prove that they are the product of the Protozoa they cannot
be regarded as strictly homologous with those of Coelenterata. In
many of the Turbellaria, however, and in some of the Nemertine
worms, nematocysts occur in the epidermis which appear to be
undoubtedly the products of these animals.

The Coelenterata are divided into three classes:—

1. Hydrozoa.—Without stomodaeum and mesenteries. Sexual cells
discharged directly to the exterior.

2. Scyphozoa.—Without stomodaeum and mesenteries. Sexual

cells discharged into the coelenteric cavity.

3. Anthozoa = Actinozoa.—With stomodaeum and mesenteries.

Sexual cells discharged into the coelenteric cavity.

The full meaning of the brief statements concerning the structure of

the three classes given above cannot be explained until the general
anatomy of the classes has been described. It may be stated,
however, in this place that many authors believe that structures
corresponding with the stomodaeum and mesenteries of Anthozoa
do occur in the Scyphozoa, which they therefore include in the class
Anthozoa.

Among the more familiar animals included in the class Hydrozoa

may be mentioned the fresh-water polyp Hydra, the Hydroid
zoophytes, many of the smaller Medusae or jelly-fish, the
Portuguese Man-of-war (Physalia), and a few of the corals.

Included in the Scyphozoa are the large jelly-fish found floating on

the sea or cast up on the beach on the British shores.

The Anthozoa include the Sea-anemones, nearly all the Stony

Corals, the Sea-fans, the Black Corals, the Dead-men's fingers
(Alcyonium), the Sea-pens, and the Precious Coral of commerce.

CLASS I. HYDROZOA
In this Class of Coelenterata two types of body-form may be found.
In such a genus as Obelia there is a fixed branching colony of
zooids, and each zooid consists of a simple tubular body-wall
composed of the two layers of cells, the ectoderm and the endoderm
(Fig. 125), terminating distally in a conical mound—the
"hypostome"—which is perforated by the mouth and surrounded by a
crown of tentacles. This fixed colony, the "hydrosome," feeds and
increases in size by gemmation, but does not produce sexual cells.
The hydrosome produces at a certain season of the year a number
of buds, which develop into small bell-like jelly-fish called the
"Medusae," which swim away from the parent stock and produce the
sexual cells. The Medusa (Fig. 126) consists of a delicate dome-
shaped contractile bell, perforated by radial canals and fringed with
tentacles; and from its centre there depends, like the clapper of a
bell, a tubular process, the manubrium, which bears the mouth at its
extremity. This free-swimming sexual stage in the life-history of
Obelia is called the "medusome."

It is difficult to determine whether, in the evolution of the Hydrozoa,

the hydrosome preceded the medusome or vice versâ. By some
authors the medusome is regarded as a specially modified sexual
individual of the hydrosome colony. By others the medusome is
regarded as the typical adult Hydrozoon form, and the zooids of the
hydrosome as nutritive individuals arrested in their development to
give support to it. Whatever may be the right interpretation of the
facts, however, it is found that in some forms the medusome stage is
more or less degenerate and the hydrosome is predominant,
whereas in others the hydrosome is degenerate or inconspicuous
and the medusome is predominant. Finally, in some cases there are
no traces, even in development, of a medusome stage, and the life-
history is completed in the hydrosome, while in others the
hydrosome stages are lost and the life-history is completed in the
medusome.

If a conspicuous hydrosome stage is represented by H, a

conspicuous medusome stage by M, an inconspicuous or
degenerate hydrosome stage by h, an inconspicuous or degenerate
medusome stage by m, and the fertilised ovum by O, the life-
histories of the Hydrozoa may be represented by the following
formulæ:—

1. O — H — O (Hydra)
2. O—H—m—O (Sertularia)
3. O—H—M—O (Obelia)
4. O—h—M—O (Liriope)
5. O — M — O (Geryonia)

The structure of the hydrosome is usually very simple. It consists of

a branched tube opening by mouths at the ends of the branches and
closed at the base. The body-wall is built up of ectoderm and
endoderm. Between these layers there is a thin non-cellular lamella,
the mesogloea.

In a great many Hydrozoa the ectoderm secretes a chitinous

protective tube called the "perisarc." The mouth is usually a small
round aperture situated on the summit of the hypostome, and at the
base of the hypostome there may be one or two crowns of tentacles
or an area bearing irregularly scattered tentacles. The tentacles may
be hollow, containing a cavity continuous with the coelenteric cavity
of the body; or solid, the endoderm cells arranged in a single row
forming an axial support for the ectoderm. The ectoderm of the
tentacles is provided with numerous nematocysts, usually arranged
in groups or clusters on the distal two-thirds of their length, but
sometimes confined to a cap-like swelling at the extremity (capitate
tentacles). The hydrosome may be a single zooid producing others
asexually by gemmation (or more rarely by fission), which become
free from the parent, or it may be a colony of zooids in organic
connexion with one another formed by the continuous gemmation of
the original zooid derived from the fertilised ovum and its asexually
produced offspring. When the hydrosome is a colony of zooids,
specialisation of certain individuals for particular functions may
occur, and the colony becomes dimorphic or polymorphic.
 Fig. 125.—Diagram of a vertical section through a hydrosome. Coel,
Coelenteron; Ect, ectoderm; End, endoderm. Between the ectoderm and
the endoderm there is a thin mesogloea not represented in the diagram. M,
mouth; T, tentacle.

The medusome is more complicated in structure than the

hydrosome, as it is adapted to the more varied conditions of a free-
swimming existence. The body is expanded to form a disc,
"umbrella," or bell, which bears at the edge or margin a number of
tentacles. The mouth is situated on the end of a hypostome, called
the "manubrium," situated in the centre of the radially symmetrical
body. The surface that bears the manubrium is called oral, and the
opposite surface is called aboral. The cavity partly enclosed by the
oral aspect of the body when it is cup- or bell-shaped is called the
"sub-umbrellar cavity."

In the medusome of nearly all Hydrozoa there is a narrow shelf

projecting inwards from the margin of the disc and guarding the
opening of the sub-umbrellar cavity, called the "velum."

The mouth leads through the manubrium into a flattened part of the
coelenteric cavity, which is usually called the gastric cavity, and from
this a number of canals pass radially through the mesogloea to join a
circular canal or ring-canal at the margin of the umbrella.

A special and important feature of the medusome is the presence of

sense-organs called the "ocelli" and "statocysts," situated at the
margin of the umbrella or at the base of the tentacles.
 Fig. 126.—Diagram of a vertical section through a medusome. coel, Coelenteron;
M, mouth; Man, manubrium; R, radial canal; r, ring or circular canal; T,
tentacle; v, velum.

The ocelli may usually be recognised as opaque red or blue spots on

the bases of the tentacles, in marked contrast to their transparent
surroundings. The ocellus may consist simply of a cluster of
pigmented cells, or may be further differentiated as a cup of
pigmented cells filled with a spherical thickening of the cuticle to form
a lens. The exact function of the ocelli may not be fully understood,
but there can be little doubt that they are light-perceiving organs.

The function of the sense-organs known as statocysts, however, has

not yet been so satisfactorily determined. They were formerly
thought to be auditory organs, and were called "otocysts," but it
appears now that it is impossible on physical grounds for these
organs to be used for the perception of the waves of sound in water.
It is more probable that they are organs of the static function, that is,
the function of the perception of the position of the body in space,
and they are consequently called statocysts. In the Leptomedusae
each statocyst consists of a small vesicle in the mesogloea at the
margin of the umbrella, containing a hard, stony body called the
"statolith." In Geryonia and some other Trachomedusae the statolith
is carried by a short tentacular process, the "statorhab," projecting
into the vesicle; in other Trachomedusae, however, the vesicle is
open, but forms a hood for the protection of the statorhab; and in
others, but especially in the younger stages of development, the
statorhab is not sunk into the margin of the umbrella, and resembles
a short but loaded tentacle. Recent researches have shown that
there is a complete series of connecting links between the vesiculate
statocyst of the Leptomedusae and the free tentaculate statorhab of
the Trachomedusae, and there can be little doubt of their general
homology.
In the free-swimming or "Phanerocodonic" medusome the sexual
cells are borne by the ectoderm of the sub-umbrellar cavity either on
the walls of the manubrium or subjacent to the course of the radial
canals.

Order I. Eleutheroblastea.
This order is constituted mainly for the well-known genus Hydra. By
some authors Hydra is regarded as an aberrant member of the order
Gymnoblastea, to which it is undoubtedly in many respects allied,
but it presents so many features of special interest that it is better to
keep it in a distinct group.

Hydra is one of the few examples of exclusively fresh-water

Coelenterates, and like so many of the smaller fresh-water animals
its distribution is almost cosmopolitan. It occurs not only in Europe
and North America, but in New Zealand, Australia, tropical central
Africa, and tropical central America.

Hydra is found in this country in clear, still fresh water attached to the
stalks or leaves of weeds. When fully expanded it may be 25 mm. in
length, but when completely retracted the same individual may be
not more than 3 mm. long. The tubular body-wall is built up of
ectoderm and endoderm, enclosing a simple undivided coelenteric
cavity. The mouth is situated on the summit of the conical
hypostome, and at the base of this there is a crown of long, delicate,
but hollow tentacles. The number of tentacles is usually six in H.
vulgaris and H. oligactis,[286] and eight in H. viridis, but it is variable
in all species.

During the greater part of the summer the number of individuals is

rapidly increased by gemmation. The young Hydras produced by
gemmation are usually detached from their parents before they
themselves produce buds, but in H. oligactis the buds often remain
attached to the parent after they themselves have formed buds, and
thus a small colony is produced. Sexual reproduction usually
commences in this country in the summer and autumn, but as the
statements of trustworthy authors are conflicting, it is probable that
the time of appearance of the sexual organs varies according to the
conditions of the environment.

Individual specimens may be male, female, or hermaphrodite.

Nussbaum[287] has published the interesting observation that when
the Hydras have been well fed the majority become female, when
the food supply has been greatly restricted the majority become
male, and when the food-supply is moderate in amount the majority
become hermaphrodite. The gonads are simply clusters of sexual
cells situated in the ectoderm. There is no evidence, derived from
either their structure or their development, to show that they
represent reduced medusiform gonophores. The testis produces a
number of minute spermatozoa. In the ovary, however, only one
large yolk-laden egg-cell reaches maturity by the absorption of the
other eggs. The ovum is fertilised while still within the gonad, and
undergoes the early stages of its development in that position. With
the differentiation of an outer layer of cells a chitinous protecting
membrane is formed, and the escape from the parent takes place.
[288] It seems probable that at this stage, namely, that of a protected
embryo, there is often a prolonged period of rest, during which it may
be carried by wind and other agencies for long distances without
injury.

The remarkable power that Hydra possesses of recovery from injury

and of regenerating lost parts was first pointed out by Trembley in his
classical memoir.[289]

A Hydra can be cut into a considerable number of pieces, and each

piece, provided both ectoderm and endoderm are represented in it,
will give rise by growth and regeneration to a complete zooid. There
is, however, a limit of size below which fragments of Hydra will not
regenerate, even if they contain cells of both layers. The statement
made by Trembley, that when a Hydra is turned inside out it will
continue to live in the introverted condition has not been confirmed,
and it seems probable that after the experiment has been made the
polyp remains in a paralysed condition for some time, and later
reverts, somewhat suddenly, to the normal condition by a reversal of
the process. There is certainly no substantial reason to believe that
under any circumstances the ectoderm can undertake the function of
the endoderm or the endoderm the functions of the ectoderm.

Fig. 127.—A series of drawings of Hydra, showing the attitudes it assumes

during one of the more rapid movements from place to place. 1, The Hydra
bending over to one side; 2, attaching itself to the support by the mouth and
tentacles; 3, drawing the sucker up to the mouth; 4, inverted; 5, refixing the
sucker; 6, reassuming the erect posture. (After Trembley.)

One of the characteristic features of Hydra is the slightly expanded,

disc-shaped aboral extremity usually called the "foot," an unfortunate
term for which the word "sucker" should be substituted. There are no
root-like tendrils or processes for attachment to the support such as
are found in most of the solitary Gymnoblastea. The attachment of
the body to the stem or weed or surface-film by this sucker enables
the animal to change its position at will. It may either progress slowly
by gliding along its support without the assistance of the tentacles, in
a manner similar to that observed in many Sea-anemones; or more
rapidly by a series of somersaults, as originally described by
Trembley. The latter mode of locomotion has been recently
described as follows:—"The body, expanded and with expanded
tentacles, bends over to one side. As soon as the tentacles touch the
bottom they attach themselves and contract. Now one of two things
happens. The foot may loosen its hold on the bottom and the body
contract. In this manner the animal comes to stand on its tentacles
with the foot pointing upward. The body now bends over again until
the foot attaches itself close to the attached tentacles. These loosen
in their turn, and so the Hydra is again in its normal position. In the
other case the foot is not detached, but glides along the support until
it stands close to the tentacles, which now loosen their hold."[290]

Hydra appears to be purely carnivorous. It will seize and swallow

Entomostraca of relatively great size, so that the body-wall bulges to
more than twice its normal diameter. But smaller Crustacea, Annelid
worms, and pieces of flesh are readily seized and swallowed by a
hungry Hydra. In H. viridis the chlorophyll corpuscles[291] of the
endoderm may possibly assist in the nourishment of the body by the
formation of starch in direct sunlight.

Three species of Hydra are usually recognised, but others which

may be merely local varieties or are comparatively rare have been
named.[292]

H. viridis.—Colour, grass-green. Average number of tentacles, eight.

Tentacles shorter than the body. Embryonic chitinous membrane
spherical and almost smooth.

H. vulgaris, Pallas (H. grisea, Linn.).—Colour, orange-brown.

Tentacles rather longer than the body, average number, six.
Embryonic chitinous membrane spherical, and covered with
numerous pointed branched spines.

H. oligactis, Pallas (H. fusca, Linn.).—Colour, brown. Tentacles

capable of great extension; sometimes, when fully expanded,
several times the length of the body. Average number, six.
Embryonic chitinous membrane plano-convex, its convex side only
covered with spines.

The genera Microhydra (Ryder) and Protohydra (Greeff) are

probably allied to Hydra, but as their sexual organs have not been
observed their real affinities are not yet determined. Microhydra
resembles Hydra in its general form and habits, and in its method of
reproduction by gemmation, but it has no tentacles. It was found in
fresh water in North America.

Protohydra[293] was found in the oyster-beds off Ostend, and

resembles Microhydra in the absence of tentacles. It multiplies by
transverse fission, but neither gemmation nor sexual reproduction
has been observed.

Haleremita is a minute hydriform zooid which is also marine. It was

found by Schaudinn[294] in the marine aquarium at Berlin in water
from Rovigno, on the Adriatic. It reproduces by gemmation, but
sexual organs have not been found.

Another very remarkable genus usually associated with the

Eleutheroblastea is Polypodium. At one stage of its life-history it has
the form of a spiral ribbon or stolon which is parasitic on the eggs of
the sturgeon (Acipenser ruthenus) in the river Volga.[295] This stolon
gives rise to a number of small Hydra-like zooids with twenty
tentacles, of which sixteen are filamentous and eight club-shaped.
These zooids multiply by longitudinal fission, and feed independently
on Infusoria, Rotifers, and other minute organisms. The stages
between these hydriform individuals and the parasitic stolon have
not been discovered.

Order II. Milleporina.

Millepora was formerly united with the Stylasterina to form the order
Hydrocorallina; but the increase of our knowledge of these Hydroid
corals tends rather to emphasise than to minimise the distinction of
Millepora from the Stylasterina.
Millepora resembles the Stylasterina in the production of a massive
calcareous skeleton and in the dimorphism of the zooids, but in the
characters of the sexual reproduction and in many minor anatomical
and histological peculiarities it is distinct. As there is only one genus,
Millepora, the account of its anatomy will serve as a description of
the order.

The skeleton (Fig. 128) consists of large lobate, plicate, ramified, or

encrusting masses of calcium carbonate, reaching a size of one or
two or more feet in height and breadth. The surface is perforated by
numerous pores of two distinct sizes; the larger—"gastropores"—are
about 0.25 mm. in diameter, and the smaller and more numerous
"dactylopores" about 0.15 mm. in diameter. In many specimens the
pores are arranged in definite cycles, each gastropore being
surrounded by a circle of 5-7 dactylopores; but more generally the
two kinds appear to be irregularly scattered on the surface.

When a branch or lobe of a Millepore is broken across and examined

in section, it is found that each pore is continued as a vertical tube
divided into sections by horizontal calcareous plates (Fig. 129, Tab).
These plates are the "tabulae," and constitute the character upon
which Millepora was formerly placed in the now discarded group of
Tabulate corals.

The coral skeleton is also perforated by a very fine reticulum of

canals, by which the pore-tubes are brought into communication with
one another. In the axis of the larger branches and in the centre of
the larger plates a considerable quantity of the skeleton is of an
irregular spongy character, caused by the disintegrating influence of
a boring filamentous Alga.[296]
 Fig. 128.—A portion of a dried colony of Millepora, showing the larger pores
(gastropores) surrounded by cycles of smaller pores (dactylopores). At the
edges the cycles are not well defined.

The discovery that Millepora belongs to the Hydrozoa was made by

Agassiz[297] in 1859, but Moseley[298] was the first to give an
adequate account of the general anatomy. The colony consists of
two kinds of zooids—the short, thick gastrozooids (Fig. 129, G)
provided with a mouth and digestive endoderm, and the longer and
more slender mouthless dactylozooids (D)—united together by a
network of canals running in the porous channels of the superficial
layer of the corallum. The living tissues of the zooids extend down
the pore-tubes as far as the first tabulae, and below this level the
canal-system is degenerate and functionless. It is only a very thin
superficial stratum of the coral, therefore, that contains living tissues.

The zooids of Millepora are very contractile, and can be withdrawn

below the general surface of the coral into the shelter of the pore-
tubes. When a specimen is examined in its natural position on the
reef, the zooids are usually found to be thus contracted; but several
observers have seen the zooids expanded in the living condition. It is
probable that, as is the case with other corals, the expansion occurs
principally during the night.

The colony is provided with two kinds of nematocysts—the small

kind and the large. In some colonies they are powerful enough to