BOOK X. MRS. RADCLIFFE AND HER FOL LOWERS. Ann Radcliffe. Birth and death. CHAPTER XXXII. THE immense success of Walpole's original and really clever "Castle of Otranto" encouraged other and more accomplished artists to follow in the same track. The first name on the list is Ann Radcliffe, whose romances exhibit a surprising power over the emotions of fear and undefined mysterious suspense. Her two greatest works are "The Romance of the Forest" and "The Mysteries of Udolpho." Her favorite scenery is that of Italy and the south of France, the ruined castles of the Pyrenees and the Apennines form the theater, and the dark passions of profligate Italian counts the principal moving power, of her wonderful fictions. The substance of them is all pretty much the same; mystery is the spell; the personages are made to suffer such extremities of terror and intense suffering, and, above all, suspense, that we sympathize with their fate as if they were real. Ann Radcliffe was born in London in 1764; she died there in 1823. Her maiden name was Ward. At the age of twenty-two she married Mr. William Radcliffe, a law student, who afterward became the editor and proprietor of a weekly newspaper, The English Chronicle. Her first novel, called the "Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne," I have never seen. Probably it no longer exists. It is said to have given no great indication of her future powers, though it presented the wild, improbable plot and unnatural characters of her later writings. "The Sicilian Romance" is better, and "The Romance of the Forest" is sufficient of itself to put her at the head of all writers of melodramatic "The Mysteries of Udolpho" (1790), however, is undoubtedly her masterpiece. Her last novel, "The Italian," deals with racks, tortures, dungeons, and confessionals, and is not equal to the others. romance. The chief peculiarity of Mrs. Radcliffe's work, in which it differs from the plan of the "Castle of Otranto," is that, toward the close of all her stories, she carefully explains away all the mysteries as incidents produced by natural and generally insignificant agencies. This gives the writer a great deal of trouble, and detracts from the effect of her powerful descriptions. The strange part of it is that her contemporaries remained just as much frightened after the horrors were explained as they were before, and real young ladies continued to tremble at mysterious sounds and subterranean passages, after Mrs. Radcliffe had told them over and over again that there was nothing in them. Mrs. Radcliffe's work had many imitators; and thus was inaugurated a period of intense sentiment and effusion of style which produced a quantity of rubbish much beloved by our grandmothers. But I still find a great charm in Mrs. Radcliffe's description of scenes she never saw, and must confess being able to thrill with the terrors she desires to excite. She was an indefatigable writer, and I think her plan was to publish a book once in two years or thereabouts. I imagine her sitting comfortably in London and writing about crags and ravines in Southern France without any Peculiarity of Mrs. Rad cliffe's work. Three thick volumes. Opening of real knowledge of landscape outside of England. It seems that she made once a tour through Germany; it is strange that all her novels are laid elsewhere. I do not believe she ever saw Gascony or the Apennines. Evidently she was a diligent reader, and wrote with the map before her. "The Mysteries of Udolpho" is immensely long, three thick volumes, of which the plot is most complicated. The character of the heroine is sweet and attractive. I find her quite human. As for Valancourt, who is, in fact, out of the book most of the time, either at the wars, or in prison for other people's crimes, he was the idol of all novel readers of his day and generation. I must limit my extracts chiefly to the description of the castle of Udolpho, a universal synonym for terror in the latter part of the eighteenth century; but I cannot resist transcribing the opening of the tale, for its really graceful expression. Every chapter, by the way, has a poetic quotation at its head, and original. poems by Mrs. Ann are scattered through all her books. On the pleasant banks of the Garonne, in the province of Gascony, stood, in the year 1584, the chateau of Monsieur St. Aubert. From its windows were seen the pastoral landscapes of Guienne and Gascony stretching along the river, gay with luxuriant woods and vines, and plantations of olives. To the south the view was bounded by the majestic Pyrenees, whose summits veiled in clouds, or exhibiting awful forms, seen, and . lost again, as the partial vapors rolled along, were sometimes barren, and gleamed through the blue tinge of air, and sometimes frowned with forests of gloomy pine, that swept downward to their base. These tremendous precipices were contrasted by the soft green of the pastures and woods that hung upon their skirts; among whose flocks and herds and simple cottages, the eye, after having scaled the cliffs above, delighted to repose. To the north and to the east, the plains of Guienne and Languedoc were lost in the mist of distance; on the west Gascony was bounded by the Bay of Biscay. There were stirring times in France and Navarre at the end of this sixteenth century, but I have never encountered any reference in "The Mysteries" to the political situation. Among the We must leave the pleasant banks of the Garonne and convey the reader by force, as Emily was taken, to the Apennines. neighborhood of the castle which gives its name to the book, situated somewhere among the Apennines. Wild and romantic as were these scenes, their character had far less of the sublime than had those of the Alps which guard the entrance of Italy. Emily was often elevated, but seldom felt those emotions of indescribable awe which she had so continually experienced in her passage over the Alps. Toward the close of day, the road wound into a deep valley. Mountains whose shaggy steeps seemed to be inaccessible almost surrounded it. To the east a vista opened, and exhibited the Apennines in their darkest horrors; and the long perspective of retiring summits rising over each other, their ridges clothed with pines, exhibited a stranger image of grandeur than any Emily had yet seen. The sun had just sunk below the top of the mountains she was descending, whose long shadow stretched athwart the valley, but his sloping rays shooting through an opening of the cliff touched with a yellow gleam the summits of the forest that hung upon the opposite steeps, and streamed in full splendor upon the towns and battlements of a castle that spread its extensive ramparts along the brow of a precipice above. The splendor of these illuminated objects was heightened by the contrasted shade which involved the valley below. "There," said Montoni, speaking for the first time in several hours, "is UDOLPHO." Montoni is the villain who is in possession of Emily Udolpho. Fearful emotions of Emily. Her timid wonder. for the moment, having suddenly married her aunt. Emily gazed with melancholy awe upon the castle which she understood to be Montoni's-for though it was now lighted up by the setting sun, the Gothic greatness of its features, and its moldering walls of dark gray stone, rendered it a gloomy and sublime object. As she gazed, the light died away on its walls, leaving a melancholy purple tint which spread deeper and deeper as the thin vapor crept up the mountain, while the battlements above were still tipped with splendor. From these too the rays soon faded and the whole edifice was invested with the solemn duskiness of evening. At length the carriages emerged upon a heathy rock, and soon after reached the castle gates, where the deep tones of the portal bell, which was struck upon to give notice of their arrival, increased the fearful emotions that had assailed Emily. While they waited till the servant within should come to open the gates, she anxiously surveyed the edifice; but the gloom that overspread it allowed her to distinguish little more than a part of its outline, with the mossy walls of the ramparts, and to know that it was vast, ancient, and dreary. While Emily gazed with awe upon the scene, footsteps were heard within the gates, and the undrawing of bolts; after which an ancient servant of the castle appeared, forcing back the huge folds of the portal to admit his lord. As the carriage-wheels rolled heavily under the portcullis, Emily's heart sunk, and she seemed as if she was going into her prison. Another gate delivered them into the second court, grass-grown and more wild than the first. The servant who came to light Montoni bowed in silence, and the muscles of his countenance relaxed with no symptom of joy. Montoni noticed the salutation by a slight motion of his head, and passed on; while his lady [the aunt was with them] followed, looking round with a degree of surprise and discontent which she seemed fearful of expressing, and Emily, surveying the extent and grandeur of the hall in timid wonder. They approached a marble staircase, where the arches opened to a lofty vault from the center of which hung a tripod lamp which a servant was hastily lighting, and the rich fret-work of the roof, a corridor leading into several upper apartments and |