Prefatory Memoir to 'The Novels of Mrs Ann Radcliffe'  

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PREFATORY MEMOIR TO MRS ANNΝ RADCLIFFE.

The life of Mrs Ann Radcliffe, spent in the quiet shade of domes tic privacy, and in the interchange of familiar affections and sympathies, appears to have been as retired and sequestered, as the fame of her writings was brilliant and universal. The most authentic account of her birth, family, and personal appearance, seems to be that contained in the following communication to a work of contemporary biography. “ She was born in London, in the year 1764, [ 9th July ; ] the daugh ter of William and Ann Ward, who, though in trade, were nearly the only persons of their two families not living in handsome, or at least easy independence. Her paternal grandmother was a Cheselden, the sister of the celebrated surgeon , of whose kind regard her father had a grateful recollection, and some of whose presents, in books, I have seen . The late Lieutenant- Colonel Cheselden, of Somerby in Lei cestershire, was, I think, another nephew of the surgeon . Her fa ther's aunt, the late Mrs Barwell, first of Leicester, and then of Duf field in Derbyshire, was one of the sponsors at her baptism . Her ma ternal grandmother was Ann Oates, the sister of Dr Samuel Jebb, of Stratford , who was the father of Sir Richard : on that side she was VOL. X. a ii PREFATORY MEMOIR.

also related to Dr Halifax, Bishop of Gloucester, and to Dr Halifax, Physician to the King. Perhaps it may gratify curiosity to state far ther, that she was descended from a near relative of the De Witts of Holland. In some family papers which I have seen , it is stated, that a De Witt, of the family of John and Cornelius, came to England, under the patronage of government, upon some design of draining the fens in Lincolnshire, bringing with him a daughter, Amelia, then an infant. The prosecution of the plan is supposed to have been inter rupted by the rebellion , in the time of Charles the First ; but De Witt appears to have passed the remainder of his life in a mansion near Hull, and to have left many children, ofwhom Amelia was the mother of one of Mrs Radcliffe's ancestors. “ This admirable writer, whom I remember from about the time of her twentieth year, was, in her youth , of a figure exquisitely propor tioned ; while she resembled her father , and his brother and sister, in being low of stature. Her complexion was beautiful, as was her whole countenance, especially her eyes, eyebrows, and mouth. Of the facul ties of her mind, let her works speak. Her tastes were such as might be expected from those works. To contemplate the glories of creation , but more particularly the grander features of their display, was one of her chief delights : to listen to fine music was another. She had also a gratification in listening to any good verbal sounds ; and would de sire to hear passages repeated from the Latin and Greek classics ; re quiring, at intervals, the most literal translations that could be given , with all that was possible of their idiom , how muchsoever the version might be embarrassed by that aim at exactness. Though her fancy was prompt, and she was, as will readily be supposed, qualified in many respects for conversation , she had not the confidence and presence of mind, without which, a person conscious of being observed, can scarce ly be at ease, except in long -tried society. Yet she had not been with out some good examples of what must have been ready conversation, in more extensive circles. Besides that a great part of her youth had been passed in the residences of her superior relatives, she had the ad vantage of being much loved , when a child , by the late Mr Bentley ; PREFATORY MEMOIR. üi 6 to whom , on the establishment of the fabric known by the name of Wedgwood and Bentley's, was appropriated the superintendence of all that related to form and design . Mr Wedgwood was the intelligent man of commerce , and the able chemist ; Mr Bentley the man of more general literature, and of taste in the arts. One of her mother's sis . ters was married to Mr Bentley ; and, during the life of her aunt, who was accomplished according to the moderation , may I say, the wise moderation 1 -- of that day, the little niece was a favourite guest at Chelsea, and afterwards at Turnham Green , where Mr and Mrs Bent ley resided . At their house she saw several persons of distinction for literature ; and others who, without having been so distinguished, were beneficial objects of attention for their minds and their manners. Of the former class the late Mrs Montague, and once, I think, Mrs Piozzi ; of the latter, Mrs Ord . The gentleman, called Athenian Stuart, was also a visitor there . " Thus respectably born and connected, Miss Ward, at the age of twenty - three, acquired the name which she has made so famous, by marrying William Radcliffe, Esq. graduated at Oxford, and a student of law. He renounced prosecution of his legal studies, and became after wards proprietor and editor of the English Chronicle. Thus connected in a manner which must have induced her to cherish her literary powers, Mrs Radcliffe first came before the public as a novelist in 1789, only two years after her marriage, and when she was twenty - four years old. A Romance, entitled The Castles ofAthlin and Dunbayne, which she then produced , gave but moderate intima tion of the author's peculiar powers. The scene is laid in Scotland, during the dark ages, but without any attempt to trace either the peculiar manners or scenery of the country ; and although, in reading the work with that express purpose, we can now trace some germs of that taste and talent for the wild, romantic, and mysterious, which the authoress afterwards employed with such effect, we cannot con sider the work, on the whole, as by any means worthy of her pen . Being nevertheless very short, it has been retained in the present edi-, tion , and is thrown to the end of Mrs Radcliffe's better known and more > iv PREFATORY MEMOIR. а esteemed productions. It is always of consequence to the history of human genius to preserve its earlier efforts, that we may trace, if pos sible, how the oak at length germinates from the unmarked acorn . Mrs Radcliffe's genius was more advantageously displayed in the Sicilian Romance, which appeared in 1790, and, as we ourselves well recollect, attracted in no ordinary degree the attention of the public. This work displays the exuberance and fertility of imagination , which was the author's principal characteristic. Adventures heaped on ad ventures, in quick and brilliant succession , with all the hair- breadth charms of escape or capture, hurry the reader along with them , and the imagery and scenery by which the action is relieved, are like those of a splendid oriental tale. Still this work had marked traces of the defects natural to an unpractised author. The scenes were inartifi cially connected , and the characters hastily sketched, without any at tempt at individual distinctions; being cast in the usual mould of ar dent lovers, tyrannical parents, with domestic ruffians, guards, and others, who had wept or stormed through the chapters of romance, without much alteration in their family habits or features, for a quar ter of a century before Mrs Radcliffe's time. Nevertheless, the Sici lian Romance attracted much notice among the novel -readers of the day, as far excelling the ordinary meagreness of stale and uninterest ing incident with which they were at that time regaled from the Lead enhall press. Indeed, the praise may be claimed for Mrs Radcliffe, of having been the first to introduce into her prose fictions a tone of fanciful description and impressive narrative, which had hitherto been exclusively applied to poetry. Fielding, Richardson , Smollet, even Walpole, though writing upon an imaginative subject, are decidedly prose authors. Mrs Radcliffe has a title to be considered as the first poetess of romantic fiction , that is , if actual rythm shall not be deemed essential to poetry. The Romance of the Forest, which appeared in 1791 , placed the author at once in that rank and pre-eminence in her own particular style of composition, in which her works have ever since maintained her. Her fancy, in this new effort, was more regulated, and subjected to a PREFATORY MEMOIR. the fetters of a regular story . The persons, too , although perhaps there is nothing very original in the conception, were depicted with skill far superior to that which the author had hitherto displayed, and the work attracted the public attention in proportion. That of La Motte , indeed, is sketched with particular talent, and most part of the interest of the piece depends upon the vacillations of a character, who, though upon the whole we may rather term him weak and vici ous, than villainous, is, nevertheless, at every moment on the point of becoming an agent in atrocities which his heart disapproves of. He is the exact picture of “ the needy man who has known better days,". and who, spited at the world , from which he has been expelled with contempt, and condemned by circumstances to seek an asylum in a deso late castle full of mysteries and horrors, avenges himself, by playing the gloomy despot within his own family, and tyrannizing over those who were subjected to him only by their strong sense of duty. A more powerful agent appears on the scene - obtains the mastery over this dark but irresolute spirit, and, by alternate exertion of seduction and terror, compels him to be his agent in schemes against the virtue, and even the life of an orphan, whom he was bound in gratitude, as well as in honour and hospitality, to cherish and protect. The heroine, too , wearing the usual costume of innocence, purity, and simplicity, as proper to heroines as white gowns are to the sex in general, has some pleasing touches of originality. Her grateful affec tion for the La Motte family – her reliance on their truth and honour, when the wife had become unkind, and the father treacherous towards her, is an interesting and individual trait in her character. But although undoubtedly the talents ofMrsRadcliffe, in the import ant point of drawing and finishing the characters ofher narrative, was greatly improved since her earlier attempts, and manifested sufficient power to raise her far above the common crowd of novelists, this not the department of art on which her popularity rested. The public were chiefly aroused, or rather fascinated, by the wonder ful conduct of a story, in which the author so successfully called out was vi PREFATORY MEMOIR. the feelings of mystery and of awe, while chapter after chapter, and incident after incident, maintained the thrilling attraction of awa kened curiosity and suspended interest. Of these, every reader felt the force, from the sage in his study, to the group which assembles round the evening taper, to seek a solace from the toils of ordinary life by an excursion into the regions of imagination.. The tale was the more striking, because varied and relieved by descriptions of the ruined mansion, and the forest with which it is surrounded , under so many different points, now pleasing and serene , now gloomy, now ter rible - scenes which could only have been drawn by one to whom na ture had given the eye of a painter,, with the spirit of a poet. In 1793, Mrs Radcliffe had the advantage of visiting the scenery of the Rhine, and, although we are not positive of the fact, we are strongly inclined to suppose, that The Mysteries of Udolpho were written , or at least corrected, after the date of this journey ; for the mouldering castles of the robber chivalry of Germany, situated on the wild and romantic banks of that celebrated stream , seem to have given a bolder flight to her imagination, and a more glowing character to her colouring, than are exhibited in The Romance ofthe Forest. The scenery on the Lakes of Westmoreland, which Mrs Radcliffe visited about the same time, was also highly calculated to awaken her fancy, as nature has in these wild but beautiful regions realized the descrip tions in which this authoress loved to indulge. Her remarks upon these countries were given to the public in 1794, in a very well writ ten work , entitled, A Journey through Holland, & c. Much was of course expected from Mrs Radcliffe's next effort, and the booksellers felt themselves authorized in offering what was then considered as an unprecedented sum , L.500, for The Mysteries of Udolpho. It often happens, that a writer's previous reputation proves the greatest enemy which, in a second attempt upon public favour, he has to encounter. Exaggerated expectations are excited and circula ted , and criticism, which had been seduced into former approbation by the pleasure of surprise, now stands awakened and alert to pounce PREFATORY MEMOIR . vii a a upon every failing. Mrs Radcliffe's popularity, however, stood the test, and was heightened rather than diminished by The Mysteries of Udolpho. The very name was fascinating, and the public, who rushed upon it with all the eagerness of curiosity , rose from it with unsated appetite. When a family was numerous, the volumes flew , and were sometimes torn, from hand to hand, and the complaints of those whose studies were thus interrupted, were a general tribute to the genius of the author. One might still be found of a different and higher descrip tion , in the dwelling of the lonely invalid , or neglected votary of celi bacy, who was bewitched away from a sense ofsolitude, of indisposition, of the neglect of the world, or of secret sorrow , by the potent charm of this mighty enchantress. Perhaps the perusal of such works may, without injustice, be compared with the use of opiates, baneful, when habitually and constantly resorted to, but of most blessed power in those moments of pain and of languor, when the whole head is sore, and the whole heart sick . If those who rail indiscriminately at this species of composition , were to consider the quantity of actual plea sure which it produces, and the much greater proportion of real sor row and distress which it alleviates, their philanthropy ought to mo derate their critical pride, or religious intolerance. To return to The Mysteries of Udolpho. The author, pursuing her own favourite bent of composition , and again waving her wand over the world of wonder and imagination, had judiciously used a spell of broader and more potent command. The situation and distresses of the heroines, have here, and in The Romance of the Forest, a general aspect of similarity. Both are divided from the object of their attachment by the gloomy influence of unfaithful and oppressive guardians, and both become inhabitants oftime- stricken towers, and witnesses of scenes now bordering on the supernatural, and now upon the horrible. But this general resemblance is only such as we love to recognize in pictures which have been painted by the same hand, and as companions for each other. Everything in The Mysteries of Udolpho is on a larger and more sublime scale, than in The Romance ofthe Forest ; the interest viii PREFATORY MEMOIR . is of a more agitating and tremendous nature ; the scenery of a wilder and more terrific description ; the characters distinguished by fiercer and more gigantic features. Montoni, a desperado, and Captain of Condottieri, stands beside La Motte and his Marquis like one of Mil ton's fiends beside a witch's familiar. Adeline is confined within a ruin ed manor house,but her sister heroine, Emily, is imprisoned in a huge castle, like those of feudal times ; the one is attacked and defended by bands of armed mercenary soldiers, the other only threatened by a visit from constables and thief - takers. The scale of the landscape is equally different; the quiet and limited woodland scenery ofthe one work form ing a contrast with the splendid and high - wrought descriptions of Ita lian mountain -grandeur which occurs in the other . In general, The Mysteries of Udolpho was, at its first appearance, considered as a step beyond Mrs Radcliffe's former work, high as that had justly advanced her. We entertain the same opinion in again reading them both , even after some years' interval. Yet there were persons of no mean judgment, to whom the simplicity of The Romance ofthe Forest seemed preferable to the more highly coloured and broad er style of The Mysteries of Udolpho ; and it must remain matter of opinion, whether their preference be better founded than in the parti. alities of a first love, which in literature, as in life, are often unduly predominant. With the majority of the public, the superior magnifi cence of landscape, and dignity of conception of character, secured the palm for the more recent work . The fifth production by which Mrs Radcliffe arrested the attention of the public, was fated to be her last. The Italian, which appeared in 1790, was purchased by the booksellers for L.800, and obtained a share of public favour equal to any of its predecessors. Here, too ,, the author had, with much judgment, taken such a difference, that while employing her own peculiar talent, and painting in the style of which she may be considered the inventor, she cannot be charged with repeating or copying herself. She selected the new and powerful machinery afforded her by the Popish religion, when established in its а PREFATORY MEMOIR. ix paramount superiority, and thereby had at her disposal, monks, spies, dungeons, the mute obedience of the bigot, the dark and dominating spirit of the crafty priest,—all the thunders of the Vatican , and all the terrors of the Inquisition. This fortunate adoption placed in the hands of the authoress a powerful set of agents, who were at once sup plied with means and motives for bringing forward scenes of horror ; and thus a tinge of probability was thrown over even those parts ofthe story, which are most inconsistent with the ordinary train of human events. Most writers of romance have been desirous to introduce their nar rative to the reader, in some manner which might at once excite inte rest, and prepare his mind for the species of excitation which it was the author's object to produce. In The Italian, this has been achieved by Mrs Radcliffe with an uncommon degree of felicity , nor is there any part of the romance itself which is more striking, than its impres sive commencement. A party of English travellers visit a Neapolitan church . “ Within the shade of the portico, a person with folded arms, and eyes directed towards the ground, was pacing behind the pillars the whole extent of the pavement, and was apparently so engaged by his own thoughts, as not to observe that strangers were approaching. He turned , how ever, suddenly , as if startled by the sound of steps, and then , without farther pausing, glided to a door that opened into the church , and dis appeared. “ There was something too extraordinary in the figure of this man , and too singular in his conduct, to pass unnoticed by the visitors. He was of a tall thin figure, bending forward from the shoulders ; of a sallow complexion , and harsh features, and had an eye, which, as it looked up from the cloak that muffled the lower part of his counte nance , was expressive of uncommon ferocity. “ The travellers, on entering the church, looked round for the stran ger, who had passed thither before them , but he was nowhere to be secn ; and, through all the shade of the long aisles, only one other a a

X PREFATORY MEMOIR . person appeared. This was a friar of the adjoining convent, who sometimes pointed out to strangers the objects in the church, which were most worthy of attention , and who now, with this design, ap proached the party that had just entered. “ When the party had viewed the different shrines and whatever had been judged worthy of observation , and were returning through an obscure aisle towards the portico, they perceived the person who had appeared upon the steps, passing towards a confessional on the left, and, as he entered it, one of the party pointed him out to the friar, and inquired who he was ; the friar turning to look after him, did not immediately reply, but, on the question being repeated, he in clined his head, as in a kind of obeisance , and calmly replied, “ He is an assassin .' 666 An assassin ! ' exclaimed one of the Englishmen ; ' an assassin , and at liberty ! “ An Italian gentleman, who was of the party, smiled at the asto nishment of his friend . “ He has sought sanctuary here,' replied the friar ; -within these walls he may not be hurt.' « • Do your altars, then, protect a murderer ! ' said the English man. 66. He could find shelter nowhere else,' answered the friar meekly. 6 6 “ • But observe yonder confessional," added the Italian , ' that be yond the pillars on the left of the aisle, below a painted window . Have you discovered it ? The colours of the glass throw , instead of a light, a shade over that part of the church, which, perhaps, prevents your distinguishing what I mean .' “ The Englishman looked whither his friend pointed, and observed a confessional of oak, or some very dark wood, adjoining the wall, and remarked also, that it was the same which the assassin had just enter ed. It consisted of three compartments, covered with a black canopy. In the central division was the chair of the confessor, elevated by se veral steps above the pavement of the church ; and on either hand PREFATORY MEMOIR. xi a 666 was a small closet, or box, with steps leading up to a grated partition, at which the penitent might kneel, and , concealed from observation , pour into the ear of the confessor, the consciousness of crimes that lay heavy on his heart. “ 66 You observe it ?' said the Italian . “ I do,' replied the Englishman : ' it is the samewhich the assassin had passed into ; and I think it one of the most gloomy spots I ever beheld ; the view of it is enough to strike a criminal with despair !' “ We, in Italy, are not so apt to despair,' replied the Italian, smi lingly . “ Well, but what of this confessional ? " inquired the Englishman . The assassin entered it.' “ . He has no relation with what I am about to mention ,' said the Italian ; ' but I wish you to mark the place, because some very extra ordinary circumstances belong to it.' “ 6 What are they ?' said the Englishman. “ It is now several years since the confession, which is connected with them , was made at that very confessional,"added the Italian ; " the view of it, and the sight of the assassin , with your surprise at the liberty which is allowed him , led me to a recollection of the story. When you return to the hotel, I will communicate it to you, if you have no pleasanter mode of engaging your time.' 666 After I have taken another view of this solemn edifice,' replied the Englishman , ' and particularly of the confessional you have pointed to my notice .' “ While the Englishman glanced his eye over the high roofs, and along the solemn perspectives of the Santa del Pianto, he perceived the figure of the assassin stealing from the confessional across the choir, and, shocked on again beholding him , he turned his eyes, and hastily quitted the church. “ The friends then separated, and the Englishman , soon after re turning to his hotel, received the volume. He read as follows. " This introductory passage, which , for the references which it bears to the story, and the anxious curiosity which it excites in the reader's 1 xii PREFATORY MEMOIR . mind, may be compared to the dark and vaulted gateway of an ancient castle, is followed by a tale of corresponding mystery and terror ; in detailing which , the art of which Mrs Radcliffe, who was so great a mistress of throwing her narrative into mystery , affording half intima tions of veiled and secret horrors, is used perhaps to the very utter most. And yet, though our reason ultimately presents us with this criticism , we believe she generally suspends her remonstrance till after the perusal; and it is not until the last page is read, and the last vo lume closed , that we feel ourselves disposed to censure that which has so keenly interested us. We become then at length aware, that there is no uncommon merit in the general contrivance of the story ; that many of the incidents are improbable, and some of the mysteries left unexplained ; yet the impression of general delight which we have received from the perusal, remains unabated, for it is founded on recollection of the powerful emotions of wonder, curiosity, even fear, to which we have been subjected during the currency of the narrative. A youth of high birth and noble fortune becomes enamoured of a damsel of low fortunes, unknown race, and all that portion of beauty and talents which belongs to a heroine of romance. This union is op posed by his family, and chiefly by the pride of his mother, who calls to her aid the real hero of the tale , her confessor, Father Schedo ni, a strongly drawn character as ever stalked through the regions ofromance, equally detestable for the crimes he has formerly perpe trated, and those which he is willing to commit ; formidable from his talents and energy ; at once a hypocrite and a profligate, unfeeling, un relenting, and implacable. With the aid of this agent, Vivaldi, the lover, is thrown into the dungeons of the Inquisition, while Ellena, his bride, is carried by the pitiless monk to an obscure den, where, find ing the services of an associate likely to foil his expectation , he resolves to murder her with his own hand. Hitherto the story, or, at least, the situation, is not altogether dissimilar from the Mysteries of Udol pho; but the fine scene, where the monk, in the act of raising his arm to murder his sleeping victim , discovers her to be his own child , is of a new, grand, and powerful character, and the horrors of the wretch, PREFATORY MEMOIR. who, on the brink of murder, has but just escaped from committing a crime of yet more exaggerated horror, constitute the strongest painting which has been under Mrs Radcliffe's pencil, and are well fitted to be ac tually embodied on canvass by some great master. In the prisons ofthe Inquisition , the terrific Schedoni is met, counterplotted, and at length convicted, by the agency of a being as wicked as himself, who had once enjoyed his confidence. Several of these pauses of breathless suspense are thrown in , during the detail of these intrigues, by which Mrs Radcliffe knew so well how to give interest to the work . On re -considering the narrative, we indeed discover that many of the incidents are imperfectly explained, and that we can distinguish points upon which the authoress had doubtless intended to lay the founda tion of something which she afterwards forgot or omitted. Of the first class, is the astonishment testified by the Grand Inquisitor with such striking effect, when a strange voice was heard, even in the awful presence of that stern tribunal, to assume the task of interrogation proper to its judges. The incident in itself is most impressive. As Vivaldi is blindfolded , and bound upon the rack, the voice of a myste rious agent, who had repeatedly crossed his path, and always eluded his search , is heard to mingle in his examination, and strikes the whole assembly with consternation . “ Who is come amongst us ? ' he, [ the Grand Inquisitor) repeated , in a louder tone. Still no answer was returned ; but again a confused murmur sounded from the tribunal, and a general consternation seemed to prevail. No person spoke with sufficient pre-eminence to be understood by Vivaldi ; something extra ordinary appeared to be passing, and he awaited the issue with all the patience he could command. Soon after he heard the doors opened ; and the noise of persons quitting the chamber. A deep silence follow ed ; but he was certain that the familiars were still beside him , waiting to begin their work of torture. ” This is all unquestionably very im pressive ; but no other explanation of the intruder's character is given , than that he is an officer of the Inquisition ; a circumstance which may explain his being present at Vivaldi's examination, but by no means his interference with it, against the pleasure of the Grand Inquisitor. The xiv PREFATORY MEMOIR. latter certainly would neither have been surprised at the presence of one of his own officials, nor overawed by his deportment; since the one was a point of ordinary duty, and the other must have been ac counted as an impertinence. It may be added also, that there is no full or satisfactory reason assigned for the fell and unpitying hostility of Zampari to Schedoni, and that the reasons which can be gathered , are inadequate and trivial. We may notice an instance of even greater negligence, in the pas sages respecting the ruined palace of the Barone de Cambrusca, where the imperfect tale of horror hinted at by a peasant, the guide of Sche doni, appears to jar upon the galled conscience of the monk, and in duces the reader to expect a train of important consequences. Un questionably , the ingenious authoress had meant this half- told tale to correspond with some particulars in the proposed developement of the story, which having been finished more hastily , or in a different manner from what she intended , she had, like a careless knitter, ne glected to take up her “ loose stitches . ” It is, however, a baulking of the reader's imagination, which authors in this department would do well to guard against. At the same time, critics are bound in mercy to remember, how much more easy it is to draw a complicate chain of interest, than to disentangle it with perfect felicity. Dryden , it is said , used to curse the inventors of fifth acts in the drama, and ro mance-writers owe no blessings to the memory of him who devised ex planatory chapters. We have been told, that in this beautiful romance, the customs and rules of the Inquisition have been violated ; a charge more easily made than proved, and which, if true, is of minor importance, because its code is happily but little known to us. It is matter of more obvi. ous criticism , and therefore a greater error, that the scraps of Italian language introduced to give locality to the scene, are not happily cho sen , and savour of affectation . But if Mrs Radcliffe did not intimate ly understand the language and manners of Italy, the following extract may prove how well she knew how to paint Italian scenery, which she could only have seen in the pictures of Claude or Poussin. PREFATORY MEMOIR. XV > “ These excursions sometimes led to Puzzuoli, Baia, or the woody cliffs of Pausilippo ; and as, on their return , they glided along the moonlight bay, the melodies of Italian strains seemed to give enchant ment to the scenery of its shore. At this cool hour the voices of the vine- dressers were frequently heard in trio, as they reposed , after the labour of the day, on some pleasant promontory, under the shade of poplars ; or the brisk music of the dance from fishermen , on the mar gin of the waves below . The boatmen rested on their oars, while their company listened to voices modulated by sensibility to finer eloquence, than it is in the power of art alone to display ; and at others, while they observed the airy natural grace, which distinguishes the dance of the fishermen and peasant girls of Naples. Frequently, as they glided round a promontory , whose shaggy masses impended far over the sea , such magic scenes of beauty unfolded , adorned by these dancing groups on the bay beyond, as no pencil could do justice to . The deep clear waters reflected every image of the landscape ; the cliffs, branching into wild forms, crowned with groves, whose rough foliage often spread down their steeps in picturesque luxuriance ; the ruined villa , on some bold point, peeping through the trees ; 'peasants’ cabins hanging on the precipices, and the dancing figures on the strand — all touched with the silvery tint and soft shadows of moon light. On the other hand, the sea , trembling with a long line of radi ance , and shewing in the clear distance the sails of vessels stealing in every direction along its surface, presented a prospect as grand as the landscape was beautiful. " There are other descriptive passages, which , like those in The Mysteries of Udolpho, approach more nearly to the style of Salvator Rosa . The Italian was received with as much ardour as Mrs Radcliffe's two previous novels, and it was from no coldness on the part of the public, that, like an actress in full possession of applauded powers, she chose to retreat from the stage in the blaze of her fame. After publi cation of The Italian , in 1797, the public were not favoured with any more of Mrs Radcliffe's publications. Weare left in vain to conjecture the reasons, which, for more than xvi PREFATORY MEMOIR. twenty years, condemned an imagination so fertile, so far as the public were concerned , to sterility. The voice of unfriendly criticism , always as sure an attendant upon merit as envy herself, may perhaps have intimidated the gentleness of her character ; or Mrs Radcliffe, as frequently happens, may have been disgusted at seeing the mode of composition, which she had brought into fashion, prophaned by the host of servile imitators, who could only copy and render more prominent her defects, without aspiring to her merits. But so steadily did she keep her resolution, that for more than twenty years the name of Mrs Radcliffe was never mentioned, unless with reference to her former productions, and in general ( so retired was the current of her life) there was a belief that Fate had removed her from the scene. Notwithstanding her refraining from publication, it is impossible to believe that an imagination so strong, supported by such ready powers of expression , should have remained inactive during so long a pe riod ; but the manuscripts on which she was occasionally employed have as yet been withheld from the public. We have some reason to believe, that arrangements were at one time almost concluded between Mrs Radcliffe and a highly respectable publishing -house, respecting a poetical romance, but were broken off in consequence of the author changing or delaying her intention of publication. It is to be hoped, that the world will not be ultimately deprived of what undoubtedly must be the source of much pleasure whenever it shall see the light. The tenor of Mrs Radcliffe's private life seems to have been pecu liarly calm and sequestered. She probably declined the sort of per sonal notoriety, which, in London society, usually attaches to persons of literary merit ; and perhaps no author, whose works were so univer sally read and admired, was so little personally known even to the most active of that class of people of distinction , who rest their peculiar pre tensions to fashion upon the selection of literary society. Her estate was certainly not the less gracious ; and it did not disturb Mrs Rad cliffe's domestic comforts, although many of her admirers believed, and some are not yet undeceived, that, in consequence of brooding over the terrors which she depicted, her reason had at length been overturned , 7 PREFATORY MEMOIR. xvii and that the author of The Mysteries of Udolpho only existed as the melancholy inmate of a private mad -house. This report was so gene rally spread, and so confidently repeated in print, as well as in con versation , that the Editor believed it for several years, until, greatly to his satisfaction , he learned from good authority that there neither was, nor ever had been, the most distant foundation for this un pleasing rumour. A false report of another kind gave Mrs Radcliffe much concern . In Miss Seward's Correspondence, among the literary gossip of the day, it is roundly stated, that the Plays upon the Passions were Mrs Radcliffe's, and that she owned them . Mrs Radcliffe was much hurt at being reported capable of borrowing from the fame of a gifted sister ; and the late Miss Seward would probably have suffered equally, had she been aware of the pain she inflicted by giving currency to a ru mour so totally unfounded . The truth is, that, residing at a distance from the metropolis, and living upon literary intelligence as her daily food, Miss Seward was sometimes imposed upon by those friendly ca terers, who were more anxious to supply her with the newest intelli gence , than solicitous about its accuracy. During the last twelve years of her life, Mrs Radcliffe suffered from a spasmodic asthma, which considerably affected her general health and spirits. This chronic disorder took a more fatal turn upon the 9th of January, 1822, and upon the 7th of February following, terminated the life of this ingenious and amiable lady, at her own house in London . Mrs RADCLIFFE, as an author, has the most decided claim to take her place among the favoured few , who have been distinguished as the founders of a class, or school. She led the way in a peculiar style of composition , affecting powerfully the mind of the reader, which has VOL. X. b a xviii PREFATORY MEMOIR. since been attempted by many, but in which no one has attained or ap proached the excellencies of the original inventor, unless perhaps the author of The Family of Montorio. The species of romance which Mrs Radcliffe introduced , bears nearly the same relation to the novel that the modern anomaly enti tled a Melo- drame does to the proper drama. It does not appeal to the judgment by deep delineations of human feeling, or stir the pas sions by scenes of deep pathos, or awaken the fancy by tracing out, with spirit and vivacity, the lighter traces of life and manners, or ex cite mirth by strong representations of the ludicrous or humorous. In other words, it attains its interest neither by the path of comedy nor of tragedy ; and yet it has, notwithstanding, a deep, decided, and powerful effect, gained by means independent of both — by an appeal, in one word, to the passion of fear, whether excited by natural dangers, or by the suggestions of superstition. The force, therefore, of the production , lies in the delineation of external incident, while the cha racters of the agents, like the figures in many landscapes, are entirely subordinate to the scenes in which they are placed ; and are only dis tinguished by such outlines as make them seem appropriate to the rocks and trees, which have been the artist's principal objects. The persons introduced , —and here also the correspondence holds betwixt the melo drame and such romances as The Mysteries of Udolpho ,-bear the fea tures, not of individuals, but of the class to which they belong. A dark and tyrannical count ; an aged crone of a housekeeper, the depositary of many a family legend ; a garrulous waiting -maid ; a gay and light hearted valet ; a villain or two of all work , and a heroine, fulfilled with all perfections, and subjected to all manner of hazards, form the stock -in -trade of a romancer or a.melo - dramatist ; and if these per sonages be dressed in the proper costume, and converse in language sufficiently appropriate to their stations and qualities, it is not expected that the audience shall shake their sides at the humour of the dia logue, or weep over its pathos. On the other hand , it is necessary that these characters, though not , delineated with individual features, should be truly and forcibly sketch - PREFATORY MEMOIR. xix scene , а a ed in the outline ; that their dress and general appearance should cor respond with and support the trick of the scene ; and that their lan guage and demeanour should either enhance the terrors amongst which they move, or form , as the action may demand, a strong and vivid contrast to them . Mrs Radcliffe's powers of fancy were particularly happy in depicting such personages, in throwing upon them and their actions just enough of that dubious light which mystery requires, and in supplying them with language and manners which correspond with their situation and business upon the We may take, as an example, the admirable description of the monk Schedoni . “ His figure was striking, but not so from grace ; it was tall, and, though extremely thin, his limbs were large and uncouth , and as he stalked along, wrapt in the black garments ofhis order, there was some. thing terrible in its air ; something almost superhuman . His cowl, too, as it threw a shade over the livid paleness of his face, increased its severe character, and gave an effect to his large melancholy eye, which approached to horror. His was not the melancholy of a sensi ble and wounded heart, but apparently that of a gloomy and ferocious disposition . There was something in his physiognomy extremely sin gular, and that cannot easily be defined . It bore the traces of many passions, which seemed to have fixed the features they no longer ani mated . An habitual gloom and severity prevailed over the deep lines of his countenance ; and his eyes were so piercing, that they seemed to penetrate, at a single glance, into the hearts of men , and to read their most secret thoughts ; few persons could support their scrutiny, or even endure to meet them twice. Yet, notwithstanding all this gloom and austerity, some rare occasions of interest had called forth a character upon his countenance entirely different ; and he could adapt himself to the tempers and passions of persons whom he wished to con ciliate with astonishing facility, and generally with complete triumph. This monk, this Schedoni, was the confessor and secret adviser of the Marchesa di Vivaldi. ” To draw such portraits as Schedoni's, and others which occur in Mrs Radcliffe's novels, requires no mean powers ; and although they bc PREFATORY MEMOIR. long rather to romance than to real life, the impression which they make upon the imagination is scarce lessened by the sense , that they are in some sort as fabulous as fairies or ogres. But when the public have been surprised into an universal burst of applause, it is their custom to indemnify themselves by a corresponding degree of censure ; just as children, when tired of admiring a new play-thing, find a fresh and dis tinct pleasure in breaking it to pieces. Mrs Radcliffe, who had afford ed such general delight to the public, was not doomed to escape the common fate ; and the criticism with which she was assailed , was the more invidious, that it was inflicted, in more than one case , by persons of genius, who followed the same pursuit with herself. It was the cry, at the period, and has sometimes been repeated since, that the romances of Mrs Radcliffe, and the applause with which they were received, were evil signs of the times, and argued a great and increasing degra dation of the public taste, which, instead of banquetting as heretofore upon scenes of passion, like those of Richardson , or of life and man ners,, as in the pages of Smollet and Fielding, was now coming back to the fare of the nursery , and gorged upon the wild and improbable fic tions of an overheated imagination . But this criticism, when justly examined , will be found to rest chief ly on that depreciating spirit, which would undermine the fair fame of an accomplished writer, by shewing that she does not possess the ex cellencies proper to a style of composition totally different from that which she has attempted. The question is neither, whether the ro mances of Mrs Radcliffe possess merits which her plan did not require, nay, almost excluded ; nor whether hers is to be considered as a depart ment of fictitious composition, equal in dignity and importance to those where the great ancient masters have long pre-occupied the ground. The real and only point is, whether, considered as a separate and distinct species of writing , that introduced by Mrs Radcliffe pos sesses merit, and affords pleasure ; for, these premises being admitted, it is as unreasonable to complain of the absence of advantages foreign to her style and plan, and proper to those of another mode of composition, as to regret that the peach -tree does not produce grapes, or the vine PREFATORY MEMOIR. xxi peaches. A glance upon the face of nature is, perhaps, the best cure for this unjust and unworthy system of criticism . We there behold , that not only each star differs from another in glory, but that there is spread overthe face of Nature a boundless variety ; and that as a thou sand different kinds of shrubs and flowers, not only have beauties inde pendent of each other, but are more delightful from that very circum stance than if they were uniform , so the fields of literature admit the same variety ; and it may be said of the Muse of Fiction, as well as of her sisters, Mille habet ornatus, mille decenter habet. It may be stated, to the additional confusion of such hypercritics as we allude to , that not only does the infinite variety of human tastes require different styles of composition for their gratification ; but if there were to be selected one particular structure of fiction, which pos sesses charms for the learned and unlearned, the grave and gay , the gen tleman and the clown , it would be perhaps that of those very romances which the severity of their criticism seeks to depreciate. There are many men too mercurial to be delighted by Richardson's beautiful, but protracted display of the passions ; and there are some too dull to comprehend the wit of Le Sage, or too saturnine to relish the nature and spirit of Fielding : And yet these very individuals will with diffi culty be divorced from The Romance ofthe Forest, or The Mysteries of Udolpho ; for curiosity and a lurking love of mystery , together with a germ of superstition , are more general ingredients in the human mind, and more widely diffused through the mass of humanity, than either taste or feeling. The unknown author of The Pursuits of Literature , who, in respect to common tales of terror, “ boasts an English heart, Unused at ghosts or rattling bones to start , " acknowledges, nevertheless, the legitimate character of Mrs Radcliffe's art, and pays no mean tribute to her skill. Of some sister novelists he talks with slight regard. “ Though all of them are ingenious ladies, xxii PREFATORY MEMOIR . yet they are too frequently whining and frisking in novels, till our girls' heads turn wild with impossible adventures , and now and then are tainted with democracy. Not so the mighty magician of The Mysteries of Udolpho, bredand nourished by the Florentine muses in their sacred solitary caverns, amid the paler shrines of Gothic super stition , and in all the dreariness of enchantment ; a poetess whom Ariosto would with rapture have acknowledged, as La nudrita Damigella Trivulzia al sacro speco. ' ” — O . F. c. xlvi. Mrs Radcliffe was not made acquainted with this high compliment till long after the satire was published ; and its value was enhanced by the author's general severity of judgment, and by his perfect acquaintance with the manners and language of Italy, in which she had laid her scene. It is farther to be observed, that the same class of critics who ridiculed these romances as unnatural and improbable, were dispo sed to detract from the genius of the author, on account of the sup posed facility of her task. Art or talent, they said , was not required to produce that sort of interest and emotion , which is perhaps, after all, more strongly excited by a vulgar legend of a ghost, than by the high painting and laboured descriptions of Mrs Radcliffe. But this criti cism is not much better founded than the former. The feelings of suspense and awful attention which she excited, were by means of springs which lie open indeed to the first touch , but which are pecu liarly liable to be worn out by repeated pressure. The public soon , like Macbeth, becomes satiated with horrors, and indifferent to the strongest stimuli of that kind. It shews, therefore, the excellence and power of Mrs Radcliffe's genius, that she was able three times to bring back her readers with fresh appetite to a banquet of the same de scription ; while of her numerous imitators, who rang the changes upon old castles and forests, and “ antres dire, ” scarcely one attracted at tention , until Mr Lewis published his Monk, several years after she had resigned her pen . PREFATORY MEMOIR. xxiii The materials of these celebrated romances, and the means employ ed in conducting the narrative, are all selected with a view to the author's primary object, of moving the reader by ideas of impending danger, hidden guilt, supernatural visitings, -by all that is terrible, in short, combined with much that is wonderful. For this purpose , her scenery is generally as gloomy as her tale, and her personages are those at whose frown that gloom grows darker. She has uniformly selected the south of Europe for her place of action, whose passions, like the weeds of the climate, are supposed to attain portentous growth under the fostering sun ; which abounds with ruined monuments of antiquity , as well as the more massive remnants of the middle ages ; and where feudal tyranny and Catholic superstition still continue to exercise their sway over the slave and bigot, and to indulge to the haughty lord, or more haughty priest, that sort of despotic power, the exercise of which seldom fails to deprave the heart, and disorder the judgment. These circumstances are skilfully selected, to give probability to events which could not, without great violation of truth , be represented as having taken place in England. Yet, even with the allowances which we make for foreign minds and manners, the unterminating succession of misfortunes which press upon the heroine, strikes us as unnatural.. She is continually struggling with the tide of adversity, and hurried down wards by its torrent; and if any more gay description is occasionally introduced, it is only as a contrast, not a relief, to the melancholy and gloomy tenor of the narrative. In working upon the sensations of natural and superstitious fear, Mrs Radcliffe has made much use of obscurity and suspense, the most fertile source, perhaps, of sublime emotion ; for there are few dangers that do not become familiar to the firm mind, if they are presented to consideration as certainties, and in all their open and declared charac ter, whilst, on the other hand, the bravest have shrunk from the dark and the doubtful. To break off the narrative, when it seemed at the point of becoming most interesting - to extinguish a lamp just when a parchment containing some hideous secret ought to have been read - to exhibit shadowy forms and half-heard sounds of woe, were resources xxiv PREFATORY MEMOIR. 1 1 which Mrs Radcliffe has employed with more effect than any other wri ter ofromance. It must be confessed, that, in order to bring about these situations, some part or contrivance, on the art of the author, is rather too visible. Her heroines voluntarily expose themselves to situations, which in nature a lonely female would certainly have avoided. They are too apt to choose the midnight hour for investigating the mysteries of a deserted chamber or secret passage, and generally are only sup plied with an expiring lamp, when about to read the most interesting documents. The simplicity of the tale is thus somewhat injured — it is as if we witnessed a dressing up of the very phantom by which we are to be startled ; and the imperfection , though redeemed by many beau ties, did not escape the censure of criticism . A principal characteristic of Mrs Radcliffe's romances, is the rule which the author imposed upon herself, that all the circumstances of her narrative, however mysterious, and apparently superhuman, were to be accounted for on natural principles, at the winding up of the story . It must be allowed , that this has not been done with uniform success, and that the author has been more successful in exciting in terest and apprehensions, than in explaining the means she has made use of. Indeed , we have already noticed, as the torment of romance writers, those necessary evils, the concluding chapters, when they must unravel the skein of adventures which they have been so indus trious to perplex, and account for all the incidents which they have been at so much pains to render unaccountable. Were these great magicians, who deal in the wonderful and fearful, permitted to dis miss their spectres as they raise them , amidst the shadowy and indis tinct light so favourable to the exhibition of phantasmagoria, without compelling them into broad daylight, the task were comparatively easy, and the fine fragment of Sir Bertrand might have rivals in that department. But the modern author is not permitted to escape that way. We are told of a formal old judge, before whom evidence was tendered of the ghost of a murdered person having declared to a witness, that the prisoner at the bar was guilty, who admitted the evidence of the spirit to be excellent, but denied his right to be in PREFATORY MEMOIR. XXV a heard through the mouth of another, and ordered the spectre to be summoned into open court . The present public deal as rigidly, and compel an explanation from the story - teller ; and he must either at once consider the knot as worthy of being severed by supernatural aid , and bring on the stage his actual fiend or ghost, or, like Mrs Rad cliffe, refer to natural agency the whole materials of his story . We have already, in some brief remarks on The Castle of Otranto, avowed some preference for the more simple mode, of boldly avowing the use of supernatural machinery. Ghosts and witches, and the whole tenets of superstition, having once , and at no late period, been matter of universal belief, warranted by legal authority, it would seem no great stretch upon the reader's credulity to require him , while reading of what his ancestors did , to credit for the time what those ancestors devoutly believed in . And yet, notwithstanding the success of Wal pole and Maturin , ( to whom we may add the author of Forman ,) the management of such machinery must be acknowledged a task of a most delicate nature. “ There is but one step, " said Buonaparte, “ betwixt the sublime and the ridiculous ;" and in an age of universal increduli ty, we must own it would require, at the present day, the support of the highest powers, to save the supernatural from slipping into the ludicrous. The Incredulus odi is a formidable objection. There are some modern authors, indeed, who have endeavoured , in geniously enough, to compound betwixt ancient faith and modern in credulity. They have exhibited phantoms, and narrated prophecies strangely accomplished, without giving a defined or absolute opinion , whether these are to be referred to supernatural agency, or whether the apparitions were produced (no uncommon case) by an overheated imagination , and the accompanying presages by a casual, though singu lar, coincidence of circumstances. This is, however, an evasion of the difficulty, not a solution ; and besides, it would be leading us too far from the present subject, to consider to what point the author of a ficti tious narrative is bound by his charter to gratify the curiosity of the public, and whether, as a painter of actual life, he is not entitled to leave something in shade, when the natural course of events conceals so xxvi PREFATORY MEMOIR.

I. many incidents in total darkness. Perhaps, upon the whole, this is the most artful mode of terminating such a tale of wonder, as it forms the means of compounding with the taste of two different classes of readers ; those who, like children, demand that each particular cir cumstance and incident of the narrative shall be fully accounted for and the more imaginative class, who, resembling men that walk for pleasure through a moonlight landscape, are more teazed than edified by the intrusive minuteness with which some well-meaning companion disturbs their reveries, divesting stock and stone of the shadowy sem . blances in which fancy had dressed them, and pertinaciously restoring to them the ordinary forms and common-place meanness of reality.

It may indeed be claimed as meritorious in Mrs Radcliffe's mode

of expounding her mysteries, that it is founded in possibilities. Many situations have occurred, highly tinctured with romantic incident and feeling, the mysterious obscurity of which has afterwards been ex plained by deception and confederacy. Such have been the impos tures of superstition in all ages , and such delusions were also practised by the members of the Secret Tribunal, in the middle ages, and in more modern times by the Rosicrucians and Illuminati, upon whose machi nations Schiller has founded the fine romance of The Ghost- Seer . But Mrs Radcliffe has not had recourse to so artificial a solution . Her he roines often sustain the agony of fear, and her readers that of sus pense, from incidents which, when explained, appear of an ordinary and trivial nature ; and in this we do not greatly applaud her art. A stealthy step behind the arras, may doubtless, in some situations, and when the nerves are tuned to a certain pitch , have no small influence upon the imagination ; but if the conscious listener discovers it to be only the noise made by the cat, the solemnity of the feeling is gone, and the visionary is at once angry with his senses for having been cheated, and with his reason for having acquiesced in the deception. We fear that some such feeling of disappointment and displeasure at tends most readers, when they read for the first time the unsatisfactory solution of the mysteries of the black pall and the wax figure, which PREFATORY MEMOIR . xxvii has been adjourned from chapter to chapter, like something suppress ed, because too horrible for the ear . There is a separate inconvenience attending a narrative where the imagination has been kept in suspense, and is at length imperfectly gratified by an explanation falling short of what the reader has expect ed ; for, in such a case, the interest terminates on the first reading of the volumes, and cannot, so far as it rests upon a high degree of excitation, be recalled upon a second perusal. Mrs Radcliffe's plan of narrative, happily complicated and ingeniously resolved , continues to please after many readings ; for, although the interest of eager curiosity is no more, it is supplied by the rational pleasure, which admires the author's art, and traces a thousand minute passages, which render the catastrophe probable, yet escape notice in the eagerness of a first perusal. But it is otherwise, when some inadequate cause is assigned for a strong emotion ; the reader feels tricked, and like a child who has once seen the scenes ofa theatre too nearly, the idea ofpaste-board, cords, and pullies, destroys for ever the illusion with which they were first seen from the proper point of view . Such are the difficulties and dilemmas which attend the path of the professed story -teller, who, while it is expected of him that his narrative should be interesting and extraordinary, is neither permitted to explain its wonders, by referring them to ordinary causes, on account of their triteness, nor to supernatural agency, because of its incredibility. It is no wonder that, hemmed in by rules so strict, Mrs Radcliffe, a mistress of the art of exciting curiosity, has not been uniformly fortunate in the mode of gratifying it. The best and most admirable specimen of her art, is the mysterious disappearance of Ludovico, after having undertaken to watch for a night in a haunted apartment ; and the mind of the reader is finely wound up for some strange catastrophe, by the admirable ghost-story which he is represented as perusing to amuse his solitude, as the scene closes upon him . Neither can it be denied, that the explanation af forded of this mysterious incident is as probable as romance requires, and in itself completely satisfactory. As this is perhaps the most fa vourable example of Mrs Radcliffe's peculiar skill in composition , the xxviii PREFATORY MEMOIR . incidents of the black veil and the waxen figure, may be considered as instances where the explanation falls short of expectation, and dis appoints the reader entirely. On the other hand, her art is at once , according to the classical precept, exerted and concealed in the beautiful and impressive passage, where the Marchesa is in the choir of the convent of San Nicolo, contriving with the atrocious Schedoni the murder of Ellena. “ Avoid violence, if that be possible,' she added , immediately com prehending him , “ but let her die quickly ! The punishment is due to the crime.' “ The Marchesa happened , as she said this, to cast her eyes upon the inscription over a confessional, where appeared, in black letters, these awful words, ' God hears thee !' It appeared an awful warning ; her countenance changed ; it had struck upon her heart. Schedoni was too much engaged by his own thoughts to observe, or understand her silence. She soon recovered herself ; and, considering that this was a common inscription for confessionals, disregarded what she had at first considered as a peculiar admonition ; yet some moments elapsed , before she could renew the subject. “ You were speaking of a place, father,' resumed the Marchesa you mentioned a ' “ • Ay,' muttered the confessor, still musing— ' in a chamber of that house there is “ What noise is that ?' said the Marchesa, interrupting him . They listened . A few low and querulous notes of the organ sounded at a distance, and stopped again. " " What mournful music is that ? ' said the Marchesa, in a falter ing voice ; it was touched by a fearful hand ! Vespers were over long ago ? Daughter,' said Schedoni, somewhat sternly, you said you had Alas ! you have a woman's heart ." “ Excuse me, father; I know not why I feel this agitation, but I will command it. That chamber ? ' 6 a man's courage. S PREFATORY MEMOIR. xxix 6 “ " In that chamber,' resumed the confessor, “ is a secret door, con structed long ago . “ . And for what purpose constructed ?' said the fearful Marchesa. « • Pardon me, daughter ; ' tis sufficient that it is there ; we will make a good use of it. Through that door — in the night -- when she sleeps “ • I comprehend you ,' said the Marchesa, “ I comprehend you. But why , —you have your reasons, no doubt, —but why the necessity of a secret door in a house which you say is so lonely — inhabited by only one person ?' “ . A passage leads to the sea , continued Schedoni, without reply ing to the question. • There, on the shore, when darkness covers it ; there, plunged amidst the waves, no stain shall hint of “ • Hark ! interrupted the Marchesa, starting, that note again !' “ The organ sounded faintly from the choir, and paused, as before. In the next moment, a slow chanting of voices was heard , mingling with the rising peal, in a strain particularly melancholy and solemn. « Who is dead ?' said the Marchesa, changing countenance ; it is a requiem ! “ • Peace be with the departed ! ' exclaimed Schedoni, and crossed himself ; peace rest with his soul ! ' 66“ " Hark ! to that chaunt,' said the Marchesa, in a trembling voice ; • it is a first requiem ; the soul has but just quitted the body ! “ They listened in silence. The Marchesa was much affected ; her complexion varied at every instant ; her breathings were short and in terrupted, and she even shed a few tears, but they were those of des pair, rather than of sorrow . " Mrs Radcliffe's powers, both of language and description, have been justly estimated very highly. They bear, at the same time, consider able marks of that warm , and somewhat exuberant imagination, which dictated her works. Some artists are distinguished by precision and correctness of outline, others by the force and vividness of their colour ing ; and it is to the latter class that this author belongs. The land a XXX PREFATORY MEMOIR. 1 scapes of Mrs Radcliffe are far from equal in accuracy and truth to those of her contemporary, Mrs Charlotte Smith, whose sketches are so very graphical, that an artist would find little difficulty in actually painting from them . Those of Mrs Radcliffe, on the contrary, while they would supply the most noble and vigorous ideas, for producing a general effect, would leave the task of tracing a distinct and accurate outline to the imagination of the painter. As her story is usually en veloped in mystery , so there is, as it were, a haze over her landscapes, softening indeed the whole, and adding interest and dignity to particu lar parts, and thereby producing every effect which the author desired , but without communicating any absolutely precise or individual image to the reader. The beautiful description of the Castle of Udolpho, upon Emmeline's first approach to it, is of this character. It affords a noble subject for the pencil ; but were six artists to attempt to embody it upon canvass, they would probably produce six drawings entirely dissi milar to each other, all of them equally authorized by the printed de scription, which, although a long one, is so beautiful a specimen of Mrs Radcliffe's peculiar talents, that we do not hesitate to insert it. “ Towards the close of day, the road wound into a deep valley. Mountains, whose shaggy steeps appeared to be inaccessible, almost surrounded it. To the east, a vista opened, and exhibited the Apen nines in their darkest horrors ; and the long perspective of retiring summits rising over each other, their ridges clothed with pines, ex hibited a stronger image of grandeur, than any that 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 cliffs, touched with a yellow gleam the summits of the forest that hung upon the opposite steeps, and streamed in full splendour upon the towers and battlements of a castle that spread its extensive ramparts along the brow of a pre cipice above. The splendour of these illumined objects was heighten ed by the contrasted shade which involved the valley below. “ • There,' said Montoni, speaking for the first time in several hours, • is Udolpho.' PREFATORY MEMOIR. xxxi Emily gazed with melancholy awe upon the castle, which she un derstood to be Montoni's ; for, though it was now lighted up by the setting sun , the Gothic greatness of its features, and its mouldering walls of dark grey stone, rendered it a gloomy and sublime object. As she gazed , the light died away on its walls, leaving a melancholy pur ple tint, which spread deeper and deeper, as the thin vapour crept up the mountain , while the battlements above were still tipped with splen dour. From those, too, the rays soon faded , and the whole edifice was invested with the solemn duskiness of evening. Silent, lonely, and sublime, it seemed to stand the sovereign of the scene, and to frown defiance on all who dared to invade its solitary reign. As the twilight deepened, its features became more awful in obscurity, and Emily con tinued to gaze, till its clustering towers were alone seen rising over the tops of the woods, beneath whose thick shade the carriages soon after began to ascend. “ The extent and darkness of these tall woods awakened terrific images in her mind, and she almost expected to see banditti start up from under the trees. At length the carriages emerged upon a heathy rock, and soon after reached the castle gates, where the deep tone 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 xiously surveyed the edifice : but the gloom that overspread it, allow ed her to distinguish little more than a part of its outline, with the massy walls of the ramparts, and to know that it was vast, ancient, and dreary. From the parts she saw , she judged of the heavy strength and extent of the whole. The gateway before her, leading into the courts , was of gigantic size, and was defended by two round towers, crowned by overhanging turrets, embattled, where, instead of banners, now waved long grass and wild plants, that had taken root among the mouldering stones, and which seemed to sigh, as the breeze rolled past, over the desolation around them . The towers were united by a cur tain, pierced and embattled also, below which appeared the pointed arch of a huge portcullis, surmounting the gates : from these, the walls an . xxxii PREFATORY MEMOIR. of the ramparts extended to other towers, overlooking the precipice, whose shattered outline, appearing on a gleam that lingered in the west, told of the ravages of war. - Beyond these all was lost in the ob scurity of evening ." We think it interesting to compare this splendid and beautiful fan cy -picture with the precision displayed by the same author's pencil, when she was actually engaged in copying nature, and probably the reader will be of opinion, that Udolpho is a beautiful effect piece, Hardwick a striking and faithful portrait. “ Northward, beyond London, we may make one stop, after a coun try , not otherwise necessary to be noticed, to mention Hardwick, in Derbyshire, a seat of the Duke of Devonshire, once the residence of the Earl of Shrewsbury , to whom Elizabeth deputed the custody of the unfortunate Mary. It stands on an easy height, a few miles to the left of the road from Mansfield to Chesterfield, and is approached through shady lanes, which conceal the view of it, till you are on the confines of the park. Three towers of hoary grey then rise with great majesty among old woods, and their summits appear to be covered with the lightly shivered fragments of battlements, which, however, are soon discovered to be perfectly carved open work, in which the letters E. S. frequently occur under a coronet, the initials, and the memorials of the vanity, of Elizabeth , Countess of Shrewsbury, who built the present edifice. Its tall features, of a most picturesque tint, were finely disclosed between the luxuriant woods and over the lawns of the park, which , every now and then , let in a glimpse of the Derbyshire hills. The scenery reminded us of the exquisite descrip tions of Harewood . “ The deep embowering shades, that veil Elfrida, and those of Hard wick, once veiled a form as lovely asas the the ideal graces of the poet, and conspired to a fate more tragical than that which Harewood witnessed . “ In front of the great gates of the castle court, the ground, adorn ed by old oaks, suddenly sinks to a darkly shadowed glade, and the view opens over the vale of Scarsdale, bounded by the wild mountains of the Peak. Immediately to the left of the present residence, some а 7 PREFATORY MEMOIR. xxxiii ruined features of the ancient one, enwreathed with the rich drapery of ivy, give an interest to the scene, which the later, but more histo rical structure heightens and prolongs. We followed, not without emotion , the walk which Mary had so often trodden, to the folding doors of the great hall, whose lofty grandeur, aided by silence, and seen under the influence of a lowering sky, suited the temper of the whole scene. The tall windows, which half subdue the light they ad mit, just allowed us to distinguish the large figures in the tapestry, above the oak wainscoting, and shewed a colonnade of oak supporting a gallery along the bottom of the hall, with a pair of gigantic elk's horns flourishing between the windows opposite to the entrance. The scene of Mary's arrival, and her feelings upon entering this solemn shade, came involuntarily to the mind ; the noise of horses' feet, and many voices from the court ; her proud, yet gentle and melancholy look , as, led by my Lord Keeper, she passed slowly up the hall ; his somewhat obsequious, yet jealous and vigilant air, while, awed by her dignity and beauty , he remembers the terrors of his own queen ; the silence and anxiety of her maids, and the bustle of the surrounding attendants. “ From the hall, a stair - case ascends to the gallery of a small cha pel, in which the chairs and cushions used by Mary still remain , and proceeds to the first story, where only one apartment bears memorials of her imprisonment, the bed , tapestry , and chairs, having been work ed by herself. This tapestry is richly embossed with emblematic fi gures, each with its title worked above it, and, having been scrupu lously preserved, is still entire and fresh . “ Over the chimney of an adjoining dining -room , to which , as well as to other apartments on this floor, some modern furniture has been added , is this motto carved in oak : “ There is only this : To fear God, and keep his Commandments .' So much less valuable was timber than workmanship, when this man sion was constructed , that, where the stair - cases are not of stone, they are formed of solid oaken steps, instead of planks; such is that from VOL. X. с xxxiv PREFATORY MEMOIR . 2 the second, or state story, to the roof, whence, on clear days, York and Lincoln Cathedrals are said to be included in the extensive prospect. This second floor is that, which gives its chief interest to the edifice . Nearly all the apartments of it were allotted to Mary ; some of them for state purposes ; and the furniture is known by other proof than its appearance, to remain as she left it. The chief room , or that of au dience, is of uncommon loftiness, and strikes by its grandeur, before the veneration and tenderness arise, which its antiquities, and the plainly told tale of the sufferings they witnessed, excite. " * The contrast of these two descriptions, will satisfy the reader that Mrs Radcliffe knew as well how to copy nature , as when to indulge imagination. The towers of Udolpho are undefined, boundless, and wreathed in mist and obscurity ; the ruins of Hardwick are as fully and boldly painted , but with more exactness of outline, and perhaps less warmth and magnificence of colouring. It is singular, that though Mrs Radcliffe's beautiful descriptions of foreign scenery, composed solely from the materials afforded by tra vellers, collected and embodied by her own genius, were marked in a particular degree, (to our thinking at least, ) with the characteristics of fancy -portraits ; yet many of her contemporaries conceived them to be exact descriptions of scenes which she had visited in person. One report, transmitted to the public by the Edinburgh Review, stated, that Mr and Mrs Radcliffe had visited Italy ; that Mr Radcliffe had been attached to one of the British Embassies in that country' ; and that it was there his gifted consort imbibed the taste for picturesque scenery, for mouldering ruins, and for the obscure and gloomy anec dotes which tradition relates of their former inhabitants. This is so far a mistake, as Mrs Radcliffe was never in Italy ; but we have already Journey through Holland and the Western Frontier of Germany, with a Re turn down the Rhine. To which are added, Observations during a Tour to the Lakes of Lancashire, Westmoreland , and Cumberland. By Ann Radcliffe. 4to. 1795. Page 371 . PREFATORY MEMOIR . XXXV mentioned the probability of her having availed herself of the acquaint ance she formed in 1793 with the magnificent scenery on the banks of the Rhine, and the frowning remains of feudal castles with which it abounds. The inaccuracy of the reviewer is of no great consequence ; but a more absurd report found its way into print, that Mrs Radcliffe, a namely, having visited the fine old Gothic mansion of Haddon House, had insisted upon remaining a night there, in the course of which she had been inspired with all that enthusiasm for Gothic residences, hid den passages, and mouldering walls, which mark her writings. Mrs Radcliffe, we are assured , never saw Haddon House ; and although it was a place excellently worth her attention, and could hardly have been seen by her without suggesting some of those ideas in which her imagination naturally revelled, yet we should suppose the mechanical aid to invention—the recipe for fine writing — the sleeping in a dis mantled and unfurnished old house, was likely to be rewarded with no thing but a cold, and was an affectation of enthusiasm to which Mrs Radcliffe would have disdained to have recourse. The warmth of imagination which Mrs Radcliffe manifests, was naturally connected with an inclination towards poetry, and according ly songs, sonnets, and pieces of fugitive verse, amuse and relieve the reader in the course of her volumes. These are not, in this place, the legitimate subject of criticism ; but it may be remarked, that they dis play more liveliness and richness of fancy, than correctness of taste, or felicity of expression. The language does not become pliant in Mrs Radcliffe's hands; and, unconscious of this defect, she has attempted, nevertheless, to bend it into new structures of verse , for which the English is not adapted. The song of the glow-worm is an experiment of this nature. It must also be allowed, that the imagination of the author sometimes carries her on too fast, and that if she herself formed a competent and perfect idea of what she meant to express, she has sometimes failed to convey it to the reader. At other times, her poetry partakes of the rich and beautiful colouring which distinguishes her prose composition, and has, perhaps, the same fault, of not being in every case quite precise in expressing the meaning of the author. 8 XXXVI PREFATORY MEMOIR. The following address to Melancholy may be fairly selected as a spe cimen of her powers. Spirit of love and sorrow — hail ! Thy solemn voice from far I hear, Mingling with evening's dying gale : Hail, with this sadly - pleasing tear ! 0 ! at this still, this lonely hour, Thine own sweet hour of closing day, Awake thy lute , whose charmful power Shall call up Fancy to obey ; To paint the wild romantic dream , That meets the poet's musing eye, As on the bank of shadowy stream He breathes to her the fervid sigh. O lonely spirit ! let thy song Lead me through all thy sacred haunt; The minster's moonlight aisles along , Where spectres raise the midnight chaunt ! I hear their dirges faintly swell ! Then, sink at once in silence drear, While, from the pillar'd cloister's cell, Dimly their gliding forms appear ! Lead where the pine -woods wave on high, Whose pathless sod is darkly seen , As the cold moon , with trembling eye, Darts her long beams the leaves between. Lead to the mountain's dusky head, Where, far below, in shades profound, Wide forests, plains, and hamlets spread, And sad the chimes of vesper sound. PREFATORY MEMOIR. Xxxvii Or guide me where the dashing oar Just breaks the stillness of the vale, As slow it track the winding shore, To meet the ocean's distant sail : To pebbly banks, that Neptune laves, With measured surges, loud and deep, Where the dark cliff bends o'er the waves, And wild the winds of autumn sweep. There pause at midnight's spectred hour, And list the long -resounding gale ; And catch the fleeting moonlight's power, O'er foaming seas and distant sail. It cannot, we think, be denied, that we have here beautiful ideas ex pressed in appropriate versification ; yet here, as in her prose composi tions, the poetess is too much busied with external objects, too anxious to describe the outward accompaniments of melancholy , to write upon the feeling itself ; and although the comparison be made at the expence of a favourite authoress, we cannot help contrasting the poetry we have just inserted with a song, by Fletcher, on a similar subject. Pas. ( Sings . ) Hence, all you vain delights , As short as are the nights Wherein you spend your folly ! There's nought in this life sweet, If man were wise to see't, But only melancholy ! Welcome, folded arms, and fixed eyes, A sigh that piercing mortifies, A look that's fasten’d to the ground , A tongue chained up, without a sound ! a Xxxviii PREFATORY MEMOIR . Fountain heads, and pathless groves, Places which pale passion loves ! Moonlight walks, when all the fowls Are warınly housed , save bats and owls ! A midnight bell, a parting groan ! These are the sounds we feed upon ; Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley , Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy. The Nice Valour. In these last verses the reader may observe, that the human feeling of the votary of Melancholy, or rather the pale passion itself, is pre dominant ; that our thoughts are of, and with, the pensive wanderer ; and that the “ fountain heads and pathless groves, ” like the landscape in a portrait, are only secondary parts of the picture. In Mrs Rad cliffe's verses, it is different. The acessaries and accompaniments of melancholy are well described, but they call for so much of our at tention , that the feeling itself scarce solicits due regard. We are placed among melancholy objects, but if our sadness is reflected from them , it is not the growth of our own minds. Something like this may be observed in Mrs Radcliffe's romances, where our curiosity is too much interested about the evolution of the story , to permit our feelings to be acted upon by the distresses of the hero or heroine. We do not quite acknowledge them as objects of our interest personally, and, convinced that the authoress will extricate them from their em barrassments, we are more concerned about the course of the story , than the feelings or fate of those of whom it is told. But we must not take farewell of a favourite author with a depre ciating sentiment. It may be true, that Mrs Radcliffe rather walks in fairy-land than in the region of realities, and that she has neither displayed the command of the human passions, nor the insight into the human heart, nor the observation of life and manners, which recom mend other authors in the same line. But she has taken the lead in a line of composition, appealing to those powerful and general sources PREFATORY MEMOIR. XXXix of interest, a latent sense of supernatural awe, and curiosity concerning whatever is hidden and mysterious ; and if she has been ever pearly ap proached in this walk , which we should hesitate to affirm , it is at least certain , that she has never been excelled or even equalled. ABBOTSFORD, SEPTEMBER 1 , 1824.