MRS RADCLIFFE — HER RELATION TOWARDS ROMANTICISM






MRS RADGLIFFE - HER RELATION TOWARDS ROMANTIGISM
WÜh an Appendix oh the Novds Falsely Ascribed to Her
ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT TER VERKRIJGING VAN DEN GRAAD VAN DOCTOR IN DE LETTEREN EN WIJSBEGEERTE AAN DE UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM, OP GEZAG VAN DEN RECTOR-MAGND7ICUS, Dr P. RUITINGA, HOOGLEERAAR IN DE FACULTEIT DER GENEESKUNDE, Dï HET OPENBAAR TE VERDEDIGEN, IN DE AULA DER UNIVERSITEIT, OP DONDERDAG x JULI, DES NAMIDDAGS 3* UUR
DOOR
ALIDA ALBERDINA SIBBELLINA WIETEN
GEBOREN TE APELDOORN
H. J. PARIS AMSTERDAM — MCMXXVI






AAN MIJNE OUDERS






Bij het voleindigen van mijn proefschrift wensch ik mijn oprechten dank te betuigen aan U, Hooggeachte Professor Swaen, die zich welwillend bereid verklaarde mijn Promotor te zijn en wiens lessen ik in Amsterdam mocht volgen. Uwe vriendelijke hulpvaardigheid was mij zéér tot steun.
Ook gedenk ik hier met dankbaarheid Dr. W van der Gaaf, Professor Dr. P. Fijn van Draat, en de Heeren J. C. G. Grasé en M. G. van Neck, wien ik mede mime opleiding te danken heb.
Zeer verplicht gevoel ik mij aan de World Association for Adult Education, die mij buitengewoon behulpzaam was in het verkrijgen van mijn materiaal.
Tevens wensch ik mijne waardeering uit te spreken voor de gastvrijheid, mij verleend door het British Museum te Londen, en voor de voorkomendheid van Directrice en Assistenten der Openbare Leeszaal te Dordrecht.



CONTENTS
Mes. Radctjffe's Life
Mbs. Radcliffe and her belation towabds ^ romanticism
novels falsely ascbibed to mbs. RaDCHFFE 108
148
BlBLIOGBAPHY



Mes. RADCLIFFE's LIFE
Mts. Radcliffe's life presents few of the romantic experiences with which her novels abound. The tenor of her life was that of quiet, contented domesticity, favouring the pursuit of the "elegant" female arts of drawing, music and literature, practised at that day. Indeed, her birth fitted her for a gentle position in society.
Ann Ward was born in London on the ninth of July, 1764, of a well-known family, and was related to several persons of standing, such as Dr. Halifax, physician to the king, and Dr. Halifax, Bishop of Gloucester. She received a good education according to the lights of that time, possibly attending the school of Miss Harriet and Miss Sophia Lee, with whom she was certaiuly acquainted, and used to move in the cultured circles of society, which she quietly enjoyed, without taking a prominent part in them. Yet her mind and conversation had much vivacity; her powers of observation were quick and accurate; her temper, though modest and retiring, was habitually cheerful. When twenty-three years old she married at Bath Mr. William Radcliffe, a graduate of Oxford, who afterwards became editor of The English Chronicle. Her married life seems to have been happy and untroubled, the inclinations of husband and wjfe evidently pointing in the same direction.
Mrs. Radcliffe being well-read in literature and being also much at leisure, soon took to writing. Her firstling
1



The Castles of AthUn and Dunbayne, appeared anonymously m 1789, but did not gain much praise. Accordmg to contemporary reviews, its only recommendation was its moral, and some good sentiments
It was followed in 1790 by A Sicüian Romance, which was more appreciated by critics, and allowed by some to contain "romantic scènes and surprising events exhibited in elegant and animated language." *
Her world-wide reputation and fame, however she westo The Romance of the Forest, which appeared in 1791, and to The Mysteries of Udolpho, in 1794. Critics differ m their opinion which of these two attained the highest degree of excellence. Her correctness of sentiment her rich invention, the delicacy of her feelings and her glowing, varied descriptions are praised The only objection brought forward against them, is their lengthmess, the tedious prolixity in local descriptions which was only prevented from being a deadening power by the utmost vigour of imagination. Menlike Shendan and Fox praised her novels, and Dr. Joseph Warton, Headmaster of Winchester School, told the pnblisher, Mr. Robinson, that he stayed up all night to read The Mysteries of Udolpho. Not only inEngland but abroad too, especially in France, these novels made* a great stir. The great financial profits, which these pubhcations brought her, (though she certainly did not rack her brains for lucre») were exaggerated to enormous sums, £1000 and £1500 being erroneously mentioned as having been received by her 2. The beauty
1 Monthly Review, Sept. 1790.
« Li the Biographie Universelle andenne el moderne, tome 35, pp. 55-6 and the Btographte Nouvelle des contemporains, tome 17, pp. 203-4
2



of the descriptions of foreign scenery led to the opinion that they were derived fronx personal observation, which was apparently confirmed by the fact that in 1794 she made a trip to the continent with her husband. As however, The Mysteries of Udolpho was passing through the pre» at the time, it cannot have been much influenced by this journey. The countries visited were Holland and Germany, her original plan including Switzerland, which plan was thwarted by official uncourteousness on the Swiss frontier. France and Italy she did not visit *. *
After her return to England, Mrs. Radcliffe proceeded to the Lake-district, the impressions of which visit she aso laid down in print: A Journey made in the summer of 1794, through Holland and the Western Frontier of
rT?' ™th a retUm d0Wn the Rhine- to which are added observations during a tour to the Lakes of Lancashire, Westmoreland, and Cumberland, 1795 To visit the continent in those troublous times certainly does not produee the fdea of timidity and feminine fearfulness, which we might haveconcludedfromhercustomary retirmg disposition. Though in her novels terror is the mam spring of action, unreasonable fear seems never to have taken hold of her personally, even when she feit awed by the greatness of nature. Only once in her journals we find that she was frightened by the solitude and vastness of the scène. And in another place during a violent thunderstorm she is "glad to hear
l^Z^tZ°Tymrlm (L°nd0n 1824) Mrs. Radcliffe
ui gave to the world a narrative of her t,™™la ,-r. t?~, ^
people suppose that she had Ited fhoÏpLeT ^ ^



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from the other side of the house cheerful voices talking or singing." From this time, 1794, she continued her trips to various districts of England, and put down her impressions in journals, which were partly pubhshed after her death, in 1826. Painting and music drew her attention everywhere. As for painting, she was not an indiscriminate admirer. Her criticism of the altar piece by West, in Winchester Cathedral, representing Lazarus rising from the dead, shows insight and genuine interest. She notes the family picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds at "Blenheim" and remarks on another picture that "Vandyke's portrait of Charles the First's Queen is not so fine as his picture of her in the domestic drawingroom at Warwick Castle. Dutch and Italian painters are famüiar to her. It is especially Claude Lorram, who spent the greater part of his life in Italy, whose pictures suggest to her the connection between poet, painter and musician, the oneness of multifarious artistic representation, which is the keynote of her own literary art.
"Here", she writes, "was the poet as well as the painter, touching the imagination, and making you see more than the picture contained. You saw the real light of the sun, you breathed the air of the country, you feit all the circumstances of a luxurious climate on the most serene and beautiful landscape; and the mind being thus softened, you almost fancied you heard the Italian music on the air - the musie of Paisielloj and such doubtless, were the scènes that inspired hun.
When she looks at Giardini's portrait she remarks that the composer's countenance "gives you the idea that he is listening to the long-drawn notes of his own



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violin." Perhaps she is slightly swayed by her own prejudices when she affirms of Doctor Johnson's portrait at Knole House that "intense thought and anxiety press down the benevolent brow", and of Pope's that he is "old, wrinkled, spectre-like. Swift gentle in comparison with Pope."
As for music, throughout her life she delighted in the harmony of sound, whether produced by art or nature. She draws a comparison between the organs at Canterbury and Salisbury. When she hears the latter, she considers it fine, but not so solemn. "The tone of the organ, too, very good, but did not listen for its swelling and dying sounds as through the vast aisles of Canterbury; there is not space for them to roll in and murmur afar off, as there." 1 But as sweet as this instrument is to her "the cadence of the distant surge", which might have inspired Shakespeare, and "the solemn strain, that died upon the waves from unseen and distant bugles, like a song of peace to the departing day."
A short time after the trip to the Lake-district, she visited the coast of Kent with Canterbury and Dover (1797); in 1798 Portsmouth, the Isle of Wight and Winchester; in the summer of 1800 again the south coast, Seaford, Eastbourne and Beachy Head, Hastings and Dover. In the autumn of that year she paid a visit to Little Hampton and Haslemere, where woods and glades, snug cottages hidden by lofty trees remind her of several German forest-scenes.
In the autumn of 1801 she again passed some time at Southampton, Lymington and the Isle of Wight,
1 Memoir, prefixed to Gaston de Blondevitte. vol. I, p. 66.



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and in that of 1802 she went with her husband to Warwick, Woodstock and Oxford. She seems to have been as much impressed by the sight of these ancient castles, as she had been before by old cathedrals; architecture, especially Gothic architecture, she is not indifferent to, and the castles are minutely described. In June 1805 she saw Belvedère House with its galleries of famous pictures; in 1807 Knole House. Four years later again the Isle of Wight and Portsmouth, where at the George Inn she has a nuschievous delight in hearing the impatient ringing of her fellow guests when she herself has got what she wants "Such life and bustle is inspiriting for a little while" *. In the same year she visited Penshurst, and in October 1812 Malvern bills, from whose ridge she caught a glimpse even of the hills of South Wales.
Later on her excursions were restricted to places in the vicinity of London, such as Richmond, St. Albans; and from 1812 to 1815 she often prolonged her stay at Windsor, whieh she loved. Several scènes visited by her, have been commemorated in the poems contained in her posthumous works. When in 1796 another novel appeared: The Italian, literary reviews were at variance with each other, some affinning that she could hardly surpass The Mysteries of Udolpho.
Others discovered new merits in this novel: power of masterly dialogue used as a means of revealing character, and of advancing the action 2. After this novel no publication followed during her lifetüne, except a volume of poems, (1815, 1816).
1 Memoir, prefixed to Gaston de Blondeville, Vol. I, p. 75.
» United States Review, April 21, 1827. cited from Miss Mclntyre, Ann
Radcliffe in relation to her Urne.



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The even tenor of Mrs. Radcliffe's life was not much broken. No children were born to her. The loss of her parents she feit deeply. Her "dear father" died on the twenty-fourth of July 1798, and on the fourteenth of March 1800 "My poor mother followed him: I am the last leaf on the tree" % At their death she inherited an ample fortune, and lands near Leicester. She enjoyed the quiet, leisurely drives there, taken with her husband. When in town, she frequented the opera, and occasionally attended her husband to the theatre. She admired Mrs. Siddons, whose son Henry dramatized A Sicilian Romance (first performed on the twenty-eighth of May 1794).
Boaden did the same to The Romance of the Forest, but his introduction of a phantom in Fontainville Forest was not considered a success. Neither was bis Italian Monk, 1797, an adaptation of The Italian; Fioresca's song in it, was considered not to be in keeping with the general gloomy tone, and the whole "a hash of melodrama and absurdity."
The secluded, protected life of the authoress made her very sensitive to slights, even when no offence was meant, but except this super-sensitiveness nothing against her character is known. Being like the heroines of her novels pretty, elegant and refined, she was neither prudish nor unnaturally exalted. When she visited Lymington, she viewed the fair and "the fine booths of trinkets and plate" with natural curiosity; and at Franckfort she regretted that during a performance it was so dark that she could scarcely see the diamonds profusely worn by several ladies.
1 Memoir prefixed to Gaston de Blondeviüe vol. I, p. 39.



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The picture drawn in December's Eve, At Home and the account of her stay at Hawswater, bring home to the reader her appreciation of home life, as does many a passage in her novels. The comfortable, neat Parsonage, the "family-circle gathering round a blazing pile of wood on the hearth,.... happy in the sweet affections of kindred, working and reading occasionally while the blast was struggling against the casement and the snow pelting on the roof" K reminds us of the poem just mentioned:
"Welcome December's cheerful hoor, When books, with converse sweet combined, And music's many-gifted power Exalt, or soothe th'awakened mind.
Then let the snow-wind shriek aloud, And menace oft the guarded sash, And all his diapason crowd, As o'er the frame his white wings dash".
That Mrs. Radcliffe's excursïons did not range far after 1811, may be due to the fact that for the last ten years of her life her health was impaired. She suffered from asthma, which weakened her strength. From a trip to Ramsgate, in the autumn of 1822 she derived some benefit. But early the next year a cold she had caught, aggravated her complaint. An inflammation of the lungs set in, and in the morning of the seventh of February 1823 she peacefully departed this life. Her death did not remain unnoticed in literary circles. When in 1826 Gaston de Blondeville2, her only historica! novel, was published for the first time, critics
1 A Journey, made in the summer of 1794, etc, p. 402.
2 Dramatized by Mary Russell Mitford.



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availed themselves of this opportunity for a general comment on her position as an authoress who, notwithstanding some incongruities and weaknesses in her works, was feit to be the originator of a new form of literature, and an artist of blameless character.



Mes. RADCLIFFE AND HER RELATION TOWARDS ROMANTICISM
Most critics of Mrs. Radcliffe have noted the merits of her art of awakening a sense of mystery, and her appeal to the love of the wonderful and grand. Of late Miss Mclntyre1 has found another notable innovation in this authoress: a change in the structure of the novel in the direction of the dramatic; a contribution which she thinks of more importance than Mrs. Radcliffe's change in theme. Those qualities will therefore be but cursorily mentioned here; but the acknowledgement of her excellence justifies a further examination as to her true position in literature, by approximating her attitude towards romanticism.
Thus far her novels have generally been considered apart from her other prose and her poetry. With Miss Mclntyre the contribution to the novel is the principal thing, and the treatment of the-poems is rather slight.
Mrs. Barbauld a, as a matter of course, concerns herself about the novels, though by the way we hear that some of the poems inserted in The Romance of the Forest, had appeared with the author's permission in the Gazetteer. Le Fêvre-Deumier8 too, has not much to say
» Ann Radcliffe in Relation to her Timtr by Cl ara Frances Mclntyre. Dissertation New Haven: Yale University, 1920.
» The British Novelists with an Essay and Prefaces Biographical and
Critical by Mra. Barbauld. (Vol. XHTE, London, 1810).
* Jules le Fêvre-Deumier: Celebrités Anglaises. Paris, 1895.



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about her poetry, except that she is a much greater poet in her prose than in her poetry, and that her shortest poems are the best, two of which he praises. D. Murray Rose's introduction to The Mysteries of Udolpho1 never so much as mentions her poetry.
Yet in order to define her position in romantic literature her poetry is of special interest, and it is essential to keep in view her twofold characterof novelist and poet. That her poetry was noticed so little as not to have attracted any attention in the various reviews of her time, which for the greater part abounded in praise of her novels, may be due to its being very unequal in merit. This fact was already realized by the editor of the collection of poems published in 1816.
Besides, her fame as a novelist probably eclipsed the occasionally great poetic qualities of her poetry. In this way at least the editor of the 1834 volume accounts for it2.
Whereas most of her novels had many reprints and were universally admired 3 and translated during her lifetime her poems were published but a few times.
1 Series: Half-forgotten Books.- Routledge. London.
* „Of the poetioal powere of Mrs. Radcliffe, apart from those examples of the spirit of poetry which breathe so vividly through her prose-romances, there has hitherto been no adequate impression conveyed to the public perhaps because they have only been presented, for the most part, in subordinate conneetion with her prose writings."
* To us the praise bestowed npon her, (which she, however, never courted), looks rather exaggerated at times, as when Mrs. Carter thinks the language of A Sicilian Romance elegant, the scenery exquisitely painted, and the conduct and conclusion of tbe fable original; or when the Montkly Review (May 1792) asserts that it has seldom met a fictian more foroibly fixing the attention than The Romance of the Forest; or when Dr. Nathan Drake calls her "the Shakespeare of Romance writers", and wonders whether curiosity, commiseration or apprehension are most powerfully excited. Such praise was not restricted to Mrs. Radcliffe; but H is doubtful whether it was as sincerely meant in other



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The first edition mentioned by the British Museum Catalogue dates from the year 1815: The Poems of Mrs. Ann Radcliffe author of The Mysteries of Udolpho, etc. London Printed by Schulze and Dean 13 Poland Street for J. Bounden 19 Mortimer Street Cavendish Square 1815. It was shortly afterwards followed by another, printed by J. Smith, in 1816. The former comprises twelve, and the latter fourteen poems not found in the collection, published by Clarke and Co. in 1845. To whom the additional pieces must be attributed, is not quite certain, for the editor of the 1816 volume distinctly states that those beyond page 95 are his own: "with whatever faults they are chargeable they are to be placed to his own account" K They do not differ much from the other poems; and the 1815 editor seems to take it for granted that they are all
cases, as in a sonnet to Miss Lee, the author of The Becess, signed by Orlando. Gentleman''s Magazine August 11, 1792:
"Why sleeps thy heaven-sprung genius, peerless maid O'er whose loVd strains I have so raptur'd hung, In pensive mood, beneatb th'embowering shade, Fancying some beaming cherubim had strung His golden lyre to mortal notes again, Such as in Eden greeted the biest ears Of the first pair, who, on the ambrosial plain, Heard the high wonders of the concave spheres Still, mournf ul moralist with voice sublinie Thrill our charm'd souls with sentiment divine Again the steep ascent of glory climb, And the cold heart of Apathy refine; Still bid thy magie numbers sweetly flow, Nor let the laurel wither on thy brow". 1 The Editor's preface is written in the past tense, apparently supposing the authoress dead. It says that the merits of the poems are variable, but that her genius was of the sterling kind and partook muoh of the masculine charaoter. Miss Mclntyre draws attention to the fact that Mr. Radcliffe can hardly have been the editor as he was always reserved as to his wife 's work, and could not imply her death in 1816.



without exception Mrs. Radcliffe's 1 They were again excluded from a volume of poetry which appeared as late as 1852, The Poetical works of Reginald Heber, Lord Bishop of Calcutta. Poems and Lyrics by Felieia Hemans and Poems by Ann Radcliffe. H. G. Bohn. Yorkstreet, Covent Garden 1852. Judging from the order in which the various pieces are placed, the 1852 edition seems founded on that of 1845, however slight the deviation from the earlier ones may be. These poems had originally been inserted in The Romance of the Forest, and The Mysteries of Udolpho, and were not numerous. Another collection appeared shortly afterthe authoress's death, in 1826 together with a romance Gaston de Blondeville and St. Alban's Abbey, a metrical tale. This poetry was published once more by Bentley, for Henry Colburn, in 1834. It shows us a side of Mrs. Radcliffe, which would be unfamiliar to us, if we only possessed her novels. The contemporaneity of the French revolution and the romantic movement draws our attention to the probable connection, the reciprocal action between those two events. A discontent with the present order, by contrasting it with the Middle-Ages, might lead to a prejudiced opinion in favour of the latter, which might again find adequate expression in
1 One of its best specimens is this song:
"Ah, why should care the brow overcast, When nature gaily smiles around! Why should the thought of tempest past, Dim the bright sun that fires the ground!
Then come light heart and joyous eye, And tinge each day with brighter beam; Come ev'ning with gay revelry; And night with every blissful dream!"
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literature, thus explaining partly "the return to the past". Throughout eighteenth century literature, we find in England a growing sympathy with those who lacked the comforts of life. During the first stage of the romantic movement the change of public opinion does not assume the form of an energetie, clearly defined revolt, a sudden forcible reversion, but it is gradual in every respect. There is a struggle to be no longer trammelled by the fetters of correctness, and a preference of enthusiasm to cool reasoning, and of the lyrical element to pure didacticismAfterwardsthe change takes a more definite, aggressive form, politically in the novels of Godwin and Holcroft and in the poetry of Shelley; and in the purely literary domain, in "these youthful revolutionaries" *, the Pre-Raphaelites. They display a more revolutionary phase of romanticism than the closing years of the eighteenth century and the opening ones of the nineteenth century 2.
Romanticism and revolution were perhaps the effects or manifestations of the same impulse, of which another aspect was possibly shown by the revival of religion, in Methodism and Evangelicalism on one hand, in the Oxford Movement on the other 3. Taking this into con-
» Cf. Noble's Artiole" on the Pte-Raphaelite Magazine.
» Cf. Kellner: Die Englische Literatur im ZeitaUer der Königin Victoria Ch.
21. pp. 466, 466.
„Ewt als das Jahr 1850 die neuen Bilder braehte ging ein Sturm von
Asthetischer und sittlioher Empörung auf die Bruderschaft nieder Das
Eingreifen Buskins führte eine Art von Umschwung in der Stimmung
des Publikums herbei."
» In the chapter on "J. H. Newman and the Oxford Movement" (Ch. 9. p. 197) Kellner pointe out the connection between the religious upheaval of the Oxford Movement and the contemporary appreciation of the M. A. Cf. also Garnett and Gosse: Englieh Literature, Vol. IV, p. 266.



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sideration it will be my aim to define Mrs. Radcliffe's position in romantic literature by examining how far her literary productions express the literary and social movements of her time; by trying whether the principles underlying the French revolution consciously affected her outlook on man and things, and widened her conception of life, adding sources of interest to it, or whether her religious and moral point of view and purely artistic instinct determined them; and byfinding out the effect on her art of her peculiar position in this respect.
The first question that suggests itself is, what class attitude of society appealed most to Mrs. Radcliffe. At first humbier sight this does not seem difficult to answer, especially classes when drawing a conclusion from her usual choice of hero and heroine. We shall find that she seeks them either from her own circles, the cultivated, well-educated upper middle-class, in well-to-do circumstances, in whose society she used to mix from her youth, or from those of higher rank. A superficial view of her novels confirms this statement:
Baron Malcolm of Dumbayne; the Count of Santmorin; Matilda, countess of Athlin and her two children; Louisa, daughter to thé marquis de St. Claire, in The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne.
Ferdinand, marquis of Mazzini and his family; Madame de Menon, Count Hippolitus de Vereza, the Duke de Luovo and his son Ricardo in A Sicilian Romance.
Pierre de la Motte and his wife; the marquis of Montalt and his niece Adeline; young Louis de la Motte; and the La Luc family, in The Romance of the Forest. M. St. Aubert and his daughter Emily; Valencourt



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a younger son of a noble family; Madame Cheron, married to an Italian nobleman, Montoni; the latter's comrades Count Morano; Cavigni; Madame Clarival; Du Pont, a French officer, the Count de Vülefort and his family, in The Mysteries of Udolpho.
The Marquis di Vivalda and his family; Signora Bianchi and her niece Ellena Rosaura, Schedoni or the Count di Bruno; father Ansaldo diRovalli, in The Italian
In Gaston de Blondeville, king Henry ÏÏI and Queen Eleanor; Prince Edward; the Archbishop of York; Gaston, a Provencal knight; Lady Barbara, daughter to the Earl of Huntingdon, though the actual hero is a plain Bristol merchant, Hugh Woodreeve. Yet if we allow ourselves to consider an author's choice of hero conclusive as to his personal predilection, we may commit a fatal error. If, for instance, Walter Scott were to be judged in this way, the conclusion arrived at, would be perfectly erroneous, as on the whole it would leave his general sympathy with all classes of society out of consideration. A more minute scrutiny of Mrs. Radcliffe's novels, poetry, and journals, will reveal the fact that something is lacking in the preceding enumeration. The heroic romance of the seventeenth century might take the reader into a fantast ie courtly sphere; the pastoral might carry him to an ideal world; but a novel of the closing years of the eighteenth century could hardly escape altogether the influence of its time, and move entirely away from occurrences and characters of humbler every-day life. As regards the Gothic novel, the easiest and first step in this direction had been taken by Horace Walpole, and was repeated by Mrs. Radcliffe in the additional figures of maids and



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valets. They offer a happy point of contrast to that upper class of ladies and gentlemen, who pass away their time in emotional activities. It is noteworthy that in the first two novels the inferior characters are actually limited to this class of menials. Robert, young Osbert's valet in the first, and Vincent at the Castle of Mazzini in the second, are of the type introduced by Walpole's Bianca, and Clara Reeve's faithful servants. Mrs. Radcliffe introducés these personages for dramatic effect: Robert ha ving been bribed by de Santmorin to betray his young master's sister; and Vincent, who is his master's intimate, dying when he is on the point of unburdening himself. Vincent has only got breath enough to reveal that a guilty secret oppresses him, which fact the authoress uses to strain our expectation. In The Romance of the Forest, however, her world expands. The race of menials : Peter, Annette, Theresa, Paulo, Beatrice, has not died out, it is true. They are meant to be jocose, in so far as Mrs. Radcliffe can portray this mood; they are sometimes simple-minded, but at all times very talkative. They know everything, and consequently well deserve the reader's applause for informing him of what passes.
They are supposed to relieve the serious trend of the book by their would-be funny remarks. Unfortunately, the authoress does not seem capable of humour, nor does she know how to raise a laugh; her servants are tedious rather than amusing. It would be difficult to find one joke in all her works. Perhaps the best of the set is Annette, in The Mysteries of Udolpho. By the side of these, the third novel produces other persons belonging to the humbler sphere of life: the wheel-



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wright, who overcharges poor Peter, and gives him a drubbing; the curious blacksmith and his neighbour at Auboine; the rather unpleasant landlady of the inn, at which Adeline and Theodore are seized by the marquis; the sympathetic mob, listening curiously to the landlady's account, pitying the distressed beautiful young lady and indignant at the inhuman conduct of the obdurate officer towards the wounded Theodore; the incapable surgeon with his learned talk, at whose foolish head even gentle Mrs. Radcliffe cannot refrain from hitting some sarcasm. When poor Theodore is buried under several blankets and every cooling drink denied to him, and Adeline dares to remonstrate gently and asks if it were not advisable to attend to nature, "Naturel Madame!" said he, "Nature is the most improper guide in the world. I always adopt a method directly contrary to what she would suggest; for what can be the use of art, if she is only to follow Nature."
> Fortunately Doctor Lafance, in the same novel, is a better exponent of this science.
The circle becomes wider in The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian, where ever and again the peasants are mentioned, especially in their lighter moods, as, for instance, in The Mysteries of Udolpho, when the sensitive, artistic heroine witnesses their merry dancing and chaste revelry. It is especially the vintage1 that offers an opportunity for describing the joys of the humble classes of society, who enjoy the sweets of nature in the simple blessings of life, in the possession of beloved ones, in the love and veneration paid to them,
> The Mysteries of Udolpho I, Ch. V, pp. 33, 36; II, Ch. L, p. 123; II, Ch. XXXVIII, p. 79.



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as exemplified by La Voisin when he informsM.St. Aubert that after his wife's death he has been living with his daughter: "I am old now, and cannot expect to live long: but there is some comfort in dying surrounded by one's chüdren." And when he talks to some length on his own circumstances, the particulars of it are interesting "because they were spoken from the heart, and delineated a picture of the sweet courtesies of family kindness." This scène is altogether pictured with a loving hand: the perfect moonlight night, the neat cottage with its peaceable inmates, the old man's contented mind and pious resignation. It is true the whole scène fits in with the heroine 's mood, and enhances the general artistic effect. This certainly is a novelist's right; yet it seems that here we are gradually break- attitude mg away from the older school, with its occasional re- £Sh?the ferences to the joys of country life, in rather a cold unsympathetic strain. Whenever there is an opportunity' the villagers are described sympatheticaUy by Mrs. Radcliffe. Theidyllic aspect of the country is, however emphasized too much. On the whole the authoress is* very little realistic, and makes her peasantry fit in to "add Arcadian figures to Arcadian landscape." Somehow, if we were to judge from her representation, we should receive the impression of a peasantry, living on fruit and cream, dancing in the sweet moonlight to the music of "rural pipe and tabor". They are not a discontented class, rebeUing against oppressive laws, or execrating religion. When M. la Luc has to leave his vülage, m his attempts to recover his health, «his panshioners feit the life of their pastor to be of the utmost consequence to them, and they testified his worth,



and their sense of it, by going in a body to soiicit mm to leave them" K And when he returned triumphantly, and Adeline and Theodore were crowned with happiness, the peasants shared it and "danced before his carriage to the chateau, where they again welcomed him and his family with the enlivening strains of music so that la Luc cannot refrain from saying" they shall all partake our happiness. There is devotion in makmg others happy, and gratitude ought to make us deyout .
Of course, misery and poverty may prevail for a time, through neglect or man's evil PurPose; ^ ™* is not attributed to a wrong social system. With Mrs. Radcliffe the times are not "out of joint". Emily ht. Aubert's estate may have been negleeted durmg her compulsorystay at Udolpho, butas soon as she returned "sheemployedmeans to learn the situation of all her poor tenants, that she might relieve their wants or confirm their comforts" *. When Adeline and Theodore settle down in their chateau "the indigent and ™^Wy rejoiced in their benevolence" * When Vivaldi and Ellena are at the conclusion of their trials, they do not content themselves by offering festivities to their acquaintances, but they "wished that all the tenants of the domain should partake of it, and share the^ abundant happiness which themselves possessed, so that the grounds, which were extensive enough to accommodate each rank, were relinquished to a general gaiety. Paulo was, on this occasion, a sort of master of the revels, and surrounded by a party of his own particular associates,
i Romance of the Forest, Ch. XVm, P- 263.
• Romance of the Forest, Ch. XXVI, pp. 363, 364. . Mysteries of Udolpho II, Ch. XLVHI, p. 117.
♦ Romance of the Forest, Ch. XXVI, p. 367.
20



21
danced once more, as he had so often wished, upon the moon-light shore of Naples" I,
It is the ancient feudal relation of faithful servant and noble master, worthy of his man's fealty; a picture not drawn according to an argumentative system devised by the intellect, but the effect of a benevolent feeling proceeding from the heart, under the alluring glamour of the middle-ages, exerting their charms on a romantic mind. No servant, in her novels, will claim a reward as his due, as a proper payment according to a contract from equal to equal. When he is publicly praised, he is confused and overwhelmed by it. In her attempt to make clear to us this sense of unmerited benevolence, the authoress almost descends into the ridiculous. When Ellena (in the chapter mentioned before) says: "Paulo ....lam indebted to you beyond any ability to repay; for to your intrepid affection your master owes his present safety. I will not attempt to thank you for your attachment to him; my care of your welfare shall prove how well I know it; but I wish to give all your friends this acknowledgment of your work, and of my sense of it", Paulo's emotion "burst forth in words, and O! giorno felice, o giorno fehce! flew from his lips with the force of an electric shock. They communicated his enthusiasm to the company; the words passed like lightning from one individual to another, till Vivaldi and Ellena withdrew amidst a choral shout, and all the woods and strands of Naples re-echoed with: O giorno felice! O giorno felice."
Hence it is not a question of mere accident that Mrs. Radcliffe, whenever she mentions the humbler
1 The Italian Vol. Hl, Ch. XII, p. 441.



22
classes of society, takes them exclusively from the country, and never from the town. The latter, in her time, had become the seat of social uttrest, and did not offer an opportunity to exemplify her favourite attitude of mind, and to express her benevolence, sharpened into stronger activity by her deep sense of religion, as we shall see later on. It is noteworthy that besides the peasantry, the sailor is a favourite theme of hers, which fact connects itself with the numerous examples in her works of her great love of the sea. It is here especially that her poetry comes in, and throws a different light. Though the poems inserted in the novels are naturally most read, her poetic faculties are most adequately expressed in the MisceUaneous poems, added to Gaston de Bhndeville. "The Fishers" 1 is a curious mixture of the old and the new. In the description of the hut half-way up the rock, overgrown with sweet flowers, looking out on the ocean:
« sleeping in its summer haze
Of downy blue, or green, or purple shades, Charming the heart to musing and sweet peaoe".
there is hardly any tracé of realizing the hardships of a sailor's life. The authoress apparently does not penetrate into the man's feelings, but confers to the saüor her own personal impression of the sea, whose rhythmic motion conveys a sense of endless sameness and repose. Here she seems to be the artistic antipode to Wordsworth, who without any difficulty, in perfectly plain words, can transpose himself, to be in tune with the simplest peasant girl. When he describes poor Margaret in her
Vol. IV, pp. 170—177.



23
hut, mourning for her absent husband, he does not make her soliloquize on the sweet retirement of her cottage, and the melancholy plaintive rustling of the boughs *. However, as she goes on Mrs. Radcliffe warms with her subject; her growing sympathy makes her realize the difficulties of a plain fisherman's life, and the dangers with which he is so often beset in his "hard strife with the rough sea". Expressive of this is the following passage:
"Beside his door, the aged fisher weaves
New meshes for his sons, and sends, at times,
A look far o'er the ocean, where the beam
O' the west falls brightest, for the adventurers,
Who yester-mom went forth, and all night long
Watehed patiënt on the waters, and all day
Have hauled the net, or laboured at the oar.
More fearfnl roves his eye, as sinks the sun,
While sad he marks September's stormy cloüd
Fire sJl the west, and tip with erimson hnes,
Though less resplendent, eVn the nearer waves
Whüe the broad flash tinges his süver locks
And his brown visage and his garments blue.
Anxious, he throws aside th'unfinished web, And climbs the higher crag, and thence afar, Turning the western cape, he sees the glance Of oars withdrawing, and the square sail set And swelling to the breeze. With struggling toil The poor bark seeks it home, ere night and tempest Meet on the billows. While she thus, scarce known Alternate rides the ridge and then is lost Below the shelving wave, widely they steer Athwart the dangerous surge, though not that way Lies their dear home; but well they know where lurk rhe rocks unseen, and where the currents flow".
But there is a compensation for the worries of life.
Wordsworth: The Excuraion, The Wanderer, p. 319.



24
Like Burns' Cotter the fisherman has his reward in the enjoyment of rest af ter work, in the bosom of his family:
".... there, amidst the friends
He loves, reposes. All last night, he watched
Upon the rocking main; the arching sky
His sole, oold roof; the stars his only guides
Through the vast shadow of the lonely deep!
This night, how calm his dream, how sweet his sleep,
In the safe shelter of his cabin small,
With his glad family round him hush'd in peace!"
This wonderful combination of a beautiful description of scenery, and a pleasing account of the fisherman 's life, in blank verse, cannot be considered as purely imitative, or as belonging to the eighteenth century. It heralds Tennyson's Enoch Arden, and parts of it such as:
Yet, half way up the rocks, And scarce beyond the salt spray's reach, when storms Of winter beat, perched where the sea-mew rests In sun-beam, a low fisher 's cabin peeps From its green sheltering nook. Wild mountainous shrubs Hang beetling o'er it, and such flowers as grow On rocky ledges, brought by the unseen
* Cf. The Cotler's saturday-night: U, EDE.
"The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes,
This night his weekly moil is at an end,
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,
Hoping the mom in ease and rest to spend,
And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend.
His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie 's smile
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,
Does a' his weary carking cares beguile,
And makes him quite forget his labour and his toil."



25
Air, messengere from off some fertile hill Or dale, or haply from far forest's side; The searlet poppy and the blue eorn-flower, The wild rosé and the purple bells, that chime In th'evening breeze to the poor woodlark's notes".
compare favourably with Tennyson's. Who does not think of the brave Enoch Arden, toiling for his beloved Annie and his children, when he reads:
"Now doth the aged fisher mutely watch, While his stout sons fling o'er their shoulders broad Deep osier baskets hung with pebbles round; Then, wrapt in his blue mantle, stalks away, Beneath the dark oliffs beetling o'er the sea".
If this were the only instance of Mrs. Radcliffe's growing sympathies, we might consider it an accidental phenomenon, unconsciously attained, and therefore not characteristic of her. However, echoes of it resound elsewhere. In Sea-view, Midnighi, she describes the storm-lost bark, approaching the beacon-lights, and noticed:
"By the poor mariner, who rocked upon
His dark and billowy cradle, thinks of home,
His little cabin, sheltered by the cliff,
His blazing hearth, bright through the casement seen,
And all the dear-loved faces shining round,
And knows the smiles of welcome ambushed there".
The same we find in The Sea-Mew, where the mariner during a violent storm:
".... hears the sound o'er waters wide,
Lashed to the mast, he hears, and thinks of home".
Then, when the danger is past, and the cheerful harbour-lights send out their welcome, the sailor nies



26
homeward with joyful heart, to his humble cottage, which yet contains all his happiness:
... yet awhile And an awakening voice shall eall np hope, And all the poor man 's wealth, the wealth of heart".
Here the authoress silently implies that true happiness is not to be obtained by outward circumstances; that it is not circumscribed or restricted by prosperity or by adversity, but that the source is in man's own heart and mind. She does not arrivé at this conclusion by any elaborate scheme of philosophy, but it is her imaginative appreciation that carries her along and gives her a place with the new generation.
Not only in this respect, but also in the mutual relation of her heroes and heroines towards each other, her attitude is that of the new order. The feelings of the lovers occurring in all of her novels, are delicate and ref ined. She distinctly départs from the mid-eighteenth century point of view. The ideas of love, entertained by Fielding's hero Tom Jones, are of the sensual attitude order; he is attracted by Sopbia Western's looks. towards Tom Jones would not have considered sweet melancholy, sad pallor, and an intellectüal and cultivated mind a superior attraction, as Mrs. Radcliffe's young heroes do *, Tom Jones is active, of healthy animal spirits, masculine in feeling, and susceptible to female charm. Mrs. Radcliffe's heroes are generous, noble; sometimes led astray it is true, but returning from their errörs in due time. They display much feeling,
» Mysteries of üdopho, I, p. 24, where Valencourt reoites to Emily passages of the Italian and Latin poets whom she admired.



JDLIO SHIPWRECKED






27
which is apt to be strained; they revel in sadness and despair. Richardson and, Sterne had set the example of the cult of sentimentalism. Abroad, Goethe and Rousseau, each in his own way, made sentimentalism serve his ends. In fact, it became a feature of the initial stage of romanticism, which is not strange if we consider it to be an exaggerated straining in one direction, of the newly awakened powers of the imagination. Mrs. Radcliffe would found married love on mutual respect and confidence.
Similarity of ideas and opinions is its true basis, the lovers' minds being formed "to constitute the happiness of each other; the same taste, the same noble and benevolent sentiments animating each" 1. Here she differs from Fielding and Smollett, for how can Sophia respect Tom? Not, however, from Richardson. It is he who influences her in more than one respect, yet without making a slavish imitator of her: in the heroine's scrupulous observance of propriety; in her maintaining her virtuous character in the most perilous surroundings; in her sentimentality and tearfulness; in her fondness of musing on the dangers of her situation.
Love may fül .Emily's heart, but when she hears the evil reports of her lover's conduct, she declines to marry him. Not until the sad clouds have been cleared away, and the falseness of the rumours has been proved, does she accept him. When they meet af ter the numerous trials and Valencourt addresses her: "Teil me first that you forgive the uneasiness I have occasioned you this evening, and that you will still love me", she answers: "I sincerely forgive you. You
1 The Mysterie» of Udolpho, I, Ch. XIII, p. 70.



28
best know wbether I shall continue to love you, for you know whether you deserve my esteem. At present I will believe that you do. It is unnecessary to say", added she, observing his dejection, "how much pain it would give me to believe otherwise". This self-possession and firmness of purpose seem hardly compatible with a passionate attachment, which is ready to condone, and overlook the faults of the beloved, on the condition that his love has remained intact. This delicacy of feeling she may have derived from Richardson's heroines. When his heroine Clarissa Harlowe, is expiring, Belford gives an account of it to his friend Lovelace, and writes: "The divine creature then turning aside her head — Poor man, said she, I once could have loved him. This is saying more than ever I could say of any other man out of my own family. Would he have permitted me to have been a humble instrument to have made him good, I think I could have made him happy. But teil him not this, if he be really penitent; it may too much affect him".
Just as in Richardson's novels, the love feit by the villains, the wicked charaeters, in Mrs. Radcliffe's books, is of a passionate, sensual nature as is shown by the Marquis de Montalt, Count Morano, etc. They try to secure their lady's love by the forcible means of carrying her off. The virtuous lover-hero only offers delicate, sweet, tender love. Morano, whenheisrejected, takes refuge in action; Valencourt, on the other hand indulges in melancholy recollections and haunts the scènes of his love. "The only solace of his sorrow was to return in the silence of the night, to follow the paths which he believed her steps had pressed during the day,



29
and to watch round the habitation where she reposed."
Neither course of action proves effectual. Though Mrs. Radcliffe finds her ideal of happy married love in a steady, serene, well-regulated, tender attachment, (and reading her journals and some biographies, we get this impression of her own marriage) she has too much sense to identify it with a respectful platonic friendship. Respect may be indispensable to love, it is not sufficiënt to rousethis feeling. Adeline (in A Romance of the Forest)may appreciate Louis la Motte's good qualities, yet she feels incapable of loving him. His tender accents make her perceive his sentiments, which she would have found out earlier, if she had been more vain. She treats his attentions like "passing civilities". To the anxious mother, coveting a prosperous match for her son, the latter's infatuation is soon clear. When he mentions his love, Adeline is distressed and replies: "Iassure you that, though your virtues will always command my esteem, you have nothing to hope from my love, for our circumstances would decide for us. Let me hope that time will teach you to reduce love within the limits of friendship". Never! cried Louis, "were this possible, my passion would be unworthy of its object. Just then Adeline's favourite fawn came bounding to her and awakened his recollection of their first meeting. This circumstance affected Louis to tears" And when Adeline resumés: "Could I see your good sense prevail over passion, my satisfaction would equal my esteem for you", he returns: "Do not hope, nor will I wish it, for passion here is virtue." There is but little comfort left for him: "I will think of you with the affection of a sister."



30
Similar passages occur in most of her novels. In The Mysteries of Udolpho it is M. du Pont, into whose arms Emily sinks, fainting. He seems capable of great self-effacement, for when witnessing her disappointment, he says: "Accept the offered services of a friend; do not refuse me the reward of having at least attemptedtodeserve yourthanks." "You deserve them already, sir, said Emily, the wish deserves my warmest thanks".
M. du Pont took her hand, which she but feebly
attempted to withdraw, and pressed it respectfully to his lips "Allow me to breathe another fervent sigh for your happiness, said he, and to applaud myself for an affection which I cannot conquer." Later on, however, he tries his luck again, and in spite of his friend's assistance, is dismissed. In thus introducing by the side of the successful lover a noble, generous character whose suit is spurned, Mrs. Radcliffe illustrates the truth that virtue is not always rewarded by earthly goods.
Du Pont "with severe justice, determined not only to undeceive the count on this subject, (Valancourt's behaviour) but to resign all hope of Emily. Such a sacrifice as his love rendered this, was deserving of a noble reward." He does not throw a shade over her happiness by his presence at the bridal, and seriously endeavours to cure himself of his hopeless passion. His conduct is appreciated by Emily, "and rewarded with her admiration and pity."
In the earlier Romance of the Forest, Louis la Motte is the means to restore the successful rival to prosperity; fancy his inward conflict! Yet his passion" yielded at length to the powers of absence and ne-



ai
cessity. He still loved Adeline, but it was with the placid tenderness of friendship, and when at the invitation of Theodore, he visited the villa, he beheld their happiness with a satisfaction unalloyed by envy. He afterwards married a lady of some fortune at Geneva, and resigning his commission in the French service, settled on the borders of the lake, and increased the social delights of Theodore and Adeline."
Mrs. Radcliffe's ideas of love, as described in her books, seem to make the presence of an unsuccessful lover indispensable. He occurs in the crudest form in her earliest novel, The Castles of Athlin and Dv/nbayne, in which the noble, disappointed lover is the Count de Santmorin, of dignified aspect and manners, who after a shipwreck remains the guest of young Osbert, Mary's brother. His suit is seconded by Mary's mother and brother; indeed, little can be urged against him, for he has been the instrument of restoring the widowed Baroness Malcolm to her rights, and has thus won the respect of all. But Mary's heart has been bestowed elsewhere, on Alleyn, the young highland peasant, with his "bold independence" and "uncommon energy", the defender of her brother. All at once, with the inexperience of a beginning novelist and the unreasonable abruptness of a first literary production, Santmorin's character changes from the good to the bad. Malcolm's unexpected repentance which displaces his preceding wickedness when he is dying from his wounds, is as sudden. To assuage the agonies of a bloeding conscience, he confesses: "I do not lament that I am punished, but that I have deserved punishment. The Baron sunk on his couch, and in a few moments after



32
expired in a sigh. Thus terminated the life of a man, whose understanding might have reached the happiness of virtue, but whose actions displayed the features of vice." In as unaccountable a manner Santmorin suddenly leaves the path of virtue. He bribes the servants, even Robert Osbert's valet; his spies wound Osbert, who pursued them; he has Mary carried off (which carrying off Mrs. Radcliffe in later novels leaves to one of the villains). However, when he is found in the ruined abbey, the sudden appearance of Alleyn and Osbert is sufficiënt to bring home to him the wickedness of his designs. "The impetuosity of passion impelled me onward with irresistible fury; it urged me to violate the sacred duties of gratitude — of friendship — and of humanity. To live in shame, and in the consciousness of guilt is a living death. With your sword do justice to yourself and virtue, and spare me the misery of long comparing what I am with what I was." Upon this moving speech Osbert grieves that "A soul like the count's should ever be under the dominion of vice"; and suffers him to depart "with a sort of tenderness." Santmorin, however, is firmly resolved to lose his unworthy life: "Since you will not satisfy justice by taking my life, I go to lose it in the obscurity of distant regions .... suffer me to hope that you will blot from your memory the existence of Santmorin. He concluded the sentence with a groan, which vibrated upon the hearts of all present."
Again and again the authoress 'tries to picture the first awakening of love in a pure, girlish heart; its unconscious, gentle growth into a strong, irresistible power giving strength to the young mind and enabling



33
it to oppose all efforts to subdue it, or to change lts direction. This she does without erring into levity and sensuality on one hand, or into exaggeration and formalitv on the other. We find this development in all her novels, in the persons of Mary and Alleyn, Julia and Hippolitus, Adeline and Theodore, Emily and Valencourt, Ellena and Vivaldi, and (less prominently here, for the point of interest is shifted) in the Lady Barbara and Gaston de Blondevüle.
In this respect,Mrs.Racliffecomparesfavourably with the long-winded, refmed, strained descriptions of the heroic-gallant romances, with the grossness of therealistic novel, and with the artificiality of the pastoral. Naturallyapastoralwouldnot offer scope for the description of love-development, but would only give one phase of it, the characteristics of a pastoral being simphcity, brevity and delicacy, as the youtbful Pope observed*.
In her second novel, Mrs. Radcliffe takes pains to tracé this development artistically. The marquis of Mazzini's second wife, Maria de Vellorno is a lady bent on conquest. Her desires centre on Count Hippolitus de Vereza, a virtuous young man, whose frigidity towards her, only inflames her passion. It is fanned mto iealousy when she notices the attractiveness of her handsome step-daughters on her visit to the ancestral castle where the young ladies live in virtuous retirement.
» A Discourse of Pastoral Poetry (written at sixteen years of age) Dennis' edition I p 140 'APastoralisaniimtatio^ofthe»^onofashepherd,oroneeons dered unL Ibat eharaeter. The form of this imitation dramatxo, or narrataveor mixed of both; the fable simple; the manners not too pohte nor too rustxc, the tboughts are plain, yet admit a littte qnickness and passxon but, that bort and flowing: the expression bumble, yet as pure as the language wdl afford,
and expressions are full of the greatest simplicity in nature .



The girls have been expecting their brother, and Julia noticing a distinguished-looking young man of graceful figure, hopes he is her brother. He is not, however. On the day of a festival with its "luxurious and expensive dishes", with soft music floating along the vaulted roofs, the simple elegance of the girls puts the beauty of their voluptuous step-mother to shame. Julia's cavalier is the same young man she had marked out the day before. She feels very happy with him in the splendidly lit woods, where musicians are placed in obscure spots and she herself is queen of the feast. Her content is still unconscious of its source; not so her stepmother or Count Muriani, who draws this lady's attention to the charming couple. At night Julia is unquiet and restless. For the first time it is impossible for her to share confidence with her sister Emilia. When the next morning Vereza enters for breakfast, she dares not raise her eyes from the ground. When she is called upon to accompany Vereza's flute on the piano^forte, she is confused, but "the pride of conscious excellence, however, quickly overcame her timidity and enabled her to exert all her powers." In Hippolitus' timid, respectful manner she reads his sentiments, and when she retires to her room, she seems to have entered upon another existence. She is confirmed in her fancy by his playing to her, and singing a love-sonnet under her window that night1. Next morning she rises happy and delighted; how different from her uncertainty the day before. How cruelly is she disappointed. No Hippolitus appears. He has suddenly sailed for Naples. Poor Julia feels utterly
1 So does Vivaldi to Ellena in The Italian, I. 48, 49. Cf. Lorenzo's Serenade to Antonia in The Monk by M. Q. Lewis Hl. 27,28.
É
34



85
dejected and lonely. It is a pity Mrs. Radcliffe's excessive sense of what is proper makes her add that "the sweet consciousness that her conduct had been governed by a nice sense of propriety" comforted her. Julia's unhappiness is augmented by her step-mother indulging her spite and jealousy on her. Some mysterious occurrences, such as a low, hollow sound, arising from below, at which" deadly ideas crowded upon their imaginations, and inspired a terror which scarcely allowed them to breathe", divert her thoughts; yet at times she cannot help sighing, and indulges the melancholy of her heart in the solitude of the woods, and composes an ode to Evening, which is of very little artistic value:
"Evening veil'd in dewy shades, Slowly sinks upon the main; See th' empurpled glory fades, Beneath her sober, chasten'd reign" etc.
From her rêverie she is awakened by a sigh from
Hippolitus. This passage might have been beautiful, but is marred by the peculiarities noticed before. Whenever a young man is about to prostrate himself before his beloved, Mrs. Radcliffe's heroine remonstrates against it. When Hippolitus throws himself at her feet, Julia, moving from her seat with an air of dignity answers: "Risemy lord; that attitude is neither becoming you to use, nor me to suffer. The evening is closing, and Ferdinand will be impatient to see you." "Never will I rise, madam, replied the count with an impassioned air, till — He was interrupted by the marchioness, who at this moment entered the grove." The marchioness makes some scathing remarks, for the scène she



36
witnessed, almost exasperates her brain to madness % Being convinced of Hippolitus' love, she resolves to bide hers till he has accounted for his sudden absence; moreover, perceiving the secret, jealous watching of her step-mother, she avoids the count, so that the latter thinks his love unreturned. He would fain believe Ferdinand's affirmations, that it is requited. Ferdinand has found it out from various indications. When Hippolitus' departure was mentioned, Julia spilt her wine, and was spiritless and sad that day. She displayed a preference for solitude and became pensive instead of gay, and in lonely spots sang" moving and tender airs." His return at once brought abouta change, and "the soft confusion of her countenance" whenever he approached would convince anyone of the truth of this assertion. In an adjoining closet Julia is doomed to overhear Ferdinand's and Hippolitus' conversation about this subject; her heart beats fast; overwhelmed by mortification she hides her face when they enter this room.
Julia is not so prudish as some later heroines. She affirms that Hippolitus has not forfeited her esteem for his inadvertent intrusion, nor does she deny her partiality, so that "Hippolitus could only weep his thanks over the hand he still held". Her fairy-dream of happiness is soon to be broken by her father's intimation that she is to marry his friend the Duke de Luovo. The tumult of her mind is calmed, however, by the sweet repose of nature. Unlike Emily, she yields to
» A similar incident occurs in The Mysterie» of Udolpho L Ch. XI, p. 64, where Madame Cheron surprises Emily and Valencourt, meeting on the terrace at la Vallée. Alao, in Ch. XIV, p. 73, when Madame Cheron comes upon them in the parlour at Toulouse.



DUKE DE LUOVO, DISCOVERING THE CAVALIER AND LADY ON THE MARGIN OF THE LAKE
„A SleiUan Romance" — Limbird, London, 1826, p. Sé






87
her lover's protection in order to escape from a hated marriage l. She is somewhat afraid that she will risk his esteem, which fear she feels all the more when taking silent leave of her sleeping sister: "Adieu, dear Emilia; never more will you see your wretched sister, who flies from the cruel fate now prepared for her, certain that she can never meet one more dreadful." When the disappointed bridegroom pursues her and meets with misadventures, and is wounded by an antagonist "the anguish of his mind equalled that of his body"; which is very much like the condition of the marquis de Montalt, when pursuing Adeline2. Meanwhile Julia is sheltered in the obscure recesses of St. Augustin's Abbey and repeating Hippolitus' composition, an ode ón Superstition. To comfort herself she thinks of the past, and "there was a romantic sadness in her feelings, luxurious and indefinable", She enjoys melancholy for its own sake. Hippolitus' nobility is attested by bis sister's narrative to Julia, at the convent. After a second flight, the true lovers meet again under very startling circumstances, in the robbers' den, when "the transitions of various and rapid sensations, which her heart experienced, and the strangely mingled emotions of joy and terror that agitated Hippolitus, can only he understood by experience". The young man is very considerate and tenderly anxious; he withholds from her the terrible conjectures he has formed as to her brother's fate; yet now that her love is darkened for a moment by sorrow, even his presence cannot cheer her. Whenhe
1 Adeline in The Romance of the Forest also suffers herself to escape with her lover.
2 The Romance of the Forest. Ch. XIII, p. 197.



38
urges an immediate wedding as their only means of safety, she objects, just as Adeline does to Theodore's proposal, and Ellena to Vivaldi's. She loves her betrothed with deep and steady affection, but it would be an insult to her brother's memory to yield now to joy. And her answer is tempered with so much sweetness that Hippolitus all the more admires her character. Again it is virtue or what the authoress considers virtue, that strengthens love. When at last the wicked marquis and his second consort are dead, and Julia is married to Hippolitus the recollection of the difficulties they have encountered and of the distress they have suffered, heightens their present happiness. Tenderer and deeper are Emily St. Aubert's feelings for Valencourt, in The Mysteries of Udolpho. If with Julia love sprung up at first sight, it here gradually develops by constant intercoürse, is more deeply rooted here in general interest and similarity of view of life. Adversity and grief but strengthen their love, and when Valencourt takes leave of Emily before she is compelled to accompany her aunt and Montoni to Italy, it is in truly heart-broken accents that he answers to her rejection of his plans; those are moments "in which joy and grief struggle so powerfully for preeminence that the heart can scarcely support the contest". Powerful love is described in the conclusion of their farewell meeting: "And trust me love, for your dear sake I will try to bear this absence with fortitude.
O how little I have shown to-night O Emily,
this countenance on which I now gaze, will in a moment be gone from my eyes, and not all the efforts of fancy will be able to recall it with exactness then,



39
all will be a dreary blank. — and I shall be a wanderer, exiled from my only home'. Valencourt again pressed her to his heart, and held her there in silence, weeping. Tears once again calmed her oppressed mind. They again bade each other farewell, lingered a moment, and then parted. Valencourt seemed to force himself from the spot, he passed hastily up the avenue; and Emily, as she moved slowly towards the chateau, heard his distant steps. She Iistened to the sounds as they sunk fainter and fainter, till the melancholy stillness of night alone remained". Her strong love accounts for her disinclination to believe in Valencourt's guilt afterwards, even when the count adduces the testimony of his own son who has often been a witness of Valencourt's bad conduct and was nearly drawn into the same vortex. Valencourt has become a gambler, associating with men" who live by plunder and pass their lives in continual debauchery", men who have drawn him into a course of dissipation. These rumours are confirmed by Valencourt's self-reproach, when in his agitation he exelaims: "I am unworthy of you, Emily"; and when he refers to their joint excursion through the Pyrenees. Then he had "a taste for innocent and elegant delights". That was the happiest period of his life, when he loved, with enthusiasm, whatever was truly great and good. Emily still believes in his candour, and when she says so, he replies "I have not yet lost my candour: if Ihad, I could better have disguised my emotions on learning what were your sufferings, your virtues, while I — but I will say no more. I did not mean to have said even so much — I have been surprised into self-accusation." And when they part, for the second time, the



40
separation is all the more cruel, because now it is not outward circumstances that are the cause of rupture, but it is Valencourt's consciousness of his own ill-spent time, and his offensive conduct, and Emily's grief at finding out that he is not the same estimable Valencourt whom she once loved.
"O excess of misery", he calls out, "that I can never lament my sufferings, without recollecting the folly and the vice by which I have lost you! Why was I forced to Paris, and why did I yield to allurements, which were to make me despicable for ever. O! why cannot I look back, without interruption, to those days of innocence and peace, the days of our early love?" Life itself is of little account to him if he loses her esteem; the world is nothing to him; ho power on earth will be able to seduce him again; the recolleetion of her grief will give him strength to resist evéry temptation. In bis better frame of mind he asks her forgiveness, and he will no longer plead for himself, as this would only augment her unhappiness. Yet she will remain the sole and constant object of bis love and tenderness. "Emily remained in the chair where he had left her, oppressed with a pain at her heart which scarcely permitted her to breathe, and listening to his departing steps sinking fainter and fainter as he crossed the hall", and then tears come to her reliëf. Only profound love could be capable of such distress. And when at length the clouds disperse, we hear Emily acknowledge that these are the first moments of joy she has known since his departure, and that they repay her for all those dff pain she has suffered in the interval. From the other novels parallel



41
passages might be quoted, but these prove sufficiently that Mrs. Radcliffe is capable of depicting artistically pure love and attachment.
One thing is strange, however. Her novels abound in these passages, but they occur rarely in her poetry, though this is often lyrical in nature. Only a few poems, scattered about her novels, treat of love, such as M. Amand's sonnet How sweet is Love'8 first gentle sway, describing how hopeful youth is gently beguiled by love and is charmed by its sweet melancholy, until "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" oppose it. Love is the subject too, of Theodore's poem The rose that weeps with morning dew, in which he compares the sweet dew drops of early morning, enhancing its beauty arfd the sweet scent of the rose, to the smile that is made all the brighter by the tears of love. In the sonnet, inscribed on the wainscot of the fishing house Go Pencül faithful to thy master's sighs, its author would fain draw the likeness of her he adores, which would make words superfluous. Yet it could not express the desire of his heart, nor explain how this love deprives him of all strength. In the rondeau, sung by Count Morano Soft as yon silver ray that sleeps upon the ocean's trembling tide etc, its composer asserts that as truly and softly as the ship listens to the wind blowing in its sails, so truly and softly Love will mourn and rest with her (Emily). In all these poems love is the theme, but it is not of that passionate kind found in the best passages of her novels. Perhaps she best expressed her ideal in On the rondeau" Just like Love is yonder rosé", where not the rose in its flaunting beauty and gaudy colours stands for love, but where



42
the true enblem is the humble, drooping violet, with its sweet perfume, the dewdrops glistening in the rays of the sun "like light of smiles through parting grief!"
As for the types of her lovers, reminding us of Richardson's paragons, Hazlitt thinks they are only to be distinguished by their beautiful names, so that we may f ill up the blank with all that is amiable, interesting and romantic. Environment is used to make their moods and feelings stand out, to such an extent that the back ground usurps the interest and becomes the principal thing. Consequently, what Hazlitt says of Scott, holds true with her too, that "the intensity of the feeling is not equal to the distinctness of the imagery". Her beautiful imagery, at the same time, was the finnest basis of her popularity; this newly awakened love of nature, the source of her imagery, love of Went hand in hand with a certain affection for, and
aminals
an interest in the animal world, which probably culminated in Coleridge's famous lines:
"He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us He made and loveth all".
Thomson and Cowper inaugurated this disposition, and it comes even more to the fore in Mrs. Radcliffe. The titles of various poems, such as The Glow-worm, The Butterfly, To the Bat, To the Nightingale, To a Seamew, To the Swallow, Sonnet to a hark, partly indicate this. Other signs of it are spread throughout her works. In Steephill, the hard working sailor and his faithful old hor se are drawn with equal sympathy:



43
"Meanwhile upon the beach, patiënt and cold, Stands the poor horse, with drooping head and eyes Haif-shut, and panniers all too wide and deep, Waiting the cargo, that his master, tired And sauntering on the water's edge, shall bring: Then must he bear it np high cliffs and hills, To the far vale, where lies some peopled town".
Who does not feel the sad monotony of daily toil of man and beast in this picture.
In St. AlbarCs Abbey1 we find a passage mentioning the faithful attachment of a dog:
A little spaniel dog was he, All silverwhite his hair",
to his dead master, who after tracing the latter, creeps up to the bier "mute and forlorn". Silently he crouches down. When the bereft father stands by its side in bitter grief, the dog approaches, and tries to comfort him:
"Strenger no human tongue could speak, Soothing and comforting".
And if anybody should object to such a trivial break in "the solemn funeral song", Mrs. Radcliffe remarks that no fidelity, whether on man's part or an animaPs part, should pass unnoticed. The dog's "artless love and gratitude" deserve praise.
When, in the same poem, Florence quits her sheltéred home, and sets out to find her lord, Mrs. Radcliffe in a few lines (XX, p. 237) expresses the horse's attachment to his mistress; he paws the ground for joy. Adeline in The Romance of the Forest has her favourite deer; and Emily St. Aubert, in The Mysteries of Udolpho
» VIII. p. 360. Posthwmous Werks VoL IV.



44
is fond of her late father's dog, the faithful Manchon, who tries to defend her against Count Morano. As we know, the authoress herself also possessed a dog, which accompanied her on her excursions. In her journal of Jury 23, 1800, we find that on a walk to Beachy Head, her husband having walked round the cliffs, she is "almost frightened at the solitude and vastness of the scène, though Chance was with her", Chance amusing himself by pursuing imaginary enemies on the beach.
Specimens of Mrs. Radcliffe's nature descriptions are pretty well known. Without exactly differentiating as to the several elements of nature, that appealed to her, such as: the sun, moon and stars, clouds, mountains, rivers and seas, flowers and trees, etc. (which Brey attitude does in his dissertation) I would remark that on the natare8 wnole the grand and imposing in nature appeal more strongly to her than the mildly sweet. She sometimes evinces an aptitude to idealize and to magnify, which we also find in Scott and in Kingsley. In general, Scott is an objective poet; yet when hepaints the beauty of his beloved Scotland, his river Tweed, and Loch Katrine, the result is not a mere reproduction, but a picture raised into the ideal, and more impressive to the reader than to the actual view of a less enthusiastic admirer. Mrs. Radcliffe's glowing descriptions of the natural scenery of southern Europe, are of ten quoted, but enthusiastic passages occur in praise of English scenery just as well. No vagueness here, but close observation, which watches the minutest shades and alterations of aspect. If there is anything she loves better than mountains, it is ocean and lakes. There



45
is hardly a heroine in all her novels, but admires them. It is unnecessary to give many instances.
When travelling along the south coast, Mrs. Radcliffe writes K "The most grand and striking circumstances as westood on the point, were the vast sea-view—the long shades on its surface of soft green, deepening exquisitely into purple; but above all, that downy tint of light blue that sometimes prevailed over the whole scène, and even tinged the French coast, at a distance." And taking a walk the same afternoon she notes down its altered aspect: "Evening upon the sea becoming melancholy, silent and pale. A leaden-coloured vapour rising upon the horizon, without confounding the line of separation; the ocean whiter, till the last deep twilight falls, when all is one gradual, inseparable, undistinguishable grey". Indeed, she sees things with an artist's eye that notes every minute detail. When she makes a trip to Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight in the autumn of 1798, she writes: "All was in gradual shades of blue, the calm sea below, the shores and distant hills, stretching along a cloudless blue sky. Innumerable vessels and little sails, whose whiteness was just softened with the azure tint. It is impossible to express the beauty of those soft melting tints, that painted the distant perspective, towards Spithead, where sea and sky united, and where the dark masts and shapes of shipping, drawing themselves on the horizon, gave this softness its utmost effect". There is a gradual growth in artistic skill, proved by comparing parallel passages, for instance in the description of a storm at sea in:
1 September 2, 1797. Memoir p. 19.



46
The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne. The Mysteries of Udolpho, II.
Ch. LX. p. 29. Ch. XXXVI, p. 73.
«The wind buret in sudden squalls "Blanohe withdrew to a window, over the deep, and dashed the f oaming the lower panes of which being without waves against the rocks with uncon- painting allowed her to observe the ceivable fury. The spray, notwith- progress of the storm over the Mediterstanding the high situatiën of the ranean, whose dark waves, that had so castle, flew up with violence against lately slept, now came boldly swelhng the windows. The earl went out upon in long succession to the shore, where the terrace beneath to contemplate they buret in white foam, and threw the storm. The moon shone f aintly by up a high spray over the rocks. A red intervals, through brokenclouds,upon sulphurous tint overspread the long the waters, fflumining the white foam line of clouds that hung above the which buret around and enlightened western horizon; beneath whose dark the scène sufficiently to render it skirtsthesunloolringoutilluimnedthe visible Thesurgesbrokeonthedistant distant shores of Languedoc, as well as shores in deep-resounding murmure, tbetuftedsummitsof thenearer wood, and the solemn pauses between the and shed a partial gleam on the weststormy gusts füled the mind with ern waves. The rest of the scène was in enthusiastic awe. As the earl stood deep gloom, except where a sunbeam, wrapt in the sublimity of the scène darting between the clouds, geneed on the moon suddenly energing from a the white wings of the sea-fowl that heavy cloud shewed him at some circled high among them or touched distance, a vessel driven by the fury the swelling sail of a vessel which was of the blast towards the coast". seen labouring in the storm.... By
the momentary flash that ïlluminea the vast body of the waters, she distinguished the vessel she had observed before, amidst a sea of foam, breaking the billows, the mast, now bowing to the waves and then rising high in the air".
This delight in the grandeur of nature is very well seen too, in her Journey, made in the summer of 1794, etc., when she is travelling in the Lake-District and visiting Patterdale and the mountains of Ullswater. Its excellence and sincerity come still more to the fore when setting it side by side with an earlier similar passage in The Romance of the Forest:



47
Romance of the Forest Ch. XVII, p. 25 Journey "Ullswater" pp. 418, etc.
"The shade of the overhanging pree- "The mountains of Ullswater are ipice was deepened by the gloom of sublime. When we saw them, the sky the atmosphere. It was evening when accorded well with the scène, being they came within view of the lake, and frequently darkened by antumnal the storm, so long threatened was now clouds, and the equinoctial galeswept fast approaching; thunder murmured the surface of the lake, marking its among the Alps; and the vapours that blackness with long white lines and rolled heavily along their sides height- beating its waves over the rocks to the ened their dreadful sublimity. The foliage of the thickets above .... The darkening air and the lightnings that effect of a stormy evening upon the now flashed across the horizon terrified scenery was solemn. Clouds smoked Clara.... A peal of thunder, which along the fells, veiling them for a moseemed to shake the earth to its fonnd- men! and passing on to other sumations, and was reverberating in tre- mits; or sometimes they involved the mendons echoes from the cliffs, burst lower steeps, leaving the tops unobover their heads". scured and resembling islands in a
distant ocean. The lake was dark and tempestuous, dashing the rocks with a strong foam. It was a scène worthy of the sublimity of Ossian, and brought to recollection some touches of his gloomy pencil: "When the storms of the mountains come, when the north lifts the waves on high, I sit by the sounding shore". etc
Famous are the descriptions of lovely sunsets and sweet sunrises; views of Gothic castles with ramparts gilded by the rays of the sinking sun; or the moonlit woods with their mysterious, weird aspect; the fertile plains with their rich vegetation; and the deserted mountain-passes invested by banditti. Nature descriptions in prose had occasionally occurred before in Fielding, Richardson, Smollett, Goldsmith and Johnson. In poetry, the pastoral of the first half of the eighteenth century to some extent had an eye for the beauty of nature, as when Broome in his: Daphnis and Lycidas writes:



48
"How oalm the ev'ning! see the falling day Gilds ev'ry mountain with a rnddy ray! In gentle sighs the softly whisp'ring breeze Salutes the floVrs, and waves the trembling trees. Hark, the night-warbler from yon vocal boughs Glads ev'ry valley with melodious woea":
or:
"When the winds whistle and the tempest roars, When foaming billows lash the sounding shores, The blooming beauties of the pastores die, And in gay heaps of fragrant ruina lie".
with its conclusion:
"But see! the night displays her starry train,
Soft silver dews impearl the glitt'ring plain;
An awful horror fills the gloomy woods,
And bluish mists rise from the smoking floods:
Haste, Daphnis! haste to fold thy woolly care;
The deep'ning shades imbrown th* unwholesome air".
Pope, too, though not over-susceptible to the sweet ness of nature, in one of his Pastorals1 speaks of:
"The mossy fountains, and the green retreats, Wheree 'er you tread, cool gales shall fan the glade, Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade: Wheree 'er you tread, the blushing flowers shall rise, And all things flourish, where you turn your eyes".
When by its side a few lines by Mrs. Radcliffe are put:
"Soft o'er the mountain's purple brow, Meek twilight draws her shadows gray: From tufted woods and valleys low, Light's magie colours steal away" 1
1 Summer; The second Pastoral or Alexis. To Dr. Garth. ' Sunset, Romance of the Forest, XIX, p. 283.



49
The difference in tone becomes manifest, though the subject is the same as that of the first lines quoted from Broome. With Mrs. Radcliffe the beauty of nature finds a receptive mind; it stirs the stringsofher emotion. If man rouses her sympathy, it is generally because his natural surroundings bring home to her his State. When she describes the humbler classes, it is not the poor of the metropolis, the starved of the alleys and lanes of the vast cities, but the shepherds of her sylvan, arcadian landscapes, and the sailors of her beloved ocean. The picturesque aspect pleases her. Her journals confirm the truth of this statement. On September 21, 1798, she writes: "The rays had already become much fainter, as we wound up a chalky precipice of great sweep and length, with steep downs rising over it; the sheep on the summit showing themselves against the sky. A fine moon rose, and lighted us over the downs toHorndon.Heard only the sheep-bells, as the shepherd lad was folding his flocks, and they came down from the hills."
When she passes a village, she notices the pleasing rural aspect, the peacefulness of " a cottage, here and there, under the trees with its grey curling smoke" *; but she does not trouble to inquire how its tenants contrive to make both ends meet. She "passed a most picturesque hamlet of green mossed cottages scattered round a little lawn, where the woods opened, but closed again in thicker shades"2. Her enjoyment of nature is the artist 's delight in the harmony of colours and
1 Memoir, p. 26.
1 Memoir, p. 46, Cf. Wordsworth, Tinten Abbey: "these hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines", etc. /
4



shapes, and its result is descriptions of nature of the pictorial order. In this intensity of enjoyment she is of the new generation, and not merely a precursor of the romantic movement. In enthusiastic admiration she of ten surpasses Gray and Cowper; yet it is doubtful whether the apparently uninteresting, flat, homely surroundings of Huntingdon and Olney would have roused her love \ as they did Cowper's, who lived contentedly "fast by the banks of the slow-winding Ouse" aandwho thought that not rural sights alone, but rural sounds exhilirate the spirit, and restore the tone of languid Nature 3. She shared this enjoyment of nature, for its own sake, with the early group of romantic poets, with their susceptibility to the beautiful in any fonn. It is especially Scott, who traces her steps and at times even falls short of them, when his minute knowledge of the place described, induces him to make the topographical predominate over the artistically picturesque.
Like Mrs. Radcliffe, Scott enforces the particular character of his portraits by the framework, by the background. The concord in literature between man's mood (or woman's mood especially !) and the aspect of nature has often been noted, as well as the tendency of the Gothic novel in general, to use the terrible forces of nature to reflect "the dark passions of man". When Mrs. Radcliffe uses this device, she does so in an artistic marnier. Not only the evil emotions, but joy and con-
» Cf. Journey, p. 330, "the eye is often wearied with the uniform lowness of the
nearer country", p. 339, "the woody heights of Cleves broke the flat monotony
of the eastem shore". p. 370, "eyes accustomed to the monotonous flatness
of Dutch views".
• Betirement, by W. Cowper.
» The Taak, by W. Cowper, Book L The Sofa.
50



51
tent, too, find their appropriate setting. Sheissubjective in her treatment of nature; it is of a lyrical character. She knows what natural phenomena operate most intensively on man. When Emily, in The Mysteries of Udolpho (II. ch. XXXI. p. 36) is led away from Udolpho by two ruffians, without knowing whither, "the shades of night were falling fast", and this causes Emily's mind to be more and more filled by dreadful apprehensions: "The sun was now sunk bebind the high mountains in the west, upon which a purple haze began to spread, and the gloom of twilight to draw over the surrounding objects. To the low and sullen murmur of the breeze passing among the woods, she no longer listened with any degree of pleasure, for it conspired with the wildness of the scène and the evening hour to depress her spirits." Again, when Emily returns to la Vallée after so many troubles, and is visiting faithful Theresa, the altering aspect of the weather reminds us of Tennyson's Enoch Arden coming home when the brightness of the afternoon changes into a drizzling cold mist, reflecting Enoch's painful thoughts, and foreshadowing the dreadful reality:
Enoch Arden Mysteries of Udolpho LT, Ch. LI,
pp. 133, 134
Bright was the afternoon, Sunnybutcliffl;tfflthK>'eitherchasm, "It was a gray autumnal evening,
Where either haven opened on the towards the close of the season; heavy
[deeps, mists partially obscured the mountains
Rolled a sea-haze and whelmed the and a chilly breeze strewed her path
[world in gray; with some of their last yellow leaves.
Cnt off the length of highwayon before, These oircling in the blast, and for-
And left but narrow breadth to left telling the death of the year, gave an
[and right image of desolation to her mind, and in
Of withered hold or tilthorpasturage. her fancy seemed to announce the



52
On the nigh-naked tree the robinpiped death of Valencourt and when
Disconsolate, and thro' the dripping she came within view of Theresa's cot-
[haze tage, she was so much disordered, and
The dead weight of the dead leaf bore her resolution failed her so entirely
[it down; that, unabletoproceed, she restedona
Thicker the drizzle grew, deeper the bank beside the path, where, as she
[gloom, sat, the wind that groaned sullenly
Last, as it seemed, a great mist-blotted among the lofty branches, above,
[light seemed to her melancholy imagination
Flared on him, and he came upon the to bear the sounds of distant lament-
[place. ation, and in the pauses of the gust she still fancied she heard the feeble and
Then down the long street having far-off notes of distress".
[slowly stolen, His heart foreshadowing all calamity, His eyes upon the stones, he reached [the home
Where Annie lived ...
At times Mrs. Radcliffe avails herself of the contrast between the outward and the inward state to stress the latter. Thus, on the night after the unsuccessful attempt to poison Montoni, Emily "sat down near one of the casements; and as she gazed on the mountainview beyond, the deep repose of its beauty struck her with all the force of contrast, and she could scarcely believe herself so near a scène of savage discord. The contending elements seemed to have retired from their natural spheres, and to have collected themselves into the mind of men, for there alone the tempest now reigned." reiation /j h XXIV. p. 151). But apart from the relation
between v - "'»'«
nature and between man and nature, it is worth while to inspect te in her attitude towards nature more closely, for besides her joy in its beauty, it has something to say to her. It becomes a manesfestation of Divine grandeur. Her religious beliefs are closely interwoven with all her writings. If the indications of this, scattered through-



58
out her novels should fail to be conclusive, her poems and journal will bear out this fact. The prevailing "natural religion" of the first half of the eighteenth century sought its justification in the assertion of establishing a normal, universal, reasonable Standard religion. Two factors contributed to it: on one hand the spirit of scientific criticism of prevailing dogmas; on the other hand the sense of the doubtfulness of the demands of supernaturally revealed religion. It reduced the absolute to the fundamental elements of the natural and spiritual word. Deism found its first definite expression in England, but its literary exponents were hardly of the first order, such men as Swift, Addison, Johnson, Young, Warburton, Richardson being inimical to it. Its opposites were either atheism, or an uncritical, unreasoned theology. By the time the deistic controversy had died out in England or had passed into argumentative theological-phüosophical discussions, it had taken a radical, aggressive turn in France, where a revolutionary application defined its character. Hume asserted that experience can at best point to the probability of the existence of one wise power, and the remote possibility of a purposeful, but not omnipotent goodness. What the mid-eighteenth century required was not so much religion as moral. It turned from the seemingly dogmatic fossilization of Christianity, and the struggle between its moral and its philosophic elements. Consequently its representatives include many eminent moralists, but few natures in the true sense of the word, religious. Rousseau remains in the deistic line when affirming that there is an indissoluble tie between moral sense and belief in God; that virtue is an innate



quality and that sincere sentiments are the soürce of religion. According to him the fall of man is due to his covetous will, which makes liim choose culture instead of the purity and bliss of his original state, in natural simplicity, unspoiled by luxury. Feeling that philosophy will not satisfy the needs of his soul, he accepts religion and morality, founded on instinct and emotion. The social problems: luxury, riches and egoistic enjoyment on one hand, privation, misery andiabour for others on the other, he reduces to the one principle of property, preceding Karl Marx's theory, which according to E. F. Richardson is "materialistic in the sense that it postulates that material existence determines all national existence and conditions ültimately all spiritual existence" **
The differences of class are not of a political nature; they are of a social character. Privation tends to degrade man intellectuaily; at the same time arts and literature, even if they do not promote corruption, are the most influential factors of inequality. They produce the one powerful dissimilarity in manners and spirit. Brey has pointed out thatit was especially Rousseau, who brought aboutarevoltinliteratureasregards the attitude towards nature, adducing parallel passages in La nouvelle Héloïse and Mrs. Radcliffe's Romance of the Forest. It is true, in the latter we find a sympathetic reflection of some of hisideas2, yet without being theoretically systemized, and
» A Neglected Aspect of the English Romantic Revolt, by E. F. Richardson. University of California. Publications in modern Philology. Vol. III, p. 266. 1 Cf. J. H. Millar The mid-eighteenth century. Ch. II, p. 70, "In the recesses of his (Rousseau's) mind there always lurks the feeling that nature means Alpine scenery, wild flowers, and simplicity .... while art and science mean the gilded iniquity of Paris".
54



55
tinctured by her more personal belief in the omnipotent Divine Power. Her interpretation of nature and her notion of religion are as different from Rousseau's as from Voltaire's. She is neither a deist, eliminating the interference of the Divine Power in his created world, and making nature her source of virtue and purity, nor does she believe her time to be the age of enüghtenment and extreme progress, in which the bigotry of a few retarded the ulterior benefits to be derived from this progress. Her attitude is not that of indifference to the needs of those surrounding her, but rather that of acquiescence in the existing order of things, which is inevitable. Like Johnson, she feit that though we may try to assuage the evils of life as much as we can, and suffer them with equanimity, not even the strongest effort can remove them; the source of real misery being inherent in the qualities of our own nature. Contrary to Fielding, who took Kfe as it was, bravely without flinching, but also without being supported by religious principles, Mrs. Radcliffe accepts the facts of life, and feeling problems arise on every side, she looks for the solution of them to the Divine Power, the ruler of our fates. When giving utterance to her most intimate thoughts, (after a walk to Seaford) she writes lt
"The silent course over this great scène awful — the departure melancholy. Oh God! Thy great laws will one day be more fully known by thy creatures; we shall more fully understand Thee and ourselves. The God of order and of all this and far greater grandeur, the Creator of that glorious sun, which never fails in its course, will not neglect us, His intelligent, though
> July 19, 1800. Memoir, p. 33.



56
frail creatures, nor. suffer us to perish, who have the consciousness of our mortal fate long before it arrivés, and of Him. He who called us first from nothing, can again call us from death into life."
This sweet trust and hopeful belief in God, this gentle resignation and confession of our own weaknesses, this consciousness of the frailty of human life and the anticipation of a resurrection to a new life, we cannot expect from Rousseau. It is not because God is the originator of the system by which the Universe is guided, that we worship Him, but because of his loving wisdom directed to our individual lives. In this repect Mrs. Radcliffe agreed with the little Essay on the Phüosophy of Lord Bolingbroke1: "We adore him, not because he always did in every place, and always will exist, but because he gave, and still preserves to us our own existence by an exertion of his goodness. We adore him, not because he knows and can do all things, but because he made us capable of knowing and of doing what may conduct us to happiness. Itis therefore his benevolence which we adore, not his greatness or power." Yet our authoress does not descend to the gloomy reverberations of Young and Blair. Blair, as well as Mrs. Radcliffe, knows life's brevity, and the transitoriness of all earthly things, death levelling all inequality of rank and station. Here too, (he writes) the petty tyrant,
"Now tame and mimble, like a child tbat's whipped, Shakes hands with dust, and calls the worm his kinsman; Nor pleads his rank and birthright: under ground
> Published 1775; attributed by Mason to Gray, and possibly composed abont 1748.



57
Precedency's a jest; vassal and lord, Grossly familiar, side by side consume"
When Mrs. Radcliffe is visiting Kenilworth, she feels affected by the same thought:
"They (the ruins) spoke at once to the imagination, with the force and simplicity of truth, the nothingness and brevity of this life—generations have beheld us and passed away, as you now behold us, and shall pass away: they thought of the generations before them, as you now think of them, and as future ages shall think of you. We have witnessed this, yet we remain; the voices that revelled beneath us, are heard no more, yet the winds of Heaven still sound in our ivy." And a still and solemn sound it was as we stood looking up at these walls." 2
And again, when the strain of the waves is "like a song of peace to the departing day", she reflects:
"Another of those measured portions that make up our span of life, was gone; every one who gazed upon this scène, proud or humble, was a step nearer to the f8*"000
* * between
grave—yet none seemed conscious of it" *. reUgious
And then, turning from the instability of things moraiizing seen, to the unalterable powerful Creator, she is filled asPect with admiratión: "The scène itself, great, benevolent, sublime — powerful yet silent in its power—progressive
1 The Grave. p. 42. Cf. Gray: Elegy in a country churchyard; and Johnson: Journey to the western Islands, p. 395, "The thonghts that natnrally rise in places where the great and the powerful He mingled with the dust". * 1802. Memoir p. 68. TheIntroductionto Gaston ae-BtoreaeOT'Hêcontainsa passage almost literally the same. (p. 21). "The melancholy scène around him spoke with the simplicity of truth, the brevity and nothingness of this life". etc. 3 October 19, 1811 Memoir, pp. 81, 82.



58
and certain in its end, steadfast and Ml of a sublime repose: the scène itself spoke of its Creator1".
Indeed, èvery element of nature has something to teach her. When she observes the mountains,
"Those everlasting mountains stand sublime, And to the sun's Creator lift the head".
Ye saw the thunder-storms of ages gleam, The elemental and the human frown, And heard afar the mingled strife go by Into the silenoe of Eternity" *.
They are the symbols of strength and immovableness; and are firmly-rooted. They withstood the ravages of changing time, "like the honest mind, in the dread hour, when stern Adversity tries Virtue's power", and thus become to her "awful monitors".
When she hears the lark sing, it seems to her that it points the way she should go, "high o'er life's cloudy day". It is to be regretted that the lofty tone of religious admonition so often degenerates into humdrum moralizings, especially in the novels, though these also contain many instances where the persecuted heroine's faith in divine protection and omnipotence is revived by beholding the greatness of nature. We have but to look at the concluding passages of all her novels, to find this recommendation to goodness. With her, God is the revenger of vice and the rewarder of virtue. The remembrance of temptations that have been withstood, and of troubles that have been overcome, only enhances present happiness. The following passages will prove this:
1 Oetober 19, 1811 Memoir, pp. 81, 82.
» On ascending a HUI crowned with a convent. Posthumous Works TV, p. 189.



59
"It is now seen that those virtues which stimulated him (Alleyn) to prosecute for another the cause of justice, mysteriously urged him to the recovery of his rights. Virtue may for a time be pursued by misfortune and justice be obscured by the transient triumph of vice, but the power whose peculiar attributes they are, clears away the clouds of error, and even in this world establishes his throne of Justice" H
"In reviewing this story, we perceive a singular and striking instance of moral retribution. We learn, also, that those who do only that which is right, endure nothing in misfortune but a trial of their virtue, and from trials well endured, derive the surest claim to the protection of heaven" 2.
"Their former lives afforded an example of trials well endured — and their present, of virtues greatly rewarded" 3.
"O! useful may it be to have shown that though the vicious can sometimes pour affliction upon the good, their power is transient and their punishment certain; and that innocence, though oppressed by injustice shall, supported by patience, finally triumph over misfortune" *.
"You see how people get through their misfortunes, if they have but a heart to bear up against them, and do nothing that can lie on their conscience afterwards; and how suddenly one comes to be happy" 5.
"And now the faded woods strewed yellow leaves
1 The Castles of Athlin and Duribayne, p. 44. ' A Sicilian Romance, p. 73.
* The Romance of the Forest, p. 367.
* The Mysteries of Udolpho, U p. 168.
* The Italian, III, p. 442.



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on the long cavalcade that wound below, whispering a moral to departing greatness. Life is still a fleeting vision. As such it fades, whether in court or convent, nor leaves a gleam behind — save of the light of good works" 1.
With Mrs. Radcliffe this moralizing is more than the formal declaration, which most novelists of her time adjoined to their books, even Lewis in his Monk. It is too emphatic to be merely a complying with contemporary good form; it is an essential and not an incidental peculiarity of hers, and is found throughout her works. In the description of her journey, her journals, her poems, it occurs again and again. Her moral influence, in which she favourably contrasts with some other Gothic novelists, and which Talfourd in his memoir thought her highest praise, seems to have especially arrested the attention of foreigners. This is seen from R. C. Guilbert de Pixerécourt, who dramatized The Mysteries of Udolpho as Le Chateau des Apennins ou le Fantöme Vivant performed forty-six times in France2.
In treatment and subject his melodramas owned much to the novel of Mrs. Radcliffe. In a time when Christianity seemed dead, and the theory of material interest had displaced a loftier view, it required courage and a sense of vocation, to teach that virtue never
1 Gaston de Blondevüle ,TTT] p. 46 and p. 60.
' It was not one of his most successful plays. Coeline ou TEnfant dv mystère was performed 1476 times, and Le Pélerin Blanc ou les Orphelins 1533 times Many of his melodramas were translated into English, German, Russian and Dutch; for example "Clara en Seraphina of de Spelonk op het eiland Majorka", v. Ray, Amsterdam 1812 (La Citerne) Pixerécourt also dramatized Jane Porter's Scottish Chiefs, Walter Scott's: Abbot and Godwin's Caleb Williams.



61
goes without its reward, and that crime is punished. His friends affirmed that these melodramas had even a practical effect on public morals; that crimes among the lower classes were never so rare as at that time, because in them crime appeared in all its ugliness, and virtue with all the graces that endear it, for nobody remained untouched by the anguish of persecuted innocence \
No doubt, if M. de Pixerécourt deserved this praise, Mrs. Radcliffe, who set the example, may claim it even more. In her the didactic and the religious are blended with her interpretation of nature, and this distinctly marks her writings. In her poetry her firm religious faith is reflected, as when she concludes her lines to Sunset
"So sweet! so tranquil! may my evening ray Set to this world, — and rise in future day. *
or in this passage:
"But see where the last gleam of the day's sun, Far from behind that western promontory, Slant3 thwart the deep curve of this shaded bay, Tinges yon headland of the eastern shore, And goes in stillness down on the fair waves, Seeming to say: "Children of Time, f are well! Your course draws nearer to Eternity;
Even thus must fade your glory in this world:
But sure as dark shades of the night lead on To morning, the sun-set of earthly life
1 Cf. Introduction to the Thédlre choisi etc. by Ch. Nodier. Paris 1841. M. Paul Ginisty in Le Mélodrame etc., Paris 1810 ascribed a less powerful effect to Pixerécourt, and attributes tiA rise in morality rather to the stronger organisatkm of the polios. Yet he acknowledges that in these plays" les crimes passionnels n'y figurent point". There is nothing in them to shock the chastest eye. 1 The Romance of the Forest Ch. XVm, p. 283.



62
Leads to the dawn of an eternal day: — Think of that Dawn!" *
The beauty of nature makes her feel that the Creator directs our lives, encompassing us with his love and goodness, and rousing our hopes of everlasting happiness:
"But sweet, o then, most sweet! when the clear dawn
Of Jnne breaks on, and blesses the horizon.
In holy stillness it dispels the shades
Of night, appearing like the work sublime
Of Goodness, — a meek emblem of the Jast
And Living God! Bending our heads with awe
And grateful adoration, we exclaim —
Father of Light! Thon art our Father too;
We are Thy creatures; and these glorious beams
Attest, that in thy Goodness we are made
For bliss eternal!"
This religious exult at ion is utterly alien to the p seudoattitude classical literature of the early and mid-eighteenth nature and century. It connects itself with Wordsworth, who owned
toSortieranCe to 406 green landscape, romantie
poets "Sensations sweet,
Feit in the blood, and feit along the heart. And passing even into my purer mind, With tranquil restoration".
Throughout Tintern Abbey we find a certain resemblance to Mrs. Radcliffe:
"Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild secluded scène impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky."
1 The Fishers, Steephill. Posthumous Works, IV, p. 176.



63
Both feel the regenerating power of nature purifying the mind:
Wordsworth. Poema of sentiment and Mysteries of Udolpho I, Ch. IV, p. 26 reflection
"These scènes .... soften the heart
"There is» blessing in the air, like the notes of sweet music, and
Which seems a sense of joy to yield inspire that delicious melancholy
To the bare trees, and mountains bare, which no person, who had feit it once,
And grass in the green field. would resign for the greatest pleasures.
_ They waken our best and purest feel-
Love, now a universal birth, ings; disposing us to benevolence, pity
From heart to heart is stealing, and friendship. Those whom I love
From earthto man, from man toearth: I always seem to love more in such
It is the hour of feeling. an hour as this".
And from the blessed power that rolls About, below, above, We'11 frame the measure of our souls: They shall be turned to love".
In her love of ocean, sky, and wind, she reminds us of Shelley and of Swinburne. To her as to Swinburne, the flight of the birds suggests an absence of restraint, a lawless freedom, which human nature would fain share. Gales and storm do not inspire the birdwith fear, but it delights in the howling blast:
Mrs. Radcliffe, The Sea-mew Swinburne, To a Seamew
"Forth from her cliffs sublime the "For you the storm sounds only
sea-mew goes More notes of more delight
To meet the storm, rejoicing. To the Than earth's in sunniest weather.
[woods When heaven and sea together
She gives herself; and borne above the Join strengths against the lonely
[peaks Lost bark borne down by night". Of highest headlands, wheels among [the clouds
And hears Death's voice in thunder all [around,



64
While the waves far below, driven on [the shore,
Foaming with pride and rage, make [hollow moan.
She.... enters the secret region of the [storm;
But soon again appearing, forth she [moves
Out from the mount'nous shapes of
[other clouds And, sweeping down them, hastens to [new joys".
Its sound expresses this delight:
.... "with her shrill note fills thy note's elation
Dares them, as in scom". with lordlier exultation
than man's".
It rises high above the storm-tost ocean:
"Then .... with thee Fd fly I "But thine and thou, my brother
To the free waters and the bonndless Keep heart and wing more high
[skies, Than aught may scare or sunder; And drink the light of heaven and The waves whose throats are thund
[living airs Fall hurtling each on other Then with thee haunt the seas and And triumph as they die".
[sounding shores, And dweil upon the mountain's beaked [top,
Where nought should come but thou [and the wild winds".
No other bird participates in its happy fate:
"O Bird of joy! what wanderer of air "The Iark knows no such rapture
Can vie with thee in grandeur of Such joy no nightingale,
[delights, As sways the songless measure
Whose home is on the precipice, whose Wherein thy wings take pleasure. [sport
Is on the waves."
"But thine and thou, my brother Keep heart and wing more high Than aught may scare or sunder; The waves whose throats are thunder Fall hurtling each on other And triumph as they die".



65
To conclude with the writer's wish to change places with it:
"O happy, happy bird! "Ah, well were I for ever,
Lend me thy wings, and let thy joys be Wouldst thou change lives with me", [mine!"
Without possessing such ethereal lightness of imagery there is a certain similarity of ideas between Mrs. Radcliffe and Shelley, as is seen from a comparison of her To the Winds, and his: Ode to the West Wind.
Both invoke the uncontrollable forces of heaven:
Shelley, Ode to the west wind Mrs. Radcliffe, To the winds 1
"Wild spirit, which art moving every- "Spirit; who dwellest in the secret [where [clouds Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh Unseen, unknown, yet heard o'er all [hear!, [the world
Who reign 'st in storms anddarkness [half the year."
Both love the wind growing into a raging storm:
"Thou on whose stream, 'mid the ".... oh, viewless, viewless wind
[steep sky's commotion I love thy potent voice, whether in Loose clouds like earth's decaying [storms
[leaves are shed, It gives to thunder clouds their Shook from the tangled boughs of [impulse dread".
[Heaven and Ocean, Angels of rain and lightning; ...."
Both consider the wind in its autumnal effect:
".... thou breath of autumn's being "Or sighs in Autumn's groves Thou, from whose unseen presence the Mourning the dying leaf." [leaves dead
Are driven ...."
1 Posthumous Works IV, p. 249.



66
Both feel its power to uplift the human soul from the cares of everyday-life:
"Oh,liftmeas a wave, a leaf, a cloud! "Whate'er the note,
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! Thy power entrances, wins me from A heavy weight of hours has chained [low cares".
[and bo wed
One too like thee—tameless, and swift, and proud".
Both conclude with an anticipation of better things, yet differently; Shelley, by praying to have his words scattered over the earth, to promote a new birth, a new life for mankind; Mrs. Radcliffe, by feeling herself lifted to the creator of a more perfect state:
"Be through my lips to unawakened "And bears me towards God, who bids
[earth [you breathe
The trumpet of a prophecy! Owind, And bids the morning of a lighter
II winter comes, can spring be far [world
[bebind?" Dawn on my hopes".
Less perfectly Mrs. Radcliffe expresses herself in another address To the Winds1, whose opening lines also remind us of Shelley and of Byron.
Byron, Childe Harold"s Pilgrimage Mrs. Radcliffe, To the winds.
Canto DJ: XCVT.
"Viewless, through heaven's vast vault "But where of ye, 0 tempests! is the [your course ye steer,
[goal? Unknown from whence ye come, or Are ye like those within the human [whither go,
[breast ? Mysterious power» 11 hear you murmur Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, [low, [some high nest? TUI swells your loud gust on my
[startled ear;
1 Mysteries of Udolpho TL, Ch. LUI, p. 143.



67
Shelley: Ode to the west wind
"Thou «I love to list your midnight voices
J*or whose path the Atlantic's level [float [powers In the dread storm, that o'er the ocean
Cleave themselves into chasms, while And, while their charm the angry" ™ £ , &** °elow [wave controls,
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods Mix with its sullen roar and sink
[which wear [remote" The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray [with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves [....".
Like Byron, Mrs. Radcliffe thinks night, and storm, and darkness "wondrous strong, yet lovely in their strenp+h":
Byron, Chüde Harold's Pilgrirmge Mrs. Radcliffe, To the winds
canto III, XCIII
"I ask alone,
I'V*"*. ' .. me be As rapt I climb these dark romantic
A sharer ni thy fïerce and far delight, rgtee
A portion of the tempest and of thee! The elemental war, the bülow's mZ"
The elemental war, the bülow's moan
Though there is no doubt of Mrs. Radcliffe's reli- attitude giousness, her ideas on the relative merits of Protestant- Ko^Ltïsm and Roman Catholicism are rather bewilderim? « m and
rpi i ., , , " "UCI ul6 • Roman
ine latter appeals to and repels her at the same time. Ca«°Ucism
The sweet seclusion of a monastery and of pious convent-
hfe cannot but charm her; its restrictions and severity
displease her. Convent-life is not favourably painted
on the whole; the superiors hardly behave in accordance
with the rules laid down by their faith; they are ready
to comply with any tyrant, and to compel their victims



68
to take the veil by superior power. «The sullen nusery of votaries" fills Adeline with disgust, and the attraction of the world becomes allthestrongerwhensheisdestmed to forgo them. When compulsion does not succeed, the Lady Abbess uses subtlety, but like Agnes in The Mank, Adeline, who has often noticed "the sullen pinings of discontent and the mute anguish of despair , is not to be persuaded. Neither is the character of the ungracious padre abate, who betrays Julia, more favourable. Nor is that of the merciless, cruel abbess who oppresses Ellena, who follows the ruffians to the monastery perched high among the cliffs "like a lamb to the sacrifice". And who would consider Schedoni an ornament to his church? On the other hand, how sweet and comforting is the Abbess of St. Clair to Emily St Aubert, when her father has died! Her angehc face expresses but benignity, and inspires confidence In her Journey, when visiting Cologne, Mrs. Radcliffe speaks of terrible things, which make the blood run eold told to her of the severe regulations of the order of Clarissa: "It is not easily, that a cautious mind becomes convinced of the existence of such severe orders; when it does, astonishment at the artificial miseries, which the ingenuity of human beings forms for themselves by seclusion, is as boundless as at the other miseries, with which the most trivial vanity and envy so frequently pollute the intercourses of social Me . Yet she is impressed by the intense devotion of three members of the congregation during service The cathedral she views "with awful delight". At the same time she notices that the Protestants, though not molested, are not allowed to have a church of their



69
own. The theatres are open on Sundays without offenee to the Magistrates "though a Protestant church may not". What is peculiarly offensive to her, is the lack of révérence for religion. The Dutch women may be distinguished for their air of decorous modesty, but the behaviour of the men, who wore their hats during divine service, she thinks "most disgusting and arrogant. She does not agree with the continental way of observing the Sunday. When at night the places of public amusement were opened at Cologne, "the sound of music and dancing was heard almost as plainly,as that of the bells had been before, a disgusting excess of licentiousness, which appeared in other instances, for we heard at the same time, the voices of a choir on one side of the street, and the noise of a billiard table on the other". Mrs. Radcliffe's works breathe an air of pious purity. Whatever her theme may be, she is sure to exclude everything objectionable, even when she touches upon the evil influences lurking in the attitude great cities. These, with their crowded streets and to^n-ufe jostling interests, appear to her the sources of corrup- ence^S» tion and the spoilers of virtuous youth. The young country men who are undefiled by its temptations, still enjoy their vernal bloom, which is but too soon tarnished by their residence in the capitals of civilized Europe. She is of Cowper's opinion, that:
"Rank abundance breeds, In gross and pamper'd cities, sloth and lust, And wantonness, and gluttonous excess
Snoh London is, by taste and wealth proclaim'd The fairest capital of all the world, By riot and incontinence the worst".1 1 The Taak, Book I. The Sofa, pp. 180, 181.



70
Hence health and virtue are only to be found in the quiet country-side, with its natural beauty and inartif icial enjoyment. The novel in which out authoress «stresses this most emphatically, is The Mysteries of Udolpho. Throughout this novel we can tracé her attitude towards town-life. On the very first page we hear that M. St. Aubert's principles, amidst the changing visions of life "remained unshaken, his benevolence unchilled, and he retired from the multitude, more in pity than in anger, to scènes of simple nature, to the pure delights of literature, and to the exercise of domestic virtues". Here he enjoys "moments infinitely more delightful than any passed amid the brilliant and tumultuous scènes that are courted by the world". When he perceives "the real ingenuousness and ardour of youth" of young Valencourt, whose acquaintance he makes during his wanderings among the Pyrenees, he cannot but observe that the latter has never yet been in Paris. Unfortunately the corresponding opposite of this statement is afterwards proved to be perfectly correct. When deprived of his beloved Emily's presence, in the gay capital of France, he first nurses his grief in solitude, and retires from his merry companions, raising the laugh of his brother-officers against him. At length, however, finding loneliness to increase his pangs, he seeks comfort in diversion. His former studies afford no solace, for his mind is not composed enough for them! and unfortunately his comrades glory in reducing him to their level. When the Marquis de Villefort retires to Chateau-le-Blanc from "the vexations and tumults of public affairs, which too fre-



71
quently corrode the heart and vitiate the taste" *, his wife has been spoiled by luxury and has lost all benevolence, centring all her interest on herself and the best way of enjoying life. Her daughter Blanche, however, on arriving there, exclaims, "O who would live in Paris, to look upon black walls and dirty streets, when in the country they might gaze on the blue heavens I and all the green earth *.
Whether it is a matter of accident, due to her choice of scène, or not, with Mrs. Radcliffe it is especially Paris, not London, that stands in bad repute. She tries to give as graphic an account of its wickedness as she can, at the same time abstaining most assiduously from describing in detail its offensive aspects. A realistic description of sensual passion she would consider more fit to rouse caraal desires than to inspire the reader with an aversion to them. In the Countess Lacleur we find the unprincipled lady of fashion, occurring ever and again in the eighteenth-century novel. She is "awoman of eminent beauty and captivating manners", who, though no longer quite youthful, by her wit and grace of mind and body, still works a spell on the fashionable circles of Paris. She lives partlyon the profits of gambling, which she allows to go on at her house when she offers her petits soupers, which "were the most charming ima-
ginable and Valencourt passed the pleasantest, as
well as most dangerous hours in these parties".8 Another lady of the same type is the Marchioness Champfort, still more cunning and fond of intrigue, to whom
Ï. Mysteries, TL, p. 64; »n, p. 68 • Mysteries I, Ch. XXII, p. 140.



72
Valencourt is introduced by his friends. The gaiety of the most splendid court in Europe, the "magnificence of the palaces, entertainments and equipages",1 offer a strong contrast to the preceding passages, in which the corruption of Society is pictured .When in The Romance of the Forest (ch. XXV p. 845) la Motte's sentence is ehanged into banishment, and he leaves England, he repents and "his character recovered the hue which it would always have worn, had he never been exposed to the dissipations of Paris". Innocent happiness, according to our authoress is not to be found there. When Count de Villefort suddenly comes upon a group of French and Spanish peasants, dancing to brisk French music, Mrs. Radcliffe makes him compare this "with the scènes of such gaiety as he had witnessed at Paris, where false taste painted the features, and while it vainly tried to supply the glow of nature, concealed the charms of animation — where affectation so often distorted the air, and vice perverted the manners" so that he "sighed to think that natural graces and innocent pleasures flourished in the wilds of soiitude, while they drooped amidst the concourse of polished society."2 She values the wholesome influence on manners and character exerted by life in the country, spent in daily intercourse with God's creation. on nati0«- Mrs Radcliffe has some slight notion of the differences eristics in national characteristics. When she describes how St. Aubert accepts the accommodation politely offered by a simple peasant, she seems to imply that the English would be surprised at such courteousness. "St. Aubert
1 Mysteries I, Ch. XXII, p. 141 > Mysteries II, Ch. L, pp. 128, 124.



78
was himself a Frenchman, he therefore was not surprised at French courtesy; but ill as he was* he feit the value of the offer enhanced by the manner which accompanied it. He had too much delicacy to apologize, or to appear to hesitate about availing himself of the peasant's hospitality; but immediately accepted it, with the same frankness with which it was offered." When he praises the neatness of the cottage "la Voisin bowed gratefully, and replied with the gallantry of a Frenchman." Of a young lady, visiting Emily's aunt, Madame Cheron, we hear that she "possesses all the sprightliness of a French woman with all her coquetry." Of Valencourt's friends it is said that there "were many who added to the ordinary character of a French soldier's gaiety, some of those fascinating qualities which too often throw a veil over folly, and sometimes even soften the features of vice into smiles." And when poor Madame Cheron lends a willing ear to Cavigni's mock flattery, she answers: "I protest you are a Frenchman. I never heard a foreigner say anything half so gallant as that", and: "I perceive you have learnt the art of complimenting since you came to France." Town life may corrupt, yet it surely bears a pleasant, joyful look to a young girl like Adeline just removed from the convent where she was educated. "Every countenance was here animated either by business or pleasure, every step was airy, and every smile was gay. What crowded streets! What magnificent hotels! What splendid equipages! What bustle, what tumult, what delight."1. She
1 The Romance of the Forest, Ch. Hl, p. 46.
Cf. A Sicilian Romance, I, p. 3. "Julia, as she gazed on its (Palermo 's) glittering spires, would endeavour in imagination to depicture its beanties,



74
can but leave it sighing! Mrs. Radcliffe having passed her youth in polished, well-educated society, knows that cultivation adds grace to manners. So the Marquis de Montalt adds the refinement of polished life to manners the most easy and elegant. "His conversation was lively, amusing and witty; discovering great knowledge of the world The address of the Marquis was so insinuating that her (Adeline's) reserve insensibly gave way before it, and her natural vivacity resumed its long lost empire" x. One evening, when a thunderstorm detained him at the Abbey, he "conversed with her on a variety of subjects and displayed an elegant mind" 2. The benevolent clergyman, Arnaud la Luc may owe some of his good qualities to his French descent. Some insight into Mrs. Radcliffe's views of French character, a kind of résumé, may be obtained from a discussion by la Luc and M. Verneuil on the difference between the English and the French3. Seeing the latter's "wretched policy, their sparkling, but sopbistical discourse, frivolous occupations and their gay animated air we shall be compelled to confess that happiness and folly often dweil together."
In The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne the Count de Santmorin and Louisa de St. Claire are of FrenchSwiss extraction. Both are described as people of cultivation and refined manners. A Frenchman may be generous and save another's life, as the chevalier de Menon does young Orlando's in A Sicüian Romance,
while she secretly sighed for a view of that world, from which she hitherto had been secluded''.
1 The Romance of the Forest, Oh. VII, p. 106. « The Romance of the Forest, Ch. VUL p. 118. • The Romance of the Forest, Ch. XVII, p. 264.



75
but he is hasty in anger, and after a quarrel the latter falls by the hand of his former friend, now his brotherin-law; for which the chevalier de Menon atones by unavailing grief and remorse. "All the airy vivacity of his former manner was fled". Sensitive to honour, he wearies of life, yet will not ignobly seek death. He rushes "into the heat of battle and there obtained an honourable death."
Gaston de Blondeville, in the book of that name, possesses a comely person and gallant air; he is dressedin graceful French fashion "for he was of the Queen's country and had all the gaiety of her nation in his countenance and haviour". Mrs. Radcliffe attributes gaiety, light-heartedness, courteous politeness and graceful manners to the French; at times attended by a concealed wiliness, cunning ambition and evil passions .Her ideas of the Italians are somewhat different; their haughtiness and still stronger ambition, their eagerness to resent and to revenge insults, are strongly stressed, for instance in Schedoni, the "ItaUan" par excellence; also in the character of Maria de Mazzini, who before committing suicide, has her husband poisoned, and exultsin the deed; and in that of Montoni and his friends. The nationalities occurring most frequently in Mrs. Radcliffe's works are the French and the Italian. Her choice of scène is not limited to these two countries. Scotland, Sicily, France, Italy, Holland, Germany, the English Lake-district, the beautiful wooded parts and the southern coast of Eng- OnLove of land, these are her settings.1 Some of these places she had traveIUng
* She does not always keep true to her purpose. The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne calls itself a Higland story, but the absence of anything peculiarly Scottish belies the title, though the name Malcolm and the word "clan" sound Scottish.



76
visited. From her biography and the accounts of her excursions it is clear that she was eager to increase her knowledge of foreign places, and that she personally enjoyed travelling *. By indulging curiosity and visiting foreign parts, knowledge and insight increased. That the conviction that travelling might improve knowledge, was spreading, we may infer from S. Johnson's words, that he had spent some weeks in the Western Islands with sufficiënt amusement, and had amplified his thoughts with new scènes of nature and new modes of life. Also in the modest conclusion to his Journey tothe Western Islands. "Having passed my time almost wholly in cities, I may have been surprised by modes of life and appearances of nature, that are familiar to men of wider survey and more varied conversation. Novelty and ignorance must always be reciprocal, and I cannot but be conscious that my thoughts on national manners, are the thoughts of one who has seen but little." Johnson probably had a deeper interest in differing social conditions than Mrs. Radcliffe, but his attitude towards nature lacked her enthusiasm. Not that he did not feel impressed by its beauty. When passing on to Inverary by an easy, f irm road, he stated that they were "busied with contemplating the scène about them. The night came on while we had yet a great part of the way to go, though not so dark but that we could discern the cataracts which poured down the hills on one side, and feil into one general channel that ran with
• Cf Journey, p. 341 Ch. Wesel, on her hopeful departure «with a new world spread out before us, for ouriosity and as we thought for adrniration . Also «the little Information, we had gained, seemed to be worth the labour of acquumg



77
great violence on the other. The wind was loud, the rain was heavy, and the whistling of the blast, the fall of the shower, the rush of the cataracts, and the roar of the torrent, made nobler chorus of the rough music of nature, than it had ever been my chance to hear before
But upon the whole Johnson prefers the pleasant aspect to the wild, and the rough climate is not to his liking. Of the islands in Loch Lomond he writes that though they "court the gazer at a distance, disgust him at his approach, when he finds instead of soft lawns and shady thickets, nothing more than uncultivated ruggedness" a. Johnson is not of an excessively romantic temper, neither is he enthusiastic about antiquities. Yet he pays attention to the ruins of ancient strongholds and considers them a confirmation "that thefictions of romantic chivalry had for their basis the real manners of the feudal times, when every lord of a seignory lived in his hold lawless and unaccountable, with all the licentiousness and insolence of uncontested superiority and unprincipled power"3. Neither is the appeal of the past entirely directed to his intellect; his feelings are also touched. He spurns the callousness that is unmoved by local associations. "Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and from my friends be such frigid philosophy, as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over
1 S. Johnson, Journey to the western Islands, p. 404.
* S. Johnson, Journey to the western Islands, p. 406.
• S. Johnson, Journey to the western Islands, p. 401.



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any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona" H When he notices that till quite lately, out of révérence, only women were buried in the ancient cemetery of the nunnery, he adds: "These relics of veneration always produce some mournful pleasure. I could have forgiven a great injury more easily than the violation of this imaginary sanctity." And a little farther on, "we now left those illustrious ruins, by which Mr. Boswell was much affected, nor would I willingly be thought to have looked upon them without some emotion" 2.
How different is Johnson's outlook from, that of Gray, who could write pleasantries about his sightseeing, and hardly takes himself seriously, and who was yet a more refined lover of nature 8.
Gray speaks enthusiastically of his six weeks' trip
» S. Johnson, Journey, pp. 391, 392. • S. Johnson, Journey, p. 397.
» Cf. his letter to Thomas Wharton, written from Florence, March 12, 1740; (Vol. II, p. 55) in which he lays down "Proposals for Printing by subscription, in (this Large) Letter, the Travels of T. G. Gent.) which will consist of the Following Particulars", including a visit to the Parisian opera, which leads to the lyrioal ontburst: "Anatomy of a French ear, shewing the formation of it to be entirely different from that of an English one, and that sounds have a directly contrary effect upon one and the other", and: "makes a journey into Savoy, and in his way visits the Grand Chartreuse; he is set astride upon a mule's back, and begins to climb up the mountains. Rocks and torrents beneath; pine-treee and snows above; horrors and terrors on all sides. The author dies of the fright". Gray makes fun of classical learning in his Observations on Antiquities, where he writes that the Author proves that Bologna was the ancient Tarentum, that the battle of Salamis contrary to the vulgar opinion was f ought by land, and that not 'far from Ravenna. That the Romans were a colony of the Jews, and that Eneas was the same with Ehud", etc.



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through five beautiful counties of England, the principal feature of which was the river Wye. (Letter to Th. Wharton, Pembroke College, August 24,1770)" Monmouth he writes, (vol. III p. 379) "lies in a vale, that is the delight of my eyes, and the very seat of Pleasure I have a journal written by the companionof my travels, that serves to recall and fix the fading images of these things." This companion was Mr. Norton Nicholls. Gray also saw Gilpin's Observations on the River Wye, after having visited it himself .In his letter to the Rev. WilUamMason, (Cambridge, August 1,1770) he repeated his praises of the Wye, which he descended "surrounded with ever new delights". His intense love of travelling appears from a letter written as late as May 24,1771, to Wharton: "My summer was intended to have been passed in Switzerland: but I have dropped the thought of it, and believe my expeditions will terminate in Old Park: for travel I must, or cease to exist." Thus it is clear that Mrs. Radcliffe's description of her journey through Holland and Germany (1795) was in itself nothing unusual. There had been such descriptions many years before *.
1 For instance The QenÜemerïs Magazine of January 1751 oontained a Letter from Mr. Kalm, a gentleman of Sweden, now on his Travel» in America, to his friend in Philadelphia, containing a particular account of the Great Fall of the Niagara. What he tells of his experiences is instruotive: that very few people observe nature's works with acouraoy. In his endeavonr to rectify this error, he aims at exactness, and attains but prosy descriptions. Mrs. Radcliffe's poetio qualities are entirely lacking in this early attempt, and yet the author must have been a man with an open eye to the marvellous in nature. The conclusion, his apology for the absence of extravagant wonders, and his assertion that he would rather have it said that things were as he related, are characteristic of the entire article.
More indicative of the coming change was A Farther Description of upper and Lower Lough Lane, the most beautiful scène in the Kingdom of Ireland,



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In 1775 Gray's Journal in the Lakes, had appeared, which gave descriptions of the very same places visited by Mrs. Radcliffe. His were not so lengthy; nature was not so minutely explored. On the other hand there was more wit and lightness in Gray. A comparison will prove this.
Both are visiting Ullswater and Place Feil:
Gray, Journal, I, vol. p. 251) Mrs. Radcliffe, Observations etc.
pp. 411,412, 413
"The water is almost everywhere bordered with cultivated lands gently "Above these pastoral and sylvan sloping upwardstill they reach the f eet landscapes rise broken precipices, less of the mountains, which rise very rude tremendous than those of the opposite and awful with their broken tops on shore, with pastures pursuing the crags either hand: directly in front, at better to a considerable height, speckled with than three miles' distanoe, Place Feil, cattle, which are exquisitely picturone of the bravest among them, esque as they graze upon the knolls.... pushes its bold broad breast into the The lake, after expandingatadistance midst of the lake, and f orces it to alter to great breadth once more loses itself its course, forming first a largebayto beyond the enormous pile of rock the left, and then bending to the right" called Place-f ell, opposite to which the
shore, seeming to close upon all further progress, is bounded by two promontories covered with woods, that shoot their luxuriant foliage to the water's edge".
Like Mrs. Radcliffe, Gray noticed the varying hues,
which appeared May 1751. The author tells of "cascades pouring from cliffs, and giving a great delight by their music and motion, echoes improving every sound; a level and beautiful country on the opposite of the lake, with atown, and the habitations and improvements of many gentlemen at different distances" ; and informs us that "the prinoipal amusements are the echoes, cascades and islands". The defect of this description seems that the author mentions the separate items of interest, rather than that he creates a general romantic atmosphere, as Mrs. Radcliffe does afterwards. When going down the pleasant river, the passengers have to get out when passing a bridge; but the enjoyment is well worth the discomfort, "even fatigue becoming pleasure when curiosity prompts". This reminds us of Johnson's reflections in his Journey (1774).



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produced by the changing atmosphere, for heexpressly states (p. 258) that many new features were disclosed by the midday-sun, and that the tints were entirely changed, so that the landscape which he had seen before looked quite new. Mrs. Radcliffe is more circumstantial. She writes: "The effect of the atmosphere on mountain regions is sometimes so sublime, at others so enchantingly beautiful that the mention of it ought not to be considered as trivial when their aspect is to be described. As the sunbeams feil on different kinds of rock, and distance coloured the air.some parts were touched with lilac, others with light blue, dark purple, or reddish brown, which were often seen at the same moment, contrasting with the mellow green of the woods and the brightness of sunshine; then slowly and almost imperceptibly changing into other tints." Both feel theii inability to express nature's beauty in words:
Gray (I, p. 260) Mrs. Radcliffe p. 418
"From hence I got to the Parsonage "A repetition of the same images ..
a little before sunset, and saw in my and the same epithets .... musl
glass a picture that if I could transmit appear tautologous on paper .... The
to you, and fix it in all the softness of scenery at the head of Ullswater ts es
its living colours, would fairly sell for a peciaüy productive of such difficulties
thousand pounds. This is the sweetest where a wish to present the picture
scène I can yet discover in point of and a consciousness of the impossibil
pastoral beauty". fcy of doingso, except by pencil.mee
and oppose each other.
Like Mrs. Radcliffe, Gray is capable of feeling th< quieting influence of falling night, when nothing bu stillness is heard. When walking near Crow-Park in tb evening, he "saw the solemn colouring of night draw on the last gleam of sunshine fading away on the hill-tops the deep serene of the waters, and the long shadows of tb
6
Mrs. Radcliffe p. 418
Like Mrs. Radcliffe, Gray is capable of feeling the quieting influence of falling night, when nothing but stillness is heard. When walking near Crow-Park in the evening, he "saw the solemn colouring of night draw on, the last gleam of sunshine fading away on the hill-tops, the deep serene of the waters, and the long shadows of the



mountains thrown across them, till they nearly touched the hithermost shore. At distance heard the murmur oi many waterfalls not audible in the day-time. Wished for the Moon." (I. p. 258). From these similar passages it must not be concluded, that Mrs. Radcliffe wrote hei account in imitation of Gray's. Both productions were the natural outcome of their authors' tone of mind. Both writers were artists, sensitive to the external beauty of nature. Circumstances favoured the development oi their innate gifts; yet both retained their individuality, Mrs. Radcliffe is not an echo of Gray, but spontaneousty gives utterance to the overwhelming impressions she received from nature *. It is possible that preceding accounts of tra veis inf luenced her, such as Mrs. Piozzi's Observations and Reflections made in the Course of a Journey through France, 'Italy, and Germany 2. It seems probable, because Mrs. Radcliffe often had to rely upon her own imagination or upon existing descriptions. If she had wanted to imitate, there were enough specimens she might have copied, published about the same time, and considered worthy of being saved from oblivion by The Gentleman's Magazine. A growing fondness for the antiquity of buildings, and a certain interest in the past are indicatcd by a letter from "Oxoniensis", addressed to the editor, Mr. Urban, (dated January 10) on the ruins of Kirkstaü Abbey. "The ruins", *it says, "certainly afford an ample field for the investigation
1 It is certain that she knew Gray's writings and appreciated them. Cf. Journey. p. 323, and p. 381, etc.
2 Especially with reference to Mrs. Radcliffe's descriptions of Veniceandthe Brenta in The Mysteries of Udolpho. Cf. Miss Mclntyre, Ann Radcliffe in relation to her time, Ch II, pp. 68, 59. Schiller's Oeisterseher also contains a description of Venice and the Brenta (pp. 270, 271).
82



83
of the Antiquary; and their situation would highly delight those who are fond of rich natural scenery" *.
The July number of 1796 contains a rather scathing review of a companion in A Tour round Lymington, comprehending a brief account of that Place, and its environs in the New Forest, Isle of Wight, and towns of Southampton, Christchurch, by Richard Warner. In the autumn of 1801, the very same places were visited by Mrs. Radcliffe who in her journal gives a most beautiful account of the approach to Southampton on the 19th of September. In the October number appeared Observations rekdive chiefly to Picturesque Beauty, made in the year 1776, on several parts of Great Britain, particularly the Highlands of Scotland, by William Gilpin. Some passages compare well with Mrs. Radcliffe's works as regards the appreciation of natural beauty. He feels how the wild beauty of nature may "give a tinge to the imagination of every traveller who examines these scènes of solitude and grandeur", and speaks of the narrowvalleys "boundedbyprecipices, resounding with the fall of torrents, the mournful dashing of waves along the friths and lakes." Perhaps the best work of this pioneer of picturesque descriptive writing, as Gosse calls him, is his Mountains and Lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland, published only six years before Mrs. Radcliffe wrote down her Obser-
* GeniUman's Magazine, February 1790. Gray also gives an account of Kirkstall in bis Journal dated 30 September, 1769, which he concludee "The gloom. of these ancient cells, the shade and verdure of the landscape, the ghttering and murmur of the stream, the lofty towers and long perspectives of the church, in the midst of a elear bright day, detained me for many hours and were the teuest subjeots for my glass I have yet met with anywhere". This journal was first published by Mason in 1775, but very incorrectly.



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vations during a tour to the Lakes of Lancashire, Westmoreland, and Cumberland. Gray, at the close of his life made the acquaintance of Gilpin's Observations on the River Wye, and Mrs. Radcliffe knew his works also, if we may identify him with the person referred to in her journal, October 13, 1801: "As we entered Salisbury, a new moon gave us faintly the shadow of its sublime Cathedral, with its pointed roofs and its pinnacles and its noble spires. How could Mr. Gilpin prefer a tower to it!" Gilpin's success probably encouraged other tourists, for the magazine announced in January 1791, A tour in the Isle of Wight, by J. Hassell, withdrawings. In the advertisement bis style was found fault with, and an instance produced. A comparison shows thesuperiority of Mrs. Radcliffe.
"To a heart not insensible to the calm enjoyment of such a retreat, the awfulness of the venerable pile (Netley Abbey) down whose side the lurking ivy sportively plays, together with the grandeur of the architecture, afford a satisfaction that the most pleasurable scènes of the gay circle cannot excite.... A range of woods, declining from the sight, rushed down the mountain's side, to taste the river's flow and join the bending poplar's nod, that overhung the beachy cliff and wnconscious of their charms, in sweet confusion, spread along the basis of the mountains, to ease the line of many a rugged step."
Better are the descriptions of scenery in the Sketch of a two months' tour in ScoÜand, performed on horseback, in the summer of 1773 \ where the travelier, after mounting a ridge sees before him a lovely prospect:
1 Oenlleman's Magazine, October, 1792.



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"Fax, very fax, beneath our feet, amidst an amphitheatre of crags and eKffs, some shadowy with wood, some green with herbage, some bare and naked, others striped alternately with fields of corn and fallows."
Other tours to the Lake-district are mentioned (for instance in Dec. 1792) but they seem to be of very uneqüal merit. The number for October 1792 mentions an anonymous Tour through the South of England, Waks and Part of Ireland, made during the summer of 1791. In it "thought is sacrificed to levity. We cannot really find a single paragraph that deserves anything more than commiseration of the inanity of these 400 pages of fine paper."
Mrs. Radcliffe's Journey may be the vehicle of her admiration of nature, but if we compare it to Gray's and others, it shows a growing interest in social conditions, whether at home or abroad ». From her Journeu much is to be gathered of her political ideas, and on social
. . n i j questions
her thoughts on society. Her opinion of Frenchmen and Italians appears from the novels; that of Dutchmen and Germans is found here. She prefers the former, whatever their faults may be. By seeing things oneself, many erroneous opinions are corrected and "exact ideas" are gained. The wretched condition of Germany, where haggard men and women stare at you with looks of hunger and rage, she would have considered incredible. (Journey. p. 342). Dutch covetousness and dullness may naturally(!) have roused the contempt of English travellers at first, but after visiting Germany they re-
1 Cf. Journey, p. 600: "TMther we returned and conoluded a tour, which had afforded infinite delight in the grandeur of its landscapes and a reconciling view of human nature in the simplicity, integrity and friendly disposition of the nhabitants ".



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joice in returning to "the neatness, the civility, the comforts, quietness, and even the good humour and intelligence to be easily found in Holland." {Journey p. 345) This misery and the evil conditions she attributes to various causes, but she does not want to redress them by revolutionary upheavals. She respects the existing order, and does not spurn the blessing of wordly advantages, not even in her novels. Rank and power are not te be despised and may contribute to bestow happiness. In her first novel, Alleyn, the Highland peasant, is considered unworthy of his beloved Mary, whatever his nobility of mind may be. Osbert, Mary's brother, does not hold that:
"the rank is bat the guinea's stamp, the man's the gowd for a'that",
and though appreciating his friend's virtues, refuses to grant the latter's desire. He exclaims: "01 that I could remove that obstacle which withholds you from your just reward". Not until Alleyn is found to be of noble birth (which is confirmed by a strawberry mark on his arm!) Osbert can bestow Mary's hand on the friend to whom he owes so much. In the second novel, the sense of honour of Madame de Menon's brother makes him decline to ask Louisa's hand, he not being rich enough. In another novel, Emily St. Aubert, the perfect heroine, does attach due value to the blessings of this earth. When Montoni has died, and she hears that her claims are no more contested, she does not yield to the feeling that it is of no use now (for she rejoiced in her wealth for Valencourt's sake) but endeavours to feel grateful. According to Mrs. Radcliffe it



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is not so much the unequal distribution of wealth, that causes misery, but the ostentation of the rich, that aggravates discontent. She feels that there is a stage of poverty, which tends to impair the mind; cheap articles, she says somewhere, may be to persons of small incomes something more than mere physical treasures; they have a moral value in contributing to independence of mind.
Seclusion tends to preserve the simplicity of manners of the rural population, who are obliging, but not servile; plain, but not rude. They do not expect rewards from strangers for any kind little service rendered. To clamour for luxuries in such quarters would not be wise, as it would only render the people discontented.1 Knowing no luxury they are not ashamed to work hard in the f ields and their small home-steads. "The true consciousness of independence, which labour and an ignorance of the vain appendages, falsely called luxuries, give to the inhabitants of these districts, is probably the cause of the superiority"2. If the peasantry are corrupted into mimicking the vices of the town, they surpass their models in wickedness, lacking the intelligence and the "assuaging virtues" of the latter. Besides, the sublime in nature produces a high tone of mind, which is again assisted by the existing simplicity of mind, so that discordant objects seldom obtrude in thought, nor do they jar upon the feelings. Yet even town-life needs not necessarily widen the gulf between rich and poor. When attending a party at Franckfort she observes that the rich are
1 Journey, p. 398. * Journey, p. 444.



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not fêted more than the other, so that there is not the subserviency of a corrupt society. As for the lower classes, those in Holland, she notices, are much more intelligent and docile than the German, for commerce sharpens the intellect, and the humblest persons have a chance of profiting by their qualif ications, so that they are not so angrily envious of the others. Commerce is Mrs. Radcliffe's democratie principle. Commerce, which cannot be long discouraged in any part of Europe, because without it, the interest of public debts cannot be paid, is the permanent defender of freedom and of knowledge against military glory and politics. Indeed, commerce is the sole interest in Europe, that is not to be rejected by England; and to support this, the navy only is wanted, thus entailing no direct danger to England itself. Rather astonishing in this romantic lady is the way she descants on the various kinds of wine in Germany, and the numerous duties paid on all goods in Holland.
As one of the primary causes of the wretched state of Germany, she sets down ignorance, which reacts upon the means that produced it. The German peasantry are debased; they lack ordinary intelligence. No respect for their learned scholars can alter this estimation, for these have no influence on the community at large. Little individual prosperity, few means of comfort, few sources of independence present themselves. Their inferiority has "many injurious effects upon the rest of Europe" *. Mrs. Radcliffe feels interested in the various forms of government, to describe which she takes some trouble, and arrivés at the conclusion
1 Journey 342, 343.



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that it is not the particular system of government, that grants or prevents happiness. True liberty may exist practically anywhere, even under a most intricate system, as in Holland and Franckfort. In Holland numerous councils have for two centuries protected a great civil and religious liberty. Franckfort differs from most German towns in the blessings of liberty and intelligence, which is all the more surprising, as it is only to be reached through countries "afflicted by arbitrary power, ignorance andpoverty". The inhabitants very wisely prefer the substantial, practical freedom they enjoy, to any formal acknowledgment of their rights (p.p. 225—228) Besides, more depends upon the character of those who govern, than upon the form of government. Every people has the form of government it deserves. The Dutch, with their sober industry and plain manners, do not consider politics and high offices of state as a means to improve their fortunes(l). Here Mrs. Radcliffe's point of view is most decidedly different from that of the revolutionary propagandists of that time; though she does not advocate the policy of letting abuses alone. She writes: "To enlarge their systems is the ambition of writers, especially of political writers. A juster effort of understanding would aim at rendering the application of principles more exact, rather than more extensive, and would produce enquiries into the circumstances of national character and eondition, that should regulate that application.... A more severe integrity of views.. would strive to ascertain from the moral and intellectual character of a people, the degree of political happiness of which they are capable; a process without which



90
projected ad vances become obstructions; and the philosopher begins his experiment for the amelioration of society, as prematurely as the sculptor would polish his statue before he had delineated his features." p. 88). In other words, the improvement of a nation's condition is not to be forced upon it from the outside, by external government measures, but should begin from within, by improving people's minds and preparing them for a better state.
Like Samuel Johnson, she opined, that no magical stroke of policy could transform the earth into a paradise. Learning that in France the younger generation was in favour of the Republic, she yet thinks that the former system, though oppressive enough, would never have been so utterly overthrown, if it had been administer ed by men of such mildness, integrityandbenevolence, as the two French emigrants she met at Bingen. At the time no serious anxiety about the course political events were taking in France, was feit in England, where on the whole popular opinion did not find fault with French policy; and where many hoped that the wider ideas of liberty embodied in the sentimental philosophy of Rousseau, might find some expression in the political life of their own nat ion I. In the opening of the year 1793, however, war had been declared between England and France. Mrs. Radcliffe's Journey betrays little fear of this, but as for war itself, she considers it the great cause of misery. Direful are its consequences, the worst of which is, that it encourages a disposition for violence under the name of valour, and
1 Cf. Cburthope, History of English Poetry vol. VL p. 124. Ch. VI: Jacobinism in English Poetry..



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that fighting is considered necessarily good in itself, whatever the purpose is. In the novels, the only occupation (besides loving) of her gallant young heroes, is soldiership. But in the Journey we see that her common sense saves her from being deceived by the glittering aspect of war, though herpoeticfacultyistouched by hearing the rude and simple strains sung at night by the "sentinels keeping watch beneath the dusky gateways, while their brethren reposing on the benches without, mingle their voices in the deep chorus." (p. 257). She muses upon the uncertain fate of those who are called upon to kill others, but who themselves will perhaps augment "the unnumbered heap of the military slain." It may be an impressive sight to see the Austrian army march along, but it rouses in her "many reflections on human nature and human misery" (p. 272 It is war that drains the exchequer of the German princes; even the severest taxing would not be able to "raise a sufficiënt income to make their own expenditure the involuntary means of improving the intellectual condition of their people." No arbitrary government can check development so well as constant war, as we see from the reign of Louis the Fourteenth of France, when that country advanced in science and manufactures notwithstanding his despotism. For even though vanity may give the impulse, the court can largely encourage a desire for intellectual progress. Considering the state of the continent, the authoress strongly commends to England the policy of keeping out of its broils as much as it can. England 's isolation is its strength. Whatever the effects of war may be on England, it is at least invulnerable, and free from the



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fierce ravages which Germany suffered then, as well as a century before, at the hands of the French (p. 187). Though Mrs. Radcliffe is not so narrow-minded as to prefer everything English to anything foreign, she has no inkling of the idea of the universal brotherhood of nations. "Englishmen", we read on p. 108 "who feel, as they always must, the love of their country much increased by the view of others, should be induced, at every step, to wish, that there may be as little political intercourse as possible, either of friendship or enmity between the blessings of their island, and the wretchedness of the continent. She thinks it wise in the Dutch, that they are slow in preparing for war, and do not encourage the artifices of politicians, who by exaggerating injuries received, impel the country to "precipLove itate hostüities" {p. 856). Visiting so many places, old past*6 associations occur to the authoress; her mind is carried back to the past. At times this leads her to a plain narration of past events; at other times it makes her compose a picture of poetic associations, in admiration of very different personalities. On page 355, she writes that "It is pleasant, in every country to cherish the recollections, which make it a spectacle for the mind as well as the eye, and no country is enriched by so , many as Holland, not even the west of England, where patriotism and gratitude hover in remembrance over the places, endeared by the steps of our glorious William", whom in another place she calls "the prince of Orange, afterwards our honoured WiHiam the Third". He is a great favourite with her, as is Mary Stuart, on ancient Queen of Scots. Rather a strange partnership! Ancient architect- jo^^ are associated with the persons connected,



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with them. It is when visiting the Duke of Devonshire's country-seat that her mind recurs to Mary Stuart, and the feelings of this unfortunate queen when entering "the solemn shade". Mary's picture shows the deep marks left by grief; and the room with its well-preserved black velvet chairs that were embroidered by Mary, strikes by its grandeur, before the veneration and tenderness arise, which its antiquities and the plainly told tale of the sufferings they witnessed, excite." (p. 378). That her opinion of Queen Elizabeth, "slyly proud and meanly violent", is not very flattering, naturally folio ws. Mary "feil by the often-blooded hands of Elizabeth in 1587."
Visiting Brougham Hall, its Gothic antiquity becomes more interesting by the occasional residence of "the humane and generous Sir Philip Sidney" x. The surrounding landscape presents the true image of his Arcadia, and probably awakened his imagination. Its dungeons look cruel; they speak of the victims lying beneath the damp earth. "One almost saw the surly keeper descending through this door-case, and heard him rattle the keys of the chambers above, listen ing with indifference to the clank of chains and to the echo of that groan below, which seemed to rend the heart it burst from" 2.
Seeing the ruins of Coniston hall or priory she re-
1 Memoir, pp. 82—86, which may be compared with Gray's letter to Thomas Wharton, September 18, 1754, on his visit to Warwick, which he calls a place worth seeing: "on your left hand the Avon strays through the park, whose ancient elms seem to remember Sir Philip Sidney, who often walkedunder them, and talk of him to this day."
• Journey, p. 428. Cf. the corresponding passages in the novels, e.g. Sicilian Romance when Ferdinand hears a mysterious sigh, in prison.



flects how the gay convivial chorus, or solemn vesper once swelled along the lake from these consecrated walls, and awakened perhaps the enthusiasm of the voyager, while evening stole upon the scène1. Approaching Canterbury on one of her trips (September 2, 1797) its cathedral looks 'like a spectre of ancient times and seemed to hint of what it has witnessed". Surely here Mrs. Radcliffe is the precursor of a long line of novelists. When St. Alban's Abbey becomes her theme, it assumes a live aspect:
"And as these moonlight-towers we tracé,
A living look, a saintly grace
Beams o'er them, when we seem to hear
The midnight-hymn breathe soft and clear,
As from this choir of old it rose.
Each hallowed thought they seem to own,
Expressed by music's heavenly tone,
And patiënt, sad, and pale and still,
As if resign'd to wait Time's will."
Canto li EU
The same in:
"Yet the sad grandeur of the whole Gives it such a look of soul, That when upon its silent walls The silvered grey of moonlight falls,
1 Journey, p. 481. Similar scènes: Journey p. 491 on Purness Abbey, with the abbot and officiating priests seated beneath the richly-fretted canopy of the four stalls;
Memoir, p. 83 where she pictures to herself the blaze of wood flashing on the face of Sir Philip Sidney at Penshurst;
The whole of Gaston de Blondeville, as a reanimation of her visits to Kenilworth Castle and Warwick Castle; the introduction to "Gaston" containing passages identical to parts of her journal:
Gaston, ï, introduction p. 14 "\ journal p. ƒ 56—58.
Gaston, Hl, p. 48, 50 J journal p. \ 59
Gaston, U, p. 108 journal p. 59, 60.



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And the fixed image dim appears, It seems some shade of parted years Left watching o'er the mouldering dead",
Canto It IV
lts antiquity inspires Mrs. Radcliffe with veneration, almost with religious awe:
"The sacred temple still endures; A truer worship it secures, Yet, we here feel the inward peace That in long-reverend placed dwells; Our earthly cares here learn to cease, The Future all the Past expels".
Canto I: XLI
Also in the following lines:
"And o'er the ruin's desert space, That arch throws high and shadowy grace Wraps us in pleasures almost holy Of révérence and melancholy"
Canto IV: XII
She loves to stand on the hallowed soil of the past. When she is staving at Yarmouth she loves to fancy that her inn was built on the site of Henry the Eight's old castle.
Therefore it is not to be wondered at that her novels should refer to the past. That the date affixed to them is perfectly incongruous, and in no way corresponds to
1 She certainly views ancient arehitectural remains differently from her precursor Blair, who expresses himself on Egypt's powerful monuments in this peculiar way:
"Oh, lamentable sight! The labour of whole ages tumbles down! A hideous and mis-shapen length of ruins Sepulchral columns wrestle, but in vain, With all-subduing Time."
(The Grave p. 40).



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the contents, is perfectly true. Consequently they are not really historical, nor are they descriptive of ancient manners. They are not meant to be novels of manners at all. Whenever they approach this kind of novel they are essentially descriptive of the eighteenth century. Manners have changed since then. The Valencourts and Du Ponts of our time are not so tenderly sensitive , or at least, they do not show such an emotionality as was customary at a time when shedding tears in public was not thought derogatory to the dignity of manhood. When she witnesses the meeting between two Frenchmen, who had escaped from their native country, she thinks it affecting: "they shed some tears, and embraced again and again, with all the ardour of Frenchmen, before the stranger was introduced to us." The choice of the past as a setting to her novels is directed by its romantic charm; for history, in itself, does not yet appeal to her. As to medievalism, she only penetrates to "the mere external shell of marvellous incidents". The Mysteries of Udolpho might just as well have been ascribed to 1684, as to 1584. Looking at the conditionof Franceinthe year 1584, we naturally wonder how the worthy, virtuous gentleman M. St. Aubert can live in quiet content, without taking any interest in his fellow-countrymen. Patriotic love finds no response in his bosom, which is strange, considering the authoress's own feelings upon this subject .We hear nothing of the religious troubles and civil wars, which lasted from 1562 tül 1598. A few hints may be discovered. M. St. Aubert has hidden some gold pieces in a closet because the prOvince was at one time overrunby men who took advantage of the tumults and plundered the



97
country. M. Quesnel describes the few festivities which the turbulence of that period permitted to the court of Henry the Third, and the royal wedding of the Duke de Joyeuse with Margaretta of Lorrain. He speaks of a treaty which is negotiating with the Porte, and "of the light in which Henry of Navarre was received.» Mrs. Radcliffe does not insert these remarks to make it easier for us to fix our hearings, nor are they of any interest m the development of the plot. Emily's fortunes do not depend on state- or church-politics. Whether Henry the Third reigns or Henry of Navarre, is nothing to her. These remarks are put in to contrast the ostentation, vanity and presumption of the Quesnels with the quiet good sense of St. Aubert who appreciates his brother-in-law according to his deserts .For the rest, everything is kept veiy vague Montom boasts of the superiority of VenicetoL other
leffi^th menti°nS commotions; but we are
left m the dark as to their motives and purposes. Emily seems cognizant of them, and the ProspecVo7the Jsafety thereaddstoher aversion, though heraunttauntmgly rephes: "Why do you look so grave, child? You who are so fond of a romantic country and fine views,' will doubtless be delighted with this journey". Ai Udolpho, conversation mostly turns on the Italian wars, the strength of the armies and the eha JL! of the generals Some pains are taken to explain thelawlessness of the tunes, when MonWs troops are tracked, and they are "vigorously repulsed, and pursued by some of the foreign enemy, who were in league with the besxeged . (II p. 83). We ^ ^ ^
nationality this "foreign enemy» is. A kind of exposi-



98
tion of the condottieri and their practices fa given a ÏÏe before (II. P. «). No douht Monto^ents -d eharaeter fltted him well tor being a captain of these Sous troops, who, when **°**>.~£2Z «elves to the fortunes of any chief and to the service T^v state Some snch facts Mrs. Radcliffe m.ght l^^ound to any hcKiU treating of^^
centurv. But it never dawned upon her that the entire ^of life was aetnaUy different. The dom* l* ^Tescribes, as well MSociety-lifeatVemee,belongto ttt Si century. Cavigni talksfluently andflat^XrfFrenehmanners,mdtheFrcnchopera,though
fZns that the firat stage for opera* was erccted Vff^flW At Venice, Montoni joins the gamesters ft 2L. tnd^ne evening they «toke coffee in h. w at fte opera", where they arrivé about midnight Wh» Montoni and his family approach SLmTthey ™ the Quesnels anH*«*»* seated on sofas in the portico, enjoying the cool bree* fcnight, and eating fruit and ices, whilesomc of theu 2£-V. ütüe distanec^_ the
fw ^ulmed to the way of living to «tos warm^unL and was not surprised to find Mons. and Madame
Z£ » Thoiro F'JSX»
We see that Mrs. Radcliffe's novels, except («w ^gree to being slightly ttoged by the roma^tttm o»he past, without being historienl or mefcevah
Gasm ie Btatadh. however . deci^
As for itstotrtosiemerite assuch.it shomdnot bejudgea
£ fte date of its publication, 1826, but by that of



99
its composition, which was the year 1802. The notes mayhave been added later „„, and „ doe to Scotfs example, whose fint novel hai been pub! hahed m 1811. gcotfs early poems may have nr-
"Z Th^ 1 ^ did * «
t^'^T werX weïer'historia>I noTdista W»
1802, who may have influenced her in Gaston- for ^ceStePhenCulIenwithhisS<1UBferfp^^
P100»*0»8 °' H. and S. Lee, The Reeess (1784, 1785^ The CanUrhury Talee (1797^Ooft
of the story. Like Strot*. Hofl(1808) H
menta of our forefathers, but alas, we cannot affirm £** gives hvely and pleaaing repreaentationTf them. As m Sir Boger de ClarenAm, historical facts and customs are docomeoted and p^ed. ™7c^ qoence. are fatal. The preponderan<£ of the Us^X ^f^bsthestoryof vitaHtyand mte^^! ness of style there fa not; m0ïement ^ ^
■s httle. Some of the best passages are the Bridal so£:
"Lightly, lightly bonnded the roe The hind o'er the forest was fleei'ng The small birds tuned on every bough In sun and shade their gleeing» etc.
"O'er the lone mountains riding, He gallop'd by gloomsome ways, '



100
Where night-mists were abiding, Round the witch of evil days,
O'er the lone mountains riding, From a distant land he came,
No step his dark step guiding; But he thought he saw a flame, That bright, or dim, would sport awhile, Then vanish, as in very guile;
But o'er the mountains pacing As fast as he can flee, Strange steps his steps are traoing, And a shape he cannot see;
He followed the light o'er deserts wide, Down in deep glens, where wild becks wail, He followed by darkened forest side; He followed with dread, though link'd in mail;
No wonder that Gaston when it did appeax did not attain extraordinary suceess. It had by that time IZn surpassed in its very eharaeteristics by a greater genius. And yet Mrs, Radcliffe was Leloping the historieal novel. She widened^ bon zon. Her choice of scenery when apphed to the historieal novel, gave it greater freedom. h To understand Mrs. Radcliffe's position more fuUy
TterZy it wiU be useful to conclude by investigating; what ta8te literary geniuses she admired. Our opinion m this respIcHs founded on instances scattered throughout Ser novels, on the quotations at the head of chapter^ a^d on the subjects and form. of her V^f ^ find that they point in one
ticism. In the novels it is especially Italian literature that stands in high repute. Ladies and gentiemer, whaXr ever their names, admire Tasso and Ariosto. Latm is



101
taught, as a factor in the improvement of the mind Iaterature has an ennobling influence, according to Mrs. Radcliffe,. its delights are pure. In the Siclian Romance there is an instance of Julia, the heroine enjoymg the moonlight as she is standing at her window and inwardly digesting a book she has read. M St Aubert s library (in The Mysteries of Udolpho) contains' a collection of the best books in the ancient and modern languages. When this gentleman sets out on a journey to recover his health, he takes with him several Latm and Italian poets. At the same time Valencourt on his wandermgs through the Pyrenees has taken with him Homer, Horace and Petrarch. Fortunately Emilv is m concord with the gentlemen. Her father teaches
£ *1 iï* Latin "Chiefly that she ^ kerstand the sublimity of their best poets.» I wonder which were the best English poets before 1584, which a French girl was likely to know. Surely Mrs. Radcliffe did not mean Chaucer? In the Romance of the Forest* there is a passage which eonfirms the inference to be made from the poetic headings of the chapters: «Adeline found that no species of writing had power so effectual to withdraw her mmd from the contemplation of itsownmisery as the higher kinds of poetry, and in these her taste soon taught her to distinguish the superiority of the English to that of the French. She frequently took a volume of Shakespeare or Milton, and would seat herself beneath the pines, whose low murmurs soothed
tnlïf' C°nSpired With the viriooaofthepoet to lull her to forgetfulness of grief."
Among the authors quoted we find Thomson, Grav « ch. xvn, P. 246. y'



102
Collins, Groldsmith, Beattie, Walpole, Mason and Young, but Shakespeare and Milton preponderate. Their airy lightness, their fearful suspense, their sweet melancholy appeal to her; consequently her quotations are not cuUed indisCThninately. From them we cannot see whether she appreciated Shakespeare's insight into character, and its interpretation in action and speech, nor do we find the Milton of the Areopagitica. Shakespeare is dearest to her. The ecstasy of the two travellers in Gaston de Blondeville, when approaching Kenilworth Castle, is in reality hers. The journal, narrating her numerous trips, bears out this fact, together with her poems. From Canterbury she twice walks to Shakespeare's cliff, and the impressions of this pilgrimage we find in a poem on the subject. She enjoys the fearful beauty of the spot, but its greatest charm is its association with the great poet:
"But mark! on this cliff Shakspeare stood, And waved around him Prosper's wand, When straight from forth the mighty flood "The Tempest" rose, at his command!1
Her enthusiasm for the great poets gives rise to one of her most fervent lyrical outbursts, such as no disciple of the "classical" school of poetry would be capable of. I mean the compassionate lines she wrote On Hayley's Life of Cowper, (Posth. W. IV. p. 220) opening:
"Oh speak no more of Fiction's painted woes! Her laboured scènes are colourless and cold; Her high-wrought sorrows are but dull repose, Beside the tale that simple Truth has told.
1 Memoir, p. 79; p. 98. In the new Forest, /Posthumous works IV. p. 179/ all expressing her appreciation of Shakespeare.



103
The poem called: Writteninthelsleof Wight", contains many reminiscences of Gray, whom she undoubtedly revered. The island is the spot where "pensive Gray some sad sweet moments passed", and the reader is implored to:
"panse
Awhile, and shed a melancholy tear To the departed shade of him, who sung "The paths of glory lead but to the grave."
The ensuing lines prove that Mrs. Radcliffe knew Gray well, and contain references to The Bard, as well as to the Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College. Sh^ does not assume the patronising, rather apologetic attitude, adopted by earlier editors and critics of the great Elizabethans, but looked up to them with admiratipn. No quotations from Pope or Dryden are found. Nor does the heroic stanza much appeal to her. Mrs. Radcliffe's romanticism in poetry is not in emulation with Thomson, Gray or Cowper, but may be definitely traced back to Milton and Shakespeare. A favourite form of poetry with her is the sonnet; not the Italian form, but the "Shakesperian" though "the superiority of the true Italian to the Shakesperian or any other sonnet form in unity, weight and harmony, will be doubted by hardly any competent critic" *. Mrs. Radcliffe often fails in poetic inspiration, nor does she maintain the change of treatment in octave and sestet. Her rhyming scheme may vary in the first twelve lines,
»The sonnet in Engtand,hy James Ashcroft Noble, p. 5. Noble applies the name of sonnet without qualification only to the poems constructed on the Italian model, "other fonrteen-line poems being set apart by a distinguishing prefix such as illegitimate, irregular or Shakesperian" (p. 8).



104
but the conclusion is invariably a distich. In The Visions of Fancy % the scheme is identical with that of Shakespeare's sonnets. Mrs. Radcliffe seems to experiment in the sonnet, with the con'sequence that we obtain even a variety of eighteen lines, as in The Storied Sonnet (Mysteries of Udolpho, I. p. 82) rhyming a b a b cdcd efefghgh ii, a Shakesperian sonnet preceded by a quatrain 2.
Another form of metre that Mrs. Radcliffe took to, is blank verse. Her lack of classical learning prevented her from modelling her blank verse on Milton's classic examples. At best her blank verse is like Tennyson's, as in Steephiü, The Fishers 8. Other blank verse poems
1 The Romance of the Forest, p. 41.
2 Some types of Mrs. Radcliffe's sonnets are:
Sonnet, "Now that the bat circles on the breeze of ere" Mysteries a bb a c dd c e ff e gg
I. p. 49
Sonnet, "Oo pencil, faithful to thy Master's sigh" Mysteries abba acca deed ff
I. p. 8
This modified form Wordsworth used in his sonnet:
The Liberty of Oreeee. To the Bat, "From haunt of man, from day's obtrusive glare" Mysteries a bb a a bb a c dd c ee
n. p. 124
Sonnet, "How sweet is love's first gentle sway" Romance of the a bb a a bb a c ac a dd
Forest. p. 270
Sonnet, To the lark "Sweet lark\ Ihear thy thrillingnote on high" Posthwmous a ba b o do d e fe f gg
voorles TV. p. 231
3 Mrs. Radcliffe often reminds of Tennyson, in subject, form, and partly in treatment. Indeed some of the observations made by Rowe and Webb on Tennyson, in their introduction to their Selections, fit Mrs. Radcliffe as well. She too, recognizes a settled scheme of great purposes underlying the existing order. She too, has little faithin a suddenontburstof revolutionary ardour;herportrayalof love also breathes a spirit of révérence and self-control. Her loving painting of natural scenery, however, is generally less detailed than Tennyson's; and her sense of music, unfortunately f inds a less successful expression in the melody of her diction.



105
are The sea-mew, A sea view, In the New Forest, On a first view of the group called the Seven Mountains, Forest Lawns etc, all of which belong to the posthumous works. Her poems are apt to alter their rhyme-scheme and metre in their course, of which On ascending a HUI crowned with a Convent, near Bonn, offers an example.
It is Milton 's aspect as shown in II Penseroso, that is the key-note to the greater part of her poems; and many a passage in her novel suggests this very distinctly:
Milton, R Penseroso Mrs. Radcliffe, To the Nightingale »
"Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise "I love o'er pathless hills to stray,
[of folly Or tracé the winding vale remote,
Most musical, most melaneholy! And pause, sweet Bird, to hear thy lay
Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among While moon-beams on the thin I woo, to hear thy even-song; [clouds float
And missing thee, I walk unseen Till o'er the mountain's dewy head,
On the dry, smooth-shaven green, Pale Midnight steals to wake the To behold the wandering moon [dead "
Riding near her highest noon.
are The sea-mew, A sea view, In the New Forest, On a first view of the group called the Seven Mountains, Forest Lawns etc, all of which belong to the posthumous works. Her poems are apt to alter their rhyme-scheme and metre in their course, of which On ascending a HUI crowned with a Convent, near Bonn, offers an example.
It is Milton 's aspect as shown in II Penseroso, that is the key-note to the greater part of her poems; and many a passage in her novel suggests this very distinctly:
But whereas the sweet warbling inspires Milton with hope, it brings home to Mrs. Radcliffe sadness and disappointment; instead of fond musing, we find a revelling in melaneholy:
Milton, Sonnet to the Nightingale Mrs. Radcliffe, To the Nightingale
"O nightingale, that on yon bloomy "For Fancy loves the kindred tone;
[spray Her griefs the plaintive accents own
Warblest at eve, when all the woods She loves to hear thy music float
[are still At solemn midnight's stillest hour,
Thou with fresh hope the lover's And think of friends for ever lost,
[heart dost fill On joys by disappointment crost,
While the jolly hours lead on pro- And weep anew Love's oharmful
(pitious May." pcVr!" 1 Romance of the Forest, p. 284.



106
Thy liquid notes that close the eye [of day, First heard before the shallow
[cuckoo's bill Portend success in love;"
It is no longer pure Miltonesque, but Milton modified by the super-sensitiveness, the sentimentality, the turn for the gloomy of the latter half of the eighteenth century. The groundwork of her novels, the Richardsonian persecuted heroine, fits in perfectly with this mood. The heroines especially enjoy sadness, and the traces of suffering in their faces render them more interesting and add charm. They move in an ideal world; that of reality has disappeared. Deliberately Mrs. Radcliffe turns away from the world of prosaic fact, in prose as well as in poetry; it may be to scènes of gruesome horror or of entrancing sweetness, in an imaginary locality or landscape, in past or in present.
It is her desire to be true to the spirit of the past, which she invokes for inspiration. We feel her sadness at her own impotence when she exclaims:
"Ah! not to me are given Those antient keys, that ope the Poefs heaven, Golden and rustless! not to me are given! But, if not mine the prize, not mine the crime Lightly to scorn them."
Deliberately again she chooses the path leading away from the English pseudo-classicals:
"And let not modern polish throw the light Of living ray within thy vaults of night."
She abhors the bad taste* so offensive to true poetic fancy, which produces:



107
"The false union of the cadenced rhime
And measured sweetness of the tempered lyre
With subjeets darkened by the shroud of Time.
As Gothic saint sleeping in Grecian fane
Is ancient story, shrined in polished strain";1.
It is the new light, at times but vaguely discernibie, that guides her on, in her response to the mystery of things, in her attitude towards imposing Nature, in her aliveness to its beauty, in her tenderness towards the animal world, in her resignation in and admiration of the Omnipotent Being who directs our lives. She shadows forth Wordsworth's and Tennyson's intense joy in nature, as well as Shelley's and Swinburne's love of liberty and abhorrence of restraint. She gave poetic liberty to the treatment of the past, and showed how to keep up the interest of narrative. In prose as well as in poetry she gave an unmistakable impulse to the romantic movement, and may therefore be considered one of its first exponents.
1 St. AVbarCa Abbey.



NOVELS FALSELY ASCRIBED TO Mrs. RADCLIFFE
The fact that Mrs. Radcliffe was a famous authoress, appears from the following list of novels or romances falsely ascribed to her, or purporting to be adaptations from her works, in their successive order 1:
1798 UAbbaye de Grasville, a French translation by Ducas, of a novel by G. Moore, in France attributed to Mrs. Radcliffe. The list of "romans noirs" cited by Alice M. Killen, mentions it as a translation by B. Ducos, 1810.
1799 La Forêt de Montalbano, mentioned by the Nouvelle Biographie Generale, the Biographie Universele, and the Biographie nouvelle des contemporains. It was attributed to Mrs. Radcliffe in France as well as in England. The translater presents it as a work of the author of Les Visions des Pyrénées; which is hardry possible if the: Nouvelle Biographie is right in putting La
• o. Joanna Baillie's Plays on the Passions, (1798—1812), acted by Kemble and Mrs. Biddons, were by some attributed to Mrs. Radcliffe ef. Annual Biography and obituary for the year 1824. Vol. Vin. Miss Seward's Letters May 21, 1799.
6. L'avocat des femmes ou la Tentative pour recouvrer les droits des femmes usurpés pat les hommes 1799. was also mistaken for Mrs. Radcliffe's. Of. Biographie Universelle tome 35, 1843, and Alice M. Killen's List of „romans noirs".
c. This hst also contains 1820. Anon. Comte (le) Vappa, ou le crime et le fatalisme, manusorit trouvé dans le portefeuille d'Anne Radcliffe, par le Chevaher de ***.



109
Forêl down to the year 1799. Alice M. Killen in the list mentioned before, quotes: 1813, Smith, Maria L., La Forêt de Montalbano, trad. de 1'angl. par Mme. P.
1799 Le Tombeau. It was falsely ascribed to Mrs. Radcliffe according to the testimony of the Nouvelle Biographie Generale by Firmin Didot Frères, Paris, 1862, which gives the year 1799. The Biographie ünwerselle (Michaud, Paris, 1843, mentions 1812 as the date of this novel erroneously attributed to Mrs. Radcliffe). The list of "romans noirs" mentions 1812 as the year of its publication. The Biographie Nouvelle des Contemporains also includes Le Tombeau in the list of works, falsely ascribed to this authoress. Le Tombeau appeared in two volumes. Its real authors were Hector Chaussier and Bizet. 1801 Die Einsiedlerin am Vesuv Eine abenteuerliche Geschichte nach dem Englischen der Miss Anna Radclif Leipzig 1801, bei Konrad Adolf Hartleben 1 Band. Also mentioned by Brey. 1803 Les Visions du Chateau des Pyrénées K Par Anne Radcliffe. Traduit sur 1'édition imprimée a Londres, Chez G. et J. Robinson en 1803. A Paris chez Renard. The Biographie UnwerseUeadds-.deM. G. B. The BritishMuseum Catalogue adds „Traduit by Count G. Garnier et Meiie Zimmermann", and "The ascription to Mrs. Radcliffe is incorrect" 1810 Le Convent de Sainte Catherine, Roman Historique d'Anne Radcliffe. Traduit par Mme ia baronne
1 Not to bemixed up with LeCMteau ^P^é^.bySoulié.wMch first appeared in the Bibliothèque des Feuilletons, in 1843.



110
Caroline A-née W- de M-. Paris, chez Renard. The British Museum Catalogue identifies this lady as the Baroness Caroline d'Aufdiener, née Wuiet de M. 2 Tomes. It also adds that "the ascription to Mrs. Radcliffe is incorrect.'*
1815 VBermite de la Tombe Mystérieuse, ou le Fantóme du Vieux Chateau, traduit sur le manuscrit Anglais par M. E. L. D. L. Baron de Langon. The Nouvelle Biographie génerale tells us that Mrs. Radcliffe was supposed its authoress and that it was published in 1815. Brey in his dissertation puts it down to the year 1816 as does Alice M. Killen. The Biographie Universélie mentions as its true author le Baron de la Mothe-Houdancourt, who also wrote Les My ster es de la Tour Saint-Jean, 1818, which was attributed in France to Lewis.
1817 Der Eremit am schwarzen Grabmahle, oder das Gespenst im alten Schlosse. Ein Ritterroman der Madme Anna Radcliffe. Frei übersetzt. Wien, in der Haas'schen Buchhandlung.
1817 De Albigenzen of de kluizenaar in het bosch van Caiüavél, maar een Fransche vertaling uit het
. Engelsch. J. C. van Kesteren. Amsterdam. It is mentioned under the name of Mrs. Radcliffe in the Alphabetische naamlijst van Boeken welke sedert het jaar 1790 tot en met het jaar 1832 in Noord-Nederland zijn uitgekomen. R. Arrenberg en J. v. Abkoude.
1818 Die Erscheinungen im Schlosse der Pyrenaen, frei nach dem Englischen der Anna Radcliffe, vom Verfasser des Admirals, Braunschweig, 1818, 4 Bde.



111
1818 Barbarinski, ou les Brigands du Chateau de Wissegrade, imité de l'Anglais d'Anne Radcliffe par Mme ia Comtesse de Nardouet. As such Brey mentions it. The British Museum Catalogue identifies the author as the Countess de Ruault de la Haye. Mme de Nardouet is also the authoress of: Le Chdteau Sombremar ou les deux Fantömes 1821, and: Le Chdteau des Précipices, 1830.
1820 De Verschijningen op het kasteel der Alpen, naar het Engelsch. J. Noman, Zalt-Bommel. It is mentioned as Mrs. Radcliffe's work in the "Alphabetische naamlijst" already referred to.
1824 Le Panache rouge, ou le Spectre de Feu, imité de l'Anglais d'A. Radcliff(e), by the same as Barbarinski, ou les Brigands du Chdteau.
1824 Die Priorin. Frei nach dem Englischen der Anna Radcliffe, vom Verfasser der Centilles, etc. Braunschweig 3 Bde.
1828 Angelina oder die Abentheuer im Walde von Montalbano, aus dem Englischen der Miss Anna Radcliffe, Verfasserin der Erscheinungen im Schloss der Pyrenaen, u. a. Braunschweig 4 Bde.
1829 Der Thurm von Aosta, oder Groszmuth im Tode. Das Schwarze Schloss, oder der Sturm der Leidenschaften, Aus den nachgelassenen Papieren der Miss Anna Radcliffe. Braunschweig, bei G. L. E. Meyer, 1829.
1830 Die Todeswette Roman in 2 Banden von A. Radcliffe. Frei nach dem Englischen bearbeitet von L. von Alvensleben. (Gustav Sellen.) Meissen bei Friedrich Goldsche. Pesth bei Otto Wiegand 1830. 2. Bande.



1880 Rose aVAÜenherg ou le Spectre dans les ruines, manuscrit trouvé dans le portefeuille de feue Anne Radcliffe: par Henri Duval. The Nouvelle Biographie Génerale mentions the title. It is remarkable that among these novels some are common to various countries. It is especially in France that Mrs. Radcliffe at once became popular. Her influence there was mdirectly strengthened by that of The Monk by Lewis, who was even a greater success, and whose literary immorality, so offensive to the English, was not found fault with in France. With Lewis sentimentality preponderated less, and licence and horror abounded. In French imitators Mrs. Radcliffe's moral tendency is still there. On the stage too, the moral lesson is of a forcible kind, and if exaggeration can strengthen the effect, it is admitted. The melodrama becomes the popular form of theatrical entertainment. About 1815 and even later, after a period of decline, the fashion of terror obtained a second youth; more so in the novel, than on the stage this time. In Holland the novel of terror was not unknown; translations were read rather than imitations 1.
1 Not only the novel of terror was translated; Dutch literary taste is somewhat indicated by the numerous translations from various languages: 1766 B. Wolff translated Blair's Grave.
1766 Lublink translated Young's Night Thoughts, (in prose.).
1767 M. E. (= Eidous) at Amsterdam, produced a French translation of Walpole's Castle of Oranto.
1776 Two translations of Goethe's Leiden des jungen Werther appeared,
one from a French version. 1776—1805 Four translations of Klopstock's Messiade appeared, one of which
by Groeneveld and another by Johan Meerman. 1789 Schiller's Rauber was translated; in 1796 another translation from a
French version.
112



118
To produce original novels of terror apparently did not appeal to the Dutch. The element of terror manifested itself in the melodrama, however, which became very popular, especially Pixérecourt's » Many objections were raised in Holland against foreign romanticism; one critic Simons, asserting that Schiller's Rauber was too dangerous to be admitted on the stage. For a time Kotzebue became the favourite in Holland; his vogue had set, however, by 1821; so that in 1881 another critic called his plays "a stealthy poison". The influence of Young and of Ossian may also be traced in Holland. Melaneholy and sentimentality as well as the imposing grandeur of nature are more admired than the Gothic element proper. Feith's novels: Julia (1788) and Ferdinand en Constantia (1785) illustrate this. The aspect of nature rouses more interest; no more ardent worshipper of a moonlit night can exist than Feith. The strongest point of the Dutch authoress, Elisabeth Maria Post (1755—1812) too, is her intense love of nature 2. Her admiration is sufficiently roused
1789 Schiller's Don Karlos by Elisabeth Poet. 1789 Bilderdijk translated Ossian.
1793 Van de Kasteele translated Ossian; another Dutch translation also appeared in the same year from the German version by de Harold 1798 Wieland's and Klopstock's Oden were translated
Translations not direetly from the original, but from other versions were apparently not uncommon.
r7?,TneCti0n ^ ***** i* ma7 be noticed that The Mysteries of Udolpho was not only dramatised by Pixerécourt as: Le Chdteau des Apennins, but that Lamartelière adapted from itie Testament ou Us My stères d'Udolphe, in 1798, which was translated into Dutch the next year 1 Works: 1788 Het Land. (In Brieven).
1789 Voor Eenzaamen.
Reinhart of Natuur en Godsdienst.
1792 Mijn kinderlijke Traanen.
1794 Gezangen der Liefde.
1796 Het waare Genot des Levens.
8



114
by the peaceful, sweet Dutch landscape of distant wooded hills and heathy plains with browsing sheep. "Hier en daar", Emilia writes in a letter to Euphrozyne, "stond een bemost schapenhok, en dit alles voltooide de romaneske schoonheid van dit verschiet"1. Curious is the resemblance between her and Mrs. Radcliffe when she writes:
"Wanneer de trotsche Pireneën, en de onbeklimbare Alpen, even als de heuvelen die mij omringen, in gapende afgronden zullen verzinken; maar in dat noodlottig tijdstip, dan zal Gods verbond vaster zijn dan de wankelende bergen, schoon hemel en aarde voorbijgaan, zijne woorden zullen in haar geheel blijven.... Ondertusschen.was de zon, eer ik het bemerkt had, aan de kimmen genaderd. Ik zag haren straalloozen gloed, door het bosch, dat naast mij lag; zij scheen mij majestueuzer dan ooit, terwijl het bosch bij hare zinkende glanzen een zwijgenden ernst vertoonde. De verdwijnende zon scheen mij toe te roepen: werk terwijl het dag is, de nacht komt waarin niemand werken kan" etc.
This is the same tone of religious feeling roused and taught by the aspect of nature, that we can notice in Mrs. Radcliffe.
In German literature early romanticism displayed much the same character. The German ballad became a favoured form. As for novels the list of anonymous German novels in M. Holzmann and H. Bohatta's Deutsches Anonymen Lexikon, abounds in titles that indicate the Gothic character of their contents, such as Das Gesvenst und das Zauberbildniss im Schlosse
1 From Het Land.



115
Ottweüer von Nicol. Müller; and: Die Ruinen der Geisterburg oder die warnende Slimme urn Mitternacht, von Kemdörffer.
Great similarity exists in western European literature towards the close of the eighteenth century; it is difficult to define exactly the relation between various currents of literature, and to determine which was original, and which was not *.
By the side of certain characteristics conunon to various literatures such as the renascent love of nature, of the supernatural, of the sentimental, of the mysterious, there are some of a less general kind. Rousseau in La Nouvelle Hélaïse, and Feith in Ferdinand en
1 Aliee M. Killen in her dissertation oonsiders that A. Radcliffe probably owed something to the German „Storm nnd Drang" authors. This seems rather hypothetical. If she knew or admired them, her journey to Germany would probably have led tosome remark in this direction. Alice Killen writes (p. 59). Anne Radcliffe neparaft pas avoir emprunté, comme 1'a fait en général Lewis, le fond des intngues et des divers incidents de ses romans aux écrivains allemands C est plutót dans le caractère général de son oeuvre que nous voyons un reflet du „Ritterdrama" et des „Schauerromane" avec leurs donjons, leurs tribunaux secrets et leurs brigands". However, English literature itself afforded instances of tms kind, such as Leland's Longsword; S. Lee's Secess, James White's Earl Mrongbow, etc.; Instruotive as to oontemporary English taste, is the oriticism of this book in The Gentleman'* Magazine for June 1790, where Earl Strongbow (which had appeared simultaneously withMrs.Radcliffe's first novel)is considered an: „imitation of Gothic romance, calculated to amuse and instruct ... The ghost of the ancient baron, who stands high in the chronicles of military renown, rehearsing his adventures, in a narration continued through several Progressive nights, each of which forms a chapter, is an idea that has not been started by any other writer." The dialogues „have a peculiar cast of pleasantry»; many of the characters „are drawn in a eoncise and nervous marmer .. and
the customs of ohivalry striotiy adhered to in the love-speeches of the
Jiarl and the Lady Geraldine, that tenderness, and that delicacy, which should reign m such compositions. As flattering is the artiole in the August Magazine of the same year, on White's Adventures of John of Gaunt: „The variety of characters, the judicious remarks upon human life and manners, and the numerous strokes of salutary satire, which are introduced, are well entitled to notice and approbation".



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Constantia speak of love as the only aim which usurps man so entirely that nature loses its charm. The greater simplicity and happiness of the rustic population is insisted upon by Rousseau, Mrs.Radcliffe and Feith. Rousseau's heroine Julie, is an adept at drawing and music; her favourite authors are Petrarch and Tasso, (also the great masters of the French theatre) which strongly reminds us of Mrs. Radcliffe's heroines. Feith concurs with Mrs. Radcliffe in that she considere love combined with virtue, the greatest happiness. Mrs. Radcliffe's interest in peasant-dress we also find in Rousseau. Saint-Preux is imposed upon at Paris by false friends, like Valencourt in The Mysteries of Udolpho. Like Goethe's Werther, SaintPreux meditates on suicide, and is restrained by his friend, milord Edouard Bomston, who advises activity as a remedy for the evils of life. The mysterious monk observed by Adelheid, when sending Franz on his wicked errand, in Goethe's Götz von Berlichingen, 1773, suggests Mrs. Radcliffe's way of treatment, when Adelheid tries to expel the evil vision and finds the real one bebind her. Weislingen, in this play, wishes to enjoy pure happiness with Marie, Gotz's sister, far from the madding crowd; so do Mrs. Radcliffe's heroes and heroines.. Marie's sweet soul speaks from her bright blue eyes; she is like an angel from heaven, composed of innocence and love; she will lead Adelbert's heart to peace and bliss. She is amiable and beautiful; in her eyes is comfort: "gesellschaftliche melancholie". Then her lover deserts her; "das arme
Madchen verbetet ihr Leben". Striking is her
charming sweetness, when entering society at Spiera.



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She is like the type of Mrs. Radcliffe's heroines. The pleasant indulging in, revelling in, and cherishing of sadness prevails everywhere, very strongly so in Feith's novels. These idiosyncrasies are also to be found in the imitations falsely ascribed toMrs. Radcliffe. In some the chapters are headed by poetic quotations, which indica te, however, a taste different from Mrs. Radcliffe's. The third chapter of the second volume of Le Convent de Sainte Catherine quotes Dryden "We know not what to wish, nor what to fear"; and the eighteenth chapter Pope "Virtue alone is happiness below". Mrs. Radcliffe nowhere quotes Dryden or Pope. It is from France that the earliest imitations spread as we see from La Forêt de Montalbano, which was published only two years after The Italian (1797). They are again translated, either into Dutch or into German1; Angelina oder die Abentheuer im Walde von Montalbano, appeared twenty-nine years after its French original. Le Tombeau (1799) was mentioned in the Biographie nouvelle des Contemporains. Paris 1824 tome 17, and also in the two dictionaries already mentioned. We find a reference to this book in VHermite de la tombe Mystérieuse, whose author mentions it in the same breath with Mrs. Radcliffe's genuine productions.
The next novel drawing our attention is: Die Ein-
1 Brey's list of imitations is defeotive; so is his list of translations, which are treated, together with the dramatio adaptations, by Miss Mclntyre. Not mentioned is the Dutch tTznalztionDeltaliaanofdebiechtstoel der zwarte boetelingen, naar het Hoogduitsch, J. C. van Kesteren, Amsterdam 1821. By this time two German translations had appeared, one in 1797, the other in 1801 (Maclntyre) or 1802 (Brey). No more is De geheimen van Udolpho, naar het Engelsch, J. C. van Kesteren, Amsterdam 1821, mentioned.



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siedlerin am Vesuv (1801). In its peeface the author affirms, that he has collected various passages from English magazines and adds: "Ob die Verwicklung, die Schilderung der Charaktere, die Naturgemalde einem andern Produkt dieser mit Recht so beliebten Verfasserin nachstehen, mag das Publikum entscheiden". As for the plot, it is a mixture of Mrs. Radcliffe, With a little of the "Gothic", and much Wertherism and Byronic heroism. Its hero is a young man of fashion travelling abroad, reading his Virgil in the Capitol, yielding to passion (for which the author, however, finds an excuse: "in dem schwelgerischen Klima des Landes altert schnell die liebliche Blüthe) and when disappointed, finding comfort in Nature and neglecting his true, faithful Anna. Wandering on Vesuvius (very appropriately, as the fiery glow of the volcano reflects the ardour and turmoil of his soul!) he meets Euphrosine, at the first sight of whom, love takes possession of his heart, so that he can only stemmer that he has lost his way. She has been living in seclusion with her father. We hear that the latter is slightly deranged, though in this scène he appears ever so much saner than young Thorson, with his abrupt infatuation. However, his former unkind conduct pursues the young man, and puts an obstecle to his love in the shape of a mysterious stranger. We are quite happy to meet some mystery, for how could such a delightful romance retein interest without the mysterious! Seeking Euphrosine again, he is surprised by a thunderstorm, and finds shelter at the hermitage of il Salvatore. On a rocky point a figure, Euphrosine's father, is standing, dressed in grey, with an infinitely



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melaneholy gaze, stretching out his hands, as if he would take the thunder to his breast; and when an oak is struck by the lightning, he sinks on his knees, and a tear runs down his cheek! All this being written in a delightfully swollen, bombastic style, of which Mrs. Radcliffe would not be capable.
Nobody can assist this unfortunate, or relieve his remorse. Upon which the author continues moralizingly, „Das glaubt der Unglückliche nur so, weil ihm Leiden die künftigen Aussichten verdunkelt haben, weil der Sonnenstrahl der Hoffnung nicht zu ihm durch zu dringen im Stande ist".
After some mystification with another young lady, Arabella, whom he mistakes for Euphrosine, and in whom he finds his ideal, and after a love-entanglement with a lady of fashion, which almost sends him to prison, everything ends all right; the lovers, Thorson and Arabella, are united; the poor maniae's reason returns when he is dying, and when he raises himself and blesses them, and then peacefully passes away: ?,wer vermag das zu beschreiben". The neglected beloved, Anna, who is very generous to Thorson, and saves him from prison, is comforted by good Pietro, and Euphrosine is happy with the penitent hermit, Lorenzo. The way she makes his acquaintance offers a good specimen of the author's lofty art. One evening Euphrosine notices a stranger, in whom she feels at once interested, because of the traces of deep suffering, which Thorson had also thought interesting. When she offers him refreshment he replies: „Könntest du mir hier Kühlung, Linderung verschaffen." Er zeigte auf sein Herz. (Euphrosine is already doing this, as



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we shall see). Still thy soul is pure; guard it; man is often his own most dangerous enemy. He willingly unburdens his conscience and oh! the joy of friendship, which understands and pities: „Selige Freuden der Mittheilung und Freundschaft, wen nicht ihr mit euren Veilchen krönet, dem duftet nicht ganz der Rosenkranz des Lebens. Welche Wonne ist's die Gefühle der Liebe, des Edlen, des Groszen, in der Brust des Freundes nieder zu legen, und in einem doppelten Daseyn oft die schönsten Stunden durch Erinnerung erhöht, wieder zu genieszen". Her compassionate tears extinguish the f ire of remorse and despair raging within him, and the chapter (X) concludes: Dear penitent, murmured Euphrosine softly, and sank into his arms, be restored to me and to virtue. Kindly the stars smiled down, in the lofty arch of heaven on the blissful union of the lovers. Thorson's entanglement with the beautiful Leonore Spalatti (he does Seem capable of a great quantity of love, squandered liberally, as he says "Liebe ist mein Bedürfhisz") reminds us of Valencourt and the Parisian ladies of fashion in The Mysteries of Udolpho. The wicked villain of the novel, the Marquis Franzeski, who has him attacked by banditti near a lonely country-house in a small wood, is his jealous competitor for the beloved lady. If music is introduced, the author is passionately enraptured: „Als er (Thorson) ungefahr in der Halfte des Weges war, hörte er hinter den Blattern eines kleinen Gebüsches das einen Garten bekranzte schone Töne einer Laute. Wie die Liebe bald in leisen Accorden unsre Seele berührt und bald im Sturme alle unsre Empfindungen aufdonnert, schwelgten leise und



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starke Töne in dem heitern Aether. So zerschmelzend klangen die Accorde dasz eine heilige tiefe Stille auf der Natur zu ruhen schien, und alles nur auf die geflügelten Töne horchte". As we see from this, there is some likeness outwarly to Mrs. Radcliffe's novels. The happy lovers settling down in a beautiful country, especially near the sea or a lake, spending their time in idleness (for no hero is ever seriously engaged in any occupation, except perhaps fighting or love-making) is also Mrs. Radcliffe's customary conclusion.
Another resemblance is the solution of all mysteries and the clearing away of all puzzles at the end (Ch. XD7). As for the story, our expectations are often led astray, especially in the case of Thorson and the ladies he falls in love with. (Ch. VIII). Besides, amazing events turn up at every moment, such as would justify Mr. Micawber's sanguine expectations; surprise at the due succession of events fills our minds. Mountainscenery and its grandeur, as well as a sweet, pleasing landscape, are not unknown to the author, but Mrs. Radcliffe's artistic sense is absent here, as well as in the stilted style and bombastic language. Its morbid exaltation and idolizing of nature is utterly alien to her. When the hero fancies he can no longer love maiden nor woman, he seeks refuge on the breast of nature. Yet he underrates his capabilities, as we see when one evening he sits down with Euphrosine, on a gardenseat between two elm-trees round which the vine trails; the moon has risen in all its splendour, pouring down a silvery light; the trees shiver in the nightbreeze and cast an ever-varying shadow, and the air is sweet and balmy. Overcome by feeling, Thorson



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throws himself at Euphrosine's feet, grasps her hand, and presses it to his heart. At which moment her father appears.
Thorson has his moods when he might call out with Childe Harold :
"Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place, with one fair Spirit for my minister".
He wants to spend a day in the solitude of nature, anticipating great joy in being a day all by himself. He wishes to commune with himself and to have an opportunity of introspection. He pictures to himself the horrors of an eruption, the rising vapour, like the clouds on which the angel of death hovers. With a bold step he walks round the awful workshop of angry nature, to a dangerous top crowned by a solitary fir from which he spies a sweet valley. He toils for hours, and down a steep precipice, reaches a lovely meadow, through which a brook is flowing: „Der Grund bildete eine Wiese, besetzt mit allen Arten der schönsten und manigfaltigsten Blumen, die den reizendsten Anblick darbothen. Ein stilles Bachlein flosz mit lieblichem Rauschen dadurch hin, als wollte es durch sein flüssiges Silber die Gegend angenehm beleben. Auf beiden Seiten erhoben sich sanfte Anhöhen, die in schonen Abstufungen sich immer mit verschiedenen Grün geziert, zu einem reizenden Amphitheater erhoben. In der Ferne, begranzte ein Tannenwaldchen die Szene". When Thorson discovers it: „sein Bliek schwamm trunken an diesem Paradiese herum".
After this consideration of the plot and the descriptions of nature, character-description remains. The character of the heroes is composed of contradictory



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elements, like that of the Byronic hero. Lorenzo is haunted by his guilty conscience; but at the same time the author tries to convince us and Euphrosine of his real goodness; his sufferings make him interesting. Mrs. Radcliffe, whenever she thought melaneholy interesting, attributed this quality to the heroines, not to the heroes. Thorson is somewhat like Valencourt. He throws himself into a vortex of pleasure and wastes his money in order to forget his disappointment: „Nun beschlosz er sich in den Taumel der Welt zu werfen, und sich selbst durch Zerstreuung Heiterkeit abzukampfen". As for the heroines, not one, but three lovely angelic ladies occur, with each of whom Thorson in due course of events falls in love. Two of them, the twins Euphrosine and Arabelle, are very much alike. But there is a conscious attempt to differentiate between Thorson's first love, Anna Wortly, and Euphrosine. Anna, from early childhood had an open eye for the ideal, and particularly loved solitude, where she fully enjoyed her own ideas when wandering through the fields, with folded hands, in the moonshine; so that she might be taken for „eine wahrhaft himmlische Erscheinung". This reminds us of Mrs. Radcliffe's heroines, not one of whom, however, is so impossible. In her looks and dress there is nothing . to draw attention. Apparently attentive to what passes around her, her spirit roves in lof tier regions; her soul soars into higher joys. Her form is slight and slim, her face of a beautiful oval. At first sight she is not attractive because of her apathetic, cold marnier. She is roused from her abstract dreaming to the reality of life by her new love for Thorson, who becomes her ideal knight. Yet he cannot



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follow her exalted flight. Not the nobility of her reflections, but its novelty attraets him. That she lives exclusively for him, he feels as a burden; he cannot live up to her ideal. He has been educated in a town, and there has lost his sensitiveness to the beauties of nature, which had been considered „überspannt" in those circles. When he has been absent for a few weeks, she meets him at his return "mit einem leidenden Engelgesichte". She speaks of "Vereinigung jenseits des Grabes mit einem solchen Entzücken, das Thorson immer in Verlegenheit kam, und endlich sogar ihren Anblick vermeiden haben würde, wenn nicht sein Vater ihm befohlen natte, das Haus ja nicht zu vernachlassigen, dem freilich nur Annens groszes Vermogen reitzte." To Thorson Anna appears a supernatural being, not a girl to be loved. Euphrosine, on the contrary, is his ideal of the beautiful womanly, and tender charm. He admires Anna's pure mind but does not love her. Euphrosine too, has lofty principles; prompted by duty and filial love she braves the constant dangers of the vokano. With practical wisdom she tells Thorson that his duty is not to yield to selfindulgence, but to live in the world and to apply his gifts to the advantage of mankind, which advice rather strikes him: "Aufmerksam betrachtete Thorson das Madchen, das in tiefster Einsamkeit solche Grundsatze hegte". So do wel What makes it all the more wonderful is, that Anna Wortley was only fifteen years old when she feil in love with Thorson. Lorenzo, in the course of his story, informs us that he and his brother Ferdinand feil in love with a young lady of about sixteen: Kamilla. Of course, the author might



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have cited Shakespeare's Juliet to make this probahle, but I presume it is the Italien air again that causes this premature development. Anna shows little juvenile rashness, but a great deal of mature wisdom! When she has convinced herself of her lover's unworthiness, she tells him so plainly: „Marnier sollen uns ein Beispiel der Geistesstarke, festen Sinnes, edlerer Erhabenheit seyn — o,sie sind's nicht. Lebe wohlü" — Sie eilte weg". Yet it is she who comes to the rescue with a draft of £ 2.000 when Thorson is in danger of imprisonment, and we hear the praise of friendship again, as she writes: „Freundschaft einer gewissen Art altert so wenig, als die ewig gleiche Natur. Sie sind in Verlegenheit. Die Art zu untersuchen, wie Sie in diese gerathen sind, steht ihrem Richter, oder einem Fremden zu. Des Freundes Sache ist Helfen, wo der Freund leidet". And carelessly Thorson accepts the money, does not heed the implied warning, and without troubling about the unknown benefactress, rushes off to his false mistress. Fortunately he still has sense enough to blush when Anna afterwards visits hun, when he has been wounded, and tells him how she has conquered her passion, and how another has taken his place. She will remain his friend, however. To which he answers: „Groszmuthige Freundin .... ich werde Dinen ewig für diese Unterstützung verbunden bleiben". Thus much for the principal persons. It may also be noticed that Thorson's valet, Wüliam, deviates from the golden rule laid down for the Gothic romance, that valets and chambermaids should be comic, talkative figures. As regards the form, mottos are not prefixed to the chapters, nor does any heroine



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condescend to insert a sonnet on sunset, moonlight, or break of day. It is clear from all this, that Die Einsiedlerin am Vesuv is not an authentic production of Mrs. Radcliffe as it falls utterly short of her works and in some respects even offers points of contrast. If there is anything striking in it, it is perhaps the absence of literary merit.
Soon after Die Einsiedlerin, appeared Les Visions du Chdteau des Pyrénées, 1803. With it should be mentioned Die Erscheinungen im Schlosse der Pyrenaen frei nach dem Englischen der Anna Radcliffe, vom Verfasser des Admirals, etc. Braunschweig 1818. 4 Bde; which Brey calls: eine geradezu widerwartige überhandnahme des Schaurigen. The trend of its translator's mind may be inferred from the titles of his other products: Alida und Chloridan oder der Schwerttausch aus dem Spanischen; Centüles, eine Geschichte aus dem Spanischen Insurrektionskrieg; Die Geheimnisse der Abtei von Santa Columba oder der Ritter mit den roten Waf f en; Maddalena Bosa oder der Tribunal der Inquisition zu Florenz. Die Priorin, Frei nach dem Englischen der Anna Radcliffe; with reminiscences of Mrs. Radcliffe in the Inquisition-scenes, and of Lewis in the Florentine convent of Santa Maria del Nova.
Brey confesses he does not know the author's name, but seems to entertain no doubt that he was a German K
1 Brey, Die Naturschilderungen in den Romanen und Gedichten der Mrs. Ann Radcliffe, München 1908. p. 26: „Den namen des Verfassers konnte ion nicht ansfindig machen; er nennt sich nur den „Verfasser des Admirals". As M. Holzmann and H. Bohatta in the Deutsches Anonymen Lexikon 1601—1910 mentions Die Geheimnisse der Abtey von Santa Columba oder der Bitter mit den rothen Waffen a. d. Englischen, Braunschweig, 1819, Von BranéVglia, it seems safe to oonsider Brancaglia the translater of Die Erscheinungen tt» Schlosse der Pyrenaen.



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The name of its translater was Brancaglia. His original was probably French or a French translation from the English, and Die Erscheinungen was on no account an original German novel. The French version bore the inscription: Par Anne Radcliffe, traduit sur 1'édition imprimée a Londres chez G. et J. Robinson en 1803. Whether it was original or translated from an English novel I have not been able to discover. Anyhow, the particulars added, lent some probability to the opinion that Mrs. Radcliffe was its author, Robinson being, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Radcliffe's publisher. Possibly it may be identified with De verschijningen op het kasteel der Alpen, published by J. Noman at ZaltBommel in 1820, which was also attributed to Mrs. Radcliffe in Holland.
The French novel apparently agreed with the taste of the times, for as early as 1810, a second edition of it appeared. It is much more truly Gotbic than Die Einsiedlerin, and is one of the best representatives of this class. It is a curious book in that it constantly affords resemblances to earlier as well as to later novels. The names of Lorenzo, duc de Manfredonia, the tutor, Ludovico, old Theresa, the robber Alonzo, the virtuous young Theodore, Lady Isabelle, the „aimable nègre Hippolyte de Rosario", remind of Walpole, Lewis and Mrs. Radcliffe. Suspense, in the style of the latter, mystification and scrupulously natural explanations are all there. The author adds most ludicrous elucidations, if no other can be found; and notes are inserted at the foot of the pages referring back to the mysteries that are explained K Wonderful
1 A beautiful specimen is the passage where Victoria de Modène is haunted in



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is the mention of electricity. The entrance to the vault containing the brigand's treasures is guarded by a clever mechanism, made by a „mécanicien de Genève" (tome III, p. 19) to frighten away intruders. "H „devait aussi charger d'une forte dose d'electricité le dard que présentait 1'automate pour ajouter encore a la terreur de ceux qui n'étaient pas initiés dans ces mystères .... Francisco, .... était si pressé d'arriver a la celluie d'Elfride qu'il ne pensa nullement a eviter le contact du dard électrisé que la figure de la Mort portait en avant; en sorte qu'il en fut touché a la poitrine, et recut une commotion extrèmement violente qui le fit tomber sans connaissance". (tome XV, Ch. XVII, p. 347). Victoria, in this novel, has a foster-sister in Roselie, a pretty young Italian orphan •of poor respectable parents *. Like Emily in The Mysteries of Udolpho Victoria refuses to sign a document at her tyrant's behest. As in other Gothic novels (The Monk, for example) the nocturnal hour of one is most ominous. In sheer horror, some passages equal or excel Mrs. Radcliffe's, as where Victoria and her mysterious guide are in search of her husband. (Tome III, Ch. I, pp. 5—11).
„Puis il lui prit la main pour la conduire, et Victoria
prison by a mysterious voice addressing her as „malheureuse viotime", and predieting torture and death. Then foliows a diabolical laughter; a hideous phantom appears „aussitöt un sifflement dans l'air et un ori aigu se firent entendre; un choo violent renversa sa lampe de la pierre sur laquelle elle était posée, puis tout demeura autour d'elle enseveli dans le plus profond silence". The hideous phantom is but a parrot, which pronounced these words and the flapping of whose wings upset the lamp and produces the whistling sound. 1 A not unusual device in novels, Cf. Mrs. Shelley's Frankenstein, a Gothic descendant, in which Blizabeth Lavenza is adopted by Victor's parents as their daughter.



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se sentit touché par une main glacée que la plus violente agitation faisait trembler avec force". She is taken through a gorge at times covered by the sea to a cave, into which it penetrates like an impetuous torrent, and the surge dashes against the rocks on either side, awakening a thousand echoes. They come to a stupendous rock: „la roche prolongée et suspendue en avant formait une espèce de pont qui traversait la caverne a une hauteur de plus de cent pieds au-dessus de la surface du torrent, effroyable pont, sans base et sans appui, qu'une puissance magique semblait supporter dans 1'air." They descend after leaping the chasm: „quand tout-a-coup, au moment oii ils tournaient la pointe d'un énorme rocher qui croisait leur passage, un bruit horrible se fit entendre dans 1'eloignement. C'était un mélange confus de cris de rage et de gémissemens douloureux .... a mesure qu'on avancait et que ces terribles sons devenaient plus distincts, elle reconnut les accents plaintifs d'une voix humaine parmi des hurlemens de bêtes féroces tandis que par intervalles un bruit de chaïnes semblait partir du même lieue" etc. (Tome III, Ch. I, p. 5—11). The first volume contains a passage similar to one in: Ferdinand, Count Fathom, The Monk and The Mysteries of Udolpho, of an attack by robbers in a wood, followed by an impressive description which strongly reminds us of Waverley's approach to "the hold of a higland Robber" 1:
"La lune s'étant cachée pendant quelques momens, les captives, plongées dans la plus profonde obscurité, se sentirent entrainées par leurs conducteurs a travers de longs et étroits sentiers pleins d'asperités et de
1 Waverley or '< Ie sixty years hence, by Walter Scott. Ch. XVI and XVII.



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détours; puis tout-a-coup, elles s'apercurent qu'on les descendait lentement et avec précaution le long d'une pente entièrement roide qui les conduisit au bord d'un courant d'eau rapide et bouillonnante, sur lequel se trouvait un bateau avec quelques autres brigands qui semblaient attendre la le retour de la troupe .... on les fit entrer dans le bateau .... Le courant sur lequel on voguait était pressé d'un cóté par des rochers escarpés, et de 1'autre par un bois ünpénétrable au jour, et qui montait jusques aux nues .... Enfin on parvint a 1'entrée d'une horrible et immense caverne, dont 1'aspect épouvantable ne laissait au spectateur d'autre idéé que ceüe d'une entière et inévitable destruction. Les intrépides rameurs se précipitèrent dans ce gouffre oü régnait une obscurité compléte et ou ils n'avaient d'autre guide que la faible lumière de leur lanterne .... Le bateau continua sa route dans eet abime pendant environ une demi-heure après quoi on vit paraïtre sur la surf ace de 1'eau un long sillon de lumière rougeatre qui semblait venir de trés loin et qui s'aggrandissant de plus en plus et prenant une teinte plus vive, présentait 1'image d'une fournaise ardente, réfléchie par le courant et donnait a celui-ei 1'apparence d'un torrent de flammes liquides. A 1'aide de cette épouvantable clarté on découvrait dans 1'éloignement, a 1'extrémité de la caverne, une foule d'ombre de figures humaines, dont 1'agitation offrait a 1'imagination comme autant de spectres flottans dans 1'air sous les formes les plus bizarres et les plus effrayantes".
Some years after appeared Le Convent de Sainte Cathérine ou Les Moeurs du XIIIe siècle. Roman Historique d'Anne Radcliffe (not mentioned by Brey).



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lts very title seems to deny the truth of this statement. The only novel in which Mrs. Radcliffe avowedly tried to picture medieval manners, was Gaston de Blondeviüe which was not published until 1824. Consequently it is strange that her name should be coupled with this branch of novel. Yet here her name was prefixed to a portrayal of ancient manners and customs without at once rousing distrust as to its identity. This book was not confined to France. Whether it was translated into Dutch I do not know, but it was known and read in Holland *i It purported to be "traduit par Mme la baronne Caroline A. née W. de M., agregée a plusieurs Académies étrangères, auteur du Phénix, d'Esope au bal de 1'Opéra, des Mémoires de Babiole, du Sterne du Mondego, etc."; and appeared at Paris in 1810.
The excesses to which the Radcliffian vogue led, certainly offered a fair excuse for parody and satire 2. In 1816 there was published at Paris VHermite de la Tombe Mystérieuse ou le Fantóme du Vieux Chdteau, anecdote extrait des Annals du treizième siècle, par Mme. Anne Radcliffe, et traduit sur le manuscrit Anglais parM. E. L. D. Baron de Langon. And in the next year or the year after that, appeared a German novel Der Eremit am Schwarzen Grabmahle oder das Gespenst im alten Schlosse, Ein Ritterroman der Madme
1 The copy possessed by the British Museum Library bears the inscription of: no. 3605 dn Cabinet de Lecture de G. Dufour et Co. Libraires sur le Eokin. no. 139 a Amsterdam. The close contact existing between France and Holland between the years 1795—1812 must have been promotive of the knowledge of French literature there.
» Such are La nuit Anglaise 1799 by Bellin La Liborlière. Un pot sans couvercle et rien dedans, ou les Mysteres delaruedela lune. 1799, by Louis RandoL



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Anna Radcliffe. Frei übersetzt, Wien, in der Haas'schen Buchhandlung, 1817.
In the same year a Dutch version of it was published at Amsterdam. The similarity of the titles makes us suspect that the French and the German novel are identical; either both translations from an English novel, or the German translated from the French. What Brey remarks about the French one, that it is exceedingly monotonous and prolix, that the very first chapter is full of supernatural horror, exhausting its author's power; and that after this, neither climax nor excitement is attained, holds good of the German version as well. Besides, the dialogue in the French novel is considered "vollstandig unpassend für einen Roman" K If there is anything in Der Eremü, striking the reader as being queer, it is the caxrying on of the dialogue. It generally assumes a dramatic shape, sometimes with an added stage-direction. This may be illustrated by a short passage, where Ademar, the customary young hero of unknown parentage, meets the mysterious hermit:
Ademar: Was höre ich! Kennet Dir meine Abkunft? Eremü: Bar durft stolz euer Haupt erheben. Euere Ahnen
waren nur gewohnt über andere zu herrschen.... Ademar-. Meine Mutter, lebt sie noch? Eremü: (mit einem tiefen Seufzer) Bire Bahn hat sie
geendet, sie leidet nicht mehr. Ademar: O trauriges Schicksal; ich kann sie nicht mehr
umarmen?Abermein Vater blieb mir doch noch? Eremü: Des Grabes Nacht umhüllt sein Daseyn. u. s. w.
» Brey, p. 23. „Der Inhalt selbst Sa unendkch langweffig und weitlaufig .Gleioh im 1. Kapitel geht et ganz Bchauerlich zu."



133
A comparison of the two books will bring out the absence in the German one, of the preface found in the French; and the invocation of the muses in the first chapter, which mythological addition looks rather out-of-place here. The French preface suggests that UHermite was not meant seriously, as is generally thought, but as a parody (as well as the German version). The preface, as far as I can see, is meant to ridicule the one prefixed to Le Convent de Sainte Caiherine, a novel which is also meant to be illustrative of the thirteenth century. In the latter the supposed translater accounts for the circumstances that led to the translation. In Lisbon general Robert W. introduced to her Sir Archibald Hutton, the English translater of Esope au bal de VOpéra. This young man was a relation and friend of Mrs. Radcliffe, and spoke enthusiastically about The Convent of St. Cathérine, which was little known even in England, where it had appeared by subcription. When he proposed to her to translate it, she protested she did not love Mrs. Radcliffe or her productions, whose celebrity she could not understand: "J'avais désapprouvé trop hautement ce genre monstrueux, corrupteur d'une partie de notre littérature, pour essayer de mettre des ailes de papillons a ces oiseaux de mort". But when civil war robbed her of every kind of pleasure, she devoted herself to this work: "ne trouvant alors d'autres distractions h ma terreur que la terreur même, je m'élancai sur les traces de la ténébreuse Anna'Mt took her six months, but the commotions that affected her, were perhaps reflected in those shades of style which were required to correct the monotony of the original, where all the distinctive



134
features were but indicated. She had first kept her incognito but during her long absence some officious person had adopted her work; so she had been compelled to affix her name.
In the preface of VHermüe the author pretended he had obtained Mrs. Radcliffe's manuscript from a wounded Scottish officer, who was at the same time a relation of Mrs. Radcliffe's. Some alterations and abbreviations are produced, and passages are added. Some critical remarks on Mrs. Radcliffe are inserted, and the manuscript having been torn at one place and several pages missing, the intelligent reader is invited himself to supply the conclusionof thehermit's life, enabled to this by his reading The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Italian, A Sicilian Romance and Le Tombeau. URermite seems to ridicule the GothicRadcliffian novel in general, but it offer* various points of resemblance with Les Visums du Chateau des Pyrenees, in particular. In Der Eremü as well as in Les Visums the hero is a young man of unknown, yet noble parentage, who in the end obtains his rights; (inclusive of his lady-love) in the former Ademar, in the latter Hippolyte de Rosario. In both the hermit is the omnipresent, omnipotent genius of the place, before whom the wicked tremble and whom the good adore; in the first Stephanus, in the second Francisco1.
• The presenoe of a benevolent secret power seems to have been favoured to
compensate the gloomy horrors, as in indicated by several tMes:
1819 Le Spectre de la galerie oVEstalens, on le Sauveur mysterieus, traduction
supposée de 1'anglais par Le Baron de Lamothe-Houdanoourt. 1822 Les apparitions du Chdteau de Marabel ou le Protecteur invisible, par le
baron de L. . ,
1826 Das weisse Gespenst oder der geheimnisvolle Beschützer von Carl Ferd.
Kretschmar (Chemnita).



135
It is Francisco who checks Don Manuel in his cruelties, and in whose protection the innocent feel safe, even in the stronghold of infernal wickedness; yet at the same time he lends his protection to evil deeds, and is, only with difficulty, saved from the penalty of the law and the Inquisition, as well as from the execration of the people, when they find out his connection with the brigands, whose castle is razed to the ground; or as the author expresses it: (rV, p. 892). „Dès que les paysans de la Catalogne eurent connaissance de la fóurberie du saint hermite, qui avait été si longtemps pour eux un object de vénération, leur rage n'eut plus de bornes, et il fallut toute la protection, et 1'énergie du marquis de Palermo et du Conté Areosto, pour l'arracher a une populace furieuse qui voulait le mettre en pièces."
A secret passage leads from his private apartments at the castle to his solitary cavern. Near it is situated a peculiar tomb, which sight meets the eyes of the captive young lady (Victoria) when she and her companions are walking one night in the garden of the castle. Dismayedby acannonade, they fly distractedly, and hearing footsteps coming after them, Victoria loses the others, and through cloisters and echoing passages reaches the wood. Trying to hide in the densest parts she comes to a glade, in which a tomb has been raised in the shape of a pyramid. To add to her dismay, a figure is seen near it, tall and bloody, with a scourge in its hands, sighing miserably and uttering doleful exclamations, This passage reminds us of Mrs. Radcliffe. In Der Eremü am schwarzen Grabmahle there is the same powerful magician, who frightens the wicked usurper



136
Arembert, and who is adored by the country-people, who believe the prayers of this pious man can keep away the devastating hail. They call him the hermit of the tomb, because of the ancient marble tomb rising from four white steps, situated near his hermitage. Nobody ever dared investigate this, though a sword over the entrance was its only defence. Mystery surrounds this tomb as well as that of Les Visions, for often, when darkness covers the earth, strange bluish flames appear, playing around it.
Stephanusisatalltimesready to confound Arembert, and to assist those in distress. He scares Arembert out of bis wits, in the hope of the latter's being seized by despair, and being tortured by the stings of conscience, which might make him retire to a monastery. A truly pious purposel He had settled down in the wood of Caillavel because he knew the secret passage from it to the castle. To frighten away intruders, he erected the tomb, produced bluish lights and trailed heavy chains, which undoubtedly awed the people. Having the secret treasure of the famüy at his command, he spent it on the people, thus posing as their benefactor. Meanwhile he revenges liimself on his brother by appearing to him now as a warrior with a skull under his heimet, then again as a superhumanly tall hermit, attired in a dark red robe falling in heavy folds, a black staff in his hand, his head covered by a white cowl, only displaying a long black beard and "zwei Augen mit funkelnden, durchdringenden Blieken". The ordinary devices of the Gothic romance are rather bewildering in this novel, and its characteristics are presented in a ridiculous aspect. Instead of one young



187
lady being carried off and imprisoned, there are three lovely captives at the castle of the Baron of St. Felix: Sancie, Belisene and Alienor; and each of them has two rival lovers. The young men: Odo, Raymond, Ademar, share the sweet qualities of the ladies. Few knights possess Ademar's lovableness and charming manners. His dark locks tumble on his shoulders, and curl round his eyes, which sparkle with courageous fire and attractive melaneholy. Nothing equals his smile in sweetness; and he is the image of bravery and tenderness. The paradox in the presentation of character, the incongruity of people's various qualities, seems to be too good to be unintentional. When Ademar meets the venerable hermit Stephanus, who bids him rise, he answers that respect towards the old becomes the young; in this way, they will also be honoured one day when time has furrowed their proud brow. When he receives his dead father's sword, he kisses it, and deeply moved, hot tears run down his cheeks: "Lead me thither, noble maiden, where my blood may be shed to guard you!" When he receives great praise at the court of Raymond VI of Toulouse, for having saved Belisene, he only asks one boon: to fight by Raymond's side. His modesty moves him to withdraw from the praise, which he in reality, did not consider himself worthy of. Delightful is the irony of Ademar's principles when he exclaims „Ob ich ihn (Arembert) kenne! Dun verdanke ich meine Erziehung und was ich habe. Aber wenn auch meine Dankbarkeit für ihn spricht, so kann ich doch seine Verirrungen nicht entschuldigen"; to which the Earl of Toulouse answers: „Bewahret stets diese edlen Gesinnungen, sie sind Eures



138
Herzens würdig." He possesses the musical turn peculiar to Mrs. Radcliffe's heroine. "Wie nun ein weiches Gemüth in der reitzenden Natur immer sich in Gesang ausspricht, so stimmte auch Ademar eine liebiiche Romanze an:
„FrüUingsblume glahzt in Morgenstrahlen,
Freudig grüszet sie des Tages Gott. j
Ihre Knospen öffnen sich und mahlen
Sioh im Zephirshauch und Morgenroth". u.s.w.
Another specimen is „Jetzt ist es Zeit der Liebe sich zu freu'n". Instead of the hostile father, eager to marry his daughter to the man she detests, the Earl of Toulouse, when informed of his daughter's wishes,exclaims „Ach! warum verborgen meine Kinder so lange dieses Geheininiss ihrem Vater? and he promises to marry them in a few days. The very first chapter breathes the true spirit of Gothicism: „Finstere Nacht lag über der Erde. Von der Mittagsseite her trieb ein Orkan schwarze Wolkenmassen, die Hagel und Blitz im Innern trugen. Ein gewaltiger Wirbelwind entwurzelte manchen Baum und wie ein Saat-
feld bewegte sich der wald Mitten im Sturme
standen hoch und trotzend die dunkeln Mauern des Schlosses St. Felix .... Selbst der Burgherr Arembert war von furchtbaren Schauen ergriffen, und obschon er sonst einer der tapfersten Marnier war, so hüllte er sich doch jetzt verstört in seinen Mantel, und blickte geheu im hohen Saaie umher. Der Sturm in der Natur hatte jene seiner Leidenschaften erweckt, und heftig bewegte sich sein Herz."
Here is concord between nature and man's mood, if anywhere! Mysteries abound. There is a haunting



139
voice, obtruding itself and canying on a regular conversation with the oppressor, Don Juan Arembert, and his victim Belisene; dreams and nightmares occur. Tedious is the aptness of people to relate their experiences. A great part of the second volume (p. 128— p. 198) is taken up by the hermit's absurd story.
The K. Earl of Toulouse may say „Geheimniszvoller Mann, .... Ihr könnet nur wahrheit sprechen, und ich glaube Euch"; but not notwitstanding the venerable man's assertion that: ïïir kennet mich als Euren getreuesten Anhanger, Bir wisset, dass ich stets wahrheit rede", the reader who has enjoyed his biography knows better than that, and when the author concludes by saying that perhaps one day he will occupy himself with Odo's experiences, we need not be sorry if the author's hopes are disappointed.
Another novel containing the required mysteries, though they are not of such a „grausam" nature is „Angelina oder die Abentheuer im Walde von Montalbano (1828). Der Thurm von Aosta and Das schwarze Schloss are shorter; the former reminds us of Mrs. Radcliffe; and the latter of Walpole and Lewis rather than of Mrs. Radcliffe *. As for Die Todeswette, it is impossible and awkward, rousing ridicule instead of thrilling horror, and lacking every description of nature. Of the French imitations Barbarinski which is borrowed from Udolpho, and Le Panache rouge, it is not necessary to add anything, both being avowedly imitations, and not translations 2.
1 Brey, p. 25„Die Handlung ist durohaus grob aufgebaut, der Inhalt ist schreoklich, ganz im Stile von Lewis".
• Alice M. Killen, p. 173, „Mme de Nardouet fut une des romancières les plus infatigables dans ce genre .... Elle snit de trés prés son modèle, Anne Radcliffe,



140
CONCLUSION
From the existence of so many novels ascribed to her, we may infer Mrs. Radcliffe's great popularity and fame. It also points to the presence of a powerful reciprocal influence of the various literatures of the western countries of Europe: England, France, Germany, Holland K The Radcliffian novel feil in with the literary mood of the Europe of that period andcontributed to altering its aspect. Literary history generally lays great stress on the universal influence of Walter Scott. He is not only considered the renovator of the historical novel, but also the great instigator of romanticism. France put him on a level with Shakespeare as an artist with whom everything is coloured, animated by the imagination. It seems to me that Mrs. Radcliffe was one of those who prepared the way for this new condition, for together with some characteristics of the older novelists, we find in her those very qualities with which Scott dazzled the eyes of an admiring public. The picturesque element in Scott's description of personages is quite unlike the sameness and monotony of character-description of earlier novels, in which the passions are tempered, where society-spirit softens natural asperity and smooths every rough angle, and where conventional sentiments prevail. It also contrasts with those of his predecessors, who did venture in this direction, but bid the thing described under the beautiful descriptions. Scott enforced the particular character
et certaines scènes dans ces romans pourraient presque passer pour 1'oeuvre de la romancière anglaise." n i The Italian translations of Mrs. Badcliffe were very late: The Sxcxlmn Romance was translated into Italian in 1883, and 1889; TheRomance of (he Forest m 1871.



141
of his portraits by the background, the frameworkj the consequence of which is that they impress themselves on our mind more deeply, also because of his great dramatic power. Mrs. Radcliffe took the novel as it came to her hand, without consciously conforming to a fixed Standard; just allo wing herself to be influenced by her predilection for the greatest English poets: Shakespeare, Milton, and the most imaginative of her own time, Gray. We find a curious reverberation of Rousseau in her works, in her attitude towards nature. Her beautiful descriptions of natural scenery, as well as her art of straining our expectations, are due to one and the same cause: her imaginative force. It is true she did not equal Scott; her retiring position and her limited knowledge did not favour such an intense, universal sympathy for mankind. She falls short of Scott in her dialogue, and fails in giving it the iüusion of life. And yet, in scattered passages, we find instances of her capacity of realizing the feelings of her fellowmen, imagination assisting her. She does not attain, however, the brilliancy of Scott, nor the profound penetration of Wordsworth. Imagination inspired her vision of countries she had never actually seen; it gave her an artist's eye for the beauty of the everchanging aspects of nature; it enabled her to carry herself back to the past. Imagination made her see the artistic effect of the truly mysterious, whether actually supernatural or not. Indeed, she feit that to be truly impressive, there should be a mysterious link in mood, thought or character, between the outward and the inward. When Macbeth, in Shakespeare's tragedy, is startled on the heath by the appearance of



142
the witches, it is not so much their outward looks that frighten him, as the mysterious concord there is, between their prophecies and the workings of his secret mind. Similarly when Montoni, (in The Mysteries of Udolpho), and his confederates are plotting together, it is not the meaning of the echoed words ("Repeat them"; "Listen") that frighten the noble assembly, but the fact that the mysterious pronouncer of these words brings home to them the corruption of their own minds, and their evilinterpretations of each other. Sympathetic imagination which might lead another generation to the probing of the social diseases from which mankind is suffering, made Mrs. Radcliffe averse to the eighteenth-century manner of discussing social and intellectual problems, and made her interest centre, not in the disseeting of character, but in the dramatic development of plot. Stripped of the conventional attributes, and the eighteenth-century appendages, Mrs. Radcliffe's works are essentially poetic and imaginative. She succeeds in rousing emotion in the reader by her scènes and personages. Her works do not only appeal to the youthful imagination, as Hazlitt thought, but remain a source of interest to older minds by the quick succession of events, which captivates our interest; by their happy escape from profound analyses to which a later era is so prone; by their purity and poetry. Therefore Mrs. Radcliffe should be regarded as one of the first great exponents of romanticism, one of those who are entitled to be saved from oblivion.



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Arrenberg, R., Alphabetische Naamlijst van Boeken, welke sedert het jaar 1790 tot en met het jaar 1832 in Noord-Nederland zijn uitgekomen. Bagehot, W., Literary Studies. London, 1920. Baker, E. A., A Guide to Historical Fiction. 1914.
Barbauld, Mrs., (A. L. Aikin) The British novelists, with an Essay and Prefaces. London, 1820.
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Boaden, «ƒ., The Italian Monk, a Play. London, 1797. in three acts.
" Fontainville Forest, a Play in five acts. London, 1794. Brey, J., Die Naturschilderungen in den Romanen und Gedichten der Mrs.
Ann Radcliffe. Diss. München. 1908, Nürnberg 1911. British Museum Catalogue of Printed Books. Brooke, Stopford A., English Literature. Macmillan, London. Broome, W., Poetical Works. Cooke's Edition. n. d. Brydges, S. E., Mary de Clifford. Sec. ed. 1800.
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Chénier, M. J. de, Tableau Historique de 1'Etat et des Progrès de la Litterature
Francaise depuis 1789. Paris, 1816. Coüins, W., Poetical Works. Cooke's Edition. n. d.
Courthope, W. J., A History of English Poetry. Macmillan. London, 1913. Cowper, W., The Poems. 1828.
Cross, W. L., The Development of the English Novel. New-York, London, 1915. Dibelius, W., Englische Romankunst. 2e Auflage Berlin und Leipzig, 1922. Dictionary of Oeneral Biography. W. Cates, 1881.



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Dictionary of National Biography. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Englische Studiën, passim.
Féhr, B., Zur Evolution des modernen engl. romans. Germ. Rom. mon. sohr. m. 1911.
Feith, R., Julia. Immerzeel, Rotterdam, 1824.
„ Ferdinand en Constantia. Immerzeel, Botterdam 1824. Fêvre-Deumier, J. le, Célébrités Anglaises. Paria, 1896.
Forsyth, W., The Novels andNovelists of the Eighteenth Century. London, 1871. Gaebel, K., Beitrage zur Technik der Erz&hlung in den Romanen Walter Sootts.
Marb. Stud. Gentleman's Magazine, passim. Goethe, J. W., Götz von Berliehingen.
„ Die Leiden des jungen Werther. Leipzig. Gosse, E., and Garnett, R., English Literature, an Hlustrated Record. Heine-
mann, London, 1906. „ A short History of modern English Literature. Heinemann, London,
1900.
Gray, Th., The Works. In Prose and Verse. Macmillan, London, 1912. Edited by Gosse.
Gregory, Allene, The French Revolution and the English Novel. Putnam,
New-York and London, 1916. Baferkorn, R., Gotik und Ruine in der englischen Dichtung des aohtzehnten
Jahrhunderts. Tauchnitz, 1924. Hartog, ITtZïte ö., Gnilbert de Pixerécourt. Savie, son mélodrame,'sa teohnique
et son influence. Paris, 1913. Hazlitt, W., The English comic writers and miscellaneons essays. Lecture VI,
on the English Novelists. 1910. Herrigs Archiv. passim.
Hofmann, O., Studiën zum englischen Schauerroman. Leipz. Diss, 1916.
Holzmann, M„ und Bóhatta, H., Deutsches Anonymen Lexikon.
Hopkin», Annette B., und Hughes, Helen S„ The English Novel before the nine-
teenth century. Ginn and company, 1915. Jackson, F. J. Foahes, Social Life in England 1760—1860. New-York, 1816. Jeaffreson, J. C, Novels and Novelists from Elisabeth to Victoria. Johnson, S., The works. Vol. VIH: Essays, Tracts and Journey to the western
Islands of Scotland. London, 1820. Kalff, O., Nederlandsche Letterkunde.
„ West-Europeesche Letterkunde. 1928. Kavenagh, Julia, English Women of Letters. Tauchnitz, 1862. Killen, Alice M., Le Roman Terrifiant ou le Roman Noir. 1924. Lanson, G., Histoire de la Littérature Fran9aise. Paris, 1912. Lee, Harriet, and — Sophia, Canterbury Tales. New-York, 1867. Lewis, M. G., The Monk. London, 1913.



145
Maar. H. O. de, A History of modern English Romanticism. VoL I, 1924.
Mackenzie, H., The Man of Feeling. English Classics, 1826. „ Julia de Roubigné. Limbird, London, 1824.
Maigron, Le Roman Historique a 1'Épogue romantiqne. Paris, 1898.
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Mülar, J. H., The Mid-Eighteenth Century. Blackwood, Edinbnrgh and London, 1902.
Modern Language Notes.
Modern Language Review.
Moesch, V., Natnrschau und Natnrgefühl in den Romanen der Mrs. Radcliffe.
Diss. Zürich, Freiburg, 1924. Morgan, Charlotte E., The Rise of the Novel of Manners. New-York, 1911. Murray, Kathleen, Taine und die englische Romantik. München, Leipzig, 1924. Neophilologus.
New General Biographical Dictionary. H. J. Rose, 1857. Noble, A., The sonnet in England and other Essays. London, 1893. Nodier, Oh., Introduction to the Théatre choisi de 6. de Pixerécourt. Paris, Nancy, 1841.
Nouvelle Biographie Générale. Firmin Didot Frères, 1862. Phelps, W. L., The Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement. Boston 1893. Pixerécourt, B. C. Guübert de, Le Chateau des Apennins ou le Fantöme Vivant 1798.
Pope, A., Poetical Works. Aldine Edition, London, 1908. Potter, Jane, The Scottish Chiefs. London, Longman, 1816. Radcliffe, Ann, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne. Limbird, London, 1824. „ A Sicilian Romance. Limbird, London, 1826. „ The Romance of the Forest. Nicholson, London. „ The Mysteries of Udolpho. Routledge, London. „ A Journey made in the Summer of 1794 through Holland and the western Frontier of Germany, with a return down the Rhine. Robinson, London, 1795.
The Italian or The Confessional of the Black Penitents sec. ed. Cadell
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1891.



146
Incorrectly ascribed to Mrs. Radcliffe:
,, Die Einsiedlerin nam Vesuv. Eine abentheuerliche Geschichte nach dem
englischen der Miss Anna Radclif. Leipzig, 1801. K. A. Hartleben. „ Der Eremit am Schwarzen Grabmahle oder der Gespenst im Alten
Schlosse. Ein Ritterroman der Madme Anna Radcliffe. Wien, in der
Haasschen Buchhandlung, 1817. „ Le Convent de Sainte Catherine, ou Les Moeurs du XlIIe siècle.
Roman Historique d'Anne Badclife. Traduit par Mme la baronne
Caroline A., nee W. de M., Paris, 1810. „ Les Visions du Chateau des Pyrenees. Par Anne Radcliffe. Traduit
sur Tédition imprimée a Londres chez G. et J. Robinson en 1803,
Paris, 1810.
Raleigh, W., The English Novel. fifth edition. Murray, London, 1911. Reeve, Clara, The Champion of Virtue or the Old English Baron. 1883. Richardson, O. F., A Neglected Aspect of the English Romantio Revolt. Univ.
of Calif. Public. Vol. 3,1912. 1916. Richardson, S., Clarissa Harlowe. Abr. ed. Routledge, London. Robertsoni J. O., Studies in the Genesis of romantic Theory, in the eighteenth
century. 1923. Rousseau, J. J., Julie on la Nouvelle Héloïse. Paris, 1883. Saintsbury, O., The English Novel. Dent., London, 1913.
„ A Short History of English Literature. Macmillan, London, 1911, Scarborough, Dorothy, The Supernatural in modern English Fiction. Putnam.
New-York, 1917. Scott, W., Poetical works. Black, Edinburgh, 1851.
„ Lives of the Novelists. Ballantyne'a Novelists' Library, 1825. Schiller, J. C. F., Der Geisterseher. Herausg. Dr. A. Kutsoher, München. Seccombe, Th., The Age of Johnson. Bell, London, 1914. Smollett, T. O., The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom. Stephen, L., English Literature and society in the eighteenth century. Duek-
worth, London, 1910. Stoddard, F. H., The Evolution of the English Novel. New-York, 1900. Thomson, J., Poetical works. Meyer's British Classics, 1832. Walpole, H., The Castle of Otranto. Limbird, London, 1825.
„ The Castle of Otranto and Reeve, Clara, The old English Baron.
Rivington, Nunn, Longman. London. 1826. Wetenschappelijke Bladen, passim. Williams, E., Modern English writers. London, 1919.
Young, E., The Complaint or Night-thoughta on Life, Death. and Immortality. London, 1768.



STELLINGEN



I
Dr Bernh. Fehr's bewering in Zur Evolution des modernen englischen Romans (Germanisch-Romaniseh Monatschrift III, 1911) dat de sensatie-roman van Mrs Radcliffe „ein wuehernder engliseher Ableger des'französischen heroisch-galanten Romanes is, is éénzijdig en onjuist.
II
Er wordt vaak te weinig nadruk gelegd op de vooruitgang in teehniek, die ziehtbaar is in den bouw van Mrs. Radcliffe's romans.
III
Alice M Killen's meening aangaande The Mysteries of Udolpho, en The Italian, dat „une surabondance d'horreurs et de terreur» zeer waarschijnbjk mede het ^taTis van Mrs. Radcliffe's reis langs den Run is niet voldoende bewezen.
IV
The OU Woman's TaU in H. en S Lee's Canterbu^ Tales kan ingegeven zijn door The Provenoal TaU in Mrs. Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho.
V
De romantiek staat niet vijandig tegenover den godsdienst.



VI
VI
De wijze waarop Thomas Deloney de geschiedenis behandelt, is verschillend van die van de historische romanschrijvers uit het begin der romantiek.
VII
De Engelsche historische roman, in den strikten zin van het woord, begint niet bij Walter Scott.
VIII
H. Mutschmann is er niet in geslaagd te bewijzen, dat Milton's verondersteld gebrek aan waarheidszin te wijten is aan physieke gebreken.
IX
H. Mackenzie's Julia de Roubigné staat sterk onder den invloed van Richardson.
X
Ch. Kingley's voorstelling in Hypatia, van de OudChrstelijke kerk, is niet overeenkomstig de feiten.
XI
De vervanging van het Nederlandsch door het Afrikaansch in Zuid-Afrika, kan zoowel het Dietsche als het Britsche volksdeel ten goede komen.
XII
Het verschaffen van onderwijs in de nationale taal aan stamgenooten in den vreemde, is niet slechts van ideëel belang, maar van voldoende gewicht om aanspraak te maken op ruime staatssteun en staatszorg.