BLENHEIM.

“Lovely day. At eleven, walked through the Park. The triumphal arch, at

the entrance, has too much the air of a merely handsome gateway; the

convenient division into passages in the ordinary mode of considerable

gates, leaves nothing appropriate to Fame. The view of the Park, with

the turrets of the palace, of the mass of wood beyond, the verdant sweep

of the intermediate ground, that descends to the water, with the water

itself and the Palladian bridge beyond, is very striking, a few paces

after the entrance. The palace itself, though here seen beyond and over

clumps of trees, appears to greater advantage than when more distinctly

viewed: its many turrets, now beheld in clusters, have an air of

grandeur, which they want when separately observable. As we advance, the

groves on the left thicken and have a forest-like shade; but the view on

the rising ground, including the celebrated pillar, is too much broken

into parts. Though the ground rises finely, its great flowing lines are

spoiled by too many groves; there should have been one, or two, grand

masses of wood, and the rest sweeping lawn. This park is not comparable

with that at Knole, either for swell and variety of surface, or for

grandeur and disposition of wood; no such enchanting groves of plane and

birch and oak, as there. But a very grand avenue extends from the Oxford

gate to the palace. On entering the garden, of finest turf and shade,

pass the east front to the lawn of the back front, opening to a view of

distant hills between the high groves. The back front of the house much

the best; more simple, and, seen in perspective, very good. Parterres in

the flower-garden, with basket-work round them, in the pretty fashion of

the last century in France. Hence, through deep shade to the sheep-walk,

where the light opens upon the country, and then soon look down upon

another bridge and water. This walk continues on the brow, for about

half a mile, very sweetly, and leads to a sloping lawn shaded with the

noblest trees in the garden. More struck with this spot than with any,

except about the large lake. First, two poplars of most astonishing

height, much larger than those in the avenue at Manheim. At their feet,

the light green spray foliage of these deciduous cypresses had a most

charming effect. Near the poplars, a lofty plane, but inferior in

height. Near this, a surprising Portugal laurel swept the ground, and

spread to a vast circumference; a very extraordinary tree for size.

Delighted with the steep green slope, the water and bridge below, the

abrupt woody banks opposite, and, above all, the grandeur of the shades.

Pass the bridge: on the right, the massy rocks of the cascade, but no

water; on the left, the water winding beyond the woody banks; a highly

tufted island, with a wooden building near its margin, very picturesque.

“Over a sofa, in the dining-room, a large family picture by Sir Joshua

Reynolds. The Duke seated, and turning to the Marquis of Blandford, when

a boy, with an air and countenance in which the nobleman and the good

man are blended; more pleasing and dignified than Romney’s portrait of

him. The Duchess, of pleasing countenance, and much sweetness in her

eyes. Of the children, the most striking is Lady Charlotte (Nares), five

or six years old, playfully holding a mask, and laughing behind it, as

she frightens her sister, who draws back in doubt and with some

apprehension but calmly. The figure of Lady C. has all the natural,

playful grace of a child, though the attitude is rather overstrained.

Vandyke’s portrait of Charles the First’s Queen is not so fine as his

picture of her in the domestic drawing-room at Warwick Castle.

“It is in the superior colours and expressive drawing of the tapestry,

that Blenheim chiefly excels the interior decorations of other great

mansions. That in the state room is from Brussels, and most exquisite;

presented by that city to the great Duke. It entirely covers the lofty

walls. Each compartment displays a different siege or battle, and the

distance, fading often into blue hills, is so finely shaded, that the

whole seems almost a living prospect, and that you might step into the

scene. The figures in the foreground are nearly as large as life, and

chiefly portraits: they are admirably grouped, and the action not only

spirited and natural, but often full of character. The Duke is always on

horseback, and has the same air of countenance—attentive and eager; the

features somewhat thin. The face of a French spy, under examination

before the Duke, is admirable; watchful, sedate, and firm. In the next

compartment is a very spirited figure of Lord Cadogan, on horseback, his

hat held off at arm’s length, receiving orders from the Duke. His

eagerness, proud submission, and impatience to be gone, while he bends

to listen, and can scarcely rein his impatient charger, are all

conspicuous. His faithful dog, that would be near him in every battle,

and that returned safe home at last, is waiting beside him.”

In June 1805, Mrs. Radcliffe went to see Belvedere House, the seat of

Lord Eardley. The following is an extract from her account of that

mansion.

“The park entrance from Lexden Heath is through a low, iron gate, beyond

which is seen the gravel road, winding like a path, among the turf,

under the stately branches of clumps of oak, &c. Neither the house, nor

any good prospect is visible here; but, as you advance along the elegant

plain of the park, a blue distance of the Essex hills appears beneath

the low-spread branches of oaks, where there is a seat; on the right,

the Grecian portico of the house, among the deep shades, which exclude

all other view. The entrance is to a light, elegant hall, or vestibule,

of French grey stucco, as are all the extensive passages of the house,

the floors covered with oilcloth, of a small pattern, in shades of blue.

On the right, through an ante-room of elegant simplicity, pass to a

dining-room; the walls of French grey; silk-moreen curtains, orange;

chocolate-coloured fringe. Over the door, two exquisite views of Venice,

by Canaletti; the Alchymist, Teniers, in a corner near the fire; then

Rembrandt (by himself), looking out of the picture, with a broad smile,

a coarse but arch countenance; Van Trump, the Dutch Admiral, a bluff

countenance, as if the habits of a seaman predominated over those of the

officer. After seeing several other very fine pictures here, pass some

smaller rooms and elegant passages to the red drawing-room, the finest

in the house; hung with crimson damask, bordered with gold; curtains and

chairs the same, and a most rich carpet, in crimson and black. A finely

stuccoed carved ceiling; a large bow-window looking upon the woods of

the park. In a shaded corner, near the chimney, a most exquisite Claude,

an evening view, perhaps over the Campagna of Rome. The sight of this

picture imparted much of the luxurious repose and satisfaction, which we

derive from contemplating the finest scenes of Nature. Here 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 felt 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 Italian music on

the air—the music of Paisiello; and such, doubtless, were the scenes

that inspired him. Passed into smaller rooms, and by the same elegant

lobbies, to the summer drawing-room, where the bowed window looks down

upon a noble sweep of the Thames, with the well-wooded sloping hills of

Essex in the distance. The noble simplicity of this long bend of the

Thames, and of the whole scene, is very striking. The eye passes

abruptly, between the hanging woods of two jutting eminences of the

park, to the green level below, which forms in front a perfect bow of

several miles. The woods near the house are so planted, as to conceal

the entrance and exit of the river upon the plains below, leaving

nothing of it visible but that line of perfect grace and grandeur which

it marks between the two green shores, while the vessels seem to steal

upon the scene, appearing and disappearing, on either hand, from behind

the woods. The dark verdure of these, the lighter green of the plain

beneath, the silver grey of the river that bounds it, the white sails

and various shades of the fleeting vessels, ships with clustering

top-gallant sails, sloops with the stretching and elegantly swelling

sails at their heads and above them, and skiffs, or other boats, with

their little spritsails, too often bending low:—these, with the hills of

Essex bending into bluish distance, form altogether a soothing harmony

of tints and objects.—Among other pictures that struck me, (especially

the family of Snyders, by Rubens,) was one of Wouvermans, representing

the dark gate of a fort, with cavaliers on war-horses, waiting

impatiently for admittance, their horses rearing and prancing; upon the

high, shadowing walls, shrubs appear against the light sky, and above

them is seen a high embankment, with a cannon pointed downwards, and

near it a tree, down which a man is hastily descending, as if he had

been overlooking a skirmish on the plains below, (not in view,) whence

the party without the gate seem to have made a precipitate retreat. They

are, perhaps, waiting till he has reported to the guard at the gate,

whether they are friends or enemies. The impatience for admittance of

those who think themselves likely to be pursued, the cautious

apprehension of those within the fort, and the unseen and doubtful

battle, hinted at by the man on the tree, render this a very interesting

picture.

“The grand staircase, by which we passed to the room over this, is

remarkable for its lightness and elegance. All its light is received

from a raised frame of glass, which crowns a most richly stuccoed roof,

that forms a broad border only round it. I was much struck with the

lightness, proportion, and elegance of this staircased hall, and indeed

with the numerous long passages of the house. In the family dining-room

the pictures are all portraits. One of the late Lady Eardley, when

young, is a profile of most exquisite sweetness.

‘Softness and sweetest innocence she wears,

And looks like Nature, in the world’s first bloom.’

Strong countenance of a tutor of Lord Eardley. No view, but of the Park,

from any of these rooms; nor from the library, opening by pillars from a

kind of ante-room, or vestibule. Before a cone at the upper end, is a

most noble mahogany library-table with drawers. Between the windows are

semicircular inlaid tables, with deep drawers for maps; some valuable

modern books, but no old ones. The art of giving effect to the finest

views, by permitting them to be seen only from the rooms whence they may

be observed without interruption and in their perfection, is carried

very far here; for, as you advance through the grounds to the house, the

eye is confined by the woods; and is suffered only once to catch a

glimpse of distance under the spreading shades, sufficient to touch the

imagination and excite expectation of a scene, whose grandeur and

simplicity, when at length it does appear, fully repays the impatience

of curiosity. We did not see the woody grounds extending very far along

the brow over the Thames, nor the tower of the Belvedere, nearly at the

extremity of them and on their highest point. This must look down

suddenly upon a new scene of the river, where it spreads into that broad

bay, whose eastern point projects opposite to the broken steeps of

Purfleet, and comprehends within its curve Erith, with its ivied church,

and the hills around it, varied with woods and villas, and whose western

point lies near the foot of this eminence, concealed by the woods. But

from a window of this lofty tower I doubt not the eye extends to

Gravesend in the east, and probably further. Its southern window must

look athwart the back of Shooter’s Hill to the Knockholt beeches on the

ridge near Seven-oaks; and its northern one over Epping Forest and a

great part of Essex. Wherever the wood-walks open, there must be a

glimpse of the river, and white sails gliding athwart the vista.”

In the autumn of 1807, Mr. and Mrs. Radcliffe visited Knole House for

the second time. The following is a small portion of Mrs. Radcliffe’s

reminiscences of the house, and especially of its pictures.

“We were astonished at the extent of this mansion, and at its vast

collection of portraits. Warwick Castle has the greatest number of

Vandyke’s pictures; Blenheim of Rubens’s; Knole of Holbein’s, with many

of Vandyke too. The old porter at the first gate had lived about the

spot fifty years; was there in the time of the late Duke’s grandfather:

those were grand times; the late Dukes were very good, but things had

got dearer then. When we were going, he desired Mr. R. to write our

names in the book, that my lord might have the _pleasure_ of seeing who

had been there.

* * * * *

At the upper end of the lofty and noble hall, where the high table

stood, is now a very large statue of Demosthenes, robed, with buskined

feet and a book or scrowl in his hand; the attitude composed; the

countenance expresses nothing of the energy and fire that characterize

his eloquence. It was bought by the late Duke in Italy, for seven

hundred pounds. The brown gallery is almost covered with portraits by

Holbein, the greatest assemblage of famous persons I ever saw. In the

little closet of entrance, the countenance of Giardini, the composer,

gives you the idea that he is listening to the long drawn notes of his

own violin. Holbein’s Erasmus, in the gallery, must be truth itself: the

keen and quick, small eye; the humorous, though serious smile; the thin,

finely-pointed, yet bending nose; the thin-drawn lips and chin, are all

exquisite. In a picture containing three portraits, that in the middle

is of Luther. His bluff, blunt, strong habits of expression; his

dauntless and persevering mind; his consciousness of the truth and

importance of his cause, and his resolution to maintain it, are well

expressed: strength and resolution in the chin. On his right is

Melancthon, reasoning, acute, amiable. On his left, Pomeranius; a

somewhat sly and monkish countenance. Queen Elizabeth and several of her

Court: Salisbury, civil, sagacious and fastidious; effeminate; very

fair: Burleigh, with a steady, penetrating, grey eye, high forehead,

with black hair; a cast of humour: Leicester, sturdy and crafty.

“Lord Surrey, the poet, young, thin and melancholy. No very fine

pictures in what is called Lady Betty Germain’s room, which looks

delightfully upon the green and stately alleys of the garden. High

state-bed; dingy white plumes crown the bed-posts. In the dressing-room

are three Earls of Dorset, and drawings by Titian and Michael Angelo. In

another room a state-bed, presented by James the First. In the

dressing-room, among many fine pictures, is one of Sir Theodore Mayerne,

physician to James the First, and to two of his successors, by Vandyke:

he is seated in an armchair, and his right hand rests on a human skull;

his own head is grey, and he looks at you with a mild and sensible

countenance, turned a little towards his left shoulder; the fading look

of age, without actual weakness.

“In the great dining-room below, Hoppner’s copy of his portrait of Mr.

Pitt, a strong, and, I think, not a flattering likeness. Fletcher,

intelligent, thoughtful, and tender; brown complexion, acute black eyes.

Beaumont, florid, with light blue eyes; of an open, cheerful, handsome

countenance. Near the windows is a group of portraits, painted by Sir

Joshua Reynolds, with one of himself, in the midst of these his familiar

friends, now all dead. On his right is Doctor Johnson, drawn

bareheaded—a severe deduction from the harmonies of any frame: it is

nearly a profile; intense thought and anxiety press down the benevolent

brow. On the left is Goldsmith, painted in the same style, a strong

countenance, but of very different expression; coarse; the eyebrow’s not

bent, like Johnson’s, firmly and evenly over the eyes, but only towards

the nose; the other end highly hoisted, as if with caprice; unpleasing

countenance; nothing of the goodness of Johnson. Garrick, with a most

pleasant and living look, piercing eyes fixed upon you, with perfect

ease and kindness, as he leans with both arms on a table; older than the

portraits I have seen. Burke, vulgarized by Opie. Betterton, the actor,

manly, sensible face. Pope, old, wrinkled, spectre-like. Swift, gentle

in comparison with Pope. Otway, heavy, squalid, unhappy; yet tender

countenance, but not so squalid as one we formerly saw; full, speaking,

black eyes; it seems as if dissolute habits had overcome all his finer

feelings, and left him little of mind, except a sense of sorrow. Dryden,

in his velvet cap, younger than usual. Addison, mild. Waller, thinner

and older than usual, with scarce a spark of his fire left, but still a

courtier-like gentleman.

“In a small, domestic parlour, leading into the book-room, is that fine

picture of Lord Gowrie and Vandyke, by the latter; the finest portrait I

ever saw, except one of Rubens, by himself, at Buckingham House, and

another at Warwick, in the cabinet that terminates the long suite of

staterooms.

“In a blue room, a domestic drawing-room, Lord Whitworth, a shrewd and

comely man of the world, with spirited and penetrating grey eyes; an

expressive but somewhat clouded brow. The Duchess, in a black velvet

riding habit, with a hat and feather, by Opie; a pleasing picture: you

do not think of her in this portrait as of the Duchess, which is the

object of one in the drawing-room, but as of a happy wife and a

good-natured, sensible woman; a little too much care in the attitude.

“In one room a head of Louis the Fourteenth, all flutter and fume.

“The rooms are so numerous and the suites of them so long, that, though

I have seen them twice, I could not now find my way through them, and

cannot even recollect them all. All the principal rooms look upon the

garden, with its lawns and lofty shades. Scarcely a spot of brown earth

is visible: so many various tints of green; the trees sometimes bending

their branches down to the shrubs and flowers.

“In the Park, abounding with noble beech groves, is one, on the left of

the road leading to the house, which, for mass and overtopping pomp,

excels even any in Windsor Park, when viewed as you descend from the

Park gate, whence shade rises above shade, with amazing and magnificent

grandeur. In this mass of wood is one beech, that stretches upwards its

grey limbs among the light, feathery foliage to a height and with a

majesty that is sublime. Over a seat, placed round the hole, it spreads

out a light yet umbrageous fan, most graceful and beautiful. With all

its grandeur and luxuriance, there is nothing in this beech heavy or

formal; it is airy, though vast and majestic, and suggests an idea at

once of the strength and fire of a hero! I should call a beech-tree—and

this beech above every other—the hero of the forest, as the oak is

called the king.”

In the autumn of 1811, Mrs. Radcliffe went again to Portsmouth and the

Isle of Wight. The following extracts bear but a small proportion to her

entire journal of this little tour.—“Passed through Bere Forest, on the

right, with many seats and woods and spires, around. Almost dusk. An

horizon of glowing crimson lay behind the woods on the right, where the

sun had set. Delightful to catch the different saffron, crimson, or

fiery tints among the purple streaks. All the prospect lay in sullen

twilight from Portsdown Hill, and it was quite dark when we reached

Portsmouth. Could just discern the high rampart walks, with trees,

before we rambled under the deep, fortified gateway of Portsea. Went to

the George Inn, a very large handsome house, with many galleries and

staircases. Handsome furniture and excellent accommodation, except that

you could get nothing when you wanted it. We had fish brought without

plates, and then plates without bread. All this owing to a vast throng

of company, two hundred vessels or more being detained by winds, besides

many ships of war. Nothing but ringing of bells and running about of

waiters. If you ask a waiter a question, he begins a civil answer, but

shuts the door before you have heard it all. It was very diverting to

hear the different tones and measure of the ringings, particularly about

supper time, and the next day about five, when every body happened to be

dining at one and the same time, to hear them all ringing together, or

in quick succession, in different keys and measure, according to the

worn out, or better, patience of the ringer. These different keys

enabled me to distinguish how often each bell was rung before it was

answered; also the increasing impatience of the ringer, till, at the

third, or fourth summons, the bell was in a downright passion. There was

a mischievous amusement in this, after we had gone through the delay

ourselves, and had gotten what we wanted. Such life and bustle is

inspiriting, for a little while. Before supper, we had been down to the

platform, over the sea. All was indistinct and vast; the comet high, but

no moon; calm. Heard the falling of the tide—monotonous, not

grand—cannon all around and sentinels; some old seamen.

“Oct. 11.—Cloudy, with silver gleams. In the afternoon, sailed in the

packet for Ryde. The wind being contrary, though moderate, we were two

hours and a half on our passage; had a delightful sail, festooning among

all the fleet at Spithead. A passenger asked ‘What brig is that?’ as we

passed a man-of-war. A midshipman, who leaned over the side, made no

answer. ‘What brig is that, sir?’—‘The Rover.’ Every body admired this

vessel. Two ships of 100 guns, one of 74, and many of other degrees of

force. It was a grand and glorious sight, this anchored fleet, at

various distances on the gleaming waves, some in shadow, others upon

long lines of distant light, of coldest silver. Among other passengers

were two Missionaries going to Sierra Leone in the brig Minerva,

belonging to Mr. Macaulay: the eldest Wilhelm, a German, the younger a

Persian; modest, sedate, well-intentioned men; had some knowledge of

Greek; one of them was taking his wife with him. The captain of their

ship, on board, seemed to be a good sort of German. Another captain of a

trading ship was a passenger, Captain Reynolds, going to his ship, the

Crescent, bound for the Mediterranean: a plain, steady, grave seaman, of

the old stamp; good sense, with a pious tender heart. Said he had

carried, or that he was then about to carry, several hundred copies of

the New Testament in the modern Greek, to be distributed under the

direction of agents of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Captain

——, a Cornish man, going to his ship, the Commerce. These two captains

had met “on strands afar remote,” and now, by accident, on board this

packet. One of them accosted the other with an apology for some apparent

inattention at Malta, where they had last parted—his ship having been

“so far to leeward.” They talked of parts of Smyrna, Constantinople, and

other ports beyond the Straights, as familiarly as they could of London

or Bristol. Mr. W——, a London merchant, having a seat somewhere in the

west, a tall thin man, about sixty, with a florid face and white hair;

an unassuming well-bred man. The captain of the packet, formerly a

pilot, had a keen, steady, dark eye, with a brow low-bent, from

attention to distant objects, and a countenance quick and firm, that

seemed to say he was master of his business, and proud of it.

“Landed at Ryde, after a fine sail, through a grand and interesting

scene.

“Oct. 15.—After a foggy night, a clear and cloudless day, with the

warmth of June. At Steephill; saw the skirts of the fog clearing up the

steeps of Boniface, like a curtain, and the sea below brightening from

misty grey into it’s soft blue, and the whole horizon gradually

clearing, till all was cheerful warmth and sunshine, about ten o’clock.

About twelve, we set off to walk to the Signal-house, on the highest

steep of Boniface, not visible near the house, nor indeed till we had

gone a long way, being on the eastern side of the down. Followed the

steep Newport road, for a mile or two; looked down on the vast sea-line,

and on the huge promontories and broken rocks of the Undercliffe. Then,

leaving the road, turned into a field on the right, with heathy steeps

and downs, that would have been capped with clouds, had there been any.

The air keen, and the climate considerably different from that below.

The views astonishing and grand in a high degree. From these ridges we

looked down, on one side, over the whole interior of the island: but the

sublime view was that to the south; where, as we seemed perched on an

extreme point of the world, we looked immediately down on hills and

cliffs of various height and form, tumbled in confusion, as if by an

earthquake, and stretching into the sea, which spreads its vast

circumference beyond, and its various shades of blue. This soft blue,

thus spreading below us, was, in general, deeper than that of the

cloudless sky; and the sky itself was paler at the horizon than high

above, appearing there like the dawn of light, and deepening as the arch

ascended. This might be the effect of vapour, drawn up from the sea.

Found our way at length over nearly trackless furze and heath, to the

Signal-house, which looks down on the steeps of Boniface, and the rocks

of Bonchurch, and over to the sweep of Sandown Bay, then all over

Brading Harbour and the long coast of Sussex, which, in clear weather,

may be seen as far as Beachy Head.

“In returning, we endeavoured to follow a path down the steeps near

Bonchurch, and to find some steps, cut in the precipice, by which to

descend. The look down upon the shores and sea tremendous—steeps below

steeps, to the surge beating and whitening below all. Followed, for

some time without dizziness, till we lost our little track, and saw

all around and beneath us scarcely any thing but pathless

descents—tremendous. From the fear of coming to some impracticable

steep in this wild descent and being unable to find the hewn steps, we

re-ascended to the Signal-house, and so returned home. The sea a

desert, except that a fine frigate sailed majestically at a distance,

and one brig was also in sight.

“How sweet is the cadence of the distant surge! It seemed, as we sat in

our inn, as if a faint peal of far-off bells mingled with the sounds on

shore, sometimes heard, sometimes lost: the first note of the beginning,

and last of the falling peal, seeming always the most distinct. This

resounding of the distant surge on a rocky shore might have given

Shakspeare his idea when he makes Ferdinand, in the Tempest, hear,

amidst the storm, bells ringing his father’s dirge; a music which Ariel

also commemorates, together with the sea-wave:—

‘Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell,

Ding, dong, bell!’

“This chiming of the surge is when the tide is among the rocks, and the

wind, blowing from the sea, bears and softens all the different notes of

the waves to a distance, in one harmonious cadence; as in a concert,

your distance from the orchestra blends the different instruments into a

richer and softer harmony.”

From several walks in the neighbourhood of Steephill, we select the

following:—

“Passed Lord Dysart’s beautiful cottage. It stands at some distance from

the shore, and has several distinct roofs, well thatched: a large

conservatory stands on a winding lawn, with a fine beech grove and a

long and richly coloured copse, bending along down, and afterwards along

the feet of cliffs below. The crimson berries of the hawthorn gave

exquisite tints to this coppice, among the brown and various shades of

the autumnal woods, and appeared in abundance every where among the

trees and wild shrubs of the whole Undercliffe. The little church of St.

Lawrence, perhaps the smallest in England, stands on a knoll, and

terminates the cultivated valley; immediately beyond which, we entered

upon a scene of extreme wildness, grandeur and solitude. Many of the

ruinous precipices of the upper cliffs project in horizontal strata, yet

have perpendicular rents. Some of the shattered masses give most clear

echoes: we stood before one, which repeated every syllable of several

passages from the most sonorous languages, with an exactness of tone

that was truly astonishing. It seemed as if a living spirit was in the

rock, so near, so loud, and so exact! ‘Speak to it, Horatio!’ I could

have listened to it for hours. How solemn is the voice of cliffs and

seas! How great the style of Nature! how expressive! ‘Speak to the

rock!’ and again it gave every word, as if in sport or imitation, but

with truth itself. How long had it slumbered in silence? We returned by

the course we had come, the yellow sun lighting up seas and shores with

the warmth of May, and the birds singing every where.

“Oct. 19.—Left Steephill. Sailed from Cowes in the Southampton packet,

about half past five; the Naiad frigate lying before the town. What

particularly struck me in the passage was, not only the sun actually

appearing to set in the sea, but the splendid amber light, left upon

that long level perspective of waters, and the vessels upon it at

various distances, seeming dark on this side, and marking out its extent

to the eye. The grace and majesty of an anchored ship, too, lying with

her stern to the eye, though at less distance, is indescribable; showing

all her shrouds and yards lessening, like a pyramid, as they rise upon

the light. How tranquil and grand the scene lay, beneath the gradually

deepening shade! Still the dark shores and stately vessels kept their

dignity upon the fading waters. How impressive the silence, and then how

according the solemn strain, that died upon the waves from unseen and

distant bugles, like a song of peace to the departing day! Another of

those measured portions that make up our span of life, was gone; every

one who gazed upon this scene, proud or humble, was a step nearer to the

grave—yet none seemed conscious of it. The scene itself, great,

benevolent, sublime—powerful, yet silent in its power—progressive and

certain in its end, steadfast and full of a sublime repose: the scene

itself spoke of its CREATOR.”

In this year Mrs. Radcliffe visited Penshurst. From some very extensive

notes upon this ancient seat of the Sydneys, we extract the following:—

“As we drew near, the woods began to thin; and an old latticed wooden

gate showed one entrance into a park, now in ruins, for the grass is

tall, scanty, and intermingled with taller fern. No deer appeared on the

rusty lawns, or under the scattered trees, or decaying groves, of this

once rich domain. Penshurst lies in a small valley of its own, that

hangs upon the ridge of hills which form the southern boundary of the

grand valley overlooked from Riverhill. All its heights are hung with

its own woods, which shut out every distant prospect from the house,

except from the turrets; and even from these, at least from the one I

climbed, the view is not extensive; but it is a pleasing scene, with

here and there an intermingled spire and ancient mansion. After

following for a considerable time the paling of this extensive park, an

elderly woman admitted us to it through the chief gate, and the ancient

mansion immediately appeared over a rough lawn, surrounded with groves.

The house is much in the style of Knole, but more irregular, and not of

half the size. It is of brick and rough stone, with now a tower, and now

a turret; high lozenge chimneys, an embattled wall, and, above all, the

long peaked roof of the great hall. In the court, over the arched

portal, is a row of five shields of the family arms, in stone. The great

hall is on the opposite side: it is grand, but gloomy, showing the dark

rafters of the roof; the tall, pointed windows below shed but a subdued

light on the pavement, which is of brick. The rafters have been

blackened by the fires of two centuries, lighted on the centre of the

pavement, where the bricks, raised half a foot, form a small octagon, on

which, perhaps, Sir Philip Sydney and the knights his companions have

often stood round the blazing fagots, piled upon the same iron dogs, of

enormous size, that still remain there. I think I see, in glimpses, the

strong blaze of the wood flashing on their visages. The armour of Sir

Philip himself, with helm (the vizor closed), stands at the back of an

obscure gallery, and close beneath a high window, whose small frames

admit a blunted, melancholy light. It stands like a spectre in arms,

watching over the scene it once inhabited; and is admirably placed to

touch the imagination, but not to gratify curiosity, its distance being

considerable. A partial light, thrown more strongly on the head, would

give it very fine effect. It is best seen from one of the doors, that

open from the raised step at the upper end of the hall, where the high

table stood.

“The hall being so lofty as to seem shorter than it should be, and than

it really is, one of the late owners, to remedy this defect, had a

painted perspective placed at one end—a most unsuitable expedient in so

great and simple a scene; but the drawings of knights in armour, larger

than life, between the windows, are well done. Several very rudely

carved wooden images, now whitened and probably brought from some other

part of the house, are placed in front of the gallery, as if looking

over the railing.

“Mrs. Perry, the grandmother of the present Mr. Sydney, who changed his

name from Shelley, was a niece of Sydney, Earl of Leicester, and

co-heiress with her sister, Lady Howard, of the Penshurst estates. The

old housekeeper, who attended us, lamented much that Mr. Sydney did not

now live here, but hoped to see him return. She had been all her life on

the spot, and told us what fine times she remembered when _Lady_ Perry

used to drive to the gate in a coach and six, and come down with such ‘a

sight of servants.’ All the tenants used to come to meet her, and ‘_we

girls_’ (the speaker was a grandmother) used to stand all in a row to

meet her. Such noble liveries! and then the poor woman shook her head,

and bustled about, with emotion. The bells were a ringing all day, and

there were such goings on. ‘Was she _Lady_ Perry?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ rather

sharply, as if astonished that we could doubt it. ‘Was she a _Lady_ by

birth?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ more sharply, ‘she _was_ a Lady indeed.’ She led us

down a modernized winding staircase into a small hall in the chief part

of the mansion, opening into the garden. We passed a fine Gothic window,

that gives light to it, having painted shields of arms; among them Queen

Elizabeth’s. From the great dining-parlour, a staircase leads past many

rooms lined with oak panels, worm-eaten; among them the nursery, which

the housekeeper pointed out, with a strong regret of _old times_—not

those of Sir Philip Sydney, but of Lady Perry. And there were the

children’s playthings; there they were all—with some sighs. As I

humoured her, she began, in the midst of her regrets, to apologize for

her dress, and to lament that she had not had time to appear better. ‘Do

the stairs near the nursery lead to the top of the turret?’—‘I don’t

know, ma’am, but I’ll see.’ I followed to the small platform, and looked

over the battlements upon the wood and the valley. The view was

pleasing, but not impressive, or extensive.

“She led us through the great hall, to see the kitchen; one suitable to

such a hall, with a lofty, raftered roof, enormous chimney, and long old

tables of oak, not nearly so thick as those in the hall at Coventry.

Here the good woman was at the climax of her regrets, and she shook her

head and sighed often. ‘It is a dismal place now, and what do I remember

it in _Lady_ Perry’s time! I remember, when all them hooks,’ pointing to

rows of them that run, at a great height, over the wide and lofty

chimney piece and round the roof, ‘were hung with sides of bacon; ay, I

ha’ seen them all hung with bacon. And here was such a sight of servants

running about, some one way, some another.’ She then reverted to Lady

P.’s coach and six, and the rejoicings that were to take place when she

came down, and ‘_we girls_ used to stand all in a row.’ In short, one

would have thought that nobody had ever lived in this mansion but Lady

Perry. As to Sir Philip and the rest of the Sydneys, they were never

thought of when she spoke of _old times_—a neglect which at first

somewhat embarrassed me, who thought of them and old times as

inseparable. She took us into a smaller kitchen, to show us the stoves

and the iron plates, on which, in her old times, teacakes and crumpets

were baked, and related, with pride, that she used to assist in turning

them.”

In October 1812, Mrs. Radcliffe visited Malvern. The following is her

note of her walk to the summit of the hills:—

“Oct. 21, 1812.—Having slept at the Foley Arms hotel, an excellent inn,

delightfully situated, we walked out, about eleven, hoping to reach the

highest point of the Malvern Hills. By the zigzag turf-path, we reached

the little Well-house, where we came upon the wild turf, and began to

ascend the higher steeps of a mountain. The hoary crags, in vast masses,

looked out from among the brown and red tints of the autumnal fern, and

from the green earth, but the crags ceased below the summits, which were

smooth and still green. Our view here commanded the vast expanse to the

eastward, which we had seen from the inn; but we now saw over the broad

Breedon hill, which there bounded the horizon in one direction; and many

lines were now visible beyond it. This view is great and comprehensive,

but not sublime; the elevation reducing the importance of other heights,

so that no single object remains sufficiently striking, either in form

or character, to arrest attention, and break the uniform harmony of that

rich and woody scene, the vale of the Severn, whose waters were visible

only here and there, in little glimmering threads of light. At the

summit, we could just discern them near Bristol, rolling in greater

breadth. From the Well-house, we soon reached a good winding path, cut

in the turf, which led us round one mountain, overlooking other craggy

or green steeps of Malvern, till we caught a first glimpse of

Herefordshire and of the hills of South Wales, over the ridge, to the

west. They were more distant, and less broken and individual, than I had

hoped, but grand notwithstanding. Having, at length, turned into a sort

of intrenchment, which runs up to the summit, and divides Worcestershire

and Herefordshire, we walked in this securely, and with some little

shelter from the winds, till we reached the highest point of Malvern,

and beheld a vast horizon circling at our feet. Thirteen counties are

said to be visible from this summit, which overlooks the other heights

of Malvern. It is indeed a defect in the scene, that there are no other

supereminent heights, except those which are too distant to have a fully

impressive effect. Even Breedon hill, that broad feature in the vale of

the Severn, was here too much lowered. Towns and villages were often

distinguishable chiefly by the wreaths of smoke that spread from them

along the vale, but sometimes by the broad tower of a church. On a more

intent view, white mansions and woody parks would frequently appear; and

rich meadows, hedge-rows and groves filled the vale, ascended to the

hills of other counties, and often spread over their summits too. Few of

the mountains of South Wales were sharp, or very bold, at this distance.

On this side of them, the square mass of the tower of Hereford Cathedral

was perceivable; and, far more southward, the high, level downs of

Clifton. Bristol itself is sometimes seen hence. The broad Gloucester

hills—the Cotswolds—and the city of Gloucester, with its noble

cathedral, are in the nearer vale. From this spot, we could distinguish,

merely by turning round, three great cities, with their

cathedrals—Gloucester, Worcester, and Hereford, to say nothing of the

fine abbey-church of Tewksbury. The tower of Malvern church, once a

priory-church, is also a venerable feature in the scene. One of the most

striking circumstances was the vast sweep of shadows and lights thrown

from the clouds over this great prospect. The mottled expanse of moving

lights over the surface of the wide vale sometimes resembled the billows

of a sea, on which you look down from some lofty cliff. The lights

brought out the villages and mansions on the knolls of Herefordshire

surprisingly; and many are most charmingly seated.”

Mrs. Radcliffe was particularly interested by Kenilworth Castle, and

spent much time in exploring its history after she had visited its

ruins. The subject struck her imagination; and in the winter of 1802,

she wrote the tale of Gaston de Blondeville, now for the first time

given to the world. After this, she undertook no work of magnitude, but

occasionally employed her leisure in composing poems, from which a

selection has been made for these volumes. In Romance, she probably felt

that she had done enough; and, feeling it impossible to surpass her

“Mysteries of Udolpho” and her “Italian,” declined again to subject

herself to criticism by publication. Though gratified by a sense of the

enjoyment she had provided for multitudes, and justly proud of the

honest and blameless means by which it was produced, she rarely alluded

to her novels. At first, the sums she received, though not necessary,

were welcome; but, as her pecuniary resources became more ample, she was

without sufficient excitement to begin on an extended romance, though,

had the first effort been made, the pursuit must have been delightful.

Even Gaston de Blondeville was not intended for the press, and, having

amused herself and her husband, was laid aside, so disinclined had she

become to publication.

It is curious that several years after this tale was written, Mrs.

Radcliffe, having forgotten many of the incidents, perused it with

nearly the same interest as if it had been the production of a stranger.

It was again laid aside; and in the latter part of life she repeated the

experiment, but it did not absorb her attention as before, the former

perusal having stamped the contents on her memory.

Secluded as Mrs. Radcliffe was from the world, she was tremblingly alive

to every circumstance which could, by the remotest possibility, raise an

inference injurious to the personal character she valued far above

literary fame; and, as nothing could induce her to appear before the

public in any sort of contention, every thing of this nature preyed long

upon her mind. She was much affected by a passage of Miss Seward’s

correspondence, which seemed, to her apprehensive feelings, to convey an

imputation that she had allowed the dramas afterwards avowed by Miss

Baillie to be attributed to her pen. Miss Seward in one of her letters

dated May 21, 1799, after mentioning the plays, gave the following

quotation from a letter of “her literary friend and correspondent Mrs.

Jackson”—“Before their author was known, I observed so much of the power

and defects of Mrs. Radcliffe’s compositions in these dramas, as to

believe them hers, and I hear she owns them. Mrs. Radcliffe, in whatever

she writes, attentive solely to the end, is not sufficiently attentive

to observe probability in the means she uses to attain it. She bends her

plan—or, if it will not bend, she breaks it, to her catastrophe, by

making it grow out of the preceding events. Still she always takes hold

of the reader’s feelings, and effects her purpose boldly if not

regularly. Her descriptive talent, used to satiety in her novels, is

here employed with more temperance, and consequently to better purpose.”

The imputation thus conveyed was, perhaps, implicitly removed by two

letters of a few months later date; in one of which Miss Seward,

speaking of the Plays on the Passions, says, “My literary friends now

assert that they are not Mrs. Radcliffe’s;” and in the other, “The

literary world now asserts, that the Plays on the Passions are not Mrs.

Radcliffe’s;” for, if Mrs. Radcliffe had really owned them, it is

scarcely probable the literary world could so soon have discredited her

acknowledgment, while the real author remained unknown. This implied

vindication from a charge, which perhaps no one ever regarded, was not

sufficient for Mrs. Radcliffe’s delicate sense of propriety and honour.

She made inquiries after Mrs. Jackson, the lady mentioned as Miss

Seward’s informant, in order that she might trace out the origin of her

rumour. Having learned that Mrs. Jackson, after residing at Bath, had

removed to Edinburgh, she requested Mr. Davies, of the firm of Cadell

and Davies, who had ample opportunities of procuring information

respecting the literary society of Edinburgh, to ascertain if Mrs.

Jackson was still in that city. In the result of these inquiries it

appeared, that the lady, to whom the report was ascribed, had left

Edinburgh; that her residence was unknown; and that she was not even

supposed to be living. Under these circumstances, Mrs. Radcliffe was

obliged to leave her vindication (as, in truth, she safely might) to the

tenor of her whole literary course; for no one ever felt, or expressed,

more repugnance to factitious praise, or more strenuously declined to

avail herself of the warmth of private regard in softening the rigour of

criticism. The prayer of the poet, “O grant an honest fame, or grant me

none!” was the language of all her actions. She even took pains to

prevent some, who, she knew, were desirous of expressing their sense of

her genius, from writing eulogies on her works, as she could not endure

the conscious degradation of being exalted even by the genial quackery

of friendship. It is scarcely necessary now to assert, that the

supposition of her having laid claim to the authorship of the Plays on

the Passions, or voluntarily endured the ascription of those powerful

compositions to her pen, was utterly groundless. Rich as these works are

in passion, and richer in fancy, they could not tempt the author of the

Mysteries of Udolpho, even if she had not been restrained by any higher

feeling than pride, to claim them—not because they would have been

unworthy of her, if she had written them, but because the secret sense

of merited reputation must alone have created a distaste for eulogies

which she did not deserve. Anxious as Mrs. Radcliffe was to repel the

suggestion, she felt that, as she could not discover its author, it

would not become her to intrude on Miss Baillie a denial of the report,

which she had not sanctioned; and the same susceptible delicacy, which

made her feel it so deeply, compelled her to bear it in silence. The

subject, which was always painful to her, is rather now alluded to as an

instance of the singular apprehensiveness of her moral sense, than as at

all required for the vindication of her character.

Another circumstance, of a more trivial nature, gave her uneasiness,

though in a less degree. In one of the published letters of the late

Mrs. Carter, was a passage of a eulogistic nature, alluding to her

works; and to this a note was appended by the editor, showing that “Mrs.

Carter had no personal acquaintance with Mrs. Radcliffe.” This statement

was literally true; but to her sensitive nature it seemed to bear the

construction, that the excellent lady referred to would have avoided her

acquaintance. The fact, indeed, was exactly the reverse; for, in the

spring of 1799, Mrs. Carter sent to Mrs. Radcliffe a letter of

introduction from a lady of high respectability at Bath, and proposed by

note to wait on her on the following day; but Mrs. Radcliffe, being

engaged to leave town in the morning with her husband, whose health

required country air, was obliged respectfully to decline the intended

honour. The correspondence appeared in the Annual Biography for 1824,

with a short Memoir of Mrs. Radcliffe; and produced from Dr. Pennington,

the writer of the note, a most handsome letter, in which he earnestly

disclaimed even the slightest idea of disrespect to Mrs. Radcliffe,

stating that he was not aware of the little correspondence, or he would

have mentioned it with pleasure. Dr. Pennington also avows, not merely

with candour, but cordially, the admiration and personal respect, with

which Mrs. Carter thought and spoke of Mrs. Radcliffe.

With more reason, Mrs. Radcliffe was amazed at an absurd report, that,

haunted by the images of fear, with which she had thrilled her readers,

she had sunk into a state of mental alienation. A more unphilosophical

foundation for an untruth was never imagined; for it is obvious, that

through all her works she holds entire mastery over the terrors which

she employs, and even sedulously prepares the means of explaining them

by natural causes. It seems, however, that the authoress of a Tour

through England, in noticing the Duke of Rutland’s venerable and

romantic seat, called Haddon House, asserted that it was there that Mrs.

Radcliffe acquired her taste for castles and ancient buildings, and

proceeded to lament that she had, for many years, fallen into a state of

insanity, and was under confinement in Derbyshire:—the fact being, not

only that the main assertion was false, but that all its accompaniments

were destitute of foundation;—for Mrs. Radcliffe was only in Derbyshire

on two occasions, for a few days each, after her marriage, and never saw

Haddon House at all. This report, the falsehood of which might have been

ascertained by the authoress, on a reference to her own publisher, was

copied in a larger work of more recent date; and to complete the

fiction, a plate and description of Haddon House, as the scene of Mrs.

Radcliffe’s early impressions, were annexed by way of illustration. It

also supplied materials for poetry; as in an “Ode to Terror,” with other

effusions, published by a clergyman in 1810, Mrs. Radcliffe is bemoaned,

as having died in that species of mental derangement called “the

horrors.” Some of these rumours reached her; but she could not endure

the thought of writing in the newspapers that she was not insane; and,

at last, learned to smile at the pity of those, who thought her in

confinement, and the charity of others, who had kindly permitted her to

find a release in death from her supposed intellectual sufferings.

While the fate of the authoress of Udolpho was thus considered by the

world as sealed, she was enjoying her wonted recreations and studies,

with entire relish. As, however, curiosity was satiated with exploring

all the finest country within 100 miles of London, and she became more

attached to the comforts of home, she contracted the sphere of her

excursions. Instead of making journeys of length, Mr. and Mrs. Radcliffe

hired a carriage for the summer months, in which they were accustomed to

make frequent trips to beautiful spots in the neighbourhood of London,

where they dined and spent the day at some good inn, and returned in the

evening. Esher, Stanmore, Richmond, Southgate, and Harrow, were their

favourite places of resort, especially the latter, where they chose the

room, not the largest, but which commands the richest prospect, and

where Crawley Wood, near Ashridge, could be often distinctly seen. Mrs.

Radcliffe also was much attached to St. Alban’s, the antiquities of

which she explored with unwearied zeal, and the historical dignity of

which she has vindicated in her longest poem. From 1812 to 1815

inclusive, she passed much time at Windsor and its neighbourhood, and

formed an intimate acquaintance with all the recesses of its forest.

“She knew each lane, and every alley green,

Dingle or bushy dell of those old woods,

And every bosky bower from side to side.”

She often vividly described the beautiful spots of this regal domain.

There was scarcely a tree of importance, with the peculiar form of which

she was not familiar, and the varieties of whose aspect in light and

shade she could not picture in words. With reference to their age and to

the analogy she fancied to the lines of monarchs, with which they might

be coeval, she described the trees separately as Plantagenet oaks, Tudor

beeches, or Stuart elms. At this time, she expressed her feelings in

verse, rather than in prose, and the reader will find them chronicled in

several of her poems. One night-scene on the terrace, however, deserves

to be inserted; and may be compared with the descriptions of castellated

heights, which abound in her novels.

“We stood in the shade on the north terrace, where a platform projects

over the precipice, and beheld a picture perfect in its kind. The massy

tower at the end of the east terrace stood up high in shade; but

immediately from behind it the moonlight spread, and showed the flat

line of wall at the end of that terrace, with the figure of a sentinel

moving against the light, as well as a profile of the dark precipice

below. Beyond it, was the park and a vast distance, in the faint light,

which spread over the turf, touched the avenues, and gave fine contrast

to the deep shades of the wooded precipice, on which we stood, and to

the whole line of buildings, which rise on the north terrace. Above this

high dark line the stars appeared with a very sublime effect. No sound

but the faint clinking of the soldier’s accoutrements, as he paced on

watch, and the remote voices of people turning the end of the east

terrace, appearing for a moment in the light there and vanishing. In a

high window of the tower a light. Why is it so sublime to stand at the

foot of a dark tower, and look up its height to the sky and the stars?

“What particularly strikes at Windsor is the length of terrace in the

east, thus seen by moonlight; the massy towers, four in perspective; the

lights and shades of the park below, the obscure distance beyond them,

the low and wide horizon, which you seem to look upon, the grandeur of

the heavenly arch, which appears to spring from it, and the multitude of

stars, which are visible in so vast and uninterrupted a view. Then the

north terrace stretching and finally turning away from them towards the

west, where high dark towers crown it. It was on this terrace, surely,

that Shakspeare received the first hint of the time for the appearance

of his ghost.—

‘Last night of all,

When yon same star that westward from the Pole

Had made his course to illume that part of heaven

Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,

The bell then beating one——’”

From inclination, Mrs. Radcliffe was minutely attentive to her household

affairs, probably thinking with Schiller, that, after all, one of the

best enjoyments of life arises from the exact performance of some

mechanical duty. Although by no means disposed to parsimony, she kept an

exact account of daily disbursements, until a very short time before her

death. Much of her leisure was spent in reading the literary productions

of the day, especially poetry and novels. Of the latter works she always

spoke with an entire freedom from jealousy, and devoured the earlier

Scotch novels with all the avidity of youth, although she felt deeply a

slighting expression in “Waverley,” towards herself, which the author

might have spared. Sir Walter Scott has, however, made ample amends to

her reputation by his elaborate criticism prefixed to Ballantine’s

edition of her romances. To music she was passionately attached, and

sang herself with exquisite taste, though her voice, remarkably sweet,

was limited in compass. At the Opera she was a frequent visitor, and on

her return home would sit up singing over the airs she had heard, which

her quickness of ear enabled her to catch, till a late hour. She was

peculiarly affected by sacred music, and occasionally went to the

oratorios, when they afforded her the opportunity of listening to the

compositions of Handel. She sometimes, though more rarely, accompanied

Mr. Radcliffe to the theatres; and was a warm admirer of Mrs. Siddons,

whom she recollected at Bath, when herself was young. She used to speak

with much pleasure of having seen this great actress, before the

commencement of her splendid career in London, going to Church with her

little son Henry, and was struck by her exceeding dignity and grace.

When she visited the theatre, Mrs. Radcliffe generally sat in the pit,

partly because her health required warm clothing, and partly because, in

that situation, she felt more withdrawn from the observation she

disliked. She was fond of listening to any good verbal sounds, and would

often desire to hear passages from the Latin and Greek classics,

requiring at intervals the most literal translations, that could be

given, however much the version might lose in elegance by the exactness.

During the last twelve years of her life, Mrs. Radcliffe suffered at

intervals from a spasmodic asthma, which occasioned a general loss of

health, and called for the unwearied attentions of her affectionate

husband. In the hope of obtaining relief, she visited Ramsgate in the

autumn of 1822, and, deriving benefit from the air, recurred to her old

habit of noting down her impressions of scenery. The following is the

last she ever wrote.

“Ramsgate, Saturday morning, Oct. 19, 1822.—Stormy day, rain without

sun, except that early a narrow line of palest silver fell on the

horizon, showing, here and there, distant vessels on their course. Ships

riding in the Downs, exactly on the sea-line, over the entrance into the

harbour, opposite to our windows, were but dim and almost shapeless

hints of what they were. Many vessels, with sails set, making for the

port; pilot-boats rowed out of the harbour to meet them; the tide

rolling in, leaving the foaming waves at its entrance, where vessels of

all kinds, from ships to fishing-boats, appeared in succession, at short

intervals, dashing down among the foam, and rushing into the harbour.

The little black boats around them often sunk so low in the surge, as to

be invisible for a moment. This expansive harbour, encircled by the

noble piers, might be considered as a grand theatre, of which the

entrance and the sea beyond were the stage, the two pier-heads the

portals, the plain of the harbour the pit, and the houses at the end of

it the front boxes. This harbour was not now, as some hours since,

flooded with a silver light, but grey and dull, in quiet contrast with

the foaming waves at its entrance. The horizon thickened, and the scene

around seemed to close in; but the vessels, as they approached, though

darker, became more visible and distinct, the sails half-set, some

nearly whole set. They all kept away a little to the westward of the

west pier, the wind south-west, then changed their course, and dashed

round the light-house pier-head, tossing the foam high about them, some

pitching head foremost, as if going to the bottom, and then rolling

helplessly, and reeling in, settled in still waters. A lofty tide.”

Although the health of Mrs. Radcliffe was improved by this excursion,

she was much affected by the severe cold in the beginning of the ensuing

winter. On the ninth of January, 1823, another attack of her disease

commenced, which ultimately proved fatal. At first it appeared less

serious than some of her previous seizures; but it soon became alarming.

On the eleventh of January, Dr. Scudamore, to whose care she had

formerly been indebted, was called in, and did every thing for her that

skill and tenderness could suggest; but in vain. A few days before her

death, an account, which she had accidentally read, of a shocking murder

recently perpetrated, pressed on her memory, and joined with the natural

operation of the disease to produce a temporary delirium. From this,

however, she completely recovered, and remained sensible to the last. On

the sixth of February, she did not appear to be in any immediate danger,

though in a state of great weakness. At twelve at night, Mr. Radcliffe

assisted in giving her some refreshment, which she took with apparent

satisfaction, her last words being, “There is some substance in that.”

She then fell into a slumber; but, when Mr. Radcliffe, who had been

sitting up in the next room, re-entered her apartment, in the course of

an hour or two, she was breathing rather hardly, and neither he nor the

nurse was able to awake her. Dr. Scudamore was instantly sent for; but,

before his arrival, she tranquilly expired, at between two and three

o’clock in the morning of the seventh of February, 1823, being in the

59th year of her age. Her countenance after death was delightfully

placid, and continued so for some days. Her remains were interred in a

vault in the Chapel of Ease, at Bayswater, belonging to St. George’s,

Hanover Square.

As, since Mrs. Radcliffe’s death, the story of her mental alienation has

been revived, in reference to her later days, it has been deemed right

to apply to Dr. Scudamore for an authentic statement, which he has

kindly given, and which must set such idle reports entirely at rest. It

is as follows:

“Mrs. Radcliffe had been for several years subject to severe catarrhal

coughs, and also was occasionally afflicted with asthma.

“In March 1822, she was ill with inflammation of the lungs, and for a

considerable time remained much indisposed. With the summer season and

change of air, she regained a tolerable state of health.

“In the early part of January 1823, in consequence of exposure to cold,

she was again attacked with inflammation of the lungs, and much more

severely than before. Active treatment was immediately adopted, but

without the desired relief; and the symptoms soon assumed a most

dangerous character. At the end of three weeks, however, and contrary to

all expectation, the inflammation of the lungs was overcome; and the

amendment was so decided, as to present a slight prospect of recovery.

“Alas! our hopes were soon disappointed. Suddenly, in the very moment of

seeming calm from the previous violence of disease, a new inflammation

seized the membranes of the brain. The enfeebled frame could not resist

this fresh assault: so rapid in their course were the violent symptoms,

that medical treatment proved wholly unavailing.

“In the space of three days, death closed the melancholy scene.

“In this manner, at the age of fifty-nine, society was deprived of a

most amiable and valuable member, and literature of one of its brightest

ornaments.

“The foregoing statement will, I hope, afford all the explanation, which

can be required, of the nature of Mrs. Radcliffe’s illness. During the

whole continuance of the inflammation of the lungs, the mind was perfect

in its reasoning powers, and became disturbed only on the last two or

three days, as a natural consequence of the inflammation affecting the

membranes of the brain.

“Previously to the last illness, and at all times, Mrs. Radcliffe

enjoyed a remarkably cheerful state of mind; and no one was farther

removed from “mental desolation,” as has been so improperly described of

the latter part of her life.

“She possessed a quick sensibility, as the necessary ally of her fine

genius; but this quality would serve to increase the warmth of the

social feelings, and effectually prevent the insulation of the mind,

either as regards the temper or the understanding.”

Mrs. Radcliffe was, in her youth, exquisitely proportioned, though she

resembled her father, and his brother and sister, in being low of

stature. Her complexion was beautiful, as was her whole countenance,

especially her eyes, eyebrows, and mouth. She was educated in the

principles of the Church of England; and through life, unless prevented

by serious indisposition, regularly attended its services. Her piety,

though cheerful, was deep and sincere. Although perfectly well bred, and

endowed with faculties and tastes which rendered her a delightful

companion, she wanted that confidence which is necessary to mixed

society, and which she could scarcely acquire, without losing something

of the delicacy of feeling, which marked her character. If, in her

retirement, she was sometimes affected by circumstances which would have

passed unheeded amidst the bustle of the world, she was more than repaid

by the enjoyments, which were fostered in the shade; and perhaps few

distinguished authors have passed a life so blameless and so happy.

Mrs. Radcliffe may fairly be considered as the inventor of a new style

of romance; equally distinct from the old tales of chivalry and magic,

and from modern representations of credible incidents and living

manners. Her works partially exhibit the charms of each species of

composition; interweaving the miraculous with the probable, in

consistent narrative, and breathing of tenderness and beauty peculiarly

her own. The poetical marvels of the first fill the imagination, but

take no hold on the sympathies, to which they have become alien: the

vicissitudes of the last awaken our curiosity, without transporting us

beyond the sphere of ordinary life. But it was reserved for Mrs.

Radcliffe to infuse the wondrous in the credible; to animate rich

description with stirring adventure; and to impart a portion of human

interest to the progress of romantic fiction. She occupied that middle

region between the mighty dreams of the heroic ages and the realities of

our own, which remained to be possessed; filled it with goodly imagery;

and made it resonant with awful voices. Her works, in order to produce

their greatest impression, should be read first, not in childhood, for

which they are too substantial; nor at mature age, for which they may

seem too visionary; but at that delightful period of youth, when the

soft twilight of the imagination harmonizes with the luxurious and

uncertain light cast on their wonders. By those, who come at such an age

to their perusal, they will never be forgotten.

The principal means, which Mrs. Radcliffe employed to raise up her

enchantments on the borders of truth, are, first, her faculty of

awakening emotions allied to superstitious fear; and, secondly, her

skill in selecting and describing scenes and figures precisely adapted

to the feelings she sought to enkindle. We will examine each of these

powers, and then shortly advert to their developement in her successive

romances.

I. The art, by which supernatural agency is insinuated, derives its

potency from its singular application to human nature, in its extremes

of weakness and strength. Simply considered, fear is the basest of

emotions, and the least adapted to the dignity of romance; yet it is

that, of which the most heroic heart sometimes whispers a confession. On

the other hand, every thing, which tends to elevate and ennoble our

feelings, to give the character of permanency to our impressions, and

impart a tongue to the silence of nature, has reference to things

unseen. The tremblings of the spirit, which are base when prompted by

any thing earthly, become sublime when inspired by a sense of the

visionary and immortal. They are the secret witnesses of our alliance

with power, which is not of this world. We feel both our fleshly

infirmity and our high destiny, as we shrink on the borders of spiritual

existence. Whilst we listen for echoes from beyond the grave, and search

with tremulous eagerness for indications of the unearthly, our Curiosity

and Fear assume the grandeur of passions. We might well doubt our own

immortality, if we felt no restless desire to forestal the knowledge of

its great secret, and held no obstinate questionings with the sepulchre.

We were not of heavenly origin, if we did not struggle after a communion

with the invisible; nor of human flesh, if we did not shudder at our own

daring;—and it is in the union of this just audacity and venial terror,

that we are strangely awed and affected. It is, therefore, needless to

justify the use of the supernatural in fiction; for it is peculiarly

adapted to the workings of the imagination—that power, whose high

province is to mediate between the world without us and the world within

us; on the one hand to impart sentiment and passion to the external

universe, and make it redolent of noble associations; and, on the other,

to clothe the affections of the heart and the high suggestions of the

reason with colour and shape, and present them to the mind in living and

substantial forms.

There are various modes, in which the supernatural may be employed,

requiring more or less of a dextrous sympathy, in proportion to the

depth and seriousness of the feeling, which the author proposes to

awaken. In cases where the appeal is only made to the fancy, it is

sufficient if the pictures are consistent with themselves, without any

reference to the prejudices, or passions, of those, before whom they are

presented. To this class the fables of the Greek mythology belong,

notwithstanding their infinite varieties of grandeur and beauty. They

are too bright and palpable to produce emotions of awe, even among

those, who professed to believe them; and rather tended to inclose the

sphere of mortal vision, which they adorned and gladdened, with more

definite boundaries, than to intimate the obscure and eternal. Instead

of wearing, then, the solemn aspect of antiquity, they seem, even now,

touched with the bloom of an imperishable youth. The gorgeous Oriental

fictions and modern tales of fairy lore are also merely fantastical, and

advance no claim on faith, or feeling. Their authors escape from the

laws of matter, without deriving any power from the functions of spirit;

they are rather without than above nature, and seek only an excuse in

the name of the supernatural for their graceful vagaries. Akin

essentially to these are mere tales of terror, in which horrors are

accumulated on horrors. Beyond the precincts of the nursery, they are

nothing but a succession of scenic representations—a finely coloured

phantasmagoria, which may strike the fancy, but do not chill the blood,

and soon weary the spectator. It is only the “eye of childhood” which

“fears a painted devil.” In some of the wild German tales, indeed, there

is, occasionally, a forcible exaggeration of truth, which strikes for a

moment, and seems to give back the memory of a forgotten dream. But none

of these works, whatever poetical merit they may possess, have the power

to fascinate and appal, by touching those secret strings of mortal

apprehension, which connect our earthly with our spiritual being.

In these later days, it, no doubt, requires a fine knowledge of the

human heart to employ the supernatural, so as to move the pulses of

terror. Of all superstitions, the most touching are those, which relate

to the appearance of the dead among the living; not only on account of

the reality which they derive from mingling with the ordinary business

of life, but of the cold and shuddering sympathy we feel for a being

like to whom we may ourselves become in a few short years. To bring such

a vision palpably on the scene is always a bold experiment, and usually

requires a long note of preparation, and a train of circumstances, which

may gradually and insensibly dispose the mind to implicit credence. Yet

to dispense with all such appliances, and to call forth the grandest

spirit, that ever glided from the tomb, was not beyond Shakspeare’s

skill. A few short sentences only prepare the way for the ghost of the

murdered King of Denmark; the spirit enters, and we feel at once he is

no creature of time; he speaks, and his language is “of Tartarus, and

the souls in bale.” Such mighty magic as this, however, belonged only to

the first of poets. Writers who, in modern times, have succeeded in

infusing into the mind thoughts of unearthly fear, have usually taken

one of these two courses: either they have associated their

superstitions with the solemnities of nature, and contrived to

interweave them in the very texture of life, without making themselves

responsible for the feelings they excite: or they have, by mysterious

hints and skilful contrivances, excited the curiosity and terror of

their readers, till they have prepared them either to believe in any

wonder they may produce, or to image for themselves in the obscurity

fearful shapes, and to feel the presence of invisible horrors.

Those, who seek to create a species of supernatural interest by the

first of these processes, find abundant materials adapted to their use

in the noblest parts of our own intellectual history. There are doubtful

phenomena within the experience of all reflecting minds, which may

scarcely be referred to their mere mortal nature, and which sometimes

force on the coldest sceptic a conviction, that he is “fearfully” as

well as “wonderfully made.” Golden dreams hover over our cradle, and

shadows thicken round the natural descent of the aged into the grave.

Few there are, who, in childhood, have not experienced some strange

visitings of serious thought, gently agitating the soul like the wind

“that bloweth where it listeth,” suggesting to it holy fancies, and

awakening its first sympathy with a world of sorrow and of tears. Who

has not felt, or believed that he has felt, a sure presentiment of

approaching evil? Who, at some trivial occurrence, “striking the

electric chord by which we are darkly bound,” has not been startled by

the sudden revival of old images and feelings, long buried in the depth

of years, which stalk before him like the spectres of departed

companions? Who has not shrunk from the fascination of guilty thoughts,

as from “supernatural soliciting?” Where is the man so basely moulded,

that he does not remember moments of inspiration, when statelier images

than his common intellect can embody, hopes and assurances brighter than

his constitutional temperament, may recal, and higher faculties within

himself than he has ever been able to use, have stood revealed to him

like mountain-tops at the utmost reach of vision, touched by a gleam of

the morning sun? And who, in the melancholy calm of the mind, sadly

looking into its depths, has not perceived the gigantic wrecks of a

nobler nature, as the fortunate voyager on some crystal lake has

discerned, or fancied he discerned, the wave-worn towers of a forgotten

city far in the deep waters? There are magic threads in the web of life,

which a writer of romance has only to bring out and to touch with

appropriate hues of fancy. From the secret places of the soul are voices

more solemn than from old superstitions, to which he may bid us hearken.

In his works, prophecies may be fulfilled; presentiments justified; the

history of manhood may answer to the dreams of the nursery; and he may

leave his readers to assert if they can, “These have their causes; they

are natural.” Let him only give due effect to the problem, and he may

safely trust their hearts to supply the answer!

The other mode of exciting terror requires, perhaps, greater delicacy

and skill, as the author purposes to influence the mind directly from

without, instead of leaving it, after receiving a certain clue, to its

own workings. In this style, up to the point where Mrs. Radcliffe

chooses to pause and explain, she has no rival. She knows the string of

feeling she must touch, and exactly proportions her means to her design.

She invariably succeeds not by the quantity but the quality of her

terrors. Instead of exhibiting a succession of magnificent glooms, which

only darken the imagination, she whispers some mysterious suggestion to

the soul, and exhibits only just enough of her picture to prolong the

throbbings she has excited. In nothing is her supremacy so clearly

shown, as in the wise and daring economy, with which she has employed

the instruments of fear. A low groan issuing from distant vaults; a

voice heard among an assembly from an unknown speaker; a little track of

blood seen by the uncertain light of a lamp on a castle staircase; a

wild strain of music floating over moonlight woods; as introduced by

her, affect the mind more deeply than terrible incantations, or

accumulated butcheries. “Pluck out the heart of her mystery!”—tell, at

once, the secret, the lightest hint of which appals—verify the worst

apprehensions of the reader; and what would be the reality in common

hands? You can suspect nothing more than a cruel murder perpetrated many

years ago by an unprincipled monk, or an avowed robber! Why should we

suffer all the stings of curiosity on such an issue? Human life is not

held so precious, murder is not so strange and rare an occurrence, that

we should be greatly agitated by the question whether, two centuries

ago, a bandit destroyed one of his captives; but the skill of the

writer, applying itself justly to the pulses of terror in our

intellectual being, gives tragic interest to the inquiry, makes the

rusted dagger terrible, and the spot of blood sublime. This faculty is

the more remarkable, as it is employed to raise a single crime into

importance; while others of equal dye are casually alluded to, and

dismissed, as deeds of little note, and make no impression on the

reader. Assassins who murder for hire, commonly excite no feeling in

romance, except as mere instruments, like the weapons they use; but,

when Mrs. Radcliffe chooses to single out one of these from the mass,

though undistinguished by peculiar characteristics, she rivets our

attention to Spalatro, as by an irresistible spell; forces us to watch

every movement of his haggard countenance, and makes the low sound of

his stealthy footsteps sink into the soul. Her faculty, therefore, which

has been represented as melo-dramatic, is akin to the very essence of

tragic power, which is felt not merely in the greatness of the actions,

or sorrows, which it exhibits, but in its nice application to the inmost

sources of terror and of pity.

It is extraordinary, that a writer thus gifted should, in all her works

intended for publication, studiously resolve the circumstances, by which

she has excited superstitious apprehensions, into mere physical causes.

She seems to have acted on a notion, that some established canon of

romance obliged her to reject real supernatural agency; for it is

impossible to believe she would have adopted this harassing expedient if

she had felt at liberty to obey the promptings of her own genius. So

absolute was her respect for every species of authority, that it is

probable she would rather have sacrificed all her productions, than have

transgressed any arbitrary law of taste, or criticism. It is equally

obvious, that there is no valid ground of objection to the use of the

supernatural, in works of fiction, and that it is absolutely essential

to the perfection of that kind of romance, which she invented. To the

imagination it is not only possible, but congenial, when introduced with

art, and employed for high and solemn purposes. Grant only the

possibility of its truth, which “the fair and innocent” are half

disposed to believe, and there is nothing extravagant in the whole

machinery, by which it works. But discard it altogether, and introduce,

in its stead, a variety of startling phenomena, which are resolved at

last into petty deceptions and gross improbabilities, and you at once

disappoint the fancy, and shock the understanding of the reader. In the

first case, the reason is not offended, because it is not consulted; in

the last, it is expressly appealed to with the certainty of an

unfavourable decision. Besides it is clear that all the feelings created

up to the moment of explanation, and which it has been the very object

of the author to awaken, have obeyed the influence of these very

principles, which at last she chooses to disown. If the minds to whom

the work is addressed were so constituted as to reject the idea of

supernatural agency, they would be entirely unmoved by the circumstances

arranged to produce the impression of its existence; and “The Mysteries

of Udolpho” would have fallen still-born from the press! Why then should

the author turn traitor to her own “so potent art?” Why, having wrought

on the fears of her readers till she sways them at her will, must she

turn round and tell them they have been awed and excited by a succession

of mockeries? Such impotent conclusions injure the romances as works of

art, and jar on the nerves of the reader, which are tuned for grand

wonders, not paltry discoveries. This very error, however, which injures

the effect of Mrs. Radcliffe’s works, especially on a second perusal,

sets off, in the strongest light, the wizard power of her genius. Even

when she has dissolved mystery after mystery, and abjured spell after

spell, the impression survives, and the reader is still eager to attend

again, and be again deluded. After the voices heard in the chambers of

Udolpho have been shown to be the wanton trick of a prisoner, we still

revert to the remaining prodigies with anxious curiosity, and are

prepared to give implicit credence to new wonders at Chateau le Blanc.

In the romance of Gaston de Blondeville, Mrs. Radcliffe, not intending

to publish, gratified herself by the introduction of a true spectre;

and, without anticipating the opinion of the public on that work, we may

venture to express a belief, that the manner, in which the supernatural

agency is conducted, will deepen the general regret, that she did not

employ it in her longer and more elaborate productions.

II. Mrs. Radcliffe’s faculties of describing and picturing scenes and

appropriate figures was of the highest order. Her accurate observation

of inanimate nature, prompted by an intense love of all its varieties,

supplied the materials for those richly coloured representations, which

her genius presented. Without this perception of the true, the liveliest

fancy will only produce a chaos of beautiful images, like the remembered

fragments of a gorgeous dream. How singularly capable Mrs. Radcliffe was

of painting the external world, in its naked grandeur, her published

tour among the English Lakes, and, perhaps still more, the notes made on

her journeys for her own amusement, abundantly prove. In the first, the

boldness and simplicity of her strokes, conveying the clear images to

the eye of the mind, with scarcely any incrustation of sentiment, or

perplexing dazzle of fancy, distinguish her from almost all other

descriptive tourists. Still the great charm of simplicity was hardly so

complete, as in her unstudied notices of scenery; because in writing for

the press, it is scarcely possible to avoid altogether the temptation of

high sounding and ambiguous expressions, which always impede the distant

presentiment of material forms. To this difficulty, she thus adverts in

her account of Ulswater. “It is difficult to spread varied pictures of

such scenes before the imagination. A repetition of the same images of

rock, wood, and water, and the same epithets of grand, vast, and

sublime, which necessarily occur, must appear tautologous, though their

archetypes in nature, ever varying in outline or arrangement, exhibit

new visions to the eye, and produce new shades of effect on the mind.”

In the journals, as no idea of authorship interposed to give restraint

to her style, there is entire fidelity and truth. She seems the very

chronicler and secretary of nature; makes us feel the freshness of the

air; and listen to the gentlest sounds. Not only does she keep each

scene distinct from all others, however similar in general character;

but discriminates its shifting aspects with the most delicate exactness.

No aerial tint of a fleecy cloud is too evanescent to be imaged in her

transparent style. Perhaps no writer in prose, or verse, has been so

happy in describing the varied effects of light in winged words. It is

true, that there is not equal discrimination in the views of natural

scenery, which she presents in her romances. In them she writes of

places, which she has not visited; and, like a true lover, invests

absent nature with imaginary loveliness. She looks at the grandeurs and

beauties of creation through a soft and tender medium, in which its

graces are heightened, but some of its delicate varieties are lost.

Still it is nature that we see, though touched with the hues of romance,

and which could only be thus presented by one who had known, and studied

its simple charms.

In the estimate of Mrs. Radcliffe’s pictorial powers, we must include

her persons as well as her scenes. It must be admitted that, with

scarcely an exception, they are figures rather than characters. No

writer ever produced so powerful an effect, without the aid of sympathy.

Her machinery acts directly on her readers, and makes them tremble and

weep, not for others, but for themselves. Adeline, Emily, Vivaldi, and

Ellena, are nothing to us, except as filling up the scene; but it is we

ourselves, who discover the manuscript in the deserted abbey; we, who

are prisoners in the castle of Udolpho; we, who are inmates of

Spalatro’s cottage; we, who stand before the secret tribunal of the

Inquisition, and even there are startled by the mysterious voice

deepening its horrors. The whole is prodigious painting, so entire as to

surround us with illusion; so cunningly arranged as to harrow up the

soul; and the presence of a real person would spoil its completeness. As

figures, all the persons are adapted with peculiar skill to the scenes

in which they appear;—the more, as they are part of one entire

conception. Schedoni is the most individual and fearful; but through all

the earlier parts of the romance, he stalks like a being not of this

world; and works out his purposes by that which, for the time at least,

we feel to be superhuman agency. But when, after glaring out upon us so

long as a present demon; or felt, when unseen, as directing the whole by

his awful energies; he is brought within the range of human emotion by

the discovery of his supposed daughter, and an anxiety for her safety

and marriage; the spell is broken. We feel the incongruity; as if a

spectre should weep. To develope character was not within the scope of

Mrs. Radcliffe’s plan, nor compatible with her style. At one touch of

human pathos the enchantment would have been dissolved, as spells are

broken by a holy word, or as the ghost of Protesilaus vanished before

the earthly passion of his enamoured widow.

As the absence of discriminated feeling and character was necessary to

the completeness of the effect Mrs. Radcliffe sought to produce, so she

was rather assisted by manners peculiarly straight-laced and timorous. A

deep vein of sentiment would have suggested thoughts and emotions

inconsistent with that “wise passiveness,” in which the mind should

listen to the soft murmur of her “most musical, most melancholy” spells.

A moral paradox could not co-exist with a haunted tower in the mind of

her readers. The exceeding coldness and prudence of her heroines do not

abstract them from the scenes of loveliness and terror through which we

desire to follow them. If her scrupulous sense of propriety had not

restrained her comic powers, Mrs. Radcliffe would probably have

displayed considerable talent for the humorous. But her talkative

servants are all very guarded in their loquacity; and even Annette,

quaintly and pleasantly depicted, fairly belongs to the scene. Her

old-fashioned primness of thought, which with her was a part of

conscience, with all its cumbrous accompaniments, serves at once to

render definite, and to set off, her fanciful creations. Romance, as

exhibited by her, “tricked in antique ruff and bonnet,” has yet eyes of

youth; and the beauty is not diminished by the folds of the brocade, or

the stiffness of the damask stomacher.

These remarks apply, in their fullest effect, only to “_The Mysteries of

Udolpho_,” and “_The Italian_,” in which alone the chief peculiarities

of Mrs. Radcliffe’s genius are decidedly marked. In her first work,

“_The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne_,” it is scarcely possible to

discover their germ. Its scene is laid “in the most romantic part of the

Highlands of Scotland,” yet it is without local truth or striking

picture. It is at once extravagant and cold. Except one scene, where the

Earl of Athlin pursues two strangers through the vaults of his castle,

and is stabbed by one of them in the darkness, nothing is delineated;

but incredible events follow each other in quick succession, without any

attempt to realize them. Those, who complain of the minuteness of Mrs.

Radcliffe’s descriptions, should read this work, where every thing

passes with headlong rapidity, and be convinced of their error. In some

few instances, perhaps, in “The Mysteries of Udolpho,” the descriptions

of external scenery may occur too often; but her best style is

essentially pictorial; and a slow developement of events was, therefore,

necessary to her success.

The “_Sicilian Romance_” is a work of much more “mark and likelihood;”

and, very soon after its first appearance, attracted a considerable

share of public attention. Here the softer blandishments of our author’s

style, which were scarcely perceptible in her first production, were

spread forth to captivate the fancy. Transported to the “sweet south,”

her genius, which had shrunk in the bleak atmosphere of Scotland, caught

the luxurious spirit of a happier clime. Never was a title more justly

applied than to this romance; it reminds the reader of “Sicilian

fruitfulness.” In tender and luxurious description of natural scenery,

it is surpassed by none of Mrs. Radcliffe’s productions. The flight of

her heroine is like a strain of “lengthened sweetness long drawn

out;”—as one series of delicious valleys opens on us after another; and

the purple light of love is shed over all. Still she had not yet

acquired a mastery over her own power of presenting terrific incidents

and scenes to the eye of the mind, and awakening the throbs of suspense

by mysterious suggestions. The light seen through the closed windows of

the deserted rooms—the confession of Vincent stopped by death—the groans

heard from beneath Ferdinand’s prison—and the figure perceived stealing

among the vaults, are not introduced with sufficient earnestness, and

lose all claim to belief, by the utter incredibility of the incidents,

with which they are surrounded. Escapes, recaptions, encounters with

fathers and banditti, surprising partings, and more surprising meetings,

follow each other as quickly as the changes of a pantomime, and with

almost as little of intelligible connexion. One example may

suffice.—Hippolitus enters a ruin by moonlight, for shelter; hears a

voice as of a person in agony; sees, through a shattered casement, a

group of banditti plundering a man, who turns out to be Ferdinand, his

intended brother-in-law; finds himself, he knows not how, in a vault;

hears a scream from an inner apartment; bursts open the door and

discovers a lady fainting, whom he recognizes as his mistress; overhears

a quarrel and combat for the lady between two of the banditti, which

ends in the death of one of them; fights with the survivor, and kills

him; endeavours to escape with Julia; finds his way into a “dark abyss,”

which is no other than the burial-place of the victims of the banditti,

marked with graves, and strewed with unburied carcases; climbs to a

grate, and witnesses a combat between the robbers and officers of

justice; escapes with the lady through a secret door into the forest,

where they are pursued by her father’s party; but, while he fights at

the mouth of a cavern, she loses her way in its recesses, till they

actually conduct her to the dungeon where her mother, who had been

considered dead for fifteen years, is imprisoned;—and all this in a few

pages! There are, in this short story, incidents enough for two such

works as “The Mysteries of Udolpho,” where, as in that great romance,

they should not only be told, but painted; and where reality and

grandeur should be given to their terrors.

In “_The Romance of the Forest_,” Mrs. Radcliffe, who, since the dawn of

her powers, had been as one “moving about in worlds unrealized,” first

exhibited the faculty of controlling and fixing the wild images which

floated around her, and of stamping on them the impress of consistency

and truth. This work is, as a whole, the most faultless of all her

productions; but it is of an inferior order to “The Mysteries of

Udolpho” and “The Italian;” and can only be preferred by those, who

think the absence of error of more importance than original excellence.

There is a just proportion between all its parts; its mysteries are

adequately explained; it excites and gratifies a very pleasant degree of

curiosity; but it does not seem to dilate the imagination, nor does it

curdle the blood. Its opening after a sentence of marvellous

common-place, is striking; the midnight journey of La Motte and his

family they know not whither, and the introduction of the heroine, under

extraordinary circumstances, to their care, rivet attention to all that

is to follow. The scenes in the forest where they take up their abode

are charming. This seems the most delicious asylum for the persecuted

outlaw; its wood-walks and glades glisten before us with the morning

dew; and there is something in the idea of finding a home in a deserted

abbey, which answers to some of the wildest dreams of childhood, and

innocently gratifies that partiality for unlicensed pleasure, or repose,

which is so natural to the heart. The whole adventure of La Motte and

the Marquis is sufficiently probable and interesting; and the influence,

which it ultimately enables the more resolute villain to exercise over

the weaker, is managed with peculiar skill, and turned to great account

in the progress of the story. There is here scarcely any hint of the

supernatural; but the skeleton in the chest of the vaulted chamber; the

dagger, spotted with rust; the manuscript of the prisoner, which Adeline

reads by the fitful light of her lamp, and which proves to be written by

her own father, possess us with the apprehension of some secret crime,

which acquires importance from its circumstances and its mystery. There

are some highly-finished scenes; as that where Adeline, in her solitary

chamber, dares not raise her eyes to her glass, lest another face than

her own should meet them; her escape with a man whom she supposes to be

the servant she had trusted, and who startles her with a strange voice;

the luxurious pavilion of the Marquis, to which we are introduced after

a frightful journey through a storm; and, above all, the conversation,

in which the Marquis, after a series of dark solicitations, understood

by La Motte, as pointing to Adeline’s dishonour, proposes her death.

This last, as a piece of dramatic effect, is perhaps equal to any

passage in the author’s works. The closing chapters of the work are

inferior in themselves to its commencement; but they gratify by

affording a worthy solution of the intricacies of a plot, which has

excited so deep an interest in its progress.

“_The Mysteries of Udolpho_” is by far the most popular of Mrs.

Radcliffe’s works. To this preeminence it is, we think, justly entitled;

for, although “_The Italian_” may display more purely intellectual

power, it is far less enchanting. Of all the romances in the world, this

is perhaps the most romantic. Its outline is noble, it is filled with

majestic or beautiful imagery; and it is touched throughout with a

dreamy softness, which harmonizes all its scenes, and renders its

fascination irresistible. It rises from the gentlest beauty by just

gradations to the terrific and the sublime. Nothing can be fancied more

soothing to the mind, fevered with the bustle of the world, than the

picture of domestic repose, with which it opens. We are dwellers in the

home of the good St. Aubert, who has retired to a beautiful spot, once

the favourite scene of his youthful excursions; and sharers in its

elegant and tranquil pleasures. Next come the exquisite journey of the

father and daughter through the heart of the Pyrenees, where we trace

out every variety of mountain grandeur; the richly coloured scene of

vintage gaiety among the woods of the chateau; and the death of St.

Aubert in the neighbourhood of a place, which we understand to be

connected with his destiny, and where strains of unearthly music are

heard in sad accordance with human sorrow. When Emily’s aunt, to whose

care she is consigned, marries the desperate Montoni, we feel that the

clouds are gathering round her progress, and we shudder at the

forebodings of approaching peril. A little interval is given among the

luxuries of Venice, which are painted with exquisite delicacy and

lightness; and then the work of terror begins. Nothing can be more

picturesque than the ascent of the Apennines; mountain seems to rise

above mountain in gloomy stateliness before us, till we skirt the inmost

valley, far shut out from the world, and Montoni, breaking a long

silence, utters the charmed words, “There is Udolpho!” The ideas of

extent, of massiveness, and austere grandeur, conveyed in the

description of the castle, have matchless force and distinctness, and

prepare the mind for the crimes and wonders, of which it is the silent

witness. Every thing beneath “these dark battlements” is awful; the

slightest incidents wear a solemn hue, and “Fate in sullen echoes” seems

to “tell of some nameless deed.” Not only the mysterious appearances and

sounds appal us, but the rushing wind, a rustling curtain, the lonely

watch-word on the terrace, have power to startle, and keep curiosity

awake. The whole persecution and death of Madame Montoni seem

prodigious, as though they were something out of nature; yet they derive

all this importance from the circumstances, with which they are

invested; for there is nothing extraordinary in the fate of a despicable

woman, worried into the grave by her husband, because she will not give

up her settlement. The mysteries of Chateau le Blanc are less majestic

than those of Udolpho, but perhaps they are even more touching; at

least, the visit of Emily to the chamber where the Marchioness died,

twenty years before, not without suspicion of poison, and which had been

shut up ever since, is most affecting and fearful. The faded

magnificence of the vast apartment; the black pall lying on the bed, as

when it decked the corpse; the robe and articles of dress remaining as

they had been carelessly scattered in the lifetime of their owner; her

veil, which hand had never approached since, now dropping into pieces;

her lute on the table, as it was touched on the evening of her death;

would be solemn and spectral, even if the pall did not move and a face

arise from beneath it. This scene derives a tenderer interest from the

strange likeness, which Emily seems to bear to the deceased lady, and

which is artfully heightened by the action of the old housekeeper

throwing the black veil over her, and by her touching the long-neglected

lute. Such are some among the many striking features of this romance;

its defects are great and obvious. Its mysteries are not only resolved

into natural causes, but are explained by circumstances provokingly

trivial. What reader would bear to be told that the black veil, from

which his imagination has scarcely been allowed to turn for three

volumes, conceals a waxen image; that the wild music, which has chanced

to float on the air, in all the awful pauses of action, proceeded from

an insane nun, permitted to wander about the woods; and that the words,

which startled Montoni and his friends, at their guilty carousals, were

uttered by a man wandering through a secret passage almost without

motive; unless the power and sweetness of the spell remained after it

was thus rudely broken?

“_The Italian_” has more unity of plan than “The Mysteries of Udolpho;”

and its pictures are more individual and distinct; but it has far less

tenderness and beauty. Its very introduction, unlike the gentle opening

of the former romance, impresses the reader with awe. Its chief agent,

Schedoni, is most vividly painted; and yet the author contrives to

invest him with a mystery, which leads us to believe, that even her

image is inadequate to the reality. Up to the period, at which he

unnaturally melts from demon to man, he is the always chief figure when

he is present; and, where we do not see him, his spirit yet seems to

influence all around us. The great scenes of this romance stand out in

bold relief as in compartments; of which the chief are the adventures in

the vaults of Pallozzi; the machinations of Schedoni and the

Marchioness, for the destruction of the heroine; her confinement in the

monastery of San Stephano, and her escape with Vivaldi; her terrible

sojourn in Spalatro’s cottage on the seashore; and the whole

representation of the Inquisition, which fills the mind when Schedoni’s

supremacy ceases. Of these, perhaps the very finest is the scene in the

church, where the Confessor makes palpable to the Marchioness the secret

wishes of her heart for Ellena’s death: the situation is essentially

fearful; and all the circumstances are contrived with admirable effect

to heighten, vary and prolong the feeling of curiosity and terror. The

dreary horrors of the fisherman’s cottage are admirably painted; but the

effort to produce a great theatrical effect is very imperfectly

concealed; and we cannot help being somewhat dissatisfied with the

process of bringing a helpless orphan to such a distance, merely that

she may be murdered with eclat; with the equally unaccountable delay in

performing the deed; the strange relentings of the ruffian; and the long

preparation, which precedes the attempt of Schedoni to strike the fatal

blow. There is great art in the scene, to which all this is

introductory; and the discovery of the portrait is a most striking _coup

de theatre_; but the art is too palpable, and the contrast between the

assassin and the father too violent—at least, for a second perusal. Not

so, the graphic description of the vast prisons of the Inquisition; they

are dim, prodigious, apparently eternal; and the style is solemn and

weighty as the subject. Mrs. Radcliffe alone could have deepened the

horror of this gloom by whispers of things yet more terrible; and

suggest fears of the unseen, which should overcome the present

apprehensions of bodily torture.

Of the tale and the poems now first presented to the world, it would

scarcely become us particularly to speak. The verses, scattered through

all the romances, are so inartificially introduced, that they have

little chance of being estimated by an impatient reader; but, when

examined, they will be found replete with felicitous expression and with

rich though indistinct imagery.

In her own peculiar style of composition, Mrs. Radcliffe has never been

approached. Her success naturally drew forth a crowd of imitators, who

produced only cumbrous caricatures, in which the terrors were without

decorum, and the explanations absolutely farcical. No successful writer

has followed her without calling to aid other means, which she would not

condescend to use. The Author of “The Monk” mingled a sickly

voluptuousness with his terrors; and Maturin, full of “rich conceits,”

approached the borders of the forbidden in speculation, and the

paradoxical in morals. She only, of all writers of romance, who have

awed and affected the public mind, by hints of things unseen, has

employed enchantments purely innocent; has forborne to raise one

questionable throb, or call forth a momentary blush. This is the great

test not only of moral feeling, but of intellectual power; and in this

will be found her highest praise.

* * * * *

The Editor of the present Publication, who is not the Writer of the

preceding Memoir, is aware, that it would be unbecoming for him to say

more of Works, written by one so dear to him, than may be necessary to

give the Public an early assurance of their authenticity; and that fact,

he apprehends, will be sufficiently proved by the distribution, which he

has resolved to make, of the whole purchase-money of the copy-right.

Every part of that produce will be paid, as it shall accrue to him, to

some public charitable institution in England. The Lord Bishop of Bath

and Wells, and Sir Walter Stirling, Bart. in consideration of the

utility of this purpose, allow him the honour of saying, that they will

audit his account of that distribution.