tisfy, no imagery of horrors can equal the vague shapings of our imagination.

The story of Udolpho is more complicated and perplexed than that of The Romance of the Forest; but it turns, like that, on the terrors and dangers of a young lady confined in a castle. The character of her oppressor, Montoni, is less distinctly marked than that of La Motte; and it is a fault in the story, that its unravelling depends but little on the circumstances that have previously engaged our attention. Another castle is introduced; wonders are multiplied upon us; and the interest we had felt in the castle of Udolpho in the Appenines, is suddenly transferred to Chateau le Blanc among the Pyrenees.

The Mysteries of Udolpho is the most popular of this author's performances, and as such has been chosen for this Selection; but perhaps it is exceeded in strength by her next publication, The Sicilian. Nothing can be finer than the opening of this story. An Englishman on his travels, walking through a church, sees a dark figure stealing along the aisles. He is informed that he is an assassin. On expressing his astonishment that he should find shelter there, he is told that such adventures are common in Italy. His companion then points to a confessional in an obscure aisle of the church. "There," says he, "in that cell, such a tale of horror was once poured into the ear of a priest as overwhelmed him with astonishment, nor was the secret ever disclosed." This prelude, like the tuning of an instrument by a skilful hand, has the effect of producing at once in the mind a tone of feeling cor

respondent to the future story. In this, as in the former productions, the curiosity of the reader is kept upon the stretch by mystery and wonder. The author seems perfectly to understand that obscurity, as Burke has asserted, is a strong ingredient in the sublime:-a face shrowded in a cowl; a narrative suddenly suspended; deep guilt half revealed; the untold secrets of a prison-house; the terrific shape, "if shape it might be called, that shape had none distinguishable;"

all these affect the mind more powerfully than any regular or distinct images of danger or of

woe.

But this novel has also high merit in the character of Schedoni, which is strikingly drawn, as is his personal appearance. "His figure," says the author, (6 was striking, but not so from grace. It was tall, and though extremely thin, his limbs were large and uncouth; and as he stalked along, wrapped in the black garments of his order, there was something terrible in his air, something almost superhuman. His cowl too, as it threw a shade over the livid paleness of his face, increased its severe character, and gave an effect to his large melancholy eye which approached to horror. His physiognomy bore the trace of many passions, which seemed to have fixed the features they no longer animated. His eyes were so piercing that they seemed to penetrate with a single glance into the hearts of men, and to read their most secret thoughts; few persons could support their scrutiny, or even endure to meet them twice." A striking figure for the painter to transfer to the canvass; perhaps some

picture might originally have suggested it. The scene where this singular character is on the point of murdering his own daughter, as she then appears to be, is truly tragical, and wrought up with great strength and pathos. It is impossible not to be interested in the situation of Ellen, in the convent, when her lamp goes out while she is reading a paper on which her fate depends; and again, when in making her escape, she has just got to the end of the long vaulted passage, and finds the door locked, and herself betrayed. The scenes of the Inquisition are too much protracted, and awaken more curiosity than they fully gratify; perhaps than any story can gratify,

In novels of this kind, where the strong charm of suspense and mystery is employed, we hurry through with suspended breath, and in a kind of agony of expectation; but when we are come to the end of the story, the charm is dissolved, we have no wish to read it again; we do not recur to it as we do to the characters of Western in Tom Jones, or the Harrels in Cecilia; the interest is painfully strong while we read, and when once we have read it, it is nothing; we are ashamed of our feelings, and do not wish to recall them.

There are beauties in Mrs, Radcliffe's volumes,' which would perhaps have more effect if our curiosity were less excited,-for her descriptions are rich and picturesque. Switzerland, the south of France, Venice, the valleys of Piedmont, the bridge, the cataract, and especially the charming bay of Naples, the dances of the peasants, with the vine-dressers and the fishermen, have em、

ployed her pencil. Though love is but of a se condary interest in her story, there is a good deal of tenderness in the parting scenes between Emily and Valancourt in The Mysteries of Udolpho, when she dismisses him, who is still the object of her tenderness, on account of his irregularities.

It ought not to be forgotten that there are many elegant pieces of poetry interspersed through the volumes of Mrs. Radcliffe; among which are to be distinguished as exquisitely sweet and fanciful, the Song to a Spirit, and The Sea Nymph, "Down down a hundred fathom deep!" They might be sung by Shakespear's Ariel. The true lovers of poetry are almost apt to regret its being brought in as an accompaniment to narrative, where it is generally neglected; for not one in a hundred, of those who read and can judge of novels, are at all able to appreciate the merits of a copy of verses, and the common reader is always impatient to get on with the story.

The Sicilian is the last of Mrs. Radcliffe's performances. Some have said that, if she wishes to rise in the horrors of her next, she must place her scene in the infernal regions. She would not have many steps to descend thither from the courts of the Inquisition.

Mrs. Radcliffe has also published, jointly with her husband, Travels in Germany and Holland.

THE

ROMANCE OF THE FOREST.

VOLUME THE FIRST.

CHAPTER I.

I am a man,

So weary with disasters, tugg'd with fortune,
That I would set my life on any chance,
To mend it, or be rid on't.

WHEN once sordid interest seizes on the heart, it freezes up the source of every warm and liberal feeling; it is an enemy alike to virtue and to taste -this it perverts, and that it annihilates. The time may come, my friend, when death shall dissolve the sinews of avarice, and justice be permitted to resume her rights.

Such were the words of the Advocate Nemours to Pierre de la Motte, as the latter stept at midnight into the carriage which was to bear him far from Paris, from his creditors and the persecution of the laws. De la Motte thanked him for this last instance of his kindness; the assistance he had given him in escape; and, when the carriage drove away, uttered a sad adieu! The gloom of the hour, and the peculiar emergency of his circumstances, sunk him in silent reverie.

Whoever has read Guyot de Pitaval, the most faithful of those writers who record the proceedings