826. 
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PABhy oy 
7 a REVIEW OF LITERATURE DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN. 
SO Awl Yor fT 
each des Blovidevilles corithe Court of 
manor ahecnings festival in Atdenne, a 
meee Mrs. Radeliffe, 1826, — In the 
Mrs, Radcliffe, prefixed tothe 
ime Wa HPI $0 compreliensive 
ne ‘sO_judicious a panegyric 
Haag #enius, that nothing re- 
ee ver Poet eulogy. 
© Phe breathing ‘generation of men and 
women hayeyendered to her'romances the 
homageé» of their deep and: ineffacable ‘inte- 
rests, and our expectations turned with an 
almost.childishy longing. towards \this, her 
farewell effort, anticipating, as we did, a 
re-awakening of those ancient and hallowed 
feelings which waited upon St. Aubin and 
Emily, and Provence and Languedoc, and 
the Apénnines, and the midnight airs of, 
as was insinuated, departed spirits. Alas, 
alas! Gaston de Biondeville is but the sad 
application of dimmed and fallen faculties 
to a decidedly lower attempt than even her 
earliest powers would have stooped to. 
=p writer of the memoir lauds her bold- 
in bringing forward, as.she does, a 
reat abort, upon the presumption that small 
eee causes, under -her hands, 
hag pro uced such exquisite effects, the 
ation’ ‘and realization of extraordi- 
nary agencies must of necessity elicit a re- 
sult proportionably"magtificent, or more. 
But this: opinion every reader of Gaston 
die Biondeville must feel to be erroneous 
inpfaet,,and we are-quite sure itis equally 
so. in, theory. 
ate effect of any kind of writing depends 
upon the quality.of the actual.speci- 
a ‘compared with other specimens in the 
same department of literature, and a/so on 
the aptitude of readers for excitation in-that 
_ particular department. Now, we know 
N - that this aptitude varies in great degrees 
_ from time to time with regard to all emo- 
_ tions which are of a secondary or associated 
nature. The primary ones, themselves— 
love, hate, ambition, jealousy, avarice, have 
_ their entrances and exits in the breast ; but 
these ruling emotions of the soul occupy so 
large a space in the basis of all characters, 
_ that they are usually and readily excitable 
again under situations apparently the most 
‘disadvantageous to their production; and 
after even the fullest development, require 
but a very brief suspension to recruit. their 
forces. But with the lesser and secondary 
and artificial tastes, those associations which 
are no more than the re-action of some 
individual’s peculiar constitution and talents 
upon the taste of the age, when these have 
swayed the public mind for a while, and 
run their epidemic course, are felt no more 
for a long, avery long period, Jike measles 
mger Obnoxious, certainly not in the same 
egree, to the same influence. 
M.M. New Series —Vot. II. No. 9. 
small-pox, &c. &c. :—those who have © 
e fallen under their contagion are no’ 
The greatest possible éffeetihiisBeen pro- 
duced ; and we are sure thar to~producethe 
like again, especially upon the same minds, 
another Mysteries of Udolpho.would fail. 
The old people have hadthe disorder, and 
the young bave been so thoroughly vaccl- 
nated with Miss Edgeworth’s anti-super- 
stitions, as to be altogether unsusceptible 
of infection. Unimagiative pursuits have 
ossified their nerves against fanciful horrors ; 
and arguments, cut and dried by dozens, 
for the use of youth, in disproof of ghosts, 
would drive a new Mrs. Radcliffe from the 
field with discomfiture; notso much would 
she be repelled by the armour, offensive and 
defensive, of mammas, or the frowns and 
contempt of governesses, as by the broad 
stare of the pupils—aye, even the pupils of 
seventeen, who would not deign so much 
as to smile at any body being foo! enough to 
imagine it was aught but a mouse behind 
the arras. 
We assert that even the Mysteries of 
Udolpho would, in this age of enlightened 
nurseries, meet with a supercilious greet- 
ing; and undoubtedly could never dispense 
with those final éclaweissemens which, in 
our barbarous remembrances, were indeed 
looked’ upon as rudely breaking the pre- 
yious enchantment. How, then, will they 
suffer the present monsters? a ghost on 
horseback, amidst and close to myriads 
of beholders 6f all sizes, and ages, and 
sexes; now here, now there, eluding 
mortal grasp, and deluding mortal) eye; 
nobles, knights, ladies, servants, monks, 
priests,, sentinels, beset in all their.paths 
by the importunate infernal, who solicits, 
as plain as gesture and unwearied perse- 
verance can speak, their aid in bringing a 
murderer to justice. These worthy per- 
sons, however, one and al], are far more 
afraid of the secular than the spiritual 
arm,:and not one of them has virtue or 
nerve to boldly help the demon in his per- 
secution of a royal favourite. The old plea 
of magic was urged’ against the genuine- 
- ness of the ghost, and that plea alone was 
of weight sufficient to discredit the other- 
wise damning proofs of guilt afforded by 
the spectre. Here was a dilemma for the 
authoress, and she found no escape—for, 
like the Egyptians of old, whatever ghost 
did was, supposed imitable by man; but 
the end. must,come, sooner or later, and 
the accused lord’s sudden death, and sub- 
sequent re-appearance and confession of 
the crime to his royal master, bring the 
long-resisting mind of the king to con- 
viction, who believes, at last, with about 
as much reason as. he had before disbe- 
aYeved:) Ae tP7 
Itis fecaresi to sketch the story. Every 
body has either read it, or, from the shaking 
head of some friend’ who has read it, no 
—_ has the wish. Descriptions of pa- 
