210 



THE BRIGHTON ROAD 



features of the venerable structure, several of its 

 chambers, the old garden, and, in particular, the 

 noble park, with its spreading prospects, its picturesque 

 views of the hall, ' like bits of Mrs. Radcliffe ' (as 

 the poet Shelley once observed of the same scene), 

 its deep glades, through which the deer come lightly 



CUCKFIELD PLACE. 



tripping down, its uplands, slopes, brooks, brakes, 

 coverts, and groves are carefully delineated." 



" Like Mrs. Radcliffe ! ' That romance is indeed 

 written in the peculiar convention which obtained 

 with her, with Horace Walpole, with Maturin, and 

 " Monk ' Lewis ; a convention of Gothic gloom and 

 superstition, delighting in gore and apparitions, 

 responsible for the " Mysteries of Udolpho, ' 

 "The Italian," "The Monk," and other highly 

 seasoned reading of the early years of the nineteenth 

 century. Ainsworth deliberately modelled his manner 

 upon Mrs. Radcliffe, changing the scenes of his 

 desperate deeds from her favourite Italy to our own 

 land. His pages abound in apparitions, death- 

 watches, highwaymen, " pistols for two and breakfasts 

 for one," daggers, poison-bowls, and burials alive, and, 



