#797-] 
teen miles from London. Footmen and 
ladies’ maid. are no jonger trufted wich 
intrigues, and letters are conveyed with 
care, expedition, and fecrecy, by the mail 
coach, and the penny-poft. In a word, 
the affairs and butinefs cf common life 
are fo perfeéily underitood, that elope- 
ments, are practifed by girls almoft before 
they have learned to read; and ail the 
incidents which have decorated our o/d 
novels, come eafy and natural to the par- 
ties, without the afliftance of a circu- 
Jating library, or the leaft occafion to 
G@raw upon the invention of a writer of 
novels. 
It was high time, therefore, to con- 
trive fome other wav of interefting thefe 
numerous readers, to whom the ftationers 
and trunk-makersare fo deeply indebted, 
and jult at the time when sve were 
threatened with a itagaation of fancy, 
arofe Maximilian Rebefpierre, with his 
fyftem of terror, and taught our novelifts 
that fear is the only pailion they ought 
to cultivate, that to frighten and to in- 
ftruc&t were one and the fame thing, and 
that none of the productions of genius 
could be compared to the production of 
an ague. From that rime we have never 
ceafed to ‘believe and tremble;”’ our 
genus has become byferical, and our 
tafte epileptic. 
Good, i have obferved, arifes out 
of evil, or apparent evil: it is now much 
eahier to write a novel adapted to the 
prevailing tafte than it wis The man- 
ners and cuftoms of common life being 
nO longer an obje& for curiofity or de- 
f{cription, we have nothing to do but 
launch out on the main ocean of impro- 
bability and extravagant romance, and 
Wwe acquire ahigh reputation. — It having 
fallen to my lot to perufe many of thefe: 
wonderful publications, previoufly to my 
daughters reading them (who, by the 
bye, would read them whether I pleafed 
er not) I think I can lay down a few 
plain and fimple rules, by obferving 
which any wan or maid, IJ mean, ladies’ 
rnaid, may be able ro compofe from four 
to fix uncommonly interefting volumes, 
that fhall claim the admiratior of all true 
believers in the marvellous. 
In the firft place, then; trembling 
reader, 1 would adyife you to conftrué 
an o/d cattle, formerly of great magnitude 
and extent, built in the Gothic manner, 
with a great number of hanging rowers, 
turrets, and pinnacles. One half, at 
Jeaft, of it muft be in ruins; dreadful 
chafms and gaping crevices muft be hid 
Terrorif? Sytem of Novel-Writing. 
‘fible. 
‘with piétures, of which the damps have 
103 
only by the elinging ivy 5 the doors muft 
be fo old, and fo litcle uted to open, as 
tu grate tremendoully onthe hinges ; and 
there muft be in every paffage an echo, 
and as many reverberations as there are 
partitions. As tothe furnicure, it is ab- 
folutely neceflary that it fhould be nearly 
as old as the houfe, and in a more decay - 
ed ftate, if a more decayed ftate be pof- 
The principal rooms muft be hung 
very nearly effaced the colours; only you 
muft preferve fuch a degree of likenefs 
im one or two of them, as to incline your 
heroine to be very much affected by the 
fight of them, and to imagine that fhe 
has fecn a face, or faces, very like them, 
or very like fomething elfe, but where, 
or when, fhe cannot ju? xow remember. 
It will be neceflary, aifo, that one of thofe 
very old and very decayed portraits fhall 
feem to frown moft cruelly, while another 
feems to fmile moft lovingly. 
Great attention nruft be paid to the 
tapeftry hangings. They are to be very 
eld, and tattered, and blown about with 
the wind. There is a great deal in the 
wind. Indeed, it isone of the principal 
objeéis of terror, for it may be taken for 
almoft any terrific objeét, from a banditti 
of cut-throats to a fingie ghoft. The tape- 
firy, therefore, muft give figns of moving, 
fo as to make the heroine believe, there is 
fomething behind it, although, nct being 
at that time very defirous to examine, fhe 
coucluces very naturally and logically, that 
it can be norhing but the wind. This 
fame wind is of infinite fervice to our mo- 
dern caftle-builders. Sometimes it qwhi/- 
tles, and then it fhows how found may 
be conveyed through the crevices of a 
Baron’s cafile. Sometimes it ru/hes, and 
then there is reafon to believe the Baron’s 
great grandfather does not lie quiet in his 
grave ; and fometimes it hozw/s, and, if ac- 
companied with rain, generally induces 
fome weary traveller, perhaps a robber, 
and perhaps a lover, or both, to take up 
their refidence in this very fame cafile 
where Virgins, and virtuous wives, were 
locked up before the invention of a Sabeas 
corpus. Itis, indeed, not wonderful, that 
{fo much ufe is made of the wind, for it is 
the principal! ingredient in that featimen- 
tality of conftitution, to which romances 
are admirable adapted. 
Having thus provided fuch a decayed 
ftock of furniture as may be eafily affected 
by the wind, you muft take care that the 
battlements and towers are remarkably. 
populous in owls and dats, The booting of 
P 2 the 
