Paul Lacroix—­the structure commenced in our land by Horace Walpole, ‘Monk’ Lewis, Mrs. Radcliffe and Maturin, but, left imperfect and inharmonious, requires, now that the rubbish which choked up its approach is removed, only the hand of the skilful architect to its entire renovation and perfection.”

In Rookwood, Ainsworth disdains Mrs. Radcliffe’s reasonable elucidations of the supernatural, and introduces spectres whose existence it would be impossible to deny.  Once, however, a supposed ghost becomes substantial, and proves to be none other than a human being called Jack Palmer.  The sexton, Luke Bradley, alias Alan Rookwood, has inherited two of the Wanderer’s traits—­the fear-impelling eyes of intolerable lustre, and the habit of indulging in wild, screaming laughter on the most inauspicious occasions.

Gothic properties are scattered with indiscriminate extravagance—­skeleton hands, suddenly extinguished candles, sliding panels, sepulchral vaults.  The plot of Rookwood is too complicated and too overcrowded with incident to keep our attention.  The terrors are so unremitting that they fail to strike home.  The only part of the book which holds us enthralled is the famous description of Dick Turpin’s ride to York.  Here we forget Ainsworth’s slip-shod style in the excitement of the chase.  In his later novels Ainsworth abandoned the manner of Mrs. Radcliffe, but did not fail to make use of the motive of terror and mystery.  The scenes of horror which he strove to convey in words were often more admirably depicted in the illustrations of Cruikshank.  The sorcerer’s sabbath in Crichton, the historical scenes of horror in The Tower of London, the masque of the Dance of Death in Old St. Paul’s, the appearance of Herne the Hunter, heralded by phosphoric lights, in Windsor Castle, the terrible orgies of The Lancashire Witches, are described with more striking effect because of Ainsworth’s early reading in the school of terror.  In Auriol, which was first published in Ainsworth’s Magazine (1844-5) under the title Revelations of London, was issued in 1845 as a gratuitous supplement to the New Monthly, and greeted with derision,[125] Ainsworth handled once again the theme that fascinated Lytton.  The Prologue (1599) describes the death of Dr. Lamb, whose elixir is seized by his great-grandson.  In 1830 London is haunted by a stranger, who involves Auriol in wildly fantastic and frightful adventures.  The book closes in Dr. Lamb’s laboratory; the intervening scenes are but dream imagery.  Phiz’s sketch of the Ruined House is the most lasting memory left by the book.