from a murdered spirit underground, but which is eventually traced to the unhappy marchioness.  These two incidents plainly reveal that Mrs. Radcliffe has now discovered the peculiar vein of mystery towards which she was groping in The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne.  From the very first she explained away her marvels by natural means.  If we scan her romances with a coldly critical eye—­an almost criminal proceeding—­obvious improbabilities start into view.  For instance, the oppressed marchioness, who has not seen her daughter Julia since the age of two, recognises her without a moment’s hesitation at the age of seventeen, and faints in a transport of joy.  It is no small tribute to Mrs. Radcliffe’s gifts that we often accept such incidents as these without demur.  So unnerved are we by the lurking shadows, the flickering lights, the fluttering tapestry and the unaccountable groans with which she lowers our vitality, that we tremble and start at the wagging of a straw, and have not the spirit, once we are absorbed into the atmosphere of her romance, to dispute anything she would have us believe.  The interest of the Sicilian Romance, which is far greater than that of her first novel, arises entirely out of the situations.  There is no gradual unfolding of character and motive.  The high-handed marquis, the jealous marchioness, the imprisoned wife, the vapid hero, the two virtuous sisters, the leader of the banditti, the respectable, prosy governess, are a set of dolls fitted ingeniously into the framework of the plot.  They have more substance than the tenuous shadows that glide through the pages of Mrs. Radcliffe’s first story, but they move only as she deftly pulls the strings that set them in motion.

In her third novel, The Romance of the Forest, published in 1792, Mrs. Radcliffe makes more attempt to discuss motive and to trace the effect of circumstances on temperament.  The opening chapter is so alluring that callous indeed would be the reader who felt no yearning to pluck out the heart of the mystery.  La Motte, a needy adventurer fleeing from justice, takes refuge on a stormy night in a lonely, sinister-looking house.  With startling suddenness, a door bursts open, and a ruffian, putting a pistol to La Motte’s breast with one hand, and, with the other, dragging along a beautiful girl, exclaims ferociously,

“You are wholly in our power, no assistance can reach you; if you wish to save your life, swear that you will convey this girl where I may never see her more...  If you return within an hour you will die.”

The elucidation of this remarkable occurrence is long deferred, for Mrs. Radcliffe appreciates fully the value of suspense in luring on her readers, but our attention is distracted in the meantime by a series of new events.  Treasuring the unfinished adventure in the recesses of our memory, we follow the course of the story.  When La Motte decides impulsively to reside in a deserted abbey, “not,”