‘Another, and another, and another!’”

[Footnote 199:  Afterward Madame D’Arblay.]

[Footnote 200:  See the “Progress of Romance,” by Clara Reeve, for the names of many now forgotten novels, for which room cannot be spared here.]

IV.

The writers who took the chief part in originating and sustaining the romantic revival in English fiction were Horace Walpole, Clara Reeve, and Mrs. Radcliffe.  As we have called upon the testimony of Walpole so often in this work, and as we are now to consider him as an author, some account of his personal appearance may be of interest.  “His figure,” says Miss Hawkins, “was not merely tall, but long and slender to excess; his complexion, and particularly his hands, of a most unhealthy paleness.  His eyes were remarkably bright and penetrating, very dark and lively:—­his voice was not strong, but his tones were extremely pleasant, and, if I may so say, highly gentlemanly.  I do not remember his common gait; he always entered a room in that style of affected delicacy which fashion had then made almost natural; chapeau bras between his hands as if he wished to compress it, or under his arm; knees bent, and feet on tiptoe, as if afraid of a wet floor.  His dress in visiting was most usually, in summer, when I most saw him, a lavender suit, the waistcoat embroidered with a little silver, or of white silk worked in the tambour, partridge silk stockings, and gold buckles, ruffles and frill generally lace.  I remember, when a child, thinking him very much under-dressed, if at any time, except in mourning, he wore hemmed cambric.  In summer, no powder, but his wig combed straight, and showing his very smooth, pale forehead, and queued behind; in winter, powder.”

Posterity has cause to regret that Horace Walpole, of all men best fitted by personal knowledge and ability to draw a picture of the brilliant society of his time, should have contributed no work in the department of realistic fiction.  Had the keen observation and experience of the world so conspicuous in his letters been brought to bear on a narrative of real life not less ably constructed than that of “The Castle of Otranto,” an addition of no little value to the social history of the eighteenth century must have been the result.  But although Walpole attempted no novel in which he might have depicted the fashionable life of which he was so faithful a chronicler, he yet tried an experiment in fiction for which he was peculiarly qualified by his antiquarian studies and his fondness for the arts and customs of feudal times.