precipice above. The splendour of these illumined objects was heightened by the contrasted shade which involved the valley below.

'There,' said Montoni, speaking for the first time in several hours, 'is Udolpho.'

Emily gazed with melancholy awe upon the castle, which she understood to be Montoni's; for, though it was now lighted up by the setting sun, the Gothic greatness of its features, and its mouldering walls of dark grey stone, rendered it a gloomy and sublime object. As she gazed, the light died away on its walls, leaving a melancholy purple tint, which spread deeper and deeper as the thin vapour crept up the mountain, while the battlements above were still tipped with splendour. From those, too, the rays soon faded, and the whole edifice was invested with the solemn duskiness of evening. Silent, lonely, and sublime, it seemed to stand the sovereign of the scene, and to frown defiance on all who dared to invade its solitary reign. As the twilight deepened, its features became more awful in obscurity, and Emily continued to gaze till its clustering towers were alone seen rising over the tops of the woods, beneath whose thick shade the carriages soon after began to ascend.

The extent and darkness of these tall woods awakened terrific images in her mind, and she almost expected to see banditti start up from under the trees. At length the carriages emerged upon a heathy rock, and soon after reached the castle gates, where the deep tone of the portal bell, which was struck upon to give notice of their arrival, increased the fearful emotions that had assailed Emily. While they waited till the servant within should come to open the gates, she anxiously surveyed the edifice; but the gloom that overspread it allowed her to distinguish little more than a part of its outline, with the massy walls of the ramparts, and to know that it was vast, ancient, and dreary. From the parts she saw, she judged of the heavy strength and extent of the whole. The gateway before her, leading into the courts, was of gigantic size, and was defended by two round towers, crowned by overhanging turrets embattled, where, instead of banners, now waved long grass and wild plants that had taken root among the mouldering stones, and which seemed to sigh, as the breeze rolled past, over the desolation around them. The towers were united by a curtain, pierced and embattled also, below which appeared the pointed arch of a huge portcullis surmounting the gates; from these the walls of the ramparts extended to other towers, overlooking the precipice, whose shattered outline, appearing on a gleam that lingered in the west, told of the ravages of war. Beyond these, all was lost in the obscurity of evening.

An Italian Landscape.

These excursions sometimes led them to Puzzuoli, Baia, or the woody cliffs of Pausilippo; and as, on their return, they glided along the moonlit bay, the melodies of Italian strains seemed to give enchantment to the scenery of its shore. At this cool hour the voices of the vine-dressers were frequently heard in trio, as they reposed from the labour of the day on some pleasant promontory under the shade of poplars; or the brisk music of the dance from fishermen on the margin of the waves below. The boatmen rested on their oars, while their company listened to voices modulated by sensibility to finer eloquence than is in the power of art

alone to display; and at others, while they observed the airy natural grace which distinguishes the dance of the fishermen and peasants of Naples. Frequently, as they glided round a promontory, whose shaggy masses inpended far over the sea, such magic scenes of beauty unfolded, adorned by these dancing groups on the bay beyond, as no pencil could do justice to. The deep clear waters reflected every image of the landscape; the cliffs, branching into wild forms, crowned with groves, whose rough foliage often spread down their steeps in picturesque luxuriance; the ruined villa on some bold point peeping through the trees; peasants' cabins hanging on the precipices, and the dancing figures on the strand-all touched with the silvery tint and soft shadows of moonlight. On the other hand, the sea, trembling with a long line of radiance, and shewing in the clear distance the sails of vessels stealing in every direction along its surface, presented a prospect as grand as the landscape was beautiful.

Two of Mrs Radcliffe's books, the Romance of the Forest and the Mysteries of Udolpho, were included in Mrs Barbauld's Library of British Novelists, and Ballantyne's. There are critical estimates in Sir Walter Scott's Biographical Notices of Eminent Nevel:sts, Julia Kavanagh's English Women of Letters (1863), and Professor Raleigh's The English Novel (1894). For Mr Lang on the Sicilian Romance, see Cornhill for July 1900.

Mrs Anne Grant (1755-1838), born in Glasgow, the daughter of Duncan M'Vicar, an army officer, was with her father in America 1758-68, and accompanied him back to Scotland when in 1773 he was made barrack-master at Fort Augustus; in 1779 she married the Rev. James Grant, minister of Laggan. Left a widow in 1801, she published in 1802 a volume of Poems (1803), and was encouraged to edit for publication her bestknown work, a selection from her own correspondence called Letters from the Mountains (1806). In this and a later work, Superstitions of the Highlanders (1811), she promoted that interest in the Highlands and things Gaelic that had been begun by 'Ossian.' In 1808 she published the Memoirs of an American Lady (Mrs Schuyler, widow of an American colonel), a work which was popular both in Britain and in America. In 1810 she settled in Edinburgh, where she took in boarders; and in 1825, on the initiative of Henry Mackenzie and Sir Walter Scott, she received a pension of £100. See the memoir by her son (1844).

[She should not be confounded with Mrs Eliza. beth Grant (c. 1745-1814), author of one popular Scotch song, Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch, who was born near Aberlour, Banffshire, and died at Bath; having been twice married-first to her cousin, Captain James Grant of Carron in Strathspey; and afterwards to Dr Murray, a Bath physician.]

From The Highlander.'

Where yonder ridgy mountains bound the scene,
The narrow opening glens that intervene
Still shelter, in some lowly nook obscure,
One poorer than the rest-where all are poor;
Some widowed matron, hopeless of relief,
Who to her secret breast confines her grief;
Dejected sighs the wintry night away,
And lonely muses all the summer day:

Her gallant sons, who, smit with honour's charms,
Pursued the phantom Fame through war's alarms,
Return no more; stretched on Hindostan's plain,
Or sunk beneath the unfathomable main;
In vain her eyes the watery waste explore
For heroes-fated to return no more!

Let others bless the morning's reddening beam,
Foe to her peace-it breaks the illusive dream
That, in their prime of manly bloom confessed,
Restored the long-lost warriors to her breast;
And as they strove, with smiles of filial love,
Their widowed parent's anguish to remove,
Through her small casement broke the intrusive day,
And chased the pleasing images away!

No time can e'er her banished joys restore,
For ah! a heart once broken heals no more.

Foyers in 1778.

I lost a good conveyance for a letter, and that a letter to Lady Isabella, by going on a grand party of pleasure on the Loch. There was the Governor and his new espoused love, who, by the bye, is very well considering, frank and cheerful, and so forth; and there were the two Miss Campbells of Duntroon, blithe bonnie lasses; and there was the noble Admiral of the lake, and his fair sister; and the Doctor, and another beau, whom you have not the honour to know. We went on board our galley, which is a fine little vessel, with a commodious and elegant cabin. The day was charming, the scene around was in itself sublime and cheerful, enlivened by sunshine and the music of the birds, that answered each other loudly from the woody mountains on each side of the Loch. On leaving the fort, we fired our swivels and displayed our colours. On our arrival opposite Glenmoriston, we repeated this ceremony, and sent out our boat for as many of the family as chose to come on board. The Laird himself, his beautiful daughter, and her admirer obeyed the summons: they dined with us, and then we proceeded to the celebrated Fall of Fyers.

I had seen this wonder before, but never to such advantage. Strangers generally come from the high road, and look down upon it; but the true sublime and beautiful is to be attained by going from the lake by Fyers House, as we did, to look up to it. We landed at the river's mouth, and had to walk up near a mile, through picturesque openings, in a grove of weeping birch, so fresh with the spray of the fall that its odours exhale constantly. We arrived at one of the most singular and romantic scenes the imagination can conceive. At the foot of the rock over which the river falls is a small circular bottom, in which rises, as it were, a little verdant hillock of a triangular form, which one might imagine an altar erected to the impetuous Naiad of this overwhelming stream; this rustic shrine, and the verdant sanctuary in which it stands, are adorned by the hand of nature with a rich profusion of beautiful flowers and luxuriant herbage. No wonder, overhung as it is with gloomy woods and abrupt precipices, no rude blast visits this sacred solitude; while perpetual mists from the cataract that thunders above it keep it for ever fresh with dewy moisture; and the 'showery prism' bends its splendid arch continually over the humid flowers that adorn its entrance. Now do not think me romancing, and I shall account to you in some measure for the formation and fertility of this charming little Delta. Know, then, that the nymph of the Fyers, abundantly

clamorous in summer, becomes in winter a most tremendous fury, sweeping every thing before her with inconceivable violence. The little eminence which rises so oddly in nature's softest freshest lap,' was most probably at first a portion of rock forced down by the violence of the wintry torrent, and as the river covers this spot in floods, successive winters might bring down rich soil, which, arrested by the fragment above said, in process of time formed the altar I speak of. Along with this rich sediment left by the subsiding waters, are con veyed the seeds and roots of plants from all the varieties of soil which the torrent has ravaged: hence 'flowers of all hues, and without thorn the rose ;' at least I could expect flowers worthy of Paradise in this luxuriant recess. While you stand in this enchanted vale, there is nothing but verdure, music, and tranquillity around you; but if you look to either side, abrupt rocks and unsupported trees growing from their clefts threaten to overwhelm you. Looking back, you see the river foaming through a narrow opening, and thundering and raging over broken crags almost above your heads; looking downwards, you see the same river, after having been collected in a deep basin at your feet, rolling rapidly over steep rocks, like steps of stairs, till at last it winds quietly through the sweet peaceful scene at Fyers House, and loses itself in Loch Ness. Now to what purpose have I taken up my own time and yours with this tedious description, which, after all, gives you no just idea of the place?

When we returned on board, our spirits, being by this time exhausted with walking and wonder, and talking and thunder, and so forth, began to flag. One lady, always delicate and nervous, was seized with a fit, a hysterical one, that frightened us all. I cut her laces, suppressed her struggles, and supported her in my arms during the paroxysm, which lasted near two hours. What you must allow to be very generous in the company, not one of them seemed to envy my place, or made the smallest effort to supplant me in it. We drank tea most sociably, however; landed our Glenmoriston friends, and tried to proceed homeward, but adverse fate had determined we should sup there too, and so arrested us with a dead calm four miles from home. Now midnight approached, and with it gloomy discontent and drowsy insipidity. Our chief took a fit of the fidgets, and began to cry Poh, Poh; his lady took a fit of yawning; his little grandson took a fit of crying, which made his daughter take a fit of anger; the Doctor took a fit of snoring; even the good-natured Admiral took a fit of fretting, because the sailors had taken a fit of drinking. All of a sudden the Miss C.'s took a fit of singing, to the great annoyance of the unharmonious group; when I went to the deck, fell into a fit of meditation, and began to say, 'How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!' Indeed nothing could be more inspiring; now silvery calmness slumbered on the deep, the moonbeams quivered on the surface of the water, and shed a mild radiance on the trees; the sky was unclouded, and the sound of the distant waterfall alone disturbed the universal stillness. But the general ill humour disturbed my rising rapture, for it was now two o'clock, and nobody cared for poetry or moonlight but myself. Well, we saw the wind would not rise, and so we put out the boat, some growling, others vapid, and the rest half asleep. The gentlemen, however, rowed us home, and left the galley to the drunken sailors.

You may judge how gaily we arrived. I fancy Solomon had just returned from a long party of pleasure on the sea of Tiberias, where one of his Mistresses had the hysterics, when he drew the pensive conclusion that 'all is vanity and vexation of spirit.' Adieu!

(Written from the Castle of Fort Augustus in 1778, to a Glasgow lady.)

Mrs Amelia Opie (1769-1853) was born at Norwich, the only child of James Alderson, M.D., a Radical and Unitarian; in 1798 she married the painter John Opie, R.A. (1761-1807). While very young she had written songs and tragedies, but her first acknowledged work was the domestic and pathetic tale of The Father and Daughter (1801). To this story of ordinary life, which went through

AMELIA OPIE.

From the Portrait by John Opie, R. A., in the National Portrait

Gallery.

a dozen editions, she contrived to give deep interest by her genuine painting of nature and passion and her animated dialogue. Adeline Mowbray, or the Mother and Daughter (1804); Simple Tales (1806); Temper, or Domestic Scenes (1812); Tales of Real Life (1813); New Tales (1818); Tales of the Heart (1820); Madeline (1822), all show the same characteristics-the portraiture of domestic life with the express aim of regulating the heart and affections; Godwin's political and social theories occasionally intrude. Detraction Displayed was written to expose that 'most common of all vices, which is found in every class or rank in society, from the peer to the peasant, from the master to the valet, from the mistress to the maid, from the most learned to the most ignorant, from the man of genius to the meanest capacity.' Mrs Opie's tales were soon thrown into the shade by the greater force of Miss Edgeworth, the fascination of Scott, and the more

masculine temper of our modern literature. Like Henry Mackenzie, Mrs Opie was too uniformly pathetic and tender. She has not succeeded,' said Jeffrey, 'in copying either the concentrated force of weighty and deliberate reason, or the severe and solemn dignity of majestic virtue. To make amends, however, she represents admirably everything that is amiable, generous, and gentle.' And she possessed power of exciting and harrowing the feelings in no ordinary degree; some of her short tales are full of gloomy and terrific painting, alternately resembling those of Godwin and Mrs Radcliffe.

After the death of her husband in 1807, Mrs Opie resided chiefly in her native city of Norwich, but often visited London, where her company was courted by literary and fashionable circles. In 1825 she was formally admitted into the Society of Friends or Quakers, whose services she had attended for eleven years; but her liveliness of character was in no whit thereby diminished, or the singular happiness of her old age clouded. Miss Sedgwick, in her Letters from Abroad (1841), declared I owed Mrs Opie a grudge for having made me in my youth cry my eyes out over her stories; but her fair, cheerful face forced me to forget it. She long ago forswore the world and its vanities, and adopted the Quaker faith and costume; but I fancied that her elaborate simplicity, and the fashionable little train to her pretty satin gown, indicated how much easier it is to adopt a theory than to change one's habits.' Miss Thackeray's Book of Sibyls gives a delightful picture of her. An interesting volume of Memorials from her letters, diaries, and other manuscripts, by Miss Brightwell, was published in 1854. Mrs Opie's best-known poem, long included in schoolbook selections, is

The Orphan Boy's Tale.
Stay, lady, stay, for mercy's sake,
And hear a helpless orphan's tale;
Ah! sure my looks must pity wake;
'Tis want that makes my cheek so pale.
Yet I was once a mother's pride,

And my brave father's hope and joy;
But in the Nile's proud fight he died,

And I am now an orphan boy.
Poor foolish child! how pleased was I

When news of Nelson's victory came,
Along the crowded streets to fly,

And see the lighted windows flame!
To force me home my mother sought;
She could not bear to see my joy;
For with my father's life 'twas bought,
And made me a poor orphan boy.
The people's shouts were long and loud,

My mother, shuddering, closed her ears;
'Rejoice! rejoice!' still cried the crowd;
My mother answered with her tears.
'Why are you crying thus,' said I,
'While others laugh and shout with joy?'
She kissed me-and, with such a sigh!
She called me her poor orphan boy.

'What is an orphan boy?' I cried,

As in her face I looked, and smiled;
My mother through her tears replied:

'You'll know too soon, ill-fated child!'
And now they've tolled my mother's knell,
And I'm no more a parent's joy;
O lady, I have learned too well
What 'tis to be an orphan boy!
Oh, were I by your bounty fed !—
Nay, gentle lady, do not chide-
Trust me, I mean to earn my bread;

The sailor's orphan boy has pride.
Lady, you weep!-ha!-this to me?

You'll give me clothing, food, employ !
Look down, dear parents! look, and see

Your happy, happy, orphan boy!

Mrs Hunter (1742-1821), the wife of the great physician John Hunter, was the daughter of Dr Home, an army surgeon; and Anne Home had become distinguished as a poetess years before her marriage. Her most famous song, My Mother bids me bind my Hair, was originally written to an air of Pleydell's, but owes its immortality largely to its having been set by Haydn to the tune everybody knows. Her other songs are mostly tender and natural, but hardly remarkable.

Song.

The season comes when first we met,

But you return no more;
Why cannot I the days forget,

Which time can ne'er restore?

O days too sweet, too bright to last,
Are you indeed for ever past?

The fleeting shadows of delight,
In memory I trace;

In fancy stop their rapid flight,
And all the past replace:

But, ah! I wake to endless woes

And tears the fading visions close!

Death-song written for an Original Indian Air.
The sun sets in night, and the stars shun the day,
But glory remains when their lights fade away.
Begin, you tormentors, your threats are in vain,
For the son of Alknomook will never complain.
Remember the arrows he shot from his bow,
Remember your chiefs by his hatchet laid low.
Why so slow? Do you wait till I shrink from the pain?
No; the son of Alknomook shall never complain.
Remember the wood where in ambush we lay,

And the scalps which we bore from your nation away.
Now the flame rises fast; you exult in my pain;
But the son of Alknomook can never complain.

I go to the land where my father is gone,
His ghost shall rejoice in the fame of his son;
Death comes, like a friend, to relieve me from pain ;
And thy son, O Alknomook, has scorned to complain.
The Lot of Thousands.

When hope lies dead within the heart,
By secret sorrow close concealed,
We shrink lest looks or words impart
What must not be revealed.

'Tis hard to smile when one would weep;
To speak when one would silent be;
To wake when one should wish to sleep,
And wake to agony.

Yet such the lot by thousands cast

Who wander in this world of care,
And bend beneath the bitter blast,
To save them from despair.
But nature waits her guests to greet,
Where disappointment cannot come ;
And time guides with unerring feet

The weary wanderers home.

Mrs Tighe (1772-1810), born Mary Blachford, was the daughter of a Wicklow clergyman, and married (unhappily) her cousin, who sat for Kilkenny in the Irish Parliament. She was a beautiful and accomplished woman, whose society was greatly prized. Of her poems, by far the most famous was a version, in melodious Spenserian stanzas, of the tale of Cupid and Psyche from the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Mackintosh said of the last three cantos that they were beyond all doubt the most faultless series of verses ever produced by a woman. Moore complimented her in song. Mrs Hemans wrote in her memory 'The Grave of a Poetess' and another elegy, and Keats seems to have been moved and even influenced by Psyche, which by 1853 had passed through half-a-dozen editions. Of less interest were her other poems, such as her moralisation on a lily, beginning

How withered, perished seems the form

Of yon obscure unsightly root;
Yet from the blight of wintry storm,
It hides secure the precious fruit.

From 'Psyche.'

She rose, and all enchanted gazed

On the rare beauties of the pleasant scene:
Conspicuous far, a lofty palace blazed
Upon a sloping bank of softest green;

A fairer edifice was never seen;

The high-ranged columns own no mortal hand,
But seem a temple meet for beauty's queen;
Like polished snow the marble pillars stand,
In grace-attempered majesty, sublimely grand.
Gently ascending from a silvery flood,
Above the palace rose the shaded hill,
The lofty eminence was crowned with wood,
And the rich lawns, adorned by nature's skill,
The passing breezes with their odours fill;
Here ever-blooming groves of orange glow,
And here all flowers, which from their leaves distil
Ambrosial dew, in sweet succession blow,

And trees of matchless size a fragrant shade bestow.
The sun looks glorious, 'mid a sky serene,
And bids bright lustre sparkle o'er the tide;
The clear blue ocean at a distance seen,
Bounds the gay landscape on the western side,
While closing round it with majestic pride,
The lofty rocks 'mid citron groves arise;
'Sure some divinity must here reside,'

As tranced in some bright vision, Psyche cries,
And scarce believes the bliss, or trusts her charmed eyes.

When lo a voice divinely sweet she hears, From unseen lips proceeds the heavenly sound; 'Psyche, approach, dismiss thy timid fears,

At length his bride thy longing spouse has found, And bids for thee immortal joys abound; For thee the palace rose at his command, For thee his love a bridal banquet crowned; He bids attendant nymphs around thee stand, Prompt every wish to serve-a fond obedient band.'

[pride,

Increasing wonder filled her ravished soul,
For now the pompous portals opened wide,
There, pausing oft, with timid foot she stole
Through halls high domed, enriched with sculptured
While gay saloons appeared on either side,

In splendid vista opening to her sight;
And all with precious gems so beautified,
And furnished with such exquisite delight,

That scarce the beams of heaven emit such lustre bright.

The amethyst was there of violet hue,
And there the topaz shed its golden ray,
The chrysoberyl, and the sapphire blue
As the clear azure of a sunny day,

Or the mild eyes where amorous glances play;
The snow-white jasper, and the opal's flame,
The blushing ruby, and the agate gray,

And there the gem which bears his luckless name Whose death, by Phoebus mourned, insured him deathless fame.

There the green emerald, there cornelians glow
And rich carbuncles pour eternal light,
With all that India and Peru can shew,
Or Labrador can give so flaming bright
To the charmed mariner's half-dazzled sight:
The coral-pavèd baths with diamonds blaze ;
And all that can the female heart delight
Of fair attire, the last recess displays,
And all that luxury can ask, her eye surveys.

Now through the hall melodious music stole,
And self-prepared the splendid banquet stands;
Self-poured, the nectar sparkles in the bowl;
The lute and viol, touched by unseen hands,
Aid the soft voices of the choral bands;
O'er the full board a brighter lustre beams
Than Persia's monarch at his feast commands:
For sweet refreshment all inviting seems
To taste celestial food, and pure ambrosial streams.
But when meek eve hung out her dewy star,
And gently veiled with gradual hand the sky,
Lo! the bright folding doors retiring far,
Display to Psyche's captivated eye

All that voluptuous ease could e'er supply
To soothe the spirits in serene repose :
Beneath the velvet's purple canopy,
Divinely formed, a downy couch arose,
While alabaster lamps a milky light disclose.
Once more she hears the hymeneal strain;
Far other voices now attune the lay:
The swelling sounds approach, a while remain,
And then retiring, faint dissolved away:
The expiring lamps emit a feebler ray,
And soon in fragrant death extinguished lie:
Then virgin terrors Pysche's soul dismay,

When through the obscuring gloom she nought can spy, But softly rustling sounds declare some being nigh.

Oh, you for whom I write! whose hearts can melt,
At the soft thrilling voice whose power you prove,
You know what charm, unutterably felt,
Attends the unexpected voice of love :
Above the lyre, the lute's soft notes above,
With sweet enchantment to the soul it steals,
And bears it to Elysium's happy grove;
You best can tell the rapture Psyche feels,
When love's ambrosial lip the vows of Hymen seals.

"Tis he, 'tis my deliverer! deep imprest
Upon my heart those sounds I well recall,'
The blushing maid exclaimed, and on his breast
A tear of trembling ecstacy let fall.

But, ere the breezes of the morning call
Aurora from her purple, humid bed,
Psyche in vain explores the vacant hall;
Her tender lover from her arms is fled,

While sleep his downy wings had o'er her eyelids spread.

to

Helen Maria Williams (1762-1827), daughter of an officer, was brought up at Berwick, but in 1781 came London with a versetale, Edwin and Eltruda, which attracted some notice and led to her producing a succession of poems (Ode to Peace; Peru, &c.; collected 1786'. In 1788 she went to stay with her sister, the wife of Athanase Coquerel, Huguenot pastor in Paris, and became a fanatical supporter of revolution principles. A friend of Madame Roland, she was imprisoned by Robespierre, and was all but made a Girondist martyr. From 1794 till 1796 she was understood to be living under the protection of a Mr Stone, by whose side at Père-Lachaise she was buried; and was said to have at one time lived with that same Imlay who did not protect Mary Wollstonecraft. Yet she remained a devout Christian and wrote admirable hymns; though by Royalists in France and Tories in England, like the Anti-Jacobin set, she was treated as a disreputable person. Her long series of letters, narratives, sketches, and tours dealing with the state of France (1790-1815) are transparently sincere, but utterly and ignorantly one-sided, worth reading 'not as history but as a phase of opinion,' according to Professor Laughton, who pronounces her account of affairs at Naples in Nelson's time to be 'distinctly false in every detail.' She translated Humboldt's Personal Narrative of Travels (1814), and spent most of her last years at Amsterdam with her nephew, the famous rationalist preacher, A. L. C. Coquerel. The best-known of her hymns are My God, all Nature owns Thy sway,' and 'While Thee I seek, protecting Power' On her Perourou, or the Bellows-mender, Lord Lytton's Lady of Lyons was based. Her friend Anne Plumptre (1760-1818), daughter of the President of Queen's College, Cambridge, was also an enthusiastic revolutionist. She took a conspicuous part in naturalising German literature in England, by translating from Kotzebue, Musäus, &c., and by her own Letters from Germany. She wrote two or three novels and narratives of a sojourn in France and in Ireland.