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, Her gallant sons, who, smit with honour's charms, Let others bless the morning's reddening beam, No time can e'er her banished joys restore, 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. And my brave father's hope and joy; And I am now an orphan boy. When news of Nelson's victory came, And see the lighted windows flame! My mother, shuddering, closed her ears; 'What is an orphan boy?' I cried, As in her face I looked, and smiled; 'You'll know too soon, ill-fated child!' The sailor's orphan boy has pride. You'll give me clothing, food, employ ! 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; Which time can ne'er restore? O days too sweet, too bright to last, The fleeting shadows of delight, In fancy stop their rapid flight, But, ah! I wake to endless woes And tears the fading visions close! Death-song written for an Original Indian Air. And the scalps which we bore from your nation away. I go to the land where my father is gone, When hope lies dead within the heart, 'Tis hard to smile when one would weep; Yet such the lot by thousands cast Who wander in this world of care, 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; From 'Psyche.' She rose, and all enchanted gazed On the rare beauties of the pleasant scene: A fairer edifice was never seen; The high-ranged columns own no mortal hand, And trees of matchless size a fragrant shade bestow. As tranced in some bright vision, Psyche cries, 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, In splendid vista opening to her sight; That scarce the beams of heaven emit such lustre bright. The amethyst was there of violet hue, Or the mild eyes where amorous glances play; 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 Now through the hall melodious music stole, All that voluptuous ease could e'er supply 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, "Tis he, 'tis my deliverer! deep imprest But, ere the breezes of the morning call 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. |