CHAPTER II - THE BEGINNINGS OF GOTHIC ROMANCE.
To Horace Walpole, whose _Castle of Otranto_ was published onChristmas Eve, 1764, must be assigned the honour of havingintroduced the Gothic romance and of having made it fashionable.Diffident as to the success of so "wild" a story in an agedevoted to good sense and reason, he sent forth his mediaevaltale disguised as a translation from the Italian of "OnuphrioMuralto," by William Marshall. It was only after it had beenreceived with enthusiasm that he confessed the authorship. As heexplained frankly in a letter to his friend Mason: "It is noteverybody that may in this country play the fool withimpunity."[14] That Walpole regarded his story merely as afanciful, amusing trifle is clear from the letter he wrote toMiss Hannah More reproving her for putting so frantic a thinginto the hands of a Bristol milkwoman who wrote poetry in herleisure hours.[15] _The Castle of Otranto_ was but anothermanifestation of that admiration for the Gothic which had foundexpression fourteen years earlier in his miniature castle atStrawberry Hill, with its old armour and "lean windows fattenedwith rich saints."[16] The word "Gothic" in the early eighteenthcentury was used as a term of reproach. To Addison, SienaCathedral was but a "barbarous" building, which might have been amiracle of architecture, had our forefathers "only beeninstructed in the right way."[17] Pope in his _Preface toShakespeare_ admits the strength and majesty of the Gothic, butdeplores its irregularity. In _Letters on Chivalry and Romance_,published two years before _The Castle of Otranto_, Hurd pleadsthat Spenser's _Faerie Queene_ should be read and criticised as aGothic, not a classical, poem. He clearly recognises the right ofthe Gothic to be judged by laws of its own. When the nineteenthcentury is reached the epithet has lost all tinge of blame, andhas become entirely one of praise. From the time when he began tobuild his castle, in 1750, Walpole's letters abound in referencesto the Gothic, and he confesses once: "In the heretical corner ofmy heart I adore the Gothic building."[18] At Strawberry Hill thehall and staircase were his special delight and they probablyformed the background of that dream in which he saw a gigantichand in armour on the staircase of an ancient castle. When Dr.Burney visited Walpole's home in 1786 he remarked on the strikingrecollections of _The Castle of Otranto_, brought to mind by "thedeep shade in which some of his antique portraits were placed andthe lone sort of look of the unusually shaped apartments in whichthey were hung."[19] We know how in idle moments Walpole loved tobrood on the picturesque past, and we can imagine his fallingasleep, after the arrival of a piece of armour for hiscollection, with his head full of plans for the adornment of hischerished castle. His story is but an expansion of thisdilettante's nightmare. His interest in things mediaeval was notthat of an antiquary, but rather that of an artist who lovesthings old because of their age and beauty. In a delightfully gayletter to his friend, George Montagu, referring flippantly to hisappointment as Deputy Ranger of Rockingham Forest, he writes,after drawing a vivid picture of a "Robin Hood reforme":
"Visions, you know, have always been my pasture; and so far from growing old enough to quarrel with their emptiness, I almost think there is no wisdom comparable to that of exchanging what is called the realities of life for dreams. Old castles, old pictures, old histories and the babble of old people make one live back into centuries that cannot disappoint one. One holds fast and surely what is past. The dead have exhausted their power of deceiving--one can trust Catherine of Medicis now. In short, you have opened a new landscape to my fancy; and my lady Beaulieu will oblige me as much as you, if she puts the long bow into your hands. I don't know, but the idea may produce some other _Castle of Otranto_."[20]
So Walpole came near to anticipating the greenwood scenes of_Ivanhoe_. The decking and trappings of chivalry filled him withboyish delight, and he found in the glitter and colour of themiddle ages a refuge from the prosaic dullness of the eighteenthcentury. A visit from "a Luxembourg, a Lusignan and a Montfort"awoke in his whimsical fancy a mental image of himself in theguise of a mediaeval baron: "I never felt myself so much in _TheCastle of Otranto_. It sounded as if a company of noble crusaderswere come to sojourn with me before they embarked for the HolyLand";[21] and when he heard of the marvellous adventures of alarge wolf who had caused a panic in Lower Languedoc, he wasreminded of the enchanted monster of old romance and declaredthat, had he known of the creature earlier, it should haveappeared in _The Castle of Otranto_.[22] "I have taken toastronomy," he declares on another occasion,
"now that the scale is enlarged enough to satisfy my taste, who love gigantic ideas--do not be afraid; I am not going to write a second part to _The Castle of Otranto_, nor another account of the Patagonians who inhabit the new Brobdingnag planet."[23]
These unstudied utterances reveal, perhaps more clearly thanWalpole's deliberate confessions about his book, the mood ofirresponsible, light-hearted gaiety in which he started on hisenterprise. If we may rely on Walpole's account of itscomposition, _The Castle of Otranto_ was fashioned rapidly in awhite heat of excitement, but the creation of the story probablycost him more effort than he would have us believe. The result,at least, lacks spontaneity. We never feel for a moment that weare living invisible amidst the characters, but we sit aloof likePuck, thinking: "Lord, what fools these mortals be!" Hissupernatural machinery is as undignified as the pantomimeproperties of Jack the Giant-killer. The huge body scatteredpiecemeal about the castle, the unwieldy sabre borne by a hundredmen, the helmet "tempestuously agitated," and even the "skeletonin a hermit's cowl" are not only unalarming but mildlyridiculous. Yet to the readers of his day the story wascaptivating and entrancing. It satisfied a real craving for theromantic and marvellous. The first edition of five hundred copieswas sold out in two months, and others followed rapidly. Thestory was dramatised by Robert Jephson and produced at CoventGarden Theatre under the title of _The Count of Narbonne_, withan epilogue by Malone. It was staged again later in Dublin,Kemble playing the title role. It was translated into French,German and Italian. In England its success was immediate, thoughseveral years elapsed before it was imitated. Gray, to whom thestory was first attributed, wrote of it in March, 1765: "Itengages our attention here (at Cambridge), makes some of us cry alittle, and all in general afraid to go to bed o' nights." Masonpraised it, and Walpole's letters refer repeatedly to the vogueit enjoyed. This widespread popularity is an indication of theeagerness with which readers of 1765 desired to escape from thepresent and to revel for a time in strange, bygone centuries.Although Walpole regarded the composition of his Gothic story asa whim, his love of the past was shared by others of hisgeneration. Of this Macpherson's _Ossian_ (1760-3), Kurd's_Letters on Chivalry and Romance_ (1762), and Percy's _Reliques_(1765), are, each in its fashion, a sufficient proof. Thehalf-century from 1760 to 1810 showed remarkably definite signsof a renewed interest in things written between 1100 and 1650,which had been neglected for a century or more. _The Castle ofOtranto_, which was "an attempt to blend the marvellous of oldstory with the natural of modern novels" is an early symptom ofthis revulsion to the past; and it exercised a charm on Scott aswell as on Mrs. Radcliffe and her school. _The Castle of Otranto_is significant, not because of its intrinsic merit, but becauseof its power in shaping the destiny of the novel.
The outline of the plot is worth recording for the sake oftracing ancestral likenesses when we reach the later romances.The only son of Manfred--the villain of the piece--is discoveredon his wedding morning dashed to pieces beneath an enormoushelmet. Determined that his line shall not become extinct,Manfred decides to divorce Hippolyta and marry Isabella, hisson's bride. To escape from her pursuer, Isabella takes flightdown a "subterraneous passage," where she is succoured by a"peasant" Theodore, who bears a curious resemblance to a portraitof the "good Alfonso" in the gallery of the castle. The servantsof the castle are alarmed at intervals by the sudden appearanceof massive pieces of armour in different parts of the building. Aclap of thunder, which shakes the castle to its foundations,heralds the culmination of the story. A hu
ndred men bear in ahuge sabre; and an apparition of the illustrious Alfonso--whoseportrait in the gallery once walks straight out of itsframe[24]--appears, "dilated to an immense magnitude,"[25] anddemands that Manfred shall surrender Otranto to the rightfulheir, Theodore, who has been duly identified by the mark of a"bloody arrow." Alfonso, thus pacified, ascends into heaven,where he is received into glory by St. Nicholas. As Matilda, whowas beloved of Theodore, has incidentally been slain by herfather, Theodore consoles himself with Isabella. Manfred and hiswife meekly retire to neighbouring convents. With thisanti-climax the story closes. To present the "dry bones" of aromantic story is often misleading, but the method is perhapsjustifiable in the case of _The Castle of Otranto_, becauseWalpole himself scorned embellishments and declared in hisgrandiloquent fashion:
"If this air of the miraculous is excused, the reader will find nothing else unworthy of his perusal. There is no bombast, no similes, flowers, digressions or unnecessary descriptions. Everything tends directly to the catastrophe."[26]
But with all its faults _The Castle of Otranto_ did not fallfruitless on the earth. The characters are mere puppets, yet wemeet the same types again and again in later Gothic romances.Though Clara Reeve renounced such "obvious improbabilities" as aghost in a hermit's cowl and a walking picture, she was anacknowledged disciple of Walpole, and, like him, made an"interesting peasant" the hero of her story, _The Old EnglishBaron_. Jerome is the prototype of many a count disguised asfather confessor, Bianca the pattern of many a chatteringservant. The imprisoned wife reappears in countless romances,including Mrs. Radcliffe's _Sicilian Romance_ (1790), and Mrs.Roche's _Children of the Abbey_ (1798). The tyrannical father--nonew creation, however--became so inevitable a figure in fictionthat Jane Austen had to assure her readers that Mr. Morland "wasnot in the least addicted to locking up his daughters," and MissMartha Buskbody, the mantua-maker of Gandercleugh, whom JedediahCleishbotham ingeniously called to his aid in writing theconclusion of _Old Mortality_, assured him, as the fruit of herexperience in reading through the stock of three circulatinglibraries that, in a novel, young people may fall in love withoutthe countenance of their parents, "because it is essential to thenecessary intricacy of the story." But apart from his characters,who are so colourless that they hardly hold our attention,Walpole bequeathed to his successors a remarkable collection ofuseful "properties." The background of his story is a Gothiccastle, singularly unenchanted it is true, but capable of beinginvested by Mrs. Radcliffe with mysterious grandeur. Otrantocontains underground vaults, ill-fitting doors with rusty hinges,easily extinguished lamps and a trap-door--objects trivial andinsignificant in Walpole's hands, but fraught with terriblepossibilities. Otranto would have fulfilled admirably therequirements of Barrett's Cherubina, who, when looking forlodgings demanded--to the indignation of a maidservant, who cameto the door--old pictures, tapestry, a spectre and creakinghinges. Scott, writing in 1821, remarks:
"The apparition of the skeleton-hermit to the prince of Vicenza was long accounted a masterpiece of the horrible; but of late the valley of Jehosaphat could hardly supply the dry bones necessary for the exhibition of similar spectres."
But Cherubina, whose palate was jaded by a surfeit of the pungenthorrors of Walpole's successors, would probably have found _TheCastle of Otranto_ an insipid romance and would have lamentedthat he did not make more effective use of his supernaturalmachinery. His story offered hints and suggestions to those whosegreater gifts turned the materials he had marshalled to betteraccount, and he is to be honoured rather for what he instigatedothers to perform than for what he actually accomplished himself._The Castle of Otranto_ was not intended as a seriouscontribution to literature, but will always survive in literaryhistory as the ancestor of a thriving race of romances.
More than ten years before the publication of _The Castle ofOtranto_, Smollett, in his _Adventures of Ferdinand, CountFathom_, had chanced upon the devices employed later in the taleof terror. The tremors of fear to which his rascally hero issubjected lend the spice of alarm to what might have been but amonotonous record of villainy. Smollett depicts skilfully theimaginary terrors created by darkness and solitude. As the Counttravels through the forest:
"The darkness of the night, the silence and solitude of the place, the indistinct images of the trees that appeared on every side, stretching their extravagant arms athwart the gloom, conspired, with the dejection of spirits occasioned by his loss, to disturb his fancy and raise strange phantoms in his imagination. Although he was not naturally superstitious, his mind began to be invaded with an awful horror that gradually prevailed over all the consolations of reason and philosophy; nor was his heart free from the terrors of assassination. In order to dissipate these agreeable reveries, he had recourse to the conversation of his guide, by whom he was entertained with the history of divers travellers who had been robbed and murdered by ruffians, whose retreat was in the recesses of that very wood."[27]
The sighing of the trees, thunder and sudden flashes of lightningadd to the horror of a journey, which resembles Mrs. Radcliffe'sdescription of Emily's approach to Udolpho. When Count Fathomtakes refuge in a robber's hut, he discovers in his room, whichhas no bolt on the inside of the door, the body of a recentlymurdered man, concealed beneath some bundles of straw. Effectinghis escape by placing the corpse in his own bed to deceive therobbers, the count is mistaken for a phantom by the old woman whowaits upon him. In carrying out his designs upon Celinda, thecount aggravates her natural timidity by relating dismal storiesof omens and apparitions, and then groans piteously outside herdoor and causes the mysterious music of an AEolian harp to soundupon the midnight air. Celinda sleeps, too, like the ill-starredheroine of the novel of terror, "at the end of a long gallery,scarce within hearing of any other inhabited part of thehouse."[28] The scene in _Count Fathom_, in which Renaldo, atmidnight, visits, as he thinks, the tomb of Monimia, issurrounded with circumstances of gloom and mystery:
"The uncommon darkness of the night, the solemn silence and lonely situation of the place, conspired with the occasion of his coming and the dismal images of his fancy, to produce a real rapture of gloomy expectation... The clock struck twelve, the owl screeched from the ruined battlement, the door was opened by the sexton, who, by the light of a glimmering taper, conducted the despairing lover to a dreary aisle."
As he watches again on a second night:
"His ear was suddenly invaded with the sound of some few, solemn notes, issuing from the organ which seemed to feel the impulse of an invisible hand ... reason shrunk before the thronging ideas of his fancy, which represented this music as the prelude to something strange and supernatural."[29]
The figure of a woman, arrayed in a flowing robe and veil,approaches--and proves to be Monimia in the flesh. AlthoughSmollett precedes Walpole, in point of time, he is, in thesescenes, nearer in spirit to Udolpho than Otranto. His use ofterror, however, is merely incidental; he strays inadvertentlyinto the history of Gothic romance. The suspicions andforebodings, with which Smollett plays occasionally upon thenerves of his readers, become part of the ordinary routine in thetale of terror.
Clara Reeve's Gothic story, first issued under the title of _TheChampion of Virtue_, but later as _The Old English Baron_, waspublished in 1777--twelve years after Walpole's _Castle ofOtranto_, of which, as she herself asserted, it was the "literaryoffspring." By eliminating all supernatural incidents save oneghost, she sought to bring her story "within the utmost verge ofprobability." Walpole, perhaps displeased by the slightingreferences in the preface to some of the more extraordinaryincidents in his novel, received _The Old English Baron_ withdisdain, describing it as "totally void of imagination andinterest."[30] His strictures are unjust. There are certainly nowild flights of fancy in Clara Reeve's story, but an even levelof interest is maintained throughout. Her style is simple andrefreshingly free from
affectation. The plot is neither rapid norexhilarating, but it never actually stagnates. Like Walpole'sGothic story, _The Old English Baron_ is supposed to be atranscript from an ancient manuscript. The period, we areassured, is that of the minority of Henry VI., but despite anelaborately described tournament, we never really leaveeighteenth century England. Edmund Twyford, the reputed son of acottager, is befriended by a benevolent baron Fitzowen, but,through his good fortune and estimable qualities, excites theenvy of Fitzowen's nephews and his eldest son. To prove thecourage of Edmund, who has been basely slandered by his enemies,the baron asks him to spend three nights in the haunted apartmentof the castle. Up to this point, there has been nothing todifferentiate the story from an uneventful domestic novel. Theghost is of the mechanical variety and does not inspire awe whenhe actually appears, but Miss Reeve tries to prepare our mindsfor the shock, before she introduces him. The rusty locks and thesudden extinction of the lamp are a heritage from Walpole, butthe "hollow, rustling noise" and the glimmering light, naturallyexplained later by the approach of a servant with a faggot,anticipate Mrs. Radcliffe. Like Adeline later, in _The Romance ofthe Forest_, Edmund is haunted by prophetic dreams. The secondnight the ghost violently clashes his armour, but still remainsconcealed. The third night dismal groans are heard. The ghostdoes not deign to appear in person until the baron's nephewswatch, and then:
"All the doors flew open, a pale glimmering light appeared at the door from the staircase, and a man in complete armour entered the room: he stood with one hand extended pointing to the outward door."
It is to vindicate the rights of this departed spirit that SirRalph Harclay challenges Sir Walter Lovel to a "mediaeval"tournament. Before the story closes, Edmund is identified as theowner of Castle Lovel, and is married to Lady Emma, Fitzowen'sdaughter. The narration of the unusual circumstances connectedwith his birth takes some time, as the foster parents suffer fromwhat is described by writers on psychology as "total recall," andare unable to select the salient details. The characters arerather dim and indistinct, the shadowiest of all being Emma, whohas no personality at all, and is a mere complement to theimmaculate Edmund's happiness. The good and bad are sharplydistinguished. There are no "doubtful cases," and consequentlythere is no difficulty in distributing appropriate rewards andpunishments at the close of the story--the whole "furnishing astriking lesson to posterity of the overruling hand of providenceand the certainty of retribution." Clara Reeve was fifty-twoyears of age when she published her Gothic story, and she writesin the spirit of a maiden aunt striving to edify as well as toentertain the younger generation. When Edmund takes Fitzowen toview the fatal closet and the bones of his murdered father, heconsiders the scene "too solemn for a lady to be present at"; andhis love-making is as frigid as the supernatural scenes. The herois young in years, but has no youthful ardour. The very ghost ismanipulated in a half-hearted fashion and fails to produce theslightest thrill. The natural inclination of the authoress wasprobably towards domestic fiction with a didactic intention, andshe attempted a "mediaeval" setting as a _tour de force_, inemulation of Walpole's _Castle of Otranto_. The hero, whose birthis enshrouded in mystery, the restless ghost groaning for thevindication of rights, the historical background, the archaicspelling of the challenge, are all ineffective fumblings towardsthe romantic. _The Old English Baron_ is an unambitious work, butit has a certain hold upon our attention because of its limpidityof style. It can be read without discomfort and even with a milddegree of interest simply as a story, while _The Castle ofOtranto_ is only tolerable as a literary curiosity. A tragedy,_Edmond_, _Orphan of the Castle_ (1799), was founded upon thestory, which was translated into French in 1800. Miss Reeveinforms the public in a preface to a late edition of _The OldEnglish Baron_ that, in compliance with the suggestion of afriend, she had composed _Castle Connor, an Irish Story_, inwhich apparitions were introduced. The manuscript of this talewas unfortunately lost. Not even a mouldering fragment has beenrescued from an ebony cabinet in the deserted chamber of anancient abbey, and we are left wondering whether the ghosts spokewith a brogue.
When Walpole wrote disparagingly of Clara Reeve's imitation ofhis Gothic story, he singled out for praise a fragment which heattributes to Mrs. Barbauld. The story to which he alludes isevidently the unfinished _Sir Bertrand_, which is contained inone of the volumes entitled _Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose_,published jointly by J. and A.L. Aikin in 1773, and preceded byan essay _On the Pleasure Derived from Objects of Terror_. LeighHunt, who reprinted _Sir Bertrand_, which had impressed him verystrongly in his boyhood, in his _Book for a Corner_ (1849)ascribes the authorship of the tale to Dr. Aikin, commenting onthe fact that he was "a writer from whom this effusion was hardlyto have been looked for." It is probably safe to assume thatWalpole, who was a contemporary of the Aikins and who took alively interest in the literary gossip of the day, was right inassigning _Sir Bertrand_ to Miss Aikin,[31] afterwards Mrs.Barbauld, though the story is not included in _The Works of AnneLetitia Barbauld_, edited by Miss Lucy Aikin in 1825. That theminds of the Aikins were exercised about the sources of pleasurein romance, especially when connected with horror and distress,is clear not only from this essay and the illustrative fragmentbut also from other essays and stories in the samecollection--_On Romances, an Imitation_, and _An Enquiry intothose Kinds of Distress which Excite Agreeable Sensations_. Inthe preliminary essay to _Sir Bertrand_ an attempt is made toexplain why terrible scenes excite pleasurable emotions and todistinguish between two different types of horror, as illustratedby _The Castle of Otranto_, which unites the marvellous and theterrible, and by a scene of mere natural horror in Smollett's_Count Fathom_. The story _Sir Bertrand_ is an attempt to combinethe two kinds of horror in one composition. A knight, wanderingin darkness on a desolate and dreary moor, hears the tolling of abell, and, guided by a glimmering light, finds "an antiquemansion" with turrets at the corners. As he approaches the porch,the light glides away. All is dark and still. The light reappearsand the bell tolls. As Sir Bertrand enters the castle, the doorcloses behind him. A bluish flame leads him up a staircase tillhe comes to a wide gallery and a second staircase, where thelight vanishes. He grasps a dead-cold hand which he severs fromthe wrist with his sword. The blue flame now leads him to avault, where he sees the owner of the hand "completely armed,thrusting forwards the bloody stump of an arm, with a terriblefrown and menacing gesture and brandishing a sword in theremaining hand." When attacked, the figure vanishes, leavingbehind a massive, iron key which unlocks a door leading to anapartment containing a coffin, and statues of black marble,attired in Moorish costume, holding enormous sabres in theirright hands. As the knight enters, each of them rears an arm andadvances a leg and at the same moment the lid of the coffin opensand the bell tolls. Sir Bertrand, guided by the flames,approaches the coffin from which a lady in a shroud and a blackveil arises. When he kisses her, the whole building falls asunderwith a crash. Sir Bertrand is thrown into a trance and awakes ina gorgeous room, where he sees a beautiful lady who thanks him asher deliverer. At a banquet, nymphs place a laurel wreath on hishead, but as the lady is about to address him the fragment breaksoff.
The architecture of the castle, with its gallery, staircase andsubterranean vaults, closely resembles that of Walpole's Gothicstructure. The "enormous sabres" too are familiar to readers of_The Castle of Otranto_. The gliding light, disquieting at theoutset of the story but before the close familiar grown, isdoomed to be the guide of many a distressed wanderer through theGothic labyrinths of later romances. Mrs. Barbauld chose herproperties with admirable discretion, but lacked the art to usethem cunningly. A tolling bell, heard in the silence and darknessof a lonely moor, will quicken the beatings of the heart, butemployed as a prompter's signal to herald the advance of a groupof black statues is only absurd. After the grimly suggestiveopening, the story gradually loses in power as it proceeds andthe happy ending, which wings our thoughts back to the SleepingBeauty of childhood, is wholly incongruous. If the fragment hadended abruptly a
t the moment when the lady arises in her shroudfrom the coffin, _Sir Bertrand_ would have been a more effectivetale of terror. From the historical point of view Mrs. Barbauld'scurious patchwork is full of interest. She seems to be reachingout wistfully towards the mysterious and the unknown. Genuinelyanxious to awaken a thrill of excitement in the breast of herreader, she is hesitating and uncertain as to the best way ofwinning her effect. She is but a pioneer in the art of freezingthe blood and it were idle to expect that she should rush boldlyinto a forest of horrors. Naturally she prefers to follow thetracks trodden by Walpole and Smollett; but with intuitiveforesight she seems to have realised the limitations of Walpole'smarvellous machinery, and to have attempted to explore theregions of the fearful unknown. Her opening scene works on thatinstinctive terror of the dark and the unseen, upon which Mrs.Radcliffe bases many of her most moving incidents.
Among the _Poetical Sketches_ of Blake, written between 1768 and1777, and published in 1783, there appears an extraordinary poemwritten in blank verse, but divided into quatrains, and entitled_Fair Elenor_. This juvenile production seems to indicate thatBlake was familiar with Walpole's Gothic story.[32] The heroine,wandering disconsolately by night in the castle vaults--a placeof refuge first rendered fashionable by Isabella in _The Castleof Otranto_--faints with horror, thinking that she beholds herhusband's ghost, but soon:
"Fancy returns, and now she thinks of bones And grinning skulls and corruptible death Wrapped in his shroud; and now fancies she hears Deep sighs and sees pale, sickly ghosts gliding."
A reality more horrible than her imaginings awaits her. Ableeding head is abruptly thrust into her arms by an assassin inthe employ of a villainous and anonymous "duke." Fair Elenorretires to her bed and gives utterance to an outburst of similesin praise of her dead lord. Thus encouraged, the bloody head ofher murdered husband describes its lurid past, and warns Elenorto beware of the duke's dark designs. Elenor wisely avoids themachinations of the villain, and brings an end to the poem, bybreathing her last. Blake's story is faintly reminiscent of thepopular legend of Anne Boleyn, who, with her bleeding head in herlap, is said to ride down the avenue of Blickling Park once ayear in a hearse drawn by horsemen and accompanied by attendants,all headless out of respect to their mistress.
Blake's youthful excursion into the murky gloom of Gothic vaultsresulted in a poem so crude that even "Monk" Lewis, who was noconnoisseur, would have declined it regretfully as a contributionto his _Tales of Terror_, but _Fair Elenor_ is worthy ofremembrance as an early indication of Walpole's influence, whichwas to become so potent on the history of Gothic romance.
The Gothic experiments of Dr. Nathan Drake, published in his_Literary Hours_ (1798), are extremely instructive as indicatingthe critical standpoint of the time. Drake, like Mrs. Barbauldand her brother, was deeply interested in the sources of thepleasure derived from tales of terror, and wrote his Gothicstories to confirm and illustrate the theories propounded in hisessays. He discusses gravely and learnedly the kinds offictitious horror that excite agreeable sensations, and thenproceeds to arrange carefully calculated effects, designed toalarm his readers, but not to outrage their sense of decorum. Hehas none of the reckless daring of "Monk" Lewis, who flungrestraint to the winds and raced in mad career through an orgy ofhorrors. In his enchanted castles we are disturbed by an uneasysuspicion that the inhabitants are merely allegorical characters,and that the spectre of a moral lurks in some dim recess ready tospring out upon us suddenly. Dr. Drake's mind was as a housedivided against itself: he was a moralist, emulating the "sageand serious Spenser" in his desire to exalt virtue and abasevice, he was a critic working out, with calm detachment,practical illustrations of the theories he had formulated, and hewas a romantic enthusiast, imbued with a vague but genuineadmiration for the wild superstitions of a bygone age. Hisstories exhibit painful evidence of the conflict which wagedbetween the three sides of his nature. In the essay prefixed to_Henry Fitzowen, a Gothic Tale_, he distinguishes between the twospecies of Gothic superstition, the gloomy and the sportive, andaddresses an ode to the two goddesses of Superstition--one theoffspring of Fear and Midnight, the other of Hesper and the Moon.In his story the spectres of darkness are put to flight by atroop of aerial spirits. Dr. Drake knew the Gothic stories ofWalpole, Mrs. Barbauld, Clara Reeve and Mrs. Radcliffe; andtraces of the influence of each may be found in his work. HenryFitzowen loves Adeline de Montfort, but has a powerful anddiabolical rival--Walleran--whose character combines the mostdangerous qualities of Mrs. Radcliffe's villains with the magicalgifts of a wizard. Fitzowen, not long before the day fixed forhis wedding, is led astray, while hunting, by an elusive stag, aspectral monk and a "wandering fire," and arrives home in athunderstorm to find his castle enveloped in total darkness andtwo of his servants stretched dead at his feet. He learns fromhis mother and sister, who are shut in a distant room, thatAdeline has been carried off by armed ruffians. BelievingWalleran to be responsible for this outrage, Fitzowen sets outthe next day in search of him. After weary wanderings he isbeguiled into a Gothic castle by a foul witch, who resembles oneof Spenser's loathly hags, and on his entrance hears peals ofdiabolical laughter. He sees spectres, blue lights, and thecorpse of Horror herself. When he slays Walleran the enchantmentsdisappear. At the end of a winding passage he finds a cavernilluminated by a globe of light, and discovers Adeline asleep ona couch. He awakes her with a kiss. Thunder shakes the earth, araging whirlwind tears the castle from its foundations, and thelovers awake from their trance in a beautiful, moonlit vale wherethey hear enchanting music and see knights, nymphs and spirits. Abeauteous queen tells them that the spirits of the blest havefreed them from Horror's dread agents. The music dies away, thespirits flee and the lovers find themselves in a country road. Astory of the same type is told by De La Motte Fouque in _TheField of Terror_.[33] Before the steadfast courage of thelabourer who strives to till the field, diabolical enchantmentsdisappear. It is an ancient legend turned into moral allegory.
In the essay on _Objects of Terror_, which precedes _Montmorenci,a Fragment_, Drake discusses that type of terror, which is"excited by the interference of a simple, material causation,"and which "requires no small degree of skill and arrangement toprevent its operating more pain than pleasure." He condemnsWalpole's _Mysterious Mother_ on the ground that the catastropheis only productive of horror and aversion, and regards the oldballad, _Edward_, as intolerable to any person of sensibility,but praises Dante and Shakespeare for keeping within the "boundsof salutary and grateful pleasure." The scene in _The Italian_,where Schedoni, about to plunge a dagger into Ellena's bosom,recoils, in the belief that he has discovered her to be his owndaughter, is commended as "appalling yet delighting the reader."In the productions of Mrs. Radcliffe, "the Shakespeare of RomanceWriters, who to the wild landscape of Salvator Rosa has added thesofter graces of a Claude," he declares,
"may be found many scenes truly terrific in their conception, yet so softened down, and the mind so much relieved, by the intermixture of beautiful description, or pathetic incident, that the impression of the whole never becomes too strong, never degenerates into horror, but pleasurable emotion is ever the predominating result."
The famous scene in _Ferdinand, Count Fathom_, the description ofDanger in Collins' _Ode to Fear_, the Scottish ballad of_Hardyknute_ are mentioned as admirable examples of the fearexcited by natural causes. In the fragment called _Montmorenci_,Drake aims at combining "picturesque description with some ofthose objects of terror which are independent of supernaturalagency." As the curfew tolls sullenly, Henry de Montmorenci andhis two attendants rush from a castle into the darkness of astormy night. They hurry through a savage glen, in which aswollen torrent falls over a precipice. After hearing the crashof falling armour, they suddenly come upon a dying knight onwhose pale features every mark of horror is depicted. Led byfrightful screams of distress, Montmorenci and his men find amaiden, who has been captured by banditti. Montmorenci slays theleader, but is seized by the rest of
the banditti and bound to atree overlooking a stupendous chasm into which he is to behurled. By almost superhuman struggles he effects his escape,when suddenly--there at this terror-fraught moment, the fragmentwisely ends.
In _The Abbey of Clunedale_ Drake experiments feebly andineffectively with the "explained supernatural" in which Mrs.Radcliffe was an adept. The ruined abbey, deemed to be haunted,is visited at night as an act of penance by a man named Cliffordwho, in a fit of unfounded jealousy, has slain his wife'sbrother. Clifford, accompanied by his sister, and bearing alight, kneels at his wife's tomb, and is mistaken for a spectralbeing.
The Gothic tale entitled _Sir Egbert_ is based on an ancientlegend associated with one of the turrets of Rochester Castle.Sir Egbert, searching for his friend, Conrad, who had disappearedin suspicious circumstances, hears from the Knights Templars,that the wicked Constable is believed to hold two lovers in aprofound and deathlike sleep. He resolves to make an attempt todraw from its sheath the sword which separates them and sorestore them to life and liberty. Undismayed by the fate of thosewho have fallen in the quest, Sir Egbert enters the castle, wherehe is entertained at a gorgeous feast. When the festivities areat their height, and Sir Egbert has momentarily forgotten hisenterprise, a terrible shriek is heard. The revellers vanish, andSir Egbert is left alone to face a spectral corpse, which beckonshim onward to a vault, where in flaming characters are inscribedthe words: "Death to him who violates the mysteries of Gundulph'sTower." Nothing daunted, Sir Egbert amid execrations of fiends,encounters delusive horrors and at last unsheathes the sword. Thelovers awake, and the whole apparatus of enchantment vanishes.Conrad tells how he and Bertha, six years before, had been luredby a wandering fire to a luxurious cavern, where they drank amagic potion. The story closes with the marriage of Conrad andBertha, and of Egbert and Matilda, a sister of one of the othervictims of the same enchanter.
In Dr. Drake's stories are patiently collected all the heirloomsnecessary for the full equipment of a Gothic castle. Massivedoors, which sway ponderously on their hinges or are forciblyburst open and which invariably close with a resounding crash,dark, eerie galleries, broken staircases, decayed apartments,mouldering floors, tolling bells, skeletons, corpses, howlingspectres--all are there; but the possessor, overwhelmed by thevery profusion which surrounds him, is at a loss how to make useof them. He does not realise the true significance of ahalf-stifled groan or an unearthly yell heard in the darkness.Each new horror indeed seems but to put new life into the heartof the redoubtable Sir Egbert, who, like Spenser's gallantknights, advances from triumph to triumph vanquishing evil atevery step. It is impossible to become absorbed in hispersonages, who have less body than his spectres, and whoseadventures take the form of a walk through an exhibition ofhorrors, mechanically set in motion to prove their prowess. Dr.Drake seems happier when the hideous beings are put to rout, andthe transformation-scene, which places fairyland before us,suddenly descends on the stage. Yet the bungling attempts of Dr.Drake are interesting as showing that grave and critical mindswere prepared to consider the tale of terror as a legitimate formof literature, obeying certain definite rules of its own andaiming at the excitement of a pleasurable fear. The seed ofGothic story, sown at random by Horace Walpole, had by 1798 takenfirm root in the soil. Drake's enthusiasm for Gothic story wasassociated with his love for older English poetry and with hisinterest in Scandinavian mythology. He was a genuine admirer ofSpenser and attempted imitations, in modern diction, of oldballads. It is for his bent towards the romantic, rather than forhis actual accomplishments, that Drake is worthy of remembrance.
The Tale of Terror: A Study of the Gothic Romance Page 9
