Radcliffe and her school. _The Castle of Otranto_
is significant, not because of its intrinsic merit, but because
of its power in shaping the destiny of the novel.
The outline of the plot is worth recording for the sake of
tracing ancestral likenesses when we reach the later romances.
The only son of Manfred--the villain of the piece--is discovered
on his wedding morning dashed to pieces beneath an enormous
helmet. Determined that his line shall not become extinct,
Manfred decides to divorce Hippolyta and marry Isabella, his
son's bride. To escape from her pursuer, Isabella takes flight
down a "subterraneous passage," where she is succoured by a
"peasant" Theodore, who bears a curious resemblance to a portrait
of the "good Alfonso" in the gallery of the castle. The servants
of the castle are alarmed at intervals by the sudden appearance
of massive pieces of armour in different parts of the building. A
clap of thunder, which shakes the castle to its foundations,
heralds the culmination of the story. A hundred men bear in a
huge sabre; and an apparition of the illustrious Alfonso--whose
portrait in the gallery once walks straight out of its
frame[24]--appears, "dilated to an immense magnitude,"[25] and
demands that Manfred shall surrender Otranto to the rightful
heir, Theodore, who has been duly identified by the mark of a
"bloody arrow.
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