The titles are,
indeed, lighter and more entertaining reading than the books
themselves. Anyone might reasonably expect to read _Midnight
Horrors, or The Bandit's Daughter_, as Henry Tilney vows he read
_The Mysteries of Udolpho_, with "hair on end all the time"; but
the actual story, notwithstanding a wandering ball of fire, that
acts as guide through the labyrinths of a Gothic castle, is
conducive of sleep rather than shudders. The notoriety of Lewis's
monk may be estimated by the procession of monks who followed in
his train. There were, to select a few names at random, _The New
Monk_, by one R.S., Esq.; _The Monk of Madrid_, by George Moore
(1802); _The Bloody Monk of Udolpho_, by T.J. Horsley Curties;
_Manfroni, the One-handed Monk_, whose history was borrowed,
together with those of Abellino, the terrific bravo, and Rinaldo
Rinaldini,[55] by "J.J." from Miss Flinders' library;[56] and
lastly, as a counter-picture, a monk without a scowl, _The
Benevolent Monk_, by Theodore Melville (1807). The nuns,
including "Rosa Matilda's" _Nun of St. Omer's_, Miss Sophia
Francis's _Nun of Misericordia_ (1807) and Miss Wilkinson's
_Apostate Nun_, would have sufficed to people a convent. Perhaps
_The Convent of the Grey Penitents_ would have been a suitable
abode for them; but most of them were, to quote Crabbe, "girls no
nunnery can tame.
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