The author of
_The Midnight Bell_ was one George Walker of Bath, whose record,
like that of Miss Eleanor Sleath, who wrote the moving history of
_The Orphan of the Rhine_ (1798) in four volumes, may be found in
Watts' _Bibliotheca Britannica_. _Horrid Mysteries_, perhaps the
least credible of the titles, was a translation from the German
of the Marquis von Grosse by R. Will. Jane Austen's attack has no
tinge of bitterness or malice. John Thorpe, who declared all
novels, except _Tom Jones_ and _The Monk_, "the stupidest things
in creation," admitted, when pressed by Catherine, that Mrs.
Radcliffe's were "amusing enough" and "had some fun and nature in
them"; and Henry Tilney, a better judge, owned frankly that he
had "read all her works, and most of them with great pleasure."
From this we may assume that Miss Austen herself was perhaps
conscious of their charm as well as their absurdity.
Sheridan's Lydia Languish (1775) and Colman's Polly Honeycombe
(1777) were both demoralised by the follies of sentimental
fiction, as Biddy Tipkin, in Steele's _Tender Husband_ (1705),
had been by romances. It was Miss Austen's purpose in creating
Catherine Morland to present a maiden bemused by Gothic romance:
"No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would
have supposed her born to be a heroine.
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