When Cherubina
visits a shop she buys a diamond cross, which at once turns our
thoughts to _The Sicilian Romance_. In Westminster Abbey she is
disappointed to find "no cowled monks with scapulars"--a phrase
which flashes across our memory the sinister figure of Schedoni
in _The Italian_. At the masquerade she plans to wear a Tuscan
dress from _The Mysteries of Udolpho_, and, when furnishing
Monkton Castle she bids Jerry, the Irish comic servant, bring
"flags stained with the best old blood--feudal, if possible, an
old lute, lyre or harp, black hangings, curtains, and a velvet
pall." Even the banditti and condottieri, who enliven so many
novels of terror, cannot be ignored, and are represented by a
troop of Irish ruffians. Barrett lets nothing escape him.
Rousseau's theories are irreverently travestied. The thunder
rolls "in an awful and Ossianly manner"; the sun, "that
well-known gilder of eastern turrets," rises in empurpled
splendour; the hero utters tremendous imprecations, ejaculates
superlatives or frames elaborately poised, Johnsonian periods;
the heroine excels in cheap but glittering repartee, wears
"spangled muslin," and has "practised tripping, gliding,
flitting, and tottering, with great success." Shreds and patches
torn with a ruthless, masculine hand from the flimsy tapestry of
romance, fitted together in a new and amusing pattern, are
exhibited for our derision.
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