The background of rugged scenery, though it
is described in vague, turgid language, is more definite and
distinct than the human figures. We feel that Brown is struggling
through the obscurity of his Latinised diction to depict
something he has actually seen. An air of dreadful solemnity
hangs heavily over each story. Every being is in deadly earnest.
Brown has Godwin's power of hypnotising us by his serious
persistence, and of reducing us to a mood of awestruck gravity by
the sonority of his pompous periods.
From the oppressive gloom of Brown's "novels with a purpose," it
is a relief to turn to the irresponsible gaiety of "Geoffrey
Crayon," whose tales of terror, published some twenty years
later, are usually fashioned in a jovial spirit, only faintly
tinged with awe and dread. In _The Spectre Bridegroom_, included
in _The Sketch Book_ (1820), the ghostly rider of Buerger's
far-famed ballad is set amid new surroundings and pleasantly
turned to ridicule. The "supernatural" wooer, who now and again
arouses a genuine thrill of fear, is merely playing a practical
joke on the princess by impersonating the dead bridegroom, and
all ends happily. The story of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy
Hollow is set against so picturesque a background that we are
almost inclined to quarrel with those who laughed and said that
Ichabod Crane was still alive, and that Bram Jones, the lovely
Katrina's bridegroom, knew more of the spectre than he chose to
tell.
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