nsported from the eighteenth century,
not actually to mediaeval England, but to a carefully arranged
pageant displaying mediaeval costumes, tournaments and banquets.
The actors speak in antique language to accord with the
picturesque background against which they stand. _Gaston de
Blondeville_, which is noteworthy as an early attempt to shadow
forth the days of chivalry, has far more colour than Leland's
_Longsword_ (1752), Miss Reeve's _Old English Baron_ (1777), or
Miss Sophia Lee's _Recess_ (1785), from which rather than from
Mrs. Radcliffe's earlier romances its descent may be traced. The
attempt to avoid glaring anachronisms and to reproduce an
accurate picture of a former age points forward to Scott.
Strutt's _Queenhoo Hall_, which Scott completed, was a revolt
against the unscrupulous inventions of romance-writers, and was
crammed full of archaeological lore. The story of _Gaston de
Blondeville_ is tedious, the characters are shadowy and unreal,
and we become, as the Ettric Shepherd remarked, in _Noctes
Ambrosianae_, "somewhat too hand and glove with his ghostship";
yet, regarded simply as a spectacular effect, it is not without
indications of skill and power. Miss Mitford based a drama on it,
but it never attained the popularity of Mrs. Radcliffe's other
novels. It was published when her reputation was on the wane.

Of the materials on which Mrs. Radcliffe drew in fashioning her
romances it is impossible to speak with any certainty. Doubtless
she had studied certain old chronicles, and she was deeply read
in Shakespeare, especially in the tragedies. Much of her leisure,
we are told, was spent in reading the literary productions of the
day, especially poetry and novels. At the head of her chapters
she often quotes Milton as well as the poets of her own
century--Mason, Gray, Collins, and once "Ossian"--choosing almost
inevitably passages which deal with the terrible or the ghostly.
She must have known _The Castle of Otranto_, and in _The Italian_
she quotes several passages from Walpole's melodrama _The
Mysterious Mother_. But often she may have been dependent on the
oral legends clustering round ancient abbeys for the background
of her stories. Ghostly legends would always appeal to her, and
she probably amassed a hoard of traditions when she visited
English castles during her tours with her husband. The background
of _Gaston de Blondeville_ is Kenilworth Castle. That ancient
ruins stirred her imagination prof