,
suddenly descends on the stage. Yet the bungling attempts of Dr.
Drake are interesting as showing that grave and critical minds
were prepared to consider the tale of terror as a legitimate form
of literature, obeying certain definite rules of its own and
aiming at the excitement of a pleasurable fear. The seed of
Gothic story, sown at random by Horace Walpole, had by 1798 taken
firm root in the soil. Drake's enthusiasm for Gothic story was
associated with his love for older English poetry and with his
interest in Scandinavian mythology. He was a genuine admirer of
Spenser and attempted imitations, in modern diction, of old
ballads. It is for his bent towards the romantic, rather than for
his actual accomplishments, that Drake is worthy of remembrance.

CHAPTER III - "THE NOVEL OF SUSPENSE." MRS. RADCLIFFE.

The enthusiasm which greeted Walpole's enchanted castle and Miss
Reeve's carefully manipulated ghost, indicated an eager desire
for a new type of fiction in which the known and familiar were
superseded by the strange and supernatural. To meet this end Mrs.
Radcliffe suddenly came forward with her attractive store of
mysteries, and it was probably her timely appearance that saved
the Gothic tale from an early death. The vogue of the novel of
terror, though undoubtedly stimulated by German influence, was
mainly due to her popularity and success. The writers of the
first half of the nineteenth century abound in references to her
works,[34] and she thus still enjoys a shadowy, ghost-like
celebrity. Many who have never had the curiosity to explore the
labyrinths of the underground passages, with which her castles
are invariably honeycombed, or who have never shuddered with
apprehension before the "black veil," know of their existence
through _Northanger Abbey_, and have probably also read how
Thackeray at school amused himself and his friends by drawing
illustrations of Mrs. Radcliffe's novels.

Of Mrs. Radcliffe's life few facts are known, and Christina
Rossetti, one of her many admirers, was obliged, in 1883, to
relinquish the plan of writing her biography, because the
materials were so scanty.[35] From the memoir prefixed to the
posthumous volumes, published in 1826, containing _Gaston de
Blondeville_, and various poems, we learn that she was born in
1764, the very year in which Walpole issued _The Castle of
Otranto_, and that her maiden name was Ann Ward. In 1787 she
married William Radcliffe, an Oxfor