in the "Romance of the Forest," a deserted abbey in the depth of the
woods; in "The Italian," the cloister of the Black Penitents. The
moldering battlements, the worm-eaten tapestries, the turret staircases,
secret chambers, underground passages, long, dark corridors where the
wind howls dismally, and distant doors which slam at midnight all derive
from "Otranto." So do the supernatural fears which haunt these abodes of
desolation; the strains of mysterious music, the apparitions which glide
through the shadowy apartments, the hollow voices that warn the tyrant to
beware. But her method here is quite different from Walpole's; she tacks
a natural explanation to every unearthly sight or sound. The hollow
voices turn out to be ventriloquism; the figure of a putrefying corpse
which Emily sees behind the black curtain in the ghost chamber at Udolpho
is only a wax figure, contrived as a _memento mori_ for a former
penitent. After the reader has once learned this trick he refuses to be
imposed upon again, and, whenever he encounters a spirit, feels sure that
a future chapter will embody it back into flesh and blood.

There is plenty of testimony to the popularity of these romances.
Thackeray says that a lady of his acquaintance, an inveterate novel
reader, names Valancourt as one of the favorite heroes of her youth.
"'Valancourt? And who was he?' cry the young people. Valancourt, my
dears, was the hero of one of the most famous romances which ever was
published in this country. The beauty and elegance of Valancourt made
your young grandmamma's' gentle hearts to beat with respectful sympathy.
He and his glory have passed away. . . Enquire at Mudie's or the London
Library, who asks for the 'Mysteries of Udolpho' now."[22] Hazlitt said
that he owed to Mrs. Radcliffe his love of moonlight nights, autumn
leaves and decaying ruins. It was, indeed, in the melodramatic
manipulation of landscape that this artist was most original. "The
scenes that savage Rosa dashed" seemed to have been her model, and