Radcliffe's custom. It is the spirit of Reginald de Folville, Knight
Hospitaller of St. John, murdered in the Forest of Arden by Gaston de
Blondville and the prior of St. Mary's. He is a most robust apparition,
and is by no means content with revisiting the glimpses of the moon, but
goes in and out at all hours of the day, and so often as to become
somewhat of a bore. He ultimately destroys both first and second
murderer: one in his cell, the other in open tournament, where his
exploits as a mysterious knight in black armor may have given Scott a
hint for his black knight at the lists of Ashby-de-la-Zouche in "Ivanhoe"
(1819). His final appearance is in the chamber of the king, with whom he
holds quite a long conversation. "The worm is my sister," he says: "the
mist of death is on me. My bed is in darkness. The prisoner is
innocent. The prior of St. Mary's is gone to his account. Be warned."
It is not explained why Mrs. Radcliffe refrained from publishing this
last romance of hers. Perhaps she recognized that it was belated and
that the time for that sort of thing had gone by. By 1802 Lewis' "Monk"
was in print, as well as several translations from German romances;
Scott's early ballads were out, and Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner." That
very year saw the publication of the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border."
By 1826 the Waverley novels had made all previous fiction of the Gothic
type hopelessly obsolete. In 1834 two volumes of her poems were given to
the world, including a verse romance in eight cantos, "St. Alban's
Abbey," and the verses scattered through her novels. By this time Scott
and Coleridge were dead; Byron, Shelley, and Keats had been dead for
years, and Mrs. Radcliffe's poesies fell upon the unheeding ears of a new
generation. A sneer in "Waverley" (1814) at the "Mysteries of Udolpho"
had hurt her feelings;[28] but Scott made amends in the handsome things
which he said of her in his "Lives of the Novelists." It is interesting
to note that when the "Mysteries" was issued, the venerable Joseph Warton
was so much entranced that he sat up the greater part of the night to