and
Novelist's Library_ (1839-1841), a treasure-hoard of forgotten
fiction. _Clermont_ (1798) was published by Mrs. Regina Maria
Roche, the authoress of _The Children of the Abbey_ (1798), a
story almost as famous in its day as _Udolpho_. The author of
_The Midnight Bell_ was one George Walker of Bath, whose record,
like that of Miss Eleanor Sleath, who wrote the moving history of
_The Orphan of the Rhine_ (1798) in four volumes, may be found in
Watts' _Bibliotheca Britannica_. _Horrid Mysteries_, perhaps the
least credible of the titles, was a translation from the German
of the Marquis von Grosse by R. Will. Jane Austen's attack has no
tinge of bitterness or malice. John Thorpe, who declared all
novels, except _Tom Jones_ and _The Monk_, "the stupidest things
in creation," admitted, when pressed by Catherine, that Mrs.
Radcliffe's were "amusing enough" and "had some fun and nature in
them"; and Henry Tilney, a better judge, owned frankly that he
had "read all her works, and most of them with great pleasure."
From this we may assume that Miss Austen herself was perhaps
conscious of their charm as well as their absurdity.

Sheridan's Lydia Languish (1775) and Colman's Polly Honeycombe
(1777) were both demoralised by the follies of sentimental
fiction, as Biddy Tipkin, in Steele's _Tender Husband_ (1705),
had been by romances. It was Miss Austen's purpose in creating
Catherine Morland to present a maiden bemused by Gothic romance:

"No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would
have supposed her born to be a heroine." In almost every detail
she is a refreshing contrast to the traditional type. Two
long-lived conventions--the fragile mother, who dies at the
heroine's birth, and the tyrannical father--are repudiated at the
very outset; and Catherine is one of a family of seven. We cannot
conceive that Mrs. Radcliffe's heroines even at the age of ten
would "love nothing so well in the world as rolling down the
green slope at the back of the house." Her accomplishments lack
the brilliance and distinction of those of Adela and Julia, but,

"Though she could not write sonnets she brought herself
to read them; and though there seemed no chance of her
throwing a whole party into raptures by a prelude on
the pianoforte, she could listen to other people's
performances with very little fatigue. Her greatest
deficiency was in the pencil--she had no notion of
drawing, not eno