[The two extracts which follow are taken from a burlesque novel which had a great success early in the century. Its ridicule of the Radcliffian type of romance, full of accumulated horrors and grotesque affectation, probably did much to extirpate the worst examples of that unrealistic school.]
This morning, soon after breakfast, I heard a gentle knocking at my door, and, to my great astonishment, a figure, cased in shining armour, entered. Oh! ye conscious blushes; it was my Montmorenci! A plume of white feathers nodded on his helmet, and neither spear nor shield were wanting. “I come,” cried he, bending on one knee, and pressing my hand to his lips, “I come in the ancient armour of my family to perform my promise of recounting to you the melancholy memoirs of my life.” “My lord,” said I, “rise and be seated. Cherubina knows how to appreciate the honour that Montmorenci confers.” He bowed; and having laid by his spear, shield, and helmet, he placed himself beside me on the sofa, and began his heart-rending history.
“All was dark. The hurricane howled, the hail rattled, and the thunder rolled. Nature was convulsed, and the traveller inconvenienced. In the province of Languedoc stood the Gothic castle of Montmorenci. Before it ran the Garonne, and behind it rose the Pyrenees, whose summits exhibiting awful forms, seen and lost again, as the partial vapours rolled along, were sometimes barren, and gleamed through the blue tinge of air, and sometimes frowned with forests of gloomy fir, that swept downward to their base. ‘My lads, are your carbines charged, and your daggers sharpened?’ whispered Rinaldo, with his plume of black feathers, to the banditti, in their long cloaks. ‘If they an’t,’ said Bernardo, ‘by St. Jago, we might load our carbines with the hail, and sharpen our daggers against this confounded north-wind.’ ‘The wind is east-south-east,’ said Ugo. At this moment the bell of Montmorenci Castle tolled one. The sound vibrated through the long corridors, the spiral staircases, the suites of tapestried apartments, and the ears of the personage who has the honour to address you. Much alarmed, I started from my couch, which was of exquisite workmanship; the coverlet of flowered gold, and the canopy of white velvet painted over with jonquils and butterflies by Michael Angelo. But conceive my horror when I beheld my chamber filled with banditti! Snatching my faulchion, I flew to the armoury for my coat of mail; the bravos rushed after me, but I fought and dressed and dressed and fought, till I had perfectly completed my unpleasing toilet. I then stood alone, firm, dignified, collected, and only fifteen years of age.”
“‘Alack! there lies more peril in thine eye,
Than twenty of their swords——’
To describe the horror of the contest that followed were beyond the pen of an Anacreon. In short, I fought till my silver skin was laced with my golden blood; while the bullets flew round me, thick as hail,
“‘And whistled as they went for want of thought.’
At length I murdered my way down to my little skiff, embarked in it, and arrived at this island. As I first touched foot on its chalky beach, ‘Hail! happy land,’ cried I, ‘hail, thrice hail!’ ‘There is no hail here, sir,’ said a child running by.... Nine days and nights I wandered through the country, the rivulet my beverage, and the berry my repast; the turf my couch, and the sky my canopy.” “Ah!” interrupted I, “how much you must have missed the canopy of white velvet painted over with jonquils and butterflies!” “Extremely,” said he, “for during sixteen long years I had not a roof over my head—I was an itinerant beggar! One summer’s day, the cattle lay panting under the broad umbrage, the sun had burst into an immoderate fit of splendour, and the struggling brook chided the matted grass for obstructing it. I sat under a hedge, and began eating wild strawberries; when lo! a form, flexile as the flame ascending from a censer, and undulating with the sighs of a dying vestal, flitted inaudible by me, nor crushed the daisies as it trod. What a divinity! she was fresh as the Anadyomene of Apelles, and beautiful as the Gnidus of Praxiteles, or the Helen of Zeuxis. Her eyes dipt in heaven’s own hue——” “Sir,” said I, “you need not mind her eyes; I dare say they were blue enough. But pray, who was this immortal doll of yours?” “Who?” cried he, “why, who but—shall I speak it? who but—the Lady Cherubina De Willoughby!!!” “I!” “You!” “Ah! Montmorenci!” “Ah! Cherubina! I followed you with cautious steps,” continued he, “till I traced you into your—you had a garden, had you not?” “Yes.” “Into your garden. I thought ten thousand flowerets would have leapt from their beds to offer you a nosegay. But the age of gallantry is past, that of merchants, placemen, and fortune-hunters has succeeded, and the glory of Cupid is extinguished for ever!... But wherefore,” cried he, starting from his seat, “wherefore talk of the past? Oh! let me tell you of the present and of the future. Oh! let me tell you how dearly, how deeply, how devotedly I love you!” “Love me!” cried I, giving such a start as the nature of the case required. “My Lord, this is so—really now, so——” “Pardon this abrupt avowal of my unhappy passion,” said he, flinging himself at my feet; “fain would I have let concealment, like a worm in the bud, feed on my damask cheek; but, oh! who could resist the maddening sight of so much beauty?” I remained silent, and, with the elegant embarrassment of modesty, cast my blue eyes to the ground. I never looked so lovely.... “I declare,” said I, “I would say anything on earth to relieve you—only tell me what.” “Angel of light!” exclaimed he, springing upon his feet, and beaming on me a smile that might liquefy marble. “Have I then hope? Dare I say it? Dare I pronounce the divine words, ‘she loves me’?” “I am thine and thou art mine,” murmured I, while the room swam before me.
Eaton Stannard Barrett (1786–1820).
