including Mrs. Radcliffe's _Sicilian Romance_ (1790), and Mrs.
Roche's _Children of the Abbey_ (1798). The tyrannical father--no
new creation, however--became so inevitable a figure in fiction
that Jane Austen had to assure her readers that Mr. Morland "was
not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters," and Miss
Martha Buskbody, the mantua-maker of Gandercleugh, whom Jedediah
Cleishbotham ingeniously called to his aid in writing the
conclusion of _Old Mortality_, assured him, as the fruit of her
experience in reading through the stock of three circulating
libraries that, in a novel, young people may fall in love without
the countenance of their parents, "because it is essential to the
necessary intricacy of the story." But apart from his characters,
who are so colourless that they hardly hold our attention,
Walpole bequeathed to his successors a remarkable collection of
useful "properties." The background of his story is a Gothic
castle, singularly unenchanted it is true, but capable of being
invested by Mrs. Radcliffe with mysterious grandeur. Otranto
contains underground vaults, ill-fitting doors with rusty hinges,
easily extinguished lamps and a trap-door--objects trivial and
insignificant in Walpole's hands, but fraught with terrible
possibilities. Otranto would have fulfilled admirably the
requirements of Barrett's Cherubina, who, when looking for
lodgings demanded--to the indignation of a maidservant, who came
to the door--old pictures, tapestry, a spectre and creaking
hinges. Scott, writing in 1821, remarks:

"The apparition of the skeleton-hermit to the prince of
Vicenza was long accounted a masterpiece of the
horrible; but of late the valley of Jehosaphat could
hardly supply the dry bones necessary for the