and lonely situation of the place, conspired with the
occasion of his coming and the dismal images of his
fancy, to produce a real rapture of gloomy
expectation... The clock struck twelve, the owl
screeched from the ruined battlement, the door was
opened by the sexton, who, by the light of a glimmering
taper, conducted the despairing lover to a dreary
aisle."

As he watches again on a second night:

"His ear was suddenly invaded with the sound of some
few, solemn notes, issuing from the organ which seemed
to feel the impulse of an invisible hand ... reason
shrunk before the thronging ideas of his fancy, which
represented this music as the prelude to something
strange and supernatural."[29]

The figure of a woman, arrayed in a flowing robe and veil,
approaches--and proves to be Monimia in the flesh. Although
Smollett precedes Walpole, in point of time, he is, in these
scenes, nearer in spirit to Udolpho than Otranto. His use of
terror, however, is merely incidental; he strays inadvertently
into the history of Gothic romance. The suspicions and
forebodings, with which Smollett plays occasionally upon the
nerves of his readers, become part of the ordinary routine in the
tale of terror.

Clara Reeve's Gothic story, first issued under the title of _The
Champion of Virtue_, but later as _The Old English Baron_, was