the family cupboard, Lewis's stalk abroad in shameless publicity.
In Mrs. Radcliffe's stories, the shadow fades and disappears just
when we think we are close upon the substance; for, after we have
long been groping in the twilight of fearful imaginings, she
suddenly jerks back the shutter to admit the clear light of
reason. In Lewis's wonder-world there are no elusive shadows; he
hurls us without preparation or initiation into a daylight orgy
of horrors.

Lewis was educated at Westminster and Christ Church, but a year
spent in Weimar (1792-3), where he zealously studied German, and
incidentally, met Goethe, seems to have left more obvious marks
on his literary career. To Lewis, Goethe is pre-eminently the
author of _The Sorrows of Werther_; and Schiller, he remarks
casually, "has, written several other plays besides _The
Robbers."_[41] He probably read Heinse's _Ardinghello_(1787),
Tieck's _Abdallah_ (1792-3), and _William Lovell_ (1794-6), many
of the innumerable dramas of Kotzebue, the romances of Weit
Weber, and other specimens of what Carlyle describes as "the bowl
and dagger department," where

"Black Forests and Lubberland, sensuality and horror,
the spectre nun and the charmed moonshine, shall not be
wanting. Boisterous outlaws also, with huge whiskers,
and the most cat o' mountain aspect; tear-stained
sentimentalists, the grimmest man-eaters, ghosts and
the like suspicious characters will be found in
abundance."[42]

Throughout his life he seems to have made a hobby of the