CHAPTER VII - SATIRES ON THE NOVEL OF TERROR.
A conflict between "sense and sensibility" was naturally to beexpected; and, the year after Mrs. Radcliffe published _TheItalian_, Jane Austen had completed her _Northanger Abbey_,ridiculing the "horrid" school of fiction. It is noteworthy thatfor the _Mysteries of Udolpho_ Mrs. Radcliffe received L500, andfor _The Italian_ L800; while for the manuscript of _NorthangerAbbey_, the bookseller paid Jane Austen the ungenerous sum ofL10, selling it again later to Henry Austen for the same amount.The contrast in market value is significant. The publisher, who,it may be added, was not necessarily a literary critic, probablyrealised that if the mock romance were successful, its tendencywould be to endanger the popularity of the prevailing mode infiction. Hence for many years it was concealed as effectively asif it had lain in the haunted apartment of one of Mrs.Radcliffe's Gothic abbeys. Among Jane Austen's early unpublishedwritings were "burlesques ridiculing the improbable events andexaggerated sentiments which she had met with in sundry sillyromances"; but her spirited defence of the novelist's art in_Northanger Abbey_ is clear evidence that her raillery isdirected not against fiction in general, but rather against such"horrid" stories as those included in the list supplied toIsabella Thorpe by "a Miss Andrews, one of the sweetest creaturesin the world."
It has sometimes been supposed that the more fantastic titles inthis catalogue were figments of Jane Austen's imagination, butthe identity of each of the seven stories may be establishedbeyond question. Two of the stories--_The Necromancer of theBlack Forest_, a translation from the German, and _The Castle ofWolfenbach_, by Mrs. Eliza Parsons (who was also responsible for_Mysterious Warnings_)--may still be read in _The Romancist andNovelist's Library_ (1839-1841), a treasure-hoard of forgottenfiction. _Clermont_ (1798) was published by Mrs. Regina MariaRoche, the authoress of _The Children of the Abbey_ (1798), astory 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 inWatts' _Bibliotheca Britannica_. _Horrid Mysteries_, perhaps theleast credible of the titles, was a translation from the Germanof the Marquis von Grosse by R. Will. Jane Austen's attack has notinge of bitterness or malice. John Thorpe, who declared allnovels, except _Tom Jones_ and _The Monk_, "the stupidest thingsin creation," admitted, when pressed by Catherine, that Mrs.Radcliffe's were "amusing enough" and "had some fun and nature inthem"; and Henry Tilney, a better judge, owned frankly that hehad "read all her works, and most of them with great pleasure."From this we may assume that Miss Austen herself was perhapsconscious 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 sentimentalfiction, as Biddy Tipkin, in Steele's _Tender Husband_ (1705),had been by romances. It was Miss Austen's purpose in creatingCatherine Morland to present a maiden bemused by Gothic romance:
"No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy wouldhave supposed her born to be a heroine." In almost every detailshe is a refreshing contrast to the traditional type. Twolong-lived conventions--the fragile mother, who dies at theheroine's birth, and the tyrannical father--are repudiated at thevery outset; and Catherine is one of a family of seven. We cannotconceive that Mrs. Radcliffe's heroines even at the age of tenwould "love nothing so well in the world as rolling down thegreen slope at the back of the house." Her accomplishments lackthe 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 enough even to attempt a sketch of her lover's profile, that she might be detected in the design. There she fell miserably short of the true heroic height...Not one started with rapturous wonder on beholding her...nor was she once called a divinity by anybody."
She had no lover at the age of seventeen,
"because there was not a lord in the neighbourhood--not even a baronet. There was not one family among their acquaintance who had reared and supported a boy accidentally found at their door--not one whose origin was unknown."
Nor is Catherine aided in her career by those "improbableevents," so dear to romance, that serve to introduce a hero--arobber's attack, a tempest, or a carriage accident. With a slyglance at such dangerous characters as Lady Greystock in _TheChildren of the Abbey_ (1798), Miss Austen creates the inert, butgood-natured Mrs. Alien as Catherine's chaperone in Bath:
"It is now expedient to give some description of Mrs. Alien that the reader may be able to judge in what manner her actions will hereafter tend to promote the general distress of the work and how she will probably contribute to reduce poor Catherine to all the desperate wretchedness of which a last volume is capable, whether by her imprudence, vulgarity or jealousy--whether by intercepting her letters, ruining her character or turning her out of doors."
Amid all the diversions of the gay and beautiful city of Bath,Miss Austen does not lose sight entirely of her satirical aim,though she turns aside for a time. Catherine's confusion of mindis suggested with exquisite art in a single sentence. As shedrives with John Thorpe she "meditates by turns on brokenpromises and broken arches, phaetons and false hangings, Tilneysand trapdoors." This prepares us for the delightful scene inwhich Tilney, on the way to the abbey, foretells what Catherinemay expect on her arrival. The hall dimly lighted by the expiringembers of a wood fire, the deserted bedchamber "never used sincesome cousin or kin had died in it about twenty years before," thesingle lamp, the tapestry, the funereal bed, the broken lute, theponderous chest, the secret door, the vaulted room, the rustydagger, the cabinet of ebony and gold with its roll ofmanuscripts, prove his intimacy with _The Romance of the Forest_,as well as with _The Mysteries of Udolpho_. The black chest andthe cabinet are there in startling fulfilment of his prophecies,and when, just as with beating heart Catherine is about todecipher the roll of paper she has discovered in the cabinetdrawer, she accidentally extinguishes her candle:
"A lamp could not have expired with more awful effect... Darkness impenetrable and immovable filled the room. A violent gust of wind, rising with sudden fury, added fresh horror to the moment... Human nature could support no more ... groping her way to the bed she jumped hastily in, and sought some suspension of agony by creeping far beneath the clothes... The storm still raged... Hour after hour passed away, and the wearied Catherine had heard three proclaimed by all the clocks in the house before the tempest subsided, and she, unknowingly, fell fast asleep. She was awakened the next morning at eight o'clock by the housemaid's opening her window-shutter. She flew to the mysterious manuscript, If the evidence of sight might be trusted she held a washing bill in her hands ... she felt humbled to the dust."
Even this bitter humiliation does not sweep away the cobwebs ofromance from Catherine's imaginative mind, but the darksuspicions she harbours about General Tilney are not altogetherinexplicable. He is so much less natural and so much more stageythan the other characters that he might reasonably be expected todabble in the sinister. This time Catherine is misled by memoriesof the _Sicilian Romance_ into weaving a mystery around the fateof Mrs. Tilney, whom she pictures receiving from the hands of herhusband a nightly supply of coarse food. She watches in vain for"glimmering lights," like those in the palace of Mazzini, anddetermines to search for "a fragmented journal continued to thelast gasp," like that of Adeline's father in _The Romance of theForest_. In this search she encounters Tilney, who has returnedunexpectedly from Woodston. He dissipates once and for all hernervous fancies, and Catherine decides: "Among the Alps andPyrenees
, perhaps, there were no mixed characters. There, such aswere not spotless as an angel, might have the dispositions of afiend. But in England it was not so."
Miss Austen's novel is something more than a mock-romance, andCatherine is not a mere negative of the traditional heroine, buta human and attractive girl, whose fortunes we follow with thedeepest interest. At the close, after Catherine's ignominiousjourney home, we are back again in the cool world of reality. Theabbey is abandoned, after it has served its purpose indisciplining the heroine, in favour of the unromantic countryparsonage.
In _Northanger Abbey_, Jane Austen had deftly turned the novelsof Mrs. Radcliffe to comedy; but, even if her parody had beenpublished in 1798, when we are assured that it was completed, hersatirical treatment was too quiet and subtle, too delicatelymischievous, to have disturbed seriously the popularity of thenovel of terror. We can imagine the Isabella Thorpes and LydiaBennets of the day dismissing _Northanger Abbey_ with a yawn as"an amazing dull book," and returning with renewed zest to morestimulating and "horrid" stories. Maria Edgeworth too had aimedher shaft at the sentimental heroine in one of her _MoralTales--Angelina or L'Amie Inconnue_ (1801). Miss Sarah Green, in_Romance Readers and Romance Writers_ (1810) had displayed theextravagant folly of a clergyman's daughter whose head was turnedby romances. Ridicule of a more blatant and boisterous kind wasneeded, and this was supplied by Eaton Stannard Barrett, who, in1813--five years before _Northanger Abbey_ appeared--published_The Heroine or The Adventures of Cherubina_. In this farcicalromance it is clearly Barrett's intention to make so vigorous anonslaught that "the Selinas, Evelinas, and Malvinas who faint andblush and weep through four half-bound octavos" shall be, likeCatherine Morland, "humbled to the dust." Sometimes, indeed, hisfarce verges on brutality. To expose the follies of Cherubina itwas hardly necessary to thrust her good-humoured father into amadhouse, and this grim incident sounds an incongruous, jarringnote in a rollicking high-spirited farce. The plights into whichCherubina is plunged are so needlessly cruel, that, while onlyintending to make her ridiculous, Barrett succeeds rather inmaking her pitiable. But many of her adventures are only a shademore absurd than those in the romances at which he tilts. ReginaMaria Roche's _Children of the Abbey_ (1798) would take the windfrom the sails of any parodist. In protracting _The Heroine_almost to wearisome length, Barrett probably acted deliberatelyin mimicry of this and a horde of other tedious romances.Certainly the unfortunate Stuart waits no longer for thefulfilment of his hopes than Lord Mortimer, the long-sufferinghero of _The Children of the Abbey_, who early in the firstvolume demands of Amanda Fitzalan, what he calls an"eclaircissement," but does not win it until the close of thefourth. Barrett does not scruple to mention the titles of thebooks he derides. The following catalogue will show how widely hecasts his net: _Mysteries of Udolpho, Romance of the Forest,Children of the Abbey, Sir Charles Grandison, Pamela, ClarissaHarlowe, Evelina, Camilla, Cecilia, La Nouvelle Heloise,Rasselas, The Delicate Distress, Caroline of Lichfield_,[98] _TheKnights of the Swan_,[99] _The Beggar Girl, The Romance of theHighlands_.[100] Besides these novels, which he actually names,Barrett alludes indirectly to several others, among them_Tristram Shandy_ and _Amelia_. From this enumeration it isevident that Barrett was satirising the heroine, not merely ofthe "novel of terror," but of the "sentimental novel" from whichshe traced her descent. He organises a masquerade, mindful thatit is always the scene of the heroine's "best adventure," withFielding's _Amelia_ and Miss Burney's _Cecilia_ and probablyother novels in view. The precipitate flight of Cherubina,"dressed in a long-skirted red coat stiff with tarnished lace, asatin petticoat, satin shoes and no stockings," and with hairstreaming like a meteor, described in Letter XX, is clearly acruel mockery of Cecilia's distressful plight in Miss Burney'snovel. Even Scott is not immune from Barrett's barbed arrows, andByron is glanced at in the bogus antique language of "Eftsoones."Barrett, indeed, jeers at the mediaeval revival in its variousmanifestations and even at "Romanticism" generally, not merely atthe new school of fiction represented by Mrs. Radcliffe, herfollowers and rivals. Not content with reaching his aim, as hedoes again and again in _The Heroine_, Barrett, like many anotherparodist, sometimes over-reaches it, and sneers at what is not initself ridiculous.
Nominally Cherubina is the butt of Barrett's satire, but thepermanent interest of the book lies in the skilful stage-managingof her lively adventures. There is hardly an attempt atcharacterisation. The people are mere masqueraders, who amuse usby their costume and mannerisms, but reveal no individuality. Theplot is a wild extravaganza, crammed with high-flown,mock-romantic episodes. Cherry Wilkinson, as the result of asurfeit of romances, perhaps including _The Misanthropic Parentor The Guarded Secret_ (1807), by Miss Smith, deserts her realfather--a worthy farmer--to look for more aristocratic parents.As he is not picturesque enough for a villain, she repudiates himwith scorn: "Have you the gaunt ferocity of famine in yourcountenance? Can you darken the midnight with a scowl? Have youthe quivering lip and the Schedoniac contour? In a word, are youa picturesque villain full of plot and horror and magnificentwickedness? Ah! no, sir, you are only a sleek, good-humoured,chuckle-headed, old gentleman." In the course of her search shemeets with amazing adventures, which she describes in a series ofletters to her governess. She changes her name to Cherubina deWilloughby, and journeys to London, where, mistaking CoventGarden Theatre for an ancient castle, she throws herself on theprotection of a third-rate actor, Grundy. He readily falls inwith her humour, assuming the name of Montmorenci, and a suit oftin armour and a plumed helmet for her delight. Later, Cherubinais entertained by Lady Gwyn, who, for the amusement of herguests, heartlessly indulges her propensity for the romantic, andposes as her aunt. She is introduced in a gruesome scene, whichrecalls the fate of Agnes in Lewis's _Monk_, to her supposedmother, Lady Hysterica Belamour, whose memoirs, under the title_Il Castello di Grimgothico_, are inserted, after the manner ofMrs. Radcliffe and M.G. Lewis, who love an inset tale, into themidst of the heroine's adventures. Cherubina determines to livein an abandoned castle, and gathers a band of vassals. Theseinclude Jerry, the lively retainer, inherited from a long line ofcomic servants, of whom Sancho Panza is a famous example, andHigginson, a struggling poet, who in virtue of his office ofminstrel, addresses the mob, beginning his harangue with thetime-honoured apology: "Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking."The story ends with the return of Cherubina to real life, whereshe is eventually restored to her father and to Stuart. Theincidents, which follow one another in rapid succession, arefoolish and extravagant, but the reminiscences they awaken lendthem piquancy. The trappings and furniture of a dozen Gothiccastles are here accumulated in generous profusion. Moulderingmanuscripts, antique beds of decayed damask, a four-horsedbarouche, and fluttering tapestry rejoice the heart of Cherubina,for each item in this curious medley revives moving associationsin a mind nourished on the Radcliffe school. When Cherubinavisits a shop she buys a diamond cross, which at once turns ourthoughts to _The Sicilian Romance_. In Westminster Abbey she isdisappointed to find "no cowled monks with scapulars"--a phrasewhich flashes across our memory the sinister figure of Schedoniin _The Italian_. At the masquerade she plans to wear a Tuscandress from _The Mysteries of Udolpho_, and, when furnishingMonkton Castle she bids Jerry, the Irish comic servant, bring"flags stained with the best old blood--feudal, if possible, anold lute, lyre or harp, black hangings, curtains, and a velvetpall." Even the banditti and condottieri, who enliven so manynovels of terror, cannot be ignored, and are represented by atroop of Irish ruffians. Barrett lets nothing escape him.Rousseau's theories are irreverently travestied. The thunderrolls "in an awful and Ossianly manner"; the sun, "thatwell-known gilder of eastern turrets," rises in empurpledsplendour; the hero utters tremendous imprecations, ejaculatessuperlatives or frames elaborately poised, Johnsonian periods;the heroine excels in cheap but glittering repartee, wears"spangled muslin," and has "practised tripping, gliding,flitting, and tottering, with great success." Shreds and patchestorn with a ruthless, masculine hand from the flimsy tapestry
ofromance, fitted together in a new and amusing pattern, areexhibited for our derision. The caricature is entertaining initself, and would probably be enjoyed by those who are unfamiliarwith the romances ridiculed; but the interest of identifying thebooty, which Barrett rifles unceremoniously from his victims, isa fascinating pastime.
Miss Austen, with her swift stiletto, and Barrett, with hisbrutal bludgeon--to use a metaphor of "terror"--had eachdelivered an attack; and in 1818, if we may judge by Peacock's_Nightmare Abbey_, there is a change of fashion in fiction. Howfar this change is due to the satirists it is impossible todetermine. Mr. Flosky, "who has seen too many ghosts himself tobelieve in their external appearance," through whose lips Peacockreviles "that part of the reading public which shuns the solidfood of reason," probably gives the true cause for the waningpopularity of the novel of terror:
"It lived upon ghosts, goblins and skeletons till even the devil himself ... became too base, common and popular for its surfeited appetite. The ghosts have therefore been laid, and the devil has been cast into outer darkness."
The novel of terror has been destroyed not by its enemies but byits too ardent devotees. The horrid banquet, devoured withavidity for so many years, has become so highly seasoned that thejaded palate at last cries out for something different, and,according to Peacock, finds what it desires in "the vices andblackest passions of our nature tricked out in a masquerade dressof heroism and disappointed benevolence"--an uncomplimentarydescription of the Byronic hero. Yet sensational fiction haslingered on side by side with other forms of fiction all throughthe nineteenth century, because it supplies a human and naturalcraving for excitement. It may not be the dominant type, but itwill always exist, and will produce its thrill by ever-varyingdevices. Those who scoff may be taken unawares, like the companyin _Nightmare Abbey_. The conversation turned on the subject ofghosts, and Mr. Larynx related his delightfully compact ghoststory:
"I once saw a ghost myself in my study, which is the last place any one but a ghost would look for me. I had not been in it for three months and was going to consult Tillotson, when, on opening the door, I saw a venerable figure in a flannel dressing-gown, sitting in my armchair, reading my Jeremy Taylor. It vanished in a moment, and so did I, and what it was and what it wanted, I have never been able to ascertain"
--a quieter, more inoffensive ghost than that described by Defoein his _Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions_: "Agrave, ancient man, with a full-bottomed wig and a rich brocadedgown, who changed into the most horrible monster that ever wasseen, with eyes like two fiery daggers red-hot." Mr. Flosky andMr. Hilary have hardly declared their disbelief in ghosts when:
"The door silently opened, and a ghastly figure, shrouded in white drapery with the semblance of a bloody turban on its head, entered and stalked slowly up the apartment. Mr. Flosky was not prepared for this apparition, and made the best of his way out at the opposite door. Mr. Hilary and Marionetta followed screaming. The honourable Mr. Listless, by two turns of his body, first rolled off the sofa and then under it. Rev. Mr. Larynx leaped up and fled with so much precipitation that he overturned the table on the foot of Mr. Glowry. Mr. Glowry roared with pain in the ears of Mr. Toobad. Mr. Toobad's alarm so bewildered his senses that missing the door he threw up one of the windows, jumped out in his panic, and plunged over head and ears in the moat. Mr. Asterias and his son, who were on the watch for their mermaid, were attracted by the splashing, threw a net over him, and dragged him to land."
In Melincourt Castle a very spacious wing was left free to thesettlement of a colony of ghosts, and the Rev. Mr. Portpipe oftenpassed the night in one of the dreaded apartments over a blazingfire, with the same invariable exorcising apparatus of a largevenison pasty, a little prayer-book, and three bottles ofMadeira. Yet despite this excellent mockery, Peacock in _GryllGrange_ devotes a chapter to tales of terror and wonder, singlingout the works of Charles Brockden Brown for praise, especiallyhis _Wieland_, "one of the few tales in which the finalexplanation of the apparently supernatural does not destroy ordiminish the original effect."
The title _Nightmare Abbey_ in a catalogue would undoubtedly havecaught the eye of Isabella Thorp or her friend Miss Andrews,searching eagerly for "horrid mysteries," but they would perhapshave detected the note of mockery in the name. They would,however, have been completely deceived by the title, _The Mysteryof the Abbey_, published in Liverpool in 1819 by T.B. Johnson,and we can imagine their consternation and disgust on the arrivalof the book from the circulating library. The abbey is "haunted"by the proprietors of a distillery; and the spectre, described inhorrible detail, proves to be a harmless idiot, with a redhandkerchief round her neck. Apart from these gibes, there is nota hint of the supernatural in the whole book. It is a_picaresque_ novel, written by a sportsman. The title is merely ahoax.
Belinda Waters, the heroine of one of Crabbe's tales, who was "bynature negatively good," is a portrait after Miss Austen's ownheart. Languidly reclining on her sofa with "half a shelf ofcirculating books" on a table at her elbow, Belinda tosseswearily aside a half-read volume of _Clarissa_, commended by hermaid, "who had _Clarissa_ for her heart's dear friend."
"Give me," she said, "for I would laugh or cry, 'Scenes from the Life,' and 'Sensibility,' 'Winters at Bath': I would that I had one! 'The Constant Lover,' 'The Discarded Son,'[101]
"'The Rose of Raby,'[102] 'Delmore,' or 'The Nun'[103]-- These promise something, and may please, perhaps, Like 'Ethelinda'[104] and the dear 'Relapse.'[105] To these her heart the gentle maid resigned And such the food that fed the gentle mind."
But even the "delicate distress" of heroines, like Niobe, alltears, palls at last, and Belinda, having wept her fill, cravesnow for "sterner stuff."
"Yet tales of terror are her dear delight, All in the wintry storm to read at night."
In _The Preceptor Husband_,[106] the pretty wife, whose notionsof botany are delightfully vague, and who, in English history,light-heartedly confuses the Reformation and the Revolution, hastastes similar to those of Belinda. Pursued by an instructivehusband, she turns at bay, and tells her priggish preceptor whatkind of books she really enjoys:
"Well, if I must, I will my studies name, Blame if you please--I know you love to blame-- When all our childish books were set apart, The first I read was 'Wanderings of the Heart.'[107] It was a story where was done a deed So dreadful that alone I feared to read. The next was 'The Confessions of a Nun'-- 'Twas quite a shame such evils should be done. Nun of--no matter for the creature's name, For there are girls no nunnery can tame. Then was the story of the Haunted Hall, When the huge picture nodded from the wall,
"When the old lord looked up with trembling dread, And I grew pale and shuddered as I read. Then came the tales of Winters, Summers, Springs At Bath and Brighton--they were pretty things! No ghosts or spectres there were heard or seen, But all was love and flight to Gretna-green. Perhaps your greater learning may despise What others like--and there your wisdom lies."
To this attractive catalogue the preceptor husband, no doubt,listened with the expression of Crabbe's _Old Bachelor_:
"that kind of cool, contemptuous smile Of witty persons overcharged with bile,"
but she at least succeeds in interrupting his flow of informationfor the time being. He retires routed. Crabbe's closeacquaintance with "the flowery pages of sublime distress," with"vengeful monks who play unpriestly tricks," with banditti
"who, in forest wide Or cavern vast, indignant virgins hide,"
was, as he confesses, a relic of those unregenerate days, when
"To the heroine's soul-distracting fears I early gave my sixpences and tears."[108]
He could have groped his way through a Gothic castle without theaid of a talkative housekeeper:
"I've watched a wintry night on castle-walls, I've stalked by moonlight through deserted halls,
And when the weary world was sunk to rest I've had such sights--as may not be expressed. Lo! that chateau, the western tower decayed, The peasants shun it--they are all afraid; For there was done a deed--could walls reveal Or timbers tell it, how the heart would feel!
"Most horrid was it--for, behold, the floor Has stain of blood--and will be clean no more. Hark to the winds! which through the wide saloon And the long passage send a dismal tune, Music that ghosts delight in--and now heed Yon beauteous nymph, who must unmask the deed. See! with majestic sweep she swims alone Through rooms, all dreary, guided by a groan, Though windows rattle and though tap'stries shake And the feet falter every step they take. Mid groans and gibing sprites she silent goes To find a something which will soon expose The villainies and wiles of her determined foes, And having thus adventured, thus endured, Fame, wealth, and lover, are for life secured."[109]
Crabbe's Ellen Orford in _The Borough_ (1810) is drawn from life,and in grim and bitter irony is intended as a contrast to thesetimorous and triumphant creatures
"borrowed and again conveyed, From book to book, the shadows of a shade."
Ellen's adventures are sordid and gloomy, without a hint of thepicturesque, her distresses horrible actualities, not the"air-drawn" fancies that torture the sensitive Angelinas ofGothic fiction:
"But not like them has she been laid In ruined castle sore dismayed, Where naughty man and ghostly sprite Fill'd her pure mind with awe and dread, Stalked round the room, put out the light And shook the curtains round the bed. No cruel uncle kept her land, No tyrant father forced her hand; She had no vixen virgin aunt Without whose aid she could not eat And yet who poisoned all her meat With gibe and sneer and taunt."
Though Crabbe showed scant sympathy with the delicatesensibilities of girls who hung enraptured over the high-pitchedheroics and miraculous escapes of Clementina and her kindred, hefound pleasure in a robuster school of romance--the adventures ofmighty Hickathrift, Jack the Giant-killer, and Robin Hood, as setforth and embellished in the chapbooks which cottagers treasured"on the deal shelf beside the cuckoo-clock."[110] And in hispoem, _Sir Eustace Grey_, he presents with subtle art a mindtormented by terror.