her imagination. She had invented a new style of romance, equally distinct from the old tales of chivalry and magic, and from modern representations of credible incidents and living manners. Her works exhibit, in part, the charms of each species of composition, interweaving the miraculous with the probable in consistent narrative, and breathing a tenderness and beauty peculiarly her own. She occupies that middle region between the mighty dreams of the heroic ages and the realities of her own, which remained to be possessed, filled it with glorious imagery, and raised it to the sublimity of Fancy's creative power by the awe of the supernatural, which she, beyond any writer of romances, knew how to inspire.
One of her biographers had well observed, that "her works, in order to produce their greatest impression, should be read first, not in childhood, for which they are too substantial; nor at mature age, for which they may seem too visionary; but at that delightful period of youth, when the soft twilight of the imagination harmonizes with the luxurious and uncertain light cast on their wonders. By those who come at such an age to their perusal, they will never be forgotten."
In the summer of 1794, she made a tour, in company with her husband, through Holland and the western frontier of Germany, returning down the Rhine. This was the first and only occasion on which she quitted England, though the vividness of her descriptions of Italy, Switzerland, and the south of France, in which her scenes are principally laid, induced a general belief that she had visited those countries. After their return from the continent, she made a tour to the English lakes, and published her notes in a quarto volume, which met with a favourable reception.
The great and almost universal popularity of her writings, never inflated the vanity of Mrs. Radcliffe; her private* life seems to have been particularly calm and sequestered. Declining the personal notoriety that usually attaches in the society of London to literary merit, she sought her chief pleasures and occupation in the bosom of her family. After the publication of her last novel, "The Italian," in 1797, she retired from the world of letters, and for the remainder of her life persisted in refusing to write, or at any rate to publish another. The report that she was deranged, in consequence of an excited imagination, was founded simply on her love of home and quietude. She was beautiful in her person, and much beloved by those who were favoured by her intimacy. Educated in the principles of the Church of England, she was pious and sincere in her attachment the services of religion. During the last twelve years of her life, she suffered much from a spasmodic asthma, which gradually undermined her health. She died February 7th., 1823, aged fifty-eight.
RADEGONDE, ST.,
Daughter of Bertarius, King of Thuringia, was taken prisoner in 529 when only eight years old, by Clotaire, King of Normandy. Her childish grace and beauty made such an impression on Clotaire that he resolved to educate her for his wife. She was carefully taught, and at the age of ten, she renounced paganism for Christianity, in consequence of the instructions of those by whom she was surrounded, and from that early age conceived an ardent desire to devote herself wholly to religion. She was so much opposed to the idea of becoming one of the wives of Clotaire, that when the
