Having continued there a moment, the form retreated towards the hearth, when it took the lamp, held it up, surveyed the chamber for a few moments, and then again advanced towards the bed. The light at that instant awakening the dog that had slept at Emily's feet, he barked loudly, and, jumping to the floor, flew at the stranger, who struck the animal smartly with a sheathed sword, and springing towards the bed, Emily discovered--Count Morano. These passages afford evidence of both the strength and the weakness of Mrs. Radcliffe's work. She chose a scene calculated to inspire horror, she subjected to its influence a lonely female, and she then described with blood-curdling minuteness each detail which could enhance the sense of hidden danger which it was her purpose to excite. While the reader follows such portions of her writings, he is carried by the force and picturesqueness of Mrs. Radcliffe's language into a condition of sympathy with the fears of the fictitious personage. But the moment that the scene of horror is past, that the hidden danger is revealed, that, it turns out to be no ghost but only a Count Morano, all Mrs. Radcliffe's power is required to prevent an anti-climax. This weakness is very different from that of Walpole or Reeve. They failed to excite the feeling of superstitious fear. Mrs. Radcliffe excited it, but she destroyed its effect by revealing the inadequacy of its cause. The works of Walpole, Clara Reeve, and particularly of Mrs. Radcliffe, contain very decided merits. They made a school which has found many admirers and has given a vast deal of pleasure. But the school was founded on wrong principles and could not endure. It is impossible for the mind to enjoy the supernatural while it is chained down to every-day life by realistic descriptions of scenes and persons. And it is equally impossible to permanently please by fear-inspiring narratives, when the reader is aware that all the while there is no sufficient cause for the hero's terror.