they should not only be told, but painted; and where reality and grandeur should be given to their terrors. In “_The Romance of the Forest_,” Mrs. Radcliffe, who, since the dawn of her powers, had been as one “moving about in worlds unrealized,” first exhibited the faculty of controlling and fixing the wild images which floated around her, and of stamping on them the impress of consistency and truth. This work is, as a whole, the most faultless of all her productions; but it is of an inferior order to “The Mysteries of Udolpho” and “The Italian;” and can only be preferred by those, who think the absence of error of more importance than original excellence. There is a just proportion between all its parts; its mysteries are adequately explained; it excites and gratifies a very pleasant degree of curiosity; but it does not seem to dilate the imagination, nor does it curdle the blood. Its opening after a sentence of marvellous common-place, is striking; the midnight journey of La Motte and his family they know not whither, and the introduction of the heroine, under extraordinary circumstances, to their care, rivet attention to all that is to follow. The scenes in the forest where they take up their abode are charming. This seems the most delicious asylum for the persecuted outlaw; its wood-walks and glades glisten before us with the morning dew; and there is something in the idea of finding a home in a deserted abbey, which answers to some of the wildest dreams of childhood, and innocently gratifies that partiality for unlicensed pleasure, or repose, which is so natural to the heart. The whole adventure of La Motte and the Marquis is sufficiently probable and interesting; and the influence, which it ultimately enables the more resolute villain to exercise over the weaker, is managed with peculiar skill, and turned to great account in the progress of the story. There is here scarcely any hint of the supernatural; but the skeleton in the chest of the vaulted chamber; the dagger, spotted with rust; the manuscript of the prisoner, which Adeline reads by the fitful light of her lamp, and which proves to be written by her own father, possess us with the apprehension of some secret crime, which acquires importance from its circumstances and its mystery. There are some highly-finished scenes; as that where Adeline, in her solitary chamber, dares not raise her eyes to her glass, lest another face than her own should meet them; her escape with a man whom she supposes to be the servant she had trusted, and who startles her with a strange voice; the luxurious pavilion of the Marquis, to which we are introduced after a frightful journey through a storm; and, above all, the conversation, in which the Marquis, after a series of dark solicitations, understood by La Motte, as pointing to Adeline’s dishonour, proposes her death. This last, as a piece of dramatic effect, is perhaps equal to any passage in the author’s works. The closing chapters of the work are