Review of "Rimualdo" by Ireland
author: Elizabeth Moody
source date: February 1806

Elizabeth Moody Art. 25. Rimualdo; or, The Castle of Badajos. A Romance. By W. H. Ireland. 12mo. 4 Vols. 14s. Boards. Longman and Rees. 1800. [This review article appeared in The Monthly Review , second series, vol. 34, February 1806, pages 203-4. Benjamin Nangle identifies Elizabeth Moody as the author of this review from an editor's marked copy of The Monthly Review . See Nangle, The Montly Review, Second Series, 1790-1815: Indexes of Contributors and Articles , Clarendon Press, 1955. This edition of the article is produced by Mary A. Waters.]

The title of romance still invigorates our spirits. Old as we are, it recalls to our recollection the stories in which our youth delighted, of wandering knights, tilts, tournaments, enchanted castles, formidable giants, sea monsters, distressed damsels, tremendous fights, and impossible valour. We forget, however, that "the days of chivalry are gone;" and that, in the present-day romance, we must expect little other amusement than the oglio of the modern novel supplies: consisting of unnatural parents,—persecuted lovers,—murders,—haunted apartments,—winding sheets, and winding stair-cases,—subterraneous passages,—lamps that are dim and perverse, and that always go out when they should not,—monasteries,—caves,—monks, tall, thin, and withered, with lank abstemious cheeks,—dreams,—groans,—and spectres.

Such is the outline of the modern romance; and Mr. Ireland's copy is not unworthy of its numerous prototypes. We have here, in the personages of the drama, a parent and a husband in the Marquis of Badajos, as wicked and as unnatural as any with whom we have before had the honor of being acquainted.—We have a son in the Condé Rimualdo, as eminent for filial piety as Æneas himself.—We have patient suffering innocence in the fair Constanza, equalling, if not transcending any of our novel heroines.—We have very good haunted towers,—and a spectre that stands supremely eminent over the whole race of ghosts.—Hamlets and Banquos were no more than mawkins in a cherry-tree, compared with that terrific vision which Rimualdo encounters on entering the old ruined chapel in the forest.—Though familiarized very much, lately, to these apparitions, we did not feel inclined to go to bed, till we had puffed away the recollection of this spectre in a whiff of tobacco, and re-animated our fleeting spirits by a double draught of old October: which will not be matter of surprise to the reader, when he learns that the hero himself, the brave Rimualdo, dropped down in a swoon immediately on seeing it!

Murder is in this romance too much the order of the day. We have murders in castles, in forests, and in cottages; and, to borrow a word from the author, we are too frequently enhorrored.—Raw head and bloody bones is continually at our heels, through a long journey of 926 pages; and we were therefore happy to get rid of him, and to leave our terrified fellow-travellers calmly settled in the unhaunted Castilio di Montalvan.

Mr. Ireland's language is animated and flowing, when it is not inflated with pomposity. The Escurial (for the scene of action is in Spain) is well and minutely described; and the Castle of Badajos is a pleasing picture: but, like some sister Novelists, he deals too profusely in poetic description, and the common operations of Nature are never detailed in common language. Morning never appears without 'Aurora's tints that crown the summits of the distant mountains.'—The sun never rises but 'as the imperial charioteer of day, hast'ning his car of blazing light towards green ocean's occidental flood-gate.' The moon is always full orb'd, yet never looks full at us, but peeps behind fleecy clouds.—Night never forgets to assume the appropriate dignity of her sable mantle, with which (when she is not in a good humour) 'she overspreads heaven's countless luminaries;' —and if the hero and heroine are in a storm, God alone can help them,—for then 'impetuous winds blow from every direction (all at once), flakey lightning emblazons night's ebon robe, and full charged clouds discharge tremendous explosions.'

Thus is poetic imagery blended with prose detail; producing a medley of heterogeneous language totally destructive of good writing, by violating those principles of harmonious congruity which form the basis of a correct and uncontaminated diction.