THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO. A ROMANCE. INTERSPERSED WITH SOME PIECES OF POETRY. IN THREE VOLUMES. BY ANN RADCLIFFE. VOL. I. Fate sits on these dark battlements, and frorons, Her voice, in sullen echoes through the courts, EXETER PUBLISHED BY J. AND B. WILLIAMS. 1834. THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO. -0000 CHAPTER I. "Home is the resort Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where, And dear relation mingle into bliss."-THOMSON. On the pleasant banks of the Garonne, in the province of Gascony, stood, in the year 1584, the chateau of Monsieur St. Aubert. From its windows were seen the pastoral landscapes of Guienne and Gascony stretching along the river, gay with luxuriant woods and vines and plantations of olives. To the south, the view was bounded by the majestic Pyrenees, whose summits, veiled in clouds, orfexhibiting awful forms, seen, and lost again as the partial vapours rolled along, were sometimes barren, and gleamed through the blue tinge of air, and sometimes frowned with forests of gloomy pine, that swept downward to their base. These tremendous precipices were contrasted by the soft green of the pastures and woods that hung upon their skirts; among whose flocks, and herds, and simple cottages, the eye, after having scaled the cliffs above, delighted to repose. To the north, and to the east, the plains of Guienne and Languedoc were lost in the mist of distance; on the west, Gascony was bounded by the waters of Biscay. M. St. Aubert loved to wander, with his wife and daughter, on the margin of the Garonne, and to listen to the music that floated on its waves. He had known life in other forms than those of pastoral simplicity, having mingled in the gay and in the busy scenes of the world; but the flattering portrait of mankind, which his heart had delineated in early youth, his experience had too sorrowfully corrected. Yet amidst the changing visions of life, his principles remained unshaken, his benevolence unchilled; and he retired from the multitude, more in pity than in anger, to scenes of simple nature, to the pure delights of literature, and to the exercise of domestic virtues. He was a descendant from the younger branch of an illustrious family, and it was designed, that the deficiency of his patrimonial wealth should be supplied either by a splendid alliance in marriage, or by success in the intrigues of |