NOTE ON MISS RADCLIFFE'S "INA:"
WE have received a letter from Miss RADCLIFFE, offering several explanations touching the structure of her plot of-Ina; from which we quote the most important. "You say, the preserved is engaged to another lady, but on his recovery and return to his native place finds her dead.' Now, I do not say so. They were wedded, and I do not say bow long she may have lived afterwards, but she evi- dently did for some years; for, if you will observe page 72, you will find I say, when mentioning his return to Ina, 'Long years have passed since that sad parting hour.' Now, if long years bad passed, it is scarcely probable that they were all spent in mourning, especially as you say he bore his loss philosophically : therefore it must seem pretty clear that they were wedded some length of time before she died."
As a matter of fact it may be well that our mistaken conclusion should be set right ; but, judging from these arguments and the rest of the letter, we conclude that our fair poet would do well to enlarge her canons of criticism. The plot of a poem is not, like a case of circumstantial evidence, to be got at by inference and con- jecture on casual expressions.
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