] Perhaps a bit out of the time period for NA, but still amusing. From the September, 1809, issue of The Lady's Magazine comes this "Recipe for a Modern Romance" --

] Take an old castle, pull down a part of it, and allow the grass to grow on the battlements, and provide the owls and bats with uninterrupted habitations among the ruins. Pour a sufficient quantity of heavy rain upon the hinges and bolts of the gates so that when they are attempted to be opened, they May creak most fearfully. Next, take an old man, and employ him to sleep in a part of this castle, with frightful stories of lights that appear in the western, or the eastern tower every night, and of music heard in the neighbouring woods, and ghosts dressed in white who perambulate the place.

] Convey to this castle a young lady, consign her to the care of the old man and woman, who must relate to her all they know, that is, all they do not know, but only suspect. Make her dreadfully terrified at the relations, but dreadfully impatient to behold the reality. Convey her, perhaps on the second night of her arrival, through a trap-door, and from the trap-door to a flight of stairs downwards, and from a flight of steps to a subterraneous passage, and from a subterraneous passage to a door that is shut, and from that to a door that is open, and from that to a cell, and from that to a chapel, and from a chapel back to a subterraneous passage again. Here present either a skeleton with a live face, or a living body with the head of a skeleton, or a ghost all in white, or a groan from a distant part of a cavern, or the shake of a cold hand, or a suit of armor moving – fierce, “put out the light, and then ...”

] Let this be repeated for some nights in succession, and after the lady has been dissolved to a jelly with her fears, let her be delivered by the man of her heart, and married – Probatum est.

] As in medicine, there is what physicians call an elegant prescription, to distinguish it from those incongruous and absurd mixtures of the ancient empirics, so lest any one should think there are too many ingredients in the above recipe, let him take the following:

] A novel now, says Will, is nothing more

] Than an old castle and a creaking door;

] A distant hovel,

] Clanking of chains, a gallery, a light,

] Old armor, and a phantom all in white –

] And there’s a novel.