] 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" --

] 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.