nd
Ippolito are the sons, not of the Count, but of Schemoli and
Erminia. By the irony of fate the knowledge comes too late for
Schemoli to save his children from the crime. At the close of a
lengthy trial the two brothers are released, but deprived of
their lands. Ultimately they die fighting in the siege of
Barcelona. Schemoli perishes, in the approved Gothic manner, by
self-administered poison. Intertwined with the main theme of
Schemoli's fatal revenge are the love-stories of the two
brothers. Rosolia, a nun, who seems to have been acquainted with
Shakespeare's comedies, disguises herself as a page, and devotes
her life to the service of Ippolito and to the composition of
sentimental verses. She only reveals her sex just before her
death, though we have guessed it from her first appearance.
Ildefonsa, who is beloved of Annibal, has been forced into a
convent against her will--a fate almost inevitable in the realm
of Gothic romance. When letters are received authorising her
release from the vows, a pitiless mother-superior reports that
she is dead. She is immured, but an earthquake sets her free, for
Maturin will move heaven and earth to effect his purposes. The
ill-fated maiden dies shortly afterwards. Ere the close it proves
that Ildefonsa was the daughter of Erminia, who had been secretly
married to Verdoni before her union with Orazio. Such is the
skeleton of Maturin's story, when its scattered members have been
patiently collected and fitted together. The impressive figure of
Schemoli, with his unholy power of fascinating his reluctant
accomplices, lends to the book the only sort of unity it
possesses. But even he fails to arouse a sense of fear strong
enough to fix our attention to so wandering a story. Like the
doomed brothers, we drift dejectedly through inexplicable
terrors, and we re-echo with fervour Annibal's dolorous cry:

"Why should I be shut up in this house of horrors to
deal with spirits and damned things and the secrets of
the infernal world while there are so many paths open
to pleasure, the varieties of human intercourse and the
enjoyment of life?"

Maturin, a disciple of Mrs. Radcliffe, feels it his duty to
explain away the apparently miraculous incidents in his story,
but he lacks the persevering ingenuity that partly compensates
for her frauds. On a single page he calmly discloses secrets
which have harassed us for four volumes, and his long-deferred
explanations