n the _Modern Language
Review_ (Jan. 1912), by Mr. A. M. D. Hughes, who gives a complete
analysis of the plot of _Zofloya_, and indicates many parallels
with Shelley's novels. The heroine of _Zofloya_ is clearly a
lineal descendant of Lewis's Matilda, though Victoria di
Loredani, with all her vices, never actually degenerates into a
fiend. Victoria, it need hardly be stated, is nobly born, but she
has been brought up amid frivolous society by a worthless mother,
and: "The wildest passions predominated in her bosom; to gratify
them she possessed an unshrinking, relentless soul that would not
startle at the darkest crime."

Zofloya, who spurs her on, is the Devil himself. The plot is
highly melodramatic, and contains a headlong flight, an
earthquake and several violent deaths. In _Zastrozzi_, Shelley
draws upon the characters and incidents of this story very
freely. His lack of originality is so obvious as to need no
comment. The very names he chooses are borrowed. Julia is the
name of the pensive heroine in Mrs. Radcliffe's _Sicilian
Romance_. Matilda carries with it ugly memories of the lady in
Lewis's _Monk_; Verezzi occurs in _The Mysteries of Udolpho_;
Zastrozzi is formed by prefixing an extra syllable to the name
Strozzi from _Zofloya_. The incidents are those which happen
every day in the realm of terror. The villain, the hero, the
melancholy heroine, and her artful rival, develop no new traits,
but act strictly in accordance with tradition. They never
infringe the rigid code of manners and morals laid down for them
by previous generations. The scenery is invariably appropriate as
a setting to the incidents, and even the weather may be relied on
to act in a thoroughly conventional manner. The characters are
remarkable for their violent emotions and their marvellously
expressive eyes. When Verezzi's senses are "chilled with the
frigorific torpidity of despair," his eyes "roll horribly in
their sockets." When "direst revenge swallows up every other
feeling" in the soul of Matilda, her eyes "scintillate with a
fiend-like expression." Incidents follow one another with a wild
and stupefying rapidity. Every moment is a crisis. The style is
startlingly abrupt, and the short, disconnected paragraphs are
fired off like so many pistol shots. The sequence of events is
mystifying--Zastrozzi's motive for persecuting Verezzi is darkly
concealed until the end of the story, for reasons known only to
writers of the novel of ter