ror. Shelley's romance, in short, is
no better and perhaps even worse than that of the other disciples
of Mrs. Radcliffe and "Monk" Lewis.

_St. Irvyne: or the Rosicrucian_ (1811), though it was written by
a "Gentleman of the University of Oxford" and not by a schoolboy,
shows slight advance on _Zastrozzi_ either in matter or manner.
The plot indeed is more bewildering and baffling than that of
_Zastrozzi_. The action of the story is double and alternate, the
scene shifts from place to place, and the characters appear and
disappear in an unaccountable and disconcerting fashion. This
time Godwin's _St. Leon_ has to be added to the list of Shelley's
sources. Ginotti, whose name is stolen from a brigand in
_Zofloya_, is not the devil but one of his sworn henchmen, who
has discovered and tasted the elixir vitae. Like Zofloya, he is
surrounded by an atmosphere of mystery. So that he may himself
die, Ginotti, like the old stranger in _St. Leon_, is anxious to
impart his secret to another. He chooses as his victim,
Wolfstein, a young noble who, like Leonardo in _Zofloya_, has
allied himself with a band of brigands. The bandit, Ginotti, aids
Wolfstein to escape with a beautiful captive maiden, for whom
Shelley adopts the name Megalena from _Zofloya_. While the lovers
are in Genoa, Megalena, discovering Wolfstein with a lady named
Olympia, whose "character has been ruined by a false system of
education," makes him promise to murder her rival. In Olympia's
bedchamber Wolfstein's hand is stayed for a moment by the sight
of her beauty--a picture which recalls the powerful scene in Mrs.
Radcliffe's _Italian_, when Schedoni bends over the sleeping
Ellena. After Olympia's suicide, Megalena and Wolfstein flee
together from Genoa. In the tale of terror, as in the modern
film-play, a flight of some kind is almost indispensable.
Ginotti, whose habit of disappearing and reappearing reminds us
of the ghostly monk in the ruins of Paluzzi, tells his history to
Wolfstein, and, at the destined hour, bestows the prescription
for the elixir, and appoints a meeting in St. Irvyne's abbey,
where Wolfstein stumbles over the corpse of Megalena. Wolfstein
refuses to deny God. Both Ginotti and his victim are blasted by
lightning, amid which the "frightful prince of terror, borne on
the pinions of hell's sulphurous whirlwind," stands before them.

"On a sudden Ginotti's frame, mouldered to a gigantic
skeleton, yet two pale and ghastly flame