sudden death--even spectres and fiends--can appal no more. If the
old thrill is to be evoked again, the application of more
ingenious methods is needed.

Such novels as Maturin's _Family of Montorio_, though "full of
sound and fury," fail piteously to vibrate the chords of terror,
which had trembled beneath Mrs. Radcliffe's gentle fingers. The
instrument, smitten forcibly, repeatedly, desperately, resounds
not with the answering note expected, but with an ugly, metallic
jangle. _Melmoth the Wanderer_, Maturin's extraordinary
masterpiece, was to prove--as late as 1820--that there were
chords in the orchestra of horror as yet unsounded; but in 1816,
when Mary Shelley and her companions set themselves to compose
supernatural stories, it was wise to dispense with the shrieking
chorus of malevolent abbesses, diabolical monks, intriguing
marquises, Wandering Jews or bleeding spectres, who had been so
grievously overworked in previous performances. Dr. Polidori's
skull-headed lady, Byron's vampire-gentleman, Mrs. Shelley's
man-created monster--a grotesque and gruesome trio--had at least
the attraction of novelty. It is indeed remarkable that so young
and inexperienced a writer as Mary Shelley, who was only nineteen
when she wrote _Frankenstein_, should betray so slight a
dependence on her predecessors. It is evident from the records of
her reading that the novel of terror in all its guises was
familiar to her. She had beheld the majestic horror of the halls
of Eblis; she had threaded her way through Mrs. Radcliffe's
artfully constructed Gothic castles; she had braved the terrors
of the German Ritter-, Raeuber- und Schauer-Romane; she had
assisted, fearful, at Lewis's midnight diablerie; she had
patiently unravelled the "mystery" novels of Godwin and of
Charles Brockden Brown.[117] Yet, despite this intimate knowledge
of the terrible and supernatural in fiction, Mrs. Shelley's theme
and her way of handling it are completely her own. In an "acute
mental vision," as real as the visions of Blake and of Shelley,
she beheld her monster and the "pale student of unhallowed arts"
who had created him, and then set herself to reproduce the thrill
of horror inspired by her waking dream. _Frankenstein_ has,
indeed, been compared to Godwin's _St. Leon_, but the resemblance
is so vague and superficial, and _Frankenstein_ so immeasurably
superior, that Mrs. Shelley's debt to her father is negligible.
St. Leon accepts the gift of immortali