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    The Monk
    The Monk
    The Monk
    Ebook497 pages9 hours

    The Monk

    By Matthew Lewis and Kathryn White

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    With an Introduction by Kathryn White.

    Prepare to be shocked. This novel, written in 1796, is a Gothic festival of sex, magic and ghastly, ghostly violence rarely seen in literature. The Monk is remarkably modern in style and tells a breathless tale of temptation, imprisonment and betrayal. Matthew Lewis recounts the downfall of Ambrosio, the holier-than-thou monk seduced within the walls of a Madrid abbey until he heads for the utter corruption of the soul. Meanwhile, two sets of young lovers are thwarted and the reader thrills to pursuits through the woods by bandits and is chilled by the spectre of nuns imprisoned in vermin-ridden and skeleton-crowded vaults.

    Late Eighteenth Century audiences were polarised in opinion as to the novel's merits. Lord Byron and the Marquis de Sade were impressed by Lewis's daring, while Coleridge warned parents against The Monk's suitability for their sons or daughters, describing the novel as 'poison for youth. If you want a novel that still terrifies, over two hundred years after it was written, there is none finer than The Monk.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWordsworth Editions
    Release dateMay 1, 2012
    ISBN9781848705142
    The Monk
    Author

    Matthew Lewis

    MATTHEW LEWIS is the author of The Wars of the Roses (Amberley Publishing, 2015) , Richard, Duke of York: King by Right (Amberley Publishing, 2016) and The Survival of the Princes in the Tower (The History Press, 2017). He writes a history blog and runs two podcasts on history.

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    Reviews for The Monk

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      This is not a fusty Victorian novel, not by any means. It is a riot of a plot, with any number of gothic adventures taking place, all centered around an adjoining monestry and convent. Written by an Englishman & set in Spain, it has all those stereotypes of the Catholic church to the fore, and all the strange goings on that the anti-papists would expect to see (and entirely disapprove of). Even Satan has a cameo role in the end, comming to claim his prize. It's a riot, it's completely unbelievable and great fun!
    • 4/5
      3.5 stars

      Dreams, magic terrors, spells of mighty power, Witches, and ghosts who rove at midnight hour.

      I read this for the Classic Horror Halloween Bingo square.
      It's said this was written by a 19/20 yr old and within 10 weeks, which if true, is amazing. The format of having a main character, Ambrosio (the monk), and then having secondary characters branch off from him and tangentially going astray and telling their stories, only to have them all come together in the end, was extremely compelling. I was expecting more creepiness, it takes until the 50% mark for a ghost to appear:

      At length the Clock struck two. The Apparition rose from her seat, and approached the side of the bed. She grasped with her icy fingers my hand which hung lifeless upon the Coverture, and pressing her cold lips to mine, again repeated, "Raymond! Raymond! Thou art mine! Raymond! Raymond! I am thine! &c.----" She then dropped my hand, quitted the chamber with slow steps, and the Door closed after her. Till that moment the faculties of my body had been all suspended; Those of my mind had alone been waking. The charm now ceased to operate: The blood which had been frozen in my veins rushed back to my heart with violence: I uttered a deep groan, and sank lifeless upon my pillow.

      Until the last 30-20% the story is really about love, lust, and jealousy. As an atheist I don't hold religious individuals, rather they be in high ranking positions in the church, to a higher regard. I don't think it is any more crazy that a monk would give into his lust than an average non-religious male. (Not talking about Ambrosio's later desire to rape Antonia; he wants her and she doesn't want him. This is a different issue than him being turned on by Mathilda who willing wants to sleep with him) Religious individuals might find this story more, I don't know, worrisome because of the themes of non-infallibility regarding sin; no one is safe from the devil.

      I did really enjoy how the author played around with the themes of religious doctrine and the hypocrisy/corruption of its supposed devout leaders, men putting the blame on women for their failings, jealousy, and power. If you read this looking for a Gothic, I think you'd hit the gold mine with it's verbiage and tone. Like I mentioned, the more creepy scenes didn't have a strong presence until the ending with the Devil making a strong appearance:

      He appeared in all that ugliness which since his fall from heaven had been his portion: His blasted limbs still bore marks of the Almighty's thunder: A swarthy darkness spread itself over his gigantic form: His hands and feet were armed with long Talons: Fury glared in his eyes, which might have struck the bravest heart with terror: Over his huge shoulders waved two enormous sable wings; and his hair was supplied by living snakes, which twined themselves round his brows with frightful hissings. In one hand He held a roll of parchment, and in the other an iron pen. Still the lightning flashed around him, and the Thunder with repeated bursts, seemed to announce the dissolution of Nature.

      This story had some twists and turns with characters having some pretty intriguing life stories. I didn't find it as outlandish as some reviews led me to believe it was going to be (a lot mention how Ambrosio lusts and rapes his sister. He didn't know it was his sister during his obsession, so calling him incestuous seems a bit unfair). I read a small amount of horror stories and watch a ton of horror movies so maybe my creep/crazy bar is set too high but I did notice two movies were made about this and Netflix has the 2011 on DVD so I'll be adding it to the queue.

      Man was born for society. However little He may be attached to the World, He never can wholly forget it, or bear to be wholly forgotten by it.
    • 4/5
      This was amazingly ridiculous and I loved every minute of it
    • 4/5
      This is a good book. It has its faults (the poems are a little obnoxious, some of the asides can go on for rather long, the main character has zero redeeming qualities), but it's quite a story. These days the content wouldn't be at all "shocking" but back when it was written would have been very different, Lewis was making a rather large statement with this novel. In any case, I enjoyed trying to keep ahead of the twists, attempting to guess the truth of various things. Usually I managed to guess correctly, but it wasn't the annoying sort of predictable, it was that Lewis gave bits of foreshadowing that hinted at things to come. It made it so you'd guess about the hints, and then have the anticipation of waiting for the events to progress and seeing if they'd go that way or not, and how exactly it would happen. Some of it was a little silly, and there's one character you just want to throttle, but overall a fun enjoyable read.
    • 5/5
      Fantastic story of murder and lust. Nice twist at the end. The sub-plot with the imprisoned nun was fantastic and her discovery was quite stomach-turning.
    • 4/5
      Wow - this book was a pleasant surprise. Written in the late 1700's, I was anticipating long detailed descriptions and sentences that are hard to parse. Instead, this was gothic horror at its scariest. The story is really about Ambrosio, a well-respected monk and his fall from grace. Lots of action, good romance and quite an incredible cast of characters, including the Bleeding Nun and Lucifer himself. Very fun.
    • 5/5
      I somehow managed to get through this much of my life, including a college class in gothic literature; without ever reading this book. How? It was great!
      Published in 1796 and written by a 19-year-old, it was a massive, bestselling success in its day - and it really still holds up as a fun, entertaining read.

      This particular edition had the most *awful* introduction EVER, though. (I will not dignify the author of said intro by even mentioning his name, which I had never heard before anyway.) It was snide, condescending, and totally missed the point, by criticizing gothic literature as a genre, Lewis as a writer and the Monk in general - and damning it with faint praise, for the WRONG things. (the intro was written in the '50's, before the new attention the gothic genre has gotten in academia).
      Anyway, the intro-writer was trying to judge the book as a Work of Literature, and an Exploration of the Fall of a Virtuous Man, and all that kind of crap.

      It's NOT.

      It's an intentionally blasphemous, often hilarious, tragically dramatic tale, full of sorcery, devil-worship, ill-fated (and not-so-ill-fated) love, scandal, murder, ghosts, the Inquisition, cruel nuns, spooky castles, exotic locales, torture, dungeons, beautiful maidens... and of course, the particularly evil titular Monk.
      Yes, there's some pointed commentary of the hypocrisy of many religious types, as well as some quite funny social commentary (which often seems AMAZINGLY apropos for today, considering the age of the book) - but this was a book written to entertain - and titillate. It's definitely not as shocking today as it probably was then - and the plot is not quite as tightly sewn together as modern editors demand - but it's still a rousing good read.
    • 3/5
      This novel is all about Christian, specifically Catholic, sexual hysteria. Sex seems to determine everyone's motivation in the first volume. This makes sense when you consider that it was written by a nineteen year old for whom these obsessions were no doubt a daily occurence. Fortunately for us, he has managed to sublimate them into the form of a novel. (Which puts me in mind of E.M. Forster, who, when touched on the ass by an admirer at a tender age, promptly went home and wrote Maurice.)

      A duenna and her charge arrive in Madrid from provincial Mucia some time in the very late eighteenth century. For some reason no doubt to be made clear later, they arrive at a church where the much talked about Father Ambrosio is to speak. The father is a paragon of virtue. He has spent his thirty years entirely immersed in studies and prayer at the local Capuchin monastery. While waiting for the good father to arrive the duenna, Leonella, who is fifty-one, and her charge, Antonia, who is fifteen, are questioned by two young men and their tale of woe is gradually revealed. This is essentially a tale of Antonia's mother, seduced by a libertine, who runs away with her to the West Indies where thirteen years later he dies leaving her penniless so she must return to Spain with baby Antonia in tow to throw herself on the mercy of her outraged father.

      The wholly pure Ambrosio then spends the next sixty pages undergoing two events: the first is his heartless condemnation of a nun who has allowed herself to be seduced. She is with child but Ambrosio gives her into the hands of the prioress of her order for purposes of punishment; the second event is Ambrosio's seduction by a woman disguised as a young man, one Rosario, who has shamelessly broken the sanctity of the monastery. That at least is how Ambrosio sees it before he eventually gives way to godless and all too enjoyable rutting with the woman. These pages are tumescent with hot-blooded satanic sex. It is hard to believe they first saw the light of day in 1796. What an earth-shattering fireball this novel must have been then.

      One of the gentlemen entertaining the two new arrivals at the church is a nobleman, Lorenzo. It is his sister, Agnes, who has just been sacrificed by Father Ambrosio to the prioress. Now we enter into a long divagation narrated by the sister's nobleman lover, the Marquis de las Cisternas. First there is the interlude in the forest outside Strasborg in which the Marquis walks into a nest of banditti who wish him only ill. This is a vividly described section with lots of action and blood. At extraordinary length, the Marquis survives, as he must if we are to get the story of how Agnes becomes trapped into entering a convent by a guardian jealous of her relationship with the Marquis. This section involves some decisions on the part of the Marquis that no adult man with any romantic experience would make. In other words, the crudeness here really smacks of a nineteen year old writing his first novel. Yet the vivacity of the writing somehow continues to hold the reader despite these howlers.

      Later, we move on to Ambrosio's repeated sexcapades with Matilda (Rosario). The prioress's lie to brother Lorenzo that his sister Agnes has died in childbirth. Father Ambrosio as he overhears the prioress's evil plans for punishing Agnes on his way to an assignation with Matilda. Father Ambrosio's attempted seduction of a the young Antonia, innocent of carnal knowledge, and his deal with the devil to gain access to her lily-white body. The satisfying denouement I will not describe. Suffice it to say that Lewis's writing becomes more assured as he proceeds. By chapter 7, more than half way through, his writing becomes, as John Berryman discusses in his introduction, "passionate and astonishing."
    • 4/5
      The book is considered one of the first Gothic novels and one that is "male Gothic" specializing in horror (according to Wikipedia) and was published in 1796 by Matthew Gregory Lewis (English Author). This story of scandalous behavior may have been even shocking at the time but not new. In the end, it reminded me of events found in the Bible and Greek literature. There really is a lot of characters and their intertwining lives was sometimes hard to keep track of but in the end it did all come together and centered on the main character of the Monk known as Ambrosio. He is about 30 years of age and has been raised in the Abbey his entire life and a favorite of all. It is the story of his demise because of the sin of pride. Matilda is known as Rosario, a boy, who gains access to Ambrosio through her disguise as a boy. She is the character of wickedness in the book and of supernatural forces and magical powers. Matilda has too much power and Ambrosio is weak. The book has a great deal of romance element with Matilda's love for Ambrosio, Agnes's love of Don Raymond, Don Lorenzo's love for Antonia. The novel is full of evil characters; the Prioress who misuses her power in ways that do not fit her station, the Monk with his sin of pride, lust and murder and others. The book is set during the inquisition and includes references to the tortures and auto-da-fé. The cripts, mouldering corpses and relics play parts to make the book truly a Gothic work.
    • 5/5
      Ah, there’s nothing like a good irreverent read over the holidays. The Monk has a plot that is “convenient” and soap operatic at times, but it’s great fun to read, containing stories within the story, and I was impressed with the fact that it was written by a 19-year-old in 1796. It can be read as an indictment of Catholicism, as commentary on the nature of men and women, a morality story, or as Gothic drama. It’s Romanticism influenced by Lewis’s exposure to Germany’s Sturm und Drang movement, and yet also infused with brutal realism and fantasy. Something for everybody! :P
    • 5/5
      "The Monk" certainly deserves its description as a Gothic classic. Hard to imagine a book written in the 18th century could be described as a "page-turner", yet it is. Not high literature or a stylistic masterpiece but without a doubt an amazing tale. Moreover as many people observe, the book was written in ten weeks by 19 year old. Simply amazing.

      The tale utilizes almost every conceivable plot twist and doesn't hesitate to borrow from earlier works of fiction. Despite its length the story doesn't drag. Still, the Gothic style and presentation may not appeal to every reader. But, if nothing else, "The Monk" deserves attention for its place in literary history. If the prospective reader accepts the genre and exercises a bit of patience, it is a very enjoyable and noteworthy read.
    • 4/5
      “remember that a moment past in your arms in this world, o’er pays an age of punishment in the next”.

      In the forward written by Stephen King, King describes this novel, written in 1796 as one of the forerunners of a new genre – novels written for pleasure reading, not merely (moral) instruction. It was one of the first of the gothic novels using dark themes of sex and violence and so was exceptionally shocking to its 18th century readership.

      And although not written to instruct, it is a scree against the Roman Catholic church, with monasteries and convents given particular criticism.

      The young monk, Ambrosio, is the epitome of manhood and monkhood. Handsome, charismatic, well spoken, and pious; his sermons draw throngs. But he falls into sin – pride in his accomplishments, idolatry of a painting, and then lust for a beautiful young woman, Rosario, who had disguised herself as a fellow monk in order to be near him.

      Rosario literally sells her soul to the devil for Ambrosio to be furthered in his evil plans to ensnare a beautiful, chaste young girl. In the end, Ambrosio himself must decide whether to sell his own soul, too.


      Scattered within are delightful folktales – robbers and murderers in the forest, and an escape by dressing up as a famous ghost only to find … well I won’t say. Not to mention handsome young cavaliers deeply in love with the objects of their affections and humorous byplays to lighten the mood.

      It’s not shocking to my 21st century sensibilities. Two hundred years down the line, we’ve seen these plots and evil plot devices before.

      Overall, I enjoyed it: partially for the period piece it is and its place in literature, but also for its storytelling.
    • 5/5
      ‘’I must have your soul; must have it mine, and mine forever.’’

      This is one of the pioneers of Gothic Fiction, a work that defined one of the most fascinating, demanding and controversial genres. A novel written in the end of the 18th century that shocked the reading audience of its time with its last, darkness and violence. But what about the contemporary readers? Well, a few hundred years later and ‘’The Monk’’ still continues to attract us. My first experience with Lewis’ novel took place during my studies, in an exciting course called ‘’The Bible in English Literature’’. Since then, I’ve overlooked reading it and I don’t know why. This Christmas, an amazing colleague gave me a collector’s edition as a Christmas present. I think she knows me well.

      In Madrid, Ambrosio is a charismatic monk who dazzles the congregation with fiery sermons. A younger monk, Rosario, is his faithful shadow and confidante. However, Rosario is actually a young lady who has no other way to be close to him except disguising herself as a boy. Ambrosio discovers the truth and succumbs, because he is weak in spirit and in flesh. When his attentions turn to a young lady from a noble family, all Hell breaks loose. Literally, I assure you…

      ‘’The Monk’’ echoes Shakespeare and the Jacobite playwrights quite clearly. The cross-dressing, the scandalous love affairs, the ambivalent outcome, the extreme depiction of violence and punishment. The action is set in Spain, faithful to the stereotype which imagine the people of the Southern part of Europe as more vulnerable and governed by their passions, within a context that breaks apart the two institutions which are supposed to provide comfort and security. The Family and the Church. Dishonesty is common. ‘’Holy’’ men break their vows, noble sons try to trick virgins into their path, parents bargain their children away. It is a world far more terrifying than any satanic involvement could ever create and it is too real. Obsession leads to crimes and Lewis paints a dark portrait of a society that is corrupted to the core. Men and women blame God for their ‘’weak souls’’ while choosing a path that leads nowhere. The atmosphere is tangible with dark sensuality and violent lust and madness, as Lewis depicts a country and an era in all their attractive paranoia.

      We live in the time when violence and sex are always around, often used to shock but ending up being nothing. We aren’t easily shocked now, exposed to them from an outrageously young age through TV and video games. ‘’The Monk’’ may seem to us anything but shocking. Some may say that it stereotypically places the women in the archetypal roles of the Seductress or the Virgin. Yes, well, obviously! Take the story within its historical context and you’ll have the explanation. But wouldn’t this be too simplistic to consider?

      We love ‘’A Song of Ice and Fire’’ (most of us, at least….), we love Stephen King and Gothic Fiction has never been better both in Literature as well as in exceptional TV series like BBC’s ‘’Taboo’’. Violence, darkness and sexual implications don’t shock us, but dark stories of quality continue to fascinate us and will always do so. And by ‘’quality’’, I mean Literature, not mass-produced porn garbage...Darkness continues to rule many a life, forming a kind of obsession that may lead to horror and despair. This is why ‘’The Monk’’ still remains an iconic creation in the vastness of Literature.

      I would also wholeheartedly suggest the 2011 film version of the novel, starring Vincent Cassel at his best.
    • 4/5
      I loved this book. It took me awhile, not because it wasn't interesting, but bc I'm a slow reader.

      I've never read Gothic novels before, but this was a great start. The language was easy to understand, and I found it surprisingly modern for 1796. The plot and twists reminded me a bit of Count of Monte Cristo, but much more abridge of course. A little soap opera-y, as it tried to shock you and some parts so melodramatic it was cheesy, but fun and engaging nonetheless. At this point in history, it's a bit campy, but I can imagine that back then disdain of religion wouldv'e been read very differently. The characters ranged from boringly clean to most interestingly horrible. I knew most of the plot before I started and I was still shocked at the end. It wrapped up nicely, and I give kudos for a 19 year old writing this.
      Having the beautiful marbled paper cover and creamy pages of my Folio Society edition was icing on the cake.
    • 4/5
      “The Monk” is like nothing else I’ve ever read.

      Although it’s poorly constructed in terms of paragraphing and certain structural elements – this was written in the 1790s, after all – the unusual yet original plot, its diverse themes, plus a rare cast of characters make up for any defects.

      Every so often the author injects a line – usually in dialogue – that is such a surprise it made me pause with raised eyebrows; a “Did I read that right?” type of moment. Or, if you prefer, a “Bloody hell!” type of moment. I mean this in a positive way. Matthew Lewis could write the most unexpected twists in a tale.

      The tone for the most part is a sinister one, yet every so often humour pops up to lighten the tone. We have sexual encounters and pure horror. “The Monk” is a blend of many themes that complement each other well.
    • 4/5
      I'm not really sure what I think of this. I can see how some people would call it Gothic and some people would just call it weird.
      "Feel this heart, father! It is yet the seat of honour, truth, and chastity; if it beats tomorrow, it must fall a prey to the blackest crimes. Oh, let me then die to-day! ... Folded in your arms, I shall sink to sleep; your hand shall close my eyes for ever, and your lips receive my dying breath. And will you not sometimes think of me? Will you not sometimes shed a tear upon my tomb?"

      It does have Gothic elements, like ghosts and spooky castles/houses/abbeys/crypts/forests and innocent damsels in distress from fiendish villains. The Bleeding Nun in particular was delightfully spooky:
      "The spectre again pressed her lips to mine, again touched me with her rotting fingers and, as on her first appearance, quitted the chamber as the clock told 'two'."

      But it also has some real Horror elements, like violent murders and crypts filled with rotting corpses. And there were some things that reminded me of Sade, like the religious cynicism and rapes. (Edit to add: after looking at a few commentaries, it looks like the extra violence was inspired by the German school of Gothic stories, and that Sade did use this as an inspiration. So...)
      "Redouble your outward austerity, and thunder out menaces against the errors of others, the better to conceal your own. ... she is unworthy to enjoy love's pleasures, who has not wit enough to conceal them."
      "The prudent mother, while she admired the beauties of the sacred writings [of the Bible], was convinced that, unrestricted, no reading more improper could be permitted a young woman."

      I don't know. It was interesting, but I think I would have related to it more if I'd read it when I was 20 (about the age of the author when he wrote it). At this point in my life, I like my Gothic stuff to be a bit more self-aware or goofy, and my social commentary to be a bit more hopeful.
    • 5/5
      Gothic novels aren't typically my genre, but maybe I should start reading them more often... I thoroughly enjoyed Matthew Lewis' "The Monk."

      Sure, it's book filled with depravity-- apparently the first book ever written with a priest as its villain. The book is heaped with every horror imaginable-- yet still manages to provide an entertaining story with plenty of twists and turns.

      (For anyone reading this edition, do not read the book jacket... it inexplicably gives away the final horrors that Lewis spent so much time building up to. Odd decision... this was the 2002 edition by Oxford University Press.)
    • 4/5
      I can't decide if this is mock-goth or just really over-the-top-goth. I know Gothic is extreme by definition, but this one includes every cliché of the genre you can think of, plus a few elements that read really modern and self-aware. Kind of like late noir films, except with nuns, ghosts and dungeons (so, way better than late noir films).

      The thesis, inasmuch as there is one, is rather revolutionary for its time: ignorance isn't virtue, it's just ignorance. So basically, integrists who go around judging others are just scared, repressed people who should get over themselves and join the rest of us in, you know, life. And I thought I had patented that idea.
    • 5/5
      Finally, some fun in the Enlightenment. The Monk is a blast, a page-turner, chock full of insane plot twists and sinning.

      It can't be accused of being terribly well-written, so you know that old debate between eloquence and plot? If you tip heavily toward eloquence, you might not like this as much.

      But for me, clawing my way out of a pit of Oh-So-Literary books starved for plot...it's just what I needed. The only 18th-century book that I had more fun with was Voltaire's Candide.

      This is also the only 18th-century book I've read that includes magic. All the others have been resolutely set in the real world; it was surprising to me to realize that we were actually going to be horsing around with ghosts and demons here. Weird, huh? It could certainly be that I've just missed all the magic - I'm sure this can't be the only book to include it - but in general the 1700s seemed to completely eschew the supernatural. And it's not like they had no example: Shakespeare used magic in several of his plays, and The Monk is an exploration of the Faust legend that he probably heard about from Marlowe. (Some specific similarities in a couple of key scenes point to Marlowe.) I'm not a huge fan of magic-y stuff anyway, so I doubt this is what made me dislike Enlightenment literature so much; just thought it was interesting.

      ETA: Oh, it's Gothic. Stemming from Horace Walpole's 1767 "Castle of Otrando." Okay.
    • 4/5
      What an entertaining book, overloaded and packed with the conventions of gothic horror. Admittedly, I laughed my way through some stuff, especially the long narrations by some characters, the way events seemed to go from silly to absurd, BUT, it did justice to its genre while managing to have a good poke at hypocrisy and blind faith. The ending was awesome. I could have done without the lengthy poems, but otherwise I'm so glad I read this.
    • 4/5
      This book is marvelously ludicrous. There is so much going on, and most of it is sordid. Nuns having babies? Check. Nuns locked in cellars by other nuns? Check. Priests having affairs? Check. Demons? Check. As if you needed more convincing, the novel also features a description of the afterlife, so if you were wondering what happens, just pick this one up.

      Speaking seriously, this work is a lovely example of how the earlier novel looked when it was aimed at a certain segment of society, which would have been educated but not necessarily highly affluent people (not that the highly affluent didn't indulge, I am sure they did). It's also important to remember that books like these found their way into early circulating libraries, where they would have been presented in three installments (hence the length!). This book is 18th century smut. It's the Janet Evanovich of their time (no offense intended, smut has its place!). It's interesting that, in the 18th c., even smut had to have a moral lesson, as The Monk does. Fascinating.

      As a final note, I do think that the biggest hold up in the reading process is the lack of what we as modern readers would consider a standard plot. The plot as we now know it is a relatively modern invention, so this novel offers good perspective.

      For a novel of approximately the same time period with a different audience and purpose in mind, try Burney's Evelina.
    • 4/5
      Despite its antiquity (1796), Lewis's sordid tale still holds up after all these years. And its tale of religious debauchery is still pretty timely, and probably always will be. Turn down your threshold for melodrama and enjoy.
    • 4/5
      Published two years after Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Monk is still very much a gothic novel but it's also a very different style of gothic novel compared to Radcliffe's Udolpho.

      Whilst Radcliffe's novel focuses on creating a sense of terror in its readers (defined by Radcliffe as something that 'expands the soul, and awakens the facilities to a high degree of life'), The Monk seems intent on creating a sense of horror instead (something which 'contracts, freezes, and nearly annihilates them' according to Radcliffe). Where Radcliffe inspires terror by leaving things up to the reader's imagination, Lewis inspires horror by describing things in all their gory detail.

      This, amongst other things, makes Lewis' book a much more graphic and shocking read and it wasn't really a surprise to find in the introduction that Lewis had to remove all mentions of sexual activity, seductions, murder attempts and descriptions of unclothed female bodies as well as provocative words like 'lust' in later editions of the book.

      Perhaps because Lewis spells things out more for his readers, this felt like a less demanding read than The Mysteries of Udolpho; it was much easier to get into and moved a lot faster. Having said that, I think my personal preference is for Radcliffe's style of gothic writing rather than Lewis'.

      Radcliffe wrote The Italian in 1797 as a reply to Lewis' The Monk and The Italian is going to be my next gothic read.
    • 4/5
      It's no coincidence that the opening epigraph of Lewis' one and only novel is from Shakespeare's _Measure for Measure_. Both works have pillars of public moral rectitude collapsing after encountering their first major temptation of carnality. Monk Ambrosio figures in for a penny, in for a pound, and starts the slide from mere sex to murder, incest, despair, and damnation.

      Lewis' streamlined prose abandons the detailed descriptions of Gothic architecture and Alpine vistas favored by his model Ann Radcliffe. And, in a plot of not two but four frustrated lovers, he crams many a gruesome incident and image. No Radcliffean rationalism for Lewis. Despite frequent criticms of the superstition of Spain during the Inquistion, this plot revels in the supernatural with curses, ghosts, Bleeding Nuns, Wandering Jews, and the Prince of Demons himself.

      Yet, despite the melodrama, there is an air of psychological realism in how Monk Ambrosio rationalizes his escalation of evil. Perhaps more disturbing is the mind of Matilda, his first lover, and her willingness to advise and aid his evil even after he has sexually spurned her.

      Stephen King's introduction is, like many such introductions to classic works, an unfortunate spoiler of much of the plot. However, most of his observations are valid and interesting though I'm dubious that all English novels before Horace Walpole's _The Castle of Otranto_ had moral purposes. (Lewis novel seems to have no serious moral statement except, perhaps, that the chaste life of the convent and monastery is unnatural.)

      Oxford University Press seems to have taken the typesetting of this edition from an earlier one. A lot of asterisks show up in the text without accompanying footnotes. A minor annoyance to a novel that holds up well after more than 200 years.
    • 3/5
      Quite different than most other "classics" that I've read. This story, while very slightly still showing it's age, could easily have been written for modern times. Except for the large side-story midway through, I enjoyed reading about the downfall of the Abbot Ambrosio. Quite a gothic read for sure!
    • 4/5
      Don't be scared off by the book's 18th century publication date: this story is as shocking and titillating as anything in modern lit. The Monk has it all: scandal, conspiracy, murder, villainy, hypocrisy, incest, rape, betrayal, ghosts, demons, corpses, and enough gruesome detail to rival an episode of CSI.

      The story focuses on the corruption and eventual destruction of Ambrosio, "The Man of Holiness", a Capuchin monk whose outward piety conceals vanity and a lust for power, from which seeds grow spiraling tendrils of evil that eventually destroy him, with a little help from Old Smokey himself. (Lucifer actually makes a juicy cameo appearance at the end – don’t miss it!).

      Love how "meaty" the story is: within the main narrative, Lewis embeds digressions and side stories that add to the entertainment and general spookiness of the story. Caught up in the main narrative (in which the Brave Cavalier Lorenzo attempts to woo the Innocent Virgin Antonia; Noble Raymond attempts to rescue his True Love Agnes from the schemes of Villainous Family Members and an Evil Prioress; and the Mad Monk Ambrosio is gradually corrupted), you may be tempted to skip these parts, but don't! Elvira's sad history, the story of Lorenzo’s brush with bloodthirsty bandits in the forests of Germany, and especially the tale of the Bleeding Nun and the Wandering Jew are fully as diverting as the main narrative.

      Love, too, how the author incorporates all the stereotypical elements of gothic fiction – mad monks, wicked nuns, brave knights, naïve virgins, scheming family members, crypts, corpses, devils, and sorcery – while still managing to create a story that feels fresh, literate, and well-crafted. Lewis may have picked a dubious genre, but there’s nothing dubious about his plotting or prose. Indeed, Ambrosio’s decline is presented in so gradual and logical a fashion, may shock you almost as much as it shocks Ambrosio at the end to realize how far he’s fallen, and how fast.

      Finally, love how the book lays the foundation for so much literature that’s come since. Reading along, you’ll catch definite whiffs of Bronte, Poe, Hawthorn, Byron, Eco, and Perez-Reverte, among others. Were I a scholar, would love to research how this text provides a bridge between the old-style horror of medieval morality plays and modern lit.

      Because, beneath the shock and titillation, this is at its core a morality play, in which evildoers are punished and virtue is rewarded. (Except for a few necessarily tragic consequences, because evil can’t happen without victims, after all). A little spooky, a little melodramatic, a lot entertaining, and good triumphs over evil yet again … what more do you want from a book?
    • 4/5
      This book takes a chapter or two to get into, although ti's relatively fast paced when you do. I think the plot moves along nicely and is really interested. I actually enjoyed reading it. I also appreciated Lewis' descriptive style. My only complaint is that at times it's hard to follow who's who.
    • 4/5
      Having just completed The Name of the Rose I thought I would continue the monastery theme with the Monk. My naive self even thought they would be pretty similar in content. Whereas The Name of the Rose is an excellent and well crafted mystery, The Monk is a creepy and suspenseful horror novel. The novel follows the story of two main sets of characters; the monk, Ambrosio and his love Antonia and Lorenzo and his sister Agnes. The two sets are connected in a variety of ways but for most of the story are kept separate. This is an excellent plot device as it juxtaposes the evil and corruption of Ambrosio and the honour and fidelity of Lorenzo.

      Ambrosio is the hero of the city. A pious and highly respected monk, he is the model that everyone else looks too. Even heroes, however, can be tempted and Ambrosio gives in to these temptations. Before he knows it he is overcome by passions and moves further and further away from the man Madrid thinks he is. He attention becomes fixed on Antonia, a young virgin in the city and become intent on her corruption. Lorenzo on the other hand has just come to Madrid. He meet Antonia and is determined to make her his bride. Before he can, however, he gets caught up trying to rescue his unfortunate sister from her covenant, in order to reunite her with her husband-to-be. Lorenzo is only working for the good of his sister (and her fiancee) whereas Ambrosio is only working for the destruction of Antonia. It's hard to miss who the good guy and bad guy are supposed to be. The book isn't completely straightforward though! There are some good twists and surprises at the end.

      The descriptions and dialogue in this novel, though flowery, are powerful and you can relate the settings and understand the motivation of the characters. Lewis' writing is poetic and I often found myself reading for much longer than I intended to. A couple times I found he got a little carried away and took the reader away from the main plot(s). The back-story of Agnes and her fiancee also seemed to go on for longer than necessary.

      Overall a beautifully written novel with some heroic and very creepy characters. It's a novel that's going to sit with me for awhile and I think will reveal even more on a second reading. The depiction of Ambrosio fall for piety to ruin is truly disturbing and makes one question their own motivations and ability to resist temptation.
    • 4/5
      This book was simultaneously supremely entertaining and quite disturbing. It's definitely not for the faint of heart- it has quite its share of rape, incest, torture, deals with Satan, murder, etc... The main character is Father Ambrosio, an ultra-pious monk turned raving sex fiend. It also features a couple of gallant, knightly types- Raymond and Lorenzo- and their lady loves, Agnes and Antonia, respectively. There's also the beautiful Matilda, who turns Ambrosio to the Dark Side, so to speak.
      The story itself focuses on Ambrosio's fall from grace, Don Raymond's attempts to rescue Agnes from crazy murder nuns, and Antonia's various misfortunes, which culminate (SPOILERZ) in her being raped and murdered by her big brother, Ambrosio. Cheers!
      This book does contain some rather sizable doses of anti-Catholicism and misogyny tossed into the mix, but, you know, times were different back then... Also, some of plot twists seemed a bit contrived even with the context considered, but overall it's a very enjoyable read. The language is a tad old-fashioned, but, even so, it's quite difficult to put down.
    • 5/5
      The 500 pages breeze by in this ridiculous Gothic soap opera.

    Book preview

    The Monk - Matthew Lewis

    Trayler

    INTRODUCTION

    Matthew G. Lewis’s powerful novel, The Monk, published when he was just twenty, is one of the most shocking novels in the English language. It is a Gothic festival of sex, magic and ghastly, ghostly violence rarely seen in literature. Not having read this novel for over twenty years, I had forgotten just how good – or perhaps that should be how sensational – it is.

    Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775–1818) was born into a wealthy English family, the son of the deputy secretary of war. He studied at Oxford University and, via his father’s contacts, he obtained a position as an attaché at the British Embassy at The Hague, where he wrote The Monk, his first novel. It was published in 1796, between Lewis completing his first degree and his Master’s, and in the same year that he became a Member of Parliament. The second edition of The Monk included reference to his political position. Audiences were shocked that an MP could be responsible for such lurid effusions, and the third edition was edited down by Lewis to reduce some of the more controversial passages.

    The Monk is remarkably modern in style and tells a breathless tale of temptation, imprisonment and betrayal. With sin-soaked prose, Matthew Lewis tells the downfall of Ambrosio, the holier-than-thou monk seduced within the walls of the Abbey of the Capuchins in Madrid until he heads relentlessly towards the utter corruption of the soul. Meanwhile, two sets of young lovers are thwarted, and the reader thrills to pursuits through the woods by bandits, and chills to the horror of a young nun imprisoned in vermin-ridden and skeleton-crowded vaults.

    Late eighteenth-century audiences were polarised in their opinions of the novel. The notorious Lord Byron and the Marquis de Sade were impressed by Lewis’s daring, while Coleridge warned parents against The Monk’s suitability for their sons or daughters, describing the book as ‘poison for youth’, a ‘provocative for the debauchee’ and observing that ‘we stare and tremble’.

    This controversial novel is also one of the cornerstones of Gothic fiction. Its sense of claustrophobia, sexuality, terror and violence helped to define what we now term the ‘Gothic’, a sub-genre of late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century fiction, which was satirised by Jane Austen (1775–1817) in her novel Northanger Abbey, written in the 1790s, but not published until 1818.

    What exactly is Gothic fiction? Like the majority of so-called ‘movements’, whether in art or literature, there was no conscious decision by a group of authors to form themselves into a collective with a clear manifesto or to write in a particular style. The genre was defined retrospectively and is usually applied to a type of European fiction which echoed aspects of mediaeval Gothic architecture. During the eighteenth century there was a growing interest in mediaeval buildings and the history of the age of chivalry.

    The first novel usually identified as ‘Gothic’ is The Castle of Otranto (1764), published anonymously and then a year later identified as the work of Horace Walpole (1717–1797). It is a strange tale of thwarted love, jealousy, supernatural events and familial murder, with echoes of the classical tragedy of Oedipus, who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother; a device taken up in The Monk when Ambrosio discovers his true heritage and the terrible impact of his evil deeds.

    William Beckford’s (1759–1844) Vathek (1786), a strange concoction subtitled ‘An Arabian Tale’, includes sorcery, the sacrifice of children, a man who sells his soul to the Devil, subterranean ruins and eternal damnation, all of which feature in some way in The Monk.

    The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823), is an atmospheric and powerful tale with a heroine in peril, a sinister count and a creepy castle. In this novel, the literary ‘Gothic’ themes, motifs and conventions begin to be defined, with the castle of Udolpho awash with death, secret passages, jealous lovers, supernatural suggestion and ruined buildings. The Monk, published two years later, continued to develop these themes, being filled with strange chambers, locked rooms and darkened, dank corridors, and the enigmatic figure of Matilda being an emblem of black magic. By the time Udolpho was published, derivative and parodical works were already appearing.

    The impact made by the first publication of The Monk was huge. It was condemned as lewd, with elements of the pornographic and satanic. Even today, if we consider that Matthew Lewis depicts the gradual corruption of a monk, the rape of a virgin by a representative of religion, who later discovers that he has committed incest, matricide and bargained with the Devil, it sounds fairly sordid. Add to this Lewis’s graphic depictions of violence and sex and you have quite a powerful brew, to say the least.

    To secular twenty-first-century audiences brought up on web violence and porn, as well as the subtle pornography of advertising and popular music, for whom religion may not be at the core of their lives, the issues confronted in The Monk may seem merely intriguingly distant, consigned to long-dead history. However, to late eighteenth-century readers, the book was shocking and genuinely revolutionary. Lewis was amongst the first of the modern novelists to depict a man of the cloth as a debauched killer. Religion then was a pivotal part of the western world’s everyday culture, central to moral codes and the way the majority of people led their lives. Late eighteenth-century attitudes to sexuality had yet to reach the prudery of the Victorian era, but the concept of double standards and secret pleasures was alive and well. When sexuality was combined with religion in fiction, as Lewis did so startlingly, the impact was electric. Inevitably, the first edition of The Monk sold quickly. Later editions, faced with censorship, especially once Lewis became an MP, were edited by the author to remove some of the more lurid passages.

    Walpole, Beckford, Radcliffe and Lewis inspired a whole generation of Romantic writers who incorporated elements of the Gothic brew in their work. Key titles include Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s (1772–1834) poem ‘Christabel’ (1816); Lord Byron’s (1788–1824) ‘Manfred’ (1817); Mary Shelley’s (1797–1851) famous chiller Frankenstein (1818); Walter Scott’s (1771–1832) The Bride of Lammermoor (1819); Charles Maturin’s (1782–1824) Melmoth the Wanderer (1820) and Thomas Love Peacock’s (1785–1866) Headlong Hall (1816), Nightmare Abbey (1817–1818) and Crotchet Castle (1831).

    Later heirs to the Gothic include Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849); Emily Bronte (1818–1848); Wilkie Collins (1824–1889); at the end of the nineteenth century, Robert Louis Stevenson’s (1850–1894) The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886); Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930); Oscar Wilde’s (1854–1900) The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891); and Bram Stoker’s (1847–1912) Dracula (1897). Into the twentieth century the Gothic proper really disappears, though there are traces in some of the works of writers such as M. R. James, Daphne du Maurier and Susan Hill.

    Overtly or running beneath the surface, central to the output of the authors mentioned above are the themes of sexuality and immorality.

    The Monk is a highly-charged sexual novel from beginning to end. It opens with a scene in the abbey where the narrator comments that the majority of the worshippers are more interested in the fashions and personalities parading in Madrid than in the content of the service. More specifically, many of the congregation are caught up by the paradox of the charismatic, attractive figure of Ambrosio, abbot of the monastery who, although he is thirty, has never been outside the walls of seclusion, making his personal life a source of speculation and fantasy. Rejected by his parents as an infant, he is the product of an upbringing in the monastery, his natural virtues repressed and his young mind terrified by the horror of perdition and damnation:

    While the monks were busied in rooting out his virtues, and narrowing his sentiments, they allowed every vice which had fallen to his share, to arrive at full perfection. He was suffered to be proud, vain, ambitious, and disdainful: He was jealous of his equals, and despised all merit but his own: He was implacable when offended, and cruel in his revenge.

    Early on in the novel it is suggested that Ambrosio may be prey to temptation because he has never been exposed to it. Men and women alike are drawn to him; his dark, aquiline features, commanding speech and tall frame particularly compelling for the beautiful young Antonia, visiting Madrid for the first time with her Aunt Leonella. She is a typical Gothic romantic heroine; a pale, insubstantial and idealised device, captivated by Ambrosio’s address in church. We realise, too, that she is a heroine in peril, as Lorenzo, the romantic hero, experiences a strange dream in which he sees the monk transfigured into a hellish monster coming between him and Antonia, torturing her with his ‘odious caresses’.

    As Lewis takes us within the monastery, we discover an element of sexual ambiguity. Ambrosio feels an inexplicable attraction to a young novice, Rosario, and later finds that his companion Rosario is a young woman, Matilda, a dangerous creature determined to be close to her hero and to remain in the monastery disguised as a man. Despite his better judgement, as discovery would ruin his career, Ambrosio agrees to maintain the pretence, but however he tries to think of her as the young male student, Rosario, he is tormented by Matilda’s beauty. Eventually he is seduced into a sexual relationship with her, and all the while she continues her pretence as a monk. At this stage, the reader may have some sympathy with a man brought up in a monastery, denied the usual pleasures of life, and experiencing sexual union for the first time, but the situation deteriorates quickly and he declines from hero to anti-hero to hypocritical villain because of his own selfish greed. Once Ambrosio has tasted the sins of the flesh, his passion is inflamed and he craves more from every encounter. Like Dorian Gray, he seeks ever more perverse gratification until his soul is utterly corrupted.

    Ambrosio tires of Matilda and, when he catches sight of a young and beautiful virgin, Antonia, he imagines taking her by force. By now he has lost his moral compass. It is clear that Matilda is no ordinary woman, but an agent of Satan, for she aids him in the fulfilment of his evil desires by the use of a magical mirror. In essence, she persuades him to sell his soul to the devil in order to gratify his lust, and the unlawful possession of Antonia leads ultimately to her death and that of her mother, Elvira. This later proves to be worse than it first appears, when Ambrosio discovers the real relationship between himself and Antonia. At the end of the novel Ambrosio faces a torturous death, hounded by Justice, paying the price for his excess. The final scene in the bleak mountains has to be one of the most chilling, violent and memorable you will ever read.

    Interspersed with the main plotline concerning Ambrosio are two subplots: a thwarted romance between Antonia and Lorenzo; and the sad tale of Lorenzo’s sister, Agnes, a nun at the Convent of St Clare, and her doomed fate, following a sexual relationship with her lover, Raymond.

    The interlude featuring Agnes’s escape from the confines of her life is a remarkable tale in which the lovers decide to take advantage of the legend of a Bleeding Nun haunting the convent. Having spent some time encouraging belief in the legend, they plan that Agnes will leave at night disguised as the Nun. Raymond’s relief at embracing his lover turns to terror when he realises that he holds in his arms the real, ghastly, spectral Nun. He is haunted by the Nun, driven to the brink of death and insanity before tracing Agnes to the vaults of the convent in Madrid, where she lies starving to death, surrounded by the corpses of other victims and, most cruelly, the body of her dead child.

    It is always dangerous to speculate too closely on the origins of a work of fiction and to attribute the events and characterisations in a novel to real personalities, places and experiences. However, the young Lewis had a troubled family background. His mother ran away with a music teacher and even though they remained on cordial terms – the money he made from his writing helped to support his mother – the abandonment of a child is a powerful rejection which could be seen as being worked through in the sexual violence and revenge wreaked on Antonia, Elvira and the nuns in The Monk. Lewis himself was the physical antithesis of his anti-hero Ambrosio, being short and far from classically handsome, and the reader might wonder whether there was some element of wish-fulfilment in his creation of Ambrosio. ‘Monk’ Lewis, as he became known, travelled overseas, to Jamaica, where he had inherited sugar plantations, visiting the country twice and attempting to make humanitarian changes to the conditions for the slaves there. Lewis also travelled and lived in France and Germany. The influence of German Romanticism is evident in his work. He visited Geneva, where in 1816 he encountered the poets Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley at Via Diodati, scene of the famous ghost story sessions which resulted in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

    The Monk is his best-known work, but he also produced several dramas – tragedies, comedies ad melodramas, as well as musical pieces. His best known works are Journal of a West India Proprietor, published posthumously in 1843, and The Castle Spectre (1797), a hugely successful and profitable Gothic melodrama, which Lewis acknowledged bore some resemblance to The Monk. His most famous character proved somewhat tricky for dramatists, for although Lewis’s flair for the theatrical lends itself to adaptation, the subject-matter of The Monk is somewhat outrageous. However, the book was filmed twice: once in 1976 by surrealist director Adonis Kyrou, and once for television in a loose 1990 adaptation starring Paul McGann. Matthew Lewis died en route from Jamaica and was buried at sea.

    The Monk is one of the finest novels you will ever read. Despite the violent and sometimes shocking nature of the novel, there is also an element of mockery and humour which punctuates the horror very effectively.

    Yes, it is patchy, the structure is sometimes a little clunky as we move from one viewpoint to another, leaving behind the fate of Ambrosio for what sometimes seems an eternity, while the various avenues of the secondary characters’ fates are explored; but for a first novel, and one by a man barely twenty years old, it bears very favourable comparison with that other work of youthful power, Frankenstein, written by the eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley. Both novels share a sense of terror and energy for life which will knock you sideways, have you begging the characters to behave differently and ultimately leave you reeling.

    KATHRYN WHITE

    THE MONK

    Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas,

    Nocturnos lemures, portentaque – Horace

    Dreams, magic terrors, spells of mighty power,

    Witches, and ghosts who rove at midnight hour.

    PREFACE

    Imitation of Horace

    Ep.20 – B.1

    Methinks, O vain ill-judging book,

    I see thee cast a wishful look,

    Where reputations won and lost are

    In famous row called Paternoster.

    Incensed to find your precious olio

    Buried in unexplored port-folio,

    You scorn the prudent lock and key,

    And pant well bound and gilt to see

    Your volume in the window set

    Of Stockdale, Hookham, or Debrett.

    Go then, and pass that dangerous bourn

    Whence never book can back return:

    And when you find, condemned, despised,

    Neglected, blamed, and criticised,

    Abuse from all who read you fall,

    (If haply you be read at all)

    Sorely will you your folly sigh at,

    And wish for me, and home, and quiet.

    Assuming now a conjuror’s office, I

    Thus on your future Fortune prophesy –

    Soon as your novelty is o’er,

    And you are young and new no more,

    In some dark dirty corner thrown,

    Mouldy with damps, with cobwebs strown,

    Your leaves shall be the book-worm’s prey;

    Or sent to chandler-shop away,

    And doomed to suffer public scandal,

    Shall line the trunk, or wrap the candle!

    But should you meet with approbation,

    And someone find an inclination

    To ask, by natural transition

    Respecting me and my condition;

    That I am one, the enquirer teach,

    Nor very poor, nor very rich;

    Of passions strong, of hasty nature,

    Of graceless form and dwarfish stature;

    By few approved, and few approving;

    Extreme in hating and in loving;

    Abhorring all whom I dislike,

    Adoring who my fancy strike;

    In forming judgements never long,

    And for the most part judging wrong;

    In friendship firm, but still believing

    Others are treacherous and deceiving,

    And thinking in the present era

    That friendship is a pure chimera:

    More passionate no creature living,

    Proud, obstinate, and unforgiving,

    But yet for those who kindness show,

    Ready through fire and smoke to go.

    Again, should it be asked your page,

    ‘Pray, what may be the author’s age?’

    Your faults, no doubt, will make it clear,

    I scarce have seen my twentieth year,

    Which passed, kind reader, on my word,

    While England’s throne held George the Third.

    Now then your venturous course pursue:

    Go, my delight! Dear book, adieu!

    The Hague

    Oct. 28, 1794

    M. G. L.

    ADVERTISEMENT

    The first idea of this Romance was suggested by the story of the Santon Barsisa, related in The Guardian. – The Bleeding Nun is a tradition still credited in many parts of Germany; and I have been told that the ruins of the castle of Lauenstein, which she is supposed to haunt, may yet be seen upon the borders of Thuringia. – The Water-King, from the third to the twelfth stanza, is the fragment of an original Danish Ballad – And Belerma and Durandarte is translated from some stanzas to be found in a collection of old Spanish poetry, which contains also the popular song of Gayferos and Melesindra, mentioned in Don Quixote. – I have now made a full avowal of all the plagiarisms of which I am aware myself; but I doubt not, many more may be found, of which I am at present totally unconscious.

    Chapter One

    – Lord Angelo is precise;

    Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses

    That his blood flows, or that his appetite

    Is more to bread than stone.

    Measure for Measure

    Scarcely had the abbey bell tolled for five minutes, and already was the church of the Capuchins thronged with auditors. Do not encourage the idea that the crowd was assembled either from motives of piety or thirst of information. But very few were influenced by those reasons; and in a city where superstition reigns with such despotic sway as in Madrid, to seek for true devotion would be a fruitless attempt. The audience now assembled in the Capuchin church was collected by various causes, but all of them were foreign to the ostensible motive. The women came to show themselves, the men to see the women: some were attracted by curiosity to hear an orator so celebrated; some came because they had no better means of employing their time till the play began; some, from being assured that it would be impossible to find places in the church; and one half of Madrid was brought thither by expecting to meet the other half. The only persons truly anxious to hear the preacher were a few antiquated devotees, and half a dozen rival orators, determined to find fault with and ridicule the discourse. As to the remainder of the audience, the sermon might have been omitted altogether, certainly without their being disappointed, and very probably without their perceiving the omission.

    Whatever was the occasion, it is at least certain that the Capuchin church had never witnessed a more numerous assembly. Every corner was filled, every seat was occupied. The very statues which ornamented the long aisles were pressed into the service. Boys suspended themselves upon the wings of cherubims; St Francis and St Mark bore each a spectator on his shoulders; and St Agatha found herself under the necessity of carrying double. The consequence was, that in spite of all their hurry and expedition, our two newcomers, on entering the church, looked round in vain for places.

    However, the old woman continued to move forwards. In vain were exclamations of displeasure vented against her from all sides: in vain was she addressed with – ‘I assure you, Segnora, there are no places here.’ – ‘I beg, Segnora, that you will not crowd me so intolerably!’ – ‘Segnora, you cannot pass this way. Bless me! how can people be so troublesome!’ – The old woman was obstinate, and on she went. By dint of perseverance and two brawny arms she made a passage through the crowd, and managed to bustle herself into the very body of the church, at no great distance from the pulpit. Her companion had followed her with timidity and in silence, profiting by the exertions of her conductress.

    ‘Holy Virgin!’ exclaimed the old woman in a tone of disappointment, while she threw a glance of enquiry round her. ‘Holy Virgin! What heat! What a crowd! I wonder what can be the meaning of all this. I believe we must return: there is no such thing as a seat to be had, and nobody seems kind enough to accommodate us with theirs.’

    This broad hint attracted the notice of two cavaliers, who occupied stools on the right hand, and were leaning their backs against the seventh column from the pulpit. Both were young, and richly habited. Hearing this appeal to their politeness pronounced in a female voice, they interrupted their conversation to look at the speaker. She had thrown up her veil in order to take a clearer look round the cathedral. Her hair was red, and she squinted. The cavaliers turned round, and renewed their conversation.

    ‘By all means,’ replied the old woman’s companion. ‘By all means, Leonella, let us return home immediately; the heat is excessive, and I am terrified at such a crowd.’

    These words were pronounced in a tone of unexampled sweetness. The cavaliers again broke off their discourse, but for this time they were not contented with looking up: both started involuntarily from their seats, and turned themselves towards the speaker.

    The voice came from a female, the delicacy and elegance of whose figure inspired the youths with the most lively curiosity to view the face to which it belonged. This satisfaction was denied them. Her features were hidden by a thick veil; but struggling through the crowd had deranged it sufficiently to discover a neck which for symmetry and beauty might have vied with the Medicean Venus. It was of the most dazzling whiteness, and received additional charms from being shaded by the tresses of her long fair hair, which descended in ringlets to her waist. Her figure was rather below than above the middle size: it was light and airy as that of a hamadryad. Her bosom was carefully veiled. Her dress was white; it was fastened by a blue sash, and just permitted to peep out from under it a little foot of the most delicate proportions. A chaplet of large grains hung upon her arm, and her face was covered with a veil of thick black gauze. Such was the female, to whom the youngest of the cavaliers now offered his seat, while the other thought it necessary to pay the same attention to her companion.

    The old lady with many expressions of gratitude, but without much difficulty, accepted the offer, and seated herself: the young one followed her example, but made no other compliment than a simple and graceful reverence. Don Lorenzo (such was the cavalier’s name, whose seat she had accepted) placed himself near her; but first he whispered a few words in his friend’s ear, who immediately took the hint, and endeavoured to draw off the old woman’s attention from her lovely charge.

    ‘You are doubtless lately arrived at Madrid,’ said Lorenzo to his fair neighbour. ‘It is impossible that such charms should have long remained unobserved; and had not this been your first public appearance, the envy of the women and adoration of the men would have rendered you already sufficiently remarkable.’

    He paused, in expectation of an answer. As his speech did not absolutely require one, the lady did not open her lips. After a few moments he resumed his discourse: ‘Am I wrong in supposing you to be a stranger to Madrid?’

    The lady hesitated; and at last, in so low a voice as to be scarcely intelligible, she made shift to answer – ‘No, Segnor.’

    ‘Do you intend making a stay of any length?’

    ‘Yes, Segnor.’

    ‘I should esteem myself fortunate, were it in my power to contribute to making your abode agreeable. I am well known at Madrid, and my family has some interest at court. If I can be of any service, you cannot honour or oblige me more than by permitting me to be of use to you.’ – ‘Surely,’ said he to himself, ‘she cannot answer that by a monosyllable; now she must say something to me.’

    Lorenzo was deceived, for the lady answered only by a bow.

    By this time he had discovered that his neighbour was not very conversible; but whether her silence proceeded from pride, discretion, timidity, or idiotism, he was still unable to decide.

    After a pause of some minutes – ‘It is certainly from your being a stranger,’ said he, ‘and as yet unacquainted with our customs, that you continue to wear your veil. Permit me to remove it.’

    At the same time he advanced his hand towards the gauze: the lady raised hers to prevent him.

    ‘I never unveil in public, Segnor.’

    ‘And where is the harm, I pray you?’ interrupted her companion somewhat sharply. ‘Do not you see that the other ladies have all laid their veils aside, to do honour no doubt to the holy place in which we are? I have taken off mine already; and surely if I expose my features to general observation, you have no cause to put yourself in such a wonderful alarm! Blessed Maria! here is a fuss and a bustle about a chit’s face! Come, come, child! Uncover it; I warrant you that nobody will run away with it from you – ’

    ‘Dear aunt, it is not the custom in Murcia.’

    ‘Murcia, indeed! Holy St Barbara, what does that signify? You are always putting me in mind of that villainous province. If it is the custom in Madrid, that is all that we ought to mind, and therefore I desire you to take off your veil immediately. Obey me this moment Antonia, for you know that I cannot bear contradiction – ’

    Her niece was silent, but made no further opposition to Don Lorenzo’s efforts, who, armed with the aunt’s sanction, hastened to remove the gauze. What a seraph’s head presented itself to his admiration! Yet it was rather bewitching than beautiful; it was not so lovely from regularity of features as from sweetness and sensibility of countenance. The several parts of her face considered separately, many of them were far from handsome; but when examined together, the whole was adorable. Her skin though fair was not entirely without freckles; her eyes were not very large, nor their lashes particularly long. But then her lips were of the most rosy freshness; her fair and undulating hair, confined by a simple ribband, poured itself below her waist in a profusion of ringlets; her throat was full and beautiful in the extreme; her hand and arm were formed with the most perfect symmetry; her mild blue eyes seemed a heaven of sweetness, and the crystal in which they moved sparkled with all the brilliance of diamonds: she appeared to be scarcely fifteen; an arch smile, playing round her mouth, declared her to be possessed of liveliness, which excess of timidity at present repressed; she looked round her with a bashful glance; and whenever her eyes accidentally met Lorenzo’s, she dropped them hastily upon her rosary; her cheek was immediately suffused with blushes, and she began to tell her beads, though her manner evidently showed that she knew not what she was about.

    Lorenzo gazed upon her with mingled surprise and admiration; but the aunt thought it necessary to apologise for Antonia’s mauvaise honte.

    ‘ ’Tis a young creature,’ said she, ‘who is totally ignorant of the world. She has been brought up in an old castle in Murcia, with no other society than her mother’s, who, God help her! has no more sense, good soul, than is necessary to carry her soup to her mouth. Yet she is my own sister, both by father and mother.’

    ‘And has so little sense?’ said Don Christoval with feigned astonishment. ‘How very extraordinary!’

    ‘Very true, Segnor; is it not strange? However, such is the fact; and yet only to see the luck of some people! A young nobleman, of the very first quality, took it into his head that Elvira had some pretensions to beauty – as to pretensions, in truth, she had always enough of them; but as to beauty . . . ! If I had only taken half the pains to set myself off which she did . . . ! But this is neither here nor there. As I was saying, Segnor, a young nobleman fell in love with her, and married her unknown to his father. Their union remained a secret near three years, But at last it came to the ears of the old marquis, who, as you may well suppose, was not much pleased with the intelligence. Away he posted in all haste to Cordova, determined to seize Elvira, and send her away to some place or other, where she would never be heard of more. Holy St Paul! how he stormed on finding that she had escaped him, had joined her husband, and that they had embarked together for the Indies. He swore at us all, as if the Evil Spirit had possessed him; he threw my father into prison, as honest a painstaking shoemaker as any in Cordova; and when he went away, he had the cruelty to take from us my sister’s little boy, then scarcely two years old, and whom in the abruptness of her flight, she had been obliged to leave behind her. I suppose, that the poor little wretch met with bitter bad treatment from him, for in a few months after, we received intelligence of his death.’

    ‘Why, this was a most terrible old fellow, Segnora!’

    ‘Oh! shocking! And a man so totally devoid of taste! Why, would you believe it, Segnor? When I attempted to pacify him, he cursed me for a witch, and wished that to punish the count, my sister might become as ugly as myself! Ugly indeed! I like him for that.’

    ‘Ridiculous’, cried Don Christoval. ‘Doubtless the count would have thought himself fortunate, had he been permitted to exchange the one sister for the other.’

    ‘Oh, Christ! Segnor, you are really too polite. However, I am heartily glad that the Condé was of a different way of thinking. A mighty pretty piece of business, to be sure, Elvira has made of it! After broiling and stewing in the Indies for thirteen long years, her husband dies, and she returns to Spain, without a house to hide her head, or money to procure her one! This Antonia was then but an infant, and her only remaining child. She found that her father-in-law had married again, that he was irreconcileable to the Condé, and that his second wife had produced him a son, who is reported to be a very fine young man. The old marquis refused to see my sister or her child; but sent her word that on condition of never hearing any more of her, he would assign her a small pension, and she might live in an old castle which he possessed in Murcia; this had been the favourite habitation of his eldest son; but since his flight from Spain, the old marquis could not bear the place, but let it fall to ruin and confusion – my sister accepted the proposal; she retired to Murcia, and has remained there till within the last month.’

    ‘And what brings her now to Madrid?’ enquired Don Lorenzo, whom admiration of the young Antonia compelled to take a lively interest in the talkative old woman’s narration.

    ‘Alas! Segnor, her father-in-law being lately dead, the steward of his Murcian estates has refused to pay her pension any longer. With the design of supplicating his son to renew it, she is now come to Madrid; but I doubt, that she might have saved herself the trouble! You young noblemen have always enough to do with your money, and are not very often disposed to throw it away upon old women. I advised my sister to send Antonia with her petition; but she would not hear of such a thing. She is so obstinate! Well! she will find herself the worse for not following my counsels: the girl has a good pretty face, and possibly might have done much.’

    ‘Ah! Segnora,’ interrupted Don Christoval, counterfeiting a passionate air, ‘if a pretty face will do the business, why has not your sister recourse to you?’

    ‘Oh, Jesus! my Lord, I swear you quite overpower me with your gallantry! But I promise you that I am too well aware of the danger of such expeditions to trust myself in a young nobleman’s power! No, no; I have as yet preserved my reputation without blemish or reproach, and I always knew how to keep the men at a proper distance.’

    ‘Of that, Segnora, I have not the least doubt. But permit me to ask you; have you then any aversion to matrimony?’

    ‘That is a home question. I cannot but confess, that if an amiable cavalier was to present himself . . . ’

    Here she intended to throw a tender and significant look upon Don Christoval; but, as she unluckily happened to squint most abominably, the glance fell directly upon his companion: Lorenzo took the compliment to himself, and answered it by a profound bow.

    ‘May I enquire,’ said he, ‘the name of the marquis?’

    ‘The Marquis de las Cisternas.’

    ‘I know him intimately well. He is not at present in Madrid, but is expected here daily. He is one of the best of men; and if the lovely Antonia will permit me to be her advocate with him, I doubt not my being able to make a favourable report of her cause.’

    Antonia raised her blue eyes, and silently thanked him for the offer by a smile of inexpressible sweetness. Leonella’s satisfaction was much more loud and audible: indeed, as her niece was generally silent in her company, she thought it incumbent upon her to talk enough for both: this she managed without difficulty, for she very seldom found herself deficient in words.

    ‘Oh! Segnor!’ she cried, ‘you will lay our whole family under the most signal obligations! I accept your offer with all possible gratitude, and return you a thousand thanks for the generosity of your proposal. Antonia, why do not you speak, child? While the cavalier says all sorts of civil things to you, you sit like a statue, and never utter a syllable of thanks, either bad, good, or indifferent!’

    ‘My dear aunt, I am very sensible that . . . ’

    ‘Fie, niece! How often have I told you, that you never should interrupt a person who is speaking!? When did you ever know me do such a thing? Are these your Murcian manners? Mercy on me! I shall never be able to make this girl anything like a person of good breeding. But pray, Segnor,’ she continued, addressing herself to Don Christoval, ‘inform me, why such a crowd is assembled today in this cathedral?’

    ‘Can you possibly be ignorant, that Ambrosio, abbot of this monastery, pronounces a sermon in this church every Thursday? All Madrid rings with his praises. As yet he has preached but thrice; But all who have heard him are so delighted with his eloquence, that it is as difficult to obtain a place at church, as at the first representation of a new comedy. His fame certainly must have reached your ears – ’

    ‘Alas! Segnor, till yesterday I never had the good fortune to see Madrid; and at Cordova we are so little informed of what is passing in the rest of the world, that the name of Ambrosio has never been mentioned in its precincts.’

    ‘You will find it in everyone’s mouth at Madrid. He seems to have fascinated the inhabitants; and not having attended his sermons myself, I am astonished at the enthusiasm which he has excited. The adoration paid him both by young and old, by man and woman is unexampled. The grandees load him with presents; their wives refuse to have any other confessor, and he is known through all the city by the name of the man of holiness.’

    ‘Undoubtedly, Segnor, he is of noble origin – ’

    ‘That point still remains undecided. The late superior of the Capuchins found him while yet an infant at the abbey door. All attempts to discover who had left him there were vain, and the child himself could give no account of his parents. He was educated in the monastery, where he has remained ever since. He early showed a strong inclination for study and retirement, and as soon as he was of a proper age, he pronounced his vows. No one has ever appeared to claim him, or clear up the mystery which conceals his birth; and the monks, who find their account in the favour which is shown to their establishment from respect to him, have not hesitated to publish that he is a present to them from the Virgin. In truth the singular austerity of his life gives some countenance to the report. He is now thirty years old, every hour of which period has been passed in study, total seclusion from the world, and mortification of the flesh. Till these last three weeks, when he was chosen superior of the Society to which he belongs, he had never been on the outside of the abbey walls: even now he never quits them except on Thursdays, when he delivers a discourse in this cathedral which all Madrid assembles to hear. His knowledge is said to be the most profound, his eloquence the most persuasive. In the whole course of his life he has never been known to transgress a single rule of his order; the smallest stain is not to be discovered upon his character; and he is reported to be so strict an observer of chastity, that he knows not in what consists the difference of man and woman. The common people therefore esteem him to be a saint.’

    ‘Does that make a saint?’ enquired Antonia. ‘Bless me! then am I one?’

    ‘Holy St Barbara!’ exclaimed Leonella. ‘What a question! Fie, child, fie! These are not fit subjects for young women to handle. You should not seem to remember that there is such a thing as a man in the world, and you ought to imagine everybody to be of the same sex with yourself. I should like to see you give people to understand, that you know that a man has no breasts, and no hips, and no . . . ’

    Luckily for Antonia’s ignorance which her aunt’s lecture would soon have dispelled, a universal murmur through the church announced the preacher’s arrival. Donna Leonella rose from her seat to take a better view of him, and Antonia followed her example.

    He was a man of noble port and commanding presence. His stature was lofty, and his features uncommonly handsome. His nose was aquiline, his eyes large black and sparkling, and his dark brows almost joined together. His complexion was of a deep but clear brown; study and watching had entirely deprived his cheek of colour. Tranquillity reigned upon his smooth unwrinkled forehead; and content, expressed upon every feature, seemed to announce the man equally unacquainted with cares and crimes. He bowed himself with humility to the audience: still there was a certain severity in his look and manner that inspired universal awe, and few could sustain the glance of his eye, at once fiery and penetrating. Such was Ambrosio, abbot of the Capuchins, and surnamed, ‘the man of holiness’.

    Antonia, while she gazed upon him eagerly, felt a pleasure fluttering in her bosom which till then had been unknown to her, and for which she in vain endeavoured to account. She waited with impatience till the sermon should begin; and when at length the friar spoke, the sound of his voice seemed to penetrate into her very soul. Though no other of the spectators felt such violent sensations as did the young Antonia, yet everyone listened with interest and emotion. They who were insensible to religion’s merits, were still enchanted with Ambrosio’s oratory. All found their attention irresistibly attracted while he spoke, and the most profound silence reigned through the crowded aisles.

    Even Lorenzo could not resist the charm: he forgot that Antonia was seated near him, and listened to the preacher with undivided attention.

    In language nervous, clear, and simple, the monk expatiated on the beauties of religion. He explained some abstruse parts of the sacred writings in a style that carried with it universal conviction. His voice at once distinct and deep was fraught with all the terrors of the tempest, while he inveighed against the vices of humanity, and described the punishments reserved for them in a future state. Every hearer looked back upon his past offences, and trembled: the thunder seemed to roll, whose bolt was destined to crush him, and the abyss

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