



Produced by Charles Keller.  HTML version by Al Haines.









THE MONK

A ROMANCE


by

MATTHEW LEWIS




  Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas,
  Nocturnos lemures, portentaque.
                             Horat.

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




PREFACE

IMITATION OF HORACE Ep. 20.--B. 1.

    Methinks, Oh! 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 some one 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 aera
  That Friendship is a pure chimaera:
  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!

  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.




VOLUME I

CHAPTER I

  ----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