In Hogg’s Hunt of Eildon the devil comes in as a strange old man who yet seems curiously familiar to the king and to everyone who sees him, though no one can remember just when he knew him. There is a clever psychologic suggestiveness here, which perhaps inspired a similar idea in a recent play, The Eternal Magdalen. Later he is recognized and holy water thrown on him.
The whole form and visage of the creature was changed in a moment to that of a furious fiend. He uttered a yell that made all the abbey shake to its foundations and forthwith darted away into the air, wrapt in flames. As he ascended, he waved his right hand and shook his fiery locks at his inquisitors.
There is nothing dubious about his personality here, certainly!
Satan appears dramatically in The Monk as well. His first visits are made in the form of attractive youth. Ambrosio, who has been led into sin by the dæmonic agent, Matilda, is awaiting death in the Inquisition cell, when she comes to see him to urge that he win release by selling his soul to the devil. But the repentant monk refuses her advice, so she departs in a temper of blue flame. Then he has a more dread visitant,—Lucifer himself, described as follows:
His blasted limbs still bore the marks of the Almighty’s thunders; a swarthy darkness spread itself over his gigantic form; his hands and feet were armed with long talons.... Over his huge shoulders waved two enormous sable wings; and his hair was supplied by living snakes which twined themselves with frightful hissings. In one hand he held a roll of parchment, and in the other an iron pen. Still the lightnings flashed around him and the thunder bursts seemed to announce the dissolution of nature.
Ambrosio is overawed into selling his soul and signs the compact with his blood, as per convention.
The devil doesn’t keep to his agreement to release him, however, for Lewis tells us that taking his victim to the top of a mountain and “darting his talons into the monk’s shaven crown, he sprang with him from the rock. The caves and mountains rang with Ambrosio’s shrieks. The demon continued to soar aloft till, reaching a dreadful height, he released the sufferer. Headlong fell the monk.” He plunges to the river’s brink, after which a storm is evoked by the devil and his body swept away in the flood.
A similar dæmonic manifestation occurs in Zofloya. Victoria has been induced to bind herself to the Evil One, who has appeared as a Moorish servant of impressive personality and special powers. He grants her wishes hostile to her enemies, holding many conferences with her in the dark forest where he is heralded by flute-like sounds. He appears sometimes like a flame, sometimes like a lightning flash. He comes with the swiftness of the wind and tells her that her thoughts summoned him. At last, he announces himself as Satan, and assumes his own hideous form of gigantism.
Behold me as I am, no longer that which I appeared to be, but the sworn enemy of all created nature, by men called Satan. Yes, it was I that under semblance of the Moor appeared to thee.
As he spoke, he grasped more firmly the neck of Victoria, with one push he whirled her headlong down the dreadful abyss!—as she fell his loud dæmonic laugh, his yells of triumph echoed in her ears; and a mangled corpse she fell, she was received into the foaming waters below.