In the same letter of 1st April, 1810, the poet and novelist, who ten days later donned cap and gown at University College, is seen at work on another novel, in the hope that it will bring him 60l., and place him before the world as the author of the New Romance in three volumes. If ‘Jock’ (otherwise styled Mr. John Robinson, of Paternoster Row) won’t pay him ‘a devil of a price’ for his new poem, and at least 60l. for his new romance, ‘the dog shall not have them.’ It was thus the youngster swaggered over a sheet of paper on April Fools’ Day, about his dog of a publisher, and the devil of a price the dog must pay him for the finest fruit of his genius. The young man boasting of the 60l. he meant to have for his New Romance in three volumes, was the same boy who seems to have set it about that he had been paid 40l. for Zastrozzi. What the poem was, does not appear. It may have been the ‘Original Poetry’ that wasn’t original, or the Wandering Jew that was subsequently offered for a devil of a price, or a gentlemanly price to the Messrs. Ballantyne and Co. of Edinburgh, and Mr. John Joseph Stockdale, of 41 Pall Mall, or even the first meagre sketch of Queen Mab; but I am inclined to think it was The Jew. Zastrozzi having fallen dead from the press (of course, for no other reason than the dog’s neglect to pouch the villains), Jock was not in the humour to drop money either on the poem for which ‘a devil of a price’ would be nothing more than fair payment, or on the novel that, on being finished and ‘fitted’ for the press by a publisher, instead of filling three volumes was (in bulk) a slighter and meaner book than Zastrozzi. Placed in Mr. Stockdale’s hands in September, 1810, and ‘fitted’ for public perusal by Mr. Stockdale himself, this performance in prose fiction was published by the Pall Mall bookseller (not on the payment of 60l. to the author, but altogether at the author’s cost and risk) in December, 1810, under the style and titles of St. Irvyne, or, The Rosicrucian, the first of the two titles being an adaptation of the names of the ducal seat (St. Irving’s Hills)[2], in whose glades and gardens he had walked by moonlight with the more cold than faithless Harriett, not six months since.
For insufficient reasons St. Irvyne, or, The Rosicrucian—an even wilder piece of lunacy than Zastrozzi—has been assigned to a German source. German tale-wrights may have been in some slight degree accountable for its morbid extravagances, even as they were indirectly accountable for some of the several hundreds of similar English romances, that were produced in the poet’s boyhood by the imitators of Mrs. Radcliffe and Monk Lewis. But to speak of it as a tale from the German, or even after the German, is to be guilty of a misdescription.
Consisting of two separate stories, stitched together by an inexpert handler of the literary needle, St. Irvyne is just such a performance as might have been looked for from the author of Zastrozzi, eager to produce a second romance, before ‘clearing out’ of the state of mental disease, that was partly the effect and partly the cause of the efforts that resulted in the earlier story. Something must be said of both parts of the tale that, dropping still-born from the press, would have been absolutely forgotten, had it not been for the author’s subsequent celebrity.
Part, No. I.
Consenting to participate in the adventures and fortunes of the Alpine Brigands, by whom he has been captured, the youthful and ‘high-souled’ Wolfstein—an outcast from his noble family and from the society of his equals—makes the acquaintance of Ginotti the Rosicrucian, whilst the latter is acting as First Lieutenant under Cavigni, the captain of the Banditti. Almost at the same time he falls under the influence of Megalena de Metastasio, daughter of a wealthy Italian Count, who has been despoiled, murdered, and thrown down a yawning precipice by the comrades of the magnanimous Wolfstein. The association of the brigands with Wolfstein is of no long duration: for when he has made two attempts to poison their chieftain (the second attempt being successful), the allied robbers expel Wolfstein of the lofty soul from their brotherhood.
In justice to the magnanimous Wolfstein, it must be admitted he did not poison Cavigni without provocation. Not only does the robber-chief presume to force his unacceptable addresses on the lovely Megalena de Metastasio, but follows up this presumption with a threat of ravishing her. ‘Then,’ cries the robber-chief, ‘if within four-and-twenty hours you hold yourself not in readiness to return my love, force shall wrest the jewel from the casket.’ Ere the four-and-twenty hours have passed, Cavigni has drained the poisoned chalice, and is rolling in torments at his murderer’s feet.
Saved by Ginotti from the death to which other robbers would fain consign him, Wolfstein goes off with Megalena to Genoa, where they enter the best society. On the eve of their withdrawal from the Alpine cave, Megalena shows ‘Wolfstein jewels to an immense amount’:—a sight that causes the high-souled Wolfstein to exclaim, ‘Then we may defy poverty; for I have about me jewels to the value of ten thousand zechins.’
When they have settled themselves in their Genoese home, Wolfstein of the lofty soul shocks Megalena by begging her to become his wife without a nuptial ceremony. ‘And is my adored Megalena,’ he asks, ‘a victim then to prejudice?... Does she suppose that Nature created us to become the tormentors of each other?’—questions that of course convince Megalena she ought not to stand out for the empty forms of lawful wedlock. ‘Yes, yes,’ the young lady exclaims with equal courage and sobriety. ‘Prejudice, avaunt! Once more reason takes her seat, and convinces me that to be Wolfstein’s is not criminal. O Wolfstein! if for a moment Megalena has yielded to the imbecility of nature, believe that she yet knows how to recover herself, to reappear in her proper character.’ People differ in their notions of propriety. To old-fashioned persons Megalena may seem to ‘reappear in a very improper character.’ She and the high-souled Wolfstein henceforth live together as husband and wife without being husband and wife. They ‘acted on emotional theories of liberty.’ But then, as Mr. Froude would say, they were so young and enthusiastic!
The course of their mutual affections can scarcely be used as an argument for Free Love. They ‘act on emotional theories of liberty’ in other matters. Turning pettish and restless, Megalena plunges into ‘dissipated pleasures.’ Less enamoured of his ringless bride than harassed by her caprice, the high-souled Wolfstein takes to gambling, and forms an embarrassing intimacy with the ardent and lovely Olympia della Anzasca (daughter of the Count and Countess of the same rather uncomfortable name), a young gentlewoman, whose passions, stimulated by ‘a false system of education and a wrong expansion of ideas,’ impel her to quit her father’s palazzo one evening, and pay Wolfstein a visit, just as he and Megalena are sitting down to a late supper.
‘To what, Lady Olympia, do I owe the unforeseen pleasure of your visit? What so mysterious business have you with me?’ inquires Wolfstein, on entering the room to which the untimely and unattended visitor had been shown.