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Art. IV. Zofloya, or the Moor: a Romance of the Fifteenth Century. By Charlotte Dacre, better known as Rosa Matilda. 12mo. 3 vols.
The principal personages in these wild pages are courtezans of the lewdest class, and murderers of the deepest dye; shielded by the broad title of a Romance, which is ignorantly considered as granting indulgence to every species of improbability, no extravagance of character is too extravagant, to be pourtrayed; no absurdity of action too absurd to be narrated.
If we are not deceived in our judgment, both the style and the story of Zofloya, are formed on the chaste model of Mr Lewis's 'Monk:' at any rate, there is sufficient similitude to warrant the suspicion. Ambrosio falls a victim to the supernatural fascinations of an evil spirit, who to accomplish its purposes, assumes the form and character of such a lovely woman, that not to have been seduced, would almost have been as great a sin, as the yielding to her seduction; and Victoria is urged to the perpetration of every dreadful crime by Satan himself, in the graceful semblance of Zofloya.
We are sorry to remark, that the 'Monk' seems to have been made the model, as well of the style, as of the story. There is a voluptuousness of language and allusion, pervading these volumes, which we should have hoped, that the delicacy of a female pen would have refused to trace; and there is an exhibition of wantonness of harlotry, which we should have hoped, that the delicacy of a female mind, would have been shocked to imagine. [complete]
Provided by Julie A. Shaffer, January 2000
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