CHARLES ROBERT MATURIN

HIS LIFE AND WORKS

BY

NIILO IDMAN

To be presented, with the permission of the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Helsingfors, for public criticism in the hall of the Hist.-Philol. Section on May 12:th 1923, at 12 o’clock.

HELSINGFORS 1923
HELSINGFORS CENTRALTRYCKERI

Preface.

The completion of this book has been retarded by circumstances unforeseen in the winter of 1914, when I collected most of its materials. I have not, since then, had any opportunity of visiting England, and have thus been unable to augment and verify these materials—which must account for what incompleteness and inaccuracy there may be found in the text as well as in the notes. For the same reason I have been compelled strictly to limit the range of my study, and to desist from all inquiry into Maturin’s influence on the romantic movement in France. Neither can my account of his connection with English literature of the latter part of the 19:th century lay any claim to completeness, being confined only to some of the most obvious instances. The fact, however, of this influence’s having been greater than is, perhaps, generally known, would seem to justify the publication of a study of Maturin’s own works exclusively. These, apart from the intrinsic merit of the best of them, possess, moreover, the interest of being extremely characteristic of, I think, a most fascinating period in the history of literature. It will possibly be remarked that those of them whose literary value is certainly not important, are, in my study, reviewed at rather unnecessary length; but as they have long ago disappeared, not only from the market but also from most libraries, the reader who may take an interest in some of the ideas which they reflect and which are so unfamiliar to our own times, has very few opportunities to become acquainted with the books themselves.

During the course of my work I have received kind assistance from many quarters, which it is my agreeable duty here to acknowledge. For much valuable advice my gratitude is due to Mr. D. J. O’Donoghue, of University College, Dublin, who was the first to encourage me to set about a study of Maturin, and to Professor Yrjö Hirn, of Helsingfors, who has, with a never-failing interest, followed my work from its beginning. For unpublished biographical material I am under obligation to Mr. John Murray, for having permitted me to make use of Maturin’s letters to John Murray, the publisher; and to Miss Ella Hepworth Dixon, who has placed Maturin’s correspondence with Sir Charles and Lady Morgan at my disposal. I must also mention that Mr. More Adey has favoured me with the loan of such of Maturin’s works as I do not possess, without which kindness the completion of my study would have been utterly impossible. Lastly, it remains to offer my best thanks to Mr. S. Sydney Silverman for help rendered me in point of language, the book being written in what is to me an acquired tongue.

N. I.

Helsingfors, April 1923.

Contents.

| Page
CHAPTER I |
Romanticism; Maturin’s family and descent; childhood, college course, marriage; curacy of Loughrea, curacy of St. Peter’s | 1
CHAPTER II |
Gothic Romance; Montorio; The Wild Irish Boy; The Milesian Chief; Bertram written, sent to Scott and Byron, accepted to Drury Lane; Waterloo | 14
CHAPTER III |
Bertram; Maturin’s visit to London, personality and habits; Manuel | 107
CHAPTER IV |
Women; Fredolfo; Sermons; Melmoth the Wanderer | 142
CHAPTER V |
The Universe; changed mode of living, intercourse with the Morgans; Siege of Salerno and other unpublished productions; Five Sermons; The Albigenses; last illness and death; conclusion | 271
Notes | 312
Index | 323

I.

1780-1806.

Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld!

Silence! and Desolation! and dim Night!

I feel ye now—I feel ye in your strength—

Poe.

In the history of literature change means liberation. The intellectual aspect of a period having worn itself out, the forms which have supported it are felt to be a clog and a burden; and when these forms are dissolved, the channel of thought, from a natural sense of freedom, takes a course diametrically opposite. The transformation seldom takes place abruptly; it may even have been long prepared by pioneers more or less conscious of the advance of a new time with new ideals; but the greatest as well as the most characteristic productions of the victorious movement are not brought forth until the previous order of things has been completely overthrown, and sometimes there is but a short step from the zenith of a literary current to its decadence.

Romanticism in England represented a reaction against that traditional 18:th century, into which Cowper, and Bums, and Ossian had already brought elements new and resuscitating, and whose foundations had at a still earlier date been gently stirred by Thomson, Collins, and Gray. It was a reaction against a time when poetry, although of a polish unequalled afterwards, was confined to subjects upon which the expending of exalted emotions was impossible; when fiction chiefly comprised moralizing descriptions pertaining to everyday life; and when all sense of outward nature was excluded from both. In the English literature of the beginning of the 19:th century the terms romanticism and naturalism—in curious opposition to the subsequent use of the words—represented collateral currents, springing from the same source, and sometimes the terms were nearly synonymous. In their very essence both of these terms implied a greater amount of freedom. Return to nature was one of the leading catchwords of the time; and the intention of seeing nature not only visually, but also in its most intimate connections with human life, and as intervening in the destinies of man, was to contribute a new depth to thought and feeling, as well as to render the emotions more varied and more intense. The lays of by-gone ages and primitive peoples were studied with admiration and received as wisdom. This interest in nature, independent as it was of any limits of time and space, was followed by the revival of imagination, upon which faculty the romantic movement was largely based. In order to gain a freer scope for imagination romanticism took its literary models and ideas from the dim and mysterious middle ages rather than from the clear and well-regulated classical; in the contrast between the Gothic and the Antique the ‘barbarities’ of the former receded to the background, according as its greater suitability to ‘the views of a genius and to the ends of poetry’[1] became apparent. But in this approach of the mind to nature there was an underlying sense of the incapacity of human conditions to impart happiness, and the flight of imagination to vague and unknown regions was prompted by the feeling that in reality there was no consolation. It was, consequently, not with unalloyed delight that the romantic mind turned to new and untilled fields. It is a characteristic of the movement that it begot a melancholy of its own, a nervous, restless kind of melancholy, connected with temporal rather than eternal matters, and foreign to its predecessors in the previous century; the difference from these is made apparent upon comparing the melancholy of Childe Harold to that of the Night Thoughts. If it were possible to imagine the Renaissance with its gaiety turned into Weltschmerz, the result would be something like the romanticism of the early 19:th century.

However, freedom held sway, if not in life, still in literature, and the English romanticism owed its masterpieces to originality, as the English classicism did to imitation. Another consequence of this freedom was a greater variety in the romantic literature. Tintern Abbey and The Ancient Mariner were both written about the same time; both are original and entirely different, and both would have been inconceivable in 1750.

The liberation of the imaginative mind evidently had its perils. Among the romantic writers—even among those of rank—were men to whom freedom implied excess and whose originality was not always strong enough to supply the breakdown of rules and restrictions, and who, accordingly, have not escaped oblivion. One of these is Charles Robert Maturin, the subject of the following pages: a man of unmistakable genius, who was not without influence on some of his happier contemporaries; in whose works the main currents of the time are faithfully and variously reflected, and who occasionally gives forcible proofs of his creativeness in passages that point to the standards of much later periods.

The family of Maturin come from France. The ancestor, Gabriel Maturin, was a Huguenot priest to whom life in that country was made impossible and who, after various adventures, settled in Ireland towards the close of the 17:th century. Concerning this ancestor there was a family tradition, duly recorded in all the biographies of Charles Robert Maturin, with the statement that it had, from his childhood, made an indelible impression upon him and that he firmly believed it to be true; or with the suggestion that he had invented it himself in some romantic fit or other. The mystery connected with the birth of his ancestor is usually represented as the principal charm Maturin found in the story, yet if related in his own words[2] it is patent to all which point of the narrative is most strongly emphasized. Many of the most characteristic passages in Maturin’s writings can be explained by the fact that he was fond of imagining his own family to have been a victim of religious persecution. This is how he used to tell the legend:

In the reign of Louis XIV the carriage of a catholic lady of rank was stopped by the driver discovering that a child was lying in the street. The lady brought him home, and, as he was never claimed, considered and treated him as her child: he was richly drest, but no trace was furnished, by himself or otherwise, that could lead to the discovery of his parents or connexions.

As the lady was a devotee, she brought him up a strict catholic, and being puzzled for a name for him, she borrowed one from a religious community, les Maturins, of whom there is mention in the Jewish Spy, and who were then of sufficient importance to give their name to a street in Paris, la Rue des Mathurins.

In spite of all the good lady’s pains, and maugre his nom de caresse, my ancestor was perverse enough to turn protestant, and became pastor to a hugonot congregation in Paris, where he sojourned, and begat two sons.

While he was amusing himself in this manner, the king and père La Chaise were amusing themselves with exterminating the protestants; and about the time of the revocation of the edict of Nantz, Maturin was shut up in the bastile, where he was left for twenty six years; I suppose to give him time to reflect on the controverted points, and make up his mind at leisure.

With all these advantages he continued quite untractable: so that the catholics, finding the case desperate, gave him his liberty.

There was no danger, however, of his abusing this indulgence: for, owing to the keeper forgetting accidentally to bring him fuel, during the winters of his confinement, and a few other agremens of his situation, the poor man lost the use of his limbs, and was a cripple for life.

He accompanied some of his former flock, who had been grievously scattered, to Ireland, and there unexpectedly found Madame M—— and his two sons, who had made their escape there via Holland.

The descendants of Gabriel Maturin remained in the service of the church for which he is alleged to have suffered. His son Pierre is mentioned in 1699[3] as ‘chapelin du regiment du Marquis de Pisar’ at the French congregation of St. Patrick and St. Mary in Dublin; afterwards he became dean of Killala. One of Pierre Maturin’s sons, Gabriel James, held the deanery of Kildare and, after Swift, that of St. Patrick’s.[4] He died in 1746, leaving at least one son—William, the poet’s father—who renounced the clerical career and became an official in government service. After entering the Post Office he was appointed Clerc of the Munster Road. The re-organization of the Post Office by the Irish parliament[5] apparently made the situation lucrative, for during the two last decades of the century William Maturin was a wealthy and respected man in Dublin, and took active part in the public life of the town. He married Miss Fidelia Watson, who presented him with six children; of these Charles Robert was born in 1780.[6] William Maturin was a man of refinement and was interested in literature, so much so, that he is recorded[7] to have had some intentions, in early life, of devoting himself to that profession, but for the death of an illustrious personage to whose patronage he had looked forward. The time of literary protection, in the old sense, was, indeed, past and gone, and if his son also had been dependent on it, the name would have been lost to literature. Maturin senior was, however, a man in whose house literary inclinations were cherished and encouraged, and the youthful lyrics which his son poured forth at an early age, are said to have had a wide circulation among friends and relations, sometimes even finding their way into the local papers. In every respect the childhood of Charles Robert seems to have been bright and happy. He was, no doubt, an amiable child, though spoilt on account of his delicate health and looked up to for his cleverness. His favourite pastimes, as those of so many future dramatists, were juvenile theatricals, and in these he was allowed freely to indulge; again and again the drawing-room was turned into a stage, the wardrobes were robbed of what was thought fit, and an occasional piece from Charles Robert’s own pen was acted, or else some old play—Lee’s Alexander for preference, where he always played the principal part with wild impetuosity, to the delight and wonder of his sisters and an admiring circle of companions.[8] The poets to whom his taste first drew him were the dramatists of the Restoration, a period which always interested him keenly. For Lee, Southerne, and Otway his partiality prevailed even in later years, and he never admitted them inferior to any but Shakespeare and the foremost Elizabethans. Once, when praising Otway’s Venice Preserved, he is said[9] to have added:

I speak, perhaps, from an old feeling of attachment, but, nevertheless, from deep conviction. The earliest associations of my mind are with Pierre and Jaffier at the Rialto at midnight: I still fancy I hear the sullen moan of the waters below me, and that I am standing on that lofty bridge beside the glorious conspirators; I could surrender almost any early impressions in preference.

In the field of fiction Maturin’s early impressions were equally powerful, but here his taste was fixed and decided by productions of his own time, such as saw the light in his growing years. The Gothic Romance, or school of terror, which is usually considered to have begun with Walpole’s Castle of Otranto in 1764, had in the nineties an extraordinary flight. All the romances of Mrs Radcliffe, Lewis’s Monk and Godwin’s St. Leon, with a host of imitations, followed each other in rapid succession and actually became, for a short time, the rage of the public; and among the younger generation who listened to these sombre and mysterious story-tellers, one of the most enthusiastic listeners was the Irish boy who was, but too late, to become the greatest of them himself. Of the merits of the novel of terror Maturin afterwards made the following recognition:[10]

As a medium of excitement or impression, it (terror) was certainly the most powerful that could be used by one human being on another, from the clown who dresses up a figure to frighten his fellow into idiotism or madness, to the romance-writer who rings bells by viewless hands, encrusts daggers with long-shed blood, conceals treacherous doors behind still more treacherous tapestry, or sends mad nuns or their apparitions to wander about the gardens of their convents.

From this selfsame medium of excitement Maturin’s own works never became wholly free; and even when applying criticism to the writers that were the delight of his youth, he cannot but speak of them in a tone of admiration, strongly contrasted with the marked aversion with which he mentions Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett.[11]

These, then, were the literary auspices under which Charles Robert Maturin grew up.—After attending the school of one Mr. Kerr, he entered Trinity College, as a Pensioner, in November 1795; some years later he obtained a scholarship, and finally a bachelor’s degree. His intentions regarding the profession of an actor were probably definitely abandoned by this time, and theology became the main subject of his studies. According to biographers, Maturin’s university career was successful and even brilliant, although a certain indolence and eccentricity was always noticeable in his habits. He acquired distinctions both as a classical scholar and an active member of the theological class, and in the once famous Historical Society he is also said to have distinguished himself by ‘rhetorical and poetical productions.’[12] The Historical Society, afterwards abolished by the government, had been founded the year previous to Maturin’s entrance at College, and was a fruit of the vivid intellectual activity ruling in every department during the short period of Irish independence. The time in which Maturin lived, it is important to note, was the most remarkable in the political history of Ireland. In 1782 Grattan had had the satisfaction of hailing Ireland as a nation; the parliament in College Green began its work of reforms with a joyous sense of reconciliation with England, and a general hope that it would last for ever. Dublin became, for a time, one of the liveliest capitals in Europe, and the meeting-place of the greatest wits and most eloquent men of the kingdom. The generation, however, which was born with the Irish parliament, had not reached their manhood ere calamities loomed ahead again. They saw the rebellion of ’98 with all its horrors; they also lived to see the Union and felt the oppressive calm that followed in its wake, interrupted only by the unfortunate insurrection of Emmet in 1803. The works of Maturin demonstrate sufficiently that he was an ardent Irish nationalist who resented the Union; but he was, by temperament, nothing of a politician, and none of the family seem to have been involved in any political intrigues. There was, however, another side of nationalism—closely connected with the romantic movement in all countries—which he eagerly embraced. It expressed itself in an interest in the folklore, antiquities and early history of Ireland, preferably seen in a slightly romantic colour. The Historical Memoirs of the Irish Bards of Joseph Cooper Walker, which was long considered a standard work in its subject, appeared in 1786, giving rise to other investigations of the same kind. Among Irish novelists Maturin and Lady Morgan were those in whose (earlier) writings this sense of a glorious past first found expression, besides which their works also, for the first time in fiction, aimed at a conscious and artistic description of genuine Irish scenery. Maturin’s sense of nature was ever on the alert, and the beautiful Wicklow mountains were to him, as to so many other Irish writers of later times, a constant source of poetic inspiration.

As for life and circumstances in general, towards the end of the 18th century, they were indeed ‘wild, wonderful, and savage,’ to use a critic’s words of Maturin’s Women in its quality of an Irish story. Reality abounded in startling and extraordinary incidents, not seldom outdoing even the confessedly fertile imagination of the poets of Erin. The picture which Miss Edgeworth drew, in her immortal Castle Rackrent (1800) of a typical Irish estate, other writers confirmed to be eminently faithful; life in the country, all around, was feudal, wild and reckless; elopements occurred frequently, and duels were daily bread among the gentry. The disposition of the lower classes was likewise all for the adventurous, so much so that the autobiography of a famous highwayman became one of the most popular schoolbooks, effects of which reading by no means failed to make an appearance.[13] In the capital the social contrasts presented themselves at their sharpest. Beside the refined, gay and brilliant Dublin there was another, where the sullen murmur of discontent was never hushed, and which was constantly hovering on the brink of rebellion. ‘There existed,’ says Carleton,[14] ‘in Dublin two distinct worlds, each as ignorant of the other—at least, in a particular point of view, and during certain portions of the day—as if they did not inhabit the same country.’ Fierce street-frays occasionally raged for whole days in public thoroughfares, and the students of Trinity College were said to be particularly prone to take part in these and other such-like amusements.—

What other records there are left of the youthful years of Maturin are centred in the story of a courtship which ended in marriage at an early age. The object of his attachment was Miss Henrietta Kingsbury, like himself of an old and respected Protestant family. According to a tradition it was Miss Kingbury’s grandfather to whom Swift is supposed to have uttered his last words before the light of his powerful mind was darkened for ever. A brother of hers was archdeacon of Killala. Now biographers[15] generally maintain that Maturin married while still going through his college course, and decided in favour of the clerical profession after his marriage, in hopes of being promoted through the interest of his wife’s relations; but this, at least partly, seems to be wrong. Maturin was not exactly a child at the time of his marriage—he was 23 years old—; he had most probably finished his college course and had certainly taken holy orders, being already in enjoyment of the title Reverend, as may be seen from his marriage license at the Public Record Office in Dublin[16].

The union proved happy. Though the maintenance of a growing family early compelled Maturin to strenuous work, his literary occupations being thus influenced by pecuniary considerations, it at the same time gave him full compensation for his labours. His wife was a woman of beauty and talents—she was one of the best singers in Dublin, a pupil of Madame Catalani—and the conjugal harmony is said never to have been broken. In many of his works Maturin speaks of a happy home with nothing short of devotion, and in one of his sermons he calls domestic felicity ‘the best, the only that deserves the name, the sole flower that has been borne unwithered from paradise.’ Yet it was, no doubt, well for the domestic felicity that Mrs Maturin was a woman of elegance and possessed talents admired in society; for her husband was not always content with a quiet home-life but would, from time to time, emerge from it to be a lion of reception-rooms and to play the part of a dandy and a grand seigneur. His was a complicated nature, and there was—though certainly much exaggerated by tradition—another side of his character, vain, pleasure-loving and extravagant, which broke out, as will be seen, with singular force after his only great success in life.—As for Maturin’s choice of profession, it must be considered a failure. Not that he lacked qualifications for his calling: he was naturally religious, and distinguished himself as a very eloquent preacher, nor was he ever accused of neglect in the discharge of his duties; but the ‘worldly’ side of his character was too strong not to bring about conflicts. The union of clergyman and author was, after the classical examples of Swift and Sterne, probably not in itself an abomination in the eyes of the British public. Yet the apparent incompatibility of the two in Maturin’s case was continually emphasized by hostile critics, and his eccentric habits, his connection with the theatre and his excessive fondness for dancing was more than the average mind could ever understand in one of his profession; to judge from certain utterances[17] Maturin was, at least in the most rigorous-minded circles, actually considered more or less insane.—

What induced Maturin to choose a profession in the earliest years of the century was, besides his intention of marrying, the declining state of his father’s affairs. About the time of the Union the work of the postal establishment appears to have fallen into a decay, which sadly affected the Clerks of the Roads, who were paid in proportion to the frequency and quantity of their sendings. As early as 1802 Mr. William Maturin is found writing[18] to the secretary of the Irish Post Office to complain of the distressing diminution of his income. After drawing a comparison with the extent of his sendings in previous years, he continues:

Under these embarrassing Circumstances, already deprived of the principal part of my subsistence, and with the melancholy prospect of the rapid failure of the residue, I earnestly supplicate you, Sir, to lay this application before the Post Masters General, whose humanity I trust will not permit an old and faithful servant, to be reduced, without any fault on his part, from a state of humble competence, to wear out the short remains of his Life in penury and distress.

Yet this must be the case, if Government do not graciously interpose, by granting not only some Compensation for past losses, but some provision against those exigencies which are encreasing every hour, and threaten the total extinction of the emoluments of a Clerc of the Road-Emoluments, which after a service of 40 years, are almost all the provision left us.

This application was forwarded with the secretary’s recommendations, but whether it had any effect is uncertain. At all events it is clear that the family was not quite abruptly plunged from affluence into poverty at the final dismissal of Maturin senior from his situation—of which more later on—and that his son had long before been obliged to work hard both as a curate and an author. His first appointment was the curacy of Loughrea, to which he attended some time between 1804 and 1806.[19] The sojourn of Maturin in Loughrea was, upon the whole, felt as a kind of exile; wretched place as a small Irish country-town at that time must have appeared to all, it was intolerable to a man of literary interests and social habits. His dreariness was, however, pleasantly interrupted by his sojourn as a guest at Cloghan Castle, the seat of the family of O’Moore, who were supposed to be the lineal descendants of the old kings of Leix. In a note to Melmoth the Wanderer Maturin says that he was an inmate of the castle for many months, and to his friends he used to speak with delight of ‘that ancient structure, and the Irish hospitality he there enjoyed and witnessed.’[20] For Maturin’s literary conceptions this visit was of importance. He saw now, for the first and only time in his life, a glimpse of the wild nature of Western Ireland; he actually inhabited, himself, one of those old castles the occurrence of which in the romantic productions of the period was a conditio sine qua non; and he came into contact with genuine types of Irish peasantry, such as he was afterwards to describe with an impartiality and a graphic realism unequalled in earlier Irish fiction.

Through some exertion on the part of his relations, Maturin was before long removed to the curacy of St. Peter’s in Dublin, where he remained to the hour of his death. The parish was one of the most extensive in the town, and was said to contain ‘most of the wealth, rank, and talent of the metropolis.’[21] The salary of the curate, however, did not amount to more than 80-90 pounds per annum, and Maturin was, consequently, forced to eke out this slender income by other means. Alaric Watts says in his article that Maturin resided in his father’s house until the final economic ruin of that gentleman; according to other writers he established himself, immediately on his return to Dublin, in York Street,[22] where he set up a kind of boarding school and prepared young men for College. The task was rather congenial to him; he was always fond of the company of very young people, and at his well-known house, alternately the scene of luxury and poverty, he was wont to arrange private theatricals and other amusements with his pupils. York Street was then very different from what it is now, belonging to the fashionable Dublin, round Stephen’s Green.

By this time, also, Maturin’s first romance was composed. He wrote for money, it is true; but he turned to this mode of gaining—or trying to gain—money, because literature represented his greatest interest in life. Few authors, in fact—whatever Maturin himself may say in the prefaces to his books—have felt themselves to be literary men so intensely as Maturin. If he had been a rich man, he would certainly have been an author all the same, as were Beckford and Lewis. As for his first book, it was conceived from his own innermost inclinations. The Fatal Revenge; or, The Family of Montorio was written in the Radcliffe style, not because Maturin believed it to be the style best relished by the general public, but because he, at the time in question, relished it best himself.

II.

1807-1815.

For things we never mention,

For Art misunderstood—

For excellent intention

That did not turn to good....

Kipling.

It was, however, not without secret apprehension Maturin went forth to realize his literary aspirations. The unfortunate conflict between his bent and his profession—as understood by the multitude—asserted itself at the very beginning of his career; ‘Maturin’s friends,’ as a biographer[23] puts it, ‘being a little evangelical, he could not risk offending or scandalizing them by appearing publicly as a writer of novels.’ He was, accordingly, compelled to choose a pseudonym, and lighted upon the rather unhappy one of Dennis Jasper Murphy. So, at least, it was judged afterwards by those who were interested in Maturin’s productions. A writer[24] describing a visit he paid to the novelist in the days when his fame was at its highest, says, with reference to this nom de plume:

I remarked that his assumed name of Dennis Jasper Murphy, from its vulgar and merely Irish sound, must have injured the character of ‘Montorio’ and his other romances. In this he seemed to agree with me, observing, that at the time he was inexperienced, and in some instances badly advised.

That the author was an Irishman, and without any ‘literary friend or counsellor,’ is explicitly stated in the preface—the last-named circumstance remaining, for the future, a constant theme of lamentation for Maturin. No doubt there is an air of helplessness about the publication of Montorio. Being unable to dispose of the copyright, Maturin had no choice but to publish it at his own hazard; and the bookseller again, at his hazard, thought it proper to embellish the title of the book by adding the words The Fatal Revenge, the name intended by the author being only The Family of Montorio. In the preface to Women (1818) Maturin mentions this, admitting the addition to have been ‘a very bookselling appellation;’ but how bookselling it was is best seen by the fact that the book did not reach a second edition before 1824.

The Gothic Romance, the school of fiction founded upon ‘the passion of supernatural fear,’ was already in disrepute at the time Montorio came out. In the preface, therefore, Maturin presents an eloquent defence of this style of writing, which, though much abused by ‘vulgar and unhallowed hands,’ he still maintains to be most fit for artistic treatment:

I question whether there be a source of emotion in the whole mental frame, so powerful or universal as the fear arising from objects of invisible terror. Perhaps there is no other that has been at some period or other of life, the predominant and indelible sensation of every mind, of every class, and under every circumstance. Love, supposed to be the most general of passions, has certainly been felt in its purity by very few, and by some not at all, even in its most indefinite and simple state.

The same might be said, a fortiori, of other passions. But who is there that has never feared? Who is there that has not involuntarily remembered the gossip’s tale in solitude or in darkness? Who is there that has not sometimes shivered under an influence he would scarce acknowledge to himself? I might trace this passion to a high and obvious source.

Here, in a few words, is expressed the peculiarity of the Gothic Romance.[25] Its soul is terror; terror, preferably, if not always, arising from a cause of supernatural import. It is often considered as a crude precursor of the magnificent revival of the English letters with the romanticism of the early 19:th century, nor can it be denied that in some instances the threads of the two currents are interwoven, and that certain details from the one are taken up and ennobled by the other. The Byronic hero, for example, who was to influence the poetry of Europe, has his prototype in the Gothic Romance. Yet in its essential nature this movement is different from all others, and, instead of coalescing with romanticism, it is developed apart from and alongside with it, Maturin’s Melmoth, which is unquestionably the greatest production of the actual Gothic Romance, appearing as late as 1820. According to this distinct character of its own, the present writer would be disposed considerably to restrict the range usually allotted to the Gothic Romance. Especially with regard to works in which the use of supernatural agency is eliminated, the limit has sometimes been fixed with obvious arbitrariness; if the occurrence only of startling incidents or violent and extraordinary characters[26] were to be the criterion in this respect, the Gothic Romance would include, not only a collection of rubbish, but a great many productions which English literature has cause to be proud of. It is the main and only purpose of the work which must be kept in view, and that, as in all Gothic romance, is to appeal to the reader’s sense of fear. The terrible and revolting elements are introduced entirely for their own sake—not, for instance, to lend force to the total impression, or give depth to the study of character; ghastly crimes, torture, and painful situations form the very aim of the book, that for which it was written. It is evident that this kind of composition was not likely to attain any artistic excellence. A good example of it is Shelley’s youthful story of Zastrozzi (1810), probably one of the most worthless things ever fabricated by a great poet in a moment of misdirected energy. A book like John Moore’s Zeluco (1786?), on the other hand, can hardly be classed among the productions of the Gothic Romance, although it is habitually mentioned together with them; it is a dispassionate, rather didactic display of a very vicious character, totally lacking those qualities that are calculated to make nervous readers afraid of going to bed.

The occurrence, however, of really or seemingly supernatural elements, is the chief characteristic of the Gothic Romance. These elements are always treated seriously; they form the part on which the reader’s attention is meant to be centred, the fearful sensations created by these means being, again, what the writer aims at—as expressed in Maturin’s preface quoted above. Another vital point there alluded to is that the ‘passion of supernatural fear’ is intended to come home to the reader by way of his own recollections of moments when he has involuntarily shivered in solitude or in darkness. In other words, the unearthly incidents about to be told are to take place among ordinary people, in environs more or less resembling real life. This, in fact, is admittedly a requisite to the Gothic Romance;[27] and, that being so, a tale like Beckford’s Vathek (1781?) ought to be excluded from the Schauerromantik, the meaning of this word being limited to the definite literary movement now in question. In Vathek the course of action is, from the beginning, raised to the realm of a fairy tale from the Arabian Nights; here, consequently, the supernatural becomes ‘natural,’ never being startling or unexpected in its mere capacity of supernaturalness, nor in any way connected with experiences which the reader might be familiar with.

The denomination ‘Gothic story’ was invented and introduced by Horace Walpole, who furnished his Castle of Otranto with this sub-title. The wonders themselves, in this romance, are crude and primitive in the extreme, such as statues found bleeding, and portraits walking out of their frames. The Castle of Otranto was, however, greatly admired by Scott,[28] who points out that in this crudity lies a deliberate artistic purpose of re-calling the ideas of the distant times, when the things related would have been ‘received as matter of great credulity.’ In its attempt at time-colouring the Castle of Otranto really stands alone among the Gothic romances where, as a rule, personages of any time or country speak the language and express the ideas of 18:th century England. In the present age, indeed, the success of this effort seems very indifferent, and the tedious horrors of Walpole proved too much even for his direct imitators. Clara Reeve, in her Champion of Virtue (1777), afterwards called The Old English Baron, which she candidly confesses to have been inspired by Walpole, prudently keeps aloof from his copious use of supernatural elements. Yet the childish character of all these inventions could not long satisfy the public taste for horror, which grew very intense in the last decade of the century. Originality was soon sacrificed to the demands of power and suspense; The Monk (1795) of Matthew Gregory Lewis, which is the best known—and probably the worst written—of all the more famous productions of the school of terror, consists, for the most part, of plagiarisms from foreign sources. Only his manner of handling his readers’ nerves without gloves was, at that time, a novelty in English fiction. The unearthly elements in The Monk comprise popular legends of ghosts that find no rest in their graves, and one of the principal personages is a female demon sent forth by the devil himself to corrupt the morals of the monk Ambrosio. Compared to the nursery-bogeys of Walpole and Clara Reeve the preternatural world in The Monk is, of course, much more imposing in itself, although the author’s treatment of his subject-matter is exceedingly blunt and coarse. With regard to the occurrence also of situations physically revolting and disgusting, the school of terror celebrates one of its doubtful triumphs in the romance of Lewis.

About the same time, however, the movement took another course in a gentler direction, with the appearance of Mrs Ann Radcliffe within the province of imagination. She refrains altogether from representing anything actually supernatural; whatever is made to appear so throughout the tale, is finally explained as proceeding from some natural cause. This innovation in the mode of composition by no means marks an improvement from the artistic point of view. In a story written in the Radcliffe style a certain want of dignity is constantly felt, the reader being, to use the words of Scott,[29] ‘cheated into a sympathy’ with horrors shown, at last, to be connected with very petty and trivial circumstances, while the ‘explanation’ tendered is often as improbable as would be an appeal to supernatural forces. Nevertheless there still remains a sort of halo about the work of Mrs Radcliffe. She was indeed a far cleverer writer than either Walpole or Lewis, possessing, in a considerable degree, the rare art of suggestion, so important in novels of suspense. Another innovation introduced by Mrs Radcliffe into the Gothic Romance is an intense, romantic feeling for natural scenery. In her tales a moonlit landscape is as indispensable as a half-ruinous castle, and to the dreamy, sentimental atmosphere which prevails throughout her works, her enormous popularity was, no doubt, partly due. It was under her influence Maturin started his career as a novelist; Montorio is, as far as its construction is concerned, composed in the typical Radcliffe style. That he was entirely in sympathy with his subject is already seen from the preface, and the warmth with which he speaks of Mrs Radcliffe even twelve years later,[30] clearly demonstrates that he must have been, in his youth, one of her most ardent admirers, and thoroughly acquainted with her works and all their peculiarities. The following extract from Maturin’s article deserves to be quoted all the more so because of its being one of the ablest and most beautiful characterizations of the once famous authoress ever written:

— — — her romances are irresistibly and dangerously delightful; fitted to inspire a mind devoted to them with a species of melancholy madness. The very light under which she paints every object, has something fatally indulgent to such an aberration of mind in its early and innocent, but mournful stage: her castles and her abbeys, her mountains and her valleys, are always tinged with the last rays of the setting sun, or the first glimpses of the rising moon; her music is made to murmur along a stream, whose dim waves reflect the gleam of “the star that bids the shepherd fold”; the spires of her turrets are always silvered by moonlight, and the recesses of her forests are only disclosed by flashes of the palest lightning; a twilight shade is spread over her views of the moral, as well as of the natural world: her heroines are “soft, modest, melancholy, female, fair”; they have no struggles of energy, no bursts of passion—they are born to tremble and to weep;—their love, from its very commencement, has a tinge of despair, and their susceptibility of nature (which seems always their strongest feeling) has all the character of a religious resignation of its charms to the solemn duty of extracting melancholy from its scenes; they hang on the parting beauties of an evening landscape, and their tears fall in solemn unison with the dews of heaven; they are revived only by the toll of a sepulchral bell, and wander among the graves of their departed friends, as if the intercourse of human existence were suspended, and the living were to seek not only recollection, but society, among the dead. The works of this writer lead us for ever to the tomb; but the wand which she bore was gifted only to call up the milder and unalarming spirits: we listen to her charms as we would to the incantations of a benevolent enchanter, whose “quaint apparitions” may soften and solemnize, but neither terrify nor hurt us. Her spirits were those who

By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make

Whereof the ewe bites not, and those whose pastime

Is to make midnight mushrooms, who rejoice

To hear the solemn curfew—

and “weak masters though they be”, their melody hovers round us as sweet as the air-borne songs of Ariel, and when we wake from the trance into which they have plunged us, “we cry to dream again”—

In spite of similarity in construction it will be seen that the general atmosphere of Montorio differs greatly from the feminine gentleness of Mrs Radcliffe—as much as it does from the crude straightforwardness of Lewis; and it speaks much for Maturin’s originality that he at once succeeded in preserving a tone so distinctly his own among patterns so highly admired.—

Lastly, a third class of the novel of terror is that in which the marvellous or seemingly supernatural phenomenon is represented as a result of scientific or quasi-scientific occupations, and, consequently, within the limits of possibility. Instead of receiving a ‘natural’ explanation à la Mrs Radcliffe, the reader is referred to the effects of mesmerism, hypnotism, or some other suggestive and incompletely known branch of natural science. This class, of which Edgar Allan Poe was to become the most brilliant representative—and in which the elements strictly Gothic are often dispensed with—was the latest developed of the three. At the time Montorio was written, it had been touched upon in some of the tales of the American Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810) which, however, it is very uncertain whether Maturin was acquainted with. Closely related to novels of this class are the so-called Rosicrucian stories, which deal with alchemic pursuits; the most celebrated of these, the St. Leon of William Godwin, to which Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer is largely indebted, appeared in 1799.

The plot in Montorio is sufficiently intricate to necessitate a commencement of the analysis from the end and to reveal the mystery at once.

The ‘fatal revenge’ is perpetrated by Orazio, count of Montorio, upon his brother, who has, in a diabolical manner, caused the death of his (Orazio’s) wife and the ruin of all his family. Orazio and his younger brother are, some twenty years before the commencement of the story, the only surviving representatives of a house which for centuries has been one of the most illustrious in the kingdom of Naples. Orazio is of a brave and enthusiastic disposition, and warmly attached to his unworthy brother; the latter is incapable of holding any of the commissions procured for him by Orazio, and finally marries a woman whose family are on a decidedly hostile footing towards his brother. At the same time Orazio himself marries a beautiful and distinguished lady called Erminia di Amaldi, whom, with his usual impetuosity, he drags to the altar almost by main force. Very soon it becomes obvious to him that his love is not reciprocated, and all the goodness and gentleness of his wife cannot conceal the fact that she feels profoundly unhappy. Now Orazio is reconciled to his brother and invites him to the castle of Muralto, the family residence. The brother, coveting the title and estates of Montorio, determines to avail himself of the apparent depression of Erminia, whom he hates, being a rejected suitor of hers, while his wife, who is equally depraved, eagerly abets him in his intentions. He conceives a plan of exciting the jealousy of Orazio, which, considering his vehement nature, he rightly conjectures will be of fatal consequence. The plan is easily executed. It is generally known that a young officer of the name of Verdoni has been in love with Erminia before her marriage; and with the assistance of a rascally servant dismissed by Verdoni and taken up by the younger Montorio, the suspicions of Orazio are awakened and successfully kept alive by means of continual hints and allusions. Letters written by his wife to Verdoni are thrown into his way, and at last it is even proved that Erminia is in the habit of meeting Verdoni at the house of a peasant, where there is a little child who is the object of the tender care of both. Orazio’s rage knows no bounds. Verdoni is treacherously assaulted and brought to Muralto, where Orazio lets him be murdered before the eyes of Erminia; which horrible sight puts an end to her life also. Well-nigh deranged with sorrow and fear, Orazio leaves the country and finds a solitary refuge on a small isle in the Grecian archipelago, which is believed to be haunted and is never visited by the people of the neighbouring islands. Here his ‘propensities and habits cease to be those of humanity,’ and his bodily strength and perseverance likewise grow almost superhuman. His tranquillity is unexpectedly disturbed by a boat landing on the shore, with two men in it, whom he understands to speak Italian. From a part of their conversation which he overhears, he gathers that they are assassins sent out by the present count of Montorio, who cannot feel at ease while his brother is alive. In the night he is attacked by the men but easily dispatches both of them. By the corpse of one he finds some letters containing an account of the tragedy at Muralto, which clearly demonstrates the innocence of Erminia. It appears that she had been attached to Verdoni from her earliest youth. Her father being opposed to their union, they were married privately, and the following year Erminia was delivered of a daughter at the house of a relative. At the same time reports were spread of Verdoni’s death while on an expedition, and in the meantime Erminia’s father had compelled her to accept Orazio. When Verdoni had returned, Erminia was the unhappy but faithful wife of another.—Such are the tidings Orazio learns in his solitude, and to them are added those of the death of all his children. He lingers long in a state of stupefaction, but at length his energies are roused and inflamed into their former fury, whereupon a thirst for revenge is the only feeling which fills his soul, night and day. The revenge is to fall upon the whole family of his guilty brother, whose children, according to Orazio’s idea of combining justice with vengeance, are to be made the punishers of their father. Before, however, starting to put his purpose into effect, Orazio undertakes an extensive journey to the East where he becomes an adept in secret and magical studies, and during which his mental and physical abilities are developed to the highest perfection. Thence he returns to Italy and enters a convent under the name of father Schemoli. As he knows how to give himself an air of particular sanctity, he is soon called to the castle Muralto, to be the confessor of count Montorio, who has, by this time, become a rigid devotee.—

The story begins with a description of the family residing at the ancient castle. The gloomy retirement in which the count and countess pass their days is in no wise brightened by the presence of the confessor who is their only companion. Their eldest son, Ippolito, lives at Naples, as the admired and brilliant leader of the pleasures and dissipations of its jeunesse dorée, while the younger, Annibal, who is of a timid, melancholy, and suspicious disposition, is an inhabitant of Muralto. The members of the family have, from time immemorial, been noted for their love of magic and the preternatural. It is subsequently upon this inclination which the young men, otherwise so different, have in common, that the monk bases his scheme of inducing them to destroy their father. The story is one of a continuous, unrelenting process of strong mental suggestion, operating through its victims’ readiness to believe in supernatural agency. The plot goes forward alternately at the castle and at Naples; the adventures of Annibal are told by himself in letters to his brother. Muralto is furnished with everything required for a scene of ‘Gothic incidents.’ There is an old, uninhabited wing of the castle, with a cemetery-chapel partly in ruins, and no end of secret doors, intricate passages, and subterranean vaults. It is the delight of Annibal to ramble about in these desolate places; he has heard that a mystery is connected with the sudden and tragical end of the late possessor of the castle, whose fate greatly excites his curiosity. He attaches himself to an old servant who apparently knows more than he dares disclose. Much against his will the old man is persuaded to accompany Annibal on his nocturnal visits to the deserted part of the building—nocturnal, because the count is suspected to be very unfavourably disposed towards this kind of occupation. With difficulty they open the long-shut door to the apartments used by count Orazio. A portrait of the countess Erminia makes a profound impression upon Annibal, who feels assured that the original is still in the land of the living; he makes a copy of the picture, which he always carries about him. These excursions are exactly what Schemoli would wish, it being very easy for him, with his familiarity with all the recesses of the building, to awaken superstitious fear in the visitants. At times they see a human figure issuing, as it were, directly out of the wall; they hear mysterious steps and observe strange lights moving around them. Blood is detected on the floors, and in a cavity of the wall a skeleton is discovered. Once the old man disappears, for a while, as if swallowed up by the tombs. Shortly afterwards he dies, without being able to reveal what he has seen among the dead; he merely repeats that ‘the house of Montario must fall!’ Attended by a nephew of the old man, called Filippo, who now becomes his companion, Annibal continues to explore the ruins, until one night they are surprised by the count and Schemoli. The count, in a fury which betrays him to be conscious of a crime, has Annibal imprisoned in a lonely chamber in the castle, where, for some time to come, he beholds no face but that of the monk. At this stage Schemoli deems it fit to commence his work. He never speaks to the prisoner, or heeds his queries, by day; but every night at twelve he emerges from his castle of silence and sallies forth to Annibal’s room, where he serves up a fantastical story which he pretends to be allowed to relate at that hour only. He tells that he is the spirit of the dead body discovered by Annibal in the chapel. His life has been wild and sinful, and he has suffered a violent death. The body Annibal now sees before him is one two thousand years old, re-animated to become the abode of his spirit, until his real body is properly interred and vengeance wreaked upon his murderer. This task an implacable fate has destined to be executed by Annibal; and he is made to understand—although it is never distinctly uttered—that the criminal he must punish is his father. Annibal repudiates the idea with indignation, but Schemoli calmly repeats that his fate is inevitable, and that he is compelled to pursue Annibal everywhere until the deed is done. The mind of Annibal is already beginning to give way under the regular pressure of Schemoli, when these midnightly visits are suddenly interrupted. Annibal has, for some time, been permitted to enjoy the society of Filippo.—The count had promised to send Filippo to another of his estates, while the ruffian who was to be his guide had received a secret commission to murder him on the way. After a marvellous escape, however, Filippo had boldly returned to the castle and offered himself to act as a spy upon Annibal.—As he is really devoted to Annibal, he has the difficult task of operating as a double spy; but in this he succeeds so well as to find out that his master is to be poisoned by the monk. Through the dexterous management of Filippo, the draught prepared for Annibal is swallowed by Schemoli himself, after which the prisoners make their escape from the castle. Annibal determines to proceed to Naples to his brother, but on arriving there he learns that Ippolito has just left the town in a state of desperation.—

Interesting as are Annibal’s letters to his brother, Ippolito pays them but little attention, being wholly absorbed by business of his own. He has run across a stranger who exercises a mysterious, irresistible ascendancy over his mind. This stranger, otherwise father Schemoli, introduces himself to Ippolito in a manner calculated to excite, by degrees, his interest and curiosity; speaking, at first, but little at a time and then disappearing. Ippolito is usually called to meet him by letters which he finds in his room, none of his servants being able to explain how they get there. Soon it is generally observed that Ippolito is in the habit of spending his nights at some unknown place whence he always returns with a pale and haggard appearance; and when at times he takes part in his former amusements, he does so with the wild despair of one who wishes to escape his own thoughts. His young page, Cyprian, who takes tender care of him, endeavours, by every means, to keep him at home; sometimes he reads a diary to him, partly in verse and partly in prose, written by a nun and dedicated to some one she is hopelessly attached to. The gentle influence of Cyprian, however, is no match for the miraculous power of Schemoli. When midnight arrives, Ippolito departs. Once he has invited a company of friends to his house, but at the usual hour a gigantic figure, with his face concealed in a mask, appears among them, beckoning to Ippolito, who submissively follows him. Their destination is a subterranean vault, whither Ippolito is always conducted blindfold, and the purpose of these excursions is to impress upon him that he is ordered, by fate, to commit an extraordinary deed. Just as in the case of Annibal, the monk enjoins upon Ippolito that he himself labours under the same fate, and that his is no voluntary service; and the credulous mind of Ippolito soon proves susceptible to the imposture. One night he is informed that ‘the hour is come.’ He is again conducted to the vaults where he is received by several figures fantastically attired; after a multitude of mysterious rites and ceremonies he is shown, by a pantomimic display, that he is destined to commit a murder against his will, and also who is to be his victim. Like Annibal he is seized with violent indignation, but the serenity of Schemoli remains unperturbed. In great despair Ippolito leaves Naples at the very time Annibal arrives there from Muralto.

Ippolito roams about in the neighbourhood of Naples, without any definite object in view. His journey, however, soon becomes very painful. It appears that rumour has travelled ahead of him and spread news of his magical pursuits and his supposed alliance with the devil. Everywhere he is received with maledictions and threatened with the Inquisition; and, worst of all, he seems to be followed by the dreaded figure of his persecutor. Once he passes a night in a large, deserted building, where strange voices and footsteps induce him to descend into a subterranean locality of vast dimensions. There he is joined by Schemoli, who reminds him of the uselessness of trying to avoid his fate. He then leaves Ippolito to wander about in darkness, until he discerns two figures advancing before him in the dim light of a lantern. One of them is Schemoli, and the other a monk who carries the lifeless form of a young female. After a while the former is seen to depart, and the monk, with apparent hesitation, prepares to plunge a dagger into the breast of the lady; frightened by Ippolito he releases her and makes his escape. Ippolito seizes the lady and, following the course taken by the monk, emerges at last into the garden of a cloister. In fresh air the lady revives and learns with joy the name of her preserver. She informs him that she has been forcibly separated from his brother Annibal, and implores him to save her. There is a river flowing through the garden; seeing a boat Ippolito springs into it, but before he has time to assist her to follow him, the river is disturbed by an earthquake, and the boat is borne along with great rapidity. After a perilous course Ippolito gets safely ashore, and his ramblings begin again. Yet the suspicions entertained against him are gaining strength every moment, and at last he is imprisoned by the members of the Inquisition. He is repeatedly examined, but nothing worse happens to him so far as the Holy Office is concerned. Schemoli, however, regularly visits him in his cell. Ippolito’s power of resistance has nearly vanished, when he is once more released by another earthquake, which rends asunder the prison-tower of the Inquisition. With the few surviving inhabitants of the town he embarks for Sicily, but the bark is wrecked and Ippolito drifts ashore where he is received by Schemoli. Now he passively yields to the will of his persecutor, who conducts him first to Naples and then to the castle of Muralto.—

Annibal, not finding his brother at Naples, betakes himself to Puzzoli, to seek protection with a relative of his mother, a distinguished ecclesiastic, who lives at enmity with his father. On his way he arrives at a small town by a river which, just then, threatens the inhabitants with an inundation; the nuns of an Ursuline convent are arranging a solemn procession to induce the saint to prevent the impending calamity. In that procession Annibal detects the original of the picture which he still cherishes as his dearest treasure. In ecstasies he rushes to the lady, beginning to address her—to the strong resentment of the nuns—when the flood suddenly comes on with terrible force. Annibal is separated from the object of his rapture, but, in the general confusion at last finds her and succeeds in saving her from the water. She is taken back to the convent, but Annibal contrives clandestinely to meet her. It appears that she is a novice called Ildefonsa, and is forced to take the veil much against her inclinations. Annibal now writes to his relative to request him to interfere on behalf of Ildefonsa. His effort is crowned with success in so far as a letter really arrives from the bishop of the diocese, ordering the removal of Ildefonsa from the convent; but shortly before this Annibal has seen the well-known figure of Schemoli glide past him, and from that moment he is plunged into desperate gloom which nothing is able to dispel. Nor is he mistaken in his forebodings of evil. The messenger bringing the bishop’s letter is sent back with the intelligence that Ildefonsa is dead. Assisted by his faithful Filippo, however, Annibal finds out that this is not the case; accordingly, at the funeral procession, he steps forward accusing the abbess of having arranged a mock funeral, after immuring Ildefonsa in the dungeons of the convent. The abbess allows him to remove the pall, and, to his astonishment, he sees the lifeless form of Ildefonsa. The indignation of the public is now directed against Annibal; he is even imprisoned on account of his extraordinary conduct. Ildefonsa, however, who is not dead but only rendered insensible by a strong opiate, is conveyed to the vaults where Ippolito accidentally saves her from the hands of her enemies. The earthquake which separates Ildefonsa from Ippolito, reunites her with Annibal, whose prison is crushed to pieces. After some time spent in close retirement they venture to set out for Puzzoli. Their guide proves to be bribed by Schemoli, and they are attacked by his attendants, whereupon Annibal is severely wounded. When he comes to his senses he finds himself in the power of his persecutor. By this time he is also a broken man, and bereft of all further power of resistance he consents to all the propositions of Schemoli. He only expresses a wish that there might be another human being in the same condition as himself—and Schemoli has no reason to conceal that there is one: his brother Ippolito. Annibal follows Schemoli to Muralto, where he unexpectedly finds Ildefonsa lying on her death-bed. He has no opportunity, however, to inquire into her fate, for the fatal night draws on apace. That same night the count Montorio is, more than ever, beset by pangs of conscience. He dare not be left alone for a moment, although his wife is quite unable to soothe him. At last he summons the confessor to give him absolution, and now, for the first time, confesses to him that he has tried to palliate his crime by rearing the children of his unhappy brother as his own: Ippolito and Annibal are the sons of his brother Orazio.... The confessor rushes out to the youths, but is powerless to utter one articulate sound. Nor would it be of any avail; in a trance-like condition they enter the count’s apartment, and their swords meet in his body.—

At the moment of the young men’s arrest, Orazio surrenders himself to justice, protesting that he alone is guilty. He asks permission to compose a written account of what has happened, and in this he reveals his identity, relates the story of his early misfortunes, and explains the method adopted by him to carry out his vengeance, which is fatally visited upon himself, his own children becoming murderers at his instigation.—As for Ildefonsa, she is the unacknowledged daughter of Erminia and Verdoni, and the very picture of her mother. Montorio destines her for a convent to get rid of her; when she is brought to the castle by Schemoli’s attendants, we are told that Montorio, ‘on beholding her, felt a long extinguished passion for her mother revive. To gratify a romantic illusion of posthumous passion she was arrayed in fantastic splendour by the count, and to appease fear and jealousy, was poisoned by his wife.’—Ippolito is, in his prison, visited by his former page, who turns out to be a woman called Rosolia di Valozzi. After seeing him once, in the days of his splendour, an irresistible passion had made her quit her convent and enter his service; the diary she used to read to him referred to herself and her attachment to Ippolito. Now her health is undermined, and she expires shortly after her secret is revealed.

Ippolito and Annibal are finally released, but banished from the country for ever. Orazio is condemned to death; but at the last interview with his sons he bursts ‘one of the larger vessels’ and dies, rejoicing that ‘the last of the Montorios has not perished on a scaffold.’

In a short introduction to Montorio it is narrated how two young officers enter the French service at the siege of Barcelona 1697, and distinguish themselves as much by their reckless intrepidity as by their melancholy aloofness from their comrades. When the city is taken both of them perish; and an Italian officer, who is the only person acquainted with their history, relates all that follows.—

It would not be possible to give an account of all the windings of this intricate production, which is said[31] to contain ‘sufficient sparkle and movement for half a dozen ordinary romances.’ An extract from another critic[32] likewise goes to show—besides the fact that Montorio had its admirers—that it is not such a very easy matter to trace even the bare outlines of Maturin’s first story:

In the “House (sic) of Montorio” there is a vast exuberance of all the impulses of humanity,—the young passions, fantasies and aspirations, dancing and eddying like the waters of a gushing fountain, and sparkling in the coloured light of romance. Plot, sentiment, character, and description, in an abundance that seems to mock the anxious effort of ordinary genius, and to perplex the youthful author with his own riches, mark the entire of this extraordinary production.

Yet all these riches, unfortunately, rest on an unsubstantial foundation. The Radcliffe style of composition requires, in fact, the prudence and moderation practised by its originator, in order to preserve anything like an artistic balance. It follows from the very nature of a story of this kind, that the more the scope of action is enlarged, the more unsatisfactory is the inevitable explanation, and the greater the disappointment felt at the implausibility of the solution. In Montorio the disproportion between cause and effect is nothing less than prodigious; and such elements as would actually be grand and imposing in the plan itself, are, in the course of execution, sadly affected by the air of charlatanism inseparable from a plot constructed in the Radcliffe manner. It would be different, and far more satisfactory, if the brothers were, for instance, represented as acting under a kind of hypnotic influence. As it is, the scheme of Orazio is, essentially, carried out by means of talking sheer nonsense to two full-grown people; and facilitated by accidents and singular coincidences which are as incredible as would be the appearance of all the legions of the supernatural world. The wonderful talents of Orazio, above all his capacity of swiftly covering great distances, become almost unnecessary, considering the never-ending maze of secret passages and subterranean recesses at his disposal; there are no two apartments, far or near, unconnected by these means of escape, if need be, and the strangest thing of all is that Orazio, after an absence of twenty years, still is the only person perfectly acquainted with them, wherever they are. For him there is no more difficulty in smuggling letters to Ippolito’s room at Naples, than in suddenly turning up in the prison-cell of the Inquisition. Among other extraordinary circumstances contributing to the success of Orazio’s enterprise, the occurrence of two earthquakes with the same issue, the liberation of a person from his prison by crushing its walls, is the most unfortunate. This repetition of an event which, even if introduced singly, makes unusual claims upon the reader’s credulity, seriously cools his excitement even at the first perusal. As for any recurrent enjoyment, it has very appropriately been pointed out by Scott,[33] that a composer of Radcliffe romances cannot expect his productions to be relished twice or oftener. When everything mysterious and suggestive is carefully explained, there is nothing left to excite curiosity or keep the mind in suspense a second time, as is often the case with powerfully told supernatural incidents which receive no explanation whatever. It is almost intolerable to re-read Montorio, from beginning to end, in spite of the many impressive passages it contains. However, as it is unavoidable in a story constructed in accordance with the principles of Montorio, that the elaborate fabric collapses at the final revelation of the ‘truth’ and the placing side by side of causes and effects, it must still be considered as a success in its kind if this does not happen too soon; and in Montorio the reader is, until the explanation of Orazio, really kept believing that the incidents related are of a preternatural character. Hence the ‘passion of supernatural fear,’ though capable of being inspired only once, is as genuine as that which any Gothic story is likely to create. As far as the purely terrific element is concerned, it has justly been observed[34] that ‘Montorio surpasses all the excellences of Ann Radcliffe and Godwin combined.’ An atmosphere of intense suspense is brought about by the parallel development of two actions, always broken off at the most interesting point, and the vigour, vivacity, and youthful freshness of the style also leaves far behind all that which had been produced, up to 1807, within the Gothic Romance.

Of the two actions the adventures going on at Muralto form the happier one, the tricks of Orazio being, in this instance, far more probable. In the gloomy surroundings where the very air is filled with surmises of some mysterious and horrible secret, it is not unnatural that Orazio should succeed in appealing to the superstitious tendencies of the melancholy-minded Annibal, nor is it astonishing that he is thoroughly acquainted with all the localities of his own castle. The fearful expectations with which Annibal looks forward to his nightly excursions, are cleverly transferred to the reader:

The hour is approaching—a few moments more, and the castle bell will toll. The hour that I have longed for, I almost begin now to wish more distant. I almost dread to hear the steps of Michelo.... Hark! the bell tolls—the old turret seems to rock its echo; and the silence that succeeds, how deep, how stilly!—would I could hear an owl scream across me! Ha! ’twas the lightning that gleamed across me. I will go to the casement; the roar of the elements will be welcome at such a moment as this.... The night is dark and unruly—the wind bursts in strong and fitful blasts against the casement. The clouds are hurried along in scattering masses. There is a murmur from the forests below, that in a lighter hour I could trust fancy to listen to; but, in my present mood, I dare not follow her wanderings. Would my old guide were come! I feel that any state of fear is supportable, accompanied by the sight or sound of a human being.... Was that shriek fancy?—again, again—impossible! Hark! there is a tumult in the castle—lights and voices beneath the turret.... What is it they tell me?

Every night some new discovery is made, ingeniously calculated to increase his curiosity, and the marvellous occurrences become more and more startling, until the climax is reached in the night-scene where Orazio suddenly drags the old servant after him into the vault, and there addresses him ‘in the hollow voice of death.’ The mind of his victim being thus sufficiently prepared for his purpose, Orazio rouses the count, and Annibal is conveyed to his lonely prison. The tale which Orazio here unfolds to him is one of the boldest flights of ‘terrific’ imagination: a description of the abode of unblessed spirits, where he has been condemned to linger before entering the ancient body kept unconsumed amid magical flames—in which shape his doom then is involved into Annibal’s. A comparison of this fantasia to the mummery by which Ippolito is informed of his fate is of interest as a proof of the injustice Maturin did to his own talents in applying them to the Radcliffe style of composition. With Ippolito the means resorted to are as follows. Orazio takes into his service a number of professional impostors who, in the subterranean vaults into which Ippolito is conducted, act the part of beings of another world. Masks, modelled in wax, are procured of Ippolito and the count, so that, in the figure which suggests to him the idea of a murderer, Ippolito recognizes himself. Then he is induced to plunge his poniard into the breast of another waxen figure whose face, when disclosed, reveals the features of his father. Now all this, when subsequently explained, appears extremely cheap; but even the account of the performance itself has none of the unearthly power of the tale told to Annibal. That tale is the only passage in the book in which Maturin gives rein to his imagination and which has the enduring merit of being subjected to no trivial explanation, certain to destroy every impression. The reader is also much more disposed to accept as a fact that Annibal believes what is only told to him, than that Ippolito is convinced of what he is made actually to experience. The plot laid at Muralto is, moreover, interspersed with scenes powerful in effect, relating to the state of the conscience-stricken count Montorio. That he has committed some formidable offence is clear from the very first, though it is, of course, merely mentioned allusively. The characters of the count and his wife—who are never haunted but by their own thoughts—are those most vividly depicted. Montorio is totally broken down by fear and repentance, and clings anxiously to the offices of religion; his nights are passed in raving under the pressure of hideous dreams, represented with great zest and spirit. The countess, on the other hand, is as strong as he is weak, and outwardly as calm and proud as he is restless and dejected. Without uttering a complaint she undergoes a penance of her own invention, wearing a sharp iron belt around her waist. This contrast between her self-restraint and his cowardly despair is, upon the whole, skilfully effected. Otherwise characterization, in Montorio, yields place to adventure, for under the exceptional circumstances in which the principal personages find themselves, they act by necessity rather than by choice. Yet the difference said to exist between Ippolito and Annibal also clearly asserts itself when their wanderings begin. Annibal, who has the deeper mind of the two, is fully persuaded that his persecutor is a preternatural being; and thus, though he is apparently more composed, his calmness is more dangerous than the impetuosity of Ippolito, and he is far nearer to surrendering himself. Ippolito does not debate whether the powers by which he is beset be human or superhuman; following his first impulse he goes on to treat them with ‘sallies of rage and convulsions of resistance.’ From this difference in their characters, by which their subsequent adventures are fixed, it follows that those of Annibal are, even henceforth, more satisfactory from an artistic point of view. His encounters with Orazio are simple and natural, there being no further need of any extraordinary tricks for his bewilderment. The draught emptied by the confessor at Muralto he firmly believes to be poison, while it is only a strong opiate, from the effects of which Orazio easily recovers. Consequently it is sufficient for Annibal to see Orazio glide past him in the garden of the convent, in order to disperse the last shadow of doubt as to his superhuman character; and when he again falls into the hands of Orazio after being separated from Ildefonsa, he could not reasonably be expected to offer any further resistance. Ippolito, on the other hand, before his strength is exhausted, continues to be hurried through subterranean passages without end and marvellous experiences defying all natural explanation of any kind.

The productions of the Gothic Romance, owing to its limited range and peculiar character, naturally present obvious similarities among themselves. The fundamental principle of them all is an appeal to the same source of emotion;—from their very appellation we may deduce a common background to most of them, and the motifs with which the ‘terrific’ imagination loves to occupy itself are always less remarkable for variety than for suitability to imitation, according to the special genius of each successive writer. In Montorio there is as ample proof of Maturin’s indebtedness to his predecessors within the school of terror, as of his unquestionable originality. The idea of a supernatural imposture of intricate apparatus and vast dimensions Maturin might have received from Der Geisterseher (1789) of Schiller, of which a translation was much read and relished at that time in England. In Schiller’s story a mysterious Armenian possesses the same surprising familiarity with other people’s concerns, and the same exaggerated facility of appearing when and where he chooses, as Orazio. There is also a Sicilian necromancer, a ghost-seer by profession, who gives a minute description of the tricks he and his compeers are in the habit of practising while trading upon people’s credulity, which affords a parallel to the performances of the hirelings employed by Orazio at Naples. Complications like these are, at all events, foreign to the novels of Mrs Radcliffe, of which especially The Italian (1797) is often called to mind by Montorio. In this romance the principal plotter and schemer is a monk called Schedoni, and he, as regards external appearance at least, is distinctly a precursor of Orazio, alias father Schemoli.[35] They have the same large, gaunt figure, hollow voice and unearthly appearance in general, and both enjoy a reputation of uncommon sanctity, very little deserved by either. However, Schedoni has, in his former life, been a villain of an ordinary kind, who possesses none of the grandeur of spirit by which Orazio is distinguished, nor are his machinations pursued on a scale at all comparable to that invented by Maturin’s hero. The simpler adventures of Annibal, on the other hand, are typically Radcliffeian: in The Italian, too, mysterious footsteps allure inquisitive young men to dangerous places, ghastly voices disturb the stillness of ruinous chapels, and nocturnal flights are undertaken through sombre forests. Yet this is not the only point of contact between the two romances. A general characteristic shared by Gothic stories with very few exceptions, was the placing of the scene in the Mediterranean countries, in this case in the South of Italy. Besides the romantic charm those regions always suggest to a northern imagination, they possessed the special merit of admitting the introduction of the Inquisition with all its horrors, and affording an opportunity of penetrating the walls of a convent. To Maturin, with his strong anti-catholic tendencies, the theme of ecclesiastical cruelty was doubly welcome, and in his treatment of the subject there is always a tone of genuine indignation, distinct from all aims of a literary character. The absolute power of the Holy Office and the abuses of monastical authority were, in a forcible manner, illustrated already in Lewis’s Monk, nor were these attractions withstood by Mrs Radcliffe. The passages in The Italian, relative to the prison of the Inquisition at Rome, are among the greatest triumphs of her method of arousing the reader’s anxiety only to be soothed again. The hero is several times brought to the utmost point of being submitted to torture; at one time he is already fastened to the rack, but the procedure is always suspended. The examinations of other less fortunate prisoners are suggested only by feeble groans and expressive allusions, still by these scanty means a most gruesome atmosphere is created. Maturin, in Montorio, follows The Italian in so far as bodily torture is not resorted to—it would, indeed, be very much out of place, the plan of Orazio tending to subdue Ippolito by working upon his mental faculties. Maturin even, contrary to Mrs Radcliffe, represents the chief inquisitor as a man of some humanity; but at the same time he takes care to give a powerful picture of the demoralizing influence a superstitious religion exercises upon the people. The report of Ippolito’s heretical inclinations spreads like wild-fire, and wherever he arrives he is viewed with hatred and abhorrence. In vain he approaches man or woman; all refuse to listen to his protestations, to which the sole answers are curses and maledictions. Here, evidently, a literary impulse outside the actual school of terror asserts itself. Ippolito’s situation is as desperate and as passionately depicted as Caleb’s in Godwin’s Caleb Williams (1794), when he is accused of robbery by Falkland and appearances are strongly against him; he is regarded as the ‘opprobrium of the human species’ and is allowed no opportunity to defend himself, nobody deigning to lend an ear to his demonstrations. Caleb and Ippolito are both, at last, driven to seek the mercy of an old man of mild and venerable aspect, and both, alike, are sadly disappointed. In Godwin the old man calls the unfortunate youth ‘a monster with whom the earth groans,’ and deplores that he has ever seen him or uttered a single word to him; in Maturin he laments at having lived too long being thus forced to behold Ippolito, and declares that his grey hairs are defiled by the appeal Ippolito makes to them. This pathetic description of the involuntary isolation of a man among his fellow-beings, this heart-rending agony of his upon seeing the ties broken that unite him to his species, is born of the spirit of a time in which feeling was raised to the seat of honour. A strong sense of loneliness, of some sort or other, is an essential feature of the romantic literature of the period, and will often be seen to recur in Maturin’s writings. Here, under the influence of Godwin, it is expressed in its most painful aspect. Caleb Williams is a protest against the ‘despotism by which man becomes the destroyer of man;’ while Godwin directs his attacks against wrongs in the existing state of social institutions, Maturin traces the source of evil in misapplied religious ideas. The result, however, is the same, and Caleb might well have uttered the words in which Ippolito sums up the state he is reduced to:

Then I am outlawed of nature. I am divested of the rights of being. Every ear is deaf, and every heart is iron to me. Wherever I tread the sole of my foot dries the streams of humanity.—

An incident, in Montorio, of monastic oppression, is represented by the episode of Ildefonsa. A young lady held in a convent against her will was a special favourite with the novelists of terror; the episode in question is, no doubt, suggested by the history of Agnes de Medina in The Monk. For the liberation of Agnes, also, an appeal is made to high ecclesiastical authorities, whereupon the tyrannical abbess compels her to swallow an opiate which plunges her into a death-like state, arranges a mock funeral and has Agnes conveyed to the hideous dungeons of the convent. In The Italian, too, the heroine is placed in a convent where she feels but ill at ease under the government of an unkind prioress; however, she succeeds in escaping with her lover. Mention is also made of a stone chamber ‘within the deepest recesses of the convent’ where disobedient nuns have sometimes been confined—but thither the gentle authoress forbears to conduct her readers.

Yet another episode in Montorio is inspired by ‘the powerful and wicked romance of the Monk,’ which was, in Maturin’s opinion,[36] ‘the most extraordinary production’ of the time of its appearance. It has been told that Annibal’s servant, Filippo, incurs the displeasure of the count for assisting at the investigations of his master, and is sent away from Muralto. His guide conducts him into a large house where they are expected by a party of bandits. Filippo is ushered into a room on the upper floor and there finds out that he is to be despatched during the night, yet effects a hair-breadth escape by a passage below the apartment. The episode, though of considerable length, is completely detached from the main plot and introduced solely for the sake of delineating Filippo’s sensations when threatened with horrible and immediate death. Lewis relates, with the same laudable purpose, how Don Raymond and some other travellers pass a night at the house of a man who turns out to be the leader of a gang of robbers, and how they, too, succeed in eluding the danger. Differently as the adventures are made up, still one conspicuous detail in Montorio comes very near direct plagiarism. In the first as well as in the second story the victim is made aware of his danger by the hostess of the house, who, though of a surly aspect, appears to disapprove of the impending proceedings. The robber’s wife, in a whisper, warns Don Raymond to look at the sheets of his bed, which are stained with blood; Filippo is called by the hag who manages the household of the bandits, to examine a particular corner of his room which he, also, finds to be blood-stained. Otherwise the episode in Montorio is certainly much more exciting than the one in The Monk.

Aside from these instances of immediate influence from some of the most admired productions of the Gothic Romance, Montorio exhibits many minor traits characteristic of the school in general. Among these is the committing, either consciously or unconsciously, of great wrongs against near relations. The happiness of Orazio is destroyed by his brother, and Orazio himself unwittingly ruins the life of his sons. Of secondary characters, both attendants of Annibal at Muralto are very typical of a genuine Gothic story: the old and decrepit domestic who, in a provokingly imperfect way, attempts to satisfy the curiosity of the hero, and the young and ready-witted fellow, who stoutly follows him in his breakneck adventures. Yet in one vital point Montorio occupies an almost exceptional place within the Gothic Romance, namely, with regard to the highly tragical issue of all its incidents. In spite of its blood-curdling qualities, the novel of terror by no means excludes a happy end for the hero and the heroine; the reader may be made to wander about in charnel-houses for ever so long, but finally he is led to a nuptial chamber as infallibly as in other stories that have boasted of a wide and merited popularity. This rule was, rashly enough, disregarded by Maturin; when Helene Richter[37] says that ‘alle Schauerromane haben ein glückliches Ende, und würde es auch an den Haaren herbeigezogen,’ she evidently forgets Montorio. Maturin adhered faithfully to the programme he had fixed for his romance—to found it upon the passion of the supernatural fear alone, not troubling himself about the traditional compensation for the horrors. There is, in fact, no heroine in the book; it was not without cause that Montorio, as Maturin states in the preface to his next work, was pronounced to be ‘deficient in female interest.’ Ildefonsa is there to fill but a short episode, and is, moreover, discovered to be Annibal’s sister. As a type she is modelled according to the innocent and persecuted young ladies in Mrs Radcliffe’s stories, being in no wise remarkable among the female characters Maturin has depicted. Still less likely is Rosolia to satisfy the demands for a heroine. Matters never develop to an understanding between her and Ippolito; her sex is not even revealed before it would be too late to invent a happy solution. Rosolia is introduced into the story, in the development of which she takes no part, merely in order to intersperse it with her lyrical effusions. A character like this is not uncommon in the Gothic Romance. It may be mentioned that Don Raymond, in The Monk, also has a page who composes ballads which he, like Rosolia, subjects to the benevolent judgment of his master. The diary Rosolia presents to Ippolito is rather unsubstantial in matter, but some of the prose passages are exquisitely graceful and truly Maturineian in style.—

There is, however, within the compass of Montorio, one complete and consummate story where female interest is also attended to. Orazio’s account of his early misfortunes—immediately preceding the disheartening explanation of the details of his revenge—admittedly contains the best parts of the book.[38] The progress of the violent action is admirably concentrated, and the rapidity and poignancy of the style is powerfully indicative of the anguish felt by the writer. The character of Orazio, before he becomes the superhuman being known as father Schemoli, is illustrated with a few vigorous strokes. The motif itself—a tragedy ensuing from the groundless suspicions of a jealous husband—is not original. Mangan[39] points out that the idea had been utilized by Edward Young in The Revenge (1721), though, he adds, ‘Maturin has contrived to invest it with a new and overpowering interest.’ In Young’s tragedy the revenge is taken by a Moor called Zanga upon his master, a distinguished Spaniard, who has wronged him. Zanga helps him first to marry the lady he loves, and then ingeniously awakens his jealousy by means of forged letters and pictures deposited in suitable places. The lady, upon finding herself suspected, commits suicide, and her husband, when undeceived, follows her example. The plot of Orazio’s narrative certainly bears similarity to The Revenge, and it is not impossible that Maturin may have received an impulse from Young, although it seems somewhat far-fetched to refer to this comparatively little known play, as long as Othello remains the great prototype of a tragedy of his kind. In this respect, at least, Maturin shows originality, that he allows Orazio to remain alive and only after a long interval be informed of his fatal mistake. Fantastic as is Orazio’s situation on the islet, it required unusual imaginative power to treat it so as to render it credible; however, Maturin was equal to the task. Here are to be found the most splendid proofs of his prose-style—compared to which the metrical pieces scattered through the work are of very great inferiority—showing to what degree of excellence it was capable of rising even at that early period. It is most pathetically described how the innocent victims of Orazio’s rashness are never out of his mind—how they seem to threaten him when nightly tempests are roaring around him and how, at moments of fortuitous tranquillity, he endeavours to imagine them in a state of glory:

The dreams of the night are easily dissolved, and strange shapes are sometimes seen to shimmer through the twilight of a cavern; but I have met them at noon on the bare sunny shore. I have seen them on the distant wave when its bed was smooth and bright as jasper; the curtained mist that hung on mole and breaker, and mingled with the sheeted spanglings of the surf floated back from them, did not throw a fringe of its shadowy mantling on their forms. I could not be deceived. Sometimes the light was glorious beyond imagination. Towards sunset I would sometimes see a small white cloud, and watch its approach; it would fix on a point of the rock that rose beside my cave; as twilight thickened it would unfold, its centre disclosing a floating throne of pearl, and its skirts expanding into wings of iris and aurelia that upbore it. By moonlight the pomp grew richer, and the vision became exceeding glorious. Myriads of lucent shapes were visible in that unclouded shower of light which fell from the moon on the summit of the rock; myriads swam on its opal waves, wafted in a fine web of filmy radiancy, canopied with a lily’s cup, and inebriate with liquid light. Among them sat the shadows of the lovers, sparkling with spheral light, and throned in the majesty of vision, but pale with the traces of mortality. There sat the lovers in sad and shadowy state together; so greatly unfortunate, so fatal, passing fond. Sometimes when stretched on my cold, lone bed, I have heard her voice warbling on the wind touches of sweet, sad music, such as I have heard her sing when she thought herself alone and unheard. I have risen and followed it, and heard it floating on the waters; I listened, and would have given worlds to weep. On a sudden the sounds would change to the most mournful and wailing cries, and Erminia, pale and convulsed as I saw her last, would pass before me, pointing to a gory shape that the waves would throw at my feet. Then they would plunge together into the waters, and where far off the moon shed a wan and cloudy light on the mid wave, I would see their visages rise dim and sad, and hear their cry die along the waste of waters.—

There are, in the prefaces to Maturin’s both second and third work, hints that his first romance had been subjected to unfavourable criticism on the part of the reviewers. In the leading periodicals of the time, however, no such are to be found. The only article upon the book, that of Scott in the Quarterly Review, did not appear until three years after the publication of Montorio. It is not quite so panegyrical as maintained by some of Maturin’s biographers, although the conspicuous talent of the rising novelist is readily admitted. Severely condemning the Radcliffe manner as little better than humbug, the reviewer speaks of Mr. Murphy’s adherence to it with disapproval and regret:

— — — Amid these flat imitations of the Castle of Udolpho we lighted unexpectedly upon the work which is the subject of the present article, and, in defiance of the very bad taste in which it is composed, we found ourselves insensibly involved in the perusal, and at times impressed with no common degree of respect for the powers of the author. We have at no time more earnestly desired to extend our voice to a bewildered traveller, than towards this young man, whose taste is so inferior to his powers of imagination and expression, that we never saw a more remarkable instance of genius degraded by the labour in which it is employed. — — — He possesses a strong and vigorous fancy, with great command of language. He has indeed regulated his incidents upon those of others, and therefore added to the imperfections which we have pointed out, the want of originality. But his feeling and conception of character are his own, and from these we judge of his powers. In truth we rose from his strange chaotic novel romance as from a confused and feverish dream, unrefreshed, and unamused, yet strongly impressed by many of the ideas which had been so vaguely and wildly presented to our imagination.

This article was to become of the greatest consequence to Maturin’s literary career, and will be returned to further on.

The Family of Montorio brought to its author nothing more substantial than fame in his nearest environs, for, notwithstanding the pseudonym, it was universally attributed to Maturin.[40] His income thus remained as scanty as ever, whilst his family kept on increasing; his son William Basil, afterwards a well-known member of the Irish Church, was born in July 1807. Nonetheless Maturin resolved to try his luck once more and produced, in 1808, a romance titled The Wild Irish Boy. This time his task was executed under circumstances peculiarly embarrassing; harassed by clamouring duties in every direction, Maturin was often forced to ‘borrow from the hours of night to complete his story.’[41] The book was intended, more directly than most of his productions, to bring in some remuneration and by every means to attract the attention of the reading public. Its very title was chosen with a view to exciting curiosity, suggesting a counterpart to Lady Morgan’s (then Miss Owenson’s) story of The Wild Irish Girl, which had appeared the previous year and proved an eminent success. Another attempt in the same direction was a lengthy dedication to Lord Moira[42]—written in very bad taste and containing the hopeful assurance that the work in hand would now determine whether the author possesses talent or no; for, if he does, the book cannot fail to secure his lordship’s notice. At the same time Maturin was fully aware that his talent was here by no means displayed to its advantage. Montorio was written in a spirit which he felt to be his special power; The Wild Irish Boy was calculated to please all—except the author himself. That the audience appealed to was not the most cultivated part of the public is rather candidly alluded to in the preface. Maturin states that his head is full of his country, but that he can perforce not give vent to his thoughts, being compelled to resort to other material, better relished by the public:

The fashionable materials for novel-writing I know to be, a lounge in Bond-street, a phaeton-tour in the Park, a masquerade with appropriate scenery, and a birth-day or birth-night, with dresses and decorations, accurately copied from the newspapers.

He who writes with an hope of being read, must write something like this. I say must, because this species of writing, not exacting a sacrifice of principles, but of taste, the public have reasonably a right to dictate in. He who would prostitute his morals, is a monster, he who sacrifices his inclinations and habits of writing, is—an author.

At the same time, it is desirable to look forward to the time, when independence, acquired without any sacrifice of integrity, will enable a man to consult only himself in the choice and mode of his subject. He who is capable of writing a good novel, ought to feel that he was born for a higher purpose than writing novels.

From the last sentence it has, naturally enough, been inferred that Maturin entertained but a mean opinion of novel-writing. Yet his prefaces cannot be taken literally. The tone of apology which, more or less, pervades nearly all of them, is much akin to the passing humility following close upon the heels of intoxication; and as prefaces are always composed after the conclusion of the respective works, these were written in moments of weariness attendant upon great mental exertion and extravagant sallies of imagination. Maturin was not lacking in literary ambition, nor did his poetical vein ever flow more richly than during his short period of, not exactly independence, but something like tolerable circumstances. His unfavourable judgment of novel-writing, in the present case, was probably due to the fact that he was not himself pleased with The Wild Irish Boy.

This, of course, is no excuse for the book, which indeed shows inferior work to a degree truly astonishing. Were it not for certain episodes where genuine power is displayed, and for the fact that the book was entirely a work of imagination, without any hidden aims of personal import—it would not fall very short of that species of composition, the producers of which Maturin once characterized[43] as ‘infamous and ephemeral scribblers, who pander for the public lust after anecdote that vilify the great, debase the illustrious, and expose the unfortunate, under the titles of a Winter, a Month, or six Weeks at the metropolis or some place of public resort.’ The Wild Irish Boy is brimful of august personages, lords and ladies, represented in a most unfavourable light, distorted and exaggerated by the feverish imagination of one who knew nothing of his subject. The fashionable world is condemned as sinful and utterly demoralizing, high life consists but of high vices, described and investigated from every side; while the kind of pure, old-fashioned, religious, home-like existence that is recommended as its contrast, is not found interesting enough to be illustrated otherwise than by very imperfect glimpses. Extravagant as the tone is, it becomes perfectly absurd when the moralist comes into conflict with the patriot. The author appears to have feared that the feelings of the public whose taste he is trying to gratify, might be offended by too much abuse of the British aristocracy—the pride of the nation!—and occasionally the tendency bursts into quite an opposite direction. The young fool of a hero—whose autobiography the book represents—has been painting the whole lot in the blackest of dyes, indulging in the grossest of dissipations and capable of the most contemptible baseness; yet once, seeing them all collected at a royal birth-day, he hits upon comparing them to the ‘courtiers’ of Napoleon—whom he has never beheld—with the result that he is ‘elated with confidence, with exultation, with pride,’ and feels satisfied that the English upper ten yet ‘loved their king, and worshipped their God,’ and, with many vices, ‘yet were the first on earth in national virtues.’ The sense of national superiority in the English public is flattered by a sweeping condemnation of everything foreign—it is clear that the glorification of Ireland must consequently be rather loose and rhapsodical—; especially are all Frenchmen and -women represented as monsters of malignity and immorality, and Voltaire and Rousseau mentioned with Puritan abhorrence. It was in vogue at that time to introduce into a ‘fashionable’ novel discussions about the leading writers of the day, and this duty is also carefully fulfilled. These passages are to be considered among the most interesting in the book, although they have no bearing upon the story proper. Among wicked writers who corrupt both taste and morals are Goethe (Werther), Godwin, and Mary Wollstonecraft. Miss Edgeworth, on the other hand, is enthusiastically lauded as the author of Belinda. It is curious to see Maturin here defy the mental parents of his own production, and make ineffectual efforts to free himself from that which has, even in the present work, too strong a hold upon him: without Rousseau and Werther the opening chapters of The Wild Irish Boy, containing a series of letters from a young lady attached to the hero in a thoroughly romantic fashion, would never have been written; whereas there is not a single page for which Miss Edgeworth would have been willing to take the responsibility. As for Godwin, he was of all the writers of the age the one who exercised the strongest influence upon Maturin’s work.—The purity of the manners and descriptions of Southey is gratefully admitted, while the literary qualities of his epics are subjected to vigorous criticism, very uncommon at the time, but agreed to by the judgment of posterity. The Anacreon of Moore, as might be expected, does not escape censure. The following passage is an example of the nonsensical style which prevails in the book; it is uttered by a boy of eighteen, who has just been cured of a desperate passion for his own mother-in-law:

I speak of him (Moore) with real sorrow: he might have done much, he has done nothing, but what I hope he will yet wish undone. — — — for the attempt to communicate what he must have felt the injuries of himself, for the attempt to add seduction to pleasure, and teach impurity a new system of sentimental logic, to add an impulse to the lapse of vitious feeling, and modulate the death dance of vice with the harmony of a lyre strung by heaven; for this—there is, there can be no excuse, even at the bar of literature; and if he carries the cause to an higher court, I doubt still more tremblingly his acquittal there.—

But the story, involved as it is, remains to be told. The book opens with a letter to one Miss Elmaide St. Clair from an old maiden aunt, who, possessing some knowledge of her niece’s character and the pernicious tendencies of the age, warns her against false sensibility and fancies too romantic. Then follow the letters of Elmaide herself, who at once informs her correspondent (not the aunt) that the admonitory epistle was received too late: she is already, and irrevocably, in the fetters of a romantic attachment to the hero, a young man, almost a boy, whose wild and dissipated habits the whole of Dublin is talking of. She is fully persuaded of the hopelessness of her case, understanding that he suffers himself to be led into such a mode of life in order to forget an unfortunate love-story of his own, the subject of which is a woman living at present somewhere in Western Ireland. That woman is widely celebrated for

fashionable folly and vice, without an equal or rival, till her reign was extended over subjects of a second generation, whose beauty triumphed over nature, and whose wit is unimpaired by time, whose sons have entered into public life, whose daughters have married, whose grand children form a numerous family already, and whose beauty is still as distant from decline as from competition.

The retirement of Lady Montrevor—such is her name—has taken place under extraordinary circumstances. Her husband, a statesman of much influence, has illegally held the title and fortunes of the earldom of Westhampton for thirty years; at last the legitimate heir, long pursued and oppressed by the usurper, has made his appearance and laid claim to his own. To the usurper naught else remained but the title of Montrevor and his Irish estates, whither his lady, who was wholly ignorant of the story, has accompanied him. Here the hero of the tale has met her and subsequently become fatally infatuated; he has then been sent to Dublin in the company of a relation who introduces to him that class of pleasure which now forms the torture of Miss St. Clair. Her correspondence ends with the intelligence that he has unexpectedly set out for the West.

Now the hero, whose name is Ormsby Bethel, rises to speak. It appears that he has returned to the neighbourhood of Dublin and lives somewhere on the coast. Miss St. Clair, happening to move near the place, hits upon the expedient of leaving anonymous letters addressed to him, in a recess amongst the rocks where he is in the habit of strolling. In these she requests him to tell her all about his life. He complies and places letters for her in the same recess.

This is mentioned in letters from the parties concerned, but at this point the story itself commences: an autobiography of the hero, written to an un-named friend, which he begins by the narrative he has written to Miss St. Clair.

His birth and childhood are involved in a deep mystery. Born in France, he has faint reminiscences of having been hurried from place to place, until, at the age of seven, he is taken to London and committed to the care of an old and wealthy couple. Here he also visits a school, where he enters into friendship with a boy called Hammond, who subsequently plays a certain part in his story. One day he hears his father mentioned and after this knows no rest; his health declines, and he is sent to a parson in Cumberland, where he pursues his studies and improves both in mind and body. His stay here is interrupted by a message from his father, who announces his desire that Ormsby is to set out for Ireland and forthwith to graduate at the University of Dublin; from his father’s letter Ormsby learns that he is illegitimate. After having spent some time in the Irish capital, he is summoned to join the family in the West. He travels there with his father’s confidential servant, a Frenchman, from whose very impious conversation he gathers that his father is a worn-out libertine. Mr. Bethel is, indeed, a wretched invalid, who is constantly tormented by the memories of pleasures he has lost the power to enjoy, and who regards his son with feelings of envy because of his youth and strength. The rest of the family consists of his daughter Sybilla, a gentle and pure-minded girl, and her gouvernante, a Miss Perceval, an atheist and admirer of French writers; one episode occurring in the family life is that Miss Perceval tries to prevent Sybilla from reading the Bible, and would even be on a fair way to succeed but for the intervention of Ormsby. Among his neighbours he finds his school-fellow Hammond, whose father, an old drunkard, owns an estate in the vicinity. The most remarkable person there, however, is an elder brother of Mr. Bethel, called De Lacy. He leads a life in the style of an ancient Irish chieftain, but, unlike most ‘Milesians’ he is rich, and Ormsby at once becomes his favourite and heir-apparent.—Upon this the Montrevors put in their appearance, and turn all the country upside down with their splendid fêtes and assemblies. Ormsby has been interested in the brilliant and unhappy Lady Montrevor even before he has seen her, and when he actually meets her he is perfectly overwhelmed by her attractions. Her husband, for his part, only expects to be called back to England as soon as his recent scandal has been forgotten and his talents and influence are required again. Meanwhile he employs his time in canvassing votes for his son, and pretends, to that end, to be intent upon proposing all sorts of reforms and improvements for Ireland. There is no love lost between him and his lady, who, in opposition to his suavity and courteousness, treats her neighbours with capricious ridicule. Among their younger children there is Miss Athanasia Montolieu, whose French gouvernante is doing her utmost to corrupt the soul of her charge with the literature of her country.—The whirl of pleasures comes soon to a tragical end as far as the Bethel family is concerned. One night Miss Perceval insists on following Ormsby and his sister to a grand entertainment given by Lord Montrevor in some public place. Ormsby is sitting with Lady Montrevor and her daughter, when a gentleman approaches and requests the ladies to allow him to escort them away from the place, the house being unfit for them, as there is a woman present who is the mistress of Mr. Bethel; she is recognized by the speaker himself and another gentleman, with whom she has formerly been on intimate terms. A violent scene ensues, and the fête is broken up. The following morning Ormsby receives a visit from a relative who confirms his worst doubts, namely, that Miss Perceval is not only the mistress of his father, but is also Ormsby’s and Sybilla’s mother. He declares that a duel seems inevitable, but that Ormsby is disgraced for ever if he takes part in it; the consequences must fall upon his father, whose age and feeble health may, perhaps, excuse him from sending a challenge. Ormsby is convinced of the justness of his argument and keeps away the whole day, but on returning he sees the thoughtlessness of his conduct. His father, greatly astonished at his absence, has been engaged in a duel, burst a blood-vessel, and now lies dying. His uncle, the old Milesian, who is also convinced that Ormsby has refused to fight a duel, has disowned him and forbidden him his presence. Miss Perceval has taken refuge in the house of the adversary in the recent duel, her former acquaintance. Upon Ormsby falls the painful duty of taking her off by main force, but, incorrigible as she is, she flees and takes with her the greater part of Sybilla’s money. Fortunately, Sybilla has been secretly married to Hammond, but as his father, too, leads a life which the son must blush for, he cannot take her to his home; he succeeds, however, in procuring her a refuge elsewhere. Ormsby, standing now alone in the world, resolves to leave the country, yet an unexpected event changes his plans.—In a solitary tower in the neighbourhood lives a mysterious person who never speaks to or visits any one except the poor, whose misery he endeavours to relieve. The night Ormsby prepares to depart he is stopped by the stranger and exhorted to save his uncle. His striking manner induces Ormsby to yield to his exhortations; he hastens to the castle of the Milesian and arrives just in time to save the old man from the hands of a murderer. Upon this a reconciliation takes place. Ormsby is again acknowledged as the heir of his uncle, and the castle becomes his home. His hopeless attachment to Lady Montrevor, however, makes him profoundly unhappy, and at length his uncle sends him to Dublin in company with the relative who gave him the ill-fated advice about the duel. In Dublin his life is what the letters of Miss St. Clair, in the beginning of the story, indicate with so much pain. His disappearance, the mention of which puts an end to her correspondence, is caused by the news that his uncle has been arrested for Ormsby’s debts. Ill as he is, he sets off on his journey in a delirious condition, is once more forgiven by the old man and sent back near the capital where, as has been told, he begins to write down his recollections to his unknown correspondent, Miss St. Clair.—In a letter to his uncle Ormsby confesses that the cause of his dejection may be traced to Montrevor-House, in answer to which the old man summons him back, informing him that he has ‘worked wonders’ in his favour. Though unable to understand the meaning hidden in his uncle’s message, Ormsby sets out for the castle of Montrevor and, on arriving there is, first of all, greeted by the Milesian who draws forward Miss Athanasia Montolieu and places her hand in Ormsby’s. It occurs to Ormsby that this, in fact, was the only rational way of interpreting his letter, but now it is too late for any explanation. He is married that very night; Lord Montrevor, whose star has re-risen in England, entertains the intention of immediately returning there with all his family. Shortly afterwards the old Milesian dies, leaving Ormsby in possession of a large fortune.—The rest of the story is mainly a fulfilment of what was promised in the preface. The company is divided between Bond-street and fashionable entertainments, most of which are held within the family-circle. Lord and Lady Montrevor have several daughters, one of whom has, strangely enough, married the present Earl of Westhampton—an uneducated man of blunt manners—whom her father has treated so infamously. The principal amusement at these entertainments, aside from questionable gallantries, are cards, at which they attempt to rob and even cheat each other. Ormsby before long gambles away every shilling of his property as well as of that of his wife, and once more he comes face to face with ruin. A depraved woman of fashion, Lady Delphina Orberry, the greatest enemy of Lady Montrevor, falls violently in love with him. Ormsby, who fortunately has become amorous of his own wife, is insensible to attentions of this character, yet Lady Orberry contrives to become his sole creditor, thus to get him, economically at least, at her mercy. Lady Montrevor, at this time, contemplates a retirement from the world altogether. She has met a man who has loved her in her youth, before she was a woman of fashion, and whom she wantonly rejected; now they discover their feelings to be unchanged. The situation, however, becomes acute in the extreme, when Lord Montrevor, who hates his wife, determines to prosecute Ormsby for adultery with her, and appearances are against them. Lady Montrevor attempts to commit suicide; Ormsby bursts into her room, and tears the laudanum from her, upon which, it is said, ‘all recollection forsakes him.’ When he regains his self-possession, all complications are quickly and wonderfully unravelled. Lady Delphina Orberry takes poison and dies, confessing to Ormsby that she had a daughter who was educated in Ireland in separation from her mother; she gives him some letters whence it appears that her name was Elmaide St. Clair. Lord Montrevor falls in a duel, his wife becoming thus free to unite herself with the lover of her youth. The dramatis personæ once more retire to Ireland, for Lady Montrevor’s lover turns out to be the identical inhabitant of the solitary tower, and, still more strange, the father of Ormsby, a third brother of De Lacy and Mr. Bethel. Miss Perceval had been his mistress shortly before she became Mr. Bethel’s, and Ormsby was believed to be the son of the latter. Ormsby’s affairs are forthwith cleared up. It appears that the often-mentioned relative, who has been his agent, has secretly hated him because of the frustration of his hopes of becoming De Lacy’s heir himself, and thus he has been trying to rob Ormsby of his property and, moreover, to seduce his wife; but so far from succeeding in his designs, he has, at last, shot himself. Athanasia now presents Ormsby with a child, and the book ends with this paradoxical sentence: ‘Let those who cannot feel my felicity, attempt to describe it.’—

From the short précis above it ought to be evident that the story is diffuse and clumsily constructed; that it contains certain good suggestions that are not made the most of, and cleverly built-up situations which lead to platitudes or are forcibly and implausibly dissolved. The cause of this, no doubt, may be traced to the manifold and contradictory considerations Maturin imagined himself to be bound to observe while writing his second book. The autobiography does not attach itself quite naturally to the correspondence that precedes it, and the intrigue, when it once commences, is continually interrupted by discussions and episodes. From the latter, however, is to be sought what interest the book is capable of arousing. The correspondence of Miss St. Clair is, in itself, an instance worthy of note. It has been admired by a critic[44] for ‘its method of pure suggestion of character without incident;’ and the character revealed is that of a heroine typically romantic.[45] Her love is soft and dreaming, made to live on sighs and tears, too platonic and ethereal even for the vicinity of its object:

But he has seen me, and has felt, as if he looked on vacancy; and it is better, much better so. I can hardly bear his sight, I could not bear his voice speaking to me; his rich and angel tones would madden me; no, I cannot woo him. I will hide myself in the solitude of pride and despair. Perhaps when he treads on my grave, he may pause, he may ask—Oh! let him not, let him not; shall I not rest in a grave?

This self-denying feeling, it is seen, has reached a degree where every positive aspiration ends. The writer is herself aware that she leaves far behind her the sentimental novels she has read:

They never loved who wished to be near what they loved. Werther talks of dancing with Charlotte, of holding her in his arms; what feelings men have! Such a time is with me, a time of fear and blindness. I love to be so far from him, that it is requisite for me to watch and devise how I may catch a glance or a tone from him. I would not be nearer if I might; a glance, a tone is enough, is too much for me.

The story of Elmaide St. Clair is given as a warning example of overwrought sensibility and its fatal consequences, and it might be supposed that this quality in her is, therefore, deliberately exaggerated. Yet that part of the book, most of all, impresses the reader with the genuineness of its conception; it is written with obvious inspiration, and there is absolutely nothing of parody about the style. It is one of the few instances where the author seems to be in perfect sympathy with his subject, and he actually excels in the very kind of composition he at the same time pretends to condemn.—Another of the better episodes is neither romantic nor ‘fashionable,’ but foreshadows Maturin’s best attainments in realistic description of ordinary life of a certain kind. Whether it was an individual trait of Maturin, or whether it belongs to the Irish temperament—few English writers have displayed so intense a horror of a narrow, monotonous existence without any sort of excitement or interest. In The Wild Irish Boy, in Women, in Melmoth, this aversion is expressed more and more powerfully each time. In the present work this feeling is given an outlet in the case of the old couple in London, with whom Ormsby is placed while a child. They have retired from business in order to pass the remainder of their days in quietness; but instead of enjoying an agreeable rest, they are seized by an intolerable tedium, and by and by their life, as it were, develops into a stagnant pool:

The morning was passed by Mr. Sampson in examining books of obsolete accounts, which he had brought with him from the city “against a rainy day,” as he said in totting up sums, whose numbers he could by that time tell blindfold, and when he had found the amount, yawning and beginning again; sometimes he strolled about the house, examined locks that did not want repairing, shook his head at the weather-glass, and projected a removal of the clock from behind the parlour door, where its ticking made him melancholy after dinner. His wife retired to her room, examined the contents of old drawers, discovered that things grew yellow by lying by, and resolved to expose them to the sun some day in the following week; at a certain hour she visited the kitchen, watched the intrusion of strange cats, and detected the turnspit in his many contrivances to escape from duty, by which she boasted, dinner was prevented from being five minutes later than the time. They dined early without appetite, and retired early without drowsiness; sometimes a walk was proposed, on the appearance of a fine morning, but then the weather-glass was examined, till the time for walking had passed away; and looking wistfully at each other, they sunk into their easy chairs, and counted how many minutes till dinner.

The great bulk of the book, as has been said, aspires to treat of modern life in higher circles, of which Maturin, at the time, knew little or nothing. The descriptions, consequently, lack all atmosphere of reality, nor does the characterization augment the value of the whole. The worst of it all is that the hero is so uninteresting, and does not in the least fulfil the expectations roused by the effusions of Elmaide St. Clair. A very self-exulting tone is generally not in keeping with an autobiographical form, yet Ormsby Bethel does nothing to suppress the eulogies lavishly bestowed on him by well-meaning people, eulogies which he certainly does not deserve. He calls himself wild, but wildness is merely an embellishing name for weakness; there is nothing in him of real, refreshing wildness, or youthful recklessness; he is always in an unnatural state of exaltation, either of virtue or repentance. A preacher of morals and defender of religion as he aspires to be in a society that cares for neither, he displays, when emergency arises, no more strength of mind than his neighbours. What is it but a deplorable weakness in a man to publish about himself the letters of Elmaide St. Clair on the pretence that they treat of a period of his life of which he ‘could not speak in the first person?’ It is very doubtful whether Ormsby Bethel ever became popular among the public of circulating libraries. That the reader cannot feel sympathy for the hero is, of course, in itself no fault in a book, but in this case it is only too evident that it is the author’s intention he should.—The wholly imaginary character of Lady Montrevor is too superlative and violently exaggerated, and her wonderful accomplishments, of mind and body, are endlessly repeated in a most extravagant language. Her daughter Athanasia is more interesting; she is one of those delicate and ethereal beings Maturin always succeeded in designing, and of which there are no two quite alike. Athanasia is, like Byron’s Aurora,

—a fair and fairy one,

Of the best class, and better than her class[46]—

and, like her, she is also in possession of a portion of common sense and strength of mind, being eventually cured of the malady under which Elmaide St. Clair breaks down. At first, indeed, her case seems desperate. She is grown up into an ‘early, and exquisite, and dangerous maturity;’ she has been educated ‘without example but of vice and folly,’ and left to form her ideas from improper literature, until she is ‘dying to be the heroine of a mad and wicked tale of a Rousseau, of a Goethe, of a Wolstonecraft.’ And to become such a heroine she imagines it necessary for her to have both a husband and a lover. Therefore she encourages the attentions of the relative of her husband, who otherwise is quite indifferent to her. Yet at the bottom of her heart there is a yearning for fidelity, honourable love and quiet happiness, and when difficulties are gathering around her husband, this yearning grows stronger and stronger. At last she understands that the duties of life differ greatly from those of romance, and in a candid and touching letter—which her husband reads while she is sleeping!—she renounces the relative for ever. Now this argumentation would be very well if the aforesaid writers actually did maintain the views ascribed to them; but it is unquestionably a very childish way of understanding them to long for a forbidden attachment even in case you happen to be united to the man you love. Considering that Athanasia has grown up in an environment so corrupt as Maturin tries to depict it, it is certainly too far-fetched to throw the blame upon Julie and Charlotte. Yet it is never explicitly stated that Athanasia has misconceived what she has read; the opinions pass as those of the author. This curious anti-romantic freak of Maturin, whatever its cause, was not of long duration: eight years later accusations of the same kind were brought against himself, in connection with his tragedy of Bertram.—Among the secondary characters in the book that of Lady Delphina Orberry has been pointed out[47] as representing ‘a type of woman rare in English fiction.’ She is introduced as a rival of Lady Montrevor and is her contrast in every respect; her weapons against that lady’s dazzling brilliancy and sparkling wit are ‘soft, seducing manners,’ a ‘timid silence,’ and ‘melting whispers.’ Behind, however, this unterrifying exterior there is a mind totally depraved, whereas the heart of Lady Montrevor is discovered to have remained uncorrupted, in spite of her position in society. Undoubtedly how Lady Orberry clings to Ormsby like something too soft for him to shake off, gently but irresistingly involving her fate with his, is well described, and how she understands to excite his compassion by representing herself as unjustly suspected of that which she most wishes, in her relation to him. But the end, again, is forced and unnatural; it is only because the hero must be got out of his difficulties that she takes poison, confesses all her crimes to him, and gives him the letters of her unhappy daughter.

Notwithstanding all that can be said against The Wild Irish Boy, it is of considerable interest in Maturin’s earlier production, when regarded as a kind of preparatory study to Women, one of his masterpieces. Many of the characters and situations present obvious similarities, and it will, therefore, be necessary later on to refer to the present work. A few words are still required to define its character as an Irish novel, one of the first where elements typically Irish are brought forward.

Anything finished or complete these Irish ingredients do not form; that Maturin longed to speak of his country but felt himself prevented by other considerations has already been pointed out. Of the attempts to treat of Ireland, her past and present, only some diffuse discussions remain here and there, without being naturally introduced into the story. The first idea of Ireland is introduced in a surprising and poetical way. During his solitary wanderings in the mountains of Cumberland, in his earliest youth, Ormsby sometimes amuses himself by imagining a people whose destinies he is to lead and whose sovereign and benefactor he is to become:

I — — — imagined them possessed of the most shining qualities that can enter into the human character, glowing with untaught affections, and luxuriant with uncultivated virtue; but proud, irritable, impetuous, indolent and superstitious; conscious of claims they knew not how to support, burning with excellencies, which, because they wanted regulation, wanted both dignity and utility; and disgraced by crimes which the moment after their commission they lamented, as a man laments the involuntary outrages of drunkenness. I imagined a people that seemed to stretch out its helpless hands, like the infant Moses from the ark, and promise its preserver to bless and dignify the species.

These fancies he discloses to the good parson, his tutor, who immediately answers that he has ‘accurately described the Irish nation.’ Shortly afterwards Ormsby is sent to Ireland. He might now be expected to come into some contact with the people of his dreams, but this material is, unfortunately, allowed to run to waste. His first stay in Dublin is occupied by a tedious discourse upon the University, and by a description of a Calvinistic set among the students, who endeavour to draw Ormsby into their circle. In Maturin’s days these passages possibly might have excited some local interest, yet to a modern reader they form a most unexhilarating digression, from the like of which all other works of Maturin are exempt. Ormsby’s second sojourn at Dublin, that which he otherwise avoids speaking of in the first person, contains a lengthy comparison between the Irish and English character. This is somewhat more to the point; but even at that time, when but little had been written about the former, observations of this kind were hardly original:

The Irish are more ardent lovers, the English better husbands. The Irishman is more exhilarating in society, the Englishman’s comforts are more domestic. One is formed to give more delight, the other more tranquil and rational happiness to life. The Irishman approaches you with facility and attaches himself to you with ardor; the Englishman it is difficult to conciliate as an acquaintance, and more difficult to obtain for a friend, but once obtained, the prize is beyond all labor.

Now and then the political state of Ireland is mentioned: ‘her depressed trade, her neglected populace, her renegade nobility, her dissipated, and careless, and unnational gentry’—but almost always in the form of a discourse, apart from the story. Events and personages throwing light upon the state of Ireland and her national character, are not allowed to speak for themselves; when the discourse is finished, the reader again finds himself in the drawing-room of Lady Montrevor. In a few instances only the descriptions present a glimpse of Irish life freed from comment. There is a dinner-party at the house of the elder Hammond, of a riotous and disorderly character, the account of which, a note informs us, is taken from real life. The other is an instance of so-called ‘paddyism,’ unique in the production of Maturin who, unlike most older Irish novelists, was not at all fond of depicting the lower classes with sympathetic humour. The night the Montrevors arrive at their castle, the tenantry are gathered to receive them, having shortened the tedium of waiting by indulging in a drop of whiskey, with the result that the approaching family are hailed with an Irish cry that frightens their horses and endangers their very lives. Their intentions were all the best, as is explained by an old man:

But as we were all tenants to this great new lord, and old followers to the family, though they never lived among us, why we all loved him as we did our eyes, though we never set them upon his face till last night. So we thought it would be but right to go out and give him a shout of joy, when he was coming to his own house, that he never was in before; and we all set out, and we were early enough to see him, for the devil a bit of him was there, and so says I to them, there’s no good at all in waiting to see a man in the dark, and we are perished standing here in the bog, with nothing to warm us but the rain and wind; and so let us step into Paddy Donnellan’s that is within a step of the gate, and take a drop of whiskey, and when we hear the carriage wheel, we’ll all come out as fresh as daisies, and give him an Irish cry that he never heard from them English spalpeens in his life.

This is one of the preludes to the innumerable scenes of Irish boisterousness and characteristic blunders, found in the pages of later writers, Carleton, Lover, Lever, and others.

The ancient glory of Ireland is touched upon in the figure of the old Milesian.[48] The type had been introduced into fiction by Miss Owenson; her story of The Wild Irish Girl is the first patriotic Irish novel of a predominantly romantic colouring, and essentially influenced, as will be seen, Maturin’s third book. It is an immature and extravagant, but not undelightful tale of an Irish chieftain, the prince of Inismore, whose ancestors, in the Cromwellian wars, lost nearly all their estates to an English soldier, the same estates still being in possession of the English soldier’s descendants. The present prince of Inismore lives in solitary retirement with his chaplain and his daughter, a beautiful, gifted and accomplished young lady, whose only ‘wildness’ is her naturalness of manners and purity of heart. The head of the English family has made several attempts at reconciliation, his advances having always been proudly rejected. Nevertheless both he and his son visit the prince without revealing their identity, at the same time also concealing their respective visits from each other; both succeed in securing the friendship of the old man, and both fall in love with his daughter. A tragedy is avoided by the father voluntarily retiring and leaving to his son the girl and all his Irish estates. This intrigue, however, is merely a setting for the real tendency of the story, which is to make Ireland known. The colloquies held at Castle Inismore form the principal part of the book; they treat exclusively of the past of Ireland and are furnished with notes and quotations from Walker, Ware, Young, and other historians, all tending to prove the oriental descent and great antiquity of the Milesian race, its attachment to poetry and music, as well as its other noble qualities and high standard of civilization at a very early period.

In spite of its promising title, Maturin’s second book contains no loans from The Wild Irish Girl except the venerable Milesian with his inevitable chapelain de maison, and even this figure has undergone a change. De Lacy is a rich man who has travelled much in foreign parts and is, in every way, more modern and less romantic than the prince of Inismore. The latter always appears in a dress ‘strictly conformable to the ancient costume of the Irish nobles;’ De Lacy wears ‘the English habit of fifty years ago,’ with only an Irish cloak to remind one of his nationality. But their notions of their race and their country are the same, De Lacy also assuring us that ‘he who shakes my belief in the antiquity of my country, must first shake my belief in the beatitude of the immaculate Virgin Mary.’

The Wild Irish Boy appears to have met with the very fate Maturin had hoped to avoid by trying to please all: it attracted but little attention, or, if the statement of a writer[49] is to be relied upon, that the book was ‘admired, talked of, praised,’ the attention probably was confined to the literary circles of Dublin. In dedicating his third book to the ‘Quarterly Reviewers’ Maturin says that they had been pleased to notice his romance of Montorio, but there are no indications of his second book having been subject to public review. As a means of brightening the economic outlook of its author, The Wild Irish Boy failed completely; it was, like Montorio, published at his own risk, and the success was not distinct enough to induce any publisher to purchase the copyright. Discouraged from an immediate renewal of the attempt, Maturin, for four years to come, devoted his leisure hours exclusively to some less precarious occupation, which, in all probability, consisted in the enlargement of and still closer attention to his boarding-school. What support he might hitherto have had from his father now also ceased, for about 1810 Maturin senior was dismissed from his situation. One biographer,[50] alluding to this deplorable event, says that Charles Robert was ‘roused to poetry by disappointment,’ which would antedate the event in question by about 5 years. There seems, however, to be more reason to believe Alaric Watts, who, writing in 1819, states that William Maturin was dismissed after a service of 47 years, adding the following particulars: ‘The day of his dismissal he was pennyless: it is singular, that though the commissioners of inquiry, who sat repeatedly on the business pronounced this unfortunate gentleman wholly innocent of the charge (of fraud) brought against him, he has been suffered to linger for nine years since, without redress, without relief, and without notice.’ Whether this be correct or not, there is no further intelligence about Mr. William Maturin; but in any case his last years must have cast a gloom over all the family, and exercised a further pressure upon the toiling life of his son.——

In 1810 appeared Scott’s critique on Montorio, ending with this passage:

If the author — — — be indeed, as he describes himself, young and inexperienced, without literary friend or counsellor, we earnestly exhort him to seek one on whose taste and judgment he may rely. He is now, like an untutored colt, wasting his best vigour in irregular efforts without either grace or object; but there is much of these volumes which promises a career that may at some future time astonish the public.

As Maturin had, somehow or other, come to know who this friendly reviewer was, he availed himself of the opportunity to write to Scott and solicit him to become his literary friend and counsellor. This gave rise to an intimate, lifelong correspondence, during the course of which Scott faithfully assisted the poor Irishman with good advice and, sometimes, even in a more substantial way. His epistolary intimacy with the great novelist Maturin always counted among his greatest distinctions, and although the two men never met, their friendship continued warm and sincere until Maturin’s death.[51]

There are no more details available with regard to Maturin’s life at that period, but he was undoubtedly successful in his vocation as a teacher, for when he again turned to literature, he did so in rather a hopeful state of mind. His biographer[52] says that when Maturin was writing The Milesian Chief—which was published in the beginning of 1812—his genius was ‘elastic and ardent, his knowledge of composition improved with the errors of his former works before him, and an increasing desire to do something worthy of fame: he was at the age and under the circumstances that are calculated to improve and correct the taste.’ Colburn paid 80 pounds for the copyright, which was the first success of this kind Maturin had ever experienced; and full of confidence he finishes his preface—in which he does not care to enlarge upon his second book—:

In my first work I attempted to explore the ground forbidden to man; the sources of visionary terror; the “formless and the void”: in my present I have tried the equally obscure recesses of the human heart. If I fail in both, I shall—write again.

The preface is in the form of a dedication to the Quarterly Reviewers, whom Maturin accuses of writing reviews merely to make a display of their own cleverness and neglecting to speak of the works they are to judge:

Seriously I read the Reviews for information, and information I could get none—about myself. All I learned was that I was a bad writer, but why, or how, or in what manner I was to become better, they graciously left to myself.

The tone is throughout very different from that of the preface to The Wild Irish Boy; herein speaks the artist to whom a literary reputation is by no means indifferent. Here also is found the much-quoted sentence where Maturin defines his characteristic powers:

If I possess any talent, it is that of darkening the gloomy, and of deepening the sad; of painting life in extremes, and representing those struggles of passion when the soul trembles on the verge of the unlawful and the unhallowed.

Of the work now at hand Maturin adds:

In the following pages I have tried to apply these powers to the scenes of actual life: and I have chosen my own country for the scene, because I believe it the only country on earth, where, from the strange existing opposition of religion, politics, and manners, the extremes of refinement and barbarism are united, and the most wild and incredible situations of romantic story are hourly passing before modern eyes.

All this material is, very likely, not attended to in The Milesian Chief, yet it is certainly by far the noblest of Maturin’s three earlier romances.—

The Milesian Chief is Connal O’Morven, a young man of an ancient and formerly potent Irish family, now reduced to extreme poverty. Their castle and estates have been sold to an Englishman, Lord Montclare, and Connal lives with his aged and insane grandfather in a ruined watch-tower, subsisting chiefly on memories of bygone glory. The old man, in his frantic rage against England, conceives a plan of insurrection, for the liberation of Ireland; and Connal, young and inexperienced as he is, engages himself to be the leader of it. In the meantime Miss Armida Fitzalban, the daughter of Lord Montclare, whose beauty and talents have struck all Europe with amazement, arrives at the castle, and a violent passion flames up between her and Connal. Fully comprehending the impossibility of success in his enterprise, Connal is determined to dissolve the conspiracy, but the treacherous conduct of Armida’s unsuccessful lover, an English officer called Wandesford, who happens to get wind of the plan, compels him to take up arms. Armida renounces everything and follows Connal and his band to a remote island on the Atlantic coast. The government troops, however, track them even there, and as the cause of the rebels is hopeless, Armida is conducted back to her home. Becoming now a prey to the machinations of an unnatural mother, she ends her days by taking poison; Connal surrenders himself to the government and is sentenced to death.

By the side of this love-story there is another, equally unhappy, but bizarre rather than gloomy, curious rather than grand: of Connal’s younger brother Desmond, and Armida’s younger sister Ines. The last-named, for family reasons, is, by her mother, given out as a boy; and being very young and innocent she never suspects her sex but imagines herself to love Desmond as brother loves brother. At last the secret is revealed and they are married for a short time, but subsequently Ines is also implicated in the schemes of her mother, and dies of a broken heart in a state of insanity.

The destinies of these four people form the contents of the book. It is a record of human passions which are incalculable from the external basis upon which the incidents take place, and the interest is absorbed by the sufferings and inner conflicts of a few figures powerfully domineering at the expense of the milieu. This is, indeed, the case with all Maturin’s Irish stories; a dissection of the social state of Ireland, with a comprehensive view of the different classes, something in the style of Gerald Griffin’s well-known tale of The Collegians (1828), it would hardly have been within his capacity to create. In The Milesian Chief the political state of the country and the insurrection, instead of being the main subject of the story, form but a background to the personal tragedy of Connal O’Morven, which becomes only the more poignant as he fights for a cause in which he does not believe. He is the first to comprehend that it is ‘impossible for Ireland to subsist as an independent country,’ and the masses he has at his disposal are in no way calculated to heighten his confidence. The Milesian spirit so highly admired Maturin finds only in a few surviving descendants of the noblest families; his ideas of the people are tinged with the somewhat aristocratic notion which makes one of the distinctions between the typical 19th century romanticism and its pioneers in the preceding one. In some of his sermons Maturin clearly expresses his opinions on this point:

It is an absurd and mischievous prejudice that supposes the existence of vice confined to the higher classes of life, and virtue (as they call it) the everlasting inhabitant of a cottage—it is a prejudice originating in utter ignorance of life, cherished by the silly illusions of pastoral poetry, and inflamed by the wild and wicked ravings of political enthusiasts, without any reason in nature and in life.

This, it must be added, Maturin does not find to be entirely the fault of the people:

The root of the wretchedness of the lower orders of this country is in their depravity, and the root of their depravity is for the most part in their ignorance; they are wicked because they are uncultivated, and they are uncultivated because they have been shamefully, abominably neglected; more neglected than the people of any civilized country under heaven.

But much ‘sinned against’ as the lower classes are, in the opinion of the clergyman, to the romantic they remain unattractive; and here is the basis of the fact that the Irish peasantry occupies, upon the whole, so inconspicuous a place in Maturin’s production, and never—except in the opening chapters of Melmoth—gives him the inspiration to his most interesting work. On the other hand his treatment of the subject is never undignified; if he has not created anything like the dark and impressive pictures of Irish rebels and outlaws found, say, in the pages of John Banim, neither does he give way to the popular habit of representing the Irish peasant as a cross between a fool and a jester, which idea was so keenly resented in the Irish literary circles in the fifties.[53]

Yet The Milesian Chief must be considered, in a way, a national tale, and it is even extremely characteristic as such; the plot, in its roughest outlines, is the identical one used by Irish novelists up to this day with a persistence which cannot escape any student of Anglo-Irish literature. These rough outlines are as follows. A person of eminence arrives in Ireland; he (or she) possesses every qualification for a rich and interesting life, yet nothing noteworthy has ever happened to him, and he is full of spleen until, once there, he is dragged into a whirl of undreamt-of adventures; his former habits, prejudices and ways of thinking suddenly give way to an all-absorbing passion, which irresistibly hurries him towards bliss or destruction, as the case may be. In the predilection of Irish novelists for an intrigue of this description there is something more than a natural partiality to a theme which aptly lends itself to literary aims; it is the revenge of a subdued and oppressed country upon her masters. In the field of fiction the conquered becomes the conqueror, and the first come in as the last. Connal O’Morven, unreal and idealized though he be, is the embodiment of all that is great and proud in the Milesian spirit, which spirit here subjugates the most brilliant representative of the happier race. This, again, does not hinder Armida’s infatuation from being quite individual in character, limited only to the person of Connal. His princely ancestry of which he is so proud, the ancient glory of Ireland, her poetry and music, are all indifferent to her, and Irish scenery, in all its grandeur, only makes her sigh for the sunny regions she has quitted. As Connal is persuaded that he could never be happy out of Ireland, their love is born under most unpromising auspices, and its tragic issue is necessitated by the circumstance of their having nothing in common.—

Armida and Connal—and Wandesford, too—are all nearly related. This fact is made no mystery of, but plainly communicated to Armida by her father, on their way to Ireland. At the time of the ruin of the Irish family, and upon the estates forthwith becoming the property of Lord Montclare, his sister has married Mr. Randal O’Morven, son of the old Milesian. The latter has never forgiven his son, any more than Lord Montclare has forgiven his sister; but shortly before her death Mrs O’Morven has written to her brother and disclosed the extreme misery of their condition. Lord Montclare has, consequently, appointed her husband to be his land-steward, and offered her sons commissions in the army. The younger, Desmond, has accepted the offer, while Connal prefers to starve with his grandfather.

The family has, it is true, been shrouded in a real mystery, but this also is shortly afterwards revealed by Lord Montclare, when lying at death’s door to which he is brought by the unexpected arrival in Ireland of the rest of the family, whose existence Armida has been wholly ignorant of. Her father has, long ago, contracted a marriage, having in view the sole purpose of excluding the O’Morvens from the property, by begetting a son. Armida, however, is the only child remaining alive, whereupon Lord Montclare, exasperated by his misfortunes, confines his wife in an obscure place and spreads the report of her death; this is done with the assistance of an Italian monk called Morosini, who subsequently turns out to be in the service of two masters. Before Lord Montclare has time to form another connection, his lady is delivered of a son. Under the circumstances he cannot acknowledge his heir without acknowledging his imposture, and threatened and persecuted by Morosini he flees from land to land, too feeble in courage to reveal the secret. Wandesford—who is the son of his younger sister—is the only person acquainted with the actual facts of the case, and therefore Lord Montclare eagerly presses Armida to accept his proposal. At last he is determined to give the matter publicity in Ireland, for the consolatory reason that in this country ‘the judgment of his character was indifferent to him from his contempt for its inhabitants.’ Before, however, he has accomplished his purpose, his death is caused by the sudden arrival of his family, who make their appearance at Castle Montclare, attended by Morosini and Desmond O’Morven. Desmond has come from Italy by the same boat as Lady Montclare, and has had an opportunity of saving her son from drowning, after which a very tender friendship has sprung up between the two.—

The commencement of the story in Ireland is preceded by two prologues, representing ‘Armida in Italy’ and ‘Armida in England.’ The first describes a banquet given by Lord Montclare at Naples, where Wandesford also makes his appearance. Armida has, for the occasion, arranged some tableaux in which her manifold accomplishments are dazzlingly displayed. In one of these the scene

represented the garden of an oriental palace: the sides filled with flowers, whose lofty and luxuriant clusters seemed to rise above the height of the apartment, and whose deep and sunny hues were softened by the magic diffusion of the lights; and the perspective terminated in an arch, beyond which was caught a view of the ruins of Persepolis. — — — Armida advanced on the stage alone: she was in the oriental dress, and she had an instrument in her hand resembling the lute. Wandesford gazed with astonishment: the pale, slight, simply clad girl he had lately seen was transformed into the most brilliant female in the world. The colour which applause brought to her cheek mantled richly through the tinge of rouge she had put on to conceal the effects of her exertions. — — The torrent of sound that she now poured forth, the height to which she soared, the rapidity with which she traversed intervals that connected the widest extremes of human voice, the precision with which she marked their minutest subdivisions, and, above all, the ease of attitude and expression which she preserved amid her exertions, like a skilful charioteer, who commands and enjoys the flight of his coursers, whilst their speed terrifies the spectators, filled the Italians with a sensation which applause could neither express nor exhaust.

There is, it will be observed, no stint of powerful attributes, the marvels of Armida leading directly back to Lady Montrevor in The Wild Irish Boy. Yet the descriptions here are somewhat softened, and the style is free from the extravagances of Maturin’s second book; Armida, somehow, seems more fit for a heroine of this extraordinary kind. Her cousin Wandesford, though a cold and selfish character, is so enraptured by her performance that he declares himself on the spot. Armida decidedly rejects his attentions, and on the following morning when he calls on her again, he is informed that Lord Montclare and his daughter have departed from Italy without any intentions of ever returning.

The second prologue represents Armida in London society, of which Maturin draws an amusing and curious picture. Here she is incapable of creating any sensation:

But what was the astonishment, the horror, of the beautiful, intelligent, and ambitious foreigner, on her first introduction to fashionable life in London: lost amid a crowd where beauty could not be distinguished; stunned by a buz of nothings, where mind could not be displayed; elbowed by rouged, naked, dashing dowagers; suffered to stand unnoticed or eyed through a glass by yawning, lounging bucks of ton; sinking amid the crowd, to be permitted to help herself to refreshments, or to want them; to be without conversation, though a mistress of half the dead and living languages, from her ignorance of fashionable jargon; to walk down a set with a partner who appeared to be debating whether it would not be high ton to drop asleep during the exercise—what a reception for a woman who had seen at her feet Italy and France contending to scatter the laurels of fame and the roses of pleasure.

Wandesford reappears, and Armida, in her desolation, receives his attentions with something akin to gratitude. He renews his proposal, which is eagerly embraced by Lord Montclare. Harassed on all sides Armida at last complies and gives Wandesford her word; upon this she is hurried off to Ireland, where Wandesford is shortly to follow them.—

These two chapters are a clever preliminary to the thrilling adventures Armida is going forth to meet, besides giving a good idea of her character and circumstances. In spite of her brilliant position in society she feels lonely and unhappy in her restless life, where in everything she is subjected to the caprices of her father. Her only pleasure is the gratification of her pride through the admiration she excites with her talents; but in England her pride also gets a severe blow. She feels utterly humiliated and is, as it were, prepared to meet what she will be forced to surrender to. In a state of dejection she accepts the proposal of Wandesford, who is less than indifferent to her, nor is her future brightened by her father’s determination to set out for Ireland, which determination she cannot imagine to be anything but a fit of his incurable melancholy. She shudders to think of the country she is taken to, and travels on almost in apathy. Much ‘fury’—of which there is quite enough already—is spared by her not entering the scene of action immediately from the highest pinnacles of glory and triumph; and the deeper and truer side of her character is naturally developed in sorrow and desolation, which her father’s death increases to the uttermost. Her new-found relations cannot compensate for the loss. Lady Montclare, though always wearing a mask of unvarying suavity, inspires not the least confidence in her daughter, and her young son, Endymion, is so closely watched by her and Morosini, that it is impossible for Armida to approach him. Thus she is inevitably drawn to Connal O’Morven, who comes like an incarnation of his wild country, grand and solitary, distinct from anything she has ever seen or dreamt of, while at the same time the boundless devotion he offers her recalls by-gone, brighter days to her mind. Being thus mentally prepared for their fate, they are thrown together by external events with rather unnecessary violence: in the first dawn of their acquaintance Connal finds an opportunity of saving Armida’s life—at the risk of his own—three different times. Upon her first arrival to the castle her horses are terrified and rear staggering backwards on to the rock, and she would be lost did not Connal rush to the scene of imminent danger and snatch her from the carriage. The following day she walks out to the shore and sits down on a rock. Lost in meditations she fails to observe the tide coming on before it has cut off her return; again she would perish but for Connal, who happens to be close at hand. And a few days later, when Wandesford, too, has arrived, he and Armida and Connal visit a small islet to look at some Celtic antiquities. In the meantime a dreadful storm breaks out, and only by exerting his superhuman strength to the utmost Connal succeeds in rowing them back sufficiently near the shore to be rescued when the boat capsizes. In all this, however, there is a kind of inner veracity which saves any of the passages from becoming merely melodramatic. The delineation especially of Armida, who is not (like Connal) raised above human weaknesses, is skilfully represented, and the descriptions of her mental struggles are both psychologically, as well as poetically, true. In Ireland everything is so different from what she is accustomed to, and her relation particularly to Connal is so uncomfortable, that all her experience of the great world is unable to guide her upon her first encounters with him. When Connal rescues her from the waves of the tide, Armida, in her confusion, offers him her purse. The manner in which this ill-chosen retribution is rejected she imagines to imply contempt of her person. This is a possibility that has never before entered her mind; and though it makes her shed tears of resentment, she is unable to answer with the same feeling by dismissing him from her recollection; in order to rid herself from thoughts of Connal, she sits down to—write to Wandesford.

Wandesford himself arrives before he is expected, and is received by Lady Montclare with joyful attention, but with very marked indifference by Armida. She has contracted the habit of frequently strolling on the shore, attended by a newly-acquired friend, Rosine St. Austin. Here she meets Connal, and their acquaintance is quickly developed. He sings Irish songs to her and is, on the whole, quite at his ease, taking no pains to conceal his admiration for her, as he fully comprehends from first that his love is hopeless. But Armida, too, is in love, though her feeling, to begin with, asserts itself as a desire to dazzle him by the display of her accomplishments, for which purpose she invites him to the castle; or as what she imagines to be hatred, when he refuses, being disinclined to enter, as a stranger, the abode of his forefathers. He comes, however, and appears to be the only person capable of understanding Armida and appreciating her talents according to their merits. Their intimacy grows stronger every moment. Then follows the excursion to the islet, to which much piquancy is added by the presence of Wandesford, who is well aware that he has acquired a formidable rival; the storm under which Connal is exerting his strength to save Armida and at the same time his enemy, is very dramatically depicted. Being at last beyond all danger, Connal, wildly happy to have Armida in his arms and pressed to his heart, insists on carrying her so all the way to the castle:

Her wet hair had fallen back from her cheek: he touched it with his lips: she sighed: his hyacinth breath, warm with life and passion, passing over her cheek was balmy to her returning senses: she seemed to see him in a dream. Her arm that hung on his shoulder now half-extended itself, and sunk again; the soft fingers, with a tremulous motion, touched his neck: he felt every nerve in his body shiver: the anguish of passion increased with its hopeless fondness: he held her to his breast in sweet and bitter ecstacy; he felt her too precious to be possessed, or to be resigned; he felt that he could clasp her to his heart with desperate love, and then spring with her from the rock he was climbing.

Half-conscious as she is, the attitude touches a latent chord in Armida’s bosom, which makes her understand her own feelings; that same night her passion becomes clear to her. Yet there is still another experience in store for her, as novel as it is startling: the suspicion of a rival. The next time she goes to the shore, Connal appears in the door of a solitary hut which he, with some embarrassment, confesses that he often visits. Approaching it, Armida sees through the open door a beautiful woman with an infant in her lap. After this episode all the pangs of jealousy are roused to life, and sometimes take a very frenetic mode of expression. An explanation, however, is soon given by the woman herself, who accosts Armida and Rosine on one of their walks and tells them the story of her life. The father of her child is Wandesford, by whom she has been seduced during one of his former stays in Ireland, whereupon he has taken her with him to England and there abandoned her; under much suffering she has returned to Ireland, and would have perished but for the assistance of Connal, who is the only one that has taken pity on her fate. She is, and has always been, desperately in love with Connal, but as she understands that he adores Armida, she wishes to clear his character before her. Armida is calmed, and when she next meets Connal she is triumphant and impossible to resist. He is forced to throw himself at her feet, but remembers the conspiracy he is engaged in, and darkly hints that they must part for ever.—

The progress of Armida’s mind to the point of an all-absorbing passion is described with a consistency and a flexibility that gives the first remarkable proof of Maturin’s deep insight into feminine psychology. The characterization of Connal is much more schablonenmässig: he simply possesses every mental and bodily perfection. Nevertheless there are some good observations upon his character, which tend to naturalness rather than to eulogy. His inexperience of life and society, an effect of his solitary existence in which he has thought more than he has seen, is distinctly presented. Thus his high-sounding theories are sometimes dispersed by Armida’s charms and his own feelings. Once she asks him to come to a fête given by a lady in the neighbourhood. He first refuses to visit a house where, he says, his grandfather has been insulted; and when Armida resents his disobedience he assures her that ‘to a Milesian the sacrifice of his life is trivial to the sacrifice of his pride.’ All the same he makes his appearance at the feast, the description of which is one of the finest things in the book. Armida has been, all the evening, in a state of weariness and absent-mindedness that greatly enrages Wandesford. Through his carelessness a part of her drapery is torn in a dance, and she retires to repair it in the room of Lady Gabriella, the granddaughter of their hostess. Here she is joined by Connal, who has been wandering round the gardens in hope of catching a glimpse of her. Hitherto they have met mostly under circumstances endangering their lives, or else amid wildness and desolation; but now they are brought together in surroundings inviting them to happiness and joy. Armida confesses to Connal that his feelings are reciprocated, and they succeed in becoming oblivious to all but the present moment. Their interview being interrupted she asks him to accompany her, and he instantly obeys:

But what a different figure entered the ball-room from that which had quitted it—glowing, brilliant, her features sparkling with the tremulous, with the gem-like lustre of hope and passion; her form almost too bright and light for any element but air to support or to convey; her very vestments seemed to undergo a change like the Cameleon from the air she respired; and her whole figure realized the fable of the statue converted into woman by the charm of love. No longer shrinking into obscurity, she accepted the trembling hand that Connal offered, and when they joined the set, they scarce seemed beings of the same species with those who surrounded them.

When the dance began, all the other performers paused almost involuntarily. Envy was stifled by resistless admiration, and even applause by wonder. The perfection of their figures, the ease, lightness, and enjouement of their movements, the exquisite modulation of their attitudes, that seemed to form a kind of visible music, gave to the spectators the idea of two descended genii mixing in the festivity. The light movements of Connal scarce disturbed a ringlet of the glossy hair that fell on his white neck: and as Armida’s nymph-like form glided among the dancers, it appeared like a star sometimes passing through the clouds, sometimes sparkling as it emerged from them: all gazed with delight, but the anxious Rosine (who could as little account for Connal’s appearance as for Armida’s sudden re-animation) and the disappointed Gabriella.

The pressure of company towards the door announced the approach of supper, and Connal, ignorant of the modern custom of the young, hurrying down to secure the best accommodations, waited with the reverence of other days, till every female had quitted the apartment. The supper-room was completely filled when he entered, but Lady Gabriella eagerly displacing those near her, offered him a seat next herself, but Connal slightly bowing, placed himself at the back of Armida’s chair, and intoxicated with his situation, forgot alike the luxuries of the feast and the gaze of strangers.

Never had they appeared to each other so resistless: that rose-coloured light which a brilliant entertainment diffuses on every object was more congenial to the voluptuous splendour of Armida’s beauty than the gloom of rocks, or the paleness of moonlight: and Armida, who amidst all her passion revolted from the chill and stern character of Connal, his apathy of life, and his contempt of luxury, now amid scenes that renewed her former existence saw him all she wished, and like the sun-flower expanded in his unclouded rays.

This, indeed, is the only time the sun shines upon them. The fête does not pass off without ominous collisions between Connal and Wandesford, and Lady Montclare, anxious for many reasons, hastens to take leave of the party. Having arrived home Armida again goes to meet Connal on the rocks. He dare not speak of the conspiration, but gives her to understand that he is compelled to leave Ireland to seek his sustenance. Armida, with tears, implores him to take her with him. All her pride is vanished; henceforth she is only a woman who loves. A hope springs to life in Connal, but this night the fatal event takes place which frustrates all his chances—it is told by Connal to Armida long afterwards, but may, for the sake of elucidation, be mentioned now. Inspired by Armida’s love Connal determines to dissolve the conspiracy. He seeks out his men, who are assembled in a cave, adjures them to surrender themselves to the mercy of the government and make him their hostage, if need be. They listen with conviction, when Wandesford, who has traced Connal’s footsteps from the castle, suddenly appears in their midst. The men are on the point of killing him, but Connal saves his life and appeals to him to intercede for them with the government, which Wandesford promises on his word of honour to do.—When Armida, however, on the following morning solemnly rejects him—on account of the story of the woman in the hut—Wandesford breaks his word without a scruple. He disappears for some days to prepare for his plan. This interval is filled by a very romantic description of an old Irish harper, who has remained faithful to the house of O’Morven. Connal takes Armida to see him, but he terrifies them both with prophecies of death and woe. And the following night, when they are together on the heath, the tower where Connal lives with his grandfather, is suddenly seen bursting into flames and besieged by soldiers, who are sent to suppress the intended rebellion. From this moment Connal is forced to appear in the character of a leader of rebels. He succeeds in retiring with his band into an inaccessible place in the mountains, whence reports of his miraculous valour soon reach Castle Montclare. Armida, having never taken any interest in Irish politics, has great difficulty in grasping what has happened. All the same she would be ready to follow Connal under any circumstances, but one day the news is spread that he has enticed Lady Gabriella to accompany him into his retreat. In reality this warm-blooded young lady, who has taken a fancy to the interesting Milesian, has followed him of her own accord, and Connal immediately restores her to her grandmother. Armida, however, finds no reason to doubt the news, and thus once more becomes a prey to unfounded suspicions. Besides being repetition, this means of bringing the plot forward is not very brilliant; but the emotions of Armida are again admirably analyzed. This time there is no outburst of pride or indignation, only silent despair. She walks out on the darkening heath, followed by Rosine, and hurries onward without aim or purpose, until they sink down exhausted and presently recognize, without being seen, two figures passing by them: Connal, conducting Gabriella back to her home. Having now lost all interest in life, Armida re-engages herself to Wandesford. His treatment of her continues to be very unchivalrous, as she does not conceal that her heart cannot be his; it is, however, determined that they are to proceed to England directly and get married there, Armida still being attended by Rosine. Their journey is soon impeded by a snowstorm, and they fall into the hands of the rebels. Wandesford is dragged away, but Connal, who is under the impression that Armida is already married to him, once more saves his life, enabling him to proceed alone to the nearest town. Connal then undertakes to conduct Armida back to Castle Montclare; before long he understands that she is not the wife of Wandesford, and she, on her part, learns the truth about Gabriella. After scenes of great passion their final resolution is impressively told in a few words, sounding, as it were, like the bang of a heavy gate:

The distracted Connal, kneeling before her, implored for a word, a look of life. “I can no longer see you,” said Armida, sinking from his arms to the ground; “and though I stretch out my hands, they wander about, without being able to reach you.”

“God! this is too much for man. Armida! answer!—Will you be mine? I speak in despair; I have nothing to offer or to promise: will you be the companion of a rebel, in a desert, amid war, and want, and danger?”

Armida, with an impulse like fate, threw herself into his arms. He clasped her to his heart. — —

There follows now a pause in the narrative, as Connal tells Armida the story of his life, his engagement in the rebellion, and the treachery of Wandesford. Upon this they are obliged to set out for the coast of the Atlantic, and at this period even Rosine is compelled to leave them. After a march through a country devastated by the ravages of famine and rape, enduring intolerable hardships and continual attacks from the troops of the government, they finally reach the isles, where a solitary hut with a bed of rushes becomes the dwelling of Armida for a long time to come. Ireland has taken her revenge; the proud and brilliant being at whose feet Europe has lain prostrate, is changed into a silent and self-sacrificing woman, deprived of all qualifications ever to re-assume her place in society. This trait is a remarkable one in the romantic fiction of the time, where the freshness and buoyancy of a heroine are usually not in the least affected by perilous adventures and privations ever so hard.

The story of Desmond and Endymion is more eccentric and presents a curious mixture of passion and fantastic gracefulness. It has already been said that Endymion, in reality, is a girl, though her mother, who covets the estates of Montclare, endeavours to conceal her sex. From the moment Desmond has clasped her to his heart, in saving her life, Endymion is absorbed by a feeling for him, the nature of which she does not comprehend. She plainly avows her love to Desmond, whom she imagines herself to regard in the light of an elder brother; he fully shares her sentiments, but, dreading their apparently unnatural tendency, tries, though without success, to avoid her presence:

— — — — — “Oh that sensation,” cried Endymion, “how often I feel it in your presence: at some moments, at the present, it almost deprives me of breath, of sense: it is a delight that makes me sick and giddy: the Italians before an earthquake, have a sensation for which there is no name; such is the sensation I feel in your presence, that I could throw myself into your arms and weep, if you would let me.”

“Stop, stop,” said Desmond, “talk this language no more: if the sight of each other be thus intoxicating, thus ruinous, let us part, and see each other no more.”

Endymion wept.

“Oh torture me no more with this fantastic fondness,” said Desmond, “so unlike what we ought to feel for each other: this female fastidiousness I cannot bear. I wish to love you like a younger brother; you treat me with the caprice of a mistress. Endymion, I cannot endure this. Never did I feel before these wild, these maddening sensations. I know not what you have done with me; what strange influence you have obtained over me, but it is an influence that I must fly from to preserve my reason, my life.”

“Oh! do not, do not talk of going,” said Endymion, ringing his hands in agony. “Am I so lost that I cannot love or be loved without being guilty: is my affection a crime, or a curse—why must I not love you? It is so sad, none can envy me; none shall ever see me.” She whispered, “If you will sometimes let me twine those bright ringlets on my fingers, or gaze on you, when your eye is averted from me, or touch your hand when it is unconsciously suspended near me—and is that too much; can you refuse me that?”

“I can refuse you nothing, and therefore I must fly from you. I tried, but I cannot love you as a man: I know what it is to love a brother well; for Connal I would die, but for you, Endymion, I would live: live, in you, for you, in your sight: dream life away in voluptuous and frantic melancholy: the feelings that oppress, that soften, that sicken me, even now while I speak to you I cannot describe them; I must not feel them; no, not another moment. Oh! untwine those arms from me; you are making me wild; my blood burns like fire in my veins: do not believe these hot tears that drop on your hands: they are tears of hatred,—hatred of myself and you” — — —

The appearance, in the literature of all times, of a young female in male attire is, as a rule, connected with the gay and humorous—it is enough to call to mind Shakespeare’s comedies—or else it is used as a pretty and sentimental expedient finally leading to a happy result, as in Cymbeline, in certain episodes in Don Quixote, in the Monastery of Scott and the Albigenses of Maturin. The figure is not often taken very seriously, and the disguise still more seldom leads to conflicts of a tragical import. Of famous literary characters of the last-mentioned description, Goethe’s Mignon is slightly recalled by Endymion,[54] while the peculiar circumstances appertaining to the concealment of Endymion’s sex render her case well-nigh exceptional in fiction. The topic is delicate enough and its treatment difficult to the extreme. The tone might easily get a tinge of the ridiculous, or even of the coarse, yet here it does neither; Maturin’s singular skill and delicacy in depicting those young, pale and ethereal beings that unite precocity and purity, timidity and passion, by no means denies itself in the creation of Endymion.—Desmond, as a character, is more successful than Connal, if only as being less faultless. He is brave and high-minded like his brother, but at the same time light-headed and choleric; he is said to have been ‘famous for rural gallantry,’ and is not insensible to refined gallantry either. Shortly before the disastrous events narrated above take place, he learns the fact of Endymion’s being a woman from the old harper, who has overheard a conversation between Lady Montclare and the monk Morosini. About the same time he receives a note inviting him to a nightly rendez-vous. He takes it to come from Endymion, and, in spite of the serious admonitions of Connal, whom he makes his confidant, he goes to the meeting-place; but to his astonishment he finds that the writer of the billet is not Endymion, but her mother. Shocked and disgusted he leaves the castle, being thus absent when the rebellion breaks out. In the meantime he is thrown into the arms of Lady Gabriella. Having been rejected by Connal, she seeks consolation with the younger brother; Desmond, passionate and disappointed as he is, surrenders himself to her charms, and they disappear together for a long time.—In the meanwhile Connal leaves his island and undertakes an adventurous journey to Dublin, having heard that an eminent person there would be willing to intercede for him with the government. By accident he enters a theatre, where he sees his brother with Gabriella, and from a conversation near him he gathers that their life is considered to be a perfect scandal. He seeks out Desmond and persuades him to re-join his regiment, which is in the vicinity of Castle Montclare. The brothers part, Desmond being still entirely ignorant of Connal’s participation in the rebellion. Desmond travels back to the castle, where his position becomes very painful. Lady Montclare is about to contract a marriage with his father the agent, who is wholly unlike his sons. As for Endymion, she continues to be a victim of the shameful imposture and is, moreover, surrounded by dangers threatening both her life and her reason. Her love for Desmond is more conspicuous than ever; one night he finds her in the chapel where she is doing penance which Morosini has imposed on her for permitting her thoughts to dwell too much on Desmond. As the monk is often present during these penances, and she confesses that he talks to her in a way she does not understand, Desmond concludes that his motives for staying alone with the slightly-clad girl are not purely ecclesiastic. Indignant and despairing, but at a loss how to treat her, Desmond withdraws from the scene. The decisive moment, however, comes that very night; as in the case of Armida and Connal, it is told in a few simple sentences. Desmond is roused from his slumbers by hearing Endymion sobbing at his door and imploring him to open it. At last he yields to the entreaties:

“Desmond!” she cried, starting at his altered looks, though she could not understand their expression, “Desmond! the wildness of your eyes terrifies me: I feel there is danger, though I cannot comprehend it. How your hand burns! how you tremble! Are you afraid?”

“I am, I am,” said the panting Desmond.

“And what is it we fear? I have seen you sit beside your brother; I have seen you lean on his arm; I have seen your hand locked in his.”

“Yes, yes, you have, and would it were locked in his now, instead of yours.”

“And why can you not caress me like a brother?”

“Because a woman cannot be my brother,” said Desmond, distractedly.

At these words Endymion started from his arms, and with a scream of horror flew towards her own apartment; and Desmond, terrified at the consequences of his own imprudence, pursuing her, kneeled at her door, and supplicated in his turn for admission in vain.

Endymion’s horror does not arise from any immediate realization of what she has heard; though she has attained a standpoint at which a continuation of the imposture would destroy her reason, the vital truth regarding herself becomes clear to her but by degrees. But she recollects having heard her mother say to Morosini: ‘should she ever learn she is a woman, she must live no longer,’ and this she at once applies to herself. The next day she rushes to Desmond and wildly implores him to save her, as she is to be sent away under the protection of the monk. Desmond fortunately remembers a clergyman called St. Austin, uncle to Armida’s friend Rosine, to whom they succeed in flying. He unites them and procures for them a solitary retreat, where they spend some idyllic months in perfect felicity.

On arriving at Dublin Connal learns that the eminent person in whom he has placed his hope is in Ireland no more. The only thing for him to do, under the circumstances, is to return to the island, where his presence indeed would be urgently necessary. He has confided Armida to the protection of a young man of the name of Brennan, who secretly hates him and, what is worse, cherishes a violent passion for Armida. He begins to harass her with his attentions, and they being met in a way that may be surmised, extends his hatred towards her as well, devising an exquisite mode of vengeance. He comes one night to the hut where Armida lives attended by a peasant woman, and requires her to accompany him, on the pretext that O’Morven has returned and wishes to see her. He then conducts her into a cavern where there really is an O’Morven: the old grandfather of Connal, who is now totally insane and appears to bear a particular malevolence against Armida. It is Brennan’s intention to have her murdered by the maniac, which undoubtedly would happen, did not Connal arrive at the very last moment. His journey thither has been much retarded by his being wounded by three men whom Brennan has sent out to waylay and assault him. Now, after a hideous fight, Brennan’s own life is ended. Yet Connal is wanted for more than one reason. The state of his band has, in his absence, grown utterly desperate; it is again seen how soberly and realistically Maturin conceived the business of the rebellion:

The discipline that Connal had established was destroyed: instead of confining themselves to the islands, they had spread themselves along the shore, exercising every outrage and aggression on the inhabitants; and, from the indiscriminate admission of every vagabond and profligate into the ranks, their numbers had increased beyond all power of control, and the spirit of humanity and honour, that Connal had tried to inspire them with, was utterly extinguished.

In proportion as this barbarization increases, the chances of any reconciliation with the government naturally diminish, and the final traces of Connal’s own enthusiasm for the cause disappear as well. Troops are now everywhere collected to march against him, and besides being daily beset by enemies, Connal is besieged by a terrible anxiety for the fate of Armida. One day a detachment of soldiers come over to the island. The officer at their head is wounded, and it is only with difficulty that Connal saves him from being killed by the rebels. He is taken care of, and to his horror Connal recognizes Desmond, who, to this moment, has been ignorant of the story of Armida and Connal. His own paradisiacal existence with Endymion—or Ines, as she is now called—has come to a sorrowful end. They have been traced to their retreat, and one night the door is burst open whereupon Morosini rushes in with two attendants. The monk pursues Ines as she flees out of the hut, while the attendants attempt to detain Desmond. He overpowers them, however, and follows in pursuit of his wife, whom he sees plunge herself into the river with the monk in hot haste after her. Some days later the body of Morosini is found, but no traces of Ines. Desmond, being now possessed of the sole desire to court death, joins his regiment, and Wandesford immediately takes care to command him to march against Connal.

Though disapproving of the rebellion, Desmond resolves to fight and perish with Connal. Before the decisive battle he conducts Armida away and places her at the house of St. Austin, where Rosine still resides, and then returns to the island. The battle is fought, and, contrary to all expectation, both Connal and Desmond survive it. The former finds his way to a remote and solitary cave, where he hides himself with his dying grandfather. Desmond, weak and wounded, goes back to the castle. He is carefully nursed by Lady Montclare, whose husband has recently died and who now conceives a plan concerning Desmond. Her whole life has been a struggle to keep in her family the estates of Montclare, and her last resort turns out to be a marriage between Armida and Desmond. To that end she has her daughter brought to the castle and imposes on her the fraudulent statement that Connal is in the hands of Wandesford, and is to suffer death unless she consents to marry Desmond. Of Armida there is, by this time, left but a faded beauty and a ruined mind; but seeing that she is only required to persevere in her self-sacrifice for Connal, she easily consents. Nor does Desmond oppose himself; both are too weary and apathetic even to enquire for the reasons of Wandesford’s singular resolution. The report of their intended marriage reaches Connal. He meets Lady Montclare who, in fear of her life, solemnly declares that it is Armida’s will and that he is to hear it from her own lips. She arranges an interview between them, and Armida has strength enough to stand to her resolution, the reasons for which she promises to disclose to Connal immediately after her wedding. The night of this very interview, however, Connal is plunged into despair at seeing how innocent people are punished for having given him shelter, and thus he straightway betakes himself to Wandesford to deliver himself up. Still he is not to die yet; Wandesford, to whom the whole affair is one of personal hatred and vengeance, orders five hundred lashes to be administered to him, whereupon he is to be set free, in case he survives the scourging. He does survive it, and is able to keep his last appointment with Armida. The night of Armida’s wedding Connal is wandering near the castle, when Wandesford rides past him. Connal challenges him and shoots him through the heart, and he expires repenting his crimes.—In the meantime Armida, having fulfilled what she imagines her last duty towards Connal, takes her fate in her own hands. Her late father has been an expert in, and also initiated his daughter into, the interesting science of preparing poisons. Immediately before the ceremony is to commence she swallows a dose of poison that has the power of dismissing life, without pain, in eight and forty hours. The marriage, however, is destined never to be contracted; just as the priest is opening his book, a piercing shriek rings through the chapel, and Ines appears in their midst. She has been saved from the river by the agents of Lady Montclare, and, since then, been secretly imprisoned in the castle. Her reason is irrevocably lost: she does not even recognize Desmond. Sick of horrors Armida retires to her apartment, whither Rosine brings Connal at the appointed hour. Everything is now explained; the conversation is interrupted only by a party of soldiers breaking into the castle, in quest of Connal. He is conducted to take his trial for rebellion, by martial law, and the sentence is death. At the moment the soldiers fire, Desmond rushes to Connal and falls with him. Armida and Ines likewise find their death beside the corpses of their respective lovers. Rosine and her uncle are left to inter the dead; Lady Montclare, it is stated, buries her crimes and her remorse in a convent.

The end, it is clear, somewhat lowers the level of the book and disturbs the final effect. From the rather unnatural idea of marriage between Armida and Desmond and onwards in the ensuing events there is much that is strained and stilted in the story; the circumstance of Armida’s extraordinary poison is too trivial and absurd to make any serious impression. The closing scene is entirely melodramatic: the eight and forty hours come to an end exactly at the time of Connal’s execution, and Ines expires at the same moment for the simple reason that everybody else does. But, strange to say, the chief incident itself, causing this conventional winding up of a highly romantic story, strikes one with its painful realism. One of the most remarkable features in The Milesian Chief is the mode of Connal’s death. In romances with tragical issue, of the time, the hero may die in a battle, he may die by accident, he may commit suicide or even be assassinated; but to let him first be flogged and then executed in consequence of the sentence of a court martial, is to excite terror and pity at the expence of the atmosphere of greatness and invincible superiority with which he is surrounded in the beginning of the tale. To reject everything conciliatory in the tragic, to bereave the death of a hero of every trait of sublimity and poetical splendour, to let his own person, as it were, be degraded by the ignominy he is exposed to, is certainly alien to the spirit and methods of the early 19:th century romanticism. The manner in which Scott allows the Master of Ravenswood to end his days is perfectly characteristic of the period, while the death of Connal O’Morven anticipates ideas much more modern. There is, in the end of Connal, something that brings to mind a very impressive Irish story of later date, the Maelcho (1894) of Emily Lawless, treating of the Desmond wars (1579-81), where the romantic halo in which the hero is enveloped is torn into shreds by degrees, until he is, both mentally and physically broken, hanged obscurely, en passant, like any of the countless victims of those troubled times.—

Of the principal personages in The Milesian Chief Armida and Ines are the most remarkable as types of some novelty in the fiction of the time. The latter is not without parallels in Maturin’s own work, but her originality lies in the absence of all reflection or principle: she acts solely by instinct, never expending a thought upon the moral standard of her feelings, and guided only by the nature contrary to whose intentions she has been reared up. A young lady answering to the description of Armida is uncommon in all romantic literature. The Radcliffe heroine, as has been pointed out by a critic,[55] is but a slight variation of the one favoured by Richardson: weak and sentimental, only calculated to move pity, never doing anything for her lover, who gladly sacrifices his life for her. As for the heroines of Scott, many of them, no doubt, display activity and courage and accomplish wonders for others, yet none would, in all likelihood, take the step Armida does, were they in her position; none have the independence of mind and superiority of intellect which render her perfectly regardless of the opinion of the world. The pride and the accomplishments, the grandezza and the accustomedness to obedience and admiration with which she is invested, usually distinguish females of a maturer age, like Lady Ashton in The Bride of Lammermoor and Lady Montrevor in The Wild Irish Boy. But though Armida entirely lacks that girlish docility and inexperience which seems to require manly protection, Maturin has succeeded in making her young and natural, and it is described with great beauty and power how her stateliness melts away before an overwhelming passion, and how the burning heart of youth demands its due when opportunity arises.

The characterization of Connal and Desmond, as has already been pointed out, is not equal to that of Armida and Ines. The best-drawn male character in the book is Wandesford, who is surprisingly real. He is a man of the world of the selfish and unfeeling kind, retaining some outward dignity by displaying a sort of conventional courage, that, ‘stimulated by witnesses, or by military tumult, could rush on death: the courage of the senses rather than the mind.’ When the latter is required, as on the occasion of his being well-nigh drowned with Armida and Connal, he proves to be a coward at heart. He is incapable of generosity towards his enemy, and his bad qualities always grow worse when met by adversities; thus in his strife with Connal, whom he hates as a rival and dislikes as an Irishman, he continually sinks deeper into the quagmire of crime and dishonour, which process is quite plausible and recounted without exaggeration. The narrow, unimaginative side of his character is well illustrated by his discussion, especially with Armida, whose superiority he cannot avoid instinctively to feel:

“The hearts of your whole sex,” said Wandesford, furiously, “are not worth the earth I tread: you have no heart: you have nothing but pride, caprice, and desire. While the first men in Europe were at your feet, you spurned them. My honourable addresses, the addresses of a man of the first family, fortune, and character were despised; but the moment you saw this Irishman, this heir of the poverty, and pride, and infamy of his country, you rushed into his arms, though he dashed you from them. Perhaps his figure awoke your classical taste, and you wished to transfer your study, like the statuary of old, from marble to flesh.”—

In the case of certain other personages Maturin’s sovereign contempt for a secondary character comes to light. This is, indeed, one of the most conspicuous flaws of the book. All delineation, for instance, of the wonderful mind of Lady Montclare is omitted. She is perfectly stereotyped; it is only evident that her every thought runs upon keeping the estates of her husband, and that she is, to this end, ready to commit the most atrocious crimes with an ever-smiling countenance—but in the reality of her being it is impossible to believe. Another character of whom much might have been made is the elder O’Morven, Connal’s father, who has gratefully accepted the situation of land-steward to Lord Montclare. He might be all the more interesting as he is expressly said to represent the worst kind of Irish character, being intent upon ‘unfeeling, unworthy self-enjoyment, not destitute of affection, but wholly without dignity.’ He receives Armida and her father on their arrival at the castle, and his conversation is expressive enough:

There he (Connal) has shut himself up in a hovel with that old fool my father, and all my hopes of him are destroyed; and it was not from my want of speaking to him either, for says I to him, as I said, ‘Why, Connal, where’s the use of your refusing his lordship’s kindness? Where did I get this good coat on my back, and a seat at his table (for your lordship promised I should not dine with the servants)? and where did your brother get his commission? Was it not from his lordship condescending to take us up, and forgetting our offence in being his relations?’ And says I, Do you think that poring over an old Irish manuscript, or wandering over these wild shores, listening to an old harp with hardly a string to it will put a potatoe in your mouth, or give a stone to repair those ruins you live in, or bring you back your land to you again?

Upon this, however, he is all but dropped out of the plot; he is very seldom brought into contact with his sons, and, upon the whole, plays no part in the story. Towards the end it is told that he is married by Lady Montclare, and shortly afterwards dies, wearied by her ‘violence’—of which the reader is not favoured with one single instance.

The Milesian Chief could not be better characterized than Talfourd[56] does in his much-quoted phrase: ‘There is a bleak and misty grandeur about it which, in spite of its glaring defects, sustains for it an abiding place in the soul.’ The defects are glaring indeed. The composition, here as always the blind side of Maturin, is anything but flawless. The development of the intrigue is sometimes primitive, sometimes rough and rhapsodical. Repetition occurs frequently in the adventures—the saving of lives especially is an actual habit with the brothers O’Morven; Connal’s journey to Dublin is so long as to be a digression, and not particularly interesting; the end is forced and theatrical, and some of the characters are made nothing of. These faults were, at all times, counterpoised by plenty of good characterization and impressive narrative; but now, at a distance of a hundred years, they appear so unimportant just because the whole is wrapped up in that ‘bleak and misty grandeur.’ The absence of technical defects is, after all, but a negative merit which swiftly loses its charm, while the creations of a truly poetical imagination are never entirely defaced by the wear and tear of time. The romantic atmosphere about the best scenes in The Milesian Chief, in so far as such a thing can be defined, arises from a close affinity between the human emotions and the sombre scenery around, effected by the instrumentality of a suggestive, passionate, and musical style. In point of description The Milesian Chief shows a great advance from Maturin’s earlier works; the nature of Western Ireland had, perhaps, never yet been depicted with a power and accuracy like this. Hence it is difficult to embrace the opinion of a critic[57] that in the description of scenery the influence of Mrs. Radcliffe is discernible. In Montorio it was, and it is easy to perceive that neither was acquainted with the Mediterranean nature which they painted in such glowing colours. But here there is quite a different strain, Northern and familiar; or what is to be said, for instance, of this sonorous passage:

The character of the scene was grandeur—dark, desolate, and stormy grandeur. The sea, troubled with rains and winds, dashed its grey waves along a line of rocky coast with a violence that seemed even in the absence of a storm to announce perpetual war and unexhausted winter. The dark clouds, though they moved rapidly along, never left the horizon clear, and seemed too thick for rains to melt or storms to disperse. The country near the shore, brown, stony and mountainous, looked as if the sun never shone on it, as if it lay for ever under the grey and watery sky: the shore itself, bold, high, and sweeping, had all the savage precipitateness, the naked solitude, the embattled rockiness, which nature seems to throw round her as a fortress, where she retires from the assaults of the elements, and the approach of man.

It has been hinted before that The Milesian Chief seems indebted to Miss Owenson’s Wild Irish Girl. The germ of the plot may have been taken from the latter: an Irish family of princely descent have sunk into poverty and lost their lands to an Englishman whom they regard as an usurper—the complications this circumstance leads to form the incidents in both tales. These, however, are quite differently developed. Miss Owenson’s story has the character of an idyll rather than a tragedy, being brought to a happy and harmonious end. Nor is there any communion between the principal personages. The venerable figure of the prince of Inismore Maturin had already borrowed in The Wild Irish Boy; here, presumably to avoid repetition, the burden of chieftaincy is placed upon younger shoulders, and the old Milesian, who is but once brought upon the scene of action, is represented as a complete ruin. Connal, then, as an Irishman, is a new type in the fiction of his country. Reminiscences of the antiquarian enthusiasm of Miss Owenson crop up in some of the conversations between Armida and Connal, where particularly the poetry and music of the ancient Irish is extensively discussed and warmly striven for.—The Radcliffe school—through the medium of Montorio—is slightly recalled only by the trio of Lord and Lady Montclare and Morosini. From Maturin’s first romance proceed the figures of the dark, melancholy-looking nobleman whose conscience is weighed down by an evil deed, and of the diabolical monk who is his confidant and tormentor at the same time. Yet Lord Montclare shows a development from the genuine Gothic Romance, represented by count Montorio. The latter has committed a bloody and terrible crime, the remembrance of which confines him within the walls of a gloomy castle, where he sits brooding over his deeds and starting at the slightest sound. The offence which Lord Montclare is guilty of is of a less violent kind and has the opposite effect of driving him restlessly from land to land. With him a step is taken towards the type of the Wanderer.

A great many passages in The Milesian Chief anticipate the manner of Scott rather than recall Mrs Radcliffe and Lewis. Very characteristic is the well-written episode where Brennan conducts Armida to the old O’Morven. The silent desolation of the night; Brennan’s sudden appearance in the hut and the alarm of the peasant woman, who in vain dissuades Armida from following him; his conversation on the way; the impotent rage of the maniac, and lastly the furious fight between Connal and Brennan: all this is horrifying, certainly, but in the same way horrible as are innumerable scenes in Scott. The difference, in this respect—apart from the question of the supernatural—between the school of Scott and the school of Radcliffe, is, that the thrilling, the exciting, is removed from the vaults of a castle and the dungeons of the Inquisition out into the open air under a Northern sky. But there is even a more obvious reason to mention Scott in connection with The Milesian Chief. Talfourd adds to his phrase quoted above: ‘Yet never perhaps was there a more unequal production—alternately exhibiting the grossest plagiarism and the wildest originality.’ From where the plagiarism is suggested, unless from The Wild Irish Girl, the present writer is unable to say; Maturin’s novel is, on the contrary, alleged to have been a subject for imitation for no less a man than Walter Scott himself. The resemblance of The Bride of Lammermoor (1819) to The Milesian Chief is, in fact, far more detailed than that of the latter to the story of Miss Owenson. Edgar Ravenswood, like Connal O’Morven, is the heir of a once powerful family whose dominions have passed into the possession of an Englishman. Like his Milesian counterpart he lives in an old tower in great poverty, profoundly discontented with the supposed oppressor. The new owners, in both cases, have a daughter, and the two heroes of the respective tales have occasion to begin their acquaintance with the fair ones by saving their lives. Both fall in love, and the love of both is reciprocated. Connal becomes the leader of a rebellion which his love to Armida would induce him to suppress; Ravenswood, too, is involved in a conspiracy against the government, from which his attachment to Lucy Ashton urges him to withdraw. Both love-stories finally end in a tragic way, the heroines being first, by fraud, brought to the point of union with another.—With all these likenesses, it is of interest to note how differently the two novelists work up the subject-matter they have in common. Maturin, as usual, is for the extreme, making the conditions of his hero desperate from the first, and the contrast between the two families as striking as possible. Connal lives in the remote and unknown West of Ireland, hated and despised by the new lord—relatives as they are—and supported only by a handful of peasants. All paths are practically closed to him; he is, as it were, predestined to his fate. In The Bride of Lammermoor, constructed with the temperate and easy skill of Scott, no such contrarieties are felt. Edgar Ravenswood is acknowledged and entertained by Sir William Ashton, he possesses powerful friends, and would, no doubt, advance far in the world but for his fatal love for Lucy. The course of events, here, runs smoother but is, at the same time, more varied and less easy to guess beforehand; compared with The Milesian Chief, the book seems to contain almost an infinite variety of characters and episodes. Ravenswood himself is rather a solitary figure in Scott, being destitute of the light-heartedness and sunny good-humour of his youthful heroes in general. Yet he has his faults, and in comparison with Connal, seems almost real. But if Scott was more successful with the male characters, Maturin was more so with the feminine. There is no denying that Armida is far more interesting than Lucy. The latter is, in fact, nothing but the weak and passive type from the preceding century, merely ennobled by the hand of Scott, and would never be able, like Armida, to support the central part of a story. That the emotional element in The Milesian Chief outweighs the ruggedness of the construction and the poverty of the action may be ascribed to the skilful characterization of Armida; and a chapter like the twentieth in The Bride of Lammermoor seems quite tame and colourless after the fiery love-scenes described by Maturin.

To how high a degree the resemblance of the one romance to the other is a result of direct influence and intentional imitation, it would be purposeless to discuss. It may even be quite accidental, for in a country with the history of Scotland and Ireland, a theme like this must have been both natural and lent itself profitably to the novelist. That the outlines were furnished by actual life is made more than probable by their continued appearance in Irish literature. They are made use of, as late as 1845, in Charles Lever’s story of The O’Donoghue. During nine hundred years, the heads of this family have been kings of that part of Ireland where their castle stands. Towards the end of the 18:th century they fall into a state of decay and are compelled to part with their castle and their estates, which are sold to a wealthy English baronet who has a beautiful daughter. The old O’Donoghue, with his two sons, is reduced to the state almost of peasants. The elder of these sons is, like Connal O’Morven, a proud and impetuous character, whom a deep sense of his own and his country’s wrongs prompts to embrace the insurrection of ’98; the younger, a counterpart of Desmond, turns Protestant and enters Trinity College. Otherwise the tales of Maturin and Lever contain no elements in common—the elder O’Donoghue succeeds in escaping to France, the younger finally marries the baronet’s daughter—and thus imitation is entirely out of the question. But from an intended preface to The O’Donoghue, where Lever tells[58] how the story occurred to him while on a tour in the South of Ireland, it appears how conspicuous these impoverished descendants of noble families were in Irish society:

Between the great families—the old houses of the land and the present race of proprietors—there lay a couple of generations of men who, with all the traditions and many of the pretensions of birth and fortune, had really become in ideas, modes of life, and habits, very little above the peasantry about them. They inhabited, it is true, the “great house,” and they were in name the owners of the soil, but, crippled by debt and overborne by mortgages, they subsisted in a shifty conflict with their creditors, rack-renting their miserable tenants to maintain it. Survivors of everything but pride of family, they stood there like stumps, blackened and charred, the last remnants of a burnt forest, their proportions attesting the noble growth that preceded them.

What would the descendants of these men prove when, destitute of fortune and helpless, they were thrown upon a world that actually regarded them as blamable for the unhappy condition of Ireland? Would they stand by “their order” in so far as to adhere to the cause of the gentry? Or would they share the feelings of the peasant to whose lot they had been reduced, and charging on the Saxons the reverses of their fortune, stand forth as rebels to England?

Now in the preface to The Milesian Chief Maturin had promised to apply his powers to scenes of actual life. The actual life of the class of society he was choosing for his subject had, according to the sentence of Lever, also a sordid and prosaic side, nor could they all be regarded as martyrs for their country without any fault of their own. As Maturin’s peculiar powers were, above all, in ‘painting life in extremes,’ he described not so much what is, as what would be, under given circumstances, exceptional indeed, but not impossible; and even in so doing he was, as has been pointed out, most attracted by the phenomena in the ‘recesses of the human heart.’ Thus the promise of actual life, in the usual sense of the word, is but imperfectly fulfilled. Yet beneath the delineations of human passions of general applicability, there is, however, a perceptible glimpse of a certain aspect of unmistakable Irish life—in the absence of which Mangan[59] would hardly have called The Milesian Chief the most intensely Irish story he knew of.

Of Maturin’s third book, any more than of his second, no contemporary reviews are extant, but its immediate success—at least where the author was known—seems to have been considerable. The writer in the New Monthly Magazine 1827 tells us that the book ‘received encomiums from many of the leading critics,’ and that ‘several individuals, inspired perhaps by the highly-wrought and poetical feeling of “The Milesian,” composed sundry “complimentary verses” upon it.’ Yet a second edition never appeared, and that Maturin’s circumstances continued to be distressing, all biographers agree.[60] His delicacy in concealing himself behind a pseudonym was of no avail to him regarding his chances of religious preferment; according to the aforesaid writer these were completely destroyed by the publication of his novels. So far, however, from abandoning the Muses, Maturin turned his poetical inspiration in another direction, still more contradictory to his profession. He became a dramatist, probably encouraged by the success bestowed upon a new play of no very remarkable merit. In 1813 Richard Lalor Sheil, the celebrated Irish barrister, produced a tragedy called Adelaide, or the Emigrants, written for the highly talented Miss O’Neill, who, after many hardships in obscure provincial theatres, had been engaged at the Old Crow-Street Street Theatre in Dublin. The decided success of Sheil—who also had composed his play in order to defray some necessary expenses—incited Maturin to follow his example. He sat down to write a drama in good earnest, as in his juvenile years he had often done for amusement. Already in the latter part of the year he was able to send in his Bertram, but the management of the theatre, for some reason or other, thought it advisable to reject it. Nearly a year afterwards Maturin hit upon it among his manuscripts, and, on the advice of a friend, sent it over for the perusal of his literary correspondent Walter Scott. The kindness of Scott was never appealed to in vain; he read the play and warmly recommended it to John Kemble, as he relates[61] in a letter to Daniel Terry, dated Nov. 10:th 1814, observing that Bertram is ‘one of those things which will either succeed greatly, or be damned gloriously, for its merits are marked, deep, and striking, and its faults of a nature obnoxious to ridicule.’ With every allowance for Scott’s desire to help Maturin, it seems unquestionable that he was really impressed by the play. After a few critical remarks upon the last act, he concludes his letter to Terry: ‘With all this, which I should say had I written the thing myself, it is grand and powerful: the language most animated and poetical; and the characters sketched with a masterly enthusiasm.’

Notwithstanding these eulogies Kemble refused the play, and its fate seemed as doubtful as ever. Fortunately for Maturin, however, the committee of management of the Drury Lane Theatre were, in the following year, wanting something new for their repertory. The members of that body were, in 1815, men of high literary aspirations; the procurement of plays devolved on Lord Byron, who states[62] that the number he was supplied with amounted to five hundred, not one of which he could think of accepting. His attempts to exact a new play from some of the foremost writers of the day remained without effect, but Scott, to whom he also addressed himself, faithfully referred him to Maturin. A correspondence ensued, in consequence of which, Byron says,[63] ‘Maturin sent his Bertram and a letter without his address, so that at first I could give him no answer. When I at last hit upon his residence, I sent him a favourable answer and something more substantial. His play succeeded; but I was at that time absent from England.’

The answer must indeed have been a favourable one, for, to judge from a letter from John Murray[64] to Scott, dated Dec. 25:th 1815, Bertram created quite a sensation in the committee:

I was with Lord Byron yesterday. He enquired after you, and bid me say how much he was indebted to your introduction of your poor Irish friend Maturin, who had sent him a tragedy, which Lord Byron received late in the evening, and read through without being able to stop. He was so delighted with it that he sent it immediately to his fellow-manager, the Hon. George Lamb, who, late as it came to him, could not go to bed without finishing it. The result is that they have laid it before the rest of the Committee; they, or rather Lord Byron, feels it his duty to the author to offer it himself to the managers of the Covent Garden. The poor fellow says in his letter that his hope of subsistence for his family for the next year rests upon what he can get for this play. I expressed a desire of doing something, and Lord Byron then confessed that he had sent him fifty guineas.

In a letter to Moore, written from Venice in 1817, Byron again expresses[65] his satisfaction at having been able to promote the ‘first and well-merited success’ of this ‘very clever fellow.’ There is no reason to doubt that Byron’s admiration was genuine. The high opinion he entertained of Bertram may, of course, have been biassed by his regard for Scott, like that of Scott by motives of friendship; but there is that in Maturin’s tragedy which reflects the spirit of the time with peculiar distinctness; from many of its wild effusions speaks the very Zeitgeist of romanticism, which was sure to find response with the best of the age as well as with the general public.

Before the play could be finally accepted, the approval of Kean had to be obtained. Kean had spent the greater part of 1815 on a tour extended to Dublin, where he appeared at the Crow-Street Theatre as Richard II, Othello, and Hamlet. In the beginning of 1816 the great man returned to London, and Bertram was submitted to his judgment. Kean did not share the enthusiasm of the committee; according to his biographer[66] he pronounced the play to be ‘all sound and fury signifying nothing,’ yet offering a welcome relief after the characters of Shakespeare. His principal reason, however, for undertaking to perform the part of the hero was the conviction that it would ‘serve to increase his reputation.’ After a few rehearsals he came to realize that the part of Bertram was but a secondary one; but there being, as he said, no Mrs. Siddons to eclipse him in the part of the heroine, he resolved to do his best to eclipse Miss Somerville. In this he succeeded so well that Bertram, by all accounts, really did much to increase his reputation as the leading tragedian of the time.—

Between the production and first performance of Bertram there was a lapse of more than two years, during which the monotony of Maturin’s existence was but seldom broken by occurrences worthy of notice. An instance of his poetical carelessness in practical matters is thus related in the Irish Quarterly Review 1852:

Whilst he was composing Bertram, and living amidst a confused sea of difficulties, a clergyman, high in the church, had called upon him in York-street for the purpose of making him an offer of preferment; he was requested to wait for a few minutes, and after the lapse of half an hour, Maturin entered, his hair in dishevelled masses, wrapped in a flowing morning gown, and bearing in one hand a pen, in the other a portion of the manuscript of Bertram, from which he was repeating some highly wrought sentence just completed; he threw himself on the sofa beside his starched visitor, who very soon retreated, leaving the poet to cultivate the muse, in poverty and at leisure.

An anecdote like this, whether true or invented, affords, no doubt, a glimpse of Maturin as he really was, and has a deeply tragical as well as a comical side. It marks the perpetual conflict between what he was inclined to do and what he, in the opinion of the world, ought to have been doing; and when the fit of inspiration had subsided, the bitterness of seeing his family imperfectly provided for was always there. That Maturin repeatedly received assistance from liberal friends is seen from the correspondence of Byron, yet at the same time there are recorded certain actions of Maturin himself, which display uncommon generosity towards others, at least in one in his position. He was prevailed upon to become security for a relation, who subsequently had recourse to the act of insolvency, leaving Maturin burthened with a heavy debt for many years to come. This new disaster possibly caused him again to take up his rejected drama. The fact of Maturin’s being acceptable as security for a considerable sum, however, would go to show that his circumstances were not all times absolutely desperate—which also might be inferred from the story of an alleged literary production of his, connected with the latter part of 1815. A poetical competition had been announced by Trinity College in order to celebrate the Battle of Waterloo. Here, according to the New Monthly Magazine 1827, Maturin easily carried off the prize with a poem which he, ‘in a most handsome manner,’ presented to a pupil of his called Shea[67] and declined all profit from the publication of it. The poem was printed in January 1816, when Bertram already had been accepted to Drury Lane and Maturin, no doubt, was full of sanguine expectations. This Mr. Shea was a pupil of Maturin’s to whom he appears to have been greatly attached; one of his letters to Murray, dated July 6:th 1816, ends with the following plea for him:

Like all Irishmen, I reserve the most important part of my letter for the last. Mr. Shea, my pupil, of whom you have heard me talk so highly and justly while in London, has produced a poem on the marriage of the princess, I want you to publish it—I am satisfied of its merits and the certainty of its success.—

His friends are numerous and wealthy, and the work would have a most rapid sale. I am sure you will not decline encouraging this young Muse, when I make her introduction through you a matter of personal and particular obligation to—Yours most truly C. Rob. Maturin.

There is, indeed, no positive proof of Maturin’s being the author of Lines on the Battle of Waterloo, except the categorical statement in the New Monthly Magazine, besides the circumstance that the name of Shea, despite the wealthy and numerous friends, was destined never to adorn the history of English poetry. The poem is, however, furnished with a few notes written in a half-playful tone, where the author makes a reservation to eventual accusations of plagiarism, which notes, on account of the style alone, must be concluded to flow from the pen of Maturin. Of a passage like this, a student of Maturin can hardly doubt the authorship:

A Poem written by one who owed nothing to communication with other minds, would be original in every sense of the word—but the paucity of its materials would probably ill atone for the novelty of the structure; it would be perhaps like the Indian love-song mentioned I think in Ashe’s travels, where all the varieties of sentiment, and modulations of language, that the passion might be supposed capable of inspiring, are compressed into three short sentences, strongly resembling the monotonous chirp of their native birds—I love you—I love you dearly—I love you all day long.

The value of the poem itself is very moderate. Though endowed with a highly poetical temperament, Maturin was not a poet in the strictest sense of the word. Rhyme was an instrument of which he never became a master; the writer in the New Monthly Magazine says that he had ‘a natural distaste to the constant return of sound arising from the restraints it threw upon his luxuriant fancy.’ He mentions the Waterloo as a singular example of Maturin’s being able to overcome his rooted aversion to the labours of versification, and cites two or three instances where he strove in vain to conquer the insurmountable difficulties it used to cause him. In 1821, when Ireland had the doubtful honour to receive a visit from George IV, Maturin, among many others, thought the occasion to demand a versified homage to the monarch. After the laborious production of three lines, however, he destroyed the paper ‘in a transport of rage.’ From Montorio, which abounds with indifferent poetry, it was already seen which way Maturin’s powers lay. His poetical prose is always fine and rhythmical in form, and very often original in ideas, whereas his rhymes are trivial, and usually make the thoughts so. The poem on Waterloo treats, in an obscure and bombastical style, less of the battle itself than of the glory of those who won it; the opening lines are, perhaps, the most worthy of quotation:

’Tis night, her dim and dusky veil

Falls o’er creation’s aspect pale,

In deep repose lie town and tower,

Embattled steep, and foliaged bower—

The stilly forms of things unseen

Waver in twilight’s dubious screen,—

And mount, and vale, and earth, and sky

In grey confusion mock the eye,

Like features of some absent face,

That anguished Memory pains in vain to trace.

What Maturin was capable of achieving in blank verse, remains next to be seen.

III.

1816-1817.

’Tis true, said I, not void of hopes I came,

For who so fond as youthful bards of fame?

But few, alas! the casual blessing boast,

So hard to gain, so easy to be lost.

Pope.

On the 9:th of May 1816 Maturin’s Bertram, or the Castle of St. Aldobrand had its first performance at Drury Lane and ran, under general acclamation, for twenty two nights in succession.

With similar distinctions, however, were then received a great many other plays, nowadays equally unknown and obscure. The disproportion between the enduring merits of a literary production and the admiration lavished upon it by its contemporaries was, at the time in question, most conspicuous in the field of the drama. The history of the whole 18:th century drama in England is, with a few brilliant exceptions, a history of decay. From the shock that the drama had suffered at the triumph of Puritanism in the preceding century it recovered but slowly, and in the meantime the cultivated public was strongly decided in favour of the novel; while an undreamed revival was taking place within the last-named branch of literature, the theatre long remained a meeting-place of ordinary pleasure-hunters. Even the advance of the actor was injurious to the drama, the excellence of the acting offering ample excuse for the inferiority of what was acted.[68] Yet the English drama of the latter 18:th century, viewed in broad outlines, followed the fiction. The spectator is taken into scenes of domestic life where the absence of the grander elements of tragedy is compensated with tender and always well-bred sentimentality. Out of this milieu, but under the freshening influence of classical comedy, there arose the dramatic masterpieces of the age, the comedies of Sheridan and Goldsmith.

The romantic drama which came after the sentimental, displays a spectacle still more unexhilarating. The fascination exercised by Shakespeare upon the young romantic movement bore fruit in the interpretations of great actors and, a little later, in the enthusiastic comments of eminent critics; but the playwrights could do nothing with a model that admitted neither approach nor imitation. This was realized by some of the dramatists themselves. Maturin wrote,[69] with reference to the sorry state of the English drama, which he calls a phenomenon unparalleled in the history of literature:

While in every other department of literature, all means have been employed to excite and to satiate the appetite for novelty; while history, philosophy, and theology have contributed to enrich and diversify poetry, while it has sought to interest us not only by painting man in every situation in which he has yet been discovered, but in situations in which the vivid creations of fancy alone could give a habitation and a name, while the passions have been depicted not only in their visible operation on life, but in the silent and unwitnessed workings of the heart, the drama still rests her claim on the merit of her earliest productions, and the efforts of competitors or of imitators have only served to establish the triumphs of Shakspeare.

At the same time there came an influence from very different quarters. If it was not possible to enter into competition with the Elizabethans, there was no difficulty in imitating writers like Kotzebue, who left his mark upon much in the English drama of the time. Yet nothing remains even of those who aspired higher. Joanna Baillie was the most admired of them; Maturin quotes her often and calls her the greatest dramatist of the age; but in our days ‘no man reads her unless he must.’[70] Until the appearance of The Cenci (1819), the early 19:th century romanticism produced not a single drama worthy of the glorious traditions.

Considering this desert-like state of the then English drama, the éclat roused by Bertram is not surprising. Still it was less due to any of its dramatical qualities than to its closeness to the poetical standard in vogue just at the time of its performance; the point was made by the admirers as well as by the slanderers of the play, that it was conceived quite ‘in the taste of Lord Byron.’ If Maturin’s first romance had appeared a little too late, with regard to the style in which it was written, his first drama thus appeared at the right moment and met with the right interpretation. Whatever the opinion of Kean may have been of the play, he certainly realized the intentions of the poet with a skill that left nothing more to be desired. In an account of the first night we read:[71]

— — — it will be observed that the part of Bertram is peculiarly adapted to the powers of Mr. Kean, by whom it is represented with extraordinary energy and effect. He is a mixture of ambition, pride and revenge; a character ashamed of the feelings of ordinary men, who has little in common with them, but his passion for a lovely woman, and in whose sorrows ordinary men of course cannot sympathize—in short, a character who like Milton’s Satan is “himself alone.”

Such is count Bertram when presented to the spectator. Once he has been of wholly different character, while living in the kingdom of Sicily as

The darling of his liege and of his land,

The army’s idol, and the counsil’s head—

Whose smile was fortune, and whose will was law—

When his power, however, has become too great, and his plans turned out to be too ambitious for the safety of the state, Lord Aldobrand has contrived to overthrow him. Deprived of name and fortune he has only saved his life by flight; and the admired and accomplished courtier has subsequently been changed into a captain of a gang of robbers, of uncommon ferocity. In the meantime his betrothed bride, Imogine, a lady of comparatively humble birth, has been induced to give her hand to the selfsame Aldobrand, for the (not very original) purpose of saving an aged parent from ruin.—

By the coast of Sicily, then, in the vicinity of the castle of St. Aldobrand, the brotherhood of a convent are, at the opening of the play, roused from their sleep by a violent storm. At a short distance a vessel, to which they are unable to render assistance, is seen to go to pieces. One wild-looking and incoherently-speaking man alone is rescued and conducted to the prior in a state of utter exhaustion.—At the castle, too, the inmates are disturbed by the rage of the elements. Lord Aldobrand himself appears to be absent, and his lady is sitting in her apartment, contemplating a miniature picture of Bertram. She is joined by one of her maidens, to whom she now discloses the story of her life, assuring her that her heart still belongs to Bertram. The conversation is interrupted by the entrance of a monk, coming to request that the shipwrecked of whom, contrary to all expectation, many have been saved, might have, according to the wonted hospitality of Lord Aldobrand, free access to the castle. Upon Imogine answering that they are welcome, the whole band take up their residence at the castle; before that, however, Bertram—the stranger who was first saved—reveals his identity to the prior and vows vengeance on Aldobrand, the originator of his misfortunes. At the castle the majestic form and stern demeanour of Bertram attract the notice of Imogine, and she summons him to her presence. A scene of recognition takes place. Imogine explains her reasons for becoming the wife of Aldobrand; Bertram breaks out into furious accusations, but at last, when Imogine’s little boy runs in, he relents and kisses the child.

These are the contents of the first two acts. In the third Imogine arrives to the convent to confess to the prior that she has yielded to the temptation offered by the unexpected appearance of Bertram, and clandestinely met him several times. The prior—who, in the foregoing scene, has been exhorting Bertram to give up his companions and leave the country—is much horrified and recommends the most severe penances. While still at the convent, Imogine encounters Bertram and is made to promise him one further interview, after which he is to disappear from her life. The act is again closed by the entrance of the child, who comes to inform his mother that Lord Aldobrand has returned.

At the meeting intended to be their last, Bertram then appears to have taken advantage of Imogine’s weakness in a manner which even he is ashamed to recollect. Before he has time to execute his design of departing, he is informed by one of his gang that his being in Sicily has become known and that Lord Aldobrand holds a commission from the king to seek his life throughout the country. Bertram is again filled with inexorable rage towards his enemy, and remembers his determination to have revenge upon him.—In the meantime Aldobrand arrives at his castle where Imogine receives him in an agitated manner which he in vain endeavours to fathom. On her declaring that she has some penance to do, he leaves her alone; after a while Bertram enters, and she understands, with horror, that he is resolved to destroy her husband. Aldobrand has, indeed, just been summoned to the convent to share a feast in celebration of St. Anselm, but, owing to a flood which obstructs his way, he is compelled to turn back. On his return he is attacked by Bertram, and dies at the feet of Imogine.

In the fifth act the tidings of the murder of Aldobrand are brought to the convent by Imogine, who, in a frantic state of mind, rushes in which her child. The monks and the knights of St. Anselm hasten to the castle. Bertram has locked himself up in a chamber where he has passed all the night with the dead body; at the summons of the prior, however, he opens the door and suffers himself to be arrested.—The last scene is laid in a dark wood where Imogine, who has lost her reason, is lingering in a cavern. The way which leads Bertram to the place of execution passes by the cavern, and he, who has up till now shown no repentance, sinks down when he hears the piercing shrieks of Imogine. She comes out and expires at the sight of him, whereupon Bertram snatches the sword of one of the knights and stabs himself.

As a drama, Bertram is not well constructed. The plot is curiously void of consistency and inner logic; when the talk is interrupted by action, it seems to happen more or less at random. The effect of the shipwreck in the first act is destroyed by the sudden appearance of all the banditti who are saved in a manner altogether inexplicable and whose preservation, moreover, is quite unnecessary. They do not in any way interfere in the events; Bertram kills Aldobrand with his own hands, and when the deed is done, he receives no help from his companions: they disappear from the play as mysteriously as they enter it. The final determination of Bertram to take Aldobrand’s life is very imperfectly accounted for. He must, surely, have been aware that Aldobrand, if cognizant of his presence, would adopt vigorous measures for his persecution, whence his sudden rage when informed of this is rather surprizing. He exclaims, with reference to the calamity he has brought over Imogine:

’Twas but e’en now, I would have knelt to him

With the prostration of a conscious villain;

I would have crouched beneath his spurning feet;

I would have felt their trampling tread, and blessed it—

For I had injured him—

but then he forgets that Aldobrand knows nothing of his relation to Imogine, or his repentance, or even of the fact that he has promised the prior to give up his trade and retire where the voice of man is never heard. Here, however, it must be mentioned that in the original manuscript of the play, Bertram is prompted to the committal of his crimes by an evil spirit who dwells in the forest and whom he insists on visiting. After his visit to the demon he seems so altered, and the stamp of an intercourse with a supernatural being is so visible upon him, that his own robbers shrink from him. These passages Maturin expunged on the advice of Scott, and, accordingly, made respective alterations in his play, though he consented to do so with great reluctance. The scenes in question were afterwards published by Scott in another connection;[72] he bestows high praise on their poetical beauty and hints, by way of comparison, at the effect produced upon Macbeth by the appearance of the witches. His motive for recommending Maturin to suppress them was that they were, in his opinion, unsuitable on the stage.[73] Generally speaking, a psychological argumentation certainly is, in a drama, preferable to a direct interference of a supernatural being who never appears himself; but here this argumentation is so weak that there also is some truth in the remark of another critic,[74] that without those scenes ‘the change from the Bertram of the second act to the Bertram of the fourth is inexplicable.’ Thus in either version the decisive point in the action is unsatisfactorily motived. Nor is it difficult to detect other implausibilities and makeshifts of a clumsy kind. The road of Aldobrand to the convent, for instance, is stopped by a flood which he is unable to cross even on horseback—because he must, some way or other, be brought back to the castle; but the flood does not hinder Imogine, the same night, from making the same journey on foot, carrying her child to boot. The child is introduced into the play in order to make an end of the second and third acts; what it has got to say sounds very unnatural. All the finales are ineffective, not least that of the fifth act. When Bertram has stabbed himself the prior rushes to him:

Ber. (struggling with the agonies of death)

I know thee holy Prior—I know ye, brethren.

Lift up your holy hands in charity.

(With a burst of wild exultation)

I died no felon death—

A warrior’s weapon freed a warrior’s soul—

It will be remembered that in Montorio the last words of the hero were an expression of joy at the fact that he did not perish on the scaffold. Here the sentiment is repeated, but it is clearly not fortunate to put it in the mouth of the hero himself; if there is any relief brought about by his nobler mode of dying, the spectator ought to feel it spontaneously.—

It has already been seen, more than once, that the merits of Maturin’s works are not in their composition. The traces of his power which there admittedly[75] are in Bertram, are to be sought in richness of language and originality of style. Now and then, amid the ‘sound and fury’ of the whole, passages stand out where Maturin’s blank verse attains a sombre beauty of its own, while it expressively strikes the note of the time, vibrating with a genuinely romantic sense of loneliness, melancholy, and grandeur. Lines such as these, from the first interview of the hero with the heroine, doubtless did much to decide the partiality for Bertram of critics like Byron and Scott:

Imo. Strange is thy form, but more thy words are strange—

Fearful it seems to hold this parley with thee.

Tell me thy race and country—

Ber. What avails it?

The wretched have no country: that dear name

Comprizes home, kind kindred, fostering friends,

Protecting laws, all that binds man to man—

But none of these are mine;—I have no country—

And for my race, the last dread trump shall wake

The sheeted relics of mine ancestry,

Ere trump of herald to the armed lists

In the bright blazon of their stainless coat,

Calls their lost child again.—

Imo. I shake to hear him—

There is an awful thrilling in his voice,—

The soul of other days comes rushing in them.—

If nor my bounty nor my tears can aid thee,

Stranger, farewell; and ’mid thy misery

Pray, when thou tell’st thy beads, for one more wretched.

The omitted passages relative to Bertram’s dealing with the fiend of the forest are interesting for their novelty in Maturin. The supernatural element is here conceived in a manner quite alien to the Gothic Romance; it serves, in fact, to bring home a characteristic difference between the last-named movement and romanticism. It was the business of the ‘terrific’ school to trace the fear and horror aroused by unearthly apparitions in ordinary men; while in romantic poetry men of uncommon mould (like Byron’s Manfred) are, in consequence of their intercourse with spirits, made to grow still more distant from their neighbours and become themselves an object of awe in their unapproachable grandeur. Such is the case with Bertram after his visit to the demon, the description of which Scott found to be ‘executed in a grand and magnificent strain of poetry:’

—How tower’d his proud form through the shrouding gloom,

How spoke the eloquent silence of its motion,

How through the barred vizor did his accents

Roll their rich thunder on the pausing soul!

And though his mailed hand did shun my grasp

And though his closed morion hid his feature,

Yea all resemblance to the face of man,

I felt the hollow whisper of his welcome,

I felt those unseen eyes were fix’d on mine,

If eyes indeed were there—

Forgotten thoughts of evil, still-born mischiefs,

Foul fertile seeds of passion and of crime,

That wither’d in my heart’s abortive core,

Rous’d their dark battle at his tempest-peal:

So sweeps the tempest o’er the slumbering desert,

Waking its myriad hosts of burning death:

So calls the last dread peal the wandering atoms

Of blood and bone and flesh and dust-worn fragments,

In dire array of ghastly unity,

To bid the eternal summons—

I am not what I was since I beheld him—

I was the slave of passion’s ebbing sway—

All is condensed, collected, callous now—

The groan, the burst, the fiery flash is o’er,

Down pours the dense and darkening lava-tide,

Arresting life and stilling all beneath it.

The achievements of Bertram, as represented on the stage, bear, indeed, too much resemblance to the doings of a common ruffian, and he stands, both morally and poetically, on a lower level than any of Byron’s personages, though maintained, by reviewers,[76] to be ‘that same mischievous compound of attractiveness and turpitude, of love and crime, of chivalry and brutality, which in the poems of Lord Byron and his imitators has been too long successful in captivating weak fancies and outraging moral truth.’ Yet he undoubtedly is a hero; and though Maturin later calls him one of his worst characters, he ought not, at the time, to have been surprised at being accused[77] of ‘exciting undue compassion for worthless characters, or unjust admiration of fierce and unchristian qualities;’ It is, above all, in his capacity of a fallen angel that Bertram had old-established claims upon the interest and indulgence of the English public. Of his fall this account is given by Imogine:

High glory lost he recked not what was saved—

With desperate men in desperate ways he dealt—

A change came o’er his nature and his heart

Till she that bore him had recoiled from him,

Nor know the alien visage of her child.

This dismal change is regarded in a very ‘Miltonic’ light especially by the prior, who, himself represented as well-nigh a saint, could not but be supposed to express the view of the author. The impression that the hero makes upon the mind of the prior finds voice in eloquent outbursts:

High-hearted man, sublime even in thy guilt,

Whose passions are thy crimes, whose angel-sin

Is pride that rivals the star-bright apostate’s.—

Wild admiration thrills me to behold

An evil strength, so above earthly pitch—

Descending angels only could reclaim thee—

This is uttered before Bertram has murdered Aldobrand; but that being done, the exaltation of the venerable prelate remains the same:

This majesty of guilt doth awe my spirit—

Is it th’embodied fiend who tempted him

Sublime in guilt?

— — — —

Oh thou, who o’er thy stormy grandeur flingest

A struggling beam that dazzles, awes, and vanishes—

Thou, who dost blend our wonder with our curses—

Why didst thou this?

It is the great fault of Bertram as a dramatic character, that he so poorly upholds the high attitude assigned to him by others, and that his imposing qualities chiefly rest on declamatory effects. As a poetical figure he occasionally becomes, thanks to life antecedents, surrounded with a gloomy splendour exciting the kind of admiration so keenly resented by critics who felt themselves called upon to extend their verdict to the moral side of the question. The heroine was, though unjustly, comprised[78] in the condemnation of the pernicious tendency of the play:—‘it is too much the taste of the present day, to bring forward the guilty passion of a wife for her paramour — — — not, indeed, with direct admiration, but in such a manner, and with such a mixture of virtuous remorse and high-toned feeling, that we cannot hate the crime. Now a heroine who commits adultery certainly was a startling phenomenon on the English stage, and it was the occurrence of this offence which is said[79] finally to have caused Bertram to be put aside. Yet in the play there is no connivance at the frailty of Imogine. When she comes to unburthen her heart to the prior, this arbiter of morals has nothing but harsh words for her; he sees nothing sublime in her guilt, which at the end plunges her into the deepest misery. In the preface to his next play Maturin says, with reference to the shock he had given with the story of Imogine: ‘If Tragedy is not allowed to exhibit crimes and passions, what is left for her to exhibit?—If crime is attended with punishment as its consequence, I conceive the interests of morality are not compromised’—but he was not aware that it is sometimes the criminal more than the crime that the guardians of the interests of morality desire to hate.—Otherwise Imogine is sketched with something of Maturin’s skill at depicting female character, and hers is, as Kean observed, the principal part in the play as far as histrionic powers are concerned. Her reviving passion for Bertram, her misery and repentance are developed in a language comparatively free from the tinge of melodrama, and sometimes pervaded with a deep and natural feeling, like her confession to the prior:

Last night, oh! last night told a dreadful secret—

The moon went down, its sinking ray shut out,

The parting form of one beloved too well.—

The fountain of my heart dried up within me,—

With nought that loved me, and with nought to love

I stood upon the desert earth alone—

I stood and wondered at my desolation—

For I had spurned at every tie for him,

And hardly could I beg from injured hearts

The kindness that my desperate passion scorned—

And in that deep and utter agony,

Though then, than ever most unfit to die,

I fell upon my knees, and prayed for death.

The character of Aldobrand, little as he appears, is drawn with peculiar skill. He is an excellent man and has brought about the ruin of Bertram out of disinterested zeal for state and sovereign; in private life he is kindness itself and greatly revered by all, not least by his wife. It might seem as if the author had unnecessarily hazarded the sublime element in Bertram by making his enemy a man of worth; but where, then, would be the guilt in knocking down a rascal? Considering the character Bertram is intended to support, Aldobrand could hardly be otherwise, and he is, in all his respectability, somehow made clearly to display a total want of those brilliant and interesting traits the absence of which is his only disadvantage by the side of the hero.—Other characters to speak of there are not in the play. It is incomprehensible how Charles Nodier[80] could ascribe so important a part to the prior: ‘cependant c’est le Prieur qui est le héros de la tragédie, et son calme sublime contraste avec le désordre et les passions des corsaires, comme l’immobilité de ses antique murailles avec l’agitation des flots, domaine inconstant de ce peuple désespéré.’ The prior really presents an extraordinarily sorry figure. His calmness—which asserts itself only when action is required; in words he is as tempestuous as Bertram—is most akin to inertness, not to say imbecility. He is from the first initiated into Bertram’s vindictive designs against Aldobrand—who is a great friend of his—and does nothing to prevent them except talking in a way which gives vent to his fantastic admiration for Bertram, very unnatural in a person of his character and situation. His high-flown comments upon the hero are, throughout the play, nothing short of ridiculous, which they by no means are meant to be. It was, however, quite in keeping with the romantic spirit to introduce the convent into the turbulent scenes as an asylum of peace, inhabited by good and holy men—in contradiction to the Gothic Romance, where a convent usually is described as a nest of all sorts of devilry. This is the only instance in Maturin’s work where the milder view prevails; he was, in Melmoth, soon to return to the terrific style again with a force seldom equalled in literature.

The motive of adverse circumstances driving a high-souled man to become a captain of robbers is most famous from Die Räuber (1781) of Schiller. In that drama Gustave Planche[81] finds the ‘idée mère’ of Bertram, though he prefers the latter play:—‘les mêmes idées, qui dans Schiller resemblent à une dissertation, prennent dans Maturin la forme vivante et animée d’une légende surnaturelle, et cette différence suffirait pour établir la supériorité de Bertram sur les Brigands.’ It is, however, difficult to see where, in Bertram, the ideas of The Robbers come in at all. The drama of Schiller is, despite its bombastic language, a typical 18:th century production with a social tendency. The hero and his followers are—as in the case of the theorizing ‘Arcadian’ robbers in Godwin’s Caleb Williams—revolting against the constituent principles of society, the perverseness of which alone has occasioned their desperate enterprise; but the enterprise is, after all, discovered to be an unjustifiable means of changing the existing state of things. In Bertram there is nothing of the 18:th century. The adventure presented to the spectator is of a quite individual character, the case being applicable to the hero and no one else. He does not want to reform society; he does not place himself at the head of a gang of robbers on any ideal grounds; he falls. Nor are his companions robbers of the chivalrous type who keep a court of honour among themselves and take from the rich to give to the poor. Bertram himself says to some of them:

—ye are slaves that for a ducat

Would rend the screaming infant from the breast

To plunge it in the flames.

The play thus aims at nothing but the poetical exhibition of a man blending sublimity in guilt. The catchword of Karl Moor expresses his determination to surrender himself to justice, that is, voluntarily to meet the ‘felon death’ which Bertram, in his last cry, rejoices at having escaped. In all this there would appear, in Bertram, not a formally different application, but a total absence, of the ideas of The Robbers, and any influence from Schiller seems uncertain.—In some detached passages of Bertram critics tried to detect loans from several obscure plays, from Shakespeare, and even from Scott; but excepting the fact that The Tempest necessarily is called to mind by any play opening with a shipwreck, these loans are unimportant. The treatment of the other principal motive, the marriage of Imogine to the enemy of her lover, shows less originality. Its model, as pointed out in the Irish Quarterly Review 1852, is to be found in a play called Percy (1778), by Miss Hannah More. This was one of the first English dramas where the action is placed in romantic surroundings, although it resolves round the favourite topics of the day.[82] Percy, Earl of Northumberland, is the lover and destined husband of Elwina, daughter of Earl Raby. For some offence Raby breaks off all relations with Percy, who subsequently joins a crusade. During his absence Raby compels his daughter to marry Earl Douglas, an inveterate foe of Percy, and shortly after that the hero returns to England. Elwina, on one occasion, relates the story of her misfortunes to her maid, which passage has a direct correspondence in Bertram. The most conspicuous resemblance, however, is afforded by the scene where Elwina meets Percy and discloses to him that she is the wife of Douglas. Percy, like Bertram, is seized with a violent fury, and his words:

And have I ’scap’d the Saracen’s fell sword,

Only to perish by Elwina’s guilt?

are distinctly echoed in Bertram’s:

And did I ’scape from war, and want, and famine

To perish by the falsehood of a woman?

The further development of the conflict is, as easily can be imagined, totally different in the two dramas—a heroine of Hannah More was the least likely of any to suggest the character of the lady Imogine.

It is generally asserted by biographers[83] that contemporary critics—with the single exception of Coleridge—were ‘enraptured’ about Bertram; but this, undoubtedly, is to say too much. Its supposed immoral tendency, as has already been seen, roused a storm of indignation in the columns of the reviews, where the passing acknowledgments of the author’s talent almost vanished. The opening lines of the criticism in the Eclectic Review are characteristic of the way in which the play was treated of:

This tragedy has obtained, upon the stage, a popularity that would seem altogether undeserved. That the Author has strong powers no one can doubt; and as we are not uncandid, the reader will find in the course of our extracts, passages that prove him to have very strong powers. The piece might be objected to for its want of dramatic interest, for the bad taste of its poetry, but its principal fault, (in the absence of which objection indeed, we should quietly have left it to its fate,) is its vicious and abominable morality.

Nor were the opinions even of those very strong powers always undivided. While the British Review makes mention of ‘vivacious touches of a very glowing pencil’ and pronounces that ‘the description as well as the pathetic force of many passages is admirable, and the rhythm and cadence of the verse is musical, lofty, and full of tragic pomp’—the Monthly Review maintains that the language is ‘strained, inverted, and bombastic on many occasions,’ and that ‘the versification, also, is often rough and imperfect; and a want of keeping, of harmonious colouring, and, we fear, of just design, is visible throughout.’ The severest attack upon Maturin’s play, however, was delivered by Coleridge[84] in an article uniting much cutting sarcasm with savage and indiscriminating abuse. It was supposed that Coleridge was irritated by the rejection of his Fall of Robespierre in favour of Bertram; in that light the article was, at least, regarded by Byron,[85] who refers to it in a letter to Murray, dated October 12:th 1819:

In Coleridge’s Life, I perceive an attack upon the then Committee of Drury Lane Theatre for acting Bertram, and an attack upon Maturin’s Bertram for being acted. Considering all things, this is not very grateful nor graceful on the part of the worthy autobiographer; and I would answer, if I had not obliged him. Putting my own pains to forward the views of Coleridge out of the question, I know there was every disposition on the part of the Sub-Committee to bring forward any production of his, were it feasible. The play he offered, though poetical, did not appear at all practicable, and Bertram did—and hence this long tirade, which is the last chapter of his vagabond life.

It is not quite clear in what manner Coleridge had been obliged, his play never appearing on the stage. If his criticism of Bertram was dictated by disappointment, that must have been galling indeed, for the tone prevailing in it is exceedingly acrimonious.[86] Every blunder in the composition, and unhappy turn of phrase in the impetuous style—not over-difficult to expose—is made the most of and the whole play torn to fragments, scene by scene, cleverly enough, but with a rancour which really conveys the impression of proceeding from a personal cause. The critic’s virtuous horror at the incidents is worked up to a pitch that leaves all other reviewers far behind; even the circumstance of Imogine, before she has recognized Bertram, sending for him and speaking to him, alone, is represented as a piece of gross indelicacy!—and if any spectator felt inclined to take a fancy to the hero, it certainly was no fault of Coleridge’s, who characterizes him, in a single breath, as ‘this felo de se, and thief-captain, this loathsome and leprous confluence of robbery, adultery, murder, and cowardly assassination, this monster — — —.’

However, some nonsense though these reviewers utter, their opinion of Maturin’s first play comes nearer to its final valuation than that of many later writers who boldly prophesied the author’s lasting immortality on account of Bertram. Among admiring biographers whose verdict was unsupported by any literary authority, there were critics of some reputation; Gustave Planche, writing in 1833, does not hesitate to say that Bertram contains scenes worthy of Hamlet and Macbeth. In opposition to this enthusiasm of the French, it is interesting to note the very sound judgment of Goethe. He had, in 1817, read the play and written a kind of advertisement of it, in which he reaches in a few words the kernel of the matter and explains the secret of its success: ‘Das neuste englische Publikum ist in Hass und Liebe von den Dichtungen des Lord Byron durchdrungen, und so kann denn auch ein Bertram Wurzel fassen, der gleichfalls Menschenhass und Rachegeist, Pflicht und Schwachheit, Umsicht, Plan, Zufälligkeiten und Zerstörung mit Furienbesen durcheinander peitscht und eine, genau besehen, emphatische Pose zur Würde eines tragischen Gedichtes erhebt.’[87]

One result of the success attending Bertram was—the play being produced anonymously—that several individuals began to make claims for the authorship. This circumstance contributed to Maturin’s determination to emerge from his anonymity and publicly take his place among the men of letters of his day. With regard to any further professional preferment this was definitely to burn his boats: a clergyman of the established church the writer of a play whose morality was generally pronounced to be an abomination. On the other hand the dream of his life now seemed realized, and the way open to the circles to which he felt himself to belong. He took the step; and, in order to make the most of it, accepted an invitation from London to come over to witness the triumph of his production. This was the only journey of any length ever undertaken by Maturin; if not very adventurous, it still was something of an enterprise at that time, when a crossing between Dublin and Liverpool could take up to 36 hours. Maturin’s stay in London did not exceed a month. He arrived there in the latter part of May, and the 22:nd of June he wrote, from home, his first letter to Murray, in acknowledgment of the kindness shown him by the publisher. In the New Monthly Magazine 1827 we read that Maturin was, while in the metropolis, ‘suddenly elevated to the most dizzy and flattering distinction,’ being ‘caressed by the first men of the day, recognized by the audience during the performance of his play, and received with acclamations.’ The language, however, in Maturin’s own letters referring to his reception is very different, and suggestive rather of a disappointment. Even in his first letter, when sending his respects to Mrs. Murray, he assures his correspondent that ‘to your friendly and hospitable attention I am indebted for the only pleasant hours passed during my sojourn in London.’ In another letter, from July 6:th, he returns to the theme with marked bitterness:

I should be particularly obliged by your letting me know at your leisure, and as a friend (in which light I shall always consider, and feel my obligations to you) whether the impression I made in London was favourable or otherwise, or, whether I made any impression at all. My reason for urging this strange question is, the marked coldness of my reception at every house but yours and Lord Essex’s, and the singular circumstance of my never being invited to Mr. Lamb’s. I am aware that long struggle with distress and difficulty will not only cloud the mind, but degrade the manners of the sufferer, but still I cannot but think that my habits and conduct could not justify my exclusion from the line of society to which I was born, and in which till latterly I have always lived.

When you have time to write, tell me if my apprehensions are true, and if I was really though unfit for the company of men who invited me over and on whose hospitality and courtesy I had therefore some claim during my very short stay.

In spite of a soothing answer from Murray, the idea that he had not appeared to advantage continued to haunt Maturin. It ought to be mentioned, however, that in the letter quoted above there is an allusion to a member of the fair sex upon whom the impression made by the Irish guest seems to have been even more favourable than he could have wished—yet at the same time something to gratify the vanity of which he had, perhaps a little more than the usual allotment:

I have received a letter from—since my return to Ireland. I really would be glad of your advice in this unpleasant business. I dread her resentment if provoked, and I am determined not to answer her letters. I wish it could be intimated to her that I was in the country and never received her Epistle—you know what Congreve says of “woman spurned.”—

Bertram was the first of Maturin’s works that appeared with his name. It was published by Murray, and ran through seven editions in the course of 1816; the current price of 3 sh. for a new play was on this occasion raised to 4 sh. 6 d.[88] Together with the profits of the performance, the sum cleared by Maturin for his tragedy is said to have amounted to £ 1000. The consequences, however, of the unhappy transaction in which he had been involved some years before, disagreeably asserted themselves at this piece of good luck, and he speaks of his affairs in a pessimistic tone. In a letter to Murray dated August 19:th he says:

There is not a shilling I have made by Bertram that has not been expended to pay the debts of a scoundrel for whom I had the misfortune to go security, so here I am with scarce a pound in my pocket, simpering at congratulations on having made my fortune.

Yet, if Maturin had not made his fortune by his first tragedy, he probably intended to make it by his second, for he took no pains to undeceive his congratulators. He was, by all accounts, somewhat dazzled by the bright prospects he imagined to be dawning for him, when he returned to Dublin as the greatest of its literary celebrities, and he changed his mode of living accordingly. He was, as appears from his letters to Murray, under the impression of being born to a line of society embellished by elegance and refinement, and his recollections of the easy circumstances in which he had grown up had not vanished amid the privations of later life. After his arrival from London Maturin plunged into the delights of society and became a conspicuous figure in saloons and assemblies; and his unpretending house in York Street was re-furnished and decorated with a splendour of which a friend of his who, however, admits that he did not see Maturin’s home until a later period, when the whole show had disappeared, gives the following account:[89]

The walls of the parlours were done in panels, with scenes from his novels, painted by an artist of some eminence; the richest carpets, ottomans, lustres, and marble tables ornamented the withdrawing-rooms; the most beautiful papers covered the walls, and the ceilings were painted to represent clouds, with eagles in the centre, from whose claws depended brilliant lustres.

In this abode—whether it exactly answered to the above description or not—was then received what Dublin society had to offer not only in the way of intellect, but preferably of youth and beauty. What it was that attracted Maturin in his social intercourse is vividly described by his biographer:[90]

It is from this period that we may date the commencement of that folly of which Maturin has been lavishly accused. Whatever might have been the levities of his conduct before, now they certainly became more remarkable. His whole port and bearing was that of a man who had burst from a long sleep into a new state of being; always gay, he now became luxurious in his habits and manners. He was the first in the quadrille—the last to depart. The ball-room was his temple of inspiration and worship. So passionately attached was he to dancing, that he organized morning quadrille parties, which met alternately two or three days in the week at the houses of the favourite members of his coterie. He was proud of the gracefulness and elegance of his dancing; his light figure, and the melancholy and interesting air that, whether natural or fictitious, he threw into his movements, gave a peculiar character to his style. He was a perfect bigot in his attachment to female society; and generally restless and dissatisfied in the exclusive company of men. I remember meeting him at a large assembly where there were several beautiful women, and it was with reluctance he consented to forego the quadrille during the interval of supper: at supper he was uneasy and impatient although he happened to be sitting near some very intellectual persons; at last, after a few songs, which otherwise would have been prolonged, he started up, and with considerable animation and effect, taking a lady by the hand, led the way to the dancing-room.

A very characteristic explanation of this gaiety is given by Mangan,[91] who ascribes it all to misery arising from unappreciated intellectual superiority. Maturin, he says,

—had no friend—companion—brother; he, and the “lonely Man of Shiraz” might have shaken hands, and then—parted. He—is his own dark way—understood many people; but nobody understood him in any way. — — — — “Man, being reasonable, must get drunk,” observes Byron. It is an ugly line; but one that embodies a volume of philosophy—especially if we read it in juxtaposition with that other line, by Boileau “Souvent de tous nos maux la raison est le pire.” The world points the finger of scorn at the intellectual intemperate man—not reflecting—not caring to reflect—that it is his very superiority to the world that drives him to habits of intemperance. His nature is “averse from life” —he has an impatience of existence. Charles Lamb rushed forward, and forced the Gates of Death; and, actuated by a similar feeling, Maturin trod in his footsteps, though only trippingly. Lamb found his Lethe in the quart—Maturin sought his in the quadrille. One drank, the other danced. They were the two kings of Brentford “smelling at one nosegay,” only each experienced the sensation of a different odour from the flowers.

Although the view applied by Mangan is too gloomy a one, it contains, no doubt, a certain amount of truth, and shows a remarkable penetration of Maturin’s character and situation. In his correspondence of that time Maturin repeatedly laments just his want of a literary friend or companion, and the absence of ‘excitement of any description’ that might inspire him to carry on his poetical occupations. As far as these were concerned, his spirit found little nourishment in his environs. Dublin was then rather void of literati, and the people he mixed with were, for the most part, of the usual, every-day character. Feeling thus that even the elite did not attain to the intellectual level he commanded, Maturin turned to the lighter style of social life—with real pleasure, as it corresponded to one side of his temperament, but sometimes, it is not unlikely, with a feverish intensity affording oblivion of the disadvantages under which he laboured, and escape from the melancholy that also was a constituent part of his mind. His nervousness might have been increased by doubts as to the duration of his present mode of existence, and at intervals there naturally came moments of weariness and tedium vitae. In his sermon preached on the first Sunday of the year 1817 Maturin exclaims:

Yes, disappointment has been, must be, the result of our pursuits and passions, because they were “of the earth, earthly;” because of their very nature they were hollow, worthless, and false, and they communicated that nature to their object—they were unworthy of the energies of a thinking spirit, unworthy of the dignity of an immortal soul! — — — What is the result of the chase of these lying vanities? We are disappointed, either in failing to attain them, and thus being rendered wretched by the loss of that whose possession never could have made us happy; or—more mortifying to the illusions of our pride, by attaining them, and finding their possession to be emptiness, yea, “worse than nothing, than vanity.”

Sentiments like these implied a general condemnation of the pursuits Maturin himself was engaged in all his life, and give one more illustration of the tragic contradiction between his profession and his inclinations. That the eccentricities of his conduct incurred a great deal of censure on the part of the more rigorous-minded has already been hinted; but his placidity of temper and easy, gentlemanly manners usually disarmed the displeasure of those coming into contact with him, and he had, upon the whole, no personal enemies. In his own parish he was universally beloved, and where his well-known figure emerged it attracted friendly attention, not unmixed with amazement. His outward appearance used to vary according to his conditions. When he could, he dressed in the highest fashion; his cash being at a low ebb, he would be seen walking about in a costume almost ostentatiously shabby. ‘Mr. Maturin’ says a writer,[92] ‘was tall, slender, but well proportioned, and on the whole, a good figure, which he took care to display in a well made black coat, tight buttoned, and some old light-coloured stocking-web pantaloons, surmounted in winter by a coat of prodigious dimensions, gracefully thrown on, so as not to obscure the symmetry it affected to protect.’ The portrait of Maturin, drawn by Brocas, which appeared in the New Monthly Magazine or Universal Register 1819 and which is reproduced in the 1892 edition of Melmoth the Wanderer, shows a self-portraying and uncommonly handsome face: the finely chiselled mouth indicating a tendency towards the gay and luxurious, while the gaze of the large and melancholy eyes suggests the horrors his imagination was wont to dwell upon. Those who saw him in his home were struck by the former quality greatly prevailing over the latter, as is told by a visitor:[93]

I found him in a large and rather well furnished drawing-room, seated at a writing-desk; while the table on which the desk rested was heaped with books and papers, scattered there in a state of most delectable confusion. He was clad in a sort of loose morning gown, which had evidently been in use for many years. He was cravatless, and looked at the moment rather pale and emaciated. At this period he was at the heyday of his literary popularity, and it struck me that he looked like one who had been enjoying the good things of life (enjoying them too freely) the night before. His eldest boy was seated at his right hand, copying out something from a sadly blotted M. S. Mrs. M. ——, with her daughter, occupied a place near the window, and, when the conversation commenced, joined freely in it. I saw before me for the first time the man of genius, the man whose language and sentiments had operated on me as a species of witchcraft. I felt an indescribable awe—my heart throbbed, and my tongue was for the moment bound up; but the cheerful welcome, the gentle tone, and the brightly animated look of the poet, soon set me quite at ease, and after a few minutes conversation I found myself as it were at home. I was struck most forcibly with the contrast existing in the person and manner of the author and his writings—the one all passion and gloominess and horror, the other ease, grace, and sprightliness, approaching even to levity. He exhibited on this, and on other occasions, when I was with him, a turn for mimicry, and a vein of humour, for which I was entirely unprepared.—

It is mentioned in most notes on Maturin that he was in the habit of placing a wafer on his forehead in his hours of inspiration, to signify to his family that he was not to be intruded upon. This—and many other caprices of a similar kind—might have happened once or twice and then been related at the tea-tables of Dublin as a token of the eccentricity of their literary curate. The story of the wafer seems to be contradicted, or at least greatly qualified, by the statements of some other writers. Carleton[94] says that Maturin had composed the greatest part of his earlier romances at Marsh’s library in St. Patrick’s Close, ‘on a small plain deal desk, which he removed from place to place according as it suited his privacy or convenience;’ and an intimate friend of his has said[95] that he never worked on his two last novels except in the stillness of night, when there was consequently no fear of his being disturbed. As for the inventive part of composition, one writer[96] reports the following utterance of Maturin:

I compose on a long walk; but then the day must neither be too hot, nor cold: it must be reduced to that medium from which you feel no inconvenience one way or the other; and then when I am perfectly free from the city and experience no annoyance from the weather, my mind becomes lighted by sunshine and I arrange my plan perfectly to my own satisfaction.

This confidence was made just on one of those long pedestrian excursions to the county of Wicklow, which Maturin loved to undertake, especially in autumn, his favourite season. During his rambles he sometimes would enter into a literary discussion—which he in general is said to have been rather disinclined to do—and from the occasion now in question his interlocutor has preserved some of his opinions about the poets of England. He appears to have been most attracted by those who presented the least points of contact with his own production. With Byron he shared a boundless admiration for Pope, and of the living poets he liked best Crabbe and next to him Hogg. He was very fond of Moore who had, he said, done what he had wished to do himself, had he been able; but for the poetry of Byron he had a strong distaste, the more remarkable as he had often, as in the case of Bertram, been supposed deliberately to imitate the bard of The Corsair and Lara. What Maturin, however, objected to in Byron’s poems was not the spirit but the style:

I never could finish the perusal of any of his long poems. There is something in them excessively at variance with my notions of poetry. He is too fond of the obsolete; but that I do not quarrel with so much as his system of converting it into a kind of modern antique, by superadding tinsel to gold. It is a sort of mixed mode, neither old nor new, but incessantly hovering between both.

Lastly may be quoted what Maturin, according to the same writer, once pronounced upon Walter Scott whom he, no doubt, loved best of all authors, ancient or modern:

Yes, he has a most powerful genius; a genius that can adapt itself to the changes of times and feelings with the most extraordinary celerity, and with less than the labours of ordinary thought can reform and remodel the literature of the age. He is the greatest writer of his day. He writes not for England, but for all mankind; and he has embraced in his infinite vision all modes and systems of men and manners. What he does, he does appropriately; not seeking to display all the varieties of his mind in any one work, but only that which properly belongs to it: nothing is out of place; all is perfect, simple, and real; and he possesses the magical talent of explaining a whole character by a simple word of feeling; and of imparting to the meanest figure in his picture the interest of a principal.

Among the literary plans Maturin revolved in his mind after the success of his first play was the publication of a new edition of Montorio, for which romance he still entertained a partiality. Murray, however, did not venture a republication of it, nor was he favourably disposed towards a project of Maturin’s to give out a new copy of Bertram from the original manuscript, containing everything that had been omitted in the representation. Maturin seems, at first, to have taken it for granted that this revised edition, which he intended to dedicate to Scott, was to be issued; ‘may I beg to know,’ he writes in the letter from July 6:th, ‘why the corrected copy has not yet appeared, I am really disappointed at this, for, exclusive of my restoring many passages that might possibly give pleasure to the Readers (though not to the Dramatic spectator) I am most anxious that the preface, and above all the original dedication (a debt due by gratitude to my first literary friend Mr. Scott) should be made public.’ The question was under discussion for some time, but after a rather irascible epistle from Maturin dated Nov. 19:th, it was referred to no more. Maturin was already working at a new play, and the publisher prudently determined to wait how it would turn out before entering into any doubtful enterprises. In a letter from August 19:th Maturin sanguinely says that what he has written pleases him better than Bertram; but at the same time it is seen how lonely he felt in what now was to him a provincial seclusion:

Let me beg of you to write to me. I cannot describe to you the effect of an English letter on my spirits; it is like the wind to an Aeolian harp. I cannot produce a note without it. Give me advice, abuse, news, anything, or nothing (if it were possible that you could write nothing), but write.—

The principal character of the drama on which Maturin was engaged had been suggested to him, while in London, on behalf of Kean. The tragedian was anxious to act the part of Lear, but that was rendered improper by the mental illness of George III; the part he wanted was, consequently, that of an old man in a state of decrepitude and insanity, but occupying a somewhat humbler place in society. The experiment was hazardous in every respect. It was required of Maturin to produce an imitation of one of the most famous characters in literature, without one of the principal qualifications for his greatness. A too close attendance to the desire of the actor laid a constant restraint upon his imagination, and thereto came some other inconvenient considerations. Referring to the attacks upon Bertram, Maturin says in his letter last quoted: ‘In my present attempt, I shall beware of moonlight interviews, and jobs for Doctors Commons; my Heroines shall form a complete Coro di Vestale, and my Hero shall be guilty only of murder and such Bagatelles.’ All this boded no good; and when Manuel was brought out at Drury Lane, early in the following year, it turned out a decided failure. Kean, finding it but a poor compensation for Lear, soon lost all interest in it, and its reception on the part of the public was a very cold one. The general disappointment is described in a letter from Murray to Byron, dated March 15:th 1817:[97]

Maturin’s new tragedy, ‘Manuel,’ appeared on Saturday last, and I am sorry to say that the opinion of Mr. Gifford was established by the impression made on the audience. The first act very fine, the rest exhibiting a want of judgment not to be endured. It was brought out with uncommon splendour, and was well acted. Kean’s character as an old man—a warrior—was new and well sustained, for he had, of course, selected it, and professed to be—and he acted as if he were—really pleased with it. But this feeling changed to dislike after the first night, for he then abused it, and has actually walked through the part ever since, that is to say, for the other three nights of performance — — — I met Geo. Lamb on Tuesday, and he complained bitterly of Kean’s conduct, said that he had ruined the success of the tragedy, and that in consequence he feared Maturin would receive nothing. I send you the first act, that you may see the best of it. I have undertaken to print the tragedy at my own expence, and to give the poor Author the whole of the profit.

The verdict of Byron, after he had read the play, was equally unfavourable. ‘It is the absurd work of a clever man,’ he writes to Murray in a letter from Venice dated June 14:th;[98] ‘as a play, it is impracticable; as a poem, no great things.’ One admirer, however, Maturin’s second tragedy was destined to meet: in a subsequent letter Byron tells[99] that ‘Monk’ Lewis, to whom he had lent it, preferred it to some extracts from Lalla Rookh which he read at the same time. For his own part Byron adds: ‘Of Manuel I think, with the exception of a few capers, it is as heavy a nightmare as was ever bestrode by indigestion.’ This opinion was, later on, embraced by the author himself, who says in a letter to Murray from Sept. 27:th:

I am not discouraged by the failure of Manuel; the public were in the right about it; it is a very bad play; but I was led astray by the folly of supposing I could adapt myself to the exclusive taste of an actor in sketching a character for him. I sacrificed everything to him, and he in return—sacrificed me.

Manuel, which was furnished with the longed-for dedication to Walter Scott, Esq. is, indeed, Maturin’s weakest production, and very little need be said about it.

Manuel, count of Valdi, is a distinguished Spaniard whose only son, Alonzo, was born to him in the evening of his life. Alonzo’s birth has frustrated the expectations of Manuel’s heir and kinsman De Zelos; the latter, with his children, is plunged into poverty and insignificance, and publicly slighted by all his former flatterers. He has conceived a vehement hatred against the innocent cause of his altered conditions, which feeling, however, is not shared by his children: his daughter Ximena is the beloved of Alonzo, and his son Torrismond is the lover of Victoria, the daughter of Manuel. Alonzo has, though still a youth, completely beaten the Moors in the battle of Tolosa, and the reports of his victory are, at the opening of the play, spreading through the city of Cordova. Manuel summons his friends to a feast with which he wishes to celebrate the return of Alonzo; the family of De Zelos, too, get an invitation. At the entertainment Manuel awaits his son with increasing impatience, but Alonzo never makes his appearance. At last his war-steed is heard galloping into the court-yard, yet he comes alone with blood upon the saddle and a broken lance trailing from the stirrup. With something like an inspiration Manuel immediately accuses De Zelos of having murdered his son. As no traces are found of Alonzo, De Zelos again becomes the heir to the estates of Valdi, and the grandees once more vie with each other in fawning upon him and feigning to disbelieve the accusations of Manuel. They are, however, to meet in the hall of justice, and though Manuel can produce no proof of his charge, he passionately maintains it to be true,

—by that whisper of the soul,

which to no ear but mine is audible.

De Zelos is on the point of swearing himself to be innocent, when, agitated by Manuel’s shrieks of perjury, he claims a combat to vindicate his honour. Torrismond appears as his father’s champion, and the cause of Manuel is taken up by a stranger on the condition that he will be allowed to depart with his vizor closed and his name unknown. Manuel has long been hovering on the verge of madness, and when he now sees the stranger defeated, the insanity breaks out in all its fury.—The last act takes place at one of Manuel’s castles in the country, whither he is banished on account of his unproved accusations against De Zelos; he is attended only by his daughter and two faithful followers. In the meantime Ximena has resolved to seek refuge in a convent in the same vicinity. Passing by the chapel of the castle she descends into the vault when she is informed by her guide that a requiem is just being chanted to the soul of Alonzo. Here she is shortly afterwards joined by Manuel. His first impulse is to kill her, but he forbears when she declares that she has loved Alonzo; she also tells him that Alonzo’s murderer is now within the vault. Manuel rushes away and Torrismond, who is in pursuit of his sister, makes his appearance. To him Ximena repeats that she has found, lying on one of the tombs, the person who has murdered Alonzo; he has even given her his dagger which is furnished with the name of his employer, but made her swear that it is not to be examined except before the judges.—At the same time De Zelos with a large party of friends—also in quest of Ximena—arrive at the castle. Manuel is hurrying them to the vault when Torrismond rushes out crying that his father is innocent. As the judges happen to be of the party he unsheathes the dagger and reads the name of—his father. De Zelos, in despair, stabs himself, and Manuel, whose strength is worn out by now, expires in fearful ravings.—

Throughout the four first acts the tragedy is well-nigh deprived of all dramatic vigour by incessant interruptions of the main plot. That consists, or ought to consist, in the development of the fate of Manuel until his madness—like Lear’s—breaks out after an accumulation of disappointments; but besides there being, in every act, plenty of dialogue to no purpose, the interest is divided among episodes very loosely connected with the intrigue. The incidents of the last act are prepared by such a sub-plot, bearing upon an intention of De Zelos to marry his daughter to the chief justice; for that reason, it must be supposed, she leaves her home and sets out for the convent. The appropriate arrival to the castle, however, of all the personages required, especially that of De Zelos and his party, makes the whole act highly improbable and its construction puerile in the extreme. The madness of Manuel, also, is here quite insupportable, and it is not to be wondered at that Kean could not endure the role more than one evening. Of the characters De Zelos is, upon the whole, the most interesting. He is a kind of villainous Timon of Athens. When his fortune is gone he sees how his friends turn their backs upon him; he perfectly comprehends the worthlessness of their conduct—

Ye insects in my heat that basked and buzzed,

And sung your summer-songs of flattery,

But, parting, leave your stings;

yet instead of paying contempt with contempt, he is ready to commit a horrible crime in order to enable himself to re-enter their society. His lack of self-command, however, is so exaggerated and his nervousness so evident, that no one can be in doubt of his guilt, which is made only too clear by several incidents long before his name is read on the dagger. On one occasion his intended son-in-law tells him, much to his agitation, that a Moor has mysteriously whispered to him that De Zelos is a villain. When the unknown champion of Manuel then is defeated, he beckons De Zelos to him and, for a moment, discloses his face, which is black—at the sight of which De Zelos, ‘staggering with horror,’ falls into the arms of his son. This penitent Moor, whom De Zelos had hired to slay Alonzo, then appears to have travelled, wounded, to the ancient family-seat of his victim, thus adding to the number of people who, as if by appointment, are gathering there to die. As for the two heroines—who, according to the promise of the author, do not much occupy themselves with thoughts of love—they are so negligently treated that it is not quite clear what becomes of them. When Ximena reveals her discovery to Torrismond, she is said to be dying, but it is never explained why. Her fate is so obscure that the unknown writer of the witty epilogue to Manuel, after enumerating all the deaths occurring in the play, ends with the following reference to her:

Here doth the mourner, sad Ximena, lie

In death;—but hold!—one question—Did she die?

What tho’ she fell, and rail’d on life’s restraint,

Women talk thus who only mean to faint.

Well, then, for her we’ll e’en delay our sorrow,

Till critics ascertain her fate to-morrow;

And, if you please, to fix the matter quite,

I’ll meet you here again to-morrow night.

The most depressing quality of Manuel, as a production of Maturin’s, is that its poetry certainly is ‘no great things.’ There is nothing of the breath of romance which runs through several passages of Bertram. The language is, for the most part, uninspired, and stored with hackneyed phrases and vulgar exclamations. A description of the battle of Osma, spoken by Manuel, was greatly admired by Alaric Watts,[100] but to a modern reader it is hardly enjoyable, as appears from the following fragment:

Night hung on van and rear: we moved in darkness,

And heavily did count our echoed steps:

As men who marched to death!—Osma, thy field

(When the pale moon broke on the battle’s verge)

Seemed as an ocean, where the Moorish turbans

Toss’d like the white sea-foam! Amid that ocean

We were to plunge and—perish!—

For ev’ry lance we couch’d the Moslem host

Drew twenty scimitars—and, when the cry

“God and St. Jago!” burst from our pale lips,

Seemed as if every Spanish soldier peal’d

His requiem, not his battle-shout!—Oh Sirs!

We stood not then on terms of war,—devices

To give the coward the cold praise of art:—

We fought with life and soul upon the issue,—

With sword (once drawn) whose battle knew no end,—

With hand, that wedded to the faithful hilt,

Knew no divorce but death, and held it then

With grasp which death unlocks not!—

Critics took but little notice of Manuel. In the Monthly Review[101] there appeared an article in which the play is unmercifully cut up, and the circumstance of De Zelos’s dagger, above all, subjected to ridicule:

It is actually to be read in the play of Manuel, and (still more trying to the faith of our posterity!) it has actually been proved to be there, by representation on the stage, that a murderer by proxy gives that proxy a dagger, with the name (not of the maker, but) of De Zelos,—with his own name, marked on it!!!—Parson Adams forgetting his sermons is nothing to this; no, nor his prototype, who walked unconsciously into the enemy’s camp.

The absent-mindedness of De Zelos is referred to in the scene where Ximena tells her brother that she has seen the Moor:

An oath had seal’d his lips—he dar’d not speak it,

But to my hands he gave the very dagger

The villain, in unguarded haste, had giv’n him

To do the deed of blood—His name is on it!

A man of De Zelos’s vacillating character might, perhaps, be imagined capable of throwing, in a moment of ‘unguarded haste,’ his own dagger to the proxy—but the writer is quite right in condemning the expedient: if the villain of a tragedy is so nervous as to become ludicrous, the case is irrevocably lost.

Shortly after the performance of Manuel, Maturin’s critique on Sheil’s Apostate, referred to before, appeared in the Quarterly Review. The article, probably written in great haste, and endeavouring to give a survey of the history of drama, from the earliest times, is not particularly interesting, though it displays extensive reading and, upon the whole, a correct judgment. Nor was it very welcome to the editor. Gifford is said[102] to have subjected it to a partial re-arrangement, thinking it worth preserving on account of a certain ‘wild eloquence.’ The criticism of the Apostate, with which the article ends, is severe but not undeservedly so; the play had been a great success on the stage with Miss O’Neill in the heroine’s part,[103] but it belonged to the usual, ephemeral kind of the day.

Maturin’s own career, however, as a successful dramatist, had now come to an end, and the fame he had so suddenly reaped by his Bertram was not destined to increase in that field. Ambitious plans and dreams of future golden times were once again replaced by the cares and duties of ordinary life, and the house in York Street began to be visited by creditors instead of dancing parties. Yet the effect of his recent failure upon the spirits of Maturin was, to judge from his subsequent productions where his genius rose to its highest flights, tranquillizing rather than disheartening. Experience had taught him the futility of heeding any prescriptions from outside; in the years to come he relied solely upon his own instinct and produced those works for which, in truth, he ought to be remembered.

IV.

1818-1820.

So schwing empor dich, Geist, und verweile jetzt

Beim Tode, jetzt durchdringe die Wolke, die

Den Sonnenstrahl der Auferstehung

Fallen nicht lässt in die offnen Gräber!

Lenau.

The first intelligence that Maturin was contemplating a new novel is found in his caustic letter to Murray (Nov. 1816) concerning the non-appearance of the revised edition of Bertram: he mentions, in passing, that he will not have occasion to trouble the publisher about his prose-work, as he has been ‘honoured by the offer of a Society of literary Gentlemen in England, to print the work at their own expense, and to raise a large sum by subscription for the writer.’ The prose-work alluded to was, no doubt, Women; or, Pour et Contre, which appeared in the beginning of 1818. Of the literary gentlemen nothing further was heard, but the author seems really to have been laid under some kind of obligation with regard to the publication of his novel. In September 1817 Maturin states that he is beginning to finish a novel for Mr. Constable, who has displayed unexampled liberality in the matter; and on Nov. 17:th he writes, likewise to Murray: ‘My novel will come out I believe next month. The Countess of Essex has done me the honour to accept of the dedication and an unknown friend has remitted a considerable sum to Mr. Constable in aid of the publication, so that I am in hopes he will have no reason to repent his liberality to me.’ It was through the influence of Scott that the Constables had been induced to purchase the copyright of the book, and it is not improbable that Scott had also played the part of the unknown friend, though it is surprising that such generosity should have been requisite in the present case. To Scott, too, the publishers appealed about a difference that arose between the author and themselves while the proofs were already going through the press. Maturin had composed a preface with the object of defending Bertram—always his favourite production—against the attack of Coleridge, which he had not been quite able to get over. Out of place as a tirade of this sort unquestionably was here, it became the more objectionable by delivering a furious counterblast upon certain of Coleridge’s works. The manuscript being forwarded to Scott, he replied to it with the following letter[104] which, though unfortunately the only specimen left of his communications to Maturin, clearly shows the cordial relations between the master of Abbotsford and his Irish protegé:

26:th February 1818.

Dear Sir—I am going to claim the utmost and best privilege of sincere friendship and goodwill, that of offering a few words of well-meant advice; and you may be sure that the occasion seems important to induce me to venture so far upon your tolerance. It respects the preface to your work which Constable and Co. have sent to me. It is as well written as that sort of thing can be; but will you forgive me if I say—it is too much in the tone of the offence which gave rise to it to be agreeable either to good taste or to general feeling. Coleridge’s work has been little read or heard of, and has made no general impression whatever—certainly no impression unfavourable to you or your play. In the opinion, therefore, of many, you will be resenting an injury of which they are unacquainted with the existence. If I see a man beating another unmercifully, I am apt to condemn him upon the first blush of the business, and hardly excuse him, though I may afterwards learn he had ample provocation.

I never let the thing cling to my mind, and always adhered to my resolution, that if my writings and tenor of life did not confute such attacks, my words never should.

Let me entreat you to view Coleridge’s violence as a thing to be contemned, not retaliated,—the opinion of a British public may surely be set in honest opposition to that of one disappointed and wayward man. You should also consider, en bon Chretien, that Coleridge has had some room to be spited at the world, and you are, I trust, to continue to be a favourite with the public—so that you should totally neglect and despise criticism, however virulent, which arises out of his bad fortune and your good.

I have only to add, that Messrs Constable and Co. are seriously alarmed for the effects of the preface upon the public mind as unfavourable to the work. In this they must be tolerable judges, for their experience as to popular feeling is very great; and as they have met your wishes, in all the course of the transaction, perhaps you will be disposed to give some weight to their opinion upon a point like this. Upon my own part I can only say, that I have no habits of friendship, and scarce those of acquaintance with Coleridge—I have not even read his autobiography—but I consider him as a man of genius, struggling with bad habits and difficult circumstances.

Besides, your diatribe is not hujus loci. We take up a novel for amusement, and this current of controversy breaks out upon us like a stream of lava out of the side of a beautiful green hill; men will say you should have reserved your disputes for reviews or periodical publications, and they will sympathise less with your anger, because they will not think the time proper for expressing it. We are bad judges, bad physicians, and bad divines in our own case; but, above all, we are seldom able when injured or insulted to judge of the degree of sympathy which the world will bear in our resentment and our retaliation. The instant, however, that such degree of sympathy is exceeded, we hurt ourselves and not our adversary; I am so convinced of this, and so deeply fixed in the opinion, that besides the uncomfortable feelings which are generated in the course of literary debate, a man lowers his estimation in the public eye by engaging in such controversy, that, since I have been dipped in ink, I have suffered no personal attacks (and I have been honoured with them of all descriptions) to provoke me to reply. A man will certainly be vexed on such occasions, and I have wished to have the knaves where the muircock was the bailie—or, as you would say, upon the sod—but it is, however, entirely upon your account that I take the liberty of stating an opinion on a subject of such delicacy. I should wish you to give your excellent talents fair play, and to ride this race without carrying any superfluous weight; and I am so well acquainted with my old friend the public, that I could bet a thousand pounds to a shilling that the preface (if that controversial part is not cancelled) will greatly prejudice your novel.

I will not ask your forgiveness for the freedom I have used, for I am sure you will not suspect me of any motives but those which arise from regard to your talents and person; but I shall be glad to hear (whether you follow my advice or no) that you are not angry with me for having volunteered to offer it.

My health is, I think, greatly improved; I have some returns of my spasmodic affection, but tolerable in degree, and yielding to medicine. I hope gentle exercise and the air of my hills will set me up this summer. I trust you will soon be out now. I have delayed reading the sheets in progress after vol. I that I might enjoy them when collected.—Ever yours etc—Walter Scott.

Advice thus tactfully conveyed could not easily be resisted, and the offensive introduction was withdrawn. The short preface which appeared in print, though also relative to Maturin’s other writings, was to quite a different purpose; in it Maturin for the first time publicly owns the authorship of his earlier romances, but only to declare them devoid of all merit:

When I look over those books now, I am not at all surprised at their failure; for, independent of their want of external interest, (the strongest interest that books can have, even in this reading age) they seem to me to want reality, vraisemblance; the characters, situations, and language, are drawn merely from imagination; my limited acquaintance with life denied me any other resource. In the Tale which I now offer to the public, perhaps there may be recognised some characters which experience will not disown. Some resemblance to common life may be traced in them. On this I rest for the most part the interest of the narrative. The paucity of characters and incidents (the absence of all that constitutes the interest of fictitious biography in general) excludes the hope of this work possessing any other interest.

The external incidents in Women are rich and fantastic enough, as will be seen, nor does its superiority consist in the occurrence of the characters in ordinary life, but in the manner in which they are handled, in the penetration which a true poet applies to his personages, whether imaginary or otherwise. Maturin’s modest plea for what has later been called realism, is wound up with a passage perfectly characteristic of his prefaces: humble in appearance, but making, in its way, a strong appeal to the curiosity of the reader:

If this plain avowal of the want of effect in my former attempts does not mitigate the severity of critical animadversion, I have one more plea to offer, which I hope may prove not ineffectual, that it is the last time I ever shall trespass in this way on the indulgence of the public. One more attempt I shall make, and then address my “valete” to the audience, with little hope of being able to add, “plaudite.”

The story opens briskly. The hero, whose name is Charles De Courcy, is travelling up to Dublin from some remote part of Ireland, when, not far from the capital, the coach breaks down. Most of the passengers stop at the village where the accident takes place, but Charles, with the enthusiasm of early youth, continues his way on foot. On arriving, towards evening, at the outskirts of the town, he is passed by a carriage of mysterious appearance; a stifled cry issuing from within seems to indicate that some one is being forcibly carried away. Charles follows in the same direction and, though he soon loses sight of the vehicle, unexpectedly lights upon its burden in a cottage which he enters to make inquiries about his way. He is received by an old beggar-woman, apparently a maniac, and, notwithstanding her anxiety to get rid of him, Charles perceives, in an inner room, the form of a young girl lying immovable, as though in a swoon. Defying the beldam’s imprecations as well as her active resistance, he seizes the girl and hurries out of the house. In the darkness he successfully evades the pursuit of some persons whom he understands to be the agents of the old woman, and at length reaches the lodge at the gate of Phoenix Park. A messenger despatched to town for a carriage returns in company with a gentleman who has accidentally heard him talk about the matter. The new-comer addresses the girl as his niece and immediately removes her in the carriage. He also offers a seat to Charles, but makes no further communication to him about the mystery; the whole adventure dissolves like a dream. The exertion, however, put forth by Charles on the occasion, throws him upon a sick-bed where he is faithfully nursed by a friend called Montgomery, a young man of a Methodist turn of mind. One evening when Charles is able to walk out again, he attends his friend to the chapel which the sect is in the habit of frequenting; he goes there only to kill time, little expecting that he is to meet the girl whom he rescued from the hands of the maniac. She is greatly agitated on seeing him, whereupon he is spoken to by an elderly lady who is with her; though she very unwillingly alludes to the late adventure, she kindly invites him to visit them in their house, which invitation Charles accepts with delight, being already very much in love with the girl. The family of Wentworth appears to consist only of Mr. W., a wealthy man retired from business, otherwise a bigot of a rather unpleasant character, whose sole interest is Calvinistic controversy; of his wife, also intensely religious, but at the same time a woman of head and heart; and of the niece, Eva, a timid and delicate being, who scarcely seems to belong to this world. Charles becomes a constant visitor at the house, yet the intercourse affords him but little satisfaction. Calvinism is the only thing between heaven and earth the Wentworths find worth discussing, and he soon despairs of Eva ever being capable of any other feeling towards him than ordinary gratitude. His strength is wasted by passion and disappointment, and he is again seized with a serious illness. While watching at the bedside of his delirious friend, Montgomery comes to know of his attachment to Eva. Montgomery is in the same predicament himself, but after a victorious struggle with his own aspirations he reveals Charles’s secret to his guardian—De Courcy has no family, only bright prospects of family wealth—whom he has thought it advisable to call to town. This gentleman goes straight to the Wentworths, where his negotiations are crowned with success: when Charles’s health is restored, he is admitted into the family as the acknowledged lover of Eva. His relations to her do not, however, undergo any remarkable change. Eva has scarcely had courage to confess to her aunt that Charles is not indifferent to her, and would never dream of showing her love to any one but her Maker; she is utterly incapable of reciprocating the enthusiastic passion of De Courcy. Charming as she is, the narrowness of her mind and occupations cannot but cool his ardour in course of time—nor has the general atmosphere of the house any attractions to offer to a young man of the world. Charles has at once been set down by Mr. Wentworth as a proper object of conversion, and from this topic his conversation never departs; literature, poetry, and fine arts are not even mentioned between them. One day then all Dublin—except the evangelical circles—is excited by the arrival of Madame Dalmatiani, reputed to be the foremost singer and actress in Europe, who has been induced to give some performances in the Irish capital. Notwithstanding Wentworth’s remonstrations, Charles visits the theatre every night when Madame Dalmatiani—or Zaira, as she is called—is to appear; and it is after becoming personally acquainted with her, that he begins to disregard the maxim expressed in the verse which stands as the motto to the book:

’Tis good to be merry and wise,

’Tis good to be honest and true;

’Tis good to be off with the old love

Before you be on with the new.

He is irresistibly drawn to the refined and luxurious home of Zaira, which indeed forms a striking contrast to the gloomy surroundings he has lately been used to. His visits to the house of the Methodist grow less and less frequent, and before long he becomes the most faithful attendant of Zaira, who, on her part, is by no means unmoved by his intense adoration. They are constantly together; once, on an excursion to Wicklow, they encounter the old woman who had arranged the mysterious abduction of Eva. She addresses them with her usual impetuosity of language, and seems to show some faint recollection of having seen Zaira before. In the meantime the infatuation of De Courcy is made the talk of the town and reaches even Eva in her retirement. She courageously makes up her mind to accompany some of her few worldly-minded acquaintances to the theatre, and when she sees the brilliant apparition of Zaira, she feels that she is lost. Zaira has, indeed, been informed by Montgomery that Charles is engaged to Eva, and generously struggles with her own affections; but when she is leaving Ireland she at the last moment allows him to bear her company. They are, however, not to marry at once, but set out on a journey, during which she intends to ‘develop his soul’ with literature and science. They first proceed to Paris where the Allies are then assembled—the events of the story occur in 1814—and the great metropolis is gayer then ever. Here De Courcy for the second time shows a tendency to forget the maxim quoted above, and an estrangement—involuntary on the part of Zaira—takes place between the lovers. When Montgomery appears with the news that Eva is dying, Charles is broken down by a fit of repentance and returns to Ireland as soon as he is able. Notwithstanding his despair he is not allowed to see Eva, who is fading away like a flower, in spite of most careful medical attendance. As for Zaira, the departure of Charles leaves her in the greatest agony of mind, cutting off the only tie that binds her to life. She finds no longer any happiness in the exercise of her talents; philosophy affords her no consolation, religion has not power to heal her aching heart. She even contemplates ending her sufferings by suicide, but lacks the strength. Sick in mind and body she at last betakes herself to Dublin, where she leads a very quiet life, being chiefly engaged in works of charity among the poor. In a miserable cottage she one evening happens to light upon the old beggar-woman who has figured in the course of the story. She appears to be lying on her death-bed and has, in her last moments, sufficiently recovered her reason to recognize her visitor and inform her that she is her mother. The story of Zaira’s earlier life—she in reality is a native of Ireland—is now given in one of her own letters to a friend.—She is the illegitimate daughter of a rich and despotic land-owner who resided in the West of Ireland and distinguished himself by the irregularities of his private life. Zaira was the only one of his children he ever took any notice of; he early observed her uncommon talents and had her instructed in everything except religion, being himself a convinced atheist. At the age of fifteen she was secretly married to her Italian music-master; but when she became a mother the story could no longer be concealed from her father, who, inconsistently enough, was so incensed at the ‘want of principle’ in his daughter, that he expelled the couple from his house for ever. The Italian, a heartless rascal, separated the child from the mother and left it behind them in Ireland. Then he took his wife to Italy where he compelled her to go on the stage. Gradually she developed into the greatest artist of her time, though almost unwittingly, being always closely guarded by her husband, who reaped all the benefit of her successes. At his death she found herself in possession of a large property which she had earned but never yet enjoyed. The first use she made of her newly-gained liberty was to write to her father and inquire after the fate of her child. The old man promised to give her the information she wanted, and Zaira hurried to Dublin; but scarcely had she arrived there when she learned that her father had suddenly died without leaving any references to the child. Having thus lost all hope of ever finding her child, she again left Ireland in company with De Courcy.—Zaira’s mother was, for some time, the favourite mistress of the mighty man, but then, when she was overtaken in the act of carrying away Zaira in order to bring her up in the Catholic religion, he had turned her out of the house. Subsequently she partially lost her reason, preserving, however, a passionate devotion to her faith, and the desire of imparting it to her descendants guided all her actions; Zaira being out of her reach she turned her attention to Zaira’s child. She led the life of a beggar more by choice than of necessity, for she had, when occasion arose, means of hiring people to carry out her schemes: once, in fact, she was quite on the point of securing the person of her granddaughter who, after the departure of Zaira, had been committed to the care of a wealthy couple in Dublin, and educated as their niece under the name of Eva Wentworth.—Thus Zaira at last becomes acquainted with her daughter’s circumstances. She hastens to the house of Wentworth, but arrives just a moment after Eva has closed her eyes in death of which her mother has been the indirect cause. Shortly afterwards De Courcy also goes the way of all flesh, while Zaira, when the story ends, ‘still lives,’ though a shadow of her former self.

The reproduction of the bare outlines of the story of Women is an easy matter compared to that of Maturin’s earlier novels; what Scott wrote in the Edinburgh Review with reference to the style, is equally true of the construction of the book: ‘We observe, with pleasure, that Mr. Maturin has put his genius under better regulation than in his former publications, and retrenched that luxuriance of language, and too copious use of ornament, which distinguishes the authors and orators of Ireland, whose exuberance of imagination sometimes places them in the predicament of their honest countryman, who complained of being run away with by his legs.’ Nevertheless it is the form which, even here, is most subject to criticism. The book can be divided into two principal parts, the first of which comprises the events happening before Zaira’s journey to Paris with De Courcy, while the second is devoted to the analysis of her mental sufferings after her separation from him; the experiences of De Courcy in the French metropolis, and the closing scenes in Dublin, are allowed comparatively little space. The description of the struggles of Zaira clearly is of secondary importance for the development of the plot, where it thus makes a hiatus of extraordinary length. The narrative is, besides, now and then broken by letters and discussions all of which are not kept within proper bounds. The positive merits, however, of each separate part of the work, more than atone for any lack of proportion in its construction.

Of all the scenes in the book, those in the first part dealing with the Methodist circles of Dublin, unquestionably are the most interesting. Maturin often said that he was no judge of his own works, but he was not mistaken in seeing the main virtue of Women in that it bears ‘some resemblance to common life.’ Formerly, as has been seen, Maturin’s ideas of his special powers had led him carefully to avoid the sphere of ‘common life,’ both in his treatment of external incident and, still more, of emotion; but the fact is that those powers, when ripened into maturity, were distinguished by a versatility not to be confined to any special style of fiction. In Melmoth he returned, with undiminished powers, to the field of pure imagination, against which the preface to Women denotes but a momentary reaction. It was not, perhaps, for artistic reasons only that Maturin, in the present work, described an aspect of common life as led in the rigidly Calvinistic community; the exposure of the less amiable qualities of the sect might have been a not unwelcome side-issue for him, considering the vast difference of his own views from those of the ‘evangelical people,’ at whose instance the peculiarities of Maturin himself had, no doubt, received much damnation. Yet although there certainly is an under-current of satire, that satire never has a ring of personal animosity; on the contrary, it is relieved by a tone of genuine humour and brightened, above all, by the introduction of the angelic figure of Eva. The pursuits and occupations going on in the house of Wentworth, the whole atmosphere of a place where Calvinistic pamphlets are the only literature that is tolerated, and the only music ever enjoyed consists of evangelical hymns—all this is reflected in a manner the very graphicness of which suggests impartiality. The household bears the stamp of its master, who is incapable of cherishing more than one idea at a time:

His manners were repulsive, his understanding narrow, and his principles inflexibly rigid; his mind was rather tenacious than strong; what little he knew, he knew thoroughly, and what he once acquired he retained for ever. Early in life he had made a large fortune with a spotless character, and having retired from business, found his mind utterly vacant; by the persuasion of his wife, he was induced to listen to the evangelical preachers, and (as is often the case with converts either in early youth or in advanced life,) in a short time he far outwent his preceptors. Calvinism, Calvinism was every thing with him; his expertness in the five points would have foiled even their redoutable refuter, Dr. Whitby himself; but his theology having obtained full possession of his head, seemed so satisfied with its conquest, that it never ventured to invade his heart.—

To a character thus formed, the abstinence from the vanities of life costs no struggle, and implies no victory over himself, for Calvinism is sufficient to afford him amusement as well as edification; the most enthusiastic playgoer could not await a first night with more eagerness than Wentworth looks forward to an occasion upon which a Socinian, a Catholic, an Arian, and an Arminian Methodist, are to be exposed ‘for the whole night to the battery of a dozen resolute Calvinists.’ In the house of Wentworth the community naturally can feel safe from any disturbing interferences, and it is, in fact, their habitual place of meeting. Among the daily guests is the greatest orator of the sect, a Tartuffian figure called Macowen, who appears to have also a private reason for visiting the family:

He was the son of a poor labourer, the tenant of a wealthy gentleman in Cork, whose wife was evangelical; she instructed the children of her husband’s tenants in her own system; her husband gave her no disturbance; he followed his fox-hounds all day, and damned his wife’s Methodism over his claret all night. The good lady went her own way, and discovering in this lad, maugre his fierce red hair and bare broad feet, evident marks of his being “a growing and a gracious character” — — — — She proposed a subscription among her friends to enable him to enter the university, and be qualified “to minister at the altar.”

The subscription went on zealously, and young Macowen entered College; but when once there, his views, as they were called, expanded so rapidly, that no Church Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or Independent, had the good fortune precisely to suit his sentiments in orthodoxy of system, or purity of discipline. Thus he moved a splendid and erratick meteor, shedding his light on the churches as he passed, but defying them all to calculate his orbit, or ascertain his direction. In the mean time, it had been suggested to him that many evangelical females, of large fortune, would not be unwilling to share his fate. This hint, often repeated and readily believed, threw a most odious suavity into his manner; his overblown vulgar courtesy was like the flowers of the poppy, all glare and stench. Under these circumstances, he had become the intimate of the Wentworth family; and from the moment he beheld Eva, his feelings were what he could not describe, and would not account for even to himself, but what he was determined implicitly to follow. His system took part with his inclinations, and in a short time he believed it a duty to impress her with the conviction that her salvation must depend on her being united with him.—

The inmost reason for Mr. Wentworth having suffered so meritorious a wooer to be outrivalled by the unbelieving De Courcy lies in his still being enough of a man of business fully to appreciate the considerable property the latter is heir to. His wife, on the other hand, is really attached to the preserver of her ‘niece.’ She is a woman remarkable for intelligence of mind and dignity of character; and though her manner appears stiff and constrained by the influence of her religion, she is naturally warm-hearted and loves Eva as if she were her own child. She cannot, however, do much to enliven the heavy routine fixed by Wentworth and Macowen, the monotony of which is broken only by scenes like the following. De Courcy and Montgomery call one morning when the gentlemen are sitting at the breakfast-table, engaged in an animated controversy with a new convert:

The muffins had been swallowed wholesale, the eggs scarcely tasted, (though Macowen was a very good judge of eggs), and the tea drank scalding hot, in the rage of debate, and still it raged. Mrs. Wentworth sat at her knitting, at safe distance from the field of battle, and Eva poured out cup after cup in silence. Macowen had been pressing the new convert for a test of his faith; for he had no idea of a man’s having any religion unless he could specify it under a particular denomination, and signify his creed by a kind of free-masonic sign, technical and decisive. This the convert refused, it seems; and as the young men came in, he was bellowing, with a cup of tea in his hand, which he was spilling in the trepidation of his rage,—“No, sir—no, sir—never, never. I will neither be Catholic or Protestant, Arminian or Calvinist.”

“Don’t put Arminian first,” said Mr. Wentworth.

He went on.—“Neither Trinitarian or Arian—neither Universalist or Particularist. No sir.—Sir, I will be a Christian.—Yes, I will be a Christian, (foaming with passion). I will—I will be a Christian.” And his voice was actually a roar, and he thumped the table in the fury of his vociferation and the eagerness of his orthodoxy.—

Against this sombre background stand out the characters of the principal personages. Eva, the most pathetic among all the figures of Maturin’s creation, is drawn with a skill almost unparalleled in the art of representing a character in the purest and most ethereal light imaginable, without detracting anything from an unswerving fidelity to nature. She is as real in her goodness as in her timidity and inexperience. She has all the passive loveliness which can possibly flourish in such surroundings as hers, and is completely devoid of every active quality implying any degree of independence of mind. There is nothing brilliant about her, and the range of her ideas is certainly narrow. She would not think of doubting the infallibility of the opinions expressed by Mr. Wentworth or Macowen; but for her own part she instinctively clings to what there is best and noblest in her religion; and what little energy she possesses is employed, not in controversy, but in works of charity among the children of the poor. She is never severe to any one except herself, and shows firmness only in a punctual attention to her own religious duties. With these she unfortunately feels the demands of her temporal bridegroom to be irreconcilable, and though she suffers greatly under the conflict, she cannot find her way out of it. Her attachment to De Courcy is true and deep; but she is, as Scott said, ‘unable to express her passion otherwise than by dying for it.’ A passion of so unsubstantial a description would have put to severe trial the patience of most lovers, let alone that of De Courcy who, at the commencement of the story, is a young man of seventeen, without any self-denying tendencies. The inclination of Maturin to represent his heroes and heroines in their earliest dawn of youth sometimes led to implausibilities, but not in the present case. De Courcy is the most carefully sketched of all his male characters, delineated, in fact, with a subtlety and penetration far in advance of what the fiction of the time usually attained. His chief characteristics are precocity and weakness; constitutional weakness, in spite of a splendid external appearance, and an inconsistency of mind and fickleness of disposition constantly at war with the good and generous qualities which the author, with impartial hand, bestows upon him. The interest of a ‘protector’ with which he regards Eva after their little adventure very soon and very naturally yields to a deeper feeling which, to begin with, knows of no pretensions. On the first occasion of his being invited to the house of Wentworth he is plunged amid an evangelical dinner-party, most capitally described, where he feels but ill at ease, being the only ‘unenlightened’ person present; the gentlemen are sitting apart, ‘on their chairs sublime, in thought more elevate, and reason high’ in terms which he does not even understand—and the ladies are gathered in the drawing-room talking, for the most part, nothing at all; but one look from Eva repays him all his weariness and embarrasment: ‘For months after he fed on that look; it came to him like a beam of light, and he forgot whether it was day or night when it glanced before his eyes.’ Yet the pleasure of feeding on a look sooner or later will be exhausted, and a character like his is not formed to bear disappointments. He is almost broken down both in mind and body when he suspects that he is indifferent to Eva, and when he has learned that this is not so, the incompatibility of their views and habits seems to raise insuperable obstacles between them. Their short hours of confidence are always interrupted in the same way:

One evening he had succeeded in prevailing on her to listen to “The Lay of the Last Minstrel;” she was struck by the introduction, and Charles was proceeding with that increasing confidence which the increasing interest of a listener gives a reader, when the clock struck, and she reminded him it was time to go to the evening lecture at Bethesda Chapel. Charles, with a sigh, threw aside the poem, and accompanied her. The sermon was eloquent and long, the congregation profoundly attentive; Charles sate abstracted and listless. As they returned, the lovely calmness of a vernal night revived the feelings of Charles; and as Eva leaned on his arm, and sometimes raised her looks (but with other feelings than his) to the bright blue spangled sky, that exquisite passage broke involuntarily from his lips, that ends with, “for lovers love the western star.”

Eva started, started with actual terror; she felt the name or language of love like a profanation of the moment, and told him that she was trying to recollect the substance of the sermon she had just heard, and impress it on her memory. Charles was silent; and silently accompanied her home, where nothing but the sermon was spoken of, and every division and subdivision of theological subtlety was run on it to exhaust the hour that must intervene till the bell was rung for the servants to attend the family devotions, and a long extempore prayer from Mr. Wentworth concluded the night.

There is, in the purity and innocence of Eva, something sublime that often makes Charles himself feel it almost a crime to intrude upon her with too vehement declarations of a worldly passion. The result of this is, however, that they never ‘love like lovers,’ and it is shown with much psychological insight how they gradually glide away from each other by reason of an unnatural spiritualization of their mutual relations. Their estrangement is subsequently hastened by the appearance of Zaira, whose society Charles from the first imprudently cultivates. In the person of Zaira critics have been wont to see an expression of the usual ‘extravagance’ of Maturin’s writings. Yet allowing for some casual exaggeration of her great talents, the general characterization stands on a very high level. The figure is not new in Maturin—both Lady Montrevor in The Wild Irish Boy and Armida Fitzalban in The Milesian Chief are studies of this kind; but Zaira is depicted with a moderation and veracity infinitely superior to either. She is none of those distinguished dilettantes that have acquired their accomplishments conveniently in their leisure hours; she is a professional artist and has attained her prominence through hard and unremitting work—work which, as a matter of fact, is the only way to the pinnacles of art. Her character is naturally noble, and she is free from all haughtiness and caprice. Under the bitter sorrow she has sustained, her heart has remained pure and tender, yearning ever for love which she has never met with. In the isolation she has suffered during the greater part of her existence, her mind has been cultivated and her abilities developed at the expense of her experience in practical affairs; she has become curiously unfamiliar with real life and displays, on several occasions, a naiveté almost equal to that of Eva herself. This contrast between her superior intellect and her incapacity of extricating herself from the difficulties of common life is presented with an exquisite skill, and to it she owes the tragedy of her fate. Zaira’s attachment to De Courcy originates, on her part, in a need of tenderness that has nothing to do with passion. The news of the loss of her child throws her into a desolation of mind in which she first receives his enthusiastic admiration with a feeling inspired by the instinct of self-preservation. She says in a letter to her friend:

How often! oh, how often! gazing on his perfect form, have I wished that, if it were possible, such had been the child I lost, such were the child I found! It is impossible, I feel, for the heart long to be vacant. One image filled mine for many years, and the very length and intensity of those feelings created a habit of the heart, which it might have been fatal to my existence, or my reason, not the have indulged.—

From this, indeed, there is but a short step to love, though she is, characteristically enough, herself the last to become aware of it. Knowing that Charles is engaged she tries to persuade herself that what she feels for him is only friendship which can well be extended to her rival; and she succeeds in building up a theory in which she, at the time, firmly believes:

The friendship, which will be the charm of my future existence, will be purified and ennobled by the certainty that the object of it is devoted to another, to whom he will shortly be united; and the security which is enough to satisfy my own heart, I do not hesitate to offer to the world careless whether it will accept or reject it.

But if the world could ever read a heart, the innocence of mine would astonish and convert it. At this moment, my whole pile of future happiness rests on the foundation of theirs—Yes, of theirs. To see two beings, equally amiable, equally beloved, enriched by my fortune—improved by my talents—and elevated by the distinction which I have not dishonourably attained, would be not only beyond all I have ever enjoyed, (alas! that has been but little hitherto,) but all that I have even conceived. I shall feel like the happy genius, who constructed a palace of gems for the favoured Aladdin and his bride, and then was seen no more.—

Her correspondent, a Frenchwoman of fashion, at once understands the situation; and her letters—which are very cleverly written and present an amusing mixture of frivolity and acute observation—tear down the theory of Zaira and open her eyes to the state of her own feelings. Once acknowledged, these feelings, rapidly grow stronger, and the end, in spite of desperate attempts at bridling her passion, is what has been told.—Neither does Charles leave Eva without a great deal of honest and painful struggling against his new infatuation, though he knows that his strength is not to be relied upon. He is induced to make a final appeal to Eva in a fine scene—: she is frightened by a thunderstorm into a swoon when Charles, supporting her, hears her whisper something about his intention of forsaking her—which she purposely never alludes to. The situation vividly reminds him of their first meeting, and his tenderness for her takes hold of him once more:

“Desert you—never, never—May the lightning strike me first!—Forsake you—never, never—Eva, my beloved—beloved of my soul—Yes, warm your cold cheek on mine; yes, rest your dear, dear head on my bosom; do not let its beatings startle you—Yes, twine your lovely fingers in mine—It is a heart that loves you, yours is prest to; it is a hand that soon will be yours you clasp—Why do your fingers wander so wildly among my hair, my love? one ringlet of yours is worth all that ever—And how often has this hair,” he continued wildly, “been damp with despair? how often has it been torn in anguish, since I knew Zaira?”

Eva revived, and her pure feelings acting instinctively, she started from his arms, and still pale with terror, she tried to falter out an apology for her terrors.

“No,” said De Courcy, pursuing, and kneeling at her feet, “no, you must not fly me. This is a decisive moment—a moment that must end many struggles. Eva, already are you cold, already silent? Is it only in terror and danger you cling to me? Is it only in the terrible intervals of paroxysm and insensibility that I am ever doomed to feel your arms twined round me, to hear your lips utter my name? Already I see your countenance averted from me, the moment it has the power to give a conscious look.”

And so it was; for Eva, trembling at the recollection that her arms had been thrown round him, sat abashed and confounded.

“Eva, I call on you passionately, solemnly. This is the crisis of both our destinies. Speak—tell me that you love—love me as I wish, as I demand to be loved. Bind me to you by an irresistible confession—make me yours for ever. One word, one penetrating word of fire. One word of the language of the heart. Utter it, and bless me.”

Eva, struggling between her timidity and her passion, tried to comply with, his wishes. She searched her feelings, for something that might correspond with his. It was in vain; her pure heart had not one image that reflected the ardour of his. Her lip knew no language that could answer him. Distressed and perplexed, she sat with distress and perplexity increasing, anxious to give him some proof of her sincerity, but unable to give one that would satisfy him.

“Eva, speak, do you love me?”

“Have I not said so?”

“Oh! when we love, it is so easy to pour out the proofs with an overflowing sensibility; the heart luxuriates in those proofs of its being deeply touched; it is oppressed by its own fullness, and delights to communicate what it cannot bear undivided. If you loved, Eva, love itself would inspire you with involuntary testimonies; your very silence would be eloquence, nor would I have to kneel at your feet for a word in vain.”

“What can I say?” said Eva, his doubts becoming too strong for her fears; “is passion to be mistrusted, because its power renders, us speechless?” And trembling at her own temerity in uttering these words, she became silent.

Was De Courcy satisfied with this declaration? We know not; for it is certain that there is an exaggerated sensibility, a sensibility that doubts its own truth, and is better satisfied with words than with things. It requires to be paid in its own coin, and would rather hear a florid sentiment than accept of the most perfect sacrifice.

This interview is indeed decisive: it is the last time the passion, of De Courcy flames up in the presence of Eva. When the hour of Zaira’s departure draws nigh he renounces ‘all engagements, all ties, and all objects’—and obtains her permission to accompany her. He has already sent a note to Eva begging her to forgive him if she can, in answer to which note he receives a long letter, said by a critic[105] to be ‘for feeling, for eloquence, for heart-touching resignation, and impassioned grief, almost unique in the language.’ The writing of this letter is made easy to her by the presentiment that she will not overlive his desertion of her; and her resignation is so free from all factitious generosity and all ostentatious self-sacrifice, that the beatings of a human heart are, as it were, audible through the lines.—

In connection with Zaira’s stay in Ireland a few glimpses are given of the higher society of Dublin, which, no doubt, also ‘bear some resemblance to common life.’ Maturin was, by this time, familiar with all the circles the town could boast of, and the drawing-room does not escape a fling of his good-natured satire any more than the conventicle. De Courcy is introduced to Zaira at a large evening party, given in her honour by a Lady Longwood, the wife of one of his guardians. The bustle excited by the presence of Zaira; the idle expectations of a more substantial refreshment, entertained by ‘mammas and misses’ who have been talking themselves hungry in her praise; Lady Longwood moving among her guests canvassing applauses for the indifferent musical performances of her silly daughters, before the eyes of the greatest artist in Europe: all is described with a humour and a vivacity that makes one regret that Maturin so seldom, in his writings, gave vent to those high spirits by which he was distinguished in private life. One of the finest chapters in this part of the book is further the one containing an account of Eva’s visit to the theatre. She is enough of a woman to feel an irresistible desire of seeing her famous rival, but would never dare to speak about it to her foster-parents. Going out, however, she one day accidentally meets Lady Longwood and her daughters, with whom she is slightly acquainted, and, summoning up all her courage, accepts their invitation to accompany them to witness Zaira’s last appearance on the stage. Her confusion at the theatre where everything is new to her, the overwhelming impression produced upon her by the brilliant apparition of Zaira, and her anguish when she observes De Courcy behind the scenes are analysed with a dramatic force and a marvellous penetration into the innocent soul-life of Eva. Less interesting, from an artistic point of view, are the scenes taking place at the house of Zaira, chiefly filled with literary discussions. A well-sketched personage, however, present on most of these occasions, is De Courcy’s friend Montgomery: a blunt and honest character who sees with unselfish grief that his friend is beginning to neglect Eva, and who tries to bring him back to the way of duty by the not very chivalrous means of endeavouring to detect and point out immoral or blameworthy tendencies in the views and principles of Zaira. To this end he obstinately contradicts her where he can, and once, weary of hearing Zaira’s taste called ‘classical,’ he makes a furious attack upon the entire classical literature, falling upon the ancients ‘with redoutable, repeated blows, slaying them, like Sampson, by thousands.’ These doubts as to the excellence of one of the corner-stones of English education roused the wrath of the critics of Women, who, naturally enough, felt irritated at being told that in their own days Horace would have been hanged and Juvenal stood in the pillory. The method of ascribing to the author the opinions of his personages, always applied with vigour in the case of the Rev. Mr. Maturin, came here, for once, pretty near the truth. It is not only in Women that he displays a hostility to classical studies; in one of his sermons he speaks of them with a marked and candid antipathy:

I will say it is the black and crying sin of civilized Europe, to compel their children to familiarize their young imaginations with the most brutal crimes, and force their most unripened passions, by placing them in a hot-bed of unutterable impurity. This we do—this we have done for centuries—and this we shall answer for in eternity. Let me propose one plain question to the admirers of the classic writers, as they are called: If a father finds his son reading such passages as occur in their books in his own language, would he not fling the vile pages into the flames, and scarce think those flames too bad for the author?

As Maturin himself had been, for a long time, occupied in giving instruction in this same branch of learning, he knew very well that the copies of the ancients committed into the hands of British school-boys were carefully pruned of the passages he took such offence at; and his eccentric inveighings against the classical writers expressed, after all, his artistic temperament rather than any zeal for morality. His literary tastes were eminently romantic, notwithstanding his admiration for Pope. He had accepted the revival of Mediaevalism in all its phases; his own work began under the auspices of Mrs. Radcliffe and ended with an imitation of Walter Scott; and his works possess every quality generally termed romantic. But Maturin’s Women affords, at the same time, a striking proof of the fact that the romantic writers could occasionally greatly excel in realism, though the spirit of classicism was to them foreign and indeed odious.—

The fancy of Zaira to devote a year before her intended marriage to De Courcy to an ‘intellectual existence’ during which she is to finish his education, is as consistent with her ideal and theoretical cast of mind as it is inconsistent with anything like common prudence. Paris is, moreover, the most unfortunate place she could choose for the commencement of her task; in the most brilliant society of Europe not even Zaira can make so unique a figure as in Dublin, and to the fluctuating mind of De Courcy the gay metropolis has a thousand things to offer, calculated to attract him more than the conversation of Zaira. Among these is a person called Eulalie de Touranges—otherwise unimportant, but just giving him the pleasure of a transitory flirtation, new to his experience, and irresistible at his age. Thus the relation between the lovers very soon becomes constrained in a way appropriately described in a letter of one of Zaira’s friends:

Yesterday I met them at a party at our friend ——’s. The circle was brilliant, and Zaira was unusually eloquent in literature. At the end of a striking sentence which had called forth loud applauses from her auditors, she looked round with a flush of triumph in her lovely countenance for De Courcy. She saw him engaged, not in conversation, but in delighted listening attention to the beautiful Eulalie de Touranges. He was bending over her chair in silence. I marked the change in her countenance, in her voice; the subsiding of her whole figure; the gloomy vacancy of disappointment in her expression. Her hearers did not notice it; they pressed her with some new remarks. She attempted to answer, but evidently did not understand them; struggled to recover her composure, and went on, obviously not knowing of what she was speaking. Music was proposed soon after; and apparently determined to force De Courcy to feel an interest in what she was undertaking, she asked him what she should sing. He appeared not pleased at the publicity which this application gave him, and returned some slight answer, referring her to her own choice. She sat down. I could hear her sigh. She turned languidly over the leaves of her music-book, and sung an air sotto voce with a tone, a look, a manner unlike—oh, how unlike Zaira! At the close of the air, she turned her head almost imperceptibly, and saw De Courcy arranging the men on a chess-board with Mademoiselle de Touranges. The last notes of the air were nearly unintelligible.—

The episode with Eulalie de Touranges is not the only circumstance contributing to the alienation between De Courcy and Zaira. The very basis of their friendship is unnatural. No man, as Maturin simply remarks, is pleased to be the pupil of a woman, and to be continually reminded of the superiority of Zaira cannot fail to become irritating to De Courcy. His liaison to an actress is, moreover, often misconstrued in a way that is very disagreeable to him; but, weak as he is, instead of resolutely defending her honour, he only wishes to get rid of her. Once he is told that Zaira has been married and even had a child, the fate of whom is entirely unknown. His love to her being already on the decline, he feels, and not quite without reason, greatly incensed at her having never mentioned this to him. The innocent figure of Eva begins to reappear to his mind, and when he hears from Montgomery that Eva is lying dangerously ill, his sensitive nature is utterly shocked at the thought of his being the cause of her death. Nothing can now detain him at Paris. The development of these incidents is traced with an inner logic that makes De Courcy’s return to Ireland appear not only natural but inevitable, and forces the reader at once to accept the argumentation. Scott, indeed, says in his critique on Women that De Courcy’s desertion of Zaira is not ‘half so probably motived as his first offence against the code of constancy;’ but his judgment proceeds, no doubt, from an honest indignation at a hero so lamentably deficient in what had always been considered as the principal qualification of one, fidelity in love: summing up the characteristics of De Courcy, the author of Waverley concludes by wishing him to the devil. Yet De Courcy, although the ‘hero’ of an extensive novel, is meant to be neither admired nor hated, only understood, and the characterization is executed with a realism which the time was not quite able to appreciate.—As for Zaira, she knows nothing of the art of keeping the interest of a lover alive by occasionally exercising some reserve towards him; it is impossible for her not to show clearly that he is all she lives for, and this deep and serious view of their relation would, even in itself, inspire a kind of awe in the fickle-minded De Courcy. Now the passion of Zaira is heightened according as that of De Courcy cools down; she is seized with that eccentric, all-absorbing infatuation which persons of genius sometimes conceive for objects wholly unworthy of it. Having been kept, for a time, painfully hovering between hope and despair, she is at last relieved from all doubts. It happens in rather a hackneyed way: she gets hold of a bit of paper on which De Courcy has begun to compose an answer to his guardian who has written to him and implored him to come back, and Zaira makes out the words: ‘I am weary, sick to the soul of my present situation; I shall fly from it as soon as possible.’ The lack of originality, however, is easily forgotten in the almost appalling power with which the sufferings of Zaira are described, sufferings that gradually deprive her of her talents and her health, of everything but life. Of pride she has never had much; now she loses every trace of it. Although aware that she is wearying him, she is still anxious to appear in his company, and when he actually begins to shun her, she even follows him in the street, and stealing to his hotel, at last sees him depart. But for the tender care which some of her French friends take of her, Zaira would perish; to restore her to her former vigour, however, is not in human power. She cannot find peace in any of her old pursuits, nothing can divert her mind from the calamity that has befallen her. At this time she is thrown into the society of an atheistic philosopher who, in support of his theories, endeavours to prove to her that misery is, and must be, the lot of all intellectual beings. Their conversations on this subject unquestionably belong to the longueurs of the book; as the adoption of his sceptical views would not, in her present state of mind, be of any solace to Zaira, the discourses are unnecessarily protracted, and her escape from the ‘snares’ of the philosopher does not appear so meritorious as is probably intended. But all the more impressively are described Zaira’s attempts at turning to religion, seeking consolation in a living faith. Her friends have taken her to a beautiful villa in the country, where she has a singular experience while roaming about in a summer night:

— — — The garden, with its placid regular beauty, tortured her by its contrast to the agitation of her soul. A gate, at the extremity of it, opened into a wood; she hurried into the wood, its darkness was as light unto her, it seemed as a shelter from her own thoughts, and she fled to it with avidity. Nature, in all its rich and exhaustless luxuriance, has nothing to the eye or to the soul so delicious as the mild splendour of moonlight, shed over the darkness of a forest. There is darkness beneath for the unhappy to muse—there is light above for the happy to gaze on—and the trembling gleams between the branches give a strong image of life, chequered indeed with fitful and precarious lustre, but of which the predominant image is gloom—diversified, but essential.

Zaira wandered on; the beauty of the night, the mildness of the climate, precluded all apprehension from her wandering at this late hour. She found herself in a part of the wood where the thick-mingling branches excluded all light, but a tremulous and chequered gleam, that appeared and disappeared among the foliage above, as it was agitated slightly by the breeze. Suddenly a figure appeared to her in the darkness; a white figure, as large as life. She started at first, but a moment after approached it; just where it seemed to stand, the trees opened a little, and the moonlight fell strongly on it, producing a remarkable and solemn effect. It was a figure of Christ on the cross, which had been taken from a ruined church in the neighbourhood, and placed there by the peasantry. It was of wood, but it was well executed, and the light that fell on it at once concealed its defects, and magnified its expression. What an object for a mind in the state of Zaira’s!—Accident, that had so often presented her with the most terrible omens, seemed in this to seek to make atonement. The image of the Saviour of the world hanging on the cross a sacrifice for mankind, surrounded by darkness, and concentrating and reflecting the light solely from his own figure, was an intuitive symbol of relief. She approached it, as she would the presence of a friend. The pale and dying countenance, the woe-bent head, the outspread arms, seemed to unite the expression of suffering and protection—singular but intelligible combination. None can pity but those who have suffered. “He that suffered, being tempted, is able to succour those that are tempted.”

As Zaira gazed on this figure, it seemed to live, to speak to her. Texts of scripture rushed on her heart, as if whispered to it by the Deity. She appeared to hear these sounds issuing audibly from the lifeless lips of the figure—“Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” She obeyed the call thus echoed from the bottom of her heart; she prostrated herself before the cross. Her spirit was bowed down along with her body, as she exclaimed, “Oh, my God! accept a heart that has wandered, but longs to return to its Saviour. Purify it, regenerate it, fill it with the love of you alone. Had it known no other but yours, it had never been almost broken. Let your Spirit descend on it, and aid me to struggle with that image, for which all its pulses have beat, which has been wrapt in its very core. You alone are worthy of that place, which a mortal has too long usurped. Vindicate it for yourself, and set me free. Deliver me into the glorious liberty of the children of God, unconscious of any presence, incapable of admitting any image, but yours; dead to the world, and absorbed in God alone.”

But though she uttered these words, it seemed as if some inner winding of her treacherous heart was disclosed to her, where the image of Charles rested, and defied the power even of heaven to displace him. It seemed to her as if she dreaded lest her own prayers should be heard; and that if the Deity had that moment offered to efface that image for ever from her soul, to make it as the image of one she had never seen or seen always with indifference, she would have shrunk from the offer, and implored any other infliction at his hands.—

The religious inspiration Zaira has thus felt for a moment does not return, although she passes the greater part of the night before the Crucifix, where she is, in the morning, found insensible. All her devotional exercises are in vain; for as she cannot find peace in the spirit of religion, her efforts to embrace its empty forms are also doomed to fail. She makes some arrangements to enter a convent, but is deterred from it after a conversation she holds with an old nun, a resident of the place. The results of an existence that leads to apathy and stupefaction, that deadens every feeling and makes living automata of human beings, are displayed in the person of the nun with all the force expressing Maturin’s innate horror at a life in monotony—and Zaira abandons her intention with a strong conviction that she could not buy the salvation of her soul at the price of killing it first. The convent was, indeed, the usual refuge of fictitious characters in great distress; in The Heart of Midlothian which appeared in the same year as Women, Lady Staunton—the ‘Zaira’ of that great novel—ends in a continental convent practising all the vigils and austerities of the religion, and is then heard of no more. Yet it would have been a too convenient way of quenching the fire by which Zaira is consumed, and breaking off the psychological process she is undergoing, to shut her within the walls of a convent. The author pursues with unfaltering consistency the restless strivings of her powerful mind after forgetfulness which she both wishes and dreads. Perceiving that her aim cannot be reached in solitude, she engages in acts of private charity, visiting the poor and sick until she is tired out. Satisfaction, however, is denied her; it is boldly shown that a person, however good and noble, cannot perforce make herself religious, and that there are circumstances under which that remedy fails, without any fault of the patient’s. Weary to the soul, she at last decides to put an end to her life. In all her vicissitudes, it must be observed, her nature has remained unchanged, and with the most terrible reality before her eyes she still lives half in a world of theories. She discusses the subject of suicide with her friends, and passes some painful nights in reading accounts of the deaths of Brutus and Cato.[106] Yet at the decisive moment her reason wanders; dream and reality are blended; magnificent visions chase each other through her delirious brain, and on recovering she clearly remembers having seen a white figure whom she imagines to be the Irish girl, once forsaken for her. This figure continues to haunt her mind, and as it is something she can concentrate her thoughts upon, it soon becomes an idée fixe with her. Weak and exhausted as she is, she travels to Dublin. From a morbid inclination as much as for philanthropical reasons she keeps on visiting the filthiest streets and most miserable hovels, in one of which, as has been related, she finds her wretched mother.—

To this part of the book, above all others, must be applied what Alaric Watts wrote in 1819: ‘“Women” is a work which, with all its dullness, its monotony of suffering, and its horrible anatomy of the moral frame, stands alone among modern writings—there is nothing like it—its profound and philosophic melancholy, its terrible researches into the deepest abysses of the human heart, and of human feeling—its daring drawing the veil of the “holy of holies,” while the hand that draws it trembles at the touch, make it a work unequalled in the list of English novels.’ This sentence was justified; Women stood alone among contemporary writings. The tendency pointed out by Watts is one which, according to a modern writer,[107] indicates the latest phase in the development of the novel: ‘Yet I think he is but a superficial student of the literature of recorded time who does not note one tendency of later work, of later method, of later procedure, of later life, as compared with earlier work, earlier method, earlier procedure, and earlier life, which seems to imply an underlying law. — — — This law of tendency is, in general, that the depiction of the external, objective, carnal, precedes, in every form of expression of which we can have records, the consideration of the internal, the subjective, the spiritual. We go from shapes, and forms, and bulk, and externals, to the presentation of the life within.’ Now the growth of the ‘novel of personality’ towards a closer representation of the ‘life within’ does not show any remarkable progress during the second decade of the century which, on the contrary, is marked by the rapid rise of the historical novel. It is no wonder that the depth and intensity with which the inner life is depicted in Maturin’s Women, should make a powerful impression upon thoughtful minds, though on the part of the larger public the book met with the usual fate of a work in advance of its time.—

While Zaira is well-nigh breaking down under the inconstancy of De Courcy, her daughter is, in Dublin, pining away from the same cause. In the Wentworth family things are going on in the same old style, Eva only is able to take less and less part in the usual proceedings. The symptoms of her disease manifest themselves in a general weakness, alarmingly increasing. Physicians are duly consulted—sea-air is recommended by one, mountain-air by another. Eva submits to all with a passive smile; she has not the least doubt that she is hastening to her grave. Soon, indeed, this becomes evident to the rest of the family, and Wentworth already plans what evangelical institutions might be supported by the fortune which will probably fall to him after Eva’s death, that is, the capital settled on her by her grandfather. A little incident exposing, in a masterly way, the inmost characters of the principal members of the circle, is related in connection with a meeting where Macowen is requested to give a ‘word of prayer.’ This gentleman, who also has been thwarted in love, deems this a suitable opportunity of taking his revenge, and exercises his eloquence entirely at the expense of Eva:

—he implored the mercy of Heaven for a wanderer who had strayed from the fold; for one “who had forsaken the guide of her youth, and forgotten the Covenant of her God; who had loved strangers, and after them would go.” And as he went on, aided by the sympathising murmur of the audience, his memory supplying him with images, and his passions with eloquence, there was not a single metaphor in the Old Testament descriptive of the apostacy of the Jews from their God, that he did not apply to Eva, who, compelled to kneel out this martyrdom, wished to sink into the earth to escape it. This cruel holding her up as an object to a numerous circle, was the most painful trial she had yet experienced. Wentworth thought it excellent, and expressed much hope from the strivings of that godly man in her behalf. Mrs. Wentworth thought very differently; her feelings were so much outraged, she could hardly remain on her knees; and when her husband soon after proposed Macowen to be of a party that was to meet at their house, Mrs. Wentworth strenuously declared, “He should not come into their city, nor shoot an arrow there.” And Wentworth was not displeased with her opposition to his wishes, because it was couched in the language of Isaiah, whom Macowen had taught him to call the fifth evangelist.

One evening as Eva is sitting in her garden, De Courcy appears before her; she swoons in his arms and, from that moment, does not leave her bed. He besieges Mrs. Wentworth with letters and supplications, but is no more admitted to Eva, whose only wish is to die in peace. It is not without much exertion of her feeble strength that she succeeds in repelling the image of her lover from her thoughts and fixing them on religion alone, yet at length she attains the tranquillity which Zaira had sought in vain, and her last moments are undisturbed by any earthly memories. The pitiable state into which De Courcy is reduced is spoken of in a tone evincing the author’s latent sympathy for him, but he forbears to give any detailed relation of the end of his hero: a character like De Courcy is interesting only in hours of happiness and enthusiasm. And as a crowning touch of the knowledge of the conditions of human nature displayed in Maturin’s Women must be mentioned the circumstance that Zaira remains alive. She is strong, having never been accustomed to self-indulgence. At an age when Eva and Charles knew no external compulsion, but were free to follow the dictates of their feelings, Zaira was placed face to face with real life in its sternest aspect, and the strenuous work into which she was driven, has, while she has had strength to go through it at all, hardened her vitality so that death touches her not when it would be most welcome. She lives on in the painful consciousness of having caused the death of her child, unknown and unnoticed. The book ends with this melancholy aphorism:

When great talents are combined with calamity, their union forms the tenth wave of human suffering—grief becomes inexhaustible from the unhappy fertility of genius, and the serpents that devour us, are generated out of our own vitals.

Women is, in conception as well as in execution, the most original of Maturin’s novels. What literary reminiscences there may be discerned—and these are but of a superficial character—lead, for the most part, back to his own work. It has already been said that his second book, The Wild Irish Boy, contains scenes and personages that anticipate certain things in the present work. The hero there was not unlike De Courcy; his affections would hover between a brilliant mother and a pale and delicate daughter; his friend Hammond was a very distinct prototype of Montgomery. Hammond approves of Lady Montrevor as little as Montgomery does of Zaira, and he also is anxious to detect something condemnable in the opinions and conversation of the remarkable woman who has bewitched his friend. The imperfectly sketched characters and the clumsy composition of The Wild Irish Boy are of little interest in themselves, but they clearly show the enormous advance of Maturin’s powers after the success of Bertram. In Zaira critics were inclined to see an imitation—hostile reviewers said a caricature—of M:me de Staël’s Corinne. Scott writes: ‘We have — — — — hinted at some of the author’s errors; and we must now, in all candour and respect, mention one of considerable importance, which the reader has perhaps anticipated. It respects the resemblance betwixt the character and fate of Zaira and Corinne—a coincidence so near, as certainly to deprive Mr. Maturin of all claim to originality, so far as this brilliant and well-painted character is concerned. In her accomplishments, in her beauty, in her talents, in her falling a victim to the passion of a fickle lover, Zaira closely resembles her distinguished prototype.’ All this is true, yet the most essential point of contact between the two characters is left unmentioned. The type was one that had occupied Maturin’s imagination long before he wrote Women; it might with as much reason be asserted that the accomplishments and outward appearance of Armida in The Milesian Chief were borrowed from Corinne (1807). But one trait in Zaira, which, in all probability, was directly influenced by M:me de Staël, is her sweetness of temper and lack of pride—a quality which excludes from the descriptions of her suffering the ‘frenetical’ element Maturin’s earlier writings were noted for. Otherwise the figure of Corinne, though depicted in a calmer style, is much more exaggerated than Zaira: the latter is only a celebrated actress—and a very learned woman certainly; while Corinne is, in addition to this, a gifted painter, an eminent poetess, and a national heroine. Of the external circumstances of Corinne’s destiny several can be pointed out which, no doubt, have their analogies in Women—the mystery that covers her early life before she rises to the height of fame; the unhappy issue of her attachment to a man unworthy of her, and the final loss of her great talents. What, however, there is most remarkable in the history of Zaira, the minute analysis of the progress of her sufferings, that, in short, which Watts holds forth so eloquently, has no parallel in the book of M:me de Staël who is content only to state the result of the mental struggles her heroine undergoes. Corinne is not a novel in the same sense as Women; its weight lies neither in incident nor psychology, but in its broad-minded raisonnement about life and literature in the European countries of the time. The characters are subjected to a quite conventional treatment, and it is curious to see how closely the death of Corinne resembles the death of Eva, though nobody ever thought of accusing Maturin of imitation in this respect. The observation which Maturin makes with reference to Zaira, M:me de Staël applies to Corinne: ‘Quand une personne de génie est douée d’une sensibilité véritable, ses chagrins se multiplient par ses facultés mêmes: elle fait des découvertes dans sa propre peine comme dans le reste de la nature; et, le malheur du coeur étant inépuisable, plus on a d’idées, mieux on le sent;’—but nevertheless she succeeds in finding the harmony of mind which is the natural inheritance of Eva. She fixes her thoughts on religion alone, and, decidedly refusing to see her lover or answer his letters, declares her only wish to be to die in peace:—‘au moment de mourir Dieu m’a fait la grâce de retrouver du calme, et je sens que la vue d’Oswald remplirait mon âme de sentiments qui ne s’accordent point avec les angoisses de la mort. La religion seule a des secrets pour ce terrible passage.’ Maturin, on the other hand, does not shrink from drawing the extreme conclusions from his definition, and shows with a merciless consistency that she who was born a Zaira can never become an Eva.

The originality of yet another personage in Women was disputed, in so far as some critics maintained Zaira’s mother to be a copy of Meg Merrilies in Guy Mannering (1815). This romantic creation of Scott—a spinner of intrigues in the shape of an old hag of wild manners and questionable sanity—variations of which reappear in several of the Waverley novels, was very likely to attract a novelist of Maturin’s temperament and may have had some share in the origin of the old Irishwoman. There is, however, this great difference, that Meg is more of a type, the Irishwoman more of an individual. The former, who admirably succeeds in her plans, is a schemer by profession, a gipsy and the leader of a whole tribe; the latter has become what she is through a series of personal calamities, and completely fails in the fantastic aim which she is pursuing: she dies in misery without having converted any of her descendants.—Zaira’s mother is the only person in the book who is demonstratively Irish, a representative of the lower classes. The description of her appearance is impressive, even terrible:

She was a frightful and almost supernatural object; her figure was low, and she was evidently very old, but her muscular strength and activity were so great, that, combined with the fantastic wildness of her motions, it gave them the appearance of the gambols of a hideous fairy. She was in rags, yet their arrangement had something of a picturesque effect. Her short tattered petticoats, of all colours, and of various lengths, depending of angular shreds, her red cloak hanging on her back, and displaying her bare bony arms, with hands whose veins were like ropes, and fingers like talons; her naked feet, with which, when she moved, she stamped, jumped, and beat the earth like an Indian squaw in a war-dance; her face tattooed with the deepest indentings of time, want, wretchedness, and evil passions; her wrinkles, that looked like channels of streams long flowed away; the eager motion with which she shook back her long matted hair, that looked like strings of the grey bark of the ash tree, while eyes flashed through them whose light seemed the posthumous offspring of deceased humanity,—her whole appearance, gestures, voice, and dress, made De Courcy’s blood run cold within him.

A certain ‘picturesque effect,’ intended as a token of her nationality, is carefully preserved in all her sayings and doings, but never emphasized so as to make her attractive in any way. Maturin, as has been seen, was not fond of idealizing the Irish people, and the street-types occurring in Women form no exception to the rule. Otherwise Women is a psychological novel without any national tendency, notwithstanding a few patriotic sentences and political allusions to the unfortunate state of the country. Nor is there anything peculiarly Irish in the principal events of the book, except in Zaira’s early history, which gives a glimpse of the primitive and unregulated life led on a remote Irish estate at that period. As this part, however, supplies the groundwork for the whole fabric, Allan Cunningham[108] is not entirely wrong in calling Women ‘an Irish story, wild, wonderful, and savage, with many redeeming touches of pathos and beauty.’—Amidst all the realism of the book, an incident with something of a supernatural import is unexpectedly introduced; whether this be a characteristically Irish trait or no, a study of Maturin must take account of it. It is told that on a pleasure-party, at the time when the intimacy between Zaira and De Courcy is ripening into love, he twice sees the apparition of Eva, which remains unseen by others; and Eva, on the same afternoon, in a dream imagines herself in exactly the same situation in which she appears to De Courcy. This incident, mentioned in a few words but with a remarkable seriousness, caused Scott, in his critique on Women, to refer to and quote the suppressed passages of Bertram.—

Scott’s benevolent review is one of the most pleasant specimens of his literary criticism. Cordial praise from the man whom he considered the greatest writer of the age, must have occasioned much satisfaction to Maturin, so much the more as the two other critiques which Women directly gave rise to were to a very different purpose. Anything more unintelligent than an article in the Monthly Review[109] it would be difficult to find. The writer ever probes for the moral reasons of the author’s describing this or that, and of Maturin’s treatment of the Methodists he comes to this wonderful conclusion:

To expose the repellent and unsocial manners of this sect, who are called in derision, levelled at their own presumption, ‘evangelical,’ seems the main moral object of the writer; and we grant that his design, had it been executed judiciously, and fairly, would have been praiseworthy: but it is obvious that, to attain this purpose of discountenancing spiritual pride and gloomy superstition, the author must not on the one hand grossly overcharge the picture which he wishes to hold up to reprobation; nor, on the other, must he omit to present a rational and amiable contrast, in the person of at least one specimen of pure and social Christianity. In both these points, Mr. Maturin has entirely failed.

Of what the writer so strongly feels the loss of, Maturin has, in fact, given not one but three instances: what is there of spiritual pride in Eva? or what of gloomy superstition in Montgomery and Mrs. Wentworth? Still more stupid is another charge against the author’s fairness, which the writer tries to make much of. De Courcy receives, while in Paris, a letter from his guardian—an old and conservative clergyman who, in principle, disapproves of dramatic art and those who practise it—in which he eagerly dissuades De Courcy from marrying an actress. This letter, the reviewer says, he has read ‘with equal surprise and displeasure,’ and continues: ‘We cannot conceive how Mr. Maturin, as the countryman of Miss O’Neil, whose virtues are the groundwork and the glory of her talents, can have brought himself to pronounce such a sweeping condemnation of the characters of actresses. If he should say, “These are only arguments in the mouth of an advocate against an imprudent marriage,” he who has been so unusually connected with the stage should have taken some opportunity to counteract, or to modify, the unmitigated censure.’ But is not the whole life of Zaira a modification of any censure? and is it not shown at almost every page to what a moral superiority and greatness of soul an actress is capable of rising? Unjust as this critique is, it is nothing to the savage attack delivered upon the book in the Quarterly Review.[110] At this time the famous literary warfare between Croker and Lady Morgan was at its hottest, and Maturin’s friendship with the authoress—she is admiringly spoken of even in Women—had, no doubt, its share in the extraordinary venomousness of the article, which there is no difficulty in recognizing as a production of Croker himself. He treats the book as an intentional parody on novels in general; but the satirical tone is often broken by bursts of great vehemence, and ignoble allusions to Maturin’s profession are by no means spared:

Parodies, as we once before said, should be short—Mr. Maturin’s, though admirably sustained, is too long, and we may venture to say also that the mask is never sufficiently removed—we know that the reverend author means to be merry at the expense of novel writers and portfolio pedants, but we regret to say that we have heard that some persons, mistaking his book for a serious production, have censured it as degrading, by its folly, its ignorant pedantry, its constant fustian, and its occasional blasphemy, the character of a clerical author; while others, equally well disposed, but more simple, have looked upon it not only as serious but as meritorious, and have praised it as having all the qualities of an excellent novel.

That Maturin’s Women has never been reprinted cannot but be regarded as one of the curiosities in the history of the English novel.

In the February number of the British Review 1818 appeared an article, by Maturin, on Miss Edgeworth’s tales of Harrington and Ormond. It was originally intended for the Quarterly Review; in his letter to Murray from Sept. 27, 1817, Maturin says that his article is ready, and only waits an order for transmission. His first contribution to the Quarterly, the critique of Sheil’s Apostate, which had not met with a favourable reception, was, however, to be also his last. In another letter, dated Nov. 17, Maturin writes: ‘I can easily comprehend a truth which your politeness would conceal, that the inferiority and not the lateness of my article was the cause of its rejection. I am extremely obliged by your kindness in suggesting an application to the British Review; I have availed myself of it and must entreat your pardon for the trouble it imposes on you.’ At that time Maturin was still anxious to have a place in the Quarterly, little as his own production harmonized with the views advocated by the literary staff of that periodical—though the exceedingly inimical criticism which both Women and Melmoth afterwards received there, probably made an end of his desire to have any connection with it. Whatever might have been the cause of the rejection of the article, it appears that Murray later mediated in Maturin’s behalf with the British Review, which was induced to accept it. The article is composed after the same pattern as the critique on Sheil—though it is far more interesting—: the development and history of the novel is traced from its earliest beginnings up to the new stories of Miss Edgeworth. Several quotations have been made, in the foregoing pages, from this typical essay of Maturin, where the Gothic Romance is happily and enthusiastically characterized, and the great novelists of the 18:th century mentioned with an astonishing lack of appreciation. Miss Edgeworth, however, is highly panegyrized; but it is quite evident that Maturin’s opinion of his celebrated countrywoman is more akin to respect and esteem than to ardent and genuine admiration. He cannot conceal that she is deficient in those romantic qualities of passion and feeling for nature, which to him mean the highest pitch of inspiration:

Such is Miss Edgeworth’s sacred horror of any thing like exaggerated feeling, or tumid language; such her anxiety for reducing her characters, where they are not meant to be heroes, to the level of ordinary feelings and occupations, and lowering the intoxications of romance to a “sober certainty of waking bliss,” that she appears as averse from the enthusiasm of nature as from the enthusiasm of passion. — — — We do “grievously suspect” that Miss Edgeworth is one of those who would have joined with Johnson in his laugh against the pastoral prosers who “babble of green fields;” and we rather fear that she speaks her own sentiments in the person of Lord Glenthorne in Ennui, when he gives all the “Beauties of Killarney to the devil.”

Maturin’s criticism of the two particular, tales now under discussion is very severe, of Ormond decidedly too much so. This well-known Irish story being the very antipode of the patriotic novels produced by Lady Morgan and Maturin, it is no wonder it did not appeal to him. There are no soul-stirring adventures, no breath of romance, and the ancient glory of Ireland is not even alluded to. —

Romantic, in the highest degree, is Maturin’s next work, his tragedy of Fredolfo, which was written in the course of the year 1818. The economic success of Women had bettered his circumstances, and the alluring prospect of a successful drama once more began to loom before his fancy. As early as January 28:th Maturin communicates to Murray that he has been made ‘a very liberal offer to write a tragedy for Covent Garden;’ Fredolfo, in all probability, was the fruit of this offer, though it was not acted there until April 1819. Maturin’s correspondence with Murray—that part, at least, which is extant—breaks off in August 1818, and there is little to tell of his life until the appearance of Fredolfo, except that he was fortunate enough to form another of those literary friendships he always desired. Alaric Watts became, at that time, editor of the New Monthly Magazine or Universal Register, where he published his admiring article on Maturin. This article, according to some autobiographical notes of Watts,[111] brought him the acquaintance of the novelist:

I have no distinct recollection of the occasion of my introduction to this remarkable man; but I have little doubt that it originated in my having written a memoir of him in the first series of the New Monthly Magazine, to accompany a fantastic-looking portrait of him in that periodical. He was at that time in the zenith of his fame. At all events, I was solicited by him, in 1819, to superintend the production, at Covent Garden Theatre, of a tragedy from his pen, entitled “Fredolpho.”

The tragedy turned out a failure as complete as it was undeserved: Fredolfo is not only the best of Maturin’s dramatic compositions, but a work of considerable poetic value.

The scene in Fredolfo is laid in Switzerland, which country had, through Byron, become as popular with the romantic writers as Sicily and Spain had been during the bloom of the Gothic Romance. Fredolfo the hero is an ancient and respected Swiss lord, who has gallantly pleaded his country’s cause against the tyranny of Austria:

He was his country’s idol—Switzerland,

Through all her rescued cantons, blessed her champion;

For, when he sat in council, from his head

Sprang Liberty, a living goddess arm’d!

Nor lack’d his hand the thunder to defend her.—

Yet he is not happy, for a crime weighs upon his mind. Once, years ago, his solitary castle on St. Gothard had been, during his absence, visited by the Austrian governor Wallenberg, who on the same occasion seduced his wife. Shortly after Fredolfo’s return Wallenberg was murdered near the castle; the deed was done by Fredolfo, with the assistance of one single attendant, a fiendish and deformed dwarf called Berthold. The cries of Wallenberg, however, attracted the attention of a young Swiss peasant, Adelmar, who was wandering in the mountains. He rushed to the place offering his help to the assailed party, but was himself left there, severely wounded, without having recognized any of the fighters. This unexpected witness to the scene now became an object of Fredolfo’s pursuit; he had him secretly carried away from Switzerland and compelled him to live in a foreign country. Here he was allowed every comfort he could desire, but his longing for his native land was too strong for him, and at last he made his way back to Switzerland. Knowing Fredolfo to be his pursuer he still established himself in the vicinity of the castle, and even succeeded in winning the love of Fredolfo’s only daughter, Urilda.

The play opens in the castle whither, while a violent storm is raging, Fredolfo and his daughter are expected to return from Altdorf. Urilda, committed to the care of Berthold, is travelling in advance; but Berthold arrives at the castle alone, with the intelligence that Urilda’s horse has been frightened and carried away by a flood, together with its burden. After a while, however, Urilda is brought home. She has been saved by a stranger in whom she, on recovering, recognizes Adelmar, the object of her love and her father’s hatred. Their tête-à-tête is interrupted by the news that Fredolfo, too, is perishing in the storm. Moved by Urilda’s despair Adelmar departs to save her father, and successfully helps him out of a chasm among the mountains. He then wishes to depart without revealing himself, but as Fredolfo insists on seeing his face, he at last flings back his mantle. Fredolfo, on discovering by whom he has been rescued, is seized with fury, and when they are joined by his attendants, he commands Adelmar to be secured and conveyed to the dungeon of the castle; only the intervention of Urilda, who comes out to meet them, saves the life of her lover. Fredolfo observes with intense agitation the tender relation between Urilda and Adelmar. Now Berthold, who has been casting his eyes upon Urilda and hates Adelmar as a rival, eagerly advises Fredolfo to put him to death. Fredolfo, however, sets Adelmar at liberty, and from that moment Berthold is his implacable enemy. Soon indeed an opportunity for vengeance arises. Wallenberg, the present Austrian governor and son of the murdered one, makes his unexpected appearance at the castle. He has been the cause of Fredolfo’s bringing her daughter away from Altdorf; he freely confesses to have ‘gazed upon the maid with lawless love,’ but now he indicates that he will honourably claim her hand from her father. Fredolfo summons her daughter to answer for herself, and her answer is proudly rejective. Wallenberg departs in rage, and Berthold offers to bear him company, casting a look upon Fredolfo from which he understands that he is now a lost man.

The first two acts, which comprise what is related above, are, in every respect, the best part of the play. They have the character of an introduction containing the necessary premisses for the catastrophe that follows, but they are well conceived and full of stirring life. In the very first scene the tragedy of Fredolfo is alluded to by an old attendant of his in a conversation with a minstrel, and the spectator thus becomes aware that a gloom is cast over the life of the hero. At the arrival of Berthold it becomes clear that he is the evil genius of the drama; he is received by the inmates of the castle with curses and maledictions, and when Urilda recovers from her swoon she shows equal horror and disgust at the sight of him. Berthold has been regarding her with indications of love, but now it is seen how his love is changed into hatred, and thoughts of vengeance already begin to fill his mind. From the beautiful dialogue between Urilda and Adelmar it appears that he is the object of Fredolfo’s dislike, which explains the agitation of Fredolfo on recognizing his preserver. Then the scenes of the rupture between Berthold and his master, and of Wallenberg’s visit and departure, follow each other in well-balanced succession. The release of Adalmar from his prison is, indeed, somewhat undramatically executed, in so far as Fredolfo simply sends Berthold to open the door for him, and he disappears without any further ado; but this act of generosity marks the stage which the mental progress of Fredolfo has now reached. He is weary of his long struggle against the fate that nevertheless is approaching; he feels that his crime, however defensible, is drawing near its punishment, and he can do no more than resignedly give himself up to whatever is to come. The mutual relations of Fredolfo and Adelmar are essentially the same as those of Falkland and Caleb in Godwin’s Caleb Williams, another phase of which Maturin had utilized in Montorio. Falkland, too, has been driven to commit a murder under exceptional circumstances; Caleb alone is acquainted with the deed, and he pursues him with relentless vigour until his own strength is wasted. The difference is that Fredolfo is already at the beginning of the drama reduced to that state of exhaustion in which all resistance ends, and that his crime is known, besides to Adelmar—who, indeed, is not quite certain whether Fredolfo was one of the nocturnal combatants—to an enemy much more dangerous. Fredolfo shares the general abhorrence of Berthold, but dares not dismiss him. Berthold follows him like an evil conscience, embittering every moment of his existence, and now endeavours to prompt him to do away with Adelmar:

Fred. — — —

What scowl’st thou on, with thy portentous smile,

Passing like lightning, o’er thy stormy visage?

It is some evil, or thou could’st not smile!

Bert. (with bitter irony.)

I mark with awe the patriot’s private moments;

These are thy triumphs, Virtue, view, and boast them!

(suddenly changing.)

Oh! what a fool is the brute multitude,

To shout “a God!” before this hollow image!

Ha! ha! ha! things are well balanced here;—

The evening’s groan repays the morning’s boast.

Vice were too humble, but for scenes like these,

And hopeless Villainy, lacking such solace,

Would turn an anchorite for very sadness!

Fred. Thou tool of wrath, which, while I grasp, I shudder,

Though one wild moment’s sudden agony

Made me a fiend, I am a man again.—

I would not harm that youth for many worlds;

Go, and release the prisoner.

Bert. (Drawing his dagger, and pointing to it with a significant gesture.)

Thus, perchance?—

Fred. (giving him a key.)

No, villain, thus—bid him be free, and live!

Bid, him, if possible, forget—if not,

Let him revenge—I’m weary of the struggle!—

When Berthold hints at his feelings towards Urilda, Fredolfo loses all self-command, and only the sudden arrival of Wallenberg saves Berthold from immediate destruction. He has, however, now made up his mind to desert his master.

In the next act Wallenberg reappears at the castle, attended by Berthold and his guard, and accuses Fredolfo of the murder of his father. Fredolfo is thereupon taken to the prison of Altdorf, and Urilda suffers herself to be dragged away with her father. Adelmar has also journeyed to Altdorf, where he engages himself in preparing a rising among the citizens for the rescue of Fredolfo. Here he is seen by Berthold, who invents a ruse in order to secure him. Wallenberg enters the prison where Urilda is tending her father, and pretends to have forgiven him and determined to set him at liberty; only for the sake of appearances the place should be stormed by the people, led by some youth ‘of bold and enterprising arm,’ for which time Wallenberg promises to dismiss the guards. Urilda at once remembers Adelmar and finds opportunity of sending word to him. The following night Adelmar and his band then rush in, but are met by Wallenberg and his soldiers, who have been lying in wait for them. While the battle is raging, Wallenberg re-enters the prison and, revelling in the agony of Urilda, pronounces Fredolfo’s death-warrant. The forces of Adelmar, however, appear to be stronger then has been expected, and Fredolfo is really liberated, though Adelmar himself is disarmed and captured and remains, together with Urilda, in Wallenberg’s power.—Fredolfo is carried to a cavern in the mountains, where he observes, with horror, that Urilda is not with him. He implores his followers to go back and save her, when Berthold arrives to inform him that if he refuses to suffer his death sentence, his daughter is to suffer it instead. Fredolfo instantly prepares to go, but at the same time they are joined by Adelmar, who has escaped from the prison; he has placed Urilda by the altar of a shrine and comes now to re-gather his band. In the meantime Wallenberg and his attendants, in vain opposed by a prior, break into the church. As Fredolfo and his party enter it shortly afterwards, Wallenberg snatches Urilda up to the altar and, drawing his dagger, points it to her breast. Fredolfo, understanding her danger, dismisses his band. Adelmar also is induced to give up his sword to Wallenberg: whereupon Wallenberg stabs him with the selfsame weapon and then releases Urilda. Fredolfo now recovers himself, rushes upon Wallenberg and mortally wounds him. Urilda expires upon the body of her lover, and Fredolfo alone is left alive.—

The last three acts are not, considered as drama, quite abreast of the introduction. The development of the action is, upon the whole, made too dependent on the caprices of Wallenberg; the purely horrible elements of the play are dilated upon with too remarkable a predilection, especially the demonstrations of the diabolic natures of Wallenberg and Berthold sometimes take undue space. Before Adelmar’s attack upon the prison, for instance, there is a long scene filled with enticements on the part of Berthold to get Urilda to sign a paper in the belief that it contains an order of liberation for her father, but which paper really is the death sentence of Adelmar. Apart from the unnaturalness of this proceeding, it has no connection with the events that follow: Adelmar makes his escape, and the death warrant is no more alluded to; the sole purpose of the scene is to bring out the excruciating pain felt by Urilda when she is thus kept hovering between hope and fear, and the extraordinary wickedness of Berthold. Yet notwithstanding this and certain other awkwardnesses of a similar kind, it is undeniable that the construction is firmer and far better regulated than in Maturin’s earlier plays, and the place of the hero as the central figure is well sustained by means of the skill and moderation with which the characterization is executed. The reader has, in fact, some misgivings that he is to share the fate of Manuel, go mad and start raving; but Fredolfo retains his reason to the end, and the weary resignation that has hold of his mind lends him a dignity and a calmness very different from the fury of his enemies.

What, however, raises the first two acts so far above the rest, is the romantic glamour shed over the persons and events, much of which fades away as the play advances. The figure of Adelmar is an exceedingly poetic one. He does not—like Bertram—belong to the typically ‘Byronic’ heroes; there is nothing demoniac or criminal about him. Yet he is not bloodless or commonplace; he has an air of romance and mystery of his own, and his speech is pervaded, as it were, by an echo from his native Alps. He never assumes any pose, for he can afford to do without one. His dialogue with Urilda, in the first act, contains the best things Maturin ever wrote in verse.

Uril. — — — —

He comes! oh, God! it cannot, cannot be!—

And does he dare amid these walls to seek me?

For me he trembled—for himself he fears not.

(Rushing up to him.)

Away! away! thou must not enter here!

There is a voice from out these walls forbids thee!—

My father hates thee, tracks thy hunted steps—

(Relaxing from fear into tenderness, and falling into his arms.)

Adelmar, art thou here?—and was it thou?

Adel. Yes; Adelmar, the unowned, the wanderer.

The stranger—almost to himself unknown;

He, o’er whom midnight murder darkly watches,

He, who on unseen daggers plants his steps,

And tramples them to clasp thee:—Yes, I follow’d thee

O’er the dark mountains—through the night I follow’d;—

The spirits of the tempest raised their arms

To snatch thee, and I grappled with their might,—

Wrestled with them in darkness, and o’ercame them.

Bright star, emerging sole on my fate’s blackness,

Shed thy last light on me! (kneeling) ’twill be the last!

— — — — —

— — — — —

Adel. (solemnly.) I am the child of woe,

Of persecution, and of mystery;

Fredolfo’s name—the name his country worships—

Rung in my infant dreams.—I was a boy,

Wild and imaginative, full of thoughts

That mountain-spirits to their children whisper,

I might have been a hero!

Uril. Might have been! Thou art!

Adel. I should have been, but for thy father!

A peasant child, amid the mountain steeps,

St. Gothard’s heights I wander’d—the storm’s shrieks

I heard, and echoed in wild fearless mirth,

Like children, who in awful ignorance sport;—

There came another shriek,—a shriek of murder!

(Urilda shudders.)

Uril. (starting and agitated.) Murder! but, then, my father was not there,—

Or was there—but to save?

Adel. I will not speak—

Dark thoughts come thronging with that night’s remembrance.

Twice, twice, with horrible strength the voice shrieked murder!

I flew in madness there.—Amid the night

Darkly I grappled with two shadowy forms,

Beneath whose gripe a struggling warrior heaved,

Then lay a corse.—I had no arms.—

— — — — — —

— — — — — —

Adel. Time pass’d as in dream, and oft I thought

That the dead warrior in his mountain grave

Slept unremember’d—then, by ruffian hands

Dragg’d from my hut, all tremblingly I follow’d—

Far in a sea-toss’d bark the ruffians bore me;—

A voice was in the wind, that swell’d the sails,—

That charm’d them ne’er to let their freight return!

Uril. A voice!—what voice?

Adel. I know not;—but I cried,

Who tears a freeman from his mountain-home?

Who rends the child his country cannot spare

From her spread arms? The answer was,—Fredolfo!

Uril. (shrieking with amazement.) Impossible!

Adel. I cried, ‘impossible.’

Years, mournful years, in a strange land were wasted,

Wasted to me—the land was beautiful—

Fair rose the spires, and gay the buildings were,

And rich the plains, like dreams of blessed isles;

But, when I heard my country’s music breathe,

I sigh’d to be among her wilds again!

I climb’d a bark’s tall side—an arm grasp’d mine—

Struggling, I turn’d, and ask’d who dared withhold me?

A dark-eyed ruffian answer’d,—’twas Fredolfo!

— — — — —

In the latter part of the play Adelmar, though a moving force in the action, appears only by glimpses, so that the impression he leaves is the most uniformly favourable of all the personages, being free from the general decline of characterization towards the end. Urilda is altogether more conventional than Adelmar, and does but seldom, by any action of her own, make good the very fine things said about her. In the second act Wallenberg says, seeing her approach:

She comes with all that shrinking bashfulness,

The eloquence of motion, mute, but felt.

The air around her breathes of purity;

And, as she moves, her equal tread’s fine impulse

Falls on the ear like harmony;—the light

That gleams on her fair locks and slender form

Crowns them with hallowed glory, like some vision

To saintly eyes reveal’d!—She is a thing

To knee and worship. Beauty hath no lustre,

Save when it gleameth through the crystal web

That Purity’s fine fingers weave for it;

And then it shows like Venus from the wave,

The fresh drops clinging to her beauty still!—

In the figures of Wallenberg and Berthold, Maturin’s unrestrained imagination within the field of the horrible carried him to a length to which the failure of the play has been ascribed. Talfourd,[112] while admitting that it contains ‘passages of a soft and mournful beauty, breathing a tender air of romance,’ says, with reference to these two personages: ‘In “Fredolfo,” the author, as though he had resolved to sting the public into a sense of his power, crowded together characters of such matchless depravity, sentiments of such demoniac cast, and events of such gratuitous horror, that the moral taste of the audience, injured as it had been by the success of similar works, felt the insult, and rose up indignantly against it.’ The same opinion has been expressed by a later critic:[113] ‘The wickedness of Berthold the dwarf and Wallenberg surpasses all bounds of reason. Neither is a human being at all.’ Less depravity, no doubt, would be sufficient, yet the question is not so much of the amount as of an unskilful display of it; in the first two acts neither character is unnatural, nor are they much worse than many famous villains in literature. Wallenberg appears as a subtly drawn tyrant of unbridled passions, accustomed blindly to follow all his freaks; his attachment to Urilda is hardly more than a passing caprice. His proposal for her hand is characteristically worded:

Fredolfo, hear me!—Friend, or foe, I reck not—

Spite of the pride that burns upon my cheek.

Spite of the blood, whose cold recoiling drops

Refuse to flow ere they would mix with thine;

Spite of our nations, natures, hearts averse,

Of all that makes me shudder while I sue,—

I claim thy daughter’s hand!

A love like this is never very far from hatred, and, when disappointed, it is naturally turned into a furious thirst for revenge which spares neither its object nor its cherisher:

I could rend out the veins that throb for her;—

I could on mine own heart fix suicide’s fangs,

So they defaced that form it dares to cherish!

Upon these sentiments he acts, and his ‘wickedness’ is not without consistency, only it is spread out so as to affect the symmetry of the composition. The same is still more true of Berthold, who, in the beginning, appears to be not only sinning, but sinned against. It is not quite clear how he has, previous to the events of the play, deserved the detestation of all his neighbours; to a great extent it seems to be inspired by his bodily deformity. His love to Urilda is tender enough; leaning over her, when she is lying senseless, he speaks this beautiful monologue:

Oh! it renews the heart to gaze oh thee!

Thou thing of power, that hast not life, but givest it:—

Thou beautous even in death—making death beautous!

Those softly closed lids, in whose rich veil

The unseen light dwells lovely,—the wan cheek,

Amid whose pallid bower death weds with beauty;

The faintly-falling arms, the woe-bent head—

Oh! still be thus! Oh, yes, be ever thus!—

While thus I see thee calm, I deem thee kind.

Those eyes will ope—to turn their light from me;

Those arms will wave, to chide me with their softness;

And, oh! that lip,—that rubied cup of bliss,

That flows with joy for all, pour hate on me!

Of a creature who can speak like this it can hardly be said that he is no human being at all. As for the prophecy expressed in the last lines, it is verified the moment Urilda revives; and as Berthold then resolves upon his vengeance it is not difficult to understand that a being with his wild and primitive standpoint shuns no means in order to effect it. The part was considered an important one by Maturin, who wished particular care to be bestowed upon it. In his letter to Watts[114] about the performance of Fredolfo he says: ‘I must revert to the part of Berthold, which is sufficiently eccentric and extravagant. Don’t let him, on my account, appear a ludicrous figure. Perhaps his deformity may be best expressed by a certain savage picturesqueness of costume, which I could sketch were I upon the spot, but which I readily submit to your taste in my absence; but don’t let him be ludicrous, that must be the ruin of the play. No one could bear a kitchen Richard. Much depends on Berthold.’—A certain resemblance of Berthold to Richard III is indeed obvious. Their criminal instincts are excited by bitterness arising from a sense of their personal disadvantages. Some reflections of Berthold:

I could, such is my heart’s o’erflowing spleen

To all that loved, and lovely are—methinks,

I could, even with a look,—as thus—dart through him

The basilisk’s eye-fang—dying on the throe,

lead (mutatis mutandis) back to the opening monologue of Richard III:

I, that am rudely stamped, and want love’s majesty

To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;—

— — — — —

And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,

To entertain these fair well-spoken days,

I am determined to prove a villain — — — —

Something of a ‘kitchen Richard’ Berthold, however, is, inwardly if not outwardly: he is a Richard without genius or grandeur. The same difference is noticeable in the case of another literary figure that presumably influenced the character of Berthold—Rashleigh Osbaldistone in Scott’s Rob Roy which appeared in 1818, just at the time when Maturin was composing Fredolfo. The ‘wickedness’ of Rashleigh is by no means incomparable to that of Berthold, but he is in possession of an intellectual power and mental superiority which makes him the most prominent figure in the environment in which he is depicted. Berthold, though neither ludicrous nor unnatural, is not sufficiently interesting to support the important part assigned to him, having nothing to counterbalance his ‘matchless depravity.’

The principal rôles of Fredolfo were in the best hands at Covent Garden: Fredolfo was played by Young, Adelmar by Charles Kemble, Berthold by Yates, Wallenberg by Macready and Urilda by Miss O’Neill. Maturin expected success in a kind of hopeful anxiety. His letter to Watts of April 17, alluded to above, displays his usual overflowing gratitude to those who took an interest in his productions, and his inclination to speak, on such occasions, slightingly of them himself:

“My inestimable friend,” he begins, “I never deplored my want of l’eloquence de billet before; but if I possessed all the eloquence I do not possess, it must fail under the task of expressing my obligations to you. How much do I not owe you, and how much am I not proud to owe you! I have implicitly followed your advice and written to Young. Your suggestions as to curtailment I adopt unhesitatingly; reject and retain what you like. Present, I beg you, my best acknowledgments to Mr. Young for his friendly zeal for a part but little worthy of his great abilities; and in your kindness, apologise to Mr. Charles Kemble, Mr. Macready, and the other gentlemen, for my not having had the pleasure of witnessing their talents, and thus of qualifying myself for writing parts more worthy of their acceptance than the wild and crude sketches of Adelmar and Wallenberg.”

The fact was, however, that only Yates appeared to be satisfied with his rôle. The failure of the play was, as Watts proceeds to say,[115] due to this indisposition of the principal actors, to the blunders of the minor ones, and, in the public opinion, to the last outburst of the unchivalrousness of Wallenberg:

Miss O’Neill was cast for the principal part, but displayed little interest in it, and did not hesitate, some three weeks before the play was produced, to prophesy its failure. — — — The immediate cause of its damnation was the exquisitely ridiculous manner in which one of the inferior actors advanced upon the stage, with the deliberation of an undertaker, and apprised the audience, with the most stoical calmness, that his master was at that moment perishing in a snowstorm on the mountains. The stolidity of this gentleman ... and the sedateness with which he delivered himself of the following harrowing ejaculation—

“My Lord! my Lord! the storm! He perishes!”

precipitated the audience into a fit of merriment from which it was found impossible to recover them, until a gallant young officer, having delivered up his sword to his more successful antagonist, is slaughtered with it on the spot. This thoroughly un-English incident so revolted the audience as to convert their merriment into indignation, and to not another word would they listen. I had presented to Maturin’s notice the danger of this situation; but neither Harris, the manager, nor Macready, who took the part of the assassin, appeared to think much of the objection. With the exception of Yates, who made an extremely effective part of Berthold, and Macready, always conscientious and thorough, little effort was made for the play, and its failure was irremediable.

The merriment was unfortunately roused as early as in the first act, and the many impressive scenes of the introduction passed by unheeded. As to the offending mode of Adelmar’s death, it takes place in the very end, after which there is not much more to listen to, nor is it probable that it would have been sufficient to damn the play, if the whole had been favourably received. Now, however, Fredolfo was silently dropped, without even any critiques being visible; Maturin’s career as a dramatist was practically at an end. Watts dismisses his melancholy story with the remark that—‘Maturin, the most impulsive and eccentric of Irishmen—and that is saying a great deal—bore his disappointment with some philosophy.’

A positive result of this philosophy was that Maturin returned to novel-writing and produced Melmoth the Wanderer, his most famous romance. Before coming to that, however, a few other things remain to be noted. About the same time as Fredolfo was acted, there appeared[116] some unpublished scenes from Manuel. In a letter to Henry Colburn, dated March 15, Maturin says of the extracts:—‘Detached from the tragedy they seem to me very feeble and I would advice you to consult a literary friend before you venture to insert them in your Magazine—should you publish them pray let it be in your poetical department, they are not of importance enough to appear in any other.’—The scenes treat of the dread of De Zelos lest his crime should be discovered, and of Manuel in the castle where he is banished; they are indeed of little importance, rising in no way above the average level of this the feeblest of Maturin’s poetical productions.—In the course of 1819 Maturin published, further, a collection of Sermons. Popular as he is said to have been as a preacher, the volume did not prove a success; it was marked by the disadvantages of Maturin’s double vocation. ‘His sermons, too,’ says his biographer,[117] ‘betrayed the struggles of a poetical mind endeavouring to adapt itself to the prevailing austerity of a particular class of religionists: and, between the party which rejected his book because it was not evangelical, and those who would not read it because it was not a romance, it was his fate to please neither, and fail.’ A benevolent critic in a contemporary[118] points out a certain want of any ‘order of arrangement’ and adds that ‘though these Sermons, if well delivered, must have had great effect from the pulpit, the impression, at the same time, could scarcely be anything else than transient.’

That Melmoth the Wanderer is nowadays considered the work by that which its author stands or falls,[119] sufficiently explains why Maturin is only mentioned in connection with the school of terror. The ‘terrific’ elements in Melmoth are, it is true, strong enough to render it the greatest novel of that school in the English language. All the same, it is much too complex to be confined within the limits of one single school, while its general purport connects it with some of the greatest works of European literature in its period. As for the production of Melmoth, that was carried on under circumstances distressing and even dismal; Maturin’s short period of opulence had passed for ever, and it was only the silent hours of night he was able to devote to his literary labours. His mode of composing, at that time, has been impressively described by a friend:[120]

Returning late in the evening, it was then after a slight refreshment that his literary task commenced, and I have remained with him repeatedly, looking over some of his loose manuscripts, till three in the morning, while he was composing his wild romance of “Melmoth.” Moderate, and indeed abstemious in his appetites, human nature, and the over-busy and worked intellect, required support and stimulus, and brandy-and-water supplied to him the excitement that opium yields to others; but it had no intoxicating effect on him: its action was, if possible, more strange, and indeed terrible to witness. His mind travelling in the dark regions of romance, seemed altogether to have deserted the body, and left behind a mere physical organism, his long pale face acquired the appearance of a cast taken from the face of a dead body; and his large prominent eyes took a glassy look; so that when, at that witching hour, he suddenly, without speaking, raised himself, and extended a thin and bony hand, to grasp the silver branch with which he lighted me down stairs, I have often started, and gazed on him as a spectral illusion of his own creation.

Melmoth the Wanderer appeared in autumn 1820 and was, by permission, inscribed to the ‘most noble the Marchioness of Abercorn.’ A preface[121] explains the genesis of the book:

The hint of this Romance (or tale) was taken from a passage in one of my Sermons, which (as it is to be presumed very few have read) I shall here take the liberty to quote. The passage is this.

“At this moment is there one of us present, however we may have departed from the Lord, disobeyed His will, and disregarded His word—is there one of us who would, at this moment, accept all that man could bestow, or earth afford, to resign the hope of his salvation? No, there is not one—not such a fool on earth, were the enemy of mankind to traverse it with the offer!”

This passage suggested the idea of “Melmoth the Wanderer.” The Reader will find that idea developed in the following pages, with what power or success he is to decide.

The preface ends with one of those apologies of an artist for creating works of art, which Maturin thought proper to make every now and then, but which do not strike one as being over-sincere:

I cannot again appear before the public in so unseemly a character as that of a writer of romances, without regretting the necessity that compels me to it. Did my profession furnish me with the means of subsistence, I should hold myself culpable indeed in having recourse to any other, but—am I allowed the choice?

The preface, as will be seen, really does not give more than a ‘hint,’ either of the story or of its hero. It is not the enemy himself who is made to traverse mankind with the gloomy offer; Melmoth the Wanderer is a poor mortal who has, driven by an insatiable thirst for forbidden knowledge, bartered the hope of his own salvation for certain privileges not allotted to common man. Among these is the quenching of his soul’s thirst, a life prolonged by 150 years and the ability of rapidly performing great distances and appearing where he pleases, unhindered by lock or bolt. His contract with the evil one can be cancelled only if he finds another mortal who is willing to change destinies with him. Such mortal it soon becomes Melmoth’s sole wish to encounter. His curiosity is perfectly satisfied; his partly superhuman existence grows an intolerable burden to him, and he looks with terror and anxiety towards the expiration of his term, when he will be lost for all eternity. The greater part of his prolonged existence is occupied in tracing out and visiting human beings in utmost misery and wretchedness, and tempting them to buy their temporal salvation at the cost of their eternal, but none, ‘to gain the world, will lose his own soul,’ and when the term does expire, Satan inexorably claims his due.

Melmoth, as we are told towards the end of the story by a clergyman who has known him in his youth, is originally an Irishman of good family, of ‘various erudition, profound intellect, and intense appetency for information.’ About the year 1650 he travels in Poland and there becomes ‘irrevocably attached to the study of that art which is held in just abomination by all who name the name of Christ.’ After some years the clergyman, then residing in Germany, is summoned to a dying friend who turns out to be Melmoth. He confesses that he has—without explaining how—committed ‘the great angelic sin,’ and has but one thing to ask of his friend: ‘I sent for you to exact your solemn promise that you will conceal from every human being the fact of my death—let no man know that I died, or when, or where.’ At an hour, predicted by Melmoth with great exactitude, his strength begins to fail, and he becomes perfectly cold, like a corpse. The friend then leaves him, but afterwards, while travelling on the Continent, he is continually haunted by rumours of Melmoth being still alive. It is, accordingly, after his apparent death that Melmoth has been re-animated into his new, weird existence, and that his hopeless wanderings commence.

The idea of melting Faust and Mephistopheles into one person was strikingly original, and the figure of Melmoth keeps, in the fiction of the time, a place distinctly its own, even if a great many minor traits, relative both to its human and its superhuman character, can be traced to literary sources more or less obvious. There is Milton’s Satan,[122] grand and awful in his fallen state; there is the legend of the Wandering Jew,[123] who restlessly travels from land to land, in hope of eventually being delivered of his curse—as does his counterpart at sea, the Flying Dutchman; there is the Radcliffe hero, tormented by secret crimes and mysteriously appearing and disappearing, and his successor the Byronic hero with his large and gloomy eyes and with his sardonic yet strangely fascinating smile; and finally the Rosicrucians,[124] so common in the imaginative tales of the time: all these can, in glimpses, be recognized in the Wanderer. From some contemporary stories Maturin seems to have borrowed certain ingredients directly appertaining to the wonderful change which Melmoth undergoes. The incident of his apparent death recalls John William Polidori’s story of The Vampyre (1819).[125] The hero, who turns out to be a vampyre living on the blood of men—or preferably of women—is mortally wounded while travelling with a friend in Greece, and his greatest care, like Melmoth’s, is to conceal his death:

“Swear!” cried the dying man, raising himself with exultant violence, “Swear by all your soul reveres, by all your nature fears, swear that for a year and a day you will not impart your knowledge of my crimes or death to any living being in any way, whatever may happen, or whatever you may see.”

Afterwards the vampyre re-appears in society and, thanks to the oath of his friend, succeeds in making his sister one of his victims. Of greater importance, however, are the impulses Maturin received from Godwin’s St. Leon. Here an old man, under circumstances mysterious and but imperfectly described, communicates to Reginald de St. Leon the secret of everlasting youth and inexhaustible wealth. The hero joyfully consents to relieve the old man of what seems to be a burden to him; but almost at the very moment the bargain is made, he becomes deeply unhappy:

Methought the race of mankind looked too insignificant in my eyes. I felt a degree of uneasiness at the immeasurable distance that was put between me and the rest of my species. I found myself alone in the world. Must I for ever live without a companion, a friend, any one with whom I can associate upon equal terms, with whom I can have a community of sensations, and feelings, and hopes, and desires, and fears?

This must be indicated as one of the fundamental ideas in Melmoth the Wanderer, also.

Maturin’s romance belongs to the stories of the supernatural only in so far as the personality of Melmoth is concerned; otherwise, the ‘Gothic elements’ contained in it consist of the usual external apparatus, calculated to appeal to the reader’s sense of ‘fear arising from objects of invisible terror,’ as stated in the preface to Montorio. The book consists of six different tales with nothing in common except the appearance, at the critical moment, of Melmoth the Wanderer. The whole is extraordinarily involved, and the only means of analysis is to treat each tale separately.[126]

When the story begins, in 1816, a young man of the name of John Melmoth is summoned from Dublin to the county of Wicklow, to attend a dying uncle. John is the orphan son of a younger brother and has passed his joyless life alternately in an humble attic in Dublin, and on the estate of this same uncle, an old miser, who has scarcely allowed his young visitor food enough; he has, however, been taught to consider himself his uncle’s heir apparent, and, consequently, to treat him with the utmost deference. On arriving at the country-house John finds it in a most desolate and neglected state, as well as the miser himself, who lies on his death-bed attended by an old village Sybil whom he employs to avoid the expense of a doctor, and sundry menials impatiently waiting for the death of their master to enable them to celebrate a wake with more food and drink than they are wont to see during a whole year. The miser is well aware of these genial expectations, which by no means contribute to the sweetening of his last moments. The arrival however of John somewhat enlivens him; he even commissions his nephew to bring him a glass of liquor from a small closet, which John well remembers nobody but his uncle has ever been allowed to enter. Once in the closet, he sees on the wall the portrait of a man in middle age, whose eyes appear to him to shed an unearthly lustre from the old canvas; on the border of the picture he reads: Jhn. Melmoth, anno 1646. The picture detains him in the closet a few moments more than necessary, whence his uncle concludes that he has been examining it. With terrible exertion he whisperingly communicates to John that the original of the picture is still alive and that he himself is—on that account—dying of fright. The same night old Melmoth expires, and John, to his horror, sees the door opened by a stranger who distinctly resembles the portrait in the closet.

From the miser’s will it appears that he has made John his sole heir. He has, moreover, added a memorandum to the will, in which he enjoins his nephew to destroy the portrait alluded to, as well as an old manuscript which he will also find in the closet. John’s curiosity is roused about the mystery connected with his family, the more so as he gathers that his uncle has, during his last years, been constantly hanging over a manuscript which he always concealed if any one entered the room. From the old Sybil John learns what tradition has kept alive of the secrets of the family. She states that the elder brother of the Melmoth who first settled in Ireland as a follower of Cromwell, was a great traveller and seldom visited his family; once when he appeared all were surprised to see that he had undergone no external change whatever, although he ought to have been, at that time, a very old man. His visit was but short, and at his departure he left his portrait behind him. Some years afterwards a person arrived who appeared to be most anxious to know as much as possible about Melmoth the traveller; but the family being unable—or unwilling—to communicate anything of importance, he departed and, in his turn, left behind him a manuscript. As to the traveller, the hag concludes, he is generally believed to be alive and to make his appearance on the death of such members of the family as have something weighing upon their conscience.—After having burnt the portrait, John devotes himself to read the old, discoloured, mutilated manuscript as well as he is able. The writing is interrupted by many illegible lines; sometimes whole pages are missing. What he makes out is that the writer, an Englishman called Stanton, was travelling in Spain in 1676 and there saw a countryman of his who excited much superstitious horror among the populace, and, as it seemed, not quite without cause. Stanton himself had heard him break into a demoniac laughter on seeing two persons blighted by lightning, and shortly afterwards heard a story still more terrible. At a fashionable wedding-feast he had frightened all by the unearthly glare of his eyes, and even killed a priest who was going to utter a prayer, by merely staring at him. The wedding had ended by the bride being found dead in the arms of the bridegroom, who had lost his reason on the same occasion; and this tragic event also had been attributed to the machinations of the stranger—Melmoth the traveller. Stanton, tormented by an inexplicable longing to see and hear more of his mysterious countryman, had returned to England and spent several years in fruitless attempts to get sight of him. At length he had met him outside a theatre, and Melmoth had uttered a horrible prophecy of their meeting soon again in a madhouse. And he was right; Stanton was confined at a hospital through the means of a designing relative, and when the horrors of his situation had well-nigh spent him, Melmoth had appeared in his cell, spoken much to him and finally offered to bring about his liberation, on certain conditions. The pages where these conditions are expounded are illegible in the manuscript John is examining, but it appears that Stanton had rejected them in great rage, whereupon Melmoth had departed. When Stanton finally gained his liberty he had resumed his restless pursuit of Melmoth. He had also visited Ireland, and left there the manuscript containing a narrative of his adventures.

So the manuscript ends; but John is soon to learn more of his interesting ancestor. One night, in a violent storm, a vessel is wrecked and lost on the coast. All the neighbourhood gather on the shore and, under John’s command, do their best to save the crew, but their efforts are ineffectual. In the midst of his toil John perceives a man standing tranquilly upon a rock somewhat out of the way, and suddenly a terrible laugh is heard. Remembering the manuscript John rushes towards him, stumbles on his way and falls down into the sea. The only one of the shipwrecked who has succeeded in reaching the coast gets hold of him and clings to him until both are thrown on the shore by a huge wave. They are carried up to the manor-house, and after some days their strength is restored. The stranger is found to be a Spaniard; his first question is, whether John’s name is not Melmoth. Receiving an answer in the affirmative he shows him a portrait, which John instantly recognizes as a miniature of the one he has destroyed. The Spaniard, apparently a man who has suffered much, then proceeds to tell the story of his life.

The narrative related above, lengthy as it is, serves as a sort of introduction to all that follows, affording the first imperfect glimpses of the Wanderer. The scenes which are enacted in the dreary, half-decayed country-house before and after the miser’s death are the best-written passages in Melmoth, representing, together with certain chapters in Women, Maturin’s art on its very highest level; and this art, it is as well to observe, is eminently realistic. Little as the abode of old Melmoth has in common with the household of Mr. Wentworth, there is the same blending of intensely suggestive ‘atmosphere’ and minute truthfulness to nature about the descriptions. The sorry state of the manor to which John Melmoth travels and which recalls his gloomiest memories, is vividly painted thus:

As John slowly trod the miry road which had once been the approach, he could discover, by the dim light of an autumnal evening, signs of increasing desolation since he had last visited the spot,—signs that penury had been aggravated and sharpened into downright misery. There was not a fence or a hedge round the domain: an uncemented wall of loose stones, whose numerous gaps were filled with furze or thorns, supplied their place. There was not a tree or shrub on the lawn; the lawn itself was turned into pasture-ground, and a few sheep were picking their scanty food amid the pebble-stones, thistles, and hard mould, through which a few blades of grass made their rare and squalid appearance.

The house itself stood strongly defined even amid the darkness of the evening sky; for there were neither wings, or offices, or shrubbery, or tree, to shade or support it and soften its harsh outline. John, after a melancholy gaze at the grass-grown steps and boarded windows, “addressed himself” to knock at the door; but knocker there was none: loose stones, however, there were in plenty; and John was making vigorous application to the door with one of them, till the furious barking of a mastiff, who threatened at every bound to break his chain, and whose yell and growl, accompanied by “eyes that glow and fangs that grin” savoured as much of hunger as of rage, made the assailant raise the siege on the door, and betake himself to a well-known passage that led to the kitchen. A light glimmered in the window as he approached: he raised the latch with a doubtful hand; but, when he saw the party within, he advanced with the step of a man no longer doubtful of his welcome.

The party in question consists of old Melmoth’s servants and ‘followers.’ This was the last time Maturin depicted his countrymen, the lower Irish, and never had he done so with more vigour and penetration. They are described without even a semblance of idealization; specifically Irish is only their instinctive deference to persons of higher rank, and their endless circumlocutions of speech, but there is no boisterous and overflowing humour about them, still less a breath of soul-stirring romance; they simply are what circumstances have made them, and that is, in this case at least, a set to be both disliked and distrusted. Yet the picture does not lack its brighter side. These people cannot, as a matter of course, be expected to be exactly sorry at the approaching end of their master, but John Melmoth has nothing to fear from them, and that there is much in them that is naturally good and brave is seen in their spontaneous efforts to save the sinking vessel. There is an old housekeeper who is described with a kind of rough sympathy and not without strokes of humour. John has always been an object of her tenderness—long ago, when he was staying in the house and was sent hungry to bed, she had often stolen up to him with something she had had much trouble to save, and she still kindly insists on calling him her ‘whiteheaded boy.’ To be sure, she avails herself of her knowledge how to get at the store of spirits by a way unknown to old Melmoth, and so has made ample preparations for his honour’s wake in good time; but she is, at the same time, really anxious to think of his soul in his departing hour, and conceives it to be her religious duty perforce to put upon him a clean shirt when that solemn hour draws nigh.—The old Sybil, on the other hand, is a decidedly unsympathetic figure, a humbug and an impostor of the first order, a type not common in the fiction of the time.

Old Melmoth is extremely well drawn; in the few pages treating of him his character stands perfectly clear before the reader. Though always of a niggardly turn, he has once been a gentleman, and has, in fact, never committed actual wrongs in the course of accumulating his wealth. ‘He was,’ says the housekeeper, ‘of a hard hand, and a hard heart, but he was as jealous of another’s right as of his own. He would have starved all the world, but he would not have wronged it of a farthing.’ He is, towards the end of his life, tormented by fear as much as by the passion of avarice. His days are passed in the revolting but irresistible task of studying the manuscript, and he firmly believes that he has seen his mysterious ancestor in his own house. In the superstitious horror that never leaves him he clings, as it were, all the more eagerly to something real and concrete, and, having nought else, he cherishes his worldly goods until he sits in the kitchen to save a fire in his own room and expresses, as his last, the desire to be buried in a parish coffin. A fragment of his conversation best illustrates the character of old Melmoth:

—“What made you burn sixes in the kitchen, you extravagant jade? How many years have you lived in this house?” “I don’t know, your honour.” “Did you ever see any extravagance or waste in it?” “Oh never, never, your honour.” “Was any thing but a farthing candle ever burned in the kitchen?” “Never, never, your honour.” “Were not you kept as tight as hand and head and heart could keep you, were you not? answer me that.” “Oh yes, sure, your honour; every sowl about us knows that,—every one does your honour justice, that you kept the closest house and closest hand in the country,—your honour was always a good warrant for it.” “And how dare you unlock my hold before death has unlocked it,” said the dying miser, shaking his meagre hand at her. “I smelt meat in the house,—I heard voices in the house,—I heard the key turn in the door over and over. Oh that I was up,” he added, rolling in impatient agony in his bed, “oh that I was up, to see the waste and ruin that is going on. But it would kill me,” he continued, sinking back on the bolster, for he never allowed himself a pillow; “it would kill me,—the very thought of it is killing me now.” The women, discomfited and defeated, after sundry winks and whispers, were huddling out of the room, till recalled by the sharp eager tones of old Melmoth.—“Where are ye trooping to now? back to the kitchen to gormandize and guzzle? Won’t one of ye stay and listen while there’s a prayer read for me? Ye may want it one day for yourselves, ye hags.” Awed by this expostulation and menace the train silently returned, and placed themselves round the bed, while the housekeeper, though a Catholic, asked if his honour would not have a clergyman to give him the rights (rites) of his church. The eyes of the dying man sparkled with vexation at the proposal. “What for,—just to have him expect a scarf and hat-band at the funeral. Read the prayers yourself, you old ——; that will save something.”—

With these scenes of strong and sordid realism is mingled the supernatural fear felt for the traveller; but sparingly and skilfully as this supernatural element is used, it does not disturb the general style of the narrative. It only serves to heighten the gloominess of the atmosphere and to excite the reader’s curiosity. This curiosity is admirably kept alive throughout the whole. It increases gradually, being never satisfied. When John asks the old hag to tell him all she knows about his ancestor, it is stated that she leaves him excited with a story, wild, improbable, actually incredible. The story is not at once related to the reader; he is left in suspense about it, while John Melmoth immediately proceeds to gather more information from the manuscript. It appears, however, that candles there are none in the house, and until such are procured from a neighbouring village, he sits alone in the dreary room, while night falls upon him and the sky is overcast with dark clouds promising a long continuance of gloom and rain. Now he in his thoughts recapitulates the story he has just heard, the one with reference to the traveller and his portrait. The messenger sent to the village then returning, John seeks out the manuscript and begins, by the ghastly light of a couple of candles, to decipher a story much wilder than that which he has from the hag. It is easy to perceive that the increase of interest is greater with this succession, than if the calmer passage about the preparations for studying the manuscript were placed between the two stories.—As for the fragmentary manuscript itself, it of course always breaks off at the most thrilling moment.

By the opening chapters of Melmoth the Wanderer, Maturin’s first romance of Montorio is called to mind in a way clearly showing the disadvantages of the Radcliffe style and the general inferiority in the construction of stories of that school. The figure of Schemoli—which, as has been shown, is a typically Radcliffeian hero—is here, in many respects, a prototype of Melmoth: the obscurity in which his person is veiled as well as his sudden and unimpeded entrances where he is not expected, are traits which have descended to the Wanderer; but the supernaturalness of the latter is real and need not be explained as some utterly incredible, merely human attainments. In one of the half-ruinous apartments of the castle of Muralto where Annibal is so fond of rambling, there is an old portrait, the eyes of which are, by the tricks of Schemoli, made to appear to him as living. The impression made on John Melmoth by the portrait in the miser’s secret closet is a result of that same preternatural quality in the original, which, once accepted, defies all ‘natural’ elucidations and is not followed by the disappointment necessarily appertaining to such. Thus the artistic effect of these scenes is of a permanent kind and preserves its charm even at re-perusal, which is never the case with the puerile tricks of the Radcliffe stories. Yet notwithstanding this slight supernatural import, the incidents taking place in the house of old Melmoth cannot be ranked among the actual ‘Gothic’ stories. These incidents are not fantastical or violent enough, and the style is too strikingly realistic; nor does the ‘passion of supernatural fear’ here seem to be the ultimate object of the author. The tale of Stanton, on the other hand, is typically a production of the school of terror. To begin with, the introduction of a story by the discovery of an old, half-moulding manuscript was a favourite one with most of the writers of this school, and the manuscript studied by John Melmoth affords all the usual requisites: Spanish environs, with ruins both Moorish and Roman, amid thunder and lightning; wedding-feasts in great houses with dead bride and insane bridegroom; religious intolerance, Inquisition, and fear of the devil. These passages are rather rhapsodical—as indeed they are meant to be—and less interesting than Stanton’s subsequent experiences in England; the madhouse where Stanton is confined is described more horribly than any prisons of the Inquisition in any romance of terror. The time of action is that of Charles II: a period in which Maturin was deeply versed and which had a strange fascination for him. In his pursuit of Melmoth, Stanton is said often to visit places of public amusement, and it is at a theatre he at last discovers him. This gives Maturin occasion to insert a brilliant study of the theatrical performances of that time, most evidently written con amore, in spite of the strong emphasis laid upon the loose morals of these amusements. After one performance, during which a great commotion is caused by the attempt of an actress to stab her rival in good earnest, Stanton meets Melmoth in the deserted street, where he has been waiting for him. Stanton being, at first, at a loss what to say, Melmoth quietly announces that they will soon meet again:—‘the place shall be the bare walls of a madhouse, where you shall rise rattling in your chains, and rustling from your straw, to greet me,—yet still you shall have the curse of sanity, and of memory. — — I never desert my friends in misfortune. When they are plunged in the lowest abyss of human calamity, they are sure to be visited by me.’

Here, for the first time, is given the clue to Melmoth’s personality and the purpose of his wanderings; from the tale of Stanton it can also be concluded that Melmoth has the power of contributing to, as well as predicting, the destiny of his victims. The prophecy is fulfilled. Stanton’s eccentric mode of living and incessant talk of Melmoth, whom nobody else has ever seen, rouses the belief in his madness. Of this belief his nearest relative and heir, an unscrupulous man, resolves to avail himself. He procures a place in a madhouse which he easily induces the careless and absent-minded Stanton to visit, and there he is forced to remain. The picture which Maturin draws of this place is frightful in the extreme, yet doubtless historically true, in as much as lunatics at that time were treated exactly like criminals, chains and whip being the only medicine resorted to by the keepers, many of whom were most inhuman ruffians. But this picture is also in other respects pervaded by the spirit of the time. About the Restoration insanity raged in England more than at any other period before or since, and the fanaticism, both religious and political, of the preceding decades, has amply furnished the madhouses with wretched inmates. As Stanton’s next neighbours there are a puritan weaver, who has lost his reason after listening to one of the celebrated preachers of the day, and a loyalist tailor, who has been ruined by too liberal a credit to the cavaliers; and these two pass the nights in desperate controversies which make the very walls ring. Further, there is a woman who has lost her husband and all her children in the great London fire—this, too, a topic of the day. Once a week, the night of her disaster, she recapitulates the horrors which have befallen her:

The maniac marked the destruction of the spot where she thought she stood by one desperate bound, accompanied by a wild shriek, and then calmly gazed on her infants as they rolled over the scorching fragments, and sunk into the abyss of fire below. “There they go—one—two—three—all!” and her voice sunk into low mutterings, and her convulsions into faint, cold shudderings, like the sobbings of a spent storm, as she imagined herself to “stand in safety and despair,” amid the thousand houseless wretches assembled in the suburbs of London on the dreadful night after the fire; without food, roof, or raiment, all gazing on the burning ruins of their dwellings and their property. She seemed to listen to their complaints, and even repeated some of them very affectingly, but invariably answered them with the same words, “But I have lost all my children—all!” It was remarkable, that when this sufferer began to rave, all the others became silent. The cry of nature hushed every other cry,—she was the only patient in the house who was not mad from politics, religion, inebriety, or some perverted passion; and terrifying as the out-break of her frenzy always was, Stanton used to await it as a kind of relief from the dissonant, melancholy, and ludicrous ravings of the others.

It is clear that Stanton well-nigh loses his own reason in this neighbourhood. At first he tries to effect his liberation by observing a calm and sane behaviour, but seeing that his sanity is interpreted as the refined cunning of a madman, he gradually gives up all hope. He grows careless and neglects himself; at last he never rises from his wretched bed, and when Melmoth, according to his promise, appears in his cell, he is indeed ‘in the lowest abyss of human calamity.’ To judge from some indistinct lines in the manuscript, Stanton from the first receives him with distrust; for on the following pages Melmoth exerts all his terrible eloquence to induce Stanton to listen to him. He holds out to him the prospect of his soon losing his reason, or, still more dreadful, of his fear of losing it becoming a hope—nay, even to the life to come Melmoth extends his gloomy anticipations. He points out that as there is not a crime which madmen are not prepared to commit, the soul of a madman is not likely to be favourably judged, but, on the contrary, destroyed along with the reason, the loss of which, accordingly, implies the loss of immortality. Thus even his eternal welfare will depend upon his consenting to be liberated by Melmoth. The conditions for this are illegible in the manuscript, but it appears that Stanton indignantly rejects them. He does not, however, reap very great benefits by his steadfastness, for, being finally liberated, his life is to pass in the same restless anxiety as before, and in the same fruitless efforts to see his tormentor once more.—

The manuscript being finished the story turns back to John Melmoth and the shipwrecked Spaniard. The description of the storm is fine and animated enough, although this mode of introducing the stranger was none of the newest, even if somewhat better in its place here than in Bertram. Here the Spaniard only is saved, and he now becomes the hero, Melmoth the Wanderer disappearing for a considerable time. The happenings in the house of old Melmoth, with the tale of Stanton inserted, form the first great section of the book, being still of an introductory character. The general effect is an excellent one. The desolated country-house is a very appropriate back-ground to the fantastical incidents read in the ancient manuscript; and different as are the styles of the two narratives, the contrast is not inartistic. This introduction to Melmoth is evidently reflected in some fantastic productions of later time. The idea of the Wanderer’s marvellous portrait has been supposed[127] to reappear in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)—Wilde, whose mother was a niece of Maturin, was well acquainted with his great-uncle’s romance; it will be remembered that he lived his last years in Paris under the name of Sebastien Melmoth. In one of the most famous English ghost-stories, Bulwer-Lytton’s The Haunted and the Haunters (1859), the mysterious being is first introduced by means of a miniature portrait, bearing a strange, never-to-be-forgotten expression. He has much in common with Melmoth the Wanderer. His existence is prolonged for centuries—not, indeed, by any pact with the devil, but by the extremely developed ‘energetic faculty that we call will.’ He turns up in various countries and in various guise, arranging, at his departures, a mock celebration of his own obsequies. He has the same unlimited knowledge as Melmoth, and it seems to interest him as little; and though his supernatural life is traced to a scientific source, it is even hinted that a power like his, however malignant, cannot injure the good and the brave.

Owing, probably, to the great length and extraordinary contents of Melmoth, this introduction seems to have been passed by with but little notice on the part of the critics. There are some lines on it in a contemporary review,[128] interesting in so far as they show that the first chapters, exaggerated as they were accused of being, were at once felt to differ from the rest, and have little to do with the obsolete school of unnatural terrors:

The opening of the book is natural and simple, relating the dependence of a poor lad, John Melmoth, on an old miser of an uncle, and his sudden call from college to attend his uncle on his death-bed. — — — We shall not inflict upon our readers the horrors attending the miser’s death-bed, or the manner in which his neighbours and servants enjoyed the scene of his departure; though there are some features of the description very natural, and others, we doubt not, very national: but then our author never stops in the right place. Over doing, Anglice, exaggeration, seems a passion with him.

The ‘natural and simple’ was what people were beginning to have an appetite for; Melmoth, like Montorio, came into the world just a little too late to be exactly what the public wanted.

In the Tale of the Spaniard the stranger relates to John Melmoth a part of his life which has been passed amid extraordinary hardships and sufferings, in desperate attempts to escape from a convent in Madrid, and subsequently in the prisons of the Inquisition. He is a descendant of the ducal house of Monçada; his mother is of a rank far inferior, and Alonzo (the hero) is born before his parents are united in marriage, for which reason he is educated in strict seclusion. The marriage, however, is at last acknowledged by the old duke, Alonzo’s grandfather, but Alonzo, before his birth, has already been devoted to God and destined to become a minister of religion, in expiation of his mother’s crime. Inspired by her Director she fanatically insists on Alonzo’s entering a convent of ex-Jesuits, and as this is much against the inclinations of Alonzo, the contention grows very acute. Alonzo’s father is good-natured but weak; in his heart he commiserates his son, but dare not oppose the menaces of the Director, who urges the fulfilment of the vow solely to maintain and augment his own power over the family. To overcome Alonzo’s resistance every means, fair and foul, are resorted to, and finally a promise is extorted from him to become a novice. These proceedings it is of interest to compare to certain chapters in the great Italian novel I promessi sposi (1827) of Alessandro Manzoni—namely, to those in which Gertrude, the daughter also of a duke, is, likewise for family reasons, forced to take the veil. There is much resemblance between her fate and Alonzo’s. From their earliest childhood their future vocation is spoken of as a thing irrevocably decided, as well as perfectly agreeable to themselves, and as they grow old enough to have an opinion of their own, allurement and compulsion is alternately used to subdue it; during their noviciate they are treated with peculiar indulgence on account of their birth and high connections; and the demoralizing influence of coersion, which shows itself in a repulsive hypocrisy, is strongly emphasized in both cases. It would, of course, be too bold to assert that Manzoni had received any impulses from Melmoth, although he is known to have been a student of English literature, especially of Scott; but the parallel unquestionably goes to show that this part of Melmoth is not only a work of anti-catholic imagination, without any relation to real life in Catholic society. The mild and quiet style of Manzoni is, otherwise, as far as far can be from the indignant rage that burns in every line of the Spaniard’s tale. Maturin, as has been said, was convinced that his own ancestors had been victims of Catholic intolerance, and his antipathy to the darker sides of this religion, always keen, is nowhere so strongly expressed as in the present story. He sees nothing good in monastic life and refuses to find any redeeming features in a system which favours it. Young as Alonzo is, he fully comprehends the hypocrisy practised by the monks and novices, and immediately conceives an invincible aversion for the convent. This aversion is, in fact, shared by all its inmates; but those who themselves have lost all hope of liberation are, out of envy, most anxious to retain others in the same misery. Thus a frank, open word is never heard among them, and when trying to address his comrades, Alonzo is invariably repelled by the sanctimonious and untruthful air they assume towards him:

I said to them, “Are you, then, intended for the monastic life?” “We hope so.” “Yet I have heard you, Oliva, once (it was when you did not think I overheard you) I heard you complain of the length and tediousness of the homilies delivered on the eves of the saints.”—“I was then under the influence of the evil spirit doubtless,” said Oliva, who was a boy not older than myself. “Satan is sometimes permitted to buffet those whose vocation is but commencing, and whom he is therefore more afraid to lose.” “And I have heard you, Balcastro, say you had not taste for music; and to me, I confess, that of the choir appears least likely to inspire a taste for it.” “God had touched my heart since,” replied the young hypocrite, crossing himself; “and you know, friend of my soul, there is a promise, that the ears of the deaf shall be opened.” “Where are those words?” “In the Bible.” “The Bible?—But we are not permitted to read it.” “True, dear Monçada, but we have the word of our Superior and the brethren for it, and that is enough.” “Certainly; our spiritual guides must take on themselves the whole responsibility of that state, whose enjoyments and punishments they reserve in their own hands; but, Balcastro, are you willing to take this life on their word, as well as the next, and resign it before you have tried it?” “My dear friend, you only speak to tempt me.” “I do not speak to tempt,” said I, and was turning indignantly away — — —

When Alonzo, touched by the grief and despair of his mother, at last consents to take the vow and finally to enter the monastery, he is soon to see that hypocrisy is not the only vice thriving in that fertile soil. The incidents related above present a subtle and powerful picture of the influence of the Catholic church, but thus far there has been nothing actually horrible in the Spaniard’s tale. Now, however, the story becomes of rather a blood-curdling character. There is a conversation which Alonzo holds with an old monk who lies on his death-bed, which deserves to be quoted at some length, as it strikes the key-note of all the miseries of monastic life. These were, in Maturin’s opinion, the inevitable result of an existence stiffening away in brutalizing monotony, and never yet had he depicted such an existence in darker colours:

“But to me, and to all the community, you seemed to be resigned to the monastic life.” “I seemed a lie—I lived a lie—I was a lie—I ask pardon of my last moments for speaking the truth—I presume they neither can refuse me, or discredit my words—I hated the monastic life. Inflict pain on man, and his energies are roused—condemn him to insanity, and he slumbers like animals that have been found inclosed in wood and stone, torpid and content; but condemn him at once to pain and insanity, as they do in convents, and you unite the sufferings of hell and of annihilation. For sixty years I have cursed my existence. I never woke to hope, for I had nothing to do or to expect. I never lay down with consolation, mockeries of God, as exercises of devotion. The moment life is put beyond the reach of your will, and placed under the influence of mechanical operations, it becomes, to thinking beings, a torment insupportable.

“I never ate with appetite, because I knew, that with or without it, I must go to the refectory when the bell rung. I never lay down to rest in peace, because I knew the bell was to summon me in defiance of nature, whether I was disposed to prolong or shorten my repose. I never prayed, for my prayers were dictated to me. I never hoped, for my hopes were founded not on the truth of God, but on the promises and threatenings of man. My salvation hovered on the breath of a being as weak as myself, whose weakness I was nevertheless obliged to flatter, and struggle to obtain a gleam of the grace of God, through the dark distorted medium of the vices of man. It never reached me—I die without light, hope, faith, or consolation.”

Under circumstances like these the most passionate contentions are excited by the slightest causes, and the minutest deviations from regularity are regarded as adventures of the most important gravity. Yet the liveliness thus aroused naturally becomes morbid and distorted, and degenerates into ‘spleen, malignity, curiosity.’ The soul is stunted for ever, and the mind grows impervious to every great or generous feeling; barbarous punishments are inflicted for the slightest offences. Alonzo is, from his very entrance there, the black sheep of this community. He is, indeed, most punctual in his religious performances, but it is easy to see that he is not penetrated with the spirit of the monastical life, and his exactness in the forms only ‘will not do’ for the monks. They can not excite his interest about such matters as whether the hour for matins should be postponed ‘full five minutes,’ and even a sham miracle is performed for his sake in vain. Before long an unexpected incident gives them opportunity of assuming towards him an attitude decidedly hostile. One night the porter of the convent smuggles to Alonzo a scrap of paper, which turns out to be a letter from his brother Juan, whom he has seen but once and who is intent upon effecting his liberation from the convent.

Juan, the younger son of the duke Monçada, has been educated by the Director and, from his earliest infancy, been taught to hate his brother and regard him as a bastard and usurper of his rights. In this the Director first succeeds, but then the impetuous and vehement nature which he has tried to develop in Juan, is suddenly turned against himself. To the monastical life Juan has an aversion as strong as that of Alonzo himself, and when he learns that the latter is to be made a monk, he cannot but think it an injustice, and begins to feel a strange interest in his unfortunate brother. It is a fine and touching piece of juvenile psychology Maturin gives in the short sketch of Juan. A mind naturally generous, if ever so spoiled and distorted by improper education, always wishes its enemy to be in a fighting condition; and when Juan thinks of Alonzo as a monk, an object unfit for hate and unable to defend himself, his feelings of hostility are replaced by a passion exactly opposite, only stronger, as being conformable to his natural instincts. He now finds out all the wrongs done to Alonzo, and devotes his energies to his liberation. Alonzo, he learns, can reclaim his vows, if he declares them to have been extorted from him by fraud or terror; the business can be carried on in a civil court. Juan then procures an able advocate and succeeds in bribing the porter of the convent, through whom Alonzo is to send him a written memorial to be used by the advocate.

Having received his brother’s communication Alonzo at once proceeds to write the memorial, on the pretext of writing his confessions, and safely dispatches it to Juan. His frequent demands for paper, however, have excited the suspicions of the Superior, and Alonzo is accused of having employed the paper granted to him in some purpose contrary to the interests of the community. His cell and his person are searched with a zeal showing that the monks have, at last, got something to do. Nothing is found, but a few days later a copy of the memorial is sent by the advocate to the Superior. Now Alonzo is subjected to severe persecution on the part of the community, led by its brutal Superior. First of all he is confined in a subterranean dungeon, where he passes three days fighting with reptiles. Then he is removed to his cell, as the Superior, on account of the publicity with which the suit is carried on, dare not keep him actually imprisoned; still the community seems to have resolved that if he is to quit the convent, he is not to do so alive. He becomes the object of complete excommunication. He is excluded from the matins and from the church in general, and publicly pointed out as an object of the greatest abhorrence; he is never spoken to, every one shrinking from him as from a polluted being. At meals a mat is placed for him in the midst of the hall, where he is supplied with offal from the kitchen. The crucifix, the rosary, the vessel for holy water and everything else is removed from his cell so that at last there is nothing left except the bare walls and a miserable bed. The worst of all is that he is denied repose. One night he awakes to see his cell in flames; hideous figures have been scrawled on the walls with phosphorus. Another night he is aroused by a voice whispering to him temptations and blasphemies until he almost believes he is spoken to by the enemy of mankind. He cannot suppress a cry of horror; immediately a monk rushes in asking why he disturbs him in his sleep. Alonzo alleges turbulent dreams and the monk departs, but the following night the scenes are renewed. The voice becomes more and more horrible, uttering things which a good Catholic would shudder even to think of; once the image of the mother of God is displayed to him, and the voice exhorts him to spurn it and to spit upon it. Weak and delirious though he is, Alonzo still has power to resist these invitations. He cannot, consequently, be accused of obeying the temptations of Satan, but the news of his being subjected to them spread rapidly through the convent. Everybody believes, or pretends to believe it, and the general horror towards Alonzo increases; he is now excluded from all devotions. One night, when the voice again discusses the Madonna in an unutterable connection, the measure flows over:

I could bear it no longer. I sprung from my bed, I ran through the gallery like a maniac, knocking at the doors of the cells, and exclaiming, “Brother such a one, pray for me,—pray for me, I beseech you.” I roused the whole convent. Then I flew down to the church; it was open, and I rushed in. I ran up the aisle, I precipitated myself before the altar, I embraced the images, I clang to the crucifix with loud and reiterated supplications. The monks, awakened by my outcries, or perhaps on the watch for them, descended in a body to the church, but, perceiving I was there, they would not enter,—they remained at the doors, with lights in their hands, gazing on me. It was a singular contrast between me, hurrying round the church almost in the dark (for there were but a few lamps burning dimly), and the group at the door, whose expression of horror was strongly marked by the light, which appeared to have deserted me to concentrate itself among them. The most impartial person on earth might have supposed me deranged, or possessed, or both, from the state in which they saw me. Heaven knows, too, what construction might have been put on my wild actions, which the surrounding darkness exaggerated and distorted, or on the prayers which I uttered, as I included in them the horrors of the temptation against which I implored protection. Exhausted at length, I fell to the ground, and remained there, without the power of moving, but able to hear and observe every thing that passed. I heard them debate whether they should leave me there or not, till the Superior commanded them to remove that abomination from the sanctuary; and such was the terror of me into which they had acted themselves, that he had to repeat his orders before he could procure obedience to them. They approached me at last, with the same caution that they would an infected corse, and dragged me out by the habit, leaving me on the paved floor before the door of the church. They then retired, and in this state I actually fell asleep, and continued so till I was awoke by the bell for matins. I recollected myself, and attempted to rise; but my having slept on a damp floor, when in a fever from terror and excitement, had so cramped my limbs, that I could not accomplish this without the most exquisite pain. As the community passed in to matins, I could not suppress a few cries of pain. They must have seen what was the matter, but not one of them offered me assistance, nor did I dare to implore it. By slow and painful efforts, I at last reached my cell; but, shuddering at the sight of the bed, I threw myself on the floor for repose.—

With these procedures, however, the monks at last overshoot the mark. A closed community as the convent is, still the rumour is spread in Madrid, that a monk there is every night sorely harassed by the devil. This rumour also attracts the attention of the authorities, and the bishop of the diocese arrives to investigate the matter. He is a man calm, rigid, and passionless beyond measure, nor does he feel any personal sympathies for Alonzo; but when he sees the state of Alonzo’s cell and hears of the treatment he has been subjected to—which is contrary to the established rules of the convent—he sternly commands the Superior to restore everything to Alonzo and make him no longer an exception in any respect. Thus far, then, his torments now come to an end, but the greatest blow is yet to fall: intelligence reaches the convent of the failure of his appeal.

Day follows day without Alonzo’s heeding them, until a new adventure commences, more dreadful than all the previous, as Juan once more finds means of smuggling a letter to him. He has been kept in the country almost a prisoner, but has succeeded in escaping to Madrid and settling everything for the escape of Alonzo, which is to be accomplished with the help of one of the monks. This future companion of Alonzo is not an agreeable character; he has entered the convent in order to escape the punishment following parricide, and is a man who ‘envies Judas the thirty pieces of silver for which the Redeemer of mankind was sold.’ For money he has now undertaken to assist in the liberation of Alonzo. In spite of Juan’s encouragements, Alonzo feels despondent and disconsolate. He fully understands the difficulties of his enterprise; even if he should manage to quit the convent in safety, where could a runaway Spanish monk find refuge? Nevertheless he gets into contact with the monk, who soon fixes the night for their escapade. He has procured the key of a door leading to the vaults of the convent, which have long been disused. From the vaults there is a trap-door to a remote part of the garden, whence they are to climb the wall by a ladder procured by Juan. Before they start it strikes Alonzo that his companion cannot brave that risk merely on his account, and asks how he is, in future, to provide for his own safety. The answer has a peculiarity of its own, opening a prospect the like of which none of the ‘terrific’ writers before Maturin had invented:

“No, we must escape together. Could you suppose I would have so much anxiety about an event, in which I had no part but that of an assistant? It was of my own danger I was thinking,—it was of my own safety I was doubtful. Our situation has happened to unite very opposite characters in the same adventure, but it is an union inevitable and inseparable. Your destiny is now bound to mine by a tie which no human force can break,—we part no more for ever. The secret that each is in possession of, must be watched by the other. Our lives are in each other’s hands, and a moment of absence might be that of treachery. We must pass life in each watching every breath the other draws, every glance the other gives,—in dreading sleep as an involuntary betrayer, and watching the broken murmurs of each other’s restless dreams. We may hate each other, (for hatred itself would be a relief, compared to the tedium of our inseparability), but separate we must never.”

With these bright prospects the pair commence their nocturnal wandering in the subterranean vaults, one, no doubt, of the most frightful wanderings ever described in literature. All difficulties which possibly can be encountered in such enterprises are heaped upon them, from their first ineffectual attempts to force the door with the rusty key and with lacerated hands, till the moment they sink down, exhausted, at the trap-door, after losing their way, after seeing their lamps go out, and after stumbling all night in darkness amid terrors real and imaginary, physical and psychical. Alonzo remembers old superstitious tales of demons who seduce monks into the vaults of the convent, and almost fancies he can hear the choir of their infernal sabbath; he grows giddy and stupefied, his knees and hands are stript of skin, and an intolerable thirst is produced by the unnatural atmosphere. At last human nature can endure no more; they lay down ‘like two panting dogs’ in the darkness. When day draws nigh, a faint stream of light makes itself observable above their heads: they have arrived just at the trap-door they have been searching for. But even this hope is turned to despair when it appears that morning is so far advanced that people are already in the garden. They have to remain another twenty-four hours where they are. Retiring into a recess which the parricide seems to be acquainted with they fall asleep, but Alonzo is soon roused by the most hideous screams and imprecations which the other is uttering in his sleep. At last it becomes too much for Alonzo; he awakens his companion with great exertions and wildly vows he is not to sleep any more. The man obeys, but insists on telling a story which has reference to the very recess they are in and which proves to be as sinister as were his dreams.

When the parricide was admitted into the convent, he was appointed to be the executioner whenever a severe punishment was to be inflicted. This he accepted with delight; while hating, by nature, every human being and especially those who seemed happier than himself, he found his sole satisfaction in making others miserable. Opportunities were seldom lacking, and to the métier of executioner he united that of a spy. Once he was desired to keep an eye upon a young monk whose family had placed him in the convent in order to prevent him from marrying a woman of inferior rank. There was, in the air of that monk, something peculiarly hopeful which naturally excited suspicion. Shortly afterwards a young novice entered the community, and the monk and he immediately became inseparable. ‘They were for ever in the garden together—they inhaled the odours of the flowers—they cultivated the same cluster of carnations—they entwined themselves as they walked together—when they were in the choir, their voices were like mixed incense.’ The greater their happiness appeared, the more uneasiness they gave the spy, who was on his watch night and day. Little by little he drew the certain conclusion that the novice was a female, and one night, to his inexpressible joy, he perceived the novice vanish in the monk’s cell. He secured the door and rushed to his master; they broke into the cell and the Superior saw what he had never even thought of and never could understand. His rage was immense, and the punishment, in the invention of which the spy had his ample share, was to be worthy of the crime. The pair were conducted, under the delusion of effecting their escape, to the place where Alonzo is sitting now, and allured into a neighbouring recess which they never quitted alive. The spy kept watch at the door and gradually heard their love turn to hatred in the agonies of death. On the sixth day, when all was silent within, the door was unnailed; the spy now, for the first time, distinctly saw the features of the novice, and recognized those of his only sister.

This is the story which the parricide relates to Alonzo, sparing no details. In the meantime evening comes, and they venture to ascend through the trap-door, and breathe once more the air of heaven. They hurry through the garden and climb the wall. Already Alonzo feels himself supported by the arms of his brother and even enters the carriage which is waiting for them, when Juan is stabbed from behind and falls, bathing in his blood. Alonzo falls on his dead body, losing consciousness; when it returns after a long time, he finds himself in the prison of the Inquisition.—

The episode of the lovers who are immured alive was, of all the stories contained in Melmoth the Wanderer, the one which was most disapproved and which attracted the severest censure. The Edinburgh Review,[129] while regretting Maturin’s taste for horrible and revolting subjects, adds: ‘We thought we had supped full of this commodity; but it seems as if the most ghastly and disgusting portion of the meal was reserved for the present day, and its most hideous concoction for the writer before us,—who is never so much in his favourite element as when he can ‘on horror’s head horrors accumulate.’ Another critic[130] says, with reference to the parricide’s conversation: ‘It is no apology for this to say that it is the language of an atrocious villain—at war with society—steeped to the lips in crime—upon whose brow parricide is branded, and who, with a most profane license, is described by the author to be “beyond the redemption of a Saviour!” Personages should not be created by a novelist, whose deeds to be characteristic must be criminal, and whose phrase to be consistent must be blasphemous.’ It is not to be wondered at that the reviewers were shocked; the parricide is the most atrocious of all the characters of Maturin and death by starvation certainly a disgusting subject. Yet in their indignation they failed to notice the extraordinary skill and power displayed in this episode. Later it has been very differently judged, and, in fact, remained one of the best-known passages in the book. In the opinion of Planche[131] the death-scenes of the lovers form the most beautiful pages in Melmoth; and a modern writer[132] also declares the episode in question to stand artistically on a very high level and to show, in the conception of cruelty, a refinement surpassing even Poe’s in his tale of The Cask of Amontillado, which it slightly recalls in the almost scientific exactness with which the sensations of the victims are observed. The parricide gives this characteristic reason for his voluntary watch at the prison-door: ‘You will call this cruelty, I call it curiosity,—that curiosity that brings thousands to witness a tragedy, and makes the most delicate female feast on groans and agonies;’ and what interests him most is the moment when their love, annihilated by the pangs of hunger, gives way to hostility and rage. The man, he remarks, often accuses the woman as the cause of his sufferings, while she never utters a word which might pain or wound him: we see that the high opinion which Maturin entertained of feminine character asserts itself even in this gloomy instance. The episode of the lovers seems, upon the whole, to be but little influenced by any previous writers. Only the detail of the novice being recognized as the parricide’s sister is borrowed from the older school of terror, where the destroying of near relations was well-nigh indispensable.

The continuation of the Spaniard’s tale, on the other hand, is more closely modelled on patterns easily discernible, and does not quite come up to the beginning. When Alonzo has regained some strength he is, in his new prison, visited by his former companion the parricide, who informs him that he had stabbed Juan, which it was his business to do, the whole escape being a comedy, undertaken with the consent of the Superior, who wished to get rid of Alonzo by plunging him into a worse place; the parricide, for his part, has become a spy and a creature of the Holy Office. Things being now as bad as they can be, it is, at last, time for Melmoth the Wanderer to interfere. Between his examinations Alonzo is, every night, visited by a stranger who gives himself out as a fellow-prisoner and entertains Alonzo with discussions on various topics. There is, however, something strangely suspicious in his behaviour, and Alonzo is frightened by the unearthly lustre of his eyes. The suspicions of Alonzo gain strength when he is warned by one of the officials to be on his guard against a person who has been frequenting some of the cells and set at defiance all the vigilance of the Inquisition. He makes a candid confession of the visits of the stranger, hoping by this means to make a favourable impression upon his judges, but in this he is totally disappointed. A prisoner whom the devil is supposed to be so obstinate in visiting, can expect no mercy from the tribunal. Before Alonzo’s last examination Melmoth then discloses to him the ‘unutterable condition’ upon which his liberation might be expected. Alonzo never thinks of accepting it, and hastens to make a full confession to a priest, but his doom is sealed: he is sentenced to be burnt in an autodafé. When the sentence is announced he sees Melmoth sitting at one of the tables as secretary, and feels sure that he has been made the dupe of the inquisitorial officials.

On the morning on which the ceremony is to take place a fire breaks out within the walls of the Inquisition. Availing himself of the confusion Alonzo rushes out and finds his way to a narrow apartment in the end of a street. The apartment appears to belong to a Jew, known in Madrid as a good Catholic, but secretly clinging to the religion of his fathers. He is terrified almost to death at the sudden entrance of Alonzo—being just engaged in the initiation of a young son of his according to the Jewish rites—but they soon come to an understanding, and Alonzo remains in the house. The Jew subsequently finds out that Alonzo is generally believed to have perished in the fire. This piece of news, however, makes him incautious, and one day, during the absence of the Jew, he places himself in the window to watch a great religious procession. Among the participants he sees his former companion from the convent; at the moment he arrives beneath the window he is pointed out by some one as a parricide and a criminal of the blackest dye; the fury of the populace is roused, and the man is, after a fierce struggle, torn to pieces before Alonzo’s eyes. Alonzo stands riveted to the spot until the horrid spectacle is over; but the same night the house is searched through by the inquisitorial officials, who maintain that the soul of a deceased heretic has been seen hovering near it. The Jew has just time to conceal Alonzo under one of the boards of the floor, where a cavity of some dimensions seems to have been made for the purpose. While the Jew is invoking all the prophets, Alonzo plunges deeper in the recess and perceives a kind of passage running out from it. The passage ends in a room whither he is guided by a faint stream of light. In the room he finds a very old man, sitting at a table covered with books and globes and surrounded by skeletons and scientific instruments. Superstitious and inexperienced as he is, Alonzo takes him for an evil spirit, but is reassured by a certain calm dignity in the old man’s manner. He is, indeed, a Jewish sage who has passed nearly a life-time in the subterraneous community. He has even been expecting Alonzo, having learned the secret of his existence from the other Jew and having requested Alonzo to be sent to him to act as his ‘secretary.’ He places before Alonzo a manuscript, written in Spanish with Greek characters, which he is to copy out. During the interview Alonzo happens to mention that he has been tempted by an agent of the enemy, and stood firm. This agent the Jew rightly concludes to be Melmoth the Wanderer with whom, he hints, he has been acquainted in his youth, much to his misfortune. And the manuscript which he has compiled turns out to be a record of the achievements of Melmoth, of which a new one now succeeds the Tale of the Spaniard.

That the story of Alonzo di Monçada is a Gothic Romance of the first magnitude, has never been denied except by its author. In the preface to Melmoth the Wanderer Maturin says:

“The Spaniard’s Tale” has been censured by a friend to whom I read it, as containing too much attempt at the revivification of the horrors of Radcliffe-Romance, of the persecutions of convents, and the terrors of the Inquisition.

I defended myself, by trying to point out to my friend, that I had made the misery of conventual life depend less on the startling adventures one meets with in romances, than on that irritating series of petty torments which constitutes the misery of life in general, and which, amid the tideless stagnation of monastic existence, solitude gives its inmates leisure to invent, and power combined with malignity, the full disposition to practise. I trust this defence will operate more on the conviction of the Reader, than it did on that of my friend.

Now, there are probably not many readers on whose conviction this defence has operated, and who have not felt that Maturin’s distinctions, as a contemporary critic[133] put it, ‘between his own convents and those of old are rather fanciful than real.’ The defence can, at the utmost, be applied to the first part of Alonzo’s stay in the convent, although even there we find, among the ‘petty torments,’ instances of monks being flogged to death; and it must also be admitted that this part is the most original. According as the torments grow decidedly serious, the points of contact with Godwin and Lewis become more conspicuous. As for the latter part of the story, it is unquestionably a perfect ‘romance of horror,’ with the horrors introduced solely for their own sake, only so much more powerful in execution than its forerunners, that one might be tempted to think it was Maturin’s wish to show how such a book ought to be written. In the art of suggestion, so important in tales of this character, Maturin here, as in Montorio, stands between Mrs. Radcliffe and Lewis, avoiding the excesses of both. His grasp on the subject-matter is always stronger than that of Mrs. Radcliffe, whose gentleness sometimes reduces her work to ‘a timid trifling with the world of phantoms and nameless terrors;’[134] while he seldom or never copies the coarseness of Lewis who, in fact, knows nothing of the art in question. This is particularly noticeable in Maturin’s treatment of the (very limited) supernatural element in Melmoth. He tells, no doubt, many frightful things and calls them by their names, but then there are also a great many circumstances which are said to be too horrible and unhallowed to relate. With sure artistic instinct Maturin forbears ever to expound the ‘incommunicable condition’ of Melmoth, whereas the surrender of their souls to the devil, made by Ambrosio and Matilda in The Monk, is laid down with a clearness and accuracy leaving nothing to be guessed. Another detail worthy of notice is the circumstance that the partly supernatural personality of the Wanderer makes an indelible impression upon those coming into contact with him, and marks them for life. Stanton, it will be remembered, knows no rest after having encountered Melmoth; his remaining days are spent in an indefatigable pursuit of him, the cause of which he could not even explain to himself; and a similar wish, it must be presumed, eventually drives Monçada to Ireland. Here may, indeed, be an influence from Mrs. Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), where the hero, in never-allayed anxiety, pursues the monster which he has created from one end of the world to the other, in order to prevent him from doing more mischief—: the artistic effect is, at all events, incomparably greater than that attained in The Monk, where the ghosts and spooks are treated with ease and familiarity, and where a Spanish nobleman relates that he has encountered the Wandering Jew, with a burning cross on his forehead, almost as nonchalantly as he would tell that he has met his brother. With this general difference in style and execution, many external motives from The Monk are utilized in the Spaniard’s tale, as they were in Montorio. The most conspicuous here, again, is the introduction of ecclesiastical cruelty and monastical oppression; the case of Ildefonsa in Montorio which, as we have seen, was suggested by the story of Agnes de Medina in The Monk, is here applied to Alonzo, with a power leaving both those romances far behind. The Domina of Lewis and the Superior of Maturin represent the same type: both are narrow-minded, hypocritical and revengeful, and pride themselves on the strict order and discipline maintained in their convents. Both are, on important occasions, surrounded by four satellites, who obey their every sign, and who are employed to drag recalcitrant monks and nuns to the subterranean dungeons, which, in both tales, are swarming with nauseous reptiles. A reminiscence of very unpleasant character, from Lewis, is also the dismal end of the parricide; in The Monk the same fate overtakes the Domina, when her cruelty to the young nun becomes known. She, too, is about to take part in a religious procession, when suddenly she is made an object of the rage of the people. As in the case of the parricide, neither the solemnity of the occasion, nor the respect for the priests present, nor fear of the soldiers can protect the victim from the populace, which presses on like a storm and never rests until its vengeance is fulfilled. In The Monk the Domina tries to make some sort of resistance, but ‘at length a flint, aimed by some well-directing hand, struck her full upon the temple. She sank upon the ground bathed in blood, and in a few minutes terminated her miserable existence;’ Maturin tells that the man does not cease to howl for mercy ‘till a stone, aimed by some pitying hand, struck him down. He fell, trodden in one moment into sanguine and discoloured mud by a thousand feet.’ It is but just to Mrs. Radcliffe to observe that she never would have described scenes like these.

The latter part of the story, containing the scenes in and after the Inquisition, is clearly influenced by Godwin. Of the examinations and official proceedings very little is told. Monçada, like St. Leon, is bound by an oath which he considers sacred, not to reveal what takes place under the roof of the Holy Office—an oath rather convenient to the author. St. Leon is, in his cell, visited by a creature of the Inquisition—a similar figure appears in The Italian of Mrs. Radcliffe—who tries to ensnare him in his own answers, the like of whom Alonzo supposes Melmoth to be. Both are finally condemned to flames, from which they escape in manners so closely alike, that the incident itself must be considered one of Maturing most obvious borrowings, although his execution, here again, is so much superior to his model, that it well-nigh recalls Shakespeare’s way of treating his ‘loans.’ When St. Leon is marching in the procession of the autodafé, some confusion arises from a horse rearing violently. This irritates the other horses, and the bustle becomes such that St. Leon succeeds in absconding and, like Alonzo, rushes down a narrow lane. All this is told in a few lines. In Melmoth the confusion is caused by a fire—an expedient less original but more acceptable—of which there is a description long and truly magnificent. In the end of the lane St. Leon, like Alonzo, forces his entrance into the habitation of a Jew, whom he terrifies to become his involuntary host and concealer. But while there are, in Godwin, no very interesting intérieurs from the Jewish community, the corresponding passages in Melmoth, though fantastic, are depicted with a lively minuteness, and the sudden appearance of Alonzo even with humour, of which refreshing quality there is but this short flash in the Spaniard’s tale. The Jew, it has been mentioned, is on the point of converting his son, who has been brought up a Catholic, all implements being ready and the cock to be sacrificed on the occasion fastened at the leg of a table:

There was something at once fearful and ludicrous in the scene that followed. Rebekah, an old Jewish woman, came at his call; but, seeing a third person, retreated in terror, while her master, in his confusion, called her in vain by her Christian name of Maria. Obliged to remove the table alone, he overthrew it, and broke the leg of the unfortunate animal fastened to it, who, not to be without his share in the tumult, uttered the most shrill and intolerable screams, while the Jew, snatching up the sacrificial knife, repeated eagerly, “Statim mactat gallum,” put the wretched bird out of its pain; then, trembling at this open avowal of his Judaism, he sat down amid the ruins of the overthrown table, the fragments of the broken vessels, and the remains of the martyred cock. He gazed at me with a look of stupified and ludicrous inanity, and demanded in delirious tones, what “my lords the Inquisitors had pleased to visit his humble but highly-honoured mansion for?” I was scarce less deranged than he was; and, though we both spoke the same language, and were forced by circumstances into the same strange and desperate confidence with each other, we really needed, for the first half-hour, a rational interpreter of our exclamations, starts of fear, and bursts of disclosure. At last our mutual terror acted honestly between us, and we understood each other.

The description of the subterranean abode is still more successful and entirely Maturin’s own. The old sage is indeed like a ghost of the past, where he sits among dusty manuscripts and the skeletons of his family, deceased a generation ago; and the atmosphere in which the new tale commence is extremely suggestive:

It was a night of storms in the world above us; and, far below the surface of the earth as we were, the murmur of the winds, sighing through the passages, came on my ear like the voices of the departed,—like the pleadings of the dead. Involuntarily I fixed my eye on the manuscript I was to copy, and never withdrew till I had finished its extraordinary contents.—

Even the person and character of the Wanderer, such as he appears in this tale, is less original than elsewhere in the book. His discussions in Alonzo’s cell, which are rather overloaded with historical information, may have been suggested by a passage in The Monk, where it is said of the Wandering Jew, that ‘he named people who had ceased to exist for many centuries and yet with whom he appeared to have been personally acquainted.’ Alonzo is struck by the same peculiarity in Melmoth, who relates anecdotes which happened during the reign of monarchs belonging to by-gone ages: ‘These circumstances were trifling, and might be told by any one, but there was a minuteness and circumstantiality in his details, that perpetually forced on the mind the idea that he had himself seen what he described, and been conversant with the personages he spoke of.’ To the reader, unfortunately, some of these anecdotes appear not only trifling but ridiculous, and the mysterious grandeur in which Melmoth ought to be veiled, is here not quite successfully sustained. His rôle during the fire is more impressive, and presents a parallel to the apparition seen by John Melmoth the night when the Spanish vessel is wrecked:

At this moment, while standing amid the groupe of prisoners, my eyes were struck by an extraordinary spectacle. Perhaps it is amid the moments of despair, that imagination has most power, and they who have suffered, can best describe and feel. In the burning light, the steeple of the Dominican church was as visible as at noon-day. It was close to the prison of the Inquisition. The night was intensely dark, but so strong was the light of the conflagration, that I could see the spire blazing, from the reflected lustre, like a meteor. The hands of the clock were as visible as if a torch was held before them; and this calm and silent progress of time, amid the tumultuous confusion of midnight horrors,—this scene of the physical and mental world in an agony of fruitless and incessant motion, might have suggested a profound and singular image, had not my whole attention been rivetted to a human figure placed on a pinnacle of the spire, and surveying the scene in perfect tranquillity. It was a figure not to be mistaken—it was the figure of him who had visited me in the cells of the Inquisition.—

A perfect ‘Gothic Romance’ as the Spaniard’s tale is in form, it is, fundamentally, a treatise against the omnipotence of the Catholic church, from which omnipotence all the evils and miseries directly arise. It is a protest against ‘a power whose influence is unlimited, indefinable, and unknown, even to those who exercise it, as there are mansions so vast, that their inmates, to their last hour, have never visited all the apartments;—a power whose operation is like its motto,—one and indivisible’—as it is a defence of another philosophy which values freedom, enjoyment of existence and natural affection. In this fight between theories the development of characters is, perhaps necessarily, neglected. Alonzo is but a vehicle by which the author gives vent to his own views; in himself he is impossible. It has already been pointed out that all the heroes of Maturin are very young, but the youth of Alonzo is a downright absurdity: he is not thirteen when his combat against monasticism commences; and even a precocious Spaniard could hardly, at that age, have conceived the idea of an improved Catholicism which he outlines on several occasions. For in all his vicissitudes he never ceases to be a good and sincere Catholic; it is not the religion, but its abuses, which Maturin—somewhat post festum, in 1820—is castigating.

The manuscript read by Monçada in the vault of the Jew commences with a narrative called the Tale of the Indians. In this tale—and only here—the Wanderer is the real hero and it is, so far, the central and most important part of the book. It has also been the most generally appreciated of all the tales in Melmoth and contains, indeed, passages of exquisite beauty, although as a composition it is broken and somewhat irregular. By way of contrast it is cleverly placed immediately after the Spaniard’s tale; the scene of action is removed from subterranean recesses and noxious vapours far away amid flowers and sunshine.

A small island in the Indian sea, where there has formerly stood a temple erected to the terrible goddess Seeva, has, after a series of earthquakes, become depopulated and totally deserted by the inhabitants of the mainland. Yet after some time it again has obtained the reputation of being the seat of a goddess, of an unknown and gentler character. Rumours of a vision seen there, lovely beyond description, spread among the natives, and young people get into the habit of offering fruits and flowers to the new goddess, who is supposed to be particularly well-disposed towards lovers. And inhabited the island really is. A small child, a girl, the sole survivor of the wreck of a Spanish vessel, has found refuge there and grows up a wild daughter of nature, as innocent as she is beautiful, as good as she is lovely. The flowers and birds are her friends; the shells are her toys; and the sense of fear is utterly unknown to her, there being nothing in her island which bears a hostile appearance. Until the great catastrophe there is not a cloud to disturb her paradisiacal existence. The catastrophe arrives in the person of Melmoth the Wanderer, who once chances to visit the deserted island and there finds Immalee—this is the name the natives have given their goddess. The few reminiscences of the Spanish language which she still retains are revived and developed in her intercourse with him, while her sentiments towards her visitor, at the same time, grow to an ardent attachment. When aware of this, Melmoth, with a generosity that does honour to an agent of the enemy, tears himself away and never revisits the island, nor do they meet again until Immalee has been discovered and taken back to her family in Spain.—

The idea of making the fanciful Indians worship Immalee as a deity was poetical enough, and it is finely told how two young lovers, who separately set out to the island with their offerings, find each other in the presence of the goddess, and return, happy, in the same canoe. The two are so fortunate as to get a sight of the mystical being:

The form was that of a female, but such as they had never before beheld, for her skin was perfectly white, (at least in their eyes, who had never seen any but the dark-red tint of the natives of the Bengalese islands). Her drapery (as well as they could see) consisted only of flowers, whose rich colours and fantastic grouping harmonized well with the peacock’s feathers twined among them, and altogether composed a feathery fan of wild drapery, which, in truth, beseemed an “island goddess.” Her long hair, of a colour they had never beheld before, pale auburn, flowed to her feet, and was fantastically entwined with the flowers and the feathers that formed her dress. On her head was a coronal of shells, of hue and lustre unknown except in the Indian seas—the purple and the green vied with the amethyst, and the emerald. On her white bare shoulder a loxia was perched, and round her neck was hung a string of their pearl-like eggs, so pure and pellucid, that the first sovereign in Europe might have exchanged his richest necklace of pearls for them. Her arms and feet were perfectly bare, and her step had a goddess-like rapidity and lightness, that affected the imagination of the Indians as much as the extraordinary colour of her skin and hair. The young lovers sunk in awe before this vision as it passed before their eyes. While they prostrated themselves, a delicious sound trembled on their ears. The beautiful vision spoke to them, but it was in a language they did not understand; and this confirming their belief that it was the language of the gods, they prostrated themselves to her again.

This same idea, however, gave rise to some other passages which sadly jar against the idyllic tone, besides being very unnecessary. The worship of Immalee, it is told, is chiefly practised by the younger generation, by whom the ferocious rites of the old religion are, accordingly, forgotten, which circumstance does not fail to excite much anger and disapproval among the old devotees, who are aroused to opposition against the new order of things. This it would have been quite sufficient briefly to state; but the fact that there exist, or have existed, revolting and inhuman forms of religious exercise, seems to have been a cancer constantly preying on Maturin’s mind, nor could he ever say enough on the subject. The satire levelled in Women at the rigid and bigoted Calvinism was, no doubt, well in its place, and the indignation with which monasticism and Inquisition are treated in the present work, can yet be understood; but the idea of pursuing, with bitter irony, the old Indian religion prescribing lacerations and human sacrifices, the loathsome character of which nobody would have dreamt of defending, is nothing short of ridiculous. The Indian idyll, beautiful as it is, might have afforded some surprise to those acquainted with Maturin’s views in general. The never-ending conflict between the fantastical novelist and the clergyman of the established church asserts itself very curiously in the whole conception of Immalee and her life in the island. Maturin had, more than once, strongly expressed his opinion, that a mode of life away from the benefits of civilization cannot but have a brutalizing effect upon human nature; in one of his sermons there is the following passage:

Let us ask ourselves what is human life? The question, my brethren, is of some importance—we must view man under three characters—as a savage—as a being whose intellectual faculties are cultivated—and lastly as acquainted with the blessedness of religion. What happiness do the former class know? The happiness of brutality—horrible felicity! if it be felicity—the happiness that may be shared with brutes: though some writers even of this age have struggled hard to prove that this is the best state of man. I would not notice them from this place but to notice the monstrous falsehood, which lies against God, and nature, and truth. The life of a brute was never intended to be the life of man. Yet there are writers, and some of those whom I address are acquainted with those writers, who would teach us that man in his natural state is most perfect, and that the heir of immortality is formed not to be above the beasts that perish.

Shortly after delivering this (not very brilliant) effusion, Maturin was himself one of ‘those writers.’ It is true that the story of Immalee is a work of pure imagination and that he does not exactly try to prove anything by it or to lay the case down as a doctrine; but all the same the fact remains that here a being, while living far from civilization and in absolute ignorance of religion, is represented as angelically good and deliciously happy, and that, after her entrance into a society where religion, may be in a corrupted form, pervades life in all its phases, she becomes most wretchedly miserable. Maturin, like most imaginative writers of the time, could not help once, at least, paying his tribute to the great ideal of a return to nature, so vigorously and eloquently put forth in the latter part of the previous century. Who the writers alluded to are it is, of course, not difficult to point out. Immalee’s spiritual parent is Rousseau, through the mediation of Bernardin de St. Pierre; she is a belated sister of Virginie who, before her, played with birds and flowers in exotic, Indian surroundings, depicted in glowing colours. Yet there can be no question of direct imitation. Immalee is original and romantic, she belongs as distinctly to the 19:th century as her prototype does to the 18:th. Maturin, as was his wont, made the case an extreme one; his heroine lives wholly by herself, taught and nurtured by nature alone, without a parent or philosopher to point out to her the benefits of such an education. And the character of Immalee, in all its fantasticalness, has infinitely more of ‘nature’ in it than there is in the tedious conventionalism of Virginie; nor is, after all, the one impossibility more improbable than the other. As Maturin did not create Immalee to advocate any theories, he was freer to endow her with those qualities that spring from das ewig weibliche. Her first encounter with the Wanderer—which takes place in the year of grace 1680—is most charmingly described:

The stranger approached, and the beautiful vision approached also, but not like an European female with low and graceful bendings, still less like an Indian girl with her low salams, but like a young fawn, all animation, timidity, confidence, and cowardice, expressed in almost a single action. She sprung from the sands—ran to her favourite tree;—returned again with her guard of peacocks, who expanded their superb trains with a kind of instinctive motion, as if they felt the danger that menaced their protectress, and clapping her hands with exultation, seemed to invite them to share in the delight she felt in gazing at the new flower that had grown in the sand.

With true feminine talkativeness she at once begins, in her imperfect language, to tell her visitor of her solitary life, her companions, and her innocent amusements. She tells that she is older than the moon, and never changes, although the roses fade; that she has often tried in vain to catch stars and moonbeams, and that she has a friend whose face meets hers in the stream when the sky is clear.

On this tabula rasa, then, is Melmoth to impress his peculiar views of the world and its conditions. It is stated that he regards her with compassion, which feeling he experiences for the first time in his life. His soul becomes the prey of contending passions, in the course of which is displayed what a critic[135] finely terms as ‘the naturalness and supernaturalness of it, the repulsion and attraction of it, the sublimity and devilry of it—not obviously balanced each to enhance each other, but as it were fused in the white heat of Maturin’s imagination;’ and as his human nature finally carries off the victory, the conviction is brought home to the reader that Melmoth himself deserves something of the compassion he bestows on Immalee. At first, indeed, he appears as a tempter, endeavouring to corrupt her mind and, above all, to incite in her a contempt for religion. He has a telescope by him which enables her distinctly to see the adjacent coast of India. She reviews some of the rites of the natives, the repulsiveness of which she does not understand. There is also a Turkish mosque which does not much appeal to her, but at last she perceives a half-hidden Christian church, whose meaning and tenets he is forced reluctantly to explain, whereupon she exclaims in exultation: ‘Christ shall be my God, and I will be a Christian!’ Understanding that her nature is incorruptible, Melmoth gives up regarding her as a victim. He leaves metaphysics alone and confines his discussions solely to the phenomena of this world. The European vessels that pass by the island furnish him with the opportunity of describing the effects of European civilization, and the kind of life led in European countries. The description is bitter, cynical and pessimistic; the darker sides of modern life—war, oppression, unjust laws, religious contests, unequal distribution of wealth—all is laid down in a language truly appalling, and wound up with the remark that, among human beings, the sole kind parents are those ‘who murder their children at the hour of their birth, or, by medical art dismiss them before they have seen the light; and, in so doing, they give the only creditable evidence of parental affection.’ By enfolding this sombre picture he tries to terrify her from wishing ever to see the world, and thus to keep her for himself, for in her society alone can he hope to forget his misery. She is the only oasis in the desert of his existence, the only human being on earth who does not instinctively shrink from him, and who is not frightened by the lustre of his eyes:

While he sat near her on the flowers she had collected for him,—while he looked on those timid and rosy lips that waited his signal to speak, like buds that did not dare to blow till the sun shone on them,—while he heard accents issue from those lips which he felt it would be as impossible to pervert as it would be to teach the nightingale blasphemy,—he sunk down beside her, passed his hand over his livid brow and wiping off some cold drops, thought for a moment he was not the Cain of the moral world, and that the brand was effaced,—at least for a moment.

Yet the impression made upon Immalee by the conversations of Melmoth is very different from what he intended. She sheds tears and suffers with the sufferers, but nevertheless she is seized with a longing towards the world. She has tasted from the tree of knowledge, and her peace of mind is gone. At the same time she feels that the society of the stranger is far more to her than that of her mute companions; every time he leaves her she implores him to return, and he, on his part, cannot resist the temptation although he sees he is destroying her happiness. She loves; and the more he terrifies her with his wild laugh and impetuous speech which is incomprehensible to her, the stronger grows her love. Her idyll is at an end, and her former occupations interest her no longer. Now she begins to prefer ‘the rocks and the ocean, the thunder of the wave, and the sterility of the sands.’ This change fills Melmoth with rage, as the society of Immalee thus loses the character of a calm refuge where he may snatch a moment of rest, and one stormy night he even contemplates her again in the light of a victim. Yet the innocent belief of Immalee that she is sheltered when he is near her, once more appeals to his better feelings: he frightens her, indeed, into a state of unconsciousness, but then, with a supreme effort, leaves the island for ever.

These are the bare outlines of this singular courtship in the Indian island. In point of language it contains the most magnificent passages in Maturin’s production, and the characterization also stands very high. Powerful as is the picture of the passions and emotions of Melmoth, it is surpassed by the art with which Immalee’s development from a wild and thoughtless girl into a woman who loves, and suffers for her love, is traced. The delineation of feminine psychology, in which Maturin always excelled, is here as masterly as it was in the case of Eva in Women, and there is, in Immalee, an inner truth quite independent of her fantastical circumstances. The very idea of dissimulation being foreign to her, she does not think of concealing her feelings, and amid the effusions of Melmoth—which sometimes come to the verge of the melodramatic—she is all simplicity and nature. As she has never seen any other human being, she can not understand or even surmise the exceptional character of Melmoth, nor know that he is not, and cannot be, a lover in the ordinary sense of the word. She only feels that she is ready for any sacrifice for him, and her attachment appears unaltered when they next meet in Spain.—

To the passages in which Melmoth describes to Immalee the state of the world and the conditions of human life, there is this marginal note:

As by a mode of criticism equally false and unjust, the worst sentiments of my worst characters, (from the ravings of Bertram to the blasphemies of Cardonneau), have been represented as my own, I must here trespass so far on the patience of the reader as to assure him, that the sentiments ascribed to the stranger are diametrically opposite to mine, and that I have purposely put them into the mouth of an agent of the enemy of mankind.[136]

That Maturin had suffered much from this mode of criticism there is no doubt, and it was certainly a cautious thing to do to fix a note of this kind to a sentence like the following:

“These people,” he said, “have made unto themselves kings, that is, beings whom they voluntarily invest with the privilege of draining, by taxation, whatever wealth their vices have left to the rich, and whatever means of subsistence their want has left to the poor, till their extortion is cursed from the castle to the cottage—and this to support a few pampered favourites, who are harnassed by silken reins to the car, which they drag over the prostrate bodies of the multitude.”

Yet this note cannot be taken quite literally, any more than those prefaces of Maturin where he depreciates his works. The discussions of Melmoth are introduced with the remark that ‘there was a mixture of fiendish acrimony, biting irony, and fearful truth, in his wild sketch, which was often interrupted by the cries of astonishment, grief, and terror, from his hearer.’ What there, accordingly, is of ‘fearful truth’ would, at least, seem to represent Maturin’s own views; and what Melmoth, for instance, says about religious wars, Maturin would doubtless have subscribed to at any time. The tone of latent conviction in many of these passages has been pointed out by a critic,[137] with the supposition that they were dictated by the disappointments and bitter experiences Maturin had met with in his life, and this may well be the case. From the literary point of view, however, the whole discourse is but an echo of the school of Rousseau, which Maturin was in the habit of condemning, but under whose influence the first part of the Tale of the Indians was written.[138] Sentences from the conversation of the old hermit in Paul et Virginie, like:

Le meilleur des livres, qui ne prêche que l’égalité, l’amitié, l’humilité et la concorde, l’Evangile, a servi pendant des siècles de prétexte aux fureurs des Européens,

are distinctly recalled:

Intent on their settled purpose of discovering misery wherever it could be traced, and inventing it where it could not, they have found, even in the pure pages of that book, which, they presume to say, contains their title to peace on earth, and happiness hereafter, a right to hate, plunder, and murder each other.

Apart from this, however, the tale is remarkably original as well as typically Maturineian. Among slight literary influences, a reminiscence from Ossian can be traced in a wild song of Immalee, after she has lost her peace:

The night is growing dark—but what is that to the darkness that his absence has cast on my soul? The lightnings are glancing round me—but what are they to the gleam of his eye when he parted from me in anger? — — —

Roar on, terrible ocean! thy waves, which I cannot count, can never wash his image from my soul,—thou dashest a thousand waves against a rock, but the rock is unmoved—and so would be my heart amid the calamities of the world with which he threatens me,—whose dangers I never would have known but for him, and whose dangers for him I will encounter.

Three years having elapsed, two persons in Madrid are, at the same time, exciting much interest and curiosity. One of them is a stranger of whom fearful rumours are abroad, although there is nothing extraordinary about him except the appalling lustre in his eyes; the other is a most beautiful female, who has recently turned up in Madrid as the new-found daughter of the merchant Aliaga and who lives in her father’s villa near the town. Once these two persons accidentally meet in the street, which accident is to have fatal consequences to all the members of the merchant’s family.

The household of Aliaga, who himself is absent on a voyage in the Indies, consists of his wife Donna Clara, his son Don Fernan, and the family confessor Fra Jose. Of these none is capable in the least of understanding Immalee—or Isidora, as she is now called—and she feels deeply unhappy in her new surroundings. Her unrestrained freedom of yore has been replaced by the strictest etiquette prescribing her duties to be ‘perfect obedience, profound submission, and unbroken silence, except when addressed to;’ and her warm and generous feelings are chilled by the cold and rigid Catholicism, very different from her own notions of religion. These latter are, indeed, considered to denote sheer madness after she once expresses the hope ‘that the heretics in the train of the English ambassador might not be everlastingly damned.’ Donna Clara is a woman of rigid mind and mediocrity of intellect, chiefly occupied in religious meditations of the narrowest kind. Her son is a selfish and brutal character from whom no kindness is to be expected. Isidora’s best friend is the priest, who, in contrast to his counterpart in the Spaniard’s tale, is described as a good and well-meaning person. Yet for the power of the church he, too, is prepared to sacrifice everything. Thus he, taking for pretext some superstitious rumours concerning the early life of Isidora, insists on her taking the veil, which scheme is indignantly opposed by Don Fernan, who calculates that the extraordinary beauty of his sister will be the means of the family forming, by marriage, a connection with the highest nobility of Spain. Before, however, either project has been realized, her meeting with Melmoth takes place, and he begins nightly to visit her under her casement.

These nocturnal meetings, which form the principal contents of the story, are quite worthy of the corresponding scenes in the first part. The present desolate state of Isidora is as convincingly described as her longing for the Indian island, to dream of which is her only happiness. The image of Melmoth is united to all that is dear to her, and she loves him as she loves the memories of bygone days:

“You were the first human being I ever saw who could teach me language and who taught me feeling. Your image is for ever before me, present or absent, sleeping or waking. I have seen fairer forms,—I have listened to softer voices, I might have met gentler hearts,—but the first, the indelible image, is written on mine, and its characters will never be effaced till that heart is a clod of the valley. I loved you not for comeliness,—I loved you not for gay deportment, or fond language, or all that is said to be lovely in the eye of a woman,—I loved you because you were my first,—the sole connecting link between the human world and my heart,—the being who brought me acquainted with that wondrous instrument that lay unknown and untouched within me, and whose chords, as long as they vibrate, will disdain to obey any touch but that of their first mover,—because your image is mixed in my imagination with all the glories of nature,—because your voice, when I heard it first, was something in accordance with the murmur of the ocean, and the music of the stars.”

In her artlessness she understands him as little as ever. At the renewal of their intercourse she feels an innocent desire—Maturin was too acute a psychologist to omit this circumstance—do dazzle him with her newly-acquired accomplishments, without being aware that the more unlike she is to everybody else, the more attractive she must be to him—that her sole attraction, in fact, lies in her being something new even in his worldwide experience. Seeing, however, that her accomplishments do not please him, she gives up every thought of herself:

She now had concentrated all her hopes, and all her heart, no longer in the ambition to be beloved, but in the sole wish to love. She no longer alluded to the enlargement of her faculties, the acquisition of new powers, and the expansion and cultivation of her taste. She ceased to speak—she sought only to listen—then her wish subsided into that quiet listening for his form alone, which seemed to transfer the office of hearing into the eyes, or rather, to identify both. She saw him long before he appeared,—and heard him though he did not speak. They have been in each other’s presence for the short hours of a Spanish summer’s night,—Isidora’s eyes alternately fixed on the sun-like moon, and on her mysterious lover,—while he, without uttering a word, leaned against the pillars of her balcony, or the trunk of the giant myrtle-tree, which cast the shade he loved, even by night, over his portentous expression,—and they never uttered a word to each other, till the waving of Isidora’s hand, as the dawn appeared, was the tacit signal for their parting.

The mental process which Melmoth undergoes is much the same as before. He approaches her with withering sarcasm and torments her with his diabolical laugh and terrible allusions, which she bears with gentleness and patience. She is still the only being who does not understand that he is to be feared, and in whose society—as described in the fine passage quoted above—he can obtain some rest and oblivion; and in these moments his human nature is again appealed to, and his better feelings prompt him once more to leave her. The only thing Isidora ever asks of him—from a sense of inborn dignity rather than acquired conventionality—is to discontinue his clandestine visits and appear before her family as her wooer. Once united to him by the rites of the Catholic church, she promises to follow him wherever it shall be. On one of these occasions Melmoth finds strength to take the decisive step:

“Would you then consent to unite your destiny with mine? Would you indeed be mine amid mystery and sorrow? Would you follow me from land to sea, and from sea to land,—a restless, homeless, devoted being,—with the brand on your brow, and the curse on your name? Would you indeed be mine? my own—my only Immalee?”—“I would—I will!”—“Then,” answered Melmoth, “on this spot receive the proof of my eternal gratitude. On this spot I renounce your sight!—I disannul your engagement!—I fly from you for ever!” And as he spoke, he disappeared.

Some time, however, after this disappearance of Melmoth, unexpected events again throw these ill-fated lovers together. Donna Clara receives a letter from her husband, who has landed in Spain and is slowly making his way homewards, to the effect that he intends to bring with him the destined bridegroom of Isidora, a Spanish nobleman called Montilla. Isidora learns this piece of news with great despair—but the same night Melmoth reappears beneath her balcony. Isidora assures him that she will be the bride of the grave rather than of Montilla, and that her love is unaltered; whereupon Melmoth, ‘bringing out the words with difficulty,’ proposes that she should be ready to wed him the following night. She consents, and the scheme is carried out in a scene which has been called one of the greatest in the book[139] and which indeed is saturated with the keenest suspense. The episode is typically ‘Gothic;’ it is like a ballad of Lenore in prose. In the darkness they set out and travel with supernatural rapidity towards a neighbouring mountain where, Melmoth informs Isidora, a holy hermit is dwelling near a ruinous monastery. Arriving at a mountain river they hear foot-steps pursuing them, and a figure is indistinctly seen approaching. After a short struggle the pursuer, whom Isidora, by his voice, recognizes to be an ancient domestic of the family, is flung into the river. The lovers continue their way and Isidora is dragged up into the ruins, where a hand places hers into that of Melmoth. Almost unconscious as she is from terror, she feels the hand to be cold as death; and afterwards it is discovered that the hermit really had died the previous night. This is one of the few supernatural incidents in the story that does not directly relate to the personality of Melmoth.—The same night Donna Clara and the priest sit brooding over a new letter from Aliaga, in which he hints at some terrible and mysterious tidings he has learned—it appears later that he has met Melmoth, who, beset by pangs of conscience, has warned him that his daughter is in danger. They are roused by a noise in the house, and discover that Isidora’s casement is open and her room empty. Her mother passes the night in frantic anxiety, but in the morning Isidora is found sleeping heavily in her bed. What has happened to her nothing can induce her to disclose, and Donna Clara and the priest prudently determine also to keep the matter secret. It takes Aliaga rather a long time to get home, in spite of the warning he has received. In the meantime Melmoth keeps on visiting his wife, but cannot be prevailed upon to appear before the family. Otherwise his tenderness towards Isidora increases, as there is evidence of her becoming a mother. The night before the event is expected to take place, Melmoth has the news that her father and Montilla will arrive that very day, and in the evening a great masquerade is to be held in honour of the betrothed. Melmoth promises to be there at midnight to take her away. The news appears to be true, and Isidora is forced to take part in the feast. The costume of the time fortunately conceals her altered figure, as the mask covers her pale and haggard countenance. When the clock strikes twelve Melmoth is beside her. They prepare to leave the assembly, but are detected by Don Fernan, who steps into their way. A fight ensues which ends with the death of Don Fernan, whereat the dreaded figure of Melmoth the Wanderer is disclosed to all the guests, some of whom recognize him with a terror unspeakable. Isidora throws herself upon the corpse of her brother, and Melmoth departs alone and unmolested, nobody daring to lift a hand against him. The house is rapidly deserted and its horrified inmates left alone. The same night Isidora is delivered of a daughter, and, on admitting that she is married to Melmoth, conveyed into the prison of the Inquisition. Her parents shortly afterwards die of grief, but the good priest is allowed to visit her, and to him she makes a full confession of her marriage. The Holy Office condemns her to lifelong imprisonment, but she dies, after having strangled her child when the officials have come to take it from her. Before expiring she yet confesses to Fra Jose that Melmoth has been with her in the prison and offered to effect her liberation on a fearful and unutterable condition. With her last strength she has rejected it, although her love for him is unabated.—

The end of the Tale of the Indians calls for a few remarks from a logical point of view—if logic is to be applied to a composition like this. It never becomes quite clear why Melmoth brings Isidora back to her home after their wedding, all the world being open to him; nor it is easy to understand why he should delay the second elopement until the house is full of guests and the disappearance of Isidora most difficult to bring about. As he, after the failure of this enterprise, completely loses his human character and only appears in that of the tempter, it might be inferred that Isidora’s last calamity is of his own contrivance; but this, again, is contradicted by what he says after the duel with Don Fernan: ‘Would that breathless fool had yielded to my bidding, not to my sword—there was but one human chord that vibrated in my heart—it is broken to-night, and for ever!’ Those critics that derided the clumsiness with which the schemes of Melmoth are, in general, executed, were not entirely wrong in this instance; the lack of plausibility in these incidents—the supernatural power of Melmoth once taken for granted—is here of a character injurious to the tale as a work of art.—In the descriptions of everyday life in Aliaga’s house Maturin does not give of his best, in spite of his having recourse to his humorous vein. The personages themselves are depicted in rather a conventional fashion, and the stupidity and narrow-mindedness of Donna Clara, and the confessor’s excessive fondness for food and drink, can bear no comparison with the humorous passages in Women. Only the characterization of Isidora is carried out with the same unfailing power to the very last.

The end of the Tale of the Indians, especially the unravelling of the plot, contains, no doubt, some hints from Goethe’s Faust.[140] The parallels are but details of secondary importance, yet too distinct to be quite overlooked. Margarete and Isidora are equally anxious about their respective lovers’ relations to church and religion, and propose the same questions to them. Margarete:

Nun sag, wie hast du’s mit der Religion?

— — — — — —

Du ehrst auch nicht die heil’gen Sacramente.

— — — — — —

Zur Messe, zur Beichte bist du lange nicht gegangen.

Isidora expresses her fear that Melmoth does not believe in what the Holy Church requires, and asks, further: ‘Do you ever visit the church? — — Do you ever receive the Holy Sacrament?’—Faust fights a duel with Margarete’s brother under similar circumstances and with the same consequence as Melmoth with Don Fernan; Margareta, like Isidora, dies in prison, after having put her child to death in a state of partial insanity, and both refuse to follow their lovers out of the prison.—With Mephistopheles, Melmoth has in common the power of arresting, with a look, the hands raised to seize him.

The Tale of the Indians is once interrupted by two other tales of considerable length. While Aliaga is travelling homeward he passes a night at a wretched inn, where a fellow-traveller reads to him the Tale of Guzman’s Family, to the following effect.

Guzman is an old merchant of Seville, who has made an enormous fortune out of nothing, and risen from an obscure birth to a position of respect. As he lives alone, the question of his eventual heirs excites much curiosity; his circumstances are carefully investigated, and it is discovered that he has a sister in life. This sister has, in early youth, married a German musician of the name of Walberg, turned a Protestant, been rejected by her brother, and since then lived in Germany. This appears to be true; for once when Guzman is seized with a dangerous illness and even given over by his physicians, he remembers his sister and sends for the family of Walberg, that he might be reconciled to his only relatives. At the same time he alters his will in favour of the family. Contrary to all expectation, he recovers before they arrive, yet the will remains as he has fixed it, in spite of the efforts of the priests to have it cancelled.[141] The only point in which Guzman accedes to their representations, is that he determines to refrain from all personal intercourse with his heretical relations. This intelligence is brought to the family, at their arrival in Seville, by Guzman’s confessor, who acts as his agent and afterwards proves to be a man of kindness and honour. The family consists of Walberg, his wife Ines, and four children; later they are joined by Walberg’s aged parents, whom he has summoned from Germany to pass the remainder of their life with them. Sinister forebodings fill the mind of Ines when she learns her brother’s resolution never to see her or any member of the family. As they are, however, amply provided for and generally considered the sole heirs of Guzman, the displeasing resolution makes but a slight impression on Walberg, who will not listen to his wife’s advice that the children should be taught some profession. So they live on in ease and comfort, until Guzman dies—and then it is announced that he has left everything to the church. This a blow that completely changes the conditions of the family; their fine house is sold, and they move into a humble abode in the suburbs, where Ines and her daughter once more resume the domestic duties. The good priest, who feels certain that a fraud has been committed, does everything in his power to help them. Through his means the matter is brought to legal arbitration, but though the best advocates are resorted to, Walberg loses the case. The family is gradually plunged deeper and deeper into misery, and soon hovers on the brink of starvation. Being strangers and heretics they can obtain no work, but are solely reduced to what the children can get together by begging. The eldest son, Everhard, hits upon the expedient of selling some of his blood to a surgeon, and well-nigh expires; the daughters are beginning to be accosted by strangers in the street; the old grandmother dies for want of food, and the grandfather loses his reason from the same cause. When the family has been reduced to this stage of wretchedness, Walberg, every night he goes out to supplicate relief from passers-by, is addressed by a stranger,

a middle-aged man, of a serious and staid demeanour, and with nothing remarkable in his aspect except the light of two burning eyes, whose lustre is almost intolerable. He fixes them on me sometimes, and I feel as if there was fascination in their glare. Every night he besets me, and few like me could have resisted his seductions. He has offered, and proved to me, that it is in his power to bestow all that human cupidity could thirst for, on the condition that—I cannot utter! It is one so full of horror and impiety, that even to listen to it, is scarce less a crime than to comply with it!

The same night Walberg relates this to his wife, he is seized with a fit of insanity and proceeds to kill his children, when, at the last moment, the priest enters with the news that the right will is found and the family once more the heirs of Guzman. In a short time they are restored to health—even the grandfather recovers his reason before he dies—and the tale ends happily:

The family then set out for Germany, where they reside in prosperous felicity;—but to this hour Walberg shudders with horror when he recalls the fearful temptations of the stranger, whom he met in the nightly wanderings in the hour of his adversity, and the horror of this visitation appears to oppress his recollection more than even the images of his family perishing with want.—

That Godwin’s St. Leon makes itself remembered also in connection with the Tale of Guzman’s Family, is chiefly due to its being, upon the whole, the book which Melmoth probably is most indebted to. St. Leon is, no doubt, several times plunged into great poverty which he tries to bear as best he can, with the assistance of a brave and faithful wife and good and amiable children; but a detailed comparison would show little else than that these scenes, in Godwin, are dull and powerless, whereas Maturin’s story is just the reverse. So far from considering the Tale of Guzman’s Family an imitation, one would rather be inclined to imagine that it has sprung from personal recollections. Both in his father’s home and his own, Maturin had seen ease and affluence replaced by penury and want. The situation into which the family of Walberg is reduced—which leads to death and insanity—was, of course, extreme beyond anything in Maturin’s experience, and a product of furious and unrestrained imagination; but the first intimations of disappearing wealth are brought forth with a force and accuracy quite convincing, and among the best pages in the tale are those treating of the horrible suspense in which the family lives from the moment of Guzman’s death till the publication of his will. Yet another circumstance would go to show that the Tale of Guzman’s Family had no need of literary models. In the preface to Melmoth the Wanderer Maturin states that ‘the original from which the wife of Walberg is imperfectly sketched is a living woman, and long may she live;’ whence it is not unnatural to infer that it is his own wife he is describing. So the phrase seems to have been understood by the critic in the London Magazine 1821, who adds that he would be inclined to drop his pen and ‘weep over the misfortunes of a man of genius, instead of scrutinizing his errors.’ The picture which Maturin draws of the wife of Walberg is beautiful indeed. She is the good genius of her family, as prudent as she is gentle. She is secretly saving when her husband only thinks of spending; when he is seized with despair, she heroically tries to encourage him. She starves gladly herself, as long as there is a morsel left for her children and for the aged parents of her husband; and when he is beset by the tempter, she exerts her last energy to support him. The wife of Walberg is one of the incarnations of the idea of the superior moral strength of woman, so often recurring in Maturin’s works, and there is no reason to doubt that this idea originated in the partner of his life.—Another figure worthy of particular notice is the priest, with whom Maturin makes full amends for the attacks he delivers, in Melmoth, upon the dignitaries of the Catholic church. The confessor in the Tale of the Indians is too much of a buffoon to be taken seriously, but here, at last, is a Catholic prelate to whom the interests of humanity are more than those of the church, and who is ready to expose the crimes of his own colleagues in order to save the life of a heretical family.

The style of writing, in this tale, is hardly so fine as in the next one, although there are passages extremely characteristic of Maturin. He was the only one of the ‘terrific’ writers of the time capable of purely aesthetical enjoyment, almost perverse, from scenes of bodily suffering. The description of the boy who has been selling his blood to a surgeon could have been made by no one else:

The moonlight fell strongly through the unshuttered windows on the wretched closet that just contained the bed. Its furniture was sufficiently scanty, and in his spasms Everhard had thrown off the sheet. So he lay, as Ines approached his bed, in a kind of corse-like beauty, to which the light of the moon gave an effect that would have rendered the figure worthy of the pencil of a Murillo, a Rosa, or any of those painters, who, inspired by the genius of suffering, delight in representing the most exquisite of human forms in the extremity of human agony. A St. Bartholomew flayed, with his skin hanging about him in graceful drapery—a St. Laurence, broiled on a gridiron, and exhibiting his finely-formed anatomy on its bars, while naked slaves are blowing the coals beneath it,—even this were inferior to the form half-veiled, half-disclosed by the moonlight as it lay. The snow-white limbs of Everhard were extended as if for the inspection of a sculptor, and moveless, as if they were indeed what they resembled, in hue and symmetry, those of a marble statue. His arms were tossed above his head and the blood was trickling fast from the opened veins of both,—his bright and curled hair was clotted with the red stream that flowed from his arms,—his lips were blue, and a faint and fainter moan issued from them as his mother hung over him.

All the personages actually appearing in the Tale of Guzman’s Family are good and noble; there is no display of revolting crimes or depraved characters, and horrible and even disgusting as are the sufferings of the family, the tale has little to do with the school of terror. The fact, moreover, of its being the only one that is brought to a happy ending, probably made it a favourite with readers. An admiring critic in Blackwood’s Magazine[142] says that this tale, before all others, shows ‘what Mr. Maturin is capable of doing in his best moments of inspiration.’

Shortly after the stranger has read to Aliaga the tale related above, Melmoth himself appears at the inn. He causes—in a way unexplained—the death of the stranger who has dared to investigate into his achievements, and the next day associates himself with Aliaga. The merchant is not at all charmed with his obtrusive companion, but cannot well get rid of him; and as they slowly ride onward, Melmoth narrates what is called The Lovers’ Tale.[143]

This time Spain is left behind, and the reader is conducted to the England of the Restoration. The tale opens with a short chronicle of the fortunes of the Mortimer family, one of the oldest and noblest in the kingdom. At the time of Charles the First the then head of the house, Sir Roger Mortimer, ‘a man lofty alike in pride and in principle,’ distinguishes himself as one of the most fervent supporters of the royal cause. After the defeat of the monarch he is subjected to the reprisals, in form of fines and sequestrations, of the victorious rebels, in addition to which his domestic felicity is completely destroyed. His eldest son has fallen for his king at the battle of Newbury, while his second son has embraced the Puritan cause, married accordingly, and finally died, having ‘fought all day at the head of his regiment, and preached and prayed to them all night.’ The only daughter of the old loyalist also goes the wrong way and marries an Independent preacher of the name of Sandal, whom she survives. The daughter of the eldest son, Margaret, is made the heiress of the castle, where she resides with her grandfather and his old sister, Mrs. Ann Mortimer, who leads the household after the death of his brother’s wife. The daughter of the apostate son, Elinor, is, after the death of her mother, also received at the castle and educated there, though without expectations. Young John Sandal, the son of the rejected daughter, is recognized by his grandfather on the express condition of henceforth fighting for the royal family; he has, at his own request, been sent to sea at a very early age. At the return of Charles the Second old Sir Roger dies of joy, but the sacrifices of the family in the royal cause are amply compensated, and they are once again raised among the foremost in the country. At that period the widow Sandal takes up her residence in the neighbourhood of the castle and sometimes visits it, although the relations between her and her aunt Mrs. Ann never become very cordial. From her intrigues subsequently follows the fall of the house of Mortimer.

Through the re-acquired importance of the family a distinguished position in the navy is procured for John Sandal, and during the Dutch war he has the opportunity of showing that the spirit of his ancestors is not dead within him. News of valorous deeds achieved by John reaches even the remote castle, where the gentle Elinor, who remembers him with feelings of love in early childhood, is, more than others, occupied in thoughts of him. When the widow Sandal makes her appearance in the vicinity, she calls on her every day to talk about her son, and when John arrives to pay a visit to his mother, she is the first to meet him. John Sandal turns out to be as good as he is brave, and his friendship to his cousin Elinor swiftly ripens to love. Their betrothal is greeted with joy by all except the widow, who determines to prevent the union by any means. She has obtained a knowledge of Sir Roger’s will, which is to the effect that if his granddaughter Margaret marries John Sandal, all the immense estates are to fall to her, whereas John, in case of his marrying Elinor, is entitled only to a small fortune.—The wedding-day, however, is fixed; the church is filled with guests from far and near and everything is ready, yet the bridegroom, for some inexplicable reason, fails to appear. Tired and anxious at the delay Elinor retires to the vestry, from the casement window of which she sees a rider approaching at full speed. The rider, John Sandal, gallops past the church, casts a look of horror upon Elinor, and disappears.

After the frustration of her hopes Elinor quits the castle and takes up her abode in Yorkshire, at the house of a strictly Puritan sister of her late mother. Peace of mind, however, is denied her, and she lingers on in a pitiable state, when, one day, she receives a letter from Margaret, of surprising contents. Both old Mrs. Ann and Margaret have assured that the faithless bridegroom shall never darken their doors again; now Margaret announces to Elinor that John Sandal has returned to the castle and invites her to join them, dropping some ‘mysterious hints relative to the interruption of the marriage.’ With a vague hope Elinor sets out to the castle and is tenderly received by both her cousins; the manner of John, however, clearly evinces that there can be no question of other sentiments than a calm friendship between them. As the betrothal of Margaret and John is made public, her stay at the castle becomes too painful to Elinor; she returns to Yorkshire where she leads a life in utter seclusion, her Puritan aunt having died in the meantime. Yet she is once more summoned to the castle by a message from Margaret, who, now in confinement, implores Elinor’s presence at her hour of danger. Elinor obeys, but the gloomy forebodings of Margaret are fulfilled: twins are born dead, and a moment afterwards the mother also expires. Amid general despair the widow Sandal now makes a confession to her son, with the result that his reason is extinguished for ever. Solicitous to secure for her son the family estates, she had invented a story which she had imparted to him the night before his intended nuptials with Elinor, according to which he was not her son, but the offspring of an ‘illicit commerce of her husband the preacher with the Puritan mother of Elinor’—and this story she had bound her son by oath never to disclose to Elinor.

After this catastrophe the life of Elinor is devoted to the tending of the patient, whom she never leaves. It then befalls that they are, on one of their evening walks, approached by a stranger, who introduces himself by showing them some slight attentions and speaking on indifferent subjects. Their acquaintance continues some time, till it suddenly ends by the stranger saying something that causes Elinor wildly to rush to a neighbouring clergyman for assistance. The clergyman happens to be the identical friend of Melmoth the Wanderer who witnessed his apparent death in Germany, which strange event he now discloses to Elinor; as for Melmoth, he departs on recognizing the clergyman, and troubles Elinor no longer. Her time passes on in the same occupation, until her ward dies, and, in his last moments knows her, nor does she survive him long.

This beautiful story, though little noted by commentators, is inferior to none in the book, except the opening chapters describing the death of the old Irish miser; on the contrary, it seems rather the best of all the longer tales. Maturing favourite period in English history was sure to become to him a source of highest inspiration, whenever he turned to it, and to his other good qualities is here added that of an impartial historian. When Elinor, as a child, is taken up at the castle, she is said to come to the conclusion ‘that there must be good on both sides, however obscured or defaced by passion, where so much intellectual power, and so much physical energy, had been displayed by both;’ and in this spirit the controversies are treated throughout the story. That the author’s sympathies rest with the cavaliers is evident enough, but the errors of Puritanism—fortunately—do not irritate him so much as to prevent him from speaking of them with calmness, mingled with an almost imperceptible tinge of humour. And the peculiar spirit of the period he catches by the forelock and never leaves hold of it; Maturin had penetrated to the very soul of that wonderful time, when furious contests, religious and political, splintered family ties and shook the foundations of the empire, and when the last remnants of ancient chivalry clashed against growing democracy and sturdy Puritanism. Yet as the principal part of the tale takes place after the Restoration, when the wounds of the civil war are already beginning slowly to heal, he contrives to make those turbulent events felt through the pages as the after-rolls of a mighty storm. And as the plot consists of the tragical downfall of a great and illustrious house, there is, in the style, something like the glow of an autumnal sun setting over a rich and glorious landscape. It is, in fact, in autumn—the season Maturin loved best—that most of the incidents occur, and the pages abound in magnificent descriptions of nature, like the following:

Elinor took the path through the park, and, absorbed in new feelings, was for the first time insensible of its woodland beauty, at once gloomy and resplendent, mellowed by the tints of autumnal colouring, and glorious with the light of an autumnal evening,—till she was roused to attention by the exclamations of her companion, who appeared rapt into delight at what he beheld. — — — — As they approached the Castle, the scene became glorious beyond the imagination of a painter, whose eye has dreamed of sunset in foreign climes. The vast edifice lay buried in shade,—all its varied and strongly charactered features of tower and pinnacle, bartizan and battlement, were melted into one dense and sombrous mass. The distant hills with their conical summits, were still clearly defined in the dark-blue heaven, and their peaks still retained a hue of purple so brilliant and lovely, that it seemed as if the light had loved to linger there, and, parting, had left that tint as the promise of a glorious morning. The woods that surrounded the Castle stood as dark, and apparently as solid as itself. Sometimes a gleam like gold trembled over the tufted foliage of their summits, and at length, through a glade which opened among the dark and massive boles of the ancient trees, one last rich and gorgeous flood of light burst in, turned every blade of grass it touched into emerald for a moment,—passed on its lovely work—and parted. The effect was so instantaneous, brilliant, and evanishing, that Elinor had scarce time for a half uttered exclamation, as she extended her arm in the direction where the light had fallen so brightly and so briefly.

This style is sustained throughout the narrative, but instead of rendering it monotonous, it only makes the ‘atmosphere’ intense and harmonious in the extreme, which is the chief merit of The Lovers’ Tale. The characters, if not exactly conventional, are less originally conceived. Margaret and Elinor are a pair of heroines known from countless romances of all ages: the former high-spirited and vivacious, demanding homage and obtaining it at the same moment; the latter tender, pale, soft and contemplative, yet not without traits of distinct individuality. The characterization of John Sandal is not successful—it is the only thing in the tale which is not—he is too gentle, too ‘milky’ to be a young sailor and warrior, and is depicted with a considerable amount of sentimentality. He appears, however, but little; the principal personage is Elinor, whose hopes and sufferings are delineated with a psychological insight recalling corresponding passages in Women. Like Zaira, in the last-named romance, Elinor in vain seeks forgetfulness in philanthrophy and religion. In her aunt’s house nothing is changed since her earliest childhood. The Puritanic ideals and the memories of celebrated preachers are still cherished by the old maid with undiminished force; but Elinor cannot, in spite of desperate endeavours, find consolation in what once was all in all to her, too. It is not only that her heart is broken; she belongs to a new time, and her views have been enlarged during her life in the castle. The difference between two generations, in the persons of these two women, is brought forth with exquisite fineness, and the great and heroic qualities in Puritanism are freely admitted:

An old non-conformist minister, a very Saint John for sanctity of life, and simplicity of manners, had been seized by a magistrate while giving the word of consolation to a few of his flock who had met at the cottage of her aunt.

The old man had supplicated for a moment’s delay on the part of the civil power, and its officers, by an unusual effort of toleration or of humanity, complied. Turning to his congregation, who, amid the tumult of the arrest, had never risen from their knees, and only changed the voice of supplication from praying with their pastor to praying for him,—he quoted to them that beautiful passage from the prophet Malachi, which appears to give such delightful encouragement to the spiritual intercourse of Christians,—“Then they that feared the Lord, spoke often to one another, and the Lord heard it,” etc. As he spoke, the old man was dragged away by some rougher hands, and died soon after in confinement.

On the young imagination of Elinor, this scene was indelibly written. Amid the magnificence of Mortimer Castle, it had never been effaced or obscured, and now she tried to make herself in love with the sounds and the scene that had so deeply touched her infant heart.

Resolute in her purposes, she spared no pains to excite this reminiscence of religion—it was her last resource. Like the wife of Phineas, she struggled to bear an heir of the soul, even while she named him Ichabod,—and felt the glory was departed. She went to the narrow apartment,—she seated herself in the very chair that venerable man occupied when he was torn from it, and his departure appeared to her like that of an ascending prophet. She would then have caught the folds of his mantle, and mounted with him, even though his flight had led to prison and to death. She tried, by repeating his last words, to produce the same effect they had once had on her heart, and wept in indescribable agony at feeling those words had no feeling now for her.

The faint hope wakened in her half-benumbed heart by Margaret’s first letter is soon extinguished. Gradually she loses her beauty and her strength, and when addressed by Melmoth she is, bodily, almost as weak as her ward. It has been said[144] that it is not clear why he tempts Elinor; it must be presumed that he would have the power to restore the mind of John, though his chance of succeeding with Elinor is certainly slight, she being altogether resigned to her fate.—

That The Lovers’ Tale is told by Melmoth himself, and told in such a way as it is, belongs to those curiosities in the composition of the book, which simply must be accepted as freaks of a careless yet self-conscious imagination that follows laws of its own. Aliaga, naturally enough, is at a loss to comprehend how this tale could be applied to him; but the next day, as they continue their journey together, Melmoth briefly recapitulates the early history of Isidora—the details of the shipwreck and her discovery later are now first revealed to the reader—adding that Aliaga should not lose a moment to save his daughter. Notwithstanding this warning, Aliaga allows concerns of business to detain him, and in the meantime the fatal nuptials of Melmoth and Isidora take place. After the Indians’ tale then has been brought to an end, the thread of the original narrative is at last resumed and the reader once more conducted to where young John Melmoth and the Spaniard Monçada are sitting in the desolate Irish country-house. Their conversation is interrupted by the sudden appearance of the subject of all these adventures. The term of his supernaturally prolonged existence is drawing to a close, and the terrible lustre of his eyes is already extinguished. He assures the horrified youths that there is nothing to fear; his wanderings are finished, and the reason for these wanderings need no longer be kept secret, any more than the failure of all his pursuits:

No one has ever exchanged destinies with Melmoth the Wanderer. I have traversed the world in the search, and no one, to gain that world, would lose his own soul! Not Stanton in his cell—nor you, Monçada, in the prison of the Inquisition—nor Walberg, who saw his children perishing with want—nor—another—

After this confession the Wanderer asks for a moment’s repose, to sleep for the last time in his human existence. His dreams, however, are filled with a grand and awful vision of the realm of death which is awaiting him and which he has no hope of escaping. During the night mysterious voices issue from the room in which he has shut himself. In the morning the room is empty, but footsteps can be traced up to a rock overlooking the sea. John and Monçada follow the steps until they gain the last summit of the rock:

The ocean was beneath—the wide, waste, engulphing ocean! On a crag beneath them, something hung as floating to the blast. Melmoth clambered down and caught it. It was the handkerchief which the Wanderer had worn about his neck the preceding night—that was the last trace of the Wanderer!

Melmoth and Monçada exchanged looks of silent and unutterable horror, and returned slowly home.—

The conclusion of Melmoth the Wanderer is very impressive; the descriptions are well-balanced, suggestive, and not too furious, although, in certain details, not decidedly original in invention. As in the transformation of Melmoth by an apparent death an influence from a contemporary work of the school of terror can be discerned, his real death can be traced back to the Faustus of Marlowe.[145] The preparations of Faustus and Melmoth for the dreadful last night are carried on in the same way:

Faustus. Aye, pray for me—pray for me—and whatever noise soever you hear, come not unto me, for nothing can rescue me.

Melmoth says:

Leave me—I must be alone for the few last hours of my mortal existence—men retire—leave me alone—whatever noises you hear in the course of the awful night that is approaching, come not near this apartment, at the peril of your lives.

The final fulfilment of the bond, however, is only suggested by Maturin, while in Marlowe the devils who come to fetch Faustus are actually brought to the stage. In this respect the end of Melmoth the Wanderer differs, much to its advantage, from the end also of The Monk,[146] where the enemy in person takes hold of Ambrosio, soars with him in the air and dashes him to pieces against a sharp point of rock.

When the story of Melmoth, on one of the last pages of the book, turns back to the Irish country-house, the author expresses a fear that the reader has, perhaps, forgotten the existence of young John Melmoth. If he has not, he would at least have had plenty of time to do so; for the whole fabric of the work is nothing but a gigantic digression from the first action, in the form of tales within tales, told and read and read and told by somebody to somebody else, in an exceedingly intricate way rendering a general view of them a matter of considerable difficulty. The construction of Melmoth the Wanderer is extravagant beyond any degree reached by Montorio or The Wild Irish Boy, and has been subjected to severe criticism. Saintsbury[147] calls the arrangement ‘execrably bad,’ wondering ‘how anything quite so bad in form can have been put forth by anybody so clever.’ One explanation would be that this form implies an intentional disregard of the rules of composition, rather than a failure of ability to adhere to them, in other words, that the general effect is not calculated to rest upon regularity of construction, any more than in, for instance, the second part of Faust. But even if—which is more probable—Maturin really sat down to compose a story of ‘ordinary’ proportions and was unconsciously carried away on the wings of his ungovernable imagination, the general impression left by the book is such as to make the defects in its arrangement decidedly appear a question of secondary importance, just as the many literary reminiscences which present themselves during the perusal, cannot detract anything from the originality of the hero. Little as he actually appears, he is the locomotive power without which the whole would collapse, and he is remembered still when everything else is forgotten. From behind the various and manifold scenes of this amazing labyrinth, there arises the pale figure of the Wanderer, terrible and diabolical, yet suffering and despairing, to bear witness to his own defeat and the victory of human nature, so weak and yet so invincible, the object of at once his hatred and his adoration; and is it not, when we stand face to face with this wonderful creation of a great genius, indifferent where and when and by whom the separate tales are related? That the Wanderer, however, is capable of making so powerful an impression, is due to this curious fact, that the book, in its most essential feature, does not at all correspond to the passage in Maturin’s sermon which he maintains to have inspired it.

Several writers, from the most worthless to the most competent, have expressed their wonder at the very poor success Melmoth, with all his supernatural endowments, can boast of. The savage critic in the Quarterly Review[148] sneers that Melmoth ‘during his peregrination of two centuries, does less mischief than a clever mortal would have done;’ and Edgar Allan Poe[149] observes that Melmoth ‘labours indefatigably, through three octavo volumes, to accomplish the destruction of one or two souls, while any common devil would have demolished one or two thousand.’ The common devils certainly are more fortunate, and their difference from Maturin’s hero is conspicuous enough. In Balzac’s half-parody, Melmoth Reconcilié (1835), the Wanderer is delivered of his curse by a criminal, a cashier who has committed a fraud and is desirous to escape his sentence, and afterwards it passes from hand to hand among similar individuals. In Stevenson’s story of The Bottle Imp (1893); which has the same motive, the miracle-working and soul-destroying imp is at last, without subsequent repentance, purchased by a drunken boatswain who reckons he is going to hell anyway. The cause of Melmoth’s failure, and the precise character of his uncleverness, which consists in his strange ignorance whom to address, is in obvious contradiction to the sermon, where the final sin is declared to be too frightful even to those who have ever so much

departed from the Lord, disobeyed His will, and disregarded His word.

Now the persons who are subjected to the temptations of Melmoth the Wanderer have done nothing of the kind: on the contrary, most of them come as near perfection as poor human nature can possibly do. The tempter invariably takes care to accost those with whom he is least likely to succeed. He leaves unnoticed a character like the parricide, who is said to be beyond the redemption of a Saviour, and who, it must be assumed, would most joyfully accept the bond—to waste his time and energy on Alonzo di Monçada, whom he perceives to be as firm as any rock. Of Stanton, of Walberg, of Isidora, of Elinor, not one single wrong deed is recorded which would speak for the probability of their succumbing to his seductions. To all the tales, it has finely been observed,[150] can be applied a motto from Faust: ‘ein guter Mensch in seinem dunkeln Drange ist sich des rechten Weges wohl bewusst;’ but it is not the good instinct in the good, but the good instinct in the bad, which Maturin, in the preface, promises to demonstrate. In consequence, however, of this ‘blunder,’ the character of Melmoth the Wanderer becomes so impressive, so impassioned, so distinct from all common men and common devils. The attraction exercised upon him by the good has its root in what there is human in him; what causes him his keenest sufferings is not that he is shut out of paradise but that he is shut out of the community of the good among human beings; and what he insists on trying, amid rage and despair, is that some one of those good would voluntarily share his fate and relieve his bitter loneliness. The relation of Melmoth to mankind is marked by that intense sense of loneliness, that sense of being ‘among them, but not of them,’ or, as Maturin says, ‘mingling with, yet distinct from all his species’—which goes through the romantic literature of the period and which indeed is genuinely romantic in its implication of something exceptional, something outside the common rules of life. The anguish of loneliness is shared alike by good and bad, by all whom adverse circumstances or else their own bodily or mental deformities have placed in a solitary position in the world. In Montorio, Ippolito is undeservedly overtaken by the fate which Melmoth deliberately invokes upon himself; but their anguish is the same. It is felt by St. Leon, the moment he attains earthly immortality and understands that those whom he has loved can mean nothing to him any longer; it is felt by the Black Dwarf when he contemplates the happiness of the strong and the beautiful, which he is never to share; and even the miserable monster created by Frankenstein prays for one being of the same species as himself, who might smile upon him and not answer his approaches with curses and maledictions. It was Maturin’s desire to dwell upon this emotion that in the long run decided the mould of the characters in Melmoth the Wanderer in a way, perhaps, not intended by him from the first. Viewed in the light of this same emotion, the contempt of Melmoth for his victims is only half-real, nor is it probable that Maturin meant him to appear so superior to humanity as he is shown by Baudelaire[151] in his well-known Essay de l’essence du rire:

Quoi de plus grand, quoi de plus puissant relativement à la pauvre humanité que ce pale et ennuyé Melmoth? Et pourtant, il y a en lui un côté faible, abject, antidivin et antilumineux. Aussi comme il rit, comme il rit, se comparant sans cesse aux chenilles humaines, lui si fort, si intelligent, lui pour qui une partie des lois conditionelles de l’humanité, physiques et intellectuelles, n’existent plus! Et ce rire est l’explosion perpétuelle de sa colère et de sa souffrance. Il est, qu’on me comprenne bien, la résultante nécessaire de sa double nature contradictoire, qui est infiniment grande relativement à l’homme, infiniment vile et basse relativement au Vrai et au Juste absolus.

The members of this pauvre humanité still represent the power of absolute Justice and Truth, the power so infinitely stronger than Melmoth. Theirs is the ultimate triumph.

Melmoth the Wanderer created, at its first appearance, a greater sensation than any of Maturin’s previous novels. Economically it also was something of a success: the profits it brought to the author are said[152] to have amounted to 500 pounds. A second edition appeared the following year as well as a French translation, Melmoth, ou l’Homme errant, by J. Cohen, and a ‘free’ German translation called Melmoth der Wanderer.—All the works of Maturin, except Manuel and Fredolfo, were translated into French soon after their appearance in English, and with the rendering of Melmoth his fame became definitely established in that country, where, in fact, it has always been greater than in England. A. A. Watts says[153] that his father, while travelling in France, possessed a passport to the romantic circles as the friend of that ‘triste et terrible Maturin.’—In 1823 the romance was published in the form of a melodrama in three acts, by B. West. This production is a combination of the Tale of Guzman’s Family and the Tale of the Indians; Isidora is represented as the daughter of Walberg, and has loved Melmoth in her youth. Walberg and Isidora are both, through the machinations of Melmoth, thrown into the prison of the Inquisition, whence they are rescued by another lover of hers, while Melmoth is killed by thunder. The play is without any literary value whatever, but shows clearly which two tales were most appreciated by the public.—The principal periodicals of the time also reviewed Melmoth at a considerable length, although, for the most part, with a negative result. In the Quarterly Review Croker raged against the book even more furiously than he had done against Women, pronouncing it to be the very acme of all that is execrable:

Indeed, Mr. Maturin has contrived, by a ‘curiosa infelicitas,’ to unite in this work all the worst particularities of the worst modern novels. Compared with it, Lady Morgan is almost intelligible—The Monk, decent—The Vampire, amiable—and Frankenstein, natural. We do not pronounce this judgment hastily, and we pronounce it with regret—we honour Mr. Maturin’s profession even when he debases it, and if ‘Melmoth’ had been only silly and tiresome, we should gladly have treated it with silent contempt; but it unfortunately variegates its stupidity with some characteristics of a more disgusting kind, which our respect for good manners and decency obliges us to denounce.

After declaring, in italics, that the hero of the book is the Devil himself, the reviewer solemnly accuses the author of nonsense, want of veracity, ignorance, blasphemy and brutality, and a dark, cold-blooded, pedantic obscenity; and finishes his article with a hint that it certainly is quite right that the Church does not provide subsistence for him.—That critics, upon the whole, spoke unfavourably of Melmoth is not to be wondered at. The school of terror had irrevocably had its day, and very different literary ideals were being established. The magic art of Scott held a strong sway over all minds, while the well-bred drawing-room adventures of Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen were now, in their turn, felt as a relief and a liberation from the wilder forms of romanticism. The extravagances and horribly startling incidents in Maturin’s romance were enough to cover its powerful originality and lasting merits—which probably would be the case did the book appear to-day. Yet the author’s genius was unreservedly admitted even by most of those who disapproved of the style and contents of Melmoth; the end of the article in the Edinburgh Review is characteristic, its tone being as dignified as that of the Quarterly Review is base:

Let it not be imagined, from any thing we have now said, that we think meanly of Mr. Maturin’s genius and abilities. It is precisely because we hold both in respect that we are sincerely anxious to point out their misapplication; and we have extended our observations to a greater length than we contemplated, partly because we fear his strong though unregulated imagination, and unlimited command of glowing language, may inflict upon us a herd of imitators who ‘possessing the contortions of the sybil without her inspiration’ will deluge us with dull, turgid, and disgusting enormities;—and partly because we are not without hopes that our animadversions, offered in a spirit of sincerity, may induce the Author himself to abandon this new Apotheosis of the old Raw-head-and-bloody-bones, and assume a station in literature more consonant to his high endowments, and to that sacred profession to which, we understand, he does honour by the virtues of his private life.

The Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany writes essentially to the same purport:

There is one point of resemblance between this author and his hero. They both, in a different way, possess very considerable powers, which seem to have some invisible and mysterious limit, beyond which they cannot pass. The wild and wonderful, the odd and eccentric, seems to be Mr. Maturin’s chosen province;—into the regions of nature and probability he is either unable or unwilling to penetrate. Perhaps this is saying too much, but, if he does make an advance into these quiet precincts, his love of extravagance and exaggeration immediately leads him back into his wonted path. — — It is difficult to understand the construction of a mind so pregnant with every aggravation of mental and bodily suffering, that it seems absolutely to luxuriate, not only in the pain it describes, but in that which he produces in his readers. Surrounded as he is with terrible objects, and gleams of sulphureous flame, which his hero is ever and anon presenting to our view, the reverend author appears to our imagination like some Vulcan of the anvil, assiduously labouring and forging shackles, bolts, and instruments of torture, with this difference, that with the poor mechanic it was not matter of choice, whereas Mr. Maturin, with all the flowery paths of fiction open to him, has preferred this tortuous and gloomy one.

The only one who expresses himself with unrestrained admiration is the critic in the Blackwood’s Magazine—also referred to once above. Even he, it is true, points out that there are faults and errors in Maturin’s writings; but he admits that they are more than atoned for by the merits:

And yet, where is the lover of imaginative excitement, that ever laid down one of his books unfinished—or the man of candour and discrimination, who ever denied, after reading through any of them, that Maturin is gifted with a genius as fervently powerful as it is distinctly original—that there is ever and anon a truth of true poetry diffused over the thickest chaos of his absurdities—and that he walks almost without a rival, dead or living, in many of the darkest, but, at the same time, the most majestic circles of romance?

This critic, however, could hardly be taken seriously by the author, inasmuch as he places Montorio before the present work:

We are far from saying that Mr. Maturin should write less—but we do say, that he should write a great deal more—observe a great deal more—and correct a great deal more. If he does not, he may depend upon it he will never fulfil the rich promise of his Montorio; for that, we rather think, was his first—and, we are quite sure, is the best of all his performances.

It is of interest to notice these opinions; for, however slight their authority, they seem to have had the desired effect of checking the ‘extravagances’ of Maturin’s genius—so much the worse for literature. His desire to please—for such desire there was in his temperament, quite apart from all pecuniary considerations—was once more discouraged, and he began to grow weary of being told the same things over and again. It was several years before he again produced a novel, and when he did, he painfully strove to adhere to patterns universally accepted, and avoid displaying those peculiarities which were distinctly his own, but the absence of which to a production of his irreparably meant the loss of vital power, notwithstanding a small temporary success. A sense of ultimate failure and disappointment has, among other things, its share in the unmistakable gloom cast over Maturin’s last years.

V.

1821-1824.

When ance life’s day draws near the gloamin’,

Then fareweel vacant careless roamin’;

An’ fareweel cheerfu’ tankards foamin’,

An’ social noise;

An’ fareweel, dear deluding woman!

The joy of joys!

Burns.

Maturin’s last period opens with a poetical enterprise which is bound up with a mystery exactly opposite to that appertaining to the publication of the Waterloo prize poem in 1815. In 1821 appeared a lengthy poem in blank verse, called The Universe, under the name of the Rev. C. R. Maturin, received—very undeservedly—with something like acclamation. The real authorship of the poem was, even at the time, claimed by Mr. James Wills, a name afterwards not quite—though nearly—unknown in the world of letters; but it was not until 1874 that the case was brought before the public. For the sake of the composition itself it would be unnecessary long to dwell upon the question, had not the controversy called forth the publication of a manuscript of Wills, which throws an interesting, if not entirely agreeable, light upon his acquaintance with Maturin and the circumstances connected with the origin of The Universe.

A correspondent in the Notes and Queries[154]—who was a great admirer of the poem—happened, in the year mentioned above, to allude to its disputed authorship and utter some doubts as to the statements of Wills. Against this view the surviving family of that writer energetically protested; two sons of Wills, referring to a note in the second edition of Lord John Russell’s biography of Moore,[155] and producing two or three utterances of some of their father’s friends who were initiated into the secret, put about the following statements concerning The Universe. Maturin was engaged by Colburn to compose for him a poem consisting of a thousand lines. The renumeration—500 pounds—was paid in advance; but, having spent it, Maturin found the fulfilment of his engagement to be encumbered with insurmountable difficulties. Being at a loss how to get on with the work, he was shown a poem of Wills, then a very young man. Maturin pathetically entreated him to lend it to him for use, promising, first, to let Colburn know of the transaction, and secondly, to reveal the real authorship after the publication; neither of which promises was kept, the poem being read and reviewed as a production of Maturin’s.

In the polemics in the Notes and Queries the Wills family—who also considered the Universe a work of uncommon merit—had the last word, and their assertions were, a little later, supported by the Dublin University Magazine,[156] whose editor had received a record in the handwriting of Wills, found between the covers of an old copy of the poem and sent to Dublin by Messrs. Chatto & Windus, the well-known London publishers. In this record, which the editor supposes to have been written for the benefit of Lord Russell before the publication of the second edition of his life of Moore, Wills relates that he had composed the poem in the years 1819 and 1820,[157] while residing at Bray, the then most fashionable watering-place in the neighbourhood of Dublin. He intended it to be a very great work which was to fill up all his life-time; but having written upwards of 800 lines, he made a new acquaintance of whose appearance he gives the following description:

There was an accession of guests (at the table d’hôte), and among them a very remarkable-looking gentleman attracted my attention, and I was struck by the extreme precision of his dress, his handsome and well sitting black wig, which, on a first glance, looked like a splendid head of hair, his silver spectacles, neatly cut features, and the imposing modulation of his deep voice. Had he been some years younger, I should have said there was a little shade of the clerical dandy in his appearance. As it was I thought I could discern the air of one who aimed to be very recherché in his manners and conversation, and that all his personal advantages were a little overdone. Who he could be I had no notion.

I was seated at a side table: but when the cloth was removed he beckoned to me, and I went and took a seat next to him. He pushed his bottle to me, and asked me to join him in his wine, and addressed his conversation entirely to me. I presently took exception to some fallacy which he let drop: and as he seemed disposed to contest the point (whatever it was) the conversation degenerated into argument. The gentleman I soon found, though extremely pointed, witty and epigrammatic, and very happy in allusion, had very little power in disputation, and he presently gave in with a good grace.

In the course of the same day Wills was formally introduced to his opponent, who he had learnt, was Maturin. Their acquaintance soon ripened into intimacy. The fascinating personality of the novelist cast a strong spell over Wills, although he received the impression that Maturin was ‘a little too flattering’ and not quite sincere. When the transaction as to the poem was then proposed to him, Wills felt extreme reluctance, but at last yielded, overcome by Maturin’s persuasions and the consideration that Maturin’s family, to whom he had been introduced, would be ruined if the money had to be refunded to Colburn. The accomplishment of this great work is told by Wills with a naive open-heartedness, amusing indeed when regarded in the light of the controversy in Notes and Queries, where his sons seriously maintain that both Scott and Campbell considered The Universe the best thing produced by Maturin, and the other party as seriously declares it to contain passages equal to Milton:

I then went stoutly to work and as I had engaged to expand my poem into 2,000 lines within the next month, without the materials which the original plan required, I diluted it with whatever came uppermost. It was thus easily completed within the time, and copied from my own first draught by different transcribers as I had insisted on preserving my own M. S., which I still have. I also wished to keep possession of my plan and the original passages, all of which had been carefully elaborated, though the filling up was carelessly done.

The poem being completed and sent to the publisher, it became clear to Wills that Maturin was determined not to reveal the secret. It came out, however, ‘with a celerity truly surprising;’ the literary circles of Dublin were divided in two contesting parties, the one standing by Maturin, the other by Wills, and the matter was eagerly discussed in the drawing-rooms of Lady Morgan and the Mrs. Smith mentioned by Moore. The former was also deeply impressed by the production; when assured by Wills that Maturin never wrote a line of it, she answered, ‘well, then, you must do something very considerable to convince the world you could have written it.’ Nevertheless Wills seems to have succeeded in convincing Lady Morgan, for it was she who, according to him, communicated the particulars to Colburn. When Wills some time afterwards met the publisher in London, he presented Wills with all the remaining copies of the stock, hinting that the affair ‘had been injurious to Mr. Maturin in his relations with him as a publisher.’—

In connection with this version of Wills it is not out of place to quote a passage from an unpublished letter of Maturin to Sir Charles Morgan, dated 1821:

— — Apropos to the cursed booksellers, you can render me a most essential service by simply making an inquiry. I have Mr. Colburn’s written engagement to give £ 500 for my present work. I wrote to Charles Phillips three months ago to request he would inform C. that the work was more than half completed, that I was willing to place the M. S. in his hands and depended on his fulfilling his engagement. I have never had a line from Phillips in answer, though I stated my distress to him repeatedly and in the most urgent terms. Now, my dear friend, if without committing me you could make C. speak out, it would relieve me from considerable anxiety.

This seems to prove that the £ 500 was not paid in advance, and that Maturin had written a large part of some work agreed upon with Colburn, before he received anything for it. Whether the manuscript here referred to was published as a constituent part of The Universe it is hazardous to decide; if it was, Maturin had probably lost all interest in the poem and entreated Wills to complete it—the alternative being that the manuscript was deemed unfit, and Wills supplied all the materials. The poem itself gives little clue to the mystery. When speaking of The Universe, Wills more than once alludes to the ‘effective passages’ and the ‘filling up;’ but to a modern reader it is not easy to distinguish which is which, the whole being extraordinarily ineffective. The subject resolves itself into something that cannot possibly be firmly grasped. A contemporary critic[158] says not inappropriately: ‘Where in the name of criticism and common sense, could he begin with a subject that had no beginning, or finish with that which, being infinite and eternal, can have no end? He has followed no plan—he has given his fancy the rein. His flight is wild and discursive, but indicates a bearing in no particular direction. — — — His poem is not a whole: any man might as well have tried to cram the solar system into a cockle-shell as to produce a complete and finished poem on such a subject.’ The following passage belongs, in the critic’s opinion, to the happiest in the poem:

So array’d

In manifold radiance, Earth’s primeval spring

Walk’d on the bright’ning orb, lit by the Hours

And young exulting Elements, undefil’d,—

And circling, free from tempest, round her calm

Perennial brow,—the dewy Zephyrs, then,

From flower-zon’d mountains, wav’d their odorous wings

Over the young sweet vallies, whispering joy—

Then goodliest beam’d the unpolluted—bright—

Divine similitude of thoughtful man,

Serene above all creatures—breathing soul—

Fairest where all was fair,—pure sanctuary

Of those sweet thoughts, that with life’s earliest breath,

Up through the temperate air of Eden rose

To Heav’n’s gate, thrilling love!—Then, Nature,—then,

Thy Maker looked upon his work and smiled—

Seeing that it was good!—And gave thee charge

Thenceforth for evermore with constant eye

To watch the times and seasons, and preserve

The circling maze, exact.

These lines are, as a matter of fact, neither better nor worse than any others of the two thousand of which this sorry production consists. There are no traces of the rugged beauty of Bertram and Fredolfo, and it is really difficult to imagine that Maturin had any part in the work. On the other hand it must be admitted that it is equally inferior to the poetry later produced by Wills.[159] The matter ought to have been taken very quietly by those whom it concerned, nor did it, to judge from the record of Wills, stop their friendly intercourse. It may lastly be mentioned that Maturin dedicated The Universe to his old antagonist Samuel Taylor Coleridge; which must have happened either in a fit of Christian forgiveness or of deliberate irony.

The picture which Wills draws of Maturin is, it will be observed, totally different from the description quoted in connection with his mode of composing Melmoth. It also differs from what other scanty records there are preserved of Maturin, which all agree that he was, at that time, beginning to lead a retired life and appear but little in society. His pecuniary embarrassments were extremely distressing; the profits he had reaped by Melmoth and The Universe had probably been swallowed up by the old debt he had contracted some time about 1815, besides which he undoubtedly was something of a spendthrift and unpractical in business-transactions. His home had undergone a melancholy change since the success of Bertram, as depicted by the writer in Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine 1846:

The inside of the house was gloomy and melancholy in the extreme: just the house for the romancist who penned “Melmoth.” The dull kitchen candle of the servant threw but a faint light; and my feet struck with a lonely sound on the naked flags of the hall, which was barely furnished with two chairs surmounted by his crest, a galloping horse; the stairs were without carpets. On entering the drawing-room, it almost appeared to be unfurnished. A single drugget partly covered the floor, and a small table stood in the centre: but the entire end nearest the door was occupied by a divan covered with scarlet, which appeared strangely out of character with the general meagreness of the apartment; beside the folding-doors was a square piano; at the fire was placed an old armchair, in which I afterwards saw him sit for many a weary hour, till three or four o’clock in the morning, while writing the “Albigenses;” and on a small work-table between the windows lay a very ancient writing-desk. Such was my first glimpse of the author’s domicile, which had once been a witness of very different scenes.

The gloominess of Maturin’s existence was brightened by the return of Lady Morgan to her native country in 1821, after an absence of several years abroad. The little governess who had earned her first laurels with The Wild Irish Girl was now transformed into one of the foremost literary celebrities of the day. In 1812 Miss Owenson had become the wife of Dr. Thomas Charles Morgan, physician to the Marquis of Abercorn, who had shortly before been ‘knighted by the viceroy—at a hint, it is said, from the doctor’s enterprising fiancée. She had, since then, published numerous novels, amongst others the Irish story O’Donnel (1814). Her greatest fame, however, was due to the extensive work on France (1817), the strongly liberal views of which had roused the fury of the Quarterly Review and caused the fierce contest of which Maturin also had borne his share of the brunt in the vehement attacks upon his best romances. From the rare and brief political utterances in Maturin’s works, sermons, and letters, it may be gathered that he rather inclined to toryism; but uninterested as he was in politics, his opinions did not in any way bias his regard for Lady Morgan, of whom he used to speak ‘in terms of the most extravagant admiration.’[160] Though the two were the only authors of repute residing in Dublin, there was no kind of jealousy between them. The character of Lady Morgan was broad-minded and generous, and her desire to help Maturin was sincere beyond any doubt. Her weekly réunions in Kildare Street, pleasantly described by her biographer,[161] were among the few relaxations Maturin allowed himself in his later years:

In this agreeably situated mansion there was regularly held for a long series of years, a still more voluminous series of most delightful and select literary réunions, which are remembered by the surviving few who had the privilege of access, with enthusiastic feelings of pride and pleasure. A constant guest was the brilliant, eccentric, and almost forgotten Charles Robert Maturin. Domestic sorrows and pecuniary reverses threw a gloom over the later years of his existence; and, as a contemporary record informs us, every inducement failed to make him desert his melancholy hearth save the intellectual circle which Lady Morgan illuminated by her sparkling wit, or the romantic solitudes of Wicklow wherein some of his richest veins of inspiration had been caught in happier bygone days.

Among the domestic sorrows was the loss of a child, in 1821, immediately after its birth. When Lady Morgan called to inquire after Mrs. Maturin during her confinement, Maturin sent her this reply: ‘My angel is better, The Cherub is flown’—which words she noted down on a letter she received from him shortly afterwards.—That there were troubles also of another kind can be inferred from some lines in the above-mentioned letter to Sir Charles: ‘You terrify me by saying there is a prejudice against me amongst the Catholics; what have I done? I have never been a partizan—my voice was never heard at a meeting—I am not a public man in the least—what can I have done?’ Whatever this may have reference to, the answer obviously would have been, that he had written Melmoth. Although he had never meant to offend his Catholic townsmen, their resentment was not altogether inexplicable, and it is certainly curious that it should have come to him so unexpectedly. If the Methodists had not been favourably disposed towards him after the publication of Women, he now got the Catholics against him; but as it was only the errors of both creeds he had wished to attack, he must have suffered much from the feeling of having, perhaps, given personal offence.—Yet in all this dreariness there would occasionally be outbursts of the old eccentricity and the invincible desire sometimes to assume the rôle of a grand seigneur, which he, in his harmless way, imagined best to suit him. The following anecdote[162] has a characteristic ring about it:

Sir Charles raised a subscription for him, amounting to fifty pounds. The first use he made of it was to give a grand party. There was little furniture in the reception room, but at one end there had been erected an old theatrical property throne under a canopy of crimson velvet, where he and Mrs. Maturin sat to receive their visitors.—

That Maturin did not greatly care about the completion of The Universe is evident from the fact that he was, so early as 1821, engaged on a new play. In a note to Lady Morgan he mentions that it will be acted at Hawkins’—‘the profits will be far inferior to those of Covent Garden, but they will be something.’ Still the play was, later on, sent to Covent Garden, Sir Charles undertaking to use his influence with Kean who appears, from the very first, to have been unwilling to accept it. In a letter dated Dec. 16, 1822, Maturin writes to Sir Charles:

I never felt my “lack of words” so great as at this moment when they altogether fail me in adequately expressing my gratitude for your kindness. Matters are not however so bad as it is Elliston, not Kean, who has rejected the play. I have written to Kean to beg him to read over the play himself, and to assure him I will acquiesce in his judgment, whatever it be.

I need not say how much it would enhance my numerous obligations to Lady Morgan were she to write to Kean merely to enforce my request, to beg he will read over the play (which he has not done) and determine for himself whether it is worthy of his powers or not.

No decision of his can diminish my gratitude to Lady M—— and to you.

Whether there was an intervention on the part of Lady Morgan or not, the play was doomed never to see the light. It can hardly have been any other than the one to which Watts refers in his autobiographical notes:[163]

He had another tragedy in the hands of Edmund Kean, but on this he could obtain no decision whatever. It was entitled Osmyn, and is said to have been the most careful and effective of his dramatic compositions. I made many attempts to obtain its restitution, but in vain. On one occasion I attacked Kean before a large party, and dwelt upon the cruel injury which Maturin had sustained from his persistent disregard of the matter. Finally, I obtained from him a promise that the M. S. should be forthcoming, if I could call in Clarges Street for it on the ensuing day. This of course I did, but was denied access to Mr. Kean, who was said to be too ill to see me.

The only person who has been able to give an account of and publish some extracts from the play is the writer in the Irish Quarterly Review 1852. He states that a completed tragedy called The Siege of Salerno was found among Maturin’s manuscripts after his death, without explaining when and how he had an opportunity of seeing it. He states further that the plot bears, in conception, some resemblance to Byron’s Siege of Corinth—the hero in both works being, in fact, a renegade who leads Turkish forces against a Christian town. The passage quoted in the Irish Quarterly Review consists of a scene where Osmyn—the copy sent to Kean apparently bore the name of the hero—relates the story of his life. He has formerly been the prince of Salerno, the very town which he now attacks as a Turkish captain. He lived in happiness with his wife Matilda, when suddenly his enemy

Manfred, the terror of the neighbouring states;

Plunderer of all, and tyrant of his own,

invaded his country. Osmyn was thrown into the dungeon of his own castle, where he was kept for years. A time came when his prison walls were destroyed by a tempest—that is, an earthquake—and he gained his liberty. Being recognized by no one he wandered about in the streets and became witness of a procession where Matilda, now the wife of Manfred, was borne in solemn festival. In despair he left the country:

On the last shore of Italy I kissed

A cross my mother bound about my neck,

And flung it towards these towers. On Asia’s coast

I grasped the crescent.

The story, we see, is rather improbable, and the deliverance of Osmyn from his prison belongs to the most hackneyed tricks of the older school of terror. The hero is, however, typically Maturineian. He is a kind of Bertram in Ottoman costume; the one returns as a robber-chief, the other as the leader of an infidel army, and the speech of Osmyn is a distinct echo from Maturing first play:

If thou would’st make man wretched, make him vile:

Sear up his conscience—make his mind a desert,

His heart an ulcer, and his frame a stone;

Countryless, friendless, wifeless, childless, Godless;

Accused of heaven, and hated.—Make him Osmyn.

Thus have they dealt with me.

The writer in the Irish Quarterly Review assures his readers that the play ‘abounds in passages of great power and beauty;’ the extracts which he communicates, however, do not rise to the level of the best pages in Bertram or Fredolfo.—

One more tragedy contemplated by Maturin in his last years may yet be mentioned. A motive from the recent history of France had been suggested to him, to which he refers in a letter[164] of Oct. 20:th 1823:

I feel myself flattered by the reference to me contained in your letter.—I am not disposed to think favourably of the French Tragedies which are rather declamatory than impassioned but will do my utmost with the subject you have sent me.

The allusion to Buonaparte, appears to me to constitute the forte of the story, and as he is (fortunately for Europe) now dead, I cannot think that the most inveterate Jacobin would be offended by a representation of him on the stage to which I am convinced Mr. Kean’s powers would give the most distinguished effect.

The recipient of this letter is not known, nor anything else connected with the matter, with which all the biographers seem to be unacquainted. Among other unfulfilled projects is said[165] to have been a poem the scene of which was ‘to be laid in Ireland during the period of harps and minstrels;’ besides which Maturin wrote,[166] some time before his death, a short tale founded upon the family legend quoted in the first chapter of the present study.

A determination of Maturin ‘to devote himself more exclusively to the service of his calling’[167] led to the publication, in 1824, of Five Sermons on the Errors of the Roman Catholic Church. These controversial sermons were preached during the Lent of the same year before an audience unparalleled in number. ‘Never since Dean Kirwan’s time,’ it is stated in a contemporary memoir,[168] ‘were such crowds attracted to the Parish Church as during the delivery of these sermons; neither rain nor storm could subdue the anxiety of all classes and all persuasions to hear them.’ The sermons are explicitly said to be directed, not against Catholics, but Catholicism; Maturin endeavoured earnestly to avoid a tone of personal offensiveness, although it is much to be questioned whether he did not, in the following passage, underrate the attachment of the Irish Catholics to their faith:

I will add, that of all the Protestant Ministers in Dublin, I have happened to have the most extensive and intimate intercourse with Roman Catholics, and that I have found many of them so truly amiable and excellent, that I could heartily have wished myself, and all I loved, to be “almost and altogether like unto them, except their bonds”—but amongst all of them I have remarked such an obvious, though tacit admission, of the errors of their Church—such an earnest wish for scriptural instruction and mental enlargement—such a desire for the only true Catholic Emancipation, the emancipation of the intellect and the conscience, that though I would have felt it unfit to turn the stream of social conversation into the channel of controversy, I did most anxiously wish for an opportunity of pointing out to them in a public address, those errors of which they themselves appeared so deeply conscious.

The volume was received very favourably and reprinted in 1826.

In autumn 1824 appeared the last of Maturin’s lucubrations, a historical novel called The Albigenses. Though of imposing length—four volumes, together about 1500 pages—it was intended to be but the first series of a great trilogy, ‘illustrative,’ as stated in the preface, ‘of European feelings and manners in ancient times, in middle, and in modern.’ How the second and third parts had been planned is thus described:

The more subtle policy, improved system of government, and commencing diffusion of literature in the second period,—and the still more enlightened political system, confirmed knowledge, and popular influence, that distinguish times nearer to our own,—give obvious room for all that is picturesque, intelligent, and interesting in description.

There is little doubt that Maturin was induced to turn to the historical romance by the immense popularity of Scott, whose fame now stood at its zenith. He knew that this genre, at any rate, would not be objected to as obsolete or offensive to good feeling, as had been the case with his previous work. An outward success, moreover, was now more imperative than ever before, and everything could be hoped from the public rage for historical novels. This field of fiction was entirely new to Maturin; in The Lovers’ Tale only the general ‘atmosphere’ is historical—the incidents might have taken place in any age. The experiment, if praiseworthy, was decidedly hazardous; to outdo Mrs. Radcliffe and Lewis had been easy enough, but to enter into competition with the Author of Waverley was a serious matter for a writer whose powers lay in depicting what was passing before his own eyes, or else, what never could have happened at all. That most contemporary critics nevertheless hailed The Albigenses as Maturin’s best work only proves their partiality for the style in which it was written; of later judges even his greatest admirer admits that Maturin’s attempt to ‘marry history to fiction’ turned out a failure.[169]—

The action of the story commences in 1216, at a time when the forces of the Albigenses are threatening the castle of Courtenaye. The sect is alternately headed and abandoned by count Raymond of Toulouse, who, though Catholic himself, occasionally wishes to save his vassals from complete destruction. His present designs are unknown; he has travelled to Rome to seek reconciliation with the Pope, and is expected back at any hour. In the meantime the persecuted Albigenses live in great misery among the mountains of Languedoc. Their leader is an old and venerable pastor of the name of Pierre, whom the cruelty of the crusaders has deprived of sight. He is tended by his granddaughter Genevieve, as good and gentle a being as himself, and constantly exhorts his followers to mildness and forgiveness; in this he is fiercely opposed by a fraction of wild fanatics, represented, among others, by the deacon Mephibosheth, a man of ‘intolerant zeal, and intolerable pretentions,’ who subsequently turns renegade.—The lord of Courtenaye, a savage and cowardly cripple, who fears the vicinity of the Albigenses but is unable to defend himself, summons the chief crusaders to his aid. The summons is very willingly obeyed, and a great army of knights and crusaders is, at the opening of the tale, marching towards the castle. The most eminent leaders of the Catholic forces are count Simon de Montfort, the ‘champion of the church,’ a rude and powerful soldier—and the bishop of Toulouse, a vigorous-minded sceptic, who in everything pursues his own advantage and aims at the increase of his own influence, ‘a man of power and might, body and soul, whose strong mind clung to his strong frame like the human part of the centaur of old to the animal part, making but one between them.’ There is a great deal of jealousy between these two warriors, and their army is split with discord and mutual suspicion. The majority are for attacking the heretics at once and crushing them at a single blow, while others advise waiting till the result of count Raymond’s negotiations with the Pope is known. From a message brought to the bishop it appears that the court of Rome has sent a monk of uncommon sanctity to mediate between the two hostile armies; the mediator has already visited the Albigenses and is now on his way to the castle. This simple and honest monk, who is chosen by the Pope with a view to ‘diminish the power and mortify the ambition’ of the bishop of Toulouse, has been received with hostility by the zealous fraction among the Albigenses, and only after great exertions on the part of Pierre has the arrangement been brought about that they consent to hear an exhortation from the bishop, on a promise of safety. The day being fixed, the crusaders set out with pomp and splendour to the meeting-place. The bishop delivers a magnificent sermon, but without effect; the Albigeois preachers reply with spirit, and reconciliation is found impossible. They are to resort to arms the following day. The crusaders retire to the castle of Courtenaye; the night is spent in carousals, during which De Montfort proposes that he and the knights alone would ride the heretics down; the proposal is eagerly accepted, in spite of the warnings of an old knight called Sir Aymer de Chastelroi.—The Albigenses are prepared for the worst, but the same night count Raymond returns with a great army. Besides the political, he has a personal cause against the crusaders: the late lord Courtenaye, the brother of the present one, has once surprised his castle and slaughtered his wife and children, for which outrage he has sworn eternal vengeance. He now takes command of the Albigenses; it is decided to wait till the crusaders are enclosed in a valley, and then beset them from all sides. The stratagem is easily carried out, and the knights are completely defeated. De Montfort is wounded almost to death, while the bishop succeeds in making his way out of the ambuscade, and arrives at the castle with a few surviving knights. De Montfort also is afterwards brought to the castle, where he slowly recovers.—Count Raymond, understanding that his victory is entirely due to the temerity of the vanquished, commands the whole band of the Albigenses to set out for the kingdom of Arragon, whither, indeed, it is the bishop’s intention immediately to pursue them. De Montfort being disabled for a long time, the bishop assumes the title of the champion of the church and places himself at the head of the crusading army. His enterprise, however, meets various difficulties; the followers of the knights who have perished in the recent battle begin to desert, when no longer commanded by their individual leaders, besides which king Philip refuses to recognize the bishop as the champion of the Church, before the title is admitted by the Pope. Under these circumstances the bishop proceeds to lead his forces to his own castle in the city of Beaucaire. On the road he lights upon a veiled lady who travels with one single attendant and turns out to be no less a person than queen Ingelberg. King Philip, being violently in love with Agnes of Moravia, has deserted the queen and even planned against her life, for which reason she tries to escape to her brother the king of Denmark. The bishop at once resolves to carry her as a prisoner to his castle; he is anxious to preserve the life of the queen, in order to be able to annul the king’s adulterous marriage, should he deny him future aid.—The queen subsequently makes her escape and is reconciled to the king.—A new crusade is soon determined upon, and the bishop, with a great number of nobles and dignitaries whom he has won to his side, marches to Nismes, which is this time fixed as meeting-place for the Catholic leaders. Among these is prince Lewis, who is very desirous to take the lead, and hates the bishop as cordially as he hates De Montfort. The latter has not yet recovered his strength, but shows no inclination to resign his title, and thus the old discord again prevails in the crusading army:—The Albigenses have once more been abandoned by the vacillating count Raymond, but some others of the most potent lords of Languedoc have taken up arms in their cause, and entrenched themselves in Tarascon. The crusaders now march against that city, outside whose walls a long and furious battle is fought. De Montfort, weakened by his illness, falls; still the issue of the battle would be uncertain, should not count Raymond again arrive at the critical moment. The crusaders, indeed, seize the castle of Tarascon, but their army is defeated by count Raymond, who pitches his camp in the vicinity. The next day he makes a new attack and easily occupies the town. The Albigenses triumph once more.—

These two battles form the historical framework, around which is woven the romantic plot of the story, intricate and duly based on chivalry and love. The principal hero is a youthful knight called Sir Paladour de la Croix Sanglante, who, at the very end, is discovered to be the son of count Raymond of Toulouse. He has been saved at the general slaughter of the count’s family, is brought up in obscurity, but knighted by the king after a siege in which he has distinguished himself. The only person who knows of his descent is an old, half-crazy woman, who has seen better days. She was, in fact, once a rich and beautiful lady of the name of Marie de Mortemar; being accused of heresy, she was attacked by count Raymond, the late brother of the lord of Courtenaye, and the bishop of Toulouse, who ‘despoiled her of lands and power, and burnt her castles, and made of her people serfs, and misused her in such sort that she wandered a maniac for a time, and then was heard of no more.’ The ill-usage she has undergone has so changed her that she is recognized by no one, yet she pursues, with relentlessness and dexterity, a scheme of vengeance against her former persecutors. The late lord of Courtenaye, who afterwards became the enemy of count Raymond, is suspected to have been murdered at the instigation of his brother the present lord; but Marie de Mortemar is intent upon the destruction of the whole house of Courtenaye. This destruction is to be executed by the hand of Sir Paladour, whose fortunes she continually follows. When he is hastening, in the first chapter of the book, to join the crusading army, she guides him over a lake and directs him towards the castle of Courtenaye. She lives, for the most part, in the vaults of this castle, where she is, in association with a few other hags, occupied in all sorts of dark and necromantic pursuits, ostensibly in the service of the superstitious lord, but secretly meditating his ruin.—At the castle resides also lady Isabelle, the daughter of the late lord of Courtenaye; she and Paladour fall in love at first sight. He hardly dares to address her, though energetically urged thereto by the merry Sir Aymer de Chastelroi—but before long he has opportunity of rendering her an essential service. On arriving at the castle, count Simon de Montfort informs Isabelle that king Philip, whose ward she is, has promised her hand to a man whom she is very unwilling to accept. Her despair at last touches even De Montfort; he hints that there may be found a way of extricating her from the matter—namely, if some champion of hers can unhorse him, ‘or draw blood from between the joints of his harness.’ Paladour at once accepts the challenge, and really overthrows the dreaded warrior. After this he is regarded as the avowed champion of the lady Isabelle, and takes but little notice of his rivals, two very foolish knights called de Verac and de Semonville.—The great battle that ends so unfortunately for the crusaders is watched by Isabelle from an adjacent hill. When the defeat becomes evident she starts, with her maidens, at full speed for the castle. Suddenly she is accosted by a knight in black armour, who says he has a message from Sir Paladour, and offers to conduct the party by a secret path, the main road to the castle being intercepted by the heretics. While still speaking, the knight seizes her rein and gallops along. After a while they are joined by men in vizards, and the ride finally terminates at the coast of the Mediterranean. The frightened females are conveyed to a small isle where there stands the impregnable castle of a bold outlaw, the terror of all the neighbourhood.—Sir Paladour is among the knights who survive the battle; when told of the disappearance of Isabelle, he immediately sets out in quest of her. On a dark heath he meets his mysterious guide, the maniac woman, who informs him where Isabelle is taken and points out to him the distant tower of the outlaw’s castle. He follows the direction, and at the very moment he is approaching, a party of pilgrims passing along the coast is attacked by the robbers. Paladour rushes to their aid, but is severely wounded, and dragged to the castle as a prisoner.—Isabelle is, at first, treated with a kind of rude courtesy; the outlaw has seized her in hopes of a large ransom, but struck by her beauty he soon begins to make love to her, and, being rejected, assumes a threatening tone. As for Paladour, but little heed is taken of him, and he is left to recover from his wounds as best he can. He is much worried by a raging lycanthrope living in the vaults; once the latter assaults him while he is sleeping, and only by exerting his utmost strength can Paladour knock him down. In his last moments, however, the lycanthrope regains his reason and shows Paladour a secret passage leading to the terrace at the sea, from where he can hold converse with the lady. When it is discovered that he is the lover and champion of Isabelle, their situation becomes extremely precarious; but one night, when the terrace happens to be deserted, Isabelle and her maidens manage to descend from their window to the terrace. Here they are received by Paladour, and the whole party sets out in a boat. Their flight is soon discovered; the outlaw, pursuing them in another boat, reaches them as they touch the shore. At the moment when he is about to stab Paladour, a dark figure rushes between and plunges a dagger in the outlaw’s heart: it is again the maniac woman, Marie de Mortemar. Taking Paladour aside she reminds him of a vow he has made, as a child, to sacrifice the last survivor of his enemy’s race. Paladour is still ignorant who his enemies are, but the woman promises to let him know in due time. Without further adventure the party then arrives at the castle. The lord of Courtenaye is not delighted; his state and wealth depend on Isabelle’s continuing unmarried, and he has secretly hoped, that both she and her bridegroom would perish. He cannot avoid celebrating their nuptials with a grand feast, but contemplates all the time means for their destruction; calling the maniac woman to his presence he declares himself ready to enter an alliance with the devil, whom he, in his superstition, believes her able to conjure. She answers with mysterious threats, having decided in the bridal night to wreak her vengeance on the house of Courtenaye. The night comes, and as it grows late the lord retires into his secret chamber among the vaults, where the other hags are awaiting their leader. Through their imprudence the chamber catches fire, and the lord of Courtenaye who, in a fit of impatient rage, has thrown the key in a cauldron, perishes with his attendants. At the same time the news spreads in the castle that the bride has been murdered and the bridegroom has disappeared. The maniac has now informed Paladour that his destined victim is no other than his bride. He conceives that the only way of escaping the fulfilment of his vow is to stab himself; Isabelle, thinking him mad, tries to prevent him, and during the grapple the dagger is plunged into her breast. Paladour rushes away half-deranged and runs till he falls down exhausted, being then taken care of by the maniac, who at last relents towards him. She dresses up Isabelle—whose wound is not mortal—as a page and gives her to Paladour; in this capacity she follows him without daring to reveal herself so long as his reason is not quite restored.—Being indifferent to everything and seeking only death, he joins the count’s army as a mysterious ‘black knight,’ unknown to all. After the victory of Tarascon his relationship to count Raymond is discovered with the help of a monk; on the same occasion Isabelle reveals her identity, and they are happily re-united.—

The story, however, contains yet another love-intrigue. Paladour has a younger brother of the name of Sir Amirald, who also appears to have been saved from the massacre. He is brought up at the castle of Courtenaye and very badly used by its lord. When Paladour and Amirald meet in the crusading army, a close friendship springs up between them, and they find, to their wonder, that they bear a similar mark on the shoulder. Amirald has seen Genevieve, the granddaughter of the old Albigeois pastor, and fallen in love with her. Once when he is wandering in the vicinity of the castle, he is roused by cries for help; they proceed from Genevieve, whom two robbers are carrying away, deeming her ‘no unacceptable prize’ to the crusaders. Amirald overcomes the ruffians and accompanies Genevieve to the Albigenses. In the first great battle a stone from a sling smites him down; as the Albigenses move on, Genevieve stumbles over his body. She recognises her preserver and, perceiving there is life, removes him into a cave, with the reluctant assistance of an unsuccessful lover of hers, a young man called Amand. She then visits Amirald regularly and tends him till he is restored to health. When count Raymond commands the Albigenses to move still farther into the mountains, Amand demands her promise to abandon Amirald; on her refusing, he in jealousy informs the chiefs of the sect that Genevieve has saved the life of an enemy, with the result that she is banished from the community. Two men are sent to convey her to Toulouse, but, having lost their way, they both perish, and Genevieve herself is, in a senseless state, carried into a convent by some monks who chance to find her. Yet when she is discovered to be a heretic, she is instantly expelled. Pursuing her way alone, she is now seized by the same ruffians from whom Amirald had rescued her. They drag her into the abbey of Normoutier where she falls into the hands of the bishop of Toulouse and is taken with his party to Beaucaire. Here she is sumptuously clad and treated with mildness, the bishop’s intention being to make her his mistress; but she firmly resists his temptations. Subsequently she succeeds not only in escaping but in effecting the escape of the queen, whose life she saves at the risk of her own, thus earning her gratitude and protection. They travel onward with a party of knights who have been in quest of the queen in order to bring her back to the king, he being now willing to receive her as his spouse again. Among the knights is Amirald, who openly avows his love to Genevieve. He is commissioned to conduct her to Toulouse, but this time their journey is intercepted by the army of prince Lewis. He also is enraptured by the beauty of Genevieve and compells her to follow him to Nismes, where the new crusade is being prepared. Being told by Genevieve that she has saved the life of his mother, the prince promises to protect her from every injury, yet determines to keep her for himself and refuses to surrender her to Amirald. The bishop, however, who is filled with a deadly hatred against her, urges that she be delivered into the hands of justice, to be condemned to death as a heretic. When the prince tries to protect her a riot breaks out—the house where she is kept is burnt down, but at the last moment Amirald saves her and they escape to Tarascon where he, now turned an Albigeois, joins the army of the lords of Languedoc. In the battle of Tarascon, Amirald and Genevieve are among a party of Albigenses who remain captives in the town. All prisoners are, at the command of the bishop, to be burnt alive; they are already bound at the stake when the army of count Raymond rushes into Tarascon. Paladour, remembering the mark on their shoulders, immediately hastens to liberate his brother.—At the same time the bishop falls a victim to the vengeance of Marie de Mortemar. She has also been brought to the city as a prisoner, and being kept in custody in a solitary chamber near the chapel, she manages to poison the holy water a moment before the bishop celebrates the mass. He rushes into his room where he applies strong antidotes, all in vain. Suspecting the maniac he calls her to his presence; she reveals herself as Marie de Mortemar, declaring the aim of her life to be fulfilled: while the bishop is expiring, she throws herself out of the casement and is dashed to pieces.—The heroes and heroines live in happiness ever afterwards; ‘The difference of birth and creed was never known to disturb the affection that subsisted between the high-born Lady of Courtenaye and the humble bride of Amirald.’

Considering the inordinate length of The Albigenses, it must be admitted that the story is fairly well constructed, and the rich materials—although of little originality—not unskilfully arranged. In this respect there certainly can be detected a sort of improvement on Maturin’s earlier romances; but it is a very poor compensation for the loss of their peculiar charm in style and description. In The Albigenses there is hardly a page which could not have been written by somebody else; the personal note in the diction, the keenness of psychological insight, and the characteristic boldness of imagination which distinguished Women and Melmoth, and even The Milesian Chief, have completely disappeared. And this change, it is painful to observe, has been brought about by the attacks of injudicious reviewers, as clearly stated in the preface:

How far I may have succeeded, is not for me to judge. I put forwards my present work with diffidence. No one can think more moderately of his powers than I do of mine; but I must demand of my reader’s consideration, that the opinions and errors of my imaginary characters shall not be transferred to my own. In what singularly severe and injurious spirit this has been hitherto done, I need not say. No man less disregards public opinion; no man is less disposed to offer an insolent defiance to sincere criticism: but if an unoffending life cannot protect a writer from those dangerous imputations, I disdain defence, and leave them to their judgment by all generous and unprejudiced minds.

Maturin’s journey to Canossa was graciously acknowledged by all critics except one. In the newly established Westminster Review[170] there appeared an uncommonly intelligent and well-written article, showing an understanding of Maturin and a penetration into his talent, which far surpasses that of all other contemporary critics. To the general verdict of this unknown writer on The Albigenses nothing could be added, nor can its rightfulness be questioned by any one acquainted with Maturin’s works:

We are a little disappointed in finding that Mr. Maturin’s new work is not of a character that either entitles or entices us to make it the occasion of a general examination of his literary pretensions. For we could not do this effectually, without adducing various examples of the faults and the good qualities that are peculiar to his writings; and it so happens, that the work now before us is almost entirely deficient in either of these. It is, perhaps, not very difficult to account for this. Mr. Maturin, though now a tolerably practised writer, is far from having acquired that command over the efforts of his pen which the time that he has exercised it would, under ordinary circumstances, have given him: for his mind is not one that will submit to be “constrained by mastery,” either in its strengths or its weaknesses. It may be led, we sincerely believe, to perform very valuable services to the republic of letters; but it may not be driven to do either good or evil. And if it be driven, the results will be a something between the two, and bearing no distinctive character whatever. Now, we conceive the work before us to have proceeded from an artificial and ill-considered impetus of the above kind. Mr. Maturin has publicly stated, as an excuse (that is the form under which he most unnecessarily puts it) for writing Romances at all, that his necessities oblige him to do so; and yet all the Romances he has hitherto written have subjected him to the most virulent abuse from several of those critical tribunals, on whose fiat the popularity of works of this class mainly depends—or, at all events, by which that popularity can be greatly advanced, and still more greatly retarded. And this abuse, too, when it has descended to detail, has, in almost every instance, been levelled at precisely those portions of the work in question in which the author must have felt, and every one else must have admitted, that the beauties, if beauties the work contained, were to be found. What could a writer, but little acquainted with the nature of his own powers, and avowedly employing them with a view to present distinction, be expected to do under such circumstances, but resolutely set himself to avoid the errors that seemed to lay in the way of his object? And in doing so, what could be expected as the first result of this effort, but what we, in fact, meet with in the work, the title of which stands at the head of this paper?—namely, a production in which all the most glaring faults that existed in his previous ones are in a great degree absent; and in which all the beauties which more than redeemed those faults, are absent too. The truth is, Mr. Maturin did not seek instruction from the right source. Instead of feeling contempt for those who expressed a contempt which they did not feel towards him, he flew to them for that counsel which he should have taken of his own good sense, and his own heart.

That Maturin did not take counsel of his own heart means that he wrote without inspiration; and that is why the adventures and hair-breadth escapes fail to excite, and the characters appear so hopelessly conventional. The characterization is, in fact, the weakest side of The Albigenses, and that of the principal personages the least worthy of Maturin’s powers. Paladour and Amirald simply possess every chivalrous virtue imaginable, neither being subject to any faults whatsoever, nor is there one single individual trait to distinguish them from others. The description of these two paragons is pervaded by a deadly seriousness and an unbroken solemnity, all the more causeless as both are destined to become perfectly happy in the end. The influence of Scott, which otherwise is perceptible throughout the story, in no instance extends itself to the treatment of the heroes. The different methods of the two novelists can be compared in the openings of The Albigenses and Quentin Durward (1823). Both works begin with a brief account of the state of France in the respective periods—after which the heroes are introduced as solitary travellers and knight-errants. Quentin Durward, a merry light-hearted youth, appears on a bright summer morning, carelessly joining company with the first people he encounters, committing various indiscretions, being on the point of getting hanged, and going through it all with imperturbable good-humour. Paladour travels through an autumnal night, engaged in sombre thoughts, recollections and anticipations, meeting beings unearthly and mysterious and preserving all the time the same sepulchral gravity. The one way, of course, can in itself be as good as the other, and the beginning of The Albigenses is not without merit; but as the story advances it would not be out of the place to make a counterpoise to this lugubrious hero in the person of the younger Sir Amirald. Yet he is but a repetition of his brother, as grave and as blameless. There is nothing of the contrast so finely brought forth in Montorio between Hippolito and Annibal, and in The Milesian Chief between Connal and Desmond: Amirald, no more than Paladour, does anything rash or thoughtless; they never laugh; they are never even present in comical situations. Now one of the secrets of the perennial freshness of the Waverley novels is a manner the author has of ‘dealing sly digs at his own stateliest heroes.’[171] He never takes them too seriously; he exposes their human weaknesses with obvious satisfaction, and finally allows them to be united with their lady-loves much because he does not think them worth writing tragedies about. This method being extremely foreign to Maturin, his surest way of succeeding with his heroes is to make them really tragic and treat them with the terrible pathos and passionate sympathy which breathes from the pages of The Milesian Chief. In The Albigenses neither condition is fulfilled, and the personages, consequently, do not live. The same is equally true of the heroines; there are no traces of the psychological mastery which had created Eva and Immalee. Isabelle and Genevieve are as superlative with regard to exalted qualities as are their lovers: the former, being a high-born lady, is supplied with a just amount of pride, while the latter, as suits her station, is all humbleness and self-denial. How horribly fustian and melodramatic the description occasionally becomes, can be seen from the scene where the outlaw, whose prisoner Isabelle is, makes her a proposal of marriage:

Isabelle sprang on her feet—both hands were compressed on her left bosom, as if expecting her heart would burst, and her eyes inflamed and dilated seemed starting from their sockets. She directed them right onward for some moments, as if they could have pierced her prison-walls; at length she turned them full on the outlaw and that look said as audibly as language, “Begone this moment, or stay and see me driven to frenzy!”

The comic figures in the story—most of whom are invariably comic—are hardly less stereotyped and without charm. An exception must be made for the well-drawn Sir Aymer, an old knight who continually affects a tone of youthful gallantry but is, at bottom, a man of honour and delicacy. The drunken abbot of Normoutier with his eternal mal-a-prop Latin quotations, and the foppish Sir Ezzelin de Verac, are, on the other hand, very heavy and tiresome. The best drawn character in The Albigenses is the bishop of Toulouse. There is something truly imposing in his ambitious schemes, and his scepticism and clear-headedness form a salutary contrast to the superstitious fanaticism of his fellow-crusaders. The speech with which he tries to dazzle and seduce the inexperienced Genevieve, while she is his prisoner in Beaucaire, is one of the most eloquent passages in the book, and shows once more what Maturin was capable of achieving on his favourite topic, the unlimited power and the soul-destroying influence of the Catholic church:

The vast system of which I am no feeble or inert engine, hastens to the summation of its working—the conquest of the world. That old and mighty Rome, of whom pedants prate, subdued but the meaner part of man—his body; but our Rome enslaves the mind—that mind, which, once enslaved, leaves nothing for opposition or for defeat. Look round thee—a peevish dotard in the seven-throned palace tramples with his palsied foot on the necks of the crowned kings of earth, from the shores of the Orcades to the cliffs of Calpe. He stamps with it, and their blood, their treasures, and their vassals are poured on Asia, making the eastern world tremble to its centre: for ours is the power that not only binds the spirit but makes it clasp its chain; ours are the powers of the world to come; all that is potent in life, all that is mysterious in futurity, the fears, the hopes, the hearts of mankind, all are ours; and shall we not wield the weapon their credulity has put into our hands for our own behoof? — — — All knowledge is ours—to the laity the book is closed—the key is lost—every avenue to science, every loophole through which light might wander, is barred up or sternly sentinelled; the tomes of ancient wisdom are buried in monkish libraries, unfolded, save by daring hands like mine. Under the old tyrants of the earth the decree of a senate might desolate a province, and the frolic of an emperor consume a city; but when did it chain up the arm of man, or wither his soul within him, like a papal interdict, at whose reported sound the bridegroom drops the hand of the betrothed, the mourner quits the unburied corse, and the priest flies from the altar? I tell thee, maiden, the eagles of Ancient Rome would be blasted if they dared to grasp the thunder that is now wielded by the hand of every busy legate.

The best things in The Albigenses are to be found in certain vividly narrated episodes and brilliant descriptions, which are quite other than the hackneyed adventures of the actual dramatis personæ. Among them is the story of the heretic deacon Mephibosheth. He is taken, by some Catholic travellers, to the abbey of Normoutier, where the monks, in the absence of the abbot, have elected an ‘abbot of misrule’ and arranged a carousal on a large scale. The deacon is compelled to become one of the company and take part in a wild dance; he first refuses, but then, being sufficiently drunk, he for a while becomes the jolliest of them all, until his feelings as suddenly reverse themselves and he starts smashing costly windows and figures of saints. The monks decide to hang him, but the cord breaks, and he is finally spared on condition of procuring them a beautiful heretic damsel. The deacon, remembering Genevieve, readily complies, but she is brought there by the two robbers before he has time to fulfil his promise. The deacon, however, remains at the abbey and, having turned Catholic, becomes a follower of the bishop and is, at last, hanged in good earnest by the men of count Raymond, after the battle of Tarascon. The feast of the abbot of misrule, which presents a phase of monastic life seldom described,[172] is depicted with superabundant vivacity and humour, and in a true mediaeval spirit:

— — “Surely I will not dance,” quoth the deacon, whose courage rose with opposition; “it is an abomination more befitting the daughter of the harlot Herodias than a deacon of the holy congregation. All dancing is evil, exceedingly evil, and not good—but to dance in the tents of Kedar and the tabernacles of the idolaters, to be set up on high among the ungodly, and dance in the high places, were an utter abomination:—wherefore I say, Down with the filthy squeaking of pipes, and the lewd jarring of crowds, and—” “So please you, my lord abbot,” said one of the monks, “let us drown this peevish fellow’s noise, and cause him to dance with us:—your true sour heretic (and your lordship perceives he is no better, though I shame to name such vermin before your lordship) needs no other martyrdom than the sight of free honest mirth.”—“Thou sayest well,” said the abbot; “he shall dance and die the death of the spleenful: for the rest, let such of the nine worthies as be sober, lead forth Deborah, Judith, and Queen Dido—the three children in the furnace shall dance with Nebuchadnezzar to make up their old grudge—Susanna shall pace with one of the elders, and the goddess of Chastity with the other—ourself, the Abbot of Misrule, will lead the lady of loose-delight, with her paintings and her pouncings, her mincings and her mockings—and the heretic shall dance with the devil, and there is a company meetly sorted. Strike up, my masters.”—Here the hapless Mephibosheth was seized on by a hideous figure enveloped in a black garment, with cloven feet of flame colour, a tail that swept the ground, a mask equipped with “eyes that glow and fangs that grin,” and a huge pair of horns starting from the forehead. All his struggles availed nothing with his frightful partner: he was dragged into the circle, compelled to perform numerous pirouettes, which were more remarkable for velocity than grace, and if he relaxed for a moment in his exertions, a swinge of his partner’s tail, a kick of his cloven foot, or a blow with his horns, set him prancing again with pain and terror till his strength was exhausted, and he fell to the ground. At this moment the cook was seen entering the hall, attended by the lay-brothers groaning under the heavy dishes they bore, and shouting in unison the monastic chorus—

Caput apri defero,

Reddens laudes Domino;

Qui estis in convivio,

Plaudite cum cantico. — — —

A fine chapter is also one describing a night at the castle of Courtenaye before the first battle. A frightful tempest is raging, and most of the guests have retired; at last only a few of the chief crusaders are sitting in the dimly illuminated hall, passing their time in telling ghost-stories. Sir Aymer, in his humorous way, relates an adventure which happened to his uncle, whereupon De Montfort tells a very dismal one which happened to himself, as he once beheld the ghosts of a large congregation of Albigenses whom he had slaughtered some ten years before. The right note is here struck by simple means, and the uncomfortable sensations of the superstitious company are skilfully transferred to the reader.—Scenes like these are, no doubt, filled with the real spirit of the time in question; but as a historical novel in the usual sense of the word The Albigenses has no great claims to distinction. The historical facts which underlie the plot are but meagre, and, moreover, treated with considerable freedom. Imagination often makes up for accurate information. Even one of those critics[173] who admired The Albigenses as a romance, thinks the author deficient in a ‘minute and extensive acquaintance with the antiquities of the middle ages,’ declaring his descriptions to be of a cast that ‘may be executed by any one moderately read in Froissart, and tolerably conversant with the less recondite sources of information contained in the common English and German romances.’

The picture of the merry life led in the abbey of Normoutier strikes one by its perfect novelty in Maturin’s work, nor are there, in The Albigenses, any instances of ecclesiastical cruelty or monastic oppression; the monks are, upon the whole, no worse than other people. Nevertheless the Radcliffe school reappears in some of the adventures of the heroines, especially in the escape of Isabelle from the clutches of the outlaw, and that of Genevieve from the palace of the bishop of Toulouse. The secret passages, happily detected at the right moment, the inevitable subterranean vaults and concealed doors have their origin in that style of fiction which Maturin now had disavowed. The design of Marie de Mortemar to have her vengeance on the last survivor of the house of Courtenaye executed by the hand of Sir Paladour, leads back to the idea upon which Montorio is founded. Otherwise The Albigenses is but too clearly modelled on Scott; most of the characters have their prototypes in the Waverley novels, and a great many of the situations likewise bear a resemblance to the same distinguished patterns. Quentin Durward, Old Mortality (1817), Ivanhoe (1820), The Monastery (1820) and others are constantly called to mind, all the comparisons being to the disadvantage of The Albigenses. To mention some of the most conspicuous likenesses, count Simon de Montfort has a counterpart in duke Charles of Burgundy in Quentin Durward; both are men of a fierce and uncontrollable temper and unrefined habits, accustomed only to consult their own will and pleasure. Duke Charles has the same message to Isabelle of Croye as De Montfort to Isabelle of Courtenaye, namely, of a marriage which appears to be against the inclinations of the heroines, and the language of these powerful lords, when contradicted, is very offensive to a young lady of rank. Duke Charles threatens to drag the lady to the altar with his own hands, contemptuously speaking of her ‘baby face,’ while De Montfort, in the corresponding scene, flies out against Isabelle, calling her a ‘gaudy, delicate, disdainful toy.’ At last the matter is, in both cases, referred to the skill and valour of the champions of the fair ones.—The capture of Isabelle by the outlaw resembles much the seizure of Rowena, in Ivanhoe, by Reginald Front-de-Boef. Both prisoners are, as a token of respect, shown into the best rooms; ‘the apartment to which the Lady Rowena had been introduced was fitted up with some rude attempts at ornament and magnificence, and her being placed there might be considered as a peculiar mark of respect not offered to the other prisoners. — — — The tapestry hung down from the walls in many places, and in others was tarnished and faded under the effects of the sun, or tattered and decayed by age.’ Maturin’s description of the chamber of Isabelle is exactly similar: ‘It was to this apartment the lady Isabelle ascended, and it was evident that it had been furnished with a kind of rude and hasty splendour. Tapestry was hung on the walls by wooden pegs stuck between the interstices of the stones, but in many places those walls of ragged stone were totally bare.’ Then the ladies are the object of love-making by persons odious to them, while their real lovers lie prisoners in the same castles. Rebecca, in Ivanhoe, obviously served as a model to Genevieve. Their goodness and mildness is the same, and the one, being the daughter of a Jew, as well as the other being a heretic, is in a defenceless and dangerous position. The speech of the templar to Rebecca, when he persuades her to fly with him to the Orient and become a partner in his bold plans has, no doubt, influenced the speech which the bishop makes to Genevieve, quoted above:

The Templar loses, as thou hast said, his social rights, his power of free agency, but he becomes a member and a limb of a mighty body, before which thrones already tremble,—even as the single drop of rain which mixes with the sea becomes an individual part of that resistless ocean, which undermines rocks and engulfs royal armadas. Such a swelling flood is that powerful league. Of this mighty Order I am no mean member, but already one of the Chief Commanders, and may well aspire one day to hold the batoon of Grand Master. The poor soldiers of the Temple will not alone place their foot upon the necks of kings—a hempsandall’d monk can do that. Our mailed step shall ascend their throne—our gauntlet shall wrench the sceptre from their gripe. — — —

The likeness of the bishop to the templar is, however, but slight; the latter is a fantast, with nothing of the cold deliberateness of the former.—In the abbot of Normoutier critics believed they recognized the prior of Jorvault. Neither is, indeed, over-eager in discharging his sacerdotal duties, yet the prior is a man of the world, while the abbot is a coarse boar and never would have wit enough to compose a letter like that sent by the prior to the templar—however heartily he would approve of the contents.—Sir Ezzelin de Verac would scarcely have been born but for the existence of Sir Piercie Shafton in The Monastery; but of all imitations in The Albigenses he is the least successful. His only interest is the state of his wardrobe, and his only accomplishment to dress fashionably, while Sir Piercie—one of the most delightful creations of Scott—is a master also of other arts, knowing how to recite poetry and play lute and viol-de-gamba. The ‘euphuistic’ conversation of Sir Piercie is feebly copied by Sir Ezzelin; the epithets which the former bestows on Halbert Glendinning—‘Good goatbearded apostle! Good fellow! Good selvaggio!’—are echoed in the terms of address of the latter to an Albigeois whose prisoner he once happens to be: ‘Good villagio! kind rustic!’ and so on.—

A very characteristic figure in the romantic literature of the time is, finally, Marie de Mortemar. A personage of this kind had once before, through the influence of Scott, occupied Maturin’s imagination; the old Irishwoman in Women, as we have seen, was pronounced to be drawn after Meg Merrilies, and the same observation was made by critics[174] about Marie de Mortemar: ‘—an old woman, who is a sorceress, a conspirator, a preserver, and a perpetual meddler; such are the sins for which the maker of Meg Merrilies has to answer.’ The type certainly was, if not actually invented, at least made fashionable by Scott. His old women appear as champions of some great cause which they with might and main try to advance, or else endeavour to revenge personal injuries to which they have been subjected and which have reduced them to their pitiable state. Marie de Mortemar belongs to the latter class, possessing, however, all the strength and energy of the former. With Meg Merrilies she has but little in common, except the miraculous skill with which she pursues her aim; she guides the ways of Paladour much as Meg guides young Bertram, never resting till punishment has reached the guilty. Magdalena Greame, in The Abbot (1820) has devoted her life to Queen Mary and the Catholic faith, and as mysteriously and unflinchingly conducts the adventures of her kinsman Roland, whom she has chosen to be a promoter of her schemes. Yet another meddler is Norna in The Pirate (1822). She, like Marie de Mortemar, has been ill-used in her youth and partially lost her reason; and although she is not revengeful and her meddling is only for the good, she has the same gift of omnipresence and omniscience which appeals to the superstition of her neighbours and which has been acquired in a way suggested, perhaps, by the Radcliffe heroes: ‘It was one branch of various arts by which Norna endeavoured to maintain her pretensions to supernatural powers, that she made herself familiarly and practically acquainted with all the secret passes and recesses, whether natural or artificial, which she could hear of, whether by tradition or otherwise, and was, by such knowledge, often enabled to perform feats which were otherwise unaccountable.’ Marie de Mortemar, it is needless to say, is perfectly acquainted with the caves and the rocks, the high-ways and by-ways of all Languedoc.—The other variation of this character is personified by Ulrica in Ivanhoe: a deeply-wronged woman, a prisoner, who once ‘was free, was happy, was honoured, loved, and was beloved’ while yet being ‘the daughter of the noble Thane of Torquilstone, before whose frown a thousand vassals trembled’—just as her counterpart in The Albigenses was ‘a noble, beautiful lady, heiress of Mortemar.’ As the prototype of Ulrica we may perhaps regard Queen Margaret in Shakespeare’s Richard III, who walks about, a ghost of her former self, cursing the murderer of her son and her husband:

Can curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven?—

Why, then give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses!

— — — — —

If heaven have any grievous plague in store,

Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,

O, let them keep it, till thy sins be ripe,

And then hurl down their indignation

On thee, the troubler of the poor world’s peace!

The worm of conscience still be-gnaw thy soul!

Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou livest,

And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!

No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,

Unless it be whilst some tormenting dream

Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!

Like Queen Margaret, Ulrica is unable actively to work for the destruction of her malefactor, having to content herself with ineffective wailings and execrations; while Marie de Mortemar—who also most terribly curses her oppressors—finds opportunity of ‘meddling’ as much as she pleases. Yet Ulrica, by accident, succeeds in setting fire to the magazine of fuel beneath the castle of Reginald Front-de-Boef and thus has, like Marie de Mortemar, the satisfaction of witnessing the dying agonies of her enemy. Their gloomy triumph is the same; Ulrica cries to the perishing Reginald: ‘Summon thy vassals around thee, doom them that loiter to the scourge and the dungeon—But know, mighty chief — — — thou shalt have neither answer, nor aid, nor obedience at their hands.’ Marie de Mortemar exults at the death-scene of the bishop of Toulouse: ‘Hark — — — hark to thy knell. Thine enemies are around thee—thine allies in blood and crime are perishing. Chain me to the stake: burn me an’ ye will; but, ere I am in ashes, thou wilt be in flames.’ The unhappy women willingly perish themselves at the moment their vengeance is fulfilled.

The picture drawn of the life and manners of the Albigenses is, in some essentials, inspired by the descriptions of the Covenanters in Old Mortality—a circumstance which, besides being pointed out by critics both contemporary and modern,[175] was admitted by Maturin himself; he observes, when introducing the sect for the first time: ‘It is — — — a curious, but indisputable matter of fact, that the majority of them were as tenacious of certain texts and terms of the Old Testament, as their legitimate descendants, the English Puritans, were some centuries later; and that, like them, they assumed Jewish names, fought with Jewish obduracy, and felt with Jewish hostility, even towards those of their community who differed from them in a penumbra of their creed.’ Hence the speeches and opinions of Boanerges—the leader of the sterner Albigenses—are the same, only less poignantly expressed, as Balfour’s; they quote the Old Testament as their chief authority, evince a mind equally relentless and unforgiving, and Boanerges rejects the appeals of Pierre to common humanity on the same arguments which Balfour uses in his dispute with Morton. The passages treating of the Albigenses are, however, vividly written and not wholly lacking in originality. The deacon Mephibosheth has no counterpart in Scott, and the little love-story of Amand is both natural and skilfully introduced, while the character of Pierre is entirely conventional.—

This last romance of Maturin was soon forgotten, nor was it ever reprinted, notwithstanding the benevolent critiques.[176] What the renumeration amounted to is not known, but Maturin’s last months were, by all accounts, about the gloomiest in his existence. Cares and anxieties had already begun to prey upon his health—never very robust—and the unfavourable circumstances under which The Albigenses was composed, at the expense of the night’s rest during a long time, completely broke it down, his pecuniary difficulties remaining as threatening as ever. There are, in Mangan’s article, a few recollections relative to the closing period of Maturin’s life; and although the writer, no doubt, shares the old tendency of his subject ‘of darkening the gloomy, and of deepening the sad,’ it is clear enough that there was, at this time, very little left of the well-dressed dandy who had once so greatly excelled in quadrille-parties and private theatricals:

The second time I saw Maturin he had been just officiating, as on the former occasion, at a funeral. He stalked along York Street with an abstracted, or rather distracted air, the white scarf and hat-band which he had received remaining still wreathed round his beautifully-shaped person, and exhibiting to the gaze of the amused and amazed pedestrians whom he almost literally encountered in his path, a boot upon one foot and a shoe on the other. His long pale, melancholy, Don Quixote, out-of-the-world face would have inclined you to believe that Dante, Bajazet, and the Cid had risen together from their sepulchres, and clubbed their features for the production of an effect. But Maturin’s mind was only fractionally pourtrayed, so to speak, in his countenance. The great Irishman, like Hamlet, had that within him which passed show, and escaped far and away beyond the possibility of expression by the clay lineament. He bore the ‘thunder-scars’ about him, but they were graven, not on his brow, but on his heart.

The third and last time that I beheld this marvellous man I remember well. It was some time before his death, on a balmy autumn evening, in 1824. He slowly descended the steps of his own house — — — and took his way in the direction of Whitefriars Street, into Castle Street, and passed the Royal Exchange into Dame Street, every second person staring at him and the extraordinary double-belted and treble-caped rug of an old garment—neither coat nor cloak—which enveloped his person. But here it was that I, who had tracked the footsteps of the man as his shadow, discovered that the feeling to which some individuals, rather over sharp and shrewd, had been pleased to ascribe this ‘affectation of singularity,’ had no existence in Maturin. For, instead of passing along Dame Street, where he would have been ‘the observed of all observers,’ he wended his way along the dark and forlorn locality of Dame Lane, and having reached the end of this not very classical thoroughfare, crossed over to Anglesea Street, where I lost sight of him. Perhaps he went into one of those bibliopolitan establishments wherewith that Paternoster Row of Dublin then abounded. I never saw him afterwards.

In the beginning of October 1824 Maturin was seized by an acute malady which the physicians, considering his impaired health in general, apprehended to be mortal. On the 5:th Sir Charles Morgan wrote to Cyrus Redding:[177]

My dear R.—Poor Maturin is ill, severely ill; we (the Drs.) have sent him into the country, I fear, to die. Not contented with drawing the ‘saints’ down upon him, he has attacked the ‘papishes’ and is now in the condition somewhat of a nut between the two blades of a nutcracker. If the poor fellow should live, and the two parties abuse him into a good living, there might be some good for it, for he has a family of fine children. I fear, however, there is little chance of either.

These forebodings were, indeed, soon fulfilled: Maturin died on October 30:th in his home in Dublin whither he, for some reason or other, had returned from the country. There was a story afloat of his having caused, or at least precipitated, his death by some mistake about his medicine;[178] however this may have been, it is evident from the letter of Sir Charles that the case was sufficiently alarming already some four weeks before.—The death was briefly announced by the local papers; in The Morning Star of Nov. 3 there was this necrology:

In him the poor have lost a kind friend; our religion a firm supporter; and literature one of its brightest ornaments.—

In the summer of 1825 Walter Scott made his journey to Ireland, which he had long been planning. He had looked forward, with pleasure, to the prospect of becoming personally acquainted with Maturin, and had intended to invite the latter to accompany him during the tour. Now he could only pay a visit to the family,[179] for whose profit he is said to have contemplated a new edition of Maturin’s works, as well as the publication of some manuscripts found among his literary remains,[180] to which he would have prefixed a biography of his deceased friend; but his own pecuniary embarrassments, commencing just at this time, prevented him from realizing the project—and Maturin’s works soon began to fall into oblivion. Montorio was, in 1841, republished by William Hazlitt as vol. I in the Ballantyne’s Romancists and Novelists Library which he edited; Bertram appeared in The British Drama in 1865 and in Dick’s Standard Plays in 1884; and, lastly, Melmoth the Wanderer was reprinted in 1892, with no very distinct success.

To Charles Robert Maturin’s life and to his works, as such, the present study must be confined; his influence on later literature, above all on French romanticism, can here only be pointed out as a subject not yet exhaustively inquired into.[181] The work through which this influence was exercised is Melmoth the Wanderer, chiefly, yet not exclusively, inasmuch as Bertram also was immoderately admired in France and hailed as one of the foremost productions of contemporary literature. Melmoth, the great and concluding outburst of the English school of terror, stands there as at once its lasting monument and an outlet through which some of its peculiarities were, directly or indirectly, revived by the movements succeeding the downfall of 19:th century naturalism. The place in literary history of Women, Maturin’s other masterpiece, is more isolated. So far from belonging to any definite movement of the time it foreshadows, in a striking manner, the school of Dickens in its descriptions of middle class life, manners and characters, while its minute researches in the abysses of the human heart anticipate the analytic fiction of the very latest periods. In Maturin’s production Women is of an importance equal to that of Melmoth, nor is his literary physiognomy complete if The Milesian Chief is not remembered for its purely romantic qualities and its patriotic enthusiasm. These three works, which are Maturin’s best, afford ample illustration of the versatility of his genius, which versatility itself is an exponent of the spirit of freedom and experiment prevailing during the romantic revival. What they all have in common is the style of writing, the art of dealing with language as the sculptor deals with clay. Maturin’s part in the renewal of the imaginative English prose has been asserted by the latest authorities,[182] and the excellence of his style doubtless did much to obtain for him the appreciation of his brothers in the trade. It was the custom of contemporary reviewers to speak of Maturin’s novels as something particularly suited to the frequenters of circulating libraries, and it is true that with the large bulk of respectable, educated readers Maturin never was very popular; but then there was a small fraction of the public whose taste, in this respect, closely coincided with that of the former: most of those writers, great or small, whom Maturin admired, eagerly repaid the compliment. Lewis used to revel in the gloomy pages of Montorio[183] and was, as has been seen, pleased even with Manuel. Godwin, to whom so many of Maturin’s writings are indebted, is recorded[184] to have uttered: ‘if there be any writer of the present day, to whose burial-place I should wish to make a pilgrimage, that writer is Maturin.’ The Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824) of James Hogg—one of the favourite poets of Maturin—seems to be not uninfluenced by Melmoth the Wanderer. The high opinion which Scott and Byron entertained of Maturin has more than once appeared in the foregoing pages—and among later romancists who are known to have delighted in the adventures of the Wanderer, or upon whose work he has even left an unmistakable print, we find names such as Balzac, Hugo, De Vigny, Baudelaire, Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, Poe, Thackeray, Rossetti, Stevenson, Oscar Wilde. Thus, if Maturin is not always—as he would deserve to be—remembered on his own account, he is at least mentioned in connection with, as he was acknowledged by, a great many of those writers who unquestionably form the ‘upper ten’ in the world of 19:th century letters.

Notes.

The references to pages after names of reviews and magazines indicate the page on which the respective article begins.

I.

[1] Henry A. Beers, A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century, London 1899, p. 222.

[2] William Monck Mason, The History and Antiquities of the Collegiate and Cathedral Church of St. Patrick, Dublin 1820, note p. 445.

[3] Registers of the French Conformed Churches of St. Patrick and St. Mary, Dublin, edited by J. J. Digges La Touche, Dublin 1893 (Publications of the Huguenot Society of London, vol. VII).

[4] Mason, p. 445; Henry Cotton, Fasti Ecclesiae Hibernicae, Dublin 1848, vol. II p. 105.

[5] Two Centuries of Irish History 1691-1870, edited by R. Barry O’Brien, London 1907, p. 98.

[6] In all notes and biographies the year of Maturin’s birth is given as 1782, which is probably founded upon an indirect statement made by himself in the preface to his first romance Montorio, dated December 15, 1806, where he says that he is twenty-four years of age. Yet in the Matriculation Book of Trinity College, as may still be seen, his entrance is marked in 1795 and his age given as fifteen, whence it would appear that he was born in 1780. It has also been communicated to me that in a pedigree of the family, issued by Sir William Betham, Ulster King-at-Arms, in 1845, it is stated that C. R. M. was born in 1780.

[7] New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal 1827, vol. XIX pp. 401, 570; vol. XX pp. 146, 370.

[8] According to a family pedigree, particulars of which have kindly been communicated to me by Miss Sybil Maturin, he had two brothers: William and Henry, and three sisters: Fidelia, Emma, and Alicia.—It is said in an article in Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine (1846, vol. III p. 125), with reference to Maturin’s early love of the stage, that ‘no similar abilities, however, were shown by his brothers, whose lots in life were very different;’ whereas the writer in the New Monthly Magazine 1827, who also claims to have been an intimate friend of Charles Robert Maturin, maintains that the latter was the ‘only child of many who lived beyond the term of boyhood’—which goes to show that the information furnished by the Magazines is, in general, to be taken with some reserve.

[9] New Monthly Magazine 1827.

[10] British Review 1818, vol. XI p. 37; an article written by Maturin.

[11] ibid.

[12] New Monthly Magazine, or Universal Register 1819, vol. XI p. 165; an article, on Maturin, by Alaric Watts.

[13] ‘W,’ Ireland Sixty Years ago, Dublin 1851, p. 86 (3:rd ed.).

[14] The Life of William Carleton: being his autobiography and letters; and an account of his life and writings, from the point at which the autobiography breaks off, by D. J. O’Donoghue, Dublin 1896, p. 194.

[15] Irish Quarterly Review, March 1852, p. 140; New Monthly Magazine 1827.

[16] ‘License was granted — — — to solemnize marriage between the Revd Charles Robert Maturin of Camden Street — — — & Henrietta Kingsberry — — — dated October the 7:th 1803.’

[17] Cumberland’s British Theatre, with remarks, biographical and critical, by D.-G., London 18(?), vol. XLIII; cf. also Charles A. Read, The Cabinet of Irish Literature (new edition by Katharine Tynan Hinkson), London 1909, vol. II p. 44.

[18] Letter in the British Museum MS collections.

[19] That Maturin’s stay in Loughrea was but of short duration is proved by the absence of all references to him in the parish register—a fact of which I have kindly been informed by the Rev. Canon Eccles.

[20] Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine 1846; the writer adds that Maturin ‘was an enthusiastic lover of antiquity, and had a strange passion for exploring old and desolate houses; in so much so, that when I have been walking with him through some decayed parts of the city, if any house particularly attracted him, about which he imagined some history to attach, or fancied it had an air of mystery, he would knock at the door, and find some excuse for examining the interior.’

[21] ibid.

[22] In the Irish Quarterly Review 1852, and elsewhere, Maturin’s residence is given as 41 York Street; but in all letters of Maturin which I have seen and where he mentions the number at all, he writes 37 York Street.

II.

[23] Irish Quarterly Review 1852.

[24] Dublin and London Magazine 1826, p. 248.

[25] The Gothic Romance has been a subject for thorough investigation on the part of German scholars. There is an extensive study of it in Helene Richter, Geschichte der Englischen Romantik, Halle 1911, vol. I pp. 160-300 (Die Schauerromantik), as well as in Wilhelm Dibelius, Englische Romankunst, Berlin und Leipzig 1922, pp. 285-346 (Der Sensationsroman). Maturin’s connection with the movement is treated of in Willy Müller, Charles Robert Maturin’s Romane “The fatal Revenge” und “Melmoth the Wanderer.” Ein Beitrag zur Gothic Romance, Weida 1908—and the work of Walpole, Clara Reeve and Mrs Radcliffe in Hans Möbius, The Gothic Romance, Leipzig 1902. Of recent English publications three must be particularly mentioned: Oliver Elton, A Survey of English Literature 1780-1830, London 1912, vol. I pp. 202-226 (The Novel of Suspense); the Cambridge History of English Literature 1914, vol. XI pp. 285-310 (by G. Saintsbury); and Dorothy Scarborough, The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction, New York and London 1917 (chapter I: The Gothic Romance).

[26] Richter, p. 164.

[27] ibid. p. 161.

[28] Scott, Introduction to the Castle of Otranto, prefixed to the edition in the Kings Classics, edited by Professor I. Gollancz, London 1907.

[29] ibid.

[30] British Review 1818.

[31] The Cabinet of Irish Literature, vol. II p. 44.

[32] James Wills, Lives of illustrious and distinguished Irishmen, Dublin, Edinburgh and London 1847, vol. VI p. 453.

[33] Quarterly Review 1810, vol. III p. 339; a critique, by Scott, of Montorio; cf. also introduction to the Castle of Otranto.

[34] Melmoth the Wanderer, London 1892, vol. I p. LVIII (a note on Charles Robert Maturin, by the editors).

[35] Müller, p. 40.

[36] British Review 1818.

[37] Richter, p. 167.

[38] Müller, p. 29.

[39] The Irishman March 24, 1849; an article, on Maturin, by James Clarence Mangan.

[40] Richard Sinclair Brooke, Recollections of the Irish Church, London 1877, p. 6.

[41] Irish Quarterly Review 1852.

[42] Francis Rawdon, Earl of Moira, afterwards Marquis of Hastings (1754-1826) had, in 1797-98, appeared as a defender of Irish rights before the House of Lords, and become a subject for the gratitude of Irish patriots; Moore had, in 1806, dedicated to him his volume of Epistles, Odes, and other Poems.

[43] British Review 1818.

[44] Melmoth the Wanderer 1892, p. LVI.

[45] Richter, p. 288.

[46] Don Juan, canto XV.

[47] Melmoth the Wanderer 1892, p. XXXIII.

[48] According to a popular tradition, Ireland was, in the dawn of history, invaded by a colony of Milesians, coming from Spain, but being originally of Phoenician descent. Hence the lineal descendants of the great and old, purely Irish families, were all called Milesians, though the island was, from earliest times, inhabited by different races, of which the invaders came to form but one; cf. George Sigerson, Bards of the Gael and Gall, London 1907, p. 377.

[49] Irish Quarterly Review 1852.

[50] New Monthly Magazine 1827.

[51] The writer in Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine 1846 says that ‘Maturin from the first knew him (Scott) to be the author of “The Waverley Novels,” from a letter which he received shortly after the publication of one of them, containing a peculiar Scotch proverb which Sir Walter had put into the mouth of one of his characters—“We keep our own fish-guts for our own sea-maws.”’—I regret not to have had the opportunity of seeing Maturin’s letters to Scott, which are still said to be in the Abbotsford archives.

[52] New Monthly Magazine 1827.

[53] D. J. O’Donoghue, Life of James Clarence Mangan, Dublin 1897.

[54] Richter, p. 291.

[55] Müller, p. 93.

[56] T. N. Talfourd, Critical and Miscellaneous Writings, Philadelphia 1848, vol. VII p. 18.

[57] Melmoth the Wanderer 1892, p. XXXIV.

[58] Edmund Downey, Charles Lever, His Life in his Letters, London 1906, vol. II p. 370.

[59] O’Donoghue, Life of Mangan, p. 145.

[60] In 1814 appeared a second edition of The Wild Irish Boy, but Maturin evidently received nothing for it, as he appears to have been ignorant of its publication: in the preface to Women (1818) he states that none of his former novels have been reprinted.

[61] J. Lockhart, Life of Sir Walter Scott, Edinburgh 1837, vol. III p. 312.

[62] Thomas Moore, Life of Lord Byron, London 1851, p. 287.

[63] ibid.

[64] Samuel Smiles, A Publisher and his Friends. Memoirs and correspondence of the Late John Murray, with an account of the origin and progress of the house, 1768-1843, London 1891, vol. I p. 288.

[65] Moore, p. 347.

[66] Barry Cornwall, Life of Edmund Kean, London 1835, vol. I p. 152.

[67] The name is spelled Shee on the title-page of the little volume in which the poem was published.

III.

[68] Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. XI p. 257.

[69] Quarterly Review 1817, vol. XVII p. 248; a critique, by Maturin, of Sheil’s Apostate.

[70] Elton II, p. 310.

[71] New Monthly Magazine and Universal Register 1816, vol. V p. 451.

[72] Edinburgh Review 1818, vol. XXX p. 234; a critique, by Scott, of Maturin’s Women.

[73] In his letter to Terry, alluded to above, Scott says that Maturin ‘had our old friend Satan (none of your sneaking St. John Street devils, but the archfiend himself) brought on the stage bodily. I believe I have exorcised the foul fiend, for, though in reading he was a most terrible fellow, I feared for his reception in public.’ In the passage however which he quotes, the demon is only described by Bertram, and it is just this description whose beauty Scott, in his article in the Quarterly Review, is commending. The letter was apparently composed in a moment of absent-mindedness.

[74] Melmoth the Wanderer 1892, p. LIII.

[75] Elton I, p. 218.

[76] British Review 1816, vol. VIII p. 64.

[77] Monthly Review 1816, vol. 80 p. 179.

[78] Eclectic Review 1816, vol. VI p. 379.

[79] New Monthly Magazine 1827.

[80] Bertram, ou le Château de St. Aldobrand, tragédie en cinque actes traduite librement de l’Anglais, par M. M. Taylor et Charles Nodier, Paris 1821. The quoted sentence is from the preface by the translators.

[81] Gustave Planche, Portraits Littéraires, Paris 1836, p. 33 foll.

[82] Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. XI p. 273.

[83] Irish Quarterly Review 1852; cf. also Melmoth the Wanderer 1892, pp. XVI-XVII.

[84] In Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine; the article is reprinted in Biographia Literaria, Oxford 1907, vol. II p. 193 foll.

[85] Moore, p. 367.

[86] Coleridge’s irritation at the play may have been partly due to the above-mentioned article in the British Review, which presents a critique at once upon Christabel and Bertram and comes to the conclusion that ‘the poem which has been denominated (by Lord Byron) “wild and singularly original and beautiful” is, in our judgment, a weak and singularly nonsensical and affected performance; but the play of Bertram is a production of undoubted genius.’

[87] Goethe-Jahrbuch 1891, vol. XII p. 23; quoted by Richter, p. 299.

[88] John Genest, Some account of the English Stage from the Restoration in 1660 to 1830, Bath 1832, vol. VIII p. 534.

[89] Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine 1846.

[90] New Monthly Magazine 1827.

[91] The Irishman 1849.

[92] Gentleman’s Magazine 1825, vol. I p. 84.

[93] Dublin and London Magazine 1826.

[94] Life of Carleton, vol. I p. 226.

[95] Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine 1846.

[96] New Monthly Magazine 1827.

[97] Smiles, p. 295.

[98] Moore, p. 358.

[99] ibid., p. 362.

[100] New Monthly Magazine or Universal Register 1819.

[101] Monthly Review 1817, vol. 83 p. 391.

[102] Smiles, p. 293.

[103] W. Torrens McCullagh, Memoirs of the Rt. Hon. Richard Lalor Sheil, London 1855, p. 95.

IV.

[104] Lockhart, Life of Scott, vol. V; the letter is reprinted in the Irish Quarterly Review 1852 and in Melmoth the Wanderer 1892, pp. XVIII-XXI.

[105] London Magazine 1821, vol. III p. 96.

[106] It may be mentioned that the writer in Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine 1846 recollects Maturin ‘once arguing that suicide was not positively and expressly condemned in any passage of Scripture, and declaring that he conceived to pass away from the sorrows of earth to the peace of eternity by reposing on a bed of eastern poppy flowers, where sleep is death, would be the most enviable mode of earthly exit.’

[107] Francis Hovey Stoddard, The Evolution of the English Novel, New York 1913, p. 11.

[108] Allan Cunningham, Biographical and Critical History of the British Literature of the last fifty years, Paris 1834, p. 403 foll.

[109] Monthly Review 1818, vol. 86 p. 403.

[110] Quarterly Review 1818, vol. XIX p. 321.

[111] Alaric Alfred Watts, Life of (his father) Alaric Watts, London 1884, vol. I p. 62 foll.

[112] Talfourd, op. cit.

[113] Melmoth the Wanderer 1892, p. XXXIX.

[114] A. A. Watts, op. cit.

[115] ibid.

[116] New Monthly Magazine or Universal Register 1819, vol. XI p. 236 foll.

[117] New Monthly Magazine 1827.

[118] Scots Magazine 1820, vol. VII p. 21.

[119] Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. XI p. 305.

[120] Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine 1846.

[121] This preface is, strangely enough, not reprinted in the 1892 edition.

[122] Elton I, p. 219.

[123] Müller, p. 70.

[124] Die Rosenkreutzer formed a secret society founded in Germany in the 17:th century. Confessedly they aimed at bringing about certain reforms in Church and State, but the mystery in which they were shrouded gave rise, later, to the popular belief that they were chiefly occupied in alchemical pursuits. Among English writers interested in the ‘Rosecrucian idea’ were Godwin (St. Leon), Shelley (St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian, 1811), and Mary Shelley (Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818).

[125] This story was published under the name of Lord Byron, who is said to have invented the idea.

[126] There existing a comparatively new and available edition of Melmoth the Wanderer, the contents of each tale is here given with the utmost brevity.

[127] Richter, p. 294; Scarborough p. 32.

[128] Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany 1821, vol. VIII p. 412.

[129] Edinburgh Review 1820, vol. XXXV p. 353.

[130] London Magazine 1821, vol. III p. 514.

[131] Planche, p. 54.

[132] Gunnar Bjurman, Edgar Allan Poe. En litteraturhistorisk studie, Lund 1916, pp. 207-208.

[133] Monthly Review 1821, vol. 94 p. 81.

[134] E. A. Baker, Introduction to The Monk of M. G. Lewis, London 1907, p. VIII.

[135] Melmoth the Wanderer 1892, p. LIX.

[136] Cardonneau is the name of the atheistic philosopher in Women.

[137] Müller, p. 91.

[138] The bitter irony with which the state of Europe is described in Melmoth’s discourse rather recalls also certain passages in Gulliver’s Travels (part II ch. VI; part IV ch. V-VII).

[139] Walter Raleigh, The English Novel, London 1907 (fifth ed.), p. 237.

[140] Dr John Anster’s excellent translations of the first part of Faust appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine in 1820, about the time when Maturin was finishing Melmoth the Wanderer. There is no evidence of Maturin’s having been able to read German, nor are there many allusions, in his writings, to German literature.—The points of contact with Faust are pointed out by Müller, pp. 98-99.

[141] In The Fortunes of Nigel (1822) the tale of Lady Hermione begins with this statement: ‘In Spain you may have heard how the Catholic priests, and particularly the monks, besiege the beds of the dying, to obtain bequests for the good of the Church’—which possibly is a hint from the Tale of Guzman’s Family.

[142] Blackwood’s Magazine 1820, vol. VIII p. 161.

[143] Both in the preface and in a marginal note Maturin states that The Lovers’ Tale is a record of actual experience, although he mentions no sources.

[144] Müller, p. 103.

[145] This resemblance has been pointed out already by the critic in the London Magazine 1821.

[146] Müller, p. 107.

[147] Introduction to Tales of Mystery (Mrs Radcliffe—Lewis—Maturin), edited by George Saintsbury, London 1891.

[148] Quarterly Review 1821, vol. XXIV p. 303.

[149] Poe, Introduction to Poems 1831 (Letter to Mr B——).

[150] Richter, p. 292.

[151] Charles Baudelaire, Oeuvres Complètes, Paris 1869, vol. II p. 366 foll.

[152] Lady Morgan’s Memoirs: Autobiography, Diaries and Correspondence, edited by W. H. Dixon, London 1862, vol. II p. 154.

[153] A. A. Watts, p. 297.

V.

[154] Notes and Queries 1874, vol. II p. 428; 1875 vol. III pp. 20, 172, 240, 280, 340.

[155] Lord John Russell, Memoir, Journal, and Correspondence of Thomas Moore, London 1860, p. 303.—In the first edition (1853) there is the following extract from the diary of Moore: Oct. 12:th, 1821,—‘Called on Mrs Smith; told me that the poem of The Universe is not Maturin’s, but a Mr. Wills’, who induced Maturin to lend his name to it by giving him the profit of the sale.’ The additional note in the second edition, which was included at the special request of Wills, is to the effect that it was Maturin who entreated Wills to allow him to publish the poem, as a production of his own.

[156] Dublin University Magazine, October 1875, p. 409.

[157] Whenever the skeleton of the work was composed, the transaction now in question must, if the record is at all to be relied upon, have taken place in the summer of 1821. Until September 1820 Maturin was closely occupied with Melmoth and could not have undertaken any other engagement, besides which it is evident from Moore’s diary that The Universe was published and brought under discussion in autumn 1821.

[158] Scots Magazine 1821, vol. IX p. 38.

[159] A fair specimen of the poetry of Wills is e. g. The Idolatress: and other Poems (1868). On the cover of this volume was advertised a new edition of The Universe, ‘with its true history,’ which however does not seem to have appeared.

[160] Dublin and London Magazine 1826.

[161] William John Fitzpatrick, Lady Morgan: her career, literary and personal, with a glimpse of her friends and a word to her calumniators, London 1860, p. 238.

[162] Lady Morgan’s Memoirs, vol. II p. 154. The anecdote is told by the editor, not by Lady Morgan.

[163] A. A. Watts, op. cit.

[164] A copy of this letter has kindly been communicated to me by Mr Daniel Edwards Kennedy, M. A., Chestnut Hill, Mass. U. S. A.

[165] New Monthly Magazine 1827.

[166] ibid.

[167] Cabinet of Irish Literature, vol. II p. 45.

[168] Gentleman’s Magazine 1825.

[169] Mangan, in The Irishman 1849.

[170] Westminster Review 1824, vol. I p. 550.

[171] William Everett, The Italian Poets since Dante, London 1905, p. 78. The writer is comparing the humour of Ariosto with that of Scott.

[172] Chapter XIV in The Abbot contains a description of a feast led by an ‘Abbot of Unreason,’ which description, however, is in quite a different style from that in The Albigenses.

[173] Scotch Magazine, and Edinburgh Literary Miscellany 1824, vol. XIV p. 209.

[174] Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 1824, vol. XV p. 192.

[175] Elton I. p. 219.

[176] In France, also, The Albigenses did not enjoy the same popularity as Maturin’s other works. It was translated in 1825, but Planche testifies that is ‘à peu près ignoré de ceux qui ne croient pas, avec Gray, que le paradis consiste dans un bon fauteuil et un roman pendant l’éternité.’ It ought to be mentioned, however, that one scene, in which lady Isabelle is lulled to sleep by the chant of her maidens, was paraphrased into French verse by Amable Tastu, under the name of La Chambre de la Chatelaine (Mme A. Tastu, Poésies complètes, Paris 1858, p. 78).

[177] Cyrus Redding, Yesterday and To-Day, London 1863, vol. III p. 53.

[178] Melmoth the Wanderer 1892, p. XXVII; Mangan also alludes to the circumstance.

[179] D. J. O’Donoghue, Sir Walter Scott’s Tour in Ireland, Dublin 1905, pp. 39, 57.

[180] It is generally maintained that Maturin’s unpublished manuscripts and his correspondence were destroyed by his son, the Rev. William Maturin, who disapproved of his father’s connection with the stage. This story has, as far as I know, never been definitely proved; it will be remembered that the writer in the Irish Quarterly Review was, in 1852, in a position to communicate several extracts from The Siege of Salerno, which he states to have been found among the manuscripts in question. That Maturin’s correspondence contained, as has sometimes been alleged, letters from Goethe and Balzac, I think very unlikely.—Another son, Edward Maturin, emigrated to America and subsequently published several romances both in prose and verse, which, however, do not evince any traces of his father’s genius.

[181] Maturin’s influence in France has been treated of in Charles Bonnier, Milieux d’Art, Liverpool 1910. This privately printed book I know only from a reference in Elton I p. 438. The points of contact between Balzac and Maturin are briefly mentioned in J. H. Retinger, Le conte fantastique dans le romantisme français, Paris 1909.

[182] Elton I p. 209.

[183] Life of Matthew Gregory Lewis (anonymous), London 1839, vol. II p. 140.

[184] The Irishman 1849.

Index.

Abbot, Scott’s, 304, note 172

Adelaide, or the Emigrants, Sheil’s, 100

Albigenses, Maturin’s, 84, 283-307

Alexander, Lee’s, 6

Anacreon, Moore’s, 49

Ancient Mariner, Coleridge’s, 3

Apostate, Sheil’s, 140, 179

Arabian Nights, 17

Austen, Jane, 268

Baillie, Joanna, 108

Balzac, Honoré de, 264, 311, note 180

Banim, John, 70

Baudelaire, Charles, 266, 311

Beckford, William, 13, 17

Belinda, Edgeworth’s, 49

Bertram, Maturin’s, 60, 101-103, 104, 107-124, 132, 133, 134, 139, 140, 142, 143, 173, 177, 211, 276, 277, 281, 309

Black Dwarf, Scott’s, 266

Bottle Imp, Stevenson’s, 264

Bride of Lammermoor, Scott’s, 91, 97-98

Brocas, 130

Brown, Charles Brockden, 21

Burns, Robert, 1

Byron, George Noel Gordon, Lord, 59, 101 foll., 109, 114 foll., 123, 132, 134, 135, 181, 280, 310

Caleb Williams, Godwin’s, 39, 40, 120, 184

Campbell, Thomas, 273

Carleton, William, 9, 63, 131

Cask of Amontillado, Poe’s, 224

Castle of Otranto, Walpole’s, 6, 17, 18

Castle Rackrent, Edgeworth’s, 9

Catalani, 10

Cenci, Shelley’s, 109

Champion of Virtue, Reeve’s, 18

Childe Harold, Byron’s, 3

Colburn, Henry, 66, 195, 272 foll.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 122-123, 143, 276

Collegians, Griffin’s, 69

Collins, William, 1

Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Hogg’s, 310

Constable, Archibald, 142

Corinne, Staël’s, 174

Corsair, Byron’s, 132

Cowper, William, 1

Crabbe, George, 132

Croker, John Wilson, 178, 267

Cymbeline, Shakespeare’s, 84

Dickens, Charles, 309

Don Quixote, Cervantes’s, 84

Edgeworth, Maria, 9, 49, 179, 180, 268

Emmet, Robert, 8

Essay de l’essence du rire, Baudelaire’s, 266

Fall of Robespierre, Coleridge’s, 123

Faust, Goethe’s, 249, 263, 265

Faustus, Marlowe’s, 262

Fielding, Henry, 7

Five Sermons on the Errors of the Roman Catholic Church, Maturin’s, 282-283

Fortunes of Nigel, Scott’s, note 141

France, Morgan’s, 277

Frankenstein, Mrs. Shelley’s, 229, 266

Fredolfo, Maturin’s, 180-195, 267, 276, 281

Geisterseher, Schiller’s, 37

Gifford, William, 140

Godwin, William, 6, 21, 33, 39, 40, 49, 120, 184, 199, 228, 230, 231, 251, 252, 310

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, 49, 59, 84, 124, 249, note 180

Goldsmith, Oliver, 108

Grattan, Henry, 8

Gray, Thomas, 1

Griffin, Gerald, 69

Gulliver’s Travels, Swift’s, note 138

Guy Mannering, Scott’s, 175, 304

Hamlet, Shakespeare’s, 124

Harrington, Edgeworth’s, 179

Haunted and the Haunters, Lytton’s, 212

Hazlitt, William, 309

Heart of Midlothian, Scott’s, 169

Historical Memoirs of the Irish Bards, Walker’s, 8

Hogg, James, 132, 310

Horace, 163

Hugo, Victor, 311

I promessi sposi, Manzoni’s, 213

Italian, Radcliffe’s, 37 foll., 230

Ivanhoe, Scott’s, 301, 302, 305

Juvenal, 163

Kean, Edmund, 102-103, 109, 118, 133, 134, 137, 279, 280

Kemble, Charles, 193

——, John, 101

Kerr, 7

King Lear, Shakespeare’s, 134

Kingsbury, Henrietta, see Maturin

Kotzebue, August von, 108

Lalla Rookh, Moore’s, 135

Lara, Byron’s, 132

Lawless, Emily, 91

Lee, Nathaniel, 6

Lenore, Bürger’s, 246

Lever, Charles, 63, 98-99

Lewis, Matthew Gregory, 6, 13, 18, 19, 21, 38, 96, 135, 228 foll., 284, 310

Lover, Samuel, 63

Lytton, Edward Bulwer, 212

Macbeth, Shakespeare’s, 124

Macready, 193

Maelcho, Lawless’s, 91

Mangan, James Clarence, 43, 100, 128, 307

Manuel, Maturin’s, 134, 135-140, 195, 267, 310

Manzoni, Alessandro, 213, 214

Marlowe, Christopher, 262

Maturin, Alicia, note 8

——, Edward, note 180

——, Emma, note 8

——, Fidelia, 5

——, Fidelia, note 8

——, Gabriel, 3-5

——, Gabriel James, 5

——, Henrietta, 9, 10, 278

——, Henry, note 8

——, Pierre, 5

——, William, 5, 11, 12, 65, 66

——, William, note 8

——, William Basil, 46, note 180

Melmoth Reconcilié, Balzac’s, 264

Melmoth the Wanderer, Maturin’s, 12, 16, 21, 57, 70, 119, 152, 179, 195, 196-270, 276, 279, 293, 309, 310

Milesian Chief, Maturin’s, 66-100, 158, 174, 293, 296, 310

Milton, John, 199, 273

Moira, Lord, 46

Monastery, Scott’s, 84, 301, 303

Monk, Lewis’s, 6, 18, 38, 40 foll., 228 foll., 262

Montorio, Maturin’s, 13, 14-45, 46, 65, 66, 94, 95, 106, 114, 132, 184, 200, 207, 213, 228, 229, 263, 265, 269, 296, 301, 309, 310

Moore, John, 17

——, Thomas, 49, 102, 132, 272, 274

More, Hannah, 121, 122

Morgan, Charles, 274, 277 foll., 308

——, Lady (Sydney Owenson), 8, 46, 63, 95, 97, 178, 180, 274, 277 foll.

Murphy, Dennis Jasper (C. R. Maturin), 14, 45

Murray, John, 102, 104, 123, 125, 126, 134, 135, 142, 179, 181

Night Thoughts, Young’s, 3

Nodier, Charles, 119

O’Donnel, Morgan’s, 277

O’Donoghue, Lever’s, 98-99

Old English Baron, Reeve’s, 18

Old Mortality, Scott’s, 301, 306

O’Neill, Miss, 100, 140, 193

Ormond, Edgeworth’s, 179, 180

Osmyn, see Siege of Salerno

Ossian, 1, 242

Othello, Shakespeare’s, 43

Otway, Thomas, 6

Owenson, Sydney, see Morgan

Paul et Virginie, Saint-Pierre’s, 242

Percy, More’s, 121

Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde’s, 212

Pirate, Scott’s, 304

Poe, Edgar Allan, 21, 224, 264, 311

Polidori, John William, 199

Pope, Alexander, 132, 164

Quentin Durward, Scott’s, 296, 301

Radcliffe, Ann, 6, 19, 21, 33, 37 foll., 42, 91, 94, 96, 164, 228, 230, 283, 301

Räuber, Schiller’s, 120-121

Reeve, Clara, 18

Revenge, Young’s, 43

Richard III, Shakespeare’s, 192-193, 305

Richardson, Samuel, 7, 91

Rob Roy, Scott’s, 193

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 311

Rousseau, Jean Jaques, 48, 49, 59, 237, 242

Russell, John, Lord, 272

St. Leon, Godwin’s, 6, 21, 199, 230, 231, 251, 266

Saint-Pierre, Bernardin de, 237

Schiller, Friedrich, 37, 120-121

Scott, Walter, 18, 19, 33, 45, 66, 90, 91, 96 foll., 101 foll., 113 foll., 121, 132, 133, 135, 143, 151, 156, 164, 165, 177, 193, 214, 268, 273, 283, 295, 301 foll., 308, 310

Sermons, Maturin’s, 195-196

Shakespeare, William, 6, 83, 103, 108, 121, 230, 305

Shea, John, 104-105

Sheil, Richard Lalor, 100, 101, 140, 179, 180

Shelley, Mary, 229

——, Percy Bysshe, 16

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 108

Siddons, Mrs., 103

Siege of Corinth, Byron’s, 280

Siege of Salerno, Maturin’s, 280-281

Smith, Mrs., 274

Smollett, Tobias, 7

Somerville, Miss, 103

Southerne, Thomas, 6

Southey, Robert, 49

Staël, Madame de, 173 foll.

Sterne, Laurence, 11

Stevenson, Robert Louis, 264, 311

Swift, Jonathan, 5, 10, 11

Tastu, Amable, note 176

Tempest, Shakespeare’s, 121

Terry, Daniel, 101

Thackeray, William Makepeace, 311

Thomson, James, 1

Tintern Abbey, Wordsworth’s, 3

Universe, Maturin’s, 271-276, 279

Vampyre, Polidori’s, 199

Vathek, Beckford’s, 17

Venice Preserved, Otway’s, 6

Vigny, Alfred de, 311

Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, 311

Voltaire, 48

Walker, Joseph Cooper, 8, 64

Walpole, Horace, 6, 17 foll.

Ware, James, 64

Waterloo, Maturin’s, 104-106, 271

Watson, Fidelia, see Maturin

Watts, Alaric, 13, 65, 139, 170, 174, 181, 192 foll., 267, 280

Werther, Goethe’s, 49

West, B., 267

Wild Irish Boy, Maturin’s, 46-64, 65, 67, 73, 91, 95, 158, 173, 263

Wild Irish Girl, Morgan’s, 46, 63, 64, 95, 96, 277

Wilde, Oscar, 212, 311

Wills, James, 271-276

Wollstonecraft, Mary, 49, 59

Women, Maturin’s, 9, 15, 57, 61, 142-179, 181, 203, 236, 240, 248, 259, 267, 279, 293, 303, 309, 310

Yates, 193, 194

Young, 193

——, Arthur, 64

——, Edward, 43

Zastrozzi, Shelley’s, 16

Zeluco, John Moore’s, 17

Transcriber’s Note

While original copyright information has been retained, this book is in the public domain in the country of publication.

Obvious printer’s errors have been silently corrected; otherwise, as far as possible, original spelling and punctuation has been retained.

Notes have been renumbered sequentially, and references from the index edited to match.