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
Rev^d 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, 321 _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_ 38

  _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_ 128

  _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, 313, _note_ 8

  ----, Pierre, 5

  ----, William, 5, 11, 12, 65, 66

  ----, William, 313, _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, 321 _note_ 23

  _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


In this file, text in _italics_ is indicated by underscores.

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.