Chapter V (13)

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.