Chapter V (1)

_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Morgans; _Siege of Salerno_ and other unpublished productions;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.--