Chapter V (4)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

Endymion wept.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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