Chapter V (8)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

He was his country’s idol--Switzerland,
Through all her rescued cantons, blessed her champion;
For, when he sat in council, from his head
Sprang Liberty, a living goddess arm’d!
Nor lack’d his hand the thunder to defend her.--

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

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

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

_Fred._ -- -- --
What scowl’st thou on, with thy portentous smile,
Passing like lightning, o’er thy stormy visage?
It is some evil, or thou could’st not smile!

_Bert._ (_with bitter irony._)
I mark with awe the patriot’s private moments;
These are thy triumphs, Virtue, view, and boast them!
(_suddenly changing._)
Oh! what a fool is the brute multitude,
To shout “a God!” before this hollow image!
Ha! ha! ha! things are well balanced here;--
The evening’s groan repays the morning’s boast.
Vice were too humble, but for scenes like these,
And hopeless Villainy, lacking such solace,
Would turn an anchorite for very sadness!

_Fred._ Thou tool of wrath, which, while I grasp, I shudder,
Though one wild moment’s sudden agony
Made me a fiend, I am a man again.--
I would not harm that youth for many worlds;
Go, and release the prisoner.

_Bert._ (_Drawing his dagger, and pointing to it with a significant
gesture._)
Thus, perchance?--

_Fred._ (_giving him a key._)
No, villain, thus--bid him be free, and live!
Bid, him, if possible, forget--if not,
Let him revenge--I’m weary of the struggle!--

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

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

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

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

_Uril._ -- -- -- --
He comes! oh, God! it cannot, cannot be!--
And does he dare amid these walls to seek me?
For me he trembled--for himself he fears not.
(_Rushing up to him._)
Away! away! thou must not enter here!
There is a voice from out these walls forbids thee!--
My father hates thee, tracks thy hunted steps--
(_Relaxing from fear into tenderness, and falling into his arms._)
Adelmar, art thou here?--and was it thou?

_Adel._ Yes; Adelmar, the unowned, the wanderer.
The stranger--almost to himself unknown;
He, o’er whom midnight murder darkly watches,
He, who on unseen daggers plants his steps,
And tramples them to clasp thee:--Yes, I follow’d thee
O’er the dark mountains--through the night I follow’d;--
The spirits of the tempest raised their arms
To snatch thee, and I grappled with their might,--
Wrestled with them in darkness, and o’ercame them.
Bright star, emerging sole on my fate’s blackness,
Shed thy last light on me! (_kneeling_) ’twill be the last!
-- -- -- -- --
-- -- -- -- --

_Adel._ (_solemnly._) I am the child of woe,
Of persecution, and of mystery;
Fredolfo’s name--the name his country worships--
Rung in my infant dreams.--I was a boy,
Wild and imaginative, full of thoughts
That mountain-spirits to their children whisper,
I might have been a hero!

_Uril._ Might have been! Thou art!

_Adel._ I should have been, but for thy father!
A peasant child, amid the mountain steeps,
St. Gothard’s heights I wander’d--the storm’s shrieks
I heard, and echoed in wild fearless mirth,
Like children, who in awful ignorance sport;--
There came another shriek,--a shriek of murder!

(_Urilda shudders._)

_Uril._ (_starting and agitated._)
Murder! but, then, my father was not there,--
Or was there--but to save?

_Adel._ I will not speak--
Dark thoughts come thronging with that night’s remembrance.
Twice, twice, with horrible strength the voice shrieked murder!
I flew in madness there.--Amid the night
Darkly I grappled with two shadowy forms,
Beneath whose gripe a struggling warrior heaved,
Then lay a corse.--I had no arms.--
-- -- -- -- -- --
-- -- -- -- -- --

_Adel._ Time pass’d as in dream, and oft I thought
That the dead warrior in his mountain grave
Slept unremember’d--then, by ruffian hands
Dragg’d from my hut, all tremblingly I follow’d--
Far in a sea-toss’d bark the ruffians bore me;--
A voice was in the wind, that swell’d the sails,--
That charm’d them ne’er to let their freight return!

_Uril._ A voice!--what voice?

_Adel._ I know not;--but I cried,
Who tears a freeman from his mountain-home?
Who rends the child his country cannot spare
From her spread arms? The answer was,--Fredolfo!

_Uril._ (_shrieking with amazement._) Impossible!

_Adel._ _I_ cried, ‘impossible.’
Years, mournful years, in a strange land were wasted,
Wasted to me--the land was beautiful--
Fair rose the spires, and gay the buildings were,
And rich the plains, like dreams of blessed isles;
But, when I heard my country’s music breathe,
I sigh’d to be among her wilds again!
I climb’d a bark’s tall side--an arm grasp’d mine--
Struggling, I turn’d, and ask’d who dared withhold me?
A dark-eyed ruffian answer’d,--’twas Fredolfo!
-- -- -- -- --

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

She comes with all that shrinking bashfulness,
The eloquence of motion, mute, but felt.
The air around her breathes of purity;
And, as she moves, her equal tread’s fine impulse
Falls on the ear like harmony;--the light
That gleams on her fair locks and slender form
Crowns them with hallowed glory, like some vision
To saintly eyes reveal’d!--She is a thing
To knee and worship. Beauty hath no lustre,
Save when it gleameth through the crystal web
That Purity’s fine fingers weave for it;
And then it shows like Venus from the wave,
The fresh drops clinging to her beauty still!--

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

Fredolfo, hear me!--Friend, or foe, I reck not--
Spite of the pride that burns upon my cheek.
Spite of the blood, whose cold recoiling drops
Refuse to flow ere they would mix with thine;
Spite of our nations, natures, hearts averse,
Of all that makes me shudder while I sue,--
I claim thy daughter’s hand!

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

I could rend out the veins that throb for her;--
I could on mine own heart fix suicide’s fangs,
So they defaced that form it dares to cherish!

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

Oh! it renews the heart to gaze oh thee!
Thou thing of power, that hast not life, but givest it:--
Thou beautous even in death--making death beautous!
Those softly closed lids, in whose rich veil
The unseen light dwells lovely,--the wan cheek,
Amid whose pallid bower death weds with beauty;
The faintly-falling arms, the woe-bent head--
Oh! still be thus! Oh, yes, be ever thus!--
While thus I see thee calm, I deem thee kind.
Those eyes will ope--to turn their light from me;
Those arms will wave, to chide me with their softness;
And, oh! that lip,--that rubied cup of bliss,
That flows with joy for all, pour hate on me!

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

I could, such is my heart’s o’erflowing spleen
To all that loved, and lovely are--methinks,
I could, even with a look,--as thus--dart through him
The basilisk’s eye-fang--dying on the throe,

lead (_mutatis mutandis_) back to the opening monologue of Richard III:

I, that am rudely stamped, and want love’s majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;--
-- -- -- -- --
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain -- -- -- --

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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