Charles Robert Maturin: His Life and Works by Niilo Idman - HTML preview

 

Notes.

The references to pages after names of reviews and magazines indicate the page on which the respective article begins.

I.

[1] Henry A. Beers, A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century, London 1899, p. 222.

[2] William Monck Mason, The History and Antiquities of the Collegiate and Cathedral Church of St. Patrick, Dublin 1820, note p. 445.

[3] Registers of the French Conformed Churches of St. Patrick and St. Mary, Dublin, edited by J. J. Digges La Touche, Dublin 1893 (Publications of the Huguenot Society of London, vol. VII).

[4] Mason, p. 445; Henry Cotton, Fasti Ecclesiae Hibernicae, Dublin 1848, vol. II p. 105.

[5] Two Centuries of Irish History 1691-1870, edited by R. Barry O’Brien, London 1907, p. 98.

[6] In all notes and biographies the year of Maturin’s birth is given as 1782, which is probably founded upon an indirect statement made by himself in the preface to his first romance Montorio, dated December 15, 1806, where he says that he is twenty-four years of age. Yet in the Matriculation Book of Trinity College, as may still be seen, his entrance is marked in 1795 and his age given as fifteen, whence it would appear that he was born in 1780. It has also been communicated to me that in a pedigree of the family, issued by Sir William Betham, Ulster King-at-Arms, in 1845, it is stated that C. R. M. was born in 1780.

[7] New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal 1827, vol. XIX pp. 401, 570; vol. XX pp. 146, 370.

[8] According to a family pedigree, particulars of which have kindly been communicated to me by Miss Sybil Maturin, he had two brothers: William and Henry, and three sisters: Fidelia, Emma, and Alicia.—It is said in an article in Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine (1846, vol. III p. 125), with reference to Maturin’s early love of the stage, that ‘no similar abilities, however, were shown by his brothers, whose lots in life were very different;’ whereas the writer in the New Monthly Magazine 1827, who also claims to have been an intimate friend of Charles Robert Maturin, maintains that the latter was the ‘only child of many who lived beyond the term of boyhood’—which goes to show that the information furnished by the Magazines is, in general, to be taken with some reserve.

[9] New Monthly Magazine 1827.

[10] British Review 1818, vol. XI p. 37; an article written by Maturin.

[11] ibid.

[12] New Monthly Magazine, or Universal Register 1819, vol. XI p. 165; an article, on Maturin, by Alaric Watts.

[13] ‘W,’ Ireland Sixty Years ago, Dublin 1851, p. 86 (3:rd ed.).

[14] The Life of William Carleton: being his autobiography and letters; and an account of his life and writings, from the point at which the autobiography breaks off, by D. J. O’Donoghue, Dublin 1896, p. 194.

[15] Irish Quarterly Review, March 1852, p. 140; New Monthly Magazine 1827.

[16] ‘License was granted — — — to solemnize marriage between the Revd Charles Robert Maturin of Camden Street — — — & Henrietta Kingsberry — — — dated October the 7:th 1803.’

[17] Cumberland’s British Theatre, with remarks, biographical and critical, by D.-G., London 18(?), vol. XLIII; cf. also Charles A. Read, The Cabinet of Irish Literature (new edition by Katharine Tynan Hinkson), London 1909, vol. II p. 44.

[18] Letter in the British Museum MS collections.

[19] That Maturin’s stay in Loughrea was but of short duration is proved by the absence of all references to him in the parish register—a fact of which I have kindly been informed by the Rev. Canon Eccles.

[20] Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine 1846; the writer adds that Maturin ‘was an enthusiastic lover of antiquity, and had a strange passion for exploring old and desolate houses; in so much so, that when I have been walking with him through some decayed parts of the city, if any house particularly attracted him, about which he imagined some history to attach, or fancied it had an air of mystery, he would knock at the door, and find some excuse for examining the interior.’

[21] ibid.

[22] In the Irish Quarterly Review 1852, and elsewhere, Maturin’s residence is given as 41 York Street; but in all letters of Maturin which I have seen and where he mentions the number at all, he writes 37 York Street.

II.

[23] Irish Quarterly Review 1852.

[24] Dublin and London Magazine 1826, p. 248.

[25] The Gothic Romance has been a subject for thorough investigation on the part of German scholars. There is an extensive study of it in Helene Richter, Geschichte der Englischen Romantik, Halle 1911, vol. I pp. 160-300 (Die Schauerromantik), as well as in Wilhelm Dibelius, Englische Romankunst, Berlin und Leipzig 1922, pp. 285-346 (Der Sensationsroman). Maturin’s connection with the movement is treated of in Willy Müller, Charles Robert Maturin’s Romane “The fatal Revenge” und “Melmoth the Wanderer.” Ein Beitrag zur Gothic Romance, Weida 1908—and the work of Walpole, Clara Reeve and Mrs Radcliffe in Hans Möbius, The Gothic Romance, Leipzig 1902. Of recent English publications three must be particularly mentioned: Oliver Elton, A Survey of English Literature 1780-1830, London 1912, vol. I pp. 202-226 (The Novel of Suspense); the Cambridge History of English Literature 1914, vol. XI pp. 285-310 (by G. Saintsbury); and Dorothy Scarborough, The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction, New York and London 1917 (chapter I: The Gothic Romance).

[26] Richter, p. 164.

[27] ibid. p. 161.

[28] Scott, Introduction to the Castle of Otranto, prefixed to the edition in the Kings Classics, edited by Professor I. Gollancz, London 1907.

[29] ibid.

[30] British Review 1818.

[31] The Cabinet of Irish Literature, vol. II p. 44.

[32] James Wills, Lives of illustrious and distinguished Irishmen, Dublin, Edinburgh and London 1847, vol. VI p. 453.

[33] Quarterly Review 1810, vol. III p. 339; a critique, by Scott, of Montorio; cf. also introduction to the Castle of Otranto.

[34] Melmoth the Wanderer, London 1892, vol. I p. LVIII (a note on Charles Robert Maturin, by the editors).

[35] Müller, p. 40.

[36] British Review 1818.

[37] Richter, p. 167.

[38] Müller, p. 29.

[39] The Irishman March 24, 1849; an article, on Maturin, by James Clarence Mangan.

[40] Richard Sinclair Brooke, Recollections of the Irish Church, London 1877, p. 6.

[41] Irish Quarterly Review 1852.

[42] Francis Rawdon, Earl of Moira, afterwards Marquis of Hastings (1754-1826) had, in 1797-98, appeared as a defender of Irish rights before the House of Lords, and become a subject for the gratitude of Irish patriots; Moore had, in 1806, dedicated to him his volume of Epistles, Odes, and other Poems.

[43] British Review 1818.

[44] Melmoth the Wanderer 1892, p. LVI.

[45] Richter, p. 288.

[46] Don Juan, canto XV.

[47] Melmoth the Wanderer 1892, p. XXXIII.

[48] According to a popular tradition, Ireland was, in the dawn of history, invaded by a colony of Milesians, coming from Spain, but being originally of Phoenician descent. Hence the lineal descendants of the great and old, purely Irish families, were all called Milesians, though the island was, from earliest times, inhabited by different races, of which the invaders came to form but one; cf. George Sigerson, Bards of the Gael and Gall, London 1907, p. 377.

[49] Irish Quarterly Review 1852.

[50] New Monthly Magazine 1827.

[51] The writer in Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine 1846 says that ‘Maturin from the first knew him (Scott) to be the author of “The Waverley Novels,” from a letter which he received shortly after the publication of one of them, containing a peculiar Scotch proverb which Sir Walter had put into the mouth of one of his characters—“We keep our own fish-guts for our own sea-maws.”’—I regret not to have had the opportunity of seeing Maturin’s letters to Scott, which are still said to be in the Abbotsford archives.

[52] New Monthly Magazine 1827.

[53] D. J. O’Donoghue, Life of James Clarence Mangan, Dublin 1897.

[54] Richter, p. 291.

[55] Müller, p. 93.

[56] T. N. Talfourd, Critical and Miscellaneous Writings, Philadelphia 1848, vol. VII p. 18.

[57] Melmoth the Wanderer 1892, p. XXXIV.

[58] Edmund Downey, Charles Lever, His Life in his Letters, London 1906, vol. II p. 370.

[59] O’Donoghue, Life of Mangan, p. 145.

[60] In 1814 appeared a second edition of The Wild Irish Boy, but Maturin evidently received nothing for it, as he appears to have been ignorant of its publication: in the preface to Women (1818) he states that none of his former novels have been reprinted.

[61] J. Lockhart, Life of Sir Walter Scott, Edinburgh 1837, vol. III p. 312.

[62] Thomas Moore, Life of Lord Byron, London 1851, p. 287.

[63] ibid.

[64] Samuel Smiles, A Publisher and his Friends. Memoirs and correspondence of the Late John Murray, with an account of the origin and progress of the house, 1768-1843, London 1891, vol. I p. 288.

[65] Moore, p. 347.

[66] Barry Cornwall, Life of Edmund Kean, London 1835, vol. I p. 152.

[67] The name is spelled Shee on the title-page of the little volume in which the poem was published.

III.

[68] Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. XI p. 257.

[69] Quarterly Review 1817, vol. XVII p. 248; a critique, by Maturin, of Sheil’s Apostate.

[70] Elton II, p. 310.

[71] New Monthly Magazine and Universal Register 1816, vol. V p. 451.

[72] Edinburgh Review 1818, vol. XXX p. 234; a critique, by Scott, of Maturin’s Women.

[73] In his letter to Terry, alluded to above, Scott says that Maturin ‘had our old friend Satan (none of your sneaking St. John Street devils, but the archfiend himself) brought on the stage bodily. I believe I have exorcised the foul fiend, for, though in reading he was a most terrible fellow, I feared for his reception in public.’ In the passage however which he quotes, the demon is only described by Bertram, and it is just this description whose beauty Scott, in his article in the Quarterly Review, is commending. The letter was apparently composed in a moment of absent-mindedness.

[74] Melmoth the Wanderer 1892, p. LIII.

[75] Elton I, p. 218.

[76] British Review 1816, vol. VIII p. 64.

[77] Monthly Review 1816, vol. 80 p. 179.

[78] Eclectic Review 1816, vol. VI p. 379.

[79] New Monthly Magazine 1827.

[80] Bertram, ou le Château de St. Aldobrand, tragédie en cinque actes traduite librement de l’Anglais, par M. M. Taylor et Charles Nodier, Paris 1821. The quoted sentence is from the preface by the translators.

[81] Gustave Planche, Portraits Littéraires, Paris 1836, p. 33 foll.

[82] Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. XI p. 273.

[83] Irish Quarterly Review 1852; cf. also Melmoth the Wanderer 1892, pp. XVI-XVII.

[84] In Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine; the article is reprinted in Biographia Literaria, Oxford 1907, vol. II p. 193 foll.

[85] Moore, p. 367.

[86] Coleridge’s irritation at the play may have been partly due to the above-mentioned article in the British Review, which presents a critique at once upon Christabel and Bertram and comes to the conclusion that ‘the poem which has been denominated (by Lord Byron) “wild and singularly original and beautiful” is, in our judgment, a weak and singularly nonsensical and affected performance; but the play of Bertram is a production of undoubted genius.’

[87] Goethe-Jahrbuch 1891, vol. XII p. 23; quoted by Richter, p. 299.

[88] John Genest, Some account of the English Stage from the Restoration in 1660 to 1830, Bath 1832, vol. VIII p. 534.

[89] Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine 1846.

[90] New Monthly Magazine 1827.

[91] The Irishman 1849.

[92] Gentleman’s Magazine 1825, vol. I p. 84.

[93] Dublin and London Magazine 1826.

[94] Life of Carleton, vol. I p. 226.

[95] Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine 1846.

[96] New Monthly Magazine 1827.

[97] Smiles, p. 295.

[98] Moore, p. 358.

[99] ibid., p. 362.

[100] New Monthly Magazine or Universal Register 1819.

[101] Monthly Review 1817, vol. 83 p. 391.

[102] Smiles, p. 293.

[103] W. Torrens McCullagh, Memoirs of the Rt. Hon. Richard Lalor Sheil, London 1855, p. 95.

IV.

[104] Lockhart, Life of Scott, vol. V; the letter is reprinted in the Irish Quarterly Review 1852 and in Melmoth the Wanderer 1892, pp. XVIII-XXI.

[105] London Magazine 1821, vol. III p. 96.

[106] It may be mentioned that the writer in Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine 1846 recollects Maturin ‘once arguing that suicide was not positively and expressly condemned in any passage of Scripture, and declaring that he conceived to pass away from the sorrows of earth to the peace of eternity by reposing on a bed of eastern poppy flowers, where sleep is death, would be the most enviable mode of earthly exit.’

[107] Francis Hovey Stoddard, The Evolution of the English Novel, New York 1913, p. 11.

[108] Allan Cunningham, Biographical and Critical History of the British Literature of the last fifty years, Paris 1834, p. 403 foll.

[109] Monthly Review 1818, vol. 86 p. 403.

[110] Quarterly Review 1818, vol. XIX p. 321.

[111] Alaric Alfred Watts, Life of (his father) Alaric Watts, London 1884, vol. I p. 62 foll.

[112] Talfourd, op. cit.

[113] Melmoth the Wanderer 1892, p. XXXIX.

[114] A. A. Watts, op. cit.

[115] ibid.

[116] New Monthly Magazine or Universal Register 1819, vol. XI p. 236 foll.

[117] New Monthly Magazine 1827.

[118] Scots Magazine 1820, vol. VII p. 21.

[119] Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. XI p. 305.

[120] Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine 1846.

[121] This preface is, strangely enough, not reprinted in the 1892 edition.

[122] Elton I, p. 219.

[123] Müller, p. 70.

[124] Die Rosenkreutzer formed a secret society founded in Germany in the 17:th century. Confessedly they aimed at bringing about certain reforms in Church and State, but the mystery in which they were shrouded gave rise, later, to the popular belief that they were chiefly occupied in alchemical pursuits. Among English writers interested in the ‘Rosecrucian idea’ were Godwin (St. Leon), Shelley (St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian, 1811), and Mary Shelley (Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818).

[125] This story was published under the name of Lord Byron, who is said to have invented the idea.

[126] There existing a comparatively new and available edition of Melmoth the Wanderer, the contents of each tale is here given with the utmost brevity.

[127] Richter, p. 294; Scarborough p. 32.

[128] Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany 1821, vol. VIII p. 412.

[129] Edinburgh Review 1820, vol. XXXV p. 353.

[130] London Magazine 1821, vol. III p. 514.

[131] Planche, p. 54.

[132] Gunnar Bjurman, Edgar Allan Poe. En litteraturhistorisk studie, Lund 1916, pp. 207-208.

[133] Monthly Review 1821, vol. 94 p. 81.

[134] E. A. Baker, Introduction to The Monk of M. G. Lewis, London 1907, p. VIII.

[135] Melmoth the Wanderer 1892, p. LIX.

[136] Cardonneau is the name of the atheistic philosopher in Women.

[137] Müller, p. 91.

[138] The bitter irony with which the state of Europe is described in Melmoth’s discourse rather recalls also certain passages in Gulliver’s Travels (part II ch. VI; part IV ch. V-VII).

[139] Walter Raleigh, The English Novel, London 1907 (fifth ed.), p. 237.

[140] Dr John Anster’s excellent translations of the first part of Faust appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine in 1820, about the time when Maturin was finishing Melmoth the Wanderer. There is no evidence of Maturin’s having been able to read German, nor are there many allusions, in his writings, to German literature.—The points of contact with Faust are pointed out by Müller, pp. 98-99.

[141] In The Fortunes of Nigel (1822) the tale of Lady Hermione begins with this statement: ‘In Spain you may have heard how the Catholic priests, and particularly the monks, besiege the beds of the dying, to obtain bequests for the good of the Church’—which possibly is a hint from the Tale of Guzman’s Family.

[142] Blackwood’s Magazine 1820, vol. VIII p. 161.

[143] Both in the preface and in a marginal note Maturin states that The Lovers’ Tale is a record of actual experience, although he mentions no sources.

[144] Müller, p. 103.

[145] This resemblance has been pointed out already by the critic in the London Magazine 1821.

[146] Müller, p. 107.

[147] Introduction to Tales of Mystery (Mrs Radcliffe—Lewis—Maturin), edited by George Saintsbury, London 1891.

[148] Quarterly Review 1821, vol. XXIV p. 303.

[149] Poe, Introduction to Poems 1831 (Letter to Mr B——).

[150] Richter, p. 292.

[151] Charles Baudelaire, Oeuvres Complètes, Paris 1869, vol. II p. 366 foll.

[152] Lady Morgan’s Memoirs: Autobiography, Diaries and Correspondence, edited by W. H. Dixon, London 1862, vol. II p. 154.

[153] A. A. Watts, p. 297.

V.

[154] Notes and Queries 1874, vol. II p. 428; 1875 vol. III pp. 20, 172, 240, 280, 340.

[155] Lord John Russell, Memoir, Journal, and Correspondence of Thomas Moore, London 1860, p. 303.—In the first edition (1853) there is the following extract from the diary of Moore: Oct. 12:th, 1821,—‘Called on Mrs Smith; told me that the poem of The Universe is not Maturin’s, but a Mr. Wills’, who induced Maturin to lend his name to it by giving him the profit of the sale.’ The additional note in the second edition, which was included at the special request of Wills, is to the effect that it was Maturin who entreated Wills to allow him to publish the poem, as a production of his own.

[156] Dublin University Magazine, October 1875, p. 409.

[157] Whenever the skeleton of the work was composed, the transaction now in question must, if the record is at all to be relied upon, have taken place in the summer of 1821. Until September 1820 Maturin was closely occupied with Melmoth and could not have undertaken any other engagement, besides which it is evident from Moore’s diary that The Universe was published and brought under discussion in autumn 1821.

[158] Scots Magazine 1821, vol. IX p. 38.

[159] A fair specimen of the poetry of Wills is e. g. The Idolatress: and other Poems (1868). On the cover of this volume was advertised a new edition of The Universe, ‘with its true history,’ which however does not seem to have appeared.

[160] Dublin and London Magazine 1826.

[161] William John Fitzpatrick, Lady Morgan: her career, literary and personal, with a glimpse of her friends and a word to her calumniators, London 1860, p. 238.

[162] Lady Morgan’s Memoirs, vol. II p. 154. The anecdote is told by the editor, not by Lady Morgan.

[163] A. A. Watts, op. cit.

[164] A copy of this letter has kindly been communicated to me by Mr Daniel Edwards Kennedy, M. A., Chestnut Hill, Mass. U. S. A.

[165] New Monthly Magazine 1827.

[166] ibid.

[167] Cabinet of Irish Literature, vol. II p. 45.

[168] Gentleman’s Magazine 1825.

[169] Mangan, in The Irishman 1849.

[170] Westminster Review 1824, vol. I p. 550.

[171] William Everett, The Italian Poets since Dante, London 1905, p. 78. The writer is comparing the humour of Ariosto with that of Scott.

[172] Chapter XIV in The Abbot contains a description of a feast led by an ‘Abbot of Unreason,’ which description, however, is in quite a different style from that in The Albigenses.

[173] Scotch Magazine, and Edinburgh Literary Miscellany 1824, vol. XIV p. 209.

[174] Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 1824, vol. XV p. 192.

[175] Elton I. p. 219.

[176] In France, also, The Albigenses did not enjoy the same popularity as Maturin’s other works. It was translated in 1825, but Planche testifies that is ‘à peu près ignoré de ceux qui ne croient pas, avec Gray, que le paradis consiste dans un bon fauteuil et un roman pendant l’éternité.’ It ought to be mentioned, however, that one scene, in which lady Isabelle is lulled to sleep by the chant of her maidens, was paraphrased into French verse by Amable Tastu, under the name of La Chambre de la Chatelaine (Mme A. Tastu, Poésies complètes, Paris 1858, p. 78).

[177] Cyrus Redding, Yesterday and To-Day, London 1863, vol. III p. 53.

[178] Melmoth the Wanderer 1892, p. XXVII; Mangan also alludes to the circumstance.

[179] D. J. O’Donoghue, Sir Walter Scott’s Tour in Ireland, Dublin 1905, pp. 39, 57.

[180] It is generally maintained that Maturin’s unpublished manuscripts and his correspondence were destroyed by his son, the Rev. William Maturin, who disapproved of his father’s connection with the stage. This story has, as far as I know, never been definitely proved; it will be remembered that the writer in the Irish Quarterly Review was, in 1852, in a position to communicate several extracts from The Siege of Salerno, which he states to have been found among the manuscripts in question. That Maturin’s correspondence contained, as has sometimes been alleged, letters from Goethe and Balzac, I think very unlikely.—Another son, Edward Maturin, emigrated to America and subsequently published several romances both in prose and verse, which, however, do not evince any traces of his father’s genius.

[181] Maturin’s influence in France has been treated of in Charles Bonnier, Milieux d’Art, Liverpool 1910. This privately printed book I know only from a reference in Elton I p. 438. The points of contact between Balzac and Maturin are briefly mentioned in J. H. Retinger, Le conte fantastique dans le romantisme français, Paris 1909.

[182] Elton I p. 209.

[183] Life of Matthew Gregory Lewis (anonymous), London 1839, vol. II p. 140.

[184] The Irishman 1849.