1816-1817.
’Tis true, said I, not void of hopes I came,
For who so fond as youthful bards of fame?
But few, alas! the casual blessing boast,
So hard to gain, so easy to be lost.
Pope.
On the 9:th of May 1816 Maturin’s Bertram, or the Castle of St. Aldobrand had its first performance at Drury Lane and ran, under general acclamation, for twenty two nights in succession.
With similar distinctions, however, were then received a great many other plays, nowadays equally unknown and obscure. The disproportion between the enduring merits of a literary production and the admiration lavished upon it by its contemporaries was, at the time in question, most conspicuous in the field of the drama. The history of the whole 18:th century drama in England is, with a few brilliant exceptions, a history of decay. From the shock that the drama had suffered at the triumph of Puritanism in the preceding century it recovered but slowly, and in the meantime the cultivated public was strongly decided in favour of the novel; while an undreamed revival was taking place within the last-named branch of literature, the theatre long remained a meeting-place of ordinary pleasure-hunters. Even the advance of the actor was injurious to the drama, the excellence of the acting offering ample excuse for the inferiority of what was acted.[68] Yet the English drama of the latter 18:th century, viewed in broad outlines, followed the fiction. The spectator is taken into scenes of domestic life where the absence of the grander elements of tragedy is compensated with tender and always well-bred sentimentality. Out of this milieu, but under the freshening influence of classical comedy, there arose the dramatic masterpieces of the age, the comedies of Sheridan and Goldsmith.
The romantic drama which came after the sentimental, displays a spectacle still more unexhilarating. The fascination exercised by Shakespeare upon the young romantic movement bore fruit in the interpretations of great actors and, a little later, in the enthusiastic comments of eminent critics; but the playwrights could do nothing with a model that admitted neither approach nor imitation. This was realized by some of the dramatists themselves. Maturin wrote,[69] with reference to the sorry state of the English drama, which he calls a phenomenon unparalleled in the history of literature:
While in every other department of literature, all means have been employed to excite and to satiate the appetite for novelty; while history, philosophy, and theology have contributed to enrich and diversify poetry, while it has sought to interest us not only by painting man in every situation in which he has yet been discovered, but in situations in which the vivid creations of fancy alone could give a habitation and a name, while the passions have been depicted not only in their visible operation on life, but in the silent and unwitnessed workings of the heart, the drama still rests her claim on the merit of her earliest productions, and the efforts of competitors or of imitators have only served to establish the triumphs of Shakspeare.
At the same time there came an influence from very different quarters. If it was not possible to enter into competition with the Elizabethans, there was no difficulty in imitating writers like Kotzebue, who left his mark upon much in the English drama of the time. Yet nothing remains even of those who aspired higher. Joanna Baillie was the most admired of them; Maturin quotes her often and calls her the greatest dramatist of the age; but in our days ‘no man reads her unless he must.’[70] Until the appearance of The Cenci (1819), the early 19:th century romanticism produced not a single drama worthy of the glorious traditions.
Considering this desert-like state of the then English drama, the éclat roused by Bertram is not surprising. Still it was less due to any of its dramatical qualities than to its closeness to the poetical standard in vogue just at the time of its performance; the point was made by the admirers as well as by the slanderers of the play, that it was conceived quite ‘in the taste of Lord Byron.’ If Maturin’s first romance had appeared a little too late, with regard to the style in which it was written, his first drama thus appeared at the right moment and met with the right interpretation. Whatever the opinion of Kean may have been of the play, he certainly realized the intentions of the poet with a skill that left nothing more to be desired. In an account of the first night we read:[71]
— — — it will be observed that the part of Bertram is peculiarly adapted to the powers of Mr. Kean, by whom it is represented with extraordinary energy and effect. He is a mixture of ambition, pride and revenge; a character ashamed of the feelings of ordinary men, who has little in common with them, but his passion for a lovely woman, and in whose sorrows ordinary men of course cannot sympathize—in short, a character who like Milton’s Satan is “himself alone.”
Such is count Bertram when presented to the spectator. Once he has been of wholly different character, while living in the kingdom of Sicily as
The darling of his liege and of his land,
The army’s idol, and the counsil’s head—
Whose smile was fortune, and whose will was law—
When his power, however, has become too great, and his plans turned out to be too ambitious for the safety of the state, Lord Aldobrand has contrived to overthrow him. Deprived of name and fortune he has only saved his life by flight; and the admired and accomplished courtier has subsequently been changed into a captain of a gang of robbers, of uncommon ferocity. In the meantime his betrothed bride, Imogine, a lady of comparatively humble birth, has been induced to give her hand to the selfsame Aldobrand, for the (not very original) purpose of saving an aged parent from ruin.—
By the coast of Sicily, then, in the vicinity of the castle of St. Aldobrand, the brotherhood of a convent are, at the opening of the play, roused from their sleep by a violent storm. At a short distance a vessel, to which they are unable to render assistance, is seen to go to pieces. One wild-looking and incoherently-speaking man alone is rescued and conducted to the prior in a state of utter exhaustion.—At the castle, too, the inmates are disturbed by the rage of the elements. Lord Aldobrand himself appears to be absent, and his lady is sitting in her apartment, contemplating a miniature picture of Bertram. She is joined by one of her maidens, to whom she now discloses the story of her life, assuring her that her heart still belongs to Bertram. The conversation is interrupted by the entrance of a monk, coming to request that the shipwrecked of whom, contrary to all expectation, many have been saved, might have, according to the wonted hospitality of Lord Aldobrand, free access to the castle. Upon Imogine answering that they are welcome, the whole band take up their residence at the castle; before that, however, Bertram—the stranger who was first saved—reveals his identity to the prior and vows vengeance on Aldobrand, the originator of his misfortunes. At the castle the majestic form and stern demeanour of Bertram attract the notice of Imogine, and she summons him to her presence. A scene of recognition takes place. Imogine explains her reasons for becoming the wife of Aldobrand; Bertram breaks out into furious accusations, but at last, when Imogine’s little boy runs in, he relents and kisses the child.
These are the contents of the first two acts. In the third Imogine arrives to the convent to confess to the prior that she has yielded to the temptation offered by the unexpected appearance of Bertram, and clandestinely met him several times. The prior—who, in the foregoing scene, has been exhorting Bertram to give up his companions and leave the country—is much horrified and recommends the most severe penances. While still at the convent, Imogine encounters Bertram and is made to promise him one further interview, after which he is to disappear from her life. The act is again closed by the entrance of the child, who comes to inform his mother that Lord Aldobrand has returned.
At the meeting intended to be their last, Bertram then appears to have taken advantage of Imogine’s weakness in a manner which even he is ashamed to recollect. Before he has time to execute his design of departing, he is informed by one of his gang that his being in Sicily has become known and that Lord Aldobrand holds a commission from the king to seek his life throughout the country. Bertram is again filled with inexorable rage towards his enemy, and remembers his determination to have revenge upon him.—In the meantime Aldobrand arrives at his castle where Imogine receives him in an agitated manner which he in vain endeavours to fathom. On her declaring that she has some penance to do, he leaves her alone; after a while Bertram enters, and she understands, with horror, that he is resolved to destroy her husband. Aldobrand has, indeed, just been summoned to the convent to share a feast in celebration of St. Anselm, but, owing to a flood which obstructs his way, he is compelled to turn back. On his return he is attacked by Bertram, and dies at the feet of Imogine.
In the fifth act the tidings of the murder of Aldobrand are brought to the convent by Imogine, who, in a frantic state of mind, rushes in which her child. The monks and the knights of St. Anselm hasten to the castle. Bertram has locked himself up in a chamber where he has passed all the night with the dead body; at the summons of the prior, however, he opens the door and suffers himself to be arrested.—The last scene is laid in a dark wood where Imogine, who has lost her reason, is lingering in a cavern. The way which leads Bertram to the place of execution passes by the cavern, and he, who has up till now shown no repentance, sinks down when he hears the piercing shrieks of Imogine. She comes out and expires at the sight of him, whereupon Bertram snatches the sword of one of the knights and stabs himself.
As a drama, Bertram is not well constructed. The plot is curiously void of consistency and inner logic; when the talk is interrupted by action, it seems to happen more or less at random. The effect of the shipwreck in the first act is destroyed by the sudden appearance of all the banditti who are saved in a manner altogether inexplicable and whose preservation, moreover, is quite unnecessary. They do not in any way interfere in the events; Bertram kills Aldobrand with his own hands, and when the deed is done, he receives no help from his companions: they disappear from the play as mysteriously as they enter it. The final determination of Bertram to take Aldobrand’s life is very imperfectly accounted for. He must, surely, have been aware that Aldobrand, if cognizant of his presence, would adopt vigorous measures for his persecution, whence his sudden rage when informed of this is rather surprizing. He exclaims, with reference to the calamity he has brought over Imogine:
’Twas but e’en now, I would have knelt to him
With the prostration of a conscious villain;
I would have crouched beneath his spurning feet;
I would have felt their trampling tread, and blessed it—
For I had injured him—
but then he forgets that Aldobrand knows nothing of his relation to Imogine, or his repentance, or even of the fact that he has promised the prior to give up his trade and retire where the voice of man is never heard. Here, however, it must be mentioned that in the original manuscript of the play, Bertram is prompted to the committal of his crimes by an evil spirit who dwells in the forest and whom he insists on visiting. After his visit to the demon he seems so altered, and the stamp of an intercourse with a supernatural being is so visible upon him, that his own robbers shrink from him. These passages Maturin expunged on the advice of Scott, and, accordingly, made respective alterations in his play, though he consented to do so with great reluctance. The scenes in question were afterwards published by Scott in another connection;[72] he bestows high praise on their poetical beauty and hints, by way of comparison, at the effect produced upon Macbeth by the appearance of the witches. His motive for recommending Maturin to suppress them was that they were, in his opinion, unsuitable on the stage.[73] Generally speaking, a psychological argumentation certainly is, in a drama, preferable to a direct interference of a supernatural being who never appears himself; but here this argumentation is so weak that there also is some truth in the remark of another critic,[74] that without those scenes ‘the change from the Bertram of the second act to the Bertram of the fourth is inexplicable.’ Thus in either version the decisive point in the action is unsatisfactorily motived. Nor is it difficult to detect other implausibilities and makeshifts of a clumsy kind. The road of Aldobrand to the convent, for instance, is stopped by a flood which he is unable to cross even on horseback—because he must, some way or other, be brought back to the castle; but the flood does not hinder Imogine, the same night, from making the same journey on foot, carrying her child to boot. The child is introduced into the play in order to make an end of the second and third acts; what it has got to say sounds very unnatural. All the finales are ineffective, not least that of the fifth act. When Bertram has stabbed himself the prior rushes to him:
Ber. (struggling with the agonies of death)
I know thee holy Prior—I know ye, brethren.
Lift up your holy hands in charity.
(With a burst of wild exultation)
I died no felon death—
A warrior’s weapon freed a warrior’s soul—
It will be remembered that in Montorio the last words of the hero were an expression of joy at the fact that he did not perish on the scaffold. Here the sentiment is repeated, but it is clearly not fortunate to put it in the mouth of the hero himself; if there is any relief brought about by his nobler mode of dying, the spectator ought to feel it spontaneously.—
It has already been seen, more than once, that the merits of Maturin’s works are not in their composition. The traces of his power which there admittedly[75] are in Bertram, are to be sought in richness of language and originality of style. Now and then, amid the ‘sound and fury’ of the whole, passages stand out where Maturin’s blank verse attains a sombre beauty of its own, while it expressively strikes the note of the time, vibrating with a genuinely romantic sense of loneliness, melancholy, and grandeur. Lines such as these, from the first interview of the hero with the heroine, doubtless did much to decide the partiality for Bertram of critics like Byron and Scott:
Imo. Strange is thy form, but more thy words are strange—
Fearful it seems to hold this parley with thee.
Tell me thy race and country—
Ber. What avails it?
The wretched have no country: that dear name
Comprizes home, kind kindred, fostering friends,
Protecting laws, all that binds man to man—
But none of these are mine;—I have no country—
And for my race, the last dread trump shall wake
The sheeted relics of mine ancestry,
Ere trump of herald to the armed lists
In the bright blazon of their stainless coat,
Calls their lost child again.—
Imo. I shake to hear him—
There is an awful thrilling in his voice,—
The soul of other days comes rushing in them.—
If nor my bounty nor my tears can aid thee,
Stranger, farewell; and ’mid thy misery
Pray, when thou tell’st thy beads, for one more wretched.
The omitted passages relative to Bertram’s dealing with the fiend of the forest are interesting for their novelty in Maturin. The supernatural element is here conceived in a manner quite alien to the Gothic Romance; it serves, in fact, to bring home a characteristic difference between the last-named movement and romanticism. It was the business of the ‘terrific’ school to trace the fear and horror aroused by unearthly apparitions in ordinary men; while in romantic poetry men of uncommon mould (like Byron’s Manfred) are, in consequence of their intercourse with spirits, made to grow still more distant from their neighbours and become themselves an object of awe in their unapproachable grandeur. Such is the case with Bertram after his visit to the demon, the description of which Scott found to be ‘executed in a grand and magnificent strain of poetry:’
—How tower’d his proud form through the shrouding gloom,
How spoke the eloquent silence of its motion,
How through the barred vizor did his accents
Roll their rich thunder on the pausing soul!
And though his mailed hand did shun my grasp
And though his closed morion hid his feature,
Yea all resemblance to the face of man,
I felt the hollow whisper of his welcome,
I felt those unseen eyes were fix’d on mine,
If eyes indeed were there—
Forgotten thoughts of evil, still-born mischiefs,
Foul fertile seeds of passion and of crime,
That wither’d in my heart’s abortive core,
Rous’d their dark battle at his tempest-peal:
So sweeps the tempest o’er the slumbering desert,
Waking its myriad hosts of burning death:
So calls the last dread peal the wandering atoms
Of blood and bone and flesh and dust-worn fragments,
In dire array of ghastly unity,
To bid the eternal summons—
I am not what I was since I beheld him—
I was the slave of passion’s ebbing sway—
All is condensed, collected, callous now—
The groan, the burst, the fiery flash is o’er,
Down pours the dense and darkening lava-tide,
Arresting life and stilling all beneath it.
The achievements of Bertram, as represented on the stage, bear, indeed, too much resemblance to the doings of a common ruffian, and he stands, both morally and poetically, on a lower level than any of Byron’s personages, though maintained, by reviewers,[76] to be ‘that same mischievous compound of attractiveness and turpitude, of love and crime, of chivalry and brutality, which in the poems of Lord Byron and his imitators has been too long successful in captivating weak fancies and outraging moral truth.’ Yet he undoubtedly is a hero; and though Maturin later calls him one of his worst characters, he ought not, at the time, to have been surprised at being accused[77] of ‘exciting undue compassion for worthless characters, or unjust admiration of fierce and unchristian qualities;’ It is, above all, in his capacity of a fallen angel that Bertram had old-established claims upon the interest and indulgence of the English public. Of his fall this account is given by Imogine:
High glory lost he recked not what was saved—
With desperate men in desperate ways he dealt—
A change came o’er his nature and his heart
Till she that bore him had recoiled from him,
Nor know the alien visage of her child.
This dismal change is regarded in a very ‘Miltonic’ light especially by the prior, who, himself represented as well-nigh a saint, could not but be supposed to express the view of the author. The impression that the hero makes upon the mind of the prior finds voice in eloquent outbursts:
High-hearted man, sublime even in thy guilt,
Whose passions are thy crimes, whose angel-sin
Is pride that rivals the star-bright apostate’s.—
Wild admiration thrills me to behold
An evil strength, so above earthly pitch—
Descending angels only could reclaim thee—
This is uttered before Bertram has murdered Aldobrand; but that being done, the exaltation of the venerable prelate remains the same:
This majesty of guilt doth awe my spirit—
Is it th’embodied fiend who tempted him
Sublime in guilt?
— — — —
Oh thou, who o’er thy stormy grandeur flingest
A struggling beam that dazzles, awes, and vanishes—
Thou, who dost blend our wonder with our curses—
Why didst thou this?
It is the great fault of Bertram as a dramatic character, that he so poorly upholds the high attitude assigned to him by others, and that his imposing qualities chiefly rest on declamatory effects. As a poetical figure he occasionally becomes, thanks to life antecedents, surrounded with a gloomy splendour exciting the kind of admiration so keenly resented by critics who felt themselves called upon to extend their verdict to the moral side of the question. The heroine was, though unjustly, comprised[78] in the condemnation of the pernicious tendency of the play:—‘it is too much the taste of the present day, to bring forward the guilty passion of a wife for her paramour — — — not, indeed, with direct admiration, but in such a manner, and with such a mixture of virtuous remorse and high-toned feeling, that we cannot hate the crime. Now a heroine who commits adultery certainly was a startling phenomenon on the English stage, and it was the occurrence of this offence which is said[79] finally to have caused Bertram to be put aside. Yet in the play there is no connivance at the frailty of Imogine. When she comes to unburthen her heart to the prior, this arbiter of morals has nothing but harsh words for her; he sees nothing sublime in her guilt, which at the end plunges her into the deepest misery. In the preface to his next play Maturin says, with reference to the shock he had given with the story of Imogine: ‘If Tragedy is not allowed to exhibit crimes and passions, what is left for her to exhibit?—If crime is attended with punishment as its consequence, I conceive the interests of morality are not compromised’—but he was not aware that it is sometimes the criminal more than the crime that the guardians of the interests of morality desire to hate.—Otherwise Imogine is sketched with something of Maturin’s skill at depicting female character, and hers is, as Kean observed, the principal part in the play as far as histrionic powers are concerned. Her reviving passion for Bertram, her misery and repentance are developed in a language comparatively free from the tinge of melodrama, and sometimes pervaded with a deep and natural feeling, like her confession to the prior:
Last night, oh! last night told a dreadful secret—
The moon went down, its sinking ray shut out,
The parting form of one beloved too well.—
The fountain of my heart dried up within me,—
With nought that loved me, and with nought to love
I stood upon the desert earth alone—
I stood and wondered at my desolation—
For I had spurned at every tie for him,
And hardly could I beg from injured hearts
The kindness that my desperate passion scorned—
And in that deep and utter agony,
Though then, than ever most unfit to die,
I fell upon my knees, and prayed for death.
The character of Aldobrand, little as he appears, is drawn with peculiar skill. He is an excellent man and has brought about the ruin of Bertram out of disinterested zeal for state and sovereign; in private life he is kindness itself and greatly revered by all, not least by his wife. It might seem as if the author had unnecessarily hazarded the sublime element in Bertram by making his enemy a man of worth; but where, then, would be the guilt in knocking down a rascal? Considering the character Bertram is intended to support, Aldobrand could hardly be otherwise, and he is, in all his respectability, somehow made clearly to display a total want of those brilliant and interesting traits the absence of which is his only disadvantage by the side of the hero.—Other characters to speak of there are not in the play. It is incomprehensible how Charles Nodier[80] could ascribe so important a part to the prior: ‘cependant c’est le Prieur qui est le héros de la tragédie, et son calme sublime contraste avec le désordre et les passions des corsaires, comme l’immobilité de ses antique murailles avec l’agitation des flots, domaine inconstant de ce peuple désespéré.’ The prior really presents an extraordinarily sorry figure. His calmness—which asserts itself only when action is required; in words he is as tempestuous as Bertram—is most akin to inertness, not to say imbecility. He is from the first initiated into Bertram’s vindictive designs against Aldobrand—who is a great friend of his—and does nothing to prevent them except talking in a way which gives vent to his fantastic admiration for Bertram, very unnatural in a person of his character and situation. His high-flown comments upon the hero are, throughout the play, nothing short of ridiculous, which they by no means are meant to be. It was, however, quite in keeping with the romantic spirit to introduce the convent into the turbulent scenes as an asylum of peace, inhabited by good and holy men—in contradiction to the Gothic Romance, where a convent usually is described as a nest of all sorts of devilry. This is the only instance in Maturin’s work where the milder view prevails; he was, in Melmoth, soon to return to the terrific style again with a force seldom equalled in literature.
The motive of adverse circumstances driving a high-souled man to become a captain of robbers is most famous from Die Räuber (1781) of Schiller. In that drama Gustave Planche[81] finds the ‘idée mère’ of Bertram, though he prefers the latter play:—‘les mêmes idées, qui dans Schiller resemblent à une dissertation, prennent dans Maturin la forme vivante et animée d’une légende surnaturelle, et cette différence suffirait pour établir la supériorité de Bertram sur les Brigands.’ It is, however, difficult to see where, in Bertram, the ideas of The Robbers come in at all. The drama of Schiller is, despite its bombastic language, a typical 18:th century production with a social tendency. The hero and his followers are—as in the case of the theorizing ‘Arcadian’ robbers in Godwin’s Caleb Williams—revolting against the constituent principles of society, the perverseness of which alone has occasioned their desperate enterprise; but the enterprise is, after all, discovered to be an unjustifiable means of changing the existing state of things. In Bertram there is nothing of the 18:th century. The adventure presented to the spectator is of a quite individual character, the case being applicable to the hero and no one else. He does not want to reform society; he does not place himself at the head of a gang of robbers on any ideal grounds; he falls. Nor are his companions robbers of the chivalrous type who keep a court of honour among themselves and take from the rich to give to the poor. Bertram himself says to some of them:
—ye are slaves that for a ducat
Would rend the screaming infant from the breast
To plunge it in the flames.
The play thus aims at nothing but the poetical exhibition of a man blending sublimity in guilt. The catchword of Karl Moor expresses his determination to surrender himself to justice, that is, voluntarily to meet the ‘felon death’ which Bertram, in his last cry, rejoices at having escaped. In all this there would appear, in Bertram, not a formally different application, but a total absence, of the ideas of The Robbers, and any influence from Schiller seems uncertain.—In some detached passages of Bertram critics tried to detect loans from several obscure plays, from Shakespeare, and even from Scott; but excepting the fact that The Tempest necessarily is called to mind by any play opening with a shipwreck, these loans are unimportant. The treatment of the other principal motive, the marriage of Imogine to the enemy of her lover, shows less originality. Its model, as pointed out in the Irish Quarterly Review 1852, is to be found in a play called Percy (1778), by Miss Hannah More. This was one of the first English dramas where the action is placed in romantic surroundings, although it resolves round the favourite topics of the day.[82] Percy, Earl of Northumberland, is the lover and destined husband of Elwina, daughter of Earl Raby. For some offence Raby breaks off all relations with Percy, who subsequently joins a crusade. During his absence Raby compels his daughter to marry Earl Douglas, an inveterate foe of Percy, and shortly after that the hero returns to England. Elwina, on one occasion, relates the story of her misfortunes to her maid, which passage has a direct correspondence in Bertram. The most conspicuous resemblance, however, is afforded by the scene where Elwina meets Percy and discloses to him that she is the wife of Douglas. Percy, like Bertram, is seized with a violent fury, and his words:
And have I ’scap’d the Saracen’s fell sword,
Only to perish by Elwina’s guilt?
are distinctly echoed in Bertram’s:
And did I ’scape from war, and want, and famine
To perish by the falsehood of a woman?
The further development of the conflict is, as easily can be imagined, totally different in the two dramas—a heroine of Hannah More was the least likely of any to suggest the character of the lady Imogine.
It is generally asserted by biographers[83] that contemporary critics—with the single exception of Coleridge—were ‘enraptured’ about Bertram; but this, undoubtedly, is to say too much. Its supposed immoral tendency, as has already been seen, roused a storm of indignation in the columns of the reviews, where the passing acknowledgments of the author’s talent almost vanished. The opening lines of the criticism in the Eclectic Review are characteristic of the way in which the play was treated of:
This tragedy has obtained, upon the stage, a popularity that would seem altogether undeserved. That the Author has strong powers no one can doubt; and as we are not uncandid, the reader will find in the course of our extracts, passages that prove him to have very strong powers. The piece might be objected to for its want of dramatic interest, for the bad taste of its poetry, but its principal fault, (in the absence of which objection indeed, we should quietly have left it to its fate,) is its vicious and abominable morality.
Nor were the opinions even of those very strong powers always undivided. While the British Review makes mention of ‘vivacious touches of a very glowing pencil’ and pronounces that ‘the description as well as the pathetic force of many passages is admirable, and the rhythm and cadence of the verse is musical, lofty, and full of tragic pomp’—the Monthly Review maintains that the language is ‘strained, inverted, and bombastic on many occasions,’ and that ‘the versification, also, is often rough and imperfect; and a want of keeping, of harmonious colouring, and, we fear, of just design, is visible throughout.’ The severest attack upon Maturin’s play, however, was delivered by Coleridge[84] in an article uniting much cutting sarcasm with savage and indiscriminating abuse. It was supposed that Coleridge was irritated by the rejection of his Fall of Robespierre in favour of Bertram; in that light the article was, at least, regarded by Byron,[85] who refers to it in a letter to Murray, dated October 12:th 1819:
In Coleridge’s Life, I perceive an attack upon the then Committee of Drury Lane Theatre for acting Bertram, and an attack upon Maturin’s Bertram for being acted. Considering all things, this is not very grateful nor graceful on the part of the worthy autobiographer; and I would answer, if I had not obliged him. Putting my own pains to forward the views of Coleridge out of the question, I know there was every disposition on the part of the Sub-Committee to bring forward any production of his, were it feasible. The play he offered, though poetical, did not appear at all practicable, and Bertram did—and hence this long tirade, which is the last chapter of his vagabond life.
It is not quite clear in what manner Coleridge had been obliged, his play never appearing on the stage. If his criticism of Bertram was dictated by disappointment, that must have been galling indeed, for the tone prevailing in it is exceedingly acrimonious.[86] Every blunder in the composition, and unhappy turn of phrase in the impetuous style—not over-difficult to expose—is made the most of and the whole play torn to fragments, scene by scene, cleverly enough, but with a rancour which really conveys the impression of proceeding from a personal cause. The critic’s virtuous horror at the incidents is worked up to a pitch that leaves all other reviewers far behind; even the circumstance of Imogine, before she has recognized Bertram, sending for him and speaking to him, alone, is represented as a piece of gross indelicacy!—and if any spectator felt inclined to take a fancy to the hero, it certainly was no fault of Coleridge’s, who characterizes him, in a single breath, as ‘this felo de se, and thief-captain, this loathsome and leprous confluence of robbery, adultery, murder, and cowardly assassination, this monster — — —.’
However, some nonsense though these reviewers utter, their opinion of Maturin’s first play comes nearer to its final valuation than that of many later writers who boldly prophesied the author’s lasting immortality on account of Bertram. Among admiring biographers whose verdict was unsupported by any literary authority, there were critics of some reputation; Gustave Planche, writing in 1833, does not hesitate to say that Bertram contains scenes worthy of Hamlet and Macbeth. In opposition to this enthusiasm of the French, it is interesting to note the very sound judgment of Goethe. He had, in 1817, read the play and written a kind of advertisement of it, in which he reaches in a few words the kernel of the matter and explains the secret of its success: ‘Das neuste englische Publikum ist in Hass und Liebe von den Dichtungen des Lord Byron durchdrungen, und so kann denn auch ein Bertram Wurzel fassen, der gleichfalls Menschenhass und Rachegeist, Pflicht und Schwachheit, Umsicht, Plan, Zufälligkeiten und Zerstörung mit Furienbesen durcheinander peitscht und eine, genau besehen, emphatische Pose zur Würde eines tragischen Gedichtes erhebt.’[87]
One result of the success attending Bertram was—the play being produced anonymously—that several individuals began to make claims for the authorship. This circumstance contributed to Maturin’s determination to emerge from his anonymity and publicly take his place among the men of letters of his day. With regard to any further professional preferment this was definitely to burn his boats: a clergyman of the established church the writer of a play whose morality was generally pronounced to be an abomination. On the other hand the dream of his life now seemed realized, and the way open to the circles to which he felt himself to belong. He took the step; and, in order to make the most of it, accepted an invitation from London to come over to witness the triumph of his production. This was the only journey of any length ever undertaken by Maturin; if not very adventurous, it still was something of an enterprise at that time, when a crossing between Dublin and Liverpool could take up to 36 hours. Maturin’s stay in London did not exceed a month. He arrived there in the latter part of May, and the 22:nd of June he wrote, from home, his first letter to Murray, in acknowledgment of the kindness shown him by the publisher. In the New Monthly Magazine 1827 we read that Maturin was, while in the metropolis, ‘suddenly elevated to the most dizzy and flattering distinction,’ being ‘caressed by the first men of the day, recognized by the audience during the performance of his play, and received with acclamations.’ The language, however, in Maturin’s own letters referring to his reception is very different, and suggestive rather of a disappointment. Even in his first letter, when sending his respects to Mrs. Murray, he assures his correspondent that ‘to your friendly and hospitable attention I am indebted for the only pleasant hours passed during my sojourn in London.’ In another letter, from July 6:th, he returns to the theme with marked bitterness:
I should be particularly obliged by your letting me know at your leisure, and as a friend (in which light I shall always consider, and feel my obligations to you) whether the impression I made in London was favourable or otherwise, or, whether I made any impression at all. My reason for urging this strange question is, the marked coldness of my reception at every house but yours and Lord Essex’s, and the singular circumstance of my never being invited to Mr. Lamb’s. I am aware that long struggle with distress and difficulty will not only cloud the mind, but degrade the manners of the sufferer, but still I cannot but think that my habits and conduct could not justify my exclusion from the line of society to which I was born, and in which till latterly I have always lived.
When you have time to write, tell me if my apprehensions are true, and if I was really though unfit for the company of men who invited me over and on whose hospitality and courtesy I had therefore some claim during my very short stay.
In spite of a soothing answer from Murray, the idea that he had not appeared to advantage continued to haunt Maturin. It ought to be mentioned, however, that in the letter quoted above there is an allusion to a member of the fair sex upon whom the impression made by the Irish guest seems to have been even more favourable than he could have wished—yet at the same time something to gratify the vanity of which he had, perhaps a little more than the usual allotment:
I have received a letter from—since my return to Ireland. I really would be glad of your advice in this unpleasant business. I dread her resentment if provoked, and I am determined not to answer her letters. I wish it could be intimated to her that I was in the country and never received her Epistle—you know what Congreve says of “woman spurned.”—
Bertram was the first of Maturin’s works that appeared with his name. It was published by Murray, and ran through seven editions in the course of 1816; the current price of 3 sh. for a new play was on this occasion raised to 4 sh. 6 d.[88] Together with the profits of the performance, the sum cleared by Maturin for his tragedy is said to have amounted to £ 1000. The consequences, however, of the unhappy transaction in which he had been involved some years before, disagreeably asserted themselves at this piece of good luck, and he speaks of his affairs in a pessimistic tone. In a letter to Murray dated August 19:th he says:
There is not a shilling I have made by Bertram that has not been expended to pay the debts of a scoundrel for whom I had the misfortune to go security, so here I am with scarce a pound in my pocket, simpering at congratulations on having made my fortune.
Yet, if Maturin had not made his fortune by his first tragedy, he probably intended to make it by his second, for he took no pains to undeceive his congratulators. He was, by all accounts, somewhat dazzled by the bright prospects he imagined to be dawning for him, when he returned to Dublin as the greatest of its literary celebrities, and he changed his mode of living accordingly. He was, as appears from his letters to Murray, under the impression of being born to a line of society embellished by elegance and refinement, and his recollections of the easy circumstances in which he had grown up had not vanished amid the privations of later life. After his arrival from London Maturin plunged into the delights of society and became a conspicuous figure in saloons and assemblies; and his unpretending house in York Street was re-furnished and decorated with a splendour of which a friend of his who, however, admits that he did not see Maturin’s home until a later period, when the whole show had disappeared, gives the following account:[89]
The walls of the parlours were done in panels, with scenes from his novels, painted by an artist of some eminence; the richest carpets, ottomans, lustres, and marble tables ornamented the withdrawing-rooms; the most beautiful papers covered the walls, and the ceilings were painted to represent clouds, with eagles in the centre, from whose claws depended brilliant lustres.
In this abode—whether it exactly answered to the above description or not—was then received what Dublin society had to offer not only in the way of intellect, but preferably of youth and beauty. What it was that attracted Maturin in his social intercourse is vividly described by his biographer:[90]
It is from this period that we may date the commencement of that folly of which Maturin has been lavishly accused. Whatever might have been the levities of his conduct before, now they certainly became more remarkable. His whole port and bearing was that of a man who had burst from a long sleep into a new state of being; always gay, he now became luxurious in his habits and manners. He was the first in the quadrille—the last to depart. The ball-room was his temple of inspiration and worship. So passionately attached was he to dancing, that he organized morning quadrille parties, which met alternately two or three days in the week at the houses of the favourite members of his coterie. He was proud of the gracefulness and elegance of his dancing; his light figure, and the melancholy and interesting air that, whether natural or fictitious, he threw into his movements, gave a peculiar character to his style. He was a perfect bigot in his attachment to female society; and generally restless and dissatisfied in the exclusive company of men. I remember meeting him at a large assembly where there were several beautiful women, and it was with reluctance he consented to forego the quadrille during the interval of supper: at supper he was uneasy and impatient although he happened to be sitting near some very intellectual persons; at last, after a few songs, which otherwise would have been prolonged, he started up, and with considerable animation and effect, taking a lady by the hand, led the way to the dancing-room.
A very characteristic explanation of this gaiety is given by Mangan,[91] who ascribes it all to misery arising from unappreciated intellectual superiority. Maturin, he says,
—had no friend—companion—brother; he, and the “lonely Man of Shiraz” might have shaken hands, and then—parted. He—is his own dark way—understood many people; but nobody understood him in any way. — — — — “Man, being reasonable, must get drunk,” observes Byron. It is an ugly line; but one that embodies a volume of philosophy—especially if we read it in juxtaposition with that other line, by Boileau “Souvent de tous nos maux la raison est le pire.” The world points the finger of scorn at the intellectual intemperate man—not reflecting—not caring to reflect—that it is his very superiority to the world that drives him to habits of intemperance. His nature is “averse from life” —he has an impatience of existence. Charles Lamb rushed forward, and forced the Gates of Death; and, actuated by a similar feeling, Maturin trod in his footsteps, though only trippingly. Lamb found his Lethe in the quart—Maturin sought his in the quadrille. One drank, the other danced. They were the two kings of Brentford “smelling at one nosegay,” only each experienced the sensation of a different odour from the flowers.
Although the view applied by Mangan is too gloomy a one, it contains, no doubt, a certain amount of truth, and shows a remarkable penetration of Maturin’s character and situation. In his correspondence of that time Maturin repeatedly laments just his want of a literary friend or companion, and the absence of ‘excitement of any description’ that might inspire him to carry on his poetical occupations. As far as these were concerned, his spirit found little nourishment in his environs. Dublin was then rather void of literati, and the people he mixed with were, for the most part, of the usual, every-day character. Feeling thus that even the elite did not attain to the intellectual level he commanded, Maturin turned to the lighter style of social life—with real pleasure, as it corresponded to one side of his temperament, but sometimes, it is not unlikely, with a feverish intensity affording oblivion of the disadvantages under which he laboured, and escape from the melancholy that also was a constituent part of his mind. His nervousness might have been increased by doubts as to the duration of his present mode of existence, and at intervals there naturally came moments of weariness and tedium vitae. In his sermon preached on the first Sunday of the year 1817 Maturin exclaims:
Yes, disappointment has been, must be, the result of our pursuits and passions, because they were “of the earth, earthly;” because of their very nature they were hollow, worthless, and false, and they communicated that nature to their object—they were unworthy of the energies of a thinking spirit, unworthy of the dignity of an immortal soul! — — — What is the result of the chase of these lying vanities? We are disappointed, either in failing to attain them, and thus being rendered wretched by the loss of that whose possession never could have made us happy; or—more mortifying to the illusions of our pride, by attaining them, and finding their possession to be emptiness, yea, “worse than nothing, than vanity.”
Sentiments like these implied a general condemnation of the pursuits Maturin himself was engaged in all his life, and give one more illustration of the tragic contradiction between his profession and his inclinations. That the eccentricities of his conduct incurred a great deal of censure on the part of the more rigorous-minded has already been hinted; but his placidity of temper and easy, gentlemanly manners usually disarmed the displeasure of those coming into contact with him, and he had, upon the whole, no personal enemies. In his own parish he was universally beloved, and where his well-known figure emerged it attracted friendly attention, not unmixed with amazement. His outward appearance used to vary according to his conditions. When he could, he dressed in the highest fashion; his cash being at a low ebb, he would be seen walking about in a costume almost ostentatiously shabby. ‘Mr. Maturin’ says a writer,[92] ‘was tall, slender, but well proportioned, and on the whole, a good figure, which he took care to display in a well made black coat, tight buttoned, and some old light-coloured stocking-web pantaloons, surmounted in winter by a coat of prodigious dimensions, gracefully thrown on, so as not to obscure the symmetry it affected to protect.’ The portrait of Maturin, drawn by Brocas, which appeared in the New Monthly Magazine or Universal Register 1819 and which is reproduced in the 1892 edition of Melmoth the Wanderer, shows a self-portraying and uncommonly handsome face: the finely chiselled mouth indicating a tendency towards the gay and luxurious, while the gaze of the large and melancholy eyes suggests the horrors his imagination was wont to dwell upon. Those who saw him in his home were struck by the former quality greatly prevailing over the latter, as is told by a visitor:[93]
I found him in a large and rather well furnished drawing-room, seated at a writing-desk; while the table on which the desk rested was heaped with books and papers, scattered there in a state of most delectable confusion. He was clad in a sort of loose morning gown, which had evidently been in use for many years. He was cravatless, and looked at the moment rather pale and emaciated. At this period he was at the heyday of his literary popularity, and it struck me that he looked like one who had been enjoying the good things of life (enjoying them too freely) the night before. His eldest boy was seated at his right hand, copying out something from a sadly blotted M. S. Mrs. M. ——, with her daughter, occupied a place near the window, and, when the conversation commenced, joined freely in it. I saw before me for the first time the man of genius, the man whose language and sentiments had operated on me as a species of witchcraft. I felt an indescribable awe—my heart throbbed, and my tongue was for the moment bound up; but the cheerful welcome, the gentle tone, and the brightly animated look of the poet, soon set me quite at ease, and after a few minutes conversation I found myself as it were at home. I was struck most forcibly with the contrast existing in the person and manner of the author and his writings—the one all passion and gloominess and horror, the other ease, grace, and sprightliness, approaching even to levity. He exhibited on this, and on other occasions, when I was with him, a turn for mimicry, and a vein of humour, for which I was entirely unprepared.—
It is mentioned in most notes on Maturin that he was in the habit of placing a wafer on his forehead in his hours of inspiration, to signify to his family that he was not to be intruded upon. This—and many other caprices of a similar kind—might have happened once or twice and then been related at the tea-tables of Dublin as a token of the eccentricity of their literary curate. The story of the wafer seems to be contradicted, or at least greatly qualified, by the statements of some other writers. Carleton[94] says that Maturin had composed the greatest part of his earlier romances at Marsh’s library in St. Patrick’s Close, ‘on a small plain deal desk, which he removed from place to place according as it suited his privacy or convenience;’ and an intimate friend of his has said[95] that he never worked on his two last novels except in the stillness of night, when there was consequently no fear of his being disturbed. As for the inventive part of composition, one writer[96] reports the following utterance of Maturin:
I compose on a long walk; but then the day must neither be too hot, nor cold: it must be reduced to that medium from which you feel no inconvenience one way or the other; and then when I am perfectly free from the city and experience no annoyance from the weather, my mind becomes lighted by sunshine and I arrange my plan perfectly to my own satisfaction.
This confidence was made just on one of those long pedestrian excursions to the county of Wicklow, which Maturin loved to undertake, especially in autumn, his favourite season. During his rambles he sometimes would enter into a literary discussion—which he in general is said to have been rather disinclined to do—and from the occasion now in question his interlocutor has preserved some of his opinions about the poets of England. He appears to have been most attracted by those who presented the least points of contact with his own production. With Byron he shared a boundless admiration for Pope, and of the living poets he liked best Crabbe and next to him Hogg. He was very fond of Moore who had, he said, done what he had wished to do himself, had he been able; but for the poetry of Byron he had a strong distaste, the more remarkable as he had often, as in the case of Bertram, been supposed deliberately to imitate the bard of The Corsair and Lara. What Maturin, however, objected to in Byron’s poems was not the spirit but the style:
I never could finish the perusal of any of his long poems. There is something in them excessively at variance with my notions of poetry. He is too fond of the obsolete; but that I do not quarrel with so much as his system of converting it into a kind of modern antique, by superadding tinsel to gold. It is a sort of mixed mode, neither old nor new, but incessantly hovering between both.
Lastly may be quoted what Maturin, according to the same writer, once pronounced upon Walter Scott whom he, no doubt, loved best of all authors, ancient or modern:
Yes, he has a most powerful genius; a genius that can adapt itself to the changes of times and feelings with the most extraordinary celerity, and with less than the labours of ordinary thought can reform and remodel the literature of the age. He is the greatest writer of his day. He writes not for England, but for all mankind; and he has embraced in his infinite vision all modes and systems of men and manners. What he does, he does appropriately; not seeking to display all the varieties of his mind in any one work, but only that which properly belongs to it: nothing is out of place; all is perfect, simple, and real; and he possesses the magical talent of explaining a whole character by a simple word of feeling; and of imparting to the meanest figure in his picture the interest of a principal.
Among the literary plans Maturin revolved in his mind after the success of his first play was the publication of a new edition of Montorio, for which romance he still entertained a partiality. Murray, however, did not venture a republication of it, nor was he favourably disposed towards a project of Maturin’s to give out a new copy of Bertram from the original manuscript, containing everything that had been omitted in the representation. Maturin seems, at first, to have taken it for granted that this revised edition, which he intended to dedicate to Scott, was to be issued; ‘may I beg to know,’ he writes in the letter from July 6:th, ‘why the corrected copy has not yet appeared, I am really disappointed at this, for, exclusive of my restoring many passages that might possibly give pleasure to the Readers (though not to the Dramatic spectator) I am most anxious that the preface, and above all the original dedication (a debt due by gratitude to my first literary friend Mr. Scott) should be made public.’ The question was under discussion for some time, but after a rather irascible epistle from Maturin dated Nov. 19:th, it was referred to no more. Maturin was already working at a new play, and the publisher prudently determined to wait how it would turn out before entering into any doubtful enterprises. In a letter from August 19:th Maturin sanguinely says that what he has written pleases him better than Bertram; but at the same time it is seen how lonely he felt in what now was to him a provincial seclusion:
Let me beg of you to write to me. I cannot describe to you the effect of an English letter on my spirits; it is like the wind to an Aeolian harp. I cannot produce a note without it. Give me advice, abuse, news, anything, or nothing (if it were possible that you could write nothing), but write.—
The principal character of the drama on which Maturin was engaged had been suggested to him, while in London, on behalf of Kean. The tragedian was anxious to act the part of Lear, but that was rendered improper by the mental illness of George III; the part he wanted was, consequently, that of an old man in a state of decrepitude and insanity, but occupying a somewhat humbler place in society. The experiment was hazardous in every respect. It was required of Maturin to produce an imitation of one of the most famous characters in literature, without one of the principal qualifications for his greatness. A too close attendance to the desire of the actor laid a constant restraint upon his imagination, and thereto came some other inconvenient considerations. Referring to the attacks upon Bertram, Maturin says in his letter last quoted: ‘In my present attempt, I shall beware of moonlight interviews, and jobs for Doctors Commons; my Heroines shall form a complete Coro di Vestale, and my Hero shall be guilty only of murder and such Bagatelles.’ All this boded no good; and when Manuel was brought out at Drury Lane, early in the following year, it turned out a decided failure. Kean, finding it but a poor compensation for Lear, soon lost all interest in it, and its reception on the part of the public was a very cold one. The general disappointment is described in a letter from Murray to Byron, dated March 15:th 1817:[97]
Maturin’s new tragedy, ‘Manuel,’ appeared on Saturday last, and I am sorry to say that the opinion of Mr. Gifford was established by the impression made on the audience. The first act very fine, the rest exhibiting a want of judgment not to be endured. It was brought out with uncommon splendour, and was well acted. Kean’s character as an old man—a warrior—was new and well sustained, for he had, of course, selected it, and professed to be—and he acted as if he were—really pleased with it. But this feeling changed to dislike after the first night, for he then abused it, and has actually walked through the part ever since, that is to say, for the other three nights of performance — — — I met Geo. Lamb on Tuesday, and he complained bitterly of Kean’s conduct, said that he had ruined the success of the tragedy, and that in consequence he feared Maturin would receive nothing. I send you the first act, that you may see the best of it. I have undertaken to print the tragedy at my own expence, and to give the poor Author the whole of the profit.
The verdict of Byron, after he had read the play, was equally unfavourable. ‘It is the absurd work of a clever man,’ he writes to Murray in a letter from Venice dated June 14:th;[98] ‘as a play, it is impracticable; as a poem, no great things.’ One admirer, however, Maturin’s second tragedy was destined to meet: in a subsequent letter Byron tells[99] that ‘Monk’ Lewis, to whom he had lent it, preferred it to some extracts from Lalla Rookh which he read at the same time. For his own part Byron adds: ‘Of Manuel I think, with the exception of a few capers, it is as heavy a nightmare as was ever bestrode by indigestion.’ This opinion was, later on, embraced by the author himself, who says in a letter to Murray from Sept. 27:th:
I am not discouraged by the failure of Manuel; the public were in the right about it; it is a very bad play; but I was led astray by the folly of supposing I could adapt myself to the exclusive taste of an actor in sketching a character for him. I sacrificed everything to him, and he in return—sacrificed me.
Manuel, which was furnished with the longed-for dedication to Walter Scott, Esq. is, indeed, Maturin’s weakest production, and very little need be said about it.
Manuel, count of Valdi, is a distinguished Spaniard whose only son, Alonzo, was born to him in the evening of his life. Alonzo’s birth has frustrated the expectations of Manuel’s heir and kinsman De Zelos; the latter, with his children, is plunged into poverty and insignificance, and publicly slighted by all his former flatterers. He has conceived a vehement hatred against the innocent cause of his altered conditions, which feeling, however, is not shared by his children: his daughter Ximena is the beloved of Alonzo, and his son Torrismond is the lover of Victoria, the daughter of Manuel. Alonzo has, though still a youth, completely beaten the Moors in the battle of Tolosa, and the reports of his victory are, at the opening of the play, spreading through the city of Cordova. Manuel summons his friends to a feast with which he wishes to celebrate the return of Alonzo; the family of De Zelos, too, get an invitation. At the entertainment Manuel awaits his son with increasing impatience, but Alonzo never makes his appearance. At last his war-steed is heard galloping into the court-yard, yet he comes alone with blood upon the saddle and a broken lance trailing from the stirrup. With something like an inspiration Manuel immediately accuses De Zelos of having murdered his son. As no traces are found of Alonzo, De Zelos again becomes the heir to the estates of Valdi, and the grandees once more vie with each other in fawning upon him and feigning to disbelieve the accusations of Manuel. They are, however, to meet in the hall of justice, and though Manuel can produce no proof of his charge, he passionately maintains it to be true,
—by that whisper of the soul,
which to no ear but mine is audible.
De Zelos is on the point of swearing himself to be innocent, when, agitated by Manuel’s shrieks of perjury, he claims a combat to vindicate his honour. Torrismond appears as his father’s champion, and the cause of Manuel is taken up by a stranger on the condition that he will be allowed to depart with his vizor closed and his name unknown. Manuel has long been hovering on the verge of madness, and when he now sees the stranger defeated, the insanity breaks out in all its fury.—The last act takes place at one of Manuel’s castles in the country, whither he is banished on account of his unproved accusations against De Zelos; he is attended only by his daughter and two faithful followers. In the meantime Ximena has resolved to seek refuge in a convent in the same vicinity. Passing by the chapel of the castle she descends into the vault when she is informed by her guide that a requiem is just being chanted to the soul of Alonzo. Here she is shortly afterwards joined by Manuel. His first impulse is to kill her, but he forbears when she declares that she has loved Alonzo; she also tells him that Alonzo’s murderer is now within the vault. Manuel rushes away and Torrismond, who is in pursuit of his sister, makes his appearance. To him Ximena repeats that she has found, lying on one of the tombs, the person who has murdered Alonzo; he has even given her his dagger which is furnished with the name of his employer, but made her swear that it is not to be examined except before the judges.—At the same time De Zelos with a large party of friends—also in quest of Ximena—arrive at the castle. Manuel is hurrying them to the vault when Torrismond rushes out crying that his father is innocent. As the judges happen to be of the party he unsheathes the dagger and reads the name of—his father. De Zelos, in despair, stabs himself, and Manuel, whose strength is worn out by now, expires in fearful ravings.—
Throughout the four first acts the tragedy is well-nigh deprived of all dramatic vigour by incessant interruptions of the main plot. That consists, or ought to consist, in the development of the fate of Manuel until his madness—like Lear’s—breaks out after an accumulation of disappointments; but besides there being, in every act, plenty of dialogue to no purpose, the interest is divided among episodes very loosely connected with the intrigue. The incidents of the last act are prepared by such a sub-plot, bearing upon an intention of De Zelos to marry his daughter to the chief justice; for that reason, it must be supposed, she leaves her home and sets out for the convent. The appropriate arrival to the castle, however, of all the personages required, especially that of De Zelos and his party, makes the whole act highly improbable and its construction puerile in the extreme. The madness of Manuel, also, is here quite insupportable, and it is not to be wondered at that Kean could not endure the role more than one evening. Of the characters De Zelos is, upon the whole, the most interesting. He is a kind of villainous Timon of Athens. When his fortune is gone he sees how his friends turn their backs upon him; he perfectly comprehends the worthlessness of their conduct—
Ye insects in my heat that basked and buzzed,
And sung your summer-songs of flattery,
But, parting, leave your stings;
yet instead of paying contempt with contempt, he is ready to commit a horrible crime in order to enable himself to re-enter their society. His lack of self-command, however, is so exaggerated and his nervousness so evident, that no one can be in doubt of his guilt, which is made only too clear by several incidents long before his name is read on the dagger. On one occasion his intended son-in-law tells him, much to his agitation, that a Moor has mysteriously whispered to him that De Zelos is a villain. When the unknown champion of Manuel then is defeated, he beckons De Zelos to him and, for a moment, discloses his face, which is black—at the sight of which De Zelos, ‘staggering with horror,’ falls into the arms of his son. This penitent Moor, whom De Zelos had hired to slay Alonzo, then appears to have travelled, wounded, to the ancient family-seat of his victim, thus adding to the number of people who, as if by appointment, are gathering there to die. As for the two heroines—who, according to the promise of the author, do not much occupy themselves with thoughts of love—they are so negligently treated that it is not quite clear what becomes of them. When Ximena reveals her discovery to Torrismond, she is said to be dying, but it is never explained why. Her fate is so obscure that the unknown writer of the witty epilogue to Manuel, after enumerating all the deaths occurring in the play, ends with the following reference to her:
Here doth the mourner, sad Ximena, lie
In death;—but hold!—one question—Did she die?
What tho’ she fell, and rail’d on life’s restraint,
Women talk thus who only mean to faint.
Well, then, for her we’ll e’en delay our sorrow,
Till critics ascertain her fate to-morrow;
And, if you please, to fix the matter quite,
I’ll meet you here again to-morrow night.
The most depressing quality of Manuel, as a production of Maturin’s, is that its poetry certainly is ‘no great things.’ There is nothing of the breath of romance which runs through several passages of Bertram. The language is, for the most part, uninspired, and stored with hackneyed phrases and vulgar exclamations. A description of the battle of Osma, spoken by Manuel, was greatly admired by Alaric Watts,[100] but to a modern reader it is hardly enjoyable, as appears from the following fragment:
Night hung on van and rear: we moved in darkness,
And heavily did count our echoed steps:
As men who marched to death!—Osma, thy field
(When the pale moon broke on the battle’s verge)
Seemed as an ocean, where the Moorish turbans
Toss’d like the white sea-foam! Amid that ocean
We were to plunge and—perish!—
For ev’ry lance we couch’d the Moslem host
Drew twenty scimitars—and, when the cry
“God and St. Jago!” burst from our pale lips,
Seemed as if every Spanish soldier peal’d
His requiem, not his battle-shout!—Oh Sirs!
We stood not then on terms of war,—devices
To give the coward the cold praise of art:—
We fought with life and soul upon the issue,—
With sword (once drawn) whose battle knew no end,—
With hand, that wedded to the faithful hilt,
Knew no divorce but death, and held it then
With grasp which death unlocks not!—
Critics took but little notice of Manuel. In the Monthly Review[101] there appeared an article in which the play is unmercifully cut up, and the circumstance of De Zelos’s dagger, above all, subjected to ridicule:
It is actually to be read in the play of Manuel, and (still more trying to the faith of our posterity!) it has actually been proved to be there, by representation on the stage, that a murderer by proxy gives that proxy a dagger, with the name (not of the maker, but) of De Zelos,—with his own name, marked on it!!!—Parson Adams forgetting his sermons is nothing to this; no, nor his prototype, who walked unconsciously into the enemy’s camp.
The absent-mindedness of De Zelos is referred to in the scene where Ximena tells her brother that she has seen the Moor:
An oath had seal’d his lips—he dar’d not speak it,
But to my hands he gave the very dagger
The villain, in unguarded haste, had giv’n him
To do the deed of blood—His name is on it!
A man of De Zelos’s vacillating character might, perhaps, be imagined capable of throwing, in a moment of ‘unguarded haste,’ his own dagger to the proxy—but the writer is quite right in condemning the expedient: if the villain of a tragedy is so nervous as to become ludicrous, the case is irrevocably lost.
Shortly after the performance of Manuel, Maturin’s critique on Sheil’s Apostate, referred to before, appeared in the Quarterly Review. The article, probably written in great haste, and endeavouring to give a survey of the history of drama, from the earliest times, is not particularly interesting, though it displays extensive reading and, upon the whole, a correct judgment. Nor was it very welcome to the editor. Gifford is said[102] to have subjected it to a partial re-arrangement, thinking it worth preserving on account of a certain ‘wild eloquence.’ The criticism of the Apostate, with which the article ends, is severe but not undeservedly so; the play had been a great success on the stage with Miss O’Neill in the heroine’s part,[103] but it belonged to the usual, ephemeral kind of the day.
Maturin’s own career, however, as a successful dramatist, had now come to an end, and the fame he had so suddenly reaped by his Bertram was not destined to increase in that field. Ambitious plans and dreams of future golden times were once again replaced by the cares and duties of ordinary life, and the house in York Street began to be visited by creditors instead of dancing parties. Yet the effect of his recent failure upon the spirits of Maturin was, to judge from his subsequent productions where his genius rose to its highest flights, tranquillizing rather than disheartening. Experience had taught him the futility of heeding any prescriptions from outside; in the years to come he relied solely upon his own instinct and produced those works for which, in truth, he ought to be remembered.