CHAPTER IV - THE NOVEL OF TERROR. LEWIS AND MATURIN.
To pass from the work of Mrs. Radcliffe to that of MatthewGregory Lewis is to leave "the novel of suspense," which dependsfor part of its effect on the human instinct of curiosity, for"the novel of terror," which works almost entirely on the evenstronger and more primitive instinct of fear. Those who find Mrs.Radcliffe's unruffled pace leisurely beyond endurance, or whodislike her coldly reasonable methods of accounting for what isonly apparently supernatural, or who sometimes feel stifled bythe oppressive air of gentility that broods over her romanticworld, will find ample reparation in the melodramatic pages of"Monk" Lewis. Here, indeed, may those who will and dare sup fullwith horrors. Lewis, in reckless abandonment, throws to the windsall restraint, both moral and artistic, that had bound hispredecessor. The incidents, which follow one another inkaleidoscopic variety, are like the disjointed phases of adelirium or nightmare, from which there is no escape. We areconscious that his story is unreal or even ludicrous, yet Lewishas a certain dogged power of driving us unrelentingly throughit, regardless of our own will. Literary historians have tendedto over-emphasise the connection between Mrs. Radcliffe andLewis. Their purposes and achievement are so different that it ishardly accurate to speak of them as belonging to the same school.It is true that in one of his letters Lewis asserts that he wasinduced to go on with his romance, _The Monk_, by reading _TheMysteries of Udolpho_, "one of the most interesting books thathas (sic) ever been written," and that he was struck by theresemblance of his own character to that of Montoni;[40] but hisliterary debt to Mrs. Radcliffe is comparatively insignificant.His depredations on German literature are much more serious andextensive. Lewis, indeed, is one of the Dick Turpins of fictionand seizes his booty where he will in a high-handed and somewhatunscrupulous fashion, but for many of Mrs. Radcliffe's treasureshe could find no use. Her picturesque backgrounds, her ingeniousexplanations of the uncanny, her uneventful interludes and longdeferred but happy endings were outside his province. The momentsin her novels which Lewis admired and strove to emulate werethose during which the reader with quickened pulse breathlesslyawaits some startling development. Of these moments, there are,it must be frankly owned, few in Mrs. Radcliffe's novels. Lewis'smistake lay in trying to induce a more rapid palpitation, and toprolong it almost uninterruptedly throughout his novel. Byattempting a physical and mental impossibility he courtsdisaster. Mrs. Radcliffe's skeletons are decently concealed inthe family cupboard, Lewis's stalk abroad in shameless publicity.In Mrs. Radcliffe's stories, the shadow fades and disappears justwhen we think we are close upon the substance; for, after we havelong been groping in the twilight of fearful imaginings, shesuddenly jerks back the shutter to admit the clear light ofreason. In Lewis's wonder-world there are no elusive shadows; hehurls us without preparation or initiation into a daylight orgyof horrors.
Lewis was educated at Westminster and Christ Church, but a yearspent in Weimar (1792-3), where he zealously studied German, andincidentally, met Goethe, seems to have left more obvious markson his literary career. To Lewis, Goethe is pre-eminently theauthor of _The Sorrows of Werther_; and Schiller, he remarkscasually, "has, written several other plays besides _TheRobbers."_[41] He probably read Heinse's _Ardinghello_(1787),Tieck's _Abdallah_ (1792-3), and _William Lovell_ (1794-6), manyof the innumerable dramas of Kotzebue, the romances of WeitWeber, and other specimens of what Carlyle describes as "the bowland dagger department," where
"Black Forests and Lubberland, sensuality and horror, the spectre nun and the charmed moonshine, shall not be wanting. Boisterous outlaws also, with huge whiskers, and the most cat o' mountain aspect; tear-stained sentimentalists, the grimmest man-eaters, ghosts and the like suspicious characters will be found in abundance."[42]
Throughout his life he seems to have made a hobby of theliterature that arouses violent emotion and mental excitement, orlacerates the nerves, or shocks and startles. The lifelike andthe natural are not powerful enough for his taste, though some ofhis _Romantic Tales_(1808), such as _My Uncle's Garret Window_,are uncommonly tame. Like the painter of a hoarding who must atall costs arrest attention, he magnifies, exaggerates anddistorts. Once when rebuked for introducing black guards into acountry where they did not exist, he is said to have declaredthat he would have made them sky-blue if he thought they wouldproduce any more effect.[43] Referring to _The Monk_, heconfesses: "Unluckily, in working it up, I thought that thestronger my colours, the more effect would my pictureproduce."[44]
One of his early attempts at fiction was a romance which he laterconverted into his popular drama, _The Castle Spectre_. This playwas staged in 1798, and was reconverted by Miss Sarah Wilkinsonin 1820 into a romance. Lewis spreads his banquet with a lavishhand, and crudities and absurdities abound, but he has a knack ofchoosing situations well adapted for stage effect. The play,aptly described by Coleridge as a "peccant thing of Noise, Frothand Impermanence,"[45] would offer a happy hunting ground tothose who delight in the pursuit of "parallel passages." At theage of twenty, during his residence at the Hague as _attache_ tothe British embassy, in the summer of 1794, he composed in tenweeks, his notorious romance, _The Monk_. On its publication in1795 it was attacked on the grounds of profanity and indecency.
_The Monk_, despite its cleverness, is essentially immature, yetit is not a childish work. It is much less youthful, forinstance, than Shelley's _Zastrozzi_ and _St. Irvyne_. Theinflamed imagination, the violent exaggeration of emotion and ofcharacter, the jeering cynicism and lack of tolerance, theincoherent formlessness, are all indications of adolescence. In_The Monk_ there are two distinct stories, loosely related. Thestory of Raymond and Agnes, into which the legends of thebleeding nun and Wandering Jew are woven with considerable skill,was published more than once as a detached and separate work. Itis concerned with the fate of two unhappy lovers, who are partedby the tyranny of their parents and of the church, and who enduremanifold agonies. The physical torture of Agnes is described inrevolting detail, for Lewis has no scruple in carrying the uglyfar beyond the limits within which it is artistic. The happyending of their harrowing story is incredible. By makingAmbrosio, on the verge of his hideous crimes, harshly condemnAgnes for a sin of the same nature as that which he is about tocommit, Lewis forges a link between the two stories. But theconnection is superficial, and the novel suffers through thedistraction of our interest. In the story of Ambrosio, Antoniaplays no part in her own downfall. She is as helpless as aplaster statue demolished by an earthquake. The figure of Matildahas more vitality, though Lewis changes his mind about hercharacter during the course of the book, and fails to make herearly history consistent with the ending of his story. She iscertainly not in league with the devil, when, in a passionatesoliloquy, she cries to Ambrosio, whom she believes to be asleep:"The time will come when you will be convinced that my passion ispure and disinterested. Then you will pity me and feel the wholeweight of my sorrows." But when the devil appears, he declares toAmbrosio:
"I saw that you were virtuous from vanity, not principle, and I seized the fit moment for your seduction. I observed your blind idolatry of the Madonna's picture. I bade a subordinate but crafty spirit assume a similar form, and you eagerly yielded to the blandishments of Matilda."
The discrepancy is obvious, but this blemish is immaterial, forthe whole story is unnatural. The deterioration in Ambrosio'scharacter--though Lewis uses all his energy in striving to makeit appear probable by discussing the effect of environment--istoo swift.
Lewis is at his best when he lets his youthful, high spirits havefull play. His boyish exaggeration makes Leonella, Antonia'saunt, seem like a pantomime character, who has inadvertentlystepped into a melodrama, but the caricature is amusing by itsvery crudity. She writes in red ink to express "the blushes ofher cheek," when she sends a message of encouragement to theConde d'Ossori. This and other puerile jests are more tolerablethan Lewis's attempts to depict passion or describe character.Bold, flaunting splashes
of colour, strongly marked, passionatefaces, exaggerated gestures start from every page, and his styleis as extravagant as his imagery. Sometimes he uses a short,staccato sentence to enforce his point, but more often we areengulfed in a swirling welter of words. He delights in thedeclamatory language of the stage, and all his characters speakas if they were behind the footlights, shouting to the gallery.
A cold-blooded reviewer, in whom the detective instinct wasstrong, indicated the sources of _The Monk_ so mercilessly, thatLewis appears in his critique[46] rather as the perpetrator of aseries of ingenious thefts than as the creator of a novel:
"The outline of the Monk Ambrosio's story was suggested by that of the Santon Barissa [Barsisa] in the _Guardian_:[47] the form of temptation is borrowed from _The Devil in Love_ of Canzotte [Cazotte], and the catastrophe is taken from _The Sorcerer_. The adventures of Raymond and Agnes are less obviously imitations, yet the forest scene near Strasburg brings to mind an incident in Smollett's _Count Fathom_; the bleeding nun is described by the author as a popular tale of the Germans,[48] and the convent prison resembles the inflictions of Mrs. Radcliffe."
The industrious reviewer overlooks the legend of the WanderingJew, which might have been added to the list of Lewis's"borrowings." It must be admitted that Lewis transforms, or atleast remodels, what he borrows. Addison's story relates how asage of reputed sanctity seduces and slays a maiden brought tohim for cure, and later sells his soul. Lewis abandons theOriental setting, converts the santon into a monk and embroidersthe story according to his fancy. Scott alludes to a Scottishversion of what is evidently a widespread legend.[49] Theresemblance of the catastrophe--presumably the appearance ofSatan in the form of Lucifer--to the scene in Mickle's_Sorcerer_, which was published among Lewis's _Tales of Wonder_(1801), is vague enough to be accidental. There are blue flamesand sorcery, and an apparition in both, but that is all the twoscenes have in common. The tyrannical abbess may be a heritagefrom _The Romance of the Forest_, but, if so she is exaggeratedalmost beyond recognition.
In fashioning as the villain of her latest novel, _The Italian_,a monk, whose birth is wrapt in obscurity, Mrs. Radcliffe mayhave been influenced by Lewis's _Monk_ which had appeared twoyears before. Both Schedoni and Ambrosio are reputed saints, bothare plunged into the blackest guilt, and both are victims of theInquisition. Mrs. Radcliffe, it is true, recoils from introducingthe enemy of mankind, but, before the secrets are finallyrevealed, we almost suspect Schedoni of having dabbled in theBlack Arts, and his actual crime falls short of our expectations.The "explained supernatural" plays a less prominent part in _TheItalian_ than in the previous novels, and Mrs. Radcliffe reliesfor her effect rather on sheer terror. The dramatic scene whereSchedoni stealthily approaches the sleeping Ellena at midnightrecalls the more highly coloured, but less impressive scene inAntonia's bedchamber. The fate of Bianchi, Ellena's aunt, isstrangely reminiscent of that of Elvira, Antonia's mother. Theconvent scenes and the overbearing abbess had been introducedinto Mrs. Radcliffe's earlier novels; but in _The Italian_, theanti-Roman feeling is more strongly emphasised than usual. Thismay or may not have been due to the influence of Lewis. There isno direct evidence that Mrs. Radcliffe had read _The Monk_, butthe book was so notorious that a fellow novelist would be almostcertain to explore its pages. Hoffmann's romance, _Elixir desTeufels_ (1816), is manifestly written under its inspiration.Coincidence could not account for the remarkable resemblances toincidents in the story of Ambrosio.
The far-famed collection of _Tales of Terror_ appeared in 1799,_The Tales of Wonder_ in 1801. The rest of Lewis's work consistsmainly of translations and adaptations from the German. Herevelled in the horrific school of melodrama. He delighted in thekind of German romance parodied by Meredith in _Farina_, whereAunt Lisbeth tells Margarita of spectres, smelling of murder andthe charnel-breath of midnight, who "uttered noises that winteredthe blood and revealed sights that stiffened hair three feetlong; ay, and kept it stiff." _The Bravo of Venice_ (1805) is atranslation of Zschokke's _Abellino, der Grosse Bandit_, butLewis invented a superfluous character, Monaldeschi, Rosabella'sdestined bridegroom, apparently with the object that Abellinomight slay him early in the story--and added a concludingchapter. At the outset of the story, Rosalvo, a man after Lewis'sown heart, declares:
"To astonish is my destiny: Rosalvo knows no medium: Rosalvo cannever act like common men," and thereupon proceeds to prove byhis extraordinary actions that this is no idle vaunt. He lives adouble life: in the guise of Abellino, he joins the banditti, andby inexplicable methods rids Venice of her enemies; in the guiseof a noble Florentine, Flodoardo, he woos the Doge's daughter,Rosabella. The climax of the story is reached when Flodoardo,under oath to deliver up the bandit Abellino, appears before theDoge at the appointed hour and reveals his double identity. He ishailed as the saviour of Hungary, and wins Rosabella as hisbride. In the second edition of _The Bravo of Venice_, a romancein four volumes by M. G. Lewis, _Legends of the Nunnery_, isannounced as in the press. There seems to be no record of itelsewhere. _Feudal Tyrants_ (1806), a long romance from theGerman, connected with the story of William Tell, consists of aseries of memoirs loosely strung together, in which the mostalarming episode is the apparition of the pale spectre of an agedmonk. In _Blanche and Osbright, or Mistrust_ (1808),[50] which isnot avowedly a translation, Lewis depicts an even more revoltingportrait than that of Abellino in his bravo's disguise. He addsdetail after detail without considering the final effect on theeye:
"Every muscle in his gigantic form seemed convulsed by some horrible sensation; the deepest gloom darkened every feature; the wind from the unclosed window agitated his raven locks, and every hair appeared to writhe itself. His eyeballs glared, his teeth chattered, his lips trembled; and yet a smile of satisfied vengeance played horribly around them. His complexion seemed suddenly to be changed to the dark tincture of an African; the expression of his countenance was dreadful, was diabolical. Magdalena, as she gazed upon his face, thought that she gazed upon a demon."
Here, to quote the Lady Hysterica Belamour, we have surely the"horrid, horrible, horridest horror." But in _Koenigsmark theRobber, or The Terror of Bohemia_ (1818), Lewis's caste includesan enormous yellow-eyed spider, a wolf who changes into a peasantand disappears amid a cloud of sulphur, and a ghost who shedsthree ominous drops of boiling blood. It was probably suchstories as this that Peacock had in mind when he declared,through Mr. Flosky, that the devil had become "too base andpopular" for the surfeited appetite of readers of fiction. Yet,as Carlyle once exclaimed of the German terror-drama, asexemplified in Kotzebue, Grillparzer and Klingemann, whosestock-in-trade is similar to that of Lewis: "If any man wish toamuse himself irrationally, here is the ware for his money."[51]Byron, who had himself attempted in _Oscar and Alva_ (_Hours ofIdleness_, 1807) a ballad in the manner of Lewis, describes withirony the triumphs of terror:
"Oh! wonderworking Lewis! Monk or Bard, Who fain would make Parnassus a churchyard! Lo! wreaths of yew, not laurel, bind thy brow, Thy muse a sprite, Apollo's sexton thou; Whether on ancient tombs thou tak'st thy stand, By gibbering spectres hailed, thy kindred band; Or tracest chaste descriptions on thy page To please the females of our modest age; All hail, M.P., from whose infernal brain Thin-sheeted phantoms glide, a grisly train; At whose command 'grim women' throng in crowds And kings of fire, of water, and of clouds With small grey men--wild yagers and what not, To crown with honour thee and Walter Scott; Again, all hail! if tales like thine may please, St. Luke alone can vanquish the disease. Even Satan's self with thee might dread to dwell, And in thy skull discern a deeper hell!"[52]
Scott's delightfully discursive review of _The Fatal Revenge orThe Family of Montorio_ (1810), not only forms a fittingintroduction to the romances of Maturin, but presents a livelysketch of the fashionable reading of the day. It has beeninsinuated that the _Quarterly Review_ was too heavy and serious,that it contained, to quote Scott's ow
n words, "none of thoselight and airy articles which a young lady might read while herhair was papering." To redeem the reputation of the journal,Scott gallantly undertook to review some of the "flitting andevanescent productions of the times." After a laboriousinspection of the contents of a hamper full of novels, he arrivedat the painful conclusion that "spirits and patience may be ascompletely exhausted in perusing trifles as in followingalgebraical calculations." He condemns the authors of the Gothicromance, not for their extravagance, a venial offence, but fortheir monotony, a deadly sin.
"We strolled through a variety of castles, each of which was regularly called Il Castello; met with as many captains of condottieri, heard various ejaculations of Santa Maria and Diabolo; read by a decaying lamp and in a tapestried chamber dozens of legends as stupid as the main history; examined such suites of deserted apartments as might set up a reasonable barrack, and saw as many glimmering lights as would make a respectable illumination." It was no easy task to bore Sir Walter Scott, and an excursion into the byeways of early nineteenth century fiction proves abundantly the justice of his satire. Such novelists as Miss Sarah Wilkinson or Mrs. Eliza Parsons, whose works were greedily devoured by circulating library readers a hundred years ago, deliberately concocted an unappetising gallimaufry of earlier stories and practised the harmless deception of serving their insipid dishes under new and imposing names. A writer in the _Annual Review_, so early as 1802, complains in criticising _Tales of Superstition and Chivalry_:
"It is not one of the least objections against these fashionable fictions that the imagery of them is essentially monstrous. Hollow winds, clay-cold hands, clanking chains and clicking clocks, with a few similar etcetera are continually tormenting us."
Tales of terror were often issued in the form of sixpennychapbooks, enlivened by woodcuts daubed in yellow, blue, red andgreen. Embellished with these aids to the imagination, they weresold in thousands. To the readers of a century ago, a "blue book"meant, as Medwin explains in his life of Shelley, not a pamphletfilled with statistics, but "a sixpenny shocker."[53] Thenotorious Minerva Press catered for wealthier patrons, and, it issaid, sold two thousand copies of Mrs. Bennett's _Beggar Girl andher Benefactors_ on the day of publication, at thirty-sixshillings for the seven volumes. Samuel Rogers recalled Lane, thehead of the firm, riding in a carriage and pair with two footmen,wearing gold cockades.[54] Scott was careful not to disclose thenames of the novelists he derided, but his hamper probablycontained a selection of Mrs. Parsons' sixty works, and perhapstwo of Miss Wilkinson's, with their alluring titles, _The Prioryof St. Clair, or The Spectre of the Murdered Nun_; _The Conventof the Grey Penitents, or The Apostate Nun_. Perchance, he foundthere Mrs. Henrietta Rouviere's romance, (published in the sameyear as _Montorio_,) _A Peep at our Ancestors_ (1807), describingthe reign of King Stephen. Mrs. Rouviere, in her preface,
"flatters herself that, aided by records and documents, she may have succeeded in a correct though faint sketch of the times she treats, and in affording, if through a dim yet not distorted nor discoloured glass, A Peep at our Ancestors";
but her story is entirely devoid of the colour with which Mrs.Radcliffe, her model, contrived to decorate the past. It is,moreover, written in a style so opaque that it obscures herimages from view as effectually as a piece of ground glass. Todescribe the approach of twilight--an hour beloved by writers ofromance--she attempts a turgid paraphrase of Gray's Elegy:
"The grey shades of an autumnal evening gradually stole over the horizon, progressively throwing a duskier hue on the surrounding objects till glimmering confusion encompassing the earth shut from the accustomed eye the well-known view, leaving conjecture to mark its boundaries."
The adventures of Adelaide and her lover, Walter of Gloucester,are so insufferably tedious that Scott doubtless decided to"leave to conjecture" their interminable vicissitudes. The namesof other novels, whose pages he may impatiently have scanned, maybe garnered by those who will, from such works as _LivingAuthors_ (1817), or from the four volumes of Watts' elaboratecompilation, the _Bibliotheca Britannica_ (1824). The titles are,indeed, lighter and more entertaining reading than the booksthemselves. Anyone might reasonably expect to read _MidnightHorrors, or The Bandit's Daughter_, as Henry Tilney vows he read_The Mysteries of Udolpho_, with "hair on end all the time"; butthe actual story, notwithstanding a wandering ball of fire, thatacts as guide through the labyrinths of a Gothic castle, isconducive of sleep rather than shudders. The notoriety of Lewis'smonk may be estimated by the procession of monks who followed inhis train. There were, to select a few names at random, _The NewMonk_, by one R.S., Esq.; _The Monk of Madrid_, by George Moore(1802); _The Bloody Monk of Udolpho_, by T.J. Horsley Curties;_Manfroni, the One-handed Monk_, whose history was borrowed,together with those of Abellino, the terrific bravo, and RinaldoRinaldini,[55] by "J.J." from Miss Flinders' library;[56] andlastly, as a counter-picture, a monk without a scowl, _TheBenevolent Monk_, by Theodore Melville (1807). The nuns,including "Rosa Matilda's" _Nun of St. Omer's_, Miss SophiaFrancis's _Nun of Misericordia_ (1807) and Miss Wilkinson's_Apostate Nun_, would have sufficed to people a convent. Perhaps_The Convent of the Grey Penitents_ would have been a suitableabode for them; but most of them were, to quote Crabbe, "girls nonunnery can tame." Lewis's Venetian bravo was boldly transportedto other climes. We find him in Scotland in _The MysteriousBravo_, or _The Shrine of St. Alstice, A Caledonian Legend_, andin Austria in _The Bravo of Bohemia or The Black Forest_. Nocountry is safe from the raids of banditti. _The CaledonianBanditti_ or _The Banditti of the Forest_, or _The Bandit ofFlorence_--all very much alike in their manners and morals--makethe heroine's journey a perilous enterprise. The romances of Mrs.Radcliffe were rifled unscrupulously by the snappers-up ofunconsidered trifles, and many of the titles are variations onhers. In emulation of _The Romance of the Forest_ we find GeorgeWalker's _Romance of the Cavern_ (1792) and Miss Eleanor Sleath's_Mysteries of the Forest_. Novelists appreciated the magneticcharm of the word "mystery" on a title-page, and after _TheMysteries of Udolpho_ we find such seductive names as _MysteriousWarnings_ and _Mysterious Visits_, by Mrs. Parsons; _HorridMysteries_, translated from the German of the Marquis von Grosse,by R. Will (1796); _The Mystery of the Black Tower_ and _TheMystic Sepulchre_, by John Palmer, a schoolmaster of Bath; _TheMysterious Wanderer_ (1807), by Miss Sophia Reeve; _TheMysterious Hand or Subterranean Horrors_ (1811), by A.J.Randolph; and _The Mysterious Freebooter_ (1805), by FrancisLathom. Castles and abbeys were so persistently haunted that Mrs.Rachel Hunter, a severely moral writer, advertises one of herstories as _Letitia: A Castle Without a Spectre_. Mystery slips,almost unawares, into the domestic story. There are, forinstance, vague hints of it in Charlotte Smith's _Old ManorHouse_ (1793). The author of _The Ghost_ and of _More Ghosts_adopts the pleasing pseudonym of Felix Phantom. The gloom ofnight broods over many of the stories, for we know:
"affairs that walk, As they say spirits do, at midnight, have In them a wilder nature than the business That seeks despatch by day,"
and we are confronted with titles like _Midnight Weddings_, byMrs. Meeke, one of Macaulay's favourite "bad-novel writers," _TheMidnight Bell_, awakening memories of Duncan's murder, by GeorgeWalker, or _The Nocturnal Minstrel_ (1809), by Miss Sleath. These"dismal treatises" abound in reminiscences of Mrs. Radcliffe andof "Monk" Lewis, and many of them hark back as far as _The Castleof Otranto_ for some of their situations. The novels of MissWilkinson may perhaps serve as well as those of any of hercontemporaries to show that Scott was not unduly harsh in hiscondemnation of the romances fashionable in the first decade ofthe nineteenth century, when "tales of terror jostle on theroad."[57] The sleeping potion, a boon to those who weave theintricate pattern of a Gothic romance, is one of Miss Wilkinson'sfavourite devices, and is employed in at least three of herstories. In _The Chateau de Montville_ (1803) it is administeredto the amiabl
e Louisa to aid Augustine in his sinister designs,but she ultimately escapes, and is wedded by Octavius, who haspreviously been borne off by a party of pirates. He "finds thepast unfortunate vicissitudes of his life amply recompensed byher love." In _The Convent of the Grey Penitents_, Rosalthehappily avoids the opiate, as she overhears the plans of herunscrupulous husband, who, it seems, has "an unquenchable thirstof avarice," and desires to win a wealthier bride. She flees to a"cottage ornee" on Finchley Common, the home, it may beremembered, of Thackeray's Washerwoman; and the thrills we expectfrom a novel of terror are reserved for the second volume, andarise out of the adventures of the next generation. AfterRosalthe's death, spectres, blue flames, corpses, thunderstormsand hairbreadth escapes are set forth in generous profusion.
In _The Priory of St. Clair_ (1811), Julietta, who has beenforced into a convent against her will, like so many otherheroines, is drugged and conveyed as a corpse to the Count deValve's Gothic castle. She comes to life only to be slain beforethe high altar, and revenges herself after death by haunting thecount regularly every night. _The Fugitive Countess or Convent ofSt. Ursula_ (1807) contains three spicy ingredients--a mockburial, a concealed wife and a mouldering manuscript. The socialstatus of Miss Wilkinson's characters is invariably lofty, for noself-respecting ghost ever troubles the middle classes; and hermanner is as ambitious as her matter. Her personages, in _Lopezand Aranthe_, behave and talk thus:
"Heavenly powers!" exclaimed Aranthe, "it is Dorimont, or else myeyes deceive me!" Overpowered with surprise and almostbreathless, she sunk on the carpet. Lopez stood aghast, hiscountenance was of a deadly pale, a glass of wine he had in hishand he let fall to the floor, while he articulated: "What analteration in that once beauteous countenance!"
Miss Wilkinson's sentences stagger and lurch uncertainly, but shedelights in similes and other ornaments of style:
"Adeline Barnett was fair as a lily, tall as the pine, her fine dark eyes sparkling as diamonds, and she moved with the majestic air of a goddess, but pride and ambition appeared on the brow of this famed maiden, and destroying the effect of her charms."
She is, in fact, more addicted to "gramarye" than to"grammar"--the fault with which Byron, in a note to _EnglishBards and Scotch Reviewers_, charged the hero and heroine ofScott's _Lay of the Last Minstrel_. Her heroes do not merelylove, they are "enamoured to a romantic degree." Her arbours are"composed of jasmine, white rose, and other odoriferous sweets ofFlora." She sprinkles French phrases with an airy nonchalanceworthy of the Lady Hysterica Belamour, whose memoirs are includedin Barrett's _Heroine_. Her duchesses "figure away with_eclat_"--"a party _quarrie_ assemble at their _dejeune_." It isnoteworthy that by 1820 even Miss Wilkinson had learnt to despisethe spectres in whom she had gloried during her amazing career.In _The Spectre of Lanmere Abbey_ (1820) the ghost isignominiously exposed, and proved to be "a tall figure dressed inwhite, and a long, transparent veil flowing over her wholefigure," while the heroine Amelia speaks almost in the accents ofCatherine Morland:
"My governess has been affirming that there are Gothic buildings without spectres or legends of a ghostly nature attached to them; now, what is a castle or abbey worth without such appendage?; do tell me candidly, are none of the turrets of your old family mansion in Monmouth rendered thus terrific by some unquiet, wandering spirit?, dare the peasantry pass it after twilight, or if they are forced into that temerity, do not their teeth chatter, their hair stand erect and their poor knees knock together?"
That Miss Wilkinson, who, for twenty years, had conscientiouslystriven to chill her readers' blood, should be compelled at lastto turn round and gibe at her own spectres, reveals into what apiteous plight the novel of terror had fallen. When even theenchantress disavowed her belief in them, the ghosts must surelyhave fled shrieking and affrighted and thought never more toraise their diminished heads.
From a medley of novels, similar to those of Miss Wilkinson,Scott singled out for commendation _The Fatal Revenge or TheFamily of Montorio_, by "Jasper Denis Murphy," or the Rev.Charles Robert Maturin. Amid the chaos of horror into whichMaturin hurls his readers, Scott shrewdly discerned the spiritand animation which, though often misdirected, pervade his wholework. The story is but a grotesque distortion of life, yet Scottfound himself "insensibly involved in the perusal and at timesimpressed with no common degree of respect for the powers of theauthor." His generous estimate of Maturin's gifts and hisprediction of future success is the more impressive, because _TheFatal Revenge_ undeniably belongs to the very class of novels hewas ridiculing.
Maturin was an eccentric Irish clergyman, who diverted himself byweaving romances and constructing tragedies. He loved to minglewith the gay and frivolous; he affected foppish attire, andprided himself on his exceptional skill in dancing. Hisindulgence in literary work was probably but another expressionof his longing to escape from the strait and narrow wayprescribed for a Protestant clergyman. Wild anecdotes are told ofhis idiosyncrasies.[58] He preferred to compose his stories in aroom full of people, and he found a noisy argument especiallyinvigorating. To prevent himself from taking part in theconversation, he used to cover his mouth with paste composed offlour and water. Sometimes, we are told, he would wear a redwafer upon his brow, as a signal that he was enduring the throesof literary composition and expected forbearance andconsideration. It is said that he once missed preferment in thechurch because he absentmindedly interviewed his prospectivevicar with his head bristling with quills like a porcupine. He issaid to have insisted on his wife's using rouge though she hadnaturally a high colour, and to have gone fishing in aresplendent blue coat and silk stockings. Such was the flamboyantpersonality of the man whose first novel attracted the kindlyattention of Scott. His oddities, which would have rejoiced theheart of Dickens, are not without significance in a study of hisliterary work, for his love of emphasis and exaggeration arereflected in both the substance and style of his novels.
Maturin's writings fall into three periods. Of his three earlynovels, _The Fatal Revenge or The Family of Montorio_ (1807),_The Wild Irish Boy_ (1808) and _The Milesian Chief_ (1812), thefirst only is a tale of horror. _The Wild Irish Boy_ is adomestic story, and forms a suitable companion for Lady Morgan's_Wild Irish Girl_. _The Milesian Chief_ is a historical novel,and is now chiefly remembered on account of the likeness of theopening chapters to Scott's _Bride of Lammermoor_ (1819). Afterthe publication of these novels, Maturin turned his attention tothe stage. His first tragedy, _Bertram_ (1816), received theencouragement of Scott and Byron. The character of Bertram ismodelled on that of Schiller's robber-chief, Karl von Moor, whocaptivated the imagination of Coleridge himself, and who isreflected in _Osorio_ and perhaps in Mrs. Radcliffe's villains.The action of the melodrama moves swiftly, and abounds in the"moving situations" Maturin loved to handle. _Bertram_ wassucceeded in 1817 by _Manuel_, and in 1819 by _Fredolfo_.Meanwhile Maturin had returned to novel-writing. _Women, or Pouret Contre_, with its lifelike sketches of Puritanical society andclever characterisation, appeared in 1818, and was favourablyreviewed by Scott.[59] _Melmoth the Wanderer_, Maturin'smasterpiece, was published in 1820, and was succeeded in 1824 byhis last work, _The Albigenses_, a historical romance, followingScott's design rather than that of Mrs. Radcliffe.
In reviewing _The Family of Montorio_, Scott prudently attemptedonly a brief survey of the plot, and forsook Maturin's sequenceof events. In his sketch the outline of the story iscomparatively clear. In the novel itself we wander, bewildered,baffled and distracted through labyrinthine mazes. No Ariadneawaits on the threshold with the magic ball of twine to guide usthrough the complicated windings. We stumble along blind alleysdesperately retracing our weary steps, and, after stumbling aloneand unaided to the very end, reach the darkly concealed clue whenit has ceased to be either of use or of interest to us. Many anadventurer must have lain down, dispirited and exhausted, withoutever reaching his distant and elusive goal. Disentangled andsimplified almost beyond recognition, the st
ory runs thus: In1670, Count Orazio and his younger brother are the solerepresentatives of the family of Montorio. Orazio has marriedErminia di Vivaldi, whom he loves devotedly. She does not returnhis love. The younger brother determines to take advantage ofthis circumstance to gain the title and estates for himself, andsucceeds in arousing Orazio's jealousy against a young officer,Verdoni, to whom Erminia had formerly been deeply attached. In aviolent passion Orazio slays Verdoni before the eyes of Erminia,who falls dead at his feet. This part of his design accomplished,the younger brother plots to murder Orazio himself, who, however,discovers the innocence of his wife and the hideous perfidy ofhis brother. Temporarily bereft of reason, Orazio sojourns aloneon a desert island. When his senses are restored, he resolves todevote the rest of his life to vengeance. For fifteen years heburies himself in occult studies, and when his diabolical schemeshave matured, returns, disguised as the monk Schemoli, to thescene of the murder. He becomes confessor to his brother, who hasassumed the title and estates. It is his intention to compel theCount's sons, Annibal and Ippolito, to murder their father. Deathat the hands of parricides seems to him the only appropriatecatastrophe for the Count's career of infamy. To reconcile thetwo victims--Annibal and Ippolito--to their task, he "reliesmainly on the doctrine of fatalism." The most complex andingenious "machinery" is used to work upon their superstitiousfeelings. No device is too tortuous if it aid his purpose. Eventhe pressure of the Inquisition is brought to bear on one of thebrothers. Each, after protracted agony, submits to his destiny,and the swords of the two brothers meet in the Count's body. Whenthe murder is safely accomplished, it is proved that Annibal andIppolito are the sons, not of the Count, but of Schemoli andErminia. By the irony of fate the knowledge comes too late forSchemoli to save his children from the crime. At the close of alengthy trial the two brothers are released, but deprived oftheir lands. Ultimately they die fighting in the siege ofBarcelona. Schemoli perishes, in the approved Gothic manner, byself-administered poison. Intertwined with the main theme ofSchemoli's fatal revenge are the love-stories of the twobrothers. Rosolia, a nun, who seems to have been acquainted withShakespeare's comedies, disguises herself as a page, and devotesher life to the service of Ippolito and to the composition ofsentimental verses. She only reveals her sex just before herdeath, though we have guessed it from her first appearance.Ildefonsa, who is beloved of Annibal, has been forced into aconvent against her will--a fate almost inevitable in the realmof Gothic romance. When letters are received authorising herrelease from the vows, a pitiless mother-superior reports thatshe is dead. She is immured, but an earthquake sets her free, forMaturin will move heaven and earth to effect his purposes. Theill-fated maiden dies shortly afterwards. Ere the close it provesthat Ildefonsa was the daughter of Erminia, who had been secretlymarried to Verdoni before her union with Orazio. Such is theskeleton of Maturin's story, when its scattered members have beenpatiently collected and fitted together. The impressive figure ofSchemoli, with his unholy power of fascinating his reluctantaccomplices, lends to the book the only sort of unity itpossesses. But even he fails to arouse a sense of fear strongenough to fix our attention to so wandering a story. Like thedoomed brothers, we drift dejectedly through inexplicableterrors, and we re-echo with fervour Annibal's dolorous cry:
"Why should I be shut up in this house of horrors to deal with spirits and damned things and the secrets of the infernal world while there are so many paths open to pleasure, the varieties of human intercourse and the enjoyment of life?"
Maturin, a disciple of Mrs. Radcliffe, feels it his duty toexplain away the apparently miraculous incidents in his story,but he lacks the persevering ingenuity that partly compensatesfor her frauds. On a single page he calmly discloses secretswhich have harassed us for four volumes, and his long-deferredexplanations are paltry and incredible. The bleeding figures thatwrought so painfully on the sensitive nerves of Ippolito aremerely waxen images that spout blood automatically.Disappearances and reappearances, which seemed supernatural, aresimply effected by private exits and entrances. Other startlingphenomena are accounted for in the same trivial fashion.
Maturin seems to have crowded into his story nearly everycharacter and incident that had been employed in earlier Gothicromances. Schemoli is a remarkably faithful portrait of Mrs.Radcliffe's Schedoni. From beneath his cowl flash the piercingeyes, whose very glance will daunt the bravest heart; his sallowvisage is furrowed with the traces of bygone passions; he shunssociety, and is dreaded by his associates. The oppressed maiden,driven into a nunnery, drugged and immured, the ambitiouscountess, the devoted, loquacious servant, the inhumanabbess--all play their accustomed parts. The background shiftsfrom the robber's den to the ruined chapel, from the castle vaultto the dungeon of the Inquisition, each scene being admirablysuited to the situation contrived, or the emotion displayed.Maturin had accurately inspected the passages and trap-doors ofOtranto. No item, not a rusty lock, not a creaking hinge, hadescaped his vigilant eye. He knew intimately every nook andcranny of Mrs. Radcliffe's Gothic abbeys. He had viewed withtrepidation their blood-stained floors, their skeletons andcorpses, and had carefully calculated the psychological effect ofthese properties. He had gazed with starting eye on the luridhorrors of "Monk" Lewis, and had carried away impressions sodistinct that he, perhaps unwittingly, transferred them to thepages of his own story. But Maturin's reading was not strictlyconfined to the school of terror. He had studied Shakespeare'stragedies, and these may have suggested to him the idea ofenhancing the interest of his story by dissecting human motiveand describing passionate feeling. In depicting the remorse ofthe count and his wife Zenobia, who had committed a murder togratify their ambition, and who are tormented by ugly dreams,Maturin inevitably draws from _Macbeth_. Zenobia, the strongercharacter, reviles her husband for indulging in sickly fanciesand strives to embolden him:
"Like a child you run from a mask you have yourself painted."
He replies in a free paraphrase of _Hamlet_:
"It is this cursed domestic sensibility of guilt that makescowards of us all."
Maturin is distinguished from the incompetent horde ofromance-writers, whom Scott condemned, by the powerful eloquenceof his style and by his ability to analyse emotion, to write asif he himself were swayed by the feeling he describes. His insaneextravagances have at least the virtue that they come flaming hotfrom an excited imagination. The passage quoted byScott--Orazio's attempt to depict his state of mind after he hadheard of his brother's perfidy--may serve to illustrate the forceand vigour of his language:
"Oh! that midnight darkness of the soul in which it seeks for something whose loss has carried away every sense but one of utter and desolate deprivation; in which it traverses leagues in motion and worlds in thought without consciousness of relief, yet with a dread of pausing. I had nothing to seek, nothing to recover; the whole world could not restore me an atom, could not show me again a glimpse of what I had been or lost, yet I rushed on as if the next step would reach shelter and peace."
_Melmoth the Wanderer_ has found many admirers. It fascinatedRossetti,[60] Thackeray[61] and Miss Mitford.[62] It was praisedby Balzac, who wrote a satirical sequel--_Melmoth Reconcilie aL'Eglise_ (1835), and by Baudelaire, and exercised a considerableinfluence on French literature.[63] It consists of a series oftales, strung together in a complicated fashion. In each tale theWanderer, who has bartered his soul in return for prolonged life,may, if he can, persuade someone to take the bargain off hishands.[64] He visits those who are plunged in despair. Hisapproach is heralded by strange music, and his eyes have apreternatural lustre that terrifies his victims. No one willagree to his "incommunicable condition."
The bird's-eye view of an Edinburgh Reviewer who described_Melmoth_ as "the sacrifice of Genius in the Temple of FalseTaste," will give some idea of the bewildering variety of itscontents:
"His hero is a modern Faustus, who has bartered his soul with the powers of darkness for protracted life
and unlimited worldly enjoyment; his heroine, a species of insular goddess, a virgin Calypso of the Indian Ocean, who, amid flowers and foliage, lives upon figs and tamarinds, associates with peacocks and monkeys, is worshipped by the occasional visitants of her island, finds her way into Spain where she is married to the aforesaid hero by the hand of a dead hermit, the ghost of a murdered domestic being the witness of her nuptials; and finally dies in a dungeon of the Inquisition at Madrid. To complete this phantasmagoric exhibition, we are presented with sybils and misers, parricides, maniacs in abundance, monks with scourges pursuing a naked youth streaming with blood; subterranean Jews surrounded by the skeletons of their wives and children; lovers blasted by lightning, Irish hags, Spanish grandees, shipwrecks, caverns, Donna Claras and Donna Isidoras--all exposed to each other in violent and glaring contrast and all their adventures narrated with the same undeviating display of turgid, vehement, and painfully elaborated language."[65]
This breathless sentence gives some conception of the deliriousimagery of Maturin's romance, but the book is worthy of a morerespectful, unhurried survey. _Melmoth_ shows a distinct advanceon _Montorio_ in constructive power. Each separate story isperfectly clear and easy to follow, in spite of the elaborateinterlacing. The romance opens with the death of a miser in adesolate Irish farmstead, with harpies clustering at his bedside.His nephew and heir, John Melmoth, is adjured to destroy acertain manuscript and a portrait of an ancestor with eyes "suchas one feels they wish they had never seen and feels they cannever forget." Alone at midnight, John Melmoth reads themanuscript, which is reputed to have been written by Stanton, anEnglish traveller in Spain, about 1676. The document relates astartling story of a mysterious Englishman who appears at aSpanish wedding with disastrous consequences, and reappearsbefore Stanton in a madhouse offering release on dreadfulconditions. After reading it, John Melmoth decides to burn thefamily portrait. He is visited by a sinister form, who provesthat he is no figment of the imagination by leaving black andblue marks on his relative's wrist. The next night a ship iswrecked in a storm. The Wanderer appears, and mocks the victimswith fiendish mirth. The sole survivor, Don Alonzo Moncada,unfolds his story to John Melmoth. The son of a great duke, hehas been forced to become a monk to save his mother's honour. Hedwells with the excruciating detail in which Maturin is inclinedto revel, on the horrors of Spanish monasteries. Escaping througha subterranean passage, he is guided by a parricide, whoincidentally tells him a loathsome story of two immured lovers.His plan of flight is foiled, and he is borne off to the dungeonsof the Inquisition. Here the Wanderer, who has a miraculous powerto enter where he will, offers, on the ineffable condition, toprocure his freedom. Moncada repudiates the temptation, effectshis own escape during a great fire, and catches sight of thestranger on the summit of a burning building. He takes refugewith a Jew, but, to evade the vigilance of the Inquisitors,disappears suddenly down an underground passage, where he findsAdonijah, another Jew, who obligingly employs him as anamanuensis, and sets him to copy a manuscript. This gives Maturinthe opportunity, for which he has been waiting, to introduce his"Tale of the Indian." The story of Immalee, who is visited on herdesert island by the Wanderer in the guise of a lover as well asa tempter, forms the most memorable part of _Melmoth_. In theother stories the stranger has been a taciturn creature, relyingon the lustre of his eyes rather than on his powers of eloquenceto win over his victims. To Immalee he pours forth floods ofrhetoric on the sins and follies of mankind. Had she not been oneof Rousseau's children of nature, and so innocent alike of aknowledge of Shakespeare and of the fault of impatience, shewould surely have exclaimed: "If thou hast news, I pritheedeliver them like a man of this world." When Immalee istransported to Spain and reassumes her baptismal name of Isidora,Melmoth follows her and their conversations are continued at deadof night through the lattice. Here they discourse on the realnature of love. At length the gloomy lover persuades Isidora tomarry him. Their midnight nuptials take place against a weirdbackground. By a narrow, precipitous path they approach theruined chapel, and are united by a hand "as cold as that ofdeath." Meanwhile, Don Francisco, Isidora's father, on his wayhome, spends the night at an inn, where a stranger insists ontelling him "The Tale of Guzman." In this tale the tempter visitsa father whose family is starving, but who resists the lure ofwealth. Maturin portrays with extraordinary power thedeterioration in the character of an old man Walberg, through theeffects of poverty. At the close of the narration Don Franciscofalls into a deep slumber, but is sternly awakened by a strangerwith an awful eye, who insists on becoming his fellow traveller,and on telling, in defiance of protests, yet another story. Theprologue to the Lover's Tale is almost Chaucerian in its humour:
"It was with the utmost effort of his mixed politeness and fear that he prepared himself to listen to the tale, which the stranger had frequently amid their miscellaneous conversation, alluded to, and showed an evident anxiety to relate. These allusions were attended with unpleasant reminiscences to the hearer--but he saw that it was to be, and armed himself as best he might with courage to hear. 'I would not intrude on you, Senhor,' says the stranger, 'with a narrative in which you can feel but little interest, were I not conscious that its narration may operate as a warning, the most awful, salutary and efficacious to yourself.'"
At this veiled hint Don Francisco discharges a volley of oaths,but he is silenced completely by the smile of the stranger--"thatspoke bitterer and darker things than the fiercest frown thatever wrinkled the features of man." After this he cannot choosebut hear, and the stranger seizes his opportunity to begin anuncommonly dull story, connected with a Shropshire family andintermingled with historical events. In this tale the Wandererappears to a girl whose lover has lost his reason, and offers torestore him if she will accept his conditions. Once more thetempter is foiled. The story meanders so sluggishly that oursympathies are with Don Francisco, and we cannot help wishingthat he had adopted more drastic measures to quieten theinsistent stranger. At the conclusion Francisco muttersindignantly:
"It is inconceivable to me how this person forces himself on my company, harasses me with tales that have no more application to me than the legend of the Cid, and may be as apocryphal as the ballad of Roncesvalles--"
but yet the stranger has not finished. He proceeds to tell him atale in which he will feel a peculiar interest, that of Isidora,his own daughter, and finally urges him to hasten to her rescue.Don Francisco wanders by easy stages to Madrid, and, on hisarrival, marries Isidora against her will to Montilla. Melmoth,according to promise, appears at the wedding. The bridegroom isslain. Isidora, with Melmoth's child, ends her days in thedungeons of the Inquisition, murmuring: "Paradise! will he bethere?" So far as one may judge from the close of the story, itseems not.
Moncada and John Melmoth, whom we left, at the beginning of theromance, in Ireland, are revisited by the Wanderer, whose time onearth has at last run out. He confesses his failure: "I havetraversed the world in the search, and no one to gain that world,would lose his own soul." His words remind us of the text of thesermon which suggested to Maturin the idea of the romance. Likethe companions of Dr. Faustus, Melmoth and Moncada hear terriblesounds from the room of the Wanderer in the last throes of agony.The next morning the room is empty; but, following a track to thesea-cliffs, they see, on a crag beneath, the kerchief theWanderer had worn about his neck. "Melmoth and Moncada exchangedlooks of silent and unutterable horror, and returned slowlyhome."
This extraordinary romance, like _Montorio_, clearly owes much tothe novels of Mrs. Radcliffe, and "Monk" Lewis. Immalee, as hername implies, is but a glorified Emily with a loxia on hershoulder instead of a lute in her hand. The monastic horrors areobviously a heritage from _The Monk_. The Rosicrucian legend, ashandled in _St. Leon_, may have offered hints to Maturin, whosetreatment is, however, far more imaginative and impressive thanthat of Godwin. The resemblanc
e to the legend of the WanderingJew need not be laboured. Marlowe's _Dr. Faustus_ and the firstpart of Goethe's _Faust_ left their impression on the story. Theclosing scenes inevitably remind us of the last act of Marlowe'stragedy. But, when all these debts are acknowledged they do butserve to enhance the success of Maturin, who out of these variedstrands could weave so original a romance. _Melmoth_ is not aningenious patchwork of previous stories. It is the outpouring ofa morbid imagination that has long brooded on the fearful and theterrific. Imbued with the grandeur and solemnity of his theme,Maturin endeavours to write in dignified, stately language. Thereare frequent lapses into bombast, but occasionally his rhetoricis splendidly effective:
"It was now the latter end of autumn; heavy clouds had all day been passing laggingly and gloomily along the atmosphere, as the hours pass over the human mind and life. Not a drop of rain fell; the clouds went portentously off, like ships of war reconnoitring a strong fort, to return with added strength and fury."
He takes pleasure in coining unusual, striking phrases, such as:"All colours disappear in the night, and despair has no diary,"or "Minutes are hours in the _noctuary_ of terror," or "Thesecret of silence is the only secret. Words are a blasphemyagainst that taciturn and invisible God whose presence enshroudsus in our last extremity."
Maturin chooses his similes with discrimination, to heighten theeffect he aims at producing:
"The locks were so bad and the keys so rusty that it was like thecry of the dead in the house when the keys were turned," or:
"With all my care, however, the lamp declined, quivered, flashed a pale light, like the smile of despair, on me, and was extinguished ... I had watched it like the last beatings of an expiring heart, like the shiverings of a spirit about to depart for eternity."
There are no quiet scenes or motionless figures in _Melmoth_.Everything is intensified, exaggerated, distorted. The veryclouds fly rapidly across the sky, and the moon bursts forth withthe "sudden and appalling effulgence of lightning." A shower ofrain is perhaps "the most violent that was ever precipitated onthe earth." When Melmoth stamps his foot "the reverberation ofhis steps on the hollow and loosened stones almost contended withthe thunder." Maturin's use of words like "callosity,""induration," "defecated," "evanition," and his fondness foritalics are other indications of his desire to force animpression by fair means or foul.
The gift of psychological insight that distinguishes _Montorio_reappears in a more highly developed form in _Melmoth theWanderer_. "Emotions," Maturin declares, "are my events," and heexcels in depicting mental as well as physical torture. Themonotony of a "timeless day" is suggested with dreary reality inthe scene where Moncada and his guide await the approach of nightto effect their escape from the monastery. The gradual surrenderof resolution before slight, reiterated assaults is cunninglydescribed in the analysis of Isidora's state of mind, when ahateful marriage is forced upon her. Occasionally Maturinastonishes us by the subtlety of his thought:
"While people think it worth while to torment us we are neverwithout some dignity, though painful and imaginary."
It is his faculty for describing intense, passionate feeling, hispower of painting wild pictures of horror, his gifts forconveying his thoughts in rolling, rhythmical periods ofeloquence, that make _Melmoth_ a memory-haunting book. With allhis faults Maturin was the greatest as well as the last of theGoths.