REV. C. R. MATURIN.

the parting light and the approaching darkness. The glow of the western heaven was still resplendent and glorious; a little above, the blending hues of orange and The REV. C. R. MATURIN (1782-1824), curate azure were softening into a mellow and indefinite light; of St Peter's, Dublin, came forward in 1807 as an and in the upper region of the air, a delicious blue darkimitator of the terrific and gloomy style of novel-ness invited the eye to repose in luxurious dimness: one writing, of which Monk' Lewis was the modern star alone shewed its trembling head-another and master. Its higher mysteries were known only another, like infant births of light; and in the dark to Mrs Radcliffe. The date of that style, as east the half-moon, like a bark of pearl, came on through Maturin afterwards confessed, was out when he the deep still ocean of heaven. Eva gazed on; some was a boy, and he had not powers to revive it. she felt as if she were quite well; a glow like that of tears came to her eyes; they were a luxury. Suddenly His youthful production was entitled Fatal Re-health pervaded her whole frame-one of those indevenge, or the Family of Montorio. The first part scribable sensations that seem to assure us of safety, of this title was the invention of the publisher, while, in fact, they are announcing dissolution. She and it proved a good bookselling appellation, for imagined herself suddenly restored to health and to the novel was in high favour in the circulating happiness. She saw De Courcy once more, as in their libraries. It is undoubtedly a work of genius- early hours of love, when his face was to her as if it had full of imagination and energetic language, though been the face of an angel; thought after thought both are carried to extravagance and bombast. came back on her heart like gleams of paradise. She Between 1807 and 1820 our author published a trembled at the felicity that filled her whole soul; it number of works of romantic fiction-The Milesian was one of those fatal illusions that disease, when Chief; The Wild Irish Boy; Women, or Pour et flatters its victim with that mirage, when the heart is a it is connected with strong emotions of the mind, often Contre; and Melmoth the Wanderer-all works desert, which rises before the wanderer, to dazzle, to in three or four volumes each. Women was well delude, and to destroy. received by the public; but none of its predecessors, as the author himself states, ever reached a Melmoth is the wildest of Mr Maturin's second edition. In Women he aimed at depicting romances. The hero 'gleams with demon light,' real life and manners, and we have some pictures and owing to a compact with Satan, lives a of Calvinistic Methodists, an Irish Meg Merrilies, century and a half, performing all manner of and an Irish hero, De Courcy, whose character adventures, the most defensible of which is is made up of contradictions and improbabilities. frightening an Irish miser to death. Some of the Two female characters, Eva Wentworth and Zaira, details in Melmoth are absolutely sickening and a brilliant Italian-who afterwards turns out to be loathsome. They seem the last convulsive efforts the mother of Eva-are drawn with delicacy and and distortions of the Monk' Lewis school of fine effect. The former is educated in strict romance. In 1824-the year of his premature seclusion, and is purity itself. De Courcy is in death-Mr Maturin published The Albigenses, love with both, and both are blighted by his incon- a romance in four volumes. This work was stancy. Eva dies calmly and tranquilly, elevated intended by the author as one of a series of by religious hope. Zaira meditates suicide, but romances illustrative of European feelings and desists from the attempt, and lives on, as if spell-manners in ancient, in middle, and in modern bound to the death-place of her daughter and times. Laying the scene of his story in France, lover. De Courcy perishes of remorse. These in the thirteenth century, the author connected scenes of deep passion and pathos are coloured it with the wars between the Catholics and the with the lights of poetry and genius. Indeed, the Albigenses, the latter being the earliest of the gradual decay of Eva is the happiest of all Mr reformers of the faith. Such a time was well Maturin's delineations, and has rarely been sur- adapted for the purposes of romance; and Mr passed. The simple truthfulness of the descrip- Maturin in this work presented some good piction may be seen in passages like the following: tures of the Crusaders, and of the Albigenses in their lonely worship among rocks and mountains. He had not, however, the power of delineating varieties of character, and his attempts at humour are wretched failures. In constructing a plot, he was also deficient; and hence The Albigenses, wanting the genuine features of an historical romance, and destitute of the supernatural machinery which had imparted a certain degree of wild interest to the author's former works, was universally pronounced to be tedious and uninteresting. Passages, as we have said, are carefully finished and well drawn, and we subjoin a brief specimen :

An Autumn Evening.

The weather was unusually fine, though it was September, and the evenings mild and beautiful. Eva passed them almost entirely in the garden. She had always loved the fading light and delicious tints of an evening sky, and now they were endeared by that which endears even indifferent things-an internal consciousness that we have not long to behold them. Mrs Wentworth remonstrated against this indulgence, and mentioned it to the physician; but he answered neglectingly;' said anything that amused her mind could do her no harm, &c. Then Mrs Wentworth began to feel there was no hope; and Eva was suffered to muse life away unmolested. To the garden every evening she went, and brought her library with her : it consisted of but three books-the Bible, Young's Night Thoughts, and Blair's Grave. One evening the unusual beauty of the sky made her involuntarily drop her book. She gazed upward, and felt as if a book was open in heaven, where all the lovely and varying phenomena presented in living characters to her view the name of the Divinity. There was a solemn congeniality between her feelings of her own state and the view of the declining day

A Lady's Chamber in the Thirteenth Century. 'I am weary,' said the lady; 'disarray me for rest. But thou, Claudine, be near when I sleep; I love thee well, wench, though I have not shewn it hitherto. Wear this carkanet for my sake; but wear it not, I charge thee, in the presence of Sir Paladour. Now read me my riddle once more, my maidens.' As her head sunk on the silken pillow-How may ladies sink most sweetly into their first slumber?'

'I ever sleep best,' said Blanche, 'when some withered crone is seated by the hearth fire to tell me tales of wizardry or goblins, till they are mingled with my dreams, and I start up, tell my beads, and pray her to go on, till I see that I am talking only to the dying embers or the fantastic forms shaped by their flashes on the dark tapestry or darker ceiling.'

'And I love,' said Germonda, to be lulled to rest by tales of knights met in forests by fairy damsels, and conducted to enchanted halls, where they are assailed by foul fiends, and do battle with strong giants; and are, in fine, rewarded with the hand of the fair dame, for whom they have perilled all that knight or Christian may hold precious for the safety of body and of soul.'

broken but by the matin-bell, or the sighs of lovers whispered between its tolls.

Sleep, noble lady! Your castle is strong, and the brave and the loyal are your guard.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

We have already touched on the more remarkable and distinguishing features of the Waverley novels, and the influence which they exercised, not only on this country, but over the whole continent of Europe and the United States of North America. That long array of immortal fictions 'Peace and good rest to you all, my dame and can only be compared with the dramas of Shakmaidens,' said the lady, in whispering tones from her speare, as presenting a vast variety of original silken couch. None of you have read my riddle. She characters, scenes, historical situations, and adsleeps sweetest and deepest who sleeps to dream of her ventures. They are marked by the same unifirst love-her first-her last-her only. A fair good-versal and genial sympathies, allied to every form night to all. Stay thou with me, Claudine, and touch thy lute, wench, to the strain of some old ditty-old of humanity, and free from all selfish egotism or and melancholy-such as may so softly usher sleep moral obliquity. In painting historical personthat I feel not his downy fingers closing mine eyelids, or ages or events, these two great masters evinced the stilly rush of his pinions as they sweep my brow.' a kindred taste, and not dissimilar powers. The Claudine prepared to obey as the lady sunk to rest highest intellectual traits and imagination of amid softened lights, subdued odours, and dying Shakspeare were, it is true, not approached by melodies. A silver lamp, richly fretted, suspended from Scott: the dramatist looked inwardly upon man the raftered roof, gleamed faintly on the splendid bed. and nature with a more profound and searching The curtains were of silk, and the coverlet of velvet, philosophy. He could effect more with his five faced with miniver; gilded coronals and tufts of acts than Scott with his three volumes. The plumage shed alternate gleam and shadow over every novelist only pictured to the eye what his great angle of the canopy; and tapestry of silk and silver covered every compartment of the walls, save where the prototype stamped on the heart and feelings. uncouthly constructed doors and windows broke them Yet both were great moral teachers, without into angles, irreconcilable alike to every rule of sym-seeming to teach. They were brothers in charmetry or purpose of accommodation. Near the ample acter and in genius, and they poured out their hearth, stored with blazing wood, were placed a sculp-imaginative treasures with a calm easy strength tured desk, furnished with a missal and breviary gor- and conscious mastery, of which the world has geously illuminated, and a black marble tripod support- seen no other examples. ing a vase of holy-water: certain amulets, too, lay on the hearth, placed there by the care of Dame Marguerite, some in the shape of relics, and others in less consecrated forms, on which the lady was often observed by her attendants to look somewhat disregardfully. The great door of the chamber was closed by the departing damsels carefully; and the rich sheet of tapestry dropt over it, whose hushful sweeping on the floor seemed like the wish for a deep repose breathed from a thing inanimate. The castle was still, the silver lamp twinkled silently and dimly; the perfumes burning in small silver vases round the chamber, began to abate their gleams and odours; the scented waters, scattered on the rushes with which the floor was strewn, flagged and failed in their delicious tribute to the sense; the bright moon, pouring its glories through the uncurtained but richly tinted casement, shed its borrowed hues of crimson, amber, and purple on curtain and canopy, as in defiance of the artificial light that gleamed so feebly within the

chamber.

Claudine tuned her lute, and murmured the rude song

of a troubadour, such as follows:

Song.

Sleep, noble lady! They sleep well who sleep in warded castles. If the Count de Monfort, the champion of the church, and the strongest lance in the chivalry of France, were your foe as he is your friend, one hundred of the arrows of his boldest archers at their best flight would fail to reach a loophole of your towers.

Sleep, noble lady! They sleep well who are guarded by the valiant. Five hundred belted knights feast in your halls; they would not see your towers won, though to defend them they took the place of your vassals, who are tenfold that number; and, lady, I wish they were more, for your sake. Valiant knights, faithful vassals, watch well your lady's slumbers; see that they be never

So early as 1805, before his great poems were produced, Scott had entered on the composition of Waverley, the first of his illustrious progeny of tales. He wrote about seven chapters, evidently taking Fielding, in his grave descriptive and ironical vein, for his model; but, getting dissatisfied with his attempt, he threw it aside. Eight years afterwards he met accidentally with the fragment, and determined to finish the story.* In the interval between the commencement of the novel in 1805 and its resumption in 1813, Scott had acquired greater freedom and self-reliance as an author. In Marmion and The Lady of the Lake he had struck out a path for himself, and the latter portion of Waverley partook of the new spirit and enthusiasm. A large part of its materials resembles those employed in The Lady of the Lake-Highland feudalism, military bravery and devotion, and the most easy and exquisite description of natural scenery. He added also a fine vein of humour, chaste yet ripened, and peculiarly his own, and a power of uniting history with fiction, that subsequently became one of the great sources of his strength. His portrait of Charles. Edward, the noble old Baron of Bradwardine, the simple faithful clansman Evan Dhu, and the poor fool Davie Gellatley, with his fragments of song and scattered gleams of fancy and sensibility, were new triumphs of the author. The poetry had projected shadows and outlines of the Highland chief,

*He had put the chapters aside, as he tells us, in a writingdesk wherein he used to keep fishing-tackle. The desk-a substantial old mahogany cabinet-and part of the fishing-tackle are now in the possession of the family of Scott's friend, Mr William Laidlaw.

the gaiety and splendour of the court, and the agitation of the camp and battle-field; but the humorous contrasts, homely observation, and pathos displayed in Waverley, disclosed far deeper observation and more original powers. The work was published in July 1814, Constable giving £700 for the copyright. Scott did not prefix his name to it, afraid that he might compromise his poetical reputation by a doubtful experiment in a new style-particularly by his copious use of Scottish terms and expressions; but the unmingled applause with which the tale was received was, he says, like having the prop-curious reading, knowledge of local history and erty of a hidden treasure, 'not less gratifying than if all the world knew it was his own.' Henceforward, Scott resolved, as a novelist, to preserve his mask, desirous to obviate all personal discussions respecting his own productions, and aware also of the interest and curiosity which his secrecy would impart to his subsequent productions.

delineation of Oldbuck, that model of black-letter and Roman-camp antiquaries, whose oddities and conversation are rich and racy as any of the old crusted port that John of the Girnel might have held in his monastic cellars-on the restless, garrulous, kind-hearted gaberlunzie, Edie Ochiltree, who delighted to daunder down the burn-sides and green shaws-on the cottage of the Mucklebackits, and the death and burial of Steenie-and on that scene of storm and tempest by the seaside, which is described with such vivid reality and appalling magnificence. The amount of antiquities, power of description, and breadth of humour in The Antiquary, render it one of the most perfect of the author's novels. If Cervantes and Fielding really excelled Scott in the novel (he is unapproached in romance), it must be admitted that The Antiquary ranks only second to Don Quixote and Tom Jones. In none of his In February 1815-seven months after Waverley works has Scott shewn greater power in develop-Scott published his second novel, Guy Manner- ing the nicer shades of feeling and character, or ing. It was the work of six weeks about Christ- greater felicity of phrase and illustration. Α mas, and marks of haste are visible in the con- healthy moral tone also pervades the whole-a struction of the plot and development of incidents. clear and bracing atmosphere of real life; and Yet what length of time or patience in revision what more striking lesson in practical benevocould have added to the charm or hilarity of lence was ever inculcated than those words of such portraits as that of Dandy Dinmont, or the rough old fisherman, ejaculated while he the shrewd and witty Counsellor Pleydell-the was mending his boat after his son Steenie's finished, desperate, sea-beaten villainy of Hat-funeral-'What would you have me do, unless I teraick-the simple, uncouth devotion of that wanted to see four children starve because one is gentlest of pedants, poor Dominie Sampson- drowned? It's weel wi' you gentles, that can sit or the wild savage virtues and crazed supersti- in the house wi' handkerchers at your een, when tion of the gipsy-dweller in Derncleugh! The ye lose a freend, but the like of us maun to our astrological agency and predictions so marvel-wark again, if our hearts were beating as hard as lously fulfilled are undoubtedly excrescences on my hammer.' the story, though suited to a winter's tale in Scotland. The love-scenes and female characters, and even Mannering himself, seem also allied to the Minerva Press family; but the Scotch characters are all admirably filled up. There is also a captivating youthful feeling and spirit in the description of the wanderings and dangers of Bertram, and the events, improbable as they appear, which restore him to his patrimony; while the gradual decay and death of the old Laird of Ellangowan-carried out to the green as his castle and effects are in the hands of the auctioneer-are inexpressibly touching and natural. The interest of the tale is sustained throughout with dramatic skill and effect.

In May 1816 came forth The Antiquary, less romantic and bustling in incidents than either of its predecessors, but infinitely richer in character, dialogue, and humour. In this work Scott displayed his thorough knowledge of the middle and lower ranks of Scottish life. He confined his story chiefly to a small fishing-town and one or two country mansions. His hero is a testy old Whig laird and bachelor, and his dramatis persone are little better than this retired humorist the family of a poor fisherman, a bluegown mendicant, an old barber, and a few other humble landward and burrows-town' characters. The sentimental Lord Glenallan, and the pompous Sir Arthur Wardour, with Lovel the unknown, and the fiery Hector M'Intyre-the last a genuine Celtic portrait-are necessary to the plot and action of the piece, but they constitute only a small degree of the reader's pleasure or the author's fame. These rest on the inimitable

In December of the same year, Scott was ready with two other novels, The Black Dwarf, and Old Mortality. These formed the first series of Tales of My Landlord, and were represented, by a somewhat forced and clumsy prologue, as the composition of a certain Mr Peter Pattieson, assistantteacher at Gandercleugh, and published after his death by his pedagogue superior, Jedediah Cleishbotham. The new disguise—to heighten which a different publisher had been selected for the tales -was as unavailing as it was superfluous. The universal voice assigned the works to the author of Waverley, and the second of the collection, Old Mortality, was pronounced to be the greatest of his performances. It was another foray into the regions of history, which was rewarded with the most brilliant spoil. Happy as he had been in depicting the era of the Forty-five, he shone still more in the gloomy and troublous times of the Covenanters. 'To reproduce a departed age,' says Mr Lockhart, with such minute and lifelike accuracy as this tale exhibits, demanded a far more energetic sympathy of imagination than had been called for in any effort of his serious verse. It is indeed most curiously instructive for any student of art to compare the Roundheads of Rokeby with the Blue-bonnets of Old Mortality. For the rest, the story is framed with a deeper skill than any of the preceding novels; the canvas is a broader one; the characters are contrasted and projected with a power and felicity which neither he nor any other master ever surpassed; and notwithstanding all that has been urged against him as a disparager of the Covenanters, it is to me very doubtful whether the inspiration