Charles Robert Maturin: His Life and Works

who presented him with six children; of these Charles Robert was born in 1780.[6] William Maturin was a man of refinement and was interested in literature, so much so, that he is recorded[7] to have had some intentions, in early life, of devoting himself to that profession, but for the death of an illustrious personage to whose patronage he had looked forward. The time of literary protection, in the old sense, was, indeed, past and gone, and if his son also had been dependent on it, the name would have been lost to literature. Maturin senior was, however, a man in whose house literary inclinations were cherished and encouraged, and the youthful lyrics which his son poured forth at an early age, are said to have had a wide circulation among friends and relations, sometimes even finding their way into the local papers. In every respect the childhood of Charles Robert seems to have been bright and happy. He was, no doubt, an amiable child, though spoilt on account of his delicate health and looked up to for his cleverness. His favourite pastimes, as those of so many future dramatists, were juvenile theatricals, and in these he was allowed freely to indulge; again and again the drawing-room was turned into a stage, the wardrobes were robbed of what was thought fit, and an occasional piece from Charles Robert’s own pen was acted, or else some old play--Lee’s _Alexander_ for preference, where he always played the principal part with wild impetuosity, to the delight and wonder of his sisters and an admiring circle of companions.[8] The poets to whom his taste first drew him were the dramatists of the Restoration, a period which always interested him keenly. For Lee, Southerne, and Otway his partiality prevailed even in later years, and he never admitted them inferior to any but Shakespeare and the foremost Elizabethans. Once, when praising Otway’s _Venice Preserved_, he is said[9] to have added:

I speak, perhaps, from an old feeling of attachment, but, nevertheless, from deep conviction. The earliest associations of my mind are with Pierre and Jaffier at the Rialto at midnight: I still fancy I hear the sullen moan of the waters below me, and that I am standing on that lofty bridge beside the glorious conspirators; I could surrender almost any early impressions in preference.

In the field of fiction Maturin’s early impressions were equally powerful, but here his taste was fixed and decided by productions of his own time, such as saw the light in his growing years. The Gothic Romance, or school of terror, which is usually considered to have begun with Walpole’s _Castle of Otranto_ in 1764, had in the nineties an extraordinary flight. All the romances of Mrs Radcliffe, Lewis’s _Monk_ and Godwin’s _St. Leon_, with a host of imitations, followed each other in rapid succession and actually became, for a short time, the rage of the public; and among the younger generation who listened to these sombre and mysterious story-tellers, one of the most enthusiastic listeners was the Irish boy who was, but too late, to become the greatest of them himself. Of the merits of the novel of terror Maturin afterwards made the following recognition:[10]

As a medium of excitement or impression, it (terror) was certainly the most powerful that could be used by one human being on another, from the clown who dresses up a figure to frighten his fellow into idiotism or madness, to the romance-writer who rings bells by viewless hands, encrusts daggers with long-shed blood, conceals treacherous doors behind still more treacherous tapestry, or sends mad nuns or their apparitions to wander about the gardens of their convents.

From this selfsame medium of excitement Maturin’s own works never became wholly free; and even when applying criticism to the writers that were the delight of his youth, he cannot but speak of them in a tone of admiration, strongly contrasted with the marked aversion with which he mentions Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett.[11]

These, then, were the literary auspices under which Charles Robert Maturin grew up.--After attending the school of one Mr. Kerr, he entered Trinity College, as a Pensioner, in November 1795; some years later he obtained a scholarship, and finally a bachelor’s degree. His intentions regarding the profession of an actor were probably definitely abandoned by this time, and theology became the main subject of his studies. According to biographers, Maturin’s university career was successful and even brilliant, although a certain indolence and eccentricity was always noticeable in his habits. He acquired distinctions both as a classical scholar and an active member of the theological class, and in the once famous Historical Society he is also said to have distinguished himself by ‘rhetorical and poetical productions.’[12] The Historical Society, afterwards abolished by the government, had been founded the year previous to Maturin’s entrance at College, and was a fruit of the vivid intellectual activity ruling in every department during the short period of Irish independence. The time in which Maturin lived, it is important to note, was the most remarkable in the political history of Ireland. In 1782 Grattan had had the satisfaction of hailing Ireland as a nation; the parliament in College Green began its work of reforms with a joyous sense of reconciliation with England, and a general hope that it would last for ever. Dublin became, for a time, one of the liveliest capitals in Europe, and the meeting-place of the greatest wits and most eloquent men of the kingdom. The generation, however, which was born with the Irish parliament, had not reached their manhood ere calamities loomed ahead again. They saw the rebellion of ’98 with all its horrors; they also lived to see the Union and felt the oppressive calm that followed in its wake, interrupted only by the unfortunate insurrection of Emmet in 1803. The works of Maturin demonstrate sufficiently that he was an ardent Irish nationalist who resented the Union; but he was, by temperament, nothing of a politician, and none of the family seem to have been involved in any political intrigues. There was, however, another side of nationalism--closely connected with the romantic movement in all countries--which he eagerly embraced. It expressed itself in an interest in the folklore, antiquities and early history of Ireland, preferably seen in a slightly romantic colour. The _Historical Memoirs of the Irish Bards_ of Joseph Cooper Walker, which was long considered a standard work in its subject, appeared in 1786, giving rise to other investigations of the same kind. Among Irish novelists Maturin and Lady Morgan were those in whose (earlier) writings this sense of a glorious past first found expression, besides which their works also, for the first time in fiction, aimed at a conscious and artistic description of genuine Irish scenery. Maturin’s sense of nature was ever on the alert, and the beautiful Wicklow mountains were to him, as to so many other Irish writers of later times, a constant source of poetic inspiration.

As for life and circumstances in general, towards the end of the 18th century, they were indeed ‘wild, wonderful, and savage,’ to use a critic’s words of Maturin’s _Women_ in its quality of an Irish story. Reality abounded in startling and extraordinary incidents, not seldom outdoing even the confessedly fertile imagination of the poets of Erin. The picture which Miss Edgeworth drew, in her immortal _Castle Rackrent_ (1800) of a typical Irish estate, other writers confirmed to be eminently faithful; life in the country, all around, was feudal, wild and reckless; elopements occurred frequently, and duels were daily bread among the gentry. The disposition of the lower classes was likewise all for the adventurous, so much so that the autobiography of a famous highwayman became one of the most popular schoolbooks, effects of which reading by no means failed to make an appearance.[13] In the capital the social contrasts presented themselves at their sharpest. Beside the refined, gay and brilliant Dublin there was another, where the sullen murmur of discontent was never hushed, and which was constantly hovering on the brink of rebellion. ‘There existed,’ says Carleton,[14] ‘in Dublin two distinct worlds, each as ignorant of the other--at least, in a particular point of view, and during certain portions of the day--as if they did not inhabit the same country.’ Fierce street-frays occasionally raged for whole days in public thoroughfares, and the students of Trinity College were said to be particularly prone to take part in these and other such-like amusements.--

What other records there are left of the youthful years of Maturin are centred in the story of a courtship which ended in marriage at an early age. The object of his attachment was Miss Henrietta Kingsbury, like himself of an old and respected Protestant family. According to a tradition it was Miss Kingbury’s grandfather to whom Swift is supposed to have uttered his last words before the light of his powerful mind was darkened for ever. A brother of hers was archdeacon of Killala. Now biographers[15] generally maintain that Maturin married while still going through his college course, and decided in favour of the clerical profession _after_ his marriage, in hopes of being promoted through the interest of his wife’s relations; but this, at least partly, seems to be wrong. Maturin was not exactly a child at the time of his marriage--he was 23 years old--; he had most probably finished his college course and had certainly taken holy orders, being already in enjoyment of the title Reverend, as may be seen from his marriage license at the Public Record Office in Dublin[16].

The union proved happy. Though the maintenance of a growing family early compelled Maturin to strenuous work, his literary occupations being thus influenced by pecuniary considerations, it