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]

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,

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:

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]

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:

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:

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:

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:

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]

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:

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,

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—

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:

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:

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:

The absent-mindedness of De Zelos is referred to in the scene where Ximena tells her brother that she has seen the Moor:

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.