IV.
[104] Lockhart, Life of Scott, vol. V; the letter is reprinted in the Irish Quarterly Review 1852 and in Melmoth the Wanderer 1892, pp. XVIII-XXI.
[105] London Magazine 1821, vol. III p. 96.
[106] It may be mentioned that the writer in Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine 1846 recollects Maturin ‘once arguing that suicide was not positively and expressly condemned in any passage of Scripture, and declaring that he conceived to pass away from the sorrows of earth to the peace of eternity by reposing on a bed of eastern poppy flowers, where sleep is death, would be the most enviable mode of earthly exit.’
[107] Francis Hovey Stoddard, The Evolution of the English Novel, New York 1913, p. 11.
[108] Allan Cunningham, Biographical and Critical History of the British Literature of the last fifty years, Paris 1834, p. 403 foll.
[109] Monthly Review 1818, vol. 86 p. 403.
[110] Quarterly Review 1818, vol. XIX p. 321.
[111] Alaric Alfred Watts, Life of (his father) Alaric Watts, London 1884, vol. I p. 62 foll.
[112] Talfourd, op. cit.
[113] Melmoth the Wanderer 1892, p. XXXIX.
[114] A. A. Watts, op. cit.
[115] ibid.
[116] New Monthly Magazine or Universal Register 1819, vol. XI p. 236 foll.
[117] New Monthly Magazine 1827.
[118] Scots Magazine 1820, vol. VII p. 21.
[119] Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. XI p. 305.
[120] Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine 1846.
[121] This preface is, strangely enough, not reprinted in the 1892 edition.
[122] Elton I, p. 219.
[123] Müller, p. 70.
[124] Die Rosenkreutzer formed a secret society founded in Germany in the 17:th century. Confessedly they aimed at bringing about certain reforms in Church and State, but the mystery in which they were shrouded gave rise, later, to the popular belief that they were chiefly occupied in alchemical pursuits. Among English writers interested in the ‘Rosecrucian idea’ were Godwin (St. Leon), Shelley (St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian, 1811), and Mary Shelley (Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818).
[125] This story was published under the name of Lord Byron, who is said to have invented the idea.
[126] There existing a comparatively new and available edition of Melmoth the Wanderer, the contents of each tale is here given with the utmost brevity.
[127] Richter, p. 294; Scarborough p. 32.
[128] Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany 1821, vol. VIII p. 412.
[129] Edinburgh Review 1820, vol. XXXV p. 353.
[130] London Magazine 1821, vol. III p. 514.
[131] Planche, p. 54.
[132] Gunnar Bjurman, Edgar Allan Poe. En litteraturhistorisk studie, Lund 1916, pp. 207-208.
[133] Monthly Review 1821, vol. 94 p. 81.
[134] E. A. Baker, Introduction to The Monk of M. G. Lewis, London 1907, p. VIII.
[135] Melmoth the Wanderer 1892, p. LIX.
[136] Cardonneau is the name of the atheistic philosopher in Women.
[137] Müller, p. 91.
[138] The bitter irony with which the state of Europe is described in Melmoth’s discourse rather recalls also certain passages in Gulliver’s Travels (part II ch. VI; part IV ch. V-VII).
[139] Walter Raleigh, The English Novel, London 1907 (fifth ed.), p. 237.
[140] Dr John Anster’s excellent translations of the first part of Faust appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine in 1820, about the time when Maturin was finishing Melmoth the Wanderer. There is no evidence of Maturin’s having been able to read German, nor are there many allusions, in his writings, to German literature.—The points of contact with Faust are pointed out by Müller, pp. 98-99.
[141] In The Fortunes of Nigel (1822) the tale of Lady Hermione begins with this statement: ‘In Spain you may have heard how the Catholic priests, and particularly the monks, besiege the beds of the dying, to obtain bequests for the good of the Church’—which possibly is a hint from the Tale of Guzman’s Family.
[142] Blackwood’s Magazine 1820, vol. VIII p. 161.
[143] Both in the preface and in a marginal note Maturin states that The Lovers’ Tale is a record of actual experience, although he mentions no sources.
[144] Müller, p. 103.
[145] This resemblance has been pointed out already by the critic in the London Magazine 1821.
[146] Müller, p. 107.
[147] Introduction to Tales of Mystery (Mrs Radcliffe—Lewis—Maturin), edited by George Saintsbury, London 1891.
[148] Quarterly Review 1821, vol. XXIV p. 303.
[149] Poe, Introduction to Poems 1831 (Letter to Mr B——).
[150] Richter, p. 292.
[151] Charles Baudelaire, Oeuvres Complètes, Paris 1869, vol. II p. 366 foll.
[152] Lady Morgan’s Memoirs: Autobiography, Diaries and Correspondence, edited by W. H. Dixon, London 1862, vol. II p. 154.
[153] A. A. Watts, p. 297.