To perish by the falsehood of a woman?
The further development of the conflict is, as easily can be imagined, totally different in the two dramas—a heroine of Hannah More was the least likely of any to suggest the character of the lady Imogine.
It is generally asserted by biographers[83] that contemporary critics—with the single exception of Coleridge—were ‘enraptured’ about Bertram; but this, undoubtedly, is to say too much. Its supposed immoral tendency, as has already been seen, roused a storm of indignation in the columns of the reviews, where the passing acknowledgments of the author’s talent almost vanished. The opening lines of the criticism in the Eclectic Review are characteristic of the way in which the play was treated of:
This tragedy has obtained, upon the stage, a popularity that would seem altogether undeserved. That the Author has strong powers no one can doubt; and as we are not uncandid, the reader will find in the course of our extracts, passages that prove him to have very strong powers. The piece might be objected to for its want of dramatic interest, for the bad taste of its poetry, but its principal fault, (in the absence of which objection indeed, we should quietly have left it to its fate,) is its vicious and abominable morality.
Nor were the opinions even of those very strong powers always undivided. While the British Review makes mention of ‘vivacious touches of a very glowing pencil’ and pronounces that ‘the description as well as the pathetic force of many passages is admirable, and the rhythm and cadence of the verse is musical, lofty, and full of tragic pomp’—the Monthly Review maintains that the language is ‘strained, inverted, and bombastic on many occasions,’ and that ‘the versification, also, is often rough and imperfect; and a want of keeping, of harmonious colouring, and, we fear, of just design, is visible throughout.’ The severest attack upon Maturin’s play, however, was delivered by Coleridge[84] in an article uniting much cutting sarcasm with savage and indiscriminating abuse. It was supposed that Coleridge was irritated by the rejection of his Fall of Robespierre in favour of Bertram; in that light the article was, at least, regarded by Byron,[85] who refers to it in a letter to Murray, dated October 12:th 1819:
In Coleridge’s Life, I perceive an attack upon the then Committee of Drury Lane Theatre for acting Bertram, and an attack upon Maturin’s Bertram for being acted. Considering all things, this is not very grateful nor graceful on the part of the worthy autobiographer; and I would answer, if I had not obliged him. Putting my own pains to forward the views of Coleridge out of the question, I know there was every disposition on the part of the Sub-Committee to bring forward any production of his, were it feasible. The play he offered, though poetical, did not appear at all practicable, and Bertram did—and hence this long tirade, which is the last chapter of his vagabond life.
It is not quite clear in what manner Coleridge had been obliged, his play never appearing on the stage. If his criticism of Bertram was dictated by disappointment, that must have been galling indeed, for the tone prevailing in it is exceedingly acrimonious.[86] Every blunder in the composition, and unhappy turn of phrase in the impetuous style—not over-difficult to expose—is made the most of and the whole play torn to fragments, scene by scene, cleverly enough, but with a rancour which really conveys the impression of proceeding from a personal cause. The critic’s virtuous horror at the incidents is worked up to a pitch that leaves all other reviewers far behind; even the circumstance of Imogine, before she has recognized Bertram, sending for him and speaking to him, alone, is represented as a piece of gross indelicacy!—and if any spectator felt inclined to take a fancy to the hero, it certainly was no fault of Coleridge’s, who characterizes him, in a single breath, as ‘this felo de se, and thief-captain, this loathsome and leprous confluence of robbery, adultery, murder, and cowardly assassination, this monster — — —.’
However, some nonsense though these reviewers utter, their opinion of Maturin’s first play comes nearer to its final valuation than that of many later writers who boldly prophesied the author’s lasting immortality on account of Bertram. Among admiring biographers whose verdict was unsupported by any literary authority, there were critics of some reputation; Gustave Planche, writing in 1833, does not hesitate to say that Bertram contains scenes worthy of Hamlet and Macbeth. In opposition to this enthusiasm of the French, it is interesting to note the very sound judgment of Goethe. He had, in 1817, read the play and written a kind of advertisement of it, in which he reaches in a few words the kernel of the matter and explains the secret of its success: ‘Das neuste englische Publikum ist in Hass und Liebe von den Dichtungen des Lord Byron durchdrungen, und so kann denn auch ein Bertram Wurzel fassen, der gleichfalls Menschenhass und Rachegeist, Pflicht und Schwachheit, Umsicht, Plan, Zufälligkeiten und Zerstörung mit Furienbesen durcheinander peitscht und eine, genau besehen, emphatische Pose zur Würde eines tragischen Gedichtes erhebt.’[87]