An’ fareweel, dear deluding woman!
The joy of joys!
Burns.
Maturin’s last period opens with a poetical enterprise which is bound up with a mystery exactly opposite to that appertaining to the publication of the Waterloo prize poem in 1815. In 1821 appeared a lengthy poem in blank verse, called The Universe, under the name of the Rev. C. R. Maturin, received—very undeservedly—with something like acclamation. The real authorship of the poem was, even at the time, claimed by Mr. James Wills, a name afterwards not quite—though nearly—unknown in the world of letters; but it was not until 1874 that the case was brought before the public. For the sake of the composition itself it would be unnecessary long to dwell upon the question, had not the controversy called forth the publication of a manuscript of Wills, which throws an interesting, if not entirely agreeable, light upon his acquaintance with Maturin and the circumstances connected with the origin of The Universe.
A correspondent in the Notes and Queries[154]—who was a great admirer of the poem—happened, in the year mentioned above, to allude to its disputed authorship and utter some doubts as to the statements of Wills. Against this view the surviving family of that writer energetically protested; two sons of Wills, referring to a note in the second edition of Lord John Russell’s biography of Moore,[155] and producing two or three utterances of some of their father’s friends who were initiated into the secret, put about the following statements concerning The Universe. Maturin was engaged by Colburn to compose for him a poem consisting of a thousand lines. The renumeration—500 pounds—was paid in advance; but, having spent it, Maturin found the fulfilment of his engagement to be encumbered with insurmountable difficulties. Being at a loss how to get on with the work, he was shown a poem of Wills, then a very young man. Maturin pathetically entreated him to lend it to him for use, promising, first, to let Colburn know of the transaction, and secondly, to reveal the real authorship after the publication; neither of which promises was kept, the poem being read and reviewed as a production of Maturin’s.
In the polemics in the Notes and Queries the Wills family—who also considered the Universe a work of uncommon merit—had the last word, and their assertions were, a little later, supported by the Dublin University Magazine,[156] whose editor had received a record in the handwriting of Wills, found between the covers of an old copy of the poem and sent to Dublin by Messrs. Chatto & Windus, the well-known London publishers. In this record, which the editor supposes to have been written for the benefit of Lord Russell before the publication of the second edition of his life of Moore, Wills relates that he had composed the poem in the years 1819 and 1820,[157] while residing at Bray, the then most fashionable watering-place in the neighbourhood of Dublin. He intended it to be a very great work which was to fill up all his life-time; but having written upwards of 800 lines, he made a new acquaintance of whose appearance he gives the following description:
There was an accession of guests (at the table d’hôte), and among them a very remarkable-looking gentleman attracted my attention, and I was struck by the extreme precision of his dress, his handsome and well sitting black wig, which, on a first glance, looked like a splendid head of hair, his silver spectacles, neatly cut features, and the imposing modulation of his deep voice. Had he been some years younger, I should have said there was a little shade of the clerical dandy in his appearance. As it was I thought I could discern the air of one who aimed to be very recherché in his manners and conversation, and that all his personal advantages were a little overdone. Who he could be I had no notion.
I was seated at a side table: but when the cloth was removed he beckoned to me, and I went and took a seat next to him. He pushed his bottle to me, and asked me to join him in his wine, and addressed his conversation entirely to me. I presently took exception to some fallacy which he let drop: and as he seemed disposed to contest the point (whatever it was) the conversation degenerated into argument. The gentleman I soon found, though extremely pointed, witty and epigrammatic, and very happy in allusion, had very little power in disputation, and he presently gave in with a good grace.
In the course of the same day Wills was formally introduced to his opponent, who he had learnt, was Maturin. Their acquaintance soon ripened into intimacy. The fascinating personality of the novelist cast a strong spell over Wills, although he received the impression that Maturin was ‘a little too flattering’ and not quite sincere. When the transaction as to the poem was then proposed to him, Wills felt extreme reluctance, but at last yielded, overcome by Maturin’s persuasions and the consideration that Maturin’s family, to whom he had been introduced, would be ruined if the money had to be refunded to Colburn. The accomplishment of this great work is told by Wills with a naive open-heartedness, amusing indeed when regarded in the light of the controversy in Notes and Queries, where his sons seriously maintain that both Scott and Campbell considered The Universe the best thing produced by Maturin, and the other party as seriously declares it to contain passages equal to Milton:
I then went stoutly to work and as I had engaged to expand my poem into 2,000 lines within the next month, without the materials which the original plan required, I diluted it with whatever came uppermost. It was thus easily completed within the time, and copied from my own first draught by different transcribers as I had insisted on preserving my own M. S., which I still have. I also wished to keep possession of my plan and the original passages, all of which had been carefully elaborated, though the filling up was carelessly done.