128 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



indeed, an essential feature of the secret of conveying his supernatural 

 fear. Without quotation of immoderate length it is not possible to 

 illustrate these qualities, but one may point to the interior of the 

 Dominican monastery, in which Monçada is interned — a long descrip- 

 tion extending through most of the second volume, and making its 

 impression by the culminating effect of vivid flashes of horror. It 

 conveys that feeling of grim monkish mystery inspired by the pictures 

 of Zurbaran." 



That is eminently true, but most of the credit is due, not to 

 Maturin, but to Diderot, who had already given a similar interior 

 in his novel. La Religieuse. 



The Irish clergyman was evidently a fairly wide reader in French, 

 and being at the same time a decided enemy of the Roman Catholic 

 Church, he naturally read Diderot's novel. It is a matter for surprise 

 that, while he frequently supported his statements by references to 

 French sources, he does not think it necessary to indicate La Religieuse 

 as a source of inspiration for a very important portion of his own 

 work. Was he of opinion that a novel proved nothing and therefore 

 need not be quoted? Whatever may have been the reasons for his 

 silence he did not succeed in hiding his free use of this "source." 



More than a dozen years have passed since the author of this 

 paper first ventured on a study of sources, and, like all experienced 

 workers in this field, he has come to regard with considerable caution 

 all discoveries of similarities between texts. Similarity does not 

 mean plagiarism, parallel passages may prove common sources or 

 parallel inspiration, and nothing more. It is evident that if Diderot 

 truthfully represented a nun who was such against her will, and if 

 Maturin represented a monk who had no wish for monastic life, there 

 must be of necessity points of similarity between the two works. All 

 that can be done in such cases is to marshall the facts, point out 

 similarities, and leave the final decision with the credulous or in- 

 credulous reader — though it does no harm to state one's own con- 

 clusion in the matter. 



Diderot relates the story of a girl who becomes a nun against her 

 will, and who finally escapes from the convent. 



Maturin, in the tale of the Spaniard, ^^ gives the story of a boy 

 who is forced to become a monk. The two stories diverge when 

 Diderot begins to describe the convent of Sainte-Euterpe, either 

 because Maturin was using Naigeon's edition that suppresses the 

 objectionable picture of the sexual dangers of convent life, or because 



^'^Melmoth Reprint 1892. Vol. 1, p. 117. All future quotations will be from this 

 edition. 



