468 
of bewilderingness even in the brightest 
sallies, whetherin his intercourse with man- 
kind or with the muse. 
Before the tragedy of Bertram was pro- 
duced at Drury-lane Theatre, and received 
with such distinguished approbation, Mr. 
Maturin was the humble, unknown, and 
unnoticed curate of St. Peter’s, Dublin ; 
from which he derived a stated income of 
£70, or at the utmost £100, per annum. 
In the same unostentatious corer of the 
splendid Church Establishment of Ireland, 
he died on Saturday, October 30, 1824. 
Mr. Maturin, however, was at no period 
dependent upon the emoluments of his cu- 
racy. Before the dramatic performance 
already mentioned conferred éclat upon his 
name and works, he had published one or 
two noyels, which obtained an ordinary 
rank in the catalogues of our circulating 
libraries, although they afforded as little 
profitas fame to their author; and he be- 
sides prepared a few young gentlemen to 
pass the entrance examinations of Trinity 
College, who for that purpose resided with 
him in his house, York-street, Dublin. But 
notwithstanding these combined resources, 
Mr. Maturin’s aspirations surpassed them; 
and, like men of talent in general, whose 
purses are mostly disproportionate to their 
desires, he was constantly beset with duns 
and difficulties. Still these sublunary trifles 
had even then no serious effect upon 
the Rey. Gentleman’s conceit of his own 
importance. The persons calling at No. — 
York-street, on indifferent business, or the 
creditor who, “ for the last time,’’ demand- 
ed an audience, was ushered into an apart- 
ment studiously indicative of the owner’s 
several pursuits, and having waited a suffi- 
ciently fashionable time, was received, an- 
swered, and dismissed with a sovereign 
air of superiority which was, at least, as 
much calculated to surprise'as to satisfy. 
The curate of St. Peter’s, in short, though 
at that period not a very young man, was, 
as he ever after remained, exceedingly vain 
both of his person and accomplishments ; 
and as his income would not allow him to 
attract attention by the splendour of his 
dress and manners, he seldom failed to do 
so by their singularity. Mr. Maturin was 
a tall, slender, but well-proportioned, and 
on the whole, a good figure, which he 
took care to display in a well-made black 
coat, tightly buttoned, and some odd 
light-coloured stocking-web  pantaloons, 
surmounted in winter by a coat of prodi- 
gious dimensions, gracefully thrown on, so 
as not to obscure the symmetry it affected 
to protect. This tame exhibition, however, 
of an elegant form in the street, the church, 
or the drawing-room, did not, suffice. The 
Reverend Gentleman sang and danced, and 
prided himself on performing the move- 
. ments and evolutions of the quadrille, cer- 
tainly better than any other divine of the 
Obituary of the Month. 
{Dec 1, 
Established Church, and equal to any pri- 
vate lay gentleman of the three kingdoms. 
It often happened, too, that Mr. Maturin, 
either laboured under an attack of gout, or 
met with some accident, which compelled 
the use of aslipper or a bandage, on one 
foot or one leg, and by an unaccountable 
congruity of mischances, he was uniformly 
compelled on these occasions to appear in 
the public thoroughfares of Dublin, where 
the melancholy spectacle of a beautiful limb 
in pain never failed to excite the sighs and 
sympathies of all the interesting persons 
who passed, as well as to prompt their 
curiosity to make audible remarks or inqui- 
ries respecting the possessor. 
The effect upon a person of this tempera- 
ment of the unexpected success of Bertram 
led to some untoward consequences. The 
profits of the representation, and the copy- 
right of that tragedy, exceeded, perhaps, 
one thousand pounds, while the praises be- 
stowed upon its author by critics of all 
classes, convinced Mr. Maturin that he had 
only to sit down and concoct. any number 
of plays he pleased, each yielding hima 
pecuniary return, at least equal to the first. 
He had, therefore, scarcely arrived in Dub- 
lin with his full-blown dramatie honours 
and riches, when tradesmen of all hues and 
callings were ordered to York-street, to 
paint, furnish, and decorate, with suitable 
taste and splendour, the mansion of the 
great new-born tragic poet of Ireland. The 
Reverend Gentleman’s proceedings in other 
respects, of course, took a’ corresponding 
spring. Unfortunately the brightest hopes 
of genius are often the most fallacious, and 
so it proved in the present instance. A 
few months produced a second tragedy, 
which failed, and with it not only. faded 
away the dreams of prosperity, in which the 
author of Bertram so fondly indulged, but 
his house was assailed by importunate cre- 
ditors, who lodged executions, and every 
other disagreeable sort of legal inmates in 
that abode of genius and merit. Time ena- 
bled Mr. Maturin gradually to extricate 
himself from these embarrassments, ‘and 
having thus had the wings of his ambition 
somewhat shortened, he in future pursued 
a safer flight. His eccentricities, however, 
remained in their former vigour, and in the 
coteries of Lady Morgan, or the romantic 
solitudes of Wicklow, the vain oddities of 
the curate of St. Peter’s continued as re- 
markable as during the height of his tragic 
triumphs. Of late years his pen was chiefly 
employed on works of romance, in which 
he evinced great powers of imagination and 
fecundity of language, with evident and la- 
mentable carelessness in the application of 
both. He wrote, in fact, for money, not 
for fame, and succeeded in drawing a con- 
siderable revenue from the sale of his pro. 
ductions, : 
INCIDENTS, 
