“My governess has been affirming that there are Gothic buildings without spectres or legends of a ghostly nature attached to them; now, what is a castle or abbey worth without such appendage?; do tell me candidly, are none of the turrets of your old family mansion in Monmouth rendered thus terrific by some unquiet, wandering spirit?, dare the peasantry pass it after twilight, or if they are forced into that temerity, do not their teeth chatter, their hair stand erect and their poor knees knock together?”

That Miss Wilkinson, who, for twenty years, had conscientiously striven to chill her readers’ blood, should be compelled at last to turn round and gibe at her own spectres, reveals into what a piteous plight the novel of terror had fallen.  When even the enchantress disavowed her belief in them, the ghosts must surely have fled shrieking and affrighted and thought never more to raise their diminished heads.

From a medley of novels, similar to those of Miss Wilkinson, Scott singled out for commendation The Fatal Revenge or The Family of Montorio, by “Jasper Denis Murphy,” or the Rev. Charles Robert Maturin.  Amid the chaos of horror into which Maturin hurls his readers, Scott shrewdly discerned the spirit and animation which, though often misdirected, pervade his whole work.  The story is but a grotesque distortion of life, yet Scott found himself “insensibly involved in the perusal and at times impressed with no common degree of respect for the powers of the author.”  His generous estimate of Maturin’s gifts and his prediction of future success is the more impressive, because The Fatal Revenge undeniably belongs to the very class of novels he was ridiculing.

Maturin was an eccentric Irish clergyman, who diverted himself by weaving romances and constructing tragedies.  He loved to mingle with the gay and frivolous; he affected foppish attire, and prided himself on his exceptional skill in dancing.  His indulgence in literary work was probably but another expression of his longing to escape from the strait and narrow way prescribed for a Protestant clergyman.  Wild anecdotes are told of his idiosyncrasies.[58] He preferred to compose his stories in a room full of people, and he found a noisy argument especially invigorating.  To prevent himself from taking part in the conversation, he used to cover his mouth with paste composed of flour and water.  Sometimes, we are told, he would wear a red wafer upon his brow, as a signal that he was enduring the throes of literary composition and expected forbearance and consideration.  It is said that he once missed preferment in the church because he absentmindedly interviewed his prospective vicar with his head bristling with quills like a porcupine.  He is said to have insisted on his wife’s using rouge though she had naturally a high colour, and to have gone fishing in a resplendent blue coat and silk stockings.  Such was the flamboyant personality of the man whose first novel attracted the kindly attention of Scott.  His oddities, which would have rejoiced the heart of Dickens, are not without significance in a study of his literary work, for his love of emphasis and exaggeration are reflected in both the substance and style of his novels.