Baudelaire, in _De l'essence de rire,_ wrote: "The Romantic School, or, one might say in preference, the Satanical School, has certainly understood the primordial law of laughter. All the melodramatic villains, all those who are cursed, damned, fatally marked with a rictus of the lips that extends to the ears, are in the pure orthodoxy of laughter. For the rest, they are for the most part illegitimate sons of the famous Melmoth the Wanderer, the great Satanic creation of Maturin. What can one conceive of as greater, as more powerful, in regard to our humanity than this pale and bored Melmoth? He is a living contradiction; that is why his frozen laughter freezes and wrenches the entrails." Distinctly the most remarkable of the British triumvirate which in the early part of the century won a momentary fame as the school of horror, Maturin is much less known to the readers of to-day than either Monk Lewis or Mrs. Radcliffe. Thanks to Balzac, who did _Melmoth_ the honour of a loan in _Melmoth réconcilié,_ Maturin has attained a certain fame in France--which, indeed, he still retains. _Melmoth_ has to-day in France something of that reputation which has kept alive another English book, _Vathek._ Did not Balzac, in a moment of indiscriminating enthusiasm, couple the _Melmoth_ of Maturin with the _Don Juan_ of Molière, the _Faust_ of Goethe, the _Manfred_ of Byron--_grandes images tracées par les plus grands génies de l'Europe?_ In other words, Maturin had his day of fame, in which even men like Scott and Byron were led into a sympathetic exaggeration. There's one exception. That Coleridge was hostile, possibly unjust, is likely enough. It should be mentioned that in 1816 the Drury Lane Committee, who had, reasonably enough, rejected a play by Coleridge, accepted a monstrous production of Maturin's named _Bertram._ The _gros bon mélodrame,_ as Balzac calls it, was a great success. "It is all sound and fury, signifying nothing," said Kean, who acted in it; and Kean, who knew his public, realized that that was why it succeeded. The play was printed, and ran through seven editions, sinking finally to the condition of a chap-book, in which its horrors were to be had for sixpence. On this pretentious work Coleridge--for what reasons we need not inquire--took the trouble to write an article, or, as it was phrased, to make an attack. To this Maturin wrote a violent reply, which the good advice of Scott prevented him from publishing. It is curious at the present day to read the letter in which Scott urges upon Maturin the wisdom of silence--not because he is likely to get the worst of the battle, but, among other reasons, because "Coleridge's work has been little read or heard of, and has made no general impression whatever--certainly no impression unfavourable to you or your play. In the opinion of many, therefore, you will be resenting an injury of which they are unacquainted with the existence."