“ The mystical tendency of German poetry had a special appeal for him. He chose poems that were attuned to his own melancholy temperament, and did much that was excellent in this field. He also wrote versions of old Irish poems, though his knowledge of the language, at any rate at the beginning of his career, was but slight. Some of his best-known Irish poems, however, O’Hussey’s Ode to the Maguire, for instance, follow the originals very closely. ”

“ He suffered a disappointment in love, and continued ill health drove him to the use of opium. He was habitually the victim of hallucinations which at times threatened his reason. For Charles Maturin, the eccentric author of Melmoth, he cherished a deep admiration, the results of which are evident in his prose stories. ”