Melmoth the Wanderer empty. They follow Melmoth's tracks to the top of a cliff, and see his handkerchief on a crag below them. "Exchanging looks of silent and unutterable horror", they return home. Honoré de Balzac wrote a follow-up story ("Melmoth Reconciled") and considered Maturin's novel worthy of a place among Molière's "Don Juan", Goethe's "Faust" and Lord Byron's "Manfred" as one of the supreme icons of modern European literature. Oscar Wilde, during his travels after release from prison, called himself Sebastian Melmoth, deriving this pseudonym from the title character in his great-uncle's novel and from Saint Sebastian. Historian of English literature Walter
Sebastian of Portugal Portuguese people longed for his return to end the decline of Portugal that began after his death. Sebastian was born shortly after eight in the morning of 20 January 1554 (the feast of Saint Sebastian), and he was given the saint's name in commemoration. The name Sebastian was highly unusual for members of any European royal family at the time. Shortly after his birth, a doctor, Fernando Abarca Maldonado, who had come to Portugal in the entourage of his mother and probably had helped deliver him, cast his horoscope. Among other things, Maldonado predicted that Sebastian would be very attracted