Star.
London, England, 1830-03-29 00:00:00

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COLBURN AND BENTLEY.

CLO UDESLEY.
A TALE,
By the Author of " Caleb Williams."

From the Westminster Revivw for April.

tioudesley, by the Author of " Caleb William-s," is *combination
of syllables well adapted to excite expectation The reputation of
Mr. Godwin's first able performance has thrown a light upon its
successors, which, though it has relieved them from utter darkness,
has not done much more. Caleb Williams was a chapter out of the
human heart. rhe author's experience of the world, and his watch.
ing of his own emotions were felicitously combined in a lively and
striking frame.work. He wrote down what he had seen and thought.
His subsequent works have each been, in different styles, imitations
of the first born. He deemed, because he had once been successful
in exhibiting the interior workings of the human mechanism, that
he was master of it, and could take It to pieces and set it up again.
But he has shewn us that he understood his instrument as the ite-
nerant player on the barrel.organ understands his: he can set it to
a certain limited number of tunes. Mr. Godwin's organ, by nature,
by accident and by education, which is but a series of accidents,
was set to the tune of Caleb Williams ; and St. Leon, Fleetwood,
Mandeville, and Cloudesley, are but very imperfect and often dis-
cordant variations of the same air. The staple of each is the writh.
logs of a being under some complication of concealed feelings.
Remorse chiefly : Remorse might be written as the title over the
whole series of his writings. His long continued and protracted
productions may be considered as a sort of practical or mechanical
illustration of the "worm that never dies."

Mr. Godwin has a fruitful, but not a vigorous imagination : he
is copious, nay inexhaustible, but his offspring are feeble and sickly ;
he does not tear a passion to tatters, but he wears it to a shadow.
He works his way through a long history of crime and suffering,
like a mole in the dark and under-ground, and with a sleekiness of
style and an assumed unconsciousness of purpose that bears out the
comparison. The smooth, measured and oily style of this author,
which we have described by the term sleekiness, is a curious cha-
racteristic in works which dwell upon feelings of the most restless,
and agitated kind. The thoughts burn, while the words are of honey.
This is a touch of art that adds considerably to the effect of this
author's compositions, and in none of the former novels is this dis-
tinction more marked than in Cloudesley : circumstances and feel-
ings of the most energetic force are detailed with the calm of his.
tory. It might be, that a thousand years had passed over the heart
of the autobiographer, while memory had left every minute trait of
the events he relates as fresh and bright as the green of a spring
church-yard. It is possible that this calm beauty of style which we
hare always remarked in this writer, may have been lately height.
ened by his habits of historical composition, to say nothing of the
stealthy progress of age, which polishes a man's style as it does his
brow.

" Cloudesley" is a tale of guilt and sorrow. An uncle usurps
the title and inheritance of his orphan nephew, a posthumous infant. '
The fruits of his crime be enjoys only in outside show. His ingra-
titude to his noble and affectionate brother; his base injustice to
the helpless child he was bound to protect; the incessant dread of ,
detection and the threats of his accomplice ; an combine to render
the honours and wealth he has usurped gall and bitterness to the
taste. He becomes a gloomy and suspicious solitary; his children I
all die as they grow up, his faithful and affectionate wife follows
them to the tomb, and he is left alone in wretchedness to brood over
the vanity and emptiness of the things, for the sake of which he has
sold himself. The stings of conscience are not blunted by hearing
of the noble and generous character:of the youth he has pushed from
his right. Brought up in obscurity, though by means of the repen.
tant accomplice of the crime placed in the way of all kinds of edu.
cation and accomplishments, the boy turns out a model of talent, of
love, and beauty. He has been bred in Italy, and grief at the death '
of his protector whom he takes for his father, and other eircumstan-
cos combined, have thrown him among characters of a dissolute de. '
scription. His uncle, just prior to the death of his last child, his ,
only son, for whom he had so waded in crime, has the misery of
learning that he who ought to have been wearing his own coronet,
has become mixed up with a troop of banditti. The horror-struck
and emaciated man arrives in Italy only in time to save his nephew
from an ignominious death. The narrator of these circumstances is
a nondescript person, whom the uncle employs to discover the retreat
of his nephew, and to whom he discloses the whole of his own his.
tory and the secret punishment of his crimes, previous to engaging
him on the mission. This person plays a very secondary part in
the drama, nevertheless, he is an adumbration of Caleb Williams,
and only wants the influence of similar events. Cloudesley is the
name of the servant and confidant of the elder brotherof the usurper,
and on occasion of his master's death in a duel in Austria, he joins
with the uncle in putting aside all evidence of the existence of a
forthcoming heir to the title and vast possessions of his benefactor,
who has been obscurely married to a Greek lady, the daughter of
Colocotroni, not the robber.general of the present day, but, as it
seems, some Mainote patriot of other times. The character of this
Cloudesley is the great effort of the work which thence takes its
name. He is in the first instance a simple and unsuspecting English
yeoman, full of benevolence and good will to all mankind: his con-
fidence in a villain causes him to be thrown into prison; an entire
revolution in his character is the result, his blind trust becomes as
blind a mistrust, he discovers that all mankind are selfish and de-
ceitful, he becomes misanthropical, and in his heart declares war
against the whole world. He is relieved from the distress in which
he is involved, by the young nobleman, whom he afterwards serves
in the campaigns carried on by Prince Eugene against the Turks,
and whom after his death he so eminently disserves in the affairs of
his child. The dogmas upon which he regulates his conduct are
however simply dogmas, and though they influence his occasional
actions, do not wholly affect the tenor of his life. Love and kind-
ness, the original impulses of his heart, mix strangely with the
baser maxims of conduct, which a false calculation has led him to
rest upon. This inconsistency is a notable point in the character :
it leads him to join in the destitution of the orphan, and afterwards
to adopt and cherish, almost to worship him ' • and when the noble
qualities of the child reproduce in all its force the original warm and
generous love of the yeoman, he even spends his life and dies in the
hope of restoring him to his rights. Of the subordinate characters,
the two Greek women are drawn with the clat•sical chasteness of a
sculptor of antiquity ; we well remember all Mr. Godwin's por-
traits of female loveliness; his women are angels and might have
been painted by one; they are unhumanized by a single earthly
passion ; they are sweetness, they are tenderness, fidelity, beauty,
but beauty as cold as moon-beams, and if we love them it is with
only a fraternal glow. Such is Irene in Cloudesley, such is Mar-
guerite in St. Leon. Mr. Godwin's character will be a curious sub-
ject for the biographer when it comes under critical discussion. He
has had the reputation of an incendiary, when he was breathing
nothing but brotherly love to all mankind : his moral reputation hu
been blasted because he was purer in his aims than other men, and
• when perhaps his main fault has been a want of passion, he has been
held as the prophet and precentor of licentiousness. After the beauty
and innocence of women, Mr. Godwin dwells with most delight and
success on the beauty and innocence of childhood. Now a day,
nothing would seem to gratify this Nestorian author so much, as
watching the little ways and registering the little
spared
of the
third or fourth generation, whose budding he is s to witness.
Men return in some respects to the state of childhood; but there is
also a time when some men combine the wisdom of age, and the

simplicity of infancy.
We had thought of giving a long and touching pasuge, in which
the wicked uncle, as the story of the Children in the IVood would
call him, speaks of the infancy and the death of his offspring;
but we must refrain, for such an extract, in truth, would be scarcely
a fair specimen of a story which moves uniformly and regularly
forward to its development, and does not offer any very prominent
and striking portions. Enough has been said to invite the reader
to the enjoyment of the work itself.
DIGITAL SIGNS.—The Chinese have contrived avers
neat and simple kind of digital signs for denoting numbers, greatly
superior, both in precision and extent to the method of the Romans.
Since every finger has three joints, let the thumb-nail of the other
hand touch these joints in succession, passing up the one side of the
finger, down the middle, and again up the other side, and it will
give nine different marks, applicable to the Denary scale of ar-
rangement. On the little finger these marks signify units, on the
next finger tens, on the middle finger hundreds, on the index thou.
sands, and on the thumb hundred thousands. iVith the combined
positions of the joints of the one hand, therefore, it was easy to ad.
vance by signs as far as a million. It is said that the merchants in
China are accustomed to conclude bargains with each other by help
of those signs ; and that often, from selfish or fraudulent views, they
conceal the pantomine from the knowledge of bystanders, by
only seeming to seise the hand with a hearty grasp.
TALLIES.—After the union with Scotland had been
.concluded in 1707. a store of hazel rods for tallies was sent down to
Edinburgh, being intended, no doubt, as a mighty refinement on the
Scottish mode of keeping accounts. 'their advantage, however,
were not perceived or acknowledged, and they have since been sue
fired, we believe, to lie as so mush useless lumber. Vat the use
is very different in England, where a blind and slavish attachment
to endear forms, however ridiculous through time they may have
become, Is almost constantly opposed to the general progress of
society. Were a sensible traveller from India or China to visit our
metropolis, and report, on his return home, that a nation highly
polished, enlightened, and opulent, yet keep their accounts of the
public revenue, surpassing annually many millions of wands, by
means of notches cut on willow rods,--lie would mtaMy not be
credited, but supposed to use the licence of substituting a description
of the practice of the most savage tribes of the American continent.

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

The following matches have been made for the first day. of the
Newmarket Craven Meeting, Monday, April 12 a
Mr. Haffenden's Captain Arthur, against Mr. Moreton's Prodigy,
D. M. for 200, h. ft. (no weights mentioned.)
Lord Ezeter's Acacia, against Mr. Cooper's Merman, list. 71b.
each, R. M. 200. h. R.

Mr. Sowerby's Coroner, Bst. 71b. against Lord Worcester's Felt,
Bst. 21b. R.lll. 200, h. ft.
Lord Ranelagh's Sontag, Bet. 121 b. against Lord Worcester's
Coulon, fist. 21b. D.M. 150, h. ft.
Sir M. Wood's Lucetta, Bst. 71b. against Mr. Gully's Clotilde,
Bst. 31b. A.F. 200, h. ft.
Sir M. Wood's Canary, against Mr. Cooper's Jungfrau, Bst. 41b.
each, First Half of Ab.M. 100, h. ft.
On the second day of the above Meeting—
Mr. Gully's Baltic, list. 71b. against Sir M. Wood's Canary, Bat.
31b. A.F. 300, h. ft.
On the fourth day :
Mr. Thornhill's Merchant, Bst. 121 b. against Mr. Gully's Tyke,
Bst. 121 b. D.M. 200, h. ft.
Mr. Cooper's Jungfrau, Bst. 71b. against the Duke of Richmond's
Confederacy, 7st. First Half of Ab. M. 100 b. ft.
On the fifth day, Friday :
Mr. Ramsbottom's Tamandra, /Ist. slb. against Mr. Marna-
man's by Whisker, Bst. T.Y.C. 50, h. R.
No day mentioned •
Lord Anson's Portrait, Bet. 71b. against Mr. Thornhill's f.
Mouche, Bst. 41b. 200, h. R.
Mr. Perkins's by Nicolo, against Mr. Ramabottom's Phrynis,
Bst. 41b each, D.M. 108 h. ft.

EAST SUSSEX HUNT....(Lrwrs CouRBE.)
FRIDAY, MARCH 26.

A Silver Cup and the surplus in Specie, a subscription of S loss.
each, with 20 added by Mr. Craven, for hones, the property of
Farmers. Heats, New Course. Gentleman Riders. 28 Sub.

scribers.
Mr. Harrison named b. g. Ploughby, 6 yrs. 12st. 41b. Mr.
Stanford
Mr. Pindar names b. g. Southdown, 6 yrs. 12st. 41b . 2 2
Capt. Richardson named b. m. Peggy, 6 yrs. 12st. 41b 0 3
Sir R. Wilmot named br. m. Winifred, 0 yrs. 12st. 41b 3 0
Nine others started.
The East Sussex Hunters' Stakes of 5 WV/. Nth, for horses not
thorough-bred. Heats, the New Course. Gentlemen Riders.
11 Subscribers.
Mr. Campion named gr. g. Littlejohn, 5 yrs, list. 71b
Captain Willard named ch. g. Young Whitworth, aged
12st. 21b
Mr. Craven named b. g. The Clipper, aged, 12st. 21b
Hon. F. Watson named br. m. Valentine, 5 yrs. list. 71b
Mr. Gardiner named ch. g. 011apod, aged, who fell dead, the
first heat, just before arriving at the winning chair. Four others
started.
HUNTING.

The Duke of Grafton's hounds meet on Wednesday at AshLeys ;
riday at Nash Common.
Mr. Berkeley's hounds to-morrow at Hail Weston Wood ; Fri.
ty at the Kennel; Saturday at Snelson.
Mr. Drake's hounds to-morrow at Warden Kennel; Friday at
'usmore House.

The Quorn hounds to-morrow at Lount Turnpike ; Wednesday
at Ben's Cliffe ; Friday at Steward's Hay.
Mr. Meynell's hounds Thursday at Chaddesden ; Saturday at
Keddleston.
Sir John Cope's hounds Wednesday at Vattendon ; Friday at
Riseley Mill.
The Brighton harriers Wednesday at the Race Course; Friday
at the Dyke.
The Suffolk and Norfolk Union harriers tomorrow at Brooke
King's Head; Thursday at St. James's-street; Friday at Weathall
HaIL

Sir Jacob Astley's deer hounds, Thursday, at East Basham ;
Friday, at Hindolveston Wood ; Monday, April 5, at Wood Bailin.
Mr. Drake's house, to-morrow, at Warden Kennel; Friday, at

Mr. Caldwell's stag hounds, Friday, at Walton Greyhound.
The East Kent hounds, Wednesday, at Moekbeggar ; Friday, at
Arpringe.
Mr. Wieksted's hounds, to-morrow, at Moreton ; Thursday, at
Adbaston ; Saturday, at Bridgmere.lodge, Doddington.
Mr. Lester's harriers, Saturday, at Lo ham.
The H. H. on Saturday, at Tunworth Down.
The N. F. hounds on Saturday, at Pondhead.
ARCHERY.

Saturday the Edinburgh Company of Archers, King's Body
Guard, finished shooting for the gold medal, given by them fbr the
beat shooter at butts, when, after three days shooting, Nathan Spent,
Esq. was declared victor, he having gained 30 points, and William
Robertson, Esq. 27.
BOXERS.

The projected fight between Young Dutch Sam and O'Neale, is
postponed nine (lie, and Sam has arrested for 2001. the stakeholder
of the former match which did not take place, that being his portion
of the battle money. The stakeholder has entered bail.

IMPORTANT LIFE ASSURANCE CASE.