loftiness, and strikes by its grandeur, before the veneration and tenderness arise which its antiquities and the plainly-told tale of the sufferings they witnessed excite.

[An Italian Landscape.]

gotten by the readers of the novel. The haughty and susceptible monk is tempted by an infernal spirit-the Mephostophilis of the tale who assumes the form of a young and beautiful woman, and, after various efforts, completely triumphs over the virtue and the resolutions of Ambrosio. He proceeds from crime to crime, till he is stained with the most These excursions sometimes led to Puzzuoli, Baia, his prompter and associate, and aiding him by her || atrocious deeds, his evil genius, Matilda, being still or the woody cliffs of Pausilippo; and as, on their return, they glided along the moonlight bay, the melo- powers of conjuration and sorcery. He is at length dies of Italian strains seemed to give enchantment to caught in the toils, detected in a deed of murder, the scenery of its shore. At this cool hour the voices and is tried, tortured, and convicted by the Inquisiof the vine-dressers were frequently heard in trio, as tion. While trembling at the approaching auto they reposed after the labour of the day on some de fe, at which he is sentenced to perish, Ambrosio | pleasant promontory under the shade of poplars; or is again visited by Matilda, who gives him a certain the brisk music of the dance from fishermen on the mysterious book, by reading which he is able to margin of the waves below. The boatmen rested on summon Lucifer to his presence. Ambrosio ventheir oars, while their company listened to voices mo- tures on this desperate expedient. The Evil One dulated by sensibility to finer eloquence than it is in appears (appropriately preceded by thunder and the power of art alone to display; and at others, while earthquake), and the wretched monk, having sold they observed the airy natural grace which distin-his hope of salvation to recover his liberty, is borne guishes the dance of the fishermen and peasant girls of aloft far from his dungeon, but only to be dashed Naples. Frequently, as they glided round a promon- to pieces on a rock. Such is the outline of the tory, whose shaggy masses impended far over the sea, monk's story, in which there is certainly no shrinking such magic scenes of beauty unfolded, adorned by these from the supernatural machinery that Mrs Radcliffe dancing groups on the bay beyond, as no pencil could adopted only in semblance, without attempting to do justice to. The deep clear waters reflected every make it real. Lewis relieved his narrative by image of the landscape; the cliffs, branching into wild episodes and love-scenes, one of which (the bleeding forms, crowned with groves whose rough foliage often nun) is told with great animation. He introduces spread down their steeps in picturesque luxuriance; us also to a robber's hut in a forest, in which a the ruined villa on some bold point peeping through the striking scene occurs, evidently suggested by a trees; peasants' cabins hanging on the precipices, and similar one in Smollett's Count Fathom. Besides the dancing figures on the strand-all touched with his excessive use of conjurations and spirits to carry the silvery tint and soft shadows of moonlight. On on his story, Lewis resorted to another class of the other hand, the sea, trembling with a long line of horrors, which is simply disgusting; namely, loathradiance, and showing in the clear distance the sails some images of mortal corruption and decay, the of vessels stealing in every direction along its surface, festering relics of death and the grave. The acpresented a prospect as grand as the landscape was count of the confinement of Agnes in the dungeon beautiful. below the shrine of St Clare, and of her dead child, which she persisted in keeping constantly in her arms, is a repulsive description of this kind, puerile and offensive, though preceded by the masterly narrative of the ruin and conflagration of the convent by the exasperated populace.

MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS.

The only other tale by Lewis which has been reprinted is the Bravo of Venice, a short production, in which there is enough of banditti, disguises, plots, and mysterious adventures-the dagger and the bowl-but nothing equal to the best parts of The Monk.' The style is more chaste and uniform, and some Venetian scenes are picturesquely described. The hero, Abellino, is at one time a beggar, at another a bandit, and ends by marrying the lovely niece of the Doge of Venice-a genuine character for the mock-heroic of romance. In none of his works does Lewis evince a talent for humour.

Among the most successful imitators of Mrs Radcliffe's peculiar manner and class of subjects, was MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS, whose wild romance, The Monk, published in 1796, was received with mingled astonishment, censure, and applause. The first edition was soon disposed of, and in preparing a second, Lewis threw out some indelicate passages which had given much offence. He might have carried his retrenchments farther, with benefit both to the story and its readers. The Monk' was a youthful production, written, as the author states in his rhyming preface, when he 'scarce had seen his twentieth year. It has all the marks of youth, except modesty. Lewis was the boldest of hobgoblin writers, and dashed away fearlessly among scenes of monks and nuns, church processions, Spanish cavaliers, maidens and duennas, sorcerers and enchantments, the Inquisition, the wandering Jew, and even Satan himself, whom he brings in to execute justice visibly and without compunction. The hero, Ambrosio, is abbot of the Capuchins at Madrid, and from his reputed sanctity and humility, and his eloquent preaching, he is surnamed the Man of Holiness. Ambrosio conceives himself to be exempted from the failings of humanity, and is severe in his saintly judgments. He is full of religious enthusiasm and pride, and thinks himself proof against all temptation. The hint of this character was taken from a paper in the Guardian, and Lewis filled up the out- He was a man of majestic presence; his counteline with considerable energy and skilful delinea-nance was strongly marked, and his eyes were large, tion. The imposing presence, strong passions, and black, and sparkling: yet there was a something in wretched downfall of Ambrosio, are not easily for- his look which, the moment that I saw him, inspired

[Scene of Conjuration by the Wandering Jew.] [Raymond, in The Monk,' is pursued by a spectre representing a bleeding nun, which appears at one o'clock in the morning, repeating a certain chant, and pressing her lips to his. Every succeeding visit inspires him with greater horror, and he becomes melancholy and deranged in health. His ser vant, Theodore, meets with a stranger, who tells him to bid his master wish for him when the clock strikes one, and the which Lewis avails himself of the ancient legend of the Wantale, as related by Raymond, proceeds. The ingenuity with dering Jew, and the fine description of the conjuration, ate worthy of remark.]

this youth has the right of consigning them to the grave. His own lips have made over to me his body and his soul; never will I give back his promise; never shall he know a night devoid of terror unless he engages to collect my mouldering bones, and deposit them in the family vault of his Andalusian castle. Then let thirty masses be said for the repose of my spirit, and I trouble this world no more. Now let me depart; those flames are scorching.'

He let the hand drop slowly which held the crucifix, and which till then he had pointed towards her. The apparition bowed her head, and her form melted into air.

boldness of his speculations and opinions, and his apparent depth and ardour of feeling, were curiously contrasted with his plodding habits, his imperturbable temper, and the quiet obscure simplicity of his life and manners. The most startling and astounding theories were propounded by him with undoubt ing confidence; and sentiments that, if reduced to

MRS OPIE.

MRS AMELIA OPIE (Miss Alderson of Norwich), the widow of John Opie, the celebrated artist, commenced her literary career in 1801, when she published her domestic and pathetic tale of The Father and Daughter. Without venturing out of ordinary life, Mrs Opie invested her narrative with deep interest, by her genuine painting of nature and passion, her animated dialogue, and feminine delicacy of feeling. Her first novel has gone through eight editions, and is still popular. A long series of works of fiction has since proceeded from the pen of this lady. Her Simple Tales, in four volumes, 1806; New Tales, four volumes, 1818; Temper, or Domestic Scenes, a tale, in three volumes; Tales of Real Life, three volumes; Tales of the Heart, four volumes; are all marked by the same characteristics-the portraiture of domestic life, drawn with a view to In 1828 Mrs regulate the heart and affections. Opie published a moral treatise, entitled Detraction Displayed, in order to expose that most common of all vices,' which she says justly is found in every class or rank in society, from the peer to the peasant, from the master to the valet, from the mistress to the maid, from the most learned to the most ignorant, from the man of genius to the meanest capacity.' The tales of this lady have been thrown into the shade by the brilliant fictions of Scott, the stronger moral delineations of Miss Edgeworth, and the generally masculine character of our more modern literature. She is, like Mackenzie, too uniformly pathetic and tender. She can do nothing well,' says Jeffrey, that requires to be done with formality, and therefore has not succeeded in copying either the concentrated force of weighty and deliberate reason, or the severe and solemn dignity of majestic virtue. To make amends, however, she represents admirably everything that is amiable, generous, and gentle.' Perhaps we should add to this the power of exciting and harrowing up the feelings in no ordinary degree. Some of her short tales are full of gloomy and terrific painting, alternately resembling those of Godwin and Mrs Radcliffe.

In Miss Sedgwick's Letters from Abroad (1841), we find the following notice of the venerable novelist: I owed Mrs Opie a grudge for having made me in my youth cry my eyes out over her stories; but her fair cheerful face forced me to forget it. She long ago forswore the world and its vanities, and adopted the Quaker faith and costume; but I fancied that her elaborate simplicity, and the fashionable little train to her pretty satin gown, indicated how much easier it is to adopt a theory than to change one's habits.'

WILLIAM GODWIN.

WILLIAM GODWIN, author of Caleb Williams, was one of the most remarkable men of his times. The

be

action, would have overturned the whole framework of society, were complacently dealt out by their author as if they had merely formed an ordinary portion of a busy literary life. Godwin was born at Wisbeach, in Cambridgeshire, on the 3d of March 1756. His father was a dissenting minister-a pious nonconformist-and thus the future novelist may said to have been nurtured in a love of religious and civil liberty, without perhaps much reverence for existing authority. He soon, however, far overAfter receiving the stepped the pale of dissent. necessary education at the dissenting college at Hoxton, Mr Godwin became minister of a congregation in the vicinity of London. He also officiated for some time at Stowmarket, in Suffolk. About the year 1782, having been five years nonconformist preacher, he settled in London, and applied himself wholly to literature. His first work was entitled Sketches of History, in Six Sermons; and he shortly afterwards became principal writer in the New Annual Register. He was a zealous political reformer; and his talents were so well known or recommended, that he obtained the large sum of £700 for his next publication. This was his famed Enquiry concerning | Political Justice, and its Influences on General Virtue and Happiness, published in 1793. Mr Godwin's work was a sincere advocacy of an intellectual republic-a splendid argument for universal philanthropy and benevolence, and for the omnipotence of mind over matter. His views of the perfectibility of man and the regeneration of society (all private affections and interests being merged in the public good) were clouded by no misgivings, and he wrote with the force of conviction, and with no ordinary powers of persuasion and eloquence. The Enquiry was highly successful, and went through several

560

after this mental pollution, to meet Godwin again as a novelist—

He bears no token of the sabler streams,

And mounts far off among the swans of Thames. In 1799 appeared his St Leon, a story of the 'miraculous class,' as he himself states, and designed to mix human feelings and passions with incredible situations. His hero attains the possession of the philosopher's stone, and secures exhaustless wealth by the art of transmuting metals into gold, and at the same time he learns the secret of the elixir vitæ, by which he has the power of renewing his youth. These are, indeed, 'incredible situations; but the romance has many attractions-splendid description and true pathos. Its chief defect is an excess of the terrible and marvellous. In 1800 Mr Godwin produced his unlucky tragedy of Antonio; in 1801 Thoughts on Dr Parr's Spital Sermon, being a reply to some attacks made upon him, or rather on his code of morality, by Parr, Mackintosh, and others. In 1803 he brought out a voluminous Life of Chaucer, in two quarto volumes. With Mr Godwin the great business of this world was to write books, and whatever subject he selected, he treated it with a due sense of its importance, and pursued it into all its ramifications with intense ardour and application. The Life of Chaucer' was ridiculed by Sir Walter Scott in the Edinburgh Review, in consequence of its enormous bulk and its extraneous dissertations, but it is creditable to the author's taste and research. The student of our early literature will find in it many interesting facts connected with a chivalrous and romantic period of our historymuch sound criticism, and a fine relish for true poetry. In 1804 Mr Godwin produced his novel of Fleetwood, or the New Man of Feeling. The title was unfortunate, as reminding the reader of the old Man of Feeling, by far the most interesting and amiable of the two. Mr Godwin's hero is self-willed and capricious, a morbid egotist, whose irritability and frantic outbursts of passion move contempt rather than sympathy. Byron has said

editions. In a twelvemonth afterwards appeared his novel of Things as they Are, or the Adventures of Caleb Williams. His object here was also to inculcate his peculiar doctrines, and to comprehend a general review of the modes of domestic and unrecorded despotism, by which man becomes the destroyer of man.' His hero, Williams, tells his own tale of suffering and of wrong-of innocence persecuted and reduced to the brink of death and infamy by aristocratic power, and by tyrannical or partially-administered laws; but his story is so fraught with interest and energy, that we lose sight of the political object or satire, and think only of the characters and incidents that pass in review before us. The imagination of the author overpowered his philosophy; he was a greater inventor than logician. His character of Falkland is one of the finest in the whole range of English fictitious composition. The opinions of Godwin were soon brought still more prominently forward. His friends, Holcroft, Thelwall, Horne Tooke, and others, were thrown into the Tower on a charge of high treason. The novelist had joined none of their societies, and however obnoxious to those in power, had not rendered himself amenable to the laws of his country.* Godwin, however, was ready with his pen. Judge Eyre, in his charge to the grand jury, had laid down principles very different from those of our author, and the latter instantly published Cursory Strictures on the judge's charge, so ably written that the pamphlet is said to have mainly led to the acquittal of the accused parties. In 1796 Mr Godwin issued a series of essays on education, manners, and literature, entitled The Enquirer. In the following year he married Mary Wollstonecraft, author of The Vindication of the Rights of Woman, &c. a lady in many respects as remarkable as her husband, and who died after having given birth to a daughter (Mrs Shelley) still more justly distinguished. Godwin's contempt of the ordinary modes of thinking and acting in this country was displayed by this marriage. His wife brought with her a natural daughter, the fruit of a former connexion. She had lived with Godwin for some time before their marriage; and 'the principal motive,' he says, 'for complying with the ceremony, was the circumstance of Mary's being in a state of pregnancy. Such an open disregard of the ties and This cannot be said of Mr Godwin. Great part of principles that sweeten life and adorn society asto-Fleetwood is occupied with the hero's matrimonial nished even Godwin's philosophic and reforming troubles and afflictions; but they only exemplify friends. But whether acting in good or in bad taste, the noble poet's farther observation-no one cares he seems always to have been fearless and sincere. for matrimonial cooings.' The better parts of the He wrote Memoirs of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin novel consist of the episode of the Macneills, a tale (who died in about half a year after her marriage), of family pathos, and some detached descriptions of and in this curious work all the details of her life Welsh scenery. For some years Mr Godwin was and conduct are minutely related. We are glad, little heard of. He had married again, and, as a more certain means of maintenance, had opened a *If we may credit a curious entry in Sir Walter Scott's diary, Godwin must have been early mixed up with the Eng-bookseller's shop in London, under the assumed

lish Jacobins. Canning's conversion from popular opinions,'

says Scott, was strangely brought round. While he was study. ing in the Temple, and rather entertaining revolutionary opinions, Godwin sent to say that he was coming to breakfast with him, to speak on a subject of the highest importance. Canning knew little of him, but received his visit, and learned to his astonishment that, in expectation of a new order of things, the English Jacobins designed to place him, Canning, at the head of the revolution. He was much struck, and asked time to think what course he should take; and having thought the matter over, he went to Mr Pitt, and made the AntiJacobin confession of faith, in which he persevered until Canning himself mentioned this to Sir W. Knighton upon occasion of giving a place in the Charter-house, of some ten pounds a-year, to Godwin's brother. He could scarce do less for one who had offered him the dictator's curule chair.-Lockhart's Life of Scott. This occurrence must have taken place before 1793, as in that year Canning was introduced by Pitt into par

liament.

Romances paint at full length people's wooings,
But only give a bust of marriages.

name of Edward Baldwin.' In this situation he ushered forth a number of children's books, small histories and other compilations, some of them by himself. Charles Lamb mentions an English Grammar, in which Hazlitt assisted. He tried another tragedy, Faulkner, in 1807, but it was unsuccessful. Next year he published an Essay on Sepulchres, written in a fine meditative spirit, with great beauty of expression; and in 1815 Lives of Edward and John Phillips, the nephews of Milton. The latter is also creditable to the taste and research of the the time of the Restoration. In 1817 Mr Godwin author, and illustrates our poetical history about again entered the arena of fiction. He had paid a visit to Scotland, and concluded with Constable for another novel, Mandeville, a tale of the times of Cromwell. The style of this work is measured and stately, and it abounds in that moral anatomy in

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which the author delighted, but often carried be- the story will show the materials with which Godyond truth and nature. The vindictive feelings win framed his spell.' Caleb Williams, an inteldelineated in Mandeville' are pushed to a revolt-ligent young peasant, is taken into the house of ing extreme. Passages of energetic and beautiful Mr Falkland, the lord of the manor, in the capacity composition-reflective and descriptive-are to be of amanuensis, or private secretary. His master found in the novel; and we may remark, that as is kind and compassionate, but stately and solemn the author advanced in years, he seems to have cul- in manner. An air of mystery hangs about him; tivated more sedulously the graces of language and his address is cold, and his sentiments impenetrable; diction. The staple of his novels, however, was and he breaks out occasionally into fits of causeless taken from the depths of his own mind-not from jealousy and tyrannical violence. One day Williams extensive surveys of mankind or the universe; and surprises him in a closet, where he heard a deep it was obvious that the oft-drawn-upon fountain be- groan expressive of intolerable anguish, then the lid gan to dry up, notwithstanding the luxuriance of of a trunk hastily shut, and the noise of fastening the foliage that shaded it. We next find Mr God- a lock. Finding he was discovered, Falkland flies win combating the opinions of Malthus upon popu- into a transport of rage, and threatens the intruder lation (1820), and then setting about an elaborate with instant death if he does not withdraw. The History of the Commonwealth, The great men of astonished youth retires, musing on this strange that era were exactly suited to his taste. Their rescene. His curiosity is awakened, and he learns solute energy of character, their overthrow of the part of Falkland's history from an old confidential monarchy, their republican enthusiasm and strange steward-how that his master was once the gayest notions of faith and the saints, were well adapted to of the gay, and had achieved honour and fame fire his imagination and stimulate his research. The abroad, till on his return he was persecuted with a history extended to four large volumes, which were malignant destiny. His nearest neighbour, Tyrrel, published at intervals between 1824 and 1828. It a man of estate equal to his own, but of coarse and is evident that Mr Godwin tasked himself to pro- violent mind and temper, became jealous of Falkduce authorities for all he advanced. He took up, land's superior talents and accomplishments, and as might be expected, strong opinions; but in striv- conceived a deadly enmity at him. The series of ing to be accurate and minute, he became too spe- events detailing the progress of this mutual hatred cific and chronological for the interest of his narra- (particularly the episode of Miss Melville) is devetive. It was truly said that the style of his history loped with great skill, but all is creditable to the 'creeps and hitches in dates and authorities.' In high-minded and chivalrous Falkland. The con1830 Mr Godwin published Cloudesley, a tale, in duct of Tyrrel becomes at length so atrocious, that three volumes. Reverting to his first brilliant per- the country gentlemen shun his society. He informance as a novelist, he made his new hero, like trudes himself, however, into a rural assembly, an Caleb Williams, a person of humble origin, and he altercation ensues, and Falkland indignantly uparrays him against his patron; but there the pa- braids him, and bids him begone. Amidst the hootrallel ends. The elastic vigour, the verisimilitude, ings and reproaches of the assembly, Tyrrel retires, the crowding incidents, the absorbing interest, and but soon returns inflamed with liquor, and with one the overwhelming catastrophe of the first novel, blow of his muscular arm levels Falkland to the are not to be found in Cloudesley.' There is even ground. His violence is repeated, till he is again little delineation of character. Instead of these we forced to retreat. This complication of ignominy, have fine English, ‘clouds of reflections without any base, humiliating, and public, stung the proud and new occasion to call them forth; an expanded flow sensitive Falkland to the soul; he left the room; of words without a single pointed remark.' The but one other event closed the transactions of that next production of this veteran author was a meta- memorable evening-Tyrrel was found dead in the physical treatise, Thoughts on Man, &c.; and his street, having been murdered (stabbed with a knife) last work (1834) a compilation, entitled Lives of the at the distance of a few yards from the assembly Necromancers. In his later years Mr Godwin en-house. joyed a small government office, yeoman usher of the Exchequer, which was conferred upon him by Earl Grey's ministry. In the residence attached to this appointment, in New Palace Yard, he terminated his long and laborious scholastic life on the 7th of April 1836. No man ever panted more ardently, or toiled more heroically, for literary fame; and we think that, before he closed his eyes, he must have been conscious that he had left something so written to after-times, as they should not willingly let it die.'

'Caleb Williams' is unquestionably the most interesting and original of Mr Godwin's novels, and is altogether a work of extraordinary art and power. It has the plainness of narrative and the apparent reality of the fictions of Defoe or Swift, but is far more pregnant with thought and feeling, and touches far higher sympathies and associations. The incidents and characters are finely developed and contrasted, an intense earnestness pervades the whole, and the story never flags for a moment. The lowness of some of the scenes never inspires such disgust as to repel the reader, and the awful crime of which Falkland is guilty is allied to so much worth and nobleness of nature, that we are involuntarily led to regard him with feelings of exalted pity and commiseration. A brief glance at

From this crisis in Falkland's history commenced his gloomy and unsociable melancholylife became a burden to him. A private investigation was made into the circumstances of the murder; but Falkland, after a lofty and eloquent denial of all knowledge of the crime, was discharged with every circumstance of honour, and amidst the plaudits of the people. A few weeks afterwards, a peasant, named Hawkins, and his son were taken up on some slight suspicion, tried, condemned, and executed for the murder. Justice was satisfied, but a deepening gloom had settled on the solitary Falkland. Williams heard all this, and joined in pitying the noble sufferer; but the question occurred to him

was it possible, after all, that his master should be the murderer? The idea took entire possession of his mind. He determined to place himself as a watch upon Falkland-a perpetual stimulus urged him on. Circumstances, also, were constantly occurring to feed his morbid inquisitiveness. At length a fire broke out in the house during Falkland's absence, and Williams was led to the room containing the mysterious trunk. With the energy of uncontrollable passion he forced it open, and was in the act of lifting up the lid, when Falkland entered, wild, breathless, and distraction in his looks. The first act of the infuriate master was to present a pistol at the head of the youth, but he instantly