Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Paul Clifford.

London:  Colburn and Bentley, 1830.

Contemporary Reviews

Anonymous. "Paul Clifford. By the Author of 'Pelham,' 'Devereux,' &c. 3 vols. post 8vo. London, 1830. Colburn & Bentley." The Athenæum. No. 133. London, Saturday, May 15, 1830: 289-291.

This is an age of intellectual Timons. Sir Walter Scott is, perhaps, the only man who has entirely deserved the title from his vast wealth and unlimited profusion; but Mr. Bulwer, Mr. Horace Smith, and numerous associates, have, if not the riches, at least, the unrestrainable extravagance of the type. The inevitable consequences have come alike on all. He of the hundred tales of beauty is at length a bankrupt; the author of "Brambletye House," never over-sumptuous in his cheer, has long ceased to offer anything but his lukewarm water; and "Pelham" is fast approaching the same doleful and insipid conclusion, although, by dint of hard labour and a careful steward, he still contrives to keep up appearances, and in some sort afford us entertainment. The descent from "The Disowned" to "Devereux" was in deed terrible to all lovers of good cheer; the dressing and seasoning were so changed, that we scarcely recognized the hand of the same artiste-it was like poor Mr. Brandon's underdone beef to follow a almi of Lord Guloseton; and now that "Paul Clifford" proves little or no better, we are warranted in concluding, that the feasts of this once-promising disciple of Ude must be numbered amongst good thing no more to be. Not that we are disposed to find fault with this author for writing and publishing about nine hundred pages per annum, for he of all men seems least likely to write better by writing more considerately; and we more than suspect in him a certain instability of opinion for literary composition, unless the off-hand, "stans pede in uno" manner be permitted. Our grounds for adopting this theory may be found scattered through those four legitimate novel, on which the author is content to rest his fame; for we agree with him in putting quite aside that unlucky bantling, "Falkland," which he justly feels some shame in owning, and would have more wisely left to the paternal cares of the well-known young gentleman who so long claimed it in all companies. We think, then, that in this inharmonious quartett, a careless reader may discover that the composer has been, in non long space of time, both a philanthropist and a misanthrope-an utilitarian and a denouncer of that heresy-a lauder and a libeler of the aristocracy-a stoic and an epicurean in philosophy-a patriot and an insouciant in politics-a sentimentalist and a satirist of feeling; and so on, for a column of antitheses, which our mercy spares the reader. In short, the whole constitution of his mind seems altered by the last author he has studied; and having quite talent enough to re-mould and embellish the opinions of his temporary favourite, he quite foregoes personal identity, and is on one page a Bolingbroke, on the next a Bentham, on the third a Fielding, and so on. This versatility of character is not only annoying in itself, and derogatory to the author's reputation, but it sadly detracts from the pleasure we should otherwise feel, when he is painting the dignity and beauty of virtue-when this theme is truth and love-for on these occasions, of all others, does the reader desire to feel sure that it is the man's heart, and not his library, that is speaking. Yet it is but common justice to acknowledge that the best passages of Mr. Bulwer's writings are those descriptive of the better part of man's nature-the interchange of affection and benevolence.

To the above remarks, the hanckneyed objection may be urged, that the writers of fiction are not responsible for the sins of their imaginary creations; and to this there are but two answers:-first, that the inconsistency and changeableness complained of, are to be found not only in the language of the characters, but in the didactic and dissertory passages of these works;-and , secondly, that all men are, in one sense, answerable for the sentiments they may put in the mouths of the personages they design; for the public always can, and generally do, decide correctly, whether the author intends a mere ideal being, of a portrait imaginary or real, of his beloved self. The world confounded Byron with his heroes, and he, although not really resembling them in character, had yet the foolish vanity of striving to be and to appear like them; and it detected through the flashy masquerade of "Pelham," the less aristocratic form of Pelham's author, because in both instances, there was the mark of the beast-the not to be mistaken stamp of egotism luxuriating in its own description. Yet we never heard Sir Walter accused of resemblance to Ravenswood, or Mr. Godwin of identity with Mandeville; and those, notwithstanding, are two portraits, that for truth and life have seldom or ever been surpassed. Our author, indeed, returns some awkward thanks to the public, for confiding him with the elegant Pelham, who was, after all, as he endeavours to show, a remarkably nice young man; but, however anxious he may be, to be so mistaken, we must altogether decline to believe that he does really resemble that disgusting, though amusing, compound of conceit, affection, impertinence, licentiousness, and insincerity. By the way, in the same place, (the preface to "Paul Clifford,") we are told that the said Pelham was "meant to be a practical satire on the exaggerated and misanthropical romance of the day-a human being whose real good qualities put to shame the sickly sentimentalism of blue skies and bare throats, somber coxcomberies, and interesting villainies;"-in other words, it was to do away with the Satanic school, and cure the youths of the day of looks, habits, and feelings à la Byron:-and excellent scheme, no doubt, but a little like curing a scarlet fever by prescriptions of eau sucrée and oil of jessamin.

In our remarks on the author of "Pelham," we have hitherto neglected to advise the reader that he must receive our criticism with all imaginable distrust, as we are at this moment smarting under a most merciless attack upon the "Athenæum," contained in the production which this article professes to review. Very early in the first volume, mention is made of a periodical called the "Asinæum," edited by one Peter M'Grawler, who superintends the education of the hero; but we continued for some time to read on in innocent and unsuspecting ignorance, thinking it a good nickname for a dull review, and perhaps smiling at its unlucky resemblance to our own august title. Presently some remarks occurred seeming in some degree to fix the opprobrious appellation on ourselves;-we remembered, too, that the sobriquet was a plagiarism from the Age newspaper, in which it was applied to the club whose name we bear, some weeks before;-the remarks in question displayed also the same elegant taste and good feeling which ordinarily characterize the Age, and thus the awful suspicion broke upon us, that the writer was the same in both cases, and that the Athenæum Journal was intended in the one attack, as the Athenæum Club had been in the other. This suspicion ripened into certainty when we found a quotation given as a sample of the "facetious tickle," taken from our review of "Devereux," and running thus, "The writer of this book has gained a considerable reputation among different classes of people. Many fine ladies think him a great philosopher; and he has been praised in our hearing by a party of Cambridge fellows, for his knowledge of fashionable society." This example observes our author, "was selected from the criticisms of a distinguished writer in the Asinæum, called par excellence, the Ass." It would be unfair to the good taste and good sense of our facetious foe, not to quote the best parts of this attack. The following is a portrait of the editor:-

"Farther on, at another table in the corner of the room, a gentleman with a red wig, very rusty garments, and linen which seemed as if it had been boiled in saffron, smoked his pipe, apart, silent, and apparently plunged in meditation. This gentleman was no other than Mr. Peter Mac Grawler, the editor of a magnificent periodical, entitled the 'Asinæum,' which was written to prove, that whatever is popular is necessarily bad,-a valuable and recondite truth which the Asinæum had satisfactorily demonstrated by ruining three printers, and demolishing a publisher." i. 20.

This, and the curious piece of information; that "the very best writer in the Asinæum gets only three shillings an article-almost more than he deserves, for he who writes for nobody should receive nothing,"-strike us as the best hits in Paul Clifford, though the character of the editor Mac Grawler is skillfully and delicately drawn. This luckless gentleman, failing to live by the Asinæum, turns pickpocket, then highwayman, then king's evidence against his kindest friend, then hangman, and lastly a writer in Blackwood's Magazine. Our limits do not allow us to dwell longer on this painful subject, so we must leave the public to applaud the refinement and judiciousness of this attack, and take leave of our assailant with a confession of the overwhelming confusion we feel, and an assurance that nothing but false delicacy prevented our addressing to him a PRIVATE LETTER "expressive of our general respect and admiration ofr his writings, and our earnest hope that no calm conviction of our dullness, but some insensibly felt dislike of ill-will towards us, as individuals, had coloured his remarks."

Paul Clifford has the singular merit of being exempt from the affectation and frivolity, which so disfigured its author's earlier works. Its main fault is extreme improbability. A highwayman hero, who, almost without education, and entirely without decent society, turns out the most refined of men in manner, language and feeling, is too much for any novel-reader's credulity. Another great mistake of the author's, is the introduction of numerous scenes descriptive only of the habits and slang of low London thieves and pot-companions. This he defends on principle in his preface, contending, that as works relating solely to the lower classes of Scotland and Ireland, have met with such general approbation, and the patois of the sister kingdom enjoys such popularity with the most fastidious readers, that the language of St. Giles is entitled also to its students and admirers. This is a melancholy instance of bad logic; for it may be observed in the first place, that the Scotch peasantry have the advantage of being highly educated, and the Irish of being eminently witty-whilst the English populace have rarely a shadow of either merit; and secondly the dialect of a class has no affinity to that of a party, nor does it follow, that because those are amusing, who by necessity from age to age arte the treasures of the national peculiarities both of thought and feeling, therefore rogues and ruffians must be amusing. We have not heard that Sir Walter Scott, with all his fondness for pictures from low life, is about to bring out any colloquies of Gilmerton carriers, or that Mr. Banim meditates inflicting upon us the dialogues of Dublin "blowens," as our author would obscurely term them

The story of Clifford is soon told. The hero is the child of unknown parents (his mother, one of the unfortunates, dies in the fist chapter); and after a misspent youth, though not a guilty one, he boldly takes the road, and becomes the gallant and chivalric leader of a troop of highwaymen. The immediate cause of his adopting this lawless life, is an imprisonment to which he is subjected on a false accusation of stealing a watch, belonging to an eminent lawyer, by name Brandon, who is the most important personage in the book. In the prison he becomes corrupted, and escapes in company with the rogue who corrupts him. After numerous adventures of the Turpin character, our hero goes to Bath in the disguise of a gentleman and in quest of an heiress. There he encounters Lucy Brandon, the heroine, and niece of the lawyer above mentioned. Deep love and fierce remorse ensue. The following beautiful little episode introduces his first positive declaration:-

[Inserted is an excerpt from Paul Clifford, Chapter 18, beginning with: "Silent, and stilling the breath which heaved in both quick and fitfully, Lucy and Clifford sat together." And ending with: "'To be loved and tended by the one I love,' said Clifford in a low voice, 'I would walk blind and barefoot over the whole earth!'"]

The respectability of Mr. Clifford is suspected and he finds it necessary to quit his mistress, whose affections are by this time entirely secured. She is left in great perplexity at this desertion, and at the dark hints he throws out with regard to his former life. Brandon her uncle, now a judge, with a peerage and the woolsack in prospect, employs every art to induce her to marry his old patron and companion, Lord Mauleverer, a roué and epicure now something in the value of years. His efforts prove unsuccessful. The plot now thickens, Lucy's father dies and removes to her uncle's in London. There, some dark passages of his life, when for a time he mysteriously vanished from the eyes of men, are cleared up, and he is exhibited in a shape more hideous than even a novelist's villain often wears. It appears that he had formed when a young man, a violent passion for a beautiful but low-born girl, whom he had married and retired with to solitude and indigence. Satiety and disgust soon followed, and on the accidental appearance of his old college friend Mauleverer, he plotted with that worthy person the seduction of his own wife (feigning her to be his mistress only), got rid of her in this manner, and then returned to the world and the pursuits of gain and ambition. His child, the only being for whom he had human feeling, was carried off from him at the age of three years, by a band of housebreakers, headed by his wife, who had become acquainted with his perfidy and took this terrible mode of revenge. All trace is lost of the boy for many years. It is hardly necessary to add that he is the hero of this tale: Brandon accidentally obtains a clue to his long-lost heir in examining a witness, and sets all engines at work to discover him, for a time in vain. Meanwhile, Lord Mauleverer sets out for London at the Judge's invitation to prosecute his addresses to Lucy, but he meets her lover on the road, and is rifled by him after a conflict, the description of which we would willingly extract, did our limits admit of our doing so.

Mr. Clifford shortly after this adventure, is betrayed to the officers of justice by the M'Grawler editor before mentioned, whom he had sheltered in his cave from charity. He escapes for a time, but is severely wounded and retaken in a desperate and successful attempt to free his comrades. His trial comes on at the assizes, and Brandon is the judge. The whole sketch of the proceedings is given with great spirit. The defence of the prisoner being an attack on existing laws, is very striking. But we have only space to mention that just as the jury have retired to consider their verdict, a paper is brought into the Court and handed to Brandon by one of his emissaries, which satisfies him that the unhappy man at the bar is his own child. As he reads the note, the Judge's head is observed to droop suddenly, as if by a sickness or a spasm, but he recovers himself instantly to receive the verdict of the jury:-

[Inserted is an excerpt from Paul Clifford, Chapter 35, beginning with: "The verdict was as all had foreseen, 'Guilty;' but it was coupled with a strong recommendation to mercy." And ending with: "'It is, that you be taken back to the prison whence you came, and thence (when the supreme authority shall appoint) to the place of execution, to be there hanged by the neck until you are dead; and the Lord God Almighty have mercy on your soul!'"]

This is certainly a finely-conceived situation, and very powerfully described. The rest is soon told. The violent emotions of the Judge acting on a diseased frame already subject to fearful attacks of the heart, bring on angina pectoris, and he is found dead soon after leaving the Court. His unhappy son is transported for life, but escapes, and is joined by Lucy, who marries him and endows him with her fortune. The fly to America together, and live and die according to the goods old rule of novels.

Before closing these remarks, we must briefly notice two scenes in this novel, on which the author seems especially to plume himself. They were written, he informs us, by the advice of an enlightened friend, and the whole work was originally to have been framed on the same principle. These are ridiculous caricatures of the government and aristocracy, in the persons of low London thieves meeting at the flash houses of Gentleman George, and BachelorBill, of course the King and the Duke of Devonshire. This sort of travestie is a very old idea, and was never in its best days a good one; nor is our author at all calculated to succeed in wiggeries of this kind. He is singularly deficient in humour, as we think all his novels show, and therefore compelled to eke out the defective interest of such scenes by a great deal of coarseness and personality. We can assure him that these favourite passages are the chief blemishes of his work, whatever a flattering press or a foolish friend may say, and earnestly advise him for the sake of his own reputation, to omit in his future work, all straining after the humorous, and pursue those walks in which he ahs proved himself formed to succeed.

Anonymous. "Art. X.-1. Paul Clifford. By the author of 'Pelham,' 'Devereux,' &c. In three volumes, 8vo. London: Colburn and Bentley. 1830." The Monthly Review. Series 3. Vol. 14 (June 1830): 259-263.

Mr. Bulwer has previously appeared before the public four several times, as the author of "Falkland," "Pelham," "The Disowned," and "Devereux." To this catalogue is now added "Paul Clifford." Each of these productions is distinct in aim and execution, and displays a different and original species of excellence. Indeed we have almost wished, on perusing them, that such high talent should be dedicated to some more durable work, and have lamented the apparent prodigality, which, like the tongues of rare singing birds served at the table of Lucullus, has bestowed on a fleeting gratification what might otherwise have given more permanent enjoyment. Such objections, however, Mr. Bulwer combats in the neat essay on novel-writing prefixed under the name of Dedicatory Epistle, by remarking, that, although works of fiction are of a fleeting nature, yet that an equally transient fate awaits, at the present day, the more laboured productions of study and research. In this opinion we can only partially coincide, and we sincerely hope to see Mr. Bulwer himself, at no distant period, not depriving us of the pleasure we receive from his lighter productions, but attempting some subject, which, although of a more arduous, shall be of a less decaying, nature.

A great portion of 'Paul Clifford' is a dashing satire on the faults and follies of the present most excellent generation, on police regulations, prison discipline, the manners of the day, literary charlatanism, and-the cabinet ministers. Mr. Bulwer has thought proper, on the suggestion, he tells us, of a friend, to caricature those high in power by their similitudes in vulgar life; a curious idea, our readers will allow; but it is so neatly executed, and the caricatures drawn with such easy wit, and, at the same time, with such perfect good humour and freedom from malice, that the dislike which we generally entertain to personality is lost on the present occasion in the fact with which it is managed.

We must, however, quarrel with our author for introducing into a novel, destined to meet the eyes of females, a coarse and almost unintelligible jargon of the vilest slang, which he is frequently obliged to interpret by notes, and which we were often unable to comprehend when not so assisted. He defends his practice by appealing to the popularity obtained by similar introductions of the Scotch and Irish dialects; but the comparison is inapplicable, inasmuch as the two latter are national, and in both we admire the sense and humour in despite of the idiom, which is disagreeable when presented alone. We admit that there is a degree of raciness and originality in some of the slang of the lower orders; but we no more wish to be gratified with such occasional relishes at the expense of the disgust which environs them, than we would wish to initiate ourselves in the amusements of a deceased nobleman who sought the company of sympathetic coal-heavers. Horace Walpole, in his "Castle of Otranto," originated the practice of giving appropriate dialogue to inferior personages, and of ceasing to make chambermaids declaim in the language of tragedy-queens; and Mr. Bulwer claims a similar privilege of giving gross expressions to gross characters; but such characters should either not be introduced into a novel at all, or, if indispensable to the plot, should be kept in subordination, and not be intrusively prominent. Our author cannot fail to injure himself by such introductions; we have already heard some ladies, who had read and admired Mr. Bulwer's former works, declare unanimously against his present performance; and though the passages we refer to are rather confined to an inconsiderable portion of the first volume, yet we think that the display of public opinion on this branch of his work will effectually prevent the repetition of the error.

The plot of the novel is as romantic and improbable as may be; the hero being a highwayman, and the heroine one of the sweetest models of female innocence that love could picture. However, as the reader invariably knows from the beginning, this does not prevent their becoming mutually enamoured, and, at last, in the good old way, they are married, and live very happy ever afterwards! This is very well managed by Mr. Bulwer, who, as in his former tales, frequently makes the plot little more than a lay-figure on which he hangs the exquisite drapery of his fancy. The interest is very well sustained; the hero, when all seems lost, is saved; and a father and uncle dying very conveniently, the young people are left to settle their affairs themselves, and the usual consequences ensue.

We give a short extract, which, however, it is difficult to select, as the best passages are detached sentences rather than long paragraphs,-Mr. Bulwer having, as he tells us, determined to abandon the didascular, and to lay greater stress on the narrative, than in his former productions.

Perhaps the trial scene is the most powerful in the work. We should premise that Clifford, the hero, whose mother had died before he could recollect, and whose father was unknown to him, was brought up in the lowest sinks of vice; that having been committed to prison for an offence of which he was not guilty, he effected his escape, and was induced, by the companions among whom he had taken refuge, to become a highwayman. After nearly seven years' trial of this mode of life, he accidentally meets the heroine; a new æra commences in his existence, and he determines to enlist in foreign service and assume a reformed character. On the eve of his putting this plan into execution, his haunt is betrayed, and his tow companions made prisoners, while he, by his great courage and agility, manages to escape. He resolves, however, to attempt their rescue, which he effects, but is himself shot and made prisoner in the encounter. His father, in the mean time, had been trying every measure to gain a clue to his stolen son's identity, which he was doubly anxious to ascertain on account of a prospect of elevation from his station of judge to that of a peer. IN his former capacity, Sir William Brandon has to sit, at the assizes at ----, in judgment upon Clifford; and, after he had summed up the evidence, and the jury had retired to deliberate, a note is put into his hand, by which he discovers that the prisoner is his long-lost son. This scene is excellently managed by Mr. Bulwer. After a long absence the jury returned-

[Inserted is an excerpt from Paul Clifford, Chapter 35, beginning with: 'The verdict was as all had foreseen,-"Guilty;" but it was coupled with a strong recommendation to mercy.' And ending with: 'With these thoughts warring, in what manner we dare not even by an epithet express, within him, we may cast one hasty glance on the horror of aggravation they endured, when he heard the prisoner accuse HIM as the cause of his present doom, and felt himself at once the murderer and judge of his son!']

Overcoming his emotion, however, Brandon pronounced the sentence of the law, but immediately forwarded a strong recommendation for mercy, which was attended to, and the doom commuted to transportation for life. Brandon, after the trial, entered his carriage, with the intention of dining with Lord Mauleverer, but was found dead in his seat. The heroine, Lucy, then determined to accompany her cousin and lover in his banishment, but on Clifford's remonstrances and entreaties she consented to await him in England. He effects his escape, is united to her, and they retire to America, where he employs his remaining life in a manner that might atone for the errors of his youth.

Anonymous. "The Literary Examiner. Paul Clifford." The Examiner. June 20th, 1830: 387.

So carefully cultivated is roguery in this land precious to Mercury, that if a turn for thieving appears or is suspected in a youth, he is sent to a gaol of "college," as it is more properly called, where he becomes accomplished in the theory of the profession by conversation with superior artists. He goes forth and practices; failing in caution or address, is detected and sentenced to seven years' transportation, which gives him leisure to ponder over his successes and miscarriages, to trace either to their causes, and hoard up maxims of prudence, and shape wiser schemes for the conduct of future larcenies. When his term expires, then he comes out of the hulks a sage in felony-one whose experience has undergone long digestion, whose hand has rested while his head has planned, whose past mistakes have been followed up to their sources and marked for future avoidance. In all other vocations practice is too continuous for the best improvement. The law which makes recesses for thieves whenever they are convicted of a falut, provides an opportunity for reflection and technical cultivation which is wanting in every other profession. While the lawyer is amusing himself in his vacation, the thief is improving his craft in his imprisonment. The question ever occurring to him is, "Why am I here?" and the answer is, not "Because I have pillaged my neighbor," a cause which fills the best houses in England with the best company, but because he has been clumsy enough to be detected. The fault is examined and corrected, and the rogue rendered more adroit in his next operation. With a view to the cultivation of the thing wherein it lives, the law should hold the three essentials to be Imprisonment! Imprisonment!! Imprisonment!!! Imprisonment for no cause-imprisonment for slight cause-imprisonment for every cause. The instant an indication of dishonesty manifests itself, or may be conjectured, risk not the misapplication of that material out of which an eminent thief may be shaped, but send the youthful party straight to the school of crime, and brand him with its binding disgrace. It has been said of a man once in love, that though he breaks his chain he ever after carries a fragment of it about him, which may be seized for his recapture in the same snare. It is more true of a man once in gaol, that though he goes forth free again, he ever after carries an ignominious link, which may be made a hold to bind him to guilt. Consistently, therefore, the rule of English practice is never to lose an opportunity of committing to prison, and our boasted British justice may modestly say,-

'. . . .The little art I know,
To make men rascals and to keep them so.'

Paul Clifford is a highwayman, made and educated according to law. He is a highly mannered ingenious youth, of good person and address, having the one fault only of being a rogue. In the relations of friend, companion, and lover, he is unexceptionable, and as mayb e observed in divers instances of more exalted personages, his offences are confined to his public career. The most execrable statesmen have been lauded for their private characters; and there is no reason to suppose that a thief of the lowest order may not cherish the domestic affections, and shine in the most generous offices of friendship. The life of Hardy Vaux, the pick-pocket, furnishes examples in point; for all that tomb-stones record in praise of husbands and friends, appears to have been deserved by that transported felon. It is indeed a beautiful dispensation, that there is no nature so corrupted, so utterly flinty, as to be incapable of entertaining the household affections, the gods of the fire-side.

Paul Clifford, by address and deceit, makes his way into society, and the heart of a young lady of birth and fortune. He forbears, however, to take the base advantages of the offer, and after a series of adventures, some of which are conceived and detailed with great spirit, he is apprehended and tried by a Judge Brandon, who proves to be his own father. Sentence is commuted; and Paul, under another name, in an other and a better world beyond the Atlantic, becomes a happy husband and respected member of society. The character of Brandon is the masterpiece of the work-it is atrocious, but natural under the circumstances which form it. The author's sketch of this saturnine being's early passion, whose consequences give the cruel stamp to the ill-metal of the man's mind, is of exquisitely nice observation, and there is many a one who will shudderingly recognize its truth, perceiving in himself the parallel passages of error, and the inevitable pains that accompany them. When a proud, selfish, and earnest man of keen feelings loves, his passion is sure to be the incessant scourge of his sensibilities. He exacts impossible return, and resents as wrongs to his merit or ingratitude to his affection, any measure of affection that is rendered. He complains and alienates; takes disgust and makes it. Brandon's wife proves false to him; becomes utterly abandoned, and in revenge for her husband's injuries to her, steals his infant son, and dying, leaves him to the care of creatures of crime, by whom he is brought up. The boy's protector has an ambition that he should be something better or safer than a thief, and he might have escaped the course of crime but for an accident which brings him under he suspicion of robbing Brandon, who urges the unjust accusation which consigns him to a gaol, where, carried away, by the genius loci, he conceives the ambition of shining as a thief, and acquires the elements of professional science. Thus the father unconsciously makes his son a rogue, and afterwards tries him for the consequent offences,-a parallel to the scheme of our law, which makes so many of the criminals it punishes. There is wonderful reciprocity in these matters. To thieves, law owes its being; and in return, the law is parent of many a thief. The anagnosis has place between trial and sentence, and the parent discovers his long lost and long sought son in the criminal at the bar on whom he has to pass sentence of death.

Paul Clifford abounds in pointed applications to politics and moral, and the satire is ever in the right direction. It is indeed a 'Jonathan Wild' romanced, with this difference, that the hero is only the knave of circumstances, and is all amiability out of his vocation. The applications are often extremely happy, and always ingenious, but the scope of them is rather confined, by the part assigned to Paul Clifford. The high-way practices in politics have passed away for more than a century and a half, and swindling is the present method of appropriating the public property. The art of obtaining money under false pretences has superseded violence; and the example to illustrate in little the practices of the great, would be the progress of a swindler deceiving through the manifold pretences acceptible to society.

The late Bow street case, of the worthy personage who proposed publishing a paper to be called the Alfred, of Church and State principles, might give the frame to such a story as would necessarily involve the largest application to existing morals and politics.

Anonymous. "Paul Clifford. By the author of Pelham, the Disowned, and Devereux. Two vols. 12mo. New-York: J. & J. Harper. 1830." The New-York Mirror: a Weekly Gazette of Literature and the Fine Arts. July 3rd, 1830: 414.

We copy a notice of this "Pelham novel" from the racy pen of that distinguished scholar the editor of the National Gazette. We are induced to this by the consideration that the indiscriminating praise with which the productions of Bulwer have been noticed, even by one of our own correspondents, may receive some check-their tendency being, upon weak minds, precisely such as is ably pointed out by the Philadelphia critic.

"We have found leisure to read with attention the new Pelham novel, as it is called, (Paul Clifford) and we did the same with Godwin's Cloudesley. The impression left is that of a sacrifice of time by the perusal-but the celebrity of authors forms a temptation, and with journalists, creates almost a necessity to become acquainted with their fresh productions. The week before the last we cause a chapter of Cloudesley to be copied-the best, we think, of the work-in regard to which we may say, generally, that it is trite in its story-that it might be reduced to one-half it size with advantage, owing to great diffusion of style and repetition of thought; but that it contains eloquent passages, some striking and just views of human nature, vigorous and nice delineations of character, and cogent moral lessons.

This morning we furnish a chapter from Paul Clifford, as lively, graphic narrative of a rod robbery, which is a proper illustration of the cast of the book. The hero is of this technical tale of roguery, or strange political allegory, is a gifted, magnanimous, daring, philosophical, sentimental, love-sick, fortunate highwayman, a predatory Apollo, who wins the heart and finally the hand and fortune, of a high-born, beautiful, delicate, refined, exquisite, country heiress. His gang are meant to represent members of the present British cabinet, and several of the most famous legal, political, or patrician characters; and their jolly patron and landlord shadows out no less a personage than King George IV. The work is a curious medley, replete with satirical allusions and comments, which few American readers will at once comprehend. It has peculiar merits and faults, but we should not readily discover in it the hand of the author of Devereux. The scenes and the dialogues of the greater part of the two volumes are those of low and criminal life; the language requires a glossary, like Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," a collection of slang phrases, otherwise, Tyburn flash or cant, or St. Giles's Creek. The thieves, house-breakers, pick-pockets, and tippling landladies, utter coarse jokes and paltry puns without number; their diction and actions are characteristic, while the descant upon the vices of government and rulers, and the perversions and oppressions of the social system. There is much radical declamation and discontent; human nature and condition are almost universally exhibited in the most odious light; the villains of the patrician order are monsters; the "common cursitors," or vagabonds and trulls, have their redeeming virtues and blandishments; the comrades of the Apollo shine like Macheaths, Wilds, and Robin Hoods.

"As far as moral or immoral design can be imputed to the author, we should infer that he meant to vilify all political and social institutions, and mankind and womankind; and to compound a book which should, as Schiller's play is said to have done, multiply the race of public robbers, and cause young ladies to long after them for lovers and husbands. It cannot be denied that he has pursued these ends with certain ability, and in a way fitted to awaken more or less interest in his pages; but nevertheless, he ahs introduced so much hyperbole, caricature, ribaldry, wild and improbable fiction, mawkish sentimentality, horrid guilt, spurious philosophy- that a reader who reflects and analyzes, may be surprised at the lavish and broad panegyric which has been bestowed on the farrago. Doubtless, Paul Clifford is not without occasional eloquence, deep or plausible satire, and descriptive or imaginative power, so styled, in several of the chapters; in conceding, however, such merits, we must state formally the opinion couched in our antecedent remarks-that it is a secondary performance of bad tendencies, which, we trust, will not be imitated either by Mr. Bulwer himself, or the servile pecus. We have not room for an abstract of his extravagant plot, ending with the flight of the convict hero and the devoted inamorata to these United States, where they spend the remainder of their days in the utmost honour and felicity. We think that the British nobles, including the royal family, must now take the alarm when the see themselves drawn, in the popular novels, in the guise of plunderers and blackguards, adepts and models of the Flash Academy. This liberty or licence is carried further in Paul Clfford than in any book of similar nature and repute which ahs ever fallen into our hands. The ministers and the judges may tremble the more, when the advert to the measure in which romances and tales have supplanted all other literary productions, to the extent in which it is sought. On this important head there are pertinent suggestions in the dedicatory epistle of the renowned E. L. B., who well understands his game."

Anonymous. "Paul Clifford." The Ariel: a Semimonthly Literary and Miscellaneous Gazette. July 10th, 1830: 43.

This new novel by the author of Pelham, is exciting considerable interest, particularly among that portion of the community who are familiar with the present state of British politics. A good judge of books thus describes it-

"The hero of this technical tale of roguery,-or strange political allegory,-is a gifted, magnanimious, daring, philosophical, sentimental, love-sick, fortunate highwayman, a predatory Apollo, who wins the heart and finally the hand and fortune, of a high-born, beautiful, delicate, refined, exquisite, country heiress. His gang are meant to represent members of the present British cabinet, and several of the most famous legal, political, or patrician characters; and their jolly patron and landlord shadows out no less a personage than King George IV. The work is a curious medley, replete with satirical allusions and comments, which few American readers will at once comprehend. It has peculiar merits and faults, but we should not readily discover in it the hand of the author of Devereux. The scenes and the dialogues of the greater part of the two volumes are those of low and criminal life;-the language requires a glossary, like Grose's "Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," a collection of slang phrases, otherwise, Tyburn flash or cant, or St. Giles's Creek. The thieves, house-breakers, pick-pockets, and tippling landladies, utter coarse jokes and paltry puns without number; their diction and actions are characteristic, while the descant upon the vices of government and rulers, and the perversions and oppressions of the social system. There is much radical declamation and discontent; human nature and condition are almost universally exhibited in the most odious light; the villains of the patrician order are monsters; the "common cursitors," or vagabonds and trulls, have their redeeming virtues and blandishments; the comrades of the Apollo shine like Macheaths, Wilds, and Robin Hoods.

[List of characters.]

We are certain that all will read the novel with interest, and all will admire the talents of the writer-there will be some difference of opinion touching the uses to which he has applied his powers. Paul Clifford should receive a regular examination.

Anonymous. "Art. IX. Eugene Aram; A Tale. By the Author of Pelham, Devereux, &c." Edinburgh Review 55 (April 1832): 212.

In its successor, 'Paul Clifford,' we should be apt to say there seemed too much of a studied contrast to 'Pelham;' too close an adherence to the sources of interest which the lowest situations of life supply; too much, in short, of the gusto picaresco of Mendoza, and Quevedo, and Prevost. It was as if a man, vexed at having dined at three guineas a-head in a fashionable hotel, should make up for it next day by plunging into a twopenny diving cellar. The story lingers too long in the haunts of vice, and deals too much with its jargon. Paul Clifford reads too much like Paul the Sharper. The travesty of fashion, and of political characters too, under the garb of highwaymen, cleverly as it is executed, seems to us, like Addison's comparison of the English Kings to heathen Deities, to display rather ingenuity than humour. The real interest of the story-and, notwithstanding a rather improbable groundwork, that interest is very great-only arises when the character of Clifford deepens, like that of Cymon, under the influence of love. The remainder is in excellent taste-free, spirited, forcible-more so perhaps than any of its predecessors.

-- Prepared by Cameron Dodworth, University of Nebraska, Spring 2006
© Cameron Dodworth, 2006.