712 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[JUNE, 



we presume, beyond that of mere rank. Lady 

 G. Agar Ellis's very handsome but some- 

 what inexpressive features eminently qualify 

 her for figuring among the beauties of La 

 Belle Assemblee ; and Mr. Archdeacon 

 Wrangham, though doubtless a very re- 

 spectable ecclesiastic, is not precisely the 

 person, looking we mean to his features and 

 figure in the portrait, whom we should sup- 

 pose, as Mr. Jerdan says he is, the very 

 beau ideal of a church dignitary. Mr. Per- 

 ceval's strange physiognomy is also probably 

 a piece of the editor's beau idealism. He 

 had the fortune to be present when that re- 

 spectable person was shot by Bellingham, and 

 so desirous is he of communicating all the 

 possible advantages derivable from personal 

 knowledge, that he favours us with a diagram 

 marking the relative positions of the parties 

 at the fatal moment, and a portrait of the 

 pistol, as large as life. 



Paul Clifford, 3 vols. 1 2mo. Mr.Bulmer's 

 new hero is a highwayman of the last cen- 

 tury, before enclosures broke up the profes- 

 sion. That, we believe, is the current theory 

 which accounts for the decadence of the 

 Turpins ; and his prime object in selecting 

 so unpropitious a personage is, pretty ob- 

 viously, to supply occasions for the in- 

 dulgence of his irresistible bent to political 

 satire. Fingering the public purse is, of 

 course, the business alike of the placeman 

 and the robber, and the materials for illus- 

 tration are, in our days, at least, rich and 

 felicitous. An ambitious and profligate 

 lawyer contributes also admirably to the 

 same delectable purpose of swelling the al- 

 ready flooding streams that must ultimately 

 sweep away all existing institutions. What 

 advantages can be anticipated from this in- 

 temperate course? Subversion will not prove 

 to be reformation. The whole system of so- 

 ciety is, and so long as men have human 

 passions, must be, a confliction of interests. 

 This flinging of indiscriminate contempt upon 

 public men, which tickles Mr. B., if it will 

 not utterly extinguish public virtue, will un- 

 questionably annihilate all belief in it. Cant 

 we abominate ; but we are not sure that a 

 little shrouding, call it hypocrisy, if you will, 

 is not better than avowals would be that en- 

 tirely threw off the mask. Nothing we 

 allow can well be more revolting than the 

 pretensions to party which we see every day 

 made in the very teeth of the most grasping 

 pursuits ; and to this contradiction of words 

 and deeds is fairly attributable much of the 

 general distrust towards public men, which 

 Mr. B. labours with the zeal of a proselyte 

 to spread in his novels. His graver poli- 

 tical essays recently published, in one of our 

 cotemporaries, are quite of another character, 

 and what will seem scarcely credible, not 

 even readable. 



Brandon is the younger son of a good 

 family, well educated, and bred to the bar, 

 and early matured in the arts of advance- 

 ment. Unluckily a beautiful girl crossed 



his path, and his impetuous and fervid tem- 

 perament plunged him into an indiscreet 

 marriage. Cooling upon enjoyment, he was 

 ready for any desperate measure to rid himself 

 of the incumbrance, and he finally pandered 

 to a noble lord, who carried her off, and pa- 

 tronised the wittol in return in his profession. 

 A short time reduces the miserable lady to 

 the lowest degradation, and she dies at a flash 

 house, the mistress of which adopts her 

 child, a boy about three or four years old. 

 A troop of housebreakers had assisted the 

 mother in wrenching him from his father's 

 hands. This is young Paul, who was thus 

 brought up under the wings of one of the 

 coarsest of her caste, arid graduates among 

 logues, pugilists, and vagabonds. Among 

 the visitors of the house is. the editor of the 

 Asinccum, and he is engaged at the rate of 

 half a crown a week to put the finishing 

 stroke to master Paul's literary acquirements 

 of spelling and pot-hooking. He grows up 

 the meanwhile a very handsome fellow, 

 and quickly extends the circle of his ac- 

 quaintance, and the scale of his expense. 

 His frequent demands upon mother Lob's 

 purse occasion quarrels, and the youth is soon 

 too mighty tobrook further restraint. Thrown 

 thus, in a moment of passion, upon his own 

 reserves, he applies to his old tutor, the 

 editor of the Asinaeum, and being fit ap- 

 parently for nothing else, turns reviewer 

 an employment, which, though he turns out 

 a capital hand in the slashing line, will not 

 keep him from starving, and soon wearies 

 him. While panting for some more pro- 

 fitable, as well as more active pursuit, he 

 accidently meets with an old acquaintance of 

 the flash-house, now quite a ' swell,' and 

 accompanies him to the theatre. In the next 

 box sits Brandon ; now a rising lawyer, with 

 his niece, a beautiful girl, or rather a child 

 of thirteen or fourteen. On leaving the 

 house, Paul's companion ' grabs' the lawyer's 

 watch, and Paul is seized and committed to 

 Bridewell, as the companion of the undoubted 

 thief. This completes Paul's education for 

 his future profession. With other despera- 

 does he breaks out of prison, and forthwith 

 joins a gang of highwaymen, among whom 

 he soon became conspicuous by his activity 

 and daring spirit. In some plundering ex- 

 pedition, he came in contact with Brandon's 

 lovely niece, and left a very favourable im- 

 pression of himself upon both her and her 

 father. Pursuing his vocation some five or 

 six years with a reputation second only to 

 Turpin himself, and encountering a variety 

 of adventures, he at last, in company with 

 two other dashing fellows, one of whom had 

 also been' a reviewer, and was still a philo- 

 sopher, proceeds to Bath, the scene of all 

 others in those days for fortune hunters, to 

 pick up a rich widow or heiress. Here Paul 

 meets again with Miss Brandon, to whom 

 he is introduced by the master of the cere- 

 monies as Capt Clifford, and soon makes a 

 rapid progress in winning that charming 

 girl's affections. She is with her father, on 



