'My way is on the Waters. Of the Drowned
The last spasm makes the globule, wherewith I
Take innocent delight, and think when this
Strong hand shall, with the same facility,
Confound in one disruption, one abyss,
A bubble and a Universe. I dance
Around the circles of the Vortices,

And see the ship go down in a strong trance,

And hear the shriek,-one, yet how manifold!

There, where the steeds o' the Tempest foam and prance,
Am I;-their wild manes o'er wild ocean roll'd,
Like fire-flakes, wreathe the billows, and their neigh
Doth chide the clarion-clang of Ocean old.

'I dash amidst them, eager for the fray;
Doth plunge my Charger with me; he doth swim,
Wild in his fierceness, through the flashing spray;
As if a lightning-stroke had blinded him,
And darted phrenzy to his brain, and he
Were maddened with the torture in each limb,
And sweat' and shrieked in sightless agony,
And made huge havoc in his maniac might,
"Till his heart burst. Then, on the exhausted sea,
The waves drop down, and, in the dull twilight,
Lay sluggishly about the riven hulk,

O'er which the day rose sunless as the night,
Or glared portentous on the sail-less bulk
With a red eye and fiery. Lo, I

Chafe Ocean, that he waken from his sulk
Awhile, and blow a gale though weariedly
And brief;-yet unto me the billows spring,
Wild playmates, and a low-breathed harmony
We utter round the hopeless bark, and sing
A doleful and predestinating dirge.
Then droops again old Ocean, murmuring,
Like to a dreaming giant, whom no scourge
May waken more, basking in watchet weeds
Under the calm blue heaven; while on the verge
Of that doomed ship gaunt Famine sits, and feeds
On flesh of men; with Thirst that drinks their blood;

And Pestilence, glad of their savage deeds,
That, shivering at the helmless stern, doth brood,
Couchant o'er carcases. And I am there!

'The Crater is my cra'le, . . where, in still mood,
As in the womb the infant, in my lair
Of sulphur I repose, which bubbleth up
So gently, that the traveller well may dare
Descending to the brim of that hot cup;
As if, thus innocent, I might therein
Dissolve, like to a pearl, for lips to sup,
Ay, sweet as Cleopatra's. Now begin

The waters to ferment, and central fire

To howl, and with huge uproar and wild din,
Earth's matrix with prodigious throes heaves dire;
And there, in that capacious cavern, boil
The floods as in a cauldron, and perspire
Through all her pores, making the sea recoil
From the bare shore affrightedly. Anon,
The rocky pillars of the human soil

Shake, and the myriad mountains shiver down,
Vast, subterrane, obscure, with hideous crash,
Hurled by the winds into the abyss unknown;
Then up the billows in fierce anger dash
From chaos, seething like a yeasty wine
Over its bursting vessel; as they clash,
Straight do th'imprisoned vapours fiercely tine,
And rage for vent. Earth gapes convulsively,

And vomits the volcano. It is mine !'—pp. 13—18.

Many a man has been confined for lunacy, whose erring intellect has not betrayed him into half the extravagance which characterises this poem. It is, in truth, a mental monster.

ART. XII.-Cloudesley: A Tale. By the Author of " Caleb Williams." 3 vols. 8vo. London Colburn and Bentley. 1830.

THE author of Caleb Williams is himself again. We can imagine him nearly exhausted to death by the effeminating air, the occupations and the company of the Burlington-street book factory. How his soul must have thirsted to be away from the sad society of the delicate multitude of operatives, so industrious, so devoted, and so imbecile, who ceaselessly work at the curious gossamer fabrics of that unique establishment, which are to be "equalled by no other house in or out of the metropolis." We think we see the man flinging away the degrading costume of all the pretty dears around him, and, like Achilles among the daughters of Lycomedes, snatching up the instrument proper to his vigorous strength, and vindicating the masculine purposes of his destiny.

And how little has time done to impair the strength of Mr. Godwin? Superannuation is not a stage of infirmity to him, his mind is all the better for it; in the long protracted state of maturity which it has enjoyed, there has been given to it that nameless something, that intellectual attribute for which we have an equivalent in the natural world, in the word flavour. Time, indeed, has been a kind master to him; it has not built up his old age upon the foolish foundation of his youth, it has not made in his case the child, the father to the man;" it has been to him a corrector, a disciplinarian, a friendly monitor, causing its advice to be heeded, set thy house in order betimes. Accordingly, we now find every thing in its right place,-no inverted

views, no mischievous morals, no wicked sentiments trimmed out by ingenuity and imagination, no counsels or intimations inconsistent with the permanence and happiness of society; all is humble and benevolent: all is beautifully conducive to the extension of the noblest principles, to the cultivation of the purest affections, and to the establishment of a scale of disinterestedness and mutual attachment in domestic life; such as, if realised, would truly make this world a paradise. Such we unequivocally state to be the immediate tendency of Cloudesley; nor is it possible for us to suppose that a moral recommended by such matchless force and beauty of expression, as abound in these volumes, can be received into the haunts of men without producing some good fruit.

Mr. Godwin's success in this novel, is to be attributed entirely to that due estimation of his own qualifications which tracks his progress like a mentor through every page. The plot which he has selected is one that would have tempted out of its sphere, a mind less endowed than that of Mr. Godwin, with fortitude and vigilance. It is an abundant magazine of the most various and attractive materials, and, above all, every word in the sad story is "o'er true." In the volumes of the State Trials, somewhere will be found the details of a cause which long pended in the Irish Courts in the early part of the last century. The subject of litigation was a peerage with its appendages of estates and property of all kinds: the claimant was a youth, poor, ill-educated, and, apparently, of very humble birth. His name was James Annesley, and there is now no doubt that those honours and that opulence, which he never was so fortunate as to be able to enjoy for one moment, were his undoubted birth-right. He was defrauded of them by a wicked uncle, who had him kidnapped in his infancy, caused him to be brought up in obscurity, and afterwards sold to slavery in Virginia. He was discovered amongst the slaves by an English officer; he was brought home, and was set up as the heir to his father instead of the uncle, then in possession. A tale of more appalling pathos than the history of this youth, was never yet conceived by any imagination, for, though his title was made out to the satisfaction of every rational mind, yet the law, ever full of resources for the crooked, threw out a net for the almost drowning defendant, and still kept him in a state to battle it out against Annesley and the real justice of the case. One of the most singular parts of the story is that in which the uncle becomes the promoter of a prosecution against the nephew. The young man was so unfortunate as to be the cause of taking away the life of an individual under circumstances which gave it, in the eye of the law, the modified character of manslaughter. The uncle, nevertheless, worked heaven and earth to have him convicted of murder, but without success; and the evidence went to shew in the strongest light, the impression which the uncle had in favour of the rights of Annesley, whom, therefore, he was deeply interested in getting out of the way. The litigation was still unsuspended when poor Annesley died.

To none of these circumstances, however, does Mr. Godwin even allude: he puts himself under an obligation to this story, no further than for the general idea of an uncle defeating, by villainous means, the descent of titles and honours from his brother to a nephew, in order to enjoy them both himself. That idea had already been palpably enough afforded in the little ballad of the "Babes in the Wood." It was sufficient, however, for Mr. Godwin, who had to manage the matter in his own way. Dismissing, then, the whole of the details nearly to which we have referred, the author keeps to a few broad facts on which he builds a superstructure, which is admirably characteristic of his genius. The narrative is entirely autobiographical. Meadows, the confidant of the wicked uncle, first introduces himself to the reader by a short history of his own adventurous life, which, however, has no sort of connection with the main story, and, after relating how he became acquainted with Lord Danvers (for such is the name of the uncle) he permits the noble narrator to speak in his own person. Lord Danvers rapidly sketches the history of his youth. He and his brother, (who being the eldest, was the heir to the father's title) were remarkable for a strong mutual attachment, much as must have been done by domestic usages, in such families, to produce a contrary feeling between them.

Military fame being almost the only object for which the sons of the great in those times would think it worth their while to toil, the two young men entered the Austrian service, and acquired glory under the banner of Prince Eugene. One of those accidents, which the progress of war is continually turning up, brought Lord Alton, the elder of the brothers, into contact with a beautiful Greek lady, whose father, Colocotroni, with his family, had been obliged to migrate from their native place in the Morea, and to reside in Croatia, where the acquaintance of the noble adventurer with the young lady commenced; and it began under circumstances the most calculated to raise that passion in the breast of Lord Alton, which is identified with the deepest possible interest for another. Colocotroni had been just murdered near his house during one of the ravages of war; the wife shared the same fate; the daughter only survived them because of the seasonable approach of the gallant young Lord, who saved her from imminent death or more dreadful disgrace, and who soon afterwards added to that of a deliverer, the character of a lover. Peace was proclaimed, Lord Alton married the lovely Greek, and they proceeded to Vienna, in the environs of which beautiful city they began, conjointly, the path of life which, to their eyes, was strewed with the most delightful flowers. But they were mistaken; for the deadly winter fell upon them, and they were both struck out of life in the glowing morning of their happiness. Lord Alton embarked in a personal quarrel in a coffee-house; a duel ensued, which terminated fatally for the noble combatant: the devoted wife dropped

to the grave almost as soon as the horrible intelligence reached her, not however before she gave birth to a lovely male infant. Danvers behaved to both the deceased, in their extremities, with the most admirable kindness, and both placed in him the most unbounded confidence; nature, indeed, seems to be dictating every action of the surviving brother, when suddenly a terrific thought flings its ghastly shadow over his heart,-the child alone stood between him and a coronet; an infant, its lungs but just inflated, a little being, vibrating between life and death, was all the obstruction which this man saw between him and the world's honours, wealth, and consideration; that infant, too, the offspring of a marriage which, but for an accident, would never have been; the child of a Greek girl, a stranger, out of the Morea: he paused, and asked himself, what course was to be taken. The situation is exactly the one in which Mr. Godwin is likely to be most successful, and it is a most powerful piece of painting. Almost every description of mental struggle is sure to be traced by him in an unequalled manner; but where we think he is most triumphant, is that case, in which a mind, yet innocent and accustomed to virtuous pratices, feels, as it were, the first odour of approaching guilt; it rushes from extreme to extreme, it acknowledges the vast enjoyment of a good conscience, but how eager it is, and how ingenious to find out motives of prudence for the deed which it meditates! The resolution is taken, the uncle determines on sending the child into obscurity, feigning an account of its death, and at once investing himself with the wealth and honours of his brother. The person whom to entrust with an agency in a plan, which was to be so extended and so permanent in its operation, was a point of great importance with the new lord; but the peculiar qualities of a confidential man, who had been in his service for some time, tempted him to open the terrible project to this person, and to engage him, by a lucrative offer, to become his partner in guilt. Cloudesley was the name of this servant, and his character is powerfully drawn. Really possessed of the kindest and best qualities, but without a large share of that sagacity and discrimination, which are necessary to make a man undeviatingly virtuous, Cloudesley was turned into a misanthrope during a short experience of the world. He entered, therefore, into this affair not so much for the money, and certainly not out of any propensity to do mischief, but because he convinced himself, that if others took advantage of him, he might take advantage of others; and that to overreach, and to make ourselves independent how we can, were justified by the policy every day pursued by mankind. He undertakes the care of the child upon such conditions as will secure his employer, afterwards Earl Danvers, from any disturbance. To keep the boy at a distance was an obvious measure. Cloudesley, whilst the impostor lord withdrew to England, retired to the south of Europe, and from that time forth had the care of the child. We have read,