Cleves, Rev. Martin

Rector of Tripplegate, Amos Barton's neighbour and kind friend. "A man about forty, middle-sized, broad-shouldered, with a negligently-tied cravat, large irregular features, and a large head, thickly covered with lanky brown hair… there is the true pariah preist, the pastor beloved, consulted, relied on by his flock; a clergyman who is not associated with the undertaker, but thought of as the surest helper under a difficulty, as a monitor who is encouraging rather than sever. Mr. Cleves has the wonderful art of preaching sermons which the wheelwright and the blacksmith can understand, not because he talks condescending twaddle, but because he can call a spade a spade, and knows how to disencumber words of their wordy frippery." In lists of originals which were made in Nuneaton after the publication of Scenes of Clerical Life, the prototype of the Reverend Mr. Cleves was given as the Reverend John Fisher. (See Olcott, George Eliot, p.14.)

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