his fifteenth year. This early and indefatigable candidate for literary distinction, enjoyed advantages in the circumstances of his birth, education, and fortune. He was the youngest son of General Bulwer of Heydon Hall and Wood Dalling in the county of Norfolk. His mother, an amiable and accomplished woman, was of the ancient family of Lytton of Knebworth, in Hertfordshire; and on her death in 1843, the novelist succeeded to her estate, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. and took the name of Lytton.* General Bulwer died in 1807, and the charge of his three sons fell to his widow, whose care and tenderness have been commemorated by the youngest and most distinguished of her children. From your graceful and accomplished taste,' says the novelist, in the dedication of his works to his mother, 'I early learned that affection for literature which has exercised so large an influence over the pursuits of my life; and you who were my first guide, were my earliest critic.' He is said to have written verses when he was only five or six years old. In June 1820, appeared his first volume, Ismael, an Oriental Tale, with other Poems, written between the Age of Thirteen and Fifteen. The boyish rhymes are, of course, merely imitative. His next public appearance was as the successful candidate for the prize poem in Cambridge University. He was then a fellow-commoner of Trinity Hall, and in 1825 he carried off the Chancellor's * His full name, like that of his brother novelist, Mr James, might serve in point of length for a Spanish hidalgo. It is Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer Lytton. His brother, Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, is a well-known diplomatist, and author of several works-An Autumn in Greece: France, Social and Literary; The Monarchy of the Middle Classes; and a Life of Lord Byron, prefixed to a Paris edition of the poet's works. While noting these family details, we may state that in 1827 Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton was married to Rosina, daughter of Francis Wheeler, Esq. of Lizzard Connel, county of Limerick -an unhappy connection which was soon separated. The lady has written several novels not deficient in talent, but wild and extravagant. The issue of this marriage was a son and daughter. The latter died in 1848: the former, Edward Robert, has already been noticed as a poet. gold medal for the best English poem. The subject selected by Bulwer was sculpture, and his verses are above the average of prize poems. The long vacation in his college terms, was spent by our author in rambles over England and Scotland, and France. In 1826, he published a volume of miscellaneous verse, entitled Weeds and Wild Flowers, and in 1827, a poetical narrative, called O'Neil, or the Rebel. The latter was in the style of Byron's Corsair, echoing the false sentiment and morbid feeling of the noble poet, but wanting the poetic ardour, condensed energy of expression, and graceful picturesqueness which gild, if they do not redeem, the errors of Byron's style. A love of poetry, however intense, even when combined with general literary talent and devoted study of the art 'unteachable, untaught,' will never make a poet; and of this truism, Bulwer Lytton is a striking illustration. He has returned again and again to his first love and early ambition, and at times seems to be on the brink of complete success; yet, with all his toil and repeated efforts, he has never been able to reach the summit of the sacred mount. The following is a favourable specimen of these poetic aspirations: Eternal air-and thou, my mother earth, All idly dallying with the glowing trees; In the same year, 1827, Bulwer published his first novel, Falkland, a highly coloured tale of love and passion, calculated to excite and inflame, and evidently based on admiration of the peculiar genius and seductive errors of Byron. Taking up the style of the fashionable novels-rendered popular by Theodore Hook, but then on the waneBulwer next came forward with Pelham, or the Adventures of a Gentleman, 1828. This is a novel full of brilliant and witty writing, sarcastic levity, representations of the manners of the great, piquant remark, and scenes of intrigue and passion. There was a want of skill in the construction of the story, [Admiration of Genius.] There is a certain charm about great superiority of intellect that winds into deep affections, which a much more constant and even amiability of manners in lesser men, often fails to reach. Genius makes many enemies, but it makes sure friends-friends who forgive much, who endure long, who exact little; they partake of the character of disciples as well as friends. There for the tragic and satirical parts were not well is preparing to wed an interesting and noble-minded adjusted, but the picture of a man of fashion-a woman, the generous Madeline; and the scenes conCharles Surface of the nineteenth century-was nected with this ill-fated passion possess a strong attractive, and a second edition of Pelham was called and tragical interest. Throughout the work are for in a few months. Towards the close of the scattered some beautiful moral reflections and same year, Bulwer issued another novel, The Dis- descriptions, imbued with poetical feeling and owned, intended by the author to contain 'scenes of expression. What lover of literature, for example, more exciting interest and vivid colouring, thoughts does not sympathise with this passage? less superficially expressed, passions more energetically called forth, and a more sensible and pervading moral tendency.' This was aiming at a high mark, but the labour was too apparent. The scene of the novel was laid in the last century-the days of Chesterfield, George Selwyn, and Horace Walpole; but it had no peculiar character or appropriate illustration, and consequently did not attain to the popularity of Pelham. Devereux, a Novel, 1829, was a more finished performance. "The lighter portion,' said one of the critics in the Edinburgh Review, 'does not dispute the field with the deeper and more sombre, but follows gracefully by its side, relieving and heightening it. We move, indeed, among the great, but it is the great of other times names familiar in our mouths-Bolingbroke, Louis, Orleans; amidst manners perhaps as frivolous as those of the day, but which the gentle touch of time has already invested with an antiquarian dignity; the passions of men, the machinery of great motives and universal feelings, occupy the front; the humours, the affections, the petty badges of sects and individuals, retire into the shadows of the background: no under-current of persiflage or epicurean indifference checks the flow of that mournful enthusiasm which refreshes its pictures of life with living waters; its eloquent pages seem consecrated There was strong interest, though a want of simto the memory of love, honour, religion, and unde- plicity and nature, in Eugene Aram; but Bulwer's viating faith. In 1830 Bulwer brought out another next novel, Godolphin, published anonymously, was work of fiction, Paul Clifford, the hero being a in all respects an inferior work. About this time, romantic highwayman, familiar with the haunts he undertook the management of the New Monthly of low vice and dissipation, but afterwards trans-Magazine-which had attained a high reputation formed and elevated by the influence of love. Parts are ably written, but the general effect of the novel was undoubtedly injurious to the public taste and morals. The author seemed to be sinking into a representative of the artificial, unnatural school an embodiment of Moore's sentimentalist lingers about the human heart a strong inclination to look upward to revere: in this inclination lies the and immortality which are rendered so cheerfully to the source of religion, of loyalty," and also of the worship great of old. And, in truth, it is a divine pleasure to admire admiration seems in some measure to appropriate to ourselves the qualities it honours in others We wed-we root ourselves to the natures we so love to contemplate, and their life grows a part of our own. Thus, when a great man, who has engrossed our thoughts, our conjectures, our homage, dies, a gap seems suddenly left in the world-a wheel in the mechanism of our own being appears abruptly stilled; a portion of ourselves, and not our worst portion--for how many pure, high, generous sentiments it contains!-dies with him. under the editorship of Campbell-and published in that work several essays and criticisms, subsequently collected and issued under the title of The Student. In 1833 appeared his England and the English, a series of observations on society, literature, the aristocracy, travelling, and other characteristics and peculiarities of the English people. A fine, sallow, sublime sort of Werter-faced man, With moustaches that gave-what we read of so oft-Some of these are acute and clever, but many are The dear Corsair-expression, half savage, half soft. tinged with prejudice, and a desire to appear original and sarcastic. The Pilgrims of the Rhine-a And with this sickly sentimentalism there was a fanciful and beautifully illustrated work-was Mr great deal of prolix description. The love of satire, Bulwer's next offering, and it was almost immewhich had mingled largely in all Bulwer's works, diately afterwards succeeded by one of his best took a more definite shape in 1831, in The Siamese romances, The Last Days of Pompeii. This brilliant Twins, a poem satirical of fashion, of travel- and interesting classic story was followed by one lers, of politicians, London notoriety, and various still more vigorous and masterly, the tale of other things, discussed or glanced at in sportive | Rienzi, the Last of the Tribunes, which is the most or bitter mood, and in verses that flow easily, and complete, high-toned, and energetic of all the occasionally express vigorous and lively thoughts. author's romantic fictions. His tendency to minute Among the miscellaneous poems that follow The and prolonged description is, in these works, relieved Siamese Twins, is one entitled Milton, which was by the classic associations connected with his story, subsequently corrected and enlarged, and is unques- and by historical information, while the reader's tionably Bulwer's best poetical production. He interest in the characters and incidents is seldom i tried fiction again-the poetical satire having proved permitted to flag. Bulwer may now be said to have a comparative failure-and produced, 1831, Eugene attained the acme of popularity as an imaginative Aram, a story of middle life, founded on the history writer, but he was still to appear as a master of the of the English murderer of that name. The char- English domestic novel. acter of the sordid but ingenious Eugene Aram is idealised by the fancy of the novelist. He is made an enthusiastic student and amiable visionary. The humbling part of his crime was, he says, 'its low calculations, its poor defence, its paltry trickery, its mean hypocrisy: these made his chiefest penance.' Unconscious that detection was close at hand, Aram Ambitious of shining in politics as in literature, our author had obtained a seat in the House of Commons. In 1831 he was returned for the borough of St Ives, and in the following year for the city of Lincoln, which he continued to represent until the year 1842. He was a supporter of extreme reform principles; and in 1835 he conferred a signal favour on his party by a political pamphlet, entitled The set teeth-with closed eyes-he moved on-he gained Crisis, which had almost unexampled success. Lord the parapet-he stood safe on the opposite side. And Melbourne, in return for this powerful support, now, straining his eyes across, he saw through the open offered Bulwer an appointment in his administration. casement into the chamber he had just quitted. Gawtrey He declined to accept office, but in 1838 the honour was still standing against the door to the principal of a baronetcy was conferred upon him. He has staircase, for that of the two was the weaker and the since greatly modified his political opinions-con- more assailed. Presently the explosion of a firearm was scientiously, there is every reason to believe-and heard; they had shot through the panel. Gawtrey in 1852 he was returned as a Conservative member seemed wounded, for he staggered forward, and uttered for Hertfordshire, the county in which his property a fierce cry; a moment more and he gained the window is situated. His few parliamentary speeches have he seized the rope-he hung over the tremendous been able and comprehensive. They shew little of depth! Morton knelt by the parapet, holding the the partisan or keen debater, but are marked by grappling-hook in its place, with convulsive grasp, and a thoughtful earnestness, and by large and liberal fixing his eyes, bloodshot with fear and suspense, on the views of our national interests and dependencies. huge bulk that clung for life to that slender cord! In politics he is still the man of letters-not a political adventurer; and in the busiest portions of his public life literature was never neglected. In 1837 appeared Bulwer's novel of Ernest Maltravers. He designed this story to illustrate what, though rare in novels, is common in human life -the affliction of the good, the triumph of the unprincipled.' The character of Maltravers is far from pleasing; and Alice Darvil is evidently a copy from Byron's Haidec. Ferrers, the villain of the tale, is also a Byronic creation; and, on the whole, the violent contrasts and gloomy delineations of this novel render it more akin to the spurious offspring of sentimental romance, than to the family of the genuine English novel. A continuation of this work was given in the following year, under the title of Alice, or the Mysteries, with no improvement as to literary power or correct moral philosophy, but still containing some fresh and exquisite descriptions, and delightful portraiture. His next work was Athens, partly historical and partly philosophical. In the same year (1838) we had Leila, or the Siege of Granada, and Calderon the Courtierlight and sketchy productions. Passing over the dramas of Bulwer, we come to Night and Morning, a novel with a clear and simple plot, and some good characters. Gawtrey, a swindler, is well drawn, and the account of his death affords a specimen of the novelist's 'scenic' style. Gawtrey is the chief of a gang of coiners in Paris; they are detected, and Gawtrey, with his associate Morton, is pursued to the attic in which they live. [Death of Gawtrey the Coiner.] At both doors now were heard the sounds of voices. "Open in the king's name, or expect no mercy!' 'Hist!' said Gawtrey. 'One way yet-the window-the rope.' Morton opened the casement-Gawtrey uncoiled the rope. The dawn was breaking; it was light in the streets, but all seemed quiet without. The doors reeled and shook beneath the pressure of the pursuers. Gawtrey flung the rope across the street to the opposite parapet; after two or three efforts, the grappling-hook caught firm hold-the perilous path was made. 'Go first,' said Morton; 'I will not leave you now; you will be longer getting across than I shall. I will keep guard till you are over.' "Hark! hark!-are you mad? You keep guard! What is your strength to mine? Twenty men shall not move that door, while my weight is against it. Quick, or you destroy us both! Besides, you will hold the rope for me, it may not be strong enough for my bulk of itself. Stay!-stay one moment. If you escape, and I fall-Fanny-my father, he will take care of her-you remember-thanks! Forgive me all ! Go; that's right !' With a firm pulse, Morton threw himself on that dreadful bridge; it swung and crackled at his weight. Shifting his grasp rapidly-holding his breath-with Le voilà! le voilà!' cried a voice from the opposite side. Morton raised his gaze from Gawtrey; the casement was darkened by the forms of the pursuers-they had burst into the room-an officer sprung upon the parapet, and Gawtrey, now aware of his danger, opened his eyes, and, as he moved on, glared upon the foe. arrested himself-from a wound in his side the blood The policeman deliberately raised his pistol-Gawtrey trickled slowly and darkly down, drop by drop, upon the stones below; even the officers of law shuddered as they eyed him; his hair bristling-his cheek whitehis lips drawn convulsively from his teeth, and his eyes glaring from beneath the frown of agony and menace in which yet spoke the indomitable power and fierceness of the man. His look, so fixed-so intense-so stern, awed the policeman; his hand trembled as he fired, and the ball struck the parapet an inch below the spot where Morton knelt. An indistinct, wild, gurgling soundhalf laugh, half yell-of scorn and glee, broke from Gawtrey's lips. He swung himself on-near-nearnearer-a yard from the parapet. 'You are saved!' cried Morton; when at that moment a volley burst from the fatal casement-the smoke rolled over both the fugitives-a groan, or rather howl, of rage, and despair, and agony, appalled even the hardiest on whose ear it came. Morton sprung to his feet, and looked below. He saw on the rugged stones, far down, a dark, formless, motionless mass-the strong man of passion and levity-the giant who had played with life and soul, as an infant with the baubles that it prizes and breaks-was what the Cæsar and the leper alike are, when all clay is without God's breath-what glory, genius, power, and beauty, would be for ever and for ever, if there were no God! This novel of Night and Morning, was followed by Day and Night, Lights and Shadows, Glimmer and Gloom, an affected title to a picturesque and interesting story. Zanoni, 1842, is more unconnected in plot and vicious in style than the previous fictions of Bulwer, and possesses no strong or permanent interest. Eva, the Ill-omened Marriage, and other Tales and Poems, 1842, is another attempt of our author to achieve poetical honours, ever present to his imagination, but, like the flowers on the mountain cliff, Not to be come at by the willing hand. We give, however, from the volume a happy definition: Talent and Genius. Talent convinces-genius but excites; blunders, Bulwer Lytton persevered, and he at last wrought out works worthy of his fame. His next novel, however, was not a happy effort. Lucretia, or the Children of Night, was written to exhibit some of the workings of the arch-ruler of civilisation, money, which ruins virtues in the spendthrift, no less than engenders vices in the miser.' The subject is treated in a melodramatic style, with much morbid sentiment and unnecessary horrors, and the public condemnation of the tale was so emphatic, that Sir Edward deemed it necessary to reply in A Word to the Public. In this pamphlet the novelist sought to vindicate the moral tendency of his tales, and to defend the introduction of crime and terror in works of fiction. His reasoning was just in the abstract, but had no particular reference to the story in question, which was defective as a work of art; and, notwithstanding his defence, Sir Edward, in a subsequent edition, modified some of the incidents and details. As a contrast to Lucretia, he next presented the public with a tale of English domestic life, The Caxtons, a Family Picture, which appeared in monthly parts in Blackwood's Magazine, and in 1849 was collected and issued in the usual three-volume form. Free from all mysticism and terror, and abounding in humour, quaint fancies, and delineation of character, this work was highly successful. The characters were modelled upon the creations of Sterne-the head of the family being a simple, learned, absent recluse, who speculates like Mr Shandy; while his brother the half-pay captain, his son Pisistratus-the historian of the familyhis gentle, affectionate wife, and the eccentric family doctor, are all more or less copies from the elder novelist, retaining much of his genial spirit, whim, and satire, but with none of his grossness. While this work was in progress, delighting the readers of the Magazine, its untiring author issued another historical romance, Harold, the Last of the Saron The jingling medley of purloined conceits, Kings, a story of love and war, of Gothic and Celtic Out-babying Wordsworth and out-glittering Keats. superstitions and character, presenting much aniThat the satirist was unable to appreciate the archæological details. The same year (1848), altermated description, though somewhat overlaid with works of Wordsworth, Keats, or Tennyson is in-nating, as before, poetical with prose fiction, and credible. We must impute this escapade to a desire to say smart and severe things, as Pope and Byron had said before him, and to try his artistic hand in a line of authorship sure to attract attention. The disguise of the New Timon was seen through, and Miss Alfred' is believed to have rebuked the audacity of the assailant in a very masculine reply. But whatever were his affectations or Genius, the sudden Iris of the skies, The next work of our author was The Last of the Barons, 1843, an historical romance, describing the times of Warwick the king-maker, and containing the most beautiful of Bulwer's female creations, the character of Sybill. Though too much elaborated in some parts, and even dreary as a story, this romance, viewed as a whole, is a powerful and great work. Next year the novelist appeared as a translator. He gave to the world a version of Schiller's poems-executed carefully, as all Bulwer's works are, and occasionally with poetic spirit and felicity. He then ventured on an original poetical work, The New Timon, a poem partly satirical and partly narrative, which he issued anonymously, the first part appearing at Christmas 1845, and three others being subsequently added. Timon is a romance of London, exhibiting on the groundwork of an improbable plot sketches of the leading public men and authors of the metropolis-eulogising some, vituperating others, and dealing about praise and censure with a degree of rashness, levity, and bad taste almost inconceivable in so practised a writer and so accomplished a man as Bulwer Lytton. Among those whom he assailed, both in verse and prose, was Alfred Tennyson, who was designated School Miss Alfred;' and the poetry of the laureate -so highly original, refined, and suggestive-was classed among We know him, out of Shakspeare's art, That strongly loathing, greatly broke. I thought we knew him. What, it's you, O Lion, you that made a noise, But men of long-enduring hopes, And careless what the hour may bring, And Brummels when they try to sting. again assuming the anonymous guise, Sir Edward What profits now to understand A Timon you! Nay, nay, for shame, Punch, 1846 But with all its variety, its ingenuity, and learned lore, King Arthur is found to be tedious. The charm of human interest is wanting, and the vivifying soul of poetry which lightens up the allegories of Spenser and Ariosto is absent from the pages of the modern imitator. The blending of satire and comic scenes with romantic fable, though sanctioned by the example of Ariosto, was also a perilous attempt; and we cannot say that the covert descriptions of Louis-Philippe, Guizot, or the Parisian February revolution, are either very just or very effective. Here is the portrait of the French minister: With brow deject, the mournful Vandal took To that poor drudge which monarchs call a friend! But state-craft, mainly, was his pride and boast; And then things can't be better than they are!' The latest works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton have fulfilled the promise of healthful moral feeling, and the more complete mastery of his intellectual resources, evidenced in the family picture of the Caxtons. My Novel, or Varieties of English Life, 1853, and What will He Do with It? 1858, are genuine English stories, uniting the characteristics of town and country life, and presenting the contrasts of national character. His country squires and clergymen are perhaps too good, and his manufacturers and borough Radicals too coarse and vulgar. He views society too exclusively from the atmosphere of Almacks and May Fair. He is also more apt to describe his characters than to develop them in action and dialogue; and his digressions, though always ingenious, even when they are pedantic and egotistic, are sometimes misplaced. These are his most prominent defects or drawbacks. But there is so much variety in his portraits, so much to delight the fancy and exercise the understanding, that it is on these English tales, as we conceive, that Sir Edward's fame will ultimately rest. He has exhibited an amazing versatility of intellect and noble perseverance. He has worked himself free of the pruriency and affectations of his early manner, and we have now the matured powers of the artist, with deeper and broader sympathies, and a wiser philosophy of human life. In 1853 Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton received from the university of Oxford the degree of D. C. L.; in 1856 he was elected rector of the university of Glasgow; and in 1858 he joined the administration of the Earl of Derby as Secretary for Colonial Affairs. [Imagination on Canvas and in Books.] [From the Preface to The Last of the Barons.] It is when we compare works of imagination in writing, with works of imagination on the canvas, that we can best form a critical idea of the different schools which exist in each; for common both to the author and the painter are those styles which we call the familiar, the picturesque, and the intellectual. By recurring to this comparison, we can without much difficulty classify works of fiction in their proper order, and estimate the rank they should severally hold. The intellectual will probably never be the most widely popular for the moment. He who prefers to study in this school, must be prepared for much depreciation, for its greatest excellences, even if he achieve them, are not the most obvious to the many. In discussing, for instance, a modern work, we hear it praised, perhaps, for some striking passage, some prominent character; but when do we ever hear any comment on its harmony of construction, on its fitness of design, on its ideal character, on its essentials-in short, as a work of art? What we hear most valued in a picture, we often find the most neglected in a book-namely, the composition; and this, simply, because in England painting is recognised as an art, and estimated according to definite theories. But in literature, we judge from a taste never formed from a thousand prejudices and ignorant predilections. We do not yet comprehend that the author is an artist, and that the true rules of art by which he should be tested, are precise and immutable. Hence the singular and fantastic caprices of the popular opinion -its exaggerations of praise or censure-its passion and reaction. These violent fluctuations betray both a public and a criticism utterly unschooled in the elementary principles of literary art, and entitle the humblest author to dispute the censure of the hour, while they ought to render the greatest suspicious of its praise. It is then, in conformity, not with any presumptuous conviction of his own superiority, but with his common experience and common sense, that every author who addresses an English audience in serious earnest, is permitted to feel that his final sentence rests not with the jury before which he is first heard. The literary history of the day consists of a series of judgments set aside. But this uncertainty must more essentially_betide every student, however lowly, in the school I have called the intellectual, which must ever be more or less at variance with the popular canons; it is its hard necessity to use and disturb the lazy quietude of vulgar taste, for unless it did so, it could neither elevate nor move. He who resigns the Dutch art for the Italian, must continue through the dark to explore the principles upon which he founds his design-to which he adapts to the theory which cares less for the amount of interest his execution; in hope or in despondence, still faithful created, than for the sources from which the interest is to be drawn-seeking in action the movement of the prouder passions or the subtler springs of conductseeking in repose the colouring of intellectual beauty. The low and the high of art are not very readily comprehended; they depend not upon the worldly degree or the physical condition of the characters delineated; they depend entirely upon the quality of the emotion which the characters are intended to excite; namely, whether of sympathy for something low, or of admiration for something high. There is nothing high in a boor's head, by Teniers-there is nothing low in a boor's head, by Guido. What makes the difference between the two? The absence or presence of the ideal! But every one can judge of the merit of the first, for it is of the familiar school; it requires a connoisseur to see the merit of the last, for it is of the intellectual. |