LORD LYTTON.

From Blackwood's Magazine.
LORD LYTTON.

None of us

so lightly, so easily woven. could have predicted, even then, what THIS has been a mournful winter, full further development his mind might take, or whether it was reserved for the Bulwer of the sombre excitement of public loss an excitement which, though very differ- of our youth to become not only the acent from the penetrating anguish of per- complished and wise historian of the sonal bereavement, affects us with an ab- splendour of mature manhood, but the stract sadness almost more heavy. Those expositor of a new romance of Age, soft symptoms of the ending of a generation with all the silvery lights of the long-ex- those breakings-up of dynasties, of tended evening, the mixture of earthly sovereignties more extended than any wisdom and visionary insight which bethose periodical longs to Genius grown old. This possiroyal house possesses heavings of the volcano of time, in which bility is now, however, ended. He who so much is carried away from us - do won so many laurels will win no more: they not impress us almost more strongly, there is no new chapter to be added to though more vaguely, than individual the record which we know so well; unloss? Another wave has beaten upon less, indeed, it be written in the last work, the eternal shore, strewing the beach which will be given to the public almost with mournful relics, and another is as soon as this page and in which the coming, and another, that which carries last thoughts of the man who has taught ourselves, perhaps, the next; and so the us and charmed us for nearly half a cenWe who tury, will be read with a certain sentiment long cadence goes on for ever. were the children a little while ago, are of affectionate sadness too warm to admit, now the fathers and the mothers, hon- for the moment, of anything like critioured, respected, smiled at, made allow- cism. ance for, as is the lot of the older generation; and by-and-by a great hush will come, and standing over us, as we now stand over our predecessors, calm voices will record what we have done. How different is that record with the oldest, with the loftiest, to-day while life lasts, tomorrow when it is over! No uncertainty now is in the tone, no fear to offend, no delicacy lest some chance touch should cause a wound, no flattery to win a smile. In one day, in one hour, criticism changes into history-the career rounds off before our eyes, a perfect thing, to be judged now as a whole, never before but in parts. It is past; it is ended; it is perfect. This is the first rule of the mournful yet splendid grammar of life.

And with few lives is this so emphatically the case as with that of the great writer whom, a few days ago, we laid with his peers, in sorrow and in honour, under the noble arches of Westminster; the highest and last acknowledgment which England can give to a completed fame. During the very last years of his life he was making new reputations carelessly, as a child makes garlands, not even taking the trouble to put upon his head the wreaths

Nearly half a century! - for the preface of the young Bulwer's first work is dated 1828; and during the whole of that long period his mind has more or less been in constant communication with the mind of his country. He has in this very fact a curious advantage which few writers share with him. His great contemporaries, Dickens and Thackeray, altogether lacked the thread of sympathy, of common growth and development, with his audience, which so long a career naturally produced. Dickens did not develop his first works are his bestthere is no fulness of youth in them, and no ripening of maturity in those that followed. Thackeray, on the other hand, was scarcely known as a writer until his mind was fully matured: no young man could have written "Vanity Fair." But Bulwer, who was the magician of our youth, grew with us as we grew, gained maturity as we gained it, and has had a longer and closer influence upon us, a spiritual intimacy more complete and extended, than almost any other mind of the age. People who have been young will remember with tender delight and gratitude those pages (alas ! so much less

readable by us now) full of sentiment, full prehensive of social philosophers. His

of youthful exuberance, enthusiasm, mag- glance takes in all society, not to find out nificence, which are always dear and sub- its defects, not to represent its humours lime to youth. When Bulwer gave forth only, with no specialty of class or purthe lofty splendour of those high-flown pose, but with a large and extended vispassions and sorrows, we too were high- ion, less intense, perhaps, than that of flown, and revelled in the lofty diction some writers in a more limited circle, but and elevation of sentiment in which there broader and fuller than any. His was not was more than genius — which embodied the faculty which preaches or criticises, in its first fervour and reality that Youth which takes public grievances or individwhich he always looked back upon with ual hardships as a foundation for fiction, such warmth of regretful admiration. or works in illustration of a principle. And yet no man had less occasion to re- Lord Lytton's art was of a broader, older, gret his youth. From the exuberance of more primitive description-it was the that period of poetry, the "years that art which represents. Human creatures bring the philosophic mind" matured acting upon no given standard, working and developed his rare gifts into some-out no foregone conclusion, appear to us thing greater and broader than the most in his brilliant pages. He neither selects enthusiastic admirer of his early genius the odd and the eccentric, like one of his could have hoped. The author of the great rivals, nor sets himself forth as an "Caxtons," and of the cycle of noble anatomist of human motive, like another; works which followed-first produced, but, while giving its corner to eccentricity we are proud to remember, in the pages and a due importance to the unseen workof this Magazine — made proof of some-ings of the mind, lays in the lines of his thing more than genius,-of that large broader landscape, his larger outlines of knowledge of things and men which only form, with a humanity which outreaches experience of the world, and the facilities and transcends the specialties of purpose. for observing it possessed by a man to It is characteristic of this breadth and whom all circles are open, could have humanness of his mind, that there should given. Men to whom the thoughts and be so strong a distinction between his projects of a statesman are familiar as earlier and his later works; for in his those of a poet, who are deeply acquaint- youth he was young, as other men are ed with the laws that act upon society as young, with all the defects of his age well as of those that influence the indi- and in his maturity he was mature, with vidual mind, are, by the nature of things, all the widened views, the deeper concepof very rare occurrence among us. But tions, that belong to advancing life,— Lord Lytton added to the inspiration of more serious, more tolerant, more undernature almost everything that experience standing of all difficulties and heartaches, could give him. It was equally easy to more humorous in kindly, keen appreciahim to place upon his canvas the Nestor tion of mental peculiarities and freaks, of society, the wise man of the world, more tenderly sorrowful, more softly gay. learned and skilful in all emergencies, and the noble vagabond incapable of any wisdom at all but that taught by generosity and love; the statesman, heavily weighed, and full of the responsibilities by him so many years before he prints it. of Government, and the light-hearted youth of fashion, acknowledging no responsibility; the duke and the cobbler; the bookworm and the rural squire. This wide range gave him an extent of power which we think no other writer of the day has reached. He is the most brilliant of story-tellers, the most com- early utterances into the world warm and

No man could possess this varied and sympathetic reputation who had been prudent enough to act upon the famous rule which enjoins an author to keep a work

Had Bulwer done this, "Pelham" and his earlier works would never have appeared at all; and though probably, in that case, his reputation in the abstract would have been higher, it would have been of a totally different kind. As it was, he was rash enough to pour his

ductions, that we reserve it for discussion by itself. Among the novels of society published in his earlier years, "Pelham " is the greatest as well as the

swift as they came from his lips, and he works or perhaps it would be now right had his recompense accordingly. To to say, the last group but one, since there many critics he has been the object of yet remains, beyond the ground of critiunsparing attack; he has represented the cism which we have chosen, another sentimental, the high-flown, the sham- mystic Three, the almost posthumous magnificent, in many a popular diatribe; children of his genius-belongs emand some voices usually worth listening phatically to the first class; but yet is so to have denied him genius altogether, clearly distinct from all his earlier promoved no doubt by the promptings of a more mature taste and graver judgment than that which revels in the fine distresses of Godolphin and Maltravers. But with all these drawbacks his reward first. It was followed by "Godolphin," has been in proportion to the generous the "Disowned," the two novels which rashness with which he gave all that was embody the fortunes of Maltravers, and in him to the world. There was a day in the exaggerated but admirably-constructwhich Godolphin and Maltravers were ed and powerful story of "Night and splendid to us also. We have outgrown Morning." All these works profess to that day, and so did their author; but we afford us a picture of society, and the like him the better for having been young manner in which certain characters make with us, foolish with us. No splendour their way through it. The "Disowned," of maturity could quite replace this sym- it is true, belongs to a somewhat earlier pathetic bond. Goethe's "Meister," age than our own; but as it is not treated saved up till the man was old, and mean- with any attempt at archæological coring had gone out of it, is a cold and rectness, it may fairly be considered dreary puzzle even to those who love among the novels of contemporary life. Goethe best; but Bulwer's Meisters, These, then, compose the first class of sent forth red-hot out of the glowing their author's productions. We have youth that produced them, woke other said that Bulwer's Meisters came forth youths to an enthusiasm which men smile at, but do not forget. There is thus a compensation to the hasty, to the bold, to those writers who cannot always be thinking of their reputation, and who give out what is in them with prodigality, as the fountain flows. They may not win the crown of perennial excellence; but it is something to lay hold of the sympathy of your contemporaries, to be young and to grow old with them, and to feel thus a silent multitude by your side as you go forward in the inevitable race.

red-hot and glowing out of the delightful foolishness of his youth; but we confess that there may be many readers who will fail to see any resemblance between the young heroes whom he conducts through so many lively and stormy scenes, and the dreamy being to whose apprenticeship and journeyman experience of life the great German gave so much toil and trouble. A closer glance, however, will show the resemblance to which-in, we think, the preface to "Maltravers " - our author himself refers. His invariable aim Lord Lytton's books divide themselves is, through many diversities of circumnaturally into various classes, all exhibit- stances, to exhibit to us an apprenticeing distinct phases and developments of ship- —a training in the School of Life, his mind. He has himself so arranged with the results naturally arising from it. them, indeed, in the later editions issued Love, it may be said, is the paramount under his supervision; and we will con- inspiration and interest of each; but yet sider them according to his classification. love itself is but one of the educational There are stories of life and manners; processes through which the subject of historical romances; tales of magic and the story is perfected. And in every mystery; and what for want of a better case success and reputation are the title we may call romances of crime. The rewards which the author allots to his last and greatest group of his mature creations. The alternative of failure

never seems to have occurred to him. that we should reintroduce to the reader As he endows them with every gift to the most delightful of coxcombs, the begin with personal beauty, genius, most triumphant of dandies that fine culture, courage, readiness and deter- fleur of social humbug and falsity, who, mination-so he makes their progress notwithstanding his Chesterfieldian traintriumphant through a subjugated world. ing and universal irresistibility, is yet a Success is the very condition of their ex- true friend and a true lover, and altoistence; even the poetical trifler who gether worthy of his good fortune. The does nothing, manages by mere doing consummate skill with which so young a of nothing to attract to himself the writer managed to mingle these most difeyes of the world, and acquires a reputa- ferent attributes-to make us perfectly tion for which there is no cause that we aware of the illimitable powers of mancan see except the young author's de-agement, flattery, and even polite lying, lightful certainty of success the tradi- so gaily exercised by his hero, and yet to tion of fame and glory which has become retain our respect for his real virtue, is inevitable in his mind. We do not say one of the greatest triumphs ever won in that success is his god, for this would be literature. We do not remember any to give but a weak and ineffectual de- other leading character in fiction so enscription of his prevailing sentiment. tirely artificial, yet so true. Pelham's Success is his atmosphere - he under- faithlessness, his astounding fibs, his stands nothing else, believes in nothing self-adaptation to every sort of man— else. That all those paths by which his not to say woman; his perfect toleration young heroes-shadows of his own buoy- of any code of morals, or rather no ant and intense self-consciousness set morals; his clear realization that politics out over the earth, must lead one way or are a craft to live by, and the world in another to glory, is a simple necessity of general an oyster to be opened, which nature to him. He is not even influenced almost in any other hands would disgust by the fact that the reader wills it so, and and repel the reader, are hear so skilfully that howsoever the true lover of art or interwoven with the real honour of the the true student of human nature may man, his disinterestedness, his readiness prefer that fiction should accommodate to serve and help, his power of just reflecitself to the more ordinary rules of actual tion and courageous action, that all our life the public loves above everything moralities are silenced on our lips. If else "a happy ending." No such second- any of Sir Walter's virtuous heroes had ary cause affects the young Bulwer. He committed himself by one-tenth part of too, like the public, abominates failure- the adventures through which Pelham nay, he is incapable of it; it does not moves so lightly, what depths of ignocome within the limit of misfortunes pos-miny and remorse would he have sible to his nature. His young men succeed as he does, as they breathe, by sheer necessity of being. In this point he differs from all other modern writers, most of whom, bound by the timidity of less daring natures, or disabled by the sneers of criticism, allow in general that heroes, like other men, must content themselves with a modest level of good fortune, and cannot all hope to reach the very empyrean of success. But Bulwer allows no such limitation. He will have the highest round on the ladder, the brightest crown within reach. His diplomatist must subdue all opposition; his author must fill the world with his renown; his adventurer must conquer fame and fortune; his very dreamer, as we have said, must attract to himself the universal attention, wonder, curiosity. and admiring envy of the world.

"Pelham," which is the best of his early works, is the most striking instance of this characteristic. It is not necessary

dropped into! Even Mr. Thackeray's careless young man, whom he laughs at and quizzes through three volumes, could not venture upon half the humbug resorted to by Pelham, without losing the little hold he has upon our regard. But so judicious is the combination, so spirited the embodiment of this typical man of the world, that we accept him as we would have accepted him had we known him in person, acknowledging all his artificiality, his insincerity, his dauntless determination to make himself agreeable at any cost, without letting these peccadilloes at all affect our admiration of himself and of the real fund of merit in his character. This is almost a contradiction to what we have said above of the youthfulness of Bulwer's earliest works; for such a mingling of good and evil is the last thing which youth recognizes as possible, in most cases. That he had even in his earliest beginning so much of a higher insight as enabled him to realize

success.

LORD LYTTON.

first triumphant hero.

everywhere success, is the strangest thing to realize. The critic, if he had the heart, would demand some counterpoise to all this brightness; and here and there such a counterpoise is, indeed, afforded to us in the blighted splendour of Glanville, and the melodramatic misfortunes of Mordaunt. But with these fine personages we have not sympathy enough to accept them as shadows in the picture

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The disowned this profoundest truth of human nature, less degree, wfth the followers of this is perhaps as great a testimony to his son, Clarence Linden, makes for himself power as anything that could be said. But to return to the consideration with a position in the world which his elder which we started— Pelham is the very and undistinguished brother, heir to all Over the the family honours, might well envy. impersonation of whole book there is diffused a subdued Maltravers acquires a European fame. radiance of continual triumph. Be it Godolphin wins his countess, wealth, the scholar's shrewish wife or the grande honour, every thing that heart can aspire dame in a Parisian salon, be it the clever to; and even Philip Morton, after the rogue or the philosophical and titled vo- wild and theatrical heroics of his youth, luptuary, wherever Mr. Pelham tries his reaps such a harvest of honours as fall to inimitable powers he must overcome all the lot of few. The author cannot bear obstacles. With a whisper, with a look, to offer to his children any reward less with a well-timed compliment, he sub-perfect- it is their birthright. The very dues every one whom he encounters. fact of so many men and women of genius Nothing comes amiss to him; and the all appearing together about the same certainty of inevitable triumph is so period of the world's history — all flutterstrong in his mind that he hesitates at no ing the dovecots of social quiet, and winexertion of his skill, whether great orning wondrous honours, above all and small, whether arduous or easy. This unbounded confidence in himself makes him enter unknown and with few introductions the most brilliant circles in Paris, calmly certain to win all the laurels possible and leads him secure through the labyrinth of the thieves' den in London. Probably, with the mixture of daring and coolness peculiar to him, he would consider the perils of the last the least alarming of the two. A vulgarminded observer might call Pelham's confidence impudence; but it is not impudence it is the delightful sense of a good fortune which has never failed him; which he indeed deserves, but which no man ever secures by merely deserving it. His luck is simply unbounded. If at any time it may happen to him to be disconcerted or even discomfited for a moment, out of that very discomfiture will come the means of Success. Success- always And by the side of these accomplished Success! He is one of those born to rule the world, and to turn every stream heroes, so fertile in resource, so fortunate into the channel that suits him; and in friends, so gifted in conversation, perhaps this very consciousness is the what a curious apparition is that of the one that most powerfully influences us old man of the world, whom the author in our admiration for him. We go forth loves to introduce, not by way of obvious with him in the fullest confidence, know-moral, yet surely with a certain sense of ing that however discouraging the cir- the obverse of the picture, and consciouscumstances may appear, they will but ness that the darker side of worldliness whet the courage and make more con- should somehow be brought into evispicuous the triumph of our hero. How dence! The sketch of Savile in "Godoldexterously he manages Lord Guloseton phin," for instance, is one of singular how vividness and force. He is not an old -how he humours Job Jonson! Mrs. Clutterbuck! villain like Lord Lilburn in "Night and he wins over even He is gaily invincible without effort, Morning," but only a perfectly suave, irwithout overstrain. He cannot be beaten reproachable Epicurean, occupied about his own pride and his author's alike his personal comfort as the younger men forbid it. Pelham was born but to con- are about their progress and reputation, and following that grand aim with a steadquer. fastness, which becomes respectable by

The same thing is true, though in a

they are not half so lifelike, nay, they are dead as mummies beside our inimitable dandy, our knight of universal conquest. This is the great fundamental Sometimes distinction of the young Bulwer's heroes. They are all successful men. they are practical and enjoy their success; sometimes they are sentimental and despise it: but at least they come out invariable winners out of every struggle. It is the condition of their existence that they succeed.