Ernest Maltravers.*

No writer of fiction, living or dead, has been so much misrepresented as Bulwer. Pulpits, coteries, reviews have exclaimed against him as a corrupter of morals, and an inculcator of the most dangerous sentiments. Young people are warned in the most solemn manner against his works. Bigoted illiberality does not scruple to include all who read and defend his books, in the same category with their author. From all this we must conclude that Bulwer is either a very wicked, or a very ill used man.

Whether in common with the mass of English aristocracy he may not have vices, we certainly cannot say. It is possible that the charges alleged against him by Lady Bulwer may have had some foundation in truth. But an English court of Justice-and it is notorious how favorable the legal decisions of the English nation are towards the gentler sex-could not admit her claims, or recognize their truth. And were her complaints founded on reality, we see no reason to judge our author's writings by his former life. Men do not so judge the works of Bacon, of Shakespeare, or of Solomon. It matters little that the philosopher dabbled in treason and bribery, that the poet robbed preserves and broke the game laws, or that the Jewish king worshiped the foul duties of his thousand idolatrous wives, provided the Novum Organum and the Moral Maxims are sound, the tragedies virtuous and ennobling, and the Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs good scripture. That the waters of a poisoned fountain cannot be otherwise than poisonous, may be a tolerable metaphor, but we submit that falsified as it is by numberless illustrious examples in History, it can have no weight in the case before us.

Neither ought a writer's more matured works to be estimated by the crude efforts of his youth. There have been several criticisms, or rather condemnations of Bulwer's novels, in our Reviews and Magazines, and all without exception have been especially unmerciful against Falkland, a book written in bad imitation of the Sorrows of Werter, and long since heartily disowned by its author. We have observed also that Paul Clifford is hardly dealt with, because the hero finally finds refuge in America; Pelham and Devereux, because, unlike Hannah More's Celebs, they are not sermons, as if people expected novels should be; and the work before us, chiefly, we imagine, because it was written by Bulwer. Had it been Sir Walter Scott's, we know that critics would have been as loud in their praises, as they now are in their condemnations, of the moral. As might be expected, the novels, the poems, and the historical works of this admirable writer and profound classical scholar, are avoided by many who might well profit by the intellectual stores he has so earnestly set forth to the world.

* Ernest Maltravers, a novel. Alice, or the Mysteries, a sequel to Ernest MaltraBy the author of "Pelham," "Zanoni," "Night and Morning," &c. New York: Harper & Brothers.

vers.

We said scholar, because he bears this reputation in England, where it is a distinction earned only by labor and genius. The various extracts from the Attic and Roman Muse interspersed throughout his works, show alike his profound knowledge of the classics, and his thorough appreciation of their beauties. If any of our over-scrupulous readers can venture to pass a title page that bears the name of the author of the Disowned and Eugene Aram, they will find in Bulwer's Athens, one of the most splendid efforts of modern scholarship, and an eloquent tribute to classic greatness.

It savors strongly of prejudiced ignorance that American readers prefer the monthly drivellings of James, the lawless and chaotic fictions of the Bells, the periodical inanities of Arthur, Ingraham, and Harry Hazel, to the pure, strong English of the author of Ernest Maltravers. Yet we venture to say that Forest Days, and Wuthering Heights, and Captain Kidd, and the Beautiful Cigar Girl, each find ten readers where Alice finds one. If people on principle abstain from novel reading altogether, we can only wonder at their scruples: but where they choose stupidity, harmless only by its exceeding weakness, in preference to genius which they have only heard calumniated, we cannot refrain from the strongest possible surprise at such utter and wilful perversion of taste and judgment. Bad novels are even worse than bad poetry, and it seems that we have safely escaped Satan and the Columbiad, just in time to be confronted by Love and Pride, and the False Heir.

The work before us, for although published in two distinct sets of volumes, it is one in plot and execution, claims to be, in the author's own words, "the most matured and comprehensive of his works of fiction." And it is partly for this reason that we have selected it. For we are convinced that it combines in an unusual degree, Bulwer's imagination with Bulwer's philosophy. It is written to inculcate a moral, to explain the mysteries of life, to develop human character. We shall not epitomize the tale for our readers, for doubtless many are already familiar with it, and all would prefer it as written by its author, to a scanty abridgment in the few columns to which we are limited. It is our privilege that we are not thus constrained to make an abstract of the narrative, but can dwell just as much, or just as little as we please, on any part of it.

As the title of the work implies, the hero is Maltravers, the man of genius and energy, tried in a fiery ordeal of temptation, disappointed in a friend, and at last triumphant in a stern principle of honor and morality that had been his support for years. Maltravers, the ardent and enthusiastic scholar fresh from the noble university of Gottingen, is very different from Maltravers, the secluded author; yet the change is so natural and so gradual that we recognize its truth at once. His youthful dreams of love and poetry are interrupted, are broken: his Alice is lost to him, his father's death severs him for a time from the world, and torn by emotion, shattered by terrible visions of impending judgment, the youthful poet bids fair to realize the effect of a gloomy enthusiasm. Roused from these morbid dreams he becomes a

traveler. And it is after years of wandering in the far East, among the children of the desert, the Moslem and the idolater, that we find him by the lake of Como, a man now of fixed and stern purpose, a man listening attentively to his own thoughts, yet reverencing the advice and impassioned argument of forerunners in the paths of literature, a man inflexibly resolved to live in all honor, justice, and lofty morality. Never does he deviate from this path, as citizen, as author, as statesman. He is forced, and the fiction here is a sublime truth, to encounter the combined power of dishonesty, low cunning, temptation, and party malice: and doomed to see the woman of his love torn from him by the horrible fraud of a personal and jealous enemy, the curtain falls in gloom over the first part of Ernest Maltravers. And brought so far on his journey the reader involuntarily exclaims, is this justice? Where is the triumph of right? Where the punishment of crime? But courage unto the end! Beyond the cloud appear the first dawnings of a brighter day. Reward and recompense are at hand.

The character we have partially sketched may seem too marked and lofty for every day life. Such stern principles may be regarded as almost unparalleled. We need only turn a step then, and we recognize in Lumley Ferrers the very model and transcript of a wily, astute, and completely unprincipled politician. However well he may be matched at home and abroad in the two former particulars, in the last item of character, he has many compeers, such as we need not go beyond the seas to find.

To say that he is the most perfect portrait Bulwer ever drew, would be to arrogate much to our own judgment; and yet we know not where to turn, either in the works of our own author, or of any other, for such an accurate and complete delineation of an intriguer and a placeman. It would seem as if Bulwer had compared the lives of many Doddingtons, and Castlereaghs, and Cannings, to eliminate such a compound of political subserviency, political dishonesty, and political talent. Nor is the picture overstrained. He is drawn as a leading man, and there are many as low, numbers as low and as unprincipled,. and more than one as low, as unprincipled, and as clever. Were we more conversant with English politics, we should not fail to observe that men who unite the qualities just mentioned, are not yet out of active demand, or active service, in the House of Lords or the House of Commons. It has been said that the portraiture is a satire aimed at a prominent man in parliament; whether this be so or not, it is to be conjectured that not a few who have risen in the state, might very well see their own faces in the mirror of Lumley Ferrers.

The manner in which he rises from step to step towards the goal of his ambition, is clearly and forcibly described. Although not an eloquent and impassioned orator, he is a ready, apt, keen, sarcastical, logical debater. Possessing little moral sense, he apes candor and fairness, and is the first to complain of any breach of good faith in others. But enough now of his public life. He is a principal character in the domestic part of the narrative. It is first in the mournful

VOL. XV.

episode of Florence Lascelles, that our eyes are fully opened to his real character. We offer no apology to our readers for dwelling a short time on this highly-wrought picture.

Florence, it seems, is an heiress, and Lumley Ferrers' cousin. He is about to press his suit for her hand, when he sees that her heart is pre-occupied, that she has bestowed her affections upon Maltravers. Before Maltravers had known her true nobleness of heart, he had freely expressed his opinion of her in a letter to Castruccio, an acquaintance of Florence, and a friend of Ferrers. Now is the time of vengeance for the bitterly disappointed rival. He procures the letter from Castruccio, he changes the date, he alters several important words; and the treacherous missive is put into the hands of Florence. "Florence seized and rapidly read the fatal and garbled document; her brain was dizzy-her eyes clouded-she was sick and giddy with emotion, but she read enough. This letter was written then in answer to Castruccio's of last night; it avowed dislike of her character-it more than hinted the mercenary character of his feelings. Yes, even there, where she had garnered up her heart, she was not Florence, the lovely and beloved woman; but Florence the wealthy and highborn heiress. The world which she had built upon the faith and heart of Maltravers crumbled away at her feet."

Shortly after comes the dreaded meeting.

"Florence stirred not to welcome him. He approached, and took her hand; she withdrew it with a shudder.

'Are you not well, Florence?'

'I am well, for I have recovered.'

'What do you mean-why do you turn from me?'

Lady Florence fixed her eyes on him; eyes that literally blazed— her lip quivered with scorn.

Mr. Maltravers, at length I know you. I understand the feelings with which you have sought a union between us. O God, why was I thus cursed with riches-why made a thing of barter and merchandise, and avarice, and low ambition? Take my wealth, take it, Mr. Maltravers, since that is what you prize. Heaven knows I can cast it willingly away, but leave the wretch whom you long deceived, and who now, wretch though she be, renounces and despises you.'

'Lady Florence, do I hear aright? who has accused me to you?' 'None, sir, none.—I would have believed none. Let it suffice that I am convinced that our union can be happy to neither; question me no further, all intercourse between us is forever over.'

'Pause,' said Maltravers, with cold and grave solemnity- another word, and the gulf will become impassable. Pause.'

'Do not,' exclaimed the unhappy lady, stung by what she consid ered the assurance of a hardened hypocrisy, do not affect this haughty superiority, it dupes me no longer. I was your slave while I loved you; the tie is broken-I am free, and I hate and scorn you. Mercenary and sordid as you are, your baseness of spirit revives the differences of our rank. Henceforth Mr. Maltravers, I am Lady Florence Lascelles, and by that title alone will you know me-begone, sir!'

Mark me, Lady Florence Lascelles,' said he very calmly, 'you have now said what you can never recall. Were you my wife, the mother of my children, were these the first words of insult that after long and devoted years of wedded life you had ever uttered, such words would ever suffice to annihilate all love, and all remembrance but of themselves. Neither in man nor woman did Ernest Maltravers ever forget or forgive a sentence which accused him of dishonor. I bid you farewell forever; and with my last words I condemn you to the darkest of all dooms-the remorse that comes too late.' Slowly he moved away, and as the door closed upon that towering and haughty form, Florence already felt that his curse was working to its fulfillment. She rushed to the window, she caught one last Ah! when shall

glimpse of him as his horse bore him rapidly away.

they meet again?"

When again Florence meets Maltravers, it is only to renew peace and love, and to die. The fraud was disclosed, the treachery manifest, but the proud woman's heart and health were broken, and the portals of the grave were for her thrown open. Yet in her last days of life all was light and serene joy, and with exulting visions of the future, she points to Maltravers the onward path of honor.

"And oh, then, how Florence loved him; how far more luxurious in its grateful and clinging fondness was that love, than the wild and jealous fire of their earlier connection. Her character, as is often the case in lingering illness, became incalculably more gentle and softened down as the shadows closed around it. She loved to make him talk and read to her; and her ancient poetry of thought now grew mellowed, as it were, into religion, which is indeed poetry with a stronger wing. There was a world beyond the grave; there was life out of the chrysalis sleep of death; they would yet be united. And Maltravers, who was a solemn and intense believer in the Great Hope, did not neglect the purest and highest of all the fountains of Solace."

"Yes, that name was the last she uttered; she was evidently conscious of that thought; for a smile, as her voice again faltered, a sweet smile and serene, that smile never seen but on the faces of the dying and the dead, borrowed from a light that is not of this world, settled slowly on her brow, her lips, her whole countenance; still she breathed, but the breath grew fainter; at length, without murmur, sound, or struggle, it passed away; the head dropped from his bosomthe form fell from his arms-all was over."

The second part, or Alice, opens brightly and cheerfully. We have almost forgotten the dark cloud under which we closed the former volume. Ferrers appears again, so cheerful, so winning, and so witty, that we are strongly tempted to forget his deep-dyed villainy. Were it not that by an occasional withdrawal of the veil, the author shows us his bad, black heart in all its hideousness, we should consider Bulwer in this case deserving of those censures so liberally heaped upon him. But he is faithful to his purpose; and we believe Lumley Ferrers will find no admirers or imitators.