combats, adventures.' The sameness of the author's style and characters is, however, too marked to be pleasing.

Mr. James was a native of London, born in the year 1801. He early commenced writing tales, encouraged by Washington Irving. and the success of chelieu' proved an incentive to exertion During the reign of William IV., the honorary office of Historiographer of Great Britain was conferred upon him; but he afterwards relinquished it, and proceeded with his family to the United States. He was six years (from 1852 to 1858) consul at Richmond, Virginia; and at the expiration of that period, was appointed consul at Venice, which office he held till his death, June 6, 1800.

EDWARD, LORD LYTTON.

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Among our modern authors, the name of EDWARD LYTTON BULWER, afterwards LORD LYTTON, was long conspicuous. It is half a century since he appeared as an author, and during that time till his death there was, as Scott said of Byron, no reposing under the shade of his laurels-no living upon the resource of past reputation: his foot was always in the arena, his shield hung always in the lists.' He is remarkable also as having sought and obtained distinction in almost every department of literature-in poetry, the drama, the historical romance, domestic novel, philosophical essay, and political disquisition. Like Cowley, too, he is memorable as having appeared as an author, in a printed volume, in his fifteenth year. This early and indefatigable candidate for literary distinction enjoyed advantages in the circumstances of his birth, education, and fortune. He was born in May 1805, the youngest son of General Bulwer of Haydon 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 valuable estate, 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

His full name, like that of his brother-novelist, Mr. James, might serve in point of length for a Spanish bidalgo. It was Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer Lytton. His brother, Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer (in 1871 raised to the peerage as Lord Dalling and Bulwer, and who died in 1872), was a well-known diplomatist. and author of several works-An Autumn in Greece; France. Social and Literary: The Monarchy of the Middle Classes: a Life of Lord Buron. prefixed to a Paris edition of the poet's works: Historical Characters. Life of Lord Palmerston, &c. Lord Dalling was described as the prop and pillar of the Palmerstonian Policy in the East.' In 1827 Lord Lytton was married to Rosina, daughter of Francis Wheeler, Esq., of Lizzard Connel, county of Limerick-an unhappy connection which was soon dissolved. The lady wrote 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, now Lord Ly ton, has already been noticed as a poet.

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 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'Neill, or the Rebel.' The latter was in the style of Byron's 'Corsair,' echoing the false sentiment and mor bid 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 Lytton Bulwer was a striking illustration, He returned again and again to his first love and early ambition, and at times seemed to be on the brink of complete suc cess; yet, with all his toil and repeated efforts, he never was able to reach the summit of the sacred mount. The following is a favour. able specimen of these poetic aspirations:

Eternal air-and thou, my mother earth,
Hallowed by shade and silence-and the birth
Of the young moo: (now watching o'er the sleep
Of the dim mountains and the dreaming deep);
And by yon star, Heaven's eldest horn-whose light
Calls the first smile upon the cheek of night;
And beams and bodes, like faith beyond the tomb,
Life through the calm, and glory through the gloom;
My mother earth-and ye, her loftier race,

Midst whom my soul hath held its dwelling-place;
Rivers, and Rocks, and valleys, and ye shades

Which sleep at noonday o'er the haunted glades

Made musical by waters and the breeze,

All idly dallying with the glowing trees;
Ad songs of birds which, ever as they fly,
Breathe soul and gladness to the summer sky;
Ye conrts of Nature, where aloof and lone

She sits and reigns with darkness for her throne;
Mysterious temples of the breathing God,
If 'mid your might my earliest steps have trod;
If in mine inmost spirit still are stored

The wild deep memories childhood most adored;
If still amid the drought and waste of years,
Ye hold the source of smiles and pangless tears:

Will ye not yet inspire me?-for my heart
Beats low and languid-aud tms ide at
Which I have summoned for ad idle cad,
Forsakes and flies me like a laithis friend.
Are all your voices silent? I have made
My home as erst amid your thickest shade:
And even now your soft air from above
Breathes on my temples like a sister's love.
Ab! could it bring the freshness of the day
When first my young heart lingered o'er its lay,
Fain would this wintry soul and frozen string
Recall one wind-one whisper from the spring!

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 wane-Bulwer 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, for the tragic and satirical parts were not well adjusted; but the picture of a man of fashion-a Charles Surface of the nineteenth century-was attractive, and a second edition of Pelham' was called for in a few months. Towards the close of the same year, Bulwer issued another novel, "The Disowned,' intended by the author to contain scenes of more exciting interest and vivid colouring, thoughts 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 timesnames familiar in our mouths-Bolingbroke, Louis, Orleans; amidst manners perhaps as frivolous as those of the day, but which the gen tle 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 undercurrent 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 to the memory of love, honour, religion, and undeviating faith.' In 1830

Bulwer brought out another work of fiction, Paul Clifford,' the hero being a romantic highwayman, familiar with the haunts of low vice and dissipation, but afterwards transtormed 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

A tine, sallow, sublime sort of Werther faced man,
With moustaches that gave-what we read of so oft-
The dear Corsair expression, half-savage, half-soft.

And with this sickly sentimentalism there was a great deal of prolix description. The love of satire, which had mingled largely in all Bulwer's works, took a more definite shape in 1831 in Twins,' a poem satirical of fashion, of travellers, of politicians, London The Siamese notoriety, and various other things, discussed or glanced at in sportive or bitter mood, and in verses that flow easily, and occasionally express vigorous and lively thoughts. Among the miscellaneous poems that follow The Siamese Twins,' is one entitled 'Milton,' which was subsequently corrected and enlarged, and is unquestionably Bulwer's best poetical production. He tried fiction again-the poetical satire having proved a comparative failure-and produced, in 1831, Eugene Aram,' a story of English life, founded on the history of the clever murderer of that name. to Bulwer, and partly sketched out, by Godwin. The character of This novel was suggested 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 is preparing to wed an interesting and nobleminded woman, the generous Madeline; and the scenes connected with this ill-fated passion possess a strong and tragical interest. Throughout the work are scattered some beautiful moral reflections and descriptions, imbued with poetical feeling and expression. What lover of literature, for example, does not sympathise with this passage?

Admiration of Genius.

There is a certain charm about great superiority of intellect that winds into deep affections, which a mu h more constant and even amiability of manners in less r men often fails to reach. Genius makes many enemies, but it makes sure friendsfriends who forgive much. who endure long, who exact little; they partake of the character of disciples as well as friends. rong inclination to look upward-to revere: in this inclination lies the source of reThere lingers about the hun an heart a ligio of loyalty, and also of the worship and inmortality which ar rendered so cheerfully to the great of old. miration seems in some measure to appropriate to ourselves the qualities it honours And. in truth, it is a divine pleasure to admire! ad. in others. We wed-we root ourselves to the natures we so love to contemplate, and their life grows a part of our own thoughts, our conjectures, our homage, dies, a gap seems suddenly left in the world Thus, when a great man, who has engrossed our

-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 contaius!-dies with him.

There was strong interest, though a want of simplicity and nature, in Eugene Aram;' but Bulwer's next novel, Godolphin,' published anonymously, was in all respects an inferior work. About this time, he undertook the management of the New Monthly Magazine'— which had attained a high reputation under the editorship of Campbell-and published in that work several essays and criticisms, su sequently collected and issued under the title of The Student.' I 1833 appeared his England and the English,' a ser. s of observ tions on society, literature, the aristocracy, travelling, and other chai acteristics and peculiarities of the English people. Some of thes are acute and clever, but many are tinged with prejudice, and a desire to appear original and sarcastic. The Pilgrims of the Rhine' (1834)-a fanciful and beautifully illustrated work-was Bulwer's next offering; and it was almost immediately afterwards succeeded by one of his best romances, The Last Days of Pompeii.' This brilliant and interesting classic story was followed by one still more vigorous and masterly, the tale of Rienzi, the Last of the Tribunes,' which is the most complete, high-toned, and energetic of all the author's romantic fictions. His tendency to minute and prolonged description is, in these works, relieved by the associations connected with his story, and by historical information, while the reader's interest in the characters and incidents is seldom permitted to flag. Bulwer might then be said to have attained the acme of popularity as an imaginative writer, but he was still to appear as a master of the English domestic novel.

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 Crisis,' which had almost unexaripled success. Lord Mel bourne, in return for this powerful support, offered Bulwer an ap pointment in is administration. He declined to accept office; but in 1838 the honour of a baronetcy was conferred upon him. He afterwards greatly modified his political opinions-conscientiously, there is every reason to believe-and in 1852 he was returned as a Conservative member for Hertfordshire, the county in which his property was situated. His few parliamentary speeches were able and comprehensive. They evinced little of the partisan or keen debater, but were marked by a thoughtful earnestness, and by large and liberal views of our national interests and dependencies. In politics, he was still the man of letters-not a political adventurer; and in the busiest portions of his public life, literature was never neglected.