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THE LIFE OF EDWARD BULWER
FIRST LORD LYTTON
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO
DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
P ! t>
*~L crd .-£ ///tr
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£7
1869
COPYRIGHT
CONTENTS
BOOK IV
LITERARY
ELEVEN YEARS OUT OF PARLIAMENT
1841-1852
CHAPTER I
PACK
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS, HEALTH AND HABITS, 1836-1845 3
CHAPTER II
ZANONI AND OCCULT STUDIES, 1842 . . 30
CHAPTER III
LITERARY WORK, 1842-1846 . . . 51
CHAPTER IV
CHEQUERED YEARS, 1846-1850 . . . -77
CONTENTS
CHAPTER V
PAGE
THE GUILD OF LITERATURE AND ART, 1851 . .130
CHAPTER VI
POLITICAL CONVERSION, 1841-1852. . . .14.9
BOOK V
POLITICAL
RETURN TO PARLIAMENT
1852-1866
CHAPTER I
M.P. FOR HERTFORDSHIRE, 1852-1854 . . . 181
CHAPTER II
THE CRIMEAN WAR, 1854-1855 .... 204
CHAPTER III
ACTIVITIES IN AND OUT OF PARLIAMENT, 1855-1858 . 242
CHAPTER IV
THE HARVEST OF BITTERNESS, 1836-1858 . . . 262
vi
CONTENTS
CHAPTER V
PAGE
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES, 1858-1859 . 280
CHAPTER VI
POLITICAL REFORM, 1859-1867 . . . . 307
CHAPTER VII
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT FROM POLITICS, 1859-1866 . 324
BOOK VI
LITERARY AND PERSONAL
LAST YEARS
1867-1873
CHAPTER I
FATHER AND SON . . . . . -375
CHAPTER II
OPINIONS ON MEN AND BOOKS . . . • 4J7
CHAPTER III
PEACEFUL YEARS, 1867-1870 .... 440
CHAPTER IV
LAST LITERARY WORK, 1870-1872 .... 460
vii
CONTENTS
CHAPTER V
PAGE
WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 1873 . . . . -483
CHAPTER VI
SUMMARY AND RETROSPECT ..... 492
APPENDICES
I. LETTERS TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL . . . 5°7
II. BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . • 527
III. LIST OF RESIDENCES . . . . -53°
INDEX . .533
vin
ILLUSTRATIONS
FACE PAGE
Lord Lytton, sketched from memory by E. M. Ward, R.A.,
Knebworth, Aug. 18, 1869 . . . Frontispiece
Emily Bulwer-Lytton, circa 1847, from a water-colour draw-
ing at Knebworth . . . . .102
Fascimile of a page of the MS. of The Caxtons . .106
Sir E. Bulwer-Lytton, Bart., in his Library, 1850, from a
painting by Daniel Maclise, R.A., at Knebworth . 130
Knebworth House, from a lithograph by F. W. Hulme,
published in 1847 ..... 248
Robert Lytton, aet. 20, from a drawing by Charles Martin
made at Washington in 1851, and now in the possession
of the Earl of Lytton ..... 382
Lord Lytton in his Study, from a painting by E. M. Ward,
R.A., at Knebworth ..... 440
IX
BOOK IV
LITERARY
ELEVEN YEARS OUT OF PARLIAMENT
1841-1852
Literature became to him as art to the artist — as mistress to the
lover — an engrossing and passionate delight. He loved it as a pro-
fession— he devoted to its pursuits and honours his youth, cares,
dreams — his mind and his heart and his soul.
Ernest Maltravers.
VOL. II
CHAPTER I
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS, HEALTH AND HABITS
1836-1845
His heart was too solitary. He lived without the sweet household
ties. The connections and amities he formed excited for a moment, but
possessed no charm to comfort or to soothe.
The wear and tear of the brain — the absorbing passion for knowledge
which day and night kept all his faculties in a stretch, made strange havoc
with a constitution naturally strong.
Ernest Maltra.<vers.
THE preceding book carried the story of Edward l83<5.
Bulwer's public life, as author and politician, ^T- 33-
from the date when his autobiography ends
down to the year 1 840. Having now arrived at
the period when he passes from early manhood
into middle life — the period when he himself
began to review his career and make autobio-
graphical notes, it may be well to devote a
chapter to a few details of a more personal
character.
To take up the thread of his personal life it
will be necessary to go back to 1836 — the year
of his separation from his wife. In the mental
distress which he suffered then, and in the suc-
ceeding years, when his wife began to pursue him
with publications of a libellous character, Bulwer
3
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS
1836. had at least one friend from whom he never
. 33. failed to receive sympathy and consolation. This
friend was Lady Blessington. Her admiration of
his writings was perhaps too generous for her to
serve him as a helpful critic, but in all the
troubles and difficulties of his private life the
genuine affection of so intelligent and experi-
enced a woman of the world, gave him the
greatest possible support.
The following letters, selected from many
which passed between them on this subject,
will serve to illustrate the cordiality of their
relations : —
Lady Blessington to Edward Bulwer.
{End of April or beginning of May, 1836.]
MY DEAREST FRIEND — I have thought of you often
during the last weeks, and not unfrequently of Mrs.
Bulwer. I pity her exceedingly, because to understand
her wrong - headedness, one must be Irish. If you
belonged to that country you would feel as I do the
difficulty of conquering the violence inherent to all
who owe their birth to it, a violence originating in
imagination so excitable and temper so irascible, that
poor Reason can but rarely govern its victims. You
cold English cannot excuse the faults of us hot-headed
Irish, but we have many victims to atone for them.
Still, I admit, that though I should like an Irishwoman
for my mother or sister, for Irishwomen are naturally
chaste, I should be afraid to have one for my wife,
because they are all cursed with fiery tempers. I have
seasoned mine down since I have become old, but when
young I was most, most impetuous.
4
LADY BLESSINGTON
Edward Bulwer to Lady Elessington.
How kind in you, my dearest and most considerate 1836.
of friends to write to me in a strain that you knew Jvr. 33.
must be so acceptable. Mrs. Bulwer may deserve pity,
but she has worn out and trod away all such moss
and herbage from my heart, though it took a long
time. However, I am glad that she goes out and
amuses herself. I think there is a difference between
violence of feeling and violence of temper, a pas-
sionate heart and a furious head ; that you may have
had the first I will not doubt. I give up to you the
feeling and the heart. But permit me to remain a
sceptic as to the head and the temper. Be sure that
I shall not forget your invitation for the 8th of May.
For my feelings, they are like those of a man
who has been upon precipices, and amidst storms, and
pursued by tormenting imps for a long night. In his
despair he jumps down a rock, and the spell vanishes.
He is bruised, sore, lacerated by the shock, but he is
still grateful for the release. I desire no wound to
Mrs. B. I would yet do all I can to leave her harmless,
and I should feel this desire yet stronger if her friends
had not thought it due to her to vilify me. But all
this will pass away, even from my own memory ;
and as peace returns to my Ark it will bring the olive
bough of my forgiveness to all others. — Most afftly.
& gratefully yrs.,
K. L. B.
Lady Blessington to Edward Bulwer.
Thursday, June 1 6, 1836.
MY DEAREST FRIEND — It is because I know how
shattered your nerves are (and no wonder), and how
much your health must consequently suffer, that I
wished you to enjoy a fair day's quiet and fresh air.
5
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS
1836. Had I not both to offer you, I should positively have
JEr. 33. advised you to go to some retired and quiet Inn, as
I know you require air, and solitude, to recover from
the depression recent events have occasioned. Be
assured I understand your feelings too well to allow
you to be intruded on with me. You shall have a
quiet room free from all interruption, breakfast alone,
nay, dine alone, if you do not feel equal to our
society, and the garden to yourself. You shall have
your writing table and ingress and egress to the garden
without meeting a soul. Only fancy yourself at an Inn,
and not on a visit, and be assured a few days of quiet
and fresh air will do more to recover your enfeebled
health and depressed spirits than any other remedy.
Neither Alfred nor I will expect you to make the agree-
able, or fatigue you with attentions which, under your
present feelings, would be, I know, insupportable.
Only consider Gore House an Inn kept by a landlady
that attends to the comfort of her guests, but does not
wish to intrude on them, and come to it when you like.
If it be any consolation to you to know that there
is one heart that truly and warmly feels for the pangs
inflicted on yours, then be assured that mine does. I
have met unkindness and ingratitude from some near
and once dear to me, and for years the wounds inflicted
could not and would not heal. Judge then how well
I can understand your feelings, and how well I know
the utter uselessness of commonplace consolations.
All that you say or write to me shall be sacred,
for I am too proud for you to let others know what
they could not understand, namely, that the fine
sensibility that belongs to genius gives poignancy to
every disappointment of the affections, and makes
what appears trifling to others, misery to the so
fatally gifted. — Ever your affte. and devoted friend,
M. BLESSINGTON.
CONSOLATIONS OF FRIENDSHIP
Edward Bulwer to Lady Elessington.
KNEBWORTH, Oct. 20, 1836.
MY DEAREST FRIEND — Pray indulge me with a 1836.
line to let me know how you are. I cannot bear the ^T. 33.
idea of your over-fatiguing yourself, and it seems to
me as if the action of the mind had completely fallen
on the nerves. I know what those nervous com-
plaints are when produced by study. You must guard
against them at the outset, and for Heaven's sake,
don't do anything for the present. Lay your mind on
the shelf.
My dearest Lady Blessington, there is hardly any
person in the world I esteem and regard so much as
yourself, or for whom I feel so grateful and warm
an interest, and to prove this to you, however humbly,
would be a delightful vent to my sentiments.
I left London rather suddenly for an appointment
with Lord Melbourne upon a matter of some importance,
and thence came here. The scene of one's childhood
is the true moral bath of youth. One laves away years
and cares in its quiet.
Dear D'Orsay ! Only think, there is a family here (one
of whom was always with Mrs. B. in her latter days of
melancholy irritations, and who now corresponds with
her) who, I understand, have got it into their heads
that D'Orsay had some influence over me in my separa-
tion. D'Orsay, with whom from that day to this I have
never spoken on the subject ! I shall manage to dispel
that notion, but I will not renew my tiresome invitation
to him at present, lest it should seem to give colour to
a notion which might expose him to figure in Mrs. B.'s
meditated book. It would be too severe a penance in
return for passing some dull days here to be subjected
to a malice so unmerited. I had looked forward with
so much pleasure to seeing him and felt so much his
7
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS
1836. kindness in thinking of what must have been a great
£T. 33. bore to one so brilliant, that I feel this privation and
persecution sensibly. But whatever Mrs. B. may do
against me, I cannot bear the notion that she should
wound me through my friends. God bless you,
my dearest friend. — Most affecty. & faithfully yrs.,
E. L. B.
Lady Blessing ton to Edward Bulwer.
GORE HOUSE,
Sunday Evg.,
Oct. 23, 1836.
MY DEAREST FRIEND — The kindness of your letter
melted me to tears, not that I am unused to kindness,
for I have much to be grateful for, but that yours is so
thoughtful, so delicate, so like yourself, that it affected
me more than a thousand acts of friendship from others.
The first day I ever saw you, I told Alfred that I would
resign all my pretensions to physiognomy if yours was
not the noblest and kindest nature that ever animated a
human form. This opinion every year's knowledge of
you has confirmed, and I do assure you I have thought
better of mankind ever since I have known you.
Alfred desires me to offer you his most cordial
regards. He feels the kindness of your motives, and
is indignant that anyone could judge you so falsely as
to imagine that you could be influenced by any human
being on such a point as the one in question, in which
your delicacy and dignity would alike preclude those
even who most esteem you from hazarding an opinion.
Mrs. B., be assured, is the dupe of persons envious of
your fame, who use her as an instrument to assail
you. Unhappily, she has not had prudence enough to
foil such enemies, enemies still more injurious to her
true interests and happiness than to yours.
8
GHOSTS OF THE PAST
Edward Bulwer to Lady Blessing ton.
MARGATE,
Oct. 3rd, 1837.
MY DEAREST FRIEND — Many thanks for your most l837-
kind and flattering critique on Maltravers. I am ^T- 34-
charmed by your approbation, and hope the second
series may please you as well. I have been whiling
away the time here with nothing much better than the
mere enjoyment of a smooth sea and fair sky, which a
little remind me of my beloved Naples. Margate and
Naples — what association 1 After all, a very little could
suffice to make us happy, were it not for our own
desires to be happier still. If we could but reduce our-
selves to mechanism, we could be contented. Certainly,
I think as we grow older, we grow more cheerful, ex-
ternals please us more ; and were it not for those dead
passions which we call Memories, and which have ghosts
no exorcism can lay, we might walk on soberly to the
future, and dispense with excitement by the way. But
for me, I cannot long be alone with the Past. I must
ever be busied with little anxieties created for myself,
in order to escape from the terrible stillness within.
Hence an industry and restlessness not really natural to
me. Once I was idleness itself. I hate my mhler^ but
I go on with it, and still fancy, like the tradesman
behind his counter, that the day will come when I may
be happy and retire. Vain hope ! but it helps to steal
the ground from under us, and bring us nearer to the
Grave. If we cannot stop time, it is something to shoe
him with felt and prevent his steps from creaking.
The subject of his domestic trouble mentioned
in these letters is also referred to at the beginning
of a diary of his daily thoughts and occupations,
which Bulwer began to write in 1838. Un-
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS
1838. fortunately, this was only kept up from the 22nd
35- of May till the 4th of June, and therefore affords
the briefest possible record of his personal life.
It is nevertheless an interesting revelation of his
inner thoughts at this time.
" I begin this journal," he says, " in a critical and
anxious period of life. On one side there is much that
is bright and prosperous, but doubt, care, and even
terror on the reverse. I am in the prime of life ; I
have made a name ; I have but few rivals in literary
reputation. I have mastered, especially during this
session, the most arduous difficulties in a political career.
I have won a not inconsiderable station in Parliament.
This is one side of the medal. On the other, I am
uncertain whether I can keep my position in letters.
My foes are numerous, and the public, I fear, will get
weary of my name. But that thought vexes me not.
Again, my worldly prospects are clouded and uncertain.
Neither does that thought vex me. Again, my health
is precarious ; my constitution, always delicate, has
upon it incessant demands of labour and excitement ;
London does not agree with me ; Parliament fatigues
and exhausts me. I may die before I have fulfilled my
destinies or unfolded half my powers. I may die
before I have realised a fortune necessary for the claims
of those most dear to me. I may die before I have
raised in my behalf the charitable and just judgments
of the world against the calumnies and falsehoods
which the woman who slept upon my bosom will
engrave upon my tomb. But this, too, is no very
haunting thought. No, the grief and the fear that
gnaw me, that darken the day, and sour enjoyment,
honours and hopes, are in the conduct of the mother of
my children. Passions that never listen to reason, a
10
PRIVATE JOURNAL
crafty and deliberate malignity are ever at work against 1838.
me. I tremble every day lest my domestic sores should ^T. 35.
be dragged still more into light, and all that is most
sacred in men's hearths and homes exposed to all that
is most galling in public gossip. True, I can defend
myself, but my defence is against the bearer of my
name, the mother of my children. Heaven knows
what I have borne and how forborne, what sacrifices I
made in marriage, what indulgences I showed after-
wards, how often I forgave before I was stung into
separation, and how anxiously even then I desired to
secure peace of mind and an unspotted name to my
bitterest foe. My return has been slander industriously
circulated, secrets indecently exposed, letters of the
most solemn privacy treacherously revealed, garbled
and glossed to make love itself bear the designs of
hate."
The journal continues with a daily record of
engagements, literary and political labours, and
personal incidents. One entry is interesting in the
light of recent developments in shipbuilding : —
Drove to Limehouse to see the largest steam
vessel yet built. Glad old England has the start of
America. Crowds of people. Got into the vessel and
went a little way up the river. Miss Landon and her
affianced on board. Poor dear girl, I pity her.
The following day he describes a dinner at
Frederick Byng's : —
Moore most charming, full of anecdote and flowing
with wit like a fountain with wine. Fonblanque there
—the English wit versus the Irish — dry, sharp, pungent.
When with good talkers I like listening. I have no
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS
1838. impulse to shine in salons, tho' now and then I have
Mr. 35. my vein. Fonblanque most eulogistic of my speech.1
Took Shell to the House. He, too, most encomiastic.
He says Stanley declares the Government would do
anything for me if I would suggest what. No, I will
wait till my fruit is riper. I will not be a subordinate.
Besides, I don't quite agree with these men. The
House immensely full. Two nights occupied about
a polling booth in Roxburghshire ! Noble party
question ! Delaying tithes in Ireland, Municipal
Corporations, the lives and properties of thousands in
the West Indies for a polling booth in Hawick ; and
then they wonder that I dislike Parliament. Divided
at half past 12. Home. Proofs for Chronicle? Bed.
The following entry may perhaps be given as
an illustration of his occupations : —
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, four days
I have omitted from the register — either too idle or too
busy. I have sent a short review to The Edinburgh ;
have read correspondence of the Duchess of Marlboro' ;
her bitter experience saddens yet pleases ; she knew the
world of public men ; have played with a few Greek
books and read a charming French novel — Riche et
Pauvre. In the world, crowds of engagements as
usual. Saw the young Queen at the Duke of Sussex's.
What grace she has, what fairy royalty ; in a rose
coloured dress she seemed the rose herself, Queen of
the flowers. Saw Kean in Othello, external vigour
great, no metaphysics in conception.
Friday ', June ist. Showers and gloom. In vain I
strive to write. I am unsettled. Abused in The Times
for my defence of the Negroes in a phrase reflecting on
1 On the Emancipation of the W. Indian Slaves.
2 The Monthly Chronicle which he was editing at that time.
12
THE POETRY OF DRESS
" mysteries at the Albany." Mrs. B.'s calumnious 1838.
falsehood again ! How great a lie that was, confessed &T. 35.
to be so in her own writing — yet can it ever be
contradicted ? Well, well, I shall go out and shake off
the nightmare. Dined with my Mother — went thence
to Lady Osborne's, who asked me if I had not origin-
ally been shy, and fancied she saw a struggle between
my real nature and my artificial career.
The last entry which I shall quote is of
interest for its reference to the dandyism of the
day : —
Went to Holland House. Lady Cowper l there in
widow's weeds, still handsome and very intelligent and
interesting. She is associated with my first beaux jours,
the early tickets for Almacks and my first fine lady
love. Lady Holland asked if Boz was presentable, and
became the condescending with a man of genius, a
thing not to be forgiven ; so I growled and snapped.
Talked by the window of the long library looking on
the moonlight of sentiment and politics — dreams both.
A few years hence and from the same place will be
talked the same matters, as if our hearts had never
beat. Drove thence to Babbage's2 all the world and
his wife. Lady Osborne curious touching the shyness
and the dandyism. As for both, both are natural.
God gave my soul an exterior abode, and the very
fact that there is a soul within the shell, makes me
think the shell not to be neglected. There is a poetry
in dress. All our great ancestors who were gentlemen
had something of the Beau — Aristotle as well as
Alcibiades. A Greek was an exquisite for excellence.
So again the Romans, and so the Elizabethan heroes,
1 Afterwards Lady Palmerston.
2 Charles Babbage (1792-1871), the mathematician, author of the
famous " calculating machine."
13
HEALTH AND HABITS
1838-1843. Raleigh, Sidney, etc. Look to their portraits. I have
. 35-40. it in my Norman blood. The Normans were the
gentlemen of the world. As for conceit in manner or
conversation, of that they acquit me. Let them fall
foul of the garb if they will. Like the camel-driver, I
give up my clothes to the camel, let him trample on
them and fancy he crushes me.1
This journal, although it covers a very short
space of time, serves to throw some light upon
the manner in which its author's time was
occupied, and the hours which he devoted to
serious literary work. Throughout his life his
industry was incessant. His published works
alone afford sufficient evidence of this fact, but
his note-books and private correspondence show
that he was also a voluminous reader and letter
writer. Moreover, the number of incomplete
works — novels, essays, plays, poems and unde-
livered speeches, which are to be found among
his papers — are almost as numerous as those
which were completed and published.
Bulwer hardly seems to have been conscious
himself of the amount of time which was con-
sumed in these labours, if one may judge from
his own account of his methods of work con-
tained in a speech which he delivered to a boys'
school in 1854 : —
" Many persons," he said, " seeing me so much
engaged in active life, and as much about the world as
if I had never been a student, have said to me ' When
1 See Ernest Malfravers, Book vi., chap, v., p. 250, Knebworth Edition.
ADVICE TO SCHOOLBOYS
do you get the time to write all your books? How 1838-1843.
on earth do you contrive to do so much work?' I JEr. 35-40.
shall perhaps surprise you by the answer I make. The
answer is this — ' I contrive to do so much, by never
doing too much at a time.'
" A man, to get through work well, must not over-
work himself — or if he do too much to-day, the
reaction of fatigue will come, and he will be obliged
to do little to-morrow. Now, since I began really and
earnestly to study, which was not till I had left college
and was actually in the world, I may perhaps say that
I have gone through as large a course of general
reading as most men of my time. I have travelled
much, I have mixed much in politics and in the. various
business of life, and in addition to this, I have published
somewhere above sixty volumes, some upon subjects
requiring much special research. And what time do
you think, as a general rule, I have devoted to study —
to reading and writing? Not more than three hours
a day, and when Parliament is sitting, not always
that. But then, during those hours I have given
my whole attention to what I was about. Thus, you
see it does not require so very much time at a
stretch to get through a considerable amount of
brain work, but it requires application regularly and
daily continued. If you pour once a week a whole
bucketful of water on a stone, you leave no impres-
sion behind. But if you continually let fall a drop
on the stone, the proverb tells you that you wear a
hole in it at last.
" When a certain political adventurer who had made
his way through all the prisons of Europe was asked
how he managed it, he said : — * A very small file will eat
through iron bars, if you file an hour or two every night' ;
and so, in the stern dungeons of mortal ignorance,
file at the bars — steadily when alone ; and no prison
15
HEALTH AND HABITS
1838-1843. can detain you long from escape into free air and
JE.-T. 35-40. celestial light."
This was excellent advice to give to a boys'
school, but although it professes to be based
upon personal experience, it is entirely at variance
with the facts of his own life as revealed by
other evidence. It is true that he worked
continuously and not by fits and starts ; true also
that during his hours of study he gave his whole
attention to what he was about ; but it is certainly
not true that he never worked more than three
hours a day, or that he never overworked him-
self. At many periods of his life he must have
worked almost day and night for weeks together.
By no other means could he have accomplished
what he did. I have already recorded that his
two most important dramatic works, Richelieu
and The Lady of Lyons, were written in little
over a fortnight each, and the novel of Harold
was completed in less than a month. He was
frequently engaged upon two novels simul-
taneously,1 and, apart from his literary and
political work, his life was as fully occupied as
that of most people with social engagements,
reading, foreign travel, and recreations.
His chief form of physical exercise was riding.
Wherever he happened to be living, he nearly
always managed to keep a horse, and his daily
rides or walks did much to counteract the strain
on his health created by excessive brain work.
1 Eugene Aram and Godolphin, Lucretia and The Caxtons, Kenelm
Chillingly and The Parisians, were written simultaneously.
16
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS
Of his personal appearance I ought, perhaps, 1838-1843.
to say something. The portraits reproduced in &T. 35-40.
these volumes will give a general idea of his
physiognomy. As a young man he was clean
shaven except for the side-whiskers, so character-
istic of that period ; between 1840 and 1855 he
had a moustache as well as the whiskers ; after
1855 he grew a small imperial, and from 1865
to the end of his life he allowed his beard to
grow in full. In his youth he was most
extravagantly dressed in the gaudiest fashions of
the dandy of that day ; later in life he grew less
careful of his appearance. The mornings he
would spend in dressing-gown and slippers,
either at work in his study, or wandering in
profound reverie, like a sleep-walker. At
luncheon-time he would appear well-groomed
and affable.
My mother has thus described her recollec-
tion of him : —
He was of middle height, about 5 feet 10, I
should think ; but a very tall .hat and a habit of throw-
ing back his head made him appear taller. His hair
and beard were dyed a reddish-brown. He had pierc-
ing eyes, and a large, generous mouth, which opened
wide when he laughed, and showed large and very white
teeth. His feet and hands were small and well-shaped,
the fingers long and expressive. He hardly spoke at
breakfast-time and was very alarming. After a short
time he would throw his tea into a glass and carry it off
to his study, where he remained for the rest of the
morning. At luncheon- time he reappeared, and was
then very sociable. He liked in the early afternoon to
VOL. ii 17 c
HEALTH AND HABITS
1838-1843. drive round the county in a large open barouche. He
JE.T. 35-40. would talk generally at dinner, and in the evening liked
to have singing and music. When with a few friends
he would make his musical box play, or sit down to a
game of cards, which he played with skill. He used a
great deal of gesture in speaking, both in private con-
versation and also on the platform. He was much con-
cerned about the choice of names for the children, and
insisted that the characters should suit the names. He
wrote to me about the different qualities of milk for
babies, and thought that a wet nurse should be Irish.
My mother has also told me of the awe
which he inspired in her eldest boy, who used
to exclaim with relief when he left the room,
" Man gone ! "
But all this belongs rather to the end of his
life, for my mother's acquaintance with him only
began in 1864 — the year of her marriage.
So far as I am able to gather from various
sources, Bulwer used to work regularly from
breakfast to luncheon, and begin again after
dinner, often working late into the night. One
who knew him intimately during the greater
part of his life, says of him : —
He never varied in his habits. Every morning he
wrote up till 12 or I, then dressed and went out and
wrote again in the evening till 12, i, or 2.
Throughout his life he was an inveterate
smoker.
" A pipe," he says, in Night and Morning, " it is a
great soother — a pleasant comforter. Blue devils fly
18
MOTHER'S DEATH
before its honest breath. It ripens the brain ; it opens 1843.
the heart ; and the man who smokes, thinks like a sage &T. 40.
and acts like a Samaritan."
His smoking habits are thus described by
Dr. Garret of Hastings, who attended him
occasionally in his later years : —
After breakfast the pipe was brought into requisition
in his sitting-room, a weapon, or instrument, some six
or seven feet in length.1 Observing, as I invariably
did, a large quantity of Latakia tobacco spread out on
his mantel-piece, I said one day : — " You appear to
me, Sir Edward, to smoke a great deal ; " to which he
replied, in his usual cheerful, good-humoured way,
"Well, indeed, I do not. I take a few whiffs, and
then I put my pipe down." Not being exactly satisfied
with this denunciation, I took the freedom of inquiring
of his valet how much tobacco his master really
consumed. He informed me that Sir Edward usually
smoked from eight to ten ounces of tobacco in a week,
" and," said he, " I always place seven cigars on the
little table beside Sir Edward's bed, and when I go into
his room at eight o'clock in the morning (for being
rather deaf the servant's footsteps were not readily
heard), if I see two cigars left I awake him, and take
his orders ; if I find that he has smoked them all, I let
him lie another hour."
To the continued strain imposed upon his
health by his intellectual labour, was added
in 1843 tne burden of a great sorrow. On
December 19 of this year his mother died, and
for a time he was quite prostrated by the sorrow
of this bereavement. To his mother he had
1 See illustration on p. 440.
19
HEALTH AND HABITS
1843. been united by the closest ties of sympathy and
40. affection from his earliest childhood. Only
once had any serious disagreement arisen to mar
the perfect harmony of their relations, and the
bitterness caused by his marriage had long since
been forgotten. The love and reverence which
he had felt for her, and the sincerity with which
he mourned her death, may be gathered from the
following letters : —
Edward Bulwer to Lady Elessington.
I feel deeply and from my heart your kind letter.
Hereafter it may console me, now nothing can. Every
hour deepens the conviction of my loss. No one else
knew my mother as I did, and I never till now knew
half her great qualities and noble heart. In her I have
lost a thousand ties in one. It was almost the great
affection of my life. Her weary death-bed was sad
beyond words, and yet it was no disease from which
one can say " Happy are those released." She was so
young of heart and mind, so full of energy and will.
The soul seemed to live on when the body was a
shadow. All about her was so high-hearted even in
suffering and death. Hitherto I have had one shelter
in this dreary world — it is now gone for ever. Nothing
that reminds me I have ever been young is left. Every
hour that poor face is before me. In vain I had
preparation ; to the last I clung to hope. After they
said she was dead I felt her hand press mine. I have
but one comfort, such as it is, that I am comfortless.
I should loathe myself if I grieved less. I believe and
I hope that that grief will last ; it is the last earthly
link between us. I would not break it for all the joys
or triumphs I dreamed of at sixteen. People now-a-
20
LETTERS TO FRIENDS
days seldom mourn for parents, they think it natural 1843.
the old should die. But between me and the dead ^ET. 4.0.
there was so much more than between parent and son
generally, and it was scarcely possible to associate so
much elasticity and freshness with the idea of age.
God bless you for your kind word in season. — Your
affte. friend,
E. L. B.
Edward Bulwer to Lady Osborne.
All that I have met in the world of sympathy,
generosity, and faithful friendship, is identified with
the name of Mother. The thought of that loss seems
to me like the taking away of the candle from a child
who is terrified at the dark. It is a protection and a
safety gone, a dreary solitude begun ; and all we have
left is to wish the night were gone and the morrow
come.
Edward Bulwer to Mrs. Hall.1
MY DEAR MRS. HALL — Believe me grateful for
your kind sympathy and condolence, and sincerely
grieved to hear you anticipate an affliction similar to my
own — an affliction for which no preparation prepares —
which is never known in its vast irreparable extent till
all is over. Do not talk to me of that hateful, bitter
thing called Literature, the vying with little men which
shall be calumniated the most. No generous mind
ever cared for the brawls and broils of reputation, but
as their result pleased some other. Who can take —
not laurels (nowadays there are no such things) — third
editions and Quarterly Reviews to the grave? From
my head the great shelter-roof of life is gone. It may
1 Anna Maria Hall (1800-1881), the wife of Mr. S. C. Hall and the
authoress of many once-popular novels.
21
HEALTH AND HABITS
1844. be mine to succour others — the sole being who succoured
J&T. 41. me is no more. The tie that is rent was not the
common one, holy as it always is, between child and
parent. In that tie were enwoven half the links that
make life endurable. My mother proud of me ! No,
I was proud of her. All I have gained, all I have, were
hers — education, knowledge, the little good, the little
talent, that may be mine, all are but feeble emanations
from the most powerful mind, the greatest heart, I ever
knew. No one understood her as I did, and in the
bitterest moments of my grief I have felt that I never
mourned her enough, a mourning, nevertheless, that my
heart will wear till it cease to beat. God grant that your
own fears may not be realised, and that you may be long
spared the anguish for which, in me, fortitude is a vain
pretence and comfort a hollow word. — Yours faithfully,
E. B. LYTTON.
HERTFORD STREET,
Monday.
This additional burden produced in 1844 a
complete breakdown in health. The causes of
this illness and the manner in which he recovered
from it, Bulwer has recorded in an article (after-
wards published as a pamphlet) entitled Con-
fessions of a Water Patient^ which he contributed
to The New Monthly Magazine (then under Mr.
Harrison Ainsworth's editorship) in 1845 : —
I have been a workman in my day. I began
to write and to toil, and to win some kind of a
name, which I had the ambition to improve, while yet
little more than a boy. With a strong love for study
of books — with yet greater desire to accomplish myself
in the knowledge of men, for sixteen years I can con-
22
BREAKDOWN IN HEALTH
ceive no life to have been more filled by occupation 1844-1845.
than mine. What time was not given to action was ^ET. 41-42.
given to study ; what time not given to study, to
action — labour in both ! To a constitution naturally
far from strong, I allowed no pause nor respite. The
wear and tear went on without intermission — the whirl
of the wheel never ceased.
Sometimes, indeed, thoroughly overpowered and
exhausted, I sought for escape. The physicians said,
" Travel," and I travelled. " Go into the country,"
and I went. But at such attempts at repose all my
ailments gathered round me — made themselves far
more palpable and felt. I had no resource but to fly
from myself — to fly into the other world of books, or
thought, or reverie — to live in some state of being less
painful than my own. As long as I was always at
work it seemed that I had no leisure to be ill. Quiet
was my hell.
At length the frame thus long neglected, patched up
for a while by drugs and doctors, put off and trifled
with as an intrusive dun, like a dun who is in his
rights — brought in its arrears, crushing and terrible,
accumulated through long years. Worn out and
wasted, the constitution seemed wholly inadequate to
meet the demand.
The exhaustion of toil and study had been completed
by great anxiety and grief. I had watched with alternate
hope and fear the lingering and mournful death-bed of
my nearest relation and dearest friend — of the person
around whom was entwined the strongest affection my
life had known — and when all was over, I seemed
scarcely to live myself.
At this time, about the January of 1844, I was
thoroughly shattered. The least attempt at exercise
exhausted me. The nerves gave way at the most
ordinary excitement, a chronic irritation of that vast
23
HEALTH AND HABITS
1844-1845. surface we call the mucous membrane, which had defied
JET. 41-42. for years all medical skill, rendered me continually
liable to acute attacks, which from their repetition, and
the increased feebleness of my frame, might at any time
be fatal. Though free from any organic disease of the
heart, its action was morbidly restless and painful.
My sleep was without refreshment. At morning I
rose more weary than I laid down to rest.
Without fatiguing you and your readers further
with the longa cohors of my complaints, I pass on to
record my struggle to resist them. I have always had
a great belief in the power of WILL. What a man
determines to do — that in ninety-nine cases out of the
hundred I hold that he succeeds in doing. I determined
to have some insight into a knowledge I had never
attained since manhood — the knowledge of health.
After describing the failure of all his attempts
to recover his health by attention to diet, exercise,
early hours, and suspension from study, he men-
tions the interest aroused in him by reading
an account of the " Water Cure " practised by
Priessnitz at Grafenberg in Austrian Silesia. He
at once resolved to try the cure ; but in his feeble
state of health felt quite unequal to a journey
to Germany. The difficulty was removed
by the discovery that the same system was
being practised by Dr. Wilson at a hydropathic
establishment at Malvern ; and thither he went
for a nine weeks course of treatment, which
completely restored him to health.
For an account of the cure, and the almost
magical transformation which it effected in his
health, I must refer the reader to the pamphlet
24
itself, which is published in his collected works ; 1 1844-1845.
but I cannot resist giving a few quotations here ^T- 4I~42-
as illustrations of the fact that, on the subject with
which the pamphlet deals, Bulwer was a pioneer
much in advance of his time. In the days when
bleeding and drugs were the usual remedies
prescribed by doctors for human maladies, he
discovered for himself, and in the teeth of pro-
fessional opposition, the salutary effect of living
nearer to nature, which forms the basis of most
of the modern reforms in the study of health
and the treatment of disease : —
I resolved then to betake myself to Malvern. On
my way through town I paused, in the innocence of my
heart, to inquire of some of the faculty if they thought
the water-cure would suit my case. With one excep-
tion, they were unanimous in the vehemence of their
denunciations.
Granting even that in some cases, especially of
rheumatism, hydropathy had produced a cure, to my
complaints it was worse than inapplicable — it was
highly dangerous — it would probably be fatal. I had
not stamina for the treatment — it would fix chronic
ailments into organic disease — surely it would be much
better to try what I had not yet tried.
What had I not yet tried ? A course of prussic
acid ! Nothing was better for gastrite irritation, which
was no doubt the main cause of my suffering. If,
however, I were obstinately bent upon so mad an
experiment, Doctor Wilson was the last person I
should go to. I was not deterred by all these in-
timidations, nor seduced by the salubrious allurements
1 Pamphlets ana Sketches. Knebworth Edition, 1875. Messrs.
Routledge & Son.
25
HEALTH AND HABITS
1844-1845. of the prussic acid under its scientific appellation of
Mr. 41-42. hydrocyanic.
A little reflection taught me that the members of a
learned profession are naturally the very persons least
disposed to favour innovation upon the practices which
custom and prescription have rendered sacred in their
eyes. A lawyer is not the person to consult upon bold
reforms in jurisprudence. A physician can scarcely be
expected to own that a Silesian peasant will cure with
water the diseases which resist an armament of phials.
And with regard to the peculiar objections to Doctor
Wilson, I had read in his own pamphlet attacks upon
the orthodox practice sufficient to account for — perhaps
to justify — the disposition to depreciate him in return.
Still my friends were anxious and fearful ; to please
them I continued to inquire, though not of physicians,
but of patients. I sought out some of those who had
gone through the process. I sifted some of the cases
of cure cited by Doctor Wilson. I found the account
of the patients so encouraging, the cases quoted so
authentic, that I grew impatient of the delay. I
threw physic to the dogs, and went to Malvern.
The remedy is not desperate ; it is simpler, I do not
say than any dose, but than any course of medicine —
it is infinitely more agreeable — it admits no remedies
for the complaints which are inimical to the constitution.
It bequeaths none of the maladies consequent on blue
pill and mercury, on purgatives and drastics, on iodine
and aconite, on leeches and the lancet. If it cures
your complaint, it will assuredly strengthen your whole
frame ; if it fails to cure your complaint, it can scarcely
fail to improve your general system.
When I now see some tender mother coddling and
physicking, and preserving from every breath of air,
26
RESULTS OF THE CURE
and swaddling in flannels, her pallid little ones, I long 1844-1845.
to pounce upon the callow brood, and bear them to Mr. 41-42.
the hills of Malvern, and the diamond fountain of
St. Anne's. With what rosy faces and robust limbs I
promise they shall return. Alas ! I promise and
preach in vain — the family apothecary is against me,
and the progeny are doomed to rhubarb and the rickets.
Let him who has to go through severe bodily
fatigue try first whatever — wine, spirits, porter, beer —
he may conceive most generous and supporting ; let
him then go through the same toil with no draughts
but from the crystal lymph, and if he does not ac-
knowledge that there is no beverage which man
concocts so strengthening and animating as that which
God pours forth to all the children of nature, I throw
up my brief.
And now, to sum up — I desire in no way to over-
colour my own case ; I do not say that when I first
went to the water-cure I was afflicted with any disease
immediately menacing to life — I say only that I was
in that prolonged and chronic state of ill-health which
made life at the best extremely precarious. I do not
say that I had any malady which the faculty could
pronounce incurable. I say only that the most eminent
men of the faculty had failed to cure me. I do not
even now affect to boast of a perfect and complete
deliverance from all my ailments. I cannot declare
that a constitution naturally delicate has been rendered
Herculean, or that the wear and tear of a whole
manhood have been thoroughly repaired.
What might have been the case had I not taken the
cure at intervals, had I remained at it steadily for six
or eight months without interruption, I cannot do more
than conjecture ; but so strong is my belief that the
27
HEALTH AND HABITS
1844-1845. result would have been completely successful, that I
&T. 41-42. promise myself, whenever I can spare the leisure, a
long renewal of the system.
These admissions made, what have I gained mean-
while to justify my eulogies and my gratitude ? — an im-
mense accumulation of the capital of health. Formerly,
it was my favourite and querulous question to those
who saw much of me, " Did you ever know me twelve
hours without pain or illness ? " Now, instead of
these being my constant companions, they are but my
occasional visitors. I compare my old state and my
present to the poverty of a man who has a shilling in
his pocket, and whose poverty is therefore a struggle
for life, with the occasional distresses of a man of
£5000 a year, who sees but an appendage endangered,
or a luxury abridged.
To such, who will so far attach value to my
authority, that they will acknowledge, at least, I am
no interested witness, for I have no institution to
establish, no profession to build up ; I have no eye to
fees ; my calling is but that of an observer — as an
observer only do I speak, it may be with enthusiasm,
but enthusiasm built on experience and prompted by
sympathy ; to such, then, as may listen to me, I give
this recommendation : pause if you please, inquire if
you will, but do not consult your doctor. I have no
doubt he is a most honest, excellent man, but you
cannot expect a doctor of drugs to say other than that
doctors of water are but quacks.
Since that day the number of doctors who,
because they have departed somewhat from old
traditions, are contemptuously dismissed by the
medical world as cranks or quacks, has largely
28
THE STUDY OF HEALTH
increased, and consequently much of the argument 1844-1845.
contained in this pamphlet is now generally JEr. 41-42.
accepted. Though reliance upon drugs is still
prevalent both among doctors and their patients,
yet the value of fresh air, simple diet, temperate
habits, and physical exercises, is now recognised
to a degree undreamt of in 1845. The open-
air treatment for consumption, the teaching of
Dr. Haig on diet, the manual treatment of the
Swedish doctors for every variety of complaint,
the provision of baths in even the poorest homes,
the attention devoted to physical training in the
National Schools — all these things are familiar to
the present generation ; and the study of health is
beginning to be recognised as the duty of every
individual instead of merely the profession of a
few. In the period covered by this biography,
however, such ideas were completely unknown,
and nothing has struck me more, in the many
letters which I have had to read, than the ever-
recurring allusions to ill-health, and the amazing
treatment prescribed for it, which appears to-day
even worse than the maladies themselves. The
remedy recommended in this pamphlet must
have appeared to the generation for which it
was written as strange and unconvincing as the
advice given by the Hebrew prophet to the
Syrian leper, to dip three times in Jordan and
be clean.
CHAPTER II
ZANONI AND OCCULT STUDIES
1842
Of all the weaknesses which little men rail against, there is none that
they are more apt to ridicule than the tendency to believe. And of all
the signs of a corrupt heart and a feeble head, the tendency of incredulity
is the surest. Real philosophy seeks rather to solve than to deny.
Zanoni.
1842. WITH the object of keeping together the more
T. 39. personal incidents recorded in the last chapter, I
have omitted to mention the literary work on
which Bulwer was engaged since 1840. The
period of his retirement from active political
life was in some respects the richest period of
his literary career. He reached at this time
the summit of his attainment in no fewer than
three of the varied directions in which he
employed his literary faculties. In purely
imaginative and romantic composition he pro-
duced what he regarded as his masterpieces,
in Zanoni (1842) and King Arthur (1848),
the one in prose, the other in verse ; to his
historical romances he added The Last of the
Barons (1843) anc^ Harold (1848), whilst in
The Caxtons (1849) anc* ^fy Novel (1853) he
3°
"NIGHT AND MORNING"
struck out an entirely new line, and these two 1842.
books are probably the best and most durable &r. 39.
of all his works.
After the production of Money in 1840,
Bulwer returned once more to the domain of
fiction. In January 1 841 he published Night and
Morning^ a melodramatic story of adventure in his
most flamboyant style. I remember the breathless
interest which this book excited in me when I
first read it as a boy, and the description of the
discovery of the gang of coiners and the death
of Gautrey their leader, still remains one of the
most vivid impressions which I received when
first reading my grandfather's works. The
sensational character of the story, however, and
the extravagance of its style, make it more
difficult of appreciation by a later generation.
Though few will now be found to attach much
value to this novel, it is interesting to note
that it elicited a strong tribute of praise from
Macaulay : —
" I cannot end," he wrote, in a letter to the author,
" without telling you with how much pleasure and
interest I have just read one of your books, which I
did not read, I scarcely know why, at the time when
it first appeared — Night and Morning. It moved my
feelings more than anything you have written, and more
than a man of forty-three, who has been much tossed
about the world, is easily moved by works of the
imagination.
In the following year was published the first
of the important works of Bulwer's extra-
si
"ZANONI" AND OCCULT STUDIES
1842. parliamentary period. Zanoni^ his first mystic
ET. 39. novel, though not completed till the beginning
of 1842, was conceived several years earlier. In
1835 his reading had included some mediaeval
treatises upon astrology and the so-called " occult
sciences " ; and while his mind was occupied with
these studies, the character of Mejnour and the
main outlines of the story of Zanoni were inspired
by a dream. The ideas thus received were first
embodied in an unfinished sketch of the sub-
sequent novel, and contributed to The Monthly
Chronicle in 1838 under the title of Zicci. In
no letters do I find any reference to the original
dream, nor to the author's ideas at the time he
was writing Zanoni. The first mention of the
book occurs in the following letters to John
Forster : —
Edward Eulwer to John Forster.
CRAVEN COTTAGE, FULHAM,
Feb. 12, 1842.
It is an age, my dear Forster, since I have seen or
heard of you, wherefore I write, fearing lest you might
have strayed into one of those huge folios and dis-
appeared for ever from the outer world. I know by
experience that those wizard old books are full of
holes and pitfalls. I myself once fell into one and
remained there 45 days and 3 hours without food,
crying for help as loud as I could, but nobody came.
You may believe that or not, just as you please, but
it's true !
I have been taken up with my children for the last
two or three weeks, and have anxiously left Teddy at
32
LETTERS ON "ZANONI"
what seems to me an excellent school. I go to 1842.
Knebworth. When I return shall I have " cakes and -&T. 39.
ale ? "
I saw Macready in all the pomp of an overflowing
house, a most successful afterpiece, a most triumphant
opera, and a most gorgeous private box. But in his
pomp was sadness ! He sighed at congratulations and
complained of the harassments of greatness, and the
uncertainty of success. Unhappy Man ! When he
gets a million, he will have arrived at the summit of
his sorrows.
I had thought at one time of a comic subject for
him, but I feel that it would be almost an insult to talk
of comedy while his melancholy overflows with his
houses. By and by, if ever thinning boxes lighten his
heart — nous verrons !
You will receive Zanoni next week. I don't know
whether you will like it. But it is wonderful, read in
the proper spirit — nothing like it in the language. If
you want to spite me, and convince the world of Mr.
Pelham's modesty, publish that opinion as fresh from
himself.
Can you tell me where I can get the fullest
particulars of the great Earl of Warwick — temp : Edw.
IV. ? Has one of the modern compilers arranged the
various authorities into a readable whole — any life of
him ? But no ! I suppose in order to spite me.
Letters to Knebworth will find me and will, I hope,
report of your progress thro' the Great History and
your escape from the folios. — Adieu, Yrs. ever,
E. L. B.
The same to the same.
MY DEAR FORSTER — I shall be at Fulham next week
and shall be happy to fix a day then to take a chop
VOL. n 33 D
"ZANONI" AND OCCULT STUDIES
1842. with you, and if your avocations permit, to see
ET. 39. Gisippus. I cannot go the first night, and the second
is always flat. But I hope the third. Your anticipa-
tions of Zanoni from my fond report, are little likely
to be gratified. I do not fancy that anyone will see
him with the eyes of the author. It is not till the last
page that its merits as a whole, in conception, can be
seen ; and even then few will detect them. It shoots too
much over the heads of people to hit the popular taste.
But it has given me a vent for what I long wished to
symbolise and typify, and so I am grateful to it.
I am thinking of turning into a fiction what I once
meant for a drama — had Macready been less over-
stocked with gravities, viz. : — the Last of the Barons,
Warwick, the King maker. The time is full of philo-
sophical movement, and I think I shall give a new
reading of Richard the Third's crimes and character —
new, but I hope not untrue.
Can you recommend me any books of that time for
manners and costume ? agst. we meet.
You say nothing of your History. When appears
it? — Yours most truly,
E. L. B.
KNEBWORTH, Saturday.
The same to the same.
MY DEAR FORSTER — With regard to Zanoni , your
lengthened criticism is most kind, and holds a flattering
medium between the praises of the Literary Gazette,
which, no doubt, arise from partiality, and the dis-
paragement of the Athenaeum. I am probably the
only one who can see that my prophecy was right, that
you don't very deeply like or thoroughly comprehend
its puzzles. How can I expect that there is any man,
however friendly, who will see Zanoni with the eyes of
34
LETTERS FROM MISS MARTINEAU
the author, or agree with him in believing it to be the 1842.
loftiest conception in English prose fiction ! Moreover, JEr. 39.
I see, O Forster brother, that thou art enamoured of
Mrs. Mervale, and truly with her filbert nails and
aquiline nose she deserves all thy passion. A finer
woman never trod ! Joking apart, you have gone
quite as far as would have been judicious, seeing that
Zanoni will be no favourite with that largest of all
asses — the English Public. — Adieu. Thine ever and
truly,
E. L. B.
C. C., Monday.
A more serious correspondence on the subject
of this book took place between the author and
Miss Harriet Martineau : —
Miss H. Martineau to Edward Bulwer.
TYNEMOUTH,
July 2nd, 1842.
DEAR SIR — No one makes war upon, or hates more
vehemently than I do, the ordinary flatteries of literary
life ; but heart-felt thanks, coming from a sick-
room, are not flattery. I think, too, that while ready
enough to acknowledge other sorts of obligation, we
are apt to be too slow in avowing our debt to those
who render us the highest service of all, in giving us
noble ideas, and rousing our best emotions. So I
thank you for Zanoni. I write before the surprise this
book has given me is well over ; but I am certain that
the thankfulness will not pass away with the novelty.
I say " surprise " — not only because all the reviews
I have seen seem perfectly insensible to the very nature
of the book, unaware, even, that it contains any doctrine
— but because, though not one of the least admiring
35
"ZANONI" AND OCCULT STUDIES
1 842. readers of your former works, I own I did not anticipate
Er. 39. from you a gift so inestimable as this book. I did not
expect to meet, in our own language, in this year /42,
a book worthy of Schiller's meditations, and such as
his disciples can joyfully take to their hearts. You will
not be offended at the plain truth of this avowal. The
event proves that I did you injustice. If, for some long
time to come, you find the world preferring your
earlier works, or a hundred reading St. Leon, for one
that takes new life from Zanoni, you will be satisfied
with the earnest of recompense you must already have
had — certain moments and hours spent in conceiving
and working out such a problem of sacred philosophy.
Nor will it, I trust, be either a brief or trifling satisfac-
tion to see some who think now that they have read it
awakening to its full reality ; and some few more who
appreciate it now growing more attached to it continually,
as one does to old friends, whose truth is more and
more fully brought out by time. Without specifying
to yourself very clearly wherein particularly my personal
obligation for it lies, I assure you I deeply felt it ; and
you will not despise my thanks, if, as I believe, no one of
us who has undergone the toils of genuine authorship
is above the need of sympathy, or too proud to bear
to be thanked, though mere praise may be dispensed
with.
Pray do not think of answering this. I know your
avocations are out of all proportion to your leisure, and
it is for my own sake that I write. — Believe me, very
sincerely,
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
You will smile at my being so many months behind
the world. Our village here is still half a century in
the rear.
LETTERS FROM MISS MARTINEAU
The same to the same.
TYNEMOUTH,
August %tA, 1842.
MY DEAR SIR — As to Zanoni. It has much 1842.
occupied the friends about me since I first read it. MT. 39.
Seeing that they were not habituated to the sort of
contemplation necessary to the full understanding of
the book, and not being satisfied that they should
admire it only for its portions, missing the coherence, I
made out, partly for their guidance, partly for my own
pleasure, a very brief analysis — an epitome of its doctrine.
This was after a hasty, circulating-library reading. I
have since read it leisurely, with increased pleasure and
confidence in my interpretation. But certain of my
friends would like to test it by your own, and I really
do rate so highly the importance of the book that I
should be glad if you could tell me that there exists
anywhere — in any review or analysis that I may not
have seen — a statement of your doctrine which you
yourself would not object to endorse. If it surprises
you that your full meaning should not appear plain to
all (I confess that to me it seems perfectly clear), you
will remember how new this sort of poem is to English
readers, who are not conversant with the German, and
to whom the language of the Ideal region may be more
unfamiliar than its thoughts.
A single line of reference to any interpretation which
you can authorise may so much deepen the impression
of your book, that I think it is worth while to trouble
you so far. The noble moral of the whole, no one can
miss ; but I wish that the steps to it should be as clear
to all as the conclusion. I do adore Schiller, and have
worshipped him from my girlhood. I shall never forget
the day that I lighted upon Die Kilnstler, which I had
never heard of, but which I took care that all my world
37
"ZANONI" AND OCCULT STUDIES
1842. should presently hear of; and pleased was I to find so
ET. 39. many as I did to share my delight. — Believe me, very
truly yours,
H. MARTINEAU.
Bulwer appears to have replied to this letter
in some such sense as the note which is attached
to the later editions of Zanoni, namely, that as the
book was not an allegory, it was impossible for
the author to supply a key to its meaning — as
well expect Goethe to explain Faust, or Shake-
speare Hamlet. The interpretation of such books,
and the meaning which they express beyond their
words, it is for each reader to supply according to
his own taste and temperament. He therefore
asked his correspondent to supply him with her
own version of the mysteries of the book. To
this Miss Martineau replied : —
I send you what you ask for. I cannot say " with
pleasure," for there is no pleasure in sending an author
such a mockery of his work ; but you will remember
that my object was not to elaborate your whole subject,
but to supply leading hints to unpractised readers. I
trust you to tell me if I have misinterpreted you in any
material point. I own the argument is, on the whole,
as plain to me as that a map of Norfolk is meant for
Norfolk and not Cornwall. But all do not think so ;
and I may be quite wrong.
Bulwer thought sufficiently highly of Miss
Martineau's interpretation of Zanonito print it as a
note to the 1853 edition of the book, although the
name of " the distinguished writer " is withheld.
38
CARLYLE'S OPINION
With regard to the old bookseller of Covent 1842.
Garden, mentioned in the introduction, he writes JEr. 39.
to a friend : " Denby, the old magic bookseller
in Zanom, was a reality. He is dead."
From Thomas Carlyle he received the follow-
ing acknowledgment of the book : —
5 CHEYNE Row, CHELSEA,
23 Fety., 1842.
MY DEAR SIR — Yesternight your kind, unexpected
gift was handed in to me, and received with hearty
welcome. As my wife laid instant hold of the book,
and still busily reads in it, I have yet got but a few
hasty glances and snatches here and there ; but I will not
delay returning many cordial thanks for so distinguished
a mark of your attention, which is and will be very
valuable to me.
By various indications I confidently gather, and-
indeed could have concluded beforehand, that this book,
like its predecessors, will be read and scanned far and
wide ; that it will be a liberating voice for much that
lay dumb imprisoned in many human souls ; that it will
shake old deep-set errors looser in their rootings, and
thro' such chinks as are possible let in light on dark
places very greatly in need of light ! I honour much
the unwearied, steadfast perseverance with which you
prosecute this painfullest but also noblest of human
callings, almost the summary of all that is left of noble-
ness in human callings in these poor days. I cordially
wish you a long career, and a more and more victorious
one, and am always — With many thanks and regards,
Yours most truly, T CARLYLE.
Exactly to what extent Bulwer's mind was
occupied by a study of occult subjects, is a matter
39
"ZANONI" AND OCCULT STUDIES
1842. on which different opinions have been expressed.
T. 39. Some have thought that his " magic " was nothing
more than author's copy, that he employed the
ideas contained in Zanom, A Strange Story^ The
Haunted and the Haunters^ and The Coming Race,
merely for the sake of giving his readers a thrill —
a literary device of very questionable taste, and
nothing more. Others believe that these books
prove their author to have been a spiritualist and
a believer in the supernatural. I have even been
told wild stories of ridiculous positions into which
he was led by his imagined possessions of occult
powers ; that he would pass through a room full
of visitors in the morning, arrayed in a dressing-
gown, believing himself to be invisible, and then
appear later in the day very carefully and elabor-
ately dressed, and greet his guests as if meeting
them for the first time.1
I believe both these views to be erroneous. I
have ample proof that his study of occult sub-
jects was serious and discriminating ; and that
traces of this bent of his mind should be apparent
in his books is natural enough. The range of his
writing was extremely wideband one might almost
say that he emptied his mind into his books as fast
as he filled it. A careful reader of all his writings
would probably be able to find amongst them some
expression of nearly every idea which his mind
1 I can well imagine how such a story originated. It was a habit with
Bulwer to spend the morning in his dressing-gown engaged upon literary
work. If, during that time he had chanced, in going from one room to
another, to meet one of his guests, it is extremely likely that, either absorbed
in reverie or from shyness, he would have passed him by unnoticed. Out
of such materials a good story would soon be manufactured.
40
THE STUDY OF "MAGIC"
received. He certainly did not study magic for 1842.
the sake of writing about it ; still less did he /ET. 39.
write about it, without having studied it, merely
for the purpose of making his readers' flesh creep.
On the other hand, I have found amongst his
papers a sufficient number of references to psychi-
cal phenomena to satisfy me that he was under no
illusions regarding them. Spirit rappings, clair-
voyance, astrology, etc., — he investigated them
all, and found them all disappointingly uncon-
vincing and unprofitable. His attitude of mind
on these matters appears to have been exactly that
of the members of the Psychical Research Society
of the present day — anxious to learn something
that would extend the horizon of human know-
ledge and experience, yet forced to confess that
nothing which he had witnessed himself really
justified any definite conclusions. He was him-
self a member of the Society of Rosicrucians
and Grand Patron of the Order. As this was
a secret Society, it is not surprising that among
Bulwer's papers there should be no documents
which throw any light on his connection with
it, nor any mention of it in his correspond-
ence. I am, however, indebted to Mr. Har-
grave Jennings, author of a history of this
order,1 for the following letter, which he re-
ceived from Bulwer (then Lord Lytton) in 1870,
acknowledging the receipt of his book which
had just been published : —
1 The Rosicrucians, Their Rites and Mysteries, 1870, by Hargrave
Jennings.
41
"ZANONI" AND OCCULT STUDIES
12 GROSVENOR SQRE.,
July 3, 1870.
1842. DEAR SIR — I thank you sincerely for your very
T. 39. flattering letter, and for the deeply interesting work
with which it is accompanied. There are reasons why
I cannot enter into the subject of the " Rosicrucian
Brotherhood," a Society still existing, but not under
any name by which it can be recognised by those without
its pale. But you have with much learning and much
acuteness, traced its connection with early and
symbolical religions, and no better book upon such a
theme has been written, or indeed could be written,
unless a member of the Fraternity were to break
the vow which enjoins him to secrecy. . . .
Some time ago a sect pretending to style itself
" Rosicrucians " and arrogating full knowledge of the
mysteries of the craft, communicated with me, and in
reply I sent them the cipher sign of the " Initiate "
— not one of them could construe it. — Believe me,
Sincerely your obliged,
LYTTON.
The following references to psychic phenomena
are selected from letters written at various dates
during his life : —
Edward Bulwer to his Son.
About 1853.
I have had the American rappers and Media with the
spirit world, as they call themselves, here. It is very
curious, and if there be a trick, it is hard to conceive it.
There are distinct raps given to a table at which they
sit, and by rapping at the letters of the alphabet which
the supposed spirits select, they hold distinct dialogues,
you merely thinking or writing your questions on slips
42
LETTERS ON THE OCCULT
of paper which you hold concealed in your hand. 1842.
They profess to be spirits of the dead, but I much ^Er. 39.
doubt, supposing they are spirits at all, whether they are
not rather brownies or fairies. They are never to be
relied on for accurate answers, tho' sometimes they were
wonderfully so, just like clairvoyants. Altogether it
was startling. A spirit promised to communicate with
me alone, and named day and place, but never did so.
It does not inspire awe, but rather heightens the
spirits and produces a gay humour.
The same to the same.
About 1853.
I have been interested in the spirit manifestations.
They are astounding, but the wonder is that they go
so far and no farther. To judge by them, even the
highest departed spirits discovered seem to have made
no visible progress — to be as uncertain and contradict-
ing as ourselves or more so — still with answers at times
that take away one's breath with wonder. There is no
trick, but I doubt much whether all be more than
some strange clairvoyance passing from one human
brain to another, or if spirits, something analogous to
fairies or genii. Emily 1 comes often, generally most
incoherent, as when, poor thing, she died, but I asked
her the last name she thought of, and she answered
Carl Ritter. No Medium can know that, and the
question was only put in thought. Shakespeare has
come to me, and gave me most thrilling advice as to
the future and other predictions. Afterwards he came
again and flatly contradicted himself; yet I asked him
to prove that he was a good spirit sent by God, by
telling me the closest secret I have, and he gave it
instantly !
1 His daughter, who died in 184.8.
43
"ZANONI" AND OCCULT STUDIES
1842. Still, whatever these communicants be, as yet they
JE.T. 39. " palter with us in a double sense," do not enlarge our
knowledge, and I doubt if any practical end can be
gained. I shall now, therefore, in all probability dismiss
for ever these researches. Their interest is too absorb-
ing for human life and true wisdom. I have been look-
ing, too, into astrology, which subject I know not what
to make of, but incline to disbelieve it. I have also
examined into the old sorcery, divination by lot (sors),
and have read all the works on it. It is a most com-
plicated science, derived from lots taken apparently by
chance akin to astrology, and like astrology as yet it
leaves me dubious. But eno' proves that there are
wonderful phenomena in our being all unknown to
existing philosophy. I incline to believe that the
future is not predecreed to individuals, and that is
why it cannot be ascertained ; that it varies from week
to week according to the change of circumstance and
our own conduct, Providence working out the same
grand results, no matter what we do, how we prosper
or how we suffer.
But all is dark. I keep a book of my communica-
tions and researches — it will be curious. — Adieu, God
bless you, Yrs. ever most affly.,
E.
To Lord W alp ok.
June 13, 1853.
I have been pursuing science into strange mysteries
since we parted, and gone far into a spiritual world,
which suffices to destroy all existing metaphysics and
to startle the strongest reason. Of this when we meet,
O poor materialist !
44
LETTERS ON THE OCCULT
To Lady Combermere.
Oct. 3, 1854.
DEAR LADY COMBERMERE — I am much obliged for 1842.
your correspondent's interesting communication, which JE-r. 39.
I return. I do not doubt the accuracy of the state-
ment contained in it. But I see no reason to suppose
that the phenomena recorded, strange tho' they be,
are necessarily occasioned by spirits without this world ;
and the usual retort " What else can they be ? " seems
to be a very childish and irrelative question. We can
only answer as yet, as a sensible savage would answer
of communications by the electric telegraph — " We
don't know yet." We have no business to conclude
that whatever we can't account for is therefore super-
natural on the one hand, or a trick on the other.
But if these mysterious guidances of hand and
thought did come from external agents, spirits or
beings of material tho' invisible form — such as animal-
cules with which Creation abounds, I should not come
at once to the notion that they were the bad and perilous
demons hostile to the human soul which the old monks
too rashly derived from passages in Scripture, ignor-
antly interpreted. There may be intermediate beings
of mixed nature, not deliberately evil nor steadily
benevolent, — capricious, uncertain, and only able to get
at crude and imperfect rapport with humanity. They
may amuse themselves with taking feigned names
and sporting with mortal credulity, and be delusive
and erring prompters or advisers without any settled
motive. A Mr. Beaumont about 200 years ago records
two visitations that he supposed he had from spirits.
They appeared to him in numbers ; they spoke to him
and made music ; they haunted him for months. He
asked them what they were — they did not answer that
they were good angels or bad, but beings of light and
45
"ZANONI" AND OCCULT STUDIES
1842. mixed nature, in some respects superior to humanity,
JET. 39. in others not. His account is very candid. He
allows that they may have been delusions. He got
rid of them at last, much as your correspondent's
informant did.
From the most attentive inquiry I can give to the
subject, I believe that these communicants whatever
they be, whether impressions which science may
hereafter account for (as I think most probable), or
imperfect, fragmentary and dreamlike communications
from agencies, distinct from humanity, they serve
no useful purpose, nor will conduce to any higher
knowledge. They may be very injurious to ordinary
understandings, and very disappointing to the highest.
Nevertheless, I think where they would appear to
persons of powerful will and moral courage, resolved
calmly to investigate their nature and disregard all their
promptings, they would be subjected to a control little
dreamed of at present, and might thus subserve both
to an increase of our powers over nature and a solution
of their true origin and essentials. To such minds,
however, they do not appear to be conceded. And
their usual communications are made either to sensi-
tive and timid persons whose reason they disorder ;
or to calm lethargic persons like the ordinary Media,
whom they don't influence at all, beyond being reflections
and echoes of the phenomena ; or lastly to inquirers like
Miss Sidney's informant, of fair good sense, who start
at the first false or threatening announcements conveyed
to them, and give up the whole research just when
minds of more iron and persevering nature would
perhaps command and subdue the agencies to practical
purpose.
I write vaguely and doubtfully, for the subject is
vague and doubtful. At present all we can say is
that independently of all imposture, which nevertheless
46
LETTERS ON THE OCCULT
is sometimes admitted, there are agencies of communica- 1 842.
tion which no philosophy has yet solved, but which JET. 39.
bear out the universal and immemorial traditions of
mankind, and are analogous to the boasted powers
which the philosophical magician of old assumed ; and
some of them, such as the later Platonists — Agrippa,
Albertus Magnus, &c. — with a degree of earnest detail
which the gravity of their characters and their general
observation of science and nature do not permit candid
inquirers to dismiss as invented lies. — Believe me with
all consideration, Yours truly,
E. B. LYTTON.
To John Forster.
Dec. 3, 1 86 1.
My DEAR FORSTER — I am very much gratified and
in much relieved by your kind letter.
In regard to the supernatural — what I really wish
to imply is this — without taking up mesmerism and
spirit manifestation. I want to intimate that in their
recorded marvels which are attested by hundreds and
believed by many thousands, things yet more incredible
than those which perplex Fenwick1 are related, and
philosophers declining thoroughly to probe these marvels,
they have been abandoned for the most part to persons
who know little or nothing of philosophy or metaphysics,
and remain insoluble.
I wish to make philosophers inquire into them as I
think Bacon, Newton, and Davy would have inquired.
There must be a natural cause for them — if they are
not purely imposture. Even if that natural cause be
the admission of a spirit world around us, which is the
extreme point. But if so, it is a most impartial
revelation in Nature.
1 In A Strange Story.
47
"ZANONI" AND OCCULT STUDIES
1842. I do believe in the substance of what used to be
JET. 39. called Magic, that is, I believe that there are persons
of a peculiar temperament who can effect very extra-
ordinary things not accounted for satisfactorily by
any existent philosophy. You will observe that the
constitution or temperament is always more or less the
same in these magicians, whether they are clairvoyant
or media ; the wonders are produced thro' them and
cease in their absence or inactivity. In their con-
stitution I find a remarkable agreement — it is only
persons who are highly susceptible of electricity who
have it, and their power is influenced according as the
atmosphere is more or less charged with electricity.
This all Media and Mesmerists will acknowledge.
But here we get a commencement for philosophical
inquiry. Electricity is in inanimate objects as well as
animate ; hence the power of media over inanimate
objects. In my final scene I suppose an atmosphere
extremely electrical — there is a spontaneous combustion
in the bush, the soil is volcanic, there is trembling of
the earth. I observe that all the newest phenomena in
spirit manifestation resemble remarkably in character
the best attested phenomena in witchcraft. For instance,
Hume floats in the air — this was said of the old
magicians. Now I find that the Seeress of Provorst
whose story is told by a physician and a very learned
man, and who lived in a state of catalepsy, was at times
so light that her body floated on water and could not
be kept down ; that she would also rise in the air
as if she would fly out of the window. There again
philosophy is on its own ground. There is a cataleptic
disease in which abnormal phenomena occur. But all
Media and clairvoyants are more or less cataleptic.
You will judge by these remarks of my own idea.
Abnormal phenomena may solve some great problems
in real science. Thus common reasoners reject a good,
48
LETTERS ON THE OCCULT
well-authenticated ghost story altogether. But real 1842.
philosophers delight in one ; and some of the most &T. 39.
interesting chapters in the works of physicians are
upon spectral illusions founded on these very ghost
stories. The mystery of dreaming is the vexed question
to this day between materialists and immaterialists.
Spectral phenomena are dreams turned inside out.
I write hastily, but this is so much the substance of
what I think, that it would appear in my supplementary
chapter. . . .
To Mr. Benjamin Coleman.
1 5 ROYAL CRESCENT, BATH,
Deer. 21, [1863].
SIR — I considered my letter to you private, and am
surprised you should desire to make any part of it
public. But you would misconceive and mistake the
whole meaning and gist of that letter, if you were to
represent it "as a testimony of the truth of the so-
called spirit manifestation," without including the other
opinions as to such phenomena expressed in my letter.
To prevent misunderstandings, these are my views,
succinctly on the matter ; and if you make them public
at all, which does not seem to me called for, you will
express them in my words : — " I volunteer no opinion
as to the phenomena exhibited by professional
exhibitors receiving money. I have not seen them
submitted to tests required by persons who very
naturally believe that such phenomena are produced
by conjuring, trickery or imposture. Some of the
phenomena produced, where the person called a
Medium is a person of well-known probity and honor,
and those present are of equally high character, I believe
to be genuine. All such phenomena, when submitted
to the same laws of rational evidence which are adopted
VOL. ii 49 E
"ZANONI" AND OCCULT STUDIES
1842. in Courts of Law as scientific investigation, are found
T. 39. to disprove the wild notion that they are produced by
the spirits of the dead or by any cause whatever, to be
called spiritual in the proper meaning of the word.
Tho' the persons producing such phenomena may not
be deceivers, the phenomena are eminently deceptive ;
they may have interest to a physiologist or philosopher
beyond the gratification of curiosity.
"But the intellectual results of any careful examina-
tion of them are so poor and meagre, and they so
belong to abnormal and exceptional physical organisa-
tion, that the man who is best fitted to investigate their
nature would probably be much better occupied in
other pursuits ; and the credulous and indiscriminate
temper with which persons even of good education and
ability gather round these revivals of that ancient
magic which has in former ages duped the human mind,
is likely to do much harm, unsettle rational beliefs,
engender senseless superstition ; and my advice to
anyone who is not of philosophical mind and habits,
would be to trouble his head as little as possible upon
the matter."
Such are my views, and if you like to make them
known in these words, you are welcome to do so, tho'
I have no wish myself to publish them. — Yours ob.,
E. B. LYTTON.
CHAPTER III
LITERARY WORK
1842-1846
When we have commenced a career, what step is there till the grave ?
Where is the definite barrier of that ambition which, like the Eastern bird,
seems ever on the wing, and never rests upon the earth ? Our names are
not settled till our death ; the ghosts of what we have done are made our
haunting monitors — our scourging avengers — if ever we cease to do, or fall
short of the younger past.
Talk not of freedom — there is no such thing as freedom to a man whose
body is the gaol, whose infirmities are the racks of genius.
Ernest Maltrawen.
AFTER the publication of Zanoni there was no 1842.
pause in Bulwer's literary output. His studies of .^ET. 39.
the French Revolution, amidst the scenes of which
is placed the latter portion of that novel, led him
to write an historical essay on the Reign of
Terror, its causes and effects, which was
published in the Foreign Quarterly Review in
July, 1842.
On the subject of this essay he wrote to John
Forster,to whom it had been submitted in proof : —
CRAVEN COTTAGE,
June i, 1842.
MY DEAR FORSTER — I am glad you like the article.
But if " brilliant " at all, it is so not from style, which
is singularly plain, especially for me, addicted as I am
LITERARY WORK
1842. to that which you so eloquently condemned ! Its effect
&T. 39. must be simply from some truths not said before. I
could point out a few that I think new and useful. I
meant to enlarge a little on the results or benefits
since the Revolution, but I never can agree that the
Revoln. produced them. Nor can I go further con-
scientiously in the second page of the article. As to
throwing all the blame of the Reign of Terror on the
old regime, England was as badly governed as France,
perhaps, under Charles I., and had a Civil War — but a
war of men, and not a butcherdom by devils. Why ?
Because here it was never Mob Rule ! There were no
ancient regimes to justify the brutalities of our Bristol
mob or vindicate the Dutch for their great national
crime, the murder of de Wit. There were no ancient
regimes to excuse the mobs of Corcyra or Jerusalem.
In the latter, the moby not Pilate, sacrificed Jesus ! Mob
Rule will always be vile and bloody, and as such it
seems to me it should be exposed. The worst thing
of English Patriots is to attempt to excuse French
Republicans. So I think, and, therefore, I cannot part
with what seems to me the gist and pith of my purpose.
But you can easily put an editorial note, disclaiming or
qualifying your contributor's dogmas. This I should
far from dislike, especially now I have read the other
French article. Before I looked at this last, I had meant
strongly to urge the impolicy of two French political
articles in one number. Now I have a scruple in doing
so, for while I think the article very able, I wholly dissent
from its views. But if anything is to be altered, pray
try and persuade the author to modify his censure on
Odilon Barrot — the man acknowledged by all factions
to be the most lofty character in the French Chamber.
Good Heavens, who would mix in politics if that spot-
less and noble name is to be thus slurred and sneered at !
I will return my article as soon as I get the MS. You
52
"THE LAST OF THE BARONS"
have, I trust, received ere this my little volume. — 1843.
Yours truly, &T. 40.
The little volume here referred to was a book
of poems entitled Eva and other Poems, which was
published at the end of May, 1842. Writing to
John Forster about them, he says : —
These poems are the blossoms of a branch which has
grown out of my mind since the tendency of the plant
towards public or active life has been checked. This
stream being dammed in its way to Fleet Street, has
taken its rivulet path towards " fresh fields and pastures
new." From this going back from the real world, in
short, come somewhat simultaneously Zanoni (a kind
of poem) and this little volume.
Bulwer's next literary production was the
historical romance The Last of the Barons,
published in February, 1843 > anc^ this was
followed in March, 1844, by a translation of
Schiller s Poems and Ballads, accompanied by a
biographical sketch of Schiller, for whom he
entertained the highest possible opinion, ranking
him as a poet above Goethe.
Of The Last of the Barons he writes to Mrs.
Thomson J : —
Many, many thanks for your friendly criticism, which
gave me real and uncommon pleasure. You, who have
so well written the historical fiction, know its difficulties
and can allow for them. I am glad you like Warwick
at last. I love him ! It is one of the few characters
I have conceived that I take a personal affection for
1 Mrs. Antony Todd Thomson (1797-1862) published many historical
and biographical works, sometimes under the pseudonym of " Grace
Wharton."
S3
1 844, — Alice is another.
Er. 41. about her.
LITERARY WORK
I still think Sybil a bon
-no charm
After the completion of these works, Bulwer
appears to have contemplated a retirement from
regular authorship. In the small volume of
poems he speaks fretfully of contemporary critics,
and in the preface to The Last of the Barons he
announces that this will probably be his last
work of fiction. His mother's death and the
breakdown in his health already referred to, no
doubt, strengthened this wish for a cessation
from literary work ; but by the time Dr. Wilson
of Malvern had finished with him, and the water
cure had done its work, he was able to return to
his writing with redoubled energy.
Miss Martineau, with whom a most interesting
correspondence had been maintained ever since
the publication of Zanoni, wrote to him kindly
in January 1844, after hearing of his mother's
death : —
I ordered the book to be sent to you because I
heard — not merely the fact of your loss, but that you
were very unhappy ; and I thought I would take the
chance of anything in that volume being acceptable to
your present feelings. I am glad now that I ventured.
And I am glad to see your handwriting, for I have
had some sorrowful thoughts about you ; and when
that is the case, one is thankful to know anything of the
mind for which one is anxious. I may know little of
the case, and I may judge ill from what you have told
of it ; but I will tell you, as a friend, that I do not
understand, and do not like, your declaration that The
54
CONTEMPLATED RETIREMENT
Last of the Barons is your farewell work in fiction — 1 844.
attended and preceded, as that declaration is, by JE.T. 41.
symptoms of discontent with society, or a portion of it.
But for these symptoms, I should suppose that you
merely preferred some other equally noble path in
literature ; and though I might doubt, I should have no
right to regret till I saw what you were doing. It may
yet be so, and if so, I have only to give you my hearty
good wishes and blessing.
And if you had not previously been rising, I should
not have seriously cared — nor if you were a dreamer,
who had done emptying yourself of your dreams. But
so immeasurably superior as Zanoni and The Last of the
Barons were, in their different ways, to your former
works — so magnificent a course as either of* them
indicated for you, your stopping short is a painful
mystery. You cannot be idle. The test and seal of
your powers is your wonderful industry — together with
a growing freshness. Putting together some of your
words in your prefaces, with the facts before us, I
cannot resist the fear that there is discontent at bottom.
Now, such a being as you must not succumb to any
discontent whatever. It is humbling to every one of us
to conceive of your being in the least put out of your
way by the world — by any kind or degree of opinion.
Do you not feel that you can put the world under your
feet ? and do you not mean to do it ? And in your case,
so different from that of the poor and struggling man,
pining to get a hearing, in your case there need be
no defiance, and no appeal to or from the world.
Independent in your position, sure of a hearing, and in
the very strength of your powers, what is to prevent
your calmly achieving the greatness for which you were
indubitably created ? I believe you think the world hard
and unjust towards you. I gather this from yourself.
But what if it be ? How does that hinder you ? You
55
LITERARY WORK
1844. have no leave to ask to be great, and the world has no
/Ex. 41. such leave to give or withhold. If I am all wrong in
this train of observation, so much the better. Whatever
work you may have in progress will correct me, and, I
am sure, gratify me. If you really are discouraged and
hesitating, I trust you have some brave man for a friend
who will faithfully stimulate you to fulfil the responsi-
bilities of such powers as yours.
I will not say anything about being impertinent in
speaking thus. You have given a sort of claim upon
you to all who sympathise in your works ; and from
this room I may say many things, relying on a true
construction, which could not be so plainly said any-
where else.
As for your present grief, may time soften it by
strengthening and not loosening the tie between you
and her whom you have lost ! God comfort you ! —
Believe me, faithfully yours,
H. MARTINEAU.
After the publication of the Schiller transla-
tions she wrote again : —
TYNEMOUTH, April 27, 1844.
DEAR SIR EDWARD — Here I have the book at last,
and delicious I find it. It has kept me up far too late
the last two nights, so that I was afraid to look at my
watch ; nor shall I tell my doctor to-day, but let him
theorise as to why I am so tired.
I am almost afraid to do more than thank you — I
have so profound a sense of the worthlessness of my
opinion on these matters. And this is from no false
humility, but for sound reasons. Intellectual pleasures
are so frightfully vivid to a prisoner whose comfort is
incessantly spoiled by perpetual malaise, that discrimi-
nation and moderation are almost impossible ; and
56
TRANSLATIONS OF SCHILLER
besides, I am nothing of a reader, and so disqualified 1844.
for criticism. My reading all through my life has been &T. 41.
adoration of a few authors. Of these, Schiller has
been almost the supreme idol— was, in my youth ; and
the old intoxication comes upon me now, even exag-
gerated by the contrast of my present circumstances.
I have such a longing to-day to get at my own transla-
tions, if I did but know where they were. Some were
printed, I remember, and a good many more are
scattered about somewhere — but I don't know where.
I should like to compare them with yours. I did
expect, with you, that I should like the Life better
than the translation. I do like the Life extremely.
To me it is beautiful — but yet the rest occupies me
more. I have not half done yet, and I doubted at break-
fast whether I should cut the leaves of " The Artists "
at all — it used to seem to me so untranslatable, except
quite literally, to a friend at one's elbow ; but I have
read it, and at present I think you have succeeded quite
wonderfully. I even think your versification there
clearer and smoother than is its wont. But really it
raised such a universal throb, that all criticism is out of the
question ; yet " The Ideal " (one of my great favourites)
is beautifully done. So is the." Night of Song." (By the
way, I always took the image to be the gossamer — the
" tremulous ladder.") The most extraordinary slip
(as I take it) that I have met with is the " Partition of
the Earth." I do wish you would do that again. If
ever there was pathos and music, deep and thrilling, it
is in that piece ; and look at your last stanza of it !
There is a certain cheerfulness in the original, in the
pictorial part — but surely nothing dactyllic ; and the
conclusion is of a solemn pathos. " The Assignation " is
charmingly done. How you must have enjoyed doing
these ! I have always thought Schiller's hours of
composition must have been some of the divinest
57
LITERARY WORK
1844. experiences on earth ; and we taste something of the
. 41. bliss in translating him. I wonder what surprised you
in my pleasure in Zanoni ? I rather believe there is no
one within our four seas more peculiarly disposed to
relish the subject matter of your distinguishing tastes —
though our notions part off widely enough on some
points. . . .
Another appreciative critic of the Schiller
was Thomas Carlyle, who wrote on March 28,
1844:—
MY DEAR SIR — It was not till this morning that I
received my book after all. I called yesterday at
Blackwood's shop ; the shopman was arraigned ; the
sub-shopman, and finally the porter, with the corpus
delicte before him, the parcel namely, all wrapped and
rightly addressed above a week ago. He, scratching
his rough head, could only allege " that — that — he was
not sure of finding my house there." He should have
tried ! The Footguards at Waterloo, getting order to
fire, were not sure that the triggers would act, but they
made the experiment.
In fine, I return you many thanks for my good
book, and mean to enjoy myself upon it this very
evening.
The thing I said about humour and Schiller needs
many modifications, explanations, and lies open to
canvassing on every side. I believe it first of all came
to me from Jean Paul, who, for his own benefit, has
said many things about humour, with depth enough,
but often not with precision enough. Laughter and
tears (if they are true, but often enough they are both
false] seem to me to lie very near together in all men ;
and for avoiding fanaticism, Rousseauship, &c., I would
have them go on pan passu, if they could.
58
LETTERS FROM CARLYLE
You will do me a real pleasure and kindness if you 1844.
call here any day and talk with me a while. I am at &T. 41.
home generally till three, accessible to anybody between
two and three, and to you at all hours. A mouthful
of rational human speech is certainly the very elixir of
life to a human soul — and, alas, it seems to be a very
rare possibility for mankind in these epochs.
With many kind regards, many thanks and good
wishes — I remain always, Sincerely yours,
T. CARLYLE.
And again on April 1 2 : —
MY DEAR SIR — Last night your servant delivered
me the book. As we do not yet meet according to my
hope, I feel impelled to write what there is no op-
portunity of speaking, a more special word of thanks
for my Schiller, which is more properly yours and the
world's. I did read it on the night appointed, and with
very great pleasure. It is many a day since I read so
glowing, hearty, and altogether vivid, sympathetic, and
poetic a Biography of a man — pity that we have not a
hundred such to read ! For Biography, I imagine
after all, is the real summary of "Poetry," from Homer's
Odyssey to the Gospel of St. Matthew ; the grand and
truly important writings we have are all " Biographies "
spoken or sung ! Again, I wish we had a hundred
such done in as good a way as this. Many thanks to
you, in my own name and that of a multitude of
others.
Since you heard of me last I think there have been
but two exceptions from my rule as to three o'clock ;
it was especially unlucky that the very first exception
should have been the day when you were so kind as to
call here. At Hertford Street my luck was no better —
could be no better, so late am I always. I hope there
are other days coming. Non omnes ocdderunt soles —
59
LITERARY WORK
1844. that is the universal Gospel in this Place of Hope. —
. 41. I remain, with many thanks and kind regards, Yours
always truly,
T. CARLYLE.
With fwo other writers, both poets — one at
the beginning of his literary career, the other at
its close — Bulwer-Lytton l had some correspond-
ence in 1 844. The first of these was Coventry
Patmore, the second Thomas Hood.
Coventry Patmore had just published a volume
of Poems 2 for which Bulwer-Lytton had ex-
pressed warm appreciation, and the following
grateful acknowledgment was the result : —
DEAR SIR — I beg to offer you my grateful thanks
for what I feel to be incomparably the most satisfactory
as well as the most valuable result that has yet occurred
to me from the publication of my first efforts in verse.
Your letter indicates an interest in my little volume
which will, I hope, excuse my troubling you (in justice
to myself) with a few words touching its private
history.
The poems called " The River," and " The Wood-
man's Daughter " were completely finished more than
three years ago (before I was eighteen years old, or had
given a single thought to the constructive branch of the
art of Poetry, or indeed to anything but the mere
execution of details). This will sufficiently explain to
you the want of any predominating idea or purpose in
the two first poems. I was, at that time, totally un-
acquainted with Tennyson, or with any other of the
1 After his mother's death, and in accordance with the terms of her
will, Bulwer assumed the additional surname of Lytton, and was thereafter
known as Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
2 Poems (Moxon), 1844.
60
LETTER FROM COVENTRY PATMORE
poets properly to be called of the present day, except 1844.
Leigh Hunt. Next to the poets, contemporary with, JET. 41,
or immediately succeeding, Shakespeare, my favourites
were (and still are) Coleridge and Wordsworth.
There followed a period of nearly two years in which
I wrote nothing at all in verse, but in that time I read
Tennyson and studied some of Coleridge's prose meta-
physical works. Then I began " Lilian," and when it
was about half completed I met with the misfortune of
a publisher volunteering to produce at his own risk a
volume of my poems as soon as I could get one ready.
So " Lilian " was concluded with unwarrantable haste,
and " Sir Hubert " became the offspring rather of the
necessity (which Mr. Moxon urged) of filling fifty
pages in half that number of days than of the judgment
which, from the experience I had gained, ought by
rights to have been brought to bear upon its production,
and to have rendered it as much superior as I fear it is
now inferior, on the whole, to its predecessors.
Let me, before I conclude, repeat my thanks for a
letter which, had it emanated from a much less dis-
tinguished authority than it does, would have given me
unqualified gratification, by reason of the coincidence
of its contents with that knowledge of the right which
is always inherent, though sometimes almost latent, in
the mind of a poet, and which it is the true business of
criticism to render " objective " and practical. My
gratification at being censored and applauded by you
" in the right places " (I particularly allude, as regards
the latter, to your remarks on Sec. VI. of " Sir Hubert " ;
all other critics — except my father, who Jong ago
spoke of it as you have done — having left unnoticed
that passage which I have always held to be the best in
the book) is not a little enhanced by a comparison of
your letter with the miserably inefficient notices which
have hitherto appeared of my book in the public prints.
61
LITERARY WORK
1844. Not that they have not praised it enough, but that their
T. 41. praises have been almost always in the wrong places,
and generally their censures too.
In the hope that I may be allowed to ask the favour
and the benefit of your criticisms upon any future
poems I may attempt, before giving them to the world,
— I remain, dear Sir, Your obliged servant,
COVENTRY K. PATMORE.
SOUTHAMPTON ST., FITZROY SQ.,
Aug. ist., 1844.
His correspondence with Hood was of a
more tragic nature. This delightful writer, in
whom humour and pathos were so closely
blended, had fallen upon evil days. In 1844 he
was in great poverty and completely broken
in health. Bulwer-Lytton took a keen interest
in his affairs and sought through Mr. F. O.
Ward, Hood's friend, who was at that time
carrying on his Magazine for him, to relieve his
distress. He contributed to Hood's Magazine,
and was instrumental in- securing for him a
pension from Sir Robert Peel. For the purpose
of obtaining the pension, he had asked for a list
of Hood's works to submit to the Prime
Minister. Mr. Ward sent Hood's letter in
reply, adding : " Do not be deceived by his
jocose style. He made jokes on the Friday
night, when he said * I shall scramble on to my
birthday (the next day) and no more.' I was
putting a mustard poultice round him, and he
said : £ Very little meat to so much mustard ! '
Still he is getting better."
62
THOMAS HOOD
The characteristic letter enclosed was as 1844.
follows : — JEr. 41.
VANBRUGH HOUSE,
Tuesday.
MY DEAR WARD — I send you the best list I can of
my writings. They make no great show in the
catalogue. Small fruits and few, towards what you
will call my literary dessert. You must trust, I fear, to
my negative merits. For example : — That I have not
given up to party even a parfyciple of what was meant
for mankind, womankind or children. It is true that I
may be said to have favoured liberal principles, but
then, they were so liberaj as to be Catholic — common
to old, young, or new England. The worse chance of
any reward from powers political, who do not patronise
motley, but would have their very Harlequins all of
one colour — blue, green, or orange ; anything but
neutral tint.
I have not devoted any comic power I may possess
to lays of indecency or ribaldry. " I stooped to truth,"
as Pope stoopedly says, " and moralised my song."
I have never written against religion, anything
against pseudo Saints and Pharisees notwithstanding ;
some of my serious views were expressed in an Ode to
Rae Wilson in the Athene urn.
I have never been indicted for libel.
I have never been called out for personality.
I have not sought pleasure or profit in satirising or
running down my literary contemporaries.
I have never stolen from them.
I have never written anonymously what I should
object to own.
I have never countenanced, by my practice, the
puffery, quackery and trickery of modern literature,
even when publishing for years on my own account.
63
LITERARY WORK
1844. In short, though I may not have reflected any very
41. great honour on our national literature, I have not
disgraced it, all which has been an infinite comfort to
me to remember when lately a critical illness induced a
retrospective review of my literary career.
Now, in the days when the father of a certain friend
of ours was made a superannuated Postman in his
cradle at £70 a year, even such negative merits as
mine in literature might have deserved a pension ; but
in these times of retrenchment and political economy,
towards the unpolitical, I sincerely believe, as I told
you before, that my strongest recommendation would
be what would prevent my insuring my life, but aid me
in purchasing an annuity — the moral certainty that I
can last but a very few years. That is indeed the sole
consideration that could induce me to accept anything
of the kind, as it might enable me to make some slight
service for my children, whom I am but too sure to
leave, like the children of literary men in general, to a
double lament for the author of their being, and for his
being an author. Personally I am not very sensitive
on the score of poverty, since it has been the lot of
many of those whose names I most do venerate. The
reproach clings not to them, but to the country they
helped to glorify. My debts and difficulties indeed
cost me trouble and concern, but much less than if they
had been the results of stark extravagance or vicious
dissipation. At the very worst, like Timon, " unwisely,
not ignobly, have I spent," and even that to a small
amount. But, like Dogberry, I have had losses and
been weighed down by drawbacks I should long ago
have surmounted, but for the continued misconduct
and treacheries of others called friends and relations.
Only it provokes and vexes me that my position
countenances the old traditional twaddle about the
improvidence of authors, their want of business habits,
64
THOMAS HOOD
ignorance of the world, &c., &c. Men can hardly be 1844.
ignorant in particular of what they professedly study ; ^Er. 41,
and as to business, authors know their own, as well as
your mercantiles or traders, and perhaps something of
accounts besides. That they do not thrive like those
who seek for money and nothing else, is a matter of
course ; nor can they be expected to prove a match for
those whose life-long study has been how to over-reach
or swindle. Their Flights have been in another
direction ; their contemplations turned towards the
beautiful, the just and the good. They are not simply
spooney victims, but martyrs to their own code. To
cope with Bailys and Flights one must be not merely
literary men, but literary scamps, rogues, sharks,
sharpers. Authors are supposed too often to be mere
ninnies, and therefore plucked especially, in wit men,
but in simplicity, mere children. A vulgar error.
The first fellow who took me in, victimised also no few
friends in trade, bankers and bill-brokers. To my
next mishaps I was no party, being abroad, and the
tricks played without my knowledge. Baily, a book-
seller, had necessarily long odds in his favour against
an author, by the force of position, and with the law to
help him, which, whatever may be said, protects the
wrongdoer — witness my barren verdict and yet costly.
Flight you know — a practised pettifogger and money-
lender to boot. And yet after all, much as I have
suffered from it, I do not repent my good opinion of
my fellows. There is a faith in human goodness, to
renounce which altogether is, in its kind, an impiety.
It is a total loss when a man writes up over his heart
" No trust ; " one had better lose a few hundreds more,
than keep such a pike. For my own part, I would
rather be done brown a little than go black for fear
of it.
I have entered into this matter partly because it may
VOL. ii 65 F
LITERARY WORK
1844. seem that with my popularity I ought to have done
. 41. better, and partly because I am jealous of the honour
of authorship, and I do not think we are so imprudent,
unwise, ignorant of the world, unbusinesslike, &c., &c.,
&c., as we are reported. I could prove that on the
whole, I have earned more than I have spent, and but
for dead robberies should be a living Croesus — at least
for a poet.
I must stop to save the post. Come as soon as you
can and let us have a palaver on things in general. I
am getting on faster in health than in writing or
drawing, for I eat, drink and sleep well, take all the air
I can, and greedily, as a man may well do who gasped
for it in 16 hour spasms a week or two ago. I am
almost spectre enough for the Phantom Ship, but too
weak to work my passage. However, I will not
strike ; my colours (yellow and white) must be hauled
down for me. Meanwhile, I fight on as well as I can
— at the very worst, when all is lost, I can blow up the
Magazine. — God bless you, Yours affectionately,
THOS. HOOD.
Pray convey to Sir E. B. L. my deep sense of his
kindness — I will myself as soon as I am strong enough
for it. I always stood up for the good feeling of the
Bruderschaft in spite of the old calumnies about the
irritable genus, &c., &c., &c. Lo ! the proofs.
To Bulwer-Lytton directly he expressed his
thanks in the following letter : —
DEVONSHIRE LODGE, NEW FINCHLEY ROAD,
ST. JOHN'S WOOD,
Saturday.
DEAR SIR — Many thanks for your very kind letter —
confirming me in an opinion at which you shake your
head. Nevertheless, my experience tells me that besides
66
THOMAS HOOD
liberal appreciation as a writer, I have received more 1844.
kindness from authors than from others, including &T. 41.
relations. Of course, the poor pen and ink people
have their common share of human envy, hatred, malice
and all uncharitableness — not more perhaps. Two
tradesmen who can hardly spell shall exhibit at a
vestry meeting as much bad spirit and uncordial com-
pounds as the worst of us.
But the immediate purpose of the present writing
is to inform you of the result of your friendly interest
and good exertions in my behalf. A letter from Lord
F. Egerton encloses the quotation from one by Sir
R. Peel, of which I enclose a copy.
The arrangement which gives me the option of
another life is kind and considerate, and relieves me
from a very painful anxiety. I have, of course,
accepted it cheerfully and gratefully.
The flattering consideration of those who have helped
to this result make me affluent in feeling. For your
own share in the work, pray accept again the heartfelt
thanks of, dear Sir — Your very obliged and grateful
servant, ^ TT
THOS. HOOD.
In another letter, thanking Bulwer-Lytton for
his contribution to his Magazine, he said : —
It is difficult to express how highly I estimate such
a token of your great kindness and consideration — the
more so remembering your state of health and probable
disinclination to literary occupation, with which my
own experience made me sympathise so strongly that
several times I have been on the point of writing to
request you to dismiss the matter altogether from
your mind till a fitter season, lest the mere heat of
composition and the feverishness of an untimely task
should mull the cold water cure.
67
LITERARY WORK
1845. Pray accept my most heartfelt thanks for this, and the
T. 42. great interest you have elsewhere taken in my behalf. I
can accept kindnesses from literary men as from relations,
which I could not take from others not endeared to me
by admiration, respect, community of pursuit, and that
mental intimacy which far transcends a mere personal
acquaintance, and makes a name a household word.
Though the pension was obtained, it came
too late to be of any service, and the corre-
spondence ends with the following letter from
Mr. Ward :—
12 CORK STREET,
BURLINGTON GARDENS,
Tuesday, Feby. \th, 1845.
DEAR SIR — Your kindness to my poor friend, Mr.
Hood, makes me feel it a duty to convey to you the
melancholy intelligence that he is dying l — violent
hemorrhage, extreme emaciation and rapidly increasing
dropsy, leave no longer any hope, any doubt of the
event. He will never write again — a few more days of
misery, and all is done. His genius remains as active
and unclouded as ever. In the midst of all his suffer-
ings he still longs to write, if we would let him. He
sits plotting his novel, and last night told me how
he intended to carry the story on ! Yet some
instinctive, awful prescience of the approaching end
seems indicated in those stanzas beginning " Farewell
Life ! " — his latest composition. Vague forebodings,
restless alternation of despair and feverish hope — the
Death flickerings of his genius.
Greater poems than any he has written die with
him — appeals on behalf of humanity that would
have deeply stirred the times and set his name among
the more illustrious of the age. It is all over now.
1 Hood lingered on, however, until the 3rd of May.
68
"THE NEW TIMON"
He dies at 45, in the prime of his life, in the height of 1845.
his power, hunted and harassed to his grave by the JEr. 42.
fraud and rapacity of publishers.
Meanwhile, the seal is about being set to the warrant
of his pension ! Laissez faire ! laissez passer ! Supply
and demand ! What matters a snapped fibre, a crushed
heart, more or less ? His own folly for writing poems !
Why not do as we do — sell calico to the Chinese — 10
yards stretched into 12? Then he would have lived
rich — and died respectable.
What can be said or done ? It is too late, and too
dreadful. There is nothing to say or do now. A few
grapes, a few sponge cakes — and there is an end of it.
The two seals will be set at once, the red and the black.
May God forgive us all for our selfishness. — Yours,
F. O. WARD.
This kindness to Hood was by no means a soli-
tary instance of Bulwer-Lytton's efforts to lighten
the struggles of fellow authors. Among his papers
are numerous letters from literary men, gratefully
acknowledging the assistance they have received
from him ; and his attempt to establish a literary
benefaction on a more general and organised
basis will form the subject of a later chapter.
At the end of 1845 Bulwer-Lytton wrote a
long poem called The New Timon, which appeared
anonymously in four parts. The first part was
published on December 23, 1845, and the other
three parts followed in rapid succession early in
1846. The poem was a romantic narrative of
life in London — a novel in verse ; but it also
contained, wholly unconnected with the main
story, a number of satirical sketches of con-
69
LITERARY WORK
temporary men in politics and literature, which
J&T. 42. attracted far more attention than the poem itself.
These portraits are the only passages in the
book which have survived the generation for
which it was written. Many readers at the
present time who know nothing of the romantic
adventures of " Mervale " and " Arden," still
remember The New Timon for the lines, so often
quoted, which describe Lord Stanley (afterwards
the 1 4th Lord Derby) and Lord John Russell : —
One after one the Lords of time advance,
Here Stanley meets — how Stanley scorns, the glance !
The brilliant chief, irregularly great,
Frank, haughty, rash — the Rupert of Debate !
Nor gout, nor toil, his freshness can destroy,
And Time still leaves all Eton in the boy ; —
First in the class, and keenest in the ring,
He saps like Gladstone, and he fights like Spring !
Next cool, and all unconscious of reproach,
Comes the calm "Johnny who upset the coach."
How formed to lead, if not too proud to please,
His fame would fire you, but his manners freeze.
But see our statesman when the steam is on,
And languid Johnny glows to glorious John !
When Hampden's thought, by Falkland's muses drest,
Lights the pale cheek, and swells the generous breast ;
When the pent heat expands the quickening soul,
And foremost in the race the wheels of genius roll !
Some of the other sketches, however, were not
so good-natured, and a contemporary reviewer
described the poem as written " with a degree of
rashness, levity, and bad taste almost inconceiv-
able." One of the passages in particular involved
70
ATTACK ON TENNYSON
Bulwer-Lytton in the most uncomfortable position 1845.
in which he was ever placed by his love of -&T. 42.
anonymity and his proclivity to satire. Tenny-
son was referred to as " school-miss Alfred," and
attacked in the following lines : —
No tawdry grace shall womanize my pen !
Even in love-song man should write for men !
Not mine, not mine (O Muse forbid !) the boon
Of borrowed notes, the mock bird's modish tune,
The jingling medley of purloin'd conceits,
Outbabying Wordsworth, and outglittering Keats,
Where all the airs of patchwork-pastoral chime
To drowsy ears in Tennysonian rhyme !
As the poetry of Tennyson had then just
found general acceptance, this extraordinary
dictum was noticed more than any other passage
in the book ; and Bulwer-Lytton evidently became
apprehensive of discovery. His friendship with
Mr. Tennyson d'Eyncourt has already been
mentioned, and on a visit to him at this time he
rather ostentatiously expressed his admiration of
the poet, and added, " How much I should like
to know your cousin Alfred ! " 1 In a note in
The New Timon, criticising the pension which
Tennyson had received from the Government,
he speaks of him as " belonging to a wealthy
family," and implies that he was in flourishing
circumstances, although he knew from the
d'Eyncourts that he was in fact extremely poor.
All this was, no doubt, done to remove any
suspicion regarding the authorship of the satire.
1 Alfred Lord Tennyson, A Memoir by His Son, vol. i. p. 244.
71
LITERARY WORK
1846. In Bulwer-Lytton's case, however, anonymity
. 43. was not easily preserved. Tennyson did not see
the poem at first, but the passages referring to
himself were anonymously communicated to him
in a newspaper. He seems to have guessed, or
to have been assured by Forster, that Bulwer-
Lytton was the author, and immediately wrote
in reply : " The New Timon and the Poets,"
a piece of great satirical merit, which has, at
Tennyson's particular desire, never been reprinted
among his works. It began : —
We know him, out of Shakespeare's art,
And those fine curses which he spoke, —
The Old Timon with his noble heart,
That, strongly loathing, greatly broke.
So died the Old ; here comes the New ;
Regard him — a familiar face ;
I thought we knew him ! What, it's you, —
The padded man that wears the stays !
Who killed the girls and thrilled the boys
With dandy pathos when you wrote !
O Lion, you that made a noise,
And shook a mane en papillotes \
But men of long-enduring hopes,
And careless what the hours may bring,
Can pardon little would-be Popes,
And Brummels when they try to sting.
An artist, Sir, should rest in art,
And waive a little of his claim ;
To have the great poetic heart
Is more than all poetic fame.
Tennyson improvised these lines to relieve his
72
A STRANGE DISCLAIMER
own feelings, but John Forster, to whom he 1846.
showed them, insisted on sending them to JET. 43.
Punch, where they were printed on February 28,
I846.1 Forster's part in the transaction, as a
friend of both parties, is curious. But he may
have been piqued with Bulwer-Lytton for not
having confided his secret to him, and perhaps
thought that the one attack deserved the other.
That Bulwer-Lytton regarded Forster as the man
most likely to reveal the authorship of The New
Timon is evident from the following passage in a
letter he wrote to him on his way to Florence on
March 15, 1846, perhaps, when the circum-
stances are considered, the most remarkable letter
in his whole correspondence : —
I have to complain of you. I have not seen news-
papers myself, except an occasional Galignani, a rare
Times, one Daily News, and the two Examiners, you
kindly sent me ; but I am informed by my letters from
town that there is a report put out, and it would seem
in some spiteful way, that I am the author of the
Modern Timon, and that the report arose, or at least
took its sanction, in a review in the Examr., attributing
it, by implication or hint, to me ! — everyone suppos-
ing from our intimacy that the reviewer in the Examr.
must be well informed. Now, as I am not the author,
the report is extremely disagreeable to me, without dis-
respect to the poem, whatever it be, good or bad, and I
should feel very much obliged to you to repair, as far
as you can, the wrong you have done me — indeed, it
does seem to me strange that such a charge or sugges-
1 Tennyson himself said of them : " They were too bitter. I do not
think I should ever have published them." Memoir by His Son, p. 245.
73
LITERARY WORK
1846. tion should have come from you. I am not in the
T. 43. habit of writing anonymously, and even if I had now
done so, my reasons for concealment must have been
so grave that it could scarcely be a friendly act to
proclaim what I had intended to be secret. But I have
nothing to do with the poem, one way or the other,
and have sins eno' of my own to answer for, without
taking up those of any other, who may, for ought I
know, catch my style or mannerisms — there are plenty
who have done so, and will do so yet, a misfortune
inevitable to every writer of some originality.
You have my decided and peremptory authority
accordingly to deny the report, whether it honors or
asperses me. I am informed at the same time that
Douglas Jerrold and the Punch clique are libelling me
in that publication, in every way most personal and
offensive. Why I, who have been as generally kind
and good-natured to all literary men whom I could
help, as an author can well be to his brethren, who
have helped, at one moment or another, almost every
popular writer appearing subsequently to myself — poet
or proseman, from Elliot the Corn Law bard (whose
opinions I abhorred) and Milnes, whose school I disliked
— to even the great Boz, who certainly never needed
my good word, you will say, but who had all the
weight that the most earnest and active eulogy could
give him, at the first commencement of Pickwick,
before the depth beneath its humour was acknowledged
— yea, tho' I foresaw and foretold that he of all men
was the one that my jealousy might best be aroused by.
Why, I say, I should be selected so constantly and
so bitterly for the stings and slanders of the literary
clique professional, I know not, except because I am a
gentleman, and because I have been good-natured. I
can't help being the first, but I can at least remedy
the second ; and wits as these persons think them-
74
THE END OF THE INCIDENT
selves, I will try if I cannot pay them off in their 1846.
own coin. Therefore, let the hunchback look to his JET. 43.
own hump !
The following week, in the issue of Punch for
March 7, Tennyson returned to the subject
with an " After-thought," in which no direct
reference was made to The New Timon but " the
petty fools of rhyme " were fiercely described : —
Who hate each other for a song,
And do their little best to bite
And pinch their brothers in the throng,
And scratch the very dead for spite,
And strain to make an inch of room
For their sweet selves. . . .
. . . Surely, after all,
The noblest answer unto such
Is perfect stillness when they brawl.
This contribution, like its predecessor, was
signed " Alcibiades."
However anxious Bulwer-Lytton may have
been to " pay off in their own coin " the critics
by whom he was assailed in the press, he must
have realised that there was no such justification
for his attack upon Tennyson,. which had only
resulted in bringing a new and formidable critic
into the field against him. Indeed, the more he
resented the hostility which his own writings
encountered, the less excuse was there for his
unprovoked attack upon a distinguished fellow
author. When, therefore, the authorship of The
New Timon was acknowledged, he cut out altogether
the lines referring to Tennyson. The poem was
75
LITERARY WORK
1846. already in its second edition when Tennyson's
r. 43. first reply appeared ; but in the third, and in all
subsequent reprints, the passage was so completely
expunged that, without a reference to the original
text, it is impossible to conjecture its context.
76
CHAPTER IV
CHEQUERED YEARS
1846-1850
He had based his experiments upon the vast masses of the General
Public. He had called the People of his own and other countries to be his
audience and his judges, and all the coteries in the world could not have
injured him. He was like the member for an immense constituency who
may offend individuals so long as he keep his footing with the body at
large.
Ernest Maltraven.
THE discontent and discouragement which Miss 1846.
Martineau had detected in some of Bulwer- ^ET. 43.
Lytton's recent publications, and for which she
had chided him in so friendly and encouraging a
tone, was evidently only a passing phase due to
ill-health ; for the years which elapsed between
the publication of The Last of the Barons and his
return to political life produced not only his most
ambitious poetical work, but also two novels
in an entirely new strain, which bear strong
testimony to the freshness and vigour of his
creative faculties.
In his personal and private life this period,
though freed from the drudgery and acute strain
of his first ten years of authorship, was not with-
out its struggles, anxieties, and sorrows, and his
77
CHEQUERED YEARS
1846. mind was still far removed from that peace and
T. 43. repose which he coveted so ardently, but which
he never obtained until the last years of his
life. The years 1846 to 1850 were on the
whole rather restless years, in which he travelled
much in search of health and change of occupa-
tion, tried twice unsuccessfully to get back into
Parliament, was pursued remorselessly by the
hostility of his literary critics, and suffered much
from the personal sorrows from which no life is
wholly free. Almost within a year of each other
he lost by death both his only daughter and his
best woman friend, and a year later came very
near to losing his son also. The general im-
pression left by a survey of these years is one of
struggle — struggle persistently and on the whole
successfully maintained, internally with weak-
nesses both of constitution and character, and
externally with the world and fortune. It will
be the object of this chapter to indicate the
circumstances and mental condition in which
some of his very best literary work was accom-
plished.
At the beginning of 1846, immediately after
the publication of The New Timon, Bulwer-Lytton
revisited Italy at a time when the inhabitants
of that country were on the eve of their first
abortive attempt to free themselves from the
domination of Austria ; and already at that time
he had the shrewdness to foresee the part which
the kingdom of Piedmont was destined to play
in the coming struggle : —
78
ITALY REVISITED
Edward Bulwer-Lytton to John Forster.
NAPLES, Jan. 26, 1846.
MY DEAR FORSTER — I can no longer delay thanking 1846.
you for your remembrance of the absent and for your Mr. 43.
exertions about the play.1 I have laid it at present on
the shelf, not being inclined to add to my collection of
useless MSS., or to swell the dread account of the
unacted drama. Whenever I can learn that if written
it will be accepted by the manager on the conditions
stated, or acceptable to Macready, I will return to and
complete it. Meanwhile the dolce far niente gains
upon me as I breathe the relaxing airs of Parthenope and
look on the vacant faces of this lazy population. The
weather indeed is severe for Naples, but about as warm
as the middle of a fine September in England. My
windows look on the matchless bay, and my ride of
yesterday gave one the view of the old Baias, the isle of
Nisita on which stood the villa of Brutus, the site of
Cicero's villa, the old cape of Misenum, the peaks of
Procida, and the still Hellenic island of Ischia. In the
last the Greek dress is worn by the women and Greek
words abound. I explored Pozzuoli (six miles hence)
formerly the great commercial city of Puteoli. There
still remain the amphitheatre — the dens for the wild
beasts as fresh as the trapdoors at Astleys and the
columns of the Temple of Jupiter Serapis, destroyed by
volcanic eruption and inundation.
What amidst these scenes stirs in the mind ?
Nothing but a dreary contemplation. How be active
where Death coils round all trace of the activity of old ?
Yet much of my old illusory recollections of Italy are
disappointed in this second visit. I am more alive than
1 This play, I think, must have been the comedy of Darnley, never
completed, but adapted for the stage after his death and produced by Mr.
(now Sir) John Hare at the Court Theatre in 1879.
79
CHEQUERED YEARS
1846. I was to the creature discomforts. The squalid filth
LT. 43. and petty extortion of the populace fret and disgust me.
The scarfskin of poetry is less thick on my temper than
I suppose it was at six or seven and twenty. The
journey was most fatiguing, and I do not feel yet that
I am repaid for it. As Johnson said of the Hebrides
" this is worth seeing, but not worth going to see." I
fancy this will be my last visit to the south.
Peel's return is just what I (and I suppose all)
foresaw when the first surprise was over. He wished
to release his Cabinet from its pledges to the Agri-
culturists, and he fancies he has done so by recreating it.
I think not — according to the plain tenets of men of
honour. If the Corn Laws are to fall, it is not by the
hands of men who stirred the country against an 8/-
duty. Doubtless Peel cannot propose total repeal. I
doubt if any minister could carry such a measure, but
another bungling, unsettling change smooths the way to
it. In the repeal of the Corn Laws it seems to me that
the real consequences have been wholly overlooked by
both Parties. Those consequences lie in the next age.
The question then to be decided is whether by altering
the proportionate labour of the population, whether by
augmenting yet more, not the prosperity of commerce
and manufactures alone, but the masses of men employed
on them, you have not altered for the worse the staple
character and spirit of the people. But this is a subject
too long for a letter.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton to Lady Blessington.
ROME, Feb. 12, 1846.
MY DEAREST FRIEND — According to the promise you
were kind eno' to invite from me, I write to you from
my wandering camp amidst the Hosts, who yearly
invade la belle Italie. I performed rather a hurried
80
ROME AND NAPLES
journey to Genoa and suffered more than I had antici- 1846.
pated from the fatigue, so there I rested and sought JEr. 43.
to recruit. The weather was cold and stormy, only at
Nice had I caught a glimpse of genial sunshine. With
much misgiving I committed myself to the abhorred
powers of steam at Genoa and ultimately refound about
two-thirds of my dilapidated self at Naples. There
indeed the air was soft and the sky blue, and the
luxurious sea slept calmly as ever round those enchanting
islands and in the arms of the wondrous Bay. But the
old charm of novelty was gone. The climate, tho' en-
joyable, I found most trying, changing every two hours,
and utterly unsafe for the early walks of a water patient
or the moonlight rambles of a romantic traveller. The
society ruined by the English, and a bad set. The utter
absence of intellectual occupation gave one the spleen.
So I fled from the balls and the treacherous smiles of
the climate, and travelled by slow stages to Rome, with
some longings to stay at Mola, which were counteracted
by the desire to read the newspapers and learn Peel's
programme for destroying his friends the farmers. The
only interesting person, by the way, I met with at
Naples, was the Count of Syracuse, the King's brother.
For he is born with the curse of ability (tho' few
discover and fewer still acknowledge it), and has been
unfortunate eno' to cultivate his mind in a country and in
a rank where mind has no career. Thus he is in reality
affected with the ennui which fools never know, and clever
men only dispel by active exertions. And it was melan-
choly to see one, with the accomplishments of a scholar and
the views of a statesman, frittering away his life amongst
idle parasites, and seeking to amuse himself by billiards
and lansquenet. He has more charming manners
than I ever met in a royal person, except Charles loth,
with a dignity that only evinces itself by easy sweetness.
He reminded me of Schiller's prince in The Ghost-Seer.
VOL. II 8l G
CHEQUERED YEARS
1846. And now I am at Rome ! As Naples a second
Mr. 43. time disappointed me, so Rome (which saddened me
before) revisited grows on me daily. I only wish it
were not the Carnival which does not harmonise with
the true charm of the place, its atmosphere of art and
repose. I pass my time quietly eno', with lazy walks
in the morning, and the Galleries in the afternoon. In
the evening I smoke my cigar in the Forum or on the
Pincian hill, guessing where Nero lies buried ; — Nero,
who in spite of his crimes (probably exaggerated) has
left so gigantic a memory in Rome — a memory that
meets you everywhere ; — almost the only Emperor the
people recall. He must have had force and genius as
well as brilliancy and magnificence for this survival, and
he died so young !
I am now moving homewards. This stupendous
treachery of Peel's excites my gall, and recalls my
political fervour. I long again to be in public life,
though the old illusions are dispelled. However, let
politics rest for the present. Pray tell me, my dearest
friend, how you are, and if your spirits are recovered
from the sad affliction that befell you shortly before I
left England.1 My best address now will be Poste
Restante, Marseilles. I expect to leave this for Pisa
next week. Hence to Marseilles and slowly back thro'
the south of France.
With kindest regards to D 'Orsay and my best
remembrances to your nieces, — Ever yrs. most aff.,
E. B. L.
LYONS, April 10, 1846.
Your note, my dearest Friend, reached me only
yesterday, as I did not come by Marseilles, and was
1 The death of her sister.
82
STATE OF SARDINIA
detained longer than I had expected in different towns in 1 846.
Italy. I crossed from Turin (worth seeing and little ^Er. 43.
more than that) by the Mount Cenis — bitterly cold,
and in the midst of it a fall of snow — and arrived here,
nipped and tired. I rest a day and then proceed to
Paris by Fontainebleau and Versailles. I expect to
arrive in England the last week of April. I am
much struck with Lyons. There are few cities in
Italy to compare with it in effect of size, opulence
and progress.
But Italy has improved since I was there last, life is
more astir in the streets, civilization reflowing to its
old character. Of all Italy, however, the improvement
is most visible in Sardinia. There the foundations of a
great state are being surely and firmly laid. The king
himself approaches to a great man, and tho' priest-
ridden, is certainly an admirable Governor and monarch.
I venture to predict that Sardinia will become the
leading nation of Italy, and eventually rise to a first-
rate power in Europe. It is the only state with new
blood in its veins. It has youth, not old age attempting
to struggle back into vigour in Medea's caldron.
I have been indolently employing myself, partly on
a version of a Greek play, partly on a novel, anxious to
keep my mind distracted from the political field which
is closed to me. For without violent opinions on the
subject, I have great misgivings as to the effect of
Peel's measures on the real happiness and safety of
England, and regard the question as one in which
political economy — mere mercantile loss and gain — has
least to do. High social considerations are bound up
in it ; no one yet has said what I want said on the
matter. Nevertheless I was much delighted with
Disraeli's very able and, indeed, remarkable speech. I
am so pleased to see his progress in the House, which
I alone predicted, the night of his first failure. I
83
CHEQUERED YEARS
1846. suppose Lord Geo. Bentinck is leading the agriculturists.
T. 43. I cannot well judge from Galignam with what success.
This letter has remained unfinished till to-day the
1 3th, when I conclude it at Joigny — more and more
struck with the improvement of France as I pass thro'
the country slowly. It is a great nation indeed, and
to my mind the most disagreeable part of the population,
and the part least improved, is at Paris. To-morrow
I hope to see Fontainebleau once more. Adieu, dearest
friend. — Ever & most affy. yrs.,
E. B. L.
The " version of a Greek play " referred to in
this last letter was an adaptation for the English
stage of the Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles, and
the novel was Lucretia, or the Children of Night.
Writing to Forster from Rome on February 4,
he says of the former : —
In a fit of classical fervour I have, since writing to
you,1 completed what I had long meditated — a drama
on the Oedipus Tyrannus^ with the choruses, etc. More
than this, I have arranged with the celebrated Merca-
dante, the composer, for the music to the choruses and
overture. He takes to it con amore and I have little
doubt that his music will be very grand and effective.
Now, can you arrange to sell this for me to any theatre
where Macready performs ? I am convinced that it is
a part that will do him good. It always was the
greatest part on the Greek stage ; and though I cannot
flatter myself that I have attained to the poetry of
Sophocles, I think that I have improved the mere
theatrical effect of the drama, and I have certainly
brought out the character of Oedipus in colours more
1 That is to say in ten days.
84
"OEDIPUS TYRANNUS"
adapted for a modern audience. I have followed the 1846.
march of the actual plot almost exactly, with a few JEr. 43.
touches and alterations here and there, but I have not
translated the dialogue. I have rather built upon it,
also upon the choruses. As a poem it is more uniform
and sustained than anything I have written.
On his return to England he arranged with
Mr. Phelps for the production of this play at the
Sadler's Wells Theatre at Islington, and the fact
that the engagement was not carried out, and
the play was never produced, was due to circum-
stances connected with its companion work, the
novel of Lucretia.
Lucretia was completed by the end of the
year 1846 and published in December. It
immediately revived the old attacks on the
immoral influence of the author, which had
previously been directed against Paul Clifford,
Eugene Aram, and Night and Morning. Bulwer-
Lytton was intensely sensitive to this particular
criticism, and he could never suffer it to remain
unanswered : —
" It is useless to argue a question after one party has
decided upon it," he wrote to Forster after the publica-
tion of Night and Morning, " or I might ask if you
could really maintain the doctrine, ' that it is a great
fault in an author to give a generous principle to
atrocious actions,' and arguing thereon that it is
dangerous and immoral to excite any sympathy for or
interest in a criminal ? To me this dogma seems to
strike down at a blow the grandest privileges and the
greatest masterpieces of Art. What crime more atrocious
85
CHEQUERED YEARS
1846-1850. than the assassination of a meek and guiltless woman?
. 43-47. Yet it was the glory of Shakespeare to give the most
absorbing interest to the assassin in Othello. What
crime baser than Macbeth's ? Shakespeare ransacks
earth and hell to keep your interest in Macbeth to the
last. Before his death the artist stops short from the
very action to make the heart yearn to Macbeth in the
pathos which he places on his lips. I have before me
at this moment a poem of Schiller which Goethe con-
sidered the most artistic of his poems for the very
reason that he made your pity and sympathy go with
the perpetration of a crime from which Nature revolts
— infanticide. And all this is true. The element of
the highest genius is not among the village gossips of
Miss Austen ; it is in crime and passion, for the two are
linked together. It is the art of that genius to make
you distinguish between the crime and the criminal,
and in proportion as your soul shudders at the one,
to let your heart beat with the heart of the other. It
is not immoral, it is moral, and of the most impressive
and epic order of morals, to arouse and sustain interest
for a criminal. It is immoral when you commend the
crime, and this last from the first page of Pelham to the
finis of Night and Morning I have never done."
Again, after the publication of Lucretia, he
writes : —
I see it presumed that the object of Lucretia was
that which I said I had in contemplation before the
Wainewrights' J lives were made known to me, viz. : —
1 The character of Varney in Lucretia is based upon Thomas Waine-
wright, and that of Lucretia Clavering upon his wife. The following
particulars of the former are given in the The Dictionary of National
Biography •. —
Thomas Wainewright, artist, art critic, forger, and poisoner, was born
at Chiswick, 1794, and died at Hobart, Tasmania, 1852. He contributed
art criticisms to The London Magazine from 1820 to 1823. He exhibited
86
some expositions of money and social impatience, 1846-1850.
whereas I expressly imply in my preface that I was ^T> 43-47.
diverted from that design by the lives of those two
criminals, and that it was only incidentally and here
and there that I could carry out some portions of that
original conception, viz. : — in Wm. Mainwaring, for
instance, the elder Ardworth, etc. Owing to the
omission of certain passages in the original draft of the
preface, I have failed to make myself clear. What,
however, I intended to say and believe I have said,
pictures at the Royal Academy from 1821 to 1825. Under pressure of
financial distress in 1826 he forged, in the name of his trustees, an order
upon the Bank of England to pay him a moiety of the capital sum to the
interest alone of which he was entitled.
In 1828 he and his wife went to live with his uncle, Mr. George
Griffiths at Linden House. Within a year the uncle died "suddenly,"
and the house and property passed to Wainewright, who was much in
debt at the time. In 1830 he insured the life of his half-sister, Helen
Abercromby, for £2000 and £3000 in two separate Insurance Companies,
for a short period of 2 to 3 years. He was prevented from increasing
the amount by the obstinacy of Helen's mother, who died suddenly in
August, 1830. Wainewright then quadrupled the amounts, and at the
end of December in the same year Helen also died in agonies, the
circumstances of her death being exactly similar to those of her mother
and Mr. Griffiths. The Insurance Companies refused payment on account
of suspicious circumstances, and Wainewright left the country. For the
next 6 years his life was a blank ; but during this time he was imprisoned
in France and strychnine was found upon his person. In 1835 the case
which he had brought against the Insurance Companies was tried and
decided against him.
In 1837 he returned to England and was arrested for the forgery of
1826. He pleaded guilty and was transported for life. In Newgate
Wainewright is stated to have acknowledged poisoning Helen Abercromby.
He is described as "an over-dressed young man, his white hands
bespangled with rings, with an undress military air and the conversation
of a smart, lively, heartless, and voluptuous coxcomb."
Besides being the original of Varney in Lucretia, his story was also the
foundation of Dickens's Hunted Down.
Amongst Bulwer-Lytton's correspondence are the following letters
from Mr. Henry P. Smith of the Eagle Insurance Office, relative to
Wainewright : —
"May 19, 1846.
" I will collect and send you all the Wainewright papers.
" There is no record of the forgery, that is, of the offence which sent
8?
CHEQUERED YEARS
1846. though not clearly enough, is that I had long had in
43. my mind an exposition of certain vices, etc. While
occupied with these ideas I became acquainted with the
lives of two criminals ; it was through their cultivation
that I thought to trace the phenomena of their crimes.
In the old preface I argued this point ; now I but state
it. But the obvious deduction I designed was that the
lives of these criminals and the analysis of their peculiar
cultivation formed the staple of the book, having
nothing to do with my previous design.
I then stated that various opportunities for elucidat-
him to Australia, because my duty directed my enquiries solely to the
insurances — that is to the deaths.
" He forged five powers of attorney to put himself into possession of
the capital of a sum in which he had a life interest, and was allowed by
the Bank to plead guilty to the second plea — that of uttering the forged
document — which saved his life. . . .
" You are perhaps aware that Wainewright was a writer, a contributor
to The London Magazine, I think, under the name of James Weathercock,
and that he edited a poem of Marlowe's, which edition is in Forster's
library. In these works your skilful glance may exercise itself in detecting
the poison among the flowers, and therefore I name them to you."
"May 26, 1846.
" On making a further search, I found a list of the contents of the forfeit
trunks, and this led me to a second packet of papers and books which had
escaped my first enquiries. I send them to you, and also our schedule
made on the strangely assorted cargo coming into our keeping. (You
will see your own Letter to a Cabinet Minister was retained among his
later treasures.) It will show the books which the combination of his
necessities and his tastes had left to him amid the general wreck. The
drawings come out better than my memory had traced them to you.
" There is no proof of the nature of the poison used, but the general
medical opinion of the time pronounced it to be strychnine. . . . Mr.
Thompson tells me that W. confessed that he employed strychnine and
morphine, and you will gather more of his history from the additional
briefs and their notes, now sent to you."
"May 2, 1849.
"I have just heard that Wainewright died recently in the hospital at
Hobarton. His latter days in the sick ward were employed, I am told,
in blaspheming to the pious patients and in terrifying the timid. I think
that he never lived to know the everlasting fame to which he has been
damned in Lucretia."
From this letter it would appear that the date of Wainewright's death
is incorrectly given as 1852 in The Dictionary of National Biography.
"LUCRETIA" ATTACKED
ing that original design (against Mammon and im- 1846.
patience) still incidentally occurred, viz. : — in the history ^)T. 43.
of W. Mainwaring, who suffered his impatience to
destroy him in the midst of the fairest prospects, in
Ardworth's reckless indifference to money (virtues
being ruined in the spendthrift as well as vices en-
gendered in the miser). In contradistinction to these
stands Walter Ardworth. But the main staple of the
book is meant to be the analysis of certain criminal
natures.
The press, as far as I have seen it, sings one chorus
of attack as if it was Jack Sheppard out-shepparded. I
can say nothing more. After the disgust I feel at
seeing the same old assaults whatever I write, — never
regarding my right, acknowledged elsewhere, to be
judged upon canons wholly different from those
brought against me — has subsided, I shall better see
what is just or unjust in the manner in which I am
treated. No, I was not prepared for such attacks. I
do not see why my subject should provoke it. Surely
great crime is the highest province of fiction. It has
always been so considered from the Greeks to
Shakespeare.
To Lady Blessington he writes, on December
24, 1846 : —
I am extremely grateful, my dearest friend, for
your kind letter — so evidently meant to encourage me
amidst the storm which howls around my little boat.
And indeed it is quite a patch of blue sky, serene and
cheering, thro' the very angry atmosphere which greets
me elsewhere. I view it as an omen, and sure I am
at least, that the blue sky will endure, long after the
last blast has howled itself away.
Perhaps, in some respects, it is fortunate that I have
89
CHEQUERED YEARS
1846. had so little favour shown to me, or rather so much
Er. 43. hostility, in my career. If I had once been greeted
with the general kindness and indulgent smiles that
have for instance rewarded Dickens, I should have been
fearful of a contrast in the future, and satisfied at so
much sunshine, gathered in my harvests and broken up
my plough. But all this vituperation goads me on.
Who can keep quiet when the tarantula bites him ?
I write this from a prison, for we are snowed up
all round ; and to my mind the country is dull eno'
in the winter, without this addition to its sombre
repose. But I shall stay as long as I can, for this is
the time when the poor want us most. My principal
excitement is a lawsuit referred to arbitration, and
which I am sure to lose ; but the question being how
much or how little I shall lose, it still has that agreeable
stimulant which ceases when we know the worst, write
a cheque and have done with it. I suppose this
lawsuit will call me to town next week, but am not
certain, and my stay will be short if it does — not so
short but what I shall call on you. Meanwhile I send
my hearty wishes for the season.
Adieu, my dearest friend. With kindest regards to
D'Orsay and best remembrances to your nieces —
Believe me, Ever yrs. truly & gratefully,
E. B. L.
The immediate result of the hostile criticism
raised by Lucretia, was to convince the author
that it would be inadvisable to produce his
dramatic version of Oedipus Tyrannus. " If so
much indignation," he said, " is produced by the
written representation of crime in the novel,
what will be said of the actual acted representa-
tion of homicide and incest on the stage ? " The
90
"A WORD TO THE PUBLIC"
play was withdrawn, and has never since been 1847.
either published or acted. ./Er. 44.
The second result was to induce Bulwer-
Lytton to publish an elaborate defence against
the charges which had been brought against
him in a pamphlet called A Word to the Public
(1847). No one to-day will consider that such
a defence was called for, but the author never
seems to have realised that his critics were as
little influenced by such vindications as he was
by their criticisms. The best answer to all such
attacks had been provided by Macaulay four
years previously, in a letter acknowledging the
receipt of Eva, and other Poems.
T. B. Macaulay to Edward Bulwer.
ALBANY, June 24, 1842.
DEAR BULWER — I was unable to discover your
dwelling-place in either red book or blue book, and
fancied that you must have wandered to the Pyrenees
or the Apennines, till I learned yesterday from Lady
Holland that you were at Fulham. I write therefore
to send my tardy thanks for your very pleasing and
interesting little volume. You have written more
brilliant poetry, but none, I think, which moves the
feelings so much.
If I regret anything in the volume, it is that you
should, in the last piece, have uttered, in language
certainly very energetic and beautiful, complaints which
I really think are groundless. It has, perhaps, always
been too much the habit of men of genius to attach
more importance to detraction than to applause. A
single hiss gives them more pain than the acclamations
of a whole theatre can compensate. But surely if you
91
CHEQUERED YEARS
1847. could see your own position as others see it, you have
JE.T. 44. no reason to complain. How many men in literary
history have at your age enjoyed half your reputation ?
Who that ever enjoyed half your reputation was secure
from the attacks of envious dunces ? And what harm,
in the long run, did all the envy of all the dunces in
the world ever do to any man of real merit ? What
writer's place in the estimation of mankind was ever
fixed by any writings except his own ? Who would
in our time know that Dryden and Pope ever had a
single enemy, if they had not themselves been so
injudicious as to tell us so? You may rely on this
that there are very few authors living, and certainly
not one of your detractors, who would not most gladly
take all your literary vexations for the credit of having
written your worst work. If, however, you really
wish to be free from detraction, I can very easily put
you in the way of being so. Bring out a succession
of poems as bad as Mr. Robert Montgomery's Luther^
and of prose works in the style of Mr. Gleig's Life of
Warren Hastings^ and I will undertake that in a few
years you shall have completely silenced malevolence.
To think that you will ever silence it while you
continue to write what is immediately reprinted at
Philadelphia, Paris and Brussels, would be absurd. —
Ever yours truly, T B MACAULAY.
This appreciation and sound advice was re-
peated after the publication of Lucretia.
The same to the same.
PAY OFFICE,
December 14, 1846.
DEAR SIR EDWARD — On returning last week from
the country I found Lucretia on my table, and glad I
was to see that you had not taken leave of that species
92
MACAULAY'S APPRECIATION
of composition for which, in my opinion, you are most 1 847.
eminently qualified. In power I should place Lucretia JEr. 44.
very high among your works. I doubt whether it
will be so popular as some of them for this reason, that
the excitement which it produces sometimes approaches,
at least with me, to positive pain. The exhibition of
excessive moral depravity united with high intellect in
three different forms, with the talents of the great
philosopher in Dalibard, with the talents of the great
politician and ruler in Lucretia, and with the talents of
the great artist in Varney, is frightfully gloomy. It is
some years since any fiction has made me so sad. The
effect resembles that of Poussin's " Massacre of the
Innocents " in the Lucca Collection, or of Salvator's
"Prometheus" in the Corsini Palace. It is real suffering
to look, and yet we cannot avert our eyes. I hope that
we shall not wait long for another work as powerful and
more cheerful. Remember your favourite Schiller: —
Ernst ist die Wahrheit ; heiter ist die Kunst.
The state of Ireland1 makes us sorrowful enough
without the help of your Children of Night. — Ever
y°urs truly- T. B. MACAULAY.
The same to the same.
ALBANY, LONDON,
February 20, 1847.
MY DEAR SIR EDWARD — I ought to have earlier
thanked you for your Word to the Public. It was not
needed as far as I was concerned. For though, as I
honestly told you, the effect of your last work on me
1 Great distress prevailed in Ireland at this time, owing to the famine
which had broken out there in the previous year. The distress had led to
an alarming increase in crimes of violence, and the Coercion Bill which
Sir R. Peel proposed for dealing with the situation was defeated in the
House of Commons in June 1846, and led to the resignation of his
Government.
93
CHEQUERED YEARS
l847- was like the effect of some fine Martyrdoms which I
Mr. 44. have seen in Italy, more painful than a great artist
should try to produce, I utterly detest and despise that
cry of immorality which was raised against you.
The names of those who raised it I do not know,
but I cannot doubt that they wrote under the influence
of personal enmity. Your vindication is undoubtedly
well written and with great temper and dignity. But
I am not sure that I should not have recommended
silence as the best punishment for malignant scurrility.
— Very truly yours,
T. B. MACAULAY.
The only reason why I have thought it
worth while to dwell on Bulwer-Lytton's
extreme sensitiveness to these attacks, which
throughout his life were made upon his motives,
is that it was highly characteristic of the man,
and because it supplies both the explanation and
the cause of a certain absence of sympathy and
lovableness in his character noticeable in his
relations with others. It is often the case that
those who have suffered most from opposition
and misrepresentation are the most ready to
misunderstand and criticise others in their turn.
An enforced attitude of self-defence tends to
crush out the more generous instincts of human
nature, and to foster an uncharitable outlook
upon life. We are all susceptible to the opinions
of others, and are inclined to grow according to
their estimation of us. Bulwer-Lytton has him-
self handled this theme in his essay upon The
Efficacy of Praise? and in his own life he suffered
1 Caxtoniana. Knebworth Edition, p. 196.
94
EFFECT OF CRITICISM
much from the persistency with which both 1847.
in private and public his motives and actions &T. 44.
appeared to be unfairly judged. His letters to his
mother at the time of his marriage show how
bitterly he felt her failure to appreciate the
motives which led him, on that occasion, to act
in opposition to her wishes. In his estrange-
ment from his wife at a later date, it was her
constant refusal to appeal to what was best in
his character, her repeated provocation of all
those qualities which he was most anxious to
suppress, that gave him the greatest pain ; and in
the public criticism of his writings it was the
feeling that he was misjudged and maligned as
a man, rather than criticised as an author, which
rankled so deeply.
All this had a marked influence upon the de-
velopment of his character. I do not say that it
made him bitter and uncharitable, but it en-
couraged a natural moroseness in his nature and
developed a habit of shrinking from contact with
society, which made him less responsive than he
would otherwise have been to the claims of sym-
pathy and affection. " The lessons of adversity," he
said, in The Last Days of Pompeii, " are not always
salutary — sometimes they soften and amend, but as
often they indurate and pervert. If we consider
ourselves more harshly treated by fate than those
around us, and do not acknowledge in our own
deeds the justice of the severity, we become too
apt to deem the world our enemy, to case our-
selves in defiance, to wrestle against our softer
95
CHEQUERED YEARS
1847. self, and to indulge the darker passions which are
. 44. so easily fermented by the sense of injustice."
In addition to the pamphlet in answer to the
critics of Lucretia , the year 1847 was employed
by Bulwer-Lytton in preparing a collected edition
of his works, which was brought out by Colburn
in the following year, and in writing a tragedy
on the subject of Brutus. This play, however,
though completed, was never published.1 In the
spring he returned to the water cure at Malvern,
and in the summer he unsuccessfully contested
an election at Lincoln. In the autumn he went
abroad and visited Munich, Gastein, Frankfort,
Dresden and Aix la Chapelle. Macready had
asked him to write a comedy, and he told Forster
that he would try and accomplish this during
his foreign travels. From Gastein he writes
on September 14 : —
I have had something like the real feeling of health
here ; and indeed since I left my mental energy, long
half dormant, seems to revive. Nevertheless, though
I have tried hard to write the comedy, I have not been
able. It baffles me. The hearty laugh of comedy is
not natural to my Muse. Had Macready called for
tragedy he should have had one long since.
The mental energy which refused to be
pressed into the service of comedy, was directed
instead to the production of a long epic poem
on King Arthur, about which he writes to
Forster on November 7, 1847 : —
1 It was produced by Mr. Wilson Barrett at the Princess's Theatre,
London, in 1885, under the title of The Household Gods.
96
"KING ARTHUR"
My whole mind is absorbed in it. An heroic poem 1847.
in from 12 to 20 books. Ma foi ! it is not (good or &r. 44.
bad) a plaything experiment. I cannot, as you suggest,
publish it together with The New Timon without losing
my own intensity condensed in it. I own that I look
upon this as the grand effort of my literary life, the
most earnest and elaborate appeal that I can make to
posterity or my own time. You may judge, therefore,
of the anxiety I feel that it should come out under the
best auspices, and ensure the fullest possible co-operation
on the part of the publisher. I have made up my
mind, too, as to its appearance, in parts, and the price
not to exceed I/-; but I think with you it is a question
whether the two first parts may not come out together
or very close upon each other — on the plea that a less
quantity does not fairly open the poem. I am
particularly anxious to get the thing out as soon as
possible — ist, because it is only at this time of year that
poetry is read ; 2ndly, because if any accident should
happen to Louis Philippe, I consider one main chance
of success would be gone, and as it is the allusions
appeal to feelings now fresh and soon to subside ;
3rdly, because till it is out I can think of nothing else.
On November 25, he writes again : —
Arthur (the direst of his adventures) is gone to
press sub auspice Colburno — 2/6 will be the cost for
two books.
The poem did not come out, however, till the
following year, and in fact exactly coincided with
the French Revolution of 1848 and the fall of
Louis Philippe, which its author had hoped to
avoid. Of this event he writes to Forster on
March i, 1848 : —
VOL. II 97 H
CHEQUERED YEARS
1848. MY DEAR FORSTER — What a bouleversement\ I
r. 45. content myself with saying that all which I prophesied
has come to pass. I enjoy the triumph over the in-
credulous donkeys to whom I have (within the last
twelve months) said so often — " Louis Philippe must
crush, if he live ; if not, the dynasty is gone. It can't
last two years." And again I hazard the prophecy :
France, if she keep a Republic, must go to war, and
into that war sooner or later England must be dragged.
I suppose you don't review Arthur this week. When
you do, will you kindly either say something that may
claim attention (as a matter still of interest) to the L.
Philippe and Guizot passages, or else pass those passages
over altogether. Those passages ought still to be telling
and show how those gentlemen stood before their fall.
But it is very easy for a hostile criticism to throw cold
water on the whole four books, by representing these
passages as a more leading portion than they are, and
treating them as a day too late for the fair.
Yet, I can't say one has chalked one's day with a
white stone or chosen the luckiest moment to bring out
a poem ! The very day of a revolution ! and that poem,
in truth, the great crowning work of its author's life.
Send me any news, if there be any. — Yrs. ever,
E. B.
Four days later he writes again :
March 5, 1848.
MY DEAR FORSTER — I have just read your notice
of Arthur in The Examiner, and believe me, I feel
deeply grateful for it, and sincerely affected by what I
consider a real proof of the friendship I have so often
tasked. I feel this the more, because I know how many
differences of taste there are between us in poetry ; and
that you should have so generously said all you could in
98
REVOLUTION IN FRANCE
praise, and nothing in censure, gives me a greater grati- 1848.
fication, as a mark of kindness, than as in promotion of JEr. 45.
a cherished wish. You know how much store I set on
Arthur, and with true friendship preferred rather to see
with my eyes than your own. Everything said must
conduce to put Arthur in the most favourable light, and
my most fastidious and exacting susceptibilities on the
subject have been met in the friendliest spirit — Qa ne
soublie pas.
You are quite right as to the French Revolution. If
this new Republic does but succeed even partially in the
principles with which it has commenced, it will be the
grandest experiment ever yet made. Nay, it is that
already. But it will upset sooner or later every dynasty
in Europe. It is more than anti-monarchic, more than
anti-aristocratic, it is anti-middle class, it is the vo-repov
Trporepoz/, the people themselves turned uppermost. It
is what agriculturists call ploughing up the mother earth.
The leading article in The Examiner is admirable,
but I cannot now think of politics, being wholly occu-
pied with the pleasure you have given me. — Truly &
affectly. yrs.,
E. B. L.
BRIGHTON, Sunday.
As soon as King Arthur was completed, Bulwer-
Lytton set to work upon his historical novel of
Harold^ and this book was written in an incredibly
short space of time. It was completed by the
spring of 1848, but its publication was delayed,
owing to a great domestic sorrow which came
upon him at this time. On April 29, 1848, his
only daughter, Emily, died at the age of twenty
in particularly tragic circumstances.
The story of Emily Lytton's short and un-
99
CHEQUERED YEARS
1 848. happy life affords a most piteous illustration of how
. 45. children may be made to suffer by the break-up of
their home through the quarrels of their parents.
In 1836, at the time of the separation be-
tween their father and mother, Emily was seven
years old, and her brother four. From that day
the children never knew the meaning of the word
home ; and whatever love or happiness they met
with in their childhood they owed to Miss Greene,
who did her best, in very difficult circumstances, to
take the place of their parents. Unfortunately,
owing to her determination to take no sides in
this quarrel and her efforts to keep the children
out of it, Miss Greene was never wholly trusted
by either parent. Thus, while the children were
entrusted to her care, first by the mother and
afterwards by the father, she was not supported
in her efforts to do what seemed to her best for
their health or their education ; and as they grew
older they were taken out of her hands.
At the age of fifteen Emily was sent to reside
with a lady in Germany, where she suffered much
from ill-treatment and neglect. While there she
formed a romantic attachment to a young German
girl, on whom she lavished all the love and confid-
ence of a nature starved of sympathy. Her love
was even extended to this friend's brother, whom
she engaged herself to marry. The friendship
ended in great sorrow and disappointment, when she
found that those to whom she had given her love
so unstintingly had only accepted it from worldly
motives and had no real affection for herself.
100
EMILY LYTTON
The disillusionment preyed upon her mind and 1 848.
permanently injured her health. A spinal com- &T. 45.
plaint to which she had shown some tendency in
her childhood now began to develop seriously,
but received no attention. Miss Greene, who
did not fully possess Emily's confidence at this
time but guessed from the tone of her letters,
which were carefully supervised, that she was ill
and unhappy, repeatedly urged Sir Edward to
bring his daughter home. The lady with whom
Emily was staying, however, had prejudiced Sir
Edward against Miss Greene, and her entreaties
were therefore neglected. Emily was left in
Germany for two years ; and when at the end of
that time her father discovered for himself her
true condition, the malady from which she was
suffering was too far advanced to be cured.
On her return to England she was sent to an
English school, and spent her holidays with her
father at Knebworth. In these circumstances her
life was intensely lonely and forlorn. Separated
from her brother, who had been sent to school
at the age of eight, deprived of the sympathy and
affection of Miss Greene, without friends of her
own age, her position in her father's house was
destitute of all the influences which are necessary
to the happiness of a young girl. From time to
time she received long letters from her mother, full
of accusations against her father ; and the recital of
these reproaches only gave her a morbid terror of
both her parents. In the spring of 1848 she
became seriously ill of typhus fever in London,
101
CHEQUERED YEARS
1848. and died on April 29. Two days before her
ET. 45. death she seemed to be making excellent progress,
and the doctors had reported most favourably on
her condition. That evening her mother arrived
at the house and bribed the landlady to let her a
spare bedroom on the upper floor. Whether
Lady Bulwer - Ly tton actually entered her
daughter's room, or whether by some other means
Emily was made aware of her mother's presence
in the house, cannot be determined with certainty,
but the next morning she was delirious and never
again recovered consciousness. The doctors could
offer no other explanation of the sudden change in
her condition, and her tragic death became an
occasion for fresh bitterness and reproaches be-
tween her parents. Sir Edward believed that his
wife had entered the room, and that her presence
had frightened Emily into the high state of fever
which ended her life. Lady Bulwer-Lytton
accused her husband of having allowed his
daughter to die in a state of absolute neglect in a
London lodging without proper medical attend-
ance, and even contended that her illness was due
to his selfish ill-treatment of her. Thus round
the death-bed of this unfortunate girl was revived
all the miserable controversy which had over-
shadowed her life and embittered her childhood.
" She is dead," wrote Sir Edward to Forster,
"dead — Emily, my child. Pity me. I am
crushed down. I cannot see you yet. So sudden
it seems a dream."
That both parents had loved her may be true ;
102
:
EMILY'S DEATH
but neither had ever shown her any real affection 1848.
or tenderness, and both were in a measure re- ^ET. 45.
sponsible for the unhappiness of her short life.
The sorrow with which they mourned her loss
was now added to the gall of their own em-
bittered lives. The person, however, who
missed her the most, and who mourned her
with a sorrow untinged by remorse, unclouded
by any bitterness, was her brother — the com-
panion of her childhood, the partner of her joys
and sorrows. He knew the difficulties of her
position, for he had shared the misfortunes of
their divided home. These difficulties and mis-
fortunes he had now to face alone, and with this
new sorrow in his heart. In the years to come,
as will be shown later, he played his part man-
fully, though unsuccessfully, in the struggle to
be loyal to both his parents and to induce each
to do justice to the other. Of his beloved sister
he retained through life the tenderest though
the saddest memory.
O thou, the morning star of my dim soul !
My little elfin friend from Fairy-Land !
Whose memory is yet innocent of the whole
Of that which makes me doubly need thy hand,
Thy guiding hand from mine so soon withdrawn !
Here where I find so little like to thee.
For thou wert as the breath of dawn to me.
Starry, and pure, and brief, as is the dawn.1
As at other times in his life, Bulwer-Lytton
now sought distraction from his private sorrow
1 "Little Ella" from Clytemnestra, and other Poems, by Owen Meredith.
103
CHEQUERED YEARS
1848. in increased intellectual labour. His immediate
r. 45. tasks were the correction of the proofs of Harold,
which was published in June, and an article on
Forster's Life of Oliver Goldsmith. He then set
to work upon The Caxtons, which had already
been begun, and the greater part of which had
been written before the publication of Lucre tia.
This was completed in the following February
and was immediately followed by My Novel.
Just as The Last days of Pompeii, written at a
time of great depression, bears no trace of the
mental perturbation of its author, so the works
which he wrote in 1848 and 1849 not only show
no signs of gloom, but are the lightest and happiest
of all his writings. The Caxtons and My Novel
represent the most mature work of Bulwer-
Lytton's genius. They are a complete departure
from the romantic style of all his previous works,
and mark the beginning of a new phase in his
writing — a transition from the representation
of passion and adventure to the delineation of
character and the study of life in more normal
surroundings. The atmosphere in these books
is one of quiet serenity, the humour is entirely
free from satire, and the characters are at once
life-like and sympathetic. With the exception,
perhaps, of Kenelm Chillingly, his last, these are
the two works which most truly represent the
atmosphere of his own age. Though at the
time he was writing them he had not yet passed
out of the storms and struggles in which the
greater part of his life was spent, his mind was
104
"THE CAXTONS"
already beginning to anticipate the calm and re- 1848.
pose of his later years. &T. 45.
On the subject of The Caxtons he wrote to a
friend : —
The art employed in The Caxtons is a very simple
one, and within the reach of all. It is just that of
creating agreeable emotions. This, too, is the secret
of the success of The Lady of Lyons. Now to do this,
we have only to abandon attempts at many subtle and
deep emotions, which produce uneasiness and pain, and
see that the smile is without sarcasm and the tears
without bitterness. That is one branch of art and
rarely fails to be popular. Of course there are many
other and much higher branches of art, in the cultivation
of which popularity may be very doubtful. But one
does not always want to be popular. Many a poet,
for instance, would rather be a Shelley than a Cowper,
or even a Scott. In short, art is so very various and
elastic, that each man can make it fit his own capacity
and sketch it to his own purpose.
The Caxtons was published anonymously, and
its authorship was the subject of much speculation.
The following letter, received by the publisher
from Mrs. Southey, is of interest on this point : —
Feb. 24/49.
Who is the author of The Caxtons? and as some
excuse for my over-curious question, I will add that
in reading the series of admirable papers still in course
of appearance in Maga, I have been so struck through-
out with the similarity, sentiment and style, to the
writings of the person I most loved and honoured —
the author of The Doctor — that, but for my knowledge
CHEQUERED YEARS
1848. that he did not write The Caxtons, and but for a passage
JEr. 45. here and there which he would not have written, I
should have exclaimed over and over again " This is
none other than Robert Southey's." I am sure the
author would not take amiss if he heard it — this avowal
of Robert Southey's widow.
In the autumn of 1848 Bulwer-Lytton again
had recourse to the water cure, not in England
this time, but in Germany. Amidst the political
turmoil then raging on the Continent, he writes
calmly to Forster of his experience at Dr. Soust's
hydropathic establishment at Ems : —
COBLENTZ,
Oct. 1 8, 1848.
MY DEAR FORSTER — "Better late than never" — a
proverb, by the way, much more in vogue than it
deserves. . . .
How could I write before ? My dear fellow, I have
been in one continued yet varied state of suffering since
we parted. I arrived at Aix, where a dashing, bold-
visaged doctor with his head full of liberty and a
National cockade on his hat, swore by JEsculapius, the
Goddess of Reason, that he would make me quite well
in a fortnight. I had nothing to do but to be per-
formed upon every day for ten minutes by a great
douche of iron water, and I should have a constitution
of iron. The world, he said, was fast mending, and I
should mend as fast as the world ! How resist an
eloquence which the crisis of the universe seemed to
support ? If the constitution of an Empire would be
reformed in a fortnight, why not that of a man ? The
sequitur was convincing. Me <voilb done, under the
douche. Alas ! both I and the Germanic population
had better have gone on in the state of chronic suffer-
106
1848.
T. 45.
A GERMAN WATER CURE
ing. About the end of the fifth day I was in the state 1848.
of a city en pleine revolution ! You never saw any- JEr. 45.
thing more utterly delabre. The head and the stomach
were in the last agonies of prostration. If my head,
indeed, had been the Emperor of Austria, it could not
have been more difficult to find — Abiit^ evaslt^ erupit.
And the stomach ! — it was just such a stomach as you
might suppose Howell and James to possess between
them in the second week of a Chartist Revolution.
In fine, being then convinced that iron douches are
as unsuited to weak systems as other preparations of
iron are to debilitated populations, I made a frantic
rush to the railway and found myself at Coblentz.
There I had been recommended to a doctor. of high
repute, especially among old ladies — a man of a very
different idiosyncrasy, mild, bland, insinuating, slow,
cautious, and (a wonder for a German) Conservative.
This gentleman was all for the festina lente — the slow
and sure. And he kept me three weeks in his smooth
paws, upon herb tea. At the end of that time, as I
could scarcely crawl, he thought he had done eno' to
check the movement of the body physical, and despatched
me to Ems, hard by, and still under his surveillance.
His name is Soiist. It ought to be Souse, for that is
his peculiar modus operandi. Having first soused me,
internally, with the herb tea, he then soused me ex-
ternally in the mineral baths. And my whole life has
been one souse for the last five weeks.
I am now released and on my way homeward, with
the promise that somewhere about Xmas I shall begin
to feel the effects of the waters. As to getting any
benefit for the present, every hair on his Conservative
head starts at an expectation so unreasonable ! You
would think you heard Peel himself when some one
dolorously complains that he does not find himself
any the richer for his Free Trade Tariff. Impatient
107
CHEQUERED YEARS
1848. and preposterous man ! Put things on a sound principle
r. 45. and then wait — for the Millennium ! Expect then to
see a drowned rat (not Peel, for his fate is not to be
drowned, it ought to be quite different, but your un-
fortunate friend) somewhere in about 14 days. And
then a new occupation awaits him. I am ordered to
find a mild climate in England for the winter ! Had
it been the philosopher's stone, I should not have
minded, but a mild climate in England !
I have not seen any papers for weeks, save a few
odd Galignanis that I picked up to-day, which hint at
an expose1 of Young's as destructive to the Whigs, and
inform me of Morpeth's rise to the Lords, with the
additional information, it is true, that you have the
agreeable visit of the cholera in London.
Where are we to turn? It becomes a difficult
matter to live at all ! Goldsmith, I trust, continues to
go on flourishingly, and Prior, I take it, is henceforth
only fit for the posterior, a lamentable vice versa, which
I don't wonder he resented ! A propos of vice versa,
do you know that that expression is a barbarism ! it
ought to be versa vice. You have no idea of the trans-
port of rage that that received inelegance occasioned to
Parr. He wrote on it, with a pen of thunder. " Vice
versa \ " he would exclaim, " to use the most prosaic of
colloquialisms, the most poetic of Latin inversions — the
adjective follow the noun ! Good God, Sir, is there
no Latinity left in England." And yet you see vice
versa it remains, and will remain till Latin becomes a live
language again ! Such is the obstinacy of human error !
Give me a line to the Athenaeum. I bring with
me my " gold son " as the Germans call their ugly
little boys — my darling, my Arthur ! He is complete
—twelve books high ! Is that too tall to get into any
man's library ? The last books you shall like, whether
you will or no. Ancli io son poeta ! Verily, I am
1 08
LORD WALPOLE
certain of it. There, perk up your brows between 1848.
scorn and pity and don't imitate the barbarous wretch &T. 45.
who cured Boileau's madman of an insane belief that
he was in Paradise ! Hear not the cry of the sensible
unfortunate's despair, Mais on wCa dt£ mon Paradis.
During this and the next two years, Bulwer-
Lytton corresponded frequently with Lord
Walpole,1 and some of his letters to this friend
give further details of his experiences on the
Continent.
His opinion of Lord Walpole is thus recorded
in a note with which he has endorsed this corre-
spondence : — " Lord Walpole, now Lord Orford,
a brilliant creature thrown away. A very accom-
plished scholar, of exquisite manners and keen
knowledge of the world, but indolent, pleasure-
loving and selfish. He might have been a great
diplomatist. In spite of all his faults, lovable."
The letters themselves deal chiefly with
matters of health, doctors, homeopathy, and
various " cures " ; but many of them contain
allusions to political events and the gossip of
the day. The following, dated October 24,
1848, is written from Calais on his way back
to England : —
MY DEAR WALPOLE — Your letter did reach me —
may this be equally fortunate in its destination !
How a letter is to find its peaceful way thro' so
many dangers, is a matter of philosophical anxiety.
The fact that while all other institutions are resolving
into chaos, the Post should remain, is a grand proof of
1 Horatio William, 4th Earl of Orford (1813-1894). He succeeded
in 1858. He was the brother of Lady Dorothy Nevill.
109
CHEQUERED YEARS
1848. the practical nature of that civilization which you so
T 4.5. profoundly consider to be symbolised by round hats
and swallow-tailed coats. Thro' the din of arms, over
barricades, cannon and ruined thrones — safe flies a
letter, from bag to bag and box to box. How many
things in the world may be deranged before these four
sides of paper pass into your hands. When Madame
de Sevign£ exclaimed, La belle chose que la Posts,
she little dreamt, poor woman, that it was the only
belle chose of her day that would remain. To the
best of my recollection Darius was the first who estab-
lished the invention. Praise be to him ! It is pleasant
to find something that we owe to those unfortunate
Persians. Something for which I suspect we would
give up a good half of what the Greeks left us. The
Post or Plato ! Utrum horum mavis, accipe. Plato,
I fear, would have a bad chance.
After a lengthy reference to the treatment
of Dr. Soust at Ems, the letter concludes as
follows : —
What did Soiist recommend you for an after cure ?
On me he has inflicted first, a great bundle of herbs
copia narium, diabolically graveo/ens, to be decocted
into what he facetiously calls " tea " ; 2ndly, a powder
of acorns for breakfast, which he no less wittily de-
nominates coffee ! 3rd, and as the great delicacy of
the whole, two jars of — guess? Cods fish liver oil !
Two tablespoonfuls a day. These agreeable condiments,
being accompanied and fortified in their uses by various
external applications of plaisters, &c., and a mode of
life ascetically philosophical, are to carry me over that
interval of vegetation thro' which I am to pass until I
again blossom on the shores of the Lakes and under
the eyes of Soust. If you have escaped all this, ma
ELECTION AT LEOMINSTER
foi, I think you are ill-treated for your £22, tho' as I 1849.
paid £24, I have a right to ^2 additional physicking. Mr. 46.
I write this en route for England, and from the
historical burgh of Calais. Here I have been kept
two days, from the inclemency of the weather. In spite,
however, of as stiff a gale as would have made another
Ode out of poor, dear Horace, no less than 700 of the
National Guard of Paris shipped themselves yesterday
for England, and 500 the day before. What Regent
Street will say to them all, I know not — another Norman
invasion. I have no news to give you, and before you
receive this all the news of to-day will, alas, be old !
In his search for " a mild climate in England,"
Bulwer-Lytton went to Brighton at the end of
1848 and to Bournemouth at the beginning of
1849. In the interval between these two visits
he tried unsuccessfully to get elected to Parlia-
ment for Leominster. The circumstances are
thus described in letters to Lord Walpole : —
Edward Bulwer-Lytton to Lord Walpole.
I received your letters, my dear Walpole, just as I
was launching that frail bark which Sotlst had so care-
fully caulked and patched, on to the troubled waters
of Leominster.
Do you know what Leominster is ? A small town
in Herefordshire, which returns two Members to Parlia-
ment. The question is, whether it will return me.
This venerable constituency, which seems in about
the same state of civilisation as it was when Leofric,
Earl of Coventry, first ruled over it, was recommended
to me as a sure seat — moderate opinions would do (a
rare blessing), moderate expense (blessing less rare, but
in
CHEQUERED YEARS
1849. almost equally as precious), little trouble, small chance
r. 46. of contest.
Hurried from the voluptuous Baiae of Brighton,
and deceived by these false sirens, I went to Leominster,
there to find all the worry of a neck and neck contest ;
Peel's son, my opponent ; a constituency that won't
promise either way, that expect to be bought, and (damn
their impudence) expect one to be as much a Radical
as if they gave one their votes for nothing. Two
weeks have I wasted on this thankless soil, and here
I am just arrived for a respite, uncertain whether I
shall stand or not, but hoping I can back out of it.
My dear fellow, you say you are not better. Do
you deserve to be better ? Have you been sage — have
you attended to the gastric juices, and avoided late hours
and Mrs. Venus ? You know what Soust says, and, as
a farmer, I know one can't go on with a succession of
white crops for ever. You must stick to roots or a
fallow. Peste ! now ! it is but a winter, and then in
the spring you will bud out with the leaves in all the
vigour of renewed virgindom. Soyez sage — soyez sage.
I suspect you don't know what it is to lay by ! If not,
you have no idea how the rest restores youth to the
feelings, as well as to the body — one can be in love
again, forget that one was blast, forget that one was
deceived, regain " the golden illusions of the dawn,"
and dream of serenades and pure first kisses under the
moon. Does not all this tempt you? Take to the
great book I told you of, vent the passions through
the thoughts, develop that intellectual you that God has
so largely given you.
There, I have bored and lectured you enough. But
that is the just privilege of a man who likes and
admires you as cordially as I do.
What times we live in and how carelessly we take
them ! What volumes of history, huge as the clouds
112
THE RESULT OF THE ELECTION
of a volcano, roll round us every moment, yet we 1849.
breathe the air, and crop the flowers, and light our JEr. 46.
cigars, by the sulphurous reeks ! What will be the
issue of things in France ? I don't believe in Louis
Napoleon's Imperial prospects. I don't think he can
last long enough for that. But our Funds have risen,
and I say thank Heaven for that — as I had just
invested in the 3 per cents !
The same to the same.
BOURNEMOUTH, Feb. 18, 1849.
This place is lonely as a desert, scarce a nursery
maid or a baby — animals usually ubiquitous in England.
And for amusements a library with about 50 old novels
in a glass case, The Times, The Poole Chronic ie, and a
weighing machine ! Fortunately, I am inured to
solitude and dullness ; witness the resignation I mani-
fested when abandoned to the donkeys of Ems.
The God Mercury who, as you justly observe,
presides over elections, deserted me at Leominster.
Plutus offered to help me against him, but I spurned
the base alliance, and tho' you may say the grapes are
sour, yet I own I was not sorry to escape Parliament,
•I hope, for another year — trusting to that flatterer
Sottst that I shall be all the better for keeping, and that
another course or two of the Ems waters is necessary to
fit me for the strife of tongues.
In the summer of 1 849 Lady Blessington died
in Paris, and Bulwer-Lytton thus lost the great
friend of his middle life. Ever since he made
her acquaintance in London three years after his
marriage, their friendship had been more closely
cemented with every year. In all the events
of his life he had received from this friend
VOL. II 113 I
CHEQUERED YEARS
1849. the greatest encouragement and the warmest sym-
-T. 46. pathy. None had rejoiced more generously in his
triumphs, or cheered and comforted him more
tenderly in his trials. That which he missed so
often in others, even in those most near to him, he
never failed to find in her — an understanding heart.
If ever any shadow came between them it was
at once dispelled by the first explanation.
This friendship was one of Bulwer-Lytton's
most precious possessions for nearly twenty years
— precious, not only for the affection which he
received through it, but also for the opportunity
which it afforded him of giving his best in
return. Even in his busiest moments, or his
hours of greatest distress, he never grudged her
a moment of his time. However overworked,
however worried, he always made a point of
providing some contribution to her Book of
Beauty, or one of the other annuals which she
used to edit. Her demands upon him in this
respect were frequent, but not one was made in
vain. In the last few years they had rarely met ;
but their correspondence continued almost up to
the time of her death.
He had written to her from Bournemouth on
January 25, 1849, in reply to an appreciative
letter from her on his poem of King Arthur : —
I am very much obliged to you, my dearest friend,
for your kind and gracious reception of Arthur. It
contains so much of my more spiritual self, whether
in the more scattered and outward thoughts, or in those
views of life which constitute its interior meanings,
114
THE END OF A LONG FRIENDSHIP
that it is more than the mere author's vanity, it is the 1849.
human being's self-love, that is gratified by your praise. &T. 46.
It is to a hard, practical, prosaic world, that the Fairy
King returns, after his long sojourn in the Oblivious
Lake ; and if he may yet find some pale reflection
of his former reign, it will take long years before the
incredulous will own that he is no impostor. The singer
believes in him, and is contented to wait for the converts.
I am most concerned to hear you have been so
serious a loser by Mr. Heath's * death. Had you not
his bills on giving the MSS. and are they not still
honoured ? or do his executors not find enough effects
to discharge his debts ? But I trust at least that the
annuals themselves will be continued by some one.
They satisfy an elegant want of so large a part of the
community that I do not think they can be suffered to
drop, and I sincerely and earnestly hope you may get
satisfactory terms from some publisher of capital and
enterprise.
I was sure that your warm heart would feel much
for poor Lord Auckland's 2 sudden and startling death.
These funeral bells make the only music of life that is
faithful to the last, more and more frequent as we
journey on ; the deafer heart ceases to hear them, and
the most sensitive must accustom itself to the chime.
I spent my son's holidays at Brighton, and now he
has left me I have wandered on to this more solitary
spot, where the air is milder, tho' I am not sure yet
that it agrees with me. I do not forget your most
kind invitation, and hope to profit by it when my
health will let me. At present I shape my movements
as the wand of my physician points, and as the winter
1 Charles Heath (1785-1848), an engraver who speculated in the
publication of fashionable " Annuals," and who survived their popularity.
2 George Eden, ist Earl of Auckland (1784-1849), Governor-General
of India.
"5
CHEQUERED YEARS
1849. advances to that colder winter which we call spring, I
£r. 46. shall probably wend my way into Devonshire.
The little parcel you are so kind as to name would
find me here, but perhaps you will keep it as a hostage
till I present myself at your palace gates.
With love to D'Orsay and kind regards to your
nieces — Believe me, Ever most truly & afftly. yrs.,
E. B. L.
In April 1849, a financial storm, which had
long been gathering, burst upon Lady Blessington's
head. Debts had to be met, and there was no
money to meet them. The assistance of friends
was declined ; Gore House with all its contents
was sold, and Lady Blessington and D'Orsay
retired to Paris. Ruin absolute and complete
had overtaken them. Though there was no
apparent sign of serious ill-health when Lady
Blessington arrived in Paris, she only survived a
few weeks the wreck of her fortunes. On hear-
ing of her financial crash Bulwer-Lytton wrote
to her on April 21 : —
I cannot say, my dear Friend, how pained, grieved,
and shocked I was by your letter, which I did not
receive for some days, as I was making some country
visits, and indeed it has taken me some time to reason
myself into the belief that your removal from a scene
of so much anxiety and struggle will be best for your
ultimate peace and happiness. I shall certainly do all
I can for the sale — alas the word ! — at Gore House,
and hope it will realise more than you count upon.
Phillips might clear something by allowing the house to
be seen a week before by persons only who buy the
catalogue ; but, of course, he will advise you for the
116
DEATH OF LADY BLESSINGTON
best. I shall be very anxious to hear how you like 1849.
Paris, and where you settle, and you certainly give me &T. 46.
the greatest inducement to visit it when I can. I go
into Germany to the baths the middle of May, but my
continental stjour will depend much on Edward's
health. He is delicate though not ill, and I am not
quite easy about him. Pray employ me in anything
I can do to be useful meanwhile.
I hope D'Orsay will get some good appointment to
his taste and suitable to his talents.
I only passed rapidly through London on my way
hither, where my address will be for the present. I
have no heart left to write about anything else but
yourself, and must beg you heartily to let me know
that you are well and comfortable as soon as you can
find leisure. — God ever bless you, my dearest friend,
Yrs. most affectly., F R T
Kindest regards to Alfred and your nieces.
This was the last letter which she received from
him. At the sale of her possessions he bought for
her the works of Byron in three volumes, with
her arms on the binding and painted landscapes
on the leaves. These books he instructed the
auctioneer to send to her ; but she died on June 4
before receiving this last tribute of his affection.
They are now preserved at Knebworth, as a
momento of a truly remarkable and gifted woman.
At the end of May, as indicated in his last
letter to Lady Blessington, Bulwer-Lytton went
abroad, and he did not return to England for a
whole year. He travelled about Germany for
some months, took his son to a school at Bonn,
and settled at Nice in October, where he
117
CHEQUERED YEARS
1849. remained until June 1850. Most of the states
Er. 46. of Europe were just beginning, to settle down
again from the violent political upheavals of the
previous year.
In France the Revolution of 1848 had over-
thrown the Government of Louis Philippe and
his Minister, Guizot, and established a Republic
under the presidency of Louis Napoleon. Re-
volution and Civil War in Austria had led to the
abdication of the Emperor Ferdinand and the
accession of his young nephew, Francis Joseph,
to the throne. The Hungarian rebellion had
been suppressed by the end of the summer of
1849, and Kossuth and his fellow exiles from
Hungary were being accorded a most sym-
pathetic welcome in England. Among the
German states the popular insurrections of 1848
had led to important gains for the constitutional
cause in Prussia, Bavaria, and Hanover ; but else-
where they had been put down by military force,
without the accomplishment of any permanent
results. In Italy the rising in the north against
the Austrian occupation had completely failed.
All hopes of Italian independence were shattered
for the moment by the crushing defeats of
Custozza and Novara. Charles Albert had
abdicated in March 1 849, and the young Victor
Emanuel was now King of Piedmont. In Rome
the papal rule, which had been temporarily over-
thrown in November 1848, was restored in 1849,
when the short-lived Republic of Mazzini and
Garibaldi was finally destroyed by the troops of
118
POLITICAL UPHEAVALS IN EUROPE
Louis Napoleon, the newly elected President of 1849.
the French Republic. &r. 46.
Reference to these events is made in some of
Bulwer-Lytton's letters at this time. To Forster
he writes from Ems on June 26, 1 849 : —
The world goes on in its iniquities. Rain succeeds
to sunshine, and the decrepit spectre of Papacy replaces
the brief, grand life of the triumvirate. Summer is fly-
ing fast from earth and man's heart, and with the fall
of the leaf Kossuth may be what Mazzini is. More
and more do we see that our only realm of liberty and
improvement is in our own individual natures. Hoc
regnum sibi quisque dat. Do you not grow sick of build-
ing bricks without straw in that Babel of politics week
after week ? As for me, if I had an Examiner ', I should
make it play strange tricks. It would be a miracle of
seeming inconsistency, and would be alternately Demo-
critus or Heraclitus, according as it wept or laughed
at the follies of that noisy abstraction called the People.
From Kreuznach in September he wrote
to Mr. Baillie - Cochrane (afterwards Lord
Lamington) 1 : —
I was much interested in your account of Cabrera.
It is the liveliest realisation of romance when we find
one of the actual heroes of the Middle Ages in the
midst of our modern civilisation. Cabrera and Garibaldi
are both men who seem to stalk out of history, and it
must be as strange to find oneself standing face to face
with them as if one had conjured up a captain who
1 A. D. R. W. Cochrane-Baillie (1816-1890), first Lord Lamington,
was an active member of the " Young England " party, and was drawn
as "Buckhurst" in Coningsby. He was one of the founders of The
Onvl. In early life he was known as Baillie-Cochrane, his father, Sir
Thomas Cochrane, having adopted the surname of his wife's grandfather.
119
CHEQUERED YEARS
1849. had fought with the Cid, or an enthusiast who had
. 46. dreamt with Rienzi. Amidst our child's play between
Radicalism and Conservatism there is something vast and
grand in those earnest, antiquated types of the rough
originals of the contest. Republicanism on the Rampart,
and Loyalty on the war horse. Honour to both say I !
Later in the year he writes again: —
Edward Bulwer-Lytton to John Forster.
NICE, Oct. 26.
MY DEAR FORSTER — I am arrived at Nice after a
long and fatiguing journey, which I did not much
regret, partly because I again saw the Lakes Maggiore
and Como, and satisfied myself that they would be very
disagreeable places of residence, and it is always well to
destroy effeminate illusions ; partly because my delay in
Austrian Lombardy and Piedmont enabled me to look
a little practically and dispassionately at the real state of
affairs in those battle grounds of Italy. There can be
no question as to the universal and almost bold detesta-
tion of Austrian rule in Lombardy, but from that very
detestation arises much exaggeration. Anecdotes of
cruelty mentioned to me with lively horror, proceed,
when examined close, to be but the simplest hardships
incident on military occupation. Stories of venerable
princes, turned out of their homes, their palaces pillaged,
&c., proved to have nothing in them beyond the
necessary and very quiet billeting of half a dozen
soldiers in some situation which a military eye deemed
advisable. The Austrians have not, in fact, behaved
in Italy as they have in Hungary, nor can one dis-
passionately enter and survey Austrian Lombardy with-
out being greatly struck by the superiority which a
country only can secure from its Government, not only
over the greater part of Italy, but over Republican
120
THE CONDITION OF ITALY
Switzerland. All that relates to agriculture, to town 1849.
policy and police, to law and civilisation and progress, JEr. 4.6.
all that a brute tyranny would stop, but a polished
absolutism cherish, speaks with historical force in favour
of this hated Austrian domination.
The mass of the people, however, are not yet so
cowed as is represented, and would be ready to rise
again at the first insurrectionary standard — but not so
the nobles, nor the property classes ; most of these latter
were neutral before, now they are thoroughly frightened,
and it is the absence of any strong, ardent patriotism
ready for sacrifice on the part of these classes, that
would render abortive any sustained effort on the part
of the Austrian Italians.
We all know what the people are without leaders or
with only such leaders as lawyers and professional men,
literati, &c. This, of course, does not apply to Venice,
where the nobles and the populace loved, thought and
fought as with the pulse of one great heart.
In Piedmont there is great bluster, but any sensible
well-informed Piedmontese, however patriotic, at once
despises the bluster and deplores it. 1 arrived at Turin
just after the grand funeral procession in honour of
poor Charles Albert. I went to see the chapel, still
lighted up and tricked out, wherein his bier had reposed.
A temporary Gothic fa$ade had been erected, wherein
was written what I thus verbally translate and which
seems to me fine : — " Italians — who ever ye be — enter
and pray to the God of Warriors and of Martyrs
that He may admit to His glory the great soul of that
King — Carlo Alberto — who did so much and suffered
so much to obtain for Italy the supreme good of nations
— Independence."
I entered the chapel with the crowd. It was
decorated as in boxes, like a theatre, ermine and velvet
and gold fringe. As I came up the steps to the gilded
121
CHEQUERED YEARS
1849. dome in which the King's coffin had been placed, I felt
JET. 46. a thrill and tears in my eyes. But turning round, I saw
the Italian congregation cold and indifferent ; only at
the outskirts one or two old peasants praying — the rest
might have been in the saloon at Covent Garden.
Nevertheless, Charles Albert has left a beloved and
honoured name, but rather with civilians than the
military. They lay the fault of their defeat on his
shoulders ; and they, too, are generally disgusted with
war and have had " their bellies full."
There seems no respect for the Chamber nor the
Constitution. The most popular newspapers, those that
are posted on columns and bought by the operatives,
are anti-democratic. There is a general feeling, rather
hinted than spoken openly, in favour of retrogression
rather than progress. The admirable executive of
Charles Albert is missed, and the people as yet don't
care three straws for franchise and parliament.
Along and tedious journey across the Col di Tenda(an
Alpine pass I had not yet seen, but which, though little tra-
versed, comparatively, has details of more bold and strik-
ing beauty than either the St. Gothard, the Simplon or the
Mount Cenis) brought me here last night. This morning
I send for my letters and find none from you. Monster !
I am delighted to see Macready had so brilliant a
reception. I wish it might induce him to prolong " the
leaving of it." To-day I have been hunting for houses
or villas, and hope in a few days to be settled here for
the winter among orange groves and aloes. The air is
perfectly languid with sweets and the sea calmer than the
Thames at Richmond. Can nothing tempt you ? My
house, whatever it be, will have rooms to spare, and here
are epicurean attractions. The journey through France is
nothing ! I expect very agreeable people here this winter,
so that if you can come — but you won't ! Monster again !
I see that Blackwood has brought out The Caxtons,
122
LETTERS TO FORSTER
with what success I know not yet. My only letter 1849.
thereon is one from Macaulay whose critical eye has &r. 46.
detected a sad blunder certainly of mine, which I can't
think how I made — a Roundhead mob is somewhere or
other called a malignant mob, an epithet of course only
applicable to the Cavaliers — very like Macaulay to
fasten on that blunder ! I don't know whether I
thanked you for your proposed re-review of Pelham.
Should you have space and leisure for it, perhaps a few
short extracts of any expressions or similes, or individual
lines that please you might serve to help it, seeing that
with most of the reviews extracts are spurned. Colburn
gives a pretty good account of its progress on the whole.
I am very much better as yet, and hope you are well
and thriving. — I am, Ever yrs. most affy.,
E. B. L.
The same to the same.
NICE, Nov. loth, 1849.
MY DEAR FORSTER — Your two letters reached me
the same day. A thousand thanks 'for your hearty
mention of The Caxtons, which gave me more pleasure
than I can well express. I suppose there is a great deal
in Colley Gibber's theatrical observation, that if you re-
present villains the public think you must be a villain,
if amiable characters, they give you some credit for
amiability. I have always remarked that Macready
does not like your up-hill parts, and no doubt owes a
great deal of the esteem which accompanies his reputa-
tion to the admirable manner in which he expresses
domestic virtues, whereas if he had played nothing but
Shylocks and Richard the Thirds the English would
have thought the Yankee attempt to burn him natural,
perhaps excusable !
I am writing to you as if from the garden of
123
CHEQUERED YEARS
1849. Hesperides. In all Italy I have seen nothing to my
JEr. 46. mind like the environs of Nice. They have a variety
denied to Naples and a vegetation that equals those old
poetic haunts of the Roman voluptuaries. The palm
tree shadows your window, the aloe hangs over your
wall, the strange shapes of the cactus divert you at
your threshold. You lose your way mile after mile,
amidst orange groves and forests of olive, and alleys
of arching vine, through which, as you ascend some
unfelt hill (unfelt, because your senses are so charmed),
gleams the sea, sparkling in sunlight.
My own residence is a little apart from the town,
yet near enough for " gaiety " when I want it. I
command the most extensive view of land and sea —
breakfast at the open window, gazing on the butterflies,
and now and then flying from the wasps, and walk out
in summer trousers and silk jacket, with an umbrella —
not against the rains, O Londoner ! but the glare of
the hot November sun ! But for the gnats there would
be no amari aliquid in this media fonte leporum. And
a capital opera box twice a week for £8 the season ! of
six months ! I wish I could add his utere mecum. But
your Examiner and dinners and politics and expected
Kossuths — ah, miserable man !
I am reading some Latin authors I have never read
before (except in shreds and fragments); getting fast
through Seneca's prose works. By Jove, he is a most
Christian writer ! I admire him exceedingly, though
sometimes he proses awfully and comes out with the
oddest expressions. What do you think he calls
Alexander the Great? After citing one of the anec-
dotes usually narrated in honour of that distinguished
Macedonian, he burst forth Tumidissimum Animal.
" Swollenest Animal ! " I laughed for a quarter of an
hour. I thought of Alexander's astonishment if anyone
had so addressed him in life. I have pretty nearly
124
NICE
cleared my way through all the Minor Latin poets — 1849.
Claudian, exquisitely lovable, and such pretty diction. JEr. 46.
Silius Italicus — fine bits — but the most curious of all
I have read (or rather am now reading for the first
time) is the Satyricon of Petronius. What a light it
throws upon the age, what a glossary to Tacitus ! The
finest gentleman in Nero's Court — a man of the most
scholarly and refined taste, no doubt, in the opinion of
his age — stringing together, with an easy humour which
reminds one of Le Sage, the most horrible depravities,
one after the other, quite as things of course,
specimens of the manners of the day. After reading
that book, how thankful one feels to the stout old Gauls
for coming and sweeping away such a rot of civilisation.
But I must now come to business. You put last
in your kind wishes for my literary occupations, the
desire that I should write another Caxtonian book !
My dear Forster, that is already in great forwardness,
and indeed I have been so wrapt in it that I put aside
all letter writing till I could come to the end of Vol.
I. or Part 5, which I did this morning. This is the
reason why I did not write to you before. I take the
earliest opportunity after my confinement ! If I can
but make it end well I think it will be the chef-d 'ceuvre
of my novels, but I suspect that will be very difficult.
I have never yet ventured so boldly on humour. But
disagreeably enough, the story seems to require a tragic
end, after a purely comic conduct, and that won't do,
though as yet I see no help for it ; more meo I lay aside
the book to cool on it, and in the interim am ready for
Brutus, and will try my hand again on the Sea Captain.
I don't expect to satisfy myself at all with the last, but
the Brutus could be very easily done, as you suggest,
if 1 could have the play again. (I have no copy.)
Could you not send it to me through the Foreign Office
to the care of La Croix, Consul, Nice ? Fonblanque is
I25
CHEQUERED YEARS
1849. always seeing Stanley, who would do it. In that case,
. 46. enclose with it the letters you have for me and Edward.
If I had it for a week I could finish off and return the
third act, as you suggest. But there — you must con-
sider well before you entrust it to the stage. The
money is a very good thing, but my reputation, Sir
Knight, think of that, and a half success at Sadler's
Wells, for which, I suppose, you design it, would be
"a heavy blow and a great discouragement" to that
frail vested interest.
I will return with it the Poems arranged for two
vols. ; and if I can do the Sea Captain, he will come too.
To Lord Walpole, who was then in Rome,
he writes towards the end of 1 849 : —
Edward Bulwer-Lytton to Lord Walpole.
You interest me in the Romans by your account of
their good conduct. But what is to become of the
Pope ? and what were his real faults ? Did he reform
too much or not enough ? or was he really in that state
of Society when a man ceases to be more than a foot-
ball for Fortune to kick a little while about the play-
ground, and then leave rolled up in a corner ?
I don't know whether I envy your semi-military,
semi-philosophical amusements, in what appear now to
be unmetaphorically the fumum strepitumque Romae. I
remember that Scipio says he never enjoyed any battle
so much as one he saw merely as a spectator when he
was on a visit at Carthage. But I should fancy it
rather like looking on at whist, which always makes
me more fidgety than if I was playing myself. Those
Romans seem, however, to have played their cards so
beautifully that I fancy you must have been giving
them a hint — told Garibaldi when to trump out, and
126
LETTERS TO LORD WALPOLE
when to give that politic trick to the French. Un- 1850.
metaphorically, the sending back the prisoners was ^ET. 47.
exceedingly wise.
I was extremely amused by your philosophical
regrets that the cannon balls should suspend the
excavations, and your interest in the feuds of the three
Savants amidst the impia proelia — auditumque Medis
Hesperiae sonitum ruinae. It is the best practical illustra-
tion of the aesthetic ethics I know of — soaring up into
the regions of art and beauty from the terrors and
crimes of this vulgar world below.
I expect to hear from you all about Garibaldi and
Mazzini. I am at present quite an enthusiast for them.
I hope you will not disenchant me. But in all Europe
I have seen nothing so heroic and with so good a cause ;
but, alas ! so hopeless.
The same to the same.
NICE, March 25, 1850.
I can't say how grieved I am, my dear Walpole, to
see that you were under the influence of those demons
called blues (why blue, I wonder ?) when you wrote to
me, and I fear you have been sadly hipping yourself in
that city which more than all others seems to me to
require a mind at ease, for enjoyment. For there is
something so serene and still in all that belongs to the
classical world, whether its literature, its art, or its
architecture, the ghost-like solemnity of its remains,
that one must be free from all the worry of this actual
positive life to enter into its tomb-like ideal. I feel
this even with books. I was at peace here for some
time, and read the classics with pleasure ; things have
occurred to annoy and fidget me, and lo, Seneca has
grown the dullest of bores, and the Elegiasts (on whom
I had been taking notes con amore), the most maudlin
127
CHEQUERED YEARS
1850. and insipid of triflers. And as the literature there
JE.T. 47. appears to me, so must Rome — that great book of stone
— seem to you. In worry one must have the calm of
living nature, or the distraction of the positive world.
However, this goes to find you at Milan ; and though
I have no great faith in the charm of mere travelling,
I heartily hope that the change of scene and bustle of
movement will have done you great good.
You make me very proud by what you say so kindly
as to my scribbling, and the associations you connect
with it. I am a believer in the duality of the mind —
all of us really have two minds, one which we take into
the world, carry into the clubs, walk the streets with,
and use every day — a mind which contains in it such
portion of common sense as Nature is pleased to give
us, together with a large number of sour, cynical
notions that our experience has contrived to pick up.
This is the mind that enables us to make, or disposes
us to squander our money — the mind that says worldly
witticisms and does sometimes prudent things, some-
times bad actions, is rather ashamed to be good, and
makes us seem either wickeder or wiser than we are.
Then there is another mind in which we pack up such
sentiments as the world has not spoiled, our poetical
emotions, our conceptions of what is pure or heroic —
a mind that vanishes altogether when we walk into
Bond Street, and are mere men amongst men !
Now this last-mentioned mind of mine delights in
the country (the country of England) — the green lanes
and the hawthorn tree ; and after a certain time, out
peers the other mind and says " Now, it's my turn —
you waste your life in green fields, you only shave
every other day. Order yourself a new coat, put your
poetry and your conscience into its pocket — go to town
— play at whist — play the devil ! " . . .
The real secret at our age (if I may, sinking some
128
RETURN TO ENGLAND
years' difference, indulge in that plural) would be the 1850.
proper arrangement of one's life into something like &T. 47.
orderly method, avoiding the passions, but not the affec-
tions, getting rid of false excitements and the necessity
of that stimulant — change — whether in persons or things.
In short, trying to concentre one's existence so that one
might get into the circle the enjoyments most to our
individual tastes, and least injurious to other people.
Moreover, I have a great idea that one ought to
play at life as one does at backgammon, and cover the
blots ; if one must do a bad action, look about to find
out a good one, and so make ourselves square. For
it's a strange thing that though many of our worst
afflictions arise from our most generous and high-
minded intentions, yet I find that those afflictions never
make us regret the intentions that caused them. It is
a great thing to say, " Damn it, I did it for the best."
In a letter to Forster, dated May 20, 1850,
Bulwer-Lytton announces his intention of re-
turning home, and adds : —
I return to England with a reluctant spirit ; hard
stepmother has that arida nutrix leonum been to me.
When I see how Whigs and Liberals have united to
thrust me from Parliament, and critics and authorlings
from my due place in letters, I find little to reconcile
me to the fogs and east winds of the White Isle — little
but the pleasure of greeting such friends as you, who
are not to be found abroad.
The querulous tone of these words repre-
sented but a passing mood. Within a year he had
again resumed an active interest in politics, and
soon afterwards won for himself a distinguished
position in the public life of the country.
VOL. II 129 K
CHAPTER V
THE GUILD OF LITERATURE AND ART
1851
It takes much marble to build the sepulchre — how little of lath and
plaster would have repaired the garret !
Night and Morning.
Some fortress for youth in the battle of fame ;
Some shelter that age is not humbled to claim ;
Some roof from the storms for the pilgrim of Knowledge —
Not unlike what our ancestors meant by a college.
Epilogue to Not so Bad as We seem.
1850. BULWER-LYTTON returned to England in June
r. 47. 1850, and resumed the occupations of a country
squire at Knebworth. He wrote to Lord
Walpole from there on August 1 1 : —
My time at present is occupied in repairing farms,
opening schools, etc. There are two things in life
which bring a man in connection with that grave
happiness called Duty. One is a fortunate marriage,
the other a landed property. As I missed the one, I
am pleased to see that the other compels one, nolens
vokns, to rouse oneself from one's egoism, and to one's
amaze act for other people. You will find this some
day, and find it still more, perhaps, in being also a
hereditary legislator.
I often think over the wisdom of a saying of
Goethe's, "Nothing keeps the mind more healthful
130
THEATRICALS AT KNEBWORTH
than having something in common with the mass of 1850.
mankind." Property and politics both help to do this, ^Er, 47.
whereas literature takes one away from it.
In the autumn he arranged a great theatrical
performance at Knebworth, in which Dickens
took a very prominent part. Three private
performances were given of Ben Jonson's Every
Man in His Humour,1 and the success of the
1 The amateur cast at these theatricals was as follows : —
BEN JONSON'S COMEDY
of
EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR.
KNOWELL, an old Gentleman . . ,
EDWARD KNOWELL, his Son
BRAINWORM, the Father's Man .
GEORGE DOWNRIGHT, a plain Squire .
WELLBRED, his Half-brother . . .
KITELY, a Merchant . ...
CAPTAIN BOBADIL, a Paul's Man
MASTER STEPHEN, a Country Gull .
MASTER MATHEW, the Town Gull .
THOMAS CASH, Kitely's Cashier . . .
OLIVER COB, a Water-bearer
JUSTICE CLEMENT, an old merry Magistrate
ROGER FORMAL, his Clerk
DAME KITELY, Kitely's Wife . . .
MISTRESS BRIDGET, his Sister .
TIB, Cob's Wife . . . ' .
Mr. Delm£ Radcliffe.
Mr. Henry Hawkins.
Mr. Mark Lemon.
Mr. Frank Stone.
Mr. Henry Hale.
Mr. John Forster.
Mr. Charles Dickens.
Mr. Douglas Jerrold.
Mr. John Leech.
Mr. Frederick Dickens.
Mr. Augustus Egg.
The Hon. Eliot Yorke, M.P.
Mr. Phantom.
Miss Mary Boyle.
Miss Hogarth.
Mrs. Charles Dickens.
The Epilogue by Mr. Delme' Radcliffe.
To conclude with Mrs. Inch bald's Farce,
ANIMAL MAGNETISM
THE DOCTOR . -"" .'
LA FLEUR.
THE MARQUESS DE LANCY
JEFFREY . . »
CONSTANCE
LISETTE
. Mr. Charles Dickens.
. Mr. Mark Lemon.
. Mr. John Leech.
. Mr. Augustus Egg.
. Miss Hogarth.
, v . . '.,". Miss Mary Boyle.
Stage Manager — Mr. CHARLES DICKENS.
GUILD OF LITERATURE AND ART
1851. undertaking led Dickens to suggest that a re-
. 48. petition of such an entertainment might be used
to further a scheme in which the two authors
were deeply interested. The object of this
scheme was the endowment of a literary guild
to serve as a sort of College and Home of Rest
in the country for authors and artists who were
prevented by poverty from producing really
good work.
Bulwer-Lytton had known in his own life
some of the struggles imposed upon an author
who has to write for his living, and he had
witnessed many painful experiences among his less
fortunate friends in the literary world. One such
experience had impressed itself very painfully
on his mind a few years previously. This was
the tragic death of Laman Blanchard — the most
genial and lovable personality in the literary
world of that day. Blanchard was one of those
who received their first recognition and en-
couragement from Bulwer-Lytton at the time
he was editing The New Monthly Magazine ; and
in later years he became the intimate and much-
loved friend of Dickens, Thackeray, Forster,
Harrison Ainsworth, Douglas Jerrold, and indeed
of most of the successful authors of the day.
Bulwer-Lytton said of him in a little memoir
which he wrote after his death for the benefit
of Blanchard's family : —
To most of those who have mixed generally with
the men who, in our day, have chosen literature as a
profession, the name of Laman Blanchard brings
132
LAMAN BLANCHARD
recollections of peculiar tenderness and regret. Amidst 1851.
a career which the keenness of anxious rivalry renders JET. 48.
a sharp probation to the temper and the affections —
often more embittered by that strife of party of which
in a representative constitution few men of letters
escape the eager passions and the angry prejudice — they
recall the memory of a competitor without envy, a
partizan without gall ; firm as the firmest in the
maintenance of his own opinions ; but gentle as the
gentlest in the judgment he passed on others.
Who among our London brotherhood of letters
does not miss that simple cheerfulness, that inborn
exquisite urbanity, that childlike readiness to be pleased
with all, that happy tendency to panegyrise every merit
and be lenient to every fault? Who does not recall
that acute and delicate susceptibility, so easily wounded
and therefore so careful not to wound, which seemed
to infuse a certain intellectual fine breeding of for-
bearance and sympathy into every society where it
insinuated its gentle way ? Who in convivial meetings
does not miss, and will not miss for ever, the sweetness
of those unpretending talents, the earnestness of that
honesty which seemed unconscious, it was worn so
lightly — the mild influence of that exuberant kindness
which softened the acrimony of young disputants, and
reconciled the secret animosities of jealous rivals ? Yet
few men had experienced more to sour them than
Laman Blanchard, or had gone more resolutely through
the author's hardening ordeal of narrow circumstance,
of daily labour, and of that disappointment in the
higher aims of ambition which must almost inevitably
befall those who attain ideal standards of excellence, to
be reached but by time and leisure, and who are yet
condemned to draw hourly on unmatured resources
for the practical wants of life. To have been engaged
from boyhood in such struggles, and to have preserved,
GUILD OF LITERATURE AND ART
1851. undiminished, generous admiration for those more
r.,48. fortunate, and untiring love for his own noble yet
thankless calling — and this with a constitution singularly
finely strung, and with all the nervous irritability which
usually accompanies the indulgence of the imagination
— is a proof of the rarest kind of strength, depending
less upon a power purely intellectual, than upon the
higher and more beautiful heroism which a woman, and
such men alone as have the best feelings of a woman's
nature, take from instinctive enthusiasm for what is
great, and uncalculating faith in what is good."
This was a fine tribute from one literary man
to another, yet, judging from the degree of
affection which Blanchard aroused amongst his
very varied acquaintance, it was not overstated.
Laman Blanchard's experience of the hard-
ships of professional literature, and of the trials
of the literary temperament, was typical of many
others. He was born at Great Yarmouth,
Norfolk, on May 15, 1803 — the same year and
the same month as Bulwer-Lytton himself —
the son of a painter and glazier who afterwards
settled in Southwark. The boy distinguished
himself at St. Olave's School, but his father
could not afford him the advantages of a
university education ; and at the age of thirteen
he obtained employment in the office of Mr.
Charles Pearson, a proctor in Doctors' Commons.
At this age he had already begun to write and
publish poetry, both lyrical and dramatic. The
drama specially attracted him, and shortly
afterwards, abandoning his uncongenial and
134
A LIFE OF STRUGGLE
unpromising employment in the proctor's office, 1851.
he tried his fortunes on the stage. He did not MT. 4
succeed as an actor, but he owed to this experi-
ment the friendship of Mr. Buckstone, the
celebrated comedian. He then became a reader
in the office of Messrs. Bayliss in Fleet Street,
and first a contributor, afterwards sub-editor of
The Monthly Magazine. To this appointment
was added the editorship of another literary
journal called the Belle Assemblee. From the
literary he passed to the political press, and was
associated in the editorship of The True Son, The
Constitutional, and other papers of that kind. He
also directed The Court yournal, was an habitual
contributor to AinswortKs Magazine, and was
employed during the later years of his life upon
the Examiner.
In 1828, when he was twenty-five years old,
he had published Lyric Offerings, a small volume
of poems, which in 1832 he sent to the editor of
the New Monthly Magazine. " I was," says
Bulwer-Lytton, " so delighted with the promise
of these poems that I reviewed them in terms
of praise which maturer reflection does not
induce me to qualify." The sudden loss of the
editorship of the Courier (owing to a change in
the proprietors and politics of that journal)
deprived Blanchard of an income which was for
him considerable, and he was thrown into great
pecuniary difficulties, having by this time
married and become the father of four children.
Bulwer-Lytton endeavoured, without success, to
135
GUILD OF LITERATURE AND ART
1851. obtain for him some small appointment from
T. 48. the Whigs who were then in office. His
struggles rapidly grew harder and his health
weaker. Bulwer-Lytton, who had several times
sent him anonymous assistance through Forster,
fearing that Blanchard's affairs were not going
well, offered to him and his family, rent free,
a house which then belonged to him in the
neighbourhood of London. But Mrs. Blanchard
was too ill to be moved. Shortly afterwards, on
December 16, 1844, she died. Her husband
was completely prostrated by her death. Not
only his health but his mind gave way; and a
few weeks later he died in circumstances which
are thus described by Bulwer-Lytton in the
memoir from which I have already quoted : —
Towards 4 o'clock in the afternoon of Friday
[February 14, 1845] hysterics came on with great
vehemence. He required several people to hold him
down. On the visit of his usual medical attendant he
recovered, but the reaction left him completely exhausted.
Towards night he thought he could sleep. He dismissed
his family to bed, and affectionately bade them good-
night. A kind-hearted woman, who had attended Mrs.
Blanchard in her last illness, now officiated as nurse to
himself. He requested her to remain in the next room,
within hearing of his knock on the wall if he should
want her. His youngest boy, since his illness, had slept
constantly with him. The nurse had not retired five
minutes before she heard his signal. On her going to
him, he said, " You had better not leave me ; I feel a
strong desire to throw myself out of the window." The
poor woman, who had rather consulted her heart than
136
LAMAN BLANCHARD'S DEATH
her experience in the office she had undertaken, lost her 1851.
presence of mind in the alarm these words occasioned. ^Er. 4
She hurried out of the room in order to call up the
eldest son. She had scarcely reached the staircase when
she heard a shriek and a heavy fall. Hastening back
she found her master on the floor, bathed in blood. In
the interval between her quitting the room and her re-
turn (scarce a minute) the unhappy sufferer, who had
in vain sought protection from his own delirious
impulse, had sprung from his bed, wrested himself from
the grasp of the child beside him ... in the almost
total darkness of the room found his way, with the
instinct of the sleepwalker or the maniac, to his razor,
and was dead when the nurse raised him in her arms.
The mind, ground into unnatural sharpness by over-
fatigue, and over-grief, had, not worn, but cut through
the scabbard. Thus at the early age of forty-one,
broken in mind and body, perished this industrious,
versatile, and distinguished man of letters.
I have described at some length the circum-
stances of Laman Blanchard's life and death to
illustrate the kind of case which was in the
mind of Bulwer-Lytton and Dickens when, five
years later, they embarked upon their ambitious
scheme of trying to lighten the hardships and
relieve the minds of such literary toilers. Bulwer-
Lytton thus commented upon the story which I
have just summarised : —
Born at an earlier day, Laman Blanchard would
probably have known sharper trials of pecuniary
circumstances ; and instead of the sufficient though pre-
carious income which his reputation as a periodical
writer afforded him, he might have often slept in the
GUILD OF LITERATURE AND ART
1851. garret and been fortunate if he had not as often dined
r. 48. in the cellar. But then he would have been compelled
to put forth all that was in him of mind and genius ;
to have written books, not papers ; and books, intended
not for the week or the month, but for permanent effect
upon the public. . . . On the other hand, had he
been born a German, and exhibited at Bonn or Jena the
same abilities and zeal for knowledge which distinguished
him in the school at Southwark, he would, doubtless,
have early attained to some competence which would
have allowed full leisure and fair play to a character of
genius which, naturally rather elegant than strong, re-
quired every advantage of forethought and preparation.
In criticising Blanchard's early poems in the
New Monthly he had said : —
Let him not forget that periodical writing is the
grave of much genius. It leads men to write more
than they reflect. All great works require stern and
silent meditation. We must brood deeply over what
we wish to last long. The power of genius is increased
by the abundance of fuel that supplies it.
This criticism elicited from the poet journalist
a letter in which he spoke of his looking forward
to a time when he might realise the cherished
dreams of his youth, escape from his hurried
compositions for the day and the hour, return
into his inner self, and there meditate the pro-
duction of some work which might justify his
critic's belief in the promise of his early efforts.
Such a time never came to Laman Blanchard ;
but Bulwer Lytton and Dickens were determined
that, if they could prevent it, no struggling author
138
OBJECTS OF THE INSTITUTION
or artist should again be placed in the same 1851.
predicament. By the establishment of their ^ET. 48.
" Guild of Literature and Art " they hoped to be
able to supply to the authors of the future that
period of rest and freedom from mental anxiety
which is necessary to the production of really
durable work. Their new institution was to take
the place of the professional chairs in Germany
which " had not only saved many a scholar from
famine, many a genius from despair, but, by
offering subsistence and dignity to that valuable
class of writers whose learning and capacities unfit
them by reason of their very depth for1 wide
popularity, had given worthy and profitable
inducements to grave study, and more than all
else had maintained the German fame for patient
erudition and profound philosophy."
With these thoughts in their mind, Bulwer-
Lytton and Dickens now laid their plans. It
was agreed between them that the former should
write a comedy, and that it should be produced
by an amateur cast first in London and then in
the provinces, the proceeds being devoted to the
endowment of their cherished scheme. The
play, a five act comedy, called Many Sides to a
Character^ or Not so Bad as We seem, was finished
early in 1851 and proved worthy of the cause
which it was to serve. Macready, who had just
retired from the stage, wrote enthusiastically on
seeing the MS. " I have read," he said, "with
very great delight, the comedy. I have the
highest opinion of it. Alas ! things of this sort
139
GUILD OF LITERATURE AND ART
1851. would have kept me on the stage. Wilmot is
ET. 48. a splendid part. The comedy is a hit, and no
mistake."
The play was first produced at Devonshire
House on May 16, 1851, before the Queen, the
Prince Consort, and a large fashionable audience.1
THE DUKE OF MIDDLESEX
THE EARL OF LOFTUS
1 DRAMATIS PERSONS.
Original Cast.
( Peers attached tcr
the son of James Mr.
II., commonly -
called the First Mr.
.Pretender.
LORD WILMOT, a young man at the head of
the mode more than a century ago, son
to Lord Loftus .....
MR. SHADOWLY SOFTHEAD, a young gentle-
man from the city, friend and double to
Lord Wilmot ..... Mr.
HARDMAN, a rising Member of Parliament,
and adherent to Sir Robert Walpole . Mr.
SIR GEOFFREY THORNSIDE, a gentleman of
good family and estate .... Mr.
MR. GOODENOUGH EASY, in business, highly
respectable, and a friend of Sir Geoffrey . Mr.
LORD LE TRIMMER ( Frequenters of \ Mr.
SIR THOMAS TIMID \ Will's Coffee VMr.
Frank Stone.
Dudley Costello.
Mr. Charles Dickens.
Douglas Jerrold.
John Forster.
Mark Lemon.
E. W. Topham.
Peter Cunningham
Westland Marston.
R. H. Home.
Charles Knight.
Wilkie Collins.
John Tenniel.
Robert Bell.
COLONEL FLINT, a Fire-eater (.House J Mr.
MR. JACOB TONSON, a Bookseller . . Mr.
SMART, valet to Lord Wilmot . . . Mr.
HODGE, servant to Sir Geoffrey Thornside . Mr.
PADDY O'SULLIVAN, Mr. Fallen's landlord . Mr.
MR. DAVID FALLEN, Grub Street Author and
Pamphleteer Mr. Augustus Egg, A. R.A.
Coffee-House Loungers, Drawers, Newsmen, Watchmen, etc., etc.
LUCY, daughter to Sir Geoffrey Thornside . Mrs. Compton.
BARBARA, daughter to Mr. Easy . . . Miss Ellen Chaplin.
THE SILENT LADY OF DEADMAN'S LANE
(LADY THORNSIDE) . . .
Date of Play — The Reign of George I. Scene — London.
Time supposed to be occupied, from the noon of the first day to the
afternoon of the second.
140
SUCCESS OF THE PLAY
Its success was complete, and after a number of 1851.
performances at the Hanover Square Rooms the ^T- 48
Company started on a tour through the provinces,
visiting most of the chief towns in England. In
all these proceedings Dickens was the life and
soul of the undertaking. He made himself
responsible for all the business arrangements, and
whilst he was thoroughly practical and efficient
in the capacity of Actor Manager, he was all the
time on fire with zeal for the cause in which he
was engaged. This enthusiasm he contributed
not only to his fellow actors, but to the large
audiences who crowded to see him and applauded
him wildly.
To Bulwer-Lytton he wrote on February 15,
1852 :—
MY DEAR BULWER — I left Liverpool at 4 o'clock
this morning, and am so blinded by excitement, gas,
and waving hats and handkerchiefs, that I can scarcely
see to write ; but I cannot go to bed without telling you
what a triumph we have had. Allowing for the
necessarily heavy expenses of all kinds, I believe we
can scarcely fund less than a thousand pounds out of
this trip alone, and more than that. The extraordinary
interest taken in the idea of the Guild of " this grand
people of England " down in those vast hives, and the
enthusiastic welcome they give it, assure me that we
may do what we will, if we will only be true and
faithful to our design. There is a social recognition of
it which I cannot give you the least idea of. I
sincerely believe that we have the ball at our feet, and
may throw it up to the very Heaven of Heavens.
And I don't speak for myself alone, but for all our
141
GUILD OF LITERATURE AND ART
1851. people, and not least of all for Forster, who has been
fiL-r. 48. absolutely stunned by the tremendous earnestness of
these great places.
To tell you (especially after your affectionate letter)
what I would have given to have had you there, would
be idle, but I can most seriously say that all the sights
of the earth turn pale in my eyes before the sight of
three thousand people with one heart among them, and
no capacity in them, in spite of all their efforts, of
sufficiently testifying to you how they believe you to be
right and feel that they cannot do enough to cheer you
on. They understood the play (far better acted this time
than ever you have seen if) as well as you do. They
allowed nothing to escape them. They rose up when
it was over with a perfect fury of delight, and the
Manchester people sent a requisition after us to Liver-
pool to say that if we will go back there in May, when
we act at Birmingham (as of course we shall), they will
joyfully undertake to fill the Free Trade Hall again.
Among the Tories of Liverpool the reception was
especially enthusiastic. We played two nights running
to a Hall crowded to the roof, more like the opera at
Geneva or Milan than anything else I can compare it
to. We dined at the Town Hall magnificently, and it
made no difference in the response. I said what we
were quietly determined to do (when the Guild was
given as the Toast of the night), and really they were
so noble and generous in their encouragement that I
should have been more ashamed of myself than I hope
I ever shall be if I could have felt conscious of having
ever for a moment faltered in the work.
I will answer for Birmingham, for any great work-
ing town to which we choose to go. We have won a
position for the idea which years upon years of labour
could not have given it. I believe its worldly fortunes
to have been advanced in this last week, fifty years at
142
THE COMPANY ON TOUR
least. I fully express to you what Forster (who couldn't 1851.
be at Liverpool, and has not those shouts ringing in his ^Er. 48.
ears) has felt from the moment we set foot in Manchester.
Believe me, we may carry a perfect fiery cross through
the North of England and over the border, in this cause,
if need be — not only to the enrichment of the cause, but
to the lasting enlistment of the people's sympathy.
I have been so happy in all this, that I could have
cried on the shortest notice any time since Tuesday,
and I do believe that our whole body would have gone
to the North Pole with me, if I had shown them good
reason for it.
I strongly question now whether it is expedient to
contemplate as yet any specific time for discontinuing
these exertions. I will think of it between this and
Saturday, when we meet, but I am very much disposed
to put it to the rest that we must go on while great
towns remain open to us.
I hope I am not so tired but that you may be able
to read this. I have been at it, almost incessantly,
day and night, for a week, and I am afraid my hand-
writing suffers. But in all other respects I am only a
giant refreshed.
The company are going to dine with me on Monday
the ist of March, at a quarter past 6. I will not ask
you to come, fearing you may not be well enough.
We meet next Saturday, you recollect ? Until then
and ever afterwards, believe me, heartily yours,
C. D.
Birmingham, Sheffield, Derby, Newcastle,
Sunderland, were visited in turn, and the pro-
vincial tour was closed by a public dinner at
Manchester, at which Bulwer-Lytton and Dickens
were both present, and explained their scheme.
GUILD OF LITERATURE AND ART
1851. " Bulwer spoke brilliantly at the Manchester
T. 48. dinner," wrote Dickens to Forster, " and his
earnestness and determination about the Guild
were most impressive. It carried everything
before it. They are now getting up annual
subscriptions, and will give us a revenue to begin
with. I swear I believe that people to be the
greatest in the world."
The necessary funds, about £4000, were at last
collected, though it was still some years before
the scheme was complete. In 1854 Bulwer-
Lytton carried a Bill through Parliament l to
incorporate the Guild of Literature and Art with
the following objects : — (i) To aid those of its
members who follow Literature or the Fine
Arts as a profession, and to obtain insurances
upon their lives ; (2) to establish a Provident
Sickness Fund for its members ; (3) to pro-
vide dwellings for its members, and to grant
annuities to them or their widows. In 1863 he
made a free gift to the Guild of a site of land
upon his estate on which the houses were built.
It is sad to have to record that the scheme
which had been set on foot with so much enthusi-
asm and hard work proved a lamentable failure.
All that its promoters could do was done ; but the
co-operation of those for whom the Guild was
established was not forthcoming. Its membership
did not increase, and when the original founders
died there were none to take their places. The
houses had to be let to others than members, and
1 He was returned as member for Hertfordshire in 1852.
144
FAILURE OF THE SCHEME
eventually in 1897 another Act had to be passed 1851.
through Parliament providing for the dissolution &T. 48.
of the Guild and the partition of its endowment
between the Royal Literary Fund and the Artists
General Benevolent Institution. The preamble
of this Act is a melancholy recital of the failure
of all the bright hopes and generous intentions of
the idealists who founded it. In their anxiety
to provide against the misfortunes of their im-
pecunious brothers they had left out of their
calculations some obvious facts of human nature.
The men of real genius which the Guild was
to foster were not to be found ; and artists and
writers to whom pecuniary assistance would be
welcome were too sensitive to acknowledge them-
selves openly the recipients of public charity.
Some at least of the causes of this failure
were foreseen by Macaulay when he was first
invited to give the scheme his support. He
wrote to Bulwer-Lytton on May 17, 1851,
the day after the performance at Devonshire
House : —
DEAR SIR EDWARD — Thanks for your pamphlet,1
which I have read, and for your play,2 which I saw
yesterday night. If the play amuses and interests me
as much in the perusal as it did in the representation,
I shall rate it much higher than the pamphlet, though
the pamphlet is what everything that you write must be.
As to your scheme, I am not aware that, except to
four or five people in very small societies, I have
1 Letters to John Bull (see page 164).
2 Many Sides to a Character ; or, Not so bad as We seem.
VOL. II 145 L
GUILD OF LITERATURE AND ART
1851. expressed any opinion respecting it. But I certainly
r. 48. do believe that its tendency is to give encouragement,
not to good writers, but to bad or, at best, middling
writers. And I think that you would yourself feel
some misgivings if you would try your plan by a
simple practical test. Suppose that you succeed beyond
your expectations as to pecuniary ways and means.
Suppose ten or twelve charming cottages built on the
land which you so munificently propose to bestow.
Suppose funds to be provided for paying your Warden
and ten or twelve Fellows. And suppose that you
then sit down to make your choice. Whom will
you choose ? Form a list of the thirty best writers
now living in the United Kingdom. Then strike off
from this list first all who require no assistance, and
secondly all who do indeed require assistance, but who
actually receive from the State pensions as large as
you propose to give. I believe that you will find
that five or six and twenty, if not more, of your
thirty will fall into one or the other of these classes
I apprehend, therefore, that you will be driven to fill
your Guild with, to use the mildest term, second-rate
writers ; and this I say on the supposition that the
selection is made with the greatest judgment and with
an impartiality which the history of literary institutions
hardly warrants us in expecting.
There is no analogy between the case of authors
and the case of actors. A theatrical fund is a very good
thing. For to the existence of the theatrical art it is
necessary that there should be inferior performers.
That Garrick may act Hamlet, he must have a Rosen-
crantz and Guilderstern. That Mrs. Siddons may
perform Lady Macbeth, she must have a waiting-
woman. Nothing can be more reasonable than that
those who derive pleasure from the exertions of genius
should encourage that subordinate class of artists without
146
MACAULAY'S CRITICISM
whose help genius would be unable to exert itself. 1851.
But there is no such connection between the great and JEr. 48.
the small writer as exists between the great and the
small actor. In literature, I am afraid, it will always
be found that a bounty in mediocrity operates as a fine
in excellence.
I could say a great deal more. But I have already
plagued you too long. I need not say that I do
justice to your motives, and to the motives of those
who are joined with you in this undertaking ; and you,
I am sure, will not suspect me of wanting sympathy
for men of merit in distress. If your project turns
out well, I shall have real pleasure in taking to
myself the shame of an erroneous prediction. Hitherto
you have every reason to congratulate yourself.
The success of yesterday night was complete. The
principal criticism which occurred to me was that the
scene in the coffee-room suffers from the crowding of
the actors into so small a space. It seems hardly
necessary to employ a spy for the purpose of watching
conspirators who talk loud treason in so thick a press
of people. It is not easy to set this right. Yet perhaps
you might a little thin the room of company while the
most important and secret things are said. In general
the stage effect was admirable ; and I was particularly
delighted with Lord Wilmot. — Ever yours truly,
T. B. MACAULAY.
Bulwer-Lytton and Dickens had intended
their scheme to be something more than a mere
distribution of charity. They meant it to be a
Guild or Brotherhood of Literature, the member-
ship of which was to be at once a privilege and
an honour ; it was in some measure to serve the
purpose of a college fellowship. This object,
147
GUILD OF LITERATURE AND ART
1851. however, was never attained. It became, in
T. 48. fact, a mere benevolent fund, and its houses
merely almshouses for those in narrow circum-
stances. As such it failed, because it was too
public, and too openly exposed its members to
the slur of literary pauperism. Benevolent work
of that kind was then and still is being done
by the Royal Literary Fund, from which the
donations and annuities are privately administered.
And so the only result of this noble dream was
that forty-six years later a sum of about £2000
and the proceeds of the sale of the Guild houses
were added to the funds of the two Benevolent In-
stitutions that, from long experience and careful
study of human nature, are best qualified to deal
with the pecuniary difficulties of authors and
artists.
148
CHAPTER VI
POLITICAL CONVERSION
1841-1852
It is true that when in Parliament some years before the politics of
Maltravers had differed from those of Lord Raby and his set, but Maltravers
had of late taken no share in politics — had uttered no political opinions —
was supposed to be a discontented man — and politicians believe in no
discontent that is not political. Whispers were afloat that Maltravers
had grown wise, had changed his views ; some remarks of his, more
theoretical than practical, were quoted in favour of this notion. Parties,
too, had much changed since Maltravers had appeared on the busy scene —
new questions had arisen, and the old ones had died off.
Alice.
ALTHOUGH the eleven years of Bulwer-Lytton's 1841-1852.
exclusion from Parliament were mainly devoted &T- 38-49-
to literature, they also mark an important stage
in the development of his political opinions. He
left the House of Commons in 1841 a supporter
of a Whig Administration ; it was as a Tory
that he returned to it in 1852. In the interval
his own circumstances had changed. He had
inherited his mother's property and become the
owner of a landed estate. His political opinions,
too, had undergone some modification. But
during these years the whole political situation
had also altered completely ; new combinations
had taken place, new leaders had sprung up,
149
POLITICAL CONVERSION
184.1-1852. new questions divided parties. In order to
Mr. 38-49. explain the reasons which induced Bulwer-
Lytton to change his political allegiance, it will
be necessary to give a short summary of the
political history of these years.
In the election of 1841, when he lost his seat
at Lincoln, the Whig Administration of Lord
Melbourne was defeated, and immediately after
the reassembling of Parliament Sir Robert Peel
became Prime Minister for the second time.
The agitation for the Repeal of the Corn Laws
was then at its height, but in spite of the
vigorous campaign in the country conducted by
Cobden, Bright, and the Anti-Corn Law League,
the Free Trade resolutions introduced by Charles
Villiers were annually defeated in the House of
Commons. At the end of 1845 the famine in
Ireland suddenly lifted the whole controversy
out of its academic stage, and the Government
was faced with an actual emergency of a very
acute kind. Emergency meetings of the Cabinet
were held, and Sir Robert Peel proposed to his
colleagues that, in view of the distress in Ireland,
the ports should be opened and all duties on
imported food should be removed. To this
proposal Lord Stanley and some other Ministers
were resolutely opposed and Sir Robert Peel
resigned. The Queen sent for Lord John
Russell, who was unable to form a Government,
and Peel once more resumed office. Lord
Stanley refused to join the reconstituted Ministry,
and Mr. Gladstone took his place at the Colonial
REPEAL OF THE CORN LAWS
Office. Parliament reassembled on January 19, 1841-1852.
1846, and Sir Robert Peel announced his con- ^ET. 38-49.
version to the policy of Free Trade. The
Repeal of the Corn Laws was passed in the
House of Commons on May 15, and in
the Lords on June 22. Great was the con-
sternation and fury of the Protectionists at what
they regarded as Peel's betrayal of their cause.
Disraeli attacked him with the utmost bitter-
ness in the House of Commons, and a new Pro-
tectionist party was at once formed under the
leadership of Lord George Bentinck. It was
not long, however, before the Protectionists
had their revenge. On June 26 a Bill intro-
duced by the Government for the protection
of life in Ireland was defeated in the House of
Commons by the combined votes of the Whig
Opposition, the Irish, and the Protectionists, and
the resignation of the Ministry followed. At
the very moment when the supreme act of his
political life was accomplished, Sir Robert Peel
was driven from office, and Lord John Russell
stepped into his shoes.
Bulwer-Lytton, who was strongly opposed to
the Repeal of the Corn Laws, and sympathised
with Disraeli and the Protectionists in their
attacks upon Peel, was at this time in a very
unsettled state of mind with regard to politics.
Since his retirement from the House of Commons
he had lost touch with the political parties with
which he had previously acted, and no party
had as yet arisen with which he was much in
POLITICAL CONVERSION
1841-1852. sympathy. He had never had any affection for
MT. 38-49. the Whigs, and the Radicals with whom he
had co-operated in the House of Commons
had proved themselves quite unpractical and in-
capable of forming themselves into a strong
parliamentary organisation. He still regarded
the Tories with traditional hostility, and the
recent action of Sir Robert Peel seemed to him
an act of political perfidy. With that large
body of questions connected with social and
industrial improvement and included under the
comprehensive heading of Social Reform, his
interest and sympathies were now, as always,
bound up, and he looked to the new Ministry
for some expression of their determination to
make these questions their own. For Lord
John Russell, personally, he had a great regard,
and on his assumption of the office of Prime
Minister he addressed to him a series of open
letters on matters not immediately connected
with the party controversies of the hour. These
letters were not published at the time, and they
remain among his papers in an unfinished state.
They were subsequently embodied in a political
memoir prefixed by his son to a collected edition
of Bulwer - Lytton's speeches. As they have
been already printed I do not reproduce them
here, but on account of the valuable evidence
which they afford of their author's political
opinions at this time, they are included in an
Appendix to this volume.
These letters represent the last phase of
152
"LETTERS TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL"
Bulwer-Lytton's Liberal period in politics, and 1841-1852.
are the reflection of a mind far removed from ^ET. 38-49.
the actual controversies which divided parties at
the time they were written. The first letter
summarises the situation as it was left by the
defeat of Sir Robert Peel's Government in 1846,
and indicates the task which awaited the new
administration of Lord John Russell. The last
letter does not deal with politics at all, at least
not with politics as understood by politicians,
but it represents the literary man's view of the
functions of the State in the domain with which
he is more particularly familiar. It complains
of the inadequacy of State patronage of con-
temporary art and literature, uses many arguments
which are often urged by those who favour the
establishment in this country of a Ministry of
Fine Arts, and concludes by recommending the
establishment of a new decoration, which would
in some measure correspond to the Legion of
Honour in France, and be available for recognis-
ing the services of those who have distinguished
themselves in art, literature, science, commerce,
or industry. Some of the criticisms in this
letter are now out of date and have been met
by recent changes, but the greater part of the
argument is as applicable to the present day as
it was to the generation for which it was
written.
When Bulwer-Lytton again resumed active
connection with the House of Commons, it was
among new associates and under the influence
'53
POLITICAL CONVERSION
1841-1852. of a man who had brought a new principle into
&T. 38-49. the political world. What he had failed to find
among the Whigs, what he had hoped to
create among the philosophical Radicals, what
he now looked for anxiously from Lord John
Russell's Administration, he found later in the
Tory Democracy of Benjamin Disraeli.
At the time he composed his Letters to Lord
John Russell, though detached from active party
politics and differing profoundly from his party
on the question of the Corn Laws, Bulwer-Lytton
was still a nominal supporter of the Whig
Government, and he hoped that Lord John
Russell's Administration would initiate a policy
of social reform of which he could cordially
approve. In this he was disappointed, and two
years later he had become thoroughly disgusted
with the Whigs and only desired to see their
destruction.
This change in his political sympathies, rather
than in his political opinions, was due to several
causes, some of them personal and others public.
A serious difference of opinion on a single
important question, if that question happens to
be one of the chief political issues of the
moment, often leads to complete disagreement
on general policy. Party ties, though loose
enough to admit of differences on minor
questions or details of legislation, become
violently strained when differences arise over
a fundamental item in the party programme.
At such times attacks which cause little or
154
A BREACH WITH PARTY
no ill-feeling when made by political opponents 1841-1852.
are bitterly resented and seldom forgiven when Mr. 38-49.
they proceed from political friends ; and the
mutual recriminations which ensue have the
effect of throwing the dissentient members into
the arms of the opposite party. Recent history
has provided two conspicuous examples of this
tendency : — In 1886, when Liberals who differed
from Mr. Gladstone on the question of Home
Rule joined the ranks of his political opponents
and eventually became completely merged in the
Conservative party ; and again to a lesser degree
in 1903, when Mr. Chamberlain's declaration in
favour of Tariff Reform sent many Unionist
Free Traders over to the Liberal party.
It is true that in 1846 the Repeal of the
Corn Laws had been carried by a Conservative
Government, but it was only with the help
of Liberal votes that this had been done ; and
while the Liberals were united in favour of Free
Trade, the Conservative party as a whole was,
as it has at the core been ever since, a
Protectionist party. It was, therefore, difficult
after 1846 for a Protectionist to get into
Parliament as a Liberal, and Bulwer-Lytton had
to choose between the three alternatives of
abandoning all hope of getting back to the
House of Commons, adopting the Free Trade
doctrines of his party, or standing as a Con-
servative. His first inclination was to adopt
the first, but circumstances gradually drove him
to the last.
POLITICAL CONVERSION
1841-1852. Had the Whigs shown any desire to retain
^ET. 38-49. him as a supporter or to help him to obtain a
seat in Parliament, he might have ended his
life in the political faith in which he began it.
But party wire-pullers are never disposed to
make things easy for men of independent opinions ;
and though the influence of the political caucus
was not as strong at that time as it has since
become, yet such power as it possessed was
effectively used against him. On two occasions
subsequent to 1846 he tried without success to
recover his seat at Lincoln — once in July 1847,
and again in the spring of 1848 — and had
the matter been left entirely in the hands of the
local people, he might have succeeded. The
circumstances of his second failure are thus
described in a letter to Forster : —
March 24, 1848.
MY DEAR FORSTER — The history of Lincoln is
short. All the electors, except Seeley's party, whether
Liberal or Conservative, had agreed that I should walk
over the course if Seeley was unseated. But on the
very evening of the decision against him, without con-
sulting or apprising me who had been fifteen years in
possession of the ground, the Whig Secretary of the
Treasury agreed with Seeley to send down Mr. Hob-
house to occupy my position. This was done secretly
and taking advantage of my being at Brighton.
The Tories, finding that Seeley's defeat was followed
by the instant appearance of a Whig Cabinet Minister's
brother, conceived naturally that I could not entertain
the idea of standing, and deeming themselves duped,
hastened to bring forward a Tory. The Tory thus
156
DISCONTENT WITH POLITICS
standing on one side and Hobhouse on the other, I, 1841-1852.
of course, had no chance. I went down, therefore, JEr. 38-49.
merely to allay the irritation of my own friends and
induce them to vote for Hobhouse, rather than let a
Tory come in. I secured, therefore, his seat and lost
my own. Such is the treatment I have received from
the courtesy and gratitude of the Whig Government.
— Ever yrs. truly,
E. B. L.
The feeling that he had been badly treated by
his own party, and his strong sympathies with
the Protectionists, who formed the fighting
strength of the Conservative party, predisposed
Bulwer-Lytton to take advantage of any oppor-
tunity which might arise of actively supporting
the latter. Such an opportunity, however, did
not occur for some years, and in the meanwhile
he settled down into the attitude of disgust with
all political warfare, which is the characteristic
frame of mind of the man whose political con-
victions are temporarily unsettled.
In reply to a letter from Forster inviting him
to contribute some political articles to The
Examiner, he writes : —
MY DEAR FORSTER — I heartily wish you had asked
me anything else, to contribute to any other kind of
literature — nay, if a translation of Sanscrit. I would
rather have gone to Haileybury and learned Sanscrit than
received this request, for I know that here you wholly
overrate my possible power to serve you ; you mistake
the peculiarities of my capacity in this kind of writing.
It is only where a special object has moved me by a
strong impulse that, even in that phase of my life when
POLITICAL CONVERSION
1841-1852. I most looked on the world practically, I could write
^ET. 38-49. politics — periodically. Now nothing seems to me
more strange and repulsive. It is right that I should
here frankly and confidently open my whole heart to
you in this matter. I loathe politics. They are associ-
ated in my mind with the most bitter feelings. I am
thrust out of my natural sphere in them. I have met
with what I call gross ingratitude from the leaders
and the people. I may be mistaken in this, but such
is my rooted persuasion. After my last defeat, seeing
myself probably thrust out of all fitting career in
public life, I have shut myself up in my shell, or
rather I have entered into views and currents of mind
wholly opposed not only to politics, but to that temper
of mind in which practical politics only should be
approached. I never look at a leading article if I
can help it. I am profoundly ignorant of all that at
the day moves others, and if I were to correct the ignor-
ance I still could never participate in the movement.
In much that unites the Liberal party, too, whether
from prejudice or not, I have the misfortune to differ.
Free Trade I regard as a delusion. Even in the
Austrian question, I believe that Austria is in her strict
rights ; and as for the Government, my only feeling
towards it and the Whigs is that if anything could
excite me to interest, it would be an opportunity that
would allow me conscientiously to destroy or help to
destroy them.
How in this condition of mind can I possibly serve
The Examiner? I look with a mournful despair at
your proposition ! I know not which way to glance
to see any hope of being useful. To write weekly
requires a vigilant interest in public affairs, and an
intercourse, I assure you, with the fresh notions of
public men, or political thinkers, to which (use what
spasmodic efforts I might) I could not rouse myself.
158
INTEREST IN POLITICS REVIVED
The only thing I could do — can do — I will certainly. 1841-1852.
That is, if you can find or suggest the subjects, I will MT. 38-49.
treat them as I can. For instance, if there were any
political books to review, in a spirit not at variance
with my convictions, and not in defence of these
Ministers, I will try and brighten up to the best my
obsolete rusty armoury. But these Whigs ! they united
to thrust me from my own country, to intrigue against
me in every place that was open, to exclude me from
Parlt., and they have succeeded. Enough of this.
See, then, how in this state I can serve your purpose.
Don't rely on my finding subjects. Find the subjects
yourself — tell me where to cram the materials, and
expect no more from me than a machine which affection
for you can alone rouse from loathing inertness. —
Adieu, Yrs. ever,
E. B. L.
Two circumstances, however, gradually served
to reawaken his active interest in politics, and
to bring him more decidedly into sympathy
with the Conservatives.
The first of these was the increasing pre-
dominance of the Cobdenite or Manchester school
of politics. It was through the influence and in
the interests of the middle-class manufacturing
portion of the population that Free Trade had
been carried, and the narrow doctrinaire principles
of the Cobdenites were becoming increasingly
applied to the whole range of politics. The
political creed of this school was markedly selfish,
and dictated by purely commercial considerations.
In foreign and domestic questions alike their sole
regard was for the maintenance and promotion
159
POLITICAL CONVERSION
1841-1852. of industry and commerce. As England at that
JET. 38-49. time virtually enjoyed a monopoly in most manu-
facturing processes, foreign competition had no
terrors for them ; all import duties, therefore,
they regarded as merely vexatious hindrances to
trade, and they cheerfully contemplated a future
in which England would supply the world with
manufactures, receiving in return cheap food and
raw material. This mutually satisfactory inter-
change of commodities was to lead to the
establishment of international friendship and
fraternity, when every nation would realise the
irreparable damage to commerce caused by
armaments and wars. Colonies were regarded
with the utmost suspicion and aversion, as afford-
ing many causes for international complications
and frictions. The conception of a world-wide
Empire had no place in their dreams, and they
hoped that as soon as the colonial populations
were ripe for self-government, they would sever
their connection with the mother-country and
set up as independent free-trading states. The
doctrine of laissez faire was as rigidly applied to
industrial conditions at home as to foreign trade.
All State interference with industrial contracts,
conditions of labour, and the free bargaining
between employers and employed was inconsistent
with the ideas of liberty entertained by this school,
and emphatically condemned by them. The
whole of their political creed was, in fact, summed
up in the immortal Sam Weller's definition of
free competition as " Each for himself and God
1 60
HATRED OF COBDENISM
for us all, as the donkey said when he danced 1841-1852.
among the chickens." ^T- 38-49-
To Bulwer - Lytton these doctrines were
anathema, and the sanctity with which they
had come to be held by the entire Liberal party
finally convinced him that he could no longer
keep company with such a party. He writes to
Forster in 1848 at the beginning of the political
upheavals, which in that year shook every
Government in Europe : —
Those miserable Cobdens ! and visionary Peace
Dreamers ! What fools they are, and these are the
men by whom England herself has been half driven
to the brink of revolution. Wise Daniels indeed.
The babyism of giving up indirect taxation, to be
driven to direct in a country like this, the insanity of
going on preaching about customs and lowering taxes
on the comforts of the people, &c., when the only
substitutes are direct taxes or loans, unless indeed they
will come to a proper reduction, not of Army and
Navy, but of Monarchy itself. A la bonne heure ! A
Republic is cheap, but if ever that hour arrives it shall
not be, if I and a few like me live, a Republic of millers
and cotton spinners, but either a Republic of gentlemen
or a Republic of workmen — either is better than those
wretched money spiders, who would sell England
for is. 6d.
The Government are morally gone. Nothing can
save them long. What imbeciles — so audacious and so
craven. What talent the French Provisional Govern-
ment have shown, as yet. Their promise to the work-
men is their only dangerous point. If out of Socialism
they can pick up something that will enable them to
keep that promise, it will be fire amongst flax — here
VOL. ii 161 M
POLITICAL CONVERSION
1841-1852. and all over Europe. But if Socialism fail them, and
yEr. 38-49. they can do nothing for the ouvriers ! why then God
help them — War — war — war — is the only mode to cut
the Gordian knot.
The other circumstance which contributed to
his political conversion was his increasing friend-
ship with Disraeli. They had corresponded for
some years at fitful intervals, but only about
literary subjects. About this time they began
to find a new common interest in politics. On
August 3, 1850, Bulwer-Lytton invited Mr. and
Mrs. Disraeli to stay with him at Knebworth.
" I don't think the wonder-monger," he said,
" will find much to cavil at in our conjunction.
After all, I am a Protectionist — and authorship
is neutral ground."
The invitation was accepted, and during this
visit the foundations were laid of a political
friendship firmer and more intimate than the
literary friendship which had preceded it.
Disraeli's political opinions afforded Bulwer-
Lytton a convenient bridge from the Liberal
to the Conservative party. This brilliant and
eccentric man was a very different type of
politician from the Tory leaders who were the
objects of Bulwer-Lytton's scorn when he first
entered Parliament ; and the two friends soon
found that they had much in common. Their
protectionist opinions were by no means the only
bond of sympathy between them. Both were
men of strong imagination, which in each of
them produced high notions of national honour
162
FRIENDSHIP WITH DISRAELI
and marked imperial instincts. To both the 1841-1852.
insular prejudices of the Cobdenite school were Mr. 38-49.
equally repugnant, and to both the prospect of
uniting the country gentlemen and the artisans
of the great industrial towns in a common attack
upon the middle class manufacturers, and the
exclusive Whig aristocracy who now composed
the Liberal party, was equally attractive. Both
were imperialists and reformers at heart ; and the
Tory Democracy created by Disraeli was just
such a policy as his friend could conscientiously
support.
Bulwer-Lytton's first public declaration on re-
entering the political arena was contained in a
pamphlet which he published in I85I.1 On the
27th of February he wrote to Disraeli : —
MY DEAR D. — If you make up your Government,
or even if you don't, I think of writing a short
pamphlet which will contain my own honest views of
the state of affairs and parties ; and in which there may
probably be something that, consistently with those
views, might do you some service, if the pamphlet
proved a hit. A thing of that sort at this time coming
from me, as from one who could neither expect nor
take anything, and who would be likely to view things
impartially, might really be useful to the country,
which is in what I consider to be a very critical and
dangerous state. Now can you spare me any time for
a quiet chat, thoroughly private, either at my hotel or
at your own house. I think of getting to Knebworth
on Monday, and if I do this pamphlet I shall knock it
off as soon as possible. I should add that my view of
1 Letters to John Bull.
163
POLITICAL CONVERSION
1841-1852. matters is that of a Conciliator of all the rival interests.
JEr. 38-49- — Yrs. ever, E B L
This pamphlet, which consisted of three
letters addressed to John Bull, is an able state-
ment of the Protectionist case. The last two
letters which deal exclusively with the effect
produced upon agriculture by the Repeal of the
Corn Laws, and advocate a low, fixed duty upon
imported wheat do not require any special
mention. The case with which they deal is
well argued, but the argument of the Pro-
tectionist, when stated exclusively from the point
of view of any single industry, is always easy to
enforce, and is unanswerable from the same point
of view. It is unquestionable that a particular
industry can be, and often is, if not destroyed, at
least greatly injured by foreign competition, and
that it can be revived and maintained by the
imposition of protective duties. The only
answer to such a case which a Free Trader can
make is either that it is economically unsound to
protect artificially an industry which cannot
flourish without such assistance, or else to point
out that the cheap foreign import of which the
producer complains is a great boon to the
consumer. Neither answer brings any comfort
to those interested in the particular trade in
question. Bulwer-Lytton's case, therefore, was
an easy one, partly because agriculture is an
industry which for many reasons cannot be
abandoned, and partly because the injury which
164
" LETTERS TO JOHN BULL "
it had suffered was clearly demonstrable. No 1841-1852.
one could deny that in 1846 the landed interests &r. 38-49.
had been sacrificed to the manufacturing interests,
and that agricultural depression was the price
which the country had to pay for the policy of
Free Trade. The fallacy in his argument was
the assumption throughout that the interest of
the food producer is identical with that of the
food consumer, whereas in fact they are different.
It may be debateable which of these two interests
should receive the most consideration, whether
either should be entirely sacrificed to the other,
or whether by any compromise something may
be conceded to each. But it is not sufficient for
a full statement of the problem that the case of
the producer alone should be established.
The first letter deals more generally with the
point of view from which the writer approaches
the discussion, and contains some very sound
propositions regarding the study of political
economy and its uses for the statesman : —
I shun in these letters all mere party questions.
I stand alone from all party. 1 will not attack the
Minister. I will not panegyrise the rival. I leave
to those whose support, as the representatives of
manufacturing and urban populations, Lord John Russell
unhesitatingly preferred to all terms with the agri-
cultural constituencies — the grateful task to extenuate
his merits, and enforce his offences. To me his name
is identified with the memory of imperishable services ;
and I feel too much regret to differ from him, not to
be reluctant to blame. If in him could yet be supplied
what appears to me the main want of the time, there is
165
POLITICAL CONVERSION
1841-1852. no man should be so proud — what ? — to follow as a
Mr. 38-49. leader ? No. To support as a conciliator. What
the time now demands is, not the leader ; it is the
conciliator. Wherever I turn, 1 dread the chance of
a chief who is to represent all the passions of class or
the selfishness of interests ; wherever I turn, I see cause
to desire that the coming man may covet, not the bays
of the conqueror, but the oak wreath of the citizen.
Everywhere you behold divisions between classes ;
jealousies, and feuds between national interests ; and
victory, pushed too far by the one against the other,
will be a victory achieved over the country itself by
its own sons, far worse than the fears of Lord
Ellesmere could ever anticipate from the fleets and
hosts of the foreigner. Penetrate the smoky atmosphere
through which rise the tall chimneys of countless
factories ; examine the heart of those mighty towns, in
which all theories that affect the interests of labour
are discussed with the passions which numbers speed
and inflame ; where the spirit of an eternal election
agitates the mass of the everlasting crowd — say, if
there be not yet reserved for the coming man the con-
sideration of social questions which no Factory Bill has
yet settled ; which no Repeal of the Corn Laws, after
its first novelty is worn away, can lull into rest ; and
tell me whether it be better for the solution of these
that the man shall come as the leader or the conciliator ?
• • * • •
Having proved by historical references that
the free importation of foreign corn lasted
throughout " the dark ages," and that Protection
dates from " the dawn of civilisation," when
Edward IV. "a King who himself was a
merchant, began the sagacious favour to the
1 66
"THE SENTIMENTS OF SLAVES"
trading middle class, as a counterpoise to armed 1841-1852.
aristocracy," he went on to argue that other JEr. 38-49.
countries also had prospered and built up their
commerce under a protective system. Then
follows a vigorous condemnation of the un-
patriotic speeches of the modern Liberals : —
But I own to you, O my honoured and somewhat
antiquated John, I own to you, that the school in which
I learned to love liberty seems now as old-fashioned as
yourself. For I learned that love in the school of the
great patriots of the past ; I learned to connect it
inseparably with love of country ; and it would really
seem as if a new school had arisen, which identifies
the passion for freedom with scornful indifference for
England. And when, in a popular meeting, which
was crowded by the friends of the late Corn-Law
League, and at which one of the great chiefs of that
combination presided, an orator declared, in reference
to the defences of the country, that " he thought it
might be a very good thing for the people if the country
were conquered by the foreigner " ; and when that
sentiment was received with cheers by the audience,
and met with no rebuke from the Paladin of Free
Trade seated in the chair, I felt that, however such
sentiments might be compatible with Free Trade, in
the school in which I learned to glow at the grand
word of Liberty, they would have been stigmatised as
the sentiments of slaves.
Another passage sounds strangely familiar in
our ears to-day, being the stock-in-trade of nearly
every Tariff Reform speaker : —
It is clear, therefore, that what is one man's meat
may be another man's poison. It is natural that the
167
POLITICAL CONVERSION
841-1852. Cracovian corn-grower should be desirous of competing
£r. 38-49. with the English ; it is natural that the English corn-
grower should be unwilling to have that honour thrust
upon him. A State can adopt no dogma for universal
application > whether of Protection or Free Trade. In
those branches in which it produces more or better
supplies at less cost, it must naturally court Free
Trade ; in those branches where its produce is less
or its cost greater than that of its neighbours, it must
either consent to the certain injury, the possible ruin,
of that department of industry, or it must place it
under Protection. Free Trade, could it be universally
reciprocal, would therefore benefit Manchester versus
Germany, and injure Lincolnshire versus Poland. The
English cotton manufacturer thoroughly understands
this when he says, with Mr. Cobden, " Let us have
Free Trade, and we will beat the world ! " But the
world does not want to be beaten ! Prussia, France,
and even America, prefer " stupid selfishness " and
protected manufactures to enlightened principles and
English competition. When the English manufacturer
says, " he wants only Free Trade to beat the world,"
he allows the benefit of Protection to his rivals, and
excuses them for shutting their markets in his face.
But whether Free Trade be, in all cases, right or
wrong, every one has allowed that we can't have it.
To Free Trade, fairly and thoroughly carried out,
there are more than fifty million obstacles to be found
— in the Budget.
That we must lay certain duties on certain foreign
articles of general consumption, and cramp the home
producer by the iron hand of the exciseman, are facts
enforced upon our attention every time the miserable
man doomed to hold the office of Chancellor of the
Exchequer goes through the yearly agonies of his
financial statement. Free Trade, too, in the proper
168
THE PROTECTIONIST ARGUMENT
acceptation of the term, by all the laws of grammar 1841-1852.
and common sense, requires two parties to the compact &T. 38-49.
— the native and the foreigner. Between you and me,
John, I see no hope of the foreigner. I wish, however,
to raise no argument upon this, against the policy of
our tariffs. Reciprocity may be good ; but I allow
that it is not essential. Wherever it is for our interest
to open our markets, it would be idle to wait till the
foreigner, against his idea of his interests, opened his
own. All that I would observe is, that such one-sided
liberality may be judicious and politic, but it has no
right to the appellation of Free Trade.
The best argument in the letter is that with
which it closes. Having disclaimed any intention
of attacking political economy, he points out
that though its professors arrogate to it the title
of a science, yet the investigations of political
economists do not proceed on the inductive
principle : —
It has rather, I think, proceeded in " that opposite
way" which Bacon has condemned, and in which,
according to him, no subtlety of definition, and no
logical acuteness, can suffice to avail for the establish-
ment of truth. It has rather commenced with the
abstract principles, and then selected the experiences
on which to support them — resembling somewhat that
ingenious philosopher of whom Condillac informs us,
who blessed himself with the persuasion that he had
discovered a system that was to explain all the
phenomena of Chemistry, and hastened to a practical
chemist to communicate his discovery. " Unhappily,"
said the chemist, "the chemical facts are exactly the
reverse of what, in this most luminous and ingenious
discovery, you suppose them to be." " Tell me," then
169
POLITICAL CONVERSION
1841-1852. cries the philosopher, nothing daunted, " what the facts
J&T. 38-49. are, that I may explain them by my system ! " But
whether or not political economy be a science rather
than a system, and a science based upon induction
rather than logic, it is a study affording the most
valuable suggestions, throwing light upon much that
had been hitherto obscure ; it is allied to researches
with which I have for years been familiar ; I have
pondered it with attention, I would speak of it with
respect ; and it is the more my interest to do so now,
for I shall rest much of my case on reference to its
maxims and the admissions of its authorities. But I
must be permitted to observe, that it is a common
mistake with the ordinary run of students in political
economy, to mistake altogether the nature of that
science, and the reservations imposed upon the practical
adoption of its principles. Political economy deals with
but one element in a state, viz. its wealth ; and the
soundest political economists will be found cautiously
stopping short of what would seem the goal of an
argument with some such expression as " But this
belongs to national policy." Political economy goes
strictly and sternly, as it were, towards the investigation
of the rigid principle it is pursuing ; it has only
incidentally to do with the modifications which it
would be wise to adopt when you apply the principle
to living men. Of living men, their passions, and
habits, and prejudices, it often thinks no more than
Euclid does when he is demonstrating the properties
of a triangle. All this is out of the province of the
political economist, and within that of the statesman.
Far from blaming political economy for this, it
could not be what it professes to be if it were other-
wise. The persons to blame are those who insist on
applying all its principles, as if they were describing
lifeless things, and not dealing with human beings ;
170
POLITICAL ECONOMY
and hence innumerable mistakes, made by hasty readers, 1841-1852.
not only in the application, but we may say also in the JET. 38-49.
comprehension, of the principle itself.
Suppose that I write a treatise on Architecture,
wherein I geometrically establish the fact that the
Parthenon is a most beautiful building. If my
neighbour, Squire Hawthorn, who lives in an old-
fashioned, irregular, country-house, as unlike the
Parthenon as a house can be, runs to me out of breath,
transported to enthusiasm by my admirable treatise,
" My dear Sir, I have read your work ; you have
proved to my satisfaction that no building on earth is
so perfect as the Parthenon. Pray, would you. advise
me to pull down Hawthorn Hall, and build a country-
house exactly on the model of which you have so
lucidly given the geometrical designs ? Shall I turn
Hawthorn Hall into a Parthenon? What's your
advice ? "
" Sir," I should answer, unless I had a sinister interest
to answer otherwise, " I am not the proper person of
whom to ask that advice ; whether it is for your interest
to pull down your very irregular old house ; whether,
if you did, you would be as comfortable in a Parthenon,
and, however beautiful that edifice, find that it could
be adapted to the wants of your family, and the differ-
ence of your climate ; whether you could even live in it,
without catching your death of cold, are all considera-
tions with which I had nothing to do when I wrote
my treatise. My object was but to explain the true
principles of Architecture, and establish the excellence
of the Parthenon upon geometrical principles ! "
Squire Hawthorn would have no right to blame
me for having written my treatise and disturbed his
mind ; but he would be a monstrous great fool if he
turned his old hall into a Parthenon !
171
POLITICAL CONVERSION
1841-1852. The pamphlet was published in the spring of
JET. 38-49. 1851 and had a wide circulation. Soon after its
publication Bulwer-Lytton writes to Disraeli : —
MY DEAR D. — I have ordered the printers to send
you the 4th edition of my pamphlet which I have
revised, not having had the leisure, in the call for the
pamphlet, to revise the former ones. In this I have
strengthened some of the positions, and made more
clear the reasons why wages may long fall in one district
and not in another. The most flattering compliments
that have reached me, strange to say, have been from
political economists. I have had one very remarkable
letter from the living chief of them, though I did not
know him — moved to it, I suppose, by the impertinence
of the Morning Chronicle. But as yet I don't know
how the Protectionists receive the pamphlet and its
views (rather odd that no Protectionist journal, except
the Standard, has noticed it, nor have I heard from any
save one Protectionist on it). I cannot judge if it is
really effective or not, despite a tolerably rapid sale. I
should be very glad of your opinion or of any brief
suggestions for subsequent editions. The 4th edition,
not yet out, will be a large one. If it moves beyond
that it is a sign that it begins to penetrate the country.
I see the Free Traders charge me with avoiding
detail and statistics. But don't you agree with me that
I am right so to shun them ? If you have a moment to
write to me, direct Knebworth, Stevenage. — Yrs.,
E. B. L.
The sale of the pamphlet fully came up to
its author's expectation, for it went into ten
editions. Disraeli's appreciation was expressed
in the following letter : —
172
SUCCESS OF THE PAMPHLET
GROSVENOR GATE, May 2, 1851.
MY DEAR BULWER — I have now had very con- 1841-1852.
siderable opportunities of ascertaining public opinion JEr. 38-49.
respecting the Letters, and I have no hesitation in
saying that it is one of high, and very extensive,
approbation. I am not speaking merely of the great
politicians, but I find the large-acred squires your warm
appreciators ; none more impressed, for example, than
Sir Charles Knightley.
I won't attempt to give you a catalogue of those
whose opinions I have gathered (the last Lord Forester,
who was enthusiastic both as to the style and the effect
it must produce) because you might then infer the
approbation was confined merely to them. It is, on the
contrary, universal, and I can't doubt, from what hourly
reaches me, that the success of the Letters will be fully
proportioned to the occasion and the fame and status
of the writer. — Yrs. ever, j)^
Bulwer - Lytton's increased friendship with
Disraeli and the political conversion which
accompanied it, threatened at first to bring
about an estrangement from his old and trusted
friend John Forster, who, as editor of the Liberal
Examiner, could not but regard with feelings of
keen distress the publication of opinions from
which he differed so strongly. That the rela-
tions existing between these two great friends
should be to some extent affected by the political
differences which had come between them, was
inevitable ; but when once the subject had been
frankly faced and each had expressed his fears
and re-affirmed his affection, their intimacy was
preserved in all its essential features.
173
POLITICAL CONVERSION
1841-1852. The matter was first raised by Forster at the
^ET. 38-49. end of a long letter dated November i, 1851,
which was chiefly concerned with literary matters
and concluded as follows : —
So much for business. And now I will say simply
a word as to that odd remark in your note on there
being " no chance of my going to you — no getting over
the Corn Laws."
Since I was last at Knebworth I have had no
invitation of any kind from you except one which
reached me on a Friday to go to you the next day — I
being then bound to Ramsgate. What on earth then
can you mean? As for the Corn Laws, I shall, of
course, always regret the separation in point of opinion,
because I know the natural and constant tendency of
such a schism to gape and extend itself insensibly into
other directions. But if I have been silent hitherto
respecting it in the Examiner, it would be hard that
you should attribute that to any motive but the proper
one. Indeed, if I might take the opportunity of your
old friendship to speak exactly what I feel, I would say
that I have felt not a little what has seemed something
like a reserve and indifference to me on your part, ever
since the play came out. But no such feeling can ever
affect the regard with which I must always subscribe
myself, — Yr. old & sincere friend,
JOHN FORSTER.
Bulwer-Lytton replied on November 5 : —
MY DEAR FORSTER — To come at once to the point
in your letter which is to me most important — I mean
that which involves any possible cause, I will not say
of estrangement, but of coldness, in a friendship which
has lasted so many years, which I so cordially appreciate.
Let me say frankly, that if there was anything in my
DIFFERENCES WITH FORSTER
manner, implying "reserve or indifference since the 1841-1852.
play came out " I was most wholly unconscious of it, JEr. 38-49.
and most deeply regret it.
As to the play, I could only feel very warmly all
your pains, trouble and sympathy about it ; and if I had
any other feeling, it could only be that of regret that
a part which we both thought, in perusal, effective and
striking, should not work out in the business of the
stage in a way worthy of your powers. But certainly
that could produce no coldness on my part, and I never
dreamed till you wrote that there was a hitch here. I
thought — pardon me, if I fear still — that a difference
in political opinion which involves a separation in
party, could alone occasion what was apparent to me, a
certain alienation on your side. Politicians so earnest
as yourself and so accustomed from week to week to
dwell upon the vexed questions of politics, are too apt
perhaps to consider that the vera amidtia can only be
found in the idem velle idem nolle de Republica.
I have never so considered politics — to me they
form but one, though large, element in human thought
and human happiness, and this is natural to me who
have had to divide thought among so many topics.
Therefore, let us differ ever so much here, it cannot
shake my really brotherly love for you, my deep and
unceasing gratitude for a thousand obligations which I
have never had it in my power to repay. Let it shake
as little as possible your regard for me, and do what
justice you can to my sincerity in my belief. Believe
me, I never thought of the Examiner, I thought only
of the private friend, and never let there be any g$ne
created by your necessary combination of two capacities
— the public journalist, the private friend. 1 know that
if I enter Parliament, and take any active part therein,
the Examiner must perforce notice to blame and
censure opinions offered to it. But even where there
POLITICAL CONVERSION
1841-1852. exists no private acquaintance, the Examiner is so free
MT. 38-49. from the personal allusions which wound and irritate that
I have no fear that I shall ever read any animadversions
on myself with illiberal and ungenerous resentment. So
let that matter rest. But before I wholly dismiss these
questions of politics and the consequences they entail,
let me unbosom myself fully and say this — that when
it has been urged upon me by parties likely to come
into power, that I may have office offered to myself, no
inducement has ever so strongly forced itself on my
mind to shake my aversion to the thraldom of official
life, as the prospect that I might possibly then have it
in my power to offer to you, not as politician, but as
man of letters, some such place as you could take
without compromise of opinion or loss of dignity. And
that thus some other party might have the power of
repairing what seems to me the distinguishing injustice
of your own. This, at present, is mere words. I may
not come into Parliament, I may fail there, I may never
have the power referred to. But in all sincerity and
truth of heart I say what has always been uppermost in
my mind, and would so remain, if our private intimacy
ceased to-morrow ! Who shall predicate of the future ?
But the past nothing can efface — that is in truth the
Krfj/j,a e? det.
As to invitations to Knebworth, why, I always
flattered myself you never needed them, but would
come when you liked, as to a home. — Ever most
affectly. yrs., E B L
This answer completely removed all trace of
ill-feeling and was gratefully acknowledged as
follows : —
MY DEAR BULWER-LYTTON — I should find it very
difficult to say to you with what feelings I read your
176
FRIENDLY EXPLANATIONS
letter, and now send you these few words in reply to 1841-1852.
it. It is better, perhaps, that I should not attempt to &T. 38-49.
do so.
As to the misapprehension I laboured under, there
is no more to be said respecting it, but that I am little
likely to fall into any such mistake again.
In the matter of the Examiner, I will only now put
this question. As matters stand, would you rather
that the silence hitherto observed as to the pamphlet
should continue, or that an opportunity should be
taken of stating broadly and frankly the difference
between us — with regret that on a question involving
now the very existence of the old Liberal party, we
should thus have lost your services and name ?
It is a great loss, but also a very wide difference.
That must be said. For as I see your argument, you
would strongly dissent even from the course which
Disraeli sees to be the only one at present open to
him.
In talking of your services as a loss, I do not mean
that they had ever been given to that particular question,
except in the general sense of supporting a Liberal policy
and party, from which your withdrawal, I cannot but
see, must become more and more marked, more and
more to be regretted by us. It is needless for me to
add, with the view I take of these matters, that I see
no possibility of any successors to the present men on
other ground than that of a compromise of the claim
for any direct reimposition of a duty on corn.
Between you and me, I shall never cease to remember
what you have said. It is enough for me that you have
said it. The act would not be of greater value. I can
imagine it infinitely less. That therefore is already my
icrijfjua €9 ad which you have given me, and no one can
take from me. — Your old and always grateful friend,
JOHN FORSTER.
VOL. ii 177 N
POLITICAL CONVERSION
1841-1852. Forster was justified in his conviction that a
JET, 38-49. difference so fundamental was certain to lead to
a complete separation of political interests. The
Letters to John Bull were in fact the bridge over
which their author passed from one political party
to the other. The most important result of their
publication was an invitation from the electors
of his own county that he would become their
representative in Parliament. The invitation
was accepted ; and at the General Election of
1852, Bulwer-Lytton re-entered Parliament as
Conservative member for Hertfordshire. He
continued to sit for this constituency until his
elevation to the Peerage in 1866.
178
BOOK V
POLITICAL
RETURN TO PARLIAMENT
1852-1866
Political faction loves converts better even than consistent adherents.
A man's rise in life generally dates from a well-timed rat.
Alice.
179
CHAPTER I
M.P. FOR HERTFORDSHIRE
1852-1854
But what's party ? Mere cricket — some out and some in.
Walpole.
FOR the purposes of this chapter the reader may 1852.
find it convenient to have a summary of the &T. 49.
chief political events which immediately pre-
ceded and followed Bulwer-Lytton's return to
Parliament in i8ca.
•* ,
On December 2, 1 8 5 1 , by a coup cfEtat in Paris,
Louis Napoleon made himself master of France,
and paved the way for his assumption of the
Imperial Crown . This event produced immediate
and important results in England. Lord Palmer-
ston, who was at that time Foreign Minister, in
the course of a private conversation with the
French Ambassador, expressed his approval of
the coup (F&at, and this opinion was forwarded
to Paris as an official recognition of the new
position of the Prince President. Such an
expression of opinion was contrary to the policy
of strict neutrality which the Queen and the
Government were anxious to maintain in this
181
M.P. FOR HERTFORDSHIRE
1852. matter. Lord John Russell, therefore, insisted
&T. 49. on the resignation of Lord Palmerston, and
Lord Granville was appointed Foreign Secretary
in his place.
The dismissal of Lord Palmerston was not
the only result of Louis Napoleon's coup d'fitat.
It also aroused a wave of national sentiment in
England, which eventually swept the whole
Government from power. The prospect of the
establishment of a second Napoleonic Empire in
France created almost a panic amongst a genera-
tion of Englishmen who could still remember
the dread with which the first Napoleon had
inspired their fathers, and a general demand
was raised for special measures of defence and
the reorganisation of the militia for home defence
against a possible French invasion. Though
the Government must have known that such
a contingency was highly improbable, yet the
national enthusiasm rose so high that they were
obliged to take it into account.
When Parliament met on February 3, 1852,
Lord John Russell gave a full account of the
circumstances which had led to the dismissal of
Lord Palmerston, and public interest in politics,
which during the previous year had been com-
pletely overshadowed by the great International
Exhibition in London, immediately revived.
On February 9 Lord John Russell introduced a
Reform Bill which had been promised in the
Queen's speech, and which had a very cold
reception, both in the House and in the country.
182
LORD DERBY TAKES OFFICE
It proceeded no further, for on February 16 was 1852.
introduced the Government Bill for strengthen- &T. 49.
ing the militia, which immediately superseded
it in public interest. This measure gave Lord
Palmerston an opportunity of taking his revenge
on the chief by whom he had so recently been
dismissed. He welcomed the introduction of
the Bill, but criticised it as inadequate. His
criticisms were received with great enthusiasm
in the House ; and when a few nights later he
moved a hostile resolution to substitute the
word " regular " for the word " local " in the
Bill, he was supported by both the Protectionist
Opposition and the Peelites. The result was
that the Government was defeated by a majority
of nine. The Russell Ministry immediately
resigned, and Lord Stanley, who, on the death
of his father in the previous year, had now become
Lord Derby, was called upon to form the new
Government.
Lord Derby announced his policy in the
House of Lords on February 27. The organisa-
tion of the militia was to be proceeded with,
reform of the franchise was to be abandoned,
and a policy of non-intervention with foreign
countries would be pursued abroad. The most
significant passage in his speech was his reference
to the Corn Laws : " When the entire supply of
an article comes from abroad," he said, " the
whole increase of the price falls on the con-
sumer ; but that is not the case when the article
is partly of foreign and partly of home supply,
183
M.P. FOR HERTFORDSHIRE
1852. and I will not shrink from declaring my opinion
JET. 49. that there is no reason why corn should be the
solitary exception to the rule."
Knowing that his Government did not possess
a majority in the House of Commons, Lord
Derby spoke with caution, and the remainder of
his remarks, with regard to finance, were vague
and indefinite ; but this one passage was taken
to imply an intention on the part of the new
Ministers to reimpose the Corn Laws in some
form or other. The Free Traders throughout
the country were thoroughly alarmed. Protests
were made in Parliament, and a meeting was held
in Manchester for the purpose of re-forming the
Anti-Corn Law League. On March 15 specific
questions were asked in both Houses of Parlia-
ment as to the intentions of the Government.
Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli both replied that
they did not intend to revert to a protective policy
during the present session, and that they would
dissolve Parliament in the course of the year.
The new Militia Bill was introduced on
March 25, and with the support of Lord
Palmerston and the Peelites was passed by a
substantial majority. On May 30 Mr. Disraeli,
who was Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader
of the House of Commons, introduced his budget,
which merely continued the financial system
then in existence ; and as soon as the business of
the session could be completed, Parliament was
dissolved on July I .
The General Election which followed left the
184
DISRAELI'S BUDGET
balance of parties practically unchanged, and there- 1852.
fore, when Parliament met again on November Mr. 49.
4, the Government was still in a minority.
Their defeat was only a question of time, and
Disraeli did not hesitate to proceed at once to
the issue which was to decide their fate.
The recent General Election had shown un-
mistakably that the country was not prepared to
return to Protection. The Free Traders were in
a majority in Parliament, and the Chancellor of
the Exchequer had not the remotest chance of
securing sufficient support for his financial policy.
His position, however, was not what it had been
in the previous session. An appeal to the country
had taken place ; the supporters of the Govern-
ment were avowedly Protectionists, demanding
some relief for their landed interests, and Disraeli
did not care to owe his continuance in office to
the support of political opponents. His financial
policy was ingenious and skilfully framed. He
proposed to reduce the malt duties as a relief to
the Agriculturists, and to make good the deficit
thus created by an increase in the inhabited house
duty. The speech in which he summed up the
debate and replied to his critics was a personal
triumph, and made a deep impression on the
House. He was immediately followed by Mr.
Gladstone, who had re-entered Parliament at the
recent election as aPeelite converted to Liberalism.
Mr. Gladstone completely effaced the impression
created by the speech of the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, and demolished his financial proposals.
185
M.P. FOR HERTFORDSHIRE
1852. Thus commenced the life-long duel which, for
r. 49. nearly thirty years, was carried on between these
two great protagonists. The great debate which
followed ended in the defeat of the Qovernment
by a majority of 19 (305 to 286). The next day
Lord Derby's Ministry resigned, and a coalition
Government was formed under the leadership of
Lord Aberdeen in which Lord John Russell went
to the Foreign Office, Lord Palmerston became
Home Secretary, and Mr. Gladstone Chancellor
of the Exchequer.
The avowed policy of the new Government
was the preservation of peace coupled with con-
tinued defensive preparations, a strict adherence
to the principles of free trade, education, and legal
reform, parliamentary reform to receive careful
consideration. The next session was chiefly re-
markable for Mr. Gladstone's first budget. At
the end of it the Government appeared to be
firmly established and the country prosperous,
when suddenly the Eastern question loomed up
on the horizon, the pacific intentions of the
Government were swept aside, and the country
drifted into one of the most senseless and profit-
less wars in which it has ever engaged.
Such were the circumstances in which Bulwer-
Lytton re-entered Parliament. Lord Derby's
declaration of policy in February, 1852, had
finally decided him to throw in his lot with the
Conservatives, and at the General Election in
July, he was returned as member for Hertford-
shire. When Parliament met his leaders were
186
FIRST SPEECH
in office but not in power, and before the end of 1852.
the year they were again in opposition. ^ET. 49.
His first speech in the new House was de-
livered during the debate on Disraeli's financial
statement. He warmly supported the reduction
of the malt duties and the increase in the house
duty, as being both consistent with Free Trade
principles and also an act of grace to the
agriculturists.
" I grant," he said, " that we shall not obtain any-
thing like a proportionate advantage from the reduction
of half the malt tax that would accrue from its total
repeal. I grant that we shall retain the costly and
vexatious machinery of the excise restrictions, and that
by retaining half the tax you will still cripple the farmer
in the direction of his capital, and in the preparation
of malt, whether for fattening his cattle or for brewing
his own beer. But what then ? It is a bold step in
the right direction. It is so considering the state of
the revenue, and considering the feelings of gentlemen
on this side of the House, who never desire to forget
the claims and interests of other parties."
Having proved by quotations from leading
economists that the reduction of the tax was
strictly in accordance with Free Trade doctrines,
he continued : —
But because this question is accompanied indirectly
with benefit to the farmer, and is accompanied by a
double house tax, we are told that this is a question
of town against country. No, Sir, it is a question of
Free Trade against restriction ; it is a question whether
187
M.P. FOR HERTFORDSHIRE
1852. you will attempt to lower the price of an article of
. 49. popular subsistence — whether you will remove a check
which operates directly against an important branch of
the industry of the country — and it is accompanied with
a direct tax which would be fair and just, and as such
is recommended by all political economists, even if it
were not accompanied by any reduction of the malt tax
at all. . . . You say you object to the house tax being
doubled for the benefit of the farmers, but that is simply
to say that you object to the further extension of Free
Trade when it operates against the other classes whom
you represent.
The speech concluded with a personal ex-
planation of the reasons which had induced him
to change his political party : —
Now, one word with regard to myself, for it applies
equally to gentlemen on this side of the House whose
adherence to the cause of Free Trade you have some-
what ungraciously received. The opinions which I
entertained upon the subject of a repeal of the corn
laws gradually estranged me from a party to which I
formerly rendered some trifling service — a party in
which I still recognise not only private friends, but
many accomplished politicians and statesmen of con-
summate talents and experience. But it was not on
that single question alone that I transferred my very
humble support to the party and policy represented by
the present Government. I did not make that transfer
so long as the late Administration lasted. I did not do
so till that Administration — I hope I may say so with-
out offence — died from its own exhaustion. Not until
the noble Lord, the late Premier, looking at the state ot
parties, could see no other person but Lord Derby to
188
A PERSONAL EXPLANATION
suggest to her Majesty as his successor — not till, re- 1852.
garding the position of affairs at home, still more the ^Er. 49.
position of affairs abroad, I myself believed that it
might be for the welfare and perhaps for the safety of
the country, to give to Lord Derby's Government a
fair and a cordial trial. It was first to that trial that I
bounded my support ; but I did so with full allowance
for all the difficulties which the Government would
have to encounter, and a firm belief that it would unite
a conciliatory policy towards a class in which prolonged
distress had produced a deep-seated sense of injustice,
with that rational respect for public opinion which Lord
Derby frankly expressed so soon as he acceded to office.
In that school where I learnt the meaning of con-
stitutional liberty, it was never considered a disgrace
to a Minister of England to regulate, not indeed his
private doctrines, but his political conduct, according
to the opinions of his time. Nor did I ever think
I should hear a taunt on the expediency of bowing to
public opinion from the very men who have threatened
to change the constitution itself in order to bring us
still more under the influence of popular control. But
that which has sanctioned and confirmed the support
which I now tender to the Government is not any
question connected with agriculture ; it is not any party
consideration ; it is simply this — the disposition they
have shown to promote general measures for the im-
provement of the laws, and for advancing the welfare
of the people. I do not allude alone to reforms of the
Court of Chancery, nor to the programme of useful
measures announced in her Majesty's gracious Speech,
nor to the financial projects now before the House — of
which I sincerely approve — but I must look also to the
liberal and enlightened speech of the Right Hon. the
Chancellor of the Exchequer the other evening. I see
there, for the first time, the pledge from a Minister
189
M.P. FOR HERTFORDSHIRE
1852. of the Crown for economy and retrenchment, in the
T. 49. implied promise of large administrative reform. I see
there a capacity to deal with the most complicated of
social questions — that connected with criminal punish-
ment. I see a general understanding of what I conceive
to be the great want of this time — for I believe the
great body of the intelligent public is disposed to favour
the policy of a Government which, while it will be con-
servative of the great principles of the constitution,
will make that constitution suffice for all purposes of
practical reform. It is by measures and sentiments like
these that the Government have shown already that
they do not come into office as the exclusive advocates
of a single class, or the inert supporters of a retrograde
policy. On the contrary, the more they can mitigate
the sufferings of every class, whether commercial or
agricultural, the more worthy they will be of the
support of that House of Commons to which every
section of the community that contributes to the
supplies has a right to come for the redress of
grievances ; and if they can so contrive that no large
portion of the community shall be left excluded from
that prosperity which is paraded before our eyes, the
more they will unite all classes and interests to co-
operate with them in that calm but continuous progress
in which it is the duty of every Ministry to maintain
our hereditary place in the foremost rank of European
civilisation.
Therefore, for my part, I declare that the satisfaction
with which I shall give my vote in accordance with
the intrinsic merits of the question immediately before
us, will be increased by thinking that it is one vote
amongst many which may serve to continue this
Government in its career of useful and liberal legisla-
tion ; believing, as I do, that those same causes of
dissension which before rendered a Ministry formed
190
AN UNHAPPY YEAR
from the opposite benches so weak and ineffective, 1853.
in spite of the honesty, the virtues, and the genius of JEr. 50.
the men who composed, and the Premier who presided
over it, do still exist, and will still prevent that
unity and firmness of purpose which can alone render
effectual the desire to preserve — perhaps against attacks
from its own supporters — that balance between safe
reform and hazardous experiment on which I believe,
in my conscience, depend the continuance of our
prosperity and the stability of the Empire.
At the beginning of the year 1853, Bulwer-
Lytton suffered much from ill-health, and for a
time was deprived of the use of his right hand
by a serious inflammation. On April 6 he
wrote to his son : —
I am still suffering from my hand and have only
imperfectly the use of it. I have had nothing but
illness, pain, and sorrow since the year 1853 began.
Perhaps as yet the unhappiest year of my life. I am
not at all up to Parliament, and to add to my mis-
fortunes, am so deaf as not to hear the speakers. My
Novel has been very successful — more so as to favour
and general popularity than all its predecessors.
By the end of the month he seems to have
recovered sufficiently to resume his parliamentary
duties, for on April 25 he spoke on Mr.
Gladstone's first budget. This speech dealt ex-
clusively with the income tax, and contained a
defence of the principle of differentiating between
earned and unearned incomes, which at that time
was condemned by Mr. Gladstone, but which
has since been recognised.
191
M.P. FOR HERTFORDSHIRE
1 853. " There is this marked difference," he said, " between
. 50. the Rt. Hon. Gentleman and those who have supported
Lord Derby's Government, namely — that when the late
Government proposed to deal with the income tax, they
made it an indispensable condition to remove from that
impost the elements of unpopularity, and to establish a
clear distinction between precarious income and income
derived from realised property. The Rt. Hon.
Gentleman, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer,
refuses to make that distinction. He proposes to
leave the principal objections untouched. Now it is
precisely because I concur in the two fundamental
premises of the Right Hon. Gentleman, that I am
compelled to come to a different conclusion. I agree
with the Rt. Hon. Gentleman, first, that the income
tax is a mighty financial resource, which should be
kept available in all times for future need ; and,
secondly, that it ought not to be regarded as an
habitual feature of our taxation. But exactly because
I wish to have this tax available, with the ready assent
of the people, in any future need, that I ask the House
to remove from it those features which now make it
so unpopular ; or, if it be held unwise to correct the
machinery of the tax, we should at least endeavour to
console those who are ground down by this tax, by
showing them we will not maintain it a single year
longer than we can help."
The attack on the income tax failed, and the
Government carried their proposals by a majority
of 7 1 . The illness and sorrows of this year con-
tinued to the end of it, and as it was the most
unhappy, so also it was the least productive year
in Bulwer-Lytton's life. The autumn was spent at
Harrogate in search of health ; in December
192
ADDRESS TO STUDENTS
he wrote to his son again in melancholy mood, 1854.
and remarks — "I have not touched a literary ^T- 5 '
subject for a year."
At the beginning of 1854 he was again active.
In January he was elected Honorary President of
the Associated Societies of the University of
Edinburgh, and on the i8th delivered a long
address to the students of the University, in the
course of which he upheld the value of a classical
education, and more especially of the study of
Greek.
"The genius of Greek letters," he said, "is essen-
tially social and humane. Far from presenting us with
a frigid and austere ideal, it deals with the most vivid
passions, the largest interests common to the mass of
mankind. In this sense of the word it is practical —
that is, it connects itself with the natural feelings, the
practical life of man, under all forms of civilisation.
That is the reason why it is so durable — it fastens
hold of sympathy and interest in every nation and
every age. Thus Homer is immeasurably the most
popular poet the world ever knew."
After tracing the influence of Greek literature
from Homer to Plato, he devoted a few words
to a comparison of Greek and Latin writers : —
In the Greek literature all is fresh and original ;
its very art is but the happiest selection from natural
objects, knit together with the zone of the careless
Graces. But the Latin literature is borrowed and
adopted, and like all imitations, we perceive at once
that it is artificial — but in this imitation it has such
VOL. ii 193 o
M.P. FOR HERTFORDSHIRE
1854. exquisite taste, in this artificiality there is so much
Er. 51. refinement of polish, so much stateliness of pomp,
that it assumes an originality of its own. It has not
found its jewels in native mines, but it takes them with
a conqueror's hand, and weaves them into regal diadems.
Dignity and polish are the especial attributes of Latin
literature in its happiest age ; it betrays the habitual
influence of an aristocracy, wealthy, magnificent, and
learned. ... In short, the Greek writers warm and
elevate our emotions as men — the Latin writers
temper emotions to the stately reserve of high-born
gentlemen.
The lessons to be derived from a study of this
literature of the past have their application to
the problems of the present, and the words in
which he pointed this out to his young audience
represented the mature political convictions of a
contemplative mind.
" You whom I address," he said, " will carry with
you, in your several paths to fortune, your national
attribute of reflective judgment and dauntless courage.
I see an eventful and stirring age expand before the
rising generation. In that grand contest between new
ideas and ancient forms, which may be still more keenly
urged before this century expires, whatever your
differences of political opinion, I adjure you to hold
fast to the vital principle of civilisation. What is that
principle ? It is the union of liberty with order. The
art to preserve this union has often baffled the wisest
statesmen in stormy times ; but the task becomes easy
at once if the people whom they seek to guide will but
carry into public affairs the same prudent consideration
which commands prosperity in private business. You
have already derived from your ancestors an immense
194
BANQUET AT EDINBURGH
capital of political freedom ; increase it if you will — but 1854.
by solid investments, not by hazardous speculations. &T. 51.
You will hear much of the necessity of progress, and
truly ; for wherever progress ends, decline invariably
begins ; but remember that the healthful progress of
society is like the natural life of man — it consists in
the gradual and harmonious development of all its
constitutional powers, all its component parts ; and
you introduce weakness and disease into the whole
system, whether you attempt to stint or to force
the growth."
Two days later Bulwer-Lytton was enter-
tained at a public banquet in the Hojpetoun
Rooms at Edinburgh, and his speech on that
occasion contains many passages of autobiographi-
cal interest. His own experiences as an author,
for instance, are thus described : —
When I first commenced the career of authorship,
I had brought myself to the persuasion that, upon the
whole, it is best for the young writer not to give an
exclusive preference to the development of one special
faculty, even though that faculty be the one for which
he has the most natural aptitude, but rather to seek
to mature and accomplish, as far as he can, his whole
intellectual organisation. I had observed that many
authors, more especially, perhaps, writers of imagination
and fiction, often excel only in one particular line of
observation ; nay, that, perhaps, they only write one
thoroughly successful and original work, after which
their ideas appear to be exhausted ; and it seemed to
me that the best mode to prevent that contrast between
fertility in one patch of intelligence and barrenness of
the surrounding district was to bring under cultivation
M.P. FOR HERTFORDSHIRE
1854. the entire soil at our command. This subjected me
JEr. 51. at first to what was then a charge, but which I have
lived to hear as a compliment, namely, that I had
attempted too great a variety of authorship ; yet,
perhaps, it was to that conviction that I owe the
continuance of whatever favour I have received from
the public ; for that favour no writer can hope long
to retain unless he prove that he is constantly taking
in a fresh supply of ideas, and that he is not compelled
to whip and impoverish invention by drawing from
the same field a perpetual succession of the same crop.
And perhaps it may encourage younger writers if I
remind you that I was not successful at first in any
new line that I thus attempted. My first efforts
at prose composition were refused admittance into
a magazine. My first novel was very little read,
and it is not included in the general collection of
my works. My first poetry was thought detestable,
and my first play very nearly escaped being damned.
Thus, perhaps, few writers have been less intoxicated
with the rapture of first success ; and even when I did
succeed, perhaps few writers, upon the whole, have been
more unsparingly assailed by hostile critics. If I had
relied solely upon my intellectual faculties, I must long
since have retired from the field disheartened and
beaten ; but I owe it to that resolution which is at
the command of all men who will only recollect that
the first attribute of our sex is courage — the resolution
to fight the battles of literature and life with the same
bull-dog determination with which I, and no doubt all
of you, fought our battles at school — never to give
in as long as we had a leg to stand upon — that at
last I have succeeded so far as to receive this honour
in a capital renowned for its learning, and at the hands
of a people who may well sympathise with any man
who does not rely so much upon his intellect, no matter
196
NOTE ON EDINBURGH SPEECHES
what the grade of that intellect may be, as upon his 1854.
stout heart and his persevering labours. l MT. 51.
1 The following account of this speech is given by Principal Story, on
page 19 of his Life, published by his daughters : —
"It was on 6th Jany., 1853, that Moncrieff brought forward his motion '
in the Diagnostic, proposing the appointment of some personage, eminent
in literature or public life, as Honorary President of the Associated
Societies. The proposal, approved by this Society, was submitted to the
others, and after much deliberation, and interchange of ideas between
delegates from each, was formally ratified. The mode of election was
arranged, and at a general meeting Mr. Skelton nominated as first
President Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Sir Edward accepted the office
which we offered him, and came down to address us in Jany. (the i8th),
1854. A Committee, of which I was Secretary, was appointed to conduct
the arrangements for the delivery of his speech. We had some trouble
with fussy and stiff-necked members, who found fault with our plans, and
were rigidly opposed to expenditure, but we contrived to carry out our
ideas of a becoming ceremonial to the satisfaction of every one, I think,
except an indignant member of the Town Council — in those days,
the patrons of the College, who, on finding no special place reserved
for the civic dignitaries on the platform or in the Hall, denounced our
neglect of the powers that be, and retired dramatically from the scene.
Our wish was that Lord Cockburn should have taken the chair, and I and
a colleague were deputed to invite him to do so.
" The old man received us very kindly, but asked us to excuse him, on
the ground of such duties being too much for him at his age. ' I'm such
a confoundedly old fellow,' he said in his pleasant, homely voice, and bade
us good-night with cordial wishes for our success. We got the Lord
Advocate, the present Lord Moncrieff, to take the Chair, and the facetious
Peter Robertson, of famous memory, to move a vote of thanks to the
President after his address, and the meeting was a great success. The
Queen Street Hall was crammed with students, and all the most dis-
tinguished people in Edinburgh, with many friends of Sir Edward's from
elsewhere, such as Alison, Perrier and Stirling of Keir. Sir Edward spoke
for a full hour, without ever halting for a word or looking at a note, and
when the reporters asked him afterwards for his MS., blandly assured them
he had none. They came to me in some perturbation, and I went to
Professor Aytoun, who had throughout all our preliminaries and negotia-
tions been our steady friend and adviser. Aytoun assured me he would
make it all right, and in a short time produced the MS. Sir Edward had
not deviated by a word or a phrase from what he had written, except at a
single point, where, pointing to a Scottish lion, which formed a prominent
feature of the decoration of the gallery in front of him, he said no blazon
had kept farther in the van of human progress than 'that old lion of
Scotland.' The MS. was ' than the white cross of St. Andrew.' I have
always thought the delivery of an address so long and elaborate from
unaided memory a wonderful intellectual feat. Such a mnemonic triumph
impressed itself on my mind, all the more vividly because when, next
evening but one, Sir Edward was entertained at a public dinner in the
197
M.P. FOR HERTFORDSHIRE
1854. These speeches called forth a generous tribute
Er. 51. of praise from Macaulay, who at that time
represented Edinburgh in Parliament.
"Thanks for the addresses," he writes on March i ;
" I have already read them with much interest and
admiration. I really do not think that my judgment
is corrupted by your praises when I say that I have
seen no compositions of the sort that have pleased me
so much. My constituents were delighted, as I hear
from all quarters, and no wonder."
From Edinburgh Bulwer-Lytton proceeded
to Leeds, where on January 25 he delivered
an address to the members of the Mechanics'
Institution. He began by contrasting the audience
which confronted him with that which he had
just left at Edinburgh : —
Knowledge there is the task work ; knowledge here
is the holiday. But in both these communities, in the
quiet University and in the busy manufacturing town,
I find the same grand idea ; I mean the recognition of
intelligence, as the supreme arbiter of all those questions
which a century ago were either settled by force or stifled
by those prejudices which are even stronger than law.
Hopetoun Rooms, I had to reply to the toast of ' the Associated Societies.'
I had never before spoken to a greater auditory than the select circle of
the Diagnostic, and dreading the effects of publicity, novelty of position,
and dinner, I did what I have never done since, and took the precaution
of writing out my speech and learning it off by heart. When I had to
get on my legs, I confided my MS. to my friend, James Muirhead, who
sat beside me, with instructions that if I snowed symptoms of collapse, he
was to prompt me. I did not need the prompting, but I felt how great
a man and orator Sir Edward was, who could carry on imperturbably for
over an hour, while I could barely struggle through five minutes. I may
add what I was very proud of at the time, that Sir Edward, with great
good nature, sought me out after dinner, and complimented me on my
maiden speech."
198
SPEECH TO LEEDS MECHANICS
He then proceeded to examine some of the 1854.
characteristics of the age. Foremost amongst ^T- 51-
these he placed what he called " the milder
spirit of humanity." It was this spirit, he
maintained,
. . . which has raised up all those new questions, not
heard of before this century, affecting the condition of
the people ; it is this which seeks to carry health and
cleanliness into the abodes of misery and squalor ; it
is this which has directed merciful attention even to the
foes and outlaws of society, seeking to reform criminals
rather than punish them ; it is this which has introduced
hopeful discipline into our prison houses, and, except
in the rarest cases, has struck the punishment of death
out of our criminal code.
Arising from this tendency was noticeable
another great principle " honourably character-
istic of our age," the desire to educate the
masses of the people—" to level the disparities
of instruction." Whilst forced to admit that in
comparison with recent developments among the
German and French people State-regulated in-
struction was somewhat backward in England,
he, nevertheless, contended that there was a
silent education distinct from that of schools
ever at work among the people of this country,
" which, when it comes into action, exhibits an
intellectual power not yet found in those whom
State policy may more instruct as children, but
whom civil institutions less nerve and discipline
as men." As proof of this he instanced " the
ease with which our English intelligence has
199
M.P. FOR HERTFORDSHIRE
1854. gained by reforms, all which German mystics
. 51. and French fanatics have lost by revolutions."
Then followed a passage which raises considera-
tions well worthy of careful study to-day.
For my part, I trust that education in this country
will never be altogether paid for and regulated by
the State. I hope in this, as in all, that we shall
never part with the vital principle of self-government
in contradistinction to centralisation. But I hope I
shall live to see the day when here in England, as in
America, the education of the people may come from
the desire of the people, consenting in local districts to
levy a rate upon themselves for education, thus interested
in seeing that the education is of the best kind that
their money can produce, and adapted not to some
rigid and inflexible State machinery, but open to every
improvement which the experience of one district can
suggest to the emulation of another.
Since these words were uttered, the tendency
of educational development in this country has
been unhappily rather in the direction of
centralisation than of State-aided local experi-
ment. Schools are now everywhere provided
by the State ; education is at once compulsory
and free ; and whilst the resulting gain to the
present generation has been great in some
respects, it can scarcely be denied that much
has also been lost which was worth preserving.
On the one hand the highest attainments of
scholarship are placed within the reach of the
poorest of the land, but on the other hand the
education received is less appreciated by those
200
VIEWS ON EDUCATION
who receive it, and in the case of large numbers 1854.
of the children, it is by no means suited to the &T. 51.
requirements of their after life. Consequently,
two features are becoming more and more
apparent in the present system of national
education ; one is the indifference of the
majority of parents to the instruction which
their children receive in the national schools,
and for which they feel no responsibility ; and
the second is the uniformity in the curriculum
which is taught with little or no regard to local
conditions or the requirements of different classes
of the population. What has been done cannot
be undone, and no one would now propose to go
back to the days when education was left to
voluntary effort alone ; but the problem of avoid-
ing the evils of over-centralisation is one which
must increasingly occupy the attention of all
earnest educational reformers.
Bulwer-Lytton's speech continued with a
timely reminder that education is by no means
confined to schools alone.
" I think you will see," he told the mechanics of
Leeds, " that a good education includes the school —
but it requires something more ; and here don't let
me forget, amongst our other advantages, the habits
of our domestic life. . . . There are few of us who
have succeeded honourably in the world that will not
acknowledge that we owe far less to the school than
to the precepts and examples that we found at home,
and especially to the precepts of a mother's lips and the
stainless example of a mother's life. I rejoice, therefore,
M.P. FOR HERTFORDSHIRE
1854. to comply with the request of a gentleman who said to
. 51. me, on entering the hall : — 'Say something in favour
of adding a female class to this institution.' Perhaps
there is not a town in this country in which the females
of the working classes appear less to require new
facilities for education than they do at Leeds. I am
told that there is scarcely a manufactory to which there
is not a school for girls attached. Nevertheless, it
would be an honour and a credit to this institution if
you could add female classes, and endeavour as far as
possible to fit women to be the worthy companions of
intelligent men."
Arguing that education is the work of a life
and must be continued to the man after he leaves
school, he paid a tribute to institutions such as
that which he was addressing, and concluded
with a fine oratorical image : —
Sure I am that the surest mode, under Providence,
of bringing all problems of existing civilisation to a
favourable issue is to proportion intelligence to power.
And perhaps it may be through institutions like this
that every year Leeds and Manchester may contrast
more and more the alternate ferocity and submission
which have been the reproach of Lyons and Marseilles.
I have often thought that the ancients endeavoured to
convey to us a type of the true moral force in their
sublime statue of Hercules in repose. You see there
the gigantic strength which has achieved such glorious
labours, evincing the consciousness of its power by the
majesty of its calm ; while in those mighty arms which
have purified earth from its monsters, the artist has
placed an infant child smiling securely in the face of
the benignant God. Keep that image ever before you
— it is the type of that power which should belong to
202
OUTBREAK OF WAR
knowledge, and which is always gentle in proportion 1854.
to the victories it achieves. JET. 51.
Two months later the long peace which
Great Britain had enjoyed without interruption
for nearly forty years came to an end, and im-
mediately all other public affairs were over-
shadowed by the anxiety with which the whole
nation turned to watch the fortunes of the con-
tending armies in the Crimea.
The part which Bulwer-Lytton took in the
Parliamentary debates connected with the war
will form the subject of the next chapter.
203
CHAPTER II
THE CRIMEAN WAR
1854-1855
The misfortunes of one generation are often necessary to the prosperity
of another. The stream of blood fertilises the earth over which it flows,
and war has been at once the scourge and the civilizer of the world. . . .
What adversity is to individuals, war often is to nations — uncertain in its
consequences, it is true that with some it subdues and crushes, but with
others it braces and exalts.
Athens : Its Rise and Fall.
854-1855. THE diplomatic negotiations which preceded the
ET. 51-52. outbreak of the Crimean war, the military
operations of the war itself, the sufferings of the
soldiers, and the achievements by which they
added fresh glory to the British army, are
beyond the scope of this book. Some reference,
however, must be made to the Parliamentary
discussions of the years 1854 and 1855, f°r t^ie
only record of Bulwer-Lytton's activities during
these years is to be found in the speeches which
he made in the House of Commons on the
subject which then occupied men's thoughts
to the exclusion of everything else.
A short summary of the chief events of the
Crimean war may help the reader to understand
the matters with which this chapter deals.
204
ORIGIN OF THE WAR
The insignificant dispute between the priests 1854-1855.
of the Greek and Latin Churches regarding the JEr. 51-52.
control of the Holy places in the East, which
eventually involved the three chief Powers of
Europe in war, was first taken up in 1852 by
Napoleon III., on whom, therefore, rests the
responsibility for all that followed from his
interference. The dispute rapidly developed
into a personal conflict between the respective
champions of the two Churches, the Czar
Nicolas I. and the Emperor of the French. The
Sultan of Turkey, who exercised suzerainty over
the territory in which the dispute had arisen,
found himself called upon to mediate between
these two Powers, and, unable to satisfy the
demands of one without risking a conflict with
the other, he contrived as long as possible to
avoid a settlement. In 1853 Nicolas sent extra-
ordinary envoys to Constantinople to claim for
Russia a religious protectorate over all Greek
Christians in the Turkish dominions, and at the
same time proposed to make with England a
partition of the Ottoman Empire. The British
Government refused to entertain his proposition,
and decided to support the Sultan in resisting
the Russian demands. The quarrel then de-
veloped into a rivalry between the East and
West, between two opposing schools of thought,
which had been developing in Europe ever since
1815. Both in England and France public
opinion, wholly uninstructed as to the real
issues involved, became violently excited. The
205
THE CRIMEAN WAR
1854-1855. Czar was denounced as the autocratic supporter
JET. 51-52. of doctrines of Government and methods of
aggrandisement opposed to the modern political
thought of Western Europe ; the Sultan was
represented as a model of religious toleration,
and the integrity and independence of the
Ottoman Empire was declared to be necessary
for the political stability of Europe. The three
special champions of these ideas were Napoleon
III., Lord Palmerston, and Lord Stratford, the
British Ambassador at Constantinople. Each of
these men, for different reasons, was determined
to bring about a war with Russia, and within
a few months their object was accomplished.
The best opinion, both in England and France,
was opposed to the war. Lord Aberdeen, the
Prime Minister, laboured strenuously to preserve
peace, and though anxious to resign, remained
at his post, in the belief that only by keeping
his Government together could war be averted.
But the peace party, though strongly represented
in the Cabinet, was in a minority in the country.
Public opinion was too strong for them, and
the country drifted into a war from which
nothing was to be gained, and which is diffi-
cult to justify by any consideration for British
interests.
Supported by Lord Stratford, the Sultan re-
fused the demands of the Czar, and in October,
1853, war was declared between Turkey and
Russia. Diplomatic negotiations were continued
for some months between the other European
206
SUMMARY OF EVENTS
Powers, but no settlement was arrived at ; and 1854-1855.
in March, 1854, England and France both de- &r. 51-52.
clared war on Russia. A treaty of alliance
between Great Britain and France was signed
on March 10, by which they bound themselves
to fight against Russia for the rights of the
Sultan and " the independence of the Ottoman
Empire."
Mr. Gladstone's first war budget was intro-
duced on March 6, and a second one on May 8.
On March 31 the Queen's message of war was
discussed in Parliament. These were the first
occasions on which the opinion of different
sections in the House of Commons found ex-
pression as to the policy of the war. The
majority, of course, reflected the opinion of the
country, which was strongly warlike. A small
but fearless minority of Radicals, whose opinions
were voiced by the fierce eloquence of John
Bright, frankly opposed the war as a crime on
civilisation. Disraeli, who led the Conservative
opposition, did not share either the popular
delusions with regard to Russia, or the popular
enthusiasm for war. In his heart he disliked
the war because it made the position of the
Government impregnable ; but he realised that
from the moment hostilities had actually broken
out, the country would not tolerate any criticism
of the policy of the war, or any action which
could be interpreted as an embarrassment to the
Government which was responsible for it. In
the early days he accused the Government of
207
THE CRIMEAN WAR
1854-1855. drifting into a course of which they did not
/ET. 51-52. themselves approve. "You are going to war,"
he said, in the first budget debate, " with an
opponent that does not want to fight, and you
are unwilling to encounter him" ; but in all
the subsequent debates he refrained from any
criticism which might be regarded as hostile to
the policy of the war, knowing that such would
be considered an unforgivable offence by the
public, with whom a belief in the righteousness
of the quarrel and a determination to bring it
to a successful conclusion had become sacred
obligations of national honour. He led his party
in many attacks on the Government for their
mismanagement of the campaign, but refused
to accept their challenge to a direct vote of
no confidence.
Owing to the withdrawal of the Russian
troops from the Danubian provinces, caused by
the fear of the Czar that Austria intended to
join the allied forces, diplomatic negotiations
were resumed during the summer ; and it was
not till after the failure of these that the invasion
of the Crimea began in September. The battle
of the Alma took place on September 20,
and was immediately followed by the siege of
Sebastopol. Balaklava and Inkermann were
fought on October 25 and November 5. On
November 14 a great storm occurred, which
destroyed many of the transports, filled the
trenches with mud, and was the beginning of
the acute sufferings which the allied troops
208
SUMMARY OF EVENTS
endured for the rest of the severe Russian winter. 1854-1855.
Severe criticisms of the management of the &T. 51-52-
campaign, damaging to the reputation both of
the generals at the front and of the Government
at home, were sent to The Times by their war
correspondent, Mr. Russell. The publication
of these letters aroused the greatest indignation
in England, and the prevailing discontent was
loudly voiced in the House of Commons
when Parliament reassembled in December. On
December 19 the Government introduced a Bill,
giving them power to enlist foreign soldiers
to assist their army in prosecuting the war.
This measure was strenuously opposed, but was
eventually passed by a majority of 39. When
Parliament reassembled after Christmas, Mr.
Roebuck gave notice that he would move for
the appointment of a Committee to inquire into
the management of the war. Lord John Russell,
who had from the first been a constant source
of embarrassment to Lord Aberdeen, now declared
that he could not oppose this motion and re-
signed. On January 29 Mr. Roebuck's motion
was carried against the Government by 305 to
148, and Lord Aberdeen at once resigned.
As the Opposition had supported Mr. Roe-
buck's motion and were therefore responsible for
turning out the Government, the Queen sent
for their leader, Lord Derby, who, to Disraeli's
great disgust, refused to take office because he
could get no support from any member of the
Government which he had just destroyed. Lord
VOL. ii 209 P
THE CRIMEAN WAR
1854-1855. John Russell was then sent for, but found that
JET. 51-52. none of his recent colleagues would forgive him
for what they considered his treachery to Lord
Aberdeen, or consent to serve under him. Lord
Palmerston eventually became Prime Minister
and formed a new Whig Administration. Lord
John Russell was not included in the Govern-
ment, but was sent soon afterwards as British
representative to the Congress of the Powers
which had assembled at Vienna to discuss
the possibility of terminating the war. Lord
Palmerston at first refused to accept the appoint-
ment of the Roebuck Committee, but when
Disraeli insisted that the House should adhere
to its decision, he gave way and allowed the
Committee to be appointed. Gladstone and
three other Peelites, who had joined the Govern-
ment on the condition that the Committee
should be resisted, thereupon resigned ; and Lord
John Russell, then at Paris on his way to
Vienna, agreed to accept the vacant post of
Secretary of State for the Colonies without
abandoning the mission on which he was en-
gaged. A ministerial statement on the subject
of these changes in the Cabinet was made
in the House of Commons on February 23,
and during the debate which followed, Bright
renewed his advocacy of peace in a speech
containing the famous reference to the " Angel
of Death."
On the Continent the chief events of 1855
were the dispatch in January of 15,000 troops
210
SUMMARY OF EVENTS
from Sardinia to aid the allied armies in the 1854-1855.
Crimea, the diplomatic negotiations at Vienna, MT. 51-52.
and the death of the Czar Nicholas, which took
place on March 2. The Congress of Vienna
put forward four points as the basis of an
honourable peace : —
1. A European protection of the Danubian
provinces.
2. The free navigation of the Danube.
3. The termination of Russian preponderance
in the Black Sea.
4. The establishment of a European pro-
tectorate over the Christian subjects of
the Sultan.
The only one of these points which offered
any difficulty, and on which the Congress finally
broke up, was the third. It was suggested that
the Black Sea should be declared neutral and
closed to the warships of all nations, or as an
alternative, that the number of Russian ships
admitted to it should be limited by a fixed
proportion to the ships of other countries.
Russia refused to accept either proposal, and the
negotiations were suspended.
The failure of the Congress of Vienna some-
what modified the war feeling in England.
Neither to the Emperor Napoleon nor to Lord
Palmerston were the suggested terms at all
acceptable, and they were not yet prepared to
terminate the war, although the proposals had
been accepted both by Lord John Russell and
211
THE CRIMEAN WAR
1854-1855. by the French representative, M. Drouyn de
. 51-52. Lhuys ; but the peace party in England now
obtained valuable recruits from such men as
Mr. Gladstone and the other Peelites who
had resigned from the Cabinet — Mr. Roundell
Palmer, Lord Stanley, and Lord Robert Cecil
(afterwards Lord Salisbury). These men con-
sidered that the objects of the war had been
satisfied, and regarded insistence on the limitation
of Russian ships in the Black Sea as unreasonable.
The Austrian Chancellor, Count Buol, irritated
at the rejection of the Austrian proposals, made
public the fact that they had been supported by
the French and English representatives. This
led to a storm of indignation in England against
Lord John Russell, which forced him to resign.
Lord Raglan died in June. The Sebastopol
Committee issued their report in July, severely
criticising the conduct of the war. Public
opinion strongly condemned the Government,
both for their maladministration and for the
favouritism which they had shown to the
members of their own privileged class. They
were subjected to numerous attacks from the
Opposition in the House of Commons, and
only narrowly escaped defeat on more than one
occasion. The session finally closed at the end
of July.
On August 1 6 the battle of Tchernaya took
place, in which the Sardinian soldiers greatly
distinguished themselves, and on September 8
Sebastopol fell. The last event of the war was
212
BULWER-LYTTON'S SPEECHES
the capture by the Russians, on November 28, 1854-1855.
of the fortress of Kars, which had been gallantly ^ET. 51-52.
defended for many months by General Williams.
At the beginning of 1856 a Conference of the
Powers met in Paris, and the war was brought
to an end by the Peace of Paris, which was
signed in March.
In most of the parliamentary events referred
to in the foregoing summary, Bulwer-Lytton
took a prominent part. His speeches during
these years differ somewhat from those which
he made at other periods of his life. In the
main his parliamentary utterances are remarkable
for their detached point of view. They nearly
always contain some line of argument which is
peculiar to himself, and they are chiefly interest-
ing as revelations of his own individuality. His
speeches during the Crimean war, however, are
remarkable rather for their embodiment of the
sentiments and opinions of the day than for
any originality of thought. In times of great
national crisis most men's minds are tuned to
the same key, their hearts beat in greater
harmony than at other times, and their common
anxiety binds them in closer fellowship. During
the war there were, it is true, a few men who
did not share the prevailing opinions, who were
out of sympathy with the temper of the public,
whose voices were raised in opposition to the
policy which the rest of their countrymen
applauded, and who were stigmatised as
"Russians," just as their successors of a later
213
THE CRIMEAN WAR
1854. generation were stigmatised as " Pro- Boers."
51. Bulwer-Lytton was not one of these, and his
speeches in 1854 and 1855 are a reflection of
the sentiments of the great majority of the
English people at that time. He justified the
war as thousands of others justified it, he attacked
the mistakes of the Government as thousands of
others attacked them, and like the rest of his
countrymen he repudiated any suggestion of
peace until some substantial result had been
achieved to compensate the nation for sacrifices
which would otherwise appear merely wanton.
His speeches are not the less interesting on
that account, and deserve an examination for the
very qualities which I have mentioned.
On May 15, 1854, he spoke on the second
Reading of the Excise Duties Bill, and on
behalf of agriculturists bitterly complained of
the increase of the malt tax, which formed part
of Mr. Gladstone's war budget. Although the
tax itself was one which fell wholly on the
consumer, he argued that by diminishing the
demand for barley the tax had a specially
injurious effect upon the farmers. He also
criticised the reluctance of the Government to
meet the expenses of the war by means of a
loan, thereby placing part of the burden upon
the shoulders of posterity.
" So much has been said about our not saddling
posterity," he argued, " that it seems as if it were
intended to insinuate that this is not a war to be waged
on behalf of posterity, but for some fleeting and selfish
214
POLICY OF THE WAR
purpose of our own. If that be so, I call on our 1854.
Ministers to recall our fleets and to disband our J&T. 51.
armies — a war which is not for posterity is no fitting
war for us. But surely if ever there was a war waged
on behalf of posterity, it is the war which would check
the ambition of Russia, and preserve Europe from the
outlet of barbarian tribes, that require but the haven
of the Bosphorus to menace the liberty and the civilisa-
tion of races as yet unborn. It is not our generation
that need fear if the flag of Russia waved to-morrow
over the ruins of Constantinople. The encroachments
of Russia are proverbially slow; it would require a
quarter of a century before she could recover the
exhaustion of her own victories, and tame into con-
venient serfs the brave population she had conquered.
It is for all time that we wage the battle. It is that
the liberties of our children may be secured from some
future Attila, and civilisation guarded from the irrup-
tions of Scythian hordes. On this ground, then, we
might fairly demand the next generation to aid us in
the conflict we endure for their sake."
The concluding words of a speech made in
the following year may also be quoted here in
further illustration of the views of that genera-
tion, respecting the policy of the war : —
The noble Lord (Lord Archibald Hamilton) who
has just spoken with so much honesty of conviction,
ventured to anticipate the verdict of history. Let me
do the same. Let me suppose that when the future
philanthropist shall ask what service on the human race
did we, in our generation, signally confer, some one
trained, perhaps, in the schools of Oxford, or the
Institute of Manchester, shall answer : " A power that
commanded myriads — as many as those that under
215
THE CRIMEAN WAR
1854. Xerxes exhausted rivers in their march — embodied all
Er. 51. the forces of barbarism on the outskirts of civilisation.
Left there to develop its own natural resources, no
State molested, though all apprehended its growth.
But, long pent by merciful nature in its own legitimate
domains, this Power schemed for the outlet to its
instinctive ambition ; to that outlet it crept by dis-
simulating guile, by successive treaties that, promising
peace, graduated spoliation to the opportunities of
fraud. At length, under pretexts too gross to deceive
the common-sense of mankind, it prepared to seize that
outlet — to storm the feeble gates between itself and the
world beyond." Then the historian shall say that we
in our generation — the united families of England and
France — made ourselves the vanguard of alarmed and
shrinking Europe, and did not sheathe the sword until we
had redeemed the pledge to humanity made on the faith
of two Christian sovereigns, and ratified at those distant
graves which liberty and justice shall revere for ever.
It is always rash for the politicians of one
generation to anticipate the judgment which
later generations will pass upon their actions,
and the verdict of history on the policy of the
Crimean War is not precisely a fulfilment
of Bulwer - Lytton's grandiloquent prophecy.
Nevertheless, his words have an interest to-day
as an illustration of the extraordinary prejudice
which the people of that generation had been
taught to feel against Russia.
Bulwer-Lytton's next intervention in Parlia-
ment was on December 19, 1854, when he led
the attack on the Government by moving the
rejection of the Bill for the Enlistment of
216
FOREIGN ENLISTMENT BILL
Foreigners. He had little difficulty in making 1854.
out a strong case against this ill-advised measure, ;£T. 51.
and prophesying some of the embarrassments
which would follow from its adoption. Follow-
ing Lord John Russell, who had moved the
second Reading of the Bill, he contended that
no case had been made out "why we should
henceforth prefer to win our victories by proxy."
" What is it," he asked, " on which you now mainly
rely to continue this war with vigour, no matter at
what sacrifice and cost ? Not so much on the extent of
our territory, the amount of our population, the wealth
of our resources, as on the ardour of the people ; on
that spirit of nationality which, we are told by the
Minister of War, rises against every danger, and
augments in proportion to the demand on its energies.
It is that ardour you are about to damp — it is that
spirit of nationality to which this Bill administers both
discouragement and affront. The noble Lord says our
difficulty is at the commencement. What is the
commencement ? One burst of popular enthusiasm !
And in the midst of that enthusiasm, at a time when
we are told by the Secretary at War that ^you get
recruits faster than you can form them into regiments —
you say to the people of this empire, * Your rude and
untutored valour does not suffice for the prowess of
England, and we must apply to the petty principalities
of Europe for the co-operation of their more skilful
and warlike subjects.' I say that this is an unwise, and
I maintain it to be an unnecessary, blow upon the vital
principle that now sustains your cause, and brings to
your army more men than you know how to employ.
And if anything could make this war unpopular, it
would be the sight of foreign soldiers quartered and
217
THE CRIMEAN WAR
1854. drilled in any part of these kingdoms, paid by the taxes
Er. 51. extorted from this people, and occupying barracks of
which the paucity is your excuse for not having
embodied more of the militia of our native land. . . .
Now as to the precedents cited by the noble Lord. I
am almost ashamed to repeat what everyone knows —
namely, that the precedent you would draw from the
enlistment of Germans in 1804 and 1806 is wholly
inapplicable to the present case. Look to the period of
the great French war. Our sovereign was not only
King of Great Britain — he was Elector of Hanover.
His interests and ours were identified with the German
Powers, except, indeed, Prussia, which at that time,
influenced first by her guilty designs on the partition of
Poland, and afterwards by the hope of obtaining
Hanover as a reward for neutrality, did, in the opinion
of all dispassionate historians, by her selfish inertness
and procrastination, paralyse the army of the other
allies, and give to the common foe that gigantic power
of which Prussia was afterwards the most signal victim.
I trust that Prussia is wiser now ; that she will not again
amuse other and nobler confederacies by her tortuous
diplomacy, cripple their energies by dissimulating
lethargy, nor require, at the last, the assistance of their
arms to free herself from the ruin in which selfish
indifference to the common cause once involved her
very existence as a nation. But at that time the enlist-
ment of German soldiers in this country was at least
natural enough, though even the memory of their
gallantry in the field, which deserves all we can say of it,
has not, you see, sufficed to render that enlistment popular.
The noble Lord refers to the debate of 1804, in which
Mr. Francis, afterwards Sir Philip, took part. Ay, but
he did not tell you the excuse which the then Secretary
at War made to the objections Mr. Francis indignantly
urged. The excuse was this : — ' The enlistment of
218
FOREIGN ENLISTMENT BILL
German soldiers was only a measure of providing for a 1854.
certain number of men who were subjects of the same Mr, 51.
sovereign, and had been forced to leave their country.'
Who can say that this is a parallel instance ? It is true
that other foreigners were enlisted, but they were
chiefly from those German nations which had the most
cordial sympathy with the English cause. But now,
indeed, although we should be proud to have a sincere
and hearty alliance with the German courts, it is at least
premature to believe that their interests, their objects
in the war, are cordially and permanently identified
with our own. And if we would render the Germans
as popular in England as I hope they may yet be, we
could not more defeat that object than by exhibiting
German soldiers as substitutes for English valour upon
English ground. But the noble Lord goes back to the
time of Marlborough — nay, he says that in all our
former wars foreign troops have been employed. Yes ;
but when they were employed with honour, they were
the auxiliary forces of our open allies, and officered by
the rank, the chivalry, the military renown of nations
in the closest sympathy with ourselves, and were not
mere free lances, under unknown and mercenary
captains. I say, when they have been employed with
honour. For where, indeed, an aid similar to that
which you now demand has been obtained wherever
foreign princes have been subsidised, and their subjects
hired by English gold to take part in the struggles with
which they had no English sympathies — there the
historian pauses to vent his scorn on the princes who
thus sell the blood of their subjects, and his grief at the
degradation of England in the blood-money she pays
to the hirelings : these are not precedents to follow,
but examples to shun. . . .
Whatever way I look at this proposed Bill I can see
nothing to justify and excuse it. I have said that there
219
THE CRIMEAN WAR
1854. is no parallel case of precedent. Now, let us ask, What
Mr. 5 1 . is your plea of necessity ? And here, Sir, I find my own
opinions so lucidly and moderately stated by a great man
whose authority must have the utmost weight with
gentlemen opposite, that I will read what was said in this
House by the late Lord Grey, then Mr. Grey. He said :
— ' On urgent occasions it may be proper to introduce
foreign troops into this country, but it should never be
done except in cases of extreme and proved necessity,
and never should be suffered to be done without being
watched with that constitutional jealousy which is the
best part of the character of this House, and the best
security for the rights and liberties of the people.'
Now, let me pause, and appeal to the generous candour
of hon. gentlemen opposite, if these words, from one of
the greatest statesmen who ever adorned your opinions,
do not justify the jealousy with which we regard this
Bill, and whether we are right or wrong in that
jealousy, if they do not amply vindicate us from the
unworthy charge of wishing to obstruct the general
preparations for the war, because we cavil at the
introduction of foreign soldiers. Mr. Grey went on to
observe that ' Though he was not ready to deny that
for the purpose of our own defence we should some-
times employ foreign troops, yet he could not help
thinking that the wisest course for us would be to rely
on what had been emphatically called the energy of an
armed nation.' So, then, where is this case of urgent
and proved necessity — necessity for our own defence ?
You have not argued it as a necessity ; the noble Lord
has not done so ; he is too much of an Englishman for
that. It is only argued at most as a question of
convenience — the convenience of drilling or organis-
ing the troops in this country ; and I say that it
does not seem to me a convenience that is worth the
purchase."
220
LETTER TO FORSTER
At the beginning of January Bulwer-Lytton 1855.
wrote to John Forster : — JE.T. 52.
Jan. 1855.
MY DEAR FORSTER — Many happy New Years to
you, and may the coming stranger be more propitious
than he is to me. I am unable to shake off a worrying
bronchitis and serious cough, and am again tormented
with sciatica, which nailed me for three months
and more last year. Altogether I am hipped and
lifeless.
Is it Emerson Tennent whom you refer to as
speaking kindly of my parliamentary effort ? I can't
make out the name. All these things come too late,
and how evanescent they are at the best. Oh, to be a
raw recruit of 18, setting off for the dismal swamp of
the Crimea, full of hope, dreamless of sciatica and
pining for a word in a despatch. Eheu, fugaces,
Postume, Postume, labuntur anni. But that army, what
a state ! how one's heart bleeds. What blame attaches
somewhere. Is it Raglan really ? — Yrs. ever,
E. B. L.
In spite of the physical infirmities complained
of in this letter, he again took an effective part
at the end of the month in the debate on Mr.
Roebuck's motion for the appointment of a
Committee to inquire into the condition of the
army before Sebastopol, which led to the defeat
and resignation of Lord Aberdeen's Government ;
and his speech on this occasion dealt with most
of the charges which public opinion in favour
of the war brought against the Government
responsible for its conduct.
221
THE CRIMEAN WAR
1855. " And first," he said, " we accuse you of this : that you
JE.T, 52. entered — not, indeed, hastily, but with long deliberation,
with ample time for forethought, if not for preparation
— into the most arduous enterprise this generation has
witnessed, in the most utter ignorance of the power and
resources of the enemy you were to encounter, the
nature of the climate you were to brave, of the country
you were to enter, of the supplies which your army
would need. This ignorance is the more inexcusable
because you disdain the available sources of informa-
tion. ... It has indeed been said that the public were
no wiser than the Government — that the public under-
rated the power of Russia, and demanded the premature
siege of Sebastopol. If this were true, what then?
Why do we choose Ministers ? Why do we give them
salaries, patronage, honours — if it is not to have some
men wiser than the average of mankind, at least in all
that relates to the offices they hold ? It may be a noble
fault in a people to disregard the strength of an enemy
when the cause is just. Who does not love and admire
this English people more when they rose as one man to
cry ' No matter what the cost or hazard, let us defend
the weak against the strong ' ? But if to underrate
the power of an enemy was almost a merit in the
people, it was a grave dereliction of duty in a Minister
of War. But I deny that the public, fairly considered,
were not wiser than the Government, and there is
scarcely a point which you have covered with a blunder
on which someone or other of the public did not try to
prepare and warn you."
The next charges were that they failed to
take possession of Odessa,
. . . the great depot of the Russian enemy, the depot of
ammunition, provisions, troops for that Crimea which
CRITICISM OF THE GOVERNMENT
you had already resolved to invade. . . . This first 1855.
proof of feeble incapacity links itself with all that has JET. 52.
followed. You thus forbear the easiest and the wealthiest
conquest of all, in order afterwards, in the very worst
time, at the very worst season, to attempt an achieve-
ment the most difficult in itself, and which that forbear-
ance to Odessa rendered more difficult still.
He then proceeded to read extracts from the
letters of a young officer, who had died of
cholera on landing in the Crimea, to show that
the army was not equipped or provisioned as it
should have been, and that no allowance had
been made for the Russian climate at that season
of the year ; and he ascribed these blunders to a
lack of unity in the Cabinet itself and to the
Whig exclusiveness, under which " a small
hereditary combination of great families " had
obtained " a fictitious monopoly of Liberal
policy and a genuine monopoly of lethargic
Government." Time which might have been
spent on raising and adequately equipping British
troops had been wasted by the Government on
their ill-conceived Foreign Enlistment Bill.
Here again, the same eternal want of information !
You go to Germany for foreign troops, and Germany
declares your overtures illegal, and rejects them with
scorn. I ventured to tell you that if you carried the
Foreign Enlistment Bill you would never be able to
use it. And now Parliament meets again with fresh
accounts of almost incredible suffering — 9000 of our
surviving soldiers enfeebled, I fear, by disease ; the
huts that should shelter the rest still at Balaklava ; and
Lord Raglan, according to the despatch we read this
223
THE CRIMEAN WAR
1855. morning, still without men and vehicles to land and fix
. 52. them. Men look to us, half with hope, half with
despair. " What is to be done ? " is the cry of every
voice.
The answer to this question was suggested
in the concluding words of the speech — dismiss
the Government and save the army. And the
House of Commons, acting on the advice, dis-
missed the Ministry by a majority of 1 57 !
Had Lord Derby accepted the responsibility
incurred by his party in contributing to the
defeat of the Government and undertaken to
form an Administration, Bulwer-Lytton would
have found a place in the new Government.
This fact was publicly announced by Lord Derby
himself in the House of Lords on February 8.
In the course of a personal explanation of the
reasons which prevented him from taking office,
he indicated the support which, had he done so,
he might have counted on in the House of
Commons, and added : —
And when I speak of new blood, I am sure not one
of my friends in this or the other House will deem it
invidious in me to say that I should have received —
and in a high office of the Administration I should have
been proud to have received — the support and assistance
of the unrivalled eloquence and commanding talents of
Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
With the exception of a speech on the
abolition of the stamp duties on newspapers,
to which reference will be made in the next
224
SPEECH ON THE VOTE OF CENSURE
chapter, Bulwer-Lytton did not again take part 1855.
in the debates of this session until June 4, when &r. 52.
he spoke on Disraeli's vote of censure on the
Government. The negotiations at Vienna having
broken down in the meanwhile, his speech on
this occasion was chiefly concerned with the
reasons for continuing the war and the terms on
which alone peace could honourably be accepted.
He criticised the attitude adopted at that time
by Gladstone and the Peelite members who had
resigned in the spring from Lord Palmerston's
Government : —
The Right Honourable Gentleman complains that
the terms in which our object is to be sought are now
unwisely extended ? Who taught us to extend them ?
Who made not only the terms, but the object itself,
indefinite ? Was it not the head of the Government of
which the right hon. gentleman was so illustrious a
member ? Did not Lord Aberdeen, when repeatedly
urged to state to what terms of peace he would apply
the epithets " safe " and " honourable," as repeatedly
answer, " That must depend on the fortune of war ;
and the terms will be very different if we receive them
at Constantinople or impose them at St. Petersburg ? "
Sir, if I may say so without presumption, I always dis-
approved that language ; I always held the doctrine that
if we once went to war it should be for nothing more
and nothing less than justice (Mr. M. Gibson — Hear,
hear). Ay, but do not let me dishonestly catch that
cheer, for I must add, and also for adequate securities
that justice will be maintained. No reverses should
induce us to ask for less — no conquests justify us in
demanding more. . . . The right hon. gentleman dwelt
in a Christian spirit, which moved us all, on the gallant
VOL. ii 225 Q
THE CRIMEAN WAR
1855. blood that had been shed by us, our allies, and even by
E-r. 52. our foes, in this unhappy quarrel. But did it never
occur to him that all the while he was speaking, this
question was irresistibly forcing itself on the minds of
his English audience — " And shall all this blood have
been shed in vain ? Was it merely to fertilise the soil
of the Crimea with human bones ? And shall we who
have buried there two-thirds of our army, still leave a
fortress at Sebastopol and a Russian fleet in the Black
Sea, eternally to menace the independence of that ally
whom our heroes have perished to protect ? "
And would not that blood have been shed in vain ?
Talk of recent negotiations effecting the object for which
you commenced the war ! Let us strip those negotia-
tions of diplomatic quibbles, and look at them like men
of common-sense. Do not let gentlemen be alarmed
lest I should weary them with going at length over
such hackneyed ground — two minutes will suffice.
The direct question involved is to terminate the pre-
ponderance of Russia in the Black Sea ; and with this
is involved another question — to put an end to the
probabilities of renewed war rising out of the position
which Russia would henceforth occupy in those waters.
Now, the first proposition of Russia is to open to all
ships the passage of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles.
" That is the right thing," says the right hon. Member
for Manchester. Yes, so it would be, if Russia had
not the whole of that coast bristling with her fortresses ;
but while those fortresses remain it is simply to say,
" Let Russia increase as she pleases the maritime force
she can direct against Turkey, sheltered by all the
strongholds she has established on the coasts ; and let
France and England keep up, if they please, the
perpetual surveillance of naval squadrons in a sea, as
the note of the French Minister well expresses it,
' where they could find neither a port of refuge nor an
226
TERMS OF PEACE
arsenal of supply." This does not, on the one hand, 1855.
diminish the preponderance of Russia ; it only says ^Er. 52.
you may, at great expense, and with great disadvantage,
keep standing navies to guard against its abuse ; and,
on the other hand, far from putting an end to the
probabilities of war, it leaves the fleets of Russia
perpetually threatening Turkey, and the fleets of
England and France perpetually threatening Russia.
. . . The second proposition, which retains the mare
c/aitsum, not only leaves the preponderance of Russia
exactly what it was before the war began, but, in
granting to the Sultan the power to summon his allies at
any moment he may require them, exposes you to the
fresh outbreak of hostilities whenever the Sultan' might
even needlessly take alarm ; but with these differences
between your present and future position — first, that
Russia would then be strengthened, and you might be
unprepared ; and next, that while, as I said before, now
not one Russian flag can show itself on those waters, you
might then, before you could enter the Straits, find that
flag waving in triumph over the walls of the Seraglio. . . .
And now I put it to the candour of those dis-
tinguished advocates for the Russian proposals, whose
sincerity I am sure is worthy of their character and
talents, whether the obvious result of both these pro-
positions for peace is not to keep four Powers in the
unrelaxing attitude of war — one of those Powers always
goaded on by cupidity and ambition, the other three
always agitated by jealousy and suspicion ? And
is it on such a barrel of gunpowder as this that you
would ask the world to fall asleep ? " But," say the
hon. Gentlemen, " the demand of the Western Powers
on the third article is equally inadequate to effect the
object." Well, I think there they have very much
proved their case — very much proved how fortunate it
was that negotiations were broken off. However,
227
THE CRIMEAN WAR
1855. when a third point is to be raised again let us clear it
ET. 52. of all difficulties, and raise it, not in a Congress of
Vienna, but within the walls of Sebastopol.
Having argued that those who were now
advocating peace on unacceptable terms were
only weakening the power of their country to
wage the war successfully, and encouraging
Russia to hold out still longer, he concluded : —
In order to force Russia into our object we must
assail and cripple her wherever she can be crippled and
assailed. I say with the Right Hon. gentleman, the
member for the University of Oxford, do not offer
to her an idle insult, do not slap her in the face,
but paralyse her hands. " Oh," said a noble friend of
mine the other night (Lord Stanley), " it is a wretched
policy to humble the foe that you cannot crush ; and
are you mad enough to suppose that Russia can be
crushed ? " Let my noble friend, in the illustrious
career which I venture to prophesy lies before him,
beware how he ever endeavours to contract the grand
science of statesmen into scholastic aphorisms. No, we
cannot crush Russia as Russia, but we can crush her
attempts to be more than Russia. We can, and we
must, crush any means that enable her to storm or to
steal across that tangible barrier which now divides
Europe from a Power that supports the maxims of
Machiavelli with the armaments of Brennus. You
might as well have said to William of Orange, " You
cannot crush Louis XIV. ; how impolitic you are to
humble him ! " You might as well have said to the
burghers of Switzerland, " You cannot crush Austria ;
don't vainly insult her by limiting her privilege to
crush yourselves ! " William of Orange did not crush
France as a kingdom — Switzerland did not crush
228
PRAISE OF THE SPEECH
Austria as an empire, but William did crush the power 1855.
of France to injure Holland — Switzerland did crush the &r. 52.
power of Austria to enslave her people ; and in that
broad sense of the word, by the blessing of Heaven, we
will crush the power of Russia to invade her neighbours
and convulse the world.
This speech created a very favourable im-
pression in Paris, and was much praised by the
friends of Napoleon III., who, like Palmerston,
was strongly opposed to the suggested terms of
peace. In acknowledging some words in praise
of it from John Forster, Bulwer-Lytton wrote : —
Thanks for what you say of my speech both in your
note and the Examiner. As it was not made for a party,
it was not for the moment, I think, so effective as my
former ones, though it was as much so when men thought
over it. I am still very far from contented with my
delivery, though I suppose it will become better by
practice. Bright made a wonderful effect. What a
thorough Anglo-Saxon he is.
The only other speech of Bulwer-Lytton
on the Crimean war to which I shall refer
was that which he made on July 16, in
support of his motion of censure against Lord
John Russell for his conduct in connection with
the Vienna negotiations. The circumstances in
which this speech was delivered were peculiar
and caused no little embarrassment to the speaker.
As has already been mentioned, Lord John
Russell had been sent as the British Plenipoten-
tiary to the Vienna Conference in the spring of
1855. His position there was a difficult one, for
229
THE CRIMEAN WAR
1855. while he considered himself empowered to agree
. 52. on behalf of his Government to any terms which
he considered acceptable, Lord Palmerston and
his colleagues could not in fact accept any terms
which were not agreeable to their ally Napoleon
III.
Napoleon III. was entirely dependent for his
imperial throne upon the support of the French
army. For no consideration could he forfeit that
support, and finding that the Austrian proposals
would not satisfy the army, he refused to entertain
them. As soon as it became publicly known
that Lord John had agreed to proposals which
were afterwards repudiated by the Government
at home, an embarrassing situation was created,
which the Opposition at once took advantage of.
The public was not aware at the time of the
delicacy of the situation, and neither Lord John
Russell nor his colleagues could admit in their
own defence that they were continuing the war
for the purpose of keeping their ally on his throne.
On such of the facts as had then been made
public the Opposition had a strong case. Either
the Cabinet were disunited on the all-important
question of peace or war, in which case Lord
John Russell ought to have resigned, or if they
were all agreed, they could not be sincere in
advocating a vigorous prosecution of the war,
when a few weeks previously they had been pre-
pared to accept the Vienna proposals for the con-
clusion of peace.
Bulwer-Lytton accordingly gave notice of a
230
MOTION OF CENSURE
motion that Lord John Russell's conduct had 1855.
" shaken the confidence of the country in those to ^T. 52.
whom its affairs are entrusted," and the Opposi-
tion prepared to enforce their case against the
Government. On the day allotted for the
discussion of this motion, however, Lord John
rose and informed the House that his resignation
had been tendered and accepted, and in the
course of a personal explanation he made the best
defence which was possible under the circum-
stances. At the very last moment, therefore, the
whole situation had changed, and it was in one
of those unexpected situations so trying to
speakers in the House of Commons that Bulwer-
Lytton had to deliver his attack.
His speech on this occasion, though a bitter
attack on Lord John Russell's public action,
judged by the light of what was then known,
was made in perfectly good taste. After acknow-
ledging the change created in the situation by
Lord John's resignation, he proceeded to justify
his action in bringing forward a charge " against
a man so eminent, and against a Government so
justly entitled to the indulgence of compassion,"
by describing the situation.
The position of the noble Lord on Thursday last
was this, and he must pardon me if I state it frankly,
because in the whole course of his speech he does not
seem to have understood how that position is viewed
by his countrymen. Here was a great and distinguished
statesman, who had held the office of Chief Minister of
the Crown, who was sent to Vienna to negotiate terms
231
THE CRIMEAN WAR
1855. of peace, or to report to us honestly the necessity for
52. continued war. . . . He apparently fails in his object ;
he returns ; a suspicion gets abroad that the noble
Lord is inclined to favour the proposals of the Austrian
Government. That suspicion is mentioned in this
House on the 24th of May, and the noble Lord rises
to make a speech to dispel that suspicion, to vindicate
the breaking off of negotiations, and the continuance
of the war ; and although the noble Lord does not
refer to the Austrian proposals at all, he does in that
speech, which I do not think he has successfully defended
to-night, speak with marked disdain of the propositions
which embodied that main principle of naval counter-
poise which we have since learned the Austrian pro-
positions contained. . . . The general impression then
was that that speech of the noble Lord was somewhat
extravagant in its zeal. But we, who advocated the
vigorous prosecution of the war, pardoned that ex-
travagance for the sake of its high spirit. . . . Suddenly
there appeared in the public prints the circular of the
Austrian Minister, in which Count Buol states that
this very statesman had not only inclined to a peace
upon the terms proposed, and which he appeared to us
indignantly to scout, but that he had actually promised
to lay before his Government definite proposals for
peace so framed, and to back those terms in the Cabinet
with all his power. The thing seemed incredible ; but
the question on Friday week was put to the noble
Lord, and he then rises, confirms the statement, and
informs the House that he had brought back propositions
of peace which he did conscientiously recommend as
likely to end the war " with honour to the Allied
Powers, and on terms calculated to afford security for
the future," and that thus thinking peace both possible
and honourable, he did, nevertheless, when the question
was brought before this House, while the peace in
232
ATTACK ON LORD JOHN RUSSELL
question was being actually discussed by the Cabinet, 1855.
abuse the station he took from the favour of his JEr. 52.
Sovereign, and the confidence the people placed in his
honesty and truth, and join with his colleagues to urge
us to sacrifice the best blood of England in a war that
he deemed no longer necessary, and to disdain the
peace that he himself recommended.
The remainder of the speech is a bitter
condemnation of the position thus exposed, and
of the degrading effect in Europe of such a
spectacle of ministerial insincerity and dissension.
" Let us have peace," he said, " even upon Austrian
terms, and let us hope that the energies of our commerce
may atone for the failure of our arms ; or let the
Ministers and the people join with one heart and one
soul to carry on this war to a speedy and triumphant
end, by the earnestness of their purpose, and the
worthiness of their preparations. . . . There is some-
thing, however, which ought to be more lasting than
any peace, and more glorious than any war — I mean
that high standard of public integrity, without which
nations may rot, though they have no enemies, and
with which all enemies may be defied."
Lord Palmerston, who replied for the Govern-
ment, having a weak defence, indulged in one
of those fits of blustering ill-temper, which were
characteristic of him, and for reasoned argument
substituted mere personal rudeness. The follow-
ing is an example of his schoolboy-like retorts : —
The Hon. Baronet told us that these repeated
changes in the Ministry expose us to the ridicule of
Europe. Why, Sir, there might be a change of
233
THE CRIMEAN WAR
1855. Government that would render us still more the
T. 52. ridicule of Europe ; I mean if a man like the Hon.
Baronet were to be placed in a high position in it.
The motion was withdrawn after a short
debate, in which Disraeli replied for the Op-
position, and declared that the Prime Minister's
" reckless rhodomontade " was unworthy of one
"who is not only leader of the House of
Commons — which is an accident of life — but is
also a gentleman."
In the autumn of 1855 a series of articles
appeared in the Press, a newspaper which was
then regarded as the mouthpiece of the Con-
servative Opposition, condemning the continua-
tion of the war, and advocating the claims of
the peace party in a very pronounced manner.
These articles were supposed, though apparently
without justification, to have been inspired by
Disraeli. Bulwer-Lytton, who still believed
that no terms of peace had yet been suggested
which satisfied the objects for which the war
had been undertaken, wrote in great anxiety to
his political chief. I will close this chapter
with the interesting and characteristic corre-
spondence which passed between them on this
subject.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton to Benjamin Disraeli.
Oct. 15, 1855.
I cannot say, my dear Dis., how anxious I feel as to
your views on the policy to be adopted with regard to
the Peace and War question. Pray don't think me
234
THE « PRESS " ARTICLES
presumptuous if I most earnestly entreat you to pause 1855.
long before you in any way commit yourself to the Jvr. 52.
Gladstonian theory and sect. My convictions on that
head are of the strongest. I do not say more now, not
knowing how far you have made up your mind on this
all-important question. But if it be at all doubtful,
I earnestly beg you to give me the occasion to com-
municate my own ideas and adduce some of the
arguments to be urged against any connection with the
Anti-War parties, or any insistence upon peace, in the
present state of the struggle and the determined temper
of the public. I say no more at present, but if you
think it worth while to discuss the matter confidentially,
send me a line to Paris, under cover to Robert Lytton,
Attache, British Embassy, and I will liberate my mind
thereon. I am sure you know how cordial and brother-
like my affection for you is, and how great my interest
is in your fame and career. Pause — pause — pause, I
entreat you again, my dearest fellow, before you lend
your name to any of those argosies gone astray in the
Pacific. — Yours most affectly, E B L
PARK LANE, Sunday night.
Benjamin Disraeli to Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
HOCHE BEAUCHAMP, TAUNTON,
Nov. 6, 1855.
MY DEAR BULWER — Passing thro' town, I saw
Henry, and was surprised to hear that you had arrived,
or were arriving, in England.
Had I been aware of this, I would have modified
my engagements, and have had the advantage of
meeting you, and conferring together on the subject
of your last letter. I greatly appreciated it, and have
well and continually considered it, but have every day
235
THE CRIMEAN WAR
1855. felt it more difficult to reply to it in the shape or limits
Mr. 52. of an epistle.
As regards myself personally, your views were
founded on a misconception. Since the prorogation
I have taken refuge in inertness and silence, which I
think becomes the position of our party. I have not
said, done or written, anything which could give any
indication of my views or feelings, either publicly or
privately, and I should never have thought of taking
up any new position with respect to so great a subject
as the war, without previously consulting with those
friends with whom I act, and certainly with yourself.
With respect to the subject generally, without
attempting to enter into any controversy, or pretending,
with any precision or completeness, to express my
views, I would make one or two suggestive remarks.
There appears to me, in your views of the subject,
however just their general scope, the omission of an
important element in forming an opinion as to the
practical conduct of a political party.
You are apt to forget, and I am not surprised at it,
for I constantly feel its mortification, that you are an
eminent member of a great party which has shrunk, or
which, at any rate, is believed by the country to have
shrunk, from the responsibility of conducting the war.1
One might be inclined to believe that a party in
this pitiable position, were bound to prepare the public
mind for a statesmanlike peace. I do not very clearly
comprehend how a war Ministry and a war Opposition
can coexist.
An Opposition must represent a policy, and if it
represents the policy of the Minister, it ceases to be an
Opposition.
To shrink from conducting the war and then to
1 Owing to Lord Derby's refusal to take office at the beginning of
the year.
236
CORRESPONDENCE WITH DISRAELI
stimulate it, seems to me to reduce us too much to the 1855.
level of the little boys who will cheer Palmerston on ^Er. 52.
Lord Mayor's Day.
These are rough hints, but they will convey to your
intelligence what is passing thro' my mind.
Something like this I intimated to Henry, and I
cannot say that his exposition of the situation satisfied
me. As there is scarcely any judgment I hold superior
to his, I fear our present position is less satisfactory
than I could hope. I trust your son is quite right
again. — Ever yours, j)
You cannot communicate to me too often and too
freely. Everything you say, as you must know, weighs
with me — and deeply.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton to Benjamin Disraeli.
Nov. 12, 1855.
MY DEAR D. — I am much obliged by your letter.
I had ascribed your silence to the reasons you state.
It is quite true that it is difficult by letter to enter into
a question so complicated, but tho' much in your note
disquiets me, I rejoice to find that you do not consider
yourself personally committed to the line of the Press
articles, which, however able, have to my mind, con-
siderably tended to damage the party, and force on
that discord which your extraordinary tact and sagacity
smoothed over last session. A concurrence with the
views in those articles would either alienate from you
or (if they were converted) oust from Parliament
the most staunch and reliable of your friends, whose
Constituencies are warlike to the core. Pardon me,
my dear Dis., if I cannot attach the weight you seem,
I hope ironically, to do to the suggestion that the party
you so gallantly led against all pacific waverers last
session, shrank, or is supposed by the country to have
237
THE CRIMEAN WAR
1855. shrunk from the responsibility of conducting the war!
T. 52. Certainly, I never so considered it, and certainly, after
Lord Derby's refusal to form a Govt. that was not
the tone we took. Not on that ground did we oppose
the Austrian proposal and move against Lord John.
Warlike did the country hold the majority of our
party (as warlike I am sure the majority are) and
increasing rapidly was the popularity of the natural
succession to Palmerston, till those Press articles
and the inference drawn from them, fastened upon
Palmerston the very repute he denied, viz. : — that of
being the only representative of the martial sentiment
that pervades the population.
Now, as to the theory that an Opposition must have
a policy, and if it coincide in the policy of Ministers
it ceases to be an Opposition, with all deference to you,
I think that theory might be fatal if pushed too far.
This was the theory that wasted Fox's life out of
office. The proper position for us to take seems to me
not that of Fox in the French War, but that of Pitt
versus Addington. Treat Palmerston as Pitt treated
Addington — outwar him. Rely on it, that at this time,
the country would allow no pacific advisers either to
form a War Government, or to come in as a Peace
one. The Country will never take -peace from a -peace
party. It will take peace only from those whom it
feels to have been thoroughly in earnest when the
business was fighting. I own I feel most deeply anxious
for the state of the country. I see more reasons to
desire peace than even the peace party put forward, but
I see in those reasons additional arguments for throw-
ing one's whole soul into the war, in order to conquer
that peace and not creep out of the contest, leaving
behind, in the opinion of France^ such an idea of our
military incapacity as would be sure, ere long, to subject
us to a struggle with a far worse antagonist than
238
PROPOSED PAMPHLET
Russia, and for our very existence. Henry shares my 1855.
views, and far from thinking despondently of our JE.T. $
prospects, he agrees with me in believing that nothing
could prevent the Conservatives coming into power,
but a profession of peace policy and a junction with
peace politicians. If that were to happen and we were
to outvote Palmerston as too warlike, Palmerston would
become the most popular Minister since Chatham. He
would not resign, he would dissolve, and a Dissolution
would scatter his opponents to the winds. Look at
Lord John's reception in the Guildhall ! Hissed in
the City of London ! Can anything more significantly
warn us, or more extinguish the practicability of
the Press recommendations.
" Much meditating," as Brougham phrases, and
what is more to the purpose, much feeling, I have
written a letter to a constituent containing my views
that I should like much to publish in the Times.1 I
have an idea that it will do great good to the party
at this moment, and (without, of course, referring to
the Press articles or the rumours they occasioned)
remove the suspicion and unpopularity those articles
and rumours have engendered. Of course, I should
only speak for myself, I should commit neither
you nor anyone else. On the contrary, I am sure I
should serve you, and yet leave you perfectly free.
Fancy, I met Stanley to-day, and told him frankly the
purport of what I meant to write. To my surprise
he said " that he went entirely along with my views
and ideas, and that nothing therein could offend the
Peacemen." That last I believe, for I should be
Careful to offend none — I should be general, English
and hearty, because I feel English and hearty. I should
point out the inadequacy and feebleness of preparations,
&c., but without attacking anyone by name. In short,
1 Letter to Delme Radcliffe, Esq., published in Collected Speeches.
239
1 85 5. without boring you further, I think I see my way to
JEr. 52. a decided effect, good for the country, good for the
party. At all events, it would serve as a feeler — if it
did good, tant mieux, if it did harm, it could only
harm myself ; if it fell flat, it would be a coup manqu^
that's all. Now if this be published, the right moment
is now. Do you think you can trust to my tact and
discretion not to commit a blunder therein, or would
you rather first see the article ?
Pray write to me by return of post, as I should not
like to do anything till I hear from you — and yet time
presses. What would strike one week would be feeble
the next. If you desire to see it, say where it is to be
sent, and return it forthwith. And if you say " No,
burn it," burned it shall be. Yet I think you may
trust my instincts. I feel something of the kind is
wanted and speedily. The object at the moment is not
to attempt to damage Palmerston, but to save from
damage the leaders, to whom in default of Graham,
Gladstone, Russell, &c., the country would necessarily
look to succeed him, unless they get into the same mess
as has disabled all their rivals. — Yrs. afF. T? D T
Hi. £>. LM
Disraeli must have replied immediately to
this letter deprecating publication of the sug-
gested article, for Bulwer-Lytton wrote again
on November 14 as follows : —
The same to the same.
KNEBWORTH,
Nov. 14, 1855.
MY DEAR D. — Many thanks for your kindness in
answering my note so promptly. The expression of
your opinion, however moderately conveyed, suffices to
deter me from publication. Certainly I would not on
any account force on divisions amongst us, or a belief
240
THE PEACE OF PARIS
in their existence. My hope and aim in publishing 1855.
would have been to prevent divisions, dispel the belief JET. 52.
in them, and secure to us even some share of popular
enthusiasm. From what I hear amongst influential
supporters (I don't mean in Parliament), both personally
and by anxious correspondents, I do think there is
at this moment a dangerous uneasiness in the party,
which it would be good to dispel as soon as might be.
I may be wrong, but I do heartily hope that we shall,
before Parliament meets, make up all our differences.
Now that I resign the idea of publishing, I should like
you to see what I proposed to write, and in a day or two
it will be ready. I could then come up to town with
it, if I found you there. Tell me your plans. My
object in asking you to see it simply is because it at
once embodies all the views that I ill express by letter,
and will allow you to see at once whether there be any
radical difference between your idea and mine, than
which nothing could pain me more deeply, but which
I really don't think exists, when we come to confer. —
Most truly yrs.,
E. B. L.
Athough Bulwer-Lytton was probably right
in describing the feeling in England as still
warlike, France was by this time tired of the
war. Napoleon III. was now as anxious to con-
clude peace as in the summer he had been
anxious to avoid it ; and as the attitude of
Napoleon III. was throughout the key to the
situation, the definite proposals for terminating
the war which were again put forward from
Vienna before the end of November were this
time seriously entertained and resulted in the
Peace of Paris, which was signed in March 1856.
VOL. ii 241 R
CHAPTER III
ACTIVITIES IN AND OUT OF PARLIAMENT
1855-1858
The heart loves repose, and the soul contemplation, but the mind needs
action.
My Novel.
1855. BULWER - LYTTON'S speeches on the Crimean
52. war greatly increased his parliamentary reputa-
tion and marked him out as a certain office-
holder in the next Conservative administration.
It was not, however, till three years later that
the expectations held out by Lord Derby in
1855 could be fulfilled. Mention must now be
made of the work of those three years.
In order not to interrupt the narrative of the
last chapter, I passed by a political event of some
interest in connection with this biography. On
March 26, 1855, Bulwer-Lytton again, and for
the last time, defended in Parliament the
abolition of the stamp duties on newspapers.
He had the satisfaction at last of seeing the
removal of those "taxes upon knowledge,"
against which he had protested so pertinaciously
in his youth. It will be remembered that in
1835, on the third occasion that he had pleaded
242
REPEAL OF THE NEWSPAPER TAXES
with the Government to repeal the stamp duties 1855.
on newspapers, both Lord Melbourne, then &?• S
Prime Minister, and Lord Althorp, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, had held out
hopes that this might be done in the next
session. Since then twenty years had passed,
and it was reserved for Sir George Cornewall
Lewis to redeem the pledge which had been
given to a former generation. During that
time Bulwer-Lytton had changed his political
allegiance ; yet when a Liberal Chancellor of the
Exchequer in 1855 proposed to carry out this
fiscal change, he defended it against the protests
of some of his own party with the same vigour
as of old, and with an additional twenty years'
experience to enforce his arguments.
The opponents of the repeal now took their
stand on a different ground. There was no exact
counterpart in 1855 to the Sir Charles Wetherall
of 1835 ; and the main argument put forward in
opposition to the Government proposal was that
it was an act of folly to sacrifice £200,000 of
revenue at a time when new taxes were being
imposed to carry on the Russian war. It is
indeed an ironical fact, and one which invites
considerable mistrust of ministerial arguments,
that a change which on financial grounds alone
was resisted by one Liberal Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer in a year when the country was at peace,
and the state of the revenue flourishing, should
actually have been proposed by a subsequent
Liberal Chancellor when the country was at
243
IN AND OUT OF PARLIAMENT
1855. war, the income tax at is. 4<i., and every penny
T. 52. which could be raised was required to meet an
enormous new financial liability.
In defence of Sir George Cornewall Lewis's
proposals, Bulwer-Lytton restated the principle
for which he had contended all his life, " that
you ought not in a free country to lay a tax on
the expression of political opinion — a tax on the
diffusion of that information on public affairs
which the spirit of our constitution makes the
interest and concern of every subject in the State.
Still more, you should not, by means of that tax,
create such an artificial necessity for capital that
you secure the monopoly of thought upon the
subjects that most interest the public at large to
a handful of wealthy and irresponsible oligarchs."
" The question," he added, " is this — whether it
is not time that we should enforce that great
principle of the constitution of civil liberty, and
of common sense, which says that opinion shall
go free, not stinted nor filched away by fiscal ar-
rangements, but subject always to the laws of the
country against treason, blasphemy, and slander."
George Jacob Holyoake, in his Sixty Tears of
an Agitator s Life (1892), has given a description
of this debate, from which I extract the following
allusion to Bulwer-Lytton's speech : —
On the famous night when the stamp fell, when the
loth of Queen Anne was put to death, I was in the
House of Commons. It was on the 26th of March,
1855, and I was present from four o'clock in the
afternoon until nearly one o'clock next morning.
244
DESCRIPTION OF THE DEBATE
Mr. Bouverie had vacated the chair, the usher l8S5-
raised the mace, the Speaker took his seat, and -&T. 52.
announced with a voice reverberant as the Long
Parliament — loud enough to reach into innumerable
sessions to come — that the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer's Bill would be proceeded with.
While Mr. Deedes moved an amendment (in a dull,
insipid, gaseous speech, of the carbonic acid kind) to
defer the second reading of the Bill, a fashionably-
dressed, slenderly-built Member appeared on the right
of the gangway, taking notes. From the Speaker's
Gallery he seemed a young man. Before the dull
Deedes had regained his seat, the elegantly-looking
lounger from the Club threw down his hat and .caught
the Speaker's eye. Rebuking his " honourable friend "
(Deedes) for assuming that the House had not had
time to understand the Bill before it, he announced
that 20 years ago he (the lounger) had introduced
a similar Bill into Parliament. Strangers then knew
that Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton was the Member
addressing the House. It was said that Sir Edward
purchased his baronetcy by compromising the News-
paper Stamp Bill of 1836. Be this as it may, he nobly
vindicated his liberal and literary fame by his brilliant
speech this night. " Do not fancy," he exclaimed, " that
this penny tax is a slight imposition. Do not fancy
that a penny paper is necessarily low and bad. Once
there existed a penny daily paper — it was called The
Spectator. Addison and Steele were its contributors.
It did more to refine the manners of the people than
half the books in the British Museum. Suddenly a
penny tax was put on that penny paper, and so one
fatal morning the most pleasing and graceful instructor
that ever brought philosophy to the fireside, had
vanished from the homes of men. A penny tax
sufficed to extinguish the Spectator and divorce that
245
IN AND OUT OF PARLIAMENT
1855. exquisite alliance which genius had established between
Er. 52. mirth and virtue."
This fine passage was worthy of the occasion.
Nothing comparable to it was said during the debate.
. . . Those who say old convictions are never
shaken, nor votes won by debate, should have stood in
the lobby at midnight after this division. A burly
country squire of the Church-and-King species — fat
and circular as a prize pig — a Tory " farmer's friend,"
born with the belief that a free press would lead to an
American Presidency in St. Stephen's, and that the
penny stamp was the only barrier in the way of a
French Convention in this country, and that Gibson,
Cobden and Bright, were counterparts of Danton,
Robespierre and Marat in disguise — this obese legis-
lator, nudging a Liberal who had voted in the
majority, said, " I gave a vote on your side to-night !
Lytton convinced me." A triumph of oratory that for
Sir Edward ! 215 voted for a free press on this night
— 161 against; majority 54.
During the year 1855 Bulwer-Lytton was at
work upon his translation of the Odes and TLpodes of
Horace. In a letter to John Forster he wrote : —
" I am translating Horace's Odes in rhymeless
metre for amusement — my first literary impulse for
four years." A letter to his son also gives some
explanation of the circumstances in which this
work was undertaken. After describing a private
worry which had preyed upon his mind for
two years, he adds : —
It was to force my mind into something wholly
different that I plunged into this Horatian Bath — Fonte
Bandmiae I And do not forget, in after life, if you
246
have the same kind of torment immediately bearing on l855-
the present, affecting the future, irritating, stinging, -#/r. 52.
haunting, irreparable — to try the same effect of entering
into that still classical world of the dead past. I do
not think original poetry would have the same effect,
because that would still bear on one's own feelings,
re-excite imagination, and recall one's own individuality.
But the classical world has ideas wholly apart from one's
own ; one insensibly transmutes oneself on entering into
it. The petty and trivial difficulty of hunting after
the right word — the immersion in disputes of gram-
marians and commentators — all gradually interest the
mind, and call out counterbalancing powers not usually
employed. It can't last long, it is true, with a nature
of large passions, but it may be the ferry boat your
own lyrics allude to, to carry one over " the fatal
moment " and leave one on the " farther shore."
Shakespeare is too small for the grief, but Horace
or Homer serves as a draught or sip of Lethe.
In another letter to his son, undated, but appar-
ently belonging to this time, he says : —
I shall be anxious to hear your prospects of Naples.
A nice place indeed. Ah, enviable young man, youth,
Naples, poetry and hope ! a paid attache and cheques
on the vast Bank of the Future, which genius and perse-
verance so rarely leave dishonoured. I go to-day to
Knebworth. There, I hope to get up the American case
for debate thoroughly, and, perhaps, also complete my
first instalment of Horace.
I find incessant occupation the only thing now for
me. I build a wall round myself in which 1 seek not
to leave a cranny for one hostile thought or treacherous
memory ; the bricks are always in the kiln and the
trowel in the hand — poor bricks but stout cement !
247
1856. The task thus undertaken as a mental sedative,
ET. 53. and without any regard to publication, continued
to provide an interesting literary occupation for
many years, and it was not till 1869 that this
work was eventually published.
At the beginning of 1856 he was occupied
by extensive structural alterations at Knebworth.
On May I he spoke in the House of Commons
in the debate on the capitulation of Kars, and in
August he was again seeking health from the
waters of Malvern. Though he speaks in his
letters of being "profoundly idle," he was at
work at this time upon the novel Pausanias, the
Spartan, which was not published till after his
death (1876).
Of this work he writes to his son in the
summer :-
I am slowly getting on with my Spartan story and
am weaving many of the old Greek lyrics into use in
rhymeless metre. I send you one, not, however,
borrowed from the actual Greek author, but I think
it has the Greek spirit. It is a song supposed to have
been sung by a Laconian singer accompanied with
Dorian flutes, before the first appearance on my stage
of the Spartan Pausanias — the conqueror of Plataea.
And again a few weeks later : —
My Pausanias stops. I don't see my way through
it. I have been horribly idle, or rather energy and
invention stop with me. I may hark back to the
Horace. My literary vein seems quite dry. Nothing
original comes to me. I have made some galvanic
248
.,_
LORD RECTOR OF GLASGOW
attempts at Tales and Essays ; all run aground after a l857-
few pages. ^T- 54-
In the same letter he says : —
I have been busy among my constituents, speaking,
etc. I addressed tta boys at Bishop Stortford School,
(an excellent one), and I am not sure whether it was
not the most effective speech I ever made. A middle
class school, but how superior to schools for us in the
general teaching. If one learnt nothing out of school
at Eton and Harrow, would what one learns at the
school enable one to keep up with the sons of traders ?
I doubt it.
Another and more important engagement was
fulfilled at the beginning of 1857. In the year
1856 Bulwer-Lytton had been elected Lord
Rector of Glasgow University. The election of
the Lord Rector at that time took place annually,
but many of the Rectors remained in office for
two years, very few for three. Bulwer-Lytton
had the exceptional honour of being elected to
this office for three years in succession — 1856—
1858.
On January 15, 1857, he delivered his
Rectorial Address to the students, the success
of which was thus announced in a letter to his
son written a few days later : —
The effect in Glasgow was astounding. Never such
a sensation before, even from Peel or Macaulay. Nor
did I ever before see my own reputation face to face as
I did in that wondrous city, which is awful from its
wealth and its splendour.
249
IN AND OUT OF PARLIAMENT
l857- The literary vein which seemed to have run
r. 54- dry in the summer of 1856 must have been re-
plenished by new ideas before the end of the
year, for early in 1857 ^e was a^e to send to
Forster the first chapters of a new novel, What
will he do with it?, and received a very en-
couraging verdict in reply.
John Forster to Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
46 MONTAGUE SQUARE, W.,
„ April 27, 1857.
MY DEAR BULWER-LYTTON — Nothing could be
better for the opening of the story. The interest
springs up at once and takes hold of you. I can
answer for myself at least.
And if I am not greatly mistaken, you have hit
upon something new in grandfather Waife. I see, or
fancy I see, germs of infinite growth in him — sensitive,
sarcastic, humorous, tragic, the high and the low in all
possibilities of contrast and combination — a character
of as many sides as would satisfy Polonius himself,
give him only room and verge.
The Cobbler's crystal I cannot quite see into, but
notwithstanding that, and his unsettling a theory of
mine about the radical propensities of cobblers (originat-
ing in their wish, I have fancied, to cobble everything),
you make me love the good old heart already.
I hugely like the beginning of your story, and
heartily wish you health and spirits to go on as you
have begun. Make as much lamentation as you like
about your gone youth, but continue to write as you
now do, and the epitaph will be worth all it is written
over.
You must let me see more of the story as soon as
250
"WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT'
you can. "What will he do with it?" is a thought l857-
now pressing sorely on your old friend, ^T. 54.
JOHN FORSTER.
The completion of this novel occupied the
remainder of the year 1857, and it appeared as
it was written in monthly parts in Blackwood's
Magazine. As the story developed the author
continued to receive the most flattering en-
couragement from his friend Forster, who wrote
on May 1 5 : —
I had much to say of the earlier portion of these
chapters, but the later knocked it all out of my head.
You have done nothing finer, nothing fuller of subtle
touches of genius and wisdom and humanity, than
Darrell and his surroundings, and that young Lionel. I
cannot criticize it. My only feeling is the eagerness
to get on. I never felt so impatient of the piecemeal
publication. And yet the curious thing is that both
sides of the interest yet shown have a certain sort of
completeness, of fullness, in the expectation they have
wakened in me, that seems to check the impatience,
both as to Waife and Darrell, no matter what the
current of story may be, the character is so well laid.
And again on December 2 1 : —
What will he do with it ? which by your kind inter-
cession I now get regularly from Blackwood, immensely
interests me. My wife is in despair about the separa-
tion of Waife and his grandchild, but this I bear
heroically for the story's sake and the finished art of
the narrator. We must pay something for our enjoy-
ments. To me the peculiarity of this story is the
extraordinary sustainment of wit and knowledge in the
251
IN AND OUT OF PARLIAMENT
1857. writing — not simply in the remarks or reflections where
r. 54. you lay yourself out for such display, but in the
texture of the narrative, the woof out of which the
whole is spun.
The book was finished at the beginning of
1858, just before the author undertook the new
and arduous labours of a Cabinet Minister ; and on
February 21, 1858, in a letter announcing that
Lord Derby had been sent for and had agreed to
form a Government, he adds, " My book is done
and in Blackwood's hands."
Although the year 1857 was chiefly devoted
to literary work, Bulwer-Lytton was not inactive
in politics. The chief topic of public interest
at the beginning of the year was the trouble
with China occasioned by the action of Sir John
Bowring, the British Plenipotentiary at Hong-
Kong. In a letter to his son, he writes on
February 26, 1857 : —
I have been absorbed in politics or I should have
written before. To-day we have a debate on the
Chinese question. I think I have mastered the question,
and I have the idea of speaking to-night. But I feel
nervous and may not do so.
This question arose out of an act of the most
wanton aggression committed under Sir John
Bowring's orders, and afterwards upheld by Lord
Palmerston and the Government at home. The
history of the incident was as follows.
China was at this time almost entirely closed
to Europeans, and there were no diplomatic
252
THE CHINESE WAR
representatives at Pekin ; but by the treaty of 1857.
Nankin, 1842, five ports were to be opened to &T. 54.
foreign trade. The terms of the Treaty had only
been complied with in respect of four of these
ports, and Canton, the fifth, still remained closed
to Europeans, the excuse given being that the
Chinese Government would not accept responsi-
bility for the safety of foreigners in that city.
The British Plenipotentiary in Hong-Kong, Sir
John Bowring, resented his exclusion from
Canton and awaited some opportunity of forcing
the Chinese Government to carry out their
treaty obligations. On October 8, 1856, an
incident occurred at Canton which he seized
upon for the purpose of enforcing his claim.
The Arrow, a small Chinese ship, built and
owned by Chinese and with a Chinese crew
on board, was lying in Canton harbour, and
flying the British flag, when she was boarded by
the Chinese authorities, and her crew arrested on
a charge of piracy. The British Consul, Mr.
Parkes, demanded their release on the ground
that they were under the protection of the
British flag. As a matter of fact, the Arrow was
not in any sense a British ship, and though she
had had a licence to fly the British flag, the
licence had expired, and, therefore, no justification
existed for the British Consul's demand, which
was not unnaturally refused by the Chinese
authorities. Mr. Parkes referred the matter to
Sir John Bowring, who, only too glad of an
opportunity to assert himself, replied that though
253
IN AND OUT OF PARLIAMENT
1857. the licence of the Arrow had expired, the Chinese
ET. 54. were not aware of this fact, and an apology must
be demanded of them within forty-eight hours.
When no reply was received, he ordered the
British Admiral, Sir Michael Seymour, to attack
the forts of Canton. His instructions were carried
out and the forts were destroyed on October 28.
Yeh, the Governor of Canton, then released the
crew, but refused to make any apology. Sir
James Bowring thereupon advanced the claims
which he had been waiting to make, and demanded
that he should be admitted to Canton in accord-
ance with the terms of the Treaty of Nankin, and
failing to get any satisfaction, he gave orders for
a further bombardment of Canton. Governor
Yeh retaliated by offering a reward for the
murder of any Englishman and the destruction of
any British ships. This led to a series of outrages
and atrocities on the part of the Chinese, and
these were afterwards claimed in England as a
justification of the utterly indefensible proceed-
ings, of which they were in fact not the cause
but the result.1
As soon as the Blue Book describing these
1 In a short biographical memoir of Sir John Bowring, attached to his
own autobiographical recollections, the only justification for his action on
this occasion is contained in the following words : — " Most unprejudiced
persons will admit that it was an error to allow the British flag to be
abused by unscrupulous Chinese traders, and it is evident that the vessel in
question had no right to carry it, the term of registry having expired.
The dispute was in fact regarded as a means to an end, that end being the
free admission of foreigners to the city of Canton ; and although Yeh's
conduct was defiant throughout, and his resolute determination not to
hold intercourse with high European officials at his Yamun exhibited a
lamentable perversity, it is a subject of regret that a better cause of
quarrel was not found than the Arrow affair."
254
SPEECH ON THE CHINESE QUESTION
events was published in England, votes of censure 1857.
were moved against the Government in both &T. 54.
Houses of Parliament. The debate in the
House of Lords began on February 24, and was
adjourned till the 26th. Though Lord Derby
made out an overwhelming case and was strongly
supported in debate, his resolutions condemning
the Government were defeated by a majority
of thirty-six. In the House of Commons the
matter was introduced by Mr. Cobden on
February 26, and the debate lasted four nights.
Bulwer-Lytton spoke on the first night im-
mediately after Mr. Labouchere, the Colonial
Secretary, in support of Mr. Cobden's resolution,
and thus found himself, for the first and only time
in his life, acting in concert with the Manchester
Liberals — " those miserable Cobdens and vision-
ary peace-dreamers," as he had called them
in 1848.
His speech began with an admirably reasoned
statement of the case, from the point of view of
international law and international equity, and
ended with a vigorous denunciation of the
Government. He pointed out that the original
demand of the British Consul for the surrender
of the crew was unjustifiable, because since the
Arrow was not a British vessel within the
meaning of the Treaty, it was impossible for
the Government to avail themselves of another
clause of the Treaty which declared that if any
Chinese malefactor be on board a British vessel,
and the Chinese authorities wish to arrest him,
255
IN AND OUT OF PARLIAMENT
1857. they shall not forcibly enter upon such British
£T. 54. vessel, but shall make application to the British
Consul. The argument that the Chinese did
not know the true position of the Arrow he
swept aside with scorn.
" Why, Sir," he said, " a falsehood does not exist
only in the telling a lie, but in the wilful suppression
of truth ; and this suppression of truth Lord Clarendon,
a Minister of the Crown, does not hesitate to re-echo
and approve. In the magniloquent appeal with which
the Colonial Secretary concluded his peroration, he
talked loftily of vindicating the honour of the nation.
The honour of the nation ! Sir, prevarication and
falsehood have nothing to do with the honour of the
English nation ; they appertain rather to the honour
of an Old Bailey . attorney. We have heard a great
deal about the dissimulation and duplicity of Russia.
How Russia will chuckle at this ! Here is a Minister
of the Crown, the austere negotiator of the Paris
Conference, the rebuker of Russian duplicity, approving
colonial agents in the maintenance of a claim which
they knew to be illegal, and the assertion of a fact
which they knew to be untruth ! "
In conclusion, he argued that whatever might
have been the mistakes committed in the initial
stages, the whole responsibility rested with the
Government at home, from the moment they
supported and approved the action of their agent
on the spot.
With regard to Sir John Bowring, we all know
that he is an able and accomplished man ; but he is
also a man of enthusiastic temperament, and, like all
men of genius, is very desirous of carrying out his own
256
DEFEAT OF THE GOVERNMENT
wishes. From the first he was seized by a strong 1857.
ambition to obtain an entrance into Canton ; and JEr. 54.
although I do not doubt that Sir John Bowring is
as humane and honourable a man towards his own
countrymen as any amongst us, yet when agents of
European Governments come in contact with oriental
nations, they are apt to be gradually warped from the
straight line of humanity and justice they would adopt
at home. It is then that we look to a wise Government
to guard against the over-zeal of agents by salutary
cautions which foresee and prevent their errors, and by
temperate rebuke when the errors are first incurred.
When a Government forsakes this duty — when it
places before us nothing but unqualified approval of
actions like those recorded in the papers laid on our
table — all subordinate agents, like colonial superin-
tendents and consuls, vanish from our eyes, and it is
only with the Government that we have to deal.
Here, then, in my place as a representative of the
people, it is the Government that I charge. I charge
them with sanctioning an ordinance which, unknown
to Parliament, has turned into a dead letter that grand
Act of the Imperial Legislature which regulates the
whole trade and navigation of the country. I charge
them with approving the enforcement of that ordin-
ance by measures that equally violate the laws of
nations and the spirit of English honour. I charge
them with lending the authority of the Crown to
homicide under false pretences, belying the generous
character of our country, and offensive to every senti-
ment of right and justice which our nature receives
from Heaven !
The debate was concluded on March 3. In
the division thirty-five Liberals, including Mr.
Gladstone and Lord John Russell, as well as the
VOL. ii 257 s
IN AND OUT OF PARLIAMENT
1858. greater number of the Conservatives, followed
ET. 55. Cobden, with the result that the Government
was defeated, and the resolution carried by a
majority of sixteen.
Two days later Lord Palmerston announced
that he had advised the Queen to dissolve
Parliament. A General Election followed,
and resulted in a personal triumph for Lord
Palmerston. Exactly what Bulwer-Lytton had
prophesied in his letter to Disraeli would have
been the result of a dissolution at the end of
1855 now took place. The election was fought
as much on the Crimean war as on the Chinese
question. Lord Palmerston was regarded as a
national hero, the champion of British rights
abroad, and the vindicator of British honour.
When the new Parliament assembled on April 30,
the Government had a substantial majority. Be-
fore the year was out, however, they were again
defeated in the House of Commons and resigned.
This sudden and unexpected event was the
result of the attempt on the life of Napoleon III.
by the Italian Orsini, which took place on
January 14, 1858. For the second time in his
career Lord Palmerston was driven from office
by circumstances connected with the French
Emperor. When it was discovered that Orsini
and his fellow-conspirators had hatched their
plot in England, and that their bombs had been
made in Birmingham, a great outcry arose in
France against this country for the asylum
granted to criminals of this character. Repre-
258
A NEW CRISIS
sentations were made to the British Government, 1858.
through the medium of the French Ambassador &-*. 55.
in London, urging that some action should be
taken to prevent the preaching of murder under
the sanction of the English law. At the same
time some very offensive language about Great
Britain was used by the Colonels of certain French
regiments in presenting congratulatory addresses
to the Emperor on his escape. Public opinion in
England was deeply incensed, and the relations
between the two countries became strained.
In the midst of this popular excitement,
Lord Palmerston introduced into the House
of Commons, on February 8, a Bill for the
punishment of conspiracy to murder. The Bill
was intensely unpopular, and when it came
up for second Reading on February 19, Mr.
Milner Gibson moved a resolution which, while
it expressed detestation of Orsini's crime and a
readiness to remedy any defects in the Criminal
Law, concluded by expressing regret " that Her
Majesty's Government, previously to inviting
the House to amend the law of conspiracy at
the present time, have not felt it their duty to
make some reply to the important despatch
received from the French Government, dated
Paris, Jan. 22, 1858, and which has been
laid before Parliament." This was a subtle vote
of censure on the Government in terms calculated
to secure the maximum of support, and it
succeeded in its object. Lord Palmerston,
realising the dangerous nature of the resolution,
259
IN AND OUT OF PARLIAMENT
1858. turned upon his critics with the fiercest indigna-
55- tion. , All the domineering insolence which
made him so popular in the country, but which
was always resented by the House of Commons,
found vent in a personal attack upon Mr. Gibson,
and contributed to his defeat. Lord John Russell
and Mr. Gladstone, as well as several independent
Liberals, again voted against the Government,
and the resolution was carried by a majority of
nineteen.
The result of the debate was announced by
Bulwer-Lytton in a letter to his son. He writes
on Saturday, February 20 : —
You will see by the date of this that I write the day
after the defeat, and, of course, resignation of Palmerston
on Milner Gibson's motion. At present it is uncertain
what is to be done, or who will succeed. Probably
Lord John and the Liberals. This seems the natural
result, the motion having emanated from their side and
they having a large majority in the House. If the
Liberals come in under Lord John, it would serve to
unite the Conservatives, and probably increase their
numbers in a short time. John Russell's difficulties
with France would be great.
If the Government is offered to Derby, he would take
it, but could be turned out in a day and his difficulties
would also be very great.
Palmerston's fall last night gave occasion for the
vent of all the hoarded animosities and contempt
he has been long provoking. His last speech was
uttered in a violent rage, with the most indecorous
gesticulations ; and from all sides of the House there
were disdainful groans of disgust. I never yet saw
260
ACCEPTANCE OF OFFICE
a Prime Minister so greeted. Gibson spoke amaz- 1858.
ingly well. Gladstone really like a great orator ; the ^ET. 55.
House being with him, gave him the passion he often
wants.
Perhaps, Before I send this on Monday, I shall be
able to tell you how things are decided. But it will be
uphill work for any Government, and there will be a
reaction towards Palmerston now he is out. The
things that have hurt him most have been Clanricarde's
appointment1 and the whole of his conduct in this
wretched French affair.
Sunday. Lord Derby is sent for and has accepted.
Whether this will personally affect me, I know not.
If it does, you will hear.
Bulwer - Ly tton did not immediately take
office in Lord Derby's Government, but a few
weeks later, on Lord Ellenborough's resignation,
he was offered, and accepted, the post of Secretary
of State for the Colonies. His elevation to
Cabinet office was associated with private em-
barrassments and afflictions of the most poignant
kind, which will be explained in the next
chapter.
1 Lord Clanricarde was appointed Lord Privy Seal in succession to
Lord Harrowby in January 1855. The appointment caused great public
indignation, owing to the part which Lord Clanricarde had played in the
unpleasant Handcock case.
261
CHAPTER IV
THE HARVEST OF BITTERNESS
1836-1858
There is no anguish like the hour,
Whatever else befall us,
When one the heart has raised to power
Exerts it but to gall us.
Lover? Quarrels.
1836-1838. IT will be necessary in this chapter to make. a
. 33-35. final allusion to Bulwer-Lytton's relations with
his wife subsequent to their separation, to show
how bitter was the harvest produced by those
seeds of discord which were sown while they
lived together. It has already been mentioned
that Lady Bulwer found it a task beyond her
powers to live within the income of £400 a
year, which was secured to her by the deed of
separation. She accordingly sought to add to
her means by writing. As, however, her pen
was merely employed in the abuse of her husband
and his mother, and as her mode of living in the
two years which followed their separation caused
her husband to regard her as an unfit guardian
for her young children, he removed them from
her keeping in 1838, and transferred to Miss
262
AFTER THE SEPARATION
Greene the £ 100 a year which was allowed to 1838-1844.
her for their maintenance and education. This &T. 35-41.
naturally still further embittered Lady Bulwer's
feelings, and all the hatred which she felt for her
husband was now extended to her old friend.
The knowledge that Miss Greene had been the
one true friend of her unhappy girlhood, her
confidante and champion in early married life,
her only comforter at the time of her separation,
and the devoted guardian of her children since
1836, merely served to increase her rage and
mortification, now that she regarded her as the
servile agent of the man she hated.
After trying to console herself for her
matrimonial misfortunes, first in Dublin and
afterwards in Bath and Paris, in company which
very seriously damaged her reputation, Lady
Bulwer went to Switzerland in 1840 and lived
for some years quietly at Geneva.
In 1844 t^6 news that her husband had suc-
ceeded to his mother's estate revived once more her
passionate resentment against him. This was still
further intensified by receiving a communication
from his lawyer that she was not entitled to adopt
the surname of Lytton which her husband had
assumed on his mother's death. Her own legal
adviser not only assured her that she was within
her rights in defying her husband's wishes in
this matter, but urged her to return to England
and sue him for an increased allowance on the
grounds of his improved pecuniary position.
Though she had not sufficient means to carry out
263
THE HARVEST OF BITTERNESS
1847-1851. this suggestion at the time, it became from that
J&T. 44-48. moment the set purpose of her life. With the
help of friends she returned to England in 1 847,
and spent all her energies and most of her in-
come in repeated attempts to force her husband
to pay her debts and increase her allowance.
The £400 a year which she received had been
from the first secured to her by Mrs. Bulwer-
Lytton on the proceeds of the Knebworth estate,
and the transference of this property to her
husband did not really increase his ability to pay
it. Even if he had profited by his new inherit-
ance to the extent which she believed, the
campaign of blackmail by which she pursued
her husband was the method least calculated
to secure for herself any share of the profits.
Owing to diminished rents caused by the heavy
fall in the price of wheat, and the increasing
cost of his children's education, Bulwer-Lytton's
settled income was not in fact materially increased
by his succession to his mother's estate ; and such
additional means as he earned by his literary
labours he was naturally little disposed to share
with his most implacable enemy and bitterest
traducer. In old days he had slaved himself
almost to death to provide a comfortable and
luxurious home for the wife whom he loved.
The sacrifice of his own health for this object
had then been willingly made ; but he was not
likely to continue any such sacrifices now for a
woman who lost no opportunity of assailing him
both in public and private. To her threats,
264
DIVORCE IMPOSSIBLE
therefore, he replied by counter-threats ; lawyers' 1847-185 1
letters continually passed from one to the other, J£T. 44-48.
and every species of insult was indulged in. Lady
Lytton's language, however, became so violent,
and her methods of attack so outrageous, that
each of her many advisers sought in turn to
restrain her. The moderating counsels of her
friends were quite unsuccessful, and only brought
down on their own heads the wrath which they
tried to appease. One by one they were succes-
sively repudiated and replaced by others, so that
Lady Lytton came to be almost exclusively en-
gaged throughout her life in finding new
champions and abusing her old ones.
The only means of terminating this miserable
matrimonial feud was to be found in divorce.
Whatever views may be held as to the sacredness
and irrevocability of the marriage tie, few, I
think, would deny that, in a case like this, the
dissolution of the bond, with all the unpleasant
publicity attaching to it, would have been
preferable to the life-long campaign of hatred
which the maintenance of the marriage entailed.
But owing to the strange anomaly in the English
divorce law, which refuses to dissolve a marriage
where faults are committed by both the parties
to it, divorce in this case was impossible. Either
party was in a position to produce evidence
sufficient to secure a divorce, but since the
charges would have been mutual, the remedy,
which by common sense was doubly required,
was by law denied.
265
THE HARVEST OF BITTERNESS
1847-1851. A perusal of all the papers relating to this
. 44-48. unhappy quarrel leaves no possible doubt that
Lady Lytton's mind became at last completely
unhinged by the continued indulgence of her
hatred. She was obsessed with the idea that
she was being hunted and persecuted. Almost
every one who spoke to her she took for an agent
or spy of her husband, and this delusion some-
times led her into making the most libellous
attacks upon perfectly innocent persons un-
acquainted either with herself or her husband.
On one occasion, for instance, a lady whom Sir
Edward had never seen or even heard of, came
to Taunton for the purpose of giving some
lectures, and she sent a prospectus to Lady
Lytton among other persons residing in Taunton,
whose patronage she desired to obtain. Lady
Lytton, on receipt of this lady's card and the
prospectus, immediately accused her of being
a discarded mistress of her husband and a
person of notoriously evil life, masquerading
under a false name.
A favourite practice of hers was to address
letters to her husband, the envelopes of which were
covered with scurrilous and obscene inscriptions,
and she sometimes dispatched as many as twenty
of these in one day, all duplicates, and addressed
to the House of Commons, to his clubs, to town
and country addresses, to hotels — anywhere, in
fact, where they were likely to be seen by others.
She did not even confine this particular form of
attack to her husband, but sent similar letters
266
LADY LYTTON'S ATTACKS
to all his friends. Lord Lyndhurst, Sir Francis 1847-1851.
Doyle, Dickens, Forster, Disraeli, and others &r. 44-48.
all received these scandalous documents, with
the result that they appealed to Sir Edward to
place his wife under restraint.
The impression created upon me by the sight
of some of the letters, which it has been my
painful task to read through, is that of opening
a drawer full of dead wasps. Their venom is
now powerless to hurt, but they still produce
a shudder and feeling of disgust. The shame
with which I have read them to-day, my
strong desire to have them buried out of sight,
my dread lest they should be seen by any other
eyes, enable me to form some conception of
the abhorrence which they must have excited
in the mind of their recipient.
In 1851, on the occasion of the performance
of Bulwer-Lytton's play at Devonshire House,
in aid of the Guild of Literature, Lady Lytton
wrote to the Duke of Devonshire stating that
" she would enter his house disguised as an
orange woman and pelt the Queen with rotten
eggs," and accusing Her Majesty of being " the
cold-blooded murderess of Lady Flora Hastings."
At the same time she wrote a longer and even
more outrageous letter to Charles Dickens in
similar terms. The Duke of Devonshire was
consequently obliged to employ detective police
to guard against this outrage.
The scandal of these proceedings at last
became insupportable. The knowledge that
267
THE HARVEST OF BITTERNESS
1851-1858. it was the sacrifices which he had made for
&T. 48-55. her sake, the love which he had once felt for
her which gave this woman the power to wound
him so deeply ; the realisation that the chains
by which, in defiance of his mother's warnings
and advice, he had bound himself to her could
never be loosed ; that it was his money which
she was paying to unscrupulous lawyers, obscure
publishers, and newspaper editors for the purpose
of defaming his character ; that it was his name
which she was dragging through the mire — all
this was peculiarly bitter to a man of Bulwer-
Lytton's temperament. To live with this
skeleton in his cupboard was a trial requiring all
the courage and endurance of one so sensitive to
criticism, so proud, so shy — one who had an
even exaggerated horror of public scandal, whose
social, literary and political position caused him
to be much talked about, and whose public
duties necessitated constant intercourse with
others. But when the cupboard door was forced
open, when the skeleton walked abroad, mocked
him in the streets, insulted him wherever he went,
shrieked at him from the daily press, and molested
even his friends and acquaintances, the trial was
beyond endurance. If he went into society, his
friends met him with fresh evidence of the scandal
which hung round his life. He could not enter
the House of Commons or attend the meetings of
the Cabinet, without the fear that one of his col-
leagues might hand him some obscene and abusive
communication just received from his wife.
268
THE HERTFORD ELECTION
In these circumstances, and as much for the 1851-1858.
protection of his friends as of himself, Sir Edward JET. 48-55.
began to make inquiries as to the powers which
he might possess of placing his wife under re-
straint. At the end of March, 1858, he drew
up a statement of Lady Lytton's conduct since
their separation, and submitted this, together with
specimens of her written libels, to several medical
men. They all agreed that these documents fur-
nished undeniable proofs of the derangement of
her intellect. Amongst his papers I find written
opinions from six different doctors that Lady
Lytton was of unsound mind and ought to be
placed under medical supervision. The inquiries
were not completed when Bulwer- Lytton was
subjected to the most galling public insult which
he had yet received.
When in 1858 Lord Stanley was transferred
to the India Office, vacated by the resignation of
Lord Ellenborough, Lord Derby invited Bulwer-
Lytton to join his newly formed Ministry as
Secretary of State for the Colonies. The ac-
ceptance of this office necessitated an election at
Hertford, and, in his new capacity of Minister of
the Crown, Bulwer- Lytton went to meet his
constituents. The seat was not contested, and the
nomination was fixed for June 8. On the yth
Lady Lytton left Taunton and travelled via Oxford
to Bedford ; from there she drove by night
to Hertford, taking with her about one hundred
large poster bills inviting the electors to meet her in
the Town Hall at noon. She arrived at Hertford
269
THE HARVEST OF BITTERNESS
1858. at four in the morning of June 8, and at once
JE.T. 55. engaged a bill-sticker to attach her bills in various
parts of the town. As soon as the Under-Sheriff
heard of this, he ordered the posters to be taken
down, and took possession of the remaining ones.
All this was done in the early hours of the
morning before the inhabitants were astir. The
election took place not in the Town Hall but in
a field outside the town. At the moment when
Sir Edward was returning thanks for his re-
election, Lady Lytton arrived upon the scene.
Advancing hurriedly through the crowd, she
called out in a loud voice, " Make way for the
member's wife." She then addressed some very
violent language to Sir Edward, shaking her fist
at him and shouting, " It is a disgrace to the
country to make such a man Secretary for the
Colonies." Her husband, overcome with shame
and horror at the sight of this wild apparition,
left the field. Lady Lytton then mounted the
platform and harangued the assembled crowd in
a very excited manner, exclaiming, "How can the
people of England submit to have such a man at
the head of the Colonies, who ought to have
been in the Colonies as a transport long ago.
He murdered my child and tried to murder me.
The very clothes I stand up in were supplied to
me by a friend." After this scene she returned
to London and took the night train back to
Taunton.
Sir Edward Bulwer- Lytton now determined
to take immediate steps to have a medical ex-
270
MEDICAL OPINION
amination of his wife's mental condition, with a 1858.
view to preventing a recurrence of these out- ^/r. 55.
rages. He sought the assistance of Mr. Hale
Thomson, and after submitting to him the docu-
ments which he had put together, asked him to
pay a visit to Taunton, and in conjunction with
Mr. Woodford, a local doctor, to examine Lady
Lytton and give an opinion as to her sanity, at
the same time cautioning him to certify nothing
which he could not support. The two medical
men had a three hours' interview with Lady
Lytton ; and on his return to town Mr. Hale
Thomson said he was not satisfied as to the
extent of the unsoundness of her mind. As he
was leaving she gave him .the following letter.
CLARKE'S CASTLE HOTEL, TAUNTON,
June 12, 1858.
DEAR SIR — I have only to repeat to you in writing
what I had said viva voce and what has been represented
to him, alas, in vain so often before, that let Sir Edward
Lytton pay the debts of sixteen years' standing which
his ceaseless persecutions have entailed upon me — to wit
£2500, and allow me ^500 a year for the remainder
of my miserable existence (not his), pledging himself
stringently, that is legally, not to molest or malign
me directly or indirectly, and I solemnly pledge myself
(being at full liberty to live and go where I please)
never even to mention his name verbally or otherwise.
Believe me, dear Sir, Yours truly,
ROSINA BULWER LYTTON.
In the course of the following week Mr.
Hale Thomson received four long letters from
271
THE HARVEST OF BITTERNESS
1858. Lady Lytton of a violent and excited kind, full
ET. 55. of the most monstrous allegations, and rambling
reiterations of her imagined persecutions. In the
last letter, dated June 22, she threatened to come
to London on the following day, and, unless her
terms were accepted, to collect a crowd outside
the Colonial Office and denounce her husband.
On receipt of this letter, Mr. Hale Thomson
communicated with Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton,
and expressed his opinion that the extent of his
wife's insanity was such that it was his duty to
have her placed under restraint. Sir Edward had
to attend a Cabinet meeting that morning and left
the matter in the hands of his son, his solicitor,
and Mr. Thomson, giving them full authority
to act as they thought fit. Robert Lytton and
the solicitor therefore called on Dr. Gardiner Hill,
who kept a private nursing home for mentally
defective patients at Inverness Lodge, Brentford,
and arranged with him to be in London with
proper assistance at 5 o'clock to receive Lady
Lytton into his house as a patient. When she
arrived at Mr. Hale Thomson's house by
appointment in the afternoon of June 23, Lady
Lytton was informed that arrangements had been
made for her removal to Inverness Lodge as a
person of unsound mind, on the medical certificate
of Mr. Thomson and Mr. Ross. She naturally
protested vehemently against such action, but,
since the requirements of the law had been
complied with, she was powerless to resist and
therefore drove off quietly with Dr. Gardiner
272
LADY LYTTON'S DETENTION
Hill to his Home at Brentford. She was kept 1858.
there for three weeks and treated with the ^ET. 55.
utmost kindness and consideration. Her Taunton
landlady, Mrs. Clarke, accompanied her ; her
solicitor and Miss Ryves, her friend of those
days, had access to her whenever they wished ;
she made great friends with Dr. Hill's little girl,
who kept her company most of the day ; and in
fact she enjoyed as much liberty as was com-
patible with the necessary supervision of a
certified lunatic.
Although there was nothing harsh, cruel, or
tyrannical about Lady Lytton's treatment at
Inverness Lodge, it was an act of supreme un-
wisdom on her husband's part to send her there.
That his wife's mental equilibrium was thoroughly
unsettled, that she suffered from delusions, that
her libels and obscenities constituted a form of
molestation from which he felt it his duty to
protect not only himself but his friends and
colleagues in the Government is indisputable.
But the question was not whether two doctors
could be found to certify her as a lunatic, for
probably much more eminent and authoritative
men than those actually consulted would have
been prepared to do this, but whether the un-
soundness of her mind was of the kind to justify
her forcible detention even in a private home,
and whether it would be possible to keep her
there in face of the outcry which would inevit-
ably be raised as soon as the fact was made
public. It was a matter for lawyers and men of
VOL. II 273 T
THE HARVEST OF BITTERNESS
1858. the world rather than for doctors, and as sub-
r. 55. sequent events proved, Bulwer - Lytton was
singularly badly advised in the course which he
adopted.
After three weeks the mistake was apparent
even to its authors. The matter had been taken
up by the London and provincial press. Articles
appeared in the Daily Telegraph, the Somerset
Gazette, and the Hertfordshire Gazette, demand-
ing a public inquiry into the circumstances of
Lady Lytton's detention, and severely criticising
the action of the Colonial Secretary. To appear
in Court with public opinion prepossessed in her
favour and unfold before a jury the story of her
wrongs, to force her husband to appear and
answer her charges, to cross-examine him upon
all the incidents of his private life, and obtain a
wide publicity for her accusations against him,
was the very course which Lady Lytton would
most have welcomed, and which consequently
Sir Edward most desired to avoid. His colleagues
in the Ministry became apprehensive of a sensa-
tional social scandal which might render his
resignation inevitable, and all those who were
at first most eager for the restraint of the " tigress
of Taunton " were now the most concerned to
find a means of escape from the consequences of
their advice.
In this crisis Robert Lytton came to his father's
rescue. He had witnessed the scene at the
Hertford Election, which was the first occasion
on which he had seen his mother since his
274
THE SON'S INTERVENTION
childhood. He had himself suffered from the 1858.
same kind of persecution as his father, for he had ^/r. 55.
received letters from her in his various diplomatic
posts addressed to " that white - livered little
reptile, Robert Lytton," and he shared the
responsibility for her detention as a lunatic.
He now offered, if his mother could be released,
to take her abroad and try and bring her to a
calmer frame of mind. The suggestion was
welcomed by both his parents ; the doctors who
three weeks previously had certified Lady Lytton
insane now certified that she was fit to be re-
leased, and that a journey abroad with her son
would probably have very beneficial results on
her state of health ; a public scandal was avoided
and everybody was satisfied.
Lady Lytton's acceptance of the arrangement
was the more readily obtained because Sir Edward
at last consented to pay her debts and increase her
allowance to £500 a y6^-1 She left Inverness
Lodge on July 17, and in company with Miss
Ryves and her son, she travelled via Paris to
Bordeaux, where they stayed about a month,
proceeding at the end of August to Luchon.
If kindness, gentleness, patience, and sympathy
could have healed the wounds in Lady Lytton's
heart she had found at last one who was ready
to administer to her lavishly all these salves.
If the disputes and misunderstandings, the ac-
cumulated charges and countercharges of twenty-
1 After the death of her husband in 1873, Lady Lytton's allowance was
further increased to £700 a year by her son.
275
THE HARVEST OF BITTERNESS
1858. five years could have been disposed of finally by
. 55. the judgment of a perfectly just and unprejudiced
judge, both parents might without reserve have
submitted their case to the son who now
volunteered his services as mediator. But the
trouble was too deep-seated for any such
treatment. Each parent wanted a champion,
not an arbitrator, and their test of championship
was unrestrained abuse of the opposite party.
The only terms, however, on which Robert
Lytton could accept the role of deus ex machina
was the immediate cessation on the part of both
his parents of their mutual recriminations, and
neither would agree to these terms. Had he
combined in his own person all the knowledge
of the most experienced man of the world, all
the skill of the most highly - trained brain
specialist, and all the resourcefulness of the
most accomplished lawyer, he could hardly
have succeeded in these circumstances. As the
offspring of the two warring natures whom he
wished to reconcile his task was impossible.
His father wrote to him by almost every post
long and bitter recitals of the events which had
darkened his life and turned his love into
hatred, accompanying them all with the assurance
that nothing would satisfy him but a complete re-
cantation and apology which it was now the duty
of his son to obtain. His mother, on the other
hand, poured into his ears daily the story of her
grievances in language of the bitterest invective.
Placed thus between Scylla and Charibdis,
276
FAILURE OF THE EXPERIMENT
Robert Lytton tried at first to steer a middle 1858.
course. In replies to his father he pointed out ^T. 55.
the partial and one-sided nature of the com-
munications which he had received from him,
and insisted that peace in the future could only
be obtained by a mutual determination to bury
the past. To his mother he replied equally em-
phatically that the pnly condition on which he
would consent to remain in her company was
that she should refrain from all abuse of his
father. The result was that instead of reconcil-
ing either parent to the other he only lost the
confidence of both.
Utterly miserable though this situation made
him, he would not abandon his mission or accept
definitely and finally the cause of either mother
or father until circumstances decided the matter
for him, leaving him no choice.
The ultimate issue was brought about by Lady
Lytton herself. She had left the custody of
Dr. Gardiner Hill ostensibly as a free agent, in
full possession of her faculties, and having
voluntarily undertaken a journey on the Continent
in company with her son and a female friend.
By the doctors, however, her conditional release
had only been sanctioned in the belief that it
would have a more calming effect upon her
mind than her continued detention ; and the
journey was regarded as a curative experiment
upon a patient who still required careful attention.
As subsequent events proved, Lady Lytton was
not really in a condition to be treated as a rational
277
THE HARVEST OF BITTERNESS
1858. human being.1 Her feelings at first were a
&T. 55. mixture of triumph at the failure of her husband's
plans, and excitement at the prospect of the foreign
journey with a man to look after her and provide
for her. Both these feelings were no doubt in-
tensified by the knowledge that that man was her
son whom she might perhaps succeed in withdraw-
ing from his father's influence and binding to her
own cause. She wrote to her friends expressing
herself as entirely happy and satisfied, and she
assured her son that in the sunshine of his presence
all the shadows of her life had melted away.
By degrees this new affection, like all the
emotions of her nature, grew into a passion. She
wrote to her son, almost daily, effusive expres-
sions of her love, little notes after parting with
him at night or to greet him in the morning.
Then suddenly one day without the slightest
provocation the weathercock of her passions
veered completely round ; she received him
with a paroxysm of rage and poured upon him
such a torrent of abuse that he was obliged to
leave the house and take posthorses to Toulouse.
There he delayed for a few days, and letters were
interchanged which painfully recall the corre-
spondence of husband and wife just before their
separation. For one moment Lady Lytton is
abject in her misery and contrition, the next she
resumes her torrent of vituperation. Eventually
1 Lady Lytton's condition is exactly described in the words Macaulay
applies to George Fox, the founder of the sect of Quakers : " With an
intellect in the most unhappy of all states, that is to say, too much dis-
ordered for liberty, and not sufficiently disordered for Bedlam."
278
IRRECONCILABLE TILL DEATH
Robert Lytton made his way to Paris, where his 1858.
mother rejoined him. There a last unhappy ^T. 55.
interview took place between them, and they
parted never to meet again. The son returned
to The Hague to resume his official duties,
and the mother returned to Taunton to resume
the story of her blighted life. To the tale of
her sufferings, real and imaginary, was hence-
forth added the chapter of her kidnapping and
forcible incarceration in a lunatic asylum. In
the eyes of those who heard only her version of
the facts her husband became a greater fiend
than ever, and between these implacable foes no
truce was ever called on this side of the grave.
Since their death l a whole generation has
passed away, and of the fire of controversy in which
their lives were consumed the last sparks are
now extinguished. It is not for me, the grandson
of both, to pass any judgment. I can only put
together such materials as have survived to assist
others to do what was not possible to the con-
temporary partisans, namely, to base their judg-
ment upon a full knowledge of the facts. No
human judgment can be wholly just, because all
human knowledge is necessarily incomplete. In
our own concerns it is impossible to divest
ourselves of the partiality of an advocate, but the
more we learn of the tragedies of other lives the
more clearly we see that the highest justice consists
not in blaming or forgiving but in understanding.
1 Lady Lytton died at Upper Sydenham on March 12, 1882, in her
eightieth year.
279
CHAPTER V
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES
1858-1859
Were you ever in public, my dear reader ? Did you ever resign your
private comforts as man in order to share the public troubles of mankind ?
If ever you have so departed from the Lucretian philosophy, just look
back — was it life at all that you lived ? Were you an individual existence
— a passenger in the railway ? — or were you merely an indistinct portion
of that common flame which heated the boiler and generated the steam
that set off the monster train ?
My Novel.
1858-1859. BULWER-LYTTON'S tenure of the Office of Secre-
J£T. 55-56. tary of State for the Colonies was short and not
particularly eventful. The Government of which
he was a member was in a minority during the
whole period, and was kept in power only by
the dissensions among their Liberal opponents.
Most of their work, therefore, consisted in carry-
ing on the measures which had already been
commenced by their predecessors. The new
Colonial Secretary gave the closest attention to
the work of his Department, and established the
friendliest relations, both with his permanent
officials and with the Colonial Governors with
whom he was brought in contact. His Under-
secretary was Lord Carnarvon, of whom he had
the highest opinion. His opinion is recorded in
280
IN OFFICE
the following terms in an endorsement of their 1858-1859.
correspondence made in 1869 : — &r. 55-56.
Lord Carnarvon was Under-Secretary of the Colonies
to me. Very accomplished, very honourable, very
hardworking, very ambitious, very sensitive to praise
or censure. He has, therefore, the qualities that ensure
no mean success in public life. If he attain the highest
hereafter it will be in spite of a certain want of vigour in
his style of speaking, and of virile grasp of thought in
difficult occasions, as compared with one or two of his
contemporaries. But he is a safer man than any of
them that has yet appeared in tranquil times.
He also wrote to one of his permanent officials
at the Colonial Office in the spring of 1859 : —
Lord Carnarvon demands my warmest thanks and
praise for his generous uncomplaining industry — il ira
loin — by far the first young man of his rank in public
life.
The permanent Under - Secretary at the
Colonial Office at this time was Sir Frederick
Rogers (afterwards Lord Blachford) who, in a
letter to his daughter, thus refers to his political
chiefs : —
Both Lord Carnarvon and Sir Edward Lytton
work very hard ; Sir Edward writes perfect volumes of
minutes, and then tells me that he learnt two great
maxims in life, one to write as little as possible, and
the other to say as little as possible !
Bulwer- Lytton was, in fact, a writer by
profession. It was as a man of letters that he is
281
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COLONIES
1858-1859. known to fame, and, though he earned a great
MT. 55-56. reputation as an orator, his speeches were rather
the products of a literary mind than of political
genius. They were written out in full, and
delivered from memory with elaborate and
studied gestures. The manuscripts of those
which were delivered, and of many others which
were never spoken, are preserved among his
papers, and may be regarded as oratorical essays
on the various matters with which they deal,
remarkable for their sound common sense and
vigorous expression. Of his manner of speak-
ing a very interesting description is given in
William White's Inner Life of the House of
Commons.1 White was for many years door-
keeper of the House of Commons, a position
which enabled him to study the individual
habits and peculiarities of the chief speakers
of that day. Of Bulwer-Lytton he writes : —
. . . He always walks about in that abstracted
manner, rather stooping, his hat on the back of his
head, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets, and his
eyes cast downwards — looking for all the world as if he
fancied that he had lost something, and was searching
on the ground and feeling for it in his pockets at the
same time. It is generally known about the House
when he is going to speak, as he then wanders about
more abstractedly than usual. The Hon. Baronet is
not an effective speaker ; not, however, because his
matter is not good, but because his action spoils all.
It is well known that he studies his speeches carefully
1 Edited, in 1897, by Justin MacCarthy.
282
BULWER-LYTTON'S ORATORY
beforehand — would that he would, under proper guid- 1858-1859.
aace, study how to deliver them ! His manner is this : &T- 55-5^-
He begins a sentence, standing upright, in his usual
tone ; as he gets to the middle he throws himself
backwards, until you would fancy that he must tumble
over, and gradually raises his voice to its highest pitch.
He then begins to lower his tone and bring his body
forwards, so that at the finish of the sentence his head
nearly touches his knees, and the climax of the sentence
is lost in a whisper ; and yet, notwithstanding this
serious drawback, there are but few members whose
speeches are comparable to Sir Edward's. Strange that
a man who thinks it worth his while to get up his
matter carefully should pay so little attention to his
manner.
White's criticism of Bulwer-Lytton's articu-
lation is not exactly corroborated by others
who have described his speaking to me. All
accounts agree that his gestures were somewhat
extravagant, the most common of which was to
raise his arm straight up above his head and bring
it down again with a kind of sawing motion, and
I have also heard that his voice was loud and not
well modulated. But the complaint that he was
difficult to hear is new to me ; such a defect is
hard to reconcile with the enthusiastic applause
which his speeches undoubtedly evoked. A
speech which is not well heard is seldom well
received, and the reception given to Bulwer-
Lytton's speeches was always in the highest
degree appreciative. They were not only loudly
cheered by his own side, but also praised by his
opponents.
283
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COLONIES
1858-1859. His year of Office was but an incident in a
MT. 55-56. literary career, and though his departmental work
was conscientiously fulfilled, it was thoroughly
uncongenial. During the whole time he was
harassed to distraction by the painful circum-
stances described in the last chapter, and this
private affliction, combined with the arduous
labours of Parliament and Office, so affected his
health that by the end of 1858 he was quite
unfit to continue his official work. While he
was Secretary of State, however, several im-
portant changes took place in Colonial administra-
tion, of which some mention must be made.
The two Colonies which chiefly occupied his
attention were Australia and Canada, and in both
these Colonies there are flourishing towns to-day
which bear his name. Almost his first official
act was the abolition of the old mail contract
with Australia, which had proved ineffectual and
troublesome, and one of his last acts was the
separation of Queensland from New South Wales,
and the appointment of Sir George Bowen to
the Governorship of the new Colony.
The letter confirming this appointment was
described by Sir George Bowen as " an admirable
compendium of the duties of a Colonial Governor,"
and he added : " I attribute in no slight degree
the success of my career to my strict adherence
to the advice given in this letter. It would be
well that it should be published, if it were only
that future Colonial Governors may have the
advantage of studying it."
284
LETTER TO SIR GEORGE BOWEN
Although this letter has been quoted in the 1858-1859.
Prefatory Memoir prefixed to Bulwer-Lytton's ^T- 55-56-
collected speeches, I think it well for the sake of
the completeness of this Biography to reproduce
it here : —
Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton to Sir George Bowen.
GREAT MALVERN,
April 29, 1859.
DEAR SIR GEORGE BOWEN — I have the pleasure to
inform you that the Queen approves of your appoint-
ment to Moreton Bay, which will henceforth bear the
appellation of Queensland. Accept my congratulations,
and my assurances of the gratification it gives me to
have promoted you to a post in which your talents will
find ample scope.
There is not much to learn beforehand for your
guidance in this new colony. The most anxious
and difficult question connected with it will be the
" squatters." But in this, which is an irritating contest
between rival interests, you will wisely abstain as much
as possible from interference. Avoid taking part with
one or the other. Ever be willing to lend aid to
conciliatory settlement ; but, in order to secure that aid,
you must be strictly impartial. Remember that the
first care of a Governor in a free colony is to shun the
reproach of being a party man. Give all parties and all
the ministries formed the fairest play.
Mark and study the idiosyncrasies of the com-
munity ; every community has some peculiar to itself.
Then, in your public addresses, appeal to those which
are the noblest ; — the noblest are always the most
universal and the most durable. They are peculiar to
no party.
Let your thoughts never be distracted from the
285
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COLONIES
1858-1859. paramount object of finance. All States thrive in
&T. 55-56. proportion to the administration of revenue.
You will, as soon as possible, exert all energy and
persuasion to induce the colonists to see to their self-
defence internally. Try to establish a good police ; if
you can then get the superior class of colonists to assist
in forming a militia or volunteer corps spare no pains
to do so.
It is at the commencement of colonies that this
object can be best effected. A colony that is once
accustomed to depend on imperial soldiers for aid
against riots, &c., never grows up into vigorous
manhood. Witness the West Indian colonies.
Education the colonists will be sure to provide for.
So they will for religion.
Do your best always to keep up the pride in the
mother country. Throughout all Australia there is a
sympathy with the ideal of a gentleman. This gives a
moral aristocracy. Sustain it by showing the store set
on integrity, honour, and civilised manners ; not by
preferences of birth, which belong to old countries.
Whenever any distinguished members of your colony
come to England give them letters of introduction,
and a private one to the Secretary of State, whoever he
may be. This last is not sufficiently done in colonies ;
but all Secretaries of State who are fit for the office
should desire it. You may quote my opinion to this
effect to my successors.
As regards despatches, your experience in the
Ionian Islands will tell you how much is avoided in
despatches that may be made public, and done in
private letters. This practice is at present carried to
inconvenience and abuse. Questions affecting free
colonies may come before Parliament, of which
no public documents whatever afford the slightest
explanation.
286
DUTIES OF A COLONIAL GOVERNOR
The communications from a Government should be 1858-1859.
fourfold : — Mr. 55-56.
1st. Public despatches.
2nd. Confidential — intended for publication if at all
required.
3rd. Confidential — not to be published unless
absolutely necessary for defence of measures by yourself
and the Home Department.
4th. Letters strictly private — and these, if frank to a
Minister or to an Under-Secretary like Mr. Merivale,
should be guarded to friends, and touch as little as
possible upon names and parties in the colony. A
Government may rely on the discretion of a Depart-
ment, never on that of private correspondents.
5th. As you will have a free press, you will have
some papers that may be abusive. Never be thin-
skinned about these ; laugh . them off. Be pointedly
courteous to all editors and writers — acknowledging
socially their craft and its importance. The more you
treat people as gentlemen the more " they will behave
as such."
After all, men are governed as much by the heart as
by the head. Evident sympathy in the progress of the
colony ; traits of kindness, generosity, devoted energy,
where required for the public weal ; a pure exercise of
patronage ; an utter absence of vindictiveness or spite ;
the fairness that belongs to magnanimity — these are the
qualities that make governors powerful, while men
merely sharp and clever may be weak and detested.
But there is one rule which I find pretty universal
in colonies. The governor who is the least huffy, and
who is most careful not to overgovern, is the one who
has the most authority. Enforce civility upon all
minor officials. Courtesy is a duty public servants owe
to the humblest member of the public.
Pardon all these desultory hints which I daresay
287
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COLONIES
1858-1859. may see™ to you as old as the hills ; and wishing you
yEr. 55-56. a^ nealth and enjoyment in the far land, believe me, —
Yours very truly,
E. B. LYTTON.
P. S. — Get all the details of the squatter question
from the Department — master them thoroughly. Con-
vert the jealousies now existing between Moreton Bay
and Sydney into emulation. Your recollection of the
old Greek States will tell you what strides States can
take through emulation. I need not say that the
sooner you go out to the new colony the better.
You are aware that since I have been in this office I
have changed the old colonial uniform for the same as
that worn in the imperial service. I consider it a great
point to assimilate the two services in outward emblems
of dignity. The Queen's servant is the Queen's servant,
whether at Westminster or at the antipodes. You will
have, therefore, to get a new dress. When do you wish
to go ?
E. B. L.
The most important act of Bulwer-Lytton's
Colonial administration was the incorporation of
British Columbia as a new Colony on the North
American Continent. This step was prompted
by the necessity of providing some form of govern-
ment for the preservation of order among the<
immigrants who had lately been attracted to this
district by the discovery of gold on the banks of
the Fraser River. Vancouver Island had been
placed under the jurisdiction of the Hudson Bay
Company in 1849. The Company were given
a monopoly of trade as well as all the responsi-
bilities of Government in the Island for a period
288
BRITISH COLUMBIA
often years, but their jurisdiction did not extend 1858-1859.
to the mainland, the territory of which had not ^ET. 55-56.
as yet been colonised. This territory stretched
from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean,
and from the sources of the Fraser River to the
American boundary. It was known to be rich
in minerals, well covered with timber, and to
contain valuable fisheries, as well as good agri-
cultural soil ; but until 1856 there had been no
attempt to develop the country, which was
almost exclusively inhabited by Indians. In
that year it was announced that gold had been
discovered along the Fraser, Thompson, and
Columbia rivers, and soon afterwards an immi-
gration of gold-seekers from America took place.
In December, 1857, t^ie Governor of Van-
couver Island issued a proclamation, declaring
the rights of the Crown to the gold in this
district, establishing licence fees for diggers, and
prohibiting any digging without authority from
the Colonial Government. As, however, the
Governor had no jurisdiction whatever upon the
mainland, his proclamation was ignored ; the
immigration of gold-diggers rapidly increased,
•and the Hudson Bay Company appealed to the
Home Government to establish some authority
to preserve order and protect life and property
among the new settlers.
On July 8, 1858, therefore, Bulwer-Lytton
introduced a Bill into the House of Commons
for this purpose. The Bill proposed to empower
the Crown for five years to make laws for the
VOL. II 289 U
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COLONIES
1858-1859. district, with a view to the establishment of a
JEr. 55-56. representative Government at the end of that
period.
The passing of this Bill led eventually to the
establishment of a new Colony and the develop-
ment and settlement of one of the richest districts
in the present Dominion of Canada. In the con-
cluding words of his speech on the second Reading
of the Bill, the new Colonial Secretary fore-
shadowed the future prosperity of the new
territory : —
" I do believe," he said, " that the day will come,
and that many now present will live to see it, when a
portion at least of the lands on the other side of the
Rocky Mountains being also brought into colonisation,
and guarded by free institutions, one direct line of
railway communication will unite the Pacific to the
Atlantic. Be that as it may, of one thing I am sure —
that though at present it is the desire of gold which
attracts to this colony its eager and impetuous founders,
still, if it be reserved, as I hope, to add a permanent
and flourishing race to the great family of nations, it
must be, not by the gold which the diggers may bring
to light, but by the more gradual process of patient
industry in the culture of the soil, and in the exchange
of commerce ; it must be by the respect for the equal
laws which secure to every man the power to retain
what he may honestly acquire ; it must be in the
exercise of those social virtues by which the fierce
impulse of force is tamed into habitual energy, and
avarice itself, amidst the strife of competition, finds its
objects best realised by steadfast emulation and prudent
thrift. I conclude, Sir, with a humble trust that the
Divine Disposer of all human events may afford the
290
ADDRESS TO ENGINEERS
safeguard of His blessing to our attempt to add another 1858-1859.
community of Christian freemen to those by which j^T 55.56
Great Britain confides the records of her empire, not to
pyramids and obelisks, but to states and commonwealths
whose history shall be written in her language."
The interest which Bulwer-Lytton took in
the new Colony and the high hopes which he
formed of its future prosperity, are further
illustrated by a speech which he made to a
detachment of Engineers on their embarkation
at Portsmouth for British Columbia. After
attending a Council at Osborne, summoned for
the purpose of ratifying the new arrangements,
Bulwer - Lytton went on board the ship at
Portsmouth, and addressed the following words
of encouragement to the sappers and miners who
were about to sail in her : —
Soldiers — I have come to say to you a few kind
words of parting.
You are going to a distant country, not, I trust, to
fight against men, but to conquer nature ; not to besiege
cities, but to create them ; not to overthrow kingdoms,
but to assist in establishing new communications under
the sceptre of your own Queen.
For these noble objects, you, soldiers of the Royal
Engineers, have been especially selected from the ranks
of Her Majesty's armies. Wherever you go you carry
with you not only English valour and English loyalty,
but English intelligence and English skill. Wherever
a difficulty is to be encountered which requires in the
soldiers not only courage and discipline, but education
and science, sappers and miners, the Sovereign of
England turns with confidence to you. If this were
291
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COLONIES
1858-1859. a service of danger and bloodshed, I know that on
,/Er. 55-56. every field and against all odds, the honour of the
English arms would be safe from a stain in your hands ;
but in that distant region to which you depart, I hope
that our national flag will wave in peaceful triumph on
many a Royal birthday, from walls and church towers,
which you will have assisted to raise from the wilder-
ness, and will leave to remote generations as the blood-
less trophies of your renown.
Soldiers, you will be exposed to temptation ; you go
where gold is discovered, where avarice inflames all the
passions, but I know that the voice of duty and the
love of honour will keep you true to your officers, and
worthy of the trust which your Sovereign places in Her
Royal Engineers. For my part, as one of the Queen's
Ministers, I promise that all which can conduce to
your comfort and fairly reward your labours, shall be
thoughtfully considered. You have heard from my
distinguished friend, your Commanding officer, that
every man amongst you who shall have served six
years in British Columbia, and receives at the end of
that time a certificate of good conduct, will be entitled,
if he desire to become a resident in the Colony, to thirty
acres of land, ay, and of fertile land in that soil which
you will have assisted to bring into settlement and
cultivation. In the strange and wild district to which
you are bound, you will meet with men of all countries,
of all characters and kinds. You will aid in preserving
peace and order, not by your numbers, not by mere
force, but by the respect which is due to the arms of
England, and the spectacle of your own discipline and
good conduct. You will carefully refrain from quarrel
or brawl. You will scorn, I am sure, the vice which
degrades God's rational creature to the level of the
brute — I mean the vice of intoxication. I am told
that is the vice which most tempts common soldiers.
292
COLONIAL POLICY
I hope not — but I am sure it is the vice which least 1858-1859.
tempts thoughtful, intelligent, successful men. You JEr. 55-56.
are not common soldiers — you are to be the Pioneers
of Civilization.
Nothing more counteracts the taste for drink than
the taste for instruction, and Colonel Moody will
endeavour to form for your amusement and profit in
hours of leisure a suitable collection of books. I beg
to offer my contribution to that object, and I offer
it not as a public Minister, out of public monies, but
in my private capacity as a lover of literature myself,
and your friend and well-wisher.
Farewell. Heaven speed and prosper you. The
enterprise before you is indeed glorious. Ages hence
industry and commerce will crowd the roads that you
will have made ; travellers from all nations will halt on
the bridges you will have first 'flung over solitary rivers,
and gaze on gardens and cornfields that you will have
first carved from the wilderness ; Christian races will
dwell in the cities of which you will map the sites and
lay the foundations. You go not as the enemies, but
as the benefactors of the land you visit, and children
unborn will, I believe, bless the hour when Queen
Victoria sent forth her sappers and miners to found a
second England on the shores of the Pacific.
In the following year, 1859, the monopoly of
the Hudson Bay Company expired, and Bulwer-
Lytton had to carry through the difficult and
delicate negotiations of restoring to the Crown
the administration of those districts which had
hitherto been controlled by the Company.
The other chief items of his Colonial policy
included the passing of an Encumbered Estates
Bill for' the West Indian Colonies, the settlement
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COLONIES
1858-1859. of a long-standing dispute with France by the
&T. 55-56. exchange of Portendio for Albuda, and the
despatch of Mr. Gladstone on a special mission
to the Ionian Islands.
The High Commissioner of these Islands was
at that time Sir John Young, and the inhabitants,
who were under a British Protectorate, but
ardently desired to be united to Greece, ex-
pressed their dissatisfaction with Sir John Young's
administration. It was necessary to investigate
these complaints, and Bulwer-Lytton was ex-
tremely fortunate in persuading Mr. Gladstone
to undertake the task. The negotiations on the
subject of this mission, and the correspondence
with the Queen, Lord Derby, and Mr. Gladstone
about it, form the greater part of the papers
which Bulwer-Lytton has preserved, relating to
his official work. The details of the mission,
however, belong rather to the life of Mr.
Gladstone, by whose biographer they have been
fully described,1 than to this story ; and all that
need be mentioned here is that Mr. Gladstone,
finding the Islanders bent upon incorporation
with Greece, and having no authority to satisfy
their wishes in this respect, returned to England
and reported the facts to the Government. Both
Gladstone and Bulwer-Lytton had strong Hellenic
sympathies, and realised that the wishes of the
Islanders could not be ignored, but there were
difficulties in the way of satisfying them at that
time. A change of Governors, therefore, was
1 Life of Gladstone, by John Morley, Book iv., chap. x.
294
THE IONIAN ISLANDS
the only result. Sir John Young was recalled, 1858-1859.
and Sir Henry Storks was sent out as High <#/r. 55-56.
Commissioner in his place.
The question of the Ionian Islands occupied the
autumn months of 1858, and by the end of the
year occurred the breakdown in Bulwer-Lytton's
health already referred to. On December 16
he wrote to Lord Derby, tendering his resigna-
tion. He explained that having been in-
creasingly ill ever since the end of the session,
his doctor had now definitely warned him that
the consequences would be serious if he did not
immediately take a complete rest, and added : —
I feel, therefore, whatever my personal regrets may
be, that it is due to you and to the Government rather
to retire at once, while you have deliberate leisure to
make arrangements for my successor, than incur the
too probable danger of failing to yourself and the
public service at, perhaps, the very time when any
kind of change might carry with it the greatest
inconvenience.
In quitting a post in which I had hoped to be
useful, and colleagues for whom I entertain every
sentiment of esteem and sympathy, while I do not
attempt to conceal my mortification and regrets, I am
not without some consolations. I trust that the zeal
and assiduity by which, in my Department, I have
sought to remedy defects of experience, will be
generally acknowledged. I believe that I have
smoothed some difficulties from the way of my
successor ; and I am not aware of any measure adopted
by me which Parliament will think to the discredit of
the Ministers by whom I was recommended to the
choice of the Sovereign.
295
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COLONIES
1858-1859. I shall venture also to indulge a hope, from which I
Mr. 55-56. derive indeed no slight support under the pain the
present letter costs me — that, by sufficient repose while
yet in time, I may so far recover health and strength
as to be enabled, during the debates of the session, to
render some little aid to the Government as an
independent Member of Parliament.
Let me conclude by sincerely thanking you for all
the kindness I have received at your hands during my
tenure of office, and leaving it to your Lordship to
tender my resignation to her Majesty.
At the same time he wrote to Disraeli: —
MY DEAR DISRAELI — I will ask you to read the
enclosed note from Dr. Reed, the physician who has
attended me for nearly twelve years. It is the key to
the letter I have felt reluctantly compelled to address to
Lord Derby, and of which also I enclose you a copy.
In quitting office, I trust that I may yet often, at need,
be found near you in the field of party strife ; and with
the most affectionate wishes for your prosperity and
fame in the official career in which my physical strength
foils the earnest desire not to part from your side, that
has long assisted me to suppress the sense of physical
suffering, — Believe me, most truly yours,
E. B. LYTTON.
His letter to Lord Derby was acknowledged
as follows : —
KNOWSLEY, Dec. 19, 1858.
MY DEAR SIR EDWARD — I need hardly say with
how much regret I have received the unexpected
intelligence brought me by your messenger this
morning. I regret it, not less for the cause which you
296
RESIGNATION
assign, than for the loss which the Government will 1858-1859.
sustain by your retirement, and the embarrassment &T. 55-56.
which would be caused by any change at this time, but
more especially by one which deprives us of the services
of a colleague who, during the short time he has held
Office, has performed the duties of his Department
with so much ability and success as you have done.
Still, the reasons which you assign for your decision are
such as it would probably be in vain, and perhaps
would hardly be justifiable in me, to endeavour to
combat. Only let me entreat you not to make your
determination known to anyone, and take no step
towards carrying it into effect, until I shall have had
time to look about me, and to consider in what manner
I may best mitigate the serious inconvenience which
must be caused by a change. You will, of course,
allow me to communicate confidentially with Disraeli,
who, as Leader of the House of Commons, has the
deepest interest in this matter, hardly second to my
own. I shall not at present name it to any other of
our colleagues, and I will not even yet abandon the
hope that if the difficulties of a new arrangement
should be found as formidable as I anticipate, the
comparative relaxation which you may obtain between
this time and our meeting again, may produce such an
improvement in your health, that, even if we may not
look to a permanent continuance of your valuable
services, you may be induced to delay their withdrawal
till the present critical period for the Government shall
have passed by.
It is obvious that the present is a moment when
there will be a great and very natural unwillingness to
enter on the responsibilities of Cabinet Office ; while
credit will hardly be given to the real causes which
have led to your proffered retirement, and rumours of
" dissensions in the Cabinet " on the eve of meeting
297
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COLONIES
858-1859. Parliament, will both weaken the Government in public
T- SS-S^- opinion, and increase the difficulty of filling up the
vacant office. While, therefore, I will lose no time in
considering anxiously the possibility of making a fresh
arrangement to meet your wishes, I must repeat my
very earnest hope that, for the present, you will con-
sider your letter as in abeyance, and say not a single
word which should lead to a suspicion of your in-
tentions.— Believe me, dear Sir Edward, Yours very
sincerely,
DERBY.
Disraeli replied in a strain of vigorous re-
proach : —
DOWNING STREET,
Dec. 20, 1858.
MY DEAR BULWER — I am entirely knocked up
by your letter, received on my hurried return from
Knowsley.
I have no opinion of Dr. Reed, or of any Doctors.
In the course of my life I have received fifty letters
from physicians like that which you enclosed to me,
and which I return. Had I attended to them, I should
not be here, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and in robust
health.
Men of our temperament, at our time of life, ought
not to require Doctors. I am quite alarmed that you
have been so long under Dr. Reed, who, in some
degree, explains your state.
It is quite impossible that a man more than fifty,
who has accomplished such great work as you have
done, and endured such unparalleled and supernatural
labour, can experience any real deficiency of nervous
energy. It is not organic or natural, and must be the
result of some quacking.
298
DISRAELI'S REPROACHES
I hope you will reconsider your position, and not 1858-1859.
sacrifice a political career at a public emergency, and ^Er. 55-56.
when you have gained, on all hands, credit for the
masterly administration of your Department. It will
cause you regret hereafter.
I say nothing of the effect on the position of the
Government by the retirement of any of its members
at this moment. The true motive will never be
credited.
Whatever your illness may be, your secession will be
a paralytic stroke to the Ministry. The retirement of
the most insignificant would be serious now.
It has been one of the objects of my public life to
find a colleague in an old friend, with whom, in our
youth, I had pursued a congenial course, and I cannot
express the pain it costs me to contemplate the
possibility of our separation.
My direction is Torquay. We had meant to have
gone there this morning, but I have stayed a day on
account of this business.
At all events, I trust the affair may be kept quite
close at present, so that we may look about ourselves,
and breathe, and think. — Yours ever,
D.
To a statesman who made politics the business
of his life, and who derived from the excitement
of party conflict a stimulus which enabled him
successfully to accomplish incessant labours both
parliamentary and departmental, the thought of
retiring from the field for reasons of health
savouredof incredible weakness and even cowardice.
Where, as in Disraeli's case, a man's whole mental
energies are absorbed by his profession, he has no
time to consider whether he be well or ill, and
299
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COLONIES
1858-1859. unless he has some organic disease, he can under-
55-56. take an amount of work which no physician
would sanction or even believe to be possible.
Naturally, therefore, Disraeli was not impressed
by the cautious advice of a medical man, and
seeing nothing in Dr. Reed's letter which justified
the step which his friend proposed to take, he
did not hesitate to tell him so with characteristic
bluntness and energy. But with Bulwer-Lytton
the case was different. Politics did not constitute
the business of his life, but only imposed
additional burdens upon a physique already
seriously impaired by years of excessive literary
toil. Even so, he was not a man to shirk work,
nor to be easily overcome by mere brain exercise.
It is doubtful whether the work of the Colonial
Office imposed upon him any greater intellectual
strain than the literary labours which had been
voluntarily undertaken and unremittingly con-
tinued for thirty years. But the real cause of
his collapse at this time was not known to
Disraeli, and was not even fully realised by
Bulwer-Lytton himself. The complete loss of
nerve from which he was suffering was not
caused by any brain work, either literary or
political, not by the late hours and unhealthy
atmosphere of the House of Commons, nor even
by the anxiety of ministerial responsibility.
These things aggravated but did not originate a
mischief which had its roots in the misery and
humiliation of his domestic trouble. Reference
to the dates of the events mentioned in the last
300
REASONS OF THE RESIGNATION
chapter will remind the reader that the brightest 1858-1859.
moment of Bulwer-Lytton's public career coin- &T. 55-56.
cided with the darkest hour of his private
affliction. The shame and horror which he felt
at his wife's conduct, the sting of the hatred
with which she pursued him, the torment of
doubt as to what his own action should be,
remorse too, perhaps, for a past which could not
be recalled — all this provoked a wild longing
to escape and be free, to wake from the night-
mare which haunted him. These memories and
anxieties had to be suppressed daily before he
could set about his public duties ; they had to be
banished from his thoughts before he could
employ his mind upon official business, and it
was with the fear of the hunted rather than with
the stimulus of ambition, that his new and
arduous work was undertaken. The effort at
last proved too much for him ; he lost heart,
became too conscious of his infirmities, and asked
to be relieved of responsibilities which he felt no
longer capable of sustaining.
These facts could not be explained to Lord
Derby, nor even to Disraeli, and though Bulwer-
Lytton wrote again to both his chiefs that his
malady was more deep-seated than they imagined,
he consented out of consideration for the welfare
of the Government as a whole, to leave his
resignation in abeyance for the time being, and
to continue in office. He tried his best by
living as much as possible in the country, and
by visits to Malvern, to stave off a complete
301
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COLONIES
1858-1859. breakdown ; but he could not get rid of the fever
^Er. 55-56. and sleeplessness from which he was suffering,
and during the last months of his official career,
the business of the Department was left largely
in Lord Carnarvon's hands.
The reason why Lord Derby was especially
anxious not to give any additional ground at
this moment for rumours about dissensions in
the Cabinet, was that he was then preparing
his Reform Bill, and wanted as much authority
as possible behind it. The Bill was introduced
by Disraeli on February 28, and received a very
mixed reception. Some Conservatives objected
to it for going too far, while the advanced
Radicals ridiculed it as wholly inadequate. Lord
John Russell moved a hostile amendment to the
second Reading of the Bill on March 21, and
the debate lasted for seven nights. Bulwer-
Lytton spoke on the second night, and his speech
on this occasion was regarded by many of his
friends as his oratorical masterpiece. Lord
Palmerston, an opponent, who, as we have seen,
was by no means partial to his merits, afterwards
told the Queen that it was one of the finest
speeches he had ever heard spoken in the House
of Commons.
The speech was thus described by William
White, in one of his letters to The Illustrated
Times :— *
When the Colonial Secretary rose to deliver his
1 Inner Life of the House of Commons, by William White, p. 88.
302
SPEECH ON REFORM BILL
views on the subject of Reform, we knew we might 1858-1859.
anticipate one of his " great orations." We all know &T. 55-56.
here when Sir Edward is going to speak as well as
we know that the sun is about to rise when a streak
of light appears over the eastern hills, or that it is
going to rain when thick, heavy clouds slowly roll up
from the south-west. When Sir Edward has made
up his mind to speak he is restless, uneasy, and wanders
about the House and the lobby with his hands in his
pockets and his eyes upon the ground. The Right
Honourable Baronet has lately made some change in
the appearance of his outward man. He used, until
he took office, to wear a formidable moustache and a
long ragged " imperial," but he has now clipped and
trimmed these hirsute ornaments, and looks neater
and more like an Englishman than he did last year.
Sir Edward's speech is said to have been a grand
oration. Nay, one enthusiastic member declared that
it was "one of the grandest orations which have ever
been delivered in the House of Commons." To this,
of course, we should demur, though we are not com-
petent fully to decide upon its merits ; for, in truth,
though we listened attentively, we could not catch
more than half of what the Right Honourable Baronet
said. The voice we heard, but, alas, before it reached
us it was only a voice ; the articulate sounds, by the
manner in which they were projected from the mouth,
were, before they reached us, most of them inarticulate
— mere sounds, conveying no meaning. On looking
over Sir Edward's speech as reported in the Times,
we find the following passage, than which few things
finer have been uttered in the course of the debate : —
" The popular voice is like the grave ; it cries ' give,
give,' but like the grave, it never returns what it
receives." Well, the condition in which this remark
came up to us was something like this — " The popular
303
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COLONIES
1858-1859. yah ! is like the grah ! it cried yah ! yah ! but like the
J&T. 55-56. grah ! it never returns." At the close of the sentence
Sir Edward dropped his head so low that the last word
or two went under the table. Members down below,
we apprehend, must have heard Sir Edward better, for
they cheered vociferously. Indeed, at the close of this
remarkable harangue, the cheering was beyond every-
thing that we ever heard in the House or indeed
elsewhere. It was literally a " tempest of applause,"
and seemed to us to come from all parts of the
House. It burst forth as the orator sat down, like
a hurricane, was renewed and re-renewed, and then,
when it seemed to have died out, was started again,
and once more the whole House appeared to join in
chorus. And all this was rendered more effective by
the members rising just then to go to dinner, and
cheering as they rose. A proud man was Sir Edward
that night as members came up to congratulate him
on his success, and probably he went home and
dreamed, either waking or sleeping, that he had
secured a great parliamentary name, and that future
historians will say of him that, in addition to being
a most successful novelist, he was one of the greatest
orators of his time.
At the conclusion of the debate on March 31,
Lord John Russell's amendment was carried, and
Lord Derby advised the Queen to dissolve
Parliament. In the General Election which
followed the Government gained thirty seats,
but this was not sufficient to give them a majority
in the House of Commons ; and when Parliament
reassembled at the end of May, a vote of no
confidence, proposed by Lord Hartington, was
carried against them. Lord Derby thereupon
3°4
END OF OFFICIAL LIFE
resigned, and the short Tory interregnum came 1858-1859.
to an end. MT. 55-56.
Bulwer-Lytton, who had again pressed his
resignation upon Lord Derby, but continued to
hold office until a successor could be found,
obtained his release in the defeat of the Govern-
ment, and soon afterwards went abroad to a
German watering-place. He writes to his son: —
As to my health, it continues very weak and variable.
I never intend to take office with Lord Derby again.
My present interest and ambition in politics are gone.
Of course, I feel for the country, but it will probably
be long before I am well enough to take any active
part. Till then I shall be laid on the shelf. . . . I am
disenchanted in all ways with politics, public and private.
Nothing but a strong conviction that I could do any
good to the country, or that the country was in danger,
would rouse me into much activity.
From Stevenson Arthur Blackwood, his Under-
secretary at the Colonial Office, he received the
following kind letter of regret at the severance
of their official connection : —
53 UPPER BROOK STREET,
14 June.
When servants turn their masters off they don't
express any concern at parting. But I, who have been
your slave for a matter of a year, shall form an exception.
For I cannot forbear saying, from the fullness of my
heart, that I mourn over an event which deprives me
of a chief whom it is impossible to serve under without
admiring and loving ; and who has imported into
official drudgery a charm which I, at least, will never
forget.
VOL. ii 305 x
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COLONIES
1858-1859. In grieving for myself, I rejoice for you. I con-
Mr. 55-56. gratulate you on your undeserved "vote of censure,"
which liberates you easily from an employment too
laborious for your present state of health. Your year
of office has achieved success for you and added to
your renown. What can a man wish for more in that
line ? And thus you will retire into a life of liberty —
my grand desire, but unattainable — and be spared the
task of appending that wondrous hieroglyphic at the
foot of so many dull despatches when you are in a
hurry to be off.
Spare yourself the trouble of noticing this in pen
and ink. I daresay I shall catch a glimpse of you
before you depart from our blessed roof in D. Street.
— Believe me, dear Sir Edward, Sincerely yours,
A. BLACKWOOD.
306
CHAPTER VI
POLITICAL REFORM
1859-1867
The People's a very good thing in its way.
But what is the People ? the mere population ?
No, the sound thinking part of this practical nation
Who support peace and order, and steadily all poll
For the weal of the land. . . .
Of a people like this I've no doubts nor mistrustings,
But I have of the fools who vote wrong at the hustings.
Walpole.
THE defeat of Lord Derby's Government on 1859.
the question of Parliamentary Reform, and the ^T- 56-
General Election of 1859 which followed it,
mark an important turning-point in the political
history of this country. From this moment the
differences which had weakened the Liberal
party for so long, and which had twice enabled
Lord Derby to hold office without the support
of a Parliamentary majority, began to disappear ;
the personal animosities between rival leaders sub-
sided, the alliance between Peelites and Liberals
became complete, and all minor factions became
gradually merged into the two compact and
powerful parties, soon afterwards ranged under
the leadership of Gladstone and Disraeli.
Bulwer-Lytton had the sagacity to realise the
3°7
POLITICAL REFORM
1859. nature of the change which was about to take
Er. 56. place in the political life of the country. On
the day following the defeat of the Government
of which he was a member, and immediately
after the decision of the Cabinet to dissolve
Parliament, he wrote the following note to Sir
Henry Drummond Wolff, who was then acting
as his private secretary : —
DOWNING STREET, April I, 1859.
Remember my words. From this day dates a
change that in a few years will alter the whole face
of England. From this day the extreme Liberals are
united ; the great towns will be banded for Democracy,
and Democracy in England is as sure as that we are
in this room. Nothing like this day since Charles I.
did much the same as we are doing.
The meaning of the last sentence is rather
obscure, but the prophecy has been accurately
fulfilled, although the consequences of the change
have not been precisely what Bulwer-Lytton
imagined. The period of aristocratic govern-
ment was virtually ended, that of democratic
government was about to begin. The Reform
Bill of 1832 did not immediately alter the
character of parliamentary government. The
results of great constitutional changes in this
country are slow to make themselves felt ; and
though political representation in 1832 passed
out of the hands of what had till then been
a comparatively small governing class, the
machinery of government still remained under
308
GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY
their control. Throughout the first half of the 1859.
nineteenth century — in fact, till the death of Lord Mr. 56.
Palmerston in 1865 — the government of the
country was predominantly aristocratic. Just as
the decline of Aristocracy was gradual, almost
imperceptible, so the growth of Democracy,
which has been the work of the latter half of
the nineteenth century, has been equally gradual.
It may be said to have begun with the Reform
Bill of 1867, and the process is not yet complete.
Both the two political parties, which became
consolidated in 1859, recognised the inevitable
change which was taking place, and both
Gladstone and Disraeli, in their separate ways,
helped to accelerate it.
Bulwer-Lytton belonged essentially to an
aristocratic age, and the termination of his
political career coincided with the close of that
age.1 In early life he had been an advanced
Reformer, and to the end his political views were
on many questions more Liberal than those of
the majority of the Conservative party, with
which he had associated himself. The true
Conservative policy he defined as " the conserva-
tion of organic principles " in every political
society.
" All that Conservatism regards," he once wrote,
" is duration for the body politic. It is not averse to
1 He once wrote to a friend £ fropos of the political upheavals in
Europe in 1849, " Show me a class of gentlemen, an Aristocracy in short,
and I will form a conjecture as to the duration of any free constitution ;
without that, between Crown, soldiers, traders and mobs, I am all at sea."
3°9
POLITICAL REFORM
1859. change — change may be healthful ; but it is averse to
Er. 56. that kind of change which tends to disorganisation.
Whatever there be most precious to the vitality of any
particular State, becomes its jealous care. As but one
thing is more precious to a State than liberty (social
order), so where liberty is established, Conservatism is
its stubborn guardian, and never yields the possession,
save for that which it is more essential to conserve.
But liberty is diffused throughout a people by many
varieties of constitution — the monarchical, the aristo-
cratic, the democratic, or through nice and delicate
combinations of each. Conservatism tends to the
conservation of liberty in that form, and through those
media, in which it has become most identified with the
customs and character of the people governed. And
if it seems at times opposed to the extension of freedom,
it is not on the ground of extension, but from the fear
that freedom may be risked or lost altogether by an
incautious transfer of the trust."
The last sentence is a key to Bulwer-Lytton's
views on the difficult question of Parliamentary
Reform ; and as the only important speeches
which he made in the House of Commons after
his retirement from office were on this subject,
it may be worth while to make a short reference
to them at this point.
The Act of 1832 had enfranchised the great
body of the middle class, and though its authors
at the time spoke of it as a final settlement, very
few could really have regarded it as such. It
was inevitable that sooner or later representation
would have to be extended to the labouring class
also. The manner in which this extension was
310
A SUCCESSION OF REFORM BILLS
ultimately brought about forms one of the most 1859.
extraordinary chapters in the political history of &T. 56.
this country.
Between the years 1832 and 1866 there was
no popular enthusiasm in favour of Reform.
Advanced political thinkers advocated a moderate
extension of the franchise, but, without pressure
from without, Parliament was indifferent to the
question. Lord John Russell, Lord Derby, and
Mr. Gladstone were all genuine Reformers at
heart, and made several unsuccessful efforts to
induce Parliament to accept their proposals.
Reform Bills were introduced in 1852, 1854,
1859, 1860, and 1866, but none of them could
make any progress against the general apathy of
the country. The death of Lord Palmerston in
1865 removed the chief obstacle to Reform in
the House of Commons, and by the following
year the efforts of John Bright and the members
of the Reform League had succeeded in arousing
a formidable agitation in the country against the
inactivity of Parliament.
The qualification for the borough franchise at
that time stood at a rental of £ 10, and for the
county franchise at £50. The various Reform
Bills introduced by different Governments only
differed slightly from each other in the extent
to which they proposed to reduce these qualifi-
cations. The Bill of Lord Derby's Government
in 1859 proposed to equalise the borough and
county franchise, the latter being reduced to
£10 and the former left at the same figure. At
POLITICAL REFORM
1859. the same time it set up a number of special
. 56. qualifications or " fancy franchises," designed to
secure some test of responsibility from the
electorate : University graduates and members
of the learned professions were to have a vote
as such, and also any man who possessed an
income of £10 a year from invested funds, a
pension of £2O» or £60 in the Savings Bank.
The Russell-Palmerston Bill of 1860 lowered
the county franchise to £10, but at the same
time reduced the borough franchise to £6.
The Russell-Gladstone Bill of 1866 was even
more moderate, and proposed to reduce the
county franchise to £14 and the borough
franchise to £7. All these Bills were rejected
by the House of Commons, because they were
either too moderate or too extreme. But this
continued trifling with a serious question eventu-
ally produced that impetus of popular enthusiasm
which neither statesmanship nor eloquence had
hitherto succeeded in arousing ; and in 1867 the
impatience of the country extorted from the
Conservative party a far more radical measure
than the one which they had themselves rejected
a few months earlier.
The denouement was highly dramatic. The
Derby- Disraeli Government of 1867, after
introducing yet another moderate and cautious
measure, allowed it to be transformed by their
opponents into a Bill establishing complete
Household Suffrage, and extending to the work-
ing class an adequate representation, stripped of
312
THE BILL OF 1859
all the safeguards with which they had sought 1859.
to surround it. ^ET. 56.
Bulwer-Lytton took part in all these dis-
cussions, and some of his best speeches were
delivered on the subject of Parliamentary Reform.
Such of his arguments as were confined to mere
points of debate it is not necessary to mention
here, but some reference must be made to
passages which indicate his general attitude upon
the subject.
He defended the Bill of 1859 as a member
of the Government responsible for it. He
explained that, while the Bill was avowedly a
compromise based upon a consideration for the
temper of the public, which was mild, and the
extent of the evil to be remedied, which was
small, he himself had no superstitious dread of
any of those questions which were raised by
the most ardent Reformers among his political
opponents.
" Some of those questions," he said, " I espoused
myself many years ago ; one or two of them I still
individually favour ; and if on others I have since
modified or wholly altered the opinions I then held, I
have done so with no uncharitable prejudice against
those who believe now what I myself once believed, or
may even believe a little more than my political creed
ever permitted me to do."
Whilst not unwilling to extend the franchise
to such of the working class as proved themselves
capable of exercising it wisely, he was not pre-
313
POLITICAL REFORM
1859. pared to give them a preponderating voice, and
JET. 56. to " place capital and knowledge at the command
of impatient poverty and uninstructed numbers."
The character of the Bill and his own reason for
supporting it were thus explained : —
For myself, I cannot but think that at heart I go
farther than the noble Lord (Lord John Russell) ; I
go farther than most of the great republican writers,
ancient and modern. I go in theory as far as Mr.
John Mill, and I would not object to the widest
possible suffrage, if you can effect a contrivance by
which intelligence shall still prevail over numbers.
If that be impossible, then I say, at least, the first step
towards anything that approaches to universal suffrage
should be something that approaches to universal
education. . . . One moment more to this Bill. It
is said not to be final. No Reform Bill can be. The
fault you allege is its merit. It is its merit if it meets
some of the requirements of the day present, and does
not give to-day what you may regret to-morrow that
you cannot restore. Democracy is like the grave ; it
perpetually cries, " Give, give " ; and, like the grave,
it never returns what it has once taken. But you live
under a constitutional monarchy which has all the
vigour of health, all the energy of movement. Do
not surrender to democracy that which is not yet ripe
for the grave. Gentlemen employ much sarcastic cavil
in the dispute as to what is the main principle of this
Bill. I say, as Lord Macaulay said in the debate on
the old Reform Bill, I care little for technical definitions
on that score. I would not base the defence of this or
of any Reform Bill upon an abstract dogma on which
special pleaders may differ. I would take that which
was our main object for the backbone and life-spring
3M
THE BILL OF 1860
of the Bill. That main object was, irrespectively of 1860.
party interests, to confirm and extend to the middle ^Er. 57.
class the political power which, during the last twenty-
seven years, they have exercised, so as to render liberty
progressive and institutions safe ; but at the same time
to widen the franchise the middle class now enjoys, so
that it may include all belonging to the class who are
now without a vote ; and instead of bringing the
middle-class franchise down to the level of the work-
men, lift into that franchise the artisan who may have
risen above the daily necessities of the manual labourer
by the exercise of economy and forethought.
In attacking the Bill of 1860, on the ground
that it gave an undue share of representation to
the most excitable and least instructed section
of the population, he restated his principle as
follows : —
A free State will be best sustained and advanced by
securing to its legislative councils the highest average
degree of the common sense of the common interest.
For this intelligence is requisite, but not intelligence
alone ; you might have a legislative assembly composed
of men indisputably intelligent — nobles, lawyers, priests
— who might honestly believe they used their in-
telligence for the common interest, when, in fact, they
used it for their own. Hence it follows that no one
class interest must predominate over all the others, or
the common interest is gone ; gone, if that class be
the great proprietors ; gone, if that class be the working
men. But there is this distinction between the working
class and every other that, granting their intelligence
to be equal to that of others, granting that it be not
more likely to be misdirected, still, when it is mis-
directed, the consequences are, if they are invested
315
POLITICAL REFORM
1860. with the electoral power that determines legislation,
r. 57. immeasurably more dangerous, both to the common
interest and to their own. For they are the roots of
society, and it is the roots of society that their errors
will affect ; while their numbers are so great that their
votes could overpower the votes of all the other classes
put together. When this happens, the instinctive safe-
guard of the rich is corruption ; and the instinctive
tendency of ambition, if it be not rich, is towards
those arts which give dictatorship to demagogues. . . .
The working class have virtues singularly noble and
generous, but they are obviously more exposed than
the other classes to poverty and to passion. Thus in
quiet times their poverty subjects them to the corrup-
tion of the rich ; and in stormy times, when the State
requires the most sober judgment, their passion subjects
them to the ambition of the demagogue.
The whole of Bulwer-Lytton's argument on
this occasion, and again in 1866, was directed
towards proving that the Bills under consideration
would not improve the House of Commons, and
would probably cause its degeneration.
" How," he asked, " will this Bill improve the
representation ? Will it make the House of Commons
wiser ? Will it make our Councils more enlightened ?
Will it increase the knowledge, the integrity, the
pecuniary independence, and the mental discipline,
without which we should have no strength in public
opinion, if ever we had to protect our freedom against
an able tyrant and a standing army? . . . How will
this measure improve the constituent body ? When
that question was asked in the debates on the great
Reform Bill, the answer of the reformers was crushing.
You then got rid of the borough-monger, who sold
316
A SUCCESSFUL SPEECH
his borough ; of the pot-walloper, who sold his vote ; 1860.
and your substitutes were trade, commerce, manu- JEt. 57.
factures, that combination of various interests which
is found in the middle ranks of society, which cannot
be called a class, because it comprises all classes, from
the educated gentleman to the skilled artisan, and
which, therefore, does represent a high average of the
common sense of the common interest. You then did
not merely extend the franchise. . . . To use the words, I
think, of the late Lord Grey, ' You purified, you exalted
the constituency.' But when you are asked, ' How
does the little Reform Bill purify and exalt the
constituency ? ' what will you answer ? You will say,
' It is true we found many persons of respectable means
and excellent education who complained that they were
without a suffrage ; we did not attend to their complaint,
but where we found persons living in lanes and alleys,
at a rent which afforded the fair presumption that they
had little property and less education, we conferred
our new franchise exclusively on them. And so we
purified and exalted the constituency ! '
This argument was developed, illustrated, and
enforced with great vigour in a speech which
lasted for two hours, and won the highest praise,
not only from those on whose behalf it was
made, but also from some of those against whom
it was directed. Writing to his son on May 9,
1860, Bulwer-Lytton says : —
After I dined with Dickens, I went to Buckingham
Palace (a concert). Lord John Russell came up to me
and said : "I thank you very much for what you said
about me in your speech."
" What I said was sincere ; let me think your foreign
POLITICAL REFORM
1860. policy belongs to all time ; your Reform Bill is but for
JE.T. 57. a session."
His answer : — " Ay, I often think of what you once
said to me two years ago in this room : ' The old
Reform Bill proves its merit, because it is so hard to
improve it.' '
Mine : — " Yes, we then both agreed that to use my
words — it was a block of granite ; you can't chip it with
a small chisel, you may make another block. But dare
you do so ? or does the country want one ? " He
seemed struck, and I gather from his tone that the
Reform Bill will drop.
Five minutes after Charles Villiers brought up the
Duke of Argyll, whom he introduced to me. The
Duke said : "I wish to tell you how much I admire
your speech." Villiers added this : " The Ministers
bring forward a Bill and admire the arguments against
it!"
The Bill was dropped, and it was six years
before another one was introduced. Two more
attempts were made " to chip the block of granite
with a small chisel " before Parliament made up
its mind "to make a new block." The new
block (the amended Bill of 1867) was not at all
to Bulwer-Lytton's liking, but as his own political
friends, by whom he had just been made a Peer,
were responsible for it, he had to give it a re-
luctant support.
" I confess," he said in a speech prepared for but
never delivered in the House of Lords, u for my part,
that I consent, or rather submit to it with great
reluctance, and I am only reconciled to it by the con-
viction that the time has come when the question of
BULWER-LYTTON'S ARGUMENTS
Reform must be settled, and that the scheme to which 1860.
both parties have agreed in the House of Commons &T. 57.
has become the only mode by which that settlement
can be practically effected. Still, though I regard the
probable results of the measure with deep anxiety, I
have not hitherto shared in those fears which have
been expressed here and elsewhere with that eloquence
which js never more imposing than when it assumes
the attributes of superstition and peoples the dark with
spectres."
The line of argument adopted by Bulwer-
Lytton in the discussions on the reform of the
franchise of his own day was widely employed
by members of both political parties at that time,
and indeed it invariably recurs whenever the
distribution of the franchise is under discussion.
Reformers and anti - Reformers alike are apt to
consider the character of the representative body
rather than the needs of the classes who demand
representation.
Throughout his speeches there is only one
passage which recognises the true principle of
representation, when he said in 1860 : —
If you reflect a moment you will own that the true
representation of the working or poorer classes must
be more or less perfect in proportion to the knowledge
which may exist in this House of the inseparable
connection between their interests and all our legislative
functions.
The admission was a valuable one, although
for the purpose of his argument he destroyed
319
POLITICAL REFORM
1860-1867. its value by going on to claim that the interests
JE.T. 57-64 of the working man were truly represented by
. . . every wise legislator who stimulates trade, who
strengthens credit, who exalts the standard of society
in which the working man rises with every step that
raises the common interest of us all ; by every profound
lawyer who renders justice more accessible ; by every
enlightened philanthropist who ameliorates the condition
of humanity ; by every naval or military officer whose
professional science suggests sounder defences, not only
for the land we inhabit, but for the protection of the
commerce which employs the millions.
It is only true, of course, that any class is
represented by legislators, lawyers, philanthropists,
soldiers, etc., if that class has had a share in the
selection of such men for the duties which they
perform. A Government, however formed, may
be a good Government or a bad one, but it
cannot be representative, unless it is chosen by
some elective machinery, and when elected it is
only representative of those who are entitled to
elect it. I do not suggest that a Govern-
ment necessarily neglects the interests of any
class which is unenfranchised, any more than it
necessarily advances the interests of every class
which is enfranchised. The House of Commons
down to the year 1832 may have passed many
laws for the benefit of the middle or the working
class, but it did not represent them ; between
1832 and 1867 it may have studied the best
interests of the artisans and the agricultural
labourers, but it did not represent them, just as
320
PRINCIPLE OF REPRESENTATION
to-day the House of Commons may be scrupu- 1860-1867.
lously considerate of the special interests of JEr. 57-64.
women, but it does not represent them.
In considering, therefore, the efficiency of a
representative institution, the first question is
whether or not it does represent all those for whom
it legislates — I do not, of course, mean every
individual ; no Parliament professes to represent
every individual, because no Parliament legislates
for individuals. But every Parliament, to be
truly representative, must give some votes at least
to every class or section of its citizens which is
specifically differentiated as such in its legislation.
Universal suffrage is not necessary to secure a
truly representative Parliament, because the
number of voters in each section of the electorate
might be limited by various qualifications with-
out infringing the principle of representation.
An electorate of four or five million might be
accurately representative of the whole population,
while an electorate of ten million might not be
so. But the process of selecting the voters from
each section in a limited electorate necessarily
involves a complicated system of registration,
which Reformers at all times seek as far as
possible to avoid ; and the natural development,
therefore, in all democratic countries, is in the
direction of universal suffrage.
The dangers anticipated by Bulwer-Lytton
and others from the large extension of the
franchise which was made in 1867, have been to
a great extent avoided by three facts : —
VOL. II 321 Y
POLITICAL REFORM
1860-1867. i« His own condition that universal suffrage
JET. 57-64. should be preceded by universal education has
been fulfilled.
2. The establishment of the ballot has mini-
mised the dangers of corruption.
3. Though a preponderance of the voting
power has been given to what he called
" impatient poverty and uninstructed numbers,"
yet no distribution of the franchise can take
away the influence of wealth and intellect.
Apart altogether from direct bribery, wealth
must always command a powerful influence, even
under the most democratic constitution. So also
with intellect ; however uninstructed the average
voter may be, he is still susceptible to the
arguments of reason, and is capable of exercising
a shrewd judgment between the rival claims of
those who ask for his favour. It is inevitable
that where political power is vested in the
People, there should arise the same class of
flatterers and sycophants as those who fawned
upon the Crown or the aristocratic families in
the days of their ascendancy. The demagogues
and the mob orators are the modern substitutes
for the Court favourites of the past, but their
influence is as precarious as that of their pre-
decessors. Extravagant promises and delusive
phrases may secure them popularity and power
for a time, but it is by performance rather than
professions, that such power is maintained ; and
personal character, honesty of purpose, sincerity
of conviction, have the same value in a democratic
322
RETROSPECT
age as they had at any other period of the world's 1860-1867.
history. ^ET. 57-64.
Looking back, therefore, to those controversies
of the past, we see that the robust faith in the
political instincts of the British people, expressed
by the Reformers of that day, was more justified
than the gloomy forebodings of others, who
could only see in the changes which were taking
place the inevitable ruin of their country.
323
CHAPTER VII
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT FROM POLITICS
1859-1866
I do confess that I have wished to give
My land the gift of no ignoble name,
And in that holier air have sought to live
Sunn'd with the hope of fame.
The Desire of Fame.
A name in the deep gratitude and hereditary delight of men — this was
the title Literature bestowed.
Ernest Maltravers.
1859. IN the last chapter I have rather forestalled
. 56. events, and must return to pick up the threads
of Bulwer-Lytton's life outside the House of
Commons, from his retirement from Office in
1859 to his elevation to the Peerage in 1866.
At the end of the Parliamentary session in
1859 he went to Wildbad, and once more
resumed his literary occupations. He was en-
gaged for the remainder of the year upon the
poem of St. Stephens.
One of the earliest and most satisfactory results
of Bulwer-Lytton's release from official duties
was the re-establishment of his intimacy with
John Forster, which had been interrupted during
324
RELATIONS WITH FORSTER
the last few years. There was never any real 1859.
breach between these two firm friends, but JET. 56.
circumstances had occurred which had checked
the intimacy and frequency of their intercourse.
Their friendship had its roots in literature, and
in politics they did not agree, but from 1854 to
1859 Bulwer-Lytton had been chiefly engrossed
with politics, and consequently during these years
they had drifted apart. Their correspondence
never wholly ceased, but for a time it was
meagre and more or less formal. In 1853
Forster had written at a time when he was
mourning his sister's death : —
1 was disappointed not to see you before you left
town, but I grow acquainted with disappointments.
. . Yet an old friend's face would have been very
welcome to me just now, and I have seen very, very
little of you for a long time. But I never doubt your
friendship, though circumstances appear to separate
us just now. I could never bring myself to think you
strange to me. Some of the whitest stones in my
memory mark the steps of our friendly intercourse,
and I cannot look back into a single year of my life
since I came to manhood in which your kindly and
familiar image does not stand more prominent than any
other.
Once again in 1858 Bulwer-Lytton had
written : —
Old friend, I fear there is a something between us.
It is not my fault, I am sure. Perhaps it is only Fate's.
But can't we root it thoroughly away ?
325
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT
1859. Though both were conscious of some subtle
JET. 56. change in their relations, though both regretted
it, it seemed for a time beyond the power of
either to remove the cause. The preoccupations
of their lives, ill-health, and difference of opinion,
both public and private,1 kept them apart. To-
wards the end of 1859 their correspondence began
to resume its old cordial tone, and by degrees
their common interests in literature helped to
re-establish an intimacy which lasted, with only
occasional gaps, until they were separated by
death. On November 4, 1859, Forster wrote : —
I hear with the greatest possible pleasure the better
news of your health. There is nothing in life I miss
so much as the old pleasant intercourse. It is a time
of life when nothing can replace it, or supply the
associations of such a friend. So I will hope that with
better health and less exacting employments we may
meet a little oftener in the year coming.
Bulwer-Lytton replied : —
MY DEAREST FRIEND — A thousand thanks for your
kind letter. I, too, have always missed our old familiar
1 One of these differences had reference to Bulwer-Lytton's relations
with his wife. In The Personal and Literary Letters of the Earl ofLytton,
vol. i. p. 91, occurs this passage : "Under the influence of the misery
which this (Lady Lytton's attack) caused him, he (Sir E. B. L.) listened
to the very unfortunate advice of his friend, John Forster, who was then
Secretary of the Lunacy Commission, of which Lord Shaftesbury was the
Chairman, and took steps to have his wife declared a lunatic." This
statement is not accurate, and in justice to Forster requires correction.
Lady Betty Balfour, knowing the intimacy which existed between Bulwer-
Lytton and Forster, and knowing also the latter's official position, doubtless
concluded that Bulwer-Lytton had acted on Forster's advice. Forster's
own letters, however, at the time, show conclusively that this was not so.
He advised strongly against the step, always maintaining that Lady Lytton
was " more bad than mad."
326
"ST. STEPHENS"
friendship, and nothing in life would delight me more 1859.
than to renew it. &T. 56.
Their correspondence for the remainder of
the year deals chiefly with the poem of St.
Stephens, " my prose verses on our nation," as
Bulwer-Lytton described it. This book contained
a more elaborate series of sketches of British
statesmen and orators from the time of the Civil
War until the death of Sir Robert Peel, on the
same lines as the few which were previously
included in The New Timon. It concludes with
an appreciation of Macaulay, who died at the
end of 1859. It was published anonymously in
the first three monthly numbers of Blackwood's
Magazine, in 1860.
The next subject of discussion between Bulwer-
Lytton and Forster was provided by a work of
the latter. Forster had just published two
volumes of essays,1 dealing with the events of
the Great Rebellion, and Bulwer-Lytton under-
took to write a critical article upon them for
the Quarterly Review. Finding, however, as the
article proceeded, that he differed widely from
Forster's view of some of these events, he felt
considerable hesitation in completing his task.
I give the following letters which passed between
them on the subject, as an indication of Bulwer-
Lytton's views on an important matter of con-
stitutional history. These views are better and
more fully expressed in the article itself, for those
who are sufficiently interested to read it.
1 The Debates on The Grand Remonstrance.
327
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT
Edward Bulwer-Lytton to John Forster.
1860. MY DEAR FORSTER — I find myself in a dilemma
T. 57. with regard to the review of your works in the Quarterly,
and think it right to place it before you. As I come
with attention to re-examine the time of the great
struggle, I find I arrive at a point in which I widely
diverge from your views.
My dislike to Charles 1st is indeed confirmed, and
with the earlier conduct of the Parliamentarian Chiefs
I have no grave fault to find. I can find in Straffbrd's
crimes enough to render his sentence just in itself, tho'
I am strongly against its legality. But where I begin
to differ from you sensibly, is in all that relates to the
Great Remonstrance. I accept your narrative, on the
whole, of the arrest of the 5 Members. As far as I
have yet examined, I think you substantiate the strong
points of the case you so ably urge. But I am dead
against the Parliamentarian claims as to the Militia,
and the 1 9 points presented to the King. These claims
no Constitutional Sovereign ought to have accepted,
and I do not for these accept the excuse of Charles's
insincerity. The insincerity of one King may be an
excuse for deposing him, but not for changing the
entire fabric of a Constitutional Monarchy. I think
our obligations to Pym and his party stop abruptly here,
— that we are in no way indebted to them for further
services to freedom. On the contrary, we owe it to
their violence, not only that the country was deluged
with blood, but that liberty was swept away first by
Cromwell, and then by Charles II. And neither their
Militia Bill nor their 1 9 points form any part of our Con-
stitution at this day. Therefore, they gained nothing
for posterity, supposing these demands would have been
gains. They had effected all that now forms the basis
of English liberty, and Charles, after his failure in the
328
AN HISTORICAL DISCUSSION
arrest of the 5 Members, was really powerless for evil 1860.
— at least, as powerless as such a man could have been JEr. 57.
while on the throne.
Unfortunately, these views of mine are not limited
to a past period in history over which I could pass
lightly, but they link themselves to future con-
tingencies and permanent policy. They are consonant
to a theory I have held for a great many years, indeed
nearly all my political life, viz. : — ist, that while
popular revolutions usually commence in the faults of
the Govt., yet when they arrive at a certain point,
they are liable to be, in much, robbed of their legitimate
fruits by the violence of the popular party ; that a
revolution of force and blood can nearly always be
prevented by a compromise, when the popular party
are uppermost ; and that, if they disdain this and go
further, a reaction is sure to follow, which throws
back liberty and leaves its after triumph very much
at the hazard of new circumstances. Thus, I think,
and always have thought, that terms might have
been obtained, and indeed were, from Louis XVI. which
ought to have prevented the terrors of the after
revolution, and would have founded national freedom,
whereas the French have never had national freedom
since.
I think again they ought to have kept the House of
Orleans on the throne, and reformed their Chamber in
accepting Louis Philippe's abdication. And so here, I
think, still more decidedly, that the Park, made a great
mistake in the trial, and assault on the Monarchy in
the person of Charles, the results being that the Parlt.
itself soon became despicable and odious in its own
day ; and had Charles II. possessed a Richelieu or a
Straffbrd for Minister, I doubt if absolute Monarchy
might not have been established. No thanks to the
Militia Bill and the 19 points if it has not been.
329
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT
1 860. This is my dilemma. Shall I proceed in the review ?
JET. 57. I feel as if I had better not. I feel that I must not
only abandon my cherished political convictions, but
appear to accept views against them which might
afterwards be quoted against myself, if I did not
explicitly state where I differ from you ; and ought
not the review to be in the hands of some one who
agrees with you? I need not add that I should not
fail, in writing the review, to attest your high and rare
merits as a writer, and to cite your graphic account of
the arrest. (I should be more curt as to your view
of the Remonstrance.) But in a controversy like this,
to which you have given so much research and feel
such earnest convictions, and which, moreover, is in
itself one into which a good degree of the warmth
of existing party predilections is apt to enter, I feel
a sort of nervous fear that I might write something
which might rather vex you than please, and that the
acknowledgment of your merits might not atone for
a clash with your opinions.
I have now put the matter before you, frankly and
loyally, and will go on or back out, as you may decide.
— Ever yrs. most afftly.,
E. B. L.
P. S. — Perhaps you may see the difference between
us more clearly when I say that I think more highly
of Falkland than I did, and believe that he has not been
generally appreciated. I believe him to have wanted
that strange force of will by which some men impress
their opinions on others, and without which a man in
such days cannot be a very efficient actor in events ;
but I equally believe him to have been a much sounder
reasoner than the Pyms and Vanes, and that his politics
were much more in harmony with those of safe re-
formers in our day.
330
AN HISTORICAL DISCUSSION
John Forster to Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
46 MONTAGU SQUARE, W.,
<)th July 1860.
MY DEAR BULWER-LYTTON — I have a difficulty in 1860.
answering your letter in so far as it opens up the &T. 57-
personal question of what value there may be in the
additions I have attempted to make to our horoscope
of an important period of English history. . . .
Of course, I widely differ from you in the views
indicated in your letter. If, at the point named by
you, Falkland's and Hyde's views had been suffered
to prevail, I believe that everything gained up to that
time would ultimately have been lost, and the cause of
national liberty deferred for perhaps two centuries —
to be then achieved, not as in 1688, but in far more
terrible fashion. Forty-four years is but the portion
of the age of a man ; it is the measure of the interval
between the drawing the sword against Charles I. and
drawing the Bill of Settlement from William III. ; and
happy the nation that can right itself in such brief
space, and with so little needless shedding of blood.
That we owe, as I solemnly believe, mainly under
God, to Pym and Hampden. If at any time they
violated forms, they did it to preserve the spirit, and
the spirit survived to vindicate itself and them, and
overthrew even the tyranny established in its name.
These are questions, however, which, though feeling
deeply respecting them, I have not opened in my recent
volumes. I have restricted myself very carefully to
the section of those comprised in the subjects of my
narrative. I have not discussed the 19 propositions,
nor, as I believe, rendered it necessary that this should
be discussed in any review of those volumes.
As you have kindly invited my opinion, I would
ask your permission to state it thus : — that, if you feel
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT
1860. upon reflection that you cannot conscientiously do more
. 57. for these books of mine than make them a peg upon
which to hang a disquisition of which the drift would
be to damage and discredit, as far as might be, the
cause of Charles the First's opponents, with such
occasional compliment to myself as one of the " graphic"
extracts might convey — while I have no right to object
to your taking this line, and it would make no
difference in the hearty affection and grateful regard
I entertain towards you, I yet cannot honestly say that
it would give me pleasure. On the other hand, if you
feel that, notwithstanding our marked and strong
difference of opinion, you can conscientiously speak
of what I have lately written as important in an
historical sense, and for its mere additions to what
it is at least right that all our countrymen should
know — if, while you enter as strong a caveat against
my opinions as you may think called for, and set
forth your own on every point as warmly on the
other side, you can still find in the books them-
selves, and the incidents dwelt on and detailed,
sufficient for the substance of a review, I should be
proud indeed, no matter how severely dealt with in
points of opinion, to be so handled by such a writer
as yourself. . . .
Whatever your decision, it can only leave me
grateful to you. — Always most truly and afftly. yrs.,
JOHN FORSTER.
P.S. — Telegrams which arrived this morning after
the paper was published announce the evacuation of
Sicily by the Neapolitans — the holding of Castellamare
by the English Admiral as referee of both parties until
conditions of armistice are carried out, and the forma-
tion of a regular Government by Garibaldi ! What a
great deed it has been !
332
AN HISTORICAL DISCUSSION
Edward Bulwer-Lytton to John Forster.
12 July 1860.
MY DEAR F. — I am very much obliged by yours. 1860.
As to opinions on the historical value of your works, JEr. 57.
I have no fear but what I shall truthfully say what will
content you.
As to the views I am in sad doubt. I feel I shall
please no one, and I suspect that the readers of the
Quarterly will very little like the condemnation of
Charles's whole character, which I believe to be just.
He was a bad gentleman as well as bad King.
But I think it is so important for this age and all
future ones to indicate where I honestly think popular
passion overshoots its mark, that I cannot stop at the
Remonstrance, which I feel sure was a mistake, but
must touch on the demands of the Parliament, which
made a civil war inevitable.
I separate Falkland from Hyde. Falkland, if the
King had triumphed, would have been no party to
despotism. Hyde would have been. Falkland was
eventually at Oxford, urging moderate courses on the
King, and very ill looked upon in consequence.
I propose at present to get on where I can, and
before finally determining will again confer with you.
Garibaldi is the best fellow going. He is the party
of Lamartine, put into soldierly action. But what is
to be done with Sicily ? — Yrs. ever,
E. B. L.
In another letter, a few days later, in which
the same arguments are repeated at length,
Bulwer-Lytton concludes : —
The subject is immense, its issues eternal, and after
several weeks hard labour at it, I am seized with awe
333
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT
1860. and despair at my presumption in dealing with it at all.
JE.T. 57. I would fain, therefore, drop the effort, and I am sure
you will feel that I have not done so without great
regret and reluctance. It really is that I foresee in
my venture only a rough pebble thrown into the
current of our friendship, likely to chafe its course,
which has more and more vexed and embarrassed me as
I have proceeded. It seems useless writing to Elwin.
How shall I venture to send in my resignation ? — Yrs.
ever,
E. B. L.
John Forster to Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
46 MONTAGU SQUARE, W.,
21 July 1860.
MY DEAR BULWER-LYTTON — It seems right that
I should make some reply to your letter, but I hardly
know what to say. We have been of old time in such
apparent sympathy on subjects as to which you now
discover such gulfs yawning betwixt us, that I really
find it difficult to apprehend the nature of the objection,
which, after resuming the subject upon the conditions
put to me in your former letter, compels you finally
to cast it aside.
It is due, however, to myself, distinctly to repeat
what I said in the letter I formerly wrote, that no
difference of opinion upon the broad historical facts,
however strongly stated by you, however earnestly
enforced, would have been made matter of the remotest
objection by me. If you had found my books
worthless, I could have understood your objection.
If I had made any false pretence of discoveries which
were not as I stated them, if the books had con-
tributed no new facts to the history of the period,
but were simply the old hashed-up arguments and
334
AN HISTORICAL DISCUSSION
statements, if the opinions expressed in them had been 1860.
wildly exaggerated, or the facts grossly misrepresented, &T. 57.
if, for any or all these reasons, I challenged condemna-
tion and exposure, I could well understand that a friend
should shrink from the task. But I venture to believe
that this is not the case. . . .
As to the Quarterly Review, they would gladly have
received such a paper from you as you originally pro-
posed to write, and the wider the departure from me,
the more agreeable probably to them, in respect to
points of opinion. There needn't have been any fear as
to that — however little of a " martyr " you were
disposed to make of the King. Of course, however,
the matter takes quite another character and colour if
the object of the article to be written was to be some-
thing quite other than the books which formed its
subject. Upon the latter humbler level, I can imagine
few pleasanter articles than you might have written,
if you had merely taken (for a brief paper) such inci-
dents to the theme as what I have disclosed, from
entirely new sources, of the usages of the House of
Commons in that day, of the details of their proceed-
ings, of the character and peculiarities of speakers and
speeches — the picture, in short, I have attempted to
give. . . .
I cannot wonder at your displeasure with Elwin, and
I now take leave of the thing for ever, with no feeling
really at heart, but that of a sort of conviction that our
differences in opinion will turn out to be by no means
so great as you suppose. I am expressing myself
clumsily, but, in giving you the assurance that your
abandonment of this review (on which I confess I had
built very much), makes no change whatever in my
private regard. I wish also to say that I entertain not
less firmly the assurance that the sympathies we used
to have in common on great historic questions and
335
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT
1 860. characters, may yet prove to be strong and unbroken. —
. 57. Ever yours,
JOHN FORSTER.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton to John Forster.
July 22, 1860.
MY DEAR FORSTER — Your letter gives me a good
deal of pain. I hardly know how to act for the best.
My strong belief is, however, that an article by someone
else will be sure to please you better, and the good to
the book is derived from the weight of the Quarterly
and not the pen of the writer.
I did not mean to " make use of your book " to pen
an essay on it, Macaulay-like. But the unlucky thing
is this — that it is impossible to extract without comment
— that the comment will do ample justice to you as a
writer, &c., in the way you refer to, but will state those
differences of view which I can see even by this note of
yours will displease.
You speak of our former sympathy as to the time
and incidents of the Civil disturbances. I think that
we have never much discussed these particular events
and dates. Generally, 1 still agree with you as to the
character of Charles 1st, and as to the conduct of the
Parliamentary chiefs up to a certain time. This special
time I never very closely examined before — it is the im-
portance to which you yourself raise the Remonstrance
and the new interest you give to the exact crisis, which
naturally made me look into all the circumstances with
more serious care, and with a fresh mind. But still the
view that as far back as 25 years ago I took of the French
Revolution, becomes equally applicable to our English
one, viz. : — that all requisite for liberty could have been
achieved by peaceful reforms, and that in going beyond
them, liberty was injured. To myself the mortification
336
AN HISTORICAL DISCUSSION
of stopping short of the task I undertook is extreme — l86°-
it has been my only literary work all the summer. I -&T. 57.
have devoted many weeks to it, and it is much time and
work that I throw away, rather than incur the risk of a
difference between us, and fail to make the time and
work really effect the object with which they were alone
commenced, viz.: — contribute somewhat of service to
your writings, in the way that you would wish that
service rendered.
I leave off because that object fails me, and I see that
another writer could much better effect it. Your books
have placed me so thoroughly in the time that I have
been living in it. I feel that I myself must have made
the same choice as Falkland. I feel, too, that all my
discipline and train of thought as a politician in events,
present and contingent, forbid me to approve the
Remonstrance, or the course taken by Pym, etc., just
before the Remonstrance, or subsequent to the Arrest
of the five members. — Yrs. ever,
E. B. L.
The same to the same.
July 26, 1860.
MY VERY DEAR FRIEND — I have received yours. I
will throw aside what I have done. I will look again
to the subject and see if I can treat it in some briefer
and simpler way. Next week I hope to be at leisure
and perhaps somewhere by the seaside. Till then I will
defer sending in my resignation of the article. If I find
after a second attempt that I cannot contrive it, I will
tell you so frankly, and you will be sure that I have at
least given all thought to my conclusions, however —
Ever yrs. truly,
E. B. L.
VOL. II
337
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT
John Forstet to Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
46 MONTAGU SQUARE, W.,
2jth July 1860.
1860. MY DEAR BULWER-LYTTON — I am very deeply
Er. 57. touched indeed by your note of yesterday.
I will not reproach myself for having given occasion
to such generous kindness on your part, but begin now
to feel as if I had been wrong and selfish in the letters
I have written.
Forgive me if I have been. Whatever now is the
result, I can have but one feeling in the matter. I
could almost wish that you should be unsuccessful in this
kind attempt, if only to show how thoroughly grateful
I shall be to you all the same.
Have no doubt as to that, or of the true and pro-
found sense I carry always in my heart of hearts, of
your tried friendship and affection, and many kindnesses
to me. — My dear Bulwer, I am ever gratefully &
affectly. yrs., T ,-,
JOHN FORSTER.
The article was completed and appeared in
the October number of the Quarterly Review for
1 860. The points of difference between the writer
and Forster are stated in it with perfect frankness,
without in the least detracting from his genuine
appreciation of the latter's work, and the suscepti-
bilities of the readers of the Quarterly Review are
carefully respected ! Indeed it seems strange
that he should ever have had any anxieties about
either of these points. The article is to be found
under the title of " Pym versus Falkland," in
the volume called Quarterly Essays in the
Knebworth edition of his collected works. It is
338
CORFU
an admirable piece of historical criticism as well 1860.
as an interesting sidelight on the author's views ^T. 57
of certain political questions.
In the autumn of 1860, Bulwer-Lytton
visited the Ionian Islands, the affairs of which
had occupied so much of his attention while
at the Colonial Office. He writes to his son
from Corfu on October 24 : —
MY DEAR ROBERT — Here I am ! after a lovely
passage, sea smooth as glass. On the morning after the
second night the old Acroceraunian rocks rose before
me — infames, Horace calls them, considering a man
must have a breast of triple brass and oak to undertake
such a voyage as would permit him to behold them.
Out of the clear sea they stood, seemingly harmless.
May they look so and be so when I leave.
The isle is beautiful, chiefly from sky and colour,
with undulating olive woods. I have been here in
Storks' palace three days. I move into the villa he lends
me to-day. It was quite unfurnished ; with much
trouble and some expense I have furnished two or three
rooms and got together two or three servants. I shall
be lonely and, I expect, bored there, but the view from
it is superb. The town is wretched, like a wild village
near Naples, with a mixture of the back slums of Ports-
mouth. The Palace magnificent — Royal indeed, and
Storks lives in great pomp and state.
My nephew goes in a day or two to his lone isle. I
propose staying only two or three weeks, and think then
of returning to Trieste and wintering either at Venice
or Nice. I give up Alexandria and Athens with regret,
but the season is advanced and people here say the
voyage might be rough. I am a timorous sailor. I
doubt whether the climate be healthy, but at least it is
339
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT
1860. summer, and it is something to have glimpses of summer
T. 57. in this year of 1860.
I hope I may get on with my mystic story — now at
a standstill.
And how are you and the rheumatism ? And how
do poetry and politics get on ? Here we have all the
aspect of preparation for war — 3 line of battleships, 6
more expected, 3000 soldiers in this little town, and
sailors, drunk and joyous, everywhere. There seems
no society, no box to be got even at the little Opera — a
few thin wives of officers — flirtations — none ! I begin
to believe that after a certain age capitals are necessary
for winters, but capitals that have the attractions of
landscape, like Nice and Naples. Discomfort, which
seems to abound here, becomes an evil, large in pro-
portion as romance fades away.
I have no news and no letters and no books. I
think, if I can summon eno' energy, to take a master
for Italian. Greek modern seems hopelessly arduous.
The island under a good constitution and good laws
ought to be most wealthy, and the winter residence
of the English, but as it is, there is no accommodation
for English — bad inns, no lodgings, and one shop !
Classic life, however, seems to revive in one's mind
like a dream here ; one imagines old Greece back. If
I had my tale of Pausanias here I should finish it — the
sky would suggest colouring and supply the want of
books. But, please Heaven, I think I shall finish
Pausanias next year.
Have you seen Otway ? — Yrs. ever affectly.,
E. B. L.
The mystic story referred to in this letter,
like its predecessor Zanoniy originated in a dream,
and as such it was first told by the author to
his son, who used to say that this first sketch
340
"A STRANGE STORY'
was even more interesting and striking than the 1860.
longer story which was afterwards founded upon ^T. 57.
it. The inspiration thus received was elaborated
by Bulwer-Lytton into A Strange Story, and
this work occupied him for the next twelve
months.
Before leaving England he had received the
following letter from Charles Dickens : —
GAD'S HILL PLACE,
HICHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
Friday , ^rd August 1860.
MY DEAR BULWER-LYTTON — Is there any possibility
of your being induced to write a tale for All the Tear
Round* It has the largest audience to be got that
comprehends intelligence and cultivation, but that
audience is already your own, and that is no temptation.
It would gladly pay any price for the distinction
of having your assistance, and it can well afford to do
so, but you can get what price you please anywhere,
and that is no temptation.
If you could by any means reconcile the doing of
such a thing with your inclination and convenience,
it would give me strong heart and unspeakable gratifica-
tion. That is the only speciality I can put before you.
What I most want, is such a tale as you could
republish in three volumes, a week or two before its
completion in All the Year Round. Such a book
portioned out from week to week, would occupy in its
periodical publication, six or eight months.
In mere pecuniary return it could be made very
profitable to you, and we could get a price for the
proofs from week to week in America, that I doubt
your being quite prepared for. But the mere busi-
ness matter — I repeat — is not, / know well> the first
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT
1860. question. If you were to do it at all, you would do
JET. 57. it for me.
Now, is that possible ? Any time within a year ?
I know how much I ask. You will tell me at your
leisure. Neither of us will misunderstand the other.
— Yrs. faithfully,
CHARLES DICKENS.
Bulwer - Lytton does not appear to have
accepted the suggestion at once ; but before the
end of the year he was already at work on the
mystic story which grew out of his dream, and
offered it to Dickens for his magazine. The
acceptance of the story and the terms offered for
it are contained in the following letters : —
Charles Dickens to Edward Bulwer- Lytton.
GAD'S HILL PLACE,
HICHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
ztyh November 1860.
MY DEAR BULWER-LYTTON — I need not tell you
that I have received your letter with the strongest
interest, and with the liveliest desire that a result I
should so highly prize, may be brought about somehow
or other.
This hasty note is written to let you know that I
will immediately enter into every detail of calculation
and enquiry, and will write you the fullest particulars
on every head, by next Tuesday s post from London.
In the meantime, I only add that there is no
publisher whatever associated with All the Tear Round
— I and Wills, my sub-editor, are the sole proprietors ;
therefore, implicit reliance may be placed in the journal's
proceedings. That the subject is as interesting to me
342
CORRESPONDENCE WITH DICKENS
as to any one alive, and would unquestionably be l86°
attractive, and that I will make every possible and im- ^T. 57
possible point clear, and set forth with plain ;figures,
when I write on Tuesday. — Meanwhile and ever, Be-
lieve me, Affectly. yrs.,
CHARLES DICKENS
The same to the same.
GAD'S HILL PLACE,
HICHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
\th December 1860.
MY DEAR BULWER-LYTTON — All the intelligence
I am going to give you proceeds on the following
assumption. If it should be wrong, I will correct my
intelligence on your explaining it to be wrong. But I
hope and believe it to be quite right.
When you use the expression 350 "pages of close
writing, chiefly on foolscap paper like that on which I
scribble," I assume that you mean pages of foolscap
paper, written on one side, each page being half a sheet,
not a quarter of a sheet — that is, not a sheet of foolscap
paper torn in two.
This quantity I have had carefully estimated at the
printer's and cast off. It would make about 150
printed pages of All the Tear Round.
The publication of such 150 pages in the weekly
quantity we usually consider the best for a serial work
in All the Tear Round^ would occupy about thirty
weeks. In other words, seven months, or from six
to seven months.
For the right of such publication in All the Tear
Round^ I would gladly pay you £1500 — fifteen
hundred pounds. I could at once conclude in your
behalf a bargain with an unimpeachable publisher, who
would pay you for the right of re-publication in a
343
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT
1 86 1. collected form for two years (at prices not to interfere
Er. 58. with the subsequent transfer to Routledge, but well
within his figure) £1200 — twelve hundred pounds.
For the transmission of proofs to America week by
week for simultaneous publication there — of course
without damage to copyright here — I could get you
(as our American transactions are on a very good
footing) £300 — three hundred pounds.
This would make in all ^3000 — three thousand
pounds. The tale to be published as yours, with your
name, and the bookseller's two years to commence, of
course, from the time of publication in a complete
form ; which would be a week or so before it ended in
All the Tear Round.
As I have just begun a story of my own in All the
Tear Round, we could not begin advantageously to
publish yours before the ist of August, which would
bring the publication of the book to the very best time
of the year. But all the agreements could be im-
mediately made, and the All the Tear Round money is
ready to be paid down.
Not to overload the plainness of these statements
with other matter interesting to us as private friends,
and not associated with a question of business, I break
off here, and hope to hear from you soon. — My dear
Lytton Bulwer [sic], Ever affectionately yours,
CHARLES DICKENS.
The story was completed by the end of 1861
and began to appear anonymously in All the
Tear Round on August 10.
To Forster, Bulwer- Lytton writes on July
29, 1 86 1 : —
I am revising and finishing the story for Dickens.
It is original and a psychological curiosity. But I am
344
"A STRANGE STORY" EXPLAINED
by no means sure of its effect either with the few or 1861.
the many ; ^T. 58.
and again on September 14, to his son : —
I am in the agonies of finishing my book — in the
last chapter, I hope, and whenever you read it you will
see what throes that chapter must have caused in
parturition. I fancy this will be my best work of
imagination. I fancy it deals with mysteries within
and without us wholly untouched as yet by poets. It
is not my widest work, but I think it is perhaps the
highest and deepest. However, it is not yet completed
and finis coronal opus.
The following letters still further explain the
author's views concerning this book : —
To Charles Dickens.
(Undated, but written from Ventnor
at end of '6 1 or beginning of '62.)
MY DEAR DICKENS — Cordial thanks for your trouble
and hints. No doubt every story should contain in itself
all that is essential to its own explanation — and to a
thinker I hope mine does. The question is only how far
it is necessary to anticipate the objections of those who
don't think. I had already thought how far it would
be possible to effect this in the body of the work, by
adding something to one of the later conversations
between Faber and Fenwick, and can do so to a certain
extent, viz. : — why the supernatural is a legitimate
province of fiction. But also, how the supernatural
resolves itself into the natural when faced and sifted.
But that does not meet the case in toto. Because the
parts which would seem most to require explanation
345
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT
1 86 1. are the concluding scenes, which appear those of
Er. 58. demonology, and no previous conversation must antici-
pate those, or their effect would be lost, and vanish in
philosophical unreality.
Now, in truth, it is in the latter science that for the
first time the interior or symbolical meaning, that
contains the true philosophical explanation, is carried
out. Margrave is the sensuous material principle of
Nature. Ayesha, with her black veil, unknown song,
and her skeleton attendant, Death, is Nature as a
materialist, like Fenwick, sees her.
Fenwick is the type of the intellect that divorces
itself from the spiritual, and disdaining to acknowledge
the first cause, and the beliefs that spring from it, is
cheated by the senses themselves, and falls into all kinds
of visionary mistakes and illusions, similar to those of
great reasoners, like Hume, La Place and La March.
Lilian is the type of the spiritual divorcing itself
from the intellectual, and indulging in mystic ecstacies
which end in the loss of reason. Each has need of
the other, and their union is really brought thro' the
heart — Fenwick recognising soul and God, thro' love
and sorrow, tho' he never recognised them till the
mysterious prodigies which puzzled him, had passed
away. Lilian struggling back to reason and life, thro'
her love and her desire to live for the belov'd one's
sake.
But all this could only be implied, either by some-
thing supplementary or by a preface. But if in a
preface, the interest of the book would be gone.
Now there is a course that has just occurred to me.
Zanoni was symbolical, and Miss Martineau divined
the key to it, which she gave and which is appended to
the popular editions of the book.
2ndly, whether some such key, as if suggested
by a third person, a friend, might be added to the
346
LETTERS ON "A STRANGE STORY'
story (very short). If you thought this desirable 1862.
then return me this letter with any comment on it you JEr. 59.
like.
I don't see how Mrs. Poyntz can be reintroduced
into the story. How could she come to Australia?
She could only come into a supplementary chapter, as
talking over the book, Mr. Vigors arguing for the
supernatural, she pooh-poohing, and some third person,
a friendly critic, giving the key suggested above. This
might be done in a half-humorous vein round Mrs.
Poyntz's tea-table. — Yrs. ever,
E. B. L.
To his Son.
April 15, 1862.
MY DEAREST R. — Your letter about A Strange Story
reached me just as I am starting for Buxton. I can't,
however, lose a post in thanking you for it and express-
ing my admiration of the critical depth of your remarks.
You find the beauty which belongs to your own thoughts
in the book — it is your own pearls that you insert into
my oyster shell. . . .
I shall have something to say as to the Faber
dialogues ; in poetry they would be inexcusable. I am
not sure that in prose they are justified. But still they
are essential to the very design you so well appreciate
— ist, because they do not explain, tho' they use all the
best known arguments in physiology and metaphysics.
The supernatural in man is inexplicable by the natural
sense of man.
2ndly. They show that philosophers getting rid
of soul and ist cause, indulge in more romance and
fantastic chimera than any novels can do. Margrave
is a trifle compared to Lornosch's and Laplace's theories
of man and creation. It is clear that Goethe thought
347
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT
1862. (as an artist) that prose narrative might include these
JET. 59. dissertations which partially belong to essay. Thus
in Wilhelm Meister he treats of an immense range of
subjects which he only flashes over in Faust and his
other dramas.
But an artistic narrative demands that these dis-
sertations should be strictly pertinent to the main con-
ception for which the characters are created ; that they
should be as necessary to the moral or intellectual
narrative as the incidents are to the external ; that
they are not episodical but essential.
Now I think that Faber's conversations belong to
this character, and strictly obey its laws. If you strike
out those conversations, you strike out all that part
of the story for which Fenwick and Margrave and
Lilian are created. They carry on the history of
soul. It is said that they will be skipped and, there-
fore, not conduce to the end proposed. True that
they may be skipped by the first rush of novel
readers ; but if the book lives, they will not and
cannot be skipped. They will be read first by a few,
then the few will communicate them to the many.
You might as well say that Goethe's criticisms on art
would be skipped in Wilhelm Meister. So they were
at first ; but now it is thro' them that Wilhelm Meister
lives and is studied. In my arguments for the im-
mortality of the soul, I have taken the most popular
and modern objections now current, and the arguments
are not old hashes-up. I believe that the argument
which rests our immortality on our special capacities
to comprehend abstract ideas connected with im-
mortality to be a great advance on metaphysical
science. At all events, I should be very glad to see
that part quoted.
The attempted explanations of Faber serve to bring
together a great variety of ideas of all schools of
348
LETTERS ON "A STRANGE STORY'
physiology and in reality do not explain the phenomena 1862.
of marvel — no philosophy yet formed does — but they &T. 59.
still tend to show that a thing is not inexplicable because
men can't explain it.
And the true moral here is in Faber's final con-
clusion after the catastrophe, viz.: — that what signifies
whether these magic marvels are true or not — how
small is their marvel compared to the growth of a
blade of grass. The common sights before us are
inexplicable and are therefore the true magic. When
Faber recognises this, then he recognises the Creator
and becomes serene in that recognition.
The caldron scene can only be thoroughly under-
stood by those who are made to perceive that it is
there the story obtains its diaeresis in summing up all
the symbolical truths of the work.
There in the scene of the new world, where the
cave bride hides the bones of the antideluvian world,
there where youth grows out of age in the universal
Cosmos, there man seeks to renew his own youth, and
there the magician, long estranged from Nature, finds
her (Ayesha). Nature whether she be mother or
mistress, or both — mistress when science first wooed her,
mother when science fades away in her lap behind her
veil.
The art of the story must be judged by remembrance
of its interior meanings. Vulgar critics say I dismiss
Mrs. Poyntz too soon. So I do, if the novel is only
a novel. But if you look into its deeper meanings,
Mrs. Poyntz (the polite world) vanishes exactly where
the polite world does vanish to the intellectual seeker,
viz. : — Fenwick, for he escapes from it to solitude, and,
as he thinks, to Nature ; but Nature cannot enlighten
him so long as he ignores Nature's God.
Thus have I rambled on. Now I enclose a criticism
from the Eclectic Review, the organ of the Non-
349
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT
1862. conformists, which is the most favourable I have seen
T. 59. of the book and myself generally, and certainly by
some writer who enters into the work. This from a
religious quarter will do the book much good. It will
justify you with the religious reader in Elackwood. I
enclose you also a review from the Guardian which
is the High Orthodox Church, much less civil and more
shallow, but still civil and useful.
I confine this letter to the one subject and will treat
of others in another letter. With a thousand thanks,
— Most affectly. yrs., ]7. g L
P.S. — Scott was attacked for the " White Lady of
Avenel," but that was a very poor attempt at the super-
natural. My defence of the supernatural is obvious —
it is simply this : — that no one not an ignoramus can
deny to the poet the fullest use of the supernatural ;
the only question raised is — But what we concede to the
poet can we concede to the romance writers ? Of course
you must concede it. You can't here distinguish between
verse and prose. Fiction is fiction in both and the
romance is to be praised, not censured, if it lifts itself
up to those realms of imagination which are considered
by every critic the highest. What critic ever denied
that the supernatural element was the highest in poetry,
viz.: — fiction.
I suppose you have my book complete with the
preface ?
It was hardly surprising that this work was
little understood or appreciated by contemporary
reviewers, and with few exceptions the notices
which it received were generally very mortifying
to the author. In another letter to his son,
undated, but probably written very soon after
the one just quoted, he says : —
35°
RECEPTION OF THE BOOK
I am at present under the damp of the general
critical outcry against my own Strange Storyy and -^T. 59.
I think I see the same danger for you arising much
from the same causes, namely, the dislike of our
practical public to mysticism and allegory. ... I
think " the unsafe " is a hazard rarely to be admitted
by an author who consults his peace during his life,
and when hazarded, that he should be in a position
to be as little shaken as possible. Even with my long
authorship, if I had my time over again, I would not
have published A Strange Story, nor do I think if I
had shown it, on the whole, to an anxious friend, that
he would have counselled me to publish it. Yet I
have no doubt in my own mind that it is my highest,
though not my broadest work, of prose fiction ;
and again : —
Thanks for your kind and encouraging word about
A Strange Story. It is just one of those things in
which I did want some aid from critics, to explain
and vindicate it to the Public. But the critics seem
to attack it ruthlessly, even one's friends among the
reviewers seem shy of praising it. The Public don't
know exactly what to make of it, whether to admire
or condemn. A powerful review by a great critic,
such as a German might write, would at once decide
the public in its favour — none such is likely to appear.
It sells well, is discussed much, has a few earnest
admirers, but generally I should think, was no favourite.
Time may right it or not. Who can say ? For the
present I think it has hurt my reputation, and I have
not seen so many impertinent personalities in the
reviewers for many years as blossom out now. But
I am not so thin-skinned as I was once. Nothing to
be done in Parlt. I go there but little.
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT
1862. Before A Strange Story was completed, Bulwer-
ET. 59. Lytton was already engaged upon another work,
which was completed in 1862. This was a
series of essays which appeared in Blackwood's
Magazine^ and were afterwards collected into
one volume entitled Gaxtoniana. These essays
are reflections upon a large number of every-day
matters, and show Bulwer-Lytton's excellent
common sense, sound judgment, and insight into
human nature at their highest point. Writing
to his son from Ventnor in December 1861,
he says : —
, I have been reading really hard and writing my
essays. ... I have been fagging hard at much in
science — gone through a vast amount of physiological
and metaphysical reading, and a little of the mathe-
matical. I find that the great thing in the voyage
of life is to stop very often to take in coals — to get
a complete stock of new ideas, and one only gets that
by new studies or pursuits. If out of Parliament
I should try the Drama again. I think I could do
much better now than in my former attempts, which
are but sketches. I should probably also take up
some branch of science seriously — not chemistry, I
am not prudent enough for that, and should blow
myself up.
He did not wait till he was out of Parliament
before again taking to the drama, but in 1862
began a rhymed comedy on the subject of
Walpole, but he was mistaken in thinking that
he could eclipse his former achievements in this
line. His best dramatic work had already been
352
" WALPOLE "
done, and he never again reached the same level. 1862.
To Forster from Aix la Chapelle he writes on MT. 59.
September i, 1862 : —
MY DEAR FORSTER — I have been staying six weeks
at Spa ; thence I came on here for some douche baths,
for an obstinate lumbagoish sort of pain. At this place
I wrote Money — eheu fugaces^ Postume, Postume^ labuntur
anni. I shall stay but a short time, as short as I can
for the alleged " cure," for I dislike the place heartily
and shall most probably return to England in the
course of this month, tho' I can't decide as yet whether
to winter among the native fogs or not.
I saw Shaftesbury at Spa, who seemed philanthropi-
cally excited against the North American cruelties.
Civil War is always more or less cruel, and a young
people have hot heads.
At Spa I commenced a long cherished idea of
making Sir R. Walpole the subject of a comedy in
rhyme. I wrote a scene which I think very epigrammatic
and telling, convincing me that rhyme in comedy
would be a new and strong effect. But I stopped at
that scene on remembering that we have no stage. I
had an idea if we could revive our amateur corps, that
it would suit them. But they, like other pleasant
things, seem scattered far and wide on that sea of
life on which ships never sail long together. For
the rest, I have been lazily mumbling my essays,
and do not find a Helicon in these sulphurous
springs. My health is better generally than when I
left, and the symptom which alarmed the doctor has,
I hope, vanished.
I have been reading nothing but Hegel and Pigault
le Brun — an odd combination. Pigault has immense
vis comica, but I see nothing to crib from him, which
is a pity. I want to find a new well for a novel, and
VOL. ii 353 2 A
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT
1863. can't find anything less common than the parish pumps.
ET. 60. —Adieu, Ever afftly. yours, £ R LYTTON.
Did I tell you I have bought a property eight miles
from town, very pretty? I am not sure whether I
shall let the house or live in it part of the year. I
farm the land myself.
The property mentioned in the postscript was
Copped Hall, Totteridge, which turned out to
be a good speculation. He kept it till 1867,
when he sold it advantageously and bought No.
12 Grosvenor Square. In 1864 he also bought
Bredalbane House, No. 21 Park Lane, which
became his London residence for eighteen months.
He sold it to Lady Palmerston in November
1865.
For the years 1863-1866 there is little to
record. From November 1862 to April 1863
he was at Nice, writing a little and reading
much. Whilst there he received some private
communications, asking if he would be prepared
to accept, if it were offered to him, the throne
of Greece, left vacant by the abdication of King
Otho, and refused by Prince Alfred. This
honour had also been offered to Mr. Gladstone
and to Lord Stanley, neither of whom could be
otherwise than amused at the suggestion. In
the latter case Disraeli had written to a friend
on hearing of it : —
The Greeks really want to make my friend Lord
Stanley their King. This beats any novel ; but he
will not. Had I his youth, I would not hesitate, even
354
THE THRONE OF GREECE
with the earldom of Derby in the distance. ... It is 1863.
a dazzling adventure for the house of Stanley, but &T. 60.
they are not an imaginative race, and I fancy they will
prefer Knowsley to the Parthenon and Lancashire to
the Attic plains.
Bulwer-Lytton appears to have had the same
feelings. However much his imagination might
have been fired at an earlier date, he, too, preferred
Knebworth to Athens ! Writing to his son
from Nice, he says : —
Certes if I were to accept I should defy ' the Great
Powers ' to turn me out, and I would, if I lived ten
years, make Greece a very important State. But it
would require trouble, and perhaps money, to organise
and concentrate the parties and the machinery of the
election, and seems to promise a thorny and laborious
exile among strange tongues, even if successful. There-
fore, I have thrown iced water on the propositions that
have been secretly conveyed to me. . . . For my part,
the thing seems far from alluring. A country without
roads, without revenues, over head and ears in debt,
an unhealthy capital subject to fevers, a language one
could never learn to speak, a horrible travesty of a
European free constitution ; with subjects profoundly
orientalised, corruption universal — all this looks dismal
beside the calm Academe of Knebworth.
In the same letter he speaks of the arrival in
England for her marriage with the Prince of
Wales, of Princess Alexandra of Denmark : —
The Princess seems to have bewitched the English
world. Our Speaker, writing to me the other day,
says that there was not a man in that London crowd
355
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT
1864. who would not have gone through fire and water to
JE.T. 61. serve her.
After the lapse of fifty years, the same
thing might be said with equal truth to-day of
the lovely and lovable Queen who has never
lost the place in the hearts of the British people
which she won on the very day of her arrival.
With the return of health, and after a long
spell of literary work, Bulwer-Lytton's interest
in politics began to revive, but at the beginning
of 1864 he received a painful reminder of the
perpetual check imposed upon his ambitions in
this direction. Writing to his son on January
20, 1864, he says : —
This morning I received a letter from Disraeli, which
conveyed the thunderbolt that L[ady] L[ytton] has
resumed attacks — written, he says, to my colleagues and
friends, making horrible and nameless accusations. I
can conceive how annoying and humiliating these letters
would be, especially if to Derby and others of that class,
as I suspect from Dis's letter. This horrible calamity
weighs on me, but I know not what to do. Of course,
it will prevent office. I cannot go through such public
scandals again as an official character. I have heard
nothing from her myself, nor of her, except accidentally
from a person living at Taunton, that she had been out
to a concert and seemed well. I know not what to
do. But the thing effectively damps the ardour I was
beginning to have for politics.1
1 " It is said that politics are a jealous mistress — that they require the
whole man. The saying is not invariably true in the application it com-
monly receives — that is, a politician may have some other employment of
intellect, which rather enlarges his powers than distracts their political uses.
Successful politicians have united with great parliamentary toil and triumph
356
THE DANISH QUESTION
The reopening of this wound produced its' 1864.
usual effect, and his letters for the remainder of ^ET. 61.
this year complain of ill-health and great de-
pression of spirits. He was chiefly occupied
with correcting a collected edition of his poems,
and working at the novel of Pausanias and the
comedy of Walpole. The winter was spent at
Hastings, Bath, and finally at Torquay, which
latter place became his usual winter quarters for
the remainder of his life.
In 1864 public opinion in England was much
exercised about the quarrel between Denmark
and Germany concerning the Schleswig and
Holstein Duchies, and a long correspondence on
the subject took place between Bulwer-Lytton
and his son. The latter, who was then at Copen-
hagen, naturally sided very strongly with the
Danes, and held that after the encouragement
given to Denmark by the British Government,
Great Britain was in honour bound to support
that country in her quarrel. Bulwer-Lytton, on
the other hand, held that to go to war with
Germany for the retention by Denmark of two
Duchies, the population of which was largely
German, was an impossible policy for England.
" My opinions," he said, " no doubt seem to you
very moderate and milk and water. But yours seem
legal occupations or literary or learned studies. But politics do require
that the heart should be free, and at peace from all more absorbing anxieties
— from the gnawing of a memory or a care, which dulls ambition and
paralyses energy. In this sense politics do require the whol$ man. If I
returned to politics now, I should fail to them, and they to me."
IV hat will he do with it ?
357
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT
1864. to me much more fiery than justice warrants or policy
. 6 1. justifies — if it mean our fighting Germany with the
handful of men we have, and in support of a cause
beset with doubts from the first, and aggravated by
the gallant but stolid obstinacy of Denmark. . . . All
the difficulties that have occurred were visible from
1860, and commenced with the Schleswig Petition.
And I think our wise course would have been to have
interfered only to the same extent as other Non-
German parties to the Treaty. Or, if we resolved to
interfere, then in a wholly opposite direction, viz.: —
instead of rigidly enforcing upon both parties a Treaty
which it was clear was pregnant with war, and intoler-
able to both, to have summoned a conference to consider
how the Treaty should be modified. As it is now, I
believe if all Europe made Denmark a battlefield, it
would come to the same result at the end, viz.: — that
what is German should be German ; what is Scandina-
vian, Scandinavian. I see no other solution, and all
others are but patchworks of rotten tissues. The error
of 1852 was the forgetfulness of the first rule in the
grammar of politics — the interests and wishes of the
people governed — in this case Holstein and south
Schleswig. And that error must be corrected, or the
whole construction will be unsound and perilous."
Of his own health and occupations he writes
on April 24, 1864 : —
I continue very unwell, but I believe there is no
doubt that I am mending, but slowly — so slowly ! My
cough hampers me terribly, at night in especial, and I
am quite incapable of the least exertion, beyond taking
a drive for an hour or two, which I do daily and get
out of the carriage when I find a warm place in a
suburb and walk for a few minutes. Still, I am
358
SON'S MARRIAGE
certainly not so weak as I was, and that is the best 1864.
sign ; I think, D.V., I may be really convalescent in ^ET- 5,
about a fortnight. But I doubt if I shall be up to
Parliament all the session, or make any ostentatious
use of my big house. No doubt this has been a
stroke, and impresses on me the necessity of study-
ing climate during the winter and spring in future
years.
In the summer of 1864, his son, whilst on a
visit to England after leaving Copenhagen and
before taking up a new diplomatic post at Athens,
became engaged to Miss Edith Villiers and was
married to her on October 4. This marriage
was for various reasons distasteful to Bulwer-
Lytton. As a niece of Lord Clarendon, Miss
Villiers belonged to a family not only opposed
to him in politics, but with a powerful political
influence in the county for which he was a
member. From a pecuniary point of view, also,
the marriage was a disappointment to him.
Knowing how great was the financial drain of
his Knebworth estate, Bulwer-Lytton had hoped
that his son's marriage might bring enough money
into the family to render its upkeep an easier
task, and he found it hard to reconcile himself
to the failure of these expectations. Once the
matter was settled, however, and he came to have
a personal acquaintance with his daughter-in-law,
he found her charm irresistible, and before the
end of his life came to feel for her a deep
affection.
In a letter to his son written towards the end
359
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT
1865. of the year following his marriage, he explained
T. 62. the reasons for his feelings at the time : —
I simply said that the ancient house or estate
required money, that ever since I have had it I have
sacrificed many enjoyments to myself which money
would have given, if not spent on the place, as I spent
it. And all I said with regard to yourself was not in
reproach, but in explanation why I could not feel so
much satisfaction in your marriage as you seemed to
think I ought to have done. . . . Estates need money
and Knebworth consumes all I ever get from it and more.
For the rest, I do make every allowance for differing
circumstances, differing associations and differing duties.
All I say is, without reproaching you, I do not think it
fair to reproach me for want of sympathy in a marriage
which annihilated views of my own, at a time when I
did not even know your wife.
Let us dismiss the rest of this argument, it ends in
reality when you say you are quite contented with your
marriage and that is all I ever desire. I can but be
delighted that your reason approves a very hasty
marriage, or at least a very hasty engagement, when
you had none of the time to study character, &c. . . .
Sometimes, tho' rarely, Providence, in mercy rather than
in punishment, directs a man's choice, whatever the
previous circumstances were, so as to make him happy.
And it appears that Providence has been kind in your
case. Antecedent circumstances go for nothing. In
love there is no wherefore. . . .
On February 10, 1865, Bulwer-Lytton wrote
in a letter to his son : —
I am in town, but doubt if I shall stay. Nothing
to do in Parlt., only I don't know where to go.
360
" LOST TALES OF MILETUS "
Torquay is the best place, but it is so far and I hate 1865.
railways. Weather here raw and dull, not very cold. ^T. 62.
My poems are on the whole receiving more attention
and a little more praise than I expected. I am glad I
collected them. Yours, I suppose, will be soon out.
I am glad to hear you are doing justice to Byron. He
is certainly an extraordinary born poet, but the odd
thing about him is that instead of acquiring art as he
got older, he continued to lose the little he ever had.
... I have been going through Horace with increased
delight. He is the model for popular lyrics, and
certainly the greatest lyrist extant. I fancy Alcasus
had more genius, but we have nothing of him but
scraps and tradition. He must have been a sort of
Byron, I should think. . . . Pam is in full vigour and
means to settle the newspaper controversy as to whether
people really live to a hundred. He will be Prime
Minister when your intended Neogilus l is 21, and you
are in the vale of years with a white beard. Apropos,
I am letting my beard grow, which I find very comfort-
able, and it sprang up quite dark and not at all grey —
to signify. Derby's Homer has had immense success
and sale. In fact, the book of the season.
After the close of the Parliamentary session of
1865, he went to Mont Dore in Auvergne, and
there began another volume of Poetry — The Lost
Tales of Miletus. This book was finished by the
end of the year, and was published by Murray at
the beginning of 1866. He writes to his son on
September 21, 1865 : —
I have been scribbling and may send you some
1 Mrs. Robert Lytton was then in England, expecting her first confine-
ment.
361
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT
1865. proofs for your criticism. There is none that I should
. 62. value more highly.
The proofs were sent on October 17, and in
the letter accompanying them, he says : —
You will see, I think, that there is merit in construc-
tion and dramatic treatment, but I daresay the diction is
flat and prosaic. ..." The Wife of Miletus " I suspect
to have been a genuine Milesian story ; if so, it is curious
as giving us in more human proportion the she-fiends
of Greek drama. I think I have made much of the
materials in creating the characters of the Gaul and
Erippe, and placing between them the careless civilisation
of Xanthus, who seems very generous and really is so ;
and yet Erippe's accusation against him of sensual selfish-
ness is not untrue. . . . While I am writing, the report
is that poor Palmerston is dying at Brocket, not ex-
pected to live many hours.
The next day he writes : —
I have felt a strange shock at Pam's death, expected
as it has been for days. Something has gone out of the
world that one had looked upon as part and parcel of it.
The following letters throw some light on the
subject of The Lost Tales of Miletus : —
To Ms Son.
December 26, 1865.
I am glad you prefer " Sisyphus " — so do I. But
I do not think it is the favourite with the few who
have seen the poems. The one most popular seems
" The Secret Way," because, perhaps, of the fuller
story and the prettiness of the original legend in making
362
LETTERS ON « THE LOST TALES "
two persons fall in love with each other, as seen in dreams. 1 865.
But it is more melodramatic than most of the others. J&T. 62.
" The Wife of Miletus " is the most tragic, and with
some is the favourite. I suspect this to be a genuine
Milesian tale. But the characters of the Gaul and
Erippe are mine. " Cydippe " is entirely rewritten in a
different metre.
Your observations about the interest of short
narrative pieces call forth my idea of their artistic
treatment. In the first place, I think they resemble a
drama in this — that they require a backbone, namely :
— a single leading idea or purpose, which should not be
obscured by episodical ornament. This is best secured
where one does not invent the germ of the story,
because, before sitting down to write, the original
mainspring of the story being followed, has become
clear and forcible to one's own mind, and it so comes
out, almost unconsciously, in transfusion.
2ndly, I think that vigorous treatment requires
terseness and a pruning of superfluous blossoms, the
study of compression.
3rdly, that as some purely poetic passage may be
required, it should be well considered what it should be,
and the poetry then thrown pre-eminently into that
passage, so that it stands out as a picture from the frame.
Now in these two last named peculiarities, Horace's
lyrics seem to me unrivalled as hints for narrative, ist,
observe how wonderfully he compresses and studies
terseness, as if afraid to bore an impatient, idle audience ;
2ndly, when he selects his picture, how it stands out —
Cleopatra's flight, the speech of Regulus, the story of
Europa, the vision of Hades in the ode on his escape
from the tree, &c. He never has two plots, and rarely
two pictures in his lyrics.
The writer most resembling him in these respects,
tho' of a genus so opposite as to be almost antagonistic,
363
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT
1865. is Schiller — in his narrative poems. In " Fridolin,"
JE.T. 62. how he emphasises the picture of the forge. In the
" Diver," the horror of the depth in the sea, &c.
Now lastly, as to character, I think this must be
studied according to the nature of the interest you
desire to create. A character may be very slight, very
shadowy, and yet no elaboration could make it better
for the peculiar interest. Take Alp in the " Siege of
Corinth." How slightly sketched his character, how
easy to sneer at it, a sort of dandy renegade, yet for
the peculiar interest of the story the character is perfect.
Shakespeare could not have improved it for the special
purpose. I name the " Siege of Corinth " because to
my mind, it is the most animated by real narrative in
the language. And the one great picture of Alp's
walk by moonlight is the realisation in large of the
Horatian mode of dealing with episodical ornament.
If I may presume, after speaking of such great
masters, to advert to my own treatment of character in
these stories, I think you will see on reflection that for
at least some of the stories the interest would have
been wholly changed to disadvantage, but for the
characters as sketched. Take the Gaul in the " Wife
of Miletus " — civilise him a little more, and his
grandeur would become brutal. Take the lovers in
" The Secret Way." Let Zariades, instead of a hardy
conquering emulator of Cyrus, be a poetic dreamer ; let
Argiope assume some attributes that detract from the
insistance on her shame-faced modesty, and this love
between the two, as created by dreams, would certainly
lose in depth and purity of conception.
In " Cydippe," the character (here I am speaking of
the corrected version, which you have not seen) rests
much on the father. His wish that his son should
marry, his piety and submission to the Gods when he
believes that wish to be rejected. At the beginning
364
LETTERS ON "THE LOST TALES"
you wish the father to be contented, before you even 1865.
know anything about the son's love affair, yet the JET. 62.
character of the son, as essentially cold, and averse to
love, is an element of interest. Cydippe's readiness to
receive any lover in submission to her father, and
growing rebellious when she does love, help the story,
tho' these attributes of character in both are not
interesting in themselves. I really must beg pardon in
alluding to my own practice and in poems which are
very likely to fall still-born, but that is my conviction
of the way character should be adapted to short
narratives.
In respect to metres, I can say nothing. Mine is
an experiment, it may take a century to test. But,
putting aside rhyme, as having nothing to do with the
question, I think if you fairly examine, you will see
that you obtain in rhythmical quatrain a compression
and terseness, and some lyrical quality that you cannot
obtain with heroic blank verse. I think, speaking
honestly, that for the perfect success of these innova-
tions of rhythm, it requires a more perfect master of
form and expression than I am. I have been so
accustomed by prose fiction to consider large effects,
that like an infinitely greater master of fiction, Scott,
I have dulled myself to the requirements of verbal
form, and I do not sufficiently care for the delicacies
of musical cadence. But I think that the addition of
rhymeless quatrain (the Horatian strophe) to our modes
of versification, will, for certain kinds of narrative, and
especially lyrical narrative, and even lyrical poetry
itself, be found, some day or other, to contain a vein
of poetry in new directions, prompting new modes of
treatment, and quite in harmony with the genius of the
Anglo-Saxon language. Imagine what Milton could
have done with such forms at the age in which he
wrote the Comus !
365
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT
1866. But I certainly do not ask that rhyme should
JE.T. 63. be abandoned, nor do I say that for most things
rhyme may not be better. I don't remember Shelley's
rhymed translation of the (so-called) Homeric Hymns.
But before I could decide whether for verses from the
Greek, I should not prefer rhymeless metre, I should
like to have seen Shelley undertake translations without
rhyme.
Finally, I will say one thing. I think it would be
a great step gained by a really great poet meditating
to " be the first that ever burst into a silent sea," to
invent some form of metre not so used up as our blank
verse, and imposing more difficulties of treatment. For
the Drama, heroic blank verse is perfect (except for
comedy). But for epic, narrative and didactic, it has
great defects, the chief of which is that it courts to
tediousness and dilution. Even Milton's Paradise Lost
is infinitely too lengthy — compare it in that respect
with the stern terseness of Dante's Strophe. Strophe
necessitates a certain brevity. Take "Alastor" (beauti-
ful specimen of blank verse) but it is dull — because the
facility of the metre is too indulgent to the exuberance
of the poet. It is a great thing to impose difficulties
on oneself, and I believe this to be one of the merits
of rhyme.
But I am certainly not setting an example of com-
pression now, so I hasten to the end. — Affectly. yrs.,
E. B. L.
To the same.
Feb. i ^th, 1866.
Many thanks for your letter and flattering opinions
of the Lost Tales.
Despite a singularly unfair and carping article
in The Saturday Review, I think they are making
366
LETTERS ON " THE LOST TALES "
way and are, at all events, generally favoured by the 1866.
critics. ^T. 63.
What you say about love as not being an effective
dramatic element, is perfectly true, and I have often
said it myself — that is love pur et simple — and yet
love as a mixed ingredient is almost an essential
element of Drama. Generally speaking, it necessitates
opposing struggle. Love versus duty, versus pride,
versus fate, &c. Then it becomes effective.
I agree with you that love between husband and
wife is more effective than between lovers. But that
is from various reasons, scarcely perceptible to an
audience or even a reader. One reason is the fixed
and permanent nature of the tie, and the terrible
consequences of rupture there as compared in real life
with the rupture between a youth and a maid. Romeo
forgets Rosalind when he sees Juliet. He might forget
Juliet also, if he did not marry her. There would be
little interest in the quarrel between man and wife, if
man had fifty wives. It is our domestic associations that
give this dramatic interest to married folks. But tho'
love as between two lovers pur et simple is not very
serviceable on the stage, it is very interesting in all
narrative, whether prose or poetry. Take Lucy and
Ravenswood (in The Bride of Lammermoor] for prose
narrative ; and what would be Lara if you took away
Kaled. It is the moving passion in lyrics. Lyrical
poetry as between husband and wife, is, to my mind,
detestable. Domestic lyrical poetry in praise of one's
baby, makes one sick, yet parental and filial love on
the stage is effective. Therefore, I think you must
amend your critical errors and separate altogether
genuine Drama, that is Drama for the stage, from
poetry or fiction in which the dramatic element is
admitted. In the former love pur et simple not being
a first-rate agency of interest, but in the latter it is.
367
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT
1866. When Lord Derby formed his third Admini-
T. 63. stration in the summer of 1866, after the defeat
of the Liberal Reform Bill, he offered a peerage
to Bulwer-Lytton, who gratefully accepted it.
This honour had been the summit of his ambition
from the earliest days, and with the attainment
of it, the strenuous period of his life comes to an
end. Not only did he welcome the distinction
as a recognition of his own achievements in
literature and politics, but he valued it especially
as an honour to the family of which he was ever
proud. It was to him a tribute which he could
dedicate to the memory of his mother and leave
as a legacy to his son.
To the latter he writes : —
July 31, 1866.
MY DEAREST SON — All the letters of congratulation
I have received put together do not give me the delight
which I derive from your letter1 of July 2Oth, just
come to hand and heart.
With that marvellous gift of sympathy which belongs
to you, and in which lies the secret at once of your
personal popularity and your intellectual compre-
hensiveness, you have touched the key of every
sentiment far remote from individual vanity which
endears to me an hereditary honour. On one of these
sentiments alone you have been modestly reserved — you
comprehend fully my satisfaction at feeling as if I were
paying a debt to those who have gone before me. Add
largely to that satisfaction the joy of a father proud
of his son, and knowing into what worthy hands the
1 This letter is published in The Personal and Literary Letters of Robert,
First Earl of Lytton, 1906, vol. i. p. 211.
368
PEERAGE
representation of all honours he may acquire, will pass 1866.
in the course of Nature. &T. 63.
Do you remember in the earliest years of my
coming into the possession I owe to my mother's love,
you, then a schoolboy, and I, then woefully crippled
by the unexpected discovery that I was poorer with
Knebworth, if it were kept up, than I had been without
it, and then, not only out of Parliament, but not seeing
my way back into it ? Do you remember the evening
when you and I were riding together, and I said : —
" We must have the Peerage. I can but be a Baron
— higher grades I leave to you " ?
I remember it all as if it were yesterday. When
the thing was done and in the Gazette you have read,
certainly my first thought was of my poor mother,
and I said as if she were living still on this earth, or
wherever she be, caring for such matters : — " How it
will please her." My second thought passed quick
as lightning to you, and among the somewhat more
complicated sentiments therein mingled, was this : —
" It will please him to think he gives to the woman
who chose him out of mankind the station that all
women value — the station for which women sell them-
selves, even noble-hearted women." Nothing we men
care for more than to give a something or other to the
woman we love.
Now, as to this thing itself, practically speaking — it
is a strange mixture of feeling. In large, political life,
apart from that family or individual sentiment which
you and I understand — it is a fall. One ceases to be
a power. One is shelved. A member for the smallest
boro' who has the ear of the House of Commons has
more influence with the public than the richest peer.
Again, I know of no instance in which a man passing
from the Commons to the Lords without office at the
time has ever done anything in the Lords. Why, I know
VOL. ii 369 2 B
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT
1866. not yet, but so it is. I have taken my seat and only
ET. 63. been once in the House of Lords. I left it in dismay —
on only one point, but that point awful — the conscious-
ness of deafness. I never was in a public room in
which hearing was so difficult. I sat next a man who
seemed trying his best to hear Derby, whose voice is
the most audible, and I said to him — " Do you hear ? "
" Only a word or two here and there," was the
encouraging answer. It is time that I was on a modest
back bench. I see but one place where I could hear
(not being in the Ministerial front row) and that is the
Cross Bench. But the dons of routine say that to sit
there would be to proclaim some hostility to the Govt.
— my independent neutrality. Still, to that Cross
Bench I must converge, or I must relinquish all idea
of " further progress." At present my belief is that
I must make an immense struggle to conquer deafness,
and I think of going to Paris to consult a doctor there.
Sir Henry is in England, thin as a spectre. But so
redundant of life, energy and restless ambition, that he
is the finest incarnation of youth I have seen since I
left school. Write to him as often as you can. He
complains of your silence. I can't give you his address,
for he is ever on the wing, but you can enclose to me.
My own plans are to stay here thro' August, then
go to Paris to consult the aurist, and be guided by the
result as to staying there. But to winter at Nice.
Love to Edith and respects to Neogilus.1 — Yrs.
most afF.
L.
At the time when he accepted the peerage,
Bulwer-Lytton hoped that with a seat in Parlia-
ment secured to him without the expense and
trouble of a contested election, he would be
1 Edward Rowland John, born September 19, 1865.
37°
CLOSE OF POLITICAL CAREER
able to render valuable service to his party by '866.
occasional speeches in the House of Lords ; and ^T- 63-
with the object of rendering himself more
competent for such a task, he consulted a cele-
brated aurist in Paris about his deafness. This
man — a Dr. Turnbull — seems to have helped
him considerably, for he writes from Paris in
December 1866: "I have been trying an aurist
and my hearing has been much improved " ; and
in March of the following year he speaks of the
infirmity as having " tolerably ceased."
Whether it was that this improvement in
his hearing was only temporary, and that his
deafness proved an insuperable difficulty, or
whether he failed to overcome the nervousness
occasioned by the chilling atmosphere of the
House of Lords, Lord Lytton never spoke in
that assembly. He prepared speeches on several
occasions during the last years of his life, but
none of them were ever delivered, and his active
political career was closed in 1866.
For nearly forty years his life had been one
of incessant labour and strenuous mental activity.
It had been spent in an atmosphere of conflict and
struggle. He had been assailed throughout by
hostile criticism, both literary and political ; he
had been laughed at for his affectations, attacked
for changing his politics, and, in short, had met
with even more than his share of the mis-
representation common to all public men. In
spite of opposition, however, and the handicap
of constant ill-health, he had worked on with
PEERAGE AND RETIREMENT
1866. courage and persistency to the goal of his
T. 63. ambition. The comparative repose of his later
years had been fully earned. His literary work
was only interrupted by death, but from this
moment his life ran on calmly and peacefully to
the end.
372
BOOK VI
LITERARY AND PERSONAL
LAST YEARS
1867-1873
If I have borne much, and my spirit has worked out its earthly end
in travail and in tears, yet I would not forego the lessons which my
life has bequeathed me, even though they be deeply blended with sad-
ness and regret. No ! were I asked what best dignifies the present,
and consecrates the past ; what enables us alone to draw a just moral
from the tale of life ; what sheds the purest light upon our reason ;
what gives the firmest strength to our religion ; and whether our
remaining years pass in seclusion or in action, is best fitted to soften
the heart to man and elevate the soul to God, I would answer with
Lassus— it is EXPERIENCE. Devereux.
373
CHAPTER I
FATHER AND SON
1836-1865
'Tis human nature and sacred ties — one's own flesh and blood, and
besides one hand rubs the other, one leg helps on the other, and relations
get on best in this world when they pull together ; that is, supposing that
they are the proper sort of relations, and pull one on, not down.
My Novel.
HAVING arrived at the last stage in Lord
Lytton's life, I feel that this is a convenient place
to interrupt the chronological narrative for the
purpose of dealing in greater detail with one or
two aspects of his life and character which are
of sufficient importance to occupy a chapter to
themselves. The first of these concerns his
relations with his son.
From the correspondence contained in
previous chapters, the reader will have been
able to form a general idea of Lord Lytton's
character, and to estimate both its strength and
its weakness in his capacity as son, husband,
writer, and statesman. It is the object of
this chapter to complete the picture by
giving additional evidence of his personality as
a father.
375
FATHER AND SON
While his children were still young, Lord
Lytton had no part in their home life ; he was
little with them, and beyond an occasional
holiday visit he does not appear to have con-
tributed much to their happiness or to have de-
rived much happiness himself from intercourse
with them. He wrote them most affectionate
letters and took an interest in their studies and
characters, but he did not possess the qualities
which arouse affection in very young children.
His separation from his wife as well as his own
occupations prevented him from giving them
the advantages of a happy home or of intimate
family life, and it was not till well past middle
life that he began to know the luxury of
an intellectual companionship with his son
fuller, more intimate and more affectionate than
any which he had enjoyed with his own
contemporaries.
Lord Lytton's life was on the whole a
singularly lonely one. Neither in literature nor
in politics did he belong to any intimate set.
He went little into society and he never stayed
for many months in the same place. During
the parliamentary season he was usually in
London ; at the end of the summer he always
went to some health resort, generally on the
Continent, to recover from the fatigues of the
London life which was most distasteful to him,
and the winter months were spent either in the
south of England or the south of France. He
had great affection for his Knebworth home, and
376
A LONELY LIFE
spent several months there at intervals in each
year, but the large empty house only increased
his sense of loneliness, and after entertaining a
few friends there, he was soon off again to some
other residence. His chief literary friend was
John Forster, and his chief political friend
Disraeli, but his intimacy with both these men
was on an intellectual rather than a personal
basis. In his whole correspondence the only
letters which are of a really intimate personal
character are those which passed between
himself and his son. Yet even this intimacy
took many years to establish, it was chequered
by many misunderstandings, disagreements, and
causes of friction, and that it became firmly
established at last upon a basis of mutual
love and admiration was largely due to the
exceptional degree in which the son possessed
those qualities of tenderness and sympathy
which were lacking in the father.
If Emily Lytton's life had been spared ; if she
had outlived the sorrows of her girlhood, and
learned to know her father through the medium
of common intellectual interests, and the mutual
knowledge of each other's experiences ; had she
made a happy marriage and had children of her
own, she would doubtless have established with
her father a close and affectionate companionship,
precious alike to him and to her. There would
then have existed in Lord Lytton's life a
softening influence to counteract the hardening
effect of his own experiences. Her early death
377
FATHER AND SON
deprived him of the last chance of knowing in
his own home the affection of a woman who
could reign there by right. He had had no
sister, his wife had become a living nightmare
that threatened him from without, his daughter
a dead memory that haunted him within.
It might be expected that after his daughter's
death, Lord Lytton would have been drawn
more closely to his surviving child, but the same
qualities which prevented him from understand-
ing his daughter and entering into her thoughts
and feelings also prevented him for many years
from having any better knowledge of his son.
In all the early difficulties of his life Robert
Lytton found his father strangely lacking in
sympathy and understanding. At the time of
his sister's death he was a boy of sixteen at
Harrow. Almost immediately afterwards he
was taken away from school and sent to a private
educational establishment at Bonn. Whilst there,
he got into a boyish scrape which caused him
the acutest suffering. Here was an occasion
when a father's love and sympathy and advice
would have been of inestimable value to him ;
but if he looked for it, he looked in vain. The
elder Lytton was at Nice when he received the
news of his son's trouble, and far from well
himself at the time. He entirely misjudged the
situation, greatly overestimating the gravity of
the scrape, and greatly underestimating the
mental distress of his son. By the harsh letters
which he wrote at the time, he showed how
378
MISUNDERSTANDINGS
completely he had failed to understand the
character of the boy, and it was only through
the kindness and sympathy of two older friends
— Chauncey Townshend and John Forster — and
by the inherent strength and beauty of his own
nature, that Robert Lytton was able to survive
without any moral harm, an incident trivial in
itself, but which from the treatment which it
received, might permanently have embittered
his character. When father and son met and
talked the matter over, all misunderstanding
was removed, and the circumstance is only
mentioned here to show through what vicissi-
tudes the story of this relationship had to pass
before it reached the stage of perfect under-
standing and deep affection.
The next cause of estrangement between
father and son was occasioned by the painful
circumstances which have been described in a
previous chapter.
When in 1858 Lady Lytton's violent attacks
upon her husband led to her temporary detention
in a private home, Robert Lytton, as has been
already mentioned, came to the assistance of both
his parents in a most generous and self-sacrificing
manner. For several months he attempted the
hopeless task of mediating between his father
and mother. That he did not succeed was in no
way due to any fault of his own. In the circum-
stances the task which he had undertaken was
an impossible one, but his difficulties were im-
mensely increased, and his failure rendered doubly
379
FATHER AND SON
bitter, by the extraordinary letters which he re-
ceived from his father at that time.
These letters were at first very grateful and
encouraging, but later, when the father began to
fear that his son was falling under his mother's
influence, their tone became hard and menacing.
The father spoke of disowning his son altogether,
and even suggested that on his return they
might meet as strangers in the street. Finally,
when the son's moment of bitterest disappoint-
ment and despondency arrived, when he had
to acknowledge the failure of his efforts, and
turned his back on his mother for ever, the cup
of his misery was filled to overflowing by
receiving letters from his father upbraiding him
for his extravagance, and reproaching him for
having come away from Luchon and left his
mother behind. Robert Lytton, although he
felt " stunned and stupified " at finding himself
thus addressed in language which he himself
" would reluctantly use even towards a dishonest
menial," replied in a spirit of gentle and patient
remonstrance. Never were the beauty and
tenderness of his character more conspicuous
than in his dealings with both his parents
during those bitter months of 1858. Some of
the passages in his father's letters must have
appeared to him almost as insane as anything
which he experienced from his mother ; and yet
he never failed to express in reply the utmost
patience, gentleness, respect, and affection, and
this forbearance was richly rewarded.
380
UNJUST REPROACHES
There is nothing more remarkable in the
character of the first Lord Lytton than his
readiness to accept apologies and explanations
from others, and on receipt of them to retract
any harsh or unjust expressions which he had
himself employed. To his wife, to his children,
to his friends, he repeatedly exhibited the most
astonishing irritability, and sometimes became
positively offensive, but on receipt of a soft
answer, a satisfactory explanation, or an appeal
to his heart, he immediately melted into a mood
of tender contrition. So now. His unkind
letters to his son in 1858 probably surpassed
in the error of their judgment, the injustice
of their reproaches, and the harshness of their
language all other mistakes in his human
relationships. Had they been answered in the
same spirit, a life-long estrangement might have
ensued between two men who were capable
of giving to each other the most precious
affection of their lives. Fortunately, they only
served to reveal to the father the depths of
his son's nature, which, when so revealed,
were generously acknowledged. Here, for
instance, is the letter which closed this par-
ticular incident : —
My own darling boy — my noble, tender-hearted,
matchless son — my all in all — the only one in the
world left to me to love — God in his great mercy bless
and strengthen and cheer and watch over you. I have
just received your kind letter after the long one I wrote
to you yesterday, and I hasten now to write these few
381
FATHER AND SON
lines to say that if there be a word in mine that wounds
and pains, know that there are tears in my eyes now
that should wash such words away for ever — tears of
unspeakable gratitude, confidence, and the love that
must sanctify. Yes, let me hope that Heaven will and
does sanctify it. Remember., things and events so vary
that letters will vary too ; but remember also that if
words imply soreness and pain or reproach or doubt,
still my substantial trust in you after the letter received
to-day, is absolute and steadfast. I know that there
are in you watching over me, watching over all, as
beautiful a heart and soul and intellect as the Maker
can furnish to man. 1 know your enormous difficulties,
I know all the complications of duty that may perplex
you. I will do my best to relieve and aid you in
such a task.
After this time, though there were disputes
leading to some coldness over the question of
settlements at the time of Robert Lytton's
abortive engagement to a Dutch girl in 1859,
and in 1864 at the time of his marriage, yet
nothing serious occurred again to disturb the
intimacy of their relationship, which was
strengthened in later years by circumstances
in Robert Lytton's own life. His marriage,
which was at first a disappointment to his father,
became, through the tact and gentleness of his
wife, a new bond of sympathy. To this was
added a common joy in the birth of his children,
a common interest in watching their growth,
and lastly — most potent of all — a common grief
occasioned by the early death of his eldest boy
in 1871. In that grave were buried the hopes
382
COMPLETE INTIMACY ESTABLISHED
and aspirations which father and grandfather had
cherished for the generation that was to succeed
them ; but buried there, too, was every trace,
every memory even, of the shadows which had
clouded their own past.
The correspondence which passed between
these two men ranged over the widest possible
field. As they were much separated from each
other, their letters are numerous, occupying
many volumes. Every subject was discussed
between them — literature, politics, religion, as
well as their own personal interests. Letters
which bear on particular incidents connected
with this biography have been quoted in other
chapters. The following, of a more general kind,
have been selected here in the hope that they
may help to illustrate further the character and
opinions of their writer.
The first two letters were written in 1853,
when Robert Lytton was at Florence and
enjoying a very friendly intercourse with the
Robert Brownings. The third belongs to 1856,
and is in answer to one which he had written
to his father expressing dissatisfaction with his
profession, and his anxiety to leave it.
HARROGATE,
Oct. 7/J, 1853.
MY DEAREST SON — I am delighted with your letter,
most of all with its warm affection, which fills me with
gratitude, and for which I invoke on your young head
a father's tenderest blessing.
383
FATHER AND SON
Next, with all the evidence of a rich mind pushing
itself forth in true directions, your intellect seems to
have taken a great start since I last saw you, and I
should guess that you must have been aided therein by
close intercourse with superior and original minds — a
little, perhaps, too Utopian and struggling against the
grand calm equilibrium of the social and the practical ;
but youth should go through that phase of airier idea,
and may as well do it in company with minds not
likely to leave the balloon in the mud. Perhaps the
Brownings may have contributed to this. However,
whether wrought out alone, or whether some other
man's heifer be occasionally yoked to the plough, the
seeds spring strong from furrows made far below the
surface.
I quite think with you that publish your poems you
must.1 The vent is required, only keep the incognito
strictly till we agree to lift the bars of the vizor. But
before we publish, send me a list of the poems selected,
of your principal corrections, the title of the book and
the pseudonym of the author. I should avoid anagrams,
and take as intelligible a type for the poems, and as
unaffected tho' impressionable a name for the author, as
your invention dictates. For my small poems lately
collected, I took the title of " Cornflowers," illustrated
by the lines : —
The cornflower blossoms when the sheaves are ripe ;
Song is the twin of golden Contemplation —
The harvest-flower of life,
meaning, of course, to denote that those poems were
the later growth of my mind.
So, perhaps, this may serve you as a hint for a
metaphorical title for your verses, conformably to
what you felt to be their spirit. . . .
1 Clytemnestra, and Other Poems.
384
LITERARY STUDIES
As to what you say about study to be original, leave
all study alone — it will come, but not yet — you should,
after this, repose the mind altogether from verse,
storing it quietly with other ideas. These will spring
up naturally into original forms, as the growth of the
mind and the eclectic collection of opposite ideas makes
your whole compound original. No ! don't study
Shakespeare. His form is too contagious, and has been
too much transfused into all modern shapes. It will
only lead you back to the Keatses, Tennysons, &c.
The Elizabethan School has been overworked. Leave
it alone. Dryden might do some good, but not yet.
If you must read poetry, avoid as models for the
present all in your own language. The poets of other
tongues have this advantage, that you are not sensible
of their mannerism sufficiently to copy it unconsciously ;
it is their grand essences only that you take.
If you would take up Greek as an earnest study,
avoiding all cribs and translations, working your way
thro' the raw language, with lexicon, grammar and a
good master, it would be of more service than any
other language. Begin chronologically : — Homer,
Hesiod, Anacreon, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides.
But Homer is the man to study au fond, because he
shows you (as by far the most popular poet that ever
lived) the essentials of practical popularity. Observe
that he is never subtle. He takes hold of the passions
most common to the human heart in all ages, and thus
Nature itself makes his combinations essentially artistic.
Would he move you more to terror for his Achilles,
and yet let the fiercest qualities of that hero still leave
him human, and wind themselves thro' the undulations
of sympathy, he unites this indomitable strength and
valour with the presentiment of early death, he connects
it with unspeakable sorrow in the fate of Patroclus.
Would he interest you in the defence of Troy in spite
VOL. ii 385 2 c
FATHER AND SON
of the sacrilege to the marriage hearth which dooms it,
he brings forth the marriage hearth itself in aid of your
pity, and makes you forget Helen in the poetry of
Hector and Andromache. The guilt of Troy vanishes
before the lovely valour of Hector. So again, would he
present the picture of human reverse, so as to strike all
hearts — he draws a King with all that can give
honour and reverence to power, old age, numerous
children, &c., and then shows you Priam a suppliant
for the body of Hector. Wherever you look at
Homer you see the poetic secrets of popularity eternal
and universal. Ruminate on this, and you will discover
your own most prevalent deficiency, and that of the
subtle modern schools, with their lust for dainty expres-
sions, hairsplitting fancies, &c.
Next to Greek comes German, but that rounds back
into modernism again. You will find Italian verse,
perhaps, too cold and elegant for your purpose or taste.
Yet still on that school Milton and Spenser founded
themselves. And tho' they borrowed largely and
copied much, yet you see they continued to be original.
In fine, the poets of other tongues help us to originality,
those of our own force us into imitation.
Now as to the Magazine. When you present the
argument pecuniary before me, I have nothing
to say. Sweet is the money we earn for ourselves,
and I have no right to say "Don't add £120 to
your income," unless I could say also " I make
up the loss." I can only leave it to your own
consideration to weigh the 'pros and the cons. The
anonymous may save you from frittering away
your name, but not from frittering away the grow-
ing strength of your mind, freshness of style and of
thought. A certain degree of chastity is necessary
for every muse. Magazines, if not brothels, are —
ballrooms.
386
LITERATURE AND A PROFESSION
This is different with majestic Quarterlies. I don't
dislike your modest doubt thereon. But I am sure
that you could write well and tellingly for a Quarterly.
Think only of some good, effective subject that you
understand, read conscientiously for it, submit your
article to private persons, who understand the subject,
have it copied, so that your old vice of misspelling
(not yet conquered) does not break out, and I think
we shall do some grand thing. Why not the present
political state of Italy, or the new religious spirit in
Italy ? Theories of religious reform afloat there. If
you could but hit on a subject, more or less connected
with your profession, and it told respectably, it would
serve immensely to expedite your advance — might get
you in another year to be paid attach^, and be remembered
to the advantage of your career all your life. . . .
There is one thing in literature I would always do,
namely, from time to time connect literature with
your practical profession and career. Macaulay has
done this well. Henry did it in his works on France,
which, whatever their merit, greatly served him in his
career. As a general rule writers in the Quarterlies
are much honoured, writers in Magazines depreciated.
And looking round to my contemporaries, I observe
those who were distinguished in the first have all got
high positions ; those rather brilliant in the last, have
all sunken down into the repute of small litterateurs
and have no positions at all. Verb. sap.
My dear Boy, I wish I were with you to receive
your confidences, tho' in all affairs of the heart I fear
that our relative positions and differing ages would
always impose a certain restraint on frankness. But
take this as a general rule — that what in the slack
morality of the world are called liaisons in Society, tho'
very pleasing excitements at first, invariably lead to
anxiety, tortures, disappointments, scrapes, heart-
387
FATHER AND SON
pangs, wherever a man is not a mere cold-blooded
roue. They may do well for a light Frenchman, they
play the devil with an earnest Englishman, and
they render one always liable to an esclandre or a
compelled engagement, that inflict ruin or misery on
one's whole life. Youth, I know, must be youth, man
man, and the world must be turned topsy turvey before
the relationships between the sexes can be adjusted to
any harmonious ethics that reconcile virtue with the
passions and the senses. But no man ever does much
who gives up much of his thoughts and time to women ;
and no man who gives up much of his time and thoughts
— I don't say to poetic dreams, but to grand masculine
studies and pursuits, is inclined, as a habit, to let women
over-stimulate his brain and wear out the fibres of his
heart. . . .
MY DEAREST R. — I received yours to-day, and order
Scott to write to the Florence bankers to pay to your
order ,£50, exclusive of the allowance, which, I hope,
will set you right. I don't in any way blame you for
assisting an artist or any man — to be generous belongs
to humanity — to be occasionally taken in is the lot of
youth, and the noble misfortune of a gentleman. But
I do entreat you never in future to sign a bill either
for yourself or another. In the first place, all signing or
endorsing bills lowers and damages one's respectability,
and it is really a blow when a bill is dishonoured. Next,
the thing once begun may induce a habit and that habit
is the fatal cause of ruin. 3rdly, it really mortgages,
as it were, the future. One knows what one has, one
does not know what one may have three months hence. I
have owed much in life to the principle of never endors-
ing a bill for any friend, however intimate. I have often
crippled myself by lending him at the time, but being
responsible for him — No ! I did it once about your age
388
ADVICE ABOUT MONEY
for Cockburn, my earliest intimate friend, and it occa-
sioned me great annoyance and lost me his friendship
to this day, because when the bill was dishonoured, I
ventured to remonstrate.
That served me as a lesson for life. I should be
rejoiced if you would let this little bother be your
warning too. Accept these rules when you lend a man
money : consider it a gift — it is a God-send if he repay
you — and if he don't, make up your mind that it is
lost ; don't ask for it when you know he can't repay
you, and count beforehand your resources with the
conviction that — it, nummus, like tempus, nunquam
revertitur.
2ndly, if you lend, let it be your money, never
your name, credit, character and honour, all of which
are pawned in a Bill. It is the more necessary to be
firm on this point, because it is a very common tempta-
tion, being so much the habit of young men. Your
best excuse will be to say you promised me never to do
it. In future, if you can't get out of some slight loan
which you can't conveniently spare by a self-sacrifice,
much better ask me. . . .
VENTNOR, Dec. 10, 1856.
MY DEAREST ROBERT — I pass at once to what I
conclude to be the substance of your letter, tho' you
leave it a little hazy. You are discontented with
foreign society, weary of its temptations, revolted by
its sins ; you would see more of your own country
and have a hankering to leave your profession. Well
— all society of the same rank is alike ; you would
find life in English drawing-rooms just as insipid, just
as vicious, with these differences : — ist. that a great
portion of it has tastes much less suited to yours than
rough talk — the turf, Henley, &c.; 2nd, that "a
scrape " here may be ruin for life. But I think it natural
389
FATHER AND SON
that you should wish to see more of England, and right
that you should do so. Let us then contrive the best
way. Give up your profession. Put me out of the
question, and let us think of that. I never knew any
man leave a profession who did not repent it heartily.
You have got thro' the worst stages ; if you throw it
up, you throw up so many years of your life, and
return to the place you started from at 17. Now much
of what you feel now, belongs to a crisis in life which I
know well. Supposing instead of Diplomacy you had
gone to the Law and fagged at it. You would not have
had nearly so many sores of the sentiment, nor such
moments of despondency as you have now. Why?
Because you would have had a labour more apart from
what is called pleasure, from society, &c. Such pleasure
would have been seized as a joyous recreation. But you
chose, and I was pleased you should choose, a profession
which allowed you to have the true season of youth.
Lawyers can never have it. By this you have known
sorrows and errors, but by this you have deepened your
wisdom, added to your genius, and on the whole, rather
heightened, perhaps, than deadened your moral per-
ceptions. But now, suppose you throw up this pro-
fession and have none, but are quite free, and an income
not below that of most young men well-born ? Well
— you will then feel satiety still more ; just as you would
have felt it less as lawyer than attache, you will feel it
less as attache than as nothing.
But you will give yourself up to literature and poetry,
&c. I doubt whether you would do so half so much, or
at all events, half so well. When a poet or man of
letters is not urged on by the positive want of money,
I know by experience, man of letters as I am now
grown by custom, that invention flags and industry
grows dull. But if, with the instincts of literature, you
compel me to do something else which I don't like as
390
VALUE OF A PROFESSION
well, then suddenly my mind would fly cravingly back
to literature as yours, perhaps, does to poetry when
you are bored with desk or salons. Of this I am
pretty confident. At all events, I would not advise
you formally to throw up the profession. Keeping in
it may be a wonderful thing for you hereafter — leaps
up the ladder you don't now foresee, not only in
diplomacy but public life. . . .
I should be delighted if we could arrange that you
could come to England for some time, and I could
much more talk than write to you as to your present
state of feeling. Much of what you feel as to your
profession and companionship I still feel hourly to the
House of Commons and the London life it forces me
to. I hate it. No success rewards me, and failure,
always probable, is a horrid idea. But still I go on.
We cannot make the grooves .of our own life. Happy,
indeed, they whose heart and conscience get into those
ruts which suit best with the wheels. But still life is
doing — to live is to do ; and as we thus live and thus
do, we fulfil that task which Heaven meant for us.
Chauncy Townshend's life has been my beau-ideal of
happiness — elegant rest, travel, lots of money — and he
is always ill and always melancholy. When Duty-
chooses our life for us, it is a hard road and one is jolted
dreadfully, but I suspect that we have on the whole a
larger sum of enjoyment and fewer deductions from
ennui and remorse than one has when one chooses one's
life for oneself, and sends Duty to the Devil. If one
has talents in the former case, one is a fact in one's
age — in the latter case, one first says : — " But I don't
care for success," and afterwards enviously regards
one's busy contemporaries and is miserable from the
sense of failure. Thus is it with Villiers and Lord
Walpole — two accomplished, clever men — cut business
and enjoyed themselves, while I fagged ; and now, tho'
391
FATHER AND SON
to this day they say they never had ambition, Villiers
positively weeps when he talks of my successes and
what a fool he has been. And Walpole ,is gnawed
with contempt for himself and told me he would
give anything to have been a clerk in an office. —
Adieu,
E. B. L.
P. S. — As to income, you gather from my letter
that instead of withdrawing £100 a. year if you retire,
should you feel that your health and happiness require
it, and ^400 a year not eno' for you in England — all
I can say is — put your hands in my purse — it is open
to you.
In 1860 Robert Lytton published his poem of
Lucile, the story of which was taken from George
Sand's novel Lavtma. As it was on his father's
advice that the preface containing an acknowledg-
ment of this fact was suppressed, and a charge of
plagiarism incurred, the following letter may be
read with interest as containing his father's views
on the subject : —
1860.
MY DEAR R. — With respect to the charge of plagiarism
in L. Gazette, I have not seen the article, but saw an
allusion to it in some journal. My strong impression
is that you must not think of noticing it yourself ; that
if noticed at all, it should be by a friend in a competent
journal. Forster could do it in the Examiner. When
I go to England I could get it done in some others
if necessary ; possibly in some note in some future
preface or work you may allude to it, and give what
reply is best in five lines, perhaps by a sarcasm or
irony.
392
PLAGIARISM
The fact is that plagiarism is one of the charges
most difficult to answer, because the rights of authors
are not yet very clearly decided in respect to borrowing.
In your particular case I hold that the charge is
groundless, but it would require some subtlety in
criticism to show it to be groundless, no matter how
much you took from a novel.
As a general rule, a poet has a right if he so please,
to take his whole plot and principal situations from a
prose writer, and that is not plagiarism. Shakespeare
has done so wherever he could, and a novelist in turn
has a right to take similar liberties with a poet. Where
this is done in either case, acknowledgment is a mere
matter of option, but it would be always better to lay
down a general rule, where it is not applied, to vindicate
oneself from a special charge. Qjii s excuse, s accuse.
I should like to see the article. In my early days I fell
into the error of answering attacks — it did no good. I
should doubt if the L. Gazette had any weight as a
journal. Still, I should see the article and judge
calmly. My present conviction is that Forster will
dispose of it in the Examiner.
True plagiarism is in borrowing the form of another.
Imitators of Pope, Byron, or Tennyson, are plagiarists,
tho' they may not borrow a single thought or a single
line. Borrowing is a beauty of scholarship and taste,
and can't be done too largely. All great poets do
borrow in proportion to their own wealth. Dryden has
observed in one of his prefaces, that the sole condition
of borrowing is to improve what you take. That is
not always possible — Byron's line — " They make a
solitude and call it peace," is, as you well know, a latent
translation from Tacitus, Quum solitudinem faciunt
pacem appellant. It is not an improvement, yet the
line is an exquisite beauty. He did not acknowledge
it in a note, to have done so would have been pedantry.
393
FATHER AND SON
But if he had taken it from a contemporary poet,
he ought to have acknowledged it.
My own theory is that the less a poet, especially a
dramatist, makes his own plot, the better. All the
ancient dramatists took their fable from well-known
myths. I very much doubt if Shakespeare ever invented
his own story. The poet accepts certain premises and
from them builds up. The story is so and so — the
characters such and such — the poet then makes the
story pleasing and explains the characters according to
his own metaphysics. . . .
Some of the elder Lytton's letters in the
following year, 1861, contain interesting com-
ments on various literary matters : —
VENTNOR, ISLE OF WIGHT,
2 MARINE PARADE,
Oct. 28, 1861.
MY DEAR R. — I have already given you all the hints
I can upon Lever.1 You may smooth the difficulty
as to his later works by allowing, perhaps justly, the
merit he doubtless assigns to them, of more purpose
and better construction of plot, while you could urge
his persevering in the merit of the earlier works — in
dash and gusto. I don't pity you having to read
Smollett, whose vigour is astonishing. You can raise
the tone of your critique by making it general, beginning
with the advantage of high spirits in narrative
composition. In ancient times Homer has them to
matchless degree. In later times Ariosto. They
characterise French fiction more than English.
Voltaire has them, so in a lower degree have writers like
Pigault le Brun — it is the prevalent merit of Paul de
1 Robert Lytton was at this time writing a critical article upon the
works of Charles Lever.
394
LITERARY MATTERS
Kock and Dumas. Farquhar has them in comedy
contrasted with Congreve. Fielding has them, but not
quite to such degree as Smollett in Roderick Random and
Peregrine Pickle.
Then come to Lever (whose works you need not
read thro') — cite a few instances out of H. Lorriquer
and others, quote as an instance of the philosophical
humour that may sometimes be compatible with high
spirits, Lever's story of the Irish person getting his
father's soul out of purgatory — I forget where it is found.
Lever will tell you, it is capital.
His fun sometimes runs away into farce, but so it
does even with Moliere, as in his Malade Imaginaire.
Authors as they proceed in a career, become sensible of
their own faults, but in getting rid of them, are apt to
get rid of the merits that go along with faults. Thus
Lever curbing extravagance may not sufficiently
remember that he may lose the rush that made
extravagance itself pleasing. Where the author really
improves he should concentre waste force upon some
point. Thus Smollett lost much of his " go " in his
Humphrey Clinker, but then he concentred his creative
power on much more complete development of humour-
ous character, as in Lismahago and Matthew Bramble.
Look to Sir J. Reynolds' lectures, you will find a
passage or two on gusto that will help you.
In respect to Servian Poems,1 I have read them with
attention. They will come in well in the ultimate
summing up of your poetic powers, but not in them-
selves advance your reputation at present. At this
stage of your career you should study what is popular,
what will strike and interest the largest number of
readers, later you can fill up crevices with scholastic
mortar.
1 Serbski Pesme or National Songs of Serbia, by Owen Meredith
Chapman and Hall, 1861.
395
FATHER AND SON
Altogether it was a fine exercise, and if it does you
no good now, does you no harm and will do you good
ultimately. It increases objective experience in poetry.
Browning's poems I have received too. Thank him very
heartily from me for sending them. Tell him that I not
only read but study them, and he must consider every
admiration I yield as the higher compliment, because
it overcomes an obstacle in a taste formed and hardened
in opposite theories, while whatever I may not fully
appreciate, I feel arises from that obstacle — my own
taste may spoil that of the wine. Privately to you, I
may add that I can't yet attain your enthusiastic
estimate of him as a poet. I think he has a great deal
of intellect, but that his form is very faulty. It seems
to me that he does not finish what he carves. But there
must be a force and originality about him more
perceptible to a younger man than myself, because I
recognise in him a great deal that has served to form
your own theories and influence your own style. More
so, I should think, than even Tennyson has.
What I should advise you to cultivate steadily in
future is breadth of manner. Taking the largest
emotions and feelings — those that men have most in
common, with a certainty that you will, on taking them,
add refinement and novelty in the detail of expression.
And again, all writers to be popular must be national.
You are not broadly English eno' — at least to my fancy.
But still, in all I say, I speak with the prejudices of a
taste too old to alter, and which has never guided me
to popular success in verse. And after all, each genius
must hit on its own way out. Only I do fancy that if
you would forbear to read the living, would confine your
reading to the writers among the dead, who have been
the most extensively popular, you would be more
original and striking — viz.: — Homer, Horace, Ariosto,
Goethe, Scott. If you would study Scott, and then say
396
LITERARY MATTERS
to yourself, " Why not have all his merits and add to
them a little more thought and purpose, with a polished
vocabulary instead of so much slovenly slip-slop," I
think you might do wonders. But were I you I would
try and forget that Browning and Tennyson ever wrote.
Wordsworth — I think wisely — told a young poet never
to read contemporary poetry. — Yours most truly,
E. B. L.
A few weeks later he wrote again : —
I will get the poem of yours you mention and tell
you about it. I am convinced myself that if you
would slip from all poetry for two years and " take in
coals " constantly, you would be startled at your own
improvement ; but that if you continue constantly writ-
ing poetry meanwhile, you will go on mechanically re-
peating or merely improvising the same form. I wish
from you now a great work, thoroughly original, and
in poetry form must be original. It is no use having
only original conceptions. I want Tennyson and
Browning to be entirely forgotten. Nothing, believe
me, like lying fallow and meanwhile studying things
quite new to preconceived ideas.
I advise you, nevertheless, to read constantly
Homer, Shakespeare, and the popular works of Goethe,
viz. : — Werier^ Faust, not the others. There you have
the three greatest minds in the known world made
familiar to the widest possible circle. What Bentham
makes his axiom in politics, helps to the axiom of the
poetic art. He says, u The greatest happiness of the
greatest number should be the object of Govt."
I say " The greatest delight of the greatest number "
should be the object of poetic art. I add — which
Bentham does not — for both, — "And for the longest
possible period" Without that, both theorems are in-
397
FATHER AND SON
complete. It is for the greatest happiness of the
greatest number, for the moment, to burn witches or
to get a triumph over the Tories ; it is the greatest
delight of poetic art for the moment to read Eugene
Sue or Dumas. But we must look to the long run,
and in the long run intellect prevails over numbers.
Take my maxim, ponder it, and with your wonderful
taste in poetic vocabulary and spirit, you will be the
greatest poet in Christendom of your time. Omit it,
and fritter away your genius by driblets, and you will
end in mortification. Strike at the highest, the widest
range for the longest period, that is to say, imagina-
tion and intellect adapted to the delight of the greatest
number, but also to the finest minds, and therefore for
the longest period.
Am I not right ? Think of Shakespeare and
Homer — Goethe in his two popular works. And to
judge what I mean, think what Scott would have been
if he had had the intellect of Shakespeare or even the
vocabulary of Shelley. Get rid, in your aspirations, of
the metaphysical poets, commencing with Cowley and
ending with Tennyson. Say to yourself, " Broad effects,
opinions, humours, feelings, thoughts that every man in
Oxford St. knows." Do you understand ? . . .
The references in these letters to the "popular
element " in poetry were not clearly understood
by Robert Lytton. He interpreted the advice
to mean that he was to study the popular taste
and write what would please the public rather
than himself. This suggestion he was unwilling
to accept, and vindicated the right of every author
to be above all things true to himself. In a letter
of a later date the elder Lytton explains his
meaning further : —
398
"POPULAR ELEMENT' IN POETRY
I don't think we quite understand each other as to
the meaning of the words popular element. I don't
mean any pandering to popular codes, whatever they
may be. What I mean by the popular element is that
which I find without one exception all the poets whom
posterity recognises to be great eminently possess, in
fact, it is their chief quality. Homer has it above all
poets ; Virgil and Horace have it (and it makes their pre-
eminence over Catullus and Ovid) ; Milton has it, and
it makes his pre-eminence over Spenser. And the first
proof of the popular element is its nature being so in-
dependent of form that it is cosmopolitan — pleases all
races and all times. The essential of the popular
element is the expression of a something which comes
home to the greatest number of human hearts and souls.
Breadth of type, whether in creation of character or
utterance of sentiment, is the fundamental attribute of
this popular element. Of course, therefore, the passions
are the most available agencies and the highest as well
as widest, provided they be the passions that all either
feel or can approach by human sympathy, — love, hate,
revenge, jealousy, &c. ; and the heroic type is that which,
after all, the masses best comprehend, and in the heroic
type is pathos, the pathos of generosity and self-sacrifice.
But the passions are not the only agencies of popular
element. The sentiment is an agency also, as in Byron,
who has more sentiment than passion — in Horace, in
a lower degree in Goldsmith or Gray's Elegy — in the
highest degree in Dante, who is severe and restrained
in the use of passion, tho' you feel that he individually
is all passion. That is the best form which most pel-
lucidly delivers to the ordinary eye the beauties of
the poetic types, and that never can be the highest
form which cuts up large effects into small ones,
and overstudies expression. The over study of ex-
pression is the fault of the new school in form, and
399
FATHER AND SON
the neglect of large types common to mankind, for
eccentric and exceptional types of thought, sentiment
or character. . . .
The completion of A Strange Story in this
year, led to an interesting correspondence between
father and son on the subject of religion : —
VENTNOR, Nov. 19, 1861.
MY DEAREST ROBERT — I am most touched and
grateful for your kind and affectionate letter. And,
indeed, I cannot be too grateful to Heaven for the
blessing of such a son. God grant you may be happy !
And now, you say you are at the age of 30, which
seems to me incredible. I am reminded that you are
in the year which the Spartans thought the best for
marriage. Would that you might find someone with
whom that bond would be congenial and felicitous.
In what you say about art I agree on the whole.
Genius, in fact, makes art, not art genius. As soon
as we have laid down all the best rules of art, up
rises some genius who alters them all, and the work of
criticism has to begin again. The presence of the Mens
divinior is the essential, in poetry especially. Where
that is, it is the enchanter's wand. Has Browning
got it? Probably. You are a much better judge of
that than I. Unquestionably there is a massiveness and
substance about him that I don't find in Tennyson —
still taste is taste, and somehow he doesn't often please
mine. I will read the poems you speak of with care
when quite in the humour for them, which I am not
now. . . .
I am correcting the final sheets of A Strange Story.
Towards the end I have a conversation to which I
have given much weight, on the proof of soul distinct
from mind, i.e. from the thinking faculty. I have
400
RELIGION
shown how the metaphysicians who have argued Man's
immortality solely from mind — as immaterial must give
immortality also to the brutes, for all true naturalists
allow that brutes and insects have mind as well as man.
Every definition of mind includes an ant and an ear-
wig. From this I have built out a theory, not wholly
new but I think never so plainly put before, viz. : —
that the evidence of man's soul is not in his mind, i.e.
not in his ideas as received thro' the senses, but in his
inherent capacity to receive ideas of God, soul, etc.,
which capacity is not given to the brutes.
I think when you see this chapter it will strike you,
and it is argued out thro' analogies in all the laws of
Nature.
The question you raise is not met, for that touches
rather the duties of soul than its existence, viz. : — its
responsibility, and also enters into all the difficult
questions of variety in life, mind, and circumstance.
But these seem to me minor corollaries to the funda-
mental problem — soul itself.
I don't think the ending as I now have it is too
fantastic — it is written with too much power for that,
and is, I imagine, the finest thing in point of interior
meaning I ever wrote. Margrave, at the close, comes
out with a certain pathos, and even, perhaps, mental
(not spiritual) grandeur. I leave the whole to be
solved either way, viz. : — entirely by physiological
causes, or by the admission of causes that may be in
Nature, but physiology as yet rejects as natural. . . .
VENTNOR, Dec. 17, 1861.
MY DEAREST ROBERT — Your interesting letter is so
full and, to return your compliment, suggestive that
I fear I shall be only able to touch on it briefly (!) and
piecemeal.
ist, About your own poetical aspirations. You are
VOL. II 401 2 D
FATHER AND SON
quite right, having done so wonderfully well, to persevere,
and not at all with the idea of giving up if you don't
satisfy yourself. I hope you will never satisfy your-
self. I am sure I never satisfied myself, and what is
far more to the purpose, I am still more sure that
Shakespeare never satisfied himself. All who do well
have an archetype of the perfect in their minds, which
they can never accomplish — a truth I work out in
one of my essays, and at present, therefore, leave
" suggested." . . .
You are wrong in thinking you want imagination.
What would be true is this: — your imagination does not
make its first object — invented plot and story. This,
perhaps, it never will do. Your imagination creates
other things, creates new trains of idea ; to create ideas
is quite as imaginative as to create persons. Is not
Lucretius more imaginative than Virgil ? When I
compare what I did up to 30 with what you have
done, I would willingly swop with you, and I think
your reputation quite as high as and much less con-
tested than mine was at 30. The difference between
us is that I built with bricks and you have been build-
ing with marble. That is the real difference between
imaginative works in prose and verse. The last excels
in the material chosen, and retains a value from the
material independent of the architectural merits, which
may be as great in the brick. ...
I can't go into the enormous question of the soul's
essence and immortality at this moment, but what I
mean about capacities is this : — Put aside ideas al-
together whether innate or formed thro' the senses (with
the meagre and rococo philosophy of Condillac) or
thro' experience (with Locke). But the living thing
that receives ideas must, before it can receive them, be
made capable of receiving them. A piece of marble is
not capable of being impressed by a touch — a piece of
402
RELIGION
wax is — all substance, then, can only receive impressions
according as it is capable of receiving them.
Before the infant can have the idea, or instinct, of
applying its lips to the teat, it must be capable of
having that idea. My inkstand is not capable of apply-
ing itself to the teat. Very well then, capacities to
receive ideas must precede ideas. In the capacities of
man to receive ideas of the soul lies the certain
proof of his soul ! Why? Because of uniform
analogy throughout Nature. Nature only gives to
each organised life capacities to receive instincts or
ideas which are suited to its destiny. The ostrich re-
ceives the idea to bury her eggs in the sand, the linnet
to build in the tree, the duck brought up by the hen
to take to the water, and so forth. Each thing after
its kind has the capacity to receive ideas or impressions
that correspond with its destination. Man alone receives
ideas that carry on his being to a life beyond the
world, and curiously eno', interwoven with those ideas,
are all the more abstract ideas (not given to inferior
animals) of space, weight, proportion, essence, substance,
&c., by which he distinguishes himself from brutes in
seeking to improve, embellish, nay, subdue to his uses,
the Nature he finds around him. He could not build,
legislate, write, for the future beyond his grave — if a
future beyond his grave was not positively (tho' in-
sensibly) stamped on his receptivity (i.e. on his passive
power to receive active impressions). No animal, how-
ever gregarious or constructive, improves for posterity.
What an ant's nest is now it has been since the deluge.
It may be said, and has been said by materialists,
" But all these abstract ideas which we grant are
peculiar to him, including those of soul and hereafter,
may be given to him simply because they are useful to
his destiny here ; and the ideas of soul and hereafter
may be false in themselves, but vindicated for utility,
403
FATHER AND SON
by the moral restraints they impose or the intellectual
aspiration they venerate ! " Not so — according to all
inductive philosophy, inducing from analogical experi-
ence. And why not so ? Because Nature is singularly
truthful, and rather parsimonious than liberal of the
capacities she allots to each thing according to its
destiny. She will shape the capacity of a brute to
novelties that conduce to its self-conservation here, but
not more. That is — suppose a hawk in this country is
accustomed to search for its prey in partridges — the
hawk may swoop in preference over stubble and turnip
fields. Transport it to another region where there are
no turnips and stubble, and its prey is found in forests
or the margins of streams. That hawk or its posterity
has the capacity to shift its range to the places where
its food is to be found. But man alone has capacities
to take in every region ideas that connect themselves
with soul and hereafter. Therefore, according to the
invariable truthfulness and parsimony of Nature in
giving capacities suited to each thing, and not more
than such capacities, soul and hereafter are proved to
man by his capacities to entertain their idea. The
defective faculties of man here, with his consciousness
that here they must be defective, and that only in a
higher state of being can they be developed, form
additional proof of his destiny. He has given to him
perceptions of a hereafter, but none of its nature.
And why ? because if he knew more of the next world,
he would be unfitted for this. And his destiny
comprehends his being here before he comes to the
hereafter.
He resembles the Foetus in the womb. The Foetus
must have capacities suited to its state in the womb,
but with those capacities are others, chiefly dormant,
adapted to his state when he quits the womb. Suppose
for a moment that he could reason. He might say : —
404
RELIGION
" What is the good of these eyes — I am in the dark !
Or these ears — I can hear nothing ! " And the answer
would be "Nature gives you nothing in vain — it is
quite true that your ears and eyes are of no use to you
at present, but since you have ears and eyes, it is quite
clear they are meant for use some day ! "
" When ? " says the Foetus.
" When you are out of the womb ! "
" When of use to me all these capacities to
comprehend a hereafter ? " says man.
Answer : — " When you are in the hereafter."
But the above argument is only one out of a
thousand in philosophical proof of soul and another
life. I have been reading of late an immense variety
of physiological and metaphysical works, speculating on
the subject pro and con. And the more I read, the
more the great truth grows out ; but the proofs of it are
so multiform that no letter can contain them.
With regard to the souls of animals, many great
thinkers support that notion. Anaxagoras, Descartes,
etc. Erigena is the most unqualified arguer for it.
And no doubt all living things have souls, but that the
souls of the inferior races preserve the sense of identity
and continue the ego after death is quite another
question. St. Augustine says that if they had the sense
of identity, they would be immortal like man. He
denies that they have. But no one can be quite sure of
this, since, as you justly say," We are outside of their
existence." We can see eno' of them, however, to see
that they have no worship of an invisible Being, they
don't pray. The dog has an immense capacity for
veneration and gratitude to a being different from
himself, viz.: — to man. He supplicates man, but we
see no sign that he supplicates a God. In fact, I think
we may assume that man alone has capacities to com-
prehend soul — God — hereafter, and therefore we may
405
FATHER AND SON
give to him an immortality, which may or may not be
given to the brutes. It is eno' for man to take care of
himself in that respect.
I have not touched on other parts of your letter
which, treating of consciousness, responsibility, &c.,
lead to other branches of the subject, viz.: — less "Is
there a soul ? " than " What is a soul ? " and " what
its attributes and duties? "
Now by soul I mean a something in man that lives
on, and in truth soul really means the living principle.
And the mistake to my mind of metaphysicians has
been to confine it to the thinking faculty or mind.
Now, I am not quite sure that the mind, which we now
have, necessarily lives again with the soul. A silkworm
has one mind adapted to its state, a chrysalis another mind,
adapted to the state of chrysalis, a butterfly another mind,
adapted to the state of butterfly — meaning by mind
the perceptions or ideas of the living organised matter,
whether obtained thro' instinct or experience.
Much of the most valuable part of a man's mind
here may not be of the slightest use to him hereafter.
Raphael has a mind that so arranges its ideas as to
produce beautiful pictures ; Lord St. Leonards, a mind
to grapple with an intricate lawsuit ; I, a mind to write
tolerable novels, and so forth. But if, in the next
world, we don't make pictures, go to law, or write
novels, these three minds would have to be entirely
reconstituted, if they were to preserve anything like the
rank obtained by them here. And even the mind of a
Newton or a Shakespeare, fitted to problems interesting
to this world, might not necessarily have the faculties
suited to another. Suppose a silkworm of the most
admirable intelligence as a silkworm, it does not follow
that his intelligence as a silkworm will be of use to him
as a butterfly. Hence I think it may be that the New
Testament (which the more I look into and ponder
406
RELIGION
over it, the more unutterably deep I find its truths)
differs so much from Plato and the great philosophers
who make virtue an intellectual study and only, there-
fore, accessible to philosophers. Christ says nothing
about the cultivation of the intellect — Christ coming
to announce a future world, and not to expatiate upon
all that can civilise this one. Christ, therefore, reduces
His precepts to two very simple ones : — " Love man,
and believe in God." All the rest will follow. And
certainly in these two principles we have the substance
of that which we can suppose the soul to retain, tho' it
may not retain the talents which paint pictures, write
plays, and puzzle lawyers.
The problem of consciousness, viz.: — whether the
proof of soul is to be sought in the conscious ego, is
at this moment a vexed question with metaphysicians.
Browne makes a great deal of it. Tissot, a French
writer, whom I am now reading, and who, tho' extremely
learned, seems unacquainted with Browne, says very
truly, however, that the soul is not always conscious.
The soul has two states, conscious and unconscious.
Tissot contends, as I incline to contend, that soul is the
living principle. But he pushes that doctrine too far,
and into that vice of system which spoils most French
reasoners.
Finally, I entreat you to hold fast to the conviction
of soul and hereafter, and the connecting link between
which is found in habitual prayer. You may answer in
the aphorism of the last writer that belief is involuntary,
that you cannot say to a man " Believe this or that."
This aphorism, pushed to its full extent, is eminently
untrue. Aristotle says much more truly, " What we
wish for — that we believe ! "
The truth, however, as to belief lies in this — our
belief is formed like anything else, in the conceptions
formed by our own studies.
407
FATHER AND SON
If, having heard, read, or conceived yourself,
plausible objections to imperishable soul, you there stop,
you may believe there is no soul. But if you say " this
is too important a question to be so left : how are
these objections to be met ? " and go on reading,
enquiring and meditating, you will find all these
objections vanish. There is no objection made by a
materialist that has not been satisfactorily answered by
one author or another. And having thus widened your
knowledge into the belief of God, soul and prayer, then
habitually pray, and you will find the belief enter into
all your reasoning faculties, and become an incorporate
part of your intellect. Now prayer, being a universal
impulse of man, is a truthful one. It helps him wonder-
fully thro' his destiny in this life. When I look back
to the times when I did not pray, and compare them
with the time in which I do pray, I can't say that I
find prayer prevents my sinning, but I find on the whole
that I am a much better and a more sound-thinking
person for prayer, and decidedly happier for it.
I would rather, in order to get the habit of prayer,
pray for the merest trifles, provided they were not
sinful, so as to habituate oneself to think of God as a
living, kindly, powerful friend, who, by giving the
impulse to pray to Him, means that you should exercise
it and that the exercise should do you good. Especially,
I recommend the habit of thanking God for any little
piece of comfort, any blessing that may seem to you
small. It may be irrational to supplicate for trifles,
but it can't be irrational to thank for any trifle. For
three days I have been nailed in bed to one position by
a kind of agonising cramp in the muscles — a sort of
lumbago. And the other night, growing intolerably
weary of the same position, and seeing in that position
sleep was hopeless, I began to amuse myself by devising
how to coax a corner of the pillow about three inches
408
RELIGION
farther towards me, so that I could get the balance of
the whole body somewhat relieved by a new position
for the head. With great slowness and caution I at
last contrived this. The sense of relief was instant-
aneous and I felt I could then have a chance of sleep.
With that relief there came a sudden joy, and in the
sudden joy I thanked God ! The moment I had so
thanked God there settled upon me a train of thoughts,
lulling, soothing, a sense of security, a gratitude to
think that in that dark lonely night there was an ear
I could address. I felt my soul ! Now I would not
have given up that capacity of prayer, tho' called forth
by such a trifle, for millions.
There — for the present I must leave this vast
subject. . . .
Lastly, I approach the subject of the res angusta
which peeps out in your letter. In the middle of
January, when I get my rents, I shall beg your accept-
ance of j£ioo, which you will find at your account at
Scotts. Next, talk to me about your " embarrass-
ments." Do you still owe debts ? What are they ?
Frankly ?
To sum up this subject, I wish you to have the fair
enjoyments of your age and station. I am not a very
good judge of a single man's expenses nowadays. I
mean those that should give him a gentleman's margin
for enjoyment. Things are dearer now than when I
was young. But what I should wish for you are these
— good apartments, reasonable hospitality to friends,
without ostentation indeed, but still with the neat
elegance of a gentleman. Dress, of course (a young
man's most pleasing luxury), and all the winter at least,
a carriage, leaving fair margin for pocket money. I
should like to add a saddle horse.
Now, can these be had with your income at Vienna ?
If not, make your calculations and let me see them.
409
FATHER AND SON
And think how far I can enlarge your means of
comfort, &c.
At all events, my dear boy, let us go into the
matter with a view to save you from "embarrassments."
I don't object to your adding to your income by
anonymous writing, but I would rather it were in
prose criticism than in verse. I think Tennyson has
owed much of his position to a choiceness and coyness
in publication. But independently of that motive, a
man who is always fribbling with a muse or a woman
will find that he loses power to get a hearty child from
either, and — dividing one's faculties as one divides a
farm — I would always let the land from which you
expect your valuable corn crop lie fallow from time
to time, and keep up the culture which will ultimately
enrich the fallow itself, by attention to the root crops
on the other parts of the farm. — And so now, adieu,
Ever yr. most afF. father,
E. B. L.
VENTNOR, Jan. 22, 1862.
MY DEAR R. — I must give but a short answer to the
heads of your long letter,1 being much pressed for time.
As to the most important part of your interesting
epistle, the religious, I am quite satisfied. The essential
things to hold to, you seem to hold to — God, soul,
hereafter, prayer, reverence for, and acceptance of, the
hopes and ethics of Christianity.
In what sense you interpret Christianity is a minor
matter for a man who is not going to set himself up as
a theologian. It would be a very serious matter for
your peace and reputation in this life if you did.
The conclusion I myself have come to is this — that
1 See Personal and Literary Letters of Robert, ist Earl of Lytton, vol. i.
p. 136.
410
RELIGION
after accepting so much as I have stated above, it is
best not to puzzle one's head further. I accept the
Church to which I belong, because I think it immaterial
to me here and hereafter whether some of its tenets
are illogical or unsound, and because, before I could
decide that question, I must wade thro' an immense
mass of learning for which I have no time, and then
go thro' a process of reasoning, for which I have no
talent. And when I have done all this, cui bono ? I
take many things in life and in thought as settled, or
if to be unsettled, I am not the man to do it. It is
not my metier ; it does not belong to my TO Trpkirov
nor to yours. Browning's Bishop is right in his way.
But what he says as a cynic I say as a gentleman and
an artist. I have not read the works you name about
St. Paul, nor wish to do so. Scriptural criticisms I
avoid on system. I have not- read Strauss and probably
never shall, nor " Essays and Reviews," &c.
I am not even scientific eno' to criticise the law of
gravitation, which I should like to do, for I suspect it
to have a hole in it. My mind is, therefore, wholly
unfitted to solve such mysteries as the Trinity, the
Redemption, &c. Meanwhile, I take gravitation on
Newton's authority, and as Newton gave up a great
part of his time to the study of scripture, and decided
on accepting the Trinity, Redemption, &c., I am content
to take his authority as that of a man better able to
comprehend such matters than I am.
Now as to " Vanini " l — I think the part sent very
fine, very thoughtful, full of grave merits, and to be
completed- some day. But not the sort of thing to
suit the next step in your poetic career. My belief is,
and I cannot too rudely enforce it, that you should
study the popular. You are in that very stage of
repute that requires the attempt at independence from
1 In Chronicles and Characters.
411
FATHER AND SON
critics, by seizing hold of a large public. Later you
can write for the few when you please, and the many
will follow you. But first get the many.
As to the Drama, whatever objection I see to it
vanishes before any strong predilection of yours. Genius
sees its own way and must take it. The subject you
suggest I perfectly apprehend. It is magnificent. But
confoundedly difficult, and I doubt if it can be made
popular. . . .
There are certain stages in every career when it is
better to write a trifle that charms the public and
secures its friendship, than a grand thing which the
public can't understand and the critics will depreciate.
I think you are in that stage. Not that I attach the
slightest importance to what you tell me about the
charge of plagiarism. The public will not care if you
plagiarise or not, provided you please them ; but if you
don't please the public, then, whether for plagiarism or
for anything else, the critics have it their own way
against you.
There are ten years of an author's life when he ought
to consider critics to be his enemies. Tennyson and
Dickens have continued to avoid those ten years, so
did Scott. Tennyson, I know not why, but Dickens
and Scott because they pleased the public so much that
the critics did not dare go against the public. . . .
The reference to the res angusta at the end
of the long letter of 1861 reminds me that
something should be said of the financial side of
the relations between father and son. Through-
out his life Lord Lytton had a hard struggle
to earn the means to live up to his financial
obligations. With the exception of what he
received from his estate, which never did much
412
MONEY MATTERS
more than pay its expenses, his income and his
savings were entirely the result of his own
exertions, and the labour of earning taught
him the value of money. His essay on " The
Management of Money " l contains much sound
advice on the subject, and the principles there
laid down were repeated in many letters to his
son. Robert Lytton, whose constant changes
at short intervals from one diplomatic post to
another involved the sale of furniture and the
disposal of leases, generally at a loss, frequently
found himself in financial straits, and was obliged
to apply to his father repeatedly for pecuniary
help. These appeals were not pleasant to make,
as they necessitated long personal explanations,
and were usually answered by parental lectures
on the necessity for economy. But, on the whole,
they usually met with a generous response, and
the only criticism suggested by these letters is
that it would have been a sounder policy if
the father had given his 'son a slightly larger
allowance in place of the continual extra doles
with which it had to be supplemented.
This was particularly apparent at the time
of Robert Lytton's marriage, when his cost of
living was necessarily increased. Unfortunately,
however, his father was at that time in some-
what straitened circumstances himself. He had
recently embarked upon two rather large specu-
lations, namely, the purchase of Copped Hall
and of Breadalbane House in Park Lane. Though
1 Caxtoniana, Knebworth Edition
413
FATHER AND SON
both these properties were afterwards disposed
of at a profit, they absorbed for a time all his
available capital, and diminished his income. In
a letter written on December 26, 1865, these
circumstances are explained.
TORQUAY, Deer. 26, 1865.
MY DEAREST ROBERT — I have just received yours
of the 1 6th relative to pecuniary matters. I had already
written to you thereon, stating that your balance at
Scott's at present was £100 in your favour, and that
when your bill of the 25th became due, leaving £150
against you, I had arranged with Scott to withdraw
that sum from your current account, so that you might
draw as if it did not exist. I stated that the £150 was
withheld till April, when I would assist, at all events,
in great part. I now write to say that I will take
upon me the whole, so that you may consider that
debt cancelled.
I do not, I own, gather from your present letter
whether that help is sufficient, or whether you require
more. If so, do not trouble yourself with particulars,
but state how much you want, and when it would be
required. I am quite aware that the first year or two
of your marriage must be a time of chief pressure, and
only regret that it happened so peculiarly to be a time
of rare pressure with me, and that not having been
able to foresee your marriage, I had encumbered myself
with Copped Hall and Breadalbane House, which, tho'
good speculations in the long run, were in the mean-
while very heavy expenses.
I shrink from alienating more of my little capital
than I can possibly help, because the interest derived
from it is essential to my income, and the capital itself
enables me to make ventures that ultimately increase
414
MONEY MATTERS
it, so that when I do withdraw it, I make it a rule to
strain every nerve to replace what I withdraw. But
if necessary, to set your mind quite at ease on money
matters, I shall consider it a pleasure to sell out for
a time. . . .
This aspect of their relations can perhaps be
summed up best in the words of another of the
father's letters : —
It gives me the greatest pleasure to comply with
your request, and I enclose the cheque. I need not
say there can be no loans between you and me, and
you will accept the sum as a birthday present. I am
indeed peculiarly fortunate in having a son who, in
his pecuniary relations with myself, has always shown
the greatest delicacy, and who, when perhaps a little
heedlessly overstepping his income, has the talent and
the manliness to make up deficiencies by his own
exertions. Both these considerations heighten my
natural pleasure in -meeting any wish of yours. . . .
I conclude this chapter by a quotation from a
letter written in 1865, which bears in a general
way upon the subject of the chapter itself :—
I don't quite agree with what you say very
eloquently, that the parent owes greater duties to the
child than the child to the parent, because the parent
has summoned the child into being. In the ist place,
I presume that sound philosophy will allow us to
suppose that, on the whole, the Supreme Being is
benevolent, and that a state of being is therefore, on
the whole, and under general circumstances, rather
good than bad, better than nullity. If so, the child
has no right to be angry or ungrateful that it was
415
FATHER AND SON
brought into a state of being according to the laws of
Nature. If, indeed, you dispute the premises, and say
the Deity is not benevolent, and it is better not to be
than be, all duties on every side cease for want of an
arbitrator — that arbitrator is a God.
But I don't think the case of relative duties rests on
the coming into the world, but on the pains and care
that every parent more or less bestows on a child.
And I do not think that children, in general, ever in
any way requite these, nor, according to modern
civilisation, can they well do so. On the broad fact, it
is eno' to observe that every known nation above the
savage has recognised as a cardinal law of piety the
reverence due to parents from children, and said very
little about the duties parents owe to children. And
for a very good reason — Nature takes care that parents
in general amply discharge all these elementary duties
to children. But it requires a higher principle than
brute Nature to make children do their duty to parents,
and any philosophy that should weaken by questioning
that principle would be demoniacal.
Many of Lord Lytton's letters to his son in
later years bear on the same points, but those
already quoted are sufficient to illustrate the
purpose of this chapter, which is to show how,
through many vicissitudes and misunderstandings,
and in spite of many errors on the father's side,
there was gradually established between these
two men an intimate relationship, precious alike
to the father and the son.
416
CHAPTER II
OPINIONS ON MEN AND BOOKS
Nothing more conduces to liberality of judgment than facile intercourse
with various minds.
Caxtoniana.
IN Lord Lytton's correspondence with his son,
and also in letters to friends written at different
times of his life, are to be found opinions upon
various authors and their books, which provide
a general indication of his tastes in literature.
They are for the most part hastily expressed and
with greater frankness than he would have
permitted himself had they been intended for
publication ; but for that very reason they possess
a special interest. In order to interrupt as little
as possible the chronological narrative of his
active life, I have reserved some of these letters
for treatment in a separate chapter, where they
may be studied not as considered judgments, but
as indications of the tendency of his reflective
opinions.
Lord Lytton was throughout his life a
constant and extensive reader. From earliest
childhood he devoured eagerly whatever books
VOL. II 417 2 E
OPINIONS ON MEN AND BOOKS
he could obtain, and even in the years when he
was most busily engaged in original composition
he always found time for reading. Some of his
novels, of course, especially the historical ones,
necessitated a vast amount of research, but apart
from special study of this kind, he was regularly
engaged in some course of serious reading. It
was his method of " taking in coals," and it kept
his mind constantly supplied with fresh ideas.
With the great classical writers in Latin,
Greek, English, French, German, and Italian,
he had an intimate acquaintance and for most
of them an unstinted admiration. In the field
of purely imaginative literature, whether in
prose or verse, his taste, as might be ex-
pected from the character of his own writings,
was governed to a great extent by his love of
the romantic.
From the days when as a boy of eight he
was first captivated by Southey's translation of
Amadis of Gaul, and Spenser's Faery Queen,
found among his grandfather's books, to the end
of his life his inclination was always towards the
description of human actions or human passions.
In poetry especially he was impatient of all
authors whose chief characteristic was either
delicacy of humour or beauty of diction.
His appreciation of Schiller and Horace is, of
course, known to every one from his own
translations of these authors and his published
opinions of their works. Other writers who
appear from his letters to have been special
418
CHAUCER
favourites are Homer, Virgil, Goethe, Chaucer,
Pope, Coleridge, Scott, and Byron.
On Chaucer he writes to his son in 1860 : —
.... I carried down with me to Richmond for a
day or two, a new edition of Chaucer in his original
shape, but with a convenient glossary, and I am amazed
at his wonderful accuracy of rhythm ; according to his
own accentuation, there are as few lines with a de-
fective foot as there are in Dryden. His metre,
too, is extremely artful. As a general rule, he always
has his stop at the end of a couplet, does not break
into verses as blank verse does. But he makes his
pause of the ultimate sense, by a preference so marked
that he must have arrived at it by a rule of art, at the
end of a first line ; cantering on with wonderful ease
and vigour thro' the couplets, and then unexpectedly
pulling up with a full stop at the end of a first line.
The effect of this is both surprise, and with him it is
music ; the relief from the rhyme has a melody, and I
only regret that I had not studied his rhythm when I
was young, for I think I could then have formed on it
one that would have escaped the Pope sameness, and
yet been as correct and smooth in its cadence, and
would have had the charm of originality tho' old.
The allusion to Geomancy that we read in Dryden' s
Palamon and Artite is in Chaucer — Puella and Rubeus
in the temple of Mars. But he makes a mistake —
Puer is the sign of Mars, Puella is the sign of Venus
direct. As Chaucer borrows from the Thebaids of
Boccacio, I suppose the geomantic allusion is there.
The whole of that fine description of the temple of
Mars is in the poem of Boccacio, and he borrowed it
from Statius. What next surprised me in Chaucer was
his extreme civilisation of thought — what he says, a
modern dandy might say. 3rdly, I was surprised at
419
OPINIONS ON MEN AND BOOKS
the remarkable degree of opulence and elegance that he
gives to small traders, carpenters and millers. He
represents their wives as dressed in silks, &c. I suspect
the lower part of the middle class was better off then
than it is now. When we meet — I hope some day at
Knebworth — I anticipate much pleasure in looking over
Chaucer together under the old hereditary trees. . . .
His opinion of Coleridge is fully set forth in
a Quarterly article on Charles Lamb and some of
his Companion (1867), and the following letters
are also interesting on the same subject :—
To his Son in 1863.
.... Did I tell you that I went thro' the 2 1 vols.
of Coleridge before I left Knebworth, allured to it by
my admiration of The Ancient Mariner ?
He seems to me to have had by far the largest mind
of his age. Scott and Byron as minds look thin and
narrow beside his. He is singularly creative as a poet.
But unluckily he rather creates other poets than
completes his own poems. All the germs of the poetry
that blossomed after him seem to me in his verse. We
must remember that Christabel preceded The Lay of
the Last Minstrel, The Siege of Corinth, &c., and in
Christabel is their originating idea. A wonderful
embryo it is, but nothing more than an embryo.
Again, in his meditative verse (which I take last) is the
germ of the new reflective school in all its varieties. In
his combination of metaphysics and theology we have
all the movement of the High Church. In short,
wherever the leviathan moves either his head or his
tail, there is " a stir " in the ocean felt miles and leagues
off. But he wants many of the elements of a first-rate
thinker — chiefly, he wants the practical or popular
420
COLERIDGE
element. His taste, too, is defective. He has no
sense of proportion. He elaborates his small beauties
to the neglect of great ones, which has been, I think,
the fault of the last new schools altogether. And like
Shelley, his genius can but make fragments, but he
makes grander fragments than Shelley, and his
fragments are fairer representations of the great whole.
After reading him, like a small serpent who has
munched up a great bull, horns and all, I remain in a
state of torpor and can read nothing ; it will take me
a year, I suppose, to digest my bull. . . .
To Mrs. Halliday, 1872.
I am much pleased to hear you like what I said about
Coleridge. He is not done justice to, but I think he
was the most remarkable mind of our century, combining
the most original imagination with the most cultured
intelligence. No doubt he wants a something necessary
to the reaching of the universal heart or understanding,
the something which Goethe praises in Schiller as " the
practical."
What I wrote on Gray is a great many years ago,
and I fancy now that I was not quite just to him. . . .
The following opinions expressed in various
letters throw further light on his preferences
among classical authors : —
To John Forster (undated, but about 1850).
... I have been reading with attention Voltaire's
tragedies, and am greatly struck with his dramatic
power. In the great element of the drama, conduct
of the plot, with its accessory, suspense, he seems to
me unrivalled. He also seems thoroughly master of
421
OPINIONS ON MEN AND BOOKS
the great secret of uniting domestic interest with grand
subjects. The balance between relations, brother and
brother, parent and child, parent, wife and child, he
uses with admirable invention and exquisite skill. This
is very apparent in one of his worst tragedies, Catiline.
He has continued to give great domestic interest and
passionate vigour to this subject, which is certainly not
dramatic in itself; and his immense superiority over
Ben Jonson in the dramatic construction is startling.
Certainly, he seems the greatest dramatist France has
ever known from Corneille to Hugo, tho' in merits
detached from the dramatic art, he is often excelled
by others. He is worth re-reading if you have leisure
to do so, and will, of course, make allowance for his
frenchness — that indescribable fault which prevents
all his countrymen from understanding any national
characters but their own — equally striking in Voltaire's
Cassandre and Hugo's Ruy Bias. I have also been
reading an Italian philosopher, whom a French school,
including Michelet, try to elevate into a great thinker
— Vico — and I am amused to see what ideals the
spirit of party can set up. His leading idea is to
prove Catholicism the grand development, the flower
and crown of the stem of human history ; and his super-
ficiality is as remarkable as his prejudices. Of the
latter there is an entertaining example in his life.
Grotius had produced a very great effect upon him,
and he had thought of writing a comment on him,
when it occurred to him that it would be a sin in a
good Christian " to ornament a heretic " !
To his Son, 1859.
... I incline to think Johnson the greatest writer
in the language next to the poets and the philosophers
— that is, there is no English writer in belles lettres
422
JOHNSON AND TASSO
that equals his union of intellect, learning, and form.
The style of the Lives is very superior to Macaulay's ;
Macaulay founded his style on that of the Lives, but,
with more simplicity and better English, never ap-
proaches to the same high grade in beauties. Johnson
says finer things in a finer way. His grammar is often
incorrect — to my surprise. But I know not any English
writer whose grammar is perfect — curious ; every good
French writer seems to write good grammar as a thing
of course. Macaulay makes fewer slips than any I
can remember, but the niceties and elegancies of English
construction and style are little known to him. . . .
To the same, 1861.
... I don't wonder that you admire Ariosto's gusto,
but he is not a complete whole — he is desultory and
fragmentary. Whoever read what remains of him thro' ?
Not so Tasso. Tasso has the art of construction, of
design, of completeness ; the best constructor in verse,
I think, between Homer and Walter Scott. But I
allow to you that he is often feeble, has few great bursts,
no vast depths, and is sometimes tag \sic\. But all this
may be said of Virgil ; and he is a better story teller
than Virgil. In fine, he is the culminating flower of the
chivalrous troubadour spirit — love and sentiment, and
fighting and religion. His finest passages, to my mind,
are the descriptions of his good enchanter. But every-
where, what musical lines, and what lovely bits of
tenderness and grace ! . . .
To the same, 1871.
. . . What a wonderful book Gibbon's is. After
all, there is something grand in the elaborate rhythmical
prose style of the last century, both in France and
423
OPINIONS ON MEN AND BOOKS
England. Gibbon, Johnson, Junius, and in his own
way, Goldsmith, whose sentences abound in careful
music. And in France Buffon, Volney, Rousseau and
the French Goldsmith, St. Pierre. Strange that gener-
ally in the history of literature in the age in which the
poetry inclines towards the mechanism and form of
prose, and does not cultivate " expression," the prose
inclines towards poetry and is rich in "expression."
The last century is remarkable for this in France and
England, and we observe it in the difference between
Greek and Latin forms. The Greek prose is generally
very slovenly and often thoroughly ungrammatical,
while the poetry is super-poetical in "expression."
And the Latin prose is so measured and rhythmical,
so artistic and so bold, compared with its verse. Cicero
seems to me the great poet of the Latins as Rousseau
is of the French ; they both satisfy the poetic something
in men's souls and men's ears more than their con-
temporary versifiers do. ...
To Mrs. Halliday,
... I fully subscribe to your admiration of Michael
Angelo. The loftiness of his character is in harmony
with the grandeur of his works ; and few indeed have
ever been at once so high and so wide in genius. He
seems to embrace the whole realm of Art in painting,
sculpture, architecture, and to touch the height of
achievement in the first two, and almost in the third.
That a man in labours so great should also be a
poet at all, would seem a rare phenomenon to those
who do not understand the truth that the poetic tempera-
ment and even the poetic faculty, to some degree, is
essential to the full development of all genius in arts
that have affinity to poetry — even the art of oratory.
I should doubt if there ever existed any great orator
424
THE MODERN SCHOOL
who had not at one time or other written poetry, tho'
not of the higher order which necessitates the absorp-
tion of the whole intellect, imagination and study of
the man — at least while he " dons his singing robes."
Bolingbroke, Chatham, Pitt, Fox, Sheridan, Canning,
Macaulay, all wrote verses. M. Angelo's sonnets are
full of a grace not often found in his sculpture or
painting. But it is easy to see that while his genius
and personal character were austere, he had in his
composition wonderful veins of tenderness and sweet-
ness. . . .
Racine is nearly read through, and I am glad to owe
to you the great pleasure of re-perusing at leisure and
with mature judgment a writer so illustrious. The re-
perusal has confirmed my former opinion that Racine
is very inferior to Corneille in the grander elements of
art ; but that he is nevertheless a very great tragic
writer, and has a wonderful gift of telling his story, of
contriving his plot, and of inventing dramatic positions.
I think him greater as a dramatist than as a poet ; his
Athalie^ in especial, is a very fine poem, despite a
certain poverty of expression in the choruses. . . .
Of later writers Lord Lytton's opinions were
curiously captious. His taste made him incap-
able of appreciating some of the best works in
English literature, which belonged to what he
called " the modern school " — the chief fault of
which he repeatedly described as overstudy of
expression. In early life he could see nothing
in Jane Austen but " village gossips ; " in Keats
and Shelley nothing but " verbal conceits " and
" filigree of expression." These opinions, how-
ever, were somewhat modified in later life, and
writing to Mrs. Halliday in 1871 and 1872, he
425
OPINIONS ON MEN AND BOOKS
corrects the impatience with these writers ex-
pressed in his earlier letters. " Yes," he says
in one letter, " I admire Miss Austen immensely
so far as she goes. But I don't think she is more
than a half-sovereign of purest gold and clearest
mintage, as compared to a whole sovereign."
Of Keats he says in another letter : —
I return the Keats, and again thank you for the
pleasure I have had (than which I know few greater)
of revising in maturer judgment an illiberal estimate
of a transcendant genius, formed in earlier years when
one has not learned to have charity in taste.
I have ventured (in fact, I could not resist it) to
note down in pencil on the margins (easily rubbed out)
some critical remarks of blame or praise. But were
the occasions for blame infinitely more numerous and
more grave than I have found them, the impression
left on my mind would be the same, viz. : — that I have
been in company with one who overflows with the
essences of poetry in imagination and diction ; and, to
judge by the Hyperion , he might, if spared, have com-
posed poems to which I accord the name of " great."
I accord that name very sparingly. But it is impossible
to predict a future from performances of a genius not
wholly completed. I think, for instance, that in earlier
years Coleridge gave promise of an ascendancy in poetry
which he failed to attain. But he originated in other
minds the ideas he never carried out himself. Still,
with all my admiration for Keats, I think his influence
on later poets has been unfortunate, and that we owe
to it the effeminate attention to wording and expression
and efflorescent description which characterise the poetry
now in vogue. I will not enter into the irritating differ-
ences of taste which are involved in discussing the
426
KEATS
elements of poetry really great, as distinct from those
of the poetry that, however it be lauded, is incessantly
small, its very beauties being those in which small
poetry abounds and great poetry adopts very sparely
and expresses very tersely.
I entirely agree with Hegel in ranking " descriptive
poetry," viz. : — description of inanimate Nature, or
even of brute Nature, in the last degree of genuine
poetry. Of course, great poets in great poems resort
to it at times, and must do so, but in great poems it is
very briefly expressed and very much generalised.
There is no going into minute details. When you
speak of leading from Nature up to Nature's God, I
agree with you if you speak of man as included in the
word Nature, not otherwise. I think that great poetry
deals with the thoughts and passions and destinies of
man, and thro' man arrives at Nature's God ; and I
believe that this is the ladder by which all great poetry
ascends to the Most High.
Connect Marathon and Thermopylae with the men
who give interest to the places, and the flat and the defile
assume dignity which is denied to Mount Skiddaw or the
river Dove. But then a great poet would very briefly
give the picture of the localities, even of Thermopylas
and Marathon, and only as the " painted scene " to the
human actions which shed glory on the places.
Now the reason why I rank Pope high (tho' of
course, not among the highest) is that he does deal
with man and not with daffodillies, and " patient asses."
The range of humanity he comprehends is not large, it
is true, but it is wonderfully well scanned, and what he
did do he completed so thoroughly and so artistically
that all Europe cannot find his equal in it. To improve
on Pope in his own way is impossible, even in the mere
rhythm of his couplet — own how deplorably bad all
attempts to break it up, and run it on like blank verse
427
OPINIONS ON MEN AND BOOKS
(as in Endymion and elsewhere) are. But far beyond
the unimprovable symmetry of his form, is his
mastery over the great components of civilised life in
capitals. There, in the height and breadth of his
satire and his philosophical mode of sentiment, he has
no English equal, and elsewhere, only one superior —
Moliere, unless, indeed, we say Horace ; but tho' his
epistles and satires are paraphrases from Horace, they are
to my mind, great improvements on the original. Of
course, he is not up to the standard of Horace altogether,
because Horace is a great lyrical poet, and lyrical
poetry is in itself a much higher grade than any in
which Pope takes his immoveable stand. . . .
To his son he also writes about the same
time : —
Did I tell you that I have reperused all Keats this
winter — perfectly astounded by the luxuriance of his
purely poetic fancy ; but he wants what is essential to
the highest order of poet — the prose side of the poet.
However, he is a prodigy. Pity that he could not
help founding a villainous school, different there from
Coleridge, who began all the modern modes of poetic ex-
pression and founded vigorous schools in Scott and Byron.
Among French writers it is curious that
while he had unbounded admiration for Lamartine,
he did not appreciate Victor Hugo, a writer with
whom he might be expected to have great
sympathy : —
To his Son,
Pray, have you read Alfred de Musset ? I am
reading him — a real poet, much more nature and fire
than Tennyson, but occasionally maudlin and amatorily
extravagant. His form is charming and rather Horatian
428
VICTOR HUGO
than French. Have you read also Marie by Brieux ? 1
If not, pray get it ; read attentively, and tell me what
you think. I did not conceive French poetry could be
so naive. A thorough poet — not great, but as great as
Goldsmith, and a study.
Hugo is a great monstrum indeed and informe, but
still ingens.
I never read a worse book than Les Miserables by a
man of genius (as far as I have gone — vol. 8). But
still it is not the bad writing of a Frankenstein, but
of the colossal creature Frankenstein made, reminding
me of that vast wretch by its junction of all the worst
members of the Sues and Dumas, &c. — as Frankenstein's
giant was made out of bones and fibres stolen from
graves, but the whole meant to be larger and grander
than humanity and becoming hideous, yet with the
hideousness of a tremendous genius. . . .
In another letter in 1869, he says : —
. . . Have you read L'Homme qui rit ? Judging
by the extracts, I shall not attempt the hideous pain of
a perusal. I begin to doubt whether V. Hugo ever
did write well. I daresay none of his works will bear
a second reading, at least, so as to endure comparison
with any classical work, even by a third-rate genius.
I fancy one was duped at first by his spasms and gasps
and jerks into a belief that he had at least prodigious
vigour, whereas I suspect he was but an epileptic dwarf
in a state of galvanism. The dramas are really vulgar
and improbable tales set into strained versification ; and
even the romance of Notre Dame is essentially full of
untruths in character and art, with the exception of
Cap. Phoebus, and any ordinary novelist might have
created him. But authors nowadays seem like spoiled
1 Julien Auguste Pelage Brieux (1803-1858), the Breton poet. His
novel in verse, Marie, appeared in 1836.
429
OPINIONS ON MEN AND BOOKS
babies, and the more they kick and scream, the more
they get their own way.
Of his English contemporaries Lord Lytton's
judgment was no doubt influenced to a certain
extent by personal considerations. For Dickens,
a close personal friend, he entertained the highest
admiration, whilst of Thackeray, who for many
years was associated with the group that attacked
him unsparingly in Frasers Magazine, his opinion
was almost wholly adverse.
In poetry the modern school was entirely dis-
tasteful to him. Though his letters to his son
abound in generous praise of many of his (Robert
Lytton's) poems, he is for ever complaining of the
influence of the poetry of the day. Two great
contemporaries in particular, Browning and
Tennyson, he was quite unable to appreciate.
Browning he respected as his son's friend, but
could not share the latter's enthusiasm for his
genius, as will be apparent from letters quoted in
the last chapter. His opinion of Tennyson has
already been mentioned in connection with the
publication of The New Timon, and this opinion
does not appear ever to have been modified. In
1864 he speaks of him as "a poet adapted to a
mixed audience of school-girls and Oxford dons ; "
and his last opinion, recorded in 1 87 1 , is in much
the same strain. Writing to Mrs. Halliday, he
says : —
I agree with you entirely in admiring the music in
certain of Tennyson's lines. I am not sure that I admire
43°
TENNYSON
it in sustainment to any great length. I admire also
many felicities in expression, in despite of many vulgarities
and conceits which his hunt after such prettiness often
incurs. But to my mind he has in him less of the masculine
quality than any English poet of repute. I can scarcely
understand how any man could reconcile himself to
dwarf such mythical characters as Arthur, Lancelot and
Merlin, into a whimpering old gentleman, a frenchified
household traitor and a drivelling dotard. Neither can
1 admire Enoch Arden^ the subject of which has been
used up in so many novels, and which, at the best, is in
the false sentiment of Kotzebue.
Still, I am not a fair judge of any contempor-
aneous poetry. I despair of fellow-feeling with an
age which says Pope is no poet and Rossetti is a
great one.
I quote these opinions as illustrative of certain
limitations in Lord Lytton's literary taste, and as
having, for that reason, a biographical interest.
Tennyson's place in English literature is now so
well established, that lovers of his poetry should
have no cause to resent the publication of these
criticisms.
Of one young poet of his own day, Algernon
Swinburne, Lord Lytton had a rather unexpected
appreciation. He probably became acquainted
with Swinburne's poetry through the medium of
their common friend, Monckton Milnes. Atalanta
In Calydon was published in April 1865, and
Milnes, who was anxiously spreading Swinburne's
reputation among his literary friends, may have
sent Lord Lytton a copy. A letter of apprecia-
tion accompanied by a copy of The Lost Tales of
431
OPINIONS ON MEN AND BOOKS
Miletus^ in January 1866, elicited the following
acknowledgment from Swinburne : —
HOLM WOOD,
SHIPLAKE, HENLEY-ON-THAMES,
Jan. 17, 1866.
SIR — I should have written before to thank you for
a double kindness, had your book and letter been sooner
sent on to my present address. As it is, you will no
doubt understand how difficult I feel it to express my
thanks for your gift, and for the letter, to me even more
valuable, which accompanied it. To receive from
your hands a book which I had only waited to read
till I should have time to enjoy it at ease as a pleasure
long expected, and deferred for a little (on the principle
of children and philosophers), was, I should have
thought till now, gratification enough for once ; but
you contrived at the same time to confer a greater
pleasure — the knowledge that my first work, written
since mere boyhood, had obtained your approval. Of
the enjoyment and admiration with which I have read
your book, I need not say anything. Pleasure such as
this you have given to too many thousands to care to
receive the acknowledgment of one. Such thanks as
these I have owed you, in common with all others of
my age, since I first read your works as a child ; the
other obligation is my own, and prized accordingly as a
private debt, impossible to pay, and from which I would
not be relieved. — Believe me, Yours very sincerely,
A. C. SWINBURNE.
Though Chastelard (published in December,
1865) was literally Swinburne's "first work
written since mere boyhood," Atalanta was the
first published, and this was evidently the book
432
SWINBURNE
referred to, because Lord Lytton wrote to his
son on February 13, 1866 : —
Have you read Swinburne's Poems ? I have only
read the Atalanta, which I think promising and
vigorous. But he has a good deal to unlearn, in
order to attain simplicity and calm, which are quite
compatible with fire of style. There is more fire in
a tranquil summer sun than in the conflagration of a
frightened village.
A little later he writes again, in answer to
some criticism of his son : —
What you say about your dislike to moral purpose in
poetry (referring to Swinburne) seems to me questionable.
I grant that in lyrical poetry there should be the free
song of the bard, and your remark chiefly applies to
lyrical poetry. Yet in jnuch of the best lyrical poetry,
there is a latent moral purpose. The first six odes,
book iii. Horace, are all written with a moral intention
and purpose, and are perhaps his finest odes.
I suspect there is moral intention in much of
Pindar. Milton professes it in Paradise Lost, " To
vindicate the ways of God to man." : And didactic
poetry necessitates it. No one can despise, however,
Pope's Essay on Man, or say it is not a finer poem
than most lyrics. The fact is that there is no rule, but
that the poet can rarely escape from a moral purpose,
except in some joyous outburst ; it forces itself on him
as a part of plan and interwoven with conception. The
Drama certainly has it, especially the old Greek ;
punishment of pride in CEdipus, etc. And in Comedy
it is essential. What is the Misanthrope or Tartuffe
without it ? ...
1 Milton's line was "justify the ways of God to man." It was Pope
who introduced the word " vindicate " in adopting the line.
VOL. II 433 2 F
OPINIONS ON MEN AND BOOKS
Towards the close of April 1866, Swinburne
published his Poems and Ballads^ which was de-
nounced with great violence in the Press. In
July of the same year the attacks became really
serious, and under threat of prosecution, Moxon,
the publisher, determined without communication
with the author, to withdraw the volume from
circulation. In this difficult crisis Swinburne
received very welcome encouragement and assist-
ance from Lord Lytton, who, on seeing the
violent attacks on Poems and Ballads, wrote to
him, so Mr. Edmund Gosse informs me, express-
ing his sympathy and recommending him to
be calm. At the same time Lord Lytton invited
him to Knebworth to talk the matter over,
adding that John Forster would be present.
The following letters now take up the tale : —
Algernon Swinburne to Lord Lytton.
22A DORSET STREET, PORTMAN SQ., W.,
Aug. 6th [1866].
DEAR LORD LYTTON — Your letter was doubly ac-
ceptable to me, coming as it did on the same day with
the abusive reviews of my book which appeared on
Saturday. While I have the approval of those from
whom alone praise can give pleasure, I can dispense
with the favour of journalists. I thank you sincerely
for the pleasure you have given me, and am very glad
if my poems have given any to you. In any case, I with
the rest of the world, must remain your debtor for much
more — and a debtor without prospect of repayment.
Nothing would give me more pleasure than to
434
LETTERS FROM SWINBURNE
accept your kind invitation, should it be convenient to
you to receive me for a day or two in the course of
the next fortnight. For some ten days or so I am
hampered by engagements, difficult to break even for
a day. — Believe me, with many thanks for the kind-
ness of your letter, Yours very truly,
A. C. SWINBURNE.
The same to the same.
22A DORSET ST., W.,
Aug. loth [1866].
DEAR LORD LYTTON — I will come on the i6th if
that day suits you. I shall be very glad to see Mr.
Forster, for whose works I have always felt a great
admiration. I cannot tell you how much pleasure and
encouragement your last letter gave me. You will see
that it came at a time when I wanted something of the
kind, when I tell you that in consequence of the abusive
reviews of my book, the publisher (without consulting
me, without warning, and without compensation) has
actually withdrawn it from circulation.
I have no right to trouble you with my affairs, but
I cannot resist the temptation to trespass so far upon
your kindness as to ask what course you would recom-
mend me to take in such a case. I am resolved to
cancel nothing, and (of course) to transfer my books
to any other publisher I can find. I am told by lawyers
that I might claim legal redress for a distinct violation
of contract on Messrs. Moxon's part, but I do not wish
to drag the matter before a law court. This business,
you will see, is something worse than a scolding, to
which, from my Eton days upwards, I have been
sufficiently accustomed. — Yours sincerely,
A. C. SWINBURNE.
435
OPINIONS ON MEN AND BOOKS
The same to the same.
22 A. DORSET ST., W.,
Jug. I3//5 [1866].
DEAR LORD LYTTON — I am much obliged by the
letter of advice you wrote me, and if Lord Houghton
had not gone off to Vichy, I should certainly take
counsel with him. As it is, I am compelled to decide
without further help. I have no relation with Messrs.
Moxon except of a strictly business character ; and
considering that the head of their firm has broken his
agreement by refusing to continue the sale of my
poems, without even speaking to me on the matter,
I cannot but desire, first of all, to have no further
dealings with anyone so untrustworthy. The book is
mine ; I agreed with him to issue an edition of 1000
copies, he undertaking to print, publish, and sell them ;
and if the edition sold off, I was to have two-thirds of
the profits. He does not now deny the contract which
he refuses to fulfil ; he simply said to a friend who called
on him as my representative that, on hearing there was
to be an article in the Times attacking my book as im-
proper, he could not continue the sale. As to the
suppression of separate passages or poems, it could not
be done without injuring the whole structure of the
book, where every part has been as carefully considered
and arranged as I could manage ; and under the circum-
stances, it seems to me that I have no choice but to
break off" my connection with the publisher.
I have consulted friends older than myself and more
experienced in the business ways of the world, and
really it seems to me I have no alternative. Before
the book was published, if my friends had given me
strong and unanimous advice to withdraw or to alter
any passage, I should certainly have done so — in two
instances I did, rather against my own impulse, which
436
DESCRIPTION OF SWINBURNE
is a fair proof that I am not too headstrong or conceited
to listen to friendly counsel. But now to alter my
course or mutilate my published work, seems to me
somewhat like deserting one's colours. One may or
may not repent having enlisted, but to lay down
one's arms except under compulsion, remains intoler-
able. Even if I did not feel the matter in this way,
my withdrawal would not undo what has been done
nor unsay what has been said. — Yours truly,
A. C. SWINBURNE.
Swinburne went to Knebworth on August
17. Three days later Lord Lytton wrote to
his son the following interesting description of
his eccentric young guest : l —
KNEBWORTH,
Aug. 20tA, 1866.
MY DEAR ROBT. — The Forsters are with me, and, to
my great regret, leave the day after to-morrow.
Staying here also is A. Swinburne, whose poems at
this moment are rousing a storm of moral censure. I
hope he may be induced not to brave and defy that
storm, but to purgate his volume of certain pruriences
into which it amazes me any poet could fall. If he
does not, he will have an unhappy life and a sinister
career. It is impossible not to feel an interest in him.
He says he is 26 2; he looks 16 — a pale, sickly boy,
with some nervous complaint like St. Vitus' dance.
But in him is great power, natural and acquired. He
has read more than most reading men twice his age,
brooded and theorised over what he has read, and has
1 This letter was enclosed by my father in an interesting letter of his
own dated Oct. i, 1866, to Mr. Wilfred Scawen Blunt. The originals of
both letters are still in Mr. Blunt's possession.
2 He was really 29 at this date.
437
OPINIONS ON MEN AND BOOKS
an artist's critical perceptions. I think he must have
read and studied and thought and felt much more than
Tennyson ; perhaps he has over-informed his tenement
of clay. But there is plenty of stuff in him. His
volume of poems is infested with sensualities, often dis-
agreeable in themselves, as well as offensive to all pure
and manly taste. But the beauty of diction and master-
ship of craft in melodies really at first so dazzled me,
that I did not see the naughtiness till pointed out.
He certainly ought to become a considerable poet of
the artistic order, meaning by that a poet who writes
with a preconceived notion of art, and not, as I fancy
the highest do, with unconsciousness of the art in them,
till the thing itself is written. On the other hand, he
may end prematurely both in repute and in life. The
first is nearly wrecked now, and the 2nd seems very
shaky. He inspires one with sadness ; but he is not
so sad himself, and his self-esteem is solid as a rock.
He reminds me a little of what Lewes was in youth,
except that he has no quackery and has genius. I
thought it would interest you to dot down these ideas
of a man likely to come across your way, and may
serve to warn you first against his mistakes, and also
against much intimacy with him personally. I suspect
he would be a dangerous companion to another poet.
And he seems to me as wholly without the moral sense
as a mind crammed full with aesthetic culture can be.
— Yours ever,
L.
Swinburne remained at Knebworth till August
25th. While he was there, Lord Lytton looked
into his affairs, and arranged for the re-issue of
Poems and Ballads by a more courageous publisher
than Moxon. Swinburne was greatly cheered
438
OPINION OF SWINBURNE
by Lord Lytton's sympathy, and full of admira-
tion of the novelist's firmness and promptitude
in business arrangements. He spoke afterwards
of his " very pleasant visit."
The friendship does not appear to have gone
any further, as I have no later letters from Swin-
burne, and Lord Lytton's subsequent references
to him in letters to his son and to John Forster,
suggest that his admiration for the young poet
was somewhat modified by their hostile criticisms.
The letters which I quoted are endorsed by Lord
Lytton as follows : —
A. Swinburne, of very doubtful chance of real fame
at this date, 1869. He has in him much material as a
Poet — great reading and much study of art. But his
self-conceit is enormous — his taste in all ways impure.
In his passions he is not masculine, in his reasoning not
sound. Still he is young, has true stuff in him, and
may mellow into excellence in later life if he be spared.
439
CHAPTER III
PEACEFUL YEARS
1867-1870
The feet of years fall noiseless ; we heed, we note them not.
Pilgrims of the Rhine.
His was the age when we most sensitively enjoy the mere sense of
existence ; when the face of Nature, and a passive conviction of the be-
nevolence of our Great Father, suffice to create a serene and ineffable
happiness, which rarely visits us till we have done with the passions ; till
memories, if more alive than heretofore, are yet mellowed in the hues of
time, and Faith softens into harmony all their asperities and harshness,
till nothing within us remains to cast a shadow over the things without ;
and on the verge of life the angels are nearer to us than of yore. There
is an old age which has more youth of heart than youth itself.
Alice.
1867. AT the end of 1866 Lord Lytton went to Nice
T. 64. and remained there till April 1867. His letters
from Nice make mention of a novel which he
has begun but cannot get on with, and of an
article on Charles Lamb and some of his
companions, which was contributed to the
Quarterly Review in January, 1867. He also
writes on March 1 1 th : "I am slowly finishing
my Horace with critical notes, but I don't know
what to do with it when finished. All I can say
is the work amuses me and hurts nobody."
At the end of April he returned to England
and spent the summer at Knebworth, coming
440
THE LOSS OF YOUTH
up to London for Parliamentary and social 1867.
engagements. JE-r. 64.
In September he went to Eaux Bonnes in the
Pyrenees, and wrote to his son from there on
September 5 : " I shall try and write something
here, but must get well first.'* Later in the
month he writes to Forster : —
EAUX BONNES,
Sept. 20, 1867.
MY DEAR FORSTER — I shall direct this to your
office to be forwarded, not knowing whether you may
have left Ross. Ah ! those lost days of la jeunesse
dor -fa ', when we launched our boat in the Wye and' you
addressed a sonnet to Henry Marten ! * Nothing we
ever gain in after life compensates for the loss of youth.
For youth grasps hope, and hope embraces the infinite
and the eternal. We best understand what youth is
when we remember that in all creeds of the future state
the souls of the blessed are to be always young. No
one would trouble himself much to be an eternal soul
of 70. Eternally 70 — wish that to the wicked !
I expect to be back the first week of October.
Write to me in St. James' Place about October 5 to
say where you will be. I want much to consult you
about a play I have been writing here. The place is
so dull that I was compelled to write. It is in the
rough as yet — from a comedy of Plautus which Moliere
spared, and which is, so far as I know, abandoned by
every Englishman. The "dramatic situation in the
original is superb. I think I have not spoilt it. It
1 Henry Marten (1602-1680), the regicide, Carlyle's "indomitable little
pagan," who was imprisoned for the last fifteen years of his life in Chep-
stow Castle, on the Wye.
441
PEACEFUL YEARS
1867. has great parts for the chief actor (Fechter) and a
. 64. girl (who?), good parts for the others. But never-
theless, it is full of drawbacks and difficulties, and I
really don't know as yet whether it is good or bad.
It is written like The Lady of Lyons with great gusto,
and as a drama rather than as a literary work.
Dickens seems to have been most friendly about
The Lady of Lyons. I have no idea except from his
letter about Fechter's success in it. Schiller s Life can
wait till I come back.
These waters make me worse now ; of course the
doctors say that is a good sign and that I shall feel the
benefit in the winter. — Ever yrs.,
LYTTON.
The play referred to in this letter — a prose
comedy called The Captives — was completed on
his return to England, and forms the subject of
most of his letters for the remainder of this year.
It was submitted to Dickens and to Fechter for
their opinion, which appears to have been
unfavourable, on the ground that its Greek
setting and Greek names would militate against
its popularity in England. It was, therefore,
abandoned with reluctance, and was never either
performed or published.
Lord Lytton returned to England in October
without having derived any benefit from the
French watering-place. The cough from which
he was suffering was, if anything, rather worse,
and it continued to trouble him increasingly
during the remaining years of his life. He
only once went abroad again for his health, and
his remaining winters were spent at Torquay.
442
DICKENS BANQUET
He occasionally visited Bath and Buxton, but '867.
nowhere did he succeed in getting rid of this ^ET- 64-
troublesome ailment, which afflicted him at all
seasons of the year, and at times completely
prostrated him. In spite of increasing physical
infirmities, however, his mental activity con-
tinued to the end.
On November 2 he presided at the farewell
banquet to Dickens just previous to his departure
for America, and in proposing the toast of the
evening, paid an affectionate tribute to his great
literary rival and personal friend, who had
helped to refine humanity " by tears that never
enfeeble and laughter that never degrades." In
the course of his speech he also referred ap-
preciatively to another distinguished writer,
who was present among the guests,1 and received
the following grateful acknowledgment two
days later : —
Matthew Arnold to Lord Lytton.
ATHEN^UM CLUB,
Nov. 4//5, 1867.
MY DEAR LORD — You said to me on Saturday that
though you had seen extracts from my new volume of
poems, you had not yet seen the book itself, so I trust
you will do me the honour of accepting a copy, which
I have desired my publishers to send you.
I hardly know how to thank you for your most
1 "I see before me a distinguished guest, distinguished for the manner
in which he has brought together all that is most modern in sentiment,
with all that is most scholastic in thought and language — Mr. Matthew
Arnold. I appeal to him if I am not right, when I say that it is by a
language in common that all differences of origin sooner or later are welded
together."
443
PEACEFUL YEARS
1867. unexpected and gratifying mention of me in your
r. 64. admirable speech on Saturday night. I have had very
little success with the general public, and I sincerely
think that it is a fault in an author not to succeed
with his general public, and that the great authors are
those who do succeed with it. But if the kindest,
most generous, and most flattering marks of esteem
from the most distinguished of his contemporaries,
can console a man for not succeeding with the general
public, this consolation I have had ; and the kindest,
most generous and most flattering instance of it I have
ever met with, was your Lordship's mention of me on
Saturday night. — Believe me to be, my dear Lord, with
great truth and regard, Your faithful and obliged servant,
MATTHEW ARNOLD.
At the end of November 1867, Lord Lytton
went to Torquay for the remainder of the
winter. To Forster he wrote from there at the
end of the year : " I am laboriously idle, cor-
recting the proofs of my Miscellaneous Prose
Works^ and sending off proofs of the Horace to
Blackwood, to whom, after all, I have given, or
rather, sold it."
The Miscellaneous Prose Works were published
at the end of January 1868, in three volumes,
by Richard Bentley. The first volume contained
essays contributed to Quarterly Magazines at
various times ; the second, the early essays and
tales which had first appeared in The Student^
together with two not previously published, and
1 In the Miscellaneous Prose Works the essays and tales from The Student
were considerably altered and revised. In the Knebworth Edition of Lord
Lytton's works the original text has been preserved.
444
MATTHEW ARNOLD
the third, the later essays originally published in 1868.
the volume called Caxtoniana. ^T. 65.
Lord Lytton's reference to Matthew Arnold
at the Dickens Banquet in the previous autumn
led to a correspondence between these two
writers, and their intercourse gradually developed
into a very cordial friendship. No two authors
could be more dissimilar in their published works,
yet each had a genuine admiration for the other ;
and it is interesting to find that Matthew Arnold
acknowledged that his own literary tastes had
been influenced by Lord Lytton's writings. At
the beginning of 1868 he writes : —
2 CHESTER SQUARE, W.
January jtA, 1868.
MY DEAR LORD LYTTON — If I did not answer
your kind letter sooner, it was because I have been
sadly occupied for the last fortnight with the illness of
my youngest child, whom we have just lost. Even at
this sad time, your letter was a great pleasure to me ;
it was a fresh instance of the cordial and gratifying
kindness which my productions have met with at your
hands, and which, I assure you, I gratefully value.
About the rhythms, you are probably quite right. If I
have learnt to seek in any composition for a wide
sweep of interest and for a significance residing in the
whole rather than in the parts, and not to give over-
prominence, either in my own mind or in my work, to
the elaboration of details, I have certainly had before
me, in your works, an example of this mode of
proceeding, and have always valued it in them. —
Believe me, my dear Lord Lytton, Gratefully and
sincerely yours, MATTHEW ARNOLD.
445
PEACEFUL YEARS
A few months later Lord Lytton sent him
. 65. tke coiiecte(i edition of his Miscellaneous Prose
Works^ which had just been published, and
Matthew Arnold writes again : —
2 CHESTER SQUARE,
February zznd, 1868.
DEAR LORD LYTTON — A thousand thanks for your
magnificent present, which I shall value extremely. I
am delighted to think that a good deal in it will be
quite new to me ; articles in the Quarterly which
appeared without your name and which I have missed
reading. Other parts of it, well-known and familiar to
me, carry me back to the happiest time of my life —
The Student, the Life of Schiller, came into my hands
just at the moment I wanted something of the kind.
I never shall forget what they then gave me — the sense
of a wider horizon, the anticipation of Germany, the
opening into the great world — just what Macaulay, with
his unmixed Englishism and metallic manner, could not
give me.
Like the poor fallen man in Godolphin, I am going
to the suburbs, not to Brompton, as he did, but to
Harrow, to bring up my boys at the School there ; it
is the only way in which I can send them. But I hope
not to have left London before you return to it, and if
I have not, I shall certainly venture to call and repeat
my thanks in person. — Believe me, dear Lord Lytton,
with great truth, Your faithful and obliged,
MATTHEW ARNOLD.
In February 1868, Lord Lytton writes to his
son from Torquay, in criticism of an article which
the latter had written on the subject of classical
education : —
446
GROSVENOR SQUARE
Since writing this morning I have seen your article 1868.
in the Edinburgh Review. I think it very able, well ^Er. 65.
argued and weighty. I put aside my own views in so
judging, for my views are not the same as yours, and I
also think you attach consequence to authorities whom
on such a subject I scarcely regard as authorities at all
— such as Mill. The best judges would be successful
men of action and really great authors. Few amongst
these would not think Latin and Greek, even super-
ficially acquired, an inestimable blessing for which
nothing else could atone. I very much doubt, too,
whether composition in Greek or Latin does not more
rapidly help to teach them than any other mode ; and
in this respect, for boyhood, verse in any language
is better than prose. But not arguing the case, I
think your article extremely to your credit and very
reviewish.
My town house l is far from ready. I like Torquay
much in a lazy way.
The house in Grosvenor Square was ready for
occupation by the spring, and Lord Lytton came
to live there for the Parliamentary session. He
writes to his son in May : —
I have been immersed in the vortex of fashionable
life since Easter with scarcely an hour to myself. I
am much pleased that you like my collection. Few
as yet have read it. Its chief merit seems to me to
consist in a larger range, comprising both sentiment
and reflection and critical survey of men and books,
than any other collection of English essays by one
author which I can remember. In this it is excelled
by Montaigne, but Montaigne excels in almost
1 12 Grosvenor Square.
447
PEACEFUL YEARS
1868. everything else and is essentially the arch-poet of
r. 65. essayists.
At one of his social parties he met Disraeli
and writes : —
Disraeli was there and wonderfully cordial to me.
He talked of old days and kept pressing my hand,
which is not his wont. However, I feel steely to him
and his Government.
The social engagements in which Lord
Lytton took part during the years that he lived
in Grosvenor Square were in a large measure
undertaken at the instance of Lady Sherborne,1
with whom he became very intimate at this
time. He writes about her to his son in July
1868:—
Lady Sherborne is an enigma. She is not young.
She would generally be considered very plain. She is
not clever. She is not a flirt. She is very good, with
a religious temperament. But she certainly has charm.
She is so quiet and feminine, with a wonderfully sweet
voice in talk as well as song. We are great friends.
Lord Sherborne is, however, an infliction — dull and
cross, but a fine man, and she seems a very good wife,
takes his scoldings and governs him with a silk rein.
During the last years of his life, this lady was
Lord Lytton's most intimate woman friend.
They corresponded regularly and met frequently.
She gave him sympathy and encouragement,
1 Susan Elizabeth Block of Charlton, znd wife of the 3rd Baron
Sherborne. She died March 7, 1907. Lord Sherborne died in 1883,
aged 79.
448
LADY SHERBORNE
shared his interests, helped in correcting the 1868.
proofs of his last works, comforted him in his J£t. 65.
illnesses, and revived in him a taste for social
intercourse which he had not felt for many
years.
He writes to her from Grosvenor Square on
June 13, 1868 : —
MY DEAR LADY SHERBORNE — I was so glad to get
your letter. You remember what we said of the
happiness of the religious temperament. I rejoice
to think that that blessing rests over you and your
household at this hour. Human nature attains to its
highest heroic standard where the grave has no victory
and death no sting.
I dined with Henry yesterday, where I met your
friend Lord Albemarle, who was very pleasant. Chiefly
" literary coves." My enemy the editor of the Pall
Matt Gazette? with whom I had the hypocrisy to shake
hands, Kinglake, and the editor of the Quarterly^ etc.
Then I went to the queerest little old gentleman
rejoicing in the monosyllabic name of Bebb, who has
come into a great fortune and sets up for youth and
gives balls in a house he has made very pretty in
Gloucester Place. I did not stay there very long.
To-day I have to dinner the Carnarvons, Stanhopes,
Dufferins, Sir R. & Lady E. Peel, etc. On Monday I
have another party. Tuesday I dine with Lady
Combermere ; Wednesday with an M.P. who has a
glass eye and sees the Political askew. Thursday I
expect my eldest brother and his family to dine here —
and so on. The Irish Church Bill comes on in the
Lords the 25th, and debate will last two nights. I
hope to fly to Knebworth the first week in July and to
1 Frederick Greenwood.
VOL. II 449 2 G
PEACEFUL YEARS
1868. carry you there on my wings. We can be as quiet as
T. 65. you like.
It is a great comfort to me to think your sister is
with you, and if you and she like it, I hope she will
also nestle down at Knebworth — though how I shall
amuse Lord Sherborne, having no trout near, I know
not. — Ever yr. affte.
LYTTON.
On August i he writes to her from
Knebworth : —
My guests leave me to-morrow. They profess to
have enjoyed themselves much, perhaps because I have
left them so much to themselves, plunged in the work
of that melancholy play which I hope will leave me to-
night. I have been writing upstairs, as I am now, and
immensely untidy, owing to an arrear of unanswered
letters, in order to get off the play.
The play here referred to was The Rightful
Heir, which was a rearrangement of The Sea-
Captain, and completely rewritten. It was
performed at the Lyceum Theatre on October 3.
He writes to his son about it on October 19 : —
The Press has been very civil about my play, more
so than about any work I ever wrote. But I doubt if
it will have a long run. It has four parts requiring great
actors, and only the two Vezins act well. Bandmann,
from whom much was expected, falls short. Beaufort
and Eveline are very weak and ineffective, and the play
itself, though allowed to be good in composition, etc.,
has not the agreeable emotions that bear repeating,
like The Lady of Lyons. Worst of all, a lettered
audience scarcely exists, and though it might be created,
45°
WINTER AT TORQUAY
it would require years to do so, aided by good actors. 1869.
And anything more worrying and troublesome than JEr: 66.
attendance on actors and green rooms, with their
quarrels and jealousies, can't be conceived. It is a
world of its own and requires very skilful administration
on the part of the author. I am now returning to my
Horace which is preparing for the press. I don't feel
up to any travelling. I have had a very ailing summer.
Perhaps an English winter may do me good. I shan't
interfere in politics, but am anxious to see the temper
of the new House of Commons.
The winter of 1868-69 was spent quietly at
Torquay, and the only literary work of these
months was the preparation for the press of his
translation of Horace , on which he had been
engaged off and on ever since 1853, and the
rhymed Comedy of Walfole. The former first
appeared in the April number of BlackwoofPs
Magazine for 1868, and as a separate volume in
October 1869. The latter was published in
December 1869. Both were well received, and
in one letter Lord Lytton tells his son : " The
Horace sells better than any of my original
poetry has done of late years."
In February 1869 he received the following
letter from Matthew Arnold, which again
expresses the latter's sense of indebtedness : —
THE ATHENAEUM,
Feb. 24/£, 1869.
DEAR LORD LYTTON — I often now am many days
together without coming to London, and this is why
your kind note has remained without an answer till
PEACEFUL YEARS
1869. now. Your sympathy and approbation give me great
r. 66. pleasure ; the more so, because I am conscious, as I
think I have told you before, of a very considerable
debt of gratitude to a certain European tone of reflec-
tion and sentiment in your writings, which impressed
me and suited me from the first times when I began to
read at all, and before I found anything of the same
kind anywhere else. I very much agree with you that
self-government, in our sense of the word and that
of the Americans, is likely to prevail more and more,
and I am not at all sure this is not a good thing ; only
one may with advantage labour to clear this habit from
much of the quackery and self-delusion with which we
and the Americans are at present prone to invest it.
When you come to London, I shall some day — if
you will permit me — come and pay my respects to you
in Grosvenor Square.
Till then, I am, with great truth, dear Lord Lytton,
— Your sincerely obliged
MATTHEW ARNOLD.
Three months later Matthew Arnold took
the young Duke of Genoa, who was living
under his charge at Harrow, down to Knebworth
on a visit. He wrote to his mother (May 12,
1869) :—
This place of Lord Lytton's stands well on a hill
in the pretty part of Hertfordshire. It is a house
originally of Henry VII. 's reign, and has been elabor-
ately restored. The grounds, too, are very elaborate,
and full of statues, kiosks, and knick-knacks of every
kind. The House is a mass of old oak, men in armour,
tapestry, and curiosities of every description. But, like
Lord Lytton himself, the place is a strange mixture of
what is really romantic and interesting, with what is
452
SUMMER IN LONDON
tawdry and gimcracky. ... It might be a much more 1869.
impressive place than it is if it had been simply treated. JET. 66.
Lord Lytton is kindness itself, but theatrical in his
reception of us, and in his determination to treat the
Prince as a Royal personage. The Prince, who is a
dear boy, of whom I am getting quite fond, behaves
admirably, but would much rather be let alone. . . .
The most pleasing thing about Lord Lytton is his
humanity. He goes into the cottages of the poor
people, and they seem to adore him. They have
known him ever since he was a boy, and call him " Sir "
and " Mr." instead of " My Lord " ; and when they
correct themselves and beg pardon, he says : — " Oh,
never mind that ! " *
The summer was again spent in London in
the same way as the preceding year, and Lord
Lytton writes to his son on July 6 : —
I have a thousand apologies to make for my remiss-
ness as a correspondent. I have no better excuse than
that of being whirled away in the London vortex.
From breakfast till 2 I have had either visitors or
pressing work, from 2 I have been out either till our
House meets or till dinner, and after that one is fit for
nothing. A wearisome and exacting life enough. Till
I got into the Lords my life never had a holiday ; and
now, somehow or other, I find the holiday hard work.
The same letter describes the circumstances
which prevented him from delivering a speech
which he had prepared for the House of Lords
on the subject of the Irish Church Bill :—
" As to my speech," he says, " the affair is this. I
wanted to speak early the first night, but was requested
1 Letters of Matthew Arnold, vol. ii. pp. 6, 7.
453
PEACEFUL YEARS
1869. to adjourn the debate by the Whips of both parties, and
JS.T. 66. the leaders — Cairns, Granville, Salisbury. I agreed.
When I rose to do so, Grey rose also, close by the
Clerk's chair, and mumbled something inaudible.
Cries for me being loud, he then gave way. I moved
the adjournment, but in his mumbling tones he had
already moved it, and therefore had legal precedence.
This he declined to waive, and I was thus thrown out
of the course, the debate having been all arranged and
parcelled out before, Bishops and Irish Lord Lieuten-
ants, etc., having each their appointed claim and hour.
I was sorry for it, as I think I had good things to say.
But, at all events, the general disappointment at not
hearing me was, perhaps, a greater success than my
speech might have been. I had no idea there would be
so great a wish to hear me.
" I am immersed in social engagements. I have,
unhappily, agreed to be President of the Archaeological
Society which visits Hertfordshire this year, and must
give an inaugural address and a breakfast to include the
County, and devote a week to these learned brutes !
This begins August 2nd, and I must leave town for
Knebworth before."
A letter to his son, on the subject of the Irish
Church, though undated, probably belongs to
the summer of 1869 : —
... I say nothing about the Irish question. The
subject is too long. But in your ideas, as with foreign
philosophers, you confound the powers of a free Parlia-
mentary state with those of an autocrat. An autocrat
could settle the Church question and might allow
Catholic Bishops to sit in Park. A Minister who
proposed the latter to the House of Commons, or made
any attempt to sanction a R. Cath. Church as an establish-
454
THE IRISH CHURCH
ment, would be gone in a jiffy and even lose his seat in 1869.
Parliament. The great difficulty in the Protestant jEr. 66.
Church question is less that of disestablishment than its
endowments. Its chief riches are not State property, but
derived from private bequests since the Reformation;
and it is an awful thing to begin confiscation of private
property, however public the purposes to which it is
devoted. It unsettles all real property. Another
difficulty is that the chief part of Protestant Church
property is in the midst, not of Catholic, but of purely
Protestant populations, as in the north ; a third is that
if the population generally are Catholic the vast majority
of property is Protestant, and it is not statesmanship to
alienate the proprietors of a country where you can't
attach the population.
Nothing can attach the Irish population, short of
independent severance. It is the Ionian Islands on a
large scale. The mere residence of a Royal Prince
without power or patronage would do little to conciliate
sentiment. With power and patronage he would become
a party man and soon be obnoxious, while he would
create the jealousy of the monarch. The problem is
insoluble save by time and material prosperity with a
powerful police. — Yrs.,
L.
Two letters to Lady Sherborne, written in
1869, on the subject of religion, may also be
quoted here : —
MY DEAR REINE DBS ANIMAUX — I obey your com-
mands and send you two autographs for the Monks of
Canada. Pray don't imagine that any theory in your
letter seemed to me too grave. I admire and revere
the sentiment that comes from the truly religious
nature — such as yours. There is no perfect beauty of
455
PEACEFUL YEARS
1869. character without it. I sympathise entirely with that
JEr. 66. cry of the soul which you express when you say, " We
do not love God eno' " nor that wonderful representa-
tion of the Divine tenderness for humanity which the
Father vouchsafed to us in the Image of our Lord.
We all must feel at times how feeble and lukewarm
is our love for God, and reproach ourselves for ingrati-
tude. But then, on reflection, we become aware that
the Creator has set bounds to this yearning of the soul
while on earth — bounds which are rarely, if ever, passed
with safety to our human reason and human uses in this
world. The Brahmin Dervish who devotes himself to
the contemplation of the Divine goodness and seeks
thro' the love it inspires to absorb himself in divinity
itself, is, perhaps, the oldest and the most earnest type
of this religious yearning. The early Roman Catholic
Church affords types more familiar to us in St. Teresa,
Simon Stylites and others.
But we are compelled to consider these devotees
irrational visionaries and fulfilling less the objects of
life than many an erring struggler in the great arena of
action, who serves the Father in his rough way, without
dwelling over much on the love that he cannot fathom.
It is a sun on which we cannot gaze long without
becoming blind or suffering the sunstroke.
The most striking instance of the love you mean,
accompanied by active engagements in objects purely
human, has always seemed to be David. It is difficult
to conceive a more erring mortal, and yet I understand
why he is called after God's own heart. He has estab-
lished so fully the link between himself as the naughty,
affectionate child and the Divine Creator as the in-
dulgent Father, to whom he conies in every difficulty,
utters his every joy and his every sorrow, and never
allows his greatest sin to intercept his communion
with the All-perfect. Did we find such a man now
456
LETTERS ON RELIGION
in life, the Public would call him a hypocrite and im- 1869.
postor. But to my mind, he is presented to us as an &T. 66.
example of the efficacy of prayer. His life is one
encouragement to pray, no matter how unworthy we
make ourselves of an approach to God, if regarded
only as the Judge and not as the Father.
And there seems to me a mysterious symbolical
signification in the genealogy which makes the all-
spotless Saviour the son of the passionate, faulty David,
since both so maintain and enforce the appeal to the
one Father in every trouble, in every trial. As on
earth the heart is really part and parcel of the soul, and
through the affections and errors of the heart we must
still preserve the upward tendency of the soul. Because
David does this, he is after God's own heart, even when
to the Spirit of God he is most displeasing, just as if
we had several children, and one was always getting
into scrapes from which the others were free, but in
each scrape came to us confident of our pity and in-
dulgence and sympathy, pouring out his whole heart
to us. Somehow or other, he would be more after our
own hearts than the other children who deemed us too
aloof from their lives or too severe for their approach,
who gave us no trouble and showed us no affection.
But let us be satisfied that we do love God, if we thus
approach Him, like David, with supreme confidence in
His fatherly regard for us, rejoicing in His smile and
not overawed at the thought of His power.
I am sure after this long letter you will not say that
I thought your letter too grave. . . .
Saturday.
I feel so grateful, dearest Lady, for your tender and
beautiful letter. I accept it quite in the earnest spirit
in which it is written.
I am, you know, a firm believer in the efficacy of
457
PEACEFUL YEARS
1869. prayer, and I feel in it a great comfort and a great
. 66. support. But as I think I have said before, the
" religious temperament " — that exaltation or ecstasy of
spirit which makes " the joy of the heart " you describe,
which turns pain and sorrows into loving messages from
God, and can absorb itself into Heaven when the body
is stretched on the rack — is, I believe, a constitutional
gift and no more to be acquired than the gift of poetry
is. You may as well say to an ordinary man, "See
what delight the poet feels in Nature ; see how in
trouble he forgets the world he inhabits and dwells in
the world he creates ! " as say to him, " Test that
spiritual poetry in religion which you marvel at in
another ; which is not bestowed on Christians alone,
on a St. Augustine, a St. Teresa, a Robert Hall,
a Calvinist, if he feels himself ' in grace,' but which
is also granted to the Brahmin, the Dervish, the
Mohammedan Faquir, all of whom can inflict tortures
on their flesh and feel them not, in the rapture which
fuses their souls in the contemplation of divinity."
I believe that the last persons to whom this gift is
usually granted are men accustomed, like myself, to the
culture of reason, the strife of active life, the balance
between judgment and imagination which the student
of literature, the politician, the man of the world, seeks
to maintain. In a word, I have not that gift, no doubt
a blessed one, but wholly incompatible with the elements
of my character ; nor do my beliefs in the relations
between this world and the next tend to attempt the
pale imitation of an enthusiasm which I cannot sincerely
feel. However, I am, I trust, deeply grateful to the
Divine and merciful Father for all the blessings He has
given me ; and if I repine at the want of some others,
it is not habitually, and only when under that depression
of spirits in which the body overcomes the manhood I
strive to maintain in the mind. . . .
458
QUIET CONTENTMENT
The death of Lord Derby in 1869 created a 1870.
vacancy in the order of St. Michael and St. ^T- 67-
George which was offered to, and accepted by,
Lord Lytton. He was gazetted a G.C.M.G. on
January 15, 1870.
And so the months passed peacefully away.
There remains little to record. His letters from
Knebworth or Argyll House, Torquay, speak of
idleness and contentment, happy friendships and
quiet reading. The busy life was nearly finished,
and repose attained at last. The sorrows and
regrets inseparable from old age as friends and
relations drop out, health fails, and the world
moves on as it were over one's head, recur from
time to time in his correspondence, but on the
whole these last years were happy and unevent-
ful. To his son he writes from London on
February 14, 1870 : " I came to town meditating
all sorts of political action, but the cold and
gloom of the weather have stricken me into
inertia, and I am longing to get back to
Torquay if I can, and stay there through March.
In youth one says, £ What would I do were I in
the position time gives to some senior.' One
gains the position and then says : — c Ah, what
would I do now, if I were but young.' '
459
CHAPTER IV
LAST LITERARY WORK
1870-1872
Life has always action ; it is our own fault if it ever be dull ; youth
has its enterprise, manhood its schemes ; and even if infirmity creep upon
age, the mind still triumphs over the mortal clay, and in the quiet hermitage,
among books and from thoughts, keeps the great wheel within everlastingly
in motion. .
The Pilgrims of the Rhine.
1870. THE winter of 1869-70 was unusually severe,
. 67. and even at Torquay Lord Lytton could not
escape the rigours of the climate. He says
in one of his letters : " I am not only idle, but
all literary exertion is repugnant to me, so none
of my irons in the fire are a bit hotter. The
fire is gone out for the present."
The fire, however, was by no means ex-
tinguished. It did not even smoulder for long,
and the last two years of his life were busily
spent in literary work.
John Forster was also very ailing at this time,
and Lord Lytton's letters to him in the early
months of 1870 express the most affectionate
solicitude for his friend's health. One of these
letters makes mention of his satisfaction at
having received an offer to act his play of
460
LETTER TO FORSTER
Walpole at a morning performance at the Gaiety. 1870.
For some reason which is not explained, the ^T- 67-
arrangement fell through, and at the end of
March he writes to Forster : —
ARGYLL HOUSE, TORQUAY,
March 28, 1870.
MY DEAR FORSTER — I am very much obliged by
your letter and entirely approve your refusal to let my
ill-starred play be acted under such malign auspices.
I am utterly amazed that Langford should have urged
the thing on me, seeing that he said the manager was
his friend, and therefore I presumed that he was
cognisant of his friend's intentions. If not, his friend
deceived him, as (ourselves excepted) most friends
do deceive their friends where they see the way to
twopence. This is a disappointment, but one so in
the groove of my disappointments that it scarcely
disappoints me. I have long since resigned the last
lingering hope of fair play in my life-time, and as I
believe in (or rather, am immutably convinced of) a
future state in another form of being, any success given
to me after I have left this world, any failure, provided
that it affected only intellect and not honour, would
please or mortify me no more (even if in the future
life we are allowed to know what passes in this) than
it would please or mortify you and me to learn what
was thought of us in an infant school. But so far as
this life is concerned, and any pleasure mere intellectual
effort can bestow — O, that I had been born in any
Christian land except that in which I was born.
Having so vented myself, I feel free to go to
matters which affect me much more nearly. How are
you ? Do say ; your last note is silent thereon, and
461
LAST LITERARY WORK
1870. to know you better would please me immeasurably
JET. 67. more than could the greatest praises bestowed on my
most favourite works. — Yrs.,
L.
One of the " irons in the fire " at this time
was the story of The Coming Race. This book —
a fantastic story of an imaginary race living in
the interior of the earth with a very highly
developed civilisation — was an entirely new
departure, unlike anything which Lord Lytton
had written before. It was not merely an excel-
lent tale of adventure, but had a definite satirical
purpose. In it he imagines a community in
which most of the Utopian philosophies of the
day were realised to their fullest extent. Uni-
versal peace, perfect liberty of the individual,
and equality both of class and sex, the highest
development of mechanical invention, perfect
physical well-being of the individual, and social
well-being of the community — all these were
attained, and resulted in a race that was at once
mild and terrible, highly intellectual, and in-
sufferably dull.
It was a state in which war, with all its calamities,
was deemed impossible — a state in which the freedom
of all and each was secured to the uttermost degree,
without one of those animosities which make freedom
in the upper world depend on the perpetual strife of
hostile parties. Here the corruption which debases
democracies was as unknown as the discontent which
undermines the thrones of monarchies. Equality here
was not a name ; it was a reality. Riches were
462
"THE COMING RACE"
not persecuted, because they were not envied. Here 1870.
those problems connected with the labours of a work- &T. 67.
ing class, hitherto insoluble above ground, and above
ground conducing to such bitterness between classes,
were solved by a process the simplest, — a distinct and
separate class was dispensed with altogether. Mechanical
inventions, constructed on principles that baffled research
to ascertain, worked by an agency infinitely more power-
ful and infinitely more easy of management than aught
we have yet extracted from electricity or steam, with the
aid of children whose strength was never overtasked,
but who loved their employment as sport or pastime,
sufficed to create a Public wealth so devoted to the
general use that not a grumbler was ever heard of.
The vices that rot our cities, here had no footing.
Amusements abounded, but they were all innocent.
No merry-makings induced to intoxication, to riot,
to disease. . . . The vigour of middle life was pre-
served even after the term of a century was passed.
With this longevity was combined a greater blessing
than itself — that of continuous health. Such diseases
as befell the race were removed with ease by scientific
applications of that agency — life-giving as life-destroy-
ing— which is inherent in Vril. . . . All that our
female philosophers above ground contend for as to
rights of women, is conceded as a matter of course
in this happy common-wealth. . . . Lastly, among
the more important characteristics of the Vril-ya, as
distinguished from our mankind, is their universal
agreement in the existence of a merciful, beneficent
Deity, and of a future world ; while with that agreement
is combined another — namely, since they can know
nothing as to the nature of that Deity beyond the
fact of His supreme goodness, nor of that future
world beyond the fact of its felicitous existence, so their
reason forbids all angry disputes on insoluble questions.
463
LAST LITERARY WORK
1870. Thus they secure for that state in the bowels of the
r. 67. earth, what no community ever secured under the
light of the stars — all the blessings and consolations
of a religion without any of the evils and calamities
which are engendered by strife between one religion
and another.
It would be, then, utterly impossible to deny that
the state of existence among the Vril-ya is thus, as a
whole, immeasurably more felicitous than that of
super-terrestrial races, and realising the dreams of our
most sanguine philanthropists, almost approaches to
a poet's conception of some angelical order. And yet,
if you would take a thousand of the best and most
philosophical of human beings you could find in
London, Paris, Berlin, New York, or even Boston,
and place them as citizens in this beatified community,
my belief is, that in less than a year they would either
die of ennui, or attempt some revolution by which
they would militate against the good of the community,
and be burnt into cinders at the request of the Tur
[Chief Magistrate].
The development of this theme gave plenty
of scope for the indulgence of quiet satire, and
for ingenuities of invention. The manuscript of
the story was sent to Forster at the beginning of
March 1870, and the following letters on the
subject throw light on the author's opinions
concerning the work : —
Lord Lytton to John Forster.
A.H., TORQUAY,
March 15, 1870.
MY DEAR FORSTER — The MS. does not press for
publication, so you can keep it during your excursion
464
LETTERS ON "THE COMING RACE"
and think over it among the other moonstricken pro- 1870.
ductions which may have more professional demand on ^T. 67.
your attention. Perhaps some suggestion may occur
to you. The only important point is to keep in view
the Darwinian proposition that a coming race is destined
to supplant our races, that such a race would be very
gradually formed, and be indeed a new species develop-
ing itself out of our old one, that this process would
be invisible to our eyes, and therefore in some region
unknown to us. And that in the course of the develop-
ment, the coming race will have acquired some peculi-
arities so distinct from our ways, that it could not be
fused with us, and certain destructive powers which
our science could not enable us to attain to, or cope
with.
Therefore, the idea of electrical power occurred to
me, but some other might occur to you.
The same to the same.
A.H., TORQUAY,
March 16, 1870.
MY DEAR FORSTER — With regard to the MS.,
return it here and place in pencil marks at all the
passages you object to. I don't quite understand
about the romance interfering with the satire. There
must be romance of some kind, and there must also be
some organic peculiarity in the coming race to dis-
tinguish them from ourselves and give them some
destroying powers that our mere science could not
attain. For, if they had only learnt to develop agencies
in electricity, not yet known to us, we could acquire that
knowledge as readily as one nation has acquired from
another the use of the electric telegraph. But I will
attend to any suggestion you may make, or put aside
the MS. altogether.
VOL. ir 465 2 H
LAST LITERARY WORK
1870. Robert seems to have been making an oration at
JET. 67. Vienna in praise of the Americans. I don't agree with
him in a crow over the gentlemen of the south — but
that is matter of opinion and taste.
Heaven set you up soon. — Ever yr. affte.
L.
The same to the same.
i March 20, 1870.
MY DEAR FORSTER — It is most kind of you to write
me so long a letter while still so unwell.
I am a little startled at your doubt if a publisher
will take the book as an anonymous one — my notion
having been that if it could appear unbeknown, it
would create a sensation and have a large sale, but that
with my name it would be a failure. However, on the
former supposition I suppose 1 err ; in the latter I
feel sure I am right. I would not on any account give
my name to it.
I did not mean Vril for mesmerism, but for electricity,
developed into uses as yet only dimly guessed, and
including whatever there may be genuine in mesmerism,
which I hold to be a mere branch current of the one
great fluid pervading all nature. I am by no means,
however, wedded to Vril, if you can suggest anything
else to carry out this meaning — namely, that the coming
race, though akin to us, has nevertheless acquired by
hereditary transmission, etc., certain distinctions which
make it a different species, and contains powers which
we could not attain to through a slow growth of time ;
so that this race would not amalgamate with, but destroy
us. And yet this race, being in many respects better
and milder than we are, ought not to be represented
terrible, except through the impossibility of our tolerat-
ing them or they tolerating us, and they possess some
powers of destruction denied to ourselves.
466
"THE COMING RACE"
Now, as some bodies are charged with electricity like 1871.
the torpedo or electric eel, and never can communicate ^ET. 68.
that power to other bodies, so I suppose the existence -
of a race charged with that electricity and having
acquired the art to concentre and direct it — in a word,
to be conductors of its lightnings. If you can suggest
any other idea of carrying out that idea of a destroying
race, I should be glad. Probably even the notion of
Vril might be more cleared from mysticism or mesmerism
by being simply defined to be electricity and conducted
by those staves or rods, omitting all about mesmeric
passes, etc. Perhaps, too, it would be safe to omit all
reference to the power of communicating with the
dead.
I hope to have a good account of yourself. — Ever
affectly. yrs.,
L.
Lord Lytton adhered to his determination to
produce the book anonymously, and events proved
that he was justified in so doing. It was published
by Black wood in the spring of 1871, and was
read with great interest. Considering the stage
of development which electrical science had
reached at the date when The Coming Race was
published, and the extent to which it has
since developed for practical purposes many of
the powers exercised by the Vrilya, it must be
admitted that Lord Lytton showed remarkable
gifts of foresight in this work. The anonymity
of the book was strictly preserved. Besides John
Forster, only Lady Sherborne and his son were
admitted into the secret of its authorship. To
the latter Lord Lytton wrote on May 19, 1871 : —
467
LAST LITERARY WORK
1871. The Coming Race is out, and on its road to you by
T. 68. book post. As yet I have seen no opinions about it,
except in letters to Blackwood from Max Miiller and
Sir A. Grant, another philosopher, very eulogistic.
But it has not come before the public yet, and it seems
uncertain whether it will be a great hit or a failure. It
is improved in point of humour since you saw it, and I
think you will like its solemn quiz on Darwin and on
Radical politics.
In June 1871 he says : —
I don't think people have caught or are likely to
catch the leading idea of the book, which is this : —
Assuming that all the various ideas of philosophical
reformers could be united and practically realised, the
result would be firstly, a race that must be fatal to
ourselves ; our society could not amalgamate with it ;
it would be deadly to us, not from its vices but its virtues.
Secondly, the realisation of these ideas would produce
a society which we should find extremely dull, and in
which the current equality would prohibit all greatness.
Of course in the handling of the main idea there are
collateral veins of satire or reflection.
Blackwood tells me that the opinions he hears
privately are very enthusiastic, chiefly from professors
and scholars, and the papers usually most hostile to me
are wonderfully civil to it, Spectator, Examiner, Athenaeum,
Scotsman — all my wonted foes. Nevertheless, it does
not seem to get fairly before the public, and I do not
hear it discussed or see it about. I daresay its sale wi11
be limited.
Before the end of the year 1871 the reputa-
tion of this book was fairly established, and on
January 30, 1 8 72, the author says of it to his son : —
468
The Coming Race has had a great sale — five editions, 1871.
and is now going into a cheaper one, stereotyped, which JEr. 68.
shows the advantage of the anonymous. It owes its
sale chiefly to the praise of the reviewers, and precisely
the reviewers who would have been most uncivil to the
author if they had guessed him. I think when you
hit on a popular subject you will do well to try the
anonymous too.
Another literary task of these years was the
revision and republication of King Arthur. The
subject was first mentioned in a letter to Forster
of March 9, 1 870 : —
A Mr. Charlton Tucker, who is setting up as a
publisher in Northumberland Street, Strand, has dis-
tinguished himself from the rest of mankind by ex-
pressing admiration of my ill-treated proles King
Arthur^ and has offered me liberal terms for leave to
bring out a new edition. Now my intense fatherly
love for King Arthur does not so cloud my general
knowledge of the world as to dim my eyes to the fact
that a man setting up as a publisher might like to
secure an old-fashioned respectable name like mine ;
and that in republishing King Arthur at a probable
loss, he pays for my name and establishes a claim on
my gratitude or on my vanity. Vanity is often a
better basis whereon to build than gratitude. There-
fore, not rejecting his offer, I have put it aside to be
considered. Meanwhile, having always had it on my
mind, in packing up wares for posterity, that I ought
to launch forth a new edition of King Arthur^ I have
been looking over that poem with a sternly critical eye,
and, barring some faults of taste and declamatory form
of diction, I am amazed to find, after a long forgetfulness
of every line, how good it seems to me on the whole,
469
LAST LITERARY WORK
1871. and the higher the flight the better it seems to me.
ET. 68. Of course, seeing the neglect it has undergone, the
chances are that I am mistaken. I try to bring before
my eyes the mortifying recollection of much greater
men enamoured of their own bad verses. Richelieu
and Cicero to wit. But in vain I set those examples
before me ; at every page I read, my impression
strengthens that the poem has been unjustly ignored,
and should it ever find favouring critics, must establish
a high and permanent place in literature. Possibly
when I have finished correcting it I may ask you to
look impartially at certain parts, and from a point of
view distinct from that which accepts as poetry the
verbal mannerisms of the day. Possibly also I may
ask your advice, whether if I venture a new edition
under the auspices of this virgin publisher, I may
expose myself and my venture to the disparaging
sneer of not having found an older bird than Mr.
Jackson to be caught by that unremunerative chaff.
Meanwhile, I mean to finish the revision of the
work.
Now, having cleared my decks of this egotistical
lumber, I must express my heartfelt pleasure at thinking
that though this iron weather has been so against you,
you are apparently making strides, slow but sure,
towards convalescence. When the sun begins to
smile, and the buds to bloom, I hope the stride will
be rapid.
The Queen of Holland has been taking up and
spoiling my time here. I gave up to her talk two
mortal hours on Sunday, met and took her into dinner
at Lady Brownlow's yesterday, and am again summoned
to meet her at ten this evening at Lady Sherborne's.
She is very clever, very liberal, more philosophical than
sentimental — such a Sovereign as Voltaire might have
liked, but restless as quicksilver, and makes one un-
470
A TROUBLESOME PREFACE
comfortable by her infectious fidgetings of thought 1871.
and body. ^T> 68>
After re-reading the poem, Forster wrote to
him very encouragingly about King Arthur :
" It is a masterly piece of construction," he said,
" high and buoyant to the last, and brimming
over with life and fancy. Loftier or more
various power than in this book you have not
shown anywhere." Mr. Tucker's offer was
therefore accepted, and a very unattractive,
badly illustrated, edition of the book was pub-
lished in the autumn of 1870. The preface to
this edition gave Lord Lytton a great deal of
trouble. His first draft of it contained some
critical passages of Tennyson's treatment of
the same subject, and it concluded with others
of querulous protest against the injustice he
had received from contemporary critics. On
the advice of Forster, these passages were
wisely omitted before the book went to
press. In reply to his friend's criticism of
the preface, Lord Lytton wrote on August 29,
1870:—
MY DEAR FORSTER — I am very much obliged by
your letter. Your doubts in much express my own,
but there is one point I feel to be essential, namely, the
vindication of my throwing over the Mort d'Arthur,
and constructing my own fable and characters. I want
to do that. At the same time, I want equally to avoid
impugning Tennyson's different mode of treatment.
That is the great difficulty, which I hoped you or
Robert would help me to solve. I must say something,
LAST LITERARY WORK
1870-1872. too, about the distinction between my Guenevere and
J&T. 67-69. the French one.
The second point I should like to keep in view and
think politic, is some assertion of my own estimate of
the poem, even if it provoke ridicule ; but I feel that
it ought to be done more briefly, and with more
modesty and dignity.
That horrible preface has cost me more trouble
than a three volume novel, and I return to it with
weariness and nausea. . . . — Afftly. yrs.,
L.
To Mrs. Cosway * he wrote, at the end of
1 870, about this book : —
MY DEAR MRS. COSWAY — You don't like me to
say "flattered," and I really do not know by what
words I can express my sense of the distinction you
bestow upon my pet child. Ever since I began what
is called "a literary career," I have had against me
more inveterately than any other author of my day,
the cliques which supply criticisms to the journals.
When I have written books like novels, which need
not their intervention to obtain a fair reading from
the public, these cliques could not do me all the harm
they wished to do. But there are some kinds of
writing which the general public do not take to unless
they are somewhat forced to it, by the recommendation
of reviews. Poetry is of that kind, and especially a
poem so lengthy, so unfamiliar in subject, and so little
modern in style, as King Arthur. And the reviewers
there have certainly contrived to discourage the most
benevolent reader from the effort of perusal, with the
exception of one notice in the Fortnightly.
1 Afterwards Mrs. Halliday, a friend of his last years, some of his
letters to whom have already been quoted in a previous chapter.
472
LETTER ON "KING ARTHUR"
At my stage of life it matters little to me whether 1870-1872.
I am right or wrong in any estimate I may form of JEr. 67-69.
King Arthur^ or anything else I may have written. I
feel so like a boy about to leave a preparatory school
in which his themes and exercises can be of no value
except so far as they influence his grade in the higher
school destined to continue his education. But praise
of the " exercise," snubbed and disparaged by the other
little boys and the ushers, coming from one so intimately
conversant with great masterpieces, cannot but ex-
hilarate my spirits on looking round the familiar
schoolroom which I must so soon leave behind me.
No, if I don't like talking about my books, I
certainly shrink yet more from the thought of reading
them to others. I am the loneliest person in the
world as to composition. " Le Moineau Solitaire "
sits on the housetops in order that no one may guess
that he has a nest in the hollow of a tree. I agree
with you in disliking exceedingly the illustrations.
But after being out of print nearly twenty years,
except in a wretched ill -printed, unconnected, cheap
edition by Routledge, an admiring publisher urged me
to let him issue the present edition of the poem revised,
and contracted for illustrations. Unluckily, it is a
very large edition, but it is going off slowly. When
gone, I shall probably, if alive, launch forth another
unillustrated, and if so, you shall have the earliest
copy. — Very gratefully & truly yrs.,
LYTTON.
Another letter to the same correspondent,
undated, but written, I think, at the end of
1870, has an interesting reference to Byron : — -
My DEAR MRS. COSWAY — I shall be happy to
dine with you on Thursday next. Schiller rocked
473
LAST LITERARY WORK
1870-1872. me to sleep last night on the boundless deep of
^Er. 67-69. the aesthetics.
I dare not for a moment think of myself in com-
parison with any of the great names which you so
graciously place near me. But I have a general notion
that every original genius stands within his own magic
circle, that no one else ever drew a magic circle exactly
like it, that one finds on trying to institute a rival
comparison between circle A and circle B, that the
magicians baffle one, and immediately begin shifting the
tints and outlines of the rings that gird them, so that
where one moment we detect a similitude in the next
we are startled by a contrast, and thus all points needed
for just comparison, disappear.
Byron is especially unique. I know no genius before
or since his time that has taken the same ground
and cultivated it in the same manner. That he is a
passionate nature, as you observe, is strikingly true,
and yet he fails where most passionate natures gifted
with poetic invention succeed, viz. : — in the struggle
between contending passions. This is why he is not a
great dramatist. I think, however, that he has " in-
tensity," but his intensity, like his passionateness, is
concentrated in the utterance of himself. He is in-
tensely and passionately personal, and his character
" pierces " thro' his genius. We have nothing but
tiny fragments left of Alcaeus, but I fancy that his
nature must have had more resemblance to Byron's
than that of any other poet. Both made poetry out
of their own lives as men, and both seem to have had
attributes of fate and character in common, amorous
and combative and stormy, and always in hot water
and trouble — exiled nobles ; passing both to the shades,
leaving behind them a fame identified with the personal
interests they created, and always, when we think of
them, revealed to us in aspects of youth. One can't
474
FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR
fancy that either of them could have lived to be sober, 1870-1872.
elderly artists. Whenever I gaze on that beautiful Mr. 67-69.
portrait of Byron in a sailor's dress, standing by the
seashore, I am reminded of the description of Alcaeus
mooring his bark on the wet sand and singing of love,
whatever his hardships in shipwreck and war and exile.
— Truly yrs.,
L.
The chief event of the year 1870 was the
war which broke out in the summer between
France and Germany. On September 2,
Napoleon III. surrendered to the Germans, after
the battle of Sedan, and the French Empire was
at an end. The Revolution in Paris, which
followed this event, and the horrors of the
Commune in March and April 1871, provided
the world with another striking example of
the results of mob rule, animated by radical
philosophy, on which Lord Lytton had so
often passed judgment in connection with other
Revolutions of the past, and which had been a
special object of his satire in The Coming Race.
His letters in 1871 contain frequent references
to these events.
To his son he writes on January 29, 1871 : —
. . . Before this reaches you I suppose that you
will know all about the Peace, &c., so I need not touch
upon that. In a clever letter 1 have just received from
one who is rather a good authority, knows France and
her parties well, and sees much of the Orleanists, it is
said that the Orleanists are in great fear that the
Emperor will be restored, that his partisans are far
475
LAST LITERARY WORK
1870-1872. more numerous and influential than appears on the
Mr. 67-69. surface — ist, all the civil officers, Prefets, &c., promoted
by him, identify with him for the most part their am-
bition. Many of them are young, energetic and with
great local interest. They have nothing to gain from
either a Republic or the Orleanists. They have the bond
of party to the Emperor. 2ndly, The Deputes and
Senate are more or less for him. 3rdly, A large pro-
portion of the peasants and the majority of the Priests.
4thly, The chief military officers are revolted by the
insolence of Gambetta & Co. They feel humiliated
by the idea of being governed by the Pekins and
lawyers whom a Republic would throw up, and, what-
ever the military faults of the Emperor and the late
Ministers, still they recognise in the Emperor the
" army's friend," the man whose heart is most with them.
So that if McMahon declares for the Emperor and can
influence the bulk of the captive army, the other armies
would not venture to oppose, and indeed be likely to
join.
In that case, the Emperor, never having been legally
deposed, would, on release, go up to Paris with his
released armies, summon the old Chamber and Senate,
and appeal to another Plebiscite with the aid of his
Prefets to work it.
All this seems plausible eno', but it is impossible to
predict anything in a state of affairs so anomalous and
with a people so capricious. If, however, he goes
back, I suspect it will be to resume his pristine personal
domination. His partisans say, not unnaturally, " All
went admirably till the Emperor put power into the
hands of a Press which misled the people, and weakened
the Executive by radical measures not fitted for France."
Probably his restoration would be the best thing for
England. A Republic would lead to much infectious
evil here, and the Orleanists would be too weak to
476
SITUATION IN FRANCE
resist any impulse of the French to avenge upon England 1870-18;
the sufferings they have undergone from the Germans. j^T ^_(
As to the union between France and Belgium, in
electing the Belgian King over both, it would indeed be
a standing menace against our shores with that vast sea-
board facing us.
The Government here is terribly out of favour with
all parties, and Gladstone distrusted and almost despised.
Nevertheless, a few speeches of his when Parliament opens
may bolster up his Cabinet for a time. Certainly not
for long, if the growing ardour for military defence and
European prestige should continue, in the face of those
dampers — the taxes ! . . .
To the same.
May 19, 1871.
. . . There is no doubt of the immense value of the
German mind and literature and its massiveness com-
pared with the French. But it would be too much to say
that the French borrowed its really national and classical
masterpieces from the German — rather the contrary, I
should say that the German had borrowed somewhat
from the French, especially the Berlin School of
thought.
What can be more French or less indebted to German
than Montaigne, Charron, Voltaire, Corneille, Moliere,
La Fontaine, Beranger? I don't think Rousseau and
his followers (like Chas. Le Brun and G. Sand) are so
purely and distinctively French as the others I have
named, but they certainly are not indebted to German,
and the Germans are certainly indebted to them. In
our present disgust of French follies, we must not
allow ourselves to follow out a natural impulse to
depreciate them altogether. Their misfortune was their
great Revolution, from which they have never recovered,
477
LAST LITERARY WORK
1870-1872. and never, I fear, can. That Revolution destroyed all
JEr. 67-69. the great foundations of calm and durable Government —
all that stands between popular passion and a master. It
could not destroy a nobility, but it destroyed aristocracy
and made a noblesse, without dukes and property, a
dangerous instead of a salutary class. It destroyed all
the true bonds of religion, tho' it could not wholly
suppress a Church, and it rendered a Republic and a
Constitutional Monarchy alike impossible — at least for
duration. In the cause of the Commune there is, of
course, a something sound in a vague instinct of de-
centralisation, and establishing urban influences over
rural, but it is mixed up with such absurdities and vices
that no thinker can respect it. This is always the case
where philosophy unites with the working class. The
working class accept such notions of philosophy as
they think suit their interest, and being inevitably un-
philosophical themselves — make a hell -broth of the
elixir — just as Mr. Mill and Mr. Bradlaugh would do
if they were brought together in the ferment of revolu-
tion. Baser trash than Mill has been uttering lately
on the land question, I can't conceive. . . .
To the same.
May 24, 1871.
... I agree with and admire most of what you say
in your letter upon Morley, politics, &c. That Morley,
Mill, and all that school are impracticable, is not their
worst feature. Their doctrines, safe enough when
addressed to you and me, are terribly dangerous when
dropped among artisans. Not that such doctrines can
be carried, so long as existing civilisation lasts, but that
the struggle to carry them causes so much unsettlement,
such fanatical excesses and such futile revolutionary
spasms. The Parisians, Communists, etc., are an in-
478
THE COMMUNE
stance of this, and in their general wrongdoing their 1870-18;
nucleus of right vanishes into the background. JE.T. 67-*
Of course, there is much to be said in favour of
their one strong point, that rural populations should
not swamp urban electors, and that municipalities should
be freed from central dictation. But these are reforms
not to be fought at the cannon's mouth, and could easily
have been attained by argument. But once let heated
actors take up philosophical truths, and they so muddle
and adulterate them, that truths become fallacies, and,
of course, the bulk of these Parisian rioters lost sight
of the nucleus, some wanted to depose God and get rid
of all religion, some wanted their neighbours' shops,
some wanted one thing or another which the good of
society would no more allow than I hope in England it
will ever allow Mr. Mill's wild projects against private
property in land to do more than increase the number
of fools and rogues in the cesspool of great towns.
I suppose with you that Henri V.1 has the best
chance now, but the whirligig of time in Paris is so
rapid that a month hence he may have no chance at
all. It will be a great thing for England and for all
Monarchies if H. V. can be chosen and stand his
ground. . . .
To Mrs. Cosway.
ARGYLL HALL, Dec. 27, 1871.
MY DEAR MRS. COSWAY — Many thanks for your
friend's interesting letter, which I return. The French
have so destroyed all durable elements of good Govt.,
that they must to the last remain a signal example of
how well on the whole a clever people, geographically
blest, can get on, however bad their Govt. may be.
1 The Comte de Chambord, grandson of Charles X.
479
LAST LITERARY WORK
1870-1872. The old Romans are a proof of that truth, for I defy
&T. 67-69. political philosophers to concoct a worse Govt. than
they had from the time of Scipio Africanus to the final
fall of their Empire.
I believe that, like the Romans, the only thing left
for the French is autocracy in some shape or other. It
is laughable to imagine either a Republic or a Con-
stitutional Monarchy taking root in that shallow layer
of hothouse dry leaves and fine loam and the refuse of
the stables. I know a little of the Due d'Aumale and
the Count de Paris. The last is, to my mind, the beau-
ideal of a popular Constitutional Monarch. His
manners so simple and gracious, his life so orderly and
domestic, his sympathies so manly, and his abilities being
just what they ought to be for such a post, neither too
great nor too small. The Due d'Aumale is of another
mould, but the position assigned to him is terribly
critical. Even the House of Orleans cannot afford to
furnish the world with another example of household
treason, and it is idle to talk of anyone being President
of a Republic in which there are no republicans, except
prigs and fanatics. . . .
The events of the Siege of Paris and the War
of the Commune, provided Lord Lytton with
material for one of his last novels. During the
years 1871 and 1872 he was engaged upon two
books, one of which, The Parisians, though not
completed, had begun to appear anonymously in
Blackwood's Magazine during the author's life-
time ; the other, Kenelm Chillingly, was finished
but not published till after his death.
As the secret of the authorship of The
Parisians was guarded as jealously as that of
The Coming Race, no mention of it is made in any
480
"KENELM CHILLINGLY'
of Lord Lytton's letters except those to his son. 1870-1872.
It is first referred to in one of these dated January &T. 67-69.
30, 1872 — the same letter which tells of the
successful sales of The Coming Race : —
" The author of the C.R.," he says " (pray always
continue to guard his secret) has done more than 3 vols.
of an odd sort of novel, which is, however, now at a
standstill — he finds it so difficult to finish. Its present
title is The Parisians and it ought to end with the
Communist siege, ignes suppositos cineri doloso. I fear,
however, that the author of the C.R. would be detected
in this book, and yet there are good reasons for not
publishing it in his own name. This is a matter to
be considered when finished. 1 don't think it very
interesting, because of its merits in another way, which
consist in digressive dialogues on the local and political
aspects of Paris."
To Kenelm Chillingly there are more references
in his letters, but only as to the progress which
he is making with it, and none bearing on the
subject matter of the book. On September 9,
1872, he writes to Mrs. Halliday from Kneb-
worth : —
I have finished two vols. of Chillingly, which are sent
to Blackwood. I don't know how you will like it.
The hero is very strange-humoured, I think original,
and there are more poetic bits in it than in most of my
later writings, but the end of it is difficult and not yet
approached.
The third volume was begun a few days later,
but was delayed during the whole of October
VOL. II 481 2 I
LAST LITERARY WORK
1870-1872. owing to illness. The remainder of the winter
JET. 67-69. of 1 872 at Torquay was devoted to its com-
pletion.
" I am grown enamoured of monotony," he
writes, towards the end of 1 872, " and am dis-
inclined by a pebble to disturb the still current
of daily life." In another letter he speaks of
finishing Chillingly in the spring, but that spring
never came. The sands had run out, and as if
conscious that his time was limited, he worked
steadily on at this book, and when in the follow-
ing January his long and laborious life came to an
end, it was finished and ready for publication.
482
CHAPTER V
WESTMINSTER ABBEY
1873
God has mercifully ordained it as the customary lot of nature, that in
proportion as we decline into the grave, the sloping path is made smooth
and easy to our feet ; and every day as the films of clay are removed from
our eyes, Death loses the false aspect of the spectre, and we fall at last into
his arms as a wearied child upon the bosom of its mother.
Ernest Maltravers.
THE last months of the year 1872 were probably 1873.
the happiest of Lord Lytton's life. His son and ^T- 7°-
daughter-in-law were staying with him at
Torquay in November and December, and this
little family circle was united by every sentiment
of sympathy and affection. Father and son
enjoyed long and intimate talks on all the interests
of their respective lives. Not for years had they
spent so long a time together, and never before
were all three more completely intimate and
happy. Between Lord Lytton and his daughter-
in-law there had always existed a certain amount
of shyness, as they met but seldom, and generally
in company with others, and Lord Lytton's
deafness made him a difficult companion.
During this visit all shyness was removed, and
the sorrows which both had passed through so
483
WESTMINSTER ABBEY
1873. recently introduced a tenderness and sympathy
JF.T. 70. into their relationship which had never been
there before. It was thus in a calm sunset glow
that Lord Lytton's life passed to its close.
In the evenings he read aloud the last chapters
of Kenelm Chillingly^ on which he was then
engaged ; and his son has thus recorded the effect
upon his father of the revival in this book of his
boyish romance at Ealing :—
My Father read the manuscript of Kenelm to my wife
and myself, and at particular parts of it he could not
restrain his tears. Throughout the day (it was New
Year's Eve — the eve of the year of his own death) on
which he finished the chapter describing Kenelm's
sufferings above the grave of " Lily," he was profoundly
dejected, listless, broken ; and in his face there was the
worn look of a man who has just passed through the
last paroxysm of a passionate grief. We did not then
know to what the incidents referred, and we wondered
that the creations of his fancy should exercise such
power over him. They were not the creations of fancy,
but the memories of fifty years past.1
The visit came to an end on January 4,
1873, and when Robert Lytton and his wife left
Torquay, Lord Lytton was apparently in sound
health. On the day of their departure he wrote
to his daughter-in-law : —
MY DEAREST EDITH — I am so delighted to have seen
so much of you this time, and feel so touched and
grateful for all your affectionate kindness to me. I
1 The Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of Ednvard Bulnuer, Lord Lytton,
vol. i. p. 287.
484
THE LAST PARTING
could not see anything here for a little New Year's gift 1873.
to you and Robert and the children. I venture to ask MT. 70.
you to buy something for yourself and the children with
£30 of the enclosed cheque ; the other £20 is to be
invested in a gift for Robert such as he may like. — God
bless you, my dear child. Ever yr. affte. father,
L.
Again the next day he wrote : —
Certainly I hope that there will never be shyness
again between either of us. I fancy I am the shyer of
the two. Of course, I missed you very much — sulked,
would not drive out, and have been reading the lives of
St. Francis de Sales and Montalembert, as examples of
patience under loss.
To Lady Sherborne he wrote more fully of
these books on January 5 :—
I have read vol. I. of Oliphant's Montalembert. She
has contrived to make him in all the earlier part a horrid
little coxcombical prig. But I suppose vol. II. will
bring him out better. He was certainly an effective
orator and a very fine character, taken altogether. I
saw him once when he must have been young — not at
all the angelical countenance she insists on — a short,
ill-shaped, rather common-looking man with a face too
large for his body, not unlike Mendelssohn — aquiline
nose (of course that is always handsome !), rather florid,
rather full-cheeked, auburnish hair.
I also read last night in bed The Life of St. Francis
de Sales — a much higher type of the R.C. hero than
Montalembert, and, judging by short, terse aphorisms
of his in the book, I should think a much higher
intellect. But that R.C. faith, between you and me,
does produce very fine specimens of adorned humanity
485
WESTMINSTER ABBEY
1873. — at once so sweet and so heroical. I suspect the
r. 70. Brahminical faith does the same. Both agree on this —
the desire to keep before them, and melt into, a diviner
essence than the human. And, therefore, both are at
once more human and more divine. We members
of the Protestant Established Church are always
bringing Heaven into our parlour, and trying to pare
religion into common sense. Who can pack the infinite
into the finite, or the ocean into a silver teaspoon ?
To the same correspondent was written on
Saturday, January 12 one of the last letters he
ever wrote with his own hand : —
I can only write you a little line, dear Lady. I am
in great pain — earache with violent noises in both ears,
like blood to the head, and worn out for want of sleep.
Altogether beaucoup miserable.
The poor Emperor's1 death has affected me more
than I could have supposed. He is associated with the
gayest and most active, but at the same time with the
most troubled and combative part of my career. — Ever
yr. faithful friend,
LYTTON.
The great pain complained of in this letter
continued all that day. In the evening, though
still suffering much, he kept an engagement to
dine with his friend Mrs. Halliday. The next
day he described himself as feeling intensely tired,
and remained lying down on the sofa. On
Tuesday two doctors attended him, and succeeded
by hot fomentations in giving him some relief.
The pains on the right side of the face and neck,
1 Napoleon III.
486
DEATH
however, gradually increased. On Thursday he 1873.
dictated some letters to his publishers, but by JET. 70.
Friday both sight and hearing were almost gone
and his mind had begun to wander.
Robert Lytton was summoned by telegram
that day, and arrived between five and six in the
evening. Lord Lytton had only had intervals of
consciousness during the day, but when he heard
that his son had been sent for, he said, " What
nonsense. Why send a telegram ? I am not so
ill." When his son arrived he said, " Is it
Robert?" and added, "There's no danger.
When there has been so much pain I am told
there is no danger." He asked for his letters and
tried to read them, but complained that it was
too dark. His son then read aloud to him some
of the letters, and he dictated answers to them,
which were, however, not coherent. During the
night he had a series of epileptic fits and
convulsions, between forty and fifty in all, with
only a few minutes' interval between each. In
the morning he became calm, but never again
recovered consciousness. He gradually sank
and died quite peacefully at 2 P.M. on Saturday,
January 18, 1873.
The cause of death was inflammation of the
membranes of the brain, resulting from the
disease in the ear from which he had suffered for
many years. The courage, the industry, and
great mental activity, which were the character-
istics of his life, remained with him till death,
which came as a merciful release from labour and
487
WESTMINSTER ABBEY
1873. suffering. He did not express any consciousness
ET. 70. of his approaching end, but for some time past
he had contemplated it with perfect equanimity.
His last letters, as well as published works, express
repeatedly his firm conviction that death was but
the gate of life. On a stray sheet among his
papers I have found the following words, which
must have been written towards the very end of
his life : —
The act of dying reminds me of the traveller who
has long been absent from his father's home and is
recalled to it perhaps more suddenly than he anticipated
or wished for. He leaves uncompleted designs and
enterprises on which he had engaged his love of adven-
ture, or his hopes of power or fortune. He calls to
mind commissions of grave import which his father had
entrusted to him, and which he has not fulfilled. His
cheek pales as he reflects on many a folly, many a fault,
against which he had been warned in vain. He cannot
go back to his father and say : — " Thy son has been
always heedful of thy lessons and worthy of thy love."
Fain would he linger on the road.
What greeting shall he receive at the bourne ?
Whom of those dear to his memory, but of whom
he has long lost sight, shall he find reunited to welcome
him at the threshold ?
Still, as nearer and nearer he comes to the sacred
precincts, farther and farther fade away his regrets for
the things left behind uncompleted. Softer and softer
sinks into his soul the tender remembrance that none
ever so loved as the father whom he has so often
forgotten. It is to a father's judgment that he is to
render the account of his wanderings — it is to a father's
home that he returns.
488
LETTER FROM BROWNING
From most of the chief men in literature 1873.
and politics Robert Lytton received letters of &T. 70.
sympathy with himself, and of admiration for
his distinguished father. Many of them, like
Disraeli, Gladstone, John Morley, John Forster,
etc., were also personal friends of himself or his
father, and wrote, therefore, with genuine feeling.
All these letters are of great interest to Lord
Lytton's descendants, but they contain little that
make them of interest to the public. One letter,
however, I think it worth while to quote because of
the simple and generous tribute which it contains
from a great man who might with justice have
felt that he had been insufficiently appreciated: —
19 WARWICK CRESCENT,
UPPER WESTBOURNE TERRACE, W.,
Jan. 21, 1873.
MY DEAR LYTTON — It is very sad that I should only
have to write to you on such occasions as the present.
I feel profoundly the loss of a great and gracious man
who, besides what he was to all the world, was ever kind
to myself when I had the good fortune to be in his
presence.
I don't know whether I ever told you that he was
the very first who ever said an encouraging word to me
in print — using the expression that " my genius might be
safely trusted " to do this or the other thing one day.
I never forgot it, amid many more things that call
for astonishment and admiration in his career, and 1
should have brought myself to say thus much, however
inadequate, to anybody who cared to hear it. How
then can I help telling you that my sympathy is
complete, while regrets of my own are abundant and, I
believe, enduring ? I rejoice that you have the best
489
WESTMINSTER ABBEY
1873. consolation in yourself and about you. May either
JET. 70. have its full effect. — Ever affectionately yours,
ROBERT BROWNING.
Lord Lytton had expressed a wish to be
buried very quietly in the grounds of the family
mausoleum at Knebworth, but when the honour
of a public funeral in Westminster Abbey was
offered, his son could not refuse such a national
recognition of the great place which his father
had occupied in the public life of his generation.
He is buried in the Chapel of St. Edmunds,
next to the grave of Humphrey Bourchier, whose
death at the Battle of Barnet had been mentioned
in The Last of the Barons, among warriors and
royal personages of a much earlier date, but close
to The Poets' Corner, where lie many of his
fellow-workers in literature. The stone above
his grave bears this inscription : —
EDWARD GEORGE EARLE LYTTON BULWER LYTTON.
Born 25 May 1803. Died 18 January, 1873.
1831-1841. Member of Parliament for St. Ives and for Lincoln.
. 1838. Baronet of the United Kingdom.
1852-1866. Knight of the Shire for the County of Hertford.
1858. One of Her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State..
Knight Grand Cross of St. Michael & St. George.
1866. Baron Lytton of Knebworth.
Laborious and distinguished in the field of intellectual activity,
Indefatigable and ardent in the cultivation and love of letters,
His genius as an author was displayed in the most varied forms,
Which have connected indissolubly
With every department of the literature of his time
The name of Edward Bulwer Lytton.
The funeral service took place on Saturday,
January 25, 1873. On Sunday, February 2,
49°
JOWETT'S SERMON
a funeral sermon was preached in the Abbey 1873.
by Professor Jowett. His words were simple MT. 70.
and sincere. After describing his first and only
meeting with Lord Lytton three weeks before
at Torquay, he said : —
He left upon me an impression of genuine kindness,
of endless activity of mind, of great knowledge, and
of a noble interest in literature and literary men. You
felt that he was a true man, who had nothing to conceal,
who was willing and able fearlessly to impart himself to
others. His voice is silent now — never more to be heard
by his family or friends. But in his writings he still
speaks to us. We read them over again and refresh
the memories of our youth, with mournful interest, now
that the author of them is taken from us. We are
astonished at their number, their variety, and their
excellence. In all three respects, taken together, they
are hardly to be paralleled, except by one other writer
in the English language. . . .
We may think of him now, after his long life of
toil, as laying his head on a pillow and taking his rest ;
and to us, who have not the gift of his genius, he has
left a splendid example of what may be effected by
continuous purpose in the course of many years. . . .
The omissions and shortcomings of his life he would
have been himself the first to confess and to lament.
" That which I have done may He, within Himself,
make pure." And so, with deep and affectionate
remembrances, as we believe he would have wished, and
not with formal panegyric, we bid farewell to one
of England's greatest writers, and one of the most
distinguished men of our time — and leave him to rest,
where his hope was, in the mercy of God.
491
CHAPTER VI
SUMMARY AND RETROSPECT
Calmly to time I leave these images
Of things experienced, suffer 'd, felt, and seen ;
Fruits shed or tempest-torn from changeful trees,
Shells murmuring back the tides in distant seas —
Signs where a Soul has been.
Poems.
IN the foregoing pages I have endeavoured to
trace the development of Lord Lytton's character
through a long life of incessant labour and mental
activity. The story which this book contains,
if read in conjunction with his own published
works, should enable the public to form a final
and correct judgment of the manner of man he
was. It only remains for me now to close my
narrative with a few words of general summary.
Lord Lytton undoubtedly ranks among the
leading men of his generation, remarkable rather
for the universality of his genius than for his
supremacy in any one particular sphere. He was
not supreme either in politics or literature,
yet in one respect he was unique. No other
man of his generation reached so high a level of
attainment in all the varied departments of his
492
UNIVERSALITY OF HIS GENIUS
activities. Distinguished as a novelist, as a
dramatist, and as an orator, he was also essentially
a man of the world. In business capacity,1 in
judgment, in imagination, in brain power, in
industry, he was equally remarkable — in the last
quality almost unrivalled. When the number
and variety of his works are considered, one is
struck with amazement at the amount of in-
tellectual labour which he crowded into the
seventy years of his life.
An old woman, who had once been one of
Lord Lytton's trusted domestic servants, is still
living in a cottage at Kneb worth. One day she
was talking to me about my grandfather, and in-
advertently used an expression which quaintly
summed him up more perfectly than any elaborate
description could have done. She was describing
his house at Copped Hall, where she had been
employed as caretaker, and added, " In one of
his attacks of fluency I nursed him there for many
weeks." " Pleurisy," I believe, was what she
meant, but " an attack of fluency " was a delicious
expression, and often while writing this book it
has occurred to me how frequently my grand-
father must have been subjected to such attacks.
Fluent he certainly was, and whether in private
correspondence, in official minutes, in verse, in
prose, or in public speaking, words seem to have
1 Mrs. Schuster, in a long letter to my father written from Torquay in
March, 1873, gives an account of her acquaintance with the first Lord
Lytton. In the course of this letter, she says, " My husband, who was a
great financier, used to say he would rather talk on financial subjects with
Lord Lytton than with most of the financial men in London."
493
SUMMARY AND RETROSPECT
flowed from him with an ease and abundance that
is truly astonishing.
In his Letters to John Bull, Lord Lytton
described himself as a Labourer and a Landowner.
He might have claimed that his life as a whole
was that of a Labourer and an Artist, but he was
not equally successful in each capacity. As a
labourer he was magnificent. No man ever
worked harder for so many years, or employed
more fully the talents which he possessed. As
an artist he had great merits, but also great faults.
Most men, however talented, are apt to fail in
something, and Lord Lytton's chief shortcoming
was in matters of taste. This defect was con-
spicuous in his writings ; it vitiated his style
and led him into that " premeditated fine
writing " which infuriated Thackeray. It was
apparent in the decoration of the houses which
he occupied — in his " Pompeian room " at Craven
Cottage, and the ornate Gothic " embellishments "
of his Hertfordshire home. It is also traceable
at times in his dealings with his wife, and it may
be seen here and there in his correspondence.
The faults in taste which we condemn to-day
were largely characteristic of the age in which
he lived. He was an artist in a bad period ; but
the blemish was also inherent in the man, and to
a certain extent it affected all his work, so that
while his other qualities compel admiration, his
lack of taste diminishes affection. Mr. S. C. Hall
says of him with some truth : —
He was a man more to be admired than loved ;
494
TRIBUTES OF AFFECTION
the sentiments he excited were not those of love ; if
he aimed at popularity it was not by winning his way
through the heart. Many men, vastly his inferiors in
intellectual and personal gifts, and in other advantages
that are great in the race for fame and fortune, left him
far behind.1
It must not be supposed, however, that Lord
Lytton was incapable of inspiring affection,
for there were many who loved him dearly.
Many of the letters from John Forster quoted
in this book are striking tributes of affection
from that prince of friends. Another of his con-
temporaries, and his greatest rival in literature,
Charles Dickens, used these words when pro-
posing his health at the farewell banquet to
Macready, in 1851 : —
In the path we have both trod I have uniformly
found him from the first, the most generous of men,
quick to encourage, slow to disparage, ever anxious to
assist the order of which he is so bright an ornament,
and never condescending to shuffle off and leave it
outside State rooms, as a Mussulman might leave his
slippers outside a mosque.
Among his papers I have found a large
number of letters from less distinguished
men, which speak in terms of the warmest
affection and gratitude of the assistance and
encouragement which they have received at his
hands. Lastly, in his own son he inspired a
veneration and love which amounted to a positive
1 Recollections of a Long Life.
495
SUMMARY AND RETROSPECT
worship. Writing to a friend after his father's
death, Robert Lytton said of him : —
He was more to me than a father to a son. The
strongest, wisest, truest friend, and we were bound
together by many peculiarities — ties woven out of very
bitter circumstances, in which affection had yet learnt
much sweet and tender consolation. I have been
accustomed to lean so implicitly on him for guidance and
support in all the difficulties and responsibilities of life,
that my forty years of personal experience have virtually
indeed been forty years of childhood — and this is the
first great trouble of my life which finds me without
my " ever present help in trouble."
All these tributes prove that though Lord
Lytton was not one of those authors who are
generally beloved, he was, at least, the truest of
friends to the few who were privileged to know
him intimately.
Lord Lytton's chief merit as an artist lay in
the fertility and power of his imagination, his
weakness in the observation and delineation of
human character. In an essay on " The Normal
Clairvoyance of the Imagination," he points out
how a writer may " see through other organs
than the eyes ; describe with an accuracy that
astounds a native the lands which he has never
beheld ; and read the most secret thoughts in the
hearts of men who lived a thousand years ago."
In the same essay he says of himself; —
I am not sure, indeed, that I could not describe the
things I imagine more exactly than the things I
496
HIS IMAGINATION
habitually see. I am not sure that I could not give a
more truthful picture of the Nile, which I have never
beheld except in my dreams, than I could of the little
lake at the bottom of my own park, on the banks of
which I loitered out my schoolboy holidays, and (could
I hallow their turf as Christian burial-ground) would
desire to choose my grave.
The truth of this observation is evident
throughout his work. It was in the clairvoyance
of his imagination that he excelled ; in personal
observation and accurate description he failed. In
his purely fanciful compositions like Zanoni, The
Coming Race, and some of his shorter tales, his
imagination attained its highest expression. As
a master of plot he was supreme ; and in his his-
torical novels his history is sounder, his political
insight deeper, than those of most authors who
have attempted this department of fiction. In
all his work he is remarkable for the rich stores
of information which he acquired on an infinite
variety of subjects, the vast range of his general
reading, and the suggestiveness with which his
mind plays over so many and such diverse fields
of thought and knowledge.
Thus, wherever Lord Lytton relied for his
strength upon a brilliant imagination and con-
scientious study, his work is that of a great
master. His weakness is more apparent, apart
from the defects of taste and style already
mentioned, in those books which depend rather
upon the truthful presentation of contemporary
life. His best character-drawing is to be found
VOL. II 497 2 K
SUMMARY AND RETROSPECT
in his later novels, more especially in The Caxtons
and My Novel ; and the study and presentation of
intellectual character was a special feature of his
work. Even here, however, the art belongs
rather to the department of imagination than of
observation.
Sympathy with mankind was not the main-
spring of his literary genius, and consequently
it was not in the subtle analysis of human
character and motives that he excelled. When
he comes to deal with contemporary life, the
descriptions of politics and society in which his
actors play their parts, as well as the person-
alities of the actors themselves, are for the most
part ineffective and unreal. His heroines are
stage heroines rather than critical studies of
human nature ; they seem to be based more
often on an ideal conception of womanhood,
which he fashioned out of his boyish romance,
than on any profound study of living women.
His heroes, too, are stage heroes, the same type
often recurring under different names, with such
variations only as the differing circumstances
require. None of them are, strictly speaking,
autobiographical studies, yet they all contain
some characteristics of the author. On this
point he makes Ernest Maltravers say : " I
wish I could draw myself. What author ever
could mimic his own features ? We are too
various and too complex to have a likeness in
any one of our creations." The fact is that
though Lord Lytton never portrayed himself, for
498
A MAKER OF TRAGEDY
few of his characters are real portraits of any
human being, his typical hero was to a large
extent the embodiment, in imagination, of many
of his own sentiments and moods.
I have ventured to make these criticisms, and
they are made as personal impressions, which my
readers may or may not agree with, because the
romantic vein, so much in vogue in the early nine-
teenth century, and generally unsympathetic to the
present generation, explains much in the circum-
stances of Lord Lytton's own life. Most of his
troubles and sorrows arose from the fatal tendency
to exaggerate incidents that were comparatively
small. Having filled many books with the
imaginary tragedies of other people's lives, it
was not to be wondered at that he should have
shown too great a readiness to make real tragedy
out of the circumstances of his own. It has
been seen how the pride that took offence at
a mere expression, the over -insistence upon
points of " honour," and the indulgence in long
verbal explanations and recriminations, led to
a temporary estrangement from his mother,
occasional misunderstandings with his son, and a
life-long feud with his wife. It is impossible to
read the story of his life without feeling that
much, if not all, of the bitterness which it contains
might have been prevented by a determination
to avoid heroics and to maintain a true sense of
proportion between the various incidents which
go to make up a situation. People have more
control over their own destinies than is generally
499
SUMMARY AND RETROSPECT
admitted. Those who are on the look-out for
tragedy will find easily enough material at hand
out of which to make it, whilst those who make
up their minds at all costs to avoid it will
generally succeed in doing so. Unfortunately, Lord
Lytton belonged to the former class, and bitter
was the price which he had to pay in con-
sequence.
His faults in style laid Lord Lytton open to
the censure of literary critics, and his desire to
escape their criticisms, which he always believed
were based upon personal hostility to himself,
induced him to publish many of his works
anonymously. It is an interesting fact, however,
that while he has never found favour with the
critical few, he has never lost his popularity
with the general reading public. One may say
of him, as he said himself of Ernest Maltravers :
" In return for individual enemies, what a
noble recompense to have made the Public
itself your friend, perhaps even Posterity your
familiar ! " From the day when Pelham first
sprang into favour to the end of his life every
successive publication passed through a great
many editions. His first novel, Falkland^ and
his first play, The Duchess de la Valliere^ were
failures, so also was The Siamese Twins ; but with
these exceptions every one of his works was
successful with the public, and from first to last
enormous sums were paid for his copyrights.
Of his last work, Kenelm Chillingly ', 3150 copies
were sold on the day of its publication. This
500
SUCCESS OF HIS PUBLIC LIFE
remarkable success was reached in every depart-
ment which he touched. His novels are known
all over the world, and have been translated into
many languages. His plays held the stage
throughout his lifetime, and some of them
have been revived with success in the present
generation. Though his reputation as a poet
is not great, yet the political portraits in The
New Timon are still remembered and quoted ; and
Colburn, its publisher, told the author that this
poem had had a larger sale than any poem since
Byron. His pamphlet on The Crisis reached a
phenomenal and unprecedented sale, and had the
reputation of deciding an election. In politics
he held high office as Secretary of State, and
some of his speeches take rank among the
highest specimens of Parliamentary oratory.
Of Lord Lytton's reputation as an orator it is
now only possible to judge from the statements of
contemporaries and from reading his printed
speeches. The excellence of the latter is cer-
tainly of a very high order. Their arguments are
well arranged, their reasoning is broadly sensible
rather than subtle, and their language is always
extremely forcible. That they made a great
impression upon the audiences to which they
were delivered is undoubted. Justin MacCarthy,
who was by no means partial to his merits,
makes the following admission in his preface to
William White's book, from which I have
already quoted : —
You might try to analyse away as long as you chose
501
SUMMARY AND RETROSPECT
the reality and the merit of Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton's
success as a speaker, but you could not reason away the
fact that he was for the time a great success, and that
he crowded and held the House of Commons in a
manner never surpassed by any parliamentary orator
within my recollection.
When all these facts are remembered, it is
impossible to deny that Lord Lytton was one of
the giants of his day. We may criticise him
freely, but no criticism can deprive him of the
commanding position which he occupied. The
most remarkable fact, indeed, about his public
life was its success. His private life was in
striking contrast. This book contains little
record of real happiness. Ill-health and great
loneliness are prominent features in it. Though
Lord Lytton had a few friends of high intel-
lectual ability, he associated chiefly with persons
intellectually his inferiors. While his remark-
able talents and wide reading made him a
most interesting acquaintance, his deafness, his
sensitiveness, and his irritability made him a
difficult companion to live with. In early life
his excessive literary occupations left him little
time for social recreation. His tastes were
naturally domestic, and if he had chosen for
his wife a woman of a more conventional and
phlegmatic temperament, who would have pro-
vided him with a tranquil home, his character
might have developed on wholly different lines.
Though subjected to the flattery of amorous
admirers and to the temptations common to all
502
SADNESS OF HIS PRIVATE LIFE
young men who achieve success in any public
capacity, he remained indifferent to them. With
the break-up of his domestic happiness every-
thing became changed. He was then forced
to seek outside his home the consolations of
love which could not be obtained within, but
such consolations were not without their bitter
fruit. Married to a woman he had ceased
to love, and by whom he was pursued with
vindictive hate, debarred from ever obtaining
a release from this bondage and marrying again
where his heart was bestowed, he could never
know the peace and happiness of a home life,
nor the love of woman unaccompanied by sin
and scandal. In a sketch of his own character,
written at the age of forty-three, there is a
passage which expresses the pathos of such a
situation.
"That which I desire," he says, "is affection, and
this it is which captivates me. I cannot exist without
the interchange of affection, and I can find affection
nowhere so strong and so pure as in the heart of a
woman. Therefore a woman's love has been necessary
to my existence, and I have paid for it the usual
penalty, in error and in scandal. This besom d1 aimer
has involved me in the most serious errors of my life,
embarrassed me in complicating all my duties, and often
placed me unhappily at war with the world. I grant
this ; yet had I, when I could no longer love and esteem
my wife, somewhere about the age of 26,* shut my
1 It was in 1833 that Lord Lytton first became seriously estranged from
his wife. He was then thirty years old, but he was always mistaken as to
his own age — vide the Autobiography.
5°3
SUMMARY AND RETROSPECT
heart to the want it craved for, sure am I that though
in the eyes of the world I should have been a more
respectable man, I should have become a much more
unamiable one. It has been the interchange of affec-
tion with some loving and loyal nature that has kept
me from becoming a cold and ambitious egotist, and in
reality reconciled me with the world with which, in seem-
ing, it often placed me at war."
Side by side with this private confession may
be placed a passage in The New Timon, which
expresses rather more crudely the average man's
view of actions which he commits, yet knows
to be indefensible : —
I tell of guilt — and guilt all men must own,
Who but avow the loves their youth has known.
Preach as we will, in this wrong world of ours,
Man's fate and woman's are contending powers ;
Each strives to dupe the other in the game, —
Guilt to the victor — to the vanquished shame !
Nay, I approve not of the code I find,
Not less the wrong to which the world is kind.
This is a common but mischievous attitude,
and so long as men continue to describe and
accept as " found " a code of morals which in
reality they establish though they cannot defend,
so long will such a code be preserved and con-
doned as " the way of the world."
My task is now finished, and the picture
which I have drawn I leave to others to examine
and criticise. Though the personality which
stands revealed in Lord Lytton's private corre-
spondence is not essentially different from that
which may be deduced from his published
5°4
THE END
writings, it is at least more genuine and more
human. Of his errors he was quite conscious
himself, and for most of them he paid the price.
I have not attempted to conceal them, because
from the errors of great men one can usually
learn more even than from their virtues.
Looking backward through his life from its
close, one must acknowledge the accuracy with
which it was foreseen and summarised by Mirny,
the gipsy girl who interpreted the lines in his
hand when he was yet but twenty-one. " You
are a prosperous gentleman. You will be much
before the world. There is plenty of good
fortune and success in store for you. You'll
hunger for love all your life, and you will have
much of it ; but less satisfaction than sorrow."
His life, if not a happy one to himself, was
full and useful, and has given happiness to
thousands of others. He had many noble
qualities which were faithfully employed in the
service of mankind. Having studied for two
years, with the sympathy of a relation, but also
with the impartiality of a stranger, the record of
his achievements, my final impression is one
of admiration and gratitude for the splendid
inheritance which he has bequeathed to those
who come after him.
5°5
APPENDIX I
LETTERS TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL
1846. &T. 43
LETTER I
"DEAR LORD JOHN RUSSELL — In the midst of cir-
cumstances not encouraging to ordinary Politicians, yet
not unanalogous to those in which great men have laid
the foundations of solid power, you have assumed the
reins of Government. Hitherto, in our time, each new
Administration has been the result of fierce contest
between strongly marked and long hereditary parties,
ending in the passionate triumph which the Aristocracy
have forced upon the popular faction, or the popular
faction carried over the Aristocracy amidst the fears of
Property and the formidable irritation of the Church.
Your Government proceeds not from the victory of your
own party but from the dissolution of that which has
opposed it. Hostile elements have crumbled away.
Like Ivanhoe you do not win the victory by force of
arms. Your adversary, suffocated in his helmet, yields
without a blow.
" It is not my intention to review the causes which
have led to this peaceful surrender of the maxima opima
of office. I shall pass no judgment upon the startling
inconsistencies which achieved the boldest experiment
5°7
APPENDIX I
yet made upon the complicated interests of a mixed
community, and broke up the powerful party which
the principle of resistance to that experiment (in forms
however modified and cautious) had animated with
passion and disciplined into unity. Those inconsis-
tencies justified the resentment of men who saw in
them perfidy to obligations and contempt of pledges,
while unquestionably the same inconsistencies are elevated
from errors into virtues in the eyes of such as can regard
them as the manly, if protracted, recognition of truth and
the sacrifice of rooted prejudices, of party considerations,
of vulgar ambition, nay, even of some portion of what
Englishmen value most, the reputation of good faith
and steadfast honour, to solemn convictions of the wel-
fare of our common country.
" I do not address to you, my Lord, this letter with
the views of a partizan. As slightly as possible would
I refer to an angry and stormy past. My desire is to
escape from its strife to that serener future which the
breaking of the cloud opens to our survey. Standing
aloof from all recent discussions on the Corn Laws, I
have not been subjected to the influences which heat
opinion into the passion of the adversary, or the zeal
of the convert. I believe still, as I have believed ever,
that on both sides of the question there is great ex-
aggeration ; that the benefit will be less to commerce,
the evil less to agriculture, than stated by the eloquence
of leaguers, or proved by the calculations of Pro-
tectionists. The effect upon the capital invested in
land and upon the condition of that part of the popula-
tion whose existence rests upon the prosperity of the
farmer, must depend upon the rapidity or the slowness
with which foreign land can be brought into sufficient
cultivation to influence materially the prices of the
Home market. For this cultivation capital is requisite,
and seeing that even in England our greatest difficulty
508
LETTERS TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL
is to obtain an adequate investment of capital in land,
that what our farmers want most is not skill but money,
that what our landlords are without is not the desire for
improvement but the funds to bestow on it, I do not think
that capital can be so promptly and so largely applied to
the corn fields of our poor and distant neighbours as
to force an abundance prematurely. According to the
ordinary progress of nations, while land abroad is
gradually redeemed from the waste, and its produce
brought easily to the sea-port, our own population
will increase, new products will be won from our soil,
labour at home will adapt itself to the demand, labour
and price abroad will rise with employment and im-
provement— and if a crisis of suffering and panic come,
it will be brief and merciful. I have rather the hope
that our free havens will form depots for the supply of
corn to other nations, that the American and Polish
harvests, transported indeed to our shores, will be
destined to feed the increasing populations of our
allies and neighbours, and that while we exchange
our manufactures for corn, we shall exchange again
that corn for the bullion which will improve orr own
factories and mature our own soil.
" Still, I regard the experiment as one of vast hazard
— one of which no experience justifies us in predicting
the result, one which may bring social alterations little
thought of amidst the clamour for that mere commercial
aphorism — ' Buy in the cheapest market, sell in the
dearest ; ' one which, in spite of the contempt with
which the assertion has been met, depends for safety
and success upon the peace in Europe which no human
wisdom may suffice to preserve, and the fortune of our
fleets which no human valour can guarantee.
" I allude to the debates which occupied and the
transactions which closed the parliamentary proceedings
of 1 846, simply to show how natural is that neutrality
5°9
APPENDIX I
with which by the great body of the Public an ad-
ministration so formed is as yet regarded. If the minds
of some men have been greatly exasperated, it is not
against the new Government but the old. Those
whom you have displaced have no just resentment in
your success. They fell not from the vigour of your
opposition, but amidst your support ; you and your
friends swelled the majority which carried their own
measures. The measures carried, their power expired
of itself. Your administration, therefore, provokes no
bitterness in the supporters of the late Government,
while it fulfils but the end for which the real opposition
represented in the Lower House by Lord George
Bentinck mainly strove. On the other hand, it has
been no special triumph to that vigorous band of free
traders to whom the credit of the recent changes has
been so popularly conceded. Their triumph was
achieved in the conversion of Sir Robert Peel, and their
tone is less that of congratulation to his successor than
of condolence with his fall. Hence no administration
was ever commenced with less angry invectives or less
noisy rejoicings.
" Most administrations enter office with a programme
of the proceedings which are to characterise their policy
and record its benefits. It is not your fault that this
programme is less stirring and animated than that of
your predecessors. It is not your fault if reforms with
which you have identified an illustrious career are now
effected, and you have reduced the number of abuses
which you can promise to remove.
u The utmost verge to] which the spirit of progress
will bear you, supported by Property ever cautious,
and Intelligence never rash, you have well-nigh reached
— so far, at least, as that progress is directed to objects
purely political, ameliorations purely constitutional.
" Rightly, to my judgment, therefore, have you turned
LETTERS TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL
your attention to those evils which lie below the surface
of party. The ground is clear .of weeds, but the rich-
ness of the harvest will depend on upturning the subsoil.
Wisely have you seized the occasion, whilst party
voices are mute, to address yourself to the wants of a
nation. Nobly, if you fulfill the mission you announce,
will you have crowned a life which, more than any
other man's life since the Restoration, has so connected
itself with truths vindicated and things done — that
your biography is the history of great events. Nor
will your latest be your least achievement, if you warm
into action those words so dead and cold on the lips ot
sciolists, and in the pages of dreamers — SOCIAL REFORM.
" Social Reform ! Your lordship could not be dis-
appointed if the phrase created a languid expectation.
It is a sound to carry delight to the heart of some
earnest philanthropist, or to set in movement the
restless brain of some speculator in moral problems.
But the mass of the public says * Good,' and settles
back to the business of life. You, with your large
experience of mankind, were doubtless prepared for
this apathy. You knew that interest in Ministerial
announcements is proportioned, not to the gravity of
the undertakings proposed, but to their connection
with the questions which most angrily divided our
opinions, or recently animated our passions.
" The working classes in our towns have been hitherto
aroused only by reforms connected with constitutional
change. They have been so impressed by their favourite
orators with the belief that you must change a con-
stitution in order to effect a reform, that they have
neglected even to think about reforms which the
present machinery suffices to effect. They have been
told so often that the storm clears the air, that they look
upon storms as the only purifiers of the atmosphere.
" The middle class, into which it has been the object
5"
APPENDIX I
of all recent legislation to throw the preponderating
power, and for which, indeed, we have of late years
almost exclusively legislated (rendering, it is true,
benefits to other orders, but only indirectly, and as the
contingent results of liberal concessions to the one
essentially favoured) — the middle class, I say, engaged
as it is in money-making, and not seeing exactly how
social reforms are to influence the money markets, or
enlarge its sphere of pecuniary speculation, limits its
expectations to some scheme for the regulation of
railroads.
" The more privileged orders — in whom the spirit
of party is, rigidly speaking, the strongest, foresee
in legislation for purely moral ameliorations no
opening for the appeal to prejudice and the stimulus
to passion which are the immemorial resources of party
chiefs.
" But below the surface-public, is ever that important
and thoughtful essence of the life of nations — the
tranquil people. Too much do we confound the
public with the people. As well confound the cuticle
with the heart, or the wave with the ocean."
The end of this letter and the beginning of the next
are missing, but the following fragment gives a
sufficient indication of the argument which he was
developing : —
LETTER II
(Fragment)
" Heaven forbid that I should undervalue the blessings
of a free Government or underrate the benefits of
commerce, yet day by day we grow more convinced
that these suffice not for themselves. They hallow the
ground, they build the temple, they do not ensure the
512
LETTERS TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL
purity of the worship nor the presence of the Gods.
But when you enlighten the liberty you have effected,
when you ennoble that desire of gain which impels your
commerce, you do more than improve institutions, you
elevate a race. Give universal suffrage, and if ignorance
is prevalent, what profit in the votes of a million fools ?
Open all harbours to your trade, and what profits to
your operatives, if their limbs are stunted and their
frames rotted under the fierce exactions made upon
their toil ? Exalt the standard of opinion, elevate the
condition of the masses, and liberty becomes the privilege
of thoughtful minds, commerce the natural leveller of
social inequalities."
The letter evidently went on to deal with the
problems of national education, for it concludes as
follows : —
" To the people two kinds of education are necessary
— ist, the intellectual ; 2nd, the industrial. It would
be well if, in the last, one establishment in every district
could, though not wholly maintained by the Govern-
ment, receive its encouragement and support. Such
establishments would vary in the details of instruction,
according to the habits of the surrounding population.
In provinces purely agricultural, the best modes of
agriculture would be taught ; in provinces bordering
on manufacturing towns, the instruction would assume
a higher class, and comprehend mechanical philosophy
and the arts of design.
" In the metropolis itself (too much neglected) such
schools would inculcate various branches of industrial
knowledge to the unfortunate children of both sexes
who now are literally sent to the house of correction,
or transported to penal settlements, ' to keep them out
of harm's way.' It is but the other day that I read
VOL. ii 513 2 L
APPENDIX I
in the newspapers an account of three young girls
charged with some petty theft for which one, as the
oldest offender, was sentenced to transportation for
seven years ; the other two were let off with three
months' imprisonment. The one transported drops
her most grateful courtesy ; she thanks the Court for
sending her from this country where she can come to
no good ; she declares that it was from the hope of
that sentence that she committed, and induced her
accomplices to commit, the offence. The other two
hear the mild sentence of three months' imprisonment
with dismay ; they burst into tears ; they implore the
Court to send them abroad ; they say in the same
words as the envied convict, * We can come to no
good ; we are poor creatures, without father or mother ;
we can't get our bread honestly ; transport us.'
Moved by this prayer the Court positively assents, and
those poor young Englishwomen, whose very petition
shows their hatred of vice, are sent out from our
community. My Lord, if we had such establishments
as I describe, do you not think it would have been
better to have sent them to school, to have taught them
how to get their bread in their own land, and to have
taught their children after them to thank heaven that
they had been born under a Government which aided
the homeless and the orphan in the struggle not to sin ?
Such a Government you have the power to make your
own."
LETTER III
"DEAR LORD JOHN — Permit me now the natural
corollary from the propositions in my last.
" I enter upon a field hitherto generally neglected by
statesmen, lying remote from party discussion, and not
at the first glance comprehended in the chart of
popular reform.
LETTERS TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL
" Yet this is the true nursery-ground from which all
that can fertilise the mind, and enrich the industry of
thought, is gathered and transplanted.
" You do not complete by a sound scheme the moral
and intellectual culture of the nation if you neglect the
parent-ground of all cultivation. Consummate the
survey of popular schools by considering the arch-
normal school of all — the literature, the art, the science,
which furnish the materials of all education, which
constitute the province and provide the nourishment of
moral and intellectual growth. These are the domain
of the mind. Instruction is but the implement that
tills it.
" Is it not a trick and a delusion to the young student
to coax and decoy him on to that point in which he
may become a useful craftsman, an intelligent drudge,
but to hold before him, as a terrible example of
punishment for excess, the rewards you will bestow on
him if his zeal kindle him to genius, if his toils swell
to the originality of knowledge ? Maintain your
present modes of rewarding literature, and you do not
act fairly to the multitude if you do not proclaim that,
if one of the pupils you summon to your schools should
so far excel the rest as to be in his turn the diffuser of
instruction and delight, you have for him no employ-
ment in your State, no prize amongst its honours ; and
that when life, health, industry, and talent are fairly
worn out, and the fragments of them left, all you can
offer him is the chance of an annuity which you would
apologise for offering to your valet !
" You count upon awaking a moral ambition for
intellectual eminence amongst the people — you need
their co-operation. Are these to be gained while you
hold up the beggary of literature to public pity and
disdainful wonder ? No, my Lord ; if you invite your
acute and practical countrymen to share in the banquet
APPENDIX I
of letters, you must give some honour to those who
find the feast.
" Nor do I believe that a much more popular act even
with the populace could be conceived than one which
should deal with the peaceful civilisers of the nation in
a spirit more worthy of their merits and our obligations.
For the literary man, beset with rivals in his own
sphere, persecuted as he often is by the opinions he
disturbs, calumniated by the jealousies he provokes, is
always popular with the masses. Like themselves, he
is a workman. There is a secret but an imperishable
bond between the writer and the people. Not the
silkworm lives more for the weaver than the author for
mankind. If in his own character he be the most
selfish of egotists, in his character of writer he exists
but for others. There is no people where there are no
writers. I submit to you, therefore, my Lord, some
extension of the Fund set apart for art, literature, and
science. It is not for me to presume to suggest the
sum requisite for such a purpose, though I think a
sum not larger than that devoted by the State to a
single one of its principal officers will suffice. I would
only venture to suggest a wider range between the
maximum and the minimum of the existing limit.
You cannot at present give more than ^300 a year to
your greatest poet, or your ablest philosopher. You
do not give to the last, and he is not necessarily the
least upon the list, a smaller pittance than £50.
Would it be too much to hope that the maximum
might reach ^500 a year, and the minimum not
dwindle below £100?
"Yet I cannot consider that this pension list, whatever
its amount, does of itself suffice for the object in view,
viz. : — the exaltation of intellectual advantages in the
eyes of those whom you summon to cultivate them.
Observe that here, and indeed throughout, I argue less
LETTERS TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL
on behalf of literary men themselves than of the people,
whom you would allure to partake of the benefits
conferred by them. Literature may exist in its highest
forms, though a Government give no honour to the
work, and though the nation starve the professor.
Don Quixote is not the less genially produced, though
Cervantes composes it as a prisoner, and goes to his
grave a pauper. But it is wholly another question if
you desire to make literature universal. In that case,
the multitude are attracted by the honour it receives.
No State can busy itself in exciting genius to
masterpieces — all that it should do is to excite the
people to mental exertions, and prove to them that
whatever is excellent interests the State, and has a
claim to its distinctions and rewards.
" I do not advance the absurd doctrine that because
a man is a writer he is therefore fit for public
employment. I only complain that it often happens
that because he is a writer all public employment is
shut out from him. I know a melancholy instance,
not a rare one, of a man who had not only pleased the
public, but who had materially served the Government
by his compositions. A periodical in which he was
engaged changed its politics ; with that change (for he
changed not) he lost the sole certain source of his exist-
ence.1 I loved this man, and respected him. I knew
from his inalienable probity, his intense application, his
great adaptability of resources, his ready promptitude,
and his docile understanding, that he could become an
invaluable public servant. My Lord, I wearied such
friends as I possessed in the Government of that day
on his behalf. They acknowledged his services, they
recognised his talents ; even for my sake, I believe,
they were willing to assist him. But their answer was,
' What is in our gift for a literary man ? Had he been
1 Laman Blanchard. See Vol. II. p. 135.
517
APPENDIX I
a lawyer, had he been a clergyman, had he been a
soldier or sailor, something might be found. For a
writer we have nothing.' And nothing my poor client
obtained.
" What are the results of education, carried to the
highest ? Art, literature, science. These are the triple
flowers of the divine plant, and these flowers in return
give the seed from which the plant is eternally renewed.
Do not deceive yourself with the belief that you can
make intellectual culture the noble necessity of the
community, unless you can show to the community
that you are prepared to honour the highest results to
which culture can arrive. Is it so now ? Look to the
encouragement which the State gives to art, literature,
and science. To art, beyond the mere grant to a
society wholly irresponsible, it affords no encouragement
at all. You have a National Gallery for the dead — a
fitting institution to which I give all the homage that
is due. But you have no gallery for the living. Of
late (and this is an era) you have afforded some
stimulus to one branch in art, that of fresco-painting.
But this, you are already aware, is extremely partial in
its effects. You do not find, I apprehend, the highest
of your artists amongst the competitors, partly because
it hardly suits their dignity to submit their works to a
tribunal, the judgment of which is not precisely as
sound as that of the Medici ; partly because fresco-
painting is not perhaps that kind of painting in which
their genius has been taught to excel. I do not blame
this attempt to encourage one department of art — I
applaud it. But do not think this is analogous to a
generous and genuine homage to art's haughty and
multiform divinity. We are told by an old Greek
author of some wise man .who thought to save his bees
the trouble of ,i flight to Hymettus — cut off their wings
and set the flowers before them. The bees did not
LETTERS TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL
flourish upon the allowance. Let art select its own
flowers at its own will, then buy the honey if you
please. In a word, add to your National Gallery
for the old masters a gallery for the living. Be not
led away by the notion that the public are all-sufficient
patrons. The public buy what they require, and that
is all. Those individuals that compose the public have
no houses large enough for historical pictures. They
have not always the taste for high art. They have not
always the money to pay the high prices that modern
painters are compelled to charge if they really devote
long time and patient labour to their cfafs-tfafuvrf.
Hence most painters, depending solely on the patron-
age of the public, either turn portrait painters (for
every one likes a portrait of himself, his wife, his baby,
or even his pet dog) ; or they, find that, while the
large or elaborate picture obtains no buyers, the small
squares of canvas hastily struck off, coming more within
the means of the public, bring large returns. The
public love names. A man likes to say, ' I have a
picture by Tinto or Finto,' and he thinks that
equivalent to saying, * I have Tinto's masterpiece ; '
or, * This picture took Finto three patient years to
complete.' It is but just to our artists to give them
that higher field of emulation which every other State
professing to honour art liberally bestows.
" I have already touched, my Lord, as connected with
this part of my subject, the main blot upon the justice
of the State and the gratitude of the people. It is the
provision at present allowed to the literature, art, and
science of three nations — a yearly pension list of £1200
a year. Just conceive the false position of a statesman
calling aloud upon the people to read, and write, and
study, while he is forced (if he speak truth) to acknow-
ledge that the worst thing that can* happen to any pupil
so encouraged, is to read deeply enough to instruct
APPENDIX I
others, write well enough to charm multitudes, grow
entitled to the gratitude of his country, and be referred
by it in old age and sickness to a claim upon the
Pension List !
" Surely, if your Lordship will look somewhat
narrowly into the various departments of State patron-
age, some places may be found for which literary
capacities may be no disqualification, which, as a general
rule, might be set apart for those familiarised to the
habit of acquiring details with ease, and conveying
information with vigour and precision. I should not
expect to see such places fall to the lot of the higher
and more popular authors, to whom, not from merit so
much, but from the choice of subject, literature is an
available profession ; the choice would be better made
from writers of a graver class, and to whom business
would not be incompatible with the occasional exercise
of their abstruse studies. His duties at the India
Board have not unfitted Mr. J. Mill for the composition
of his noble History of Logic, and the History of Logic
did not unfit him for the India Board. A few such
selections made with judgment and discretion would do
much to render literature a thing less apart from the
State, would afford to the writer the easy leisure for
many a valuable work, give to the Government many a
competent and intelligent administrant, and afford to
the people no uninstructive examples of your sincerity
in the homage you assert to knowledge.
"Beyond this, and with far greater diffidence, I venture
to hazard two suggestions, istly, In any great scheme
of national education, you will scarcely suffer, I think,
your endeavours to cease with the age of childhood.
Man, when engaged in labour, always remains a child.
Always do we have something to learn ; but mostly
those employed in practical pursuits, in which everyday
science hints some improvement, or startles prejudice
520
LETTERS TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL
with some innovation. Hence, imperceptibly — hence,
in the recognition of this truth — arose the Mechanics'
Institutes, colleges for the labouring adult.
" Of these auxiliaries already founded, but far from
maturely efficient, I apprehend your scheme for diffusing
knowledge will scarcely neglect the valuable co-
operation.
" There is nothing (your observation has doubtless
already made you aware) which is more readily sought
after in these societies than lectures by competent
persons. Would it be possible to establish a certain
number of professorships, with moderate salaries, but
some social designations of respect, whose duty it might
be to teach to audiences so prepared to favour, and so
interested on the subject, all that science in its rapid
progress can bring to bear upon their calling. In
manufacturing towns or in agricultural districts, I need
scarcely say that such discourses from authorities of
high repute would signally facilitate the admission of
improvements, would communicate the experiences and
inventions of other countries, would diffuse and circulate
truths that come home to the business of the listeners,
and add to the wealth of the nation. Salaries so given
would be repaid to the public in every field where a new
crop is produced or the old increased ; in every factory
where the improvement of a machine lightens the labour
or refines the work. That in such an undertaking, if
put on its right footing, and treated with dignity by
the State, you would have the cheerful assistance of the
first scientific teachers who have turned their philosophy
to such practical uses, I have no doubt. And here
again you would effect that which to satiety I seek to
impress, viz. connection between the highest intellect
and the most popular instruction.
" 2ndly, My Lord — and this proposition I make
still more timidly than the first ; aware as I am of the
521
APPENDIX I
ridicule which, in a system profoundly aristocratic,
attaches to all attempts to claim for merit some slight
share in the distinction monopolised by rank — or in a
community mainly occupied by traffic, to inculcate the
doctrine, that there are other rewards than money.
" The distinctions of honour that England affords are
two-fold — that of titles — that of decorations. With
the exception of knighthood, titles are hereditary.
They require, therefore, and justly, the possession of a
certain fortune to save any privileged order from the
worst curse that can befall it — the sullen pride or the
abject neediness of beggared rank. Necessarily, then,
such titles are not open to all merit ; they are open only
to merit accompanied with wealth ; they are almost at
the command of wealth without the merit. Sir Robert
Peel offered Mr. Southey a baronetcy, which Mr.
Southey sensibly refused on the plea of want of fortune
to support the dignity. So obvious is it that these
hereditary titles cannot answer the purpose of awarding
merit or honouring intellect independent of fortune,
that I need waste no words in support of so evident a
proposition.
" The order of knighthood unconnected with decora-
tions has been so perverted from its original character
and intention — so separated from all dignifying
association, and appropriated to civic offices, to some
legal appointments, with now and then an exception in
favour of medical men — that it would be far easier to
give weight to a new title than to restore its noble
character to an old one so long degraded.
" The Crown has next at its gift the decorations of the
Garter and the Bath. The first, in its origin an
essentially military distinction, is now almost the
exclusive property of royal foreigners and the heads of
our great houses. A Garter is vacant ; you have but
to consider who is the man belonging to the party of
522
LETTERS TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL
the Minister of the highest rank, to be sure that the
vacancy will fall upon him. He has a right to com-
plain of slight if he is overlooked. The Order of the
Bath, which was at its origin an almost purely civil
dignity, now supersedes the Garter, and becomes a
military distinction, with some reservations^ favour of
diplomatists. The orders of Scotland and Ireland are
the privileges of the nobles in those sections of the
empire.
" For the people there is, then, no distinction what-
ever. Every other Government, even under absolute
monarchies, has at its disposal various dignities which
are objects of emulation to the mass of the people. In
that country which boasts itself most free, in which the
people are professedly the most regarded — in which
certainly the people are the real source of all greatness
and all wealth — in that country alone the people are ex-
cluded from every participation in the testimonials to
merit or the marks of honour. Howsoever a man may
have adorned or served his country, unless he is
comparatively rich, you can give him no title. Unless
he is an earl, you cannot give him the Garter ; unless
he is soldier, sailor, or diplomatist, you cannot give
him the Bath ; and even the dignity of Doctor is con-
ferred by the Universities, not the State. Would it be
against the spirit of the constitution, against the temper
of the age, against the principles by which ambition is
stirred and emulation aroused, if the Crown were advised
to institute a new order, open to the mass of this great
people, and to which merit, comprehending indeed birth
and fortune, but wholly independent of them, should
constitute the sole claim ? An order which the
Marquess of Northampton might share with Professor
Airy or Mr. Babbage ; Lord Mahon with Mr. Moore ;
Lord George Hill, who has improved the population of
a district, with the manufacturer who has invented
523
APPENDIX I
some signal improvement in a machine. I pass over, as
wholly irrelevant, the ridicule of would-be sages upon
medals of silver and shreds of ribbon. All things,
even to gold itself, have their value, as the tokens of
what society admits them to represent. I could under-
stand the ridicule, if in England you had no titles, and
no decorations at all ; but I cannot understand that you
should admit their partial application — that you should
allow how powerfully such incentives act upon men of
one rank, and yet suppose them no incentives at all to
men of another ; that you should allow that their hope
animates the noblest heart that beats beneath a uniform,
and suppose it would be silent in the heart which human
nature influences under a frock-coat. The question is
not whether the State should have the gift of conferring
marks of distinction — it has them already ; but whether
in a free country they should be confined to wealth, rank,
and military achievements ; whether, at a time when you
exhort the people to intellectual cultivation, intellectual
eminence should be excluded from the favour of the
Sovereign ; whether alone to art, letters, and the
peaceful improvers of mankind, the fount of honour
shall be sealed.
On these considerations I hazard the suggestion of
an order to which merit shall give the claim — an order
emanating from the Sovereign, but accessible to all
her people — its decorations not given exclusively to
the merit which is poor and low-born, or society, at
once aristocratical and commercial, would not value
them. But he indeed knows little of our higher
orders who will not allow that no aristocracy, except
the Athenian, ever produced in all departments so large
a proportion of eminent men. There will be selections
enough from them to give to such a brotherhood what-
ever grace merit may take from high station ; only let
these lists be open to all competitors who write upon
524
LETTERS TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL
their shield, * Service to Great Britain,' whether that
service be rendered in arts, letters, inventive improve-
ment, great virtue, or useful deeds, let no party favour
promote the undeserving or slight the meritorious.
Surely such an institution is in harmony with the age.
When Napoleon made himself member of the Institute,
he said — * I am sure to be understood by the lowest
drummer.' If one distinguishes men into the classes
of military and civil, one establishes two orders, while
there is but one nation ; if one decrees honour only to
soldiers, the nation goes for nothing — La nation ne
serait plus rien ; so said Napoleon when he founded the
Legion of Honour — an institution which the subsequent
abuses that have perverted its intention and lowered its
dignity do not the less prove to have been based upon
the profoundest views of human nature, and in the true
spirit of generous legislation.
" Here, my Lord, I close these suggestions — all, from
the establishment of a village school, to the honours due
to those deserts which each pupil sent to that school
may attain — all belonging, I believe, to any scheme,
wide, sound, and comprehensive, for the encouragement
of education and the diffusion of intelligence.
" Found schools and starve the scholar — declaim on
the rewards of intellectual accomplishment and civil
virtue, and then exclude the highest specimens your
declamation can produce from the service of the State
and the honours of the Crown, and I warn you that you
will place your edifice upon a hollow foundation, whilst
you reject your surest co-operator in the moral spirit
your system should animate and evoke ; and that the
common-sense of mankind will see that your object is
not for the advancement of knowledge, but to contract
its height whilst demarking its circumference. As the
Chinese dwarf their oaks, you place a hoop of iron
round the roots which you plant ; and thus you will
525
APPENDIX I
have stunted into a toy the branches which should be
vocal with the birds of heaven, and the stem that should
shoot the loftier with every storm that assails it. — I
have the honour to be, dear Lord John Russell, &c.,
&c., &c.,
EDWARD LYTTON.
526
APPENDIX II
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ismael : An Oriental Tale, with Other Poems. J. Hatchard & Son,
1820.
*Delmour ; or, A Tale of a Sylphid, and Other Poems. Carpenter &
Son, 1823.
Sculpture. A poem which obtained the Chancellor's Medal at the
Cambridge Commencement, July 1825.
Weeds andWildflowers. Privately printed in Paris, 1826.
* Falkland. Henry Colburn, 1827.
*0'Neilli or, The Rebel. H. Colburn, 1827.
*Pelham ; or, The Adventures of a Gentleman. 3 vols. H. Colburn,
1828.
The Disowned. 3 vols. H. Colburn, 1828.
Devereux : A Tale. 3 vols. H. Colburn, 1829.
Paul Clifford. 3 vols. 1830.
The Siamese Twins : A Satirical Tale of the Times, with Other Poems.
H. Colburn, 1831.
Eugene Aram: A Tale. 3 vols. H. Colburn, 1832.
*Godolphin: A Novel. 3 vols. Richard Bentley, 1833.
* Asmodeus at Large. 1833.
England and The English. 2 vols. R. Bentley, 1833.
The Pilgrims of the Rhine. Saunders & Otley, 1834.
The Last Days of Pompeii. 3 vols. R. Bentley, 1834.
Letter to a Cabinet Minister on the Present Crisis, 1834.
The Student: A Series of Papers. 2 vols. Saunders & Otley,
1835.
Rienzi ; or, The Last of the Tribunes. 3 vols. Saunders & Otley,
1835-
The Duchess de la Valliere. A Play in five Acts. Saunders &
Otley, 1836.
* Published anonymously.
527
APPENDIX II
Athens, Its Rise and Fall, with Views of the Literature, Philosophy, and
Social Life of the Athenian People. 2 vols. Saunders & Otley,
1837-
Ernest Maltravers. 3 vols. Saunders & Otley, 1837.
Alice ; or, The Mysteries. A Sequel to Ernest Maltravers. 3 vols.
Saunders & Otley, 1838.
Leila ; or, The Siege of Grenada ; and Calderon, The Courtier.
Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans for Mr.
Charles Heath, 1838.
The Lady of Lyons; or, Love and Pride. A Play in five Acts.
Saunders and Otley, 1838.
Richelieu; or, The Conspiracy. A Play in five Acts, to which are
added Historical Odes on the Last Days of Elizabeth; Cromwell' 's
Dream; The Death of Nelson. Saunders & Otley, 1839.
The Sea Captain; or, The Birthright. A Drama in five Acts.
Saunders and Otley, 1839.
Money. A Comedy in five Acts. Saunders & Otley, 1840.
Collected Works. H. Colburn and Saunders & Otley, 1840.
Night and Morning. 3 vols. Saunders & Otley, 1841.
Zanoni. 3 vols. Saunders & Otley, 1842.
Eva : A True Story of Light and Darkness ; The Ill-omened Marriage,
and other Tales and Poems. Saunders & Otley, 1842.
The Last of the Barons. Saunders & Otley, 1843.
The Poems and Ballads of Schiller, translated, With a Brief Sketch of
Schiller's Life. 2 vols. W. Blackwood & Son, 1844.
Confessions of a Water-Patient, in a letter to W. Harrison Ainsworth,
Esq., editor of The New Monthly Magazine. H. Colburn, 1845.
*The New Timon : A Romance of London. H. Colburn, 1846.
Lucretia; or, The Children of Night. 3 vols. Saunders & Otley,
1846.
A Word to the Public. Saunders & Otley, 1847.
King Arthur. Henry Colburn, 1848.
Harold, The Last of the Saxon Kings. 3 vols. R. Bentley, 1848.
Collected Works. H. Colburn, 1848.
The Caxtons : A Family Picture. 3 vols. W. Blackwood & Son, 1 849.
Collected Works. Chapman & Hall, 1850.
Letters to John Bull, Esq., on Affairs connected with his Landed
Property and the Persons who live thereon. Chapman & Hall,
1851.
Not so Bad as We seem ; or, Many Sides to a Character. 1851.
Poetical and Dramatic Works, collected. Chapman & Hall, 1851.
Poems and Ballads of Schiller. New Edition. W. Blackwood &
Son, 1852.
* Published anonymously.
528
APPENDIX II
Outlines of the Early History of the East, with Explanatory Descriptions
of some of the more remarkable Nations and Cities mentioned in the
Old Testament. A Lecture delivered at the Royston Mechanics
Institute on June 3, 1852. S. & J. Warren, Royston.
My Novel, by Pisistratus Caxton ; or, Varieties in English Life. 4
vols. W. Blackwood and Son, 1853.
The Haunted and the Haunters. W. Blackwood & Son, 1857.
What will he do with it? by Pisistratus Caxton. 4 vols. W. Black-
wood & Son, 1858.
Dramatic Works, collected. I vol. Routledge, 1860.
*St. Stephens: A Poem. W. Blackwood & Son, 1860.
A Strange Story, z vols. Sampson, Low, Son & Co., 1862.
Caxtoniana: A Series of Essays on Life, Literature, and Manners.
2 vols. W. Blackwood & Son, 1863.
The Boatman, by Pisistratus Caxton. W. Blackwood & Son, 1864.
Poems, collected and revised. John Murray, 1865.
The Lost Tales of Miletus. W. Blackwood & Son, 1866.
Miscellaneous Prose Works. 3 vols. R. Bentley, 1868.
The Rightful Heir. A Drama in five Acts. John Murray, 1868.
The Odes and Epodes of Horace. A Metrical Translation into English,
with Introduction and Commentaries. W. Blackwood, 1869.
Walpole ; or, Every Man has his Price. A Comedy in Rhyme, in
three Acts. W. Blackwood & Son, 1869.
King Arthur. Revised Edition. Charlton Tucker, 1870.
*The Coming Race. W. Blackwood & Son, 1871.
POSTHUMOUS
The Parisians. 4 vols. W. Blackwood & Son, 1873.
Kenelm Chillingly : His Adventures and Opinions. 3 vols. W.
Blackwood & Son, 1873.
Pausanias, the Spartan, 1876.
Darnley. First published in Miscellaneous Prose Works, Vol. II.
Knebworth Edition, 1882. G. Routledge and Sons. An
unfinished Drama in five Acts.
* Published anonymously.
VOL. II 529 2 M
APPENDIX III
LIST OF RESIDENCES
31 Baker Street, London
Dr. Ruddock's School at Fulham
Dr. Curtis's School at Sunbury
Mr. Dempster's School at Brighton . . .
Dr. Hooker's School at Rottingdean.
Dr. Burnet's School at Upper Homerton, Hackney .
The Rev. Charles Wellington, tutor, at Baling .,
Mr. Thomson, tutor, at St. Lawrence, near Ramsgate
Trinity College, and afterwards Trinity Hall,
Cambridge . . . . .
5 Upper Seymour Street, London (Mother's House)
Berkeley Square, London .
4 Craven Hill .
24 St. James's Square .
Woodcot, Nettlebed, Oxfordshire .
Weymouth and Tunbridge Wells
Vineyard (or Vine) Cottage, Fulham
36 Hertford Street, London.
Pinner Wood, Pinner, Middlesex
Allen Cottages, Hounslow .
2 A Albany ....
Berrymead Priory, Acton
8 Charles Street, Berkeley Square, London
36 Hertford Street, London.
105 Piccadilly, London
Craven Cottage, Fulham
23 Bryanston Street, London
37 Curzon Street, May fair, London
36A Hertford Street, London
Knebworth House, Hertfordshire
19 James Street, Buckingham Gate .
53°
May 25, 1803
1812
1812-1814
1814-1815
1815-1818
1818
1819-1820
1821
1822-1825
1825
1826
1827
1827-1829
Sept. i828-May, 1829
Sept.-Dec. 1829
1830-1835
June, i83i-March, 1832
• 1833
• 1835-1837
1835-1836
1837-1839
1839-1840
1840
1840
1840-1841
1842-1843
1843-1846
1844-1873
1846-1849
APPENDIX III
4 Hereford Street, London . . . . 1851-181:2
I Park Lane ..... 1852-1861
35 St. James's Place, London . . . 1862-1864
2 1 Park Lane ..... 1864-1866
35 St. James's Place .... 1866-1868
Copped Hall, Totteridge, Hertfordshire . . 1862-1867
Argyll House, Torquay .... 1867-1873
12 Grosvenor Square, London . . . 1868-1873
531
f
\
INDEX
The initials E.B.L. in this Index represent the subject of the biography :
the abbreviation Mrs. E.B.L. is used for his "wife.
ABDUL Medjid, Sultan of Turkey, and
the Crimean War, ii. 205,
206, 207, 227
Abercromby, Helen, and her mother,
deaths of, ii. 86 ».
Aberdeen, 4th Earl of, Foreign Minister,
i. 75, 403 ; policy misunder-
stood, i. 395 ; coalition
ministry, ii. 186, 210 ; and
the Crimean war, ii. 206,
209, 221, 225
Achilles, Homer's treatment of, E.B.L.
on, ii. 385
Actors and Actresses, amateur, in the
Knebworth theatricals, ii. 131
». ; amateur and other, in
Many Sides to a Character,
comedy, by E.B.L., ii. 140 n.
Ada Reis, by Lady Caroline Lamb, i. 165
Addington and Pitt, ii. 238
Addison, Joseph, and The Spectator,
i. 504, ii. 245
Adventurer, The, see Lady of Lyons
Adversity, lessons of E.B.L. on, ii. 95-6
Advertisement tax, abolition of (see
also Newspapers, taxes on),
E.B.L.'s share in, 1.43 3-4 etsqq.
yEschylus, study of, advised by E.B.L.,
ii. 385
After-thought, by Tennyson, ii. 75
Agnew, Sir Andrew, Sabbath Observance
Bill of, opposed by E.B.L.,
1.451
Agricultural depression, causes of, i. 390-2,
ii. 165
Districts, disturbances in, in 1829, and
later, i. 404, 406
Agricultural depression — continued
Interest in Parliament (circ. 1834),
E.B.L. on, i. 464, 499-500
Agriculturists and the Corn Laws,
ii. 84 5 and the Malt Duty,
ii. 185-7 ; E.B.L. on, ii. 187,
214
Agrippa, magic of, ii. 47
Ainsworth, William Harrison, i. 548 ;
editor of Nciu Monthly
Magazine, ii. 22 ; and
Blanchard, ii. 132, 135
Ainsworth's Magazine, Blanchard's
contributions to, ii. 135
Airy, Professor (afterwards Sir George),
Astronomer-Royal, ii. 523
Aix-la-Chapelle, E.B.L.'s visits to,
i. 550-1, ii. 353
A/astor, by Shelley, E.B.L. on, ii. 366
Albany, the, E.B.L.'s life at, i. 308 ;
scene made by his wife at,
i- 333-4
Albemarle, 6th Earl of, ii. 449
Albertus Magnus, magic of, ii. 47
Albuda exchanged for Portendio, ii. 294
Alcaeus, and Byron, E.B.L. on, ii. 361,
474-5
" Alcibiades," pen-name used by Tenny-
son, ii. 75
Alexander the Great, Seneca's epithet
for, ii. 124
Alexandra, Queen, arrival of, in England,
E.B.L. on, ii. 355-6 ; tribute
to, ii. 356
Alfred, Prince (late Duke of Saxe-
Coburg and Gotha), Greek
throne declined by, ii. 354
533
INDEX
Alice, or The Mysteries, novel, by E.B.L.,
autobiographical features of,
i. 528
Alison, Sir Archibald, ii. 197 n.
All the Tear Round, E.B.L.'s novel
published in, correspondence
on, ii. 341-7
Alma, battle of the, ii. 208
Almack's, famous Club, ii. 13
Almack's, " A Satiric Sketch " of, in
Weeds and Wildfloiuers, by
K.B.L., i. 153, 172, 380
'Alp,' in The Siege of Corinth, E.B.L.
on, ii. 364
Alpine passes, E.B.L. on, ii. 122
Althorpe, Viscount (later 3rd Earl
Spencer, q.-v.), character and
expression of, E.B.L. on,
i. 418, 420 ; and the Reform
Bill of 1832, i. 422, his
speech on, i. 418 ; and the
Newspaper taxes, i. 435 ;
succeeds to the Earldom,
i. 470
Amadis de Gaul, Southey's translation
of, i. 37, 41, ii. 418
Ambleside, lodgings at, with a bad
character, i. 84-91
Amulet, The, E.B.L.'s contribution to,
i. 527
Anacreon, E.B.L. on, ii. 385
Anaxagoras, belief of, in animal souls,
ii. 405
Ancient Mariner, The, by Coleridge,
E.B.L. on, ii. 420
Andrews, William, letter to, from E.B.L.
on penny post, i. 434 & «.
Animal Magnetism, farce by Mrs.
Inchbald, cast of, as given
at Knebworth, ii. 131 n.
Animals, souls of, E.B.L. on, ii. 401, 405
Anti-Corn Law League, ii. 150 ;
reformation of, proposed,
ii. 184
Anti-slavery Society, and Negro Appren-
ticeship, i. 521 ; appreciation
by, of E.B.L.'s speech thereon,
i. 526
' Arbaces,' in Last Days of Pompeii, i. 446
Archaeological Society, E.B.L. as
President of, ii. 454
' Arden,' ii. 70
' Ardworth,' the elder, in Lucretia,
ii. 87, 89
'Ardworth, Walter,' in Lucretia, ii. 89
' Argiope,' in The Secret Way, poem by
E.B.L., ii. 364
Argyll, 8th Duke of, on E.B.L.'s speech
on Reform Bill of 1866,
ii. 318
Argyll House, Torquay home of E.B.L.,
ii. 459 et sqq.
Ariosto, E.B.L. on, ii. 394, 396, 423
Aristocracy, E.B.L. on, ii. 309 n. ;
favouritism to, in Crimean
war, ii. 212, E.B.L. on, ii. 223
Aristocratic Government, doctrine of,
ii. 308-9
Arnold, Matthew, letters from, to E.B.L.,
occasion of the first, ii. 443-4;
on E.B.L.'s influence on
his writings, ii. 445, 451-2;
remarks on, E.B.L. at
Knebworth, ii. 452-3
Arrotu war, the, i. 398 n., ii. 252 et sqq. ;
E.B.L.'s speech on, ii. 256-7
Art and Genius, E.B.L. on, ii. 400
Legislation on behalf of, supported by
E.B.L., i. 427
Articles by E.B.L., see Names, and
Essays and Articles, under
Writings, Prose
"Artists, The," by Schiller, E.B.L.'s
translation of, ii. 57
Artists' General Benevolent Institution,
ii. 145
" Assignation, The," by Schiller, trans-
lated by E.B.L., ii. 57
Astrology, E.B.L. on, ii. 44
Atalanta in Calydon, by Swinburne,
ii. 431, E.B.L. on, ii. 433
Athalie, by Racine, E.B.L. on, ii. 425
Athenifum, The, and the date of E.B.L.'s
second love letter, i. 169 n. ;
Hood's Ode to Rae Wilson in,
ii. 63 ; reviews by, of Zanoni,
ii. 34, and of The Coming Race,
ii. 468
Athens, E. R. Lytton at, ii. 359
Athens, its Rise and Fall, by E.B.L.,
partial publication of, i. 528
Auckland, 1st Earl of, death, ii. 1 1 5 & ».2
Auldjo, John, letter from, to E.B.L., on
Rienzi, and The Last Days,
i. 445
Aumale, Due d', ii. 480
Austen, Jane, novels of, E.B.L. on,
i. 457, ii. 86, 425
Australia, mail contract with, abolished
by E.B.L., ii. 284
534
INDEX
Austrian affairs (1846 and onwards),
s E.B.L. on, ii. 78, 118, 120,
,158, 228-9
Authority in matters of Faith and
Intellect, E.B.L. on, ii. 411
Authorship, trials of, E.B.L. on, i. 249,
ii. 195-7 ; R. L. Stevenson
on, i. 249
Autobiographical suggestions in E.B.L.'s
heroes, ii. 498-9
Autobiography of E.B.L., i. 4 et sqq., ii. 3
'Ayesha,' in A Strange Story, E.B.L.
on, ii. 346, 349
Aytoun, Professor, ii. 197 ».
BABBAGE, Charles, ii. 13 & «., 523
Baillie-Cochrane, A.D.R.W. (ist Lord
Lamington), letter to, from
E.B.L., on public affairs
(1849), ii. H9&»v 1 20
Baker Street, No. 31, birthplace of
E.B.L., i. 3
Balaklava, battle of, ii. 208, 223
Balfour, Lady Betty, see Personal and
Literary Letters of the Earl
of Lytton
Ballot, the, advantages of, ii. 322
Bandmann, Daniel E., actor, ii. 450
Baronetcies, E.B.L. on, ii. 522
Baronetcy conferred on E.B.L., i. '507,
ii. 245
Barrett, Wilson, E.B.L.'s tragedy Brutus,
renamed and produced by,
ii. 96 n.
Barrot, Odillon, ii. 52
Bath, Order of the, E.B.L. on, ii. 522-3
Bath, visits to, ii. 443
Battle of Waterloo, early epic by E.B.L.,
i. S6
Bavaria, and the revolution of 1848,
ii. 118
Bayliss, Messrs., ii. 135
Bayon's Manor, Mr. D'Eyncourt's
library at, i. 425
Beaufort, 6th Duke of, i. 352
' Beaufort,' in The Rightful Heir, ii. 450
Beaumont, Mr., and the spirits,
ii. 45-6
Beaux, ancient, E.B.L., ii. 13-14
Belgium, H. Bulwer's secret mission
to, i. 403-5 & n.i
Bell, Robert, in Many Sides to a
Character, ii. 140 n.
Belle Assembles, journal, edited by
Blanchard, ii. 135
Benger, Miss, and E.B.L.'s first meeting
with his wife, i. 155 & n.
Bentham, Jeremy, axiom of, on happi-
ness, applied to poetry by
E.B.L., ii. 397-8 ; and ex-
tended representation, i. 393 ;
Mill on, i. 508, 509 n.
Bentinck, Lord George, ii. 84, 151, 510
Beranger, E.B.L. on, ii. 477
Berkeley, Bishop, philosophy of, i. 205
Berri, Duchesse de, at Venice, i. 264-5
Berry, Miss, error regarding, i. 155 n.
Berrymead Priory, Acton, E.B.L. and
his wife at, i. 308
Bibliography (see also Writings), ii. 527-9
Bills, endorsing of, E.B.L. on, ii. 388-9
Biography and Poetry, Carlyle on, ii. 59
Birmingham, as described by E.B.L.,
'• 453
' Bishop Blougrarri ' in Browning's poem,
ii. 411
Bishop Stortford School, E.B.L. on his
speech at, ii. 249
Black Sea question, ii. 211 ; E.B.L.
on, ii. 226
Blackwood, Stevenson Arthur (later Sir
S. Blackwood), letter from,
to E.B.L., on his resignation,
ii. 305-6
Blackwood, Messrs., and Black-wood's
Magazine, E.B.L.'s works
published by, and in, ii. 105,
122, 251-2, 327, 350, 444,
451, 467-9, 480, 481
Blanchard, Laman, and E.B.L.'s efforts
to help, ii. 135 et sqq., 517
& n., 518 ; Memoir on, by
E.B.L., ii. 132-4, 136
Blanchard, Mrs., death of, ii. 136
Blank verse, E.B.L. on, ii. 366
Blessington, Countess of, i. 503 ; E.B.L.'s
friendship with, i. 381-2,
ii. 4, 113-4; famous literary
parties, i. 254 n., 381 ; finan-
cial ruin, ii. 116-7; portrait,
i. 449; death, ii. 78, 113,
116-7
Letters from, to E.B.L. after his
separation, and his replies,
i. 382-3, ii. 4 et sqq. ; on the
dinner to Lord Durham, and
his reply, i. 464 ; on Falkland,
i. 190 ; on The Lady of Lyons,
and his reply, i. 536-7 ; on
Last Days of Pompeii, i. 446-7
535
INDEX
Blessington, Countess of — continued
Letters to, from Disraeli on E.B.L.'s
play of La Failure, i. 530-2
from E.B.L., on contributing to
Health's Book of Beauty, edited
by her, i. 449-50 ; on his
dejection, and depression in
general, i. 457-8 & «., and on
Ireland, Pompeii, burning of
the Houses of Parliament,
and her reply, i. 459-62 j on
Fonblanque, etc., i. 448, 449 ;
on Italian journey (1846),
ii. 80-4 ; on The Letter on the
Crisis, i. 489 ; on his mother's
death, ii. 20 ; on King Arthur,
etc., ii. 114-5 5 on her losses,
ii. 116-75 on the reception
of Lucretia, ii. 89-90
Blessington, Earl of, and his daughter's
marriage, i. 382
Blunt, Wilfrid Scawen, letters of E.B.L.
and his son, owned by,
ii. 437 n. i
Boccaccio, borrowings and lendings of,
ii. 419
Body and Mind, relations between, Mrs.
E.B.L. on, ii. 330-1
Bolingbroke, Lord, verses of, ii. 425
Bonn, E. R. Lytton's school days at,
ii. 378
Book of Beauty, i. 448, 461 ; E.B.L. on,
ii. 115 &«. ; on contributing
to, i. 449
Books, E.B.L.'s early delight in, i. 34
et sqq.
Borough franchise, qualifications for, in
various Reform Bills, ii. 311-2
Borough-monger, the, ii. 316-7
Borstal Association, Annual Report of,
for 1908, on effect of prison
life, i. 363 n.
Boulogne, E.B.L. at, and the duel of
F. Villiers, i. 127 et sqq.
Bourchier, Humphrey, ii. 490
Bournemouth, visited, ii. in
Bowen, Sir George, first Governor of
Queensland, and E.B.L.'s
letter to, on appointing him,
ii. 284, 285 et sqq.
Bowring, Dr., afterwards Sir John, and
E.B.L.'s first election, i. 398
& n. ; hoaxed by M6rimee's
verses, i. 451 ; letters to,
from E.B.L., on disturbances
Bowring, Dr. — continued
in 1831., ii. 405-6; on his
withdrawal from Southwark,
i. 403 ; and the Arrow
war, i. 398 «., ii. 252, 253,
254; E.B.L.'s reference to,
ii. 256-7
Boyle, Mary, in Knebworth theatricals,
ii. 131 n.
Boz, see Dickens, Charles
Bradlaugh, Charles, M.P., ii. 478
' Bragelone ' in La Vall'dre, E.B.L. on,
i. 557 ; Macready as, i. 529,
E.B.L. on, i. 559
Brahmin Dervish, the, E.B.L. on,
ii. 456, 458
'Brandon' and his wife, in Paul Clifford^
Elliott on, i. 365
Breadalbane House, purchased, ii. 354,
413
Bride, The, of Lammermoor, by Scott,
E.B.L. on love motif in,
ii. 367
Brieux, J. A. P., poem by, E.B.L. on,
ii. 429 Sen.
Bright, Rt. Hon. John, ii. 246 ; and
the Anti-Corn Law League,
ii. 150 ; denunciations by, of
the Crimean war, ii. 207,
the " Angel of Death " speech,
ii. 210 ; E.B.L. on his nature,
ii. 229 ; efforts of, for Re-
form, ii. 311
Brighton, school at, i. 43-4 ; visits to,
i. 124, ii. in
British Columbia, incorporation of, as
Colony, by E.B.L.'s Colonial
administration, ii. 288-9 ;
his speeches on, ii. 290,
291-3
Broadstairs, visit to, i. 116
Brocket, visit to, i. 118 et sqq. ; death
of Palmerston at, ii. 362
Brougham, Lord, and the proposed
creation of Peers, i. 423 ; and
theatrical monopoly, i. 433 ;
and the Coercion Act, i. 452 ;
phrases used by, i. 453, 454,
ii. 239 ; letter from, to
E.B.L., ii. 465-6 ; quarrel
with Lord Durham, i. 464-7$
letters from, to E.B.L., on
violence in the Press, i. 503
Browne, Sir Thomas, Essay on, by
E.B.L., i. 508
536
INDEX
Browning, Robert, poet, i. 448, 529 ;
and Forster, i. 373 ; poems
by, E.B.L. on, ii. 396, 397,
400, 411, 430 ; and Richelieu,
i. 544 & «.
Friendship of, with E. R. Lytton,
ii. 383 ; letter to him, on
the death of E.B.L.,|ii. 489-90
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, ii. 383
Brownlow, Countess, ii. 470
Brussels, visit to, i. 133
Brutus, tragedy by E.B.L. unpublished,
produced as The Household
Gods (q."v.}i ii. 96 & «., 125
' Buckhurst," in Coningsby, prototype
of, ii. 119 n.
Buckstone, J. B., the comedian, and
Blanchard, ii. 135
Buffon, E.B.L. on, ii. 424
Buller, Charles, M.P., i. 520, 529 ;
' Union ' speeches of, i. 78
Bulver, Torold, ancestor of E.B.L.,
'•3
Bulwer, Edward George Earle Lytton,
later Bulwer-Lytton, Sir
Edward, and ist Baron
Lytton, subject of this bio-
graphy ; ancestry, parents and
family, i. 3 et sqq. ; appear-
ance, i. 58, 97, 163 n.,
ii. 17-18 ; autobiography, i. 4
et sqq., ii. 3 j calligraphy,
i. 48, ii. 306
Character and characteristics, i. 27-8,
43, 45 &«., 47-8, 58, 72, 77,
146-7 &«., 163 n., 214, 2l6,
217,276,285,342,366,471,
ii. 9, 13, 14, 16, 40 n., 62,
67> 69, 74. 78, 94-5. 264,
37i, 375. 376-7» 492-3. 495,
502, 503 et sqq. ; himself on,
i. 285, ii. 9, 11-12, 503-4
business capacity, i. 2 1 7, ii. 49 3 & «. ;
chief defect, ii. 494, 497 ;
dandyism, ii. 13, 14, 17, 72 ;
deafness, ii. 191, 370, 371,
483, 502 ; fluency, ii. 493 ;
love of riding, i. 117, 139,
ii. 16 ; melancholy, i. 44, 59,
65, 70, 138-9, 149, 175,
457-60, ii. 191, 357; sensi-
tiveness, i. 28, 47, 342, ii. 3,
94-6, 123, 268, 351, 499,
502 ; smoking habits, ii. 18
19 j strong family affections,
Bulwer, Edward George Earle Lytton —
continued
Character and characteristics — contd.
Business capacity — continued
i. 192, 277-8, 299-300, ii. 19
et iqq. ; summary, ii. 493
Friends, see Arnold, Blessington,
Butler, Cockburn, Cosway,
Cowper, Cunningham, Dis-
raeli, D'Orsay, Durham,
Fonblanque, Forster, Gait,
Halliday, Irving, Kinsela,
Knowles, Lamb, Landon,
Macaulay, Macready, Mel-
bourne, Moore, Mulgrave,
O'Connell, Ord, Praed,
Rochejaquelein, Shell, Sher-
borne, Smith, Swinburne,
Townshend, Villiers
Health, lifelong delicacy of, i. 7,
ii. 502 et alibi
Homes and houses, i. 3, 12, 38 & se e
Appendix III., ii. 530-1
Honours conferred on : —
Baronetcy, i, 501, ii. 245
Grand Commandership of St.
Michael's and St. George,
ii. 459
Peerage, ii. 318, 324, 368-70
Letters from, and to, see under Names
of Correspondents
characteristics of, i. 302-3
Life, in order of Dates : —
Domestic : —
1803-12 birth, birthplace, early
years, i. 3-7 et sqq. ; the
cutlass affair and the flogging,
i. 15, 20-2 ; early lessons,
i. 22-6 j the madman's pre-
diction, i. 26-8 ; first intro-
duction to Books, i. 34-8 ;
schools, i. 39 et sqq. ; further
education, i. 51 et sqq., first
love, i. 59, 65, 83, 153,
1 55 a.
1822-5 Cambridge life, friends and
successes (see also Sculpture),
i. 72, 80 ; travels in England,
i. 82 et sqq. ; an odd land-
lord, 184-91 ; travels in
Scotland, visit to Robert
Owen, i. 91 et sqq. ; stay
at Scarborough, i. 96-100 ;
with the gipsies, i. 101-15,
Mirny's prediction, i. 102-3,
537
INDEX
Bulwer, Edward George Earle Lytton —
continued
'£ Life — continued
Domestic — continued
114, ii. 505 ; further home
journeys, Broadstairs, visit to
Lady Caroline Lamb, i. 116
et sqq.
1825-6 travels abroad, Villier's
duel, 127 et sqq.; life in and
near Paris, i. 134 et sqq. ;
meeting with future wife,
courtship and its difficulties,
i. 154, 162-3, x^5 et 511-
1827 marriage and early married
life, i. 202 et sqq.
1828-32 births of children, i. 209,
247, 368 ; first hints of do-
mestic troubles, i. 213-9 5
how aggravated, i. 219 et iqq.
1833-8 breakdown from overwork
and continental journey with
wife, i. 260-71, disastrous
end of, i. 271 et sqq., 274,
338» 389» 439 et m-
1833 (and after) love outside the
home, i. 3I2&«., ii. 265, 503,
504
1834 increasing'domestic difficulties
and life apart from his
wife, i. 272 et sqq., 490 5
quarrels and reconciliations
— the worst scene, i. 281,
284 et sqq.
1835 conditions of reunion offered
by, i. 295-304 ; separation,
partial, i. 303, 308 et sqq. ;
total, proposed, i. 315, 333,
carried out, i. 334, 514-5 ;
miseries following, i. 338-42,
494-5. 507, 5z8
1836-8 separation, and after, ii. 3,
5»9-"» 94
Literary, see also Names of works,
and Writings
General references : —
characteristics of his writings,
ii. 496-8 5 defects in style,
ii. 494, 500 ; heroes and
heroines of, autobiographical
touches in, ii. 498-9 j his
incessant industry, ii. 14, 1 6,
37 1 et alibi ; his intention of
ceasing to write, i. 144-5 5
lasting popularity of his
Bulwer, Edward George Earle Lytton —
continued
Life — continued
Literary — continued
works, ii. 500 ; literary
fame in Italy, i. 269 ; literary
proclivities, early evidence
of, i. 23 et sqq., 44, 56, 57
&«., 58, 65 «., 70 ; methods
of work, ii. 14-16, 18
1819-25 first published work,
i. 56-7 ; second book written,
and published, 1823., i. 75 n. ;
studies in style, i. 88-9, later
evolution of, i. 89 ; prize
poem, see Sculpture ; first
beginnings of novel-writing,
i. 81, 139 Sen., 145
1826-39 nafd work to maintain
his family, i. 207, 216-9, 239,
248 et sqq., 257, 283, 285,
345 et sqq. ; reputation gained
by, i. 243 ; editorship of The
Neiv Monthly, i. 366 et sqq.,
passim ; literature chosen, in
preference to office, i. 491
et sqq., dependence on, and
proficiency in, i. 494-5
1836-40 dramatic authorship
begun, i. 527-63
1840-46 period of greatest activity
and highest quality, i. 563 et
sqq., ii. 30-1 et sqq. ; satire
on Tennyson, and his reply,
ii. 70 et sqq.
1851 play written on behalf of Guild
of Literature, ii. 131, 139,
140 et sqq.
1854 elected Hon. President of
Associated Societies of Edin-
burgh University, i. 95, his
. address to students and speech
at Banquet, ii. 193 et sqq. ;
address on Education at
Leeds, ii. 198 et sqq.
1860— i association with All the
Tear Round, ii. 340, 341 et
sqq., 400-1 ; presiding at
banquet to Dickens, ii. 443
1868 play by, performed in town,
ii. 450-1
1870-2 last works, ii. 460 et sqq.
Political and Public, see also all
Bills, Topics of Debate, and
Writings
533
INDEX
Bulwer, Edward George Earle Lytton —
continued
Life — continued
Political and Public — continued
1831-41 in Parliament, i. 181, 248,
305, 325, 367 ; election for
St. Ives, i. 254 &«., 260,
411-35 earlier search for a
seat, i. 397-8, 400 ; maiden
speech, on Reform Bill,
i. 415 5 elected for Lincoln,
i. 424, parliamentary activi-
ties, i. 426 et sqq., 451-2 ;
Irish journey, i. 453 et sqq. ;
gradual change of views,
i. 471 etsqq. ; refusal of office,
1.491 et sqq. ; political activi-
ties, i. 495, 503-6 ; last
speech as a Liberal (1838),
i. 520 ; re-elected for Lincoln,
i. 489, 495 ; loss of the seat
(1841), i. 526, 563
1841-52 eleven years out of Parlia-
ment, ii. 3-149 ; change of
views during, causes, etc.,
ii. 149 et sqq. ; attempts to
secure a seat, ii. 78, 96,
in-3, 156-7
1851-7 events before and after
return to Parliament, ii. 181
et sqq., re-entry as a Conserva-
tive, ii. 155, 1785 speeches
in new House, ii. 187 et sqq.;
attitude to Crimean war,
ii. 203, speeches thereon,
ii. 213 et sqq., 248; other
activities, ii. 242 et sqq., 252
et sqq.) office destined for
(1857), ii. 224, 242
1858-9 life and duties as Colonial
Secretary, ii. 261, 269 et
sqq., 280 et sqq. ; resigna-
tion, reasons for, ii. 295
et sqq.
1866 elevation to Peerage, n. 178,
324, 368 et sqq. ; silence
in House of Lords, ii. 371 ;
success of, ii. 502
Mystical and occult interests, i. 149,
ii. 3°> 32, 39 et *11"> 340,
345 et sqq.
Opinions on Men and Books, ii. 417
et sqq.
Portrait of, in New Monthly Magazine
(1831), i. 254
Bulwer, George"Edward Earle Lytton—
continued
Religious views (see also under Religion),
i. 70, ii.'4OO et sqq.
Speeches, see under Topics dealt with
Political, manner of delivery,
gesture, etc., ii. 282-3, 3OI»
302-4, 501-2
Bulwer, General William Earle, father
of E.B.L., ii. 3 ; character,
i. 5, 8 ; desire for peerage,
i. 8-9 ; land purchases of,
i. 9-11 ; death, i. 10
Bulwer, Henry (Lord Calling), brother
of E.B.L., i. 4, 43, 134, 223,
235. 237> 37°, 387» 449 i
and his mother, i. 6 ; at
Cambridge, i. 73 et sqq. ;
character and abilities of,
i. 76 j secret mission to
Belgium, i. 403-5 & n. i ;
M.P. for Coventry, i. 412,
413 ; book by, i. 461 Sen.
Bulwer, Mrs. Edward (later Lady
Lytton), see also Wheeler,
Rosina, wife of E.B.L., early
married life and homes,
i. 204 et sqq. ; first child,
i. 208-12, 228 5 difficulties,
beginning and growth of,
i. 258 et sqq. ; second child,
i. 368 ; unwise friends, i. 260 ;
continental travels with
E.B.L., disappointing results,
and final catastrophe of,
i. 260-73, 443 5 bases of
differences between her and
E.B.L., i. 273 et sqq., 278, 295,
299-300, ii. 494 j quarrels,
reconciliations, first parting,
i. 281 et sqq. ; diary of, during
first separation, extracts from,
i. 326 etsqq.; violent scene
with E.B.L., and his letter
after it, i. 284 et sqq. ; re-
sort by, to stimulants, onset
of, i. 289
Life at Gloucester, illness, visit from
E.B.L., i. 290, 304 ; violent
outbreak of, on hearing of
E.B.L.'s infidelity, i. 308-9,
her apology, i. 310-11, her
suspicions justified, i. 311-12
& «. ; visit to the Albany,
scene by, i. 333-45 last appeal
539
INDEX
Bulwer, Mrs. Edward — continued
Life at Gloucester — continued
to E.B.L., i. 309-11 ; final
arrangements for separation
completed, i. 334 et sqq., ii. 3 ;
chief pain of, to E.B.L., ii. 95
Life after separation, custody and life
of the children, i. 514-5,
ii. 100-2 ; means, ii. 262, 264,
271, 275 & ». j relations with
E.B.L., her hatred and per-
secution of him, i. 339 et sqq.,
ii. 10-11, how manifested,
ii. 3, z62etsqq., 266-7, 356-7 j
abusive writings of, i. 341,
ii. 262, 267-8 ; mental insta-
bility evinced by, ii. 266 ft sqq.,
restraint suggested, ii. 267,
the last straw, ii. 269-70,
restraint decided on, her
letters, ii. 271-2, restraint
effected, ii. 272, 326 n. ; un-
wisdom thereof, ii. 273-5 i
release, son's devotion, ii. 274
et sqq,, 379 et sqq. ; effects
of her conduct on E.B.L.'s
health, etc., ii. 295-300 et sqq.,
376 et passim, his own words
thereon, ii. 503-4 ; death,
i. 342, ii. 279 Sen.
Letters from, to E.B.L. (see also his
to her, infra], of apology,
i. 310-11 ; of appeal, i. 313
to Emily Bulwer-Lytton, ii. 201,
and behaviour at her last
illness, ii. 102
to Mary Greene, on domestic life,
i. 210 et sqq., 218; on first
clouds, i. 213 ; on E.B.L.'s
lavishness to her, i. 214-6 ;
kindness from E.B.L.'s
mother, i. 231 ; on house-
hunting in town, i. 245-7 5
on domestic life at Hertford
Street, i. 253 et sqq.; on her
daughter, i. 260-2 ; fon the
continental journey of 1833.,
263-71 ; on her uncle, i. 278 ;
on life at Acton, i. 308 ; on
popular expectations from
the Reform Bill, i. 409-10
to Mrs. Vanderstegen, on agricul-
tural disturbances, i. 406-7
to Mrs. W. E. Bulwer, see under
Bulwer, Mrs. W. E.
Bulwer, Mrs. Edward — continued
Letters to, from E.B.L., and her
replies, on first experience of
Parliamentary life, i. 414 j
during partial separation,
i. 281-3, °f apology after the
'scene,' i. 284-6; of re-
proaches, i. 290-4, 295-302,
304 ; on final separation,
i- 3lS~7i 3I9-2O> on a
compromise, i. 315-6 ; at the
time of the final separation,
i. 334-6 ; after the worst
scene, i. 284 et sqq,
Bulwer, Mrs. W. E. (later Mrs. Bulwer-
Lytton), mother of E.B.L.,
i. 3 et sqq,, 10-12, 14, 21, 25,
3°, 34, 38, 43, 45, 46, 49,
71, 74, 80, ii. 13, 263
Character and characteristics, i. 6, 7,
14,23,118,235,256
and E.B.L.'s marriage, her attitude
before and after, i. 138,
149-50, 154-5 &»., 156, 162,
166-7, I7°t 272> et a^'
passim ; money arrangements
made by her, for E.B.L. , his
wife, and his child, i. 174-5,
238 et sqq., 314, 317, 334,
411-12, ii. 264 ; strong aver-
sion to Miss Wheeler, i. 176 ;
responsibility for subsequent
disasters, i. 222, 238, 243-4
Letter to E.B.L. on Falkland, i. 187-9
Letters to : —
from Dr. Hooker, on E.B.L.'s
character (1818), i. 45 Sen.
from E.B.L., on his courtship
and marriage, i. 171, 174-5,
179, 190-2, 195-201, ii. 95 j
after marriage, on their
estrangement, i. 223 et sqq.,
her refusal to receive his
wife, i. 232 et sqq. ; re-
signing his allowance, i. 238
et sqq. ; on a loan for election
; expenses, i. 411-2 ; with his
first frank, i. 413 ; on his
separation, i. 305-6 ; on his
despondency, etc., 1.455 ft sqq.
from Mrs. E. Bulwer, on E.B.L.'s
literary overwork,!. 257, 283;
on Last Days of Pompeii,
i. 289-90 ; after the violent
scene with E.B.L., i. 286-8
540
INDEX
Bulwer, Mrs. W. E. — continued
Mrs. E. Bulwer's abuse of, ii. 262
Relations with E.B.L., i. 6-7, 138,
220 et sqq., 243-4, 338,
ii. 20, 369
Death, E.B.L.'s grief at, ii. 19-22, 54;
inheritance after (see Kneb-
worth), ii. 149 ; subsequent
illness, ii. 22, 54; letters
on, from E.B.L. to friends,
ii. 20 et sqq. ; letter on, from
Miss Martineau, ii. 54 et sqq.
Bulwer, Mrs. William, i. 206, 209, 210,
Bulwer, William, brother of E.B.L.,
i-4, 12, 95, 228, 314, ii. 449;
character, i. 75-6 ; relations
with his mother, i. 6, 10 ;
relations with E.B.L. and his
wife, i. 206, 207, 209, 213,
233
Bulwer - Lytton, Emily Elizabeth,
daughter of E.B.L., i. 328 ;
birth and babyhood of, i. 208,
209, 210-12, 228 ; training
of, her mother on, i. 261-2 ;
money settled on, by Mrs.
Bulwer-Lytton, consequent
friction, i. 314, E.B.L. on,
i. 317; in charge of Miss
Greene, and life in Germany,
ii. 99-101 ; illness and early
death,ii.43&«.,78,99, 101-2,
377-8 ; grief of her brother,
poetical expression of, ii. 103
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward Robert, son of
E.B.L., later, ist Earl of
Lytton, ii. 126, 152, 272,
357, 466; birth, i. 247,
368-9 ; childhood, early life,
health, school-days, i. 329-30,
ii. 32-3, 78, 100-3, IIS>
117, 263, 378-9; devoted
conduct to his mother,
ii. 274 et sqq., 341, 379
et sqq. ; diplomatic life,
i. 441, ii. 235, 279, 357, 390
et alibi ; E.B.L. on, ii. 396 ;
marriage, ii. 359, 382, 413;
first son, ii. 361, 370 Sen.
Letters to : —
from E.B.L. on the anodyne of work,
and his translation of Horace,
ii. 247 ; on an article by him,
in Edinburgh Review, ii. 447 j
541
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward Robert — contd.
Letters to — continued
on Caxtoniana, and on "trying
the Drama again," ii. 352 ; on
Chaucer, ii. 419 ; on Chinese
affairs (1857), ii. 252 ; on
Coleridge's Works, ii. 420-1 ;
on The Coming Race, ii. 467-9 ;
on the Commune in Paris,
ii. 475 etsqq. ; on his deafness,
ii. 191 ; on his own elevation
' to the Peerage, ii. 368-70 ;
on further trouble from his
wife, ii. 356 ; on his health,
and resignation of office,
ii. 305 ; on his health,
ii. 358-9, 459; on Johnson,
Ariosto and others, ii. 422
et sqq. ; on Keats, de Musset
and others, ii. 428 ; on Hugo,
ii. 429 5 on The Lost Tales of
Miletus, ii. 361-7 ; on literary
idleness, ii. 193 ; on his
marriage, ii. 360 ; on his own
Miscellaneous Prose Works,
ii. 447-8 ; on Palmerston's fall
in 1858, and on office offered
to himself, ii. 260-1 ; on The
Parisians, and on The Coming
Race, ii. 481 ; on his play
The Rightful Heir, ii. 451 ;
on Pausanias, the Spartan,
ii. 248 ; on his own Reform
Bill speech, ii. 317-8 ; on
Reviewing, and on his
Servian Poems, etc., ii. 394
et sqq. ; on the Schleswig
Holstein affair, ii. 357-8 ;
on Society, the House of
Lords, and his undelivered
speech on Irish Church Bill,
ii. 453-5 ; on his speech to
schoolboys, ii. 249 ; on Spirit
manifestations, ii. 42-4 ; on
A Strange Story, ii. 340, 345,
347-51 ; on the same, and
on religion, ii. 401 et sqq. ;
on the success of his own
Horace, ii. 451 ; on Swin-
burne, and on his early
poems, ii. 433, 437-8
from R. Browning on the death of
his father, ii. 489
from W. G. Steinmetz, on E.B.L.'s
Homerton escapade, i. 50 «.
INDEX
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward Robert — contd.
Poems by, ii. 361, 392, 4.01-2, 411,
430; E.B.L. on, ii. 395 &H.,
396
Relations with E.B.L., ii. 359-60,
369, 376, 377, 378 et sqq.,
412 et sqq., 483, 495-6
Bulwer-Lytton, Mrs. Edward Robert
(later Countess of Lytton),
" ii. 361 »., 370; marriage,
ii. 359 ; relations pf, with
E.B.L., ii. 382, final geni-
ality of, i. 483-4, his letters
recognising this, ii. 484-5 ;
on E.B.L.'s appearance and
habits, ii. 17-8
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward Rowland John,
son of ist Earl of Lytton,
ii. 18, 361, 370 &». ; death,
ii. 382
Buol, Count, and the Congress of Vienna,
ii. 212, 232
Buonarotti, Michael Angelo, E.B.L. on,
ii. 424-5 _
Burdett, Sir Francis, appearance and
political views of, i. 417, 420
& a. 2, 421
Burges, George, on Pelham, i. 347
Burke, Edmund, Reflections on the French
Re-volution by, i. 473-4
Burnet, Dr. F., schoolmaster, i. 50 n.
Buxton, visits to, ii. 443
Byng, Frederick, dinner given by, E.B.L.
on, ii. 1 1-2
Byron, Lord, i. 330, ii. 419 ; calumnies
on, i. 121, 378 ; epithet of,
for Gell, i. 270 ; and Lady
Caroline Lamb, i. 119 et sqq.;
as poet, E.B.L. on, ii. 361,
364, 367, 393, 399, 420,
473-5 ; parallel between him
and Praed, i. 73 ; his Works,
copies of, at Knebworth,
ii. 117; as remembered by
Venetian gondoliers, i. 263-4
Byronic cult, supersession of, by Pelham,
'• 347
CABRERA, E.B.L. on, ii. 119
Caleb Williams, by Godwin, i. 364
Call, Sir John, i. 147
Cambridge,' E.B.L.'s career at, and suc-
cesses, i. 4, 66-80, 122, 126 «.,
153, 155 n.
Campagna, the, Mrs. E.B.L. on, i. 268
Campbell, John (later ist Baron), and
theatrical monopoly, i. 433
Campbell, Thomas, i. 162, 366, 371, 448
Canada question, the, i. 513
Canning, Rt. Hon. George, i. 55-6;
and Reform, i. 394 ; foreign
policy, i. 395, E.B.L. in
favour of, i. 397 ; oratory,
i. 418 ; verses, ii. 425
Canton, treaty-port, ii. 253, forts at,
destroyed (1857), ii. 254
Capacities of Man, as evidence of his
Soul, E.B.L. on, ii. 401, 402
et sqq.
' Capitaine Phoebus,' in Notre Dame, by
Hugo, ii. 429
Captives, The, Drama by E.B.L., un-
performed and unpublished,
ii. 441-2
Carlyle, Thomas, letters from, to E.B.L.,
on Zanonifi'i. 39 ; on the trans-
lation of Schiller's poems,
ii. 58-60
Carnarvon, 4th Earl of, ii. 302, 449 ;
E.B.L. on, ii. 280-1
Cassandre, by Victor Hugo, ii. 422
Castellamare, why held by English
(1860), ii. 332
Catalepsy, Clairvoyance, etc., E.B.L. on,
ii. 48
Catholic Relief Bill, an historical com-
ment on, i. 411
Catiline, tragedy, by Voltaire, E.B.L.
on, ii. 422
Catullus, E.B.L. on, ii. 399
' Caxton, Austin,' traits in, of E.B.L.'s
grandfather, i. 68
Caxtoniana, Essays, by E.B.L., ii. 125,
352, 4I3&H., 445
Caxtons, The, novel by E.B.L., i. 68 ;
character-drawing, ii. 498 ;
characteristics of, publication,
and anonymity of, ii. 30,
104 et sqq., 122 ; E.B.L. on,
ii. 105 ; letter on, from Mrs.
Robert Southey, ii. 105-6 ;
mistake in, found by
Macaulay, ii. 123 ; written
simultaneously with Lucretia,
ii. 1 6 n.
Cecil, Lord Robert (later 3rd Marquis
of Salisbury), ii. 212
Censorship, see Dramatic Censorship
Censure, ' see Motion of Censure, and
Vote of Censure
542
INDEX
Chairolas, by E.B.L., where published,
letter on, from Me>im£e,
i. 450
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. Joseph, and
Tariff Reform, ii. 155
Chambord, Henri, Comte de (Henri V.),
E.B.L. on, ii. 479 Sen.
Chaplin, Ellen, in Many Sides to a Char-
acter, ii. 140 «.
Character, value of, in a Democracy,
ii. 322
Character-drawing of E.B.L., ii. 497-9
Charles Albert, King of Sardinia and
Piedmont, E.B.L. on, ii. 83,
abdication, ii. 1185 funeral,
ii. 121-2
Charles I., E.B.L. on, ii. 52, 308, 328,
329, 33^332. 333» 335, 336
Charles X., King of France, ii. 81, 135,
397, 479 n. ; and the Charter,
»• 395-6
Charles Lamb and some of his Companions,
Essay by E.B.L., ii. 420, 440
Charron, E.B.L. on, ii. 477
Chastelard, by Swinburne, ii. 432
Chatham, ist Earl of, ii. 239 j verses of,
ii. 425
Chaucer, Geoffrey, E.B.L. on, ii. 419-20
Cheltenham, visit to, i. 172
Chesterfield, 8th Earl of, cited on
Dramatic Censorship, i. 428
Children, Mrs. E.B.L.'s attitude to, and
views on training of, i. 209,
258, 261-2, 278, 321, 329,
515
China, difficulties with, see Arroio war
Chinese Question, Election of 1858
fought on, ii. 258
Cholera in London (1848), ii. 108
Chrhtabel, by Coleridge, E.B.L. on',
ii. 420
Christianity, E.B.L. on, ii. 410 et sqq.
Chronicle, The, i. 513
Chronicles and Characters, by E. R. Lytton,
E.B.L. on, ii. 411
Gibber, Colley, on enacting villains,
ii. 123
Cicero, E.B.L. on, ii. 424, 470
Civil List Fund, E.B.L. on, ii. 516 et sqq.
Civil War, English, contrasted with
the Reign of Terror, by
E.B.L., ii. 52 •
Civil War in the United States, ii. 353
Clanricarde, ist Marquis of, appointment,
effects of, ii. 261 Sen.
'Clara,' in Money, i. 553
Clarendon, 4th Earl of, ii. 359
Clarke, Mrs., ii. 273
Classical education, value of, E.B.L. on,
"• 193-5
Classical writers, E.B.L.'s knowledge of
and admiration for, ii. 418 ;
study of E.B.L. on, ii. 396, 447 '
' Claude Melnotte ' in Lady of Lyons,
i. 555 ; part liked by actors,
i- S3 5
' Cleopatra,' flight of, in Horace's lyrics,
E.B.L. on, ii. 363
Clifford, Mrs., actress, i. 551
Clytemnestra, and other Poems, by Owen
Meredith (E. R. Lytton),
ii. 103 n. ; E.B.L. on,
ii. 384 &».
Cobbett, William, and Reform, i. 393
Cobden, Richard, ii. 246 ; vote on
Arrow debate, ii. 258 ; and
the Anti-Corn Law League,
ii. 150; on the Arrow
war, ii. 255, 258
Cobdenite or Manchester school of
politics, ii. 159, E.B.L. on,
ii. 161
Cockburn, Alexander, later Attorney-
General and Baron, E.B.L.'s
Cambridge friendship with,
'• 75. 76, 78, ii. 197 «• i, 389
Coercion Bills, Grey's, i. 452, 481,
E.B.L.'s opposition, i. 426,
438 5 Peel's (1846), ii. 93 n.
"Coffinmaker, The," story by Mrs.
Norton, i. 380
Colburn, — , books by E.B.L. published
by, i. 185, 186, 346, ii. 501
Coleman, Benjamin, letter to, from
E.B.L., stating his "views,
succinctly " on Spiritualistic
manifestations, ii. 49-50
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, ii. 61 ;
favourite poet of Patmore,
ii. 61, and of E.B.L., ii. 419 ;
E.B.L. on, ii. 420-1, 426
Coliseum, the, E.B.L. on, i. 442
Collins, Wilkie, in Many Sides to a
Character, ii. 140 n.
Colonies, Cobdenite attitude to, ii. 160
E.B.L. as Secretary of State for,
ii. 261, 269 ; staff and work,
ii. 280 et sqq,*
Columbia River, gold found along,
results of, ii. 289
543
INDEX
Combermere, Viscountess, ii. 449 ;
E.B.L.'s letter to, on Spiritual-
istic phenomena, ii. 457
Comedy, characteristics of, E.B.L. on,
i. 561-2
Coming Race, The, by E.B.L., ii. 462-4,
480, 497 ; letters on, from
E.B.L. to Forster, ii. 464-7 ;
satire of, ii. 475 } success
of, ii. 468-9, 481
Commerce and Education, relative value
of, E.B.L. on, ii. 512 et sqq.
Commune in Paris, ii. 475 ; E.B.L. on,
ii. 478 ; novel based on,
ii. 480 et sqq.
Compton, Mrs., in Many Sides to a
Character, ii. 140 n.
Confessions, of Rousseau, E.B.L.'s first
impressions of, i. 69
Confessions of a Water Patient, Essays by
E.B.L., ii. 22
Congress of Vienna, ii. 210-2, 225,
232, 241 ; E.B.L.'s speech in
support of his motion of
censure on Lord John Russell's
conduct at, ii. 229-33
Congreve, William, E.B.L. on, ii. 395
Coningsby, by Disraeli, ii. 119 n.
Consciousness, problem of, E.B.L. on,
ii. 407
Conservative party, consolidation of
(1859), ii. 307, 309; E.B.L.
as member of, ii. 178 et sqq.
Conservativism, E.B.L. on, ii. 309-10
Conspiracy to Murder Bill, debate on,
ii. 258 ; E.B.L. on, ii. 260-1
Constitutional changes, E.B.L. on,
i. 452, 472
Constitutional, The, Blanchard's connec-
tion with, ii. 135
Continental travels of E.B.L. (1825),
i. 1 27 et sqq., & see later, passim
Copenhagen, E. R. Lytton at, ii. 357, 359
Copped Hall, purchase of, ii. 354, 413,
4H, 493
Corfu, E.B.L. at, ii. 339
Corn Laws, and Repeal, i. 392, 464 ;
E.B.L.'s views and speeches|on,
1.424, 526, ii. 80, 151, 154,
1 66, see also Derby, and Peel
Corneille, E.B.L. on, ii. 422, 425, 477
Cornflowers, title of E.B.L.'s collected
poems, ii. 384
Costello, Dudley, in Many Sides to a Char-
acter, ii, 140 n.
Cosway, Mrs., later Mrs. Halliday (f.v.),
ii. 472 n., letters to, from
E.B.L., on the reissue of
King Arthur, ii. 472 ; on
Byron, ii. 473-5
County franchise, qualifications for,
in various Reform Bill?,
ii. 311-2
Coup d'Etat, of Napoleon III., results in
England, ii. 181 et sqq.
Courier, The, and Blanchard, ii. 135
Court Journal, The, and Blanchard,
»• 135
Court Theatre, Darnley produced at,
ii. 79 «.
Covent Garden monopoly, opposed by
E.B.L., i. 427
Cowley, Abraham, E.B.L. on, ii. 398
Cowper, Countess (later Viscountess
Palmerston), i. 153, ii. I3&«.
Crime as subject for Fiction, E.B.L. on,
i. 385-6, ii. 85-90, 123
Crimean war, causes, outbreak, and
chief events of, ii. 204 et sqq.,
debates on, E.B.L.'s share in,
ii. 208 et sqq., 213 et sqq.,
248, effect of, on his political
standing, ii. 242 ; election
of 1858 fought on, ii. 258
Criminal Law Reform, stimulated by
Paul Clifford, i. 362
Crisis, The, see Letter to a Cabinet
Minister on the Present Crisis
Crockford's, famous Club, i. 551
Croker, John William, E.B.L. on,
i. 420
Cromwell, Play by E.B.L., unperformed,
i. 528-9
Cullum, Sir Thomas, i. 334
Cunningham, Miss, i. 206 ; recollections
of E.B.L., i. 147-9
Cunningham, Mrs., E.B.L.'s friendship
with, i. 147 et sqq. ; letter
from, to E.B.L., i. 151 ;
letters to, from him, i. 165 ;
on marriage, i. 149-50, 151-4,
193-4, 205-6 ; on Mrs.
Wheeler, i. 163 ; on his
writings, i. 164, 184, 187;
on entering Parliament, i. 18 1
Cunningham, Peter, in Many Sides to a
Character, ii. 140 n.
Curtis, Dr., schoolmaster, i. 43
Custozza, battle of, ii. 118
Cutlass adventure of E.B.L., i. 15-22
544
INDEX
' Cydippe,' character and poem, in Lost
Tales of Miletus, E.B.L. on,
"• 363> 364» 365
D'AGUILAR, Colonel, i. 528
Daily Telegraph, and Lady Lytton, ii. 274
' Dalibard,' in Lucretia, ii. 93
Bailing, Lord, see Bulwer, Henry
Dandyism, E.B.L. on, ii. 13-14
Dante, E.B.L. on, ii. 366, 399
Dardanelles question, E.B.L. on, ii. 226
Darnley, Comedy by E.B.L., ii. 79&».
' Darrell ' in What will he do tvith it ?
Forster on, ii. 251
Darwin, Charles, quiz on, in The Coming
Race, ii. 465, 468
David, King, E.B.L. on, ii. 256-7
Death -penalty, early igth century,
i. 360-1
Debates, The, on the Grand Remonstrance,
essays by Forster, E.B.L.'s
article on, correspondence
concerning, ii. 327 & n. et sqq.
de Blaquiere, Lady H., i. 518
Decorations, E.B.L. on, ii. 522 et sqq.
de Kock, Paul, E.B.L. on, ii. 394-5
Delmour, or a Tale of a Sylphid, and other
Poems, E.B.L.'s second book,
published, i. 75 n.
Demagogues, and Mob orators, ii. 322
Democracy, ii. 309, 322 ; E.B.L. on,
ii. 303-4, 308, 314
Demosthenes, training in recitations from,
i. 56
Dempster, Mr., schoolmaster, i. 43
de Musset, Alfred, E.B.L. on, ii. 428
' Denby,' the bookseller, in Zanoni, ii. 39
Depression, E.B.L. on, i. 65, 175,
ii. 127, 455-6, 457 et alibi
Derby, I4th Earl of (formerly Lord
Stanley, q.-v.), ii. 370 ; in
office (1852), ii. 183-6; on
the Corn Laws, ii. 183-4;
office refused by, ii. 236 «. ;
office destined by, for E.B.L.,
ii. 224, 242 ; and the
Crimean war, ii. 209, 238 ;
in office (1857) and the
Arroiv war, ii. 252 et sqq.,
304 ; E.B.L.'s speech on the
war, ii. 255-7; in office (1858),
ii. 261-307 ; and the Ionian
Islands, ii. 295 ; office given
by, to E.B.L., ii. 261 ; letters
to, from E.B.L. tendering his
VOL. II
Derby, I4th Earl of — continued
resignation, and the reply,
ii. 295 et sqq., 301 ; Re-
form Bill of 1859., ii. 302,
311-2 et sqq,, E.B.L.'s
speech on, ii. 302 et sqq. ;
in office (1866-7), and the
Household Suffrage Bill,
E.B.L.'s speeches on, ii. 312,
313 et sqq,
E.B.L.'s line on, ii. 70 ; translation
by, of Homer, E.B.L. on,
ii. 361 ; death, ii. 459
Dervishes, and the religious tempera-
ment, E.B.L. on, ii. 456,
458
Descartes, belief of, in animal souls,
ii. 405
Descriptive Poetry, E.B.L. on, ii. 427
Devereux, by E.B.L., publication and
reception of, i. 348, 351-2;
E.B.L. on the book, i. 349 ;
price paid for, i. 350 ; dedica-
tion of, i. 445 & n.
Devey, Miss, Letters of the Late Lord
Lytton to his Wife published
by, i. 169 n., 326
Devonshire House, E.B.L.'s comedy,
Many Sides to a Character
first performed at, ii. I4O&«.,
267
' Devonshire House Set,' mode of speech
of, i. 119
d'Eyncourt, Tennyson, friend of E.B.L.,
famous library of, i. 424-5,
ii. 71
Diary of E.B.L., in 1838, extracts from,
ii. 9 et sqq.
Dickens, Charles (Boz), i. 448, ii. 13, 74,
317, 442; and Blanchard,
ii. 132 ; friendship with
E.B.L., ii. 430, 495; associ-
ated with E.B.L. in founding
the Guild of Literature and
Art, ii. 132 et sqq. ; E.B.L. on
his writings, ii. 430, and their
public reception, ii. 90,412;
E.B.L.'s speech at banquet
to, ii. 443&«.; Hunted Dcnvn
by, foundation of, ii. 86 &cn. ;
and Knebworth theatricals,
ii. 1 3 1 & n., and tour of Many
Sides to a Character, ii. 140 & n.
et sqq.; on E.B.L.'s generosity,
"• 345
545 2 N
INDEX
Dickens Charles — continued
Letters from, to E.B.L., on a tale for
All the Tear Round, and the
replies, ii. 341-7, on Money,
i. 553-4; letter to, from Mrs.
E.B.L., ii. 267
Dickens, Mrs. Charles, in Knebworth
theatricals, ii. 131 n.
Dickens, Frederick, in Knebworth
theatricals, ii. 131 «.
' Diomed,' in Last Days of Pompeii, \. 446
Diplomacy as a career, E.B.L. on,
ii. 389-90
Disestablishment and Disendowment,
E.B.L. on, ii. 455
Disowned, The, by E.B.L., publication
and chief interest of, i. 229,
348-9 ; price paid for, i. 350 ;
reception of, i. 212
Disraeli, Benjamin (later Earl of Beacons-
field), i. 253, ii. 177 ; friend-
ship with E.B.L., ii. 162,
163, 367-8, 377, 448; a
resemblance between them,
i. 492; success of, predicted
by E.B.L. after failure of first
speech, ii. 83
Letters from, to E.B.L. on the
Crimean war, ii. 235-7, on
their friendship, i. 370 ; on
the Letter to John Bull,
ii. 172-3 ; on proposed letter
by E.B.L. to The Times,
ii. 240-1 ; to E. R. Lytton, on
the death of E.B.L., ii. 489 ;
to Lady Blessington on
E.B.L.'s play of La Valliere,
i. 530-2
Letters to, from E.B.L. on the affairs
of The Examiner, i. 447-8 ; on
the Crimean war, ii. 234-5,
237-41 ; on his journey to
Ireland, etc., i. 452-5 ; on his
Letter to John Bull, ii. 163-4,
172 ; on resigning office,
ii. 296, 301, and the reply,
ii. 298-9 ; on The Toung
Duke, i. 368-9 ; from Mrs.
E.B.L., ii. 267
Literary works, contributions to Books
of Beauty, Ne-w Monthly, etc.,
i. 369, 448, see also Coningsby,
Vivian Grey, Young Duke
Political references ; absorption
politics, ii. 299-300 ; attack
Disraeli, Benjamin — continued
Political references — continued
by, on Peel, ii. 151 ; as Chan-
cellor of Exchequer (1852),
ii. 184, 189, Budget Speech,
ii. 1 8 5, Gladstone on, ii. 185-6,
E.B.L. on, first speech in
new house, i. 187-91; and
Gladstone, beginning of feud
between, ii. 185, 186; rival
leadership of, ii. 307, 309 ;
again Chancellor (1866-7),
and Household Suffrage
Bill, ii. 312-3 ; and the
Crimean war, ii. 207-8, 209,
210; and the Reform Bill of
1859., ii. 302 ; speech on
E.B.L.'s motion of censure
on Lord John Russell, ii. 234;
Tory Democracy of, ii. 154,
163; on the offer of the
Greek throne to Lord Stanley,
»• 354-5
Disraeli, Isaac, letter from, to E.B.L., on
Last Days of Pompeii, i. 443-4
Dissenters, relief of, from Church rates,
supported by E.B.L., i. 426
Di-ver, The, by Schiller, E.B.L. on, ii. 364
Divina Commedia, E.B.L. on, i. 327
Divinition, E.B.L.'s investigation into,
ii. 44
Divorce, unattainable by E.B.L. and his
wife, ii. 265, 503
Doctor, The, by Southey, ii. 105
Dogs, devotion to, of Mrs. E.B.L., i. 211,
257-8, 261, 270, 278
' Doleful, Mr.,' in Money, i. 551 Sen.
Domestic Economy, E.B.L.'s writings
on, i. 217
Legislation, E.B.L.'s views on (1833),
i. 436 et sqq.
Domesticity, or a Dissertation upon Ser-vants,
Essay by E.B.L., i. 217
Don Quixote, and the poverty of Cer-
vantes, E.B.L. on, ii. 517
D'Orsay, Count Alfred, i. 331, 537
et alibi $ marriage of, E.B.L.
on, i. 382 ; reprint of Godolphin
dedicated to, i. 450
Dove, river, ii. 427
Dow, — , i. 529
Downing College, Cambridge, Henry
Bulwer at, i. 74-5
Doyle, Mr., uncle of Mrs. E.B.L., i. 1 59,
161
546
INDEX
Doyle, Mrs., i. 161
Doyle, Sir Francis, i. 292, 309, 310, 314,
316, 317, 320, 334; letter
to, from Mrs. E.B.L., ii. 267
Doyle, Sir John, i. 158, 160, 162, 180,
212, 314
Drama, Greek, moral retribution in,
E.B.L. on, ii. 433
Writing of, E.B.L. on, 11.363, 366,412
Dramas, by E.B.L. (see Names, and
Writings), chief incentive to
writing, i. 562 ; sustained
success of, ii. 501
Dramatic Censorship, i. 432 ; E.B.L. 's
attack on, i. 428
Copyright obtained by E.B.L., i. 427,
429, 438 ; his remarks on,
i. 428
Dress, change in, attributed to influence
of Pelham, i. 348
Drouyn de Lhuys, Monsieur, ii. 212
Drury Lane Theatre, i. 539 ; monopoly
of, opposed by E.B.L., i. 427
Dryden, John, E.B.L. on, ii. 92, 385,
393,4-19
Dublin, " an Irish Naples," E.B.L. on,
i. 454
du Bouchet, or Bochet, Jean Jacques,
i. 354».
Duchesse de la Valliere, La, play by
E.B.L., dedication, i. 529,
540 ; E.B.L. on, i. 554 et sqq. ;
production, i. 529, a failure,
i. 530, ii. 500 ; Disraeli on,
to Lady Blessington, i. 530-1,
Lady Blessington on, i. 530
Duelling, E.B.L.'s first experience of,
i. 127 et sqq.
Dumas, E.B.L. on, ii. 395, 398,
429
Durham, ist Earl of, i. 448, 484 ;
ambassador to Russia, i. 501 ;
banquet to, i. 464, 466,
E.B.L. on, i. 464 ; policy of,
Mill on, i. 512 et sqq.
E.B.L.'s friendship with and support
of, i. 367, 427, 452^ 463-4 _
Letters from, to E.B.L. on diplomatic
life, i. 501-3
Letters to, from E.B.L. on The Letter
on the Present Crisis, i. 488-9 ;
on his second election for
Lincoln, and on his health,
i. 490 ; on the Whig-Radical
party, i. 496 et sqq., 499, and
Durham, ist Earl of — continued
Letters to, from E.B.L. — continued
his replies, i. 498, 501
et sqq.
Duty, E.B.L. on, ii. 130-1, 391
Dying, E.B.L. on, ii. 488
BALING, E.B.L.'s studies at, i. 51 et sqq.,
and love affair, i. 59-65 &«.,
83 et sqq., echoes of, in writ-
ings, i. 153, ii. 484
Eardley-Wilmot, Sir John, resolution of,
on Negro Apprenticeship,
i. 520-1
Earned and unearned Incomes, E.B.L.
on, ii. 191-2
East India Company, Monopoly of, E.B.L.
on Committee on, i. 426
Eastern question, rise of, ii. 186
Eaux Bonnes, E.B.L. at, ii. 441
Eclectic Review, The, favourable to
A Strange Story, ii. 349-50
Edgeworth, Miss, on a wife's interest
in her husband's pursuits,
i. 298
Edinburgh, visit to, i. 91 j E.B.L. on its
charms, i. 94
Edinburgh Re-view, E.B.L.'s contribu-
tions to, i. 248, 508, ii. 12;
his son's article in, E.B.L.
on, ii. 446-7
Edinburgh University, Associated So-
cieties of, E.B.L. elected
Honorary President of, i. 95,
ii. 193, address by to Students
on Classical Education,
ii. 193-5, and speech at
Banquet, 195-7 &"•
Editorial posts held by E.B.L., i. 163 «.
248, 366, 384, 426, ii. 12, 132
Education, E.B.L. on : —
Middle-class, ii. 249
National, ii. 199 et sqq., 332, 513
et sqq.
Edward IV. the merchant king,
ii. 166-7
Efficacy, The, of Praise, Essays by E.B.L.,
ii. 94
Egan, Pierce, appreciation by, of Pelham,
i. 389
Egg, Augustus, A.R.A., in Knebworth
theatricals, ii. 131 »., in Many
Sides to a Character, ii. 140 n.
Egypt, paper on, by Disraeli, in New
Monthly, i. 369
547
INDEX
Eldon, ist Earl (the Judge), on the
deterrent effect of the Death
Penalty, i. 362
Electricity (see also Vril), E.B.L.'s use
of, in The Coming Race,
ii. 465-7 ; magic in relation
to, E.B.L. on, ii. 48
Elegy in a Country Churchyard, by Gray,
E.B.L. on, ii. 399
Elizabethan poets, E.B.L. on, ii. 385
Ellenborough, Lord, ii. 261, 269
Elliott, Ebenezer, Corn Law Poet,
E.B.L. on, ii. 74 ; letters
from, to E.B.L., on Eugene
Aram, i. 387-8 ; on Paul
Clifford, i. 364, 365
Elwin, W. Whitwell, Editor of Quarterly
Review, ii. 334, 335
Emma, and other novels by Jane Austen,
E.B.L.'s remarks on, i. 457,
ii. 86, 425
Ems, E.B.L. on his visit to, ii. 106 et sqq.
Encumbered Estates Bill for West
Indian Colonies, passed during
E.B.L.'s Secretariat, ii. 293
Endymion, by Keats, E.B.L. on form of,
ii. 427-8
Engineers, E.B.L.'s speech to, on
embarkation for British
Columbia, ii. 291
England, E.B.L.'s two minds on,
ii. 128, 129
England and the English, by E.B.L.,
i. 89, 248, 379, 399&«.2j
cited, on functions of Govern-
ment, i. 436 et sqq. ; Mill
on, i. 385
English and American Political Consti-
tutions, comparison between,
E.B.L.'s 'Union' speech on,
i. 77-8
English Lakes, visit to, i. 83
English Prize poem, Gold Medal for,
won by E.B.L., i. 80, 126 «.,
I55«., 162; published in
Weeds and Wildficfwers, i. 1 5 3
Enoch Arden, by Tennyson, E.B.L. on,
ii. 431
Epic poetry, E.B.L. on, ii. 366
Erigena, on animal souls, ii. 405
'Erippe,' in Lost Tales of Miletus, ii. 362,
363
Ernest Maltra-vers, by E.B.L., ii. 14 «. ;
publication of, i. 528 ; special
interest of, ib. ; E.B.L. > on,
Ernest Maltra-vers — continued
ii. 9, 498, 500 ; on author-
ship, i. 249
Essay on Man, by Pope, E.B.L. on, ii. 433
Essays by E.B.L., see Names, and under
Writings, Prose
Etonian, The, i. 72
Eugene Aram, by E.B.L., E.B.L. on,
i. 349, 364 5 criticisms on,
and E.B.L.'s reply, i. 385-6,
ii. 85 ; origin of, E.B.L.
on, i. 386-7 ; alteration in
later editions, i. 389 n. i ;
written simultaneously with
Godolfhin, ii. 16 «. ; drama
on, abandoned, design for,
Elliott's letter on, i. 387-8 ;
Pierce Egan's appreciation
of, i. 389
Euripides, E.B.L.'s delight in, i. 56, 88,
89 ; study of, advised by
him, ii. 385
' Europa,' story of, in Horace's Lyrics,
E.B.L. on, ii. 363
Eva, and other Poems, by E.B.L., refer-
ences to, in letters to Forster,
ii. 53 5 Macaulay on, ii. 91
' Eveline,' in The Rightful Heir, ii. 450
' Evelyn,' in Money, E.B.L. on,
i. 551 Sen., 561
Evening dress, early igth century,!. 118
Every Man in His Humour, Comedy by
Ben Jonson, cast of, as given
at Knebworth, ii. I3i&«.,
132
Examiner, The, ii. 119, 124, 392, 393 ;
Blan chard's connection with,
ii. 135 ; difficulties of, E.B.L.'s
interest in, i. 447-8 ; E.B.L.'s
contributions to, i. 248, and
difficulties concerning, ii. 157
et sqq. ; Forster's critique of
King Arthur in, ii. 98-9 ;
politics of, i. 513, ii. 173,
229 j reviews by, of The
Coming Race, ii. 468, and of
The Disowned, and De-vereux,
i. 349
Excise Duties Bill, E.B.L.'s speech on,
ii. 214
Expression in prose, E.B.L. on, ii. 424
' FABER ' and his conversations, in
A Strange Story, E.B.L. on,
i;- 345» 347, 34-8-9
548
INDEX
Factory Law reform, E.B.L.'s activity
on behalf of, i. 426
Faery Queen, by Spenser, E.B.L.'s
pleasure in, ii. 418
Fahey (Faa), genuine gipsy clan, i. 103
Faliero, Marino, Byron's tragedy on,
i. 264
Falkland, by E.B.L., outline, i. 8 1 ;
publication, i. 185, ig4&«.j
biographical interest in,
i. 186 ; E.B.L. on, 139, 164,
186, 187, to Mrs. Cunning-
ham, ii. 186-7, to Miss
Wheeler, i. 185, to his
mother, i. 229 ; letters on,
from Lady Blessington, i. 190,
from Mrs. Bulwer-Lytton,
i. 187 et sqq, ; promise of,
i. 346 ; reception of, i. 187,
194, ii. 500
Falkland, Viscount, the Cromwellian,
E.B.L. on, ii. 330, 333, 337
Falls of Clyde, Morton's leap over,
copied by E.B.L., i. 91-2
Family ties, attitude to, of E.B.L. and
of his wife, i. 277-9, 3°°
Faquirs, Mohammedan, and the religious
temperament, E.B.L. on,
ii. 458
Farquhar, George, E.B.L. on, ii. 395
Fashions in 1831, Mrs. E.B.L. on,
i. 256
Male, change in, after appearance of
Pelham, i. 348
Faubourg St. Germain, E.B.L.'s ac-
quaintances in, i. 134 et sqq.
Faucit, Helen, actress, i. 529
Faust, by Goethe, E.B.L. on, ii. 348,
397, 398
Fechter, success of, in The Lady of Lyons,
ii. 442
' Fen wick,' in A Strange Story, E.B.L. on,
ii. 47&»., 345, 346,348,349
Ferdinand I., Emperor of Austria, ab-
dication, ii. 118
Ferdinand II., King of Naples, and his
Queen, i. 271, ii. 81
Ferrara, Tasso's cell at, Byron's name
carved in, i. 265
Fielding, Henry, E.B.L. on, ii. 395
First nights, Macready on, i. 534
Florence, Mrs. E.B.L.'s impressions
of, i. 265
Fonblanque, Albany de, i. 446, 448, 488,
ii. 125 ; wit of, ii. ii j on
Fonblanque, Albany de — continued
E.B.L.'s speech on Slave
Emancipation, ii. 12 & H.I
Fontainebleau, revisited, ii. 84
Foreign Enlistment Bill, ii. 209 ;
E.B.L.'s speech on, ii. 216
et sqq.
Foreign Quarterly Revieiv, E.B.L.'s con-
tributions to, ii. 51
Forester, Lord, ii. 173
Forster, John, i. 529, ii. 434, 435, 439 ;
and Blanchard, ii. 132, 136;
and the Examiner (q.v.},
»• 392, 393
Friendship with E.B.L., i. 372,
»• 377, 4955 note on, by
E.B.L., i. 372-3 ; difficulties
between them, causes and
adjustment, ii. J73-7>
ii. 324-6 ; in Knebworth
theatricals, ii. 131 «., 1755
in Many Sides to a Character,
ii. 140 n. ; part played by,
in the Tennyson-E.B.L. verse
war, ii. 73 ; writings of,
i. 372, reviews of, by E.B.L.,
ii. 104, 327 et sqq.
Letters from, to E.B.L., on Corn
Laws, and differences with
E.B.L., i. 173 et sqq. ; on
his nap during reading of
Richelieu, and the reply,
i. 544-5 ; on their long
friendship and E.B.L.'s letters
on the same, ii. 325, 326-7 ;
on the re - issue of King
Arthur, ii. 471
Letter to, from Mrs. E.B.L., ii. 267
Letters to, from E.B.L. on his adap-
tation of (Edipus Tyrannus,
ii. 84-5 ; on his anonymity
in regard to The New Timon,
ii. 73-4 ; on his article on
the Reign of Terror, ii. 51-2 ;
on attacks on the morality of
his novels, ii. 85-9 ; on The
Coming Race, ii. 464-7 ; on
his daughter's death, ii. 102 ;
on his difficulties in reference
to changed politics, and on
writing for The Examiner,
ii. 157, 173 et iqq.\ on
the French Revolution of
1848, and on King Arthur,
ii. 97-9 j on Forster's ill-
549
INDEX
Forster, John — continued
Letters to, from E.B.L. — continued
health, ii. 460 ; on his health,
and his Crimean speeches,
ii. 221 ; on Knowles' play
The Hunchback, i. 372 ; on
Italian travels (1846),
ii. 79-80 ; on King Arthur,
ii. 96-7 ; on Leigh Hunt's
affairs, i. 373-4 ; on his loss
of the Lincoln seat (1848),
ii. 156 ; on Money, i. 552-3 ;
on political upheavals in 1848.,
ii. 97-81, 161-2 ; on public
events (1849), ii. 119 et sqq.;
on reluctant return to Eng-
land (1850), ii. 129 ; on his
speech on crushing the power
of Russia, ii. 229 ; on
A Strange Story, ii. 344-5 ; on
the supernatural, ii. 47-9 ;
on his translation of the Odes
of Horace, ii. 246-7 ; on
Voltaire and on Vico,
ii. 421-2; on writing
comedy, ii. 96 ; on Walpole,
ii. 353, 460-2; on water-
cure at Ems, ii. 106 et sqq. ;
on Zanoni, ii. 32-3
Relations with E. R. Lytton, ii. 379,
and letter to him on E.B.L.'s
death, ii. 489
Fortnightly Review, on re-issue of King
Arthur, ii. 472
Fox, Charles James, ii. 238 ; verses of,
ii. 425
Fox, George, mental state of, Macaulay
on, ii. 278 «.
France, autocracy for, E.B.L. on, ii. 480 ;
history of, as exhibited in
E.B.L.'s three plays, his
own comments on, i. 554
et iqq.
Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria,
accession, ii. 118
Francis, Sir Philip, and Foreign Enlist-
ment, ii. 218-9
Franco-Prussian war, and Commune,
E.B.L. on, ii. 475 et sqq.
' Frankenstein ' and his giant, ii. 429
Frankfort, Peace of, ii. 475
Franks, i. 256-7 ; E.B.L.'s, i. 48 ; his
first, i. 413
Fraser River, gold found along, results
of, ii. 288, 289
Prater's Magazine, attitude of, to E.B.L.,
i. 81, 547, ii. 430
Free importation of Corn in " dark
ages," E.B.L. on, ii. 166
Free Trade, introduction of, ii. 150-1 ;
E.B.L.'s views on, ii. 158
French fiction, E.B.L. on, ii. 394
French and German literature, mutual
indebtedness, E.B.L. on,
ii. 477
French National Guard, visit to England,
ii. in
French Republic, under Louis Napoleon,
ii. 118-9
French Revolutions (1793), effects in
England, i. 390-2, 394, 395,
E.B.L. on, ii. 329, 336, 477-8;
Macaulay's ' Union ' speech
on, i. 79 ; (1848), i. 118 ;
E.B.L. on, ii. 97-9
Fridolin, by Schiller, E.B.L. on, ii. 364
Fulham, associations of, with E.B.L.,
i. 39-41, 212 et sqq.
GAIETY Theatre, ii. 461
Gait, John, book by,', i. 253 ; fate of,
i. 285
Gambetta, L£on, and the Commune,
E.B.L. on, ii. 476
Gambling, E.B.L.'s resolution on,
i. 146-7 Sen.
Game Laws, E.B.L.'s farewell speech
at the ' Union ' on, i. 80 & H.I,
126 n.
Gardiner, Lady Harriet, marriage of, to
Count D'Orsay, i. 382
Garibaldi, Giuseppe, ii. 118, E.B.L. on,
ii. 119, 126, 127, 332, 333
Garret, Dr., on E.B.L.'s smoking habits,
ii. 19
Garrick, David, ii. 146
Garter, Order of the, E.B.L. on, ii. 522-3
Gascoigne, General, and the Reform
Bill, i. 408
' Gaul, the,' in Lost Tales of Miletus,
ii. 362, 363, 364
Cell, Sir William, i. 270, 443 ; Last
Days of Pompeii dedicated to,
i. 447
Geneva, Lady Bulwer at, ii. 263
Genius and Art, E.B.L. on, ii. 400
and the Poetic faculty, E.B.L. on,
ii. 424-5
Genoa, Duke of, visit to E.B.L. at
Knebworth, ii. 452-3
55°
INDEX
George III., ii. 218
George IV., interest of, in The Disowned,
i. 212
German language, study of, E.B.L. on,
ii. 386
German and French literature, mutual
indebtedness of E.B.L. on,
ii. 477
Germany, insurrections in (1848), results
of, ii. 1 1 8 ; references to, in
Chaucer and other poets,
E.B.L. on, ii. 419 ; E.B.L.'s
travels in, ii. 96, 117
Ghost-seer, The, by Schiller, ii. 81
Ghost stories, E.B.L. on, ii. 49
Gibbon's History, E.B.L. on, ii. 423-4
Gibson, John, sculptor association of,
with E.B.L., i. 441
Gibson, T. Milner, ii. 225, 246, 260,
261 ; resolution of, on Con-
spiracy to Murder Bill, ii. 259
Gipsies, E.B.L.'s life with, i. 101 et sqq.
Gipsy customs, as to Animal food, i. 107 ;
as to Marriage for a term,
i. 109-10
Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., ii. 240 ;
E.B.L. on, in New Timon,
ii. 70 ; on his oratory, ii. 261 ;
on public view of, in 1871.,
ii. 477
Greek throne declined by, ii. 354
Letter of, on E.B.L.'s death, ii. 489
political references to : at Colonial
office (1841), ii. 150-15
change of politics (1852),
ii. 185 ; Chancellor of
Exchequer (1852), ii. 1 86,
E.B.L.'s speech on his first
budget, ii. 191-2 ; in favour
of Reform, ii. 3115 Crimean
war budgets of, ii. 207, 214,
E.B.L.'s speech on, ii. 225 ;
desire for peace, ii. 212,
E.B.L. on, ii. 225 ; Ionian
mission of, ii. 294 ; votes of,
against his party, on Arrow
war, ii. 258, and on Con-
spiracy to Murder Bill,
ii. 260; and the Home Rule
split, ii. 155 ; rivalry between
him and Disraeli, ii. 307, 309,
beginning of, ii. 186
Gladstone, Viscount (Herbert), i. 363 «.
Glasgow banquet to Lord Durham,
i. 466
Glasgow University, E.B.L. thrice Lord
Rector of, his Rectorial speech
(1857), ii. 249
' Glaucus ' in Last Days of Pompeii, i. 444
Gleig, C. R., book by, ii. 92
Glenarvon, Lady Caroline Lamb's novel,
Byron depicted in, i. 120
Gloucester, life at, of Mrs. E.B.L. during
first separation, i. 273, 289 ;
fiasco of E.B.L.'s visit,
i. 304-5 et sqq.
Godolphin, by E.B.L., i. 385, ii. 446 ;
dedication, 1834 edition,
i. 450 ; writing and publica-
tion, i. 389 & «.2, ii. 16 n.
Godwin, William, book by, i. 364 ; in
favour of Reform, i. 393 ;
letters from, to E.B.L., on
Paul Clifford, \. 364-5 ;
on E.B.L.'s Parliamentary
candidature and election,
i. 399-401 ; letters to, from
E.B.L. on the latter subject,
i. 398, 402-3
Goethe, J. W., E.B.L.'s preference for,
ii. 419 ; ranked below Schiller
by him, ii. 53 ; study of,
advised by him, ii. 396, 397,
398 ; quoted, ii. 130-1, on
dissertation in narrative,
ii. 347-8, on the writing of
Werther, i. 1 86
Gold, discovery of, in Canada, ii. 288-90
Goldsmith, Oliver, i. 554 j E.B.L. on,
ii. 108, 399, 424, 429
Good-Natured Man, The, play, by Gold-
smith, i. 554
Gore House, Lady Blessington's parties
and hospitality at, i. 381,
ii. 6, 116
Gosse, Edmund, on E.B.L. and Swin-
burne, ii. 434
Government, functions of, E.B.L. on,
i. 436 et sqq.
Graham, Sir James Robert, ii. 240
Grammar, English insecurity in, E.B.L.
on, ii. 423
Grand Commandership of the Order of
St. Michael and St. George
conferred on E.B.L., ii. 459
Grant, Sir A., eulogy by, of The Coming
Race, ii. 468
Granville, 2nd Earl, at the Foreign
Office, ii. 182
' Graves, Mr.,' in Money, hint for, i. 99
551
INDEX
Gray, Thomas, poems of, E.B.L.'s views
on, i. 399, ii. 421
Great Rebellion, the, Forster essays on,
E.B.L.'s criticism on and the
letters concerning, ii. 327 &».
et sqq.
Greece, Grote's History of, i. 528 ; throne
of, offered, amongst others,
to E.B.L., ii. 354, letter on,
to his son, ii. 355
Greek Christians, and the Crimean
war, ii. 205
Poets and writers, E.B.L. on, ii. 193-4,
385, 433
Greene, Mary, friendship of, with Mrs.
E.B.L., i. 158-9 et sqq.
passim ; influence of, i. 259 ;
as peacemaker, i. 272
Letters to, from Mrs. E.B.L., on
domesticity, i. 218 5 on
kindness from E.B.L.'s
mother, i. 231 j on house-
hunting in London, i. 245-7 ;
on domestic life at Hertford
Street, etc., i. 253 et sqq. ; on
popular expectations from the
Reform Bill, i. 409-10 ; in
praise of her husband,
i. 214-6
Memoir by, on her relations with
Mrs. E.B.L., extracts from,
i. 159 et sqq. ; on Falkland,
i. 187 ; on married life of
E.B.L., i. 208, 247-9, 3'5 5
on their letters while first
separated, i. 288-9 ; entrusted
with the Bulwer children,
ii. 262-3, 514; her relations
with Emily Bulwer -Lytton,
ii. i oo- 1
Mrs. E.B.L. on, i. 327-8
Greenwood, Frederick, and E.B.L.,
ii. 449 & «.
Gregory XVI., Pope, appearance of, i. 267
Greville, unfinished novel by E.B.L.,
1.348
Grey, 2nd Earl, i. 453 ; administration
of, i. 408 et sqq., 452 ; and
the Reform Bill of 1832.,
i. 408, 422 ; and the creation
of Peers, i. 423 ; E.B.L. on
his government, i. 481-2;
banquet to, at Edinburgh,
i. 464 ; declines to form new
Ministry (1835), i. 492 ; on
Grey, 2nd Earl — continued
Foreign Enlistment, cited by
E.B.L., ii. 220
Griffiths, George, ii. 86 n.
Grosvenor Square, No. 12, bought by
E.B.L., ii. 354, 447 &n.
Grote, George, i. 497 ; book by, i. 528
Grotius, and Vico, E.B.L. on, ii. 422
Guardian, The, on A Strange Story,
ii. 350
' Guenevere,' in E.B.L.'s King Arthur,
ii. 472
Guernsey, early home of Mrs. E.B.L.,
i. 158
Guild of Literature and Art, founded by
E.B.L. and Dickens, ii. 69,
132, 139 et sqq., 267 ; Bill for,
and fate of, ii. 144 et sqq. 5
Macaulay on, ii. 145
Guizot, F. P. G., fall of, ii. 98, 118
Guz/a, "Illyrian" verses, by Me>im6e,
his letter on, to E.B.L.,
i. 45o&«., 451
HACKNEY, E.B.L.'s school escapade at,
i. 48-50 Sen.
Hades, vision of, in Horace's Lyrics,
E.B.L. on, ii. 363
Hague, The, E. R. Lytton at, ii. 279
Haig, Dr., dietary teaching of, ii. 29
Hale, Henry, in Knebworth theatricals,
ii. 131 n.
Hall, Robert, ii. 458
Hall, S. C., i. 380 ; on E.B.L., appear-
ance, i. i63&»., character,
ii. 494-5 ; as Editor and con-
tributor to Neiv Monthly
Magazine, i. 366-7 ; on
Rosina Wheeler in 1826.,
i. 163 «.
Hall, Mrs. S. C., letter to, from
E.B.L., on his mother's death,
ii. 21-2
Halliday, Mrs. (Mrs. Cosway, q.v.),
letters to, from E.B.L., on
Coleridge, and Gray, ii. 421 ;
on his views on Jane Austen,
Keats, Shelley, etc., ii. 425-6 ;
on Kenelm Chillingly, ii. 481;
on Michael Angelo, ii. 424-5 ;
on Tennyson's poems,
ii. 430-1 ; E.B.L.'s last
dinner with, ii. 486
Hampden, John, our debt to, Forster on,
ii. 331
55'
INDEX
Hanover, and the revolution of 1848.,
ii. uS
Hare, Sir John, Darnley produced by,
ii. 79 n.
Harold, by E.B.L., written at Bayon's
Manor, i. 425 5 publication
of, ii. 30, 104 ; speed at
which written, ii. 16, 99
Harrogate, visited, ii. 192
Harry Lorrequer, by Lever, E.B.L. on,
"• 395
Hartington, Marquis (later 8th Duke of
Devonshire), ii. 304
Hawkins, Henry, in Knebworth
theatricals, ii. 131 n.
Haymarket Theatre, Money produced
at, i- 553
Heath, Charles, of Books of Beauty (q.-v.),
fame, ii. 115 &H.I
Hector and Andromache, E.B.L. on,
ii. 386
Hegel, E.B.L. on, and study of, ii. 353,
427
Helen of Troy, E.B.L. on, ii. 386
Hemans, Mrs., poetess, contributions by,
to Books of Beauty, i. 448 ;
letter from, to E.B.L., on
The Last Days of Pompeii,
i. 444-5
Henri V., de jure King of France,
E.B.L. on, ii. 479 Sen.
Henrietta Temple, by Disraeli, i. 531
Heroes and Heroines of E.B.L.'s novels,
ii. 498-9
Heron, Sir Robert, Bill of, concerning
re-election of Ministers on
taking office, E.B.L.'s sug-
gestion on, i. 451
Hertford, 4th Marquis of, i. 332 ; as
dancer, i. 118
Hertford election (1858), esclandre at,
by Lady Lytton, ii. 269-70,
274
Hertford Street, No. 36, London home
of E.B.L. and his wife,
i. 247, 252
Hertfordshire, E.B.L. as member for,
ii. 178 et sqq., 186 et sqq.
Hertfordshire Gazette, and Lady Lytton,
ii. 274
Hesiod, E.B.L. on, ii. 385
Heydon Hall, i. 3, 7 j Eugene Aram's
association with, i. 386
High spirits in narrative writing, E.B.L.
on, ii. 394
Highlands, visit to, i. 95
Hildyard, Robert, i. 76
Hill, Dr. Gardiner, in charge of Lady
Lytton, ii. 274, 277
Hill, Lord George, ii. 523
History of Athens, unfinished, by E.B.L.,
i. 248
History of the Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire, by Edward
Gibbon, E.B.L. on, ii. 423-4
History of England, by Rapin, E.B.L.'s
studies in, i. 73
History of Greece, by Grote, i. 528
History of Logic, by J. S. Mill, ii. 520
History of the Thirty Tears' Peace, by
Harriet Martineau, i. 467 n.
Hogarth, Miss, in Knebworth theatricals,
ii. 131 n.
Holland, Lady, ii. 91, manner, ii. 13
Holland, 3rd Lord, i. 469
Holland, Queen of (Sophia), E.B.L. on,
ii. 470-1
Holland, and William of Orange, E.B.L.
on, ii. 229
Holland House, society at, i. 82, ii. 13
Holy Places, guardianship of, and the
Crimean war, ii. 205
Holyoake, George Jacob, on E.B.L.'s
speech on abolition of News-
paper Stamp duty (1885),
ii. 244 et sqq.
Home, Sir William (ex-Solicitor-General,
1832), i. 417
Home Rule for Ireland, E.B.L. on,
ii. 455 ; Liberal split on,
ii. 155
Homer (Pope's), E.B.L.'s childish delight
in, i. 23 ; later love for,
ii. 419 ; E.B.L. on high spirits
of, ii. 394, popular element
in, ii. 193, 385-6, 399 ; study
of, advised by him, ii. 429
Translation of, by the Earl of Derby,
E.B.L. on, ii. 360
Homeric Hymns, rhymed translation of,
by Shelley, ii. 366
Homme, L', qui rit, by Hugo, E.B.L. on,
ii. 429
Hood, Thomas, E.B.L.'s correspondence
with, and on behalf of,
ii. 62-9
Letters from, to Ward, ii. 62, 63-6 5
to E.B.L., ii. 66-8
Hood's Magazine, ii. 66 ; E.B.L.'s con-
tributions to, ii. 62
553
Hooker, Dr., E.B.L.'s schoolmaster,
i. 44 ; letters from, on E.B.L.,
i. 45&».
Horace, poems of, i. 56 j E.B.L. on,
ii. 361, 363-4,396,399,423,
428
Odes and Epodes of, E.B.L.'s translation
of, ii. 246-8, 418, 440, 444,
4Si.
Home, R. H., in Many Sides to a Char-
acter, ii. 140 n.
Horoscope, in verse, by E.B.L., i. 149
Houghton, Lord (see also Milnes), ii. 436
House-hunting, Essay on, by E.B.L.,
i. 217
House of Lords, E.B.L. on, ii. 453 ; his
silence there, ii. 371 ; and
Reform Bills of 1831 and
1832., i. 422-3
Household Gods, The, Play by E.B.L.
originally called Brutus,
ii. 96 Sen.
Household Suffrage, Bill for, ii. 312-3
Houses of Parliament burnt down, i. 46 1 -2
Hudson Bay Company, and Vancouver
Island, ii. 288-9, 293
Hugo, Victor, E.B.L. on, i. 557, ii. 422,
428, 429
Humanity, Spirit of, E.B.L. on, ii. 199
Hume, the medium, ii. 48
Hume, the philosopher, E.B.L. on,
ii. 346
Hume, Joseph, M.P., anecdote of, i. 462 ;
Stamp tax repeal speech of,
i. 505-6 ; and theatrical
monopoly, i. 433
Humphrey Clinker, by Smollett, E.B.L.
on, ii. 395
Hunchback, The, by Sheridan Knowles,
»• 372
Hungarian Rebellion, and Kossuth,
ii. 118, 119
Hunt, Leigh, ii. 61 ; E.B.L. on,
i. 377-8 ; pecuniary troubles
of, E.B.L.'s joint efforts with
Forster to relieve, i. 373 j
letters on, and from, i. 374-8 j
Life of Byron by, i. 206
Hunted Down, by Dickens, foundation
of, ii. 86 «.
Hyde, Edward, E.B.L. on, ii. 331, 333
Hyperion, by Keats, E.B.L. on, ii. 426
"IDEAL, THE," by Schiller, E.B.L.'s
translation of, ii. 57
Illustrated Times, The, ii. 302
Imagination, E.B.L.'s gift of, himself
on, ii. 496-7
Immortality, E.B.L. on, ii. 401, 402
Inchbald, Mrs., farce by, cast of, as
. given at Knebworth, ii. 131 «.
Income Tax, E.B.L.'s speech on, ii. 191-2
Indicator, The, Leigh Hunt on, i. 376
Infant Custody Bill, E.B.L.'s attitude
to, and its supporters, i. 514,
5t$crjff.
Inhabited House duty, increase of,
ii. 185 j E.B.L. on, ii. 187
Inkermann, battle of, ii. 208
Inner Life of the House of Commons, by
William White, cited on
E.B.L., ii. 282, 302 &«.
International copyright, E.B.L.'s pioneer
work as affecting, i. 429
Inverness Lodge, Brentford, Lady Lytton
under restraint at, ii. 272-3,
275, 277
' lone,' in Last Days of Pompeii, i. 445
lone, opera by Petrella, inspiration
of, i. 441
Ionian Islands, Gladstone's mission to,
ii. 294 j E.B.L.'s visit to,
»• 339
Ireland, E.B.L. on his visit to (1834),
1.452 etsaq.
Famine in ( 1 846-7), ii. 9 3 & n., ii. 1 50,
and the Reform Bill (of 1832),
i. 408-9, 410-11
People of, characteristics, and state,
E.B.L. on, i. 454, 455, 456,
460, 462-3
Scenery of, E.B.L. on, i. 454, 456,
461
Irish Church, conflict on, inevitable,
E.B.L. on, i. 476
Irish Church Bill, E.B.L. on, ii. 449,
453;4
Irish Obstruction, forecast of, by Sheil,
i. 425-6
Irishwomen, Lady Blessington on, ii. 4
Irving, Washington, i. 253 j contribu-
tions by, to Books of Beauty,
etc., i. 448
Ismael, an Oriental Tale, by E.B.L.,
published with other verses,
i. 56 Sen. I
Italian verse, debt to, of English poets,
E.B.L. on, ii. 386
Italy and Austria, ii. 1185 E.B.L. on,
ii. 78, 1 20- 1
554
INDEX
Italy'and Austria — continued
Disagreeables of travel in, Mrs. E.B.L.
on, i. 263 et sqq.
Tour in, of E.B.L. and his wife,
events of, novels due to, and
its unfortunate end, i. 260-7,
271 etsqq., 274, 338, 389,
439 et m-
I-vanhoe, by Scott, ii. 507
Ixion in Heaven, by Disraeli, i. 327,
369 5 E.B.L. on ("Elysium"),
J-455
'JAMES WEATHERCOCK,' pen-name of
Wainewright, ii. 86 n.
Jennet, E.B.L.'s favourite, i. 117, 139
Jennings, Hargrave, book by, E.B.L.'s
letter on, ii. 41, 42
Jerrold, Douglas, ii. 74 ; and Blanchard,
ii. 132 ; in Knebworth theat-
ricals, ii. 131 «., 140 n.
Jewish disabilities, removal of, supported
by E.B.L., i. 427
John Bull, Letters to, Pamphlet, by E.B.L.,
letters on, from E.B.L. to
Disraeli, ii. 163, 172 ; con-
tents, ii. 164 et sqq., 4945
Disraeli's letter to E.B.L.
on, ii. 172-3 ; Macaulay's
letter on, ii. 145 et sqq.
Johnson, Dr., ii. 80 ; E.B.L. on, ii. 424
Jones, Sir William, i. 33
Jonson, Ben, ii. 422 ; play by, given at
Knebwortn, ii. 131 & «., 132
Journalistic writings of E.B.L., i. 366-7
Jowett, Professor Benjamin, funeral
sermon by, on E.B.L., ii. 491
'Julia,' in The Hunchback, i. 372
'Julia,' in Last Days of Pompeii, i. 446
Junius, E.B.L. on, ii. 424
KARS, capitulation of, ii. 213 ; E.B.L.'s
speech on, ii. 248
Kean, Charles, in Othello, E.B.L. on,ii. 12
Keats, John, E.B.L. on his style, ii. 385,
425, 428, and on his influence
on later poets, ii. 426
Keepsakes, etc., see Books of Beauty
Kemble, Fanny, diary of, i. 327
Kenelm Chillingly, by E.B.L., character-
istics of, ii. 104; written simul-
taneously with The Parisians,
ii. 16 «., posthumously pub-
lished, ii. 480, 481, 482,
484 ; huge sales, ii. 500
Kennedy, Benjamin Hall, at the
' Union,' i. 79
Kent, Duke of, i. 61
Kilsalaghan, Irish home of the Doyles,
i. 161
' King Arthur,' in Tennyson's poems,
E.B.L. on, ii. 431
King Arthur, Poem by E.B.L., ii. 30 ;
letters on, from him to Lady
Blessington, ii. 114-55 to
Forster, ii. 96-9, 108 ; re-
vision and re-issue, letters
on, from E.B.L. to Forster,
ii. 469 et sqq. j preface to,
difficulties in, ii. 471-2 ; re-
ception of, E.B.L. on, ii. 472
Kinglake, A. W., ii. 449
Kinsela, Abb6, and E.B.L., i. 135 et sqq.,
145, IS*
Kitchen, The, and the Parlour, or Household
Politics, Essay by E.B.L., i.217
Knebworth, i. 3, 7, 165, 288; partial
demolition of, i. 38 ; left to
E.B.L. on his mother's death,
i. 244 ; his alterations at,
ii. 248 5 costliness of, ii. 359,
369 ; E.B.L.'s affection for,
ii. 376-7, and life at, ii. 130-1,
440, 449, 454, 459, 481 ;
reliques of Lady Blessington
at, ii. 117 ; Swinburne's visit
tp, ii. 434, 43 5.437-9 j theat-
rical performance at (1850),
ii. I3i&«., object of, 132}
works at, by Gibson, i. 441
Knebworth edition of E.B.L.'s works,
original text of Student in,
ii. 444 n.
Knight, Charles, in Knebworth theat-
ricals, ii. 140 n.
Knighthood, order of, E.B.L. on,
ii. 322
Knightley, Sir Charles, ii. 173
Knowledge, E.B.L. on, i. 435, ii. 198
Knowles, Sheridan, relations with
E.B.L., i. 371-2
Kossuth, Louis, ii. 124
Kotzebue, E.B.L. on, ii. 431
Kreuznach, visit to, ii. 119
KUnstler, Die, by Schiller, H. Martineau
on, ii. 37
LABOUCHERE, Henry, and the Arrow
war, ii. 255
La Croix, Consul, ii. 125
555
INDEX
' Lady Mary,' hypothetical bride of
E.B.L., i. 151-2, 194
Lady of Lyons, The, by E.B.L., i. 532;
dedication of, i. 53672.5
E.B.L. on, i. 554, ii. 450 ;
E.B.L.'s refusal to be paid
for, i. 539 et sqq. ; letter on,
from Mrs. Shelley, i. 538 ;
success of, i. 534, ii. 105, 442 ;
speed at which written, ii. 16
La Fontaine, E.B.L. on, ii. 477
Laissez faire, doctrine of, ii. 160
Lamartine, A. de, admired by E.B.L.,
ii. 333, 428
Lamb, Charles, Essay on, by E.B.L.,i. 377
V.' Lamb, Lady Caroline, i. 153 ; E.B.L.'s
**\ friendship with, i. 118 et sqq.;
eccentricities and musical
gifts of, i. 119, 1 20 ; friend-
ship of, with Miss Wheeler,
i. 162, 163 »., 176} letter
from, to E.B.L., i. ''164-5;
writings of, Ada Reis, i. 165,
and Glenarvon, i. 120
Lamb, William, M.P., and theatrical
monopoly, i. 433
Lamington, istLord, see Baillie-Cochrane
' Lancelot,' in Tennyson's poem, E.B.L.
on, ii. 431
v Landon, Letitia Elizabeth (L.E.L.),
friend of Mrs. E.B.L., i. 211,
and of E.B.L., i. 383, ii. ii ;
poems of, i. 384, 448 ; death
of, i. 384, E.B.L. on, f. 543-4
Landon, Mr., dog given by, to Mrs;
E.B.L., i. 211
Land-prices, in Ireland (1834), E.B.L.
on, i. 456
La Place, E.B.L. on, ii. 346, 347
'Lara' and 'Kaled,' loves of, E.B.L.
on, ii. 367
Last Days of Pompeii, by E.B.L., dedi-
cation of, i. 447 ; E.B.L.
on, i. 349, 364, 460, to
Disraeli, i. 454-5 ; gay tone,
and lively style, i. 443, ii. 104;
Italian translations, i. 445 ;
Mrs. E.B.L. on, ii. 290 ;
origin and sources, i. 262,
440, 442, 443 ; reception of,
and letters on, from Auldjo,
Lady Blessington, Isaac
Disraeli, and Mrs. Hemans,
i. 443 et sqq. ; cited on lessons
of Adversity, ii. 95-6
Last of the Barons, by E.B.L., a character
in, ii. 490 ; publication of,
ii. 30, 77 j E.B.L. on,
ii. 53-4, Miss Martineau on,
»• 55
Laurie Todd, by Gait, i. 253
' Lauzun,' in La Valliere, E.B.L. on,
»• 559
La Vendee, heroine of, i. 135
Lavinia, novel, by George Sand, used
in Lucile, a poem, by E. R.
Lytton, ii. 392
Lawrence, Sir Thomas, i. 254 n.
Lay, The, of the Last Minstrel, E.B.L.
on, ii. 420
Leben Jesu, by Strauss, E.B.L. on, ii. 411
le Brun, Charles, E.B.L. on, ii. 477
le Brun, Pigault, E.B.L. on, ii. 353,
394
Leech, John, in Knebworth theat-
ricals, ii. 131 n.
Leeds, E.B.L.'s speech at Mechanics'
Institute, on Knowledge,
Humanity, Education, ii. 198
et sqq.
Legion of Honour, why founded, ii. 525
Leigh, Mrs., i. 266, 271 j and Byron,
calumnies concerning, i. 121
Lemon, Mark, in Knebworth theatricals,
ii. 131 n., and in Many Sides
to a Character, ii. 140 n.
Lending, E.B.L. on, ii. 388-9
Leominster, E.B.L.'s unsuccessful candi-
dature for, ii. 111-3
Le Sage, E.B.L. on, ii. 125
Letters to a Cabinet Minister on the Present
Crisis, by E.B.L., i. 473
et sqq., ii. 501 ; E.B.L. on,
i. 488-9 ; letters on, from
Melbourne, i. 487-8, from
Mulgrave, i. 485-6 ; sale of,
i. 473»474-&»-i, 489
Letter to Delme Raddiffe, Esq., by E.B.L.,
proposed publication of, in
Times, ii. 239&«., 240-1
Letters of the Late Lord Lytton to his
Wife, published by Miss
Devey, cited, i. 169 n.
Letters to John Bull, Pamphlet by E.B.L.,
contents, ii. 164 et sqq., 494 ;
letters on, from E.B.L. to
Disraeli, ii. 163, 172; letter
on, from Disraeli to E.B.L.,
ii. 173-4 ; letter on, from
Macaulay, ii. 145-7
556
INDEX
Letters to Lord John Russell, by E.B.L.,
on various topics, ii. 152
et sqq., 507 et sqq.
Letters from the Mountains, by Mrs.
Grant, i. 218
Lever, Charles, writings of, E.B.L. on,
»• 394-5
Levitation, E.B.L. on, ii. 48
Lewes, George Henry, E.B.L. on, ii. 438
Lewis, Sir George Cornewall and the
abolition of the Newspaper
Stamp Duties, ii. 243, 244,
245
Liaisons, E.B.L. on, ii. 387-8
Liberal party, consolidation of (1859),
ii. 307, 309 ; division in,
Brougham on, i. 465-6 ;
E.B.L. associated with, on
entering Parliament, i. 367
Liberal-Unionist fusion, result of, ii. 155
Liberty of the Press, Macaulay's 'Union'
speech on, i. 79
Life, as a game, E.B.L. on, ii. 129
Life in London, by Pierce Egan, i. 389
Life of Byron, by Leigh Hunt, i. 206
Life of Lord Ed-ward Fitzgerald, by
T. Moore, i. 255
Life of St. Francis de Sales, E.B.L. on,
ii. 485-6
Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of
Ediuard Bultver, Lord Lytton,
out of print, i. 4
Life of Montalembert, by Mrs. Oliphant,
E.B.L. on, ii. 485
Life of Oliver Goldsmith, by John Forster,
i. 372 j reviewed by E.B.L.,
ii. 104
Life of Mrs. Norton, by Miss Perkins,
i. 517
Life of Rosina, Lady Lytton, edited by
Miss Devey, extracts from,
i. 326 et sqq.
Life of Warren Hastings, by Gleig,
ii. 92
"Lilian," poem by Coventry Patmore,
ii. 6 1
'Lilian,' in A Strange Story, E.B.L. on,
ii. 346, 348
' Lily,' in Kenelm Chillingly, prototype
of, ii. 484
Lincoln, E.B.L. 's parliamentary con-
nection with, i. 424, 489-90,
526, ii. 96, 150, 156
'Lionel' in What -will he do ivith it?
ii. 251
' Lismahago,' in Humphrey Clinker, ii. 395
Literary men, E.B.L.'s kindness to,
ii. 62-9, 74
Literary Gazette, E.B.L.'s contributions
to, i. 248 ; praise by, of
Zanoni, ii. 34
Literature, connecting of, with a man's
profession, E. B.L. on, ii. 387 ;
E.B.L.'s chief support, i. 494,
his fame derived from, i. 495,
summary of his status in,
ii. 496 et sqq. j legislation on
behalf of, supported by E.B.L.,
i. 427
"Little Boots," E.B.L.'s name for his
eldest child, i. 210
"Little Ella," by "Owen Meredith,"
lines from, on death of his
sister, ii. 103 &«.
Li-ves of the Philosophers, by Diogenes
Laertius, i. 37-8
Li-ves of the Poets, by Johnson, E.B.L.
on, ii. 423
Living, cost of (1861), E.B.L. on, ii. 409
Lizzard Connel, paternal home of Mrs.
E.B.L., i. 158
Local colour, Merim6e on, i. 451
Lockhart, J. G., i. 212, ii. 449
London, cholera in, ii. 108 ; return to
of E.B.L. (1826), first meet-
ing with future wife, i. 154,
i55&«.;
London Magazine, The, Wainewright's
articles in, ii. 86 n.
London and Westminster Re-view, Mill's
connection with, and writings
on, i. 507, 508, 510
Londonderry, 3rd Marquis of, i. 500-1
Long Journeys -with Short Purses, by
E.B.L., i. 217
Lost Tales, The, of Miletus, Poems, by
E.B.L., his letters on, to his
son, ii. 361-75 gift of, to
Swinburne, ii. 431-2
Louis XIV., i. 148 5 E.B.L. on, i. 555
et sqq., ii. 228-9
' Louis XIV.,' in La Valliere, E.B.L. on,
'•559
Louis XVI., concessions made by,
E.B.L. on, ii. 329 $ execution
of, i. 420 n. i
Louis XVIII., Charter of, i. 395 ;
restoration of, i. 147
Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III. q.-v.},
President of the French Re-
557
INDEX
Louis Napoleon — continued
public, ii. 113, 1 1 8-9 j Coup
d'Etat of, ii. 181
Louis Philippe, fall of, E.B.L. on,
ii. 97-9, 1 18, 329
Love, in Drama, E.B.L. on, ii. 367
Lucile, poem by E. R. Lytton (as Owen
Meredith), charge of plagiar-
ism concerning, E.B.L.'s letter
thereon, ii. 392-4
Lucretia, or the Children of the Night,
novel, by E.B.L., ii. 83, 84,
86 «. ; written at the same
time as The Caxtons, ii. i6«.,
104 ; publication, and re-
ception of, ii. 85 j Macaulay
on, ii. 92-3
' Lucretia Clavering,' in Lucretia, basis
of, ii. 86 «.
' Lucy Ashton ' and ' Ravenswood,' loves
of, E.B.L. on, ii. 367
Lushington, Sir Godfrey, on effects of
Prison Life, i. 363 & n.
Luther, poem by Montgomery, ii. 92
Lyndhurst, Lord, i. 531 ; and the Reform
Bill of 1832., i. 422, 423 ;
letter to, from Mrs. E.B.L.,
ii. 267
Lyons, E.B.L. on, ii. 83
Lyric Offerings, by Blanchard, E.B.L.'s
review of, ii. 135, 138
Lytton, Countess of, see Bulwer-Lytton,
Mrs. Edward Robert
Lytton, Elizabeth Barbara Warburton,
see Bulwer, Mrs. W. E.
Lytton, 1st Baron, see Bulwer, afterwards
Bulwer - Lytton, Edward
George Earle Lytton, subject
of this Biography
Lytton, ist Earl of, see Bulwer-Lytton,
Edward Robert
Lytton, Lady, wife of E.B.L., see Bulwer,
Mrs. Edward, and Wheeler,
Rosina
Lytton, Mr., grandfather of E.B.L.,
character, i. 30, 31 Sen., 32-3 ;
E.B.L.'s recollections of, i. 12
et sqq. ; library of, i. 12, 13,
33-7, 68 ; relations with
his daughter, i. 12 ; death,
i. 30
Lytton, Mrs., grandmother of E.B.L.,
i. 5. 7» I2' 30
Lytton, surname of, assumed by E.B.L.,
ii. 263
MACCARTHY, Justin, ii. 282 n. ; on
E.B.L. as orator, ii. 501-2
Macaulay, Thomas Babington (ist
Baron), ii. 249, 314, 387,
E.B.L. on his appearance,
i. 420, conversation, i. 79,
and style, ii. 243
Letters from, to E.B.L. on his com-
plaints of the reception of
his writings, ii. 915 on
E.B.L.'s Edinburgh speeches,
ii. 198 ; on the Guild of
Literature and Art, ii. 145-7 5
on his Letters to John Bull,
and on Many Sides to a
Character, ii. 145-7 ; in
praise of Night and Morning,
». 31
Literary style of, Arnold on, ii. 446,
Mill on, i. 508, E.B.L. on,
423 ; mistake found by, in
The Caxtons, ii. 122 ; and
Negro Apprenticeship, i. 521 ;
'Union,' speeches of, i. 79
Mackintosh, Sir James, Vindicite
Gallicte by, i. 4i9-2o&«.i
McLean, — , Governor of the Gold
Coast, husband of " L.E.L.,"
i. 384, ii. ii
McMahon, Marshal, ii. 476
Macready, William Charles, famous
actor, i. 429, ii. 79, 122,
friendship with E.B.L., plays
invited from, and written for
him by the latter, i. 528
et sqq., 562 et sqq., ii. 96 ; as
' Bragelone,' E.B.L. on, i. 559
Letters from, to E.B.L. on The Lady
of Lyons, i. 532 et sqq. ; on
Many Sides to a Character,
ii. 139-40 ; on Money, i. 550 j
on the Sea Captain, i. 546, 549
Melancholy of, E.B.L. on, ii. 33 j
' CEdipus ' as a character for,
E.B.L. on, ii. 84 ; parts
preferred by, E.B.L. on,
ii. 123 ; on La Valliere's first
night, i. 529-30; on Richelieu,
'• 542, 543, 545
' Maga,' see Black-wood's Magazine
Magazine-writing, E.B.L. on, ii. 386, 387
Magic, E.B.L. on his belief in, ii. 48
Maginn, Dr., of Frazer's Magazine, and
E.B.L., i. 8 1
Mahon, Viscount, i. 374, ii. 523
558
INDEX
Malade Imaginaire, by Moliere, E.B.L.
on, ii. 395
Malt duties, proposed reduction of
(1852), ii. 185, E.B.L. on,
ii. 187; increase of (1854)
opposed by E.B.L., ii. 214
Malvern, Water-cure at, E.B.L. on,
ii. 25 et sqq., 96, and resort
to, ii. 54, 248
Management, The, of Money, by E.B.L.,
ii. 413
Manchester, public dinner at, concerning
the Guild of Literature and
Art, ii. 143-4 ; social condi-
tions in (1833), i. 436
Manchester Liberals, E.B.L.'s one action
in concert with, ii. 255
Manners-Sutton, Sir Charles (later Vis-
count Canterbury), Speaker
of the House of Commons,
i. 417, 481
Manufactures, effect on, of the French
wars, i. 391-2
Manufacturing districts, disturbances in,
in 1829 and later, i. 404-5
Many Sides to a Character, or Not so Bad
as We Seem, Comedy by E.B.L.,
why written, ii. 139 ; first
production, cast, and audience,
ii.'i4O&«.,tour,ii. 141-3,267;
Macaulay on, ii. 145, 147
Mardyn, Mrs., a would-be contributor
to The Neiv Monthly, letter
from, i. 378-9
Margate, visits to, i. 164
' Margrave,' in A Strange Story, E.B.L.
on, ii. 346, 347, 348, 401
Maria da Gloria, Queen of Portugal,
'• 395
Marie, by Brieux, E.B.L. on, ii. 429 & n.
Marie Antoinette, i. 148
Marlborough, John Churchill, 1st Duke
of, foreign troops of, ii. 219
Marriage, crisis at, in relation between
child and parent, i. 220-2 ;
E.B.L.'s letters on, to Mrs.
Cunningham, i. 149 - 54,
193-4, 205-6
Gipsy style, for a term, i. 109-10
Proposals, early, for E.B.L., i. 1 37 etsqq.
Marriages, ill-assorted, i. 4
Married love, E.B.L. on, ii. 367
Marston, Westland, in Many Sides to a
Character, ii. 140 «.
Marten, Henry, regicide, ii. 441 Sen.
Martineau, Miss Harriet, book by,
i. 467 n., letters from, to
E.B.L. on his mother's death
and his intention to cease
fiction-writing, ii. 54-6 ; on
his translation of Schiller's
Poems, ii. 56-8 ; on Zanoni,
her interpretation of the
book, ii. 35-8, 346
' Matilde,' in Deiiereux, i. 352
' Matthew Bramble,' in Humphrey
Clinker, ii. 395
Maurice, F. D., at the ' Union,' i. 78
Mazzini, Giuseppe, ii. 118, 119, 126, 127
Medical science, basis of, modern reforms
in, ii. 25, 28, 29
' Mejnour,' in Zanoni, ii. 32
Melbourne, 2nd Viscount, E.B.L.'s ac-
quaintance with, i. 367 ;
administrations of (1834),
fall of, i. 466-7, 470, defects
attributed to by Radicals,
i. 472-3, (1835-41) fall of,
ii. 150; character of, E.B.L.
on, i. 482-3 ; and Hon. Mrs.
Norton, i. 515
Letters from, to E.B.L. on the Letter
on the Crisis, i. 487 ; on
reduction of Stamp duty on
Newspapers, i. 503
Office offered by, to E.B.L. but de-
clined, i. 492-5 ; and the
Stamp duties abolition, ii. 243 ;
cited on E.B.L.'s early genius,
i. 380
Memoir of Laman Blanchard, by E.B.L.,
ii. 132-4, 136
Mercadante, composer, and E.B.L.'s
CEdipus adaptation, ii. 84
' Meredith, Owen,' pen-name of Edward
Robert Bulwer-Lytton, q.-v.
Merime'e, Prosper, letter from, to E.B.L.,
on Chairolas, and on his own
Guzla, i. 450 & »., 45 1
Merit, Order of, suggested by E.B.L.,
»• »53» 523-4
' Merlin ' in Tennyson's poem, E.B.L.
on, ii. 431
' Mervale, Mrs.,' in Zanoni, ii. 35
Metres in verse, E.B.L. on, ii. 365
Michelet, Jules, ii. 422
Middle Classes, enfranchisement of,
ii. 310 ; E.B.L. on, ii. 315 ;
and Social Reform, E,B.L,
on, ii. 511-2
559
INDEX
Milan, picture at, inspiring E.B.L.'s
Last Days of Pompeii, i. 440
Militia Bill (1852), ii. 182-4, 3*8
Mill, James, ii. 447 5 and Reform,
i. 393
Mill, John Stuart, ii. 520 ; letters from,
to E.B.L. on various topics,
i. 507-145 political ideas of,
on land, ii. 478, 479, on
suffrage, ii. 314
Miller, Thomas, basket-maker poet,
i. 330&H.
Milnes, Richard Monckton (later, 1st
Lord Houghton (q.-u.")},
ii. 431 5 letter to, from
E.B.L., ii. 74
Milton, John, E.B.L. on, ii. 365, 366,
386, 399, 433 Sen.
" Milton," poem by E.B.L., in Weeds
and WUdfio'wers, i. 153
Mirny, E.B.L.'s gipsy friend, i. 101 etsqq.,
prediction by, i. 102-3, •*»"
filled, i. 505
Mind, E.B.L. on, ii. 128-9, 4°6 et *??•
Ministers of the Crown, and the public,
E.B.L. on, ii. 222
Re-election of, on appointment to
Office, Bill on, E.B.L.'s sug-
gestions, i. 451
Minor Latin poets, E.B.L.'s study of,
ii. 125
Miscellaneous Prose Works of E.B.L.,
Collected Edition issued,
ii. 96, 444 & ». ; gift of, to
Arnold, his letter of thanks
for, ii. 446 ; E.B.L. on, to
his son, ii. 447-8
Miserable^, Les, by Hugo, E.B.L. on,
ii. 42
* Mr. Graves,' in Money, i. 5 5 1
Moliere, J. B. P. de, E.B.L. on his
plays, etc., ii. 395, 428, 433,
441, 477, 560, 561
Monarchy, The, of the Middle Classes in
France, by Henry Lytton
Bulwer, i. 461 Sen.
Moncrieff, Lord, ii. 197 «.
Money, by E.B.L., i. 550 ; his last
important dramatic work,
i. 562 ; where written,
"• 353 5 production and
success of, i. 553, ii. 315
character in, hint for, i. 99 ;
Dickens on, i. 554 ; E.B.L.
on, i, 559 et s<ft.
560
Mont Dore, visited, ii. 361
Montaigne, M. E. de, as essayist, E.B.L.
on, ii. 447-8, 477
Montgomery, Robert, poems, ii. 92
Monthly Chronicle, E.B.L.'s contributions
to, i. 248, ii. 32; criticism
in, by E.B.L. on J. S. Mill's
writings, i. 510; edited by
E.B.L., ii. 12
Monthly Magazine, The, Blanchard's
connection with, ii. 135
Moody, Colonel, ii. 293
Moore, Thomas, i. 253, 330, ii. 523 ;
contributions by, to Books of
Beauty, etc., i. 448 ; Life of
Lord Edward Fitzgerald
by, i. 255 ; Mrs. Norton on,
i. 254 ; wit of, ii. ii
Moral Intention in Poetry, E.B.L. on,
"-.433
'Mordaunt,' in The Disowned, i. 351
Moreton, Augustus, i. 44
Moreton Bay, ii. 288
Morley, John (Viscount Morley of
Blackburn), ii. 478, 489
Morning Chronicle, and The Letter to
John Bull, ii. 172
Morpeth, Viscount (later, 7th Earl of
Carlisle), ii. 108
" Mortimer," basis of Pelham, \. 89
Morton's Leap, copied by E.B.L.,
i. 91-2
Motion of Censure against Lord John
Russell, by E.B.L., and his
speech in support, ii. 229-33
Moxon, and Swinburne's poems, ii. 434,
435. 436,438
Muirhead, James, ii. 197 n.
Mulgrave, 2nd Earl of (later, 1st Marquis
of Normanby), i. 367, 464 ;
character of, E.B.L. on,
i. 485 n. ; Letter on Crisis . . .
by E.B.L. addressed to, his
letteracknowledging, {.485-65
on the political importance of
Lord Althorp, i. 486
Muller, Prof. Max, eulogy by, of The
Coming Race, ii. 468
Murray, John, publisher, E.B.L.'s rela-
tions with, i. 150, ii. 361
My Novel, by E.B.L., character-drawing
in, ii. 498 ; characteristics
of, 104; publication of,
ii. 30 5 success of, E.B.L.
on, ii. 191
INDEX
NANKIN, Treaty of, and the Chinese
treaty-ports, ii. 253
Naples, ii. 247, 268 5 E.B.L. on, ii. 9,
79-80 ; novels associated with,
i. 440, 442 ; King and Queen
of, see Ferdinand II. ; Mrs.
E.B.L.'s flirtation at, and the
results, i. 271-5, 297, 312
&«•, 33!-2»439
Napoleon I., i. 558 ; English dread of,
ii. 182 ; as Member of the
Institute, his saying, ii. 525 j
struggle with, effect of, on
England, i. 390-2
Napoleon III. (see also Louis Napoleon)
and the Orsini bomb affair,
ii. 258 j and the Crimean
war, ii. 205-6, 211, 229,
230, 241 ; surrender after
Sedan, ii. 475 ; death, E.B.L.
on, ii. 486
Nash, John, architect, story of, by Mrs.
E.B.L., i. 245-7
Nationality, essential in popular writings,
E.B.L. on, ii. 396, 422
Natural Claim of a Mother to the Custody
of her Children, as affected by
the Common Law Right of the
Father, pamphlet by Hon.
Mrs. Norton, i. 515
Negro Apprenticeship, subject of E.B.L.'s
last speech in Parliament,
i. 520, 522 et sqq., ii. I2&».
Neoradicalism, i. 509
Nero's court, ii. 125
Nevill, Lady Dorothy (nee Walpole),
ii. 109 «.
New Monthly Maga-zine, edited by
Harrison Ainsworth, ii. 22,
135 ; Disraeli's contributions
to, i. 369 ; E.B.L.'s con-
tributions to, i. 248, 366,
387-8, 527, ii. 22 ; E.B.L.'s
editorship, i. 163 n., 248, 366,
426, ii. 132; relinquished,
i. 384 ; friendships resulting
from, i. 367 et sqq. ; Leigh
Hunt's wish to work on,
i. 375, 376 ; notable con-
tributors to, i. 369, 371-80 j
portrait in, of E.B.L. (1831),
i. 254
New South Wales, separation of,
from Queensland, effected by
E.B.L., ii. 284
VOL. II
New Testament, the study of, E.B.L.
on, ii. 406-7
New Timon, The, Poem by E.B.L., nature
of, the references to Tennyson
in, etc., ii. 69 et sqq., 430, 501;
lines from, on an average
man's view of morals, ii. 504
New Timon, The, and the Poets, by
Tennyson, ii. 72-3 & n.
Newgate Calendar, statistics of, for
1819-25., i. 361-2
Newspaper Press Agitation over Lady
Lytton's detention, ii. 274
Newspapers, Taxes on E.B.L.'s motion
against, and the abolition of,
i-427. 433. 452 «"??•, 503;
Lord Melbourne's letter to
him on, i. 503 ; E.B.L.'s
Speech on, ii. 224, 242-3
Newton, Sir Isaac, ii. 406, 411
Nice, visits to, ii. 117 et sqq., 440
Nicholas I., Czar of Russia, and the
Crimean war, ii. 205, 206,
208 ; death of, ii. 211
Night and Morning, by E.B.L., publica-
tion, ii. 31 ; attacks on,
E.B.L. on, ii. 85-6 ; interest
of, Macaulay's praise, ii. 31
"Night, The, of Song," by Schiller,
E.B.L.'s translation, ii. 57
" Nineteen Points," the, presented to
Charles I., E.B.L. on, ii. 328,
329
Nineteenth Century characteristics,
E.B.L. on, ii. 199
Norfolk, agricultural disturbances in
(1829 and 1830), i. 406-7;
attachment to, of its sons,
i. 7, 8 ; the Bulwer connection
with, i. 3, 4
Normal Clairvoyance, The, of the Imagina-
tion, Essay by E.B.L., 11.496-7
' Norman,' in The Sea Captain, i. 546
Normans, the, E.B.L. on, ii. 14
Norton, Hon. George Chappel, i. 380
Norton, Hon. Mrs. (nee Caroline
Sheridan), i. 153, 380 ; ad-
vocacy of Infant Custody
Bill, pamphlet on, i. 515,
letters on, to E.B.L., i. 517
et sqq. ; contributor to The
New Monthly, i. 38o&«.,
letters from, to E.B.L.,
i. 380-1 ; on Tom Moore,
i. 254
561 2 O
INDEX
Notre Dame de Paris, by Hugo, E.B.L.
on, ii. 429-30
Nou-velle Helo'tse, La, by Rousseau, E.B.L.
on, i. 69-70
Novara, battle of, ii. 118
Novel-writing, rules for, E.B.L. on,
i. 460-1
Novels by E.B.L., see Names, and under
Writings, Prose
' Nydia,' in Last Days of Pompeii, epis-
tolary references to, i. 444,
445, 446
OBSERVATION, E.B.L. on, ii. 496-7
Occult Studies of E.B.L., i. 149, ii. 32,
39 et sqq.
O'Connell, Daniel, M.P., E.B.L.'s
acquaintance with, i. 367,
453 j appearance of, E.B.L.
on, i. 419 ; brogue and
oratory, i. 79,253 ; on politics,
i. 426, 452, 453, 496 ; on
E.B.L.'s Negro Apprentice-
ship speech, i. 522
Ode to Rae Wilson, by Hood, ii. 63
Odes and Epodes of Horace, E.B.L.'s
translation of, ii. 246-8, 418,
440, 444, 451
CEdipus, in old Greek Drama, E.B.L.
on, ii. 433
CEdipus Tyrannus, of Sophocles, adapta-
tion of, by E.B.L., ii. 83, 84,
85, 90-1
Offences punishable by Death early igth
century, i. 360-1
Old Mortality, by Scott, i. 91
Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret), book by,
ii. 485
O'Neill, or the Rebel, poem by E.B.L.,
i. 150, 164, 194; topics of,
i. 184-5
Opposition, an, definitions of, by Disraeli,
ii. 236, by E.B.L., ii. 238
Orangemen, E.B.L. on, i. 454
Oratory of E.B.L., contemporary state-
ments on, ii. 282-3, 3OI>
302 et sqq., 501
Ord, William, Cambridge friend, i. 79 ;
visit to, i. 82
Order of Merit, suggested by E.B.L.,
ii- 'S3. 5*3-4
" Ordonnances," the, i. 396
Orford, 3rd Earl of, i. 407
Orford, 4th Earl of, see Walpole,
Lord
Orleanist party, after Sedan, E.B.L. on,
ii. 475-6
Orleans, House of, E.B.L. on, ii. 480
Orsini, attempt of, to murder Napoleon
III., consequences of, ii. 258
et sqq.
Osbaldiston, — , manager of Covent
Garden, and E.B.L., i. 539
Osborne, Lady, ii. 13 ; letter to, from
E.B.L., on his mother's death,
ii. 21
Otho, King of Greece, abdication of,
i'- 354
Ottoman Empire, Russian proposal to
divide, ii. 205 5 and the politi-
cal stability of Europe, ii. 206
Ovid, E.B.L. on, ii. 399
Owen, Robert, E.B.L.'s visit to, i. 92 ;
local opinion on, i. 93-4
Owl, The, ii. 119 n.
Oxmantown, Lord, i. 262
Palamon and Arcite, by Dryden, E.B.L.
on, ii. 419
Pall Mall Gazette, editor of, ii. 449 & ».
Palmer, Rt. Hon. Roundell (later ist
Earl of Selborne), ii. 212
Palmerston, Viscount, ii. 237, 238, 240 ;
and the Coup d'Etat, ii. 181,
182 j in the Coalition
Ministry, ii. 186; and the
Crimean war, ii. 206 ; and
the Congress of Vienna,
ii. 229, 230 ; speech on
E.B.L.'s motion of censure on
Lord John Russell, ii. 233-4 j
driven from office by the
Orsini bomb affair, ii. 258-61;
on E.B.L.'s speech on the
Derby Reform Bill, ii. 302 ;
vigorous age of, E.B.L. on,
ii. 361 ; Whig administration
of (1854), ii. 210 ; death of,
effect on Reform projects,
ii. 311, E.B.L. on, ii. 362
Palmerston, Viscountess (formerly
Countess Cowper),ii. 354, 384
Panshanger, memorable ball at, i. 122-3
Paper duty, abolition of, E.B.L.'s share
in, i. 433 et sqq.
Paradise [Lost, E.B.L. on, ii. 366,
433 Sen.
Parent and Child, mutual duties of,
E.B.L. on, ii. 415-6
Paris, Comte de, E.B.L. on, ii. 480
56:
INDEX
Paris, the Commune in, ii. 475 j E.B.L.
on, ii. 478 ; his novel based
on, ii. 480 et sqq. ; death in,
of Lady Blessington, ii. 78,
113, 116, 117; E.B.L.'s life
in (1825), i. 134, 143, visits
to, i. 315, 321 ; subsidised
theatres in, i. 431
Paris, Peace of, ii. 213, 241
Parisians, The, by E.B.L., origin of,
ii. 480-1 ; written at the
same time as Kenelm Chillingly,
ii. 1 6 ».
Parkes, Joseph, M.P., and a proposed
new party, E.B.L. on, i. 499
Parkes, Mr. (later, Sir Harry), and the
Arrow affair, ii. 253
Parliamentary life of E.B.L., see under
Bulwer, E. G. E. Lytton,
Life, Political and Public
Parliamentary Reform, see under Reform
Parnell, Sir Henry, i. 464
Parr, Dr. Samuel, i. 33, 68 ; letter from,
to E.B.L., on his early verses,
i. 56 & n. z j on -vice "versa,
ii. 108
"Partition, The, of the Earth," by
Schiller, E.B.L.'s translation,
ii. 57
Party ties, strain on, illustrations of,
»• IS4-S
Passions, the, in popular poetry, E.B.L.
on, ii. 399
Patmore, Coventry K., Poems by, E.B.L.'s
praise of, and the author's
letter of thanks, ii. 6o&n.i
et sqq.
Patroclus, death of, E.B.L. on, ii. 385
Paul Clifford, by E.B.L., publication
of, i. 348, 360, 362, 390;
criticisms, i. 385, ii. 85 ;
Disraeli's favourable opinion,
i. 369 5 E.B.L. on, i. 363-4 ;
keynote, i. 360, 362, 435 ;
letters on, from Godwin and
from Elliot, i. 364-5
' Pauline Deschapelles ' in Lady of Lyons,
a popular part, i. 535
Pausanias the Spartan, by E.B.L., ii. 340,
357 • posthumously published,
ii. 248 ; letter on, by E.B.L.,
ii. 248
Peace of Paris, ii. 213, 241
Peace party in England, recruits to
(1855), ii. 212
Peace policy of Aberdeen Government
(1852), ii. 186
Pearson, Charles, ii. 134
Peculiarities of London Tradesmen, Essay
by E.B.L., i. 217
Peel, Lady Emily, i. 449
Peel, Sir Robert, i. 55, 421, 423,
ii. 249, 449 ; administration
of («34)» '• 4-18' +7°» 472.
489, 491, fall of, i. 492 ;
administration of (1841-6),
and Corn Laws and Free
Trade, ii. 80 et sqq., 151,
E.B.L.'s views on, ii. 107,
108, 152-3 & see Appendix I.,
p. 507; fall (1846), ii. 93«.,
151, 153 ; and Hood's
pension, ii. 62, 67 ; and
Lord Londonderry, i. 500-1 ;
Reform Bill speech, i. 418;
and Southey, ii. 522
Peelite M.P.'s, E.B.L. on, ii. 225
Peerage conferred on E.B.L., ii. 318,
324, E.B.L. on, ii. 368-70
Peers, threatened creation of, to carry
third Reform Bill, i. 423
Pelham, by E.B.L., i. 164. Sen., 401;
basis of, i. 89 ; begun, i. 8 1 ;
characters in, originals and
hints for, i. 133 ; criti-
cisms on, E.B.L. on, i. 369 ;
E.B.L. on, i. 363, ii. 865
French experiences described
in, i. 145-6, 148 ; Nash's
appreciation of, i. 246 ; price
paid for, i. 350; publication
of, i. 148, circumstances of,
i. 346-7, influence of, on
Byronism and on dress,
E.B.L. on, i. 347-8 5 re-
review, proposed of, by
Forster, ii. 123 ; Scott's
praises of, i. 212
' Pelham, Lady Frances," on male attire,
i. 348
Penal code, English, in early igth
century, statistics of its
working, i. 361-2
and Prison Discipline, Paul Clifford
written to draw attention
to, i. 360-2, 435
Penny post, first suggested in Parlia-
ment by E.B.L., i. 434
Penryn, overtures from, to E.B.L.,
i. 398
563
INDEX
Pensions, E.B.L. on, i. 482, ii. 71 ; for
literary persons, E.B.L.
on, to Lord John Russell,
ii. 516 et sqq.; one secured
for Tom Hood, ii. 62, Hood
on his deserts as to, ii. 64
Peregrine Pickle, by Smollett, E.B.L.
on, ii. 395
Periodical Literature, E.B.L.'s contri-
butions to (& see Titles),
i. 248, and views on, i. 367,
ii. 138
Perkins, Miss, on Mrs. Norton's view
of the Woman's Movement,
i. 5I7&H.
Personal and Literary Letters of the Earl
of Lytton, edited by Lady
Betty Balfour, cited, with a
correction, ii. 326 n.
Petronius, the Satyricon of, E.B.L. on,
ii. 125
Phantom, Mr., in Knebworth theatri-
cals, ii. 131 ».
Phelps, Samuel, actor, ii. 85
Pickwick Papers, The, by Dickens,
E.B.L.'s praise of, ii. 74
Picture at Milan, associated with
The Last Days of Pompeii,
i. 440, 445
Piedmont, E.B.L.'s foresight on, ii. 78
King of, see Victor Emanuel II.
Pilgrims of the Rhine, by E.B.L., E.B.L.
on, i. 364, 385 &«., 389 Scn.z
Pindar, poetry of, E.B.L. on intention
in, ii. 433
Pinner, stay at, of E.B.L. and his wife,
i. 260
Pitt, William, and Addington, ii. 238 j
on Reform, i. 394; verses
of, ii. 425
Pius IX., Pope, ii. 126 ; restoration
of, ii. 118
Plagiarism, E.B.L. on, to his son, in
reference to Lucile, a poem
by the latter, ii. 392-4
Plato, difference between teachings of,
and of the New Testament,
E.B.L. on, ii. 407
Platonists, later, powers claimed by,
ii. 47
Plautus, adaptation from, by E.B.L.,
see Captives
Plays by E.B.L., see Names, and Dramas,
under Writings
Pliny's Villa, i. 263
Poems, by C. K. Patmore, E.B.L.'s
praise of, and the author's
letter of thanks, ii. 6o&n.i
et sqq.
Poems and Verses by E.B.L., see Names,
and under Writings
Poems by E. R. Bulwer-Lytton, E.B.L.
on, ii. 395 &«., 396, 401-2
Poems and Ballads, by Swinburne, hostile
reception of, E.B.L.'s help
and letters on, and the replies,
ii. 434 et sqq.
Poetic Faculty and Genius, E.B.L. on,
ii. 424-5
Poetical Horoscope, by E.B.L., i. 149
Poetry, and Biography, Carlyle on, ii. 59
Poetry, E.B.L/s taste in, ii. 418 et sqq.
Popular element in, E.B.L. on,
ii. 385-6, 395, 396, 398-9,
411, 420
Polignac, Prince de, Ambassador at
St. James's, and his later
ministry, i. 396
Political Economy, E.B.L. on, ii. 170
et sqq.
Political History of years from 1841
to 1852 inclusive, ii. 149,
I 50 et sqq.
Political Reform (see also Reform),
ii. 307 et sqq.
Politics, E.B.L. on, ii. 158, 305,
356&w., 391
Pompeii, excavations at, i. 443 ; re-
peopled by E.B.L.'s char-
acters, i. 446
Ponsonby, Lord, i. 358
Poor Law Reform, E.B.L.'s activity on
behalf of, i. 426
Pope, Alexander, ii. 92, 419 ; E.B.L.
on, and on his writings,
ii. 427-8, 431, 433
Popularity in writing, see Poetry, and
Prose
Portendio, exchanged for Albuda, ii. 294
Post, the, E.B.L. on, ii. 109-10
Penny, suggested by E.B.L., i. 434 Sen.
Post Office administration, speech on
by E.B.L., i. 452
Power, Mary Anne, Baronne de St.
Marsault, death of, ii. 82 Sen.
' Poyntz, Mrs.,' in A Strange Story,
E.B.L. on, ii. 347, 349
Praed, Winthrop Mackworth, at Cam-
bridge, i. 374 ; as speaker at
the ' Union,' i. 72, 77, 78, 79
564
INDEX
Prayer, E.B.L. on, ii. 407 - 9, 457,
458
Preparatory Schools, early i gth century,
i. 40
Press, The, ii. 239 ; and the Peace (1855),
ii. 234
Priam, Homer's treatment of, E.B.L.
on, ii. 386
Priessnitz, Water Cure of, ii. 24
Printing, application to, of Steam,
effects of, i. 392
Prior, Matthew, E.B.L. on, ii. 108
Prisons of England and Wales in 1835,
and present day, i. 363 &«.
Prize medal won by E.B.L.'s poem on
Sculpture (q.-v.}, i. 80
Prohibition, stimulus given by, E.B.L.
on, i. 505
Prose, popularity in writing, E.B.L.
on, ii. 105
Protection of Life in Ireland, Bill for,
defeated, effects of, ii. 1 5 1
Protection, the case for, as stated by
E.B.L., ii. 164-5
Protectionist party, revenge of, for
Repeal of Corn Laws, ii. 151
Pro-vast of Bruges, Macready on, i. 534
Prussia, and the revolution of 1848.,
ii. 118
Psychical phenomena, attitude to, of
E.B.L., ii. 41 et sqq.
Public, the, and Ministers, during the
Crimean war, ii. 222
Punch, E.B.L. on its attitude to him,
ii. 74 ; Tennyson's lines in,
on E.B.L., ii. 72-3 &»., 74
"Pups," and "Poodle," pet names of
E.B.L. and his wife, i. 259
Pushkin (Russian poet), and MeVimee's
Guzla, i. 451
Pym, John, E.B.L. on, ii. 328, 330,
337; Forster on, ii. 331
Pym -versus Falkland, article by E.B.L.
in the Quarterly Re-view,
ii. 338-9
Quarterly Essays, by E.B.L., i. 377,
"• 338-9
Quarterly publications, E.B.L.'s contri-
butions to, ii. 420 5 collected,
ii. /m j writing for, E.B.L.
on, ii. 387
Quarterly Re-view, E.B.L.'s proposed
critique in, on Forster's essays
on the Great Rebellion, and
Quarterly Review — continued
the correspondence on the
matter, ii. 327 &«. et sqq. ;
other contributions, ii. 420,
446
Queensland, separation of, from New
South Wales, effected by
E.B.L., ii. 284
RACINE, E.B.L. on, ii. 425
Radcliffe, Delme, in Knebworth theatri-
cals, ii. 1 3 1 «. ; Letter to, by
E.B.L., proposed publication
of, in The Times, ii. 239 & n.,
240-1
Radical party, E.B.L.'s association with,
i. 427, 471-2, 495 ; Reform
projects of, i. 495 5 separating
from the Liberal party, Mill
on, i. 511
Utilitarianism, Mill on, i. 509-10
Raglan, Lord, and the Crimean war,
ii. 221, 223-4 ; death, ii. 212
Raphael Santo d'Urbino, re-interment
of, i. 267
Reciprocity in Trade, E.B.L. on, ii. 168
Reed, Dr., ii. 295, 296, 300
Re-election of Ministers on appointment
to office, E.B.L.'s suggestions
on, i. 451
Reepham, Norfolk, disturbance at (1830),
i. 406-7
Rejections on the French Re-volution, by
Edmund Burke, i. 473-4
Reform, origin of desire for, i. 392 ;
early advocates of, i. 393 ;
impetus to demand given by
French affairs, i. 393-5 ;
E.B.L.'s attitude to, i. 393,
397, "• 310
Reform Bills : —
1831., i. 408-10
1832, 'progress and passing of, i. 414
et sqq. ; last night of, in the
House of Commons, E.B.L.
on, i. 417 et sqq. ; effects of,
generally, ii. 308 - 10, on
young Reformers, E.B.L. on,
i. 467 et sqq., himself in-
fluenced by, i. 471-2
1852., ii. 182
1859, and defeat of the Government,
ii. 302, 307 ; E.B.L.'s note,
ii. 308, and speech on, ii.'3o2
etsqq., 313-5
565
INDEX
Reform Bills — continued
1860, E.B.L.'s speech on, ii. 315-6
1866, E.B.L. on, ii. 316-7, praises of
his speech, ii. 317-8
1867, and the growth of democracy,
ii. 309 ; dangers in, foreseen
by E.B.I,., ii. 321-3 ; his un-
delivered speech on, ii. 318-9
Reform Bills, between 1832 and 1866.,
ii. 308, 311
Reform League, the, ii. 311
Reforms desired by E.B.L., i. 480
Registration of voters, ii. 321
Regulus, speech of, in Horace's Lyrics,
E.B.L. on, ii. 363
Reign of Terror, article on, by E.B.L.,
letter on, to Forster, ii. 5 1-2
Rejected Addresses, authors of, (.371
Religion, letters on, from E.B.L. to
Lady Sherborne, ii. 455-8 ;
to his son E. R. Lytton,
ii. 400 et sqq.
Religious temperament, E.B.L. on,
ii. 448, 458
Representation, Parliamentary, true
principles of, E.B.L.'s view
of (1860), ii. 319-22
Republic, first French, period of, E.B.L.
on, i. 557-8
Residences of E.B.L., List of, ii. 530-1
Resumption of Cash Payments, Act for,
effects of, i. 392
Retrospect of a Long Life, by S. C. Hall,
cited, on E.B.L. and his
future wife, i. 163 n. ; on
E.B.L.'s character, i. 366-7,
ii. 494-5 Sen.
Reuben Apsley, novel, by Horace Smith,
i. 371 &».
Reveries, by Rousseau, style of, E.B.L.
on, i. 69-70
Revolutions, popular, E.B.L. on, ii. 309 n.,
329, 475 etsqq.
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, Lectures by, E.B.L.
on, ii. 395
Rhymeless quatrains, E.B.L. on, ii. 365
Ricardo, David, and Reform, i. 393
Riche et Pau-vre, E.B.L. on, ii. 12
Richelieu, Cardinal, E.B.L. on, i. 554-7,
ii. 329, 470
Richelieu, Play by E.B.L., E.B.L. on,
i. 554 et iqq. ; evolution,
i. 542 -4 &n. ; production,
i. 545 5 swiftly written, i. 542,
ii. 16
Rienxi, by E.B.L., i. 442, inspiration and
sources, i. 262, 440-1 ; publi-
cation and reception, i. 445,
527
Rienzi, Opera by Wagner, i. 441
Rightful Heir, The, Play by E.B.L. (see
also The Sea Captain],
'• 549-5°. "• 450'1
Ritter, Carl, ii. 43
"River, The," poem by Coventry
Patmore, ii. 60
Robertson, Peter, ii. 197 n.
Robinson family, i. 3
Rochfort, Henriette, see Wilson,
Harriette
Rochejacquelein, Marquise de La, i. 135
Roderick Random, by Smollet, E.B.L.
on, ii. 395
Roebuck, John Arthur, M.P., Sebastopol
Committee secured by,ii. 209,
212; E.B.L.'s speech on,
ii. 221-2
Rogers, Sir Frederick (later ist Lord
Blachford), on Lord Carnar-
von and E.B.L. at the Colonial
Office, ii. 281
Roman Catholic faith, Saints of (see also
Names), E.B.L. on, ii. 485-6
Romances by E.B.L., see Names, and
under Writings
Romantic vein of early igth century, in
relation to E.B.L.'s domestic
and literary life, ii. 499-500
Rome, E.B.L. on, i. 441-2, ii. 8fc, 126,
128 3 his novel connected
with (Rienzi, q."v.\ i. 440
Events at (1848-9), ii. 118-9
Mrs. E.B.L.'s impressions of, i. 266
et sqq.
Romeo, Rosalind and Juliet, E.B.L. on
the loves of, ii. 367
Rosicrucians, Society or Brotherhood of,
E.B.L.'s association with,
ii. 41, and letter from, to
Hargrave Jennings, ii. 41-2
Rosicrucians, The, ... by Hargrave
Jennings, E.B.L.'s letter on,
ii. 41 &«., 42
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, E.B.L.'s implied
opinion of, ii. 131
Rottingdean, E.B.L.'s school at, i. 44-5
Rousseau, J. J., cited by Carlyle, on
humour, ii. 58 5 E.B.L. on,
i. 69-70, ii. 424, 477
Routledge, publisher, ii. 473
566
INDEX
Royal Literary Fund, ii. 145, 148
Ruddock, Dr. and Mrs. Bowen, school
of, E.B.L. at, i. 39-43
Rules for Novel -writing, E.B.L. on,
i. 460-1
' Rupert of Debate,' E.B.L.'s epithet
for Stanley, ii. 70
Russell, Lord John, ii. 150, 217, 260;
E.B.L. on, i. 421, ii. 165,
238, 240, and lines on, ii. 70
Political references, and the South wark
seat, i. 400 ; and the Reform
Bill of 1831. and 1832.,
i. 408, 414 et sqq. ; ministry
of, after Repeal of Corn Laws,
ii. 151 ; letters to, from
E.B.L., on social politics,
ii. 152-4, 507 et sqq. ; and
the Coup d'Etat, ii. 182-3 i
Secretary for Foreign affairs
(1852), ii. 186 ; at the Con-
gress of Vienna, ii. 210-12,
motion of Censure on his
conduct by E.B.L., and speech
in support, ii. 229-3 3 5 resigna-
tion, ii. 231 ; and the Reform
Bill of 1859., ii. 302, 304 ;
in favour of Reform,
ii. 311-12; Reform Bills of,
why rejected, ii. 312; on
E.B.L.'sspeech on the Reform
Bill of 1866., ii. 317-8
Russell-Gladstone Reform Bill of 1866
t as to Borough and County
Franchise, ii. 312
Russell - Palmerston Reform Bill of
1860, as to Borough and
County Franchise, ii. 312
Russell, William Howard, letters of, to
The Times, on the Crimean
war, ii. 209
Russia, after the Crimean war, E.B.L.
on, ii. 226-8 ; prejudice
against in the 'fifties, ii. 216
Russian ships in the Black Sea, question
of, ii. 211, 212; E.B.L. on,
ii. 226
" Russians," equivalent to later " Pro-
Boers," ii. 213-4
Ruy Bias, by Hugo, E.B.L. on, i. 557,
ii. 422
Ryves, Miss, ii. 271, 273, 275
SABBATH Observance Bill, opposed by
E.B.L., i. 451
Sadler's Wells Theatre, ii. 85
St. Albans, E.B.L. invited to stand
for, i. 41 1
St. Augustine, ii. 458 ; on animal souls,
ii. 405
St. Ives, E.B.L.'s first seat in Parliament,
1.260,411-13; disfranchised,
i. 424
St. Lawrence, near Ramsgate, Mr.
Lytton's home, afterwards
house of E.B.L.'s tutor, i. 12
et sqq., 67
St. Leonards, Lord, ii. 406
St. Mark's, Venice, Mrs. E.B.L. on, i. 264
St. Paul, ii. 411
St. Pierre, E.B.L. on, ii. 424
St. Simon Stylites, ii. 456
St. Stephen1!, Poem by E.B.L., ii. 324, 327
St. Teresa, ii. 456, 458
Salons, French, early igth century,
tone of, i. 136
Sand, Georges, E.B.L. on, ii. 477 ; story
by, used in Lucile by E. R.
Lytton, ii. 392
Sardinia, King of, see Charles Albert
Satiric Sketch, A [of Almack's],by E.B.L.,
persons alluded to in, i. 153
Satirist, The, malignity of, Melbourne
on, i. 503
Saturday Re-view, critique in, on The
Lost Tales of Miletus, ii. 366
Satyricon, the, of Petronius, E.B.L. on,
ii. 125
Saunders and Otley, publishers, i. 473
Scarborough, E.B.L.'s stay at, i. 96-100
Schiller, F. von, poems of, ii. 37 ;
E.B.L.'s pleasure in, ii. 418,
473-4, and comments on,
ii. 8 1, 364, 421
Poems and Ballads by, translated by
E.B.L. with a biography of
Schiller, ii. 53, 442 ; Arnold
on, ii. 446 ; Miss Martineau
on, ii. 56-8
Schleswig-Holstein affair, letters on, from
E.B.L. to his son, ii. 357-8
Schuster, Mrs., on E.B.L.'s gifts as
financier, ii. 493 n.
Scipio, on looking on at battles, ii. 126
Scotland, opposition in, to Reform Bill,
i. 409, 410
Scotsman, The, review by, of The Coming
Race, ii. 468
Scott, Sir Walter, i. 91, 352, ii. 105,
398, 420 ; and anti-reform
567
INDEX
Scott, Sir Walter — continued
bill violence, i. 409 & n. ;
mental failure of, E.B.L. on,
i. 285 ; Pelham praised by,
i. 212; works of, E.B.L.'s
liking for, and comments on,
»• 35°> 365. 396-7> 398»
412, 419
" Sculpture," subject of English Prize
poem by E.B.L., i. 80, 126 n.,
155 n., 162; published in
Weeds and Wildjioiuers, i. 1 5 3
Sea Captain, The, Play by E.B.L., pro-
duction of, i. 544 ; Macready
on, i. 545-6, 549 ; Thackeray's
attacks and later regrets,!. 547
et sqq. ; revision suggested,
i. 546-7, 561-2, ii. 125-6,
450, see Rightful Heir
Seamore Place, scene of Lady Blessing-
ton's parties, i. 381
Sebastopol, siege of, ii. 208, 226, 228 ;
fall of, ii. 212
Sebastopol Committee, appointment of,
E.B.L. on, ii. 221 et sqq.
Secondary Education, E.B.L. on,ii. 520-1
"Secret Way, The," poem,in Lost Tales of
Miletus,E.R.L.on,n. 362, 364
Sedan, battle of, ii. 475
Self-government, Arnold on, ii. 452 ;
E.B.L. on, ii. 200
Seneca, E.B.L.'s study of, ii. 124, 127
Sentiment, in popular poetry, E.B.L.
on, ii. 399
Septennial Parliaments Act, Repeal of,
opposed by E.B.L., i. 451-2
Servian Poems, by Owen Meredith (E. R.
Lytton), ii. 395 Sen. E.B.L.
on, ii. 395-6
Sexagenarian, The, by Beloe, i. 49
Seymour, Admiral Sir Michael, and the
Canton forts, ii. 254
Shaftesbury, 7th Earl of, ii. 326 n., 353
Shakespeare, William, Coventry Pat-
more on, ii. 6 1 $ E.B.L. on,
ii. 402, 406, on his borrow-
ings, ii. 393, 394 ; on crime
in his plays, ii. 86 ; on
husbands' dishonour motif in,
i. 561 ; E.B.L.'s studies in,
i. 88, 89, and views on, ii. 385,
397, 398 j spiritualistic mani-
festation of, E.B.L. on, ii. 43
Sheil, R. S., M.P., friend of E.B.L.,
i, 367 ; letter from, to E.B.L.,
Sheil, R. S., M.P. — continued
forecasting Irish Obstruction,
i. 425-6 ; oratory of, i. 425,
E.B.L. on, i. 426 ; and the
Reform Bill, i. 417 ; and
theatrical monopoly, i. 433 ;
on E.B.L.'s parliamentary
prospects, ii. 12
Shelley, Mary, letter from, to E.B.L. on
The Lady of Lyons, i. 538-9
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, ii. 105 ; advice'of,
to Byron, i. 538 ; compared
with Coleridge by E.B.L.,
ii. 421 ; poems of, E.B.L.
on, i. 366, 399
Sherborne, Lady, friend of E.B.L.,
ii. 448&w., 449, 467, 470
Letters to, from E.B.L., on general
topics, ii. 449-50 ; on Lives of
St. Francis de Sales, and of
Montalembert, ii. 485-6 ; on
religion, ii. 455 et sqq.
Sherborne, Lord, ii. 448 & n., 450
Sherbrooke, Mrs., i. 223
Sheridan, Caroline, see Norton, Hon. Mrs.
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, plays by,
E.B.L. on, i. 560 ; verses of,
ii. 425
Short Parliaments, E.B.L.'s preference
for, i. 452
Siamese Twins, The, Poem by E.B.L.,
i. 385, ii. 500
Sicily, Garibaldi in, ii. 332, 333
Siddons, Sarah, ii. 146
Sidney, Sir Philip, as Exquisite, E.B.L.
on, ii. 14
Siege of Corinth, by Byron, E.B.L. on,
ii. 364, 420
Silius Italicus, E.B.L. on, ii. 125
Sinecures, defended by the Grey Adminis-
tration, i. 481
" Sir Hubert," poem by Coventry
Patmore, ii. 61
'Sir John Vesey,' in Money, E.B.L. on,
i- 5S3» 561
" Sisyphus," poem in Lost Tales of
Miletus, E.B.L. on, ii. 362
Sixty Tears of an Agitator's Life, by
G. J. Holyoake, cited, ii. 244
Sketch of Last Night of the Reform Bill
(i 832) in the House of Commons,
by E.B.L., i. 417 et sqq.
" Sketches of Men and Manners," by
E.B.L., incorporated in
England and the English, i. 89
$68
INDEX
Skiddaw, ii. 427
Slavery, West Indian, gradual abolition
of, i. 521
Smith, genuine gipsy clan, i. 104
Smith, Henry P., letter from, to E.B.L.
on Thomas Wainewright,
ii. 86 n.
Smith, Horace, friendship with, i. 3 71 & n. ;
letter to, from E.B.L. on
historical tales, i. 371
Smith, James, friendship with, i. 371
Smith, Rev. Sydney, on expectations
from the Reform Bill,
i. 409
Smollett, T., E.B.L. on, ii. 395
Social Reform, E.B.L.'s Letters on, to
Lord John Russell, ii. 152
et sqq., 507 et sqq.
Society, E.B.L. on, ii. 389-90, 434, 435
Somerset Gazette, and Lady Lytton,
ii. 274
Sophocles, CEdipus Tyrannus of, translated
by E.B.L., ii. 83, 84, 85,
90-1 ; study of, advised by
E.B.L., ii. 385
Sorrows of Werther, see Werther
Soul, the, E.B.L. on, ii. 400, 402 et sqq.,
406 et sqq.
Sotist, Dr., Hydropathist, at Ems, E.B.L.
on, ii. 106 et sqq.
Southey, Mrs. Robert, letter from, on
The Caxtons, ii. 105
Southey, Robert, i. 7 1 ; baronetcy refused
by, ii. 522 ; poem by, ii. 105 ;
translation by, of Amadis de
Gaul, i. 37, 41, ii. 418
Southwark election, E.B.L.'s corre-
spondence on, with Godwin,
i. 398-403 ; letter on, to
Bowring, ii. 403
Speaker of the House of Commons,
election of (1835), ii. 491
Speaking Harlequin, The, or The Two
Losses, in One Act, by Disraeli,
in The New Monthly, i. 369
Spectator, The, review by, of The Coming
Race, ii. 468
Spectator, The (Addison's), how ruined,
E.B.L. on, i. 504, ii. 245-6
Spencer, 2nd Earl, death of, i. 470 ;
E.B.L. on, 477 et sqq.
Spencer, 3rd Earl (see also Althorp for
all references prior to and
including, i. 470), succeeds
to the Earldom, i. 470, 479
Spenser, Edmund, poetry of, E.B.L. on,
ii. 386, 399
Spirit of Humanity, E.B.L. on, ii. 199
Spiritualistic phenomena, E.B.L.'s in-
vestigations of, and letters on,
ii. 42 etsqq.
Spring Guns, Bill for Setting, i. 418
" Squatter " question, in Queensland,
E.B.L. on, ii. 285
Stamp Duties on Newspapers, see News-
papers, Taxes on
Stanhope, Earl and Countess, ii. 449
Stanley, Lord (later 1 4th Earl of Derby),
ii. 126 ; and Negro apprentice-
ship, i. 521, 522 ; E.B.L.'s
lines on, ii. 70 ; on E.B.L.'s
parliamentary prospects, ii. 12
Stanley, Lord (later I5th Earl of Derby),
adverse to Free Trade,
ii. 1 50 5 Greek throne declined
by, ii. 354-5 ; on "crushing
Russia," ii. 228 ; on E.B.L.'s
views on Peace (185 5), ii. 239
"Star" system in the theatre, i. 429-30
State-aid, E.B.L. on, ii. 200
Steam, uses of, effects of, i. 392
Steamship, large, visited by E.B.L.
(1838), ii. ii
Steele, Sir Richard, i. 504, ii. 245
Steinmetz, W. T., letter from, to
ist Earl of Lytton, on
E.B.L.'s schooldays at Homer-
ton, i. 50 n.
Stevenson, Robert Louis, on the pro-
fession of Authorship, i. 249
Stone, Frank, in Knebworth theatricals,
ii. 1 3 1 n. ; in Many Sides to
a Character, ii. 140?;.
Storks, Sir Henry, ii. 295, 339
Story, Principal, on E.B.L.'s speech at
Edinburgh Banquet, ii. 197".
Strafford, Earl of, E.B.L. on, ii. 328,
329
Strange Story, A, by E.B.L., ii. 40, 47 & «.;
origin of, ii. 340-1 ; published
anonymously in All the Tear
Round, ii. 344-5, reception
of, ii. 350-1
Letters on, from E.B.L. to Forster,
ii. 344 ; to his son, ii. 340,
34S» 347-5 !> 4QQ-1
Stratford de Redcliffe, Viscount, and
the Crimean war, ii. 206
Strauss, D., book by, E.B.L. on, ii. 411
Strikes, in 1829., i. 404-5
. 569
INDEX
Student, The, Essays and tales by E.B.L.
collected in, i. 248, 440, 450,
527, ii. 446 ; two editions
of, ii. 444 «.
Style, literary, of E.B.L., ii. 497, 500
Subsidies to Theatres, E.B.L. on,
i. 430-1
Sue, Eugene, E.B.L. on, ii. 398, 429
Sully, Julia, Portrait of E.B.L., given
by, to author, i. 254 n.
Sully, Robert M., Portrait of E.B.L.
by, i. 254 «.
Sunbury, E.B.L.'s school at, i. 43
Supernatural, the, E.B.L. on, to Forster,
ii. 47-9
Suppression of Disturbances Bill, E.B.L.
on, adverse to Coercion,
i. 438
Sussex, Duke of, ii. 12
Swedish manual treatment, ii. 29
Swinburne, Algernon Charles, E.B.L.'s
views on, and on his poems,
ii. 431, 437-8, 439; letters
from, to E.B.L. on his poems,
ii. 432, 434; visit of, to
E.B L., ii. 437, 438-9
Switzerland and Austria, E.B.L. on,
ii. 228-9
Sydney, New South Wales, ii. 288
Syracuse, Count of, E.B.L. on, ii. 81
T., Miss ROSE, E.B.L.'s first love,
i. 24, 25 & H.
Tacitus, ii. 125
Tale, The, of a Dreamer, in reference
to E.B.L.'s Ealing romance,
i. 65 n., 153
Talfourd, Thomas Noon (Serjeant at
Law), 5. 529, 535-7 ; Infant
Custody Bill of, E.B.L.'s
attitude to, i. 514; Lady of
Lyons, dedicated to, in book
form, and his letter to
E.B.L. acknowledging it,
i- 534 «-, 536 »•
Tariff Reform arguments in E.B.L.'s
Letter to John Bull, ii. 167-8
Unionist split on, ii. 155
Tartuffe, E.B.L. on, ii. 433
Tasso, E.B.L. on, ii. 423
Taste, E.B.L.'s defect in, ii. 494, 497
Taunton, Lady Lytton at, ii. 266, 269,
270, 271, 279, 356
Taxes upon Knowledge, see Newspapers,
Taxes on
Tchernaya, battle of, ii. 212
Tennent, Sir Emerson, ii. 221
Tenniel, John, in Many Sides to a Char-
acter, ii. 140 n.
Tennyson, Alfred, poet (later, ist Baron),
i. 424, 448, ii. 60, 6 1 ; E.B.L.
on, ii. 375, 385, 396, 397,
400,410,412,430-1; E.B.L.'s
lines on, in New Timon, and
his reply, ii. 71 et sqq.; refer-
ences to his Idylls, in E.B.L.'s
King Arthur, omitted in
2nd edition, ii. 47 1
Thackeray, William Makepeace, i. 448 ;
and Blanchard, ii. 132;
criticisms by, of E.B.L.'s
writings, i. 81, 547, ii. 494;
regrets and apologies, i. 547,
letters expressive of, to Lady
Blessington, and to E.B.L.,
i. 548-9 ; E.B.L.'s views
on, ii. 430
Theatrical monopoly, opposed by E.B.L.,
i. 427, 438
Thompson River, gold found along,
results of, ii. 289
Thomson, Hale, Lady Lytton's examina-
tion by, and letters to,
ii. 271-2
Thomson, — , E.B.L.'s St. Lawrence
tutor, i. 67 et sqq.
Thomson, Mrs. Antony Todd (" Grace
Wharton "), letters to, from
E.B.L. on The Last of the
Barons, ii. 53-4
Thorwaldsen, and Mrs. E.B.L., i. 271
Thurtell, — , the murderer, caul of,
given to E.B.L., i. 389
Times, The, abuse by, of E.B.L., ii. 12-3 j
attack by, on Swinburne's
poems, ii. 436 ; E.B.L.'s
proposed letter for, on the
peace question (1855),
ii. 239 & »., Disraeli's views
on, ii. 240-1 ; and the Re-
form Bill, i. 409 ; Russell's
Crimean letters in, ii. 209
Tissot, — , on Consciousness, ii. 407
Tom and Jerry, by Pierce Egan, i. 389
' Tomlinsoniana,' in Paul Clifford, Elliott
on, i. 365
Tooke, Home, i. 421 ; son of, at the
'Union,' i. 78
Topham, E. W., in Many Sides to a
Character, ii. 140 n.
570
INDEX
Torquay, winter home of E.B.L. after
1864., ii. 357,442, 444,447;
last years at, ii. 459, 460, 482,
483 ; death at, ii. 487
Tory Democracy, E.B.L.'s association
with, ii. 154, 163
"To Thee," poem by E.B.L., in Weeds
and Wildfloiuers, motif of,
i. 153
Townshend, Chauncy Hare, E.B.L.'s
friendship with, i. 70 & «.,
71 ; life of, E.B.L. on,
ii. 39 ; friendship with
E. R. Lytton, ii. 379
Translations by E.B.L., see Names, and
under Writings
Transportation for small offences,
E.B.L. on, ii. 514
Treaty of Nankin, and the Chinese
treaty ports, ii. 253
Trianon, the, associations of, i. 148
Trinity College, Cambridge, E.B.L.
at, i. 72
Trinity Hall, Cambridge, E.B.L. at,
i. 74 et sqq.
True Son, The, Blanchard's connection
with, ii. 135
Tucker, Charlton, publisher of second
edition of King Arthur,
ii. 469, 471, 473
Tunbridge Wells, visit to, of the
Bulwers, i. 212
Turkey, Sultan of (Abdul Mejid), and
the Crimean war, ii. 205,
206, 207, 227
Turnbull, Dr., aurist, ii. 371
Twopenny Register, The, Cobbett's, in-
fluence of, i. 393
ULLSWATER, E.B.L.'s sentimental journey
to, i. 65 «., 83 et sqq.
Uniform, official, E.B.L. on, ii. 288
Union Debating Society, giants of,
i. 72-3 ; E.B.L.'s speeches at,
i. 77-80, 126 »., 127-9
Unionist Party, a foreshadowing of, by
E.B.L., i. 469 ; split in, on
Tariff Reform, ii. 155
United States, Civil War in, E.B.L.
on, ii. 353
Universal Suffrage, ii. 321
Upper Homerton, school escapade at,
i. 48-50 Sen.
Upper Seymour Street, home of E.B.L.'s
mother, i. 154, 162
Upper Sydenham, death at, of Lady
Lytton, i. 342, ii. 279 n.
VALANCE, Aymer de, i. 3
Valletort, Viscount, speech on Reform
Bill, i. 417
Vancouver Island, and the Hudson Bay
Company, ii. 288-9
Vanderstegen, Mrs. (Mrs. Van), i. 210,
212 ; letters to, from Mrs.
E.B.L., on agricultural dis-
turbances, i. 406-7; on
E.B.L.'s first election,!. 412-3
Van de Weyer, Monsieur, mission of,
i. 404, 405
Vane, Sir Harry, ii. 330
' Vanini,' in Chronicles and Characters, by
E.R.Lytton, E.B.L.on,ii.4i i
' Varney,' in Lucretia, ii. 93 ; basis of,
ii. 86 n.
Venice, ii. 121, mosquitoes at, i. 263
Versailles, stay at, i. 139, 148
Verses, see Poems and Verses, under
Writings
Vezins, the two, actors, ii. 450
Vice versa, a barbarism, E.B.L. on,
ii. 108
Vico, G., Italian philosopher, E.B.L.
on, ii. 422
Victor Emanuel II., King of Piedmont
(later of Italy), accession,
ii. 118
Victoria, Queen, ii. 150, 293, 302, 304 ;
autograph, i. 271 ; coronation,
i. 507 ; and the Coup d"£tat,
ii. 181 ; at Devonshire House
play, ii. 140, 267 ; E.B.L.
on, in 1838., ii. 12
Vienna, Congress of, ii. 210-2, 225,
232, 241 ; E.B.L.'s motion
of Censure on Lord John
Russell's conduct at, and
speech in support, ii. 229-33
Vienna, E. R. Lytton at, i. 441
'Vigors,' in A Strange Story, E.B.L. on,
ii- 347
Villiers, Rt. Hon. Charles Pelham,
ii. 318, 391-2; and Free
Trade, ii. 150; 'Union'
speeches of, (.78
Villiers, Edith (later, Countess of Lytton),
see Bulwer - Lytton, Mrs.
Edward Robert
Villiers, Hon. Frederick (later 4th Earl of
Clarendon), family, i. 124-5,
571
INDEX
Villiers, Hon. Frederick — continued
life and character, i. 125-6,
duel affair, i. 127 et sqq.,
tour with, i. 133
Vindication of the Rights of Women, by
Mary Wollstonecraft, i. 515
Vindicite Gallicae, by Sir James
Mackintosh, i. 4i9-2o&«.i
Vineyard Cottage, Fulham, second
married home of E.B.L.,
i. 212 ft sqq.
Virgil, E.B.L.'s liking for, ii. 419, and
remarks on, ii. 399, 423
Virginibm Puerisque, by R. L. Stevenson,
cited on Authorship, i. 249
Vivian Grey, by Disraeli, i. 253 ; when
published, i. 155 «.
Volney, E.B.L. on, ii. 424
Voltaire, ii. 470 ; cited on Moliere's
Misanthrope, i. 560 ; E.B.L.
on his style, ii. 394, 477, and
on his tragedies, ii. 421-2
Vote of Censure on the Crimean war,
E.B.L.'s speech on, ii. 225-9
Vril, in The Coming Race, ii. 463 ;
E.B.L. on, ii. 466-7
WAGNER, Richard, on the inspiration
for his opera Rienxi, i. 441
'Waife' in What -will he do -with it?
Forster on, ii. 250, 251
Wainewright, Thomas, and his wife,
characters based on, ii. 86 Sen.
Walker, Mr., first tutor of E.B.L.,
i- 22, 35
Waller, Sir Wathen, i. 247
Wellington, Rev. Charles, E.B.L.'s pre-
ceptor, at Baling, i. 5 1 et sqq.
Walpole, Horace, on the hurry of life,
i. 283
Walpole, Lord (later 4th Earl of Orford),
ii. I09&»., 391-2; E.B.L.'s
opinion on, ii. 109
Letters to, from E.B.L., on duty,
ii. 130-1 ; on events
(1849-50), ii. 126 et sqq. ; on
Leominster election, etc.,
ii. 111-3 > on occult studies,
ii. 44; on politics (1848),
ii. 109 et sqq.
Walpole (Sir Robert), i. 480 ; Comedy
in rhyme on, begun by E.B.L.,
>'• 352, 353. 357, 45I>4°°-1
War loan for Crimean war, E.B.L. on,
ii. 214-5
Ward, F. O., E.B.L.'s correspondence
with, on Tom Hood's affairs,
ii. 62, 68-9 ; letters to, from
Tom Hood, ii. 62, 63-6
Warwick, Earl of (King-maker), and
The Last of the Barons,
E.B.L. on, ii. 33, 34
Water-cures, E.B.L.'s resort to and writ-
ings on, ii. 24, 54, 1 06 et sqq.
Watering-places, social life at, early
1 9th century, i. 68, 117
Waterloo, battle and battlefield of,
>• 134, 137
Wealth, the one subject of Political
Economy, ii. 170 et sqq.
Webster, Benjamin, actor, i. 553 ; and
The Sea Captain, i. 546
Weeds and Wildfloivers, collected Poems
by E.B.L. (see also Sculpture,
prize poem), references to his *
early romance, i. 65 «., 155,
163 ; publication, i. 139, 153
Weller, Sam, and laissez faire, ii. 1 60
Wellington, ist Duke of, on politics,
i. 470 ; foreign policy mis-
construed, i. 395 ; and Catho-
lic Emancipation, i. 480 ;
ministry of, and Reform,
i. 394, 423 ; and the Whigs,
E.B.L. on, i. 475, 476;
windows smashed by mob,
i. 408
Wemyss, General, duel with F. Villiers,
i. 127 et sqq.
Werther, Sorrows of, by Goethe, E.B.L.
on, i. 164, 186, ii. 397, 398
West Indies, Apprenticeship in, E.B.L.'s
great speech against, i. 520
et sqq.
Encumbered Estates Bill for, passed
during E.B.L.'s Secretariat,
ii. 293
Westmeath, Countess of, i. 324
Westminster Abbey, burial in, of E.B.L.,
and his epitaph, ii. 490 ;
Jowett's funeral sermon there,
ii. 491
Westminster Review, E.B.L.'s contribu-
tions to, i. 248
Wetherall, Sir Charles, speech by, on
Reform Bill, i. 417, 421,
ii. 243 ; and theatrical
monopoly, i. 433
Weymouth, visit to, of E.B.L. and his
wife, i. 209 et sqq.
572
INDEX
What will he do with iff by E.B.L.,
Forster's approval of, 11.250-2;
cited on politics, ii. 356 n.
Wheeler, Frederick Massey, father of
Mrs. E.B.L., i. 158, 161,
171, 278
Wheeler, Henrietta, sister of Mrs.
E.B.L., i. 158, 161, 171,
i8o&«., 278
Wheeler, Mrs. F. M., mother of Mrs.
E.B.L., character and views
of, i. 158, 159; attitude to
her elder daughter, i. 162,
176, 201, 278 ; E.B.L. on,
i. 171
Wheeler, Rosina (Mrs. Edward Lytton
Bulwer, q.-v. for life after
marriage), beauty, character,
characteristics and story,
i. I55&«., 156 et sqq.,
i63&«., 206; devotion to
dogs, i. 213, 257-9, 261,
265-6, 324, 331, 410 j ex-
travagance and domestic
ignorance, i. 217-8, 258 ;
lack of motherly tenderness,
i. 209, 258, 278, 321, 515 ;
unsuited to E.B.L.'s character,
i. 2O2 et sqq., et passim
First meeting with E.B.L., their
stormy courtship, letters,
refusals, separations and re-
conciliations, i. 165 et sqq. ;
marriage, i. 195, ii. 202, 204,
205
Literary and other friends of, i. 162,
163 Sen.
Whig party before and after Reform,
i. 394 ; E.B.L. on, i. 468-9 ;
E.B.L.'s support of, i. 472
et sqq.
Whig-Radical party, letter from E.B.L.
on, to Lord Durham, and
his reply, i. 496 et sqq. ;
Mill on, i. 511
Whist, E.B.L.'s skill at, i. 147 n.
White, Lydia, literary coterie frequenting,
i. 82
White, William, book by, cited on
E.B.L.'s oratorical manner,
ii. 282-3, 302 et sqq.
' White Lady of Avenel ' (Scott), E.B.L.
on, ii. 350
Wife, The, of Miletus, Poem by E.B.L.,
E.B.L. on, ii. 362, 363, 364
Wildbad, E.B.L.'s resort to, ii. 324
Wilhelm Meister, by Goethe, ii. 348
Will, power of, E.B.L. on, ii. 24
'William Mainwaring' in Lucretia,
ii. 87, 89
William of Orange (William III.),
ii. 228-9, 331
William II., German Emperor, i. 550
William IV., and the Reform Bills,
i. 408, 410, 414, 467, 469-70 ;
threat of creating Peers,
i. 422-3 ; death, i. 507
Williams, General, defender of Kars,
ii. 213
Wills, William Henry, sub-editor of All
the Tear Round, ii. 342
' Wilmot,' in E.B.L.'s Play Many Sides
to a Character, Macready on,
ii. 140 ; Macaulay on, ii. 147
Wilson, Dr., Hydropathic establishment
of, ii. 24 ; E.B.L. on his
treatment at, ii. 25 et sqq., 54
Wilson, Harriette, letters from, to E.B.L.,
with references to his novels,
i. 350 et sqq.
Windermere, Lake of, i. 84
Wolff, Sir Henry Drummond, letter to,
from E.B.L. on democracy,
ii. 308
Wollstonecraft, Mary (Mrs. Godwin),
book by, on Women's Rights,
'• 5'3
Women, E.B.L. on, i. 153, 388
Women's Rights, early advocates of,
i. 515 ; Mrs. Norton on,
i. 516-7
Wondrous Tale, The, of Alroy, by Dis-
raeli, in The New Monthly,
i. 369
Wood, Alderman Sir Matthew, M.P.,
i. 418
Woodcot, House, early married home of
E.B.L., i. 205, 207-8; literary
activities at, i. 345 et sqq.
"Woodman's Daughter," poem by
Coventry Patmore, ii. 60
Word to the Public, A, Pamphlet by
E.B.L., occasion of, ii. 91,
96, Macaulay on, ii. 93-4
Wordsworth, William, i. 71 ; advice to
a young poet, ii. 397 ; in-
fluence on Patmore, ii. 61
Working classes, enfranchisement of,
how effected, ii. 310 et sqq. •
E.B.L. on, ii. 313 et sqq. .
573
INDEX
Working classes — continued
and Reforms, E.B.L. on,
ii. 511; Parliamentary re-
presentation of, E.B.L. on,
ii. 319-20
Writings (see alto Bibliography), by
E.B.L. :—
High prices paid for, ii. 500 ; sustained
popularity of, ii. 500 ; style
of, ii. 494, 497, 500
Miscellaneous, collected editions,
ii. 99, 444&«., 446, 447-8
Poems and Verses : —
Battle of Waterloo, unpublished,
i. 56
Collected Editions, ii. 357, 361
Cornflowers (collection), ii. 384
Delmour, or a Tale of a Sylphid, and
other Poems, i. 75 ».
Eva, and other Poems, ii. 53, 91
Horoscope, for Miss Cunningham,
i. 149
Ismael, an Oriental Tale, \. 56 Sen. i
King Arthur, ii. 30, 96-9, 108,
114-5,469 et sqq. ; 471-2
Lost Tales, The, of Miletus, ii. 361-7,
431-2
Mind and Soul, i. 458 Sen.
Neiv Timon, The, ii. 69 et sqq., 97,
430, 501, 504
Odes and Epodes of Horace (transla-
tion), i. 246-8, 418, 440, 451
O'Neill, or the Rebel, i. 150, 164,
184-5, *94
Poems and Ballads of Schiller trans-
lated with a Brief Sketch of
Schiller's Life, ii. 53, 56 etsqq.,
418, 442, 446
Sculpture, Prize Poem at Cambridge,
i. 80, I26»., 153, 155 n., 162
Siamese Twins : A Satirical Tale of
the Times, "with other poems,
i. 385, ii. 500
St. Stephen's, ii. 324, 327
Weeds and Wildflowers (collection),
i. 65«., 153, 155 n., 162, 163,
172
Prose : —
Autobiography, i. 4 et sqq., ii. 3
Diary, in 1838, unpublished, ii. 9
et iqq.
Dramas : —
Adaptation of (Edipus Tyrannus
of Sophocles, ii. 83, 84,
85, 90-1
Writings, by E.B.L. — continued
Prose — continued
Dramas — continued
Brutus, unpublished (see House-
hold Gods), ii. 96 Sen., 125
Captives, The, unperformed and
unpublished, ii. 441-2
Cromwell, unperformed, i. 528-9
Darnley, incomplete, ii. 79 Sen.
Duchesse de la Vallikre, La,
i- 529-30 etm-i 537, 539-40,
554 et sqq., ii. 500, 559
Household Gods, The, ii. 96 &«.
Lady of Lyons, The, i. 532, 534,
536 »., 538, 539 et m-> 554,
555, n. 16, 105, 442
Many Sides to a Character, or Not
so Bad as We Seem, ii. 139
et sqq., 141-3, 145, 147, 267
Money, i. 99, 550, 551-3, 554,
559, 561-2, ii. 31, 353
Richelieu, or The Conspiracy,
i. 542-4 Sen., 545, 554 etsqq.,
ii. 16
Rightful Heir, The (see also The
Sea Captain), i. 549 - 50,
ii. 550-1
Sea Captain, The (see also The
Rightful Heir), i. 545-6, 547
et sqq., 549-50, 561-2,
ii. 125-6, 450-1
Sketch-drama of Eugene Aram,
1.387-8,389
Walpole, or Every Man has his
Price, ii. 352, 353, 357,
451, 460
Essays, Articles, Pamphlets, Re-
views, etc. : —
in Amulet, i. 527
in Books of Beauty, referred to,
i. 448, 449
Caxtoniana, ii. 94&«., 125, 352,
4.13 Sen., 445
Charles Lamb, and some of his
Companions, ii. 420, 440
Confessions of a Water Patient, ii. 22
on Domestic Economy, i. 217
Efficacy, The, of Praise, ii. 94
England and the English, i. 89,
248, 379, 385> 389&«-2,
436 et sqq.
on Forster's Life of Oliver Gold-
smith, ii. 104
Journalistic, i. 366-7
Letter to a Cabinet Minister on
574
INDEX
Writings, by E.B.L. — continued
Prose — continued
Essays — continued
the Present Crisis, i. 473 et sqq.,
485-6, 488-9, ii. 501
Letter to Delme Radcliffe, Esq.,
ii. 239 Sen., 240-1
Letters to John Bull, ii. 145, 163,
164 et sqq., 172, 173, 494
Letters to Lord John Russell,
ii. 152 et sqq., 507 et sqq.
Management of Money, The,
ii. 413 Sen.
Normal Clairvoyance, The, of the
Imagination, ii. 496-7
Pamphlets and Sketches, i. 474&H-3
in Periodical Publications (see
also under Names), i. 367
in Hood's Magazine, ii. 62
in Literary Gazette, i. 248
in Monthly Chronicle, i. 248,
510, ii. 32
in New Monthly Magazine,
i. 248, 366, 387-8, 527, ii. 22
Pym versus Falkland, ii. 338
in Quarterly publications, see also
under Names
in Edinburgh Re-view, i. 248,
508, ii. 12
in Foreign Quarterly Review,
ii. 51-2
in Quarterly Review, ii. 420,
440
in Westminster Review, i. 248
on Sir Thomas Browne, i. 508
Sketch of Last Night of Reform
Bill (1832), unpublished,
i. 417 et iqq.
in Student, i. 248, 440, 450, 527,
ii. 444, 446
in Weeds and Wildjlowers (q.v .),
i. 153
Word to the Public, A, ii. 91,
93-4. 96
History : —
Athens, its Rise and Fall, i. 248,
528
Memoir of Laman Blanchard,
ii. 132 et sqq.
Novels and Romances : —
Alice, or The Mysteries, i. 528
Caxtons, The, i. 68, ii. 16 «., 30,
104 et sqq., 105, 106, 122, 123,
498
Chairolas, i. 450
Writings, by E.B.L. — continued
Prose — continued
Novels and Romances — continued
Coming Race, The, ii. 462 et sqq.,
475, 480-1, 497
Devereux, i. 348, 349, 350,
351-2, 445 &».
Disowned, The, i. 212, 229, 348-5 1
Ernest Maltravers, i. 249, 528,
ii. 9, 14 «., 498, 500
Eugene Aram, i. 349, 364, 385-8,
389 &«.i, ii. 16 n., 85
Falkland, i. 8 1, 139, 164, 185-8,
190, 194&«., 229, 346, ii. 500
Godolpkin, i. 385, 389&».2,
450, ii. 16 «., 446
Greville, unfinished, i. 348
Harold, i. 425, ii. 16, 30, 99, 104
Kenelm Chillingly, ii. 16 n., 104,
480, 481, 482, 484, 500
Last Days of Pompeii, The, i. 262,
29°> 349. 364, 440, 442,
443 et m- 447. 454-5. 460,
ii. 95-6, 104
Last of the Barons, The, ii. 30,
33.34,53-4,55.77.49°
Lucretia, or The Children of the
Night, ii. 1 6 «., 83, 84, 85,
86&H., 87, 89, 92-3, 104
My Novel, ii. 30, 104, 191, 498
Night and Morning, ii. 31, 85-6
Parisians, The, ii. 16 «., 480-1
Paul Clifford, i. 348, 360, 362,
363-4, 365. 369, 385, 39°,
435, ''• 85
Pausanias, the Spartan, ii. 248,
34°, 357
Pelham, i. 81, 89, 133, 145-6,
148, i64&»., 212, 246,
346-8, 350, 363, 369, 401,
ii. 86, 123
Pilgrims, The, of the Rhine, i. 364,
385 &«., 389&H.
Rienzi, i. 262, 440-1, 442, 445,
527
Strange Story, A, ii. 40, 47 & n.,
340-1, 344, 345-51, 400-1
What 'will he do 'with it ?
ii. 250-2, 356 «.
Zanoni, i. 441, ii. 22, 30, 32-8,
39. 4°, 53, 54-5, 58» 34°.
346, 497
Preface to collected Edition of
Early Plays, i. 552 et sqq.
Wycherley, William, E.B.L. on, i. 561
575
INDEX
'XANTHUS,' in Lost Tales of Miletus,
ii. 362
YEH, Governor, of Canton, and the
Arrow war, ii. 254 &«.
Yellvwplush Papers, by Thackeray, i. 547
Yorke, Hon. Eliot, M.P., in Knebworth
theatricals, ii. 131 ».
Young, Sir John, ii. 294, 295
Young Duke, The, by Disraeli, E.B.L.'s
criticism and letter on,
i. 368, 369
" Young England " party, ii. 119 n.
Zanoni, by E.B.L., dedication of, i. 441 ;
E.B.L. on, ii. 30, 53
Letters on, from E.B.L. to Forster,
ii. 32-5 ; from H. Martineau
to E.B.L., ii. 35-8, 54 et sqq.,
and her interpretation, ii. 38,
346 ; from Carlyle, ii. 39
Occultism in, ii. 40 ; origin of, ii. 32,
340 ; publication of, ii. 30
' Zariades,' in The Secret ff^ay, poem by
E.B.L., ii. 364
Zica, a forecast of Zanoni, by E.B.L.,
ii. 32
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