ship of the "New Monthly Magazine," to recreate the figures which had made the which flourished under his care as a Maga- ground so sacred. At Naples he wrote the zine, but did not flourish so well as a com- greater part of the "Last Days of Pommercial speculation. The best of his con- peii." It was in Italy that he was first led tributions were subsequently collected un- to think of the drama, and wrote the trader the title of "The Student." He wrote gedy of "Cromwell"-whether suggested also some capital articles in the "Edin- by Victor Hugo's famous "drama"-or burgh Review," among which the most whether Rienzi called up the figure of that striking and memorable was one on the far greater tribune of the people, we cannot "Life and Works of Sir Thomas Brown." say. "Cromwell" was never published, While on the subject of articles, let us but Fox gave an eulogistic review of it in mention his contributions to the "London," the "London and Westminster;" in spite and "London and Westminster Reviews," of which Bulwer destroyed it, as not adaptwhen under the editorship of John Mill: ed for the stage. those on the "Philosophy of Fiction," on Gray," and on the "Court of Queen Anne," are worth reprinting.

The "Last Days of Pompeii" was published in 1834, and the town was delighted with its gorgeous pictures. Why has not some ingenious writer thought of turning it into a ballet? The "scenic effects" in which ballets indulge are here given pro

Eugene Aram" was followed by "Godolphin; or, The Oath," published anonymously in 1833; and in the same year by England and the English," and "Pil-fusely. grims of the Rhine."

แ

In 1835, Rienzi appeared; and someAfter two years' active editorship, the where about this time, we believe, “Leila; "New Monthly" was given up. He had en- or, the Siege of Granada." He then wrote deavored to turn its pleasant pages into a the "Duchess de la Valière," which strugcritical and political organ of a more seri-gled through nine nights of bad acting, and ous nature, and the attempt was not suc- was finally withdrawn as an admitted failcessful in a commercial point of view. He ure. It is said to be his favorite play, being dreaded also the effect of constant periodi- more poetical in structure and diction than cal writing upon his own style and thoughts. the others. It should not be forgotten that, as editor If he failed with his "Duchess," he took and critic, he was above all petty feelings ample revenge with his "Lady of Lyons" of rivalry, and was solicitous that his con-written in ten days-the most attractive temporaries should be favorably reviewed in his pages-in fact, he reviewed most of them himself. He did all he could to show the latent power in D'Israeli, and the great promise in Tennyson; and was the first who drew notice to Elliot, whose "Corn Law Rhymes" were published in London on the strength of that review (they had before appeared roughly at Sheffield); and was the first to review Monckton Milnes. An elaborate review of Sheridan Knowles, and constant defence of Scott's beauties may also be read there.

With the "New Monthly" off his hands, he determined on going to Italy. The effect of Italy upon his whole culture is very striking: it marks a new era in his intellectual development, as plainly as it did in that of Goethe. Like Goethe, he too was deeply influenced by the atmosphere of art, so to speak, which he breathed there, and which enters very largely into all his works written after that visit. Rienzi was inspired by Rome. Moving amidst the lingering shadows of that antique world he could not resist the impulse

In

play of modern times; his "Richelieu,"
also a good play; and his amusing comedy
of " Money," written at the baths of Aix la
Chapelle, and sent to England in letters.
The "Sea Captain," though it was played
often, must be reckoned as a failure.
1837, the first two volumes of "Athens: its
Rise and Fall," appeared. It had been
slowly growing, and bears evidence of care-
ful composition; but the simultaneous ap-
pearance of Thirlwall, and the information
that Grote was occupied on the same sub-
ject, made him relinquish the design of com-
pleting it. On this point we may quote the
comment of a recent reviewer of Grote's His-
tory. "If it be true," he says, "that Bul-
wer shrinks from the completion of his bril-
liant book on Athens,' because he fancies
that the ground is already occupied, we beg
leave to assure him that such a supposition
is perfectly erroneous; that there is abun-
dant need of his and of other men's works;
that such a supposition would have infinitely
more plausibility with regard to the earlier
portions of the history than to those more
stirring times which he has undertaken to

depict. His work is written for the gene- Blanchard," somewhat querulous and unral reader not the scholar; this alone gives healthy in its tone. The pamphlet on the it a distinctive position. True it is that his "Water Cure" and—if we are to call it his reputation in the lighter fields of literature-the "New Timon" followed. has damaged the reputation of his history; In 1846, came "Lucretia," the work because, while his reputation as a novelist is which displays, perhaps, the greatest power against him with scholars, the nature of his of all, though the impression it leaves is work is against him with a majority of his disagreeable. In 1848, we have to register old readers. Nevertheless, there seems to King Arthur," on the assumption that it be but one opinion respecting its merit by is his; the "Caxtons, a family picture," those who have read it, which we have done now publishing in "Blackwood,"-also an three times. It should not be left a frag- assumption, but very confidently assumed by those who profess sagacity in such matters; and, finally, "Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings," which he avows, and which he may be proud to avow.

ment."*

For the reviewer's comfort it may be added that half of the concluding portion of this work has been long written, and perhaps his word may influence the author to finish it.

We may conclude this catalogue of his works by one or two traits interesting to After the publication of " Athens," Bul- literary aspirants. The first is that he has wer undertook, in company with Dr. Lard-worked his way to eminence,-worked it ner and Sir David Brewster, to edit the through failure, through ridicule. His faMonthly Chronicle." The first number cility is only the result of practice and stuwas promising, and contained three papers dy. He wrote at first very slowly and with by Bulwer, one of them the beginning of great difficulty; but he resolved to master "Zicci, a tale." subsequently re-written as the stubborn instrument of thought, and "Zanoni." But the second number was a mastered it. He has practised writing as choke-pear. Never was there such a block an art, and has re-written some of his esof dulness tumbled forth upon the public: says (unpublished) nine or ten times over. the crash frightened away subscribers, and at the end of the year Bulwer gave up the hopeless concern.

In 1837, "Maltravers" appeared, and again the cry was raised that Bulwer had pourtrayed himself; the critics not troubling themselves to reconcile the contradiction of his being at one and the same time Pelham and Maltravers!

In 1838,"Alice; or, the Mysteries," concluded "Maltravers." It was held by him to be the most matured of all his works; whether he would say so now may be a question.

Another habit will show the advantage of continuous application. He only works about three hours a day,-from ten in the morning till one,-seldom later. The evenings, when alone, are devoted to reading, scarcely ever to writing. Yet what an amount of good hard labor has resulted from these three hours! He writes very rapidly, averaging twenty pages a day of novel print.

Courage, industry, and perseverance are qualities which he has brought to bear upon high aims and distinguished abilities. The results have been adequate. His career is honorable to himself, and a lesson to men of letters..

One remark must be made before concluding, and that is upon the true conception of the literary man's position with regard to letters, as illustrated in Bulwer's career.

He had enjoyed himself by another expedition on foot, travelling over a great part of Ireland and some parts of England which he had not seen before so that the readers of his novels will be able to account for the roving propensities of his heroes, and will see from whence he has derived his love of He has avoided an error which is scenery, and the out-of-door freshness which all the more common because the public he contrives to throw over so many descrip- encourages it. The man who has succeeded tions. in any one department is always looked. In 1841, appeared "Night and Morn-on with suspicion if he attempt another. ing;" in 1842,"Zanoni," and "Eva, and other Poems;" in 1843, the "Last of the Barons." Then came the "Translation of the Poems of Schiller," with its well-written memoir, and the "Life of Laman * West. Rev. Vol. XLVI. p. 381. VOL. XV. No. I.

5

People are reluctant in giving credit to various accomplishments. They will admit your superiority on one point-it does not affect their self-love; they flatter themselves that they are superior to you on others: but if you attempt to prove your superiority

on other points, you invade their domain | half a man of fashion; to the pretensions and irritate their complacency. "Why of the recluse student he adds the habits doesn't he stick to his novels?" says the and tendencies of a man-about-town. The historian; "Why does he attempt the dra- mixture is more remarkable than harmonima?" says the dramatist; "How absurd ous. His soul springs aspiringly to the to fancy himself a politician!" exclaims skies, but is clogged with too much earth, the M.P. It is thought to be no answer to and falls down again after an ineffectual say that the man is versatile, has many effort. It may be said, indeed, that his faculties, and employs them: the public ideal tendencies give a refinement and elelike a man to confine himself to one special vation to his works, which would otherwise topic. Division of labor is the grand thing: be too worldly, too slang, and too sarcasyou have made pins' heads, content your- tic; but there can be no doubt, we think, self with that, and do not venture upon that his works would gain in force, distinctpoints. ness, and harmony, if he had been more decidedly ideal or more decidedly real in his tendencies.

if

Accordingly we see men always working the mine where they once discovered gold, and afraid to dig elsewhere. They repeat themselves. All their works are but changes of name and costume. Like sculptors who having once carved from marble a statue which has been admired, they continue taking casts from that statue in different, and often indifferent material.

He is now in the prime of life and maturity of his faculties; long as the list of his works now is, few will assert that he has given his dernier mot, and we may yet have to welcome a series of more perfect works than any he has hitherto produced. May he have all health to write them! Courage he does not want; for however sensitive he may be to obloquy, he never suffers it to divert him from his path; and as for the carpings of critics he can console himself with the grave words of Tacitus, "scitis enim magnam illam et duraturam eloquentiæ famam non minus in diversis subselliis parari quam suis:" or, in the apt illustration of Johnson, "Fame, sir, is a shuttlecock; unless it be struck at both ends of the room, it will fall to the ground."

DEATH OF ZSCHOKKE.-The celebrated German

Not thus has Bulwer worked. When once he has done a thing, he has done with it; new blocks of marble lie before him, new creations are wrought from them. Having once written a Pelham," he writes no more dandy novels; having once written a Rienzi," ," he writes no more "Tribune" novels. "Athens" follows the "Duchess de la Vallière," and "Maltravers" follows "Athens." He gives no repetition of the "Lady of Lyons," though urged by actors, managers, and public. He writes just as the impulse urges him, not as a clamorous, foolish public wishes. Into various spheres of activity he throws writer, Henry Zschokke, died on the 27th of June, at Aarau, in Switzerland, in the 78th year of his bis active mind, and always with new re-age. His name fills no mean page in the annals of sult. A resolute diver, he plunges into the German literature and Swiss history. A native of dark ocean, struggles amidst the waves, Magdeburg in Prussia, Zschokke commenced life and rises each time with a new pearl. The by joining a company of strolling players, and afteramount of wealth he has thus accumulated on-the-Oder. wards studied philosophy and divinity at Frankfortshould always be estimated when his career is spoken of. He has, we say, obeyed his own impulse: the ooroos has been within, not without. Although he has been, perhaps, more than anxious about pleasing the public and writing for effect, he has only done so in the matter of form. He has chosen, to please himself; he has written, to please the many.

After many years of travels and varied adventures, he devoted himself to the education of youth, and fixed his residence in Switzerland vices to Switzerland were important, and he ever at the close of the last century. His political serafter considered it as his adopted country. For the last forty years he resided in his peaceful retreat at Aarau; whilst his pen almost unceasingly brought forth works of philosophy, history, criticism, and fiction. The mere enumeration of his productions would considerably exceed the limits of his sketch. They belong to the pure school of classic German literature, and his histories of Bavaria and Switzerbeautiful tales have been translated into almost every

land remain as noble monuments of talent. His

This double tendency may, perhaps, be attributed to the remarkable mixture in him of the real and ideal. Two conflicting ten-language. His chequered life had endowed him dencies are observable in his mind: one towards the vague, t'e grand, and ideal; the other towards the concrete, the palpable, and real. He is half an enthusiast,

with a rare insight into the springs of human actions; and few writers in any age or country have life, to entertain and improve their fellow men.— more largely contributed, during the course of a long Morning Chronicle.

From the British Quarterly Review.

CHARLES LAMB-HIS GENIUS AND WRITINGS.

The Works of Charles Lamb, including his Life and Letters, collected into one volume. Moxon.

EARLY in the present century, there was, dreaming, silver-haired, and silver-tongued, every Wednesday evening, in very humble pouring forth rivers of talk, on the banks quarters in the Temple, a snug little ré- of which grew lovely wild flowers of all union, to which one would rather have been kinds; discoursing blandly and poetically admitted than to any dozen brilliant con- on all the "high arguments" which can versaziones which London could offer. interest mankind, but coming to no definite Nothing could be simpler than the enter- conclusion on any one of them: always intainment; it had none of the attractions of tending to accomplish great works, never wealth, of fashion, or of celebrity. It was writing them; weak, selfish, and dreamy; never chronicled in the Morning Post. his fascinating talents somewhat tinged What was said and done there, afforded no with moral cant; a great powerless power, food to idle on dits. No magnificent flun- an amorphous genius. There Wordsworth, kies lined the staircase, and roared your rough in manner, stern in morals, cold, name from one to the other, trumpeting prosing, didactic, but surrounded by a halo your arrival. You were not ushered into of poetic glory; having left his mountains a blaze of light, amidst jewels, plumes, and for a few weeks of London fog and socialrustling dresses, crowding beneath chande- ity. There Godwin, the audacious theoliers. It was a very small room, dimly rist, dreaming of perfectibility and political lighted, modest in its appearance, the walls justice; cold, grave, and oracular; uttergraced with an engraving or two, and a ing paradoxes with the passionless air of famous head of Milton, the possessor's deliberative wisdom; rigid at the whist pride. A quiet rubber, the solemnity of table; admitting no aristocracy but that of which was from time to time relieved by letters; receiving all opinions opposed to quaint "quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles;" a plain clay pipe; a crust of bread and cheese-perhaps oysters; a foaming tankard of porter; a glass of ginger wine, and a glass or so of grog: these were all that hospitality could offer, but they were offered hospitably. The champagne was in the talk and to hear them was worth the sacrifice of any entertainment.

his own with silent scorn and exasperating superiority; unmoved by the convulsions of society; "a ruler of the spirits-the central calm at the heart of all agitation." There Talfourd, then a struggling barrister and flowery essayist, soon to become an eminent barrister and flowery poet. There also Holcroft, the author of the "Road to Ruin," having risen from the bottom of the The guests were various, but all "choice social scale to an eminent position in the spirits." There you might see gentle world of letters-having passed the strangGeorge Dyer, as scholarly and simple as est and most chequered of lives; the son Parson Adams. There also, Manning, of a hawking pedler, always roaming, alwith his burning ardor, and great mathe- ways changing his means of livelihood; matical science. There Leigh Hunt, with now employed as an infant to lead a donoverflowing animal spirits, quoting, mis- key to the coal pit, there to get it loaded, quoting, punning, and criticizing-bold, yet and then conduct it home; now taken as a timid; his audacity in speculation always stable boy at a trainer's, there to store up restrained by constitutional timidity, which materials for "Goldfinch;" now setting made him do away (in a parenthesis) with up a school with one scholar; now trying the very purpose of his opinion. There his to be a cobbler; now joining strolling playfierce, irascible, dogmatic, acute, honest- ers, and at last succeeding as a dramatic hating, honest-loving, paradoxical friend author; marrying four wives; indicted for Hazlitt, by turns giving vent to some poli- high treason on the most frivolous grounds, tical vehemence, and to some delicate criti- owing to the arbitrary measures cism on painting-describing with gusto, George the Third was king;" acquitted, but and analyzing with startling acuteness. ever afterward damaged in reputation, beThere also Coleridge, fat, florid, indolent, ing looked upon as an "acquitted felon ;"

when

and now finally having passed through all
these vicissitudes, and settled into old age,
still writing feeble comedies, translating
from the German, and dabbling in pictures.
The central figure of this group-the
host, who numbered all these various men
of genius and talent as his friends, and who
differing from all, yet sympathized with all,
was Charles Lamb, perhaps, on the whole,
the most interesting of the set.

"Charles Lamb, to those who know thee justly dear
For rarest genius, for sterling worth,
Unchanging friendship, warmth of heart sincere,
And wit that never gave an ill thought birth."

or greatly love. Charles Lamb is only half portrayed as yet. To the above must be added a certain oddity of look and manner -a something tantamount to his stammering. It was not disagreeable; rather let us call it quaint-individual.

Good simple King Duncan says―

"There is no art

To read the mind's construction in the face," &c.

It is a subtle touch of Shakspeare's to make the man just deceived by one he trusted, draw a general conclusion from a particular instance, such as the above; but no one could look in Charles Lamb's face

without reading there the lineaments of the

"mind's construction." The mixture of

So sang Robert Southey, with more truth than felicity; and so would every heart respond. As a writer, whose place is for ever intellect and feeling; of reasoning and senconquered in our literature; and as a cha-sibility; of wit, humor, and sadness; of racter, full of piquant contrast and matter for study, we shall not be blamed, we trust, for occupying the reader's time for a brief while, in endeavoring to present some of the characteristics of his genius.

and brusquerie, stamped itself legibly upon innocence and knowingness; of gentleness

his features.

The affection he inspired, together with "Die Gestalt des Menschen," says has led his friends and critics into an overthe real unobtrusive kindness of his nature, Goethe, "ist der Text zu allem was sich sight which it is necessary we should notice. über ihn empfinden und sagen lässt." This is peculiarly applicable to Charlesgentleness," that the other part of his So much stress has been laid upon his Lamb. The contrasts of his organization character-his recklessness and brusquerie were reflected in his mind. He was an has been overlaid.

was

"My gentle-hearted Charles!"

was

oddity in appearance and in manner; uniting contrasts in the subtlest way imaginable. He had a head worthy of Aristotle, but it was placed upon a shadowy stem, (to is the apostrophe of Coleridge, in one of use Talford's happy description), so fragile, his poems; and to show how deserved was so puny was the body that sustained it. the epithet, let us recall the testimony of His features were strongly, yet delicately his school-fellow, Mr. Le Grice, who says, cut. Over an expanded forehead black "I never heard his name mentioned withhair crisply curled. His dark eyes twink-out the addition of Charles, although, as led with varying expression, though the there was no other boy of the name of prevalent feeling was sadness. His nose Lamb, the addition was of the Jewish cut; indeed, clad but there unnecessary; in his clerk-like black, with his oriental in it, and it was a proof that his gentle an implied kindness style of feature, his delicate organization, manners excited kindness." Gentle he and sweetness of demeanor, he presented undoubtedly was; and a gentle spirit lends an appearance very much like what he de- its grace to all his writings. But there was scribes Braham's to be, "a compound of also a whimsical recklessness which would the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel." occasionally beset him. To give an inHitherto we have taken only the favor-stance: he dined one day at the house of a able view of him-the painter's view. But, friend of ours, and on entering the drawingbesides what the artist tranfers to his can- room, after dinner, saw a gentleman standvas, there is always an indefinite some-ing in the middle of the room, whose bent thing which he cannot transfer; and hence shoulders, in schoolboy leapfrog phrase, the reason why painters are said to flatter," made a back;" the temptation was too and also why they always fail in representing wholly those whom we greatly admire

• “A man's personal appearance is the text for

all that can be said of him or felt about him."Stella.

great for Lamb; he placed his hands on the unconscious victim, and "flew" over his head, to the astonished indignation of many, and amusement of the few. This, perhaps, may be called a mere disregard to the pro