trodden, and, we suspect, not trodden very successfully. Bulwer has made a noble attempt, and at least indicated the path. In general, however, we must be content with life in its actual forms; nay, so far from absolute perfection are we, that it affords us extreme delight when we meet with anything like a true delineation of actual existence. To specify and illustrate the errors to which novelists are exposed in depicting actual life, would exhaust our space. The principal may be classified under, or inferred from, the following categories:-1st. The conversion of man into mere embodiments of certain passions; the representation of life as one wild hurly-burly of passionate excitement, without making allowance for the continual drizzling rain of custom, which so cools the heated brain, and dims the fiery eye, in every-day existence; 2d. The failure in what we must call the right depicting of silence; oblivion to the sure fact, that men, when they feel most deeply, speak least, and, indeed, if men of action, are not much given to embody their thoughts, and much less their feelings, in words at all; 3d. The grouping, as characters of fiction, of mere oafs and human oddities, which are sometimes, unhappily, met with separately, but never in great abundance or connection, in the actual world; 4th. The imputation to the characters portrayed of an intellectual nature solely, and not only a superiority to, but an absence of, passion. We shall glance at five of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton's novels, as indicative at once of his powers, of their development, and of their result. These five we may name ere commencing our survey: "Pelham," "Eugene Aram, **Rienzi,' 9966 Zanoni," "The Caxtons." "Pelham" was the first work in which Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton fairly caught the ear of the world. It was begun, he informs us, at the age of eighteen; it was published in 1828. It might be pronounced a clever, promising book, shallow in itself, but what might be called profound in the circumstances. It appears, certainly, incorrect to style it the sympathetic portrait of a dandy; the satire with which it abounds is surely sufficiently palpable. Yet "the gentleman" is not here drawn, so to speak, in his deepest nature; Bulwer himself, we make bold to aver, will now furnish us with a definition of that character far truer than could have been penned by Pelham. In "Pelham" we have a delineation, which may be allowed to pass muster, of the external layer of the gentleman; we have a correct enough exhibition of those laws which draw their authority from those strange entities, fashion and etiquette, and of the exterior wrappings in which, as in a uniform, he who would be pronounced by them a gentleman must array himself. He, who has the calamity to be thus esteemed by these sickly but malignant phantoms, must be "an honorable man' - that is, being interpreted, must be ready, at a moment's notice, to blow into air that which occupies the place where brain should be, in the cranium of an adversary, or to have his own hat-supporting apparatus similarly shattered; he must, with heroic martyr spirit, endure to have his body compressed, or distended, or distorted, as the cross-legged hierophant, fashion's high-priest, ordains; he must have a shrinking terror at the vulgar, and must never fall into the gross error of imagining, that one can deserve honor as a man, if he is not also entitled to honor as a man of fashion. That Pelham laughed at much of this, is true; but that Pelham would have stretched out his hand to Robert Burns, joined with him in pealing forth“ A man's a inan for a' that," and recognized him for a true-born gentleman, is beyond our faith. That Bulwer's heart would leap as his hand touched that of such a man as Burns at the present day, we well know. 66 Pelham," then, was the portraiture of a man of the world- a dandy of superior species, but yet pretty clearly distinguishable from the species, man. In other respects the book possessed many claims to attention. It has not a few powerful passages. The conception of Gertrude, telling her sorrows, just before death, by the light of the silent and beautiful moon, to him who loved her unutterably, is very fine; and the picture of Tyrrel's death-scene, though it has perhaps a barely perceptible touch of the theatrical sublime, is vivid, and artistically finished. A literary diviner, on reading "Pelham," might have said, that man will go far, he will soon shake off the dandiacal rings and tippets, and move men, for he has been in the sibyllic cave of passion, and can paint what he saw there. Bulwer's powers had ripened considerably by practice and experience, ere he wrote Eugene Aram." "It saw the light in 1831." We demur somewhat to the estimate of this fiction by an influential writer of the day. 66 seems Eugene Aram," says Mr. Gilfillan, to us as lamentable a perversion of talent as the literature of the age has exhibited. The morality, too, of the tale, seems to us detestable. The feelings with which you rise from its perusal, or, at least, with which the author seems to wish you to rise, are of regret and indignation, that, for the sin of an hour, such a noble being should perish, as if he would insinuate the wisdom of quarrel (how vain!) with the laws of retribution." Now we wish it to be distinctly understood, that we do not here join issue in any assertion which cannot be made and proven, to the effect that Bulwer has wandered from psychological truth; but we must assert, both, that the charge against the morality is either null or far too strongly put, and that the true test historical epoch or event actually happen. of the psychological correctness of Bulwer's His range is far wider; he may never depart delineation, is, in some respects, different from nature, but he may work his will with from that which is applied above. It seems circumstances; he may step to the farthest to us to be the aim of the novelist to delineate bounds of the possible; he may shape the those strange influences, and their effects, conditions of his problems as he will, prowhich so often and so strangely chequer the vided that he always works them out correctwondrous web of life; to show how a mind of ly. We are disposed to think, that a very radically noble temper may be lured into sin, considerable approximation to correctness has by Satan cunningly arrayed in the seraphic been made; but we deny not, that strong garb, and wearing the seraphic smile; how objections may be taken; that especially Bulthe golden atmosphere of noble youthful en- wer might be pressed by the question, Is it thusiasm may, in this strange world of ours, possible for a household devil, in the shape cast heavenly hues over the fiendly visage of of the consciousness of being a murderer, to is surely dwell in a man's bosom, without tainting the crime. That such cases do occur, undeniable; and if such cases there are, or if, whole atmosphere? Would it not, with its in consistence with psychological truth, they green malignant eye, wither every noble asare conceivable, we can see no argument which piration? Would it not forever close the As heart against the entrance of heaven-born can be forcibly urged against their use. to the morality, we think it admits a strong love, and open it only to earth-born or hell-"No born lust? Would it not weaken purpose, or defence. Sir Edward himself says moral can be more impressive than that which convert it into stubbornness? Could the same teaches how man can entangle himself in his bosom be the dwelling of one great sin, one own sophisms that moral is better, viewed all-pervading hypocrisy, and also of virtue ? aright, than volumes of homilies." Surely There is one circumstance among the data of this is more than plausible. We venture dis- the problem, which, whether Sir Edward tinctly to state the moral bearing of the work attached such importance to it or not, actually 1st. It points renders his solution either correct, or so in these two propositions: out, with terrific emphasis, the fatal error of nearly so, that it were hypercritical to arlistening to the faintest suggestions of sin, to raign him. Eugene Aram, according to the most plausible side-speeches of crime. Bulwer, did not strike the blow which occasioned Burns counselled well when he advised his death; and we can well imagine this circumyoung friend to pause on the instant that his stance constituting, in his own eyes, a valid honor (let us say conscience) warned him, base on which to rear his self-defence, his vindebarring a' side pretences;" Bulwer has dication to his own breast. We conclude the Eugene Aram," has, embodied the lesson magnificently. 2d. It ex- whole matter thus: Sir Edward Bulwer Lythibits with like power the inevitable retribu- ton, in the novel of " tion that awaits crime; it points to the in- with very great ability, performed the task flexible Fury tracking the blood-stained; it which he appointed himself; a profound shows chance, and concealment, and hopes, mental and moral analysis will detect imperand all, crushed in the resistless jaws of law. fection in his character of Aram; but the This is made the more striking by the al- whole book resistlessly preaches the madness legation of the fact, that Eugene did actually of dalliance with crime, and the utter inabili not strike the death-blow; participation in ty of mortal man to escape the scrutiny and the crime was fatal. Surely we must not ex- vengeance of the Infinite Eye; while, as pect a novelist to turn aside to state in terms seems clear to us, the sympathy demanded - it is in the events of from the reader is not intended for, and can what his tale imports the plot, in the fate of the characters, that he scarce be conceivably accorded to, the crime, The whole tale of or excite a murmur against the iron majesty is expected to teach. Eugene Aram," as told by Bulwer, is a of justice. magnificent assertion of the majesty and the power of justice. 46 We have said, we do not mean to inquire into the psychological correctness of Bulwer's portraiture of Eugene Aram; we do not assert its correspondence with the actual Aram, but would only indicate generally the nature of the test proper to be applied. The writer of fiction is, by the form of composition he has adopted, released from the bondage of those rules which govern certain other departments of literary production; he is not bound, for instance, as the historian, to the precise narration of what did in any 66 Eugene Aram" inConsidered generally, dicated a great improvement in the author's powers. The style is more continuous, more sustained, and riper, than in "Pelham ;" the painting is far richer and mellower, the colors are more artistically blended, the knowledge is deeper and wider. The love of Madeline is such as might inhabit where the emotions of an angel were joined with the intellect of a woman; so true, so pure, so lofty; Faith and Love ever at the door of the heart to turn away the cold suggestions of doubting ReaThe effect of Eugene's speech son. trial, upon Madeline, as contrasted with that the upon old Lester and the judge the calm, lay motionless to the west, in that sky so darkly beautiful, satisfied smile which lit up her and intensely blue, never seen but over the wan features is a golden letter from the landscapes that a Claude or a Rosa loved to very handwriting of nature. be seen coursing, unheeded, down bearded cheeks; youth and age were kneeling together, with uplifted hands, invoking blessings on the head of the restored. On he came, the Senator-Tribune - the Phoenix to his pyre!' paint; and dim and delicious rose-hues But we must hurry on. Of "Rienzi," gathered over the gray peaks of the distant published some five or six years after "Eu- Apennines. From afar floated the hum of gene Aram," we shall not say much. It is a the camp, broken by the neigh of returning novel of passion; we miss the simplicity of steeds, the blast of an occasional bugle, and, life; amid the tumultuous emotions and at regular intervals, by the armed tramp of gorgeous scenes, we can scarce believe that the neighboring sentry. And, opposite to we are treading the solid old earth. Its style the end of the copse, upon a rising ground, is one of sustained brilliancy; now it is mel- matted with reeds, moss, and waving lowed and shaded into soft, delicate beauty, shrubs, were the ruins of some old Etruscan now it rises into startling grandeur-it building, whose name had perished, whose never subsides into commonplace or dulness. very uses were unknown." Better still are Here, we think, Bulwer's portraiture of love, the following superb pair of portraits: in which he has perhaps no living equal, "Flowers dropped on his path, kerchiefs and attains its consummate flower. We scarce banners waved from every house; tears might know to which of his delineations of this passion, in the novel before us, to accord the palm; to the weak, womanly Adeline, who is strong only in love, who is strong enough to die beautifully, but not to live well; to the complete, ineradicable devotion of Irene, so mild, but so all-subduing, so spontaneous, "Robed in scarlet, that literally blazed with so self-sacrificing; or to the proud love of gold, his proud head bared in the sun, and Nina, gazing in haughty self-reliance and bending to the saddle-bow, Rienzi passed self-satisfaction on all the world beside, but slowly through the throng. Not in the flush losing all pride for self as she gazes on one of that hour were visible, on his glorious who has given her a being nobler than self. countenance, the signs of disease and care Adeline is the soft, flower-like woman, wav- the very enlargement of his proportions gave a ing beautifully in the summer gale of glad-greater majesty to his mien. Hope sparkled ness, but withering in the winter blast; in his eye, triumph and empire sat upon his Irene is the human angel, of whom poets brow. The crowd could not contain themhave so long sung; Nina is the queen, selves; they pressed forward, each upon worthy to reign with and to die for, her each, anxious to catch the glance of his eye, husband-king. Bulwer has surpassed him- to touch the hem of his robe. He himself self in these portraits. Rienzi himself is a was deeply affected by their joy. He halted; stately, noble creation; he endeavors to tread with faltering and broken words, he atthe surges, and is engulfed. We cannot stay tempted to address them. 'I am repaid,' to analyze his character. We could quote he said 'repaid for all; may I live to make passage upon passage from this magnificent you happy.' fiction, and for each passage the reader would thank us, but space forbids. We might quote the description of the plague, and the contrasted though ghastly beauties of the garden whither the half-insane youths and maidens had retired; or we might quote the description of the final scene of terror and woe. These would show Bulwer's power as a painter of the terrific; but we think the mildly beautiful is fully as much his province, and prefer giving two short passages, not as specimens of his power, so much as glances into the gorgeous scenes described. Neither the one nor the other requires comment; we only say of the first, that the scene is Italy: "The last rays of the sun quivered on the wave that danced musically over its stony bed; and, amidst a little copse on the opposite bank, broke the brief and momentary song of such of the bolder habitants of that purple air, as the din of the camp had not scared from their green retreat. The clouds Upon a steed, caparisoned with cloth of gold, in snow-white robes, studded with gems that flashed back the day, came the beautiful and regal Nina. The memory of her pride, her ostentation, all forgotten in that moment, she was scarce less welcome, scarce less idolized, than her lord. And her smile, all radiant with joy, her lips quivering with proud and elate emotion, never had she seemed at once so born alike for love and for command- -a Zenobia passing through the pomp of Rome, not a captive, but a queen.' We shall make but one other quotation from "Rienzi;" it is one of those brief utterances which occasionally leap, attired in perfect poetic beauty, from the brain of Bulwer: "God never made genius to be envied! We envy not the sun, but rather the valleys that ripen beneath his beams." "Zanoni" appeared in 1842; we think it unquestionably Bulwer's highest effort. In it the novelist fearlessly enters those lofty regions where the poet and the prophet alone | Love that burns from the corruption of the can steadily tread; he attempts the delinea- senses, and takes no lustre from the soul.' tion of the ideal; by the keen light of the soul, he daringly endeavors to penetrate the clouds and earthly mists which encompass humanity, and, dashing them aside by the mighty hand of genius, to reveal to men what a man may conceivably be. He oversteps the bounds of the actual, and endeavors to give us a glimpse of that higher natural, which we call the ideal. We feel ourselves here most irksomely restrained by the limits of our paper, so many and so important questions present them selves to our consideration in treating of "Zanoni." We shall abstain from general commendation, and endeavor, compressing our thoughts as in a vice, first, to convey to our readers the general philosophic point or import of the book; and, secondly, to indicate, in a few remarks, the relation of such a work, and of the ideal in general, to Christianity. We commence with a few quotations; we open a few windows, through which we may see into the whole temple. If these passages are well pondered, they will, we think, convey to the reader a correct and pretty comprehensive idea of the nature of the work from which they are selected; we need scarce pause to remark, that very much of it has come over from the fatherland. Our first quotation indicates the general tone of the book; its superiority to inere temporal, actual, earthly things. The second, a very important passage, points out the place which fear occupies in the machinery of the work, and utters grandly the grand fact, that, as a preliminary to all nobility and excellence, the soul must be courageous. The third and fourth proclaim the all-importance of faith, of belief, as contra-distinguished from logical inference and understanding. The fifth may be considered as the general summing up of the purport of the book, the assertion of the necessity to a true intellectual ideal of the belief in a God, and the necessity to a true emotional ideal of the purification of the soul from all sensual desire. being raised to a region of lofty and yet healthful sentiment. We do not say that its analysis is always so penetrating as to cut to the very truth; we suspect an incorrect conclusion, running through all our modern criticism, in the difference asserted between faith, and intellectual, or, if it must be said, logical belief; we think, also, that the distinction between science and art, between the ideal and the natural, is inaccurately defined. But the book is a noble one. "Wisdom, contemplating mankind, leads The whole atmosphere of "Zanoni" is pure but to the two results-compassion or dis- and ennobling; it promulgates certain great dain. He who believes in other worlds can and perennial truths; we can scarcely conaccustom himself to look on this as a natural-ceive any one arising from its perusal without ist on the revolutions of an ant-hill or of a leaf. What is the earth to Infinity-what its duration to the Eternal? Oh, how much greater is the soul of one man than the vicissitudes of the whole globe! Child of heaven, and heir of immortality, how from some star hereafter wilt thou look back on the ant-hill and its commotions, from Clovis, to Robespierre, from Noah to the Final Fire! The spirit that can contemplate, that lives only in the intellect, can ascend to its star, even from the midst of the burial-ground called Earth, and while the sarcophagus called Life immures in its clay the Everlasting!" "At the entrance to all the grander worlds dwell the race that intimidate and awe. Who in the daily world ever left the old regions of custom and prescription, and felt not the first seizure of the shapeless "Faith builds in the dungeon and the lazar-house its sublimest shrines; and up, through roofs of stone, that shut out the eye of heaven, ascends the ladder where the angels glide to and fro PRAYER." "When Science falls as a firework from the sky it would invade, when Genius withers as a flower in the breath of the icy charnel, the hope of a childlike soul wraps the air in light, and the innocence of unquestioning belief covers the grave with blossoms.' and nameless Fear?" "Oh, artist! haunted one! Oh, erring Genius! Behold thy two worst foes the False Ideal that knows no God, and the False Of the relation of the ideal to Christianity we can say but a word or two. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton errs always, and errs radically, when he speaks of Schiller's ideal, or any other ideal, of Schiller's ethical system or any other ethical system, as Christian, or as agreeing with Christianity in essence. The highest possible approach, which human intellect can make to Christianity is to develop its ethics. If conscience, aided by intellect and knowledge, can do this, it is its utmost but Christianity is distinguished forever from all such systems. It is a power, not a system; creates not a certain set of opinions, but a life. In Christianity a directly supernatural power is brought to bear on the whole nature of man; and to him who declares himself a Christian we put this one testing question: "Do you believe in that change which is called the second birth do you believe in the direct action of the Deity on the human mind in conversion?" The most perfect ethical system, the most diligent practice of correct in "Eugene Aram," he had ventured into a dangerous region, and represented life under abnormal conditions; in "Rienzi" he had painted passion with all the fiery colors which of life under its burning feet; in "Zanoni," the delineation of the ideal was boldly, and with singular success, attempted; in "The Caxtons," the face of the true gentleman is at length unveiled, the atmosphere is healthy, the action of passion is shown, but it is assigned its own, and only its own, place; the ideal is restricted to the realizable, and the picture is life. ethical rules, will never change man's heart, or make him holy there. The lever may be sound; but, to move mankind, it must find some fulcrum beyond the earth on which to turn. An ethical system may be a lever-belong to it, but we scarce saw the firm ground Christianity alone is a lever in the hand of the mighty God. Besides all this, we cannot see the fairness of the assertion that certain systems purely human are Christian, when "the Deity" is all that we have for the triune Christian God. We can grant no man the Christian name, who is not Christian in some sense which would not apply to Socrates. But, however Bulwer may err in other places in talking of Christianity, we cannot bring the charge against "Zanoni ;" or, if we did, it would be rather by inference than by direct evidence. If Christianity is taken as true, then every part of the work before us is in admirable place, as an unfolding of certain portions—perhaps the most important portions of its ethics; and this supposition we think ourselves justified in making in Bulwer's favor. If the ideal in "Zanoni" is revealed as a system which can renovate the world, it is powerless it is dead. The style in which "Zanoni" is written is very much adorned. We could imagine Sir Edward having Richter in eye as he composed it; though, even in translation, we can recognize a deeper and softer mellowness of coloring, a more profound poetic love for nature, and a richer ideality in Richter than in Bulwer. The passages we have quoted may remind readers of the schrech verses in "Walt and Vult" and we must still quote one passage, which we pronounce gorgeous, and which, we think, would not have dishonored Richter. It is part of a description of Mount Vesuvius; "The little party had now arrived nearly at the summit of the mountain, and unspeakably grand was the spectacle on which they gazed. From the crater arose a vapor, intensely dark, that overspread the whole background of the heavens; in the centre whereof rose a flame, that assumed a form singularly beautiful. It might have been compared to a erest of gigantic feathers, the diadem of the mountain, high-arched, and drooping downward, with the hues delicately shaded off, and the whole shifting and tremulous as the plumage on a warrior's helm." It would be difficult to find half-a-dozen finer figures than this in the literature of the century. If" Zanoni" is Bulwer's highest effort as a novelist, and contains the noblest passages he has ever penned, "The Caxtons -a Family Picture," we would pronounce, as a whole, his most perfect work. In "Pelham," he had held the mirror up to nature in one of her most fantastic products the dandy; grant that he laughed considerably at the picture, yet that code of morality which is essentially different from the dandiacal was not unfolded; No dandy could have said this: "De-finegentlemanise yourself from the crown of your head to the sole of your foot, and become the greater aristocrat for so doing; for he is more than an aristocrat, he is a king, who suffices in all things for himself - who is his own master, because he needs no valetaille." The man who wrote the following had looked upon life with a calmer eye than that of passion: "My father's reply to this letter was what might be expected. It gently reinforced the old lessons in the distinctions between aspirations towards the perfecting ourselves-aspirations that are never in vain-and the morbid passion of applause from others, which shifts conscience from our own bosoms to the confused Babel of the crowd, and calls it 'fame.' But my father, in his counsels, did not seek to oppose a mind so obstinately bent upon a single course - he sought rather to guide and strengthen it in the way it should go. The seas of human life are wide. Wisdom may suggest the voyage, but it must first look to the condition of the ship, and the nature of the merchandise to exchange. Not every vessel that sails from Tarshish can bring back the gold of Ophir; but shall it, therefore, rot in the harbor? No; give its sails to the wind!" The characters, too, of this masterly fiction are singularly true. In drawing Mrs. Caxton, it would seem that the writer had studiously rejected every fictitious grace, had flung aside every tint which might be borrowed from passion, and determined, be the portrait what it might, that it would be to the life. The result has been that Mrs. Caxton is scarce so much a fictitious as a historic personage; she is the gentleman's wife of the nineteenth century; she is the exact representative of thousands. A greater intellectual power might have been imputed with perfect truth, but even this aid the novelist scorned; and he has succeeded in producing one of the most perfect and truly lovable characters in the whole range of fiction. Uncle Jack is most cleverly sketched, and almost every line is from nature. Austin and Roland are both true to the time and to nature. Love, too, as it generally exists in the nineteenth century, |
