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at the time, and which he was increasing by the study of the French School of Desperation." In the Last Days of Pompeii” and “Rienzi," you saw him throwing out his mind upon subjects which carried him as far as possible away from his own unsatisfied reason, torturing doubts, and agitating passions. Then, in “ Zanoni,” the strong spirit was heard beating against the bars of its misery-and its life; and asking in its despair questions at Destiny and the world unseen. Then, in his Ernest Maltravers,” his “ Alice,” and his “ New Timon,” he seemed backing out of spiritual speculations into a certain sneering voluptuousness worthy of Wieland, of Byron, or of Voltaire. And lastly, in his “Caxtons” and “My Novel,” there seems to have risen on his path what the Germans call an “aftershine" of Christianity-a mild, belated, but divine-seeming day, in which he is walking on still, and which he doubtless deeply regrets had not sooner gleamed over his chequered way. His allusions to the experiences of Robert Hall

, and to the benignant influence of the Christian faith in soothing the woes of humanity, which abound in the “Caxtons” especially, are exceedingly beautiful, and have opened to Bulwer's genius the doors of many a heart that were obstinately shut against him before. The moral tone of these latter novels, too, is much sweeter, healthier, and purer than that of his earlier tales. Their artistic execution is not only equal, but we think in many respects superior. If there is in them less artifice, there is more real art; and if they have less of the glare and bustle of rhetoric, they have more of the soul of poetry. If they dazzle and astonish less, they are infinitely more pleasing, and if they abound not so much in rapid adventures, thrilling situations, and romantic interest, they idealise common life, and show the element of poetic interest as well as the soul of goodness which are found amongst the middle classes of society. One character in his last novel is perhaps the finest of all his creations - we mean, of course, Burley. In the very daring implied in taking up the name of the most original character Scott ever drew, old John Balfour, the stern homicide of Magus Muir, and connecting it with

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the most novel and striking character Bulwer ever depicted, there was genius. Who would venture even to call the hero of a new play Macbeth, or Lear, or Hamlet? Unless the play were of transcendent merit, the very name so presumptuously assumed would condemn it, as assuredly as John Galt's “ Lady Macbeth” was condemned. But, in spite of this preliminary prejudice, Bulwer's Burley is not only as entirely different from Scott's, as a rough literary man of the nineteenth century must be from a rough soldier of the seventeenth; but as a picture of a strange, wild, half-mad man of genius, full, nevertheless, of the milk of human kindnesss, and of the warmest and noblest feelings, it is almost perfect, and of itself sufficient to immortalise the author.

In contemplating Bulwer's career, we are impressed, in fine, with one or two reflections of a somewhat interesting and important kind. It teaches us the might and worth which lie in determined struggle and invincible perseverance. We do not, by any means, dislike those splendid coup de mains of literary triumph we find in such cases as Byron, Macaulay, Charles Dickens, and Alexander Smith, all of whom arose one morning and found themselves famous.” Này, we glory in them, as proofs of the power of the human mind, and as auguries of the more illustrious successes reserved for yet brighter and purer spirits in the future. They show what man can do, and hint what man yet may do. But we love still better to see a strong spirit slowly urging his way against opposition, often driven back but never discouraged, often perplexed but never in despair, often cast down but never destroyed, often falling but never fallen, and at last gaining a victory as undeniable as that of a jubilant summer sun. Such was Milton, such Johnson, such Burke, such Wordsworth, such Disraeli, and such Bulwer. The success of these men looks less like the result of accident, or of popular caprice, or of magic, and more like the just and lawful, although late, reward of that high merit which unites moral energy with intellectual prowess, and becomes thus far more useful as an example and a stimulus to others. Not one in a hundred millions can expect such a tropical

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sunrise of success as befell Byron; but any one who unites a considerable degree of capacity with indomitable determination, may become, if not a Bulwer, yet in his own department an eminent and influential man. We are still more struck with this

perseverance, when we remember Bulwer's position in society. Possessed of rank and ample fortune, he has laboured as hard as any bookseller's hack in the empire; proving thus that his love for literature was as sincere as his ideal of it was high, and redeeming it from a certain shade of contempt which has of late, justly or unjustly, rested upon it. It cannot be denied 'that various causes, such as the poverty of many of our authors, and the mean shifts to which it has often reduced them; the dissipation and blackguardism of a few others; the envious spirit and quarrelsome disposition of third class; the vast amount of mediocre writing which now pours from the press; the number of pretenders whom the hot and sudden sunlight of advancing knowledge has prematurely quickened into reptile life; not to speak of the engrossment of the public mind with commercial speculation and politics, and the contemptuous indifference of many of our aristocracy and many of our clergy to literary things and literary men, have all combined rather to lower Polite Letters in the eyes of the public. And nothing, on the other hand, can tend, or has tended more to reinstate it in its proper place of estimation than the fact, that not a few, distinguished and successful in other professions, in arts or in arms, at the bar or in the pulpit, have gloried in casting in their lot with this despised profession-have submitted to its drudgeries, borne its burdens, and aimed at and gained its laurels. Eminent lawyers have become litterateurs. Eminent officers have become writers of travels. Eminent clergymen have become editors of periodicals and authors of scientific treatises. Eminent physicians, men of fashion, barristers, lords of session, and even peers of the realm, have all aspired to the honour connected with the name of Poet. And Bulwer has brought this to a bright climax, by blending the lustre of rank and riches with the distinctions of the highest literary celebrity. We fear that literature, as a profession, will never thrive to any great

extent in this country. The gains of authors are becoming smaller and smaller in each section of the century; and the fact that all our literature threatens soon to be “afloat in the great gulf-stream of cheapness,” will probably, we at least think, reduce them further still. In this case, we must depend more than ever upon the

supplies from non-professional men, non-commissioned officers, shall we call them? in the great literary army. Nor need we fear that this will at all deteriorate the value of literary productions. It will have, we think, precisely the opposite effect. Professional litterateurs are often forced by necessity to put to press productions totally unworthy of their talents, and in general to dilute and weaken by diffusion their

powers. It is obvious that those who write only when leisure permits, and the spur of impulse excites, are less liable to this temptation. And looking both to the past and present, we find that the greatest and best, on the whole, of our writers have not been authors by profession. Shakspere's profession was not authorship, but the stage. Milton was a schoolmaster and a secretary. Addison, too, was a secretary of state. Pope was a man of private fortune. Fielding was a justice. Richardson kept a shop --so did Godwin. Cowper lived on his patrimony, and on gifts from his relatives. Wordsworth was a stampmaster. Croly is a rector. John Wilson was a professor. Shelley was a gentleman of fortune, and heir to a baronetcy. Byron was a peer. Carlyle has an estate. Browning is a man of fortune and family. Of Jeffrey, Macaulay, Sidney Smith, Hall, and Foster, we need not speak. And our present hero is the proprietor of Knebworth, as well as a scholar, orator, wit, novelist, and poet. We close this paper by expressing

our very hearty congratulations to Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer on his recent reception and appearances in Edinburgh; our warm gratitude for the hours of pleasure and profit his numerous works have given us; and an ardent wish that his future life may be calm and bright; and that the current of thought and feeling in his future works may take, still more decidedly than of late, a practical and a Christian course, and catch on its last waves the hues of heaven's light, blended with the tints of fancy and of poetry!

No. VII.-BENJAMIN DISRAELI.*

THERE are two races, the contrast between whose former and present position is so deep and marked, as to produce the most melancholy reflections. We refer, of course, to the Greeks and the Jews. The ancient Greek was the noblest of nature's children; he was not so much a man as he was a petty god—or, rather, some statue that had walked down from its pedestal. Mrs Jameson says of the Venus de Medici, that she looks as if she would come down if she could, while the Hercules Farnese looks as if he could come down if he would. Were he thus to descend, he were the alter idem of the nobler of the ancient Greeks, in whom beauty and grandeur met together-elegance and energy embraced each other—and in whom, if symmetry seemed sometimes to disguise strength, strength was ever present, albeit half-seen, to support the symmetry. Their very children were taught to contend for prizes for beauty, and had statues erected to them if they succeeded. Their style of dress was itself a dream of beauty. Their language was

. as picturesque as it was expressive and rich. They inhabited a country which to all the romantic variety of Scottish landscape added the richness and warmth of an oriental clime; now towering up into the snowy grandeur of Olympus, and now softening into the unparalleled luxuriance of the Vale of Tempe; here rugged as the defile of Thermopylæ, and there panoramic as the Bay of Athens. The creations of their genius were just the projected images of their own beautiful selves. The heroes of their song were themselves, in shapes of sublime trial and ideal contest. Their gods were themselves—walking on the mountain