Letitia Elizabeth Landon

“ The satire is levelled at existing persons and abuses—the romance is the poetry which passion and feeling extract from the daily events of common life—the moral is that drawn from the temptation which leads, and the punishment which follows, the crimes we know to be hourly committed. For the first time, Mr. Bulwer seems to have felt what an engine of power was the novel for present utility; how forcibly it could be brought to play on the vice whose result is misery—the indolence whose result is injury, and the selfishness which is at once its own best and worst punishment. ”

“ Why, we would ask, is truth to be debarred from taking its most effective, because most popular form? Such critics are either strangely behind, or wilfully blind, to their own time, who deny the importance of the novel. In works of imagination, a novel has been the Aaron's rod which has swallowed up the rest. If a few great writers choose any one vehicle for their talents, hundreds of their inferiors will choose the same mode, and follow in the track in which they never could have led. ”

“ Bulwer's serious satire is more apparent than his more playful vein, simply because the one has, and the other has not, the impress of his own mind. Nothing, especially in poetry, divides opinion more than great originality; readers are at fault when no good old rule is at hand to serve as a guage—and when at a loss, it is always safest to condemn. ”

“ His genius has taken service with reality. In every event he has wrought out, in every character he has created, he has never had the actual out of mind; and his works are living pictures, filled with the crimes and the virtues, the thoughts and the feelings, the hopes and the fears which are now among us in daily operation. Young, rich, and high-born, Mr. Bulwer* [1] lacked many of the ordinary excitements to exertion. It is a fact not to be disputed, that the aristocracy have not "progressed" in proportion to the other classes. ”

“ Bulwer's former female portraits. Isabel and Isora were high-wrought, beautiful, and ideal—as if poetry had lent its aid to life, to show "how divine a thing a woman might be made;" but Lucy is a sweet, simple, gentle creature—entirely a girl—only a very lovely and loveable one, till circumstances discover that gold lies beneath the stream which had hitherto only "broke into dimples and laughed in the sun." It is the "unconquerable strength of love," giving its own force to a nature essentially timid and feminine. ”

“ Men who are anonymous are usually abusive, and want of principle and want of responsibility are only too synonymous. Nothing can be perfect in this world, but two rules would greatly conduce to the perfectibility of criticism:—the first to speak, not of the author, but of his works; his pages, not himself, are amenable to your remarks: secondly, to do away with the present anonymous system; this would have a double advantage; it would force the critic to be just, if not generous, for his own sake—for men weigh opinions for which they are to be instantly answerable ”

“ That the subject of our sketch was early addicted to reading is nothing; so are thousands, from whose labour fruit never comes. Literary taste is often confounded with literary talent by others, quite as much as by ourselves. The Cambridge prize poem on Sculpture, afterwards published in a small volume of poems, printed for private circulation, was his first literary effort. Mr. Bulwer is essentially imbued with the spirit of poetry: perhaps, born a few years sooner, he would have been a poet only; but, though circumstances do not make genius, they certainly have much to do with its direction. ”

“ I do not see that kindness to an acquaintance is at all destructive to sincerity as a friend." "The object of education is to instill principles which are hereafter to guide and instruct us; facts are only desirable so far as they illustrate those principles; principles ought, therefore, to precede facts." "Learning without knowledge is but a bundle of prejudices." ”

“ The desire of honourable but worldly success in Clarence, is brought into fine contrast with the dreaming and feverish desire of fame which consumes the young artist. Again, the disinterested but fatal patriotism of Wolfe, fatal because confined, is admirably opposed to that of Algernon Mordaunt, whose patriotism takes the ground-work of knowledge, and works hand in hand with philosophy and charity. Mordaunt is one of those ideals of excellence which we respect an author for conceiving. ”

“ Bulwer belongs, in order to do justice to the energy of mind which has so nobly preferred exertion to indulgence, and has set out by acknowledging the general sympathies, and advocating the general rights of mankind. In the history of an author, it is labour wasted to inquire what first turned his mind to its peculiar pursuit. Even if the fact could be ascertained, it would be useless as an example, for no circumstance affects two men alike; and if brought forward only to support a theory, the theory which cannot be carried into action is rather ingenious than useful. ”

“ Its influence runs through all Devereux's future character; the warm emotions concealed—the affectionate temper checked—restraint deepening into reserve, and self-dependance hardening into self-reliance, are all traced with the accuracy of an anatomist, and with a beauty even beyond their truth. The awakening of all his better nature under the affection of his uncle, and that kind old uncle himself, are transcripts from one of the very best and dearest pages of human life. ”

“ Moral knowledge is the fine gold extracted from the crucible of moral satire. The interview between the Czar and Devereux is an admirable and forcible exposition of a great truth: we allude to the scene where the influence of shame in punishment is illustrated by the difference between the Russian and the German, while under the discipline of the knout. ”

“ Bulwer himself says, "that to do justice to a great man is the highest of literary pleasures;" and in this analysis of Bolingbroke, we know not which most to admire, the truth of the defence, or the generous warmth of the defender. The tomb of one great man is the altar of another. One very futile objection against this noble impersonation has been urged by the Chinese of criticism, or rather its Chancery barristers, who refer every thing to precedent;—that, forsooth, "a novel is not the proper place for political or historical discussion." ”

“ If we have cordially expressed our admiration, it is because we have cordially felt it. We have neither attempted to detail the stories nor describe the characters; the meagre sketch of a tale, or the bare outline of a character, is as a skeleton, which requires to be clothed in flesh before it can rise up in grace or beauty. ”

“ We have endeavoured to give our own strong impression—to select some of the most detachable merits, and then to say to our readers, judge for yourselves on the right of our opinion, bearing in mind that we can set forth only a very small part of sixteen volumes, full of all the various developement of mind and feeling.
A transition from the author's works to the author's self has been a common consequence of fame in all ages. ”

“ The evaded study and dissipation of a public school is succeeded by the equally evaded study and dissipation of a college; and too many of our youthful aristocracy begin life with self-sufficiency for knowledge, prejudices for opinions, and with pleasure a habit rather than an enjoyment. ”

“ The bitter feeling of comparing our own lot with another's, will come quite soon enough without its being taught in infancy. Early injustice is like the thread of silk planted with the tulip—it colours all the after leaves. ”

“ A young nobleman of the present day has not a better education than his ancestor in the time of Elizabeth. If we look back to the old records, we shall find that the classics, the modern tongues, some knowledge of philosophy, and the information collected by foreign travel, were held indispensable to the formation of a gentleman. What more is now required among the higher ranks? We doubt whether even as much be effected. It would seem that education, in ceasing to be a distinction, had lost half its attraction. ”

“ Life has little breathing time; and, even when we do for a moment reflect, it is rather on our present than our past: the pains and pleasures of memory are put aside as quickly as the poem which celebrates them. ”

“ These did not possess such bad materials for a hero; the days are quite past for readers to be contented with the condescending court-suits which enchanted our grandmothers, or with "dark-haired young gentlemen, born to be the destruction of every one connected with them." Mr. Bulwer required a hero surrounded with difficulties, and beset with the temptations to which poverty is subjected in real and social life—such a hero is Paul Clifford. ”

“ Still, we wonder that observation has not been more awake to the tremendous power the novel possesses as an engine for the dissemination of opinion: but more of this when we come to "Paul Clifford." To return to "Devereux." The character of the hero seems to us to be one of Mr. Bulwer's most powerful and original conceptions: the influence of circumstances upon nature is finely and profoundly traced. "Devereux" is imaginative, affectionate, passionate by nature; worldly, cold, and guarded in his crust of circumstance. The poetry inherent, and the philosophy acquired, are exquisitely developed. ”

“ Lord Mauliverer is an inimitable satire on aristocratic indulgence; he is the far niente of indolent luxury embodied in all its selfishness. One single expression sets forth his whole system of action. ”

“ The great writers, we can scarcely say of our time, embodied the excitement, the morbid sensibility, the visionary philosophy, the melancholy ever attendant upon imaginative feeling, which were the characteristics of an essentially poetical age; and such was the one just departed. Another great change is now passing over our literature, because it is also passing over our time ”

“ To-day has nothing in common with Yesterday. People required to be amused in order to be instructed; now, they only permit themselves to be entertained while laying the flattering unction to their souls that it is the vehicle of information. ”

“ When we say that he gave us the idea of one whose habits were fastidious and tastes refined—when we find in him the descendant of an ancient and aristocratic family, and know him to be one nursed in all the lavish indulgence of wealth, the more are our causes of
admiration for one whose talents have disdained repose, and whose pages have ever advocated the cause of right. ”

“ It is not enough to denounce a vice—you will do more by disgracing it. We have heard some pseudo-genteel readers object to the hero's being only "a highwayman!" Besides the obvious answer, that human nature is human nature all the world over, we will just give the author's own view of the case: "For my part, I will back an English highwayman, masked, armed, mounted, and trotting over Hounslow Heath, against the prettiest rascal the Continent ever produced." ”

“ We shall only say, fortunate are those who do not sympathise with the affectionate, yet unloved boy, whose heart becomes sullen as sadness always does when utterly unshared. There is terrible injustice in the treatment of children: how arbitrary is the authority exercised over them! ”

“ We do firmly believe great popularity is
never gained without great desert. All will admit, that the first-rate talent of our time has been developed in the novel. It is an error to say, that this is because it is the most amusing; it is rather because it is the most appropriate. Still, in literature, as in life, the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, even unto the third and fourth generation ”

“ Bulwer's writings is, the singular originality of his minor characters: they are not merely "two or three puppets to fill up the scene," whose only distinguishing mark is a name, but each is some embodied thought, and distinguished by some natural touch: in short, people in his books are as different as they are in real life. ”

“ The historical scenes have that which is usually admitted as the great merit of historical fiction, verisimilitude—if not exactly what people did do, it was exactly what they might be supposed to have done: to use a theatrical phrase, the illusion is well supported. ”

“ We can have nothing to say that will better apply to this poem. We have heard the term satire objected to, as applied to "The Siamese Twins;" we confess it does not belong to the Sunday-newspaper school of satirists, in which real names and nicknames, personality and brutality constitute what is called a powerful article; but if abuse is not the whole of wit, to wit—the keen and the ready—this poem may well lay claim. If Mr. Bulwer wants any thing, it is that innate gaiety, which in a writer, like good spirits in a companion, carries us along with it. ”

“ Pelham was an incarnation of the spirit of the times, only with some fine talents and high qualities not quite so general. But the author's own words, in the preface to the second edition, best set forth his intentions. "Nor have I indulged in frivolities for the sake of frivolity: under that which has the most semblance of levity, I have often been the most diligent in my endeavours to inculcate the substances of truth." "By treating trifles naturally, they may be rendered amusing ; and that which adherence to nature renders amusing, the same cause may also render instructive." ”