full experience, as the names of Tennyson and
Browning will remind us, for Bulwer-Lytton was slow to admit the value
of these younger talents. His relations with Tennyson have always been
known to be unfortunate; as they are revealed in Lord Lytton's biography
they approach the incredible. He met Browning at Covent Garden Theatre
during the Macready "revival" of the poetic stage, but it was not until
after the publication of _Men and Women_ that he became conscious of
Browning's claim, which he then very grudgingly admitted. He was
grateful to Browning for his kindness to Robert Lytton in Italy, but he
never understood his genius or his character.

What, however, we read with no less pleasure than surprise are the
evidences of Bulwer-Lytton's interest in certain authors of a later
generation, of whom the general public has never suspected him to have
been aware. Something almost like friendship sprang up as lately as 1867
between him and a man whom nobody would suppose him to admire, Matthew
Arnold. It sometimes happens that a sensitive and petulant artist finds
it more easy to acknowledge the merits of his successors than to endure
those of his immediate contemporaries. The _Essays in Criticism_ and
_The Study of Celtic Literature_ called forth from the author of _My
Novel_ and _The Caxtons_ such eulogy as had never been spared for the
writings of Thackeray or Carlyle. Matthew Arnold appeared to
Bulwer-Lytton to have "brought together all that is most modern in
sentiment, with all that is most scholastic in thought and language."
Arnold was a guest at Knebworth, and brought the Duke of Genoa with him.
He liked Bulwer-Lytton, and their relations became very cordial and
lasted for some years; Arnold has given an amusing, but very
sympathetic, account of the dignified hospitalities of Knebworth.

No revelation in Lord Lytton's volumes is, however, more pleasing or
more unexpected than his grandfather's correspondence with Swinburne. It
is thought that he heard of him through Monckton Milnes; at all events,
he was an early reader of _Atalanta in Calydon_. When, in 1866, all the
furies of the Press fell shrieking on _Poems and Ballads_, Bulwer-Lytton
took a very generous step. He wrote to Swinburne, expressing his
sympathy and begging him to be calm. The young poet was extremely
touched, and took occasion to beg the elder writer for his advice, the
publisher having, without consulting him, withdrawn his volume from
sale. B