used so early as 1832
by one of the very few critics who attempted to do justice to
Bulwer-Lytton's merits. The _Edinburgh Review_ found in him "a style
vigorous and pliable, sometimes strangely incorrect, but often rising
into a touching eloquence." Ten years later such was the private opinion
of D.G. Rossetti, who was "inspired by reading _Rienzi_ and _Ernest
Maltravers_, which is indeed a splendid work." Now that we look back at
Bulwer-Lytton's prodigious compositions, we are able to perceive more
justly than did the critics of his own day what his merits were. For one
thing, he was extraordinarily versatile. If we examine his books, we
must be astonished at their variety. He painted the social life of his
own day, he dived into spectral romance, he revived the beautiful
ceremonies of antiquity, he evoked the great shades of English and of
Continental history, he made realistic and humorous studies of
middle-class life, he engaged in vehement controversy on topics of the
hour, he prophesied of the order of the future, he wrote comedies and
tragedies, epics and epistles, satires and lyrics. His canvasses were
myriad and he crowded every one of them with figures. At his most
Byronic moment he flung his dark cloak aside, and danced in motley
through _Paul Clifford_, with its outrageous caricature of George IV.
and his Ministers as a gang of Hounslow highwaymen. Perhaps his best
claim to regard is the insatiability of his human curiosity, evinced in
the almost infinite variety of his compositions.

The singular being who wrote so large a library of works and whose
actual features have so carefully been concealed from the public, will
be known at last. The piety of his grandson has presented him to us with
no reservations and no false lights. Here he stands, this half-fabulous
being, not sheathed in sham armour and padding the stage in buskins, but
a real personality at length, "with all his weaknesses and faults, his
prejudices, affectations, vanities, susceptibilities, and
eccentricities, and also with all his great qualities of industry,
courage, kindness of heart; sound judgment, patience, and perseverance."
Lord Lytton has carried through to the close a biographical enterprise
of unusual difficulty, and he deserves the thanks of all students of
English literature.

THE CHALLENGE OF THE BRONTES[7]

Although I possess in no degree the advantage which so many of the
members of your society enjoy in being pers