The Sun.
London, England, 1868-02-19 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 19, 1868.

... ns which the Secretary for India
o
tved from Sir ROBERT NAPIER were dated the
bl hope
ing by the doctors in attendance stated that his last ,' ammunicati
lordship continued to improve in a "very satisfac-
We may, therefore, reasonably fitl 1. and 25th of January. In the first of these he
tory degree." race
that the worst of the attack is now over, and that 0,14 ys the total amount of water daily condensed
with time and care the noble earl may be restored by . the two fixed condensers and by the vessels in
to health and strength. The sad intelligence, harrbour amounts to one hundred and sixty tons.
of the critical state of Lord`DEEßr's health caused Oi: these 120 tons are daily placed on shore, which
great alarm among his friends in London, and, affords a copious supply for all the troops, fol-
indeed, spread a gloom over all circles. Perhaps • lowers, and animals at present at Zulla. The letter
there never was a statesman who more thorouglAy of the 25th, dated from Zoomayloo, goes into
commanded the respect of all men than the nol )le ' further details, and is even more reasoning. " This
lord now at the head of her MAJESTY'S GOVer 'll- place," writes Sir R. NAPIER, "is one of great im-
ment, and he possesses those high feelings of hone air portance to us ; it has the first good water. The
and that independence of spirit which are alw: Lys wells are in the bed of a river, the water excellent
looked upon as particularly characteristic of E' ag- and plentiful, requiring only the means of pumping
lishmen. It is always a feature of our political it out. I think there is little doubt that this should
life that when misfortune and losses assail ..)ur be our supply for Zulla, having the convenience of
men of mark the bitterness of antagonism the railway to bring out the piping, and the con-
is put away, and the fierce discussions of venience of the pipes to supply water for the engines."
party strife are cast into the shade. The higher It is a very important question. The human con-
and better feelings of our nature rise superior to the sinners of water at Zulla by the last estimate
more paltry and trivial ones which concern self- amounted to 11,500, and a failing of water would
interest, even if that interest brought one to the be something not to be thought of without anxiety.
fulfilment of exalted services to the country and the Of course as long as we have our condensers at
realisation of a noble ambition. But we would go work we are sure of a general supply, but if a bad
further, and indulge in the confident belief that the gale came the ships might be out of gear for a
sentiment extends still further, and goes yet beyond time. The wells at Zoomayloo will be a most
the moment of excitement and the day of trial and valuable source of supply, and will not be subject
emergency, and that those who yesterday grieved at to the influences which might affect the con-
the sad condition of the noble lord will to-day re- densers. So far as the Government has yet received
joice at his improved state, and would to-morrow information, there has been no lack of water. On
hail the intelligence of his chance of complete re- the contrary, all official accounts have showed that

storation. Should it please Providence to permit
the noble earl to return to the duties of his exalted
position he will be warmly welcomed by all those
with whom he mixes in public life and political
duties, and the country at large would vie with
them in feelings of gratification. By his own party
Lord DERBY has been justly appreciated, and the
confidence he has always met with, and the devo-
tion which he has inspired during the darkest days
of defeat and depression, have exhibited a marked
contrast to the manner in which some other

the supply was abundant. So much then for one
great danger.
Another subject of anxiety to the British taxpayer
has been the monthly cost of freight which has been
estimated at something like £400,000. Sir STAF-
FORD NORTHCOTE could give no exact information
on this point, not having received the details he
wished for from Bombay, but from what he knew he
believed the amount would be much less. As for
THEODORE'S arrival at Magdala, it is possible, like
many other things, but entirely uncertain.

political leaders have been treated by their
followers.
Without passing any disparaging remarks upon
others, we may be permitted to sAy that no man
ever deserved their confidence more than Lord
DERBY has always done, for he has at all times been
sincere and straightforward, and has always ranked
the claims of justice and the considerations of
honour above the more immediate gains of the
moment and the inducements of power and in-
fluence. It is peculiarly unfortunate that Lord
DERBY'S health should be in so critical a state at
a time when he is of so much service to his
Sovereign and his country ; but it is
doubly distressing when we consider that
it has been in a great measure brought
about by the sacrifice be made in assuming the
Premiership. It is well known that the noble earl
did so because he felt that the emergency was
great, and that his duty to the Crown and the
country no less than his responsibility to his party
demanded it of him. It is premature to talk de-
finitively of other arrangements now, but it is
evident that the Government could now do better
without Lord DERBY than it could have at a
previous time. Had he relinquished the onerous
duties of office last year at this time the
Reform Bill could never have been car-
ried, but there is now no such anxious
and exciting project before Parliament.
These things are, however, to be left to the consi-
deration of a future day; and we trust that, amid
the changes so constantly arising among ns, it will

The movements of the Egyptians, like other in-
cidents, have been greatly exaggerated. So far
from a formidable body of Egyptian troops having
entered Abyssinia simultaneously with Sir ROBERT
NAPIER'S advance, the VICEROY has given orders
for the recall of the solitary battalion which he had
sent to Massowah. Lord STANLEY represented to
to him that such a movement might be misunder-
stood by the Abyssinians, who might suppose that
we were in alliance with their dreaded neighbours
and rivals, and also that the advance of Egyptian
troops would be very inconvenient to us, as they
must naturally draw their supplies from the same
sources. The VICEROY received these suggestions
in the most friendly spirit, and while he assured
Lord STANLEY that the number of men advancing
to Massowah had been greatly exaggerated, he pro-
mised to recall them immediately. The ac-
counts of the large body of troops en-
turing Abyssinia independently of our force
must therefore have originated in fact ; but,
like other reports of the kind, they grow with time
and repetition. It would be a little singular if the
VICEROY, SO soon after his visit to this country,
should rashly provoke the power of England against
himself, and we can scarcely suppose he would be
so rash and so impolitic. Altogether the intelli-
gence which Sir STAFFORD NORTECOTE has received,
and which he last night communicated to the House
of Commons, is calculated to reassure the public
mind, and to dissipate any anxiety which might
have existed as to the present well-being and
future prospects of oar expeditionary force.

be long before it ever become the practice among us
to speculate upon the results that may follow upon
the retirement of a leading statesman, and still more

LATEST MTELL [G-ENCE.

upon the consequences that may ensue from his

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)

death. We should act more in accordance with

.41. -

good taste and right feeling if we content our-

TURKEY.

selves with taking things as we find them,
instead of wandering away to reason and augur

CONSTANTINOPLE, Feb. 18.

The Porte is preparing for early publication a
Grey Book, which will contain about fifty official
despatches concerning Crete, the brigandage on the
Hellenic frontiers, and the privileges granted to
Christians in Turkey.

upon events which may not take place for a
long time to come. The lives of our leading states-
men always attract a great share of public notice

and attention, and the family and friends of Lord
DERBY may feel convinced that they have many to

An address to the Sultan, signed by 1,500
Cretans, has been received here in which the signi-
tanks ask permission for their families to return to
the island.

sympathise with them ; and that not only those of
his own immediate circle, but the community at

large, will rejoice to hear of the improvement of his
health; and while there is nothing in his career that

The Grand Vizier is expected back from Crete
this week. His house at Stamboul, with the whole
of the furniture, and a most valuable library, was
destroyed by fire yesterday.
The Levant Herald states that Admiral Lord
Clarence Paget is expected shortly to pay a flying
visit to Constantinople iu her Majesty's ship
Psyche.

one could wish forgotten at a time like this,

they will lose the thouget of political aspe-

rity, and only remember his devotion to

his country and his upright career as a
statesman, and his high and honourable reputation
as a Minister. It is true, that nothing the noble
earl can do could increase his fame, or add lustre
to his distinguished career ; but we, in common with

AMERICA. •

his contemporaries and the public, cannot but feel

that we can ill afford to lose his services ; and
whether at the head of the Government, or only in

NEW YORK, Feb. 18.

The Inman steamer City of Washington and the
Allan Company's steamer Peruvian arrived out to-
day.

. _
his private capacity, the House of Lords will cherish
the hope of retaining among its members one who

COMMERCIAL INTELLIGENCE.

bas been for long years its most distinguished orna-

anent, the pride of the aristocracy, because he has

Closing Prices.—Gold, 1401. Sterling exchange
on London, 109 i ; 5-20 United States Bonds (1882),
1111 ; ditto (1885), 1091 ; 10-40 Bonds, 1054 ;
Illinois, 139 ; Erie, 764. Cotton—Middling Up-
land, 234. Petroleum, standard white, 25. Flour,
extra state, $lO 40c. ; corn, old mixed, $132.

shown of what excellence it is capable, and to what

lofty heights it may attain.

The answer which Sir STAFFORD NORTHCOTE last
night returned to Mr. FAIN-erns questions respect-
ing the fortunes of our Abyssinian expedition give
forcible evidence of the manner in which rumour is
apt to outrun truth. Had the unfavourable re-
ports which have lately reached us been circulated
during the recess there would have been no means
of testing their accuracy, and they would have re-
mained uncontradicted, cawing much anxiety and
apprehension to those directly connected with the
expeditionary force, and exciting general uneasiness
and dissatistaction. Happily we are in the midst
of the Parliamentary Session, and Mr. FAWCETT'S
inquiries have elicited a statement of the true posi-
tion of affairs from the Secretary for India, which
is altogether different from the news we have been
hearing. There has been from the first a party in
this country who, whether from dislike to war under
anp circumstances, antipathy to increased taxes, or
a desire to prejudice the movements of the Govern-
ment, have studiously taken the most dismal view
of the expedition and all its belongings. The
climate, we were told, was fatal to Europeans,
and when this was disproved by the health of the
captives under most trying circumstances, we heard
that the scarcity of provisions and lack of water
would effectually bar the progress of an invading
army. Then we were assured that the Abyssinians
were so much afraid of their tyrant that they
would certainly oppose us most strenuously at his
bidding, an assertion which has been completely
disproved. Besides all this, most alarming accounts
were in circulation respecting the Guinea worm,
the Isetse ily, and other intangible but deadly ene-
mies, which lay in wait for man and beast on the
dreaded plains of Abyssinia. The mortality among
the mules and horses has unfortunately been very
great since the landing of our troops, but with this
the Isetse fly has nothing to do. As for our men
they have enjoyed excellent health, and have found
the climate to be neither oppressive nor injurious.
Sir S. NORTHCOTE being less informed than the
croakers has heard nothing of the scarcity of
water, and Sir H. NAPIER is equally ignorant. The

AUSTRIA.

VIENNA, Feb. 19.

The Vienna papers publish an account of the
dinner given by the King of Hanover yesterday in
celebrating the 25th anniversary of his marriage.
They state that in the toast his Majesty proposed
he returned thanks to those who had come from a
distance to be present at ithis family meeting held
to show the intimate connection of the house of
Guelph with the Hanoverian people. He entertained
the conviction that he should return to Hanover
as a free King. His ancestors had been compelled
to leave the country, but found upon their return a
larger Guelphic kingdom. Providence justified
him in the belief that he too would go back to the
country as a free and independent Sovereign. His
Majesty concluded with drinking prosperity to
Hanover, and a speedy reunion in the land of the
Guelphs.
The dinner was attended exclusively by Hano-
verian s.

FRA:

NCE.
iree .o'clock.—The market

BOURSE, Feb. 18.—T
closed as follows :-
41 per Cent.
End of month... -- Italian Loan
3 per Cent
End of month._ 68 65 Mexican Loan ... 16 50
Credit Mobilier
End of month._ 190 Spanish Threes
Credit Fonder ...1422 50 I Home Debt 34
End of m0nth...1383 75 j Deferred
RAILWAYS.

Account

Orleans ... 892}
Northern
Lyons and Mediterranean
Southern__ 5421
Western
Eastern • • 545
Sardinian
Austrian
Lombard 370
North of Spain 7ll
Saragossa
Roman 47

THE TEA DUTY IS REDUCED.-17orninean's Pure Tea is
sold 8d per pound Cheaper. This interesting fact will, when
fully known, even further increase the demand for these
Choice, long-approved Teas. They' aro not sold loose, but
only in Packets.

LITERATURE.

Lord Lytton's Fssays and Criticisms.
The Miscellaneous Works of Edward Bulwer, Lord
Lytton. Three Yols. Richard Bentley.

If there is one English author now living whose
name may be regarded as, beyond all others, typi-
cal of English literature it is the author of these
volumes. There are writers among his con-
temporaries who stand forth conspicuously as the
representatives of their own chosen departments in
that literature : several of them being men illustri-
ous by the splendour of their genius or by the
variety of their achievements. Among novelists, for
example, there is Charles Dickens. Among histo-
rians there is George Grote. Among biographers
there is John Forster. Goldsmith—Greece—and
how many inimitable masterpieces of fiction from
Pickwick to Copperfield, from the Christmas
Carol to Great Expectations, afford evidence
in each of these three familiar instances of
the perfect accuracy of our assertions. Then,
too, among our popular poets, among our popular
dramatists, among our philosophic essayists, among
our Parliamentary orators, other names might just
as readily, as in the foregoing instances, be adduced.
Yet, as comprehending within the scope of a single
genius, within the compass of a single career, within
the mastery of a single ambition, these, and to-
gether with these, a variety of other distinct and
distinguished reputations, the name of Edward
Bulwer, Lord Lytton, stands forth, among them all
and above them all, without any rival or competitor
whatsoever. As a writer of fiction he is our English
Sir Walter Scott. As a philosophic thinker he is
recognised, appreciated, and honoured beyond the
boundaries of England, but especially far and wide
throughout the great German Fatherland. As
a Parliamentary orator, how is it that he was
spoken of—and that, too, but very recently—by an
orator no less accomplished himself than the Lord
Chief Justice of England ? Why, in terms no less
emphatic, in terms no less avowedly prophetic, than
these : speaking of Lord Lytton's reputation as a
statesman and orator of the highest order, but more
especially of his reputation in the latter capacity—
" I venture to predict," said the Lord Chief Justice
upon the occasion we are referring to, " that those
speeches which in the great arena of political con-
flict, the British House of Commons, my noble
friend has pronounced will remain as models of the
highest and the noblest eloquence and of deep
thought—such as should characterise the statesman
and politician—clothed in the glowing and graceful
language of which no man is a more complete mas-
ter." The enumeration, however, of a mere selection
from among the masterpieces he has produced, in such
variety and at the same time in such affluent abun-
dance, will more than justify us in claiming for
him that distinctive pre-eminence which we Nave not
hesitated to pronounce his by right, namely, that
of being in his own person the typical representa-
tive of the whole mass of our living literature. As
a Poet he has securely and nobly assumed his posi-
tion in the national Walhalla. As an Epic Poet
by right of that "life of his life"—Dryden's dream
deserved for his realization—his patriotic and
chivalric celebration of " King Arthur." As a
Poetic Satirist by right of the " New Tine )e."
As a Lyrist by right of hoer many ex-
quisite snatches of harmonious song not
least charming among them, Nydia the blind girl's
tender ditty about the flowers in " The Last Days
of Pompeii." In his capacity as a Dramatist, again,
the eminence he has long since won for himself is,
to say the least of it, sufficiently conspicuous and
assured, His is the most brilliant cynely of mo-
dern times—" Money." His the happiest achieve-
ment in the department of the historical drama—
" Richelieu." His that most charming of roman tic
plays, that sweetest love story put into action and
dialogue—" The Lady of Lyons." Reverting for a
moment to a consideration of his larger and more
comprehensive fame as a Novelist or Romancist—a
character in which his celebrity is intensely and
essentially that of Bulwer rather than of Lytton
—how comprehensive and diversified have been
the raids of his adventurous genius beyond
the borderlands of Fable, beyond the boun-
daries of Dreamland, as a great Master of
Fiction akin in the daring, the vividness, and
the grasp of his imagination, to the loftiest
even among such dreamers of dreams, to Scott, to
Le Sage, and to Boccaccio 1 Aid hero it is suffi-
ciently remarkable to notice, in regard to Bulwer
as a Novelist, that he has in that c tpacity won re-
putation upon reputation. Entering the lists often
with vizor closed—disdaining the aid of the prestige
appertaining to him by reason of his already recog-
nised achievements as an imaginative writer—he has
repeatedly won success anew upon the unassisted
and isolated merits of this or that individual pro-
duction. As a fashionable novel,
," Godolphin" had
run through several editions before it was acknow-
ledged. "The Cantons," again, appearing anony-
mously in Maga, there mastered the admiration of
e'rTwiaw rds New Timon" some
" King Arthur"
its first readers before its authorship was in the
years
least s suspected.
previously,
Justand a
asf t
gained the ear of the public, though the Poet's identity
all the while remained sedulously concealed. Or,
as, in yet another instance, "The Lady of Lyons,"
had charmed the playgoers nightly for a whole week
before the name
_of the successful playwright had
been announced. What is still more remarkable,
however, in regard to Lord Lytton's reputation in
all his various and widely-contrasting characters, is
the very simple and perfectly well-known fact that
the progress of his career has been facilitated in no
one instance by any adventitious aid towards
the furthering of his or of its advance-
ment. In other and plainer words, he
has always stood from first to last altoge-
ther aloof from any and every literary clique
or coterie. Ho has no reason to thank the
literary critics of his own time in his own
country. Elsewhere his genius and his achieve-
ments—his genius in all its phases, his achievements
in their manifold diversity—have had full and gene-
rous recognition. Elsewhere they have had this full
and generous recognition—in France, in America,
in Germany, more especially in Germany—not in
England, not at least as a rule among the English
critics, whether daily, weekly, monthly, or quar-
terly. He has no reason, we repeat, to thank
them for having participated in any, even the
smallest, way in the building up of his reputation.
He has less reason, indeed, than any author
now living to thank the critics of England for even
civility in the consideration of his many rare and
lofty merits. The singular, almost we had said an-
tagonistic, attitude which the English critics have
always thus assumed in regard to him, through-
out his career, still remains however we
may scrutinise it as in a very great degree
incomprehensible. It has been consistently, we
should perhaps rather say persistently, main-
tained by them from first to last through the
three principal epochs or divisions of his life, when he
has been familiarly known and honoured among the
general public as Author, Statesman, Orator—as Poet,
Novelist, Dramatist—as Administrator, or Man-
of-letters, now as Mr. Bulwer, now as Sir Edward,
now as Lord Lytton. Whatever the reason of the an-
tagonism referred to—whether arising from any
constitutional disdain on his part of anything having
about it even the merest semblance of a conciliatory
advance, or to whatever else it may all this while
have been attributable in its origin—there the fact
has been from first to last, a fact sufficiently un-
generous so far as the critics themselves are con-
cerned and by the author himself (it must even be
allowed by them) altogether unprovoked. It is a
fact, however, so far of value that it establishes be-
yond the possibility of contradiction this truth—
that a wide and immense reputation may be firmly
established and long maint tined quite irrespec-
tively of professional criticism, we would oven s ty
in absolute defiance of its pertinacious and implac-
able antagonism. No author has had so man y
editions during his lifetime. None has been read
more widely or more eagerly. In the Tauchnitz re-
print of his writings, his books are thumbed and
dogs-eared all over the Continent. Music and
Painting have offered the tributes of their embellish-
ment to his imaginings. But otherwise than in
these particulars, the public recognitions of the
genius of Bulwer as an Author and as an Orator,

and of the duplex reputation he has won, here in
the Senate, here in the World of Letters, have
been TWO two sufficiently conspicuous, how-
ever, and sufficiently illustrious as it has
happened. His nomination to a baronetcy by one
Prime Minister (Lord Melbourne) at the time of her
Majesty's Coronation ; his elevation to the peerage
by another Prime Minister (Lord Derby)—both as
tributes to his genius as an Author and as an Orator,
to his achievements in Statesmanship and in Lite-
rature. As a Baronet in whom letters were
honoured, Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer was gazetted
simultaneously with Sir John Herschell as one in
whom Science was honoured by the Government.
As Lord Lytton, Bulwer entered the House of Peers
fittingly and appropriately in the wake of his some
time contemporary, Lord Macaulay. Numerous
and considerable though his more important
achievements have been in the building up of his
many-sided reputation, it is especially noticeable in
regard to Lord Lytton that there are several
among his various productions which, while they
have been merely subsidiary to the achieve-
ment of his general fame as a writer, when
they come to be regarded separately and apart,
seem to have been almost overlooked in their pecu-
liar excellence as isolated masterpieces--or if not
overlooked seem to have been, at the least, over-
shadowed. Entirely apart from his other produc-
tions as a Poet, apart flom his epic of " King
Arthur," his satire of the "New Timon," his mis-
cellaneous Poems (published in a separate volume
by Murray), his dramatic pieces (published by Rout-
ledge), including among them "The Duchess de la
Valliere, " The Sea Captain," and " Not so Bad
as we Seem"—apart from his masterly translations
from Schiller, and his charming re-bodying forth of
"The Lost tales of Miletus"— there is that Poli-
tical Poem of " St. Stephens," which is in itself
worthy of securing to any author, no matter whom,
a distinct and separate reputation For, it is a
masterpiece. Minor masterpieces there are which
he has written and which " the world will not
willingly let die"—radiant among them that, to our
mind, loveliest among all his lesser poems, the one
beginning—

" I do confess that I have wished to give
My land the gift of no ignoblo name"—

an aspiration which he has at least the consolation
of knowing that he has long since and very nobly
realised. Another of these minor masterpieces—
one purely incidental of its kind—is that delight-
fully humoristic Apologue of the Dag, the Cat,
and the Griffin, recounted in the " Pilgrims of the
Rhine." There is, moreover, that finest Ghost Story
surely that has ever yet been penned, " The flaunted
and the flaunters," which may be found in the tenth
volume of the " Tales from Blackwood," and which
is not only the gem of that particular volume, but
the gem of the whole collection. Books within
books, too, he has with a curious felicity shadowed
forth; and those, though each of them, as one may
say, the veriest adumbration of a masterpiece, as such
a masterpiece in the mere conception of it never-
theless. Instance this, that literary achievement
of Leonard Fairfield in " My Novel"--a bijou book
at once the envy and the despair of Randal Leslie.
Instance this again, Mr. Austin Caxton's great work

on "The History Of Human Error," always pre-
paring for publication, but. never yet completed.
Besides the original edition of each of his works
at the time of its first or separate publication, Lord
Lytton's writings, as already remarked, have passed
through an unusual variety of collective reprints.
His Poems, for example, issued in five handsome
volumes by the Messrs. Chapman and Hall, have
also appeared in a single volume, at once cheaper,
compacter, and more generally accessible, thanks
to the enterprise of the Messrs. Routledge of London
and Now York. The latter publishers, again, have
endeavoured by a series of what may with justice
be called extraordinary adventures, to compete in
the dissemination of the collected Novels, Tales, and
Romances of Sir Edward Bulwer now Lord Lytton,
with the beautiful Library Edition published in from
forty to fifty volumes by the Messrs. Blackwood
and Sons of Edinburgh and London—who have al-
most, one might say, assumed by right the position
of publishers in ordinary to the Poet and Novelist
to whom of late years Blackwood's Magazine has
been mainly indebted for the continuance of its
pre-eminence among the monthly periolicels. Maga
having been the medium through which were first
introduced to public notice, besides the Translations
of the Poems of Schiller, and the Parliamentary
gallery of oratorical portraits sketched in poetry
under the title of " St. Stephens," besides minor
tales, such as the "Haunted and the Haunters," and
minor Poems, such as "The Boatman" (a poem
worthy of Schiller himself) —the whole of the
Caxton Essays, and, better than all, the whole
series of the Caxton Novels, namely, " The Caxtons"
"My Novel," and " What will he do with it ?" Com-
peting with the Messrs. Blackwood, as we have
said, even under the so far depressing influence of
the latter being placed upon a " coign of 'vantage''
as the publishers of the choicest, that is, of the
Library Edition of Lord Lytton's Novels and
Romances—the Messrs. Routledge have, by the
payment to the noble author within these last
fifteen years of the sum of thirty thousand
pounds, secured to themselves during that interval
the privilege of scattering those famous fic-
tions of his far and wide over both hemi-
pheres., wherever the English language is spoken or
read, in a succession of cheap editions, that seem at
last to have fairly exhausted their ingenuity as
caterers for the reading public in the shape of
thoroughly good and yet readily accessible—in other
words, wonderfully cheap—literature. Last year,
for example, each work was published complete in
itself for a shilling : while just now the whole set of
novels is announced as having been reissued in a
new form in eleven volumes of 800 pages each,
price thirty shillings. And yet, notwithstanding
all this multiplication of editions, separate and
collective, cheap and costly, compact and volumi-
nous, there still remains one other, which, according
to our notion, not only might, but ought to be
issued from the press, if only as a crowning tribute
to the industry and the diversity of the genius of a
Great Author whose writings are in every way se
remarkable. A Comprehensive Edition we mean of
the whole of those writings of his, with Out excep-
tion, whether prose or poetical, whether dramatic
or oratorical—an edition comprising within it the
whole of his Poems, the whole of his Plays, all his
Novels and Romances, all his reported Speeches in
Parliament and out of Parliament, and together with
these his numerous miscellaneous productions,includ-
Leg among them even those of a more or less fugi-
tive or seemingly ephemeral character. Such, let
us say, as his Political Squib (about the Pike, the
Perch, the Tench, the Dace, and the other occu-
pants of the fishpond) which, it may be remembered,
was publishel some few years since in the columns
of the Times, apropos to the then European " Situa-
tion." Or such, let us add, as his celebrated
pamphlet of " The Crisis," a pamphlet that ran
through an astonishing number of editions within
a few weeks after its first appearance, and the
trenchant arguments of which materially affected
the balance of parties in the General Election
immediately afterwards ensuing. A comprehen-
sive edition of " The Works of Lord Lytton," such
as we aro here suggesting—not of his Poems
merely, or of his Novels and Romances, or of his
Dramas, or of his Speeches—but of the whole of his
varied and voluminous productions without excep-
tion, might, we would still further suggest, be even
then considerably enhanced in interest and in general
attraction by being profusely and appropriately
illustrated with intermingled steel engravings and
woodcuts, after the fashion of the largest and most
valuable edition of the various writings of Sir
Walter Scott. In the embellishment of such a
comprehensive edition as the one here proposed, the
principal book illustrators of our own time would
beyond any doubt of it be prowl to co-operate,
just as the Stodarts, Leslies, and others of the pre-
ceding 'generation, were eager to take part in the
pictorial adornment of the fancies, whether prose
or poetic, of thatiWizard of the North, the author of
" Marmion" and of " Waverley." The pencillings
of Millais and the etchings of George Cruikshank,
the landscape vignettes of Birkat Foster, and the
character drawings of John Tenniel, might fittingly
be combined with those of John Gilbert, and
Charles Keene, and Harrison Weir, and of

others whose names it would be needless to enume-
rate in the decoration of the letterpress, the at-
traction of the whole of this Illustrated Edition
being yet further increased by the introduction, at
appropriate intervals, of the better-known portraits
of the author at different periods of his life—Cha-
lon's sketch, Count d'Orsay's profile of him, the
noble likeness by Maclise, the admirably charac-
teristic one by Lane, and, to complete all, a well-
executed facsimile from the only satisfactory pho-
tograph of Lord Lytton as he now is, namely, one
very recently produced by Mr. John Watkins, of
Parliament-street, Westminster. By the aid, and
only by the aid, of some such Comprehensive Edi-
tion as this will any adequate notion be ever
afforded to the general public of the industry, of
the originality, of the diversity, and of the curiously
flexible adaptability of the genius of the Author
and Statesman, of whom Sir Alexander Cock-
burn exclaimed, as recently as last November,
" Since the commencement of his literary career
what a series of triumphant successes my noble
friend has achieved ! Poet, novelist, dramatist,
thinker, critic, philosopher; how much has he done
to contribute to the delight and the instruction of
the intellectual world in every department of
thought! While, like a second Sheridan, passing
beyond the bounds of that literary world in which
he was destined to shine, he has added the reputa-
tion—the great, and deserved, and honourable re-
putation--of a statesman and orator of the highest
order." If only as affording conclusive and re-
markable evidence of the extraordinary industry of
his career, an edition of his works thus comprehen-
sive and all-embracing, would possess a singular
interest of its own. But not alone would its records
be demonstrative thus of industry of a very excep-
tional and almost unprecedented character—it
would afford indications also of a rapidity of execu-
tion and of a fecundity of imaginative power still
more remarkable of their kind : proofs, these latter,
not so much of resolute intellectual application as of
that centrum, or afflatus, which is universally regarded
as the distinctive appanage or peculiar prerogative of
those alone who are endowed with the supreme
gift of genius. As demonstrative of which m 3st
rare and exceptional possession, what inci-
dent in an author's life could be regarded as
having a more singular significance than the
fact that within an interval of merely three weeks
the whole of Lord Lytton's magnificent historical
romance of " Harold" was produced? A marvel in
its way, if only regarded as a mere feat of pen man-
ship, but astonishing indeed when it is remembered
that the three volumes thus composed by Lord
Lytton, or, as he then was, by Sir Bulwer Lytton,
within an interval of three weeks--a volume a
week!--are in themselves, though ostensibly prose
in the manner of them, a rhythmical poem of a very
original character, both in conception and in exe-
cution. Hardly less extraordinary or less signifi-
cant in its way, is that other well-known incident in
Lord Lytton's career as an author—that within a
single fortnight the whole of the five-act play of
" The Lady of Lyons" was conceived, composed,
and completed. Achievements like these are only to
be compared to feats of authorship in the past
which are still looked back to with feelings of sheer
amazement—as, for example, when it is borne in re-
membrance that within the very same interval as that
within which Lord Lytton wrote his five-act play
of " The Lady of Lyons," Lord Byron wrote his
poem of " The Corsair," and that whereas, as we
have seen, Sir Bulwer Lytton took merely three
weeks within which to produce his romance of
" Harold," it is related as an extraordinary circum-
stance in the biography of Sir Walter Scott that it
took exactly double that interval, that is, not three
weeks, but six weeks, within which he produced the
whole of his three-volumed novel of " Guy Manner-
jag." Hardly less worthy of note here, again, as
facts illustrative of the imaginative verve, so to
speak, of Lord Lytton as a Romancist aro, among
others, these two which we are tempted at this
moment to recall to public recollection in his regard,
namely—that while writing at Rome his historical
romance of " Rienzi : the Last of the Roman Tri-
bunes," happening to visit Naples and the disen -
tombed cities in the immediate neighbourhood,
under the shadow of Vesuvius, his imagination was
so captivated by a day-dream awakened in his fancy
by that spectacle, that he interrupted those labours
of his upon the theme of "Rienzi" until he had thrown
off as a relief to his brain and heart his radiant
im tginings of "The Last Days of Pompeii." As
a companion picture to which retrospective in-
cident in Lord Lytton's mem as a Romancist,
we would here also recall to mind that other
hardly less extraordinary circumstance related o f
him as a Novelist, that he was engaged simultane-
ously, that is, of course, turn by turn, in the
production of two such wildly contrasting works of
fiction—the one a ghastly record of Secret Crime,
the other a bewitching and most fascinating delinea-
tion of Domestic Virtue—" The Caxtons ; a Family
Picture," and " Lucretia ; or, The Children of Night"
—here Austin, and Roland, and Blanche, and
Pisistratus—here Lucretia Dalibard, the poisoner,
and her evil associate and accomplice, Gabriel Var-
ney, otherwise known in the annals of infamy by
his real name as Thomas Griffiths Wainewright—
the " Janus Weathercock," of the once famous and
popular London Magazine. Pending the time, how-
ever, for the issuing from the press of some
such comprehensive edition as we have here already
indicated of the whole of the varioas writings of
Lord Lytton as Author and as Orator, as States-
man and as Man of Letters, as Poet, Novelist,
Dramatist, Essayist, Critic, Thinker, and Philoso-
pher, it is at any rate another and a notable
step towards the ulterior realization of such a de-
sign—the publication now for the first time, by Mr.
Bentley, of the whole of "The Miscellaneous Prose
Works" of an author otherwise so various and so
voluminous. Here, at any rate, in these three noble
volumes—volumes that at once take their place
upon our bookshelves side by side with the three
volumes of the Library Edition of the Essays of
Lord Macaulay—ewe have collected together at last
the whole of the hitherto scattered Essays and
Criticisms of one chiefly known hitherto in his
capacities as a Poet, as a Novelist, as.
a Dramatist, and as an Orator. Here are
accumulated in a single work or Collective Edition
the numerous and varied miscellaneous prose con-
tributions of Lord Lytton to the chief among the
leading periodicals of the day, whether monthly or
quarterly. Among others, the whole of those charm-
ing essays, written by him during the two years
of his Editorship of the New Monthly Magazine,
and afterwards published as a collection in two
volumes, under the title of " The Student." Added
to which, again, here also are the whole of the yet
more remarkable and thoughtful Essays contributed
by him, under the pseudonym of Pisistratus Caxton
to the pages of Blackwood') Magazine, and afterwards
issued, as a separate publication (also in two vo-
lumes) under the title of " Caxtoniana." Besides
which—as constituting in fact the chief interest and
attraction of the present Edition of Lord Lytton's
" Miscellaneous Prose Works" as the comprehensive
collection for the first time of the whole of his critical,
historical, and biographical papers in the periodicals
—we find here, for the first time gathered together,
for the first time acknowledged, and for the first
time carefully revised by their author's hand, the
whole of Lord Lytton's hitherto anonymous or un-
acknowledged contributions to the Quarterly, to the
Edinburgh, and to other similar publications. As
might have been anticipated when this remarkable
collection was first announced, the range of Lord
Lytton's survey, in the mere selection of his themes,
is sufficiently wide and comprehensive. He here
scans, with some degree of philosophic deliberation,
what he had already so marvellously though as
the occasion admitted but incidentally, described
towards the conclusion of " Zenoni," that lurid
and ghastly epoch in modern history known by the
horribly significant title of " The Reign of Terror."
Setting forth in this wonderfully diversified collection
with his disquisition upon which stupendous theme,
it is especially noticeable to observe the widely con-
trasting interests of the various subjects selected by
Lord Lytton at different periods of his career for
the exercise of his critical acumen, and for the conse-
quent manifestation of his essentially cosmopolitan
tastes in literature, and his intensely patriotic poli-
tical predilections. As vividly contrasting indeed
as though alternating 6 4 from grave t 9 gay, twill

lively to severe," his survey passes from Sir Thomas
BrOwne to Charles Lamb, from Oliver Goldsmith
to Pym versus Falkland I The felicities at once of
thought and of expression upon all those varying
themes crowding upon our attention as we turn the
pages, and surviving long after we have closed the
volumes in our delighted recollection. how happily,
for example, when speaking of Goldsmith, does he
refer to him as a sort of Irish Gil Blas, terminating
in a Fabricio instead of a Minister's Secretary. And
when referring afterwards to what he aptly speaks
of as the inimitable sense of proportion and fit-
ness of adjustment between the thought and ex-
pression of each, how felicitously he indicates a
resemblance between the prose of " Elia" and the verse
of Horace—remarking elsewhere of the former that
there is no malice in the smile of Lamb—Lamb's
keenest sarcasm, quoth he, being his archest pleas sn-
try Often enough, as a matter of course, do we find
occasion here to differ from our author in regard to
many of his deductions, though never with-
out recognising the ingenuity with which
his arguments are enforced. His estimate of Hazlitt,
for example, to our judgment is throughout far too
depreciatory ; while his disintegration, so to speak,
of the component parts of what must always still re-
main for us the inimitable whole of Gray's Elegy in
a Country Churchyard—seemingly to Lord Lytton
a chaotically jumbled though, of course, a by no
means simply fortuitous concurrence of atoms—is
cruel to the extent of being absolutely pitiless. As
to the general arrangement of the contents of the
three remarkable volumes here submitted to our
consideration, no other as it seems to us than the
very order in which they are herein placed could
have been at one and at the same time so simple
and so symmetrical. Firstly, that is as constituting
the contents of the first volume, we have
the criticisms hitherto unacknowledged con-
tributed by Lord Lytton to the principal Re-
views, to the Quarterly, the Edinburgh, the Foreign
Quarterly, and the London and Westminster. Ap-
pended to these criticisms—perhaps the most re-
markable among all which is the masterly paper
on " Pitt and Fox "—being the exquisitely appre-
ciative " Life of Schiller," originally prefixed to the
translation of the poems of that Ministrel-Drama-
tist, to whom he admirably well applies the phrase
in which Herder was designated by Jean Paul Rich-
ter, namely, when pronouncing him " less a Poet than
a Poem." Secondly, as the contents of the second
volume, we have the Essays written in Youth, those
mingled criticisms and apologues in other words,
which were formerly published under the title of
"The Student"—appended to these, also, being
another paper of separate and very singular interest,
not, however, as in the instance of the biography
of Friedrich Schiller, a reprint from a volume al-
ready published, but a paper " Never Before Pub-
lished I" A paper written only half-a-dozen years
ago, namely, in 1862—descriptive, first of all, of
an exquisite pseudo-classic Garden Retreat, con-
structed by our author in the immediate neigh-
bourhood of his ancestral mansion of Knebworth,
a garden in honour of Horace and his
Contemporaries, chief among the latter being of
course Augustus, and Msecenas, and Virgil—de-
scriptive afterwards of two strikingly contrasted
interlocutors, who are here designated respectively
Metellus and Gallus—the whole of this graceful
preamble leading up very naturally and very charm-
ingly to a disquisition by Metellus " On the in-
fluence of Love on Literature and Real Life."
Finally, as the contents of the third or con-
cluding volume, we have the collection
of Essays written in Maturity, and al-
ready widely and honourably known under the
title of " Caxtoniana." Considering these later
essays as the product of Lsrd Lytton's intellect
now in its prime, we have, to adopt a phrase
of his own already referred to, a consciousness
of the inimitable sense of proportion and fitness of
adjustment, we will not say here merely between
thought and expression, but between theme and
treatment, between the subject under the Essayist's
consideration and his own philosophic estimate of
its intrinsic value or importance. Our meaning
here we could hardly illustrate more aptly perhaps
than by echoing a charming thought that recurs
to us from that gentler Rochefoucault and more
graceful Montaigne, the inimitable La Bruyere.
"Aux enfans," says he, somewhere in his Carac-
teres, "aux enfans tout parait grand, les tours,
les jardins, les edifices, les meubles, les homnaes,
les anitnaux ; aux hommes, les chosen do monde
paraissent ainsi, et j'ose dire, par la morale
raison, parcequ'ils soot petits." How pathetically
just, how mournfully wise, how lamentably true as
applied to men—aux hommes—to the generality.
To a cynic al giant like Swift, it is otherwise, and
that diametrically. He stalks among his fellow
mortals not so much like a Lemuel Gulliver as like
a scornfully colossal sage from Brobdiugnag among
the Lilliputians—becoming at last " mad for the
sight of his eyes that he did see," when those poor
diseased eyes of his showed him, through their dis-
torting lenses, the human form divine diabolically
caricatured into the Yahoo ! Among those rarer
intellects, on the other hand, who have won for
themselves the Platonic balance, who have grown
to the full altitude out of the dwarfed condition
hinted at by La Bruyere, men and things—all
those varied themes for philosophic consideration
here descanted upon by Lord Lytton—assume in the
end their just and accurate proportions. It is the
sense of this which constitutes in effect the crowning
charm of these ripened products of the intellect
and judgment of Lord Lytton in his twofold
character as a Poet and as a Philosopher. So
regarded, they have an especial value and
importance of their own, even among the more
highly elaborated masterpieces, whether of dramatic,
epic, satiric, historic, lyrical, critical, oratorical, or
romantic art contributed by the same affluent
and masterhand to the stores of our national lite-
rature.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.—This Day.

GUILDHALL.

BOASTING OF BEING A FENlAN.—Edward Cotton,
an ivory turner, living at 19, Charterhouse-square,
was brought before Alderman Finnis, charged with
being drunk and disorderly.
Henry Southerwood, 488, said that morning,
at a quarter to one o'clock, the defendant was in
Earl-street, Blackfriars, drunk. He refused to go
home, declaring that he was a Fenian, and conti-
nually throwing himself down on the ground. He
declared himself to be a Fenian, and said he carried
a sword-stick. Witness, seeing his wife carrying
two sticks, asked to be allowed to look at them, and
found one really to be a sword-stick.

Prisoner was fined ss. for being drunk.

MARLBOROUGH-STREET.

Two lads, named Wm. Jones and Wm. Smith
were charged before Air. Tyrwhitt as follows :
Police-constable Shrives, 82 C, saw the prisoners
go into a marine store shop in Moor-street, St.
Martin's-lane, last night, having a bundl4with them.
He got the assistance of another constable, Herring,
60 C, and then went into the shop, where he found
the prisoners. On asking Smith where he got a rug
which the bundle contained, he said first that two
young men had given it to him, but after-
wards that he purchased it up in Old
Compton-street. On the way to the station
Smith pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket, and
while doing so dropped a skeleton key, which ho
said was his latch key. He knew the prisoners as
companions. _ _

Herring, 60 C, having given similar evidence,

Smith said that all he knew about the rug was
that he picked it un. ,

Mr. Tyrwhitt said the prisoner would be re-
manded, but he would take bail for Jones.

Shrives said that Jones was an old hand.

Mr. Tyrwhitt said that being the case, there
would be no remand.

WORSHIP-STREET.

BURGLARY.-A dirty-looking fellow, who gave
the name of John Lewis, and described on the
charge-sheet as a labourer, of "no home," 108
charged before Mr. Newton with burglariouslY
breaking and entering the dwelling-house and pre-
mises of Mr. William Abraham Crapp, No. 41
Fassett-road, Dalston, and stealing therefrom. 2110
charge having been proved, Mr. Newton fully com-
mitted the prisoner for trial.