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

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 bo 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 I 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 %strum, or aflatus, 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 ost
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 au interval of three weeks—a volume a
week l--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-
jug." Hardly less worthy of note here, again, as
facts illustrative of the imaginative verve, so to
speak, of Lord Lytton as a Romancist are, 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 iu the immeditte neighbourhood,
under the shadow of Vesuvius, his im sginatioa 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 radian

im Iginings of " The Llst Days of Pompeii." As
a companion picture to which retrospective in-

cident in Lord Lytton's caror as a It ornancist,

we would here also recall to mind that other
hardly less extraordinary circumstance related of
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 Cantons; 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 various 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 E lition of the Essays of
Lord Macaulay—we have collected together at last
the whole of the hitherto scattered Essays and
Criticisms of ono chiefly known hitherto in his
capacities as a Poet, as a Novelist, ae
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 risistratas Caxton

to the pages of Blaawood'slliaga zinc, 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. A 9

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

,he occasion admitted but incidentally, described

towards the conclusion of " Zanoni," 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

a 3 though alternating "from grave to gay, from