Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1852-1859, 1852-12-08
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: Bulwer-MiscelIanY

~ 5Bulwer-Misceuany and Gossip, IN Csc
This sketch of "a principal literary. celebrity Of
the age, (from the London Age,) is SO pertinent
and well Stated that we think our readers will be
pleased 10 see it at length: ai2A' i-E Ht As
s'Bulwer Lytton'S great effort is to unite in him.
self the gentleman of fashion and high breeding
with the author of firSt7rate literary reputation; and
like mort other extrHvagant attempts, it would ap-
pear ridiculous his literary triumphslesS COM
plete. Upon the wit, poet, writeriofa plays and
novels, and orator, he would inoculate the owner
of Knebworth Park, dispensing county noSpltali-
Ties, and the man Of fashion in London, receiving
only wits at his table, He has sTiven through life
10 effect this combination, and in great measure
he has. succeeded. The sumptuous fellow COM
moner of Trinity Hall, C1mbndge, contriVed to
make driving his own horses, and similar eccen-
tricities, compatible with winning the university
prize for the best English poem.t The gentry of
Herefordshre were not long ago inYitedto our Nle-
cenas's csunry seat and the entertainment inclu-;
ded theatrical representation OF his own play, lust
as il was also acted by his amateur literary friends
before the Queen, at Devonshire House. Feeling
sincere sympathy for the trials of artistic life, he
would express it like feudal cheftain, and 50 he
appTOpriateS from his domain site for hospital
for decayed men Of letters and art When he has
few friends to dine ewith him in London, the par
ty might consist of Talfourd, Macready, Dickens,
DOrSay, (but that he is dead, and perhaps young
American author, who has been introduced, and Is
there upon trial. AS he IS essentially refined and
fastdious, youwill probably find that he has fur
niShed the rooms in his house in accordance with
the tastes OF the Tudor the Louis .Quatorze, and
other historical eraS; and being fully indugent to
his Imagination il the effort oil composition, he has
been said to write TO appropriate costuiae and even
through the fumes fopiate. mthe country houses
of,hiS acquaintance you may possibly be6 shown
some sacred apartment, in which the confession OF
aubrey in tBevereuX,'' was written at midnight,
in q cowl with skull on the table; or the black
bugled bed-cuTtans, within which the author of
'RicheIeu' rested his inspired brow. lneStimnting
both the intellectual character and writings OF Bull
wer Lytton, it is impossible to avoid comparison
betwixt him and Byron. Even the circumstances
of their private lives are StTikingly similar. Their
arstocratc lineage; their great dependence in sar-
lier years upon mother; thGr unfortunate Inatr-
mortal connexion; their attachment to daughter
in bsth cases, though from different causes, trus.
trated; their personal vanity warm tempe1 and ego.
tism; eyetheir nonentity in Parliament; also sum
dry high and generous qualities and feelings which
have undoubtedly distinguished them both. And
these pecularites OF life and disposition have tine.
tured the prose Of the one and the poetry of the
other. Each has shown morbid desire to put on
address, and be the hero of poem or tale. fChilde
Harold sthe CorSair,' &C., were vehicles Tor the
personal confessions of ther. author Pelham the
Student &c, self ikeneSseS of their artist
This habit is SincOmpatible with attaining the last
highest step which genius is entitled to reach. 1t
is attributable doubt in these two cases to self
cxaggeIation which the hereditary privileges OF
wealth and station are apt to engender, and which
only experience and selfsexatnination can allay.-
4 Byron was cut off before he became WISE; but az
Johnson said of Goldsmith with reference to dif-
/ ferent subject we predict that Bulwer Lytton, u
| coming right The latter productions OF his pen
have been more free from the pedantry insepara-
BILE from drawing inspiration too muchform within.
The scholarly cut7throat and elegant adulress, we
may hope are henceforth abandoned to the cdndiAt
of literature and his works seem to be acquiring
that breadth and depth which can make them worthy
of coming from great mast of the Englishton