Page:Cousins's Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature.djvu/260

 248 Dictionary of English Literature

A thens, its Rise and Fall, and innumerable tales, essays, and articles in various reviews and magazines, including the New Monthly, of which he became ed. in 1831. In the same year he entered Parlia ment as a Liberal, but gradually gravitated towards Conservatism, and held office in the second government of Lord Derby as Colonial Sec. 1858-59. As a politician he devoted himself largely to questions affecting authors, such as copyright and the removal of taxes upon literature. He continued his literary labours with almost unabated energy until the end of his life, his works later than those already mentioned including the Last of the Barons (1843), Harold (1848), the famous triad of The Caxtons (1850), My Novel (1853), an d What will he do with it? (1859); and his studies in the supernatural, Zanoni (1842), and A Strange Story (1862). Later still were The Coming Race (1870) and Kenelm Chillingly (1873). To the drama he con tributed three plays which still enjoy popularity, The Lady of Lyons, Richelieu, both (1838), and Money (1840). In poetry he was less successful. The New Timon, a satire, is the best remembered, largely, however, owing to the reply by Tennyson which it brought down upon the author, who had attacked him. In his works, numbering over 60, L. showed an amazing versatility, both in sub ject and treatment, but they have not, with perhaps the exception of the Caxton series, kept their original popularity. Their faults are artificiality, and forced brilliancy, and as a rule they rather dazzle by their cleverness than touch by their truth to nature. L. was raised to the peerage in 1866.

Life, Letters, etc., of Lord Lytton by his son, 2 vols., conies down to 1832 only. Political Memoir prefaced to Speeches (2 vols., 1874).

LYTTON, EDWARD ROBERT BULWER, IST EARL OF

LYTTON (1831-1891). Poet and statesman, s. of the above, was ed. at Harrow and Bonn, and thereafter was private sec. to his uncle, Sir H. Bulwer, afterwards Lord Bailing and Bulwer (q.v.), at Wash ington and Florence. Subsequently he held various diplomatic ap pointments at other European capitals. In 1873 he succeeded his /. in the title, and in 1876 became Viceroy of India. He was cr. an Earl on his retirement in 1880, and was in 1887 appointed Ambas sador at Paris, where he d. in 1891. He valued himself much more as a poet than as a man of affairs; but, though he had in a consider able degree some of the qualities of a poet, he never quite succeeded

(1860), Chronicles and Characters (1868), Orval, or the Fool of Tim( (1869), Fables in Song (1874), and King Poppy (1892). As Viceroyi of India he introduced important reforms, and his dispatches were 1 remarkable for their fine literary form.

MACAULAY, MRS. CATHERINE (SAWBRIDGE) (1731-1791).

Dau. of a landed proprietor of Kent, was an advocate of republi canism, and a sympathiser with the French Revolution. She wrote] a History of England from the Accession of James I. to the Elevation of\ the House of Hanover (8 vols., 1763-83), which had great popularity! in its day, some critics, e.g. Horace Walpole, placing it above Hume.