Page:Edward Lytton Bulwer.pdf/5

Rh balanced his imagination, and the same accuracy of observation which has since shown itself to be one of his most characteristic merits, told him, that the celebrity of one age must be sought in an opposite path by its successor. We had been rich in poetry, even to luxury; and when has not luxury led to satiety? Mr. Bulwer's literary career may even thus early be divided into the two worlds of romance and reality. His first works, to use his own words, were brought from "the poet's golden land, Where thought finds happiest voice and glides along Into the silver rivers of sweet song," touched with that imaginative melancholy which after-years deepens into reflection, and marked with that keen perception which experience ripens into thought. Poetry is a good foundation for philosophy: we must have felt ourselves to allow for the feelings of others. To this period belong "Weeds and Wildflowers," "The Rebel," and his first prose work, "Falkland."* Each of these productions bears the same stamp—the broad arrow of genius. But they were too selfishly beautiful: melancholy had just finished its monopoly, and the age of sympathy, like that of chivalry, was passed. Ridicule is the re-action of enthusiasm. Sentiment was considered confined to schools; and, so far from affecting too much feeling, people were beginning to be ashamed of having any. Mr. Bulwer has since had a brighter and a higher aim: but these writings belong to those earlier days, when, to quote himself, "Romance, that bright magician," was wont "O'er the dim glades of duller life to fling Hues from the sun and blossoms from the spring." Life has little breathing time; and, even when we do for a moment reflect, it is rather on our present than our past: the pains and pleasures of memory are put aside as quickly as the poem which celebrates them. But, if such a feat of mental magic could be performed, who would be so utterly a stranger to all our thoughts and feelings, as the self of five years ago with the self of to-day? We cannot but believe that experience has wrought a great change in Mr. Bulwer's mind. His views of life are more true, while his ideas of excellence are at once more elevated, and yet more practical. He seems to have laid it down as a principle, that, though poetry may "breathe the difficult height of the iced mountain-tops," its most precious gift, as he beautifully says, is "to sing over all, Making the common air most musical." He has felt that knowledge was only desirable as the pioneer of utility, and genius only glorious as the high priest of virtue. It is not too much to say, that where, in the "Disowned," he puts the developement of these principles into the mouth of Algernon Mordaunt, those half dozen pages are one of the noblest and the truest moral and philosophical essays in our language.† "Pelham," one of the most successful novels of our day, appeared in 1828. Its delineations were too true not to be taken as personal