epigrammatic phrase. But the whole is _inorganic_ somehow, and more than
somehow unreal; without (save in the cases mentioned) attaining that
obviously unreal but persuasive phantasmagoria which some great writers
of fiction have managed to put in existence and motion. How far this is
due to the fact that most of the novels are political is a question
rather to be hinted than to be discussed. But the present writer has
never read a political novel, whether on his own side or on others, that
seemed to him to be wholly satisfactory.

Bulwer--for it is perhaps here not impolite or improper still to call
the first Lord Lytton by the name under which he wrote for forty years,
and solidly niched himself in the novel-front of the minster of English
Literature--had not a few points of resemblance to his rival and future
chief. But their relations to politics and letters were reversed.
Disraeli was a born politician who was also a very considerable man of
letters: Bulwer was a born man of letters who was a by no means
inconsiderable politician. His literary ability was extraordinarily
diversified: but, once more, he was (here also) a born novelist, who was
also a not inconsiderable dramatist; a critic who might not impossibly
have been great, a miscellanist of ability, and a verse-writer than whom
many a worse has somehow or other obtained the name of poet. He began
novel-writing very early (_Falkland_ is of 1827), he continued it all
his life, and he was the very Proteus-chameleon of the novel in changing
his styles to suit the tastes of the day. He never exactly copied
anybody: and in all his various attempts he went extremely near to the
construction of masterpieces. In the novel of society with _Pelham_
(1828); the novel of crime with _Eugene Aram_ (1832) and _Zanoni_
(1842); the novel of passion and a sort of mystery with _Ernest
Maltravers_ and _Alice_; the historic romance with _The Last Days of
Pompeii_ (1834), _The Last of the Barons_ (1843), and _Harold_ (1848),