He wrote in various styles, making deliberate experiments in one after another, and often hiding himself completely in anonymity.  He was versatile, not deep.  Robert Louis Stevenson also employs various styles; but with him the changes are intuitive—­they are the subtle variations in touch and timbre which genius makes, in harmony with the subject treated.  Stevenson could not have written ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ in the same tune and key as ‘Treasure Island’; and the music of ‘Marxheim’ differs from both.  The reason is organic:  the writer is inspired by his theme, and it passes through his mind with a lilt and measure of its own.  It makes its own style, just as a human spirit makes its own features and gait; and we know Stevenson through all his transformations only by dint of the exquisite distinction and felicity of word and phrase that always characterize him.  Now, with Bulwer there is none of this lovely inevitable spontaneity.  He costumes his tale arbitrarily, like a stage-haberdasher, and invents a voice to deliver it withal.  ’The Last Days of Pompeii’ shall be mouthed out grandiloquently; the incredibilities of ‘The Coming Race’ shall wear the guise of naive and artless narrative; the humors of ‘The Caxtons’ and ’What Will He Do with It?’ shall reflect the mood of the sagacious, affable man of the world, gossiping over the nuts and wine; the marvels of ‘Zanoni’ and ’A Strange Story’ must be portrayed with a resonance and exaltation of diction fitted to their transcendental claims.  But between the stark mechanism of the Englishman and the lithe, inspired felicity of the Scot, what a difference!

Bulwer’s work may be classified according to subject, though not chronologically.  He wrote novels of society, of history, of mystery, and of romance.  In all he was successful, and perhaps felt as much interest in one as in another.  In his own life the study of the occult played a part; he was familiar with the contemporary fads in mystery and acquainted with their professors.  “Ancient” history also attracted him, and he even wrote a couple of volumes of a ‘History of Athens.’  In all his writing there is a tendency to lapse into a discussion of the “Ideal and the Real,” aiming always at the conclusion that the only true Real is the Ideal.  It was this tendency which chiefly aroused the ridicule of his critics, and from the ‘Sredwardlyttonbulwig’ of Thackeray to the ‘Condensed Novels’ burlesque of Bret Harte, they harp upon that facile string, The thing satirized is after all not cheaper than the satire.  The ideal is the true real; the only absurdity lies in the pomp and circumstance wherewith that simple truth is introduced.  There is a ‘Dweller on the Threshold,’ but it, or he, is nothing more than that doubt concerning the truth of spiritual things which assails all beginners in higher speculation, and there was no need to call it or him by so formidable a name.  A sense of humor would have saved Bulwer from almost all his faults, and have endowed him with several valuable virtues into the bargain; but it was not born in him, and with all his diligence he never could beget it.