The domestic series, of which ‘The Caxtons’ is the type, are the most generally popular of his works, and are likely to be so longest.  The romantic vein (’Ernest Maltravers,’ ‘Alice, or the Mysteries,’ etc.) are in his worst style, and are now only in existence as books because they are members of “the edition,” It is doubtful if any human being has read one of them through in twenty years.  Such historical books as ’The Last Days of Pompeii’ are not only well constructed dramatically, but are painfully accurate in details, and may still be read for information as well as for pleasure.  The ‘Zanoni’ species is undeniably interesting.  The weird traditions of the ‘Philosopher’s Stone’ and the ’Elixir of Life’ can never cease to fascinate human souls, and all the paraphernalia of magic are charming to minds weary of the matter-of-factitude of current existence.  The stories are put together with Bulwer’s unfailing cleverness, and in all external respects neither Dumas nor Balzac has done anything better in this kind:  the trouble is that these authors compel our belief, while Bulwer does not.  For, once more, he lacks the magic of genius and the spirit of style which are immortally and incommunicably theirs, without which no other magic can be made literarily effective.

‘Pelham,’ written at twenty-five years of age, is a creditable boy’s book; it aims to portray character as well as to develop incidents, and in spite of the dreadful silliness of its melodramatic passages it has merit.  Conventionally it is more nearly a work of art than that other famous boy’s book, Disraeli’s ‘Vivian Grey,’ though the latter is alive and blooming with the original literary charm which is denied to the other.  Other characteristic novels of his are ’The Last Days of Pompeii,’ ‘Ernest Maltravers,’ ‘Zanoni,’ ‘The Caxtons,’ ‘My Novel,’ ‘What Will He Do with It?’ ‘A Strange Story,’ ‘The Coming Race,’ and ‘Kenelm Chillingly,’ the last of which appeared in the year of the author’s death, 1873.  The student who has read these books will know all that is worth knowing of Bulwer’s work.  He wrote upwards of fifty substantial volumes, and left a mass of posthumous material besides.  Of all that he did, the most nearly satisfactory thing is one of the last, ‘Kenelm Chillingly.’  In style, persons, and incidents it is alike charming:  it subsides somewhat into the inevitable Bulwer sentimentality towards the end—­a silk purse cannot be made out of a sow’s ear; but the miracle was never nearer being accomplished than in this instance.  Here we see the thoroughly equipped man of letters doing with apparent ease what scarce five of his contemporaries could have done at all.  The book is lightsome and graceful, yet it touches serious thoughts:  most remarkable of all, it shows a suppleness of mind and freshness of feeling more to be expected in a youth of thirty than in a veteran of threescore and ten.  Bulwer never ceased to grow; and what is better still, to grow away from his faults and towards improvement.