with such self-made difficulties, Bulwer has been defeated. The wonder is, that he has been able to cover his retreat amid such a cloud of beauties; and to attach an interest, almost human, and even profound, to a being whom we cannot, in our wildest dreams, identify with mankind. The whole tale is one of those hazardous experiments which have become so common of late years, in which a scanty success is sought at an infinite peril; like a wild-flower, of no great worth, snatched, by a hardy wanderer, from the jaws of danger and death. We notice in it, however, with pleasure, the absence of that early levity which marked his writing, the shooting germ of a nobler purpose, and an air of sincerity fast becoming more than an air.

In saying that "Zanoni" is our chief favorite among Bulwer's writings, we consciously expose ourselves to the charge of paradox. If we err, however, on this matter, we err in company with the author himself; and, we believe, with all Germany, and with many enlightened enthusiasts at home. We refer, too, in our approbation, more to the spirit than to the execution of the work. As a whole, as a broad and brilliant picture of a period and its hero, "Rienzi" is perhaps his greatest work, and "that shield he may hold up against all his enemies." "The Last Days of Pompeii," on the other hand, is calculated to enchant classical sholars, and the book glows like a cinder from Vesuvius, and most gorgeously are the reelings of that fiery drunkard depicted. The "Last of the Barons," again, as a cautious yet skilful filling up of the vast skeleton of Shakspeare, is attractive to all who relish English story. But we are mistaken, if in that class who love to see the Unknown, the Invisible, and the Eternal, looking in upon them, through the loops and windows of the present; whose footsteps turn instinctively toward the thick and the dark places of the "wilderness of this world;" or who, by deep disappointment or solemn sorrow, have been driven to take up their permanent mental abode upon the perilous verge of the unseen world, if "Zanoni" do not, on such, exert a mightier spell, and to their feelings be not more sweetly attuned, than any other of this writer's books. It is a book not to be read in the drawing-room, but in the fields -not in the sunshine, but in the twilight shade-not in the sunshine, unless indeed that sunshine has been saddened,

and sheathed by a recent sorrow. Then will its wild and mystic measures, its pathos, and its grandeur, steal in like music, and mingle with the soul's emotions, till, like music, they seem a part of the soul itself.

No term has been more frequently abused than that of religious novel This, as commonly employed, describes an equivocal birth, if not a monster, of which the worst and most popular specimen is "Coelebs in Search of a Wife." It is amusing to see how its authoress deals with the fictitious part of her book. Holding it with a half shudder, and at arms-length, as she might a phial of poison, she pours in the other and the other infusion of prose criticism, commonplace moralizing, sage aphorism, &c., till it is fairly diluted down to her standard of utility and safety. But a religious novel in the high and true sense of the term, is a noble thought: a parable of solemn truth, some great moral law, written out as it were in flowers: a principle old as Deity, wreathed with beauty, dramatized in action, incarnated in life, purified by suffering and death. And we confess, that to this ideal we know no novel in this our country that approaches so nearly as "Zanoni." An intense spirituality, a yearning earnestness, a deep religious feeling, lie like the "soft shadow of an angel's wing upon its every page. Its beauties are not of the earth earthy." Its very faults, cloudy, colossal, tower above our petty judgment-seats, towards some higher tribunal.

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Best of all is that shade of mournful grandeur which rests upon it. Granting all its blemishes, and the improbabilities of its story, the occasional extravagances of its language, let it have its praise for its pictures of love and grief-of a love leading its votary to sacrifice stupendous privileges, and reminding you of that which made angels resign their starry thrones for the "daughters of men ;" and of a grief too deep for tears, too sacred for lamentation, the grief which he increaseth that increaseth knowledge, the grief which not earthly immortality, which death only can cure. The tears which the most beautiful and melting close of the tale wrings from our eyes are not those which wet the last pages of ordinary novels: they come from a deeper source; and as the lovers are united in death, to part no more, triumph blends with the tenderness with which we witness the sad yet glo

rious union. Bulwer, in the last scene, has apparently in his eye the conclusion of the "Revolt of Islam" where Laon and Laone, springing in spirit from the funereal pile, are united in a happier region, in the calm dwellings of the mighty dead," where on a fairer landscape rests a "holier day," and where the lesson awaits them, that

"Virtue, though obscured on earth, no less

Survives all mortal change, in lasting loveliness."

Amid the prodigious number of Bulwer's other productions, we may mention one or two "dearer than the rest.” The "Student." from its disconnected plan, and the fact that the majority of its papers appeared previously, has seemed to many a mere published portfolio, if not an aimless collection of its author's study-sweepings. This, however, is not a fair or correct estimate of its merits. It in reality contains the cream of Bulwer's periodical writings. And the "New Monthly Magazine." during his editorship, approached our ideal of a perfect magazine; combining, as it did. impartiality, variety, and power. His Conversations with an Ambitious Student in ill health," though hardly equal to the dialogues of Plato, contain many rich meditations and criticisms, suspended round a simple and affecting story. The word "ambitious," however, is unfortunate; for what student is not, and should not be, ambitious? To study is to climb "higher still. and higher, like a cloud of fire." Talk of an

ambitious chamois or of an ambitious lark, as lief as of an ambitious student. The allegories in the "Student" strike us as eminently fine, with glimpses of a more creative imagination than we can find in any of his writings save"Zanoni" We have often regretted that the serious allegory, once too much affected, is now almost obsolete. Why should it be so? Shall truth no more have its mounts of transfiguration? Must Mirza no more be overheard in his soliloquies? And is the road to the "Den" lost for ever? We trust, we trow not. In the "Student," too, occurs his far-famed attack upon the anonymous in periodical writing. We do not coincide with him in this. We do not think that the use of the anonymous either could or should be relinquished. It is, to be sure, in some measure relinquished as it is. The tidings of the authorship of any article of consequence, in a Review or

Magazine, often now pass with the speed of lightning through the literary world, till it is as well known in the book-shop of the country town, or the post-office of the country village, as in Albermarle or George Street.

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But, in the first place, the anonymous forms a very profitable exercise for the acuteness of our young critics, who become, through it, masters in the science of internal evidence, and learn to detect the fine Roman hand of this and the other writer, even in the strokes of his t's, and the dots of his i's. Besides, secondly, the anonymous forms for the author an ideal character, fixes him in an ideal position, projects him out of himself; and hence many writers have surpassed themselves, both in power and popularity, while writing under its shelter. So with Swift, in his Tale of a Tub;" Pascal, Junius, Sydney Smith, Isaac Taylor, Walter Scott; Addison, too, was never so good as when he put on the short face of the "Spectator." Wilson is never so good, as when he assumes the glorious alias of Christopher North. And, thirdly, the anonymous, when preserved, piques the curiosity of the reader, mystifies him into interest; and, on the other hand, sometimes allows a bold and honest writer, to shoot folly, expose error, strip false pretension, and denounce wrong, with greater safety and effect. A time may come when the anonymous will require to be abandoned but we are very doubtful if that time has yet arrived.

In pursuing, at the commencement of this paper, a parallel between Byron and Bulwer, we omitted to note a stage, the last in the former's literary progress. Toward the close of his career, his wild shrieking earnestness subsided into Epicurean derision. He became dissolved into one contemptuous and unhappy sneer. Beginning with the satiric bitterness of English Bards," he ended with the fiendish gayety of "Don Juan." He laughed at first that he "might not weep;" ." but ultimately this miserable mirth drowned his enthusiasm, his heart, and put out the few flickering embers of his natural piety. The deep tragedy dissolved in a poor pickle herring." yet mournful farce. We trust that our novelist will not complete his resemblance to the poet, by sinking into a satirist. 'Tis indeed a pitiful sight that, of one who has passed the meridian of life and reputation, grinning back, in helpless mockery and toothless laughter, upon the brilliant

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way which he has traversed, but to which he can return no more. We anticipate for Bulwer a better destiny. He who has mated with the mighty spirit, which had almost reared again the fallen Titanic form of republican Rome; whose genius has travelled up the Rhine, like a breeze of music "stealing and giving odor;" who, in "England and the English," has cast a rapid but vigorous glance upon the tendencies of our wondrous age; who, in his verse, has so admirably pictured the stages of romance in Milton's story; who has gone down a "diver lean and strong," after Schiller, into the "innermost main," lifting with a fearless hand the "veil that is woven with night and with terror;" and in "Zanoni," has essayed to relume the mystic fires of the Rosicrucians, and to reveal the dread secrets of the spiritual world; must worthily close a career so illustrious.*

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

ELSEWHERE We have spoken shortly, but sincerely, of Emerson, and even at the risk of egotism, we must say, that we have been not a little amused at the treatment which our remarks have met with from the press of America. So far

*Since the above was written, Bulwer has published three works of consequence, all very different from each other: "Lucretia," a detestable imitation of a detestable school; Harold," a fine historical romance; and "The Caxtons," the sweetest, simplest, most genuine and natural of all his productions. An ingenious friend in "Hogg" has charged us with having painted an incongruous and inconsistent portrait of Bulwer, asserting that our original feeling toward him was that of enthusiastic admiration, but had been modified upon the mere dictum of some eminent friend. This is a total misapprehension. Our feelings of admiration toward Bulwer have rather grown than otherwise. In the year 1840 we wrote rather slightingly of him in the Dumfries Herald," but we had not then read 66 Zanoni." To piece together an old and new opinion, is, indeed, an absurd attempt, and leads to an absurd result; but it is an attempt we have never made, and let the public judge whether it be a result which we have reached. We could retort upon our clever friend, by proving that within one year he expressed two opinions of this very article.