mensely popular. Three editions were sold at a farthing, the fourth at a shilling and the fifth at half a crown. Readers of Poe's criticisms, will remember the high eulogy he passed upon this poem. He called it "one of the noblest, if not the very noblest, poetical work of the age. Its defects are trivial and conventional; its beauties intrinsic and supreme." Nor were the English critics less appreciative, and Horne was rated in 1843 as the greatest poet of the age.

It is a noble poem full of gorgeous images and passages of sustained beauty and power. The music of the language has hardly been surpassed in modern poetry, even by Keats and Tennyson. The poem is founded on the classical story, Orion, the giant son of Poseidon, stands before the Gods and destiny, resolved to be a free agent, to use his powers for the good of mankind. He is a dreamer of noble dreams. He seeks his reward in the consciousness of a life devoted to good. He is a mighty hunter, and in the mountains of Chios encounters Artemis and her attendant nymphs. The goddess would fain teach Orion the purity of love, but his nature rebels and the episodes of his

Merope and Eos follow.

passion for Artemis, Destiny works out his

fate, and when he is most triumphant in the cause

of man the deadly arrow of Artemis makes him the victim of jealousy.

Then Eos and Artemis unite in a prayer to Zeus to restore Orion to life. The prayer is granted. Orion is made immortal and placed among the constellations.

Eos hides her face,

Glowing with tears divine, within the bosom
Of great Poseidon, in his rocking car

Standing erect to gaze upon his sire,

Installed midst golden fires, which ever melt
In Eos' breath and beauty; rising still

With mighty brilliance, merging in the dawn-
And circling onward in eternal youth.

If Horne had been content to rest here and write no more, his name would not be so unknown as it now is, but as the Saturday Review once said, the beautiful things he wrote in his prime were obscured by the mass of poor things written almost until the day of his death. smothered and outlived his fame. Late in life he chose to write his name Richard Hengist Horne, and by this he is now known.

He

BULWER-LYTTON.

(1803-1873.)

It is often a curious inquiry whether books, especially novels, that once filled the world with their fame, and were in almost every hand, are still read, or whether they have passed away with the generation for which they were written. Of course, we know that the very greatest novels survive, and that somebody is always reading Scott, and Thackeray, and Dickens, and Jane Austen, and even Fielding and Richardson; but when it comes to writers well up in the second rank, are their works still read? To come directly to the subject of this article, do general readers nowadays read the novels of BulwerLytton that, two generations ago, held their ground in popularity with Dickens and Thackeray? Nobody can be said to have a literary education if he is unacquainted with "Vanity Fair;" "The Newcomes," and "Henry Es

"Oliver Twist,"

"David Copper

mond;" with "Pickwick," "Nicholas Nickleby," and field"; but how is it with respect to "Pelham,"

Rienzi," "Paul Clifford," "Paul Clifford," "The Caxtons," and "What Will He Do With It?" Are there many who can pass an examination in these and their companions? A goodly and even gorgeous company were they, but do they survive as a favorite part of every choice and well-selected library? A critic can hardly know, but there are signs that Bulwer is not dead, notwithstanding some critics have asserted that he was. complete works may still be found on the shelves of book stores, and publishers do not wittingly publish books that do not sell, so that it is reasonable to believe that these great works of fiction still have readers and admirers. And they deserve to have.

His

In versatility, in capacity to work, and in determination to succeed, Bulwer-Lytton had no equal among his contemporaries, surpassing even Macaulay in those respects. The quantity of work that he did is almost appalling, and the story of his life affords an example for young men that they cannot too carefully study and imitate. If he was not a man of genius, as many critics have said, he possessed those other qualities,

patience and industry, which the highest authorities have told us were synonymous with genius.

Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer was born May 25, 1803. His father, General Bulwer, was a distinguished British officer, who somewhat late in life married Elizabeth Lytton, the heiress of Knebworth. Edward was the youngest son, and his father died during his infancy. He was educated at home and did not have the advantage of the public schools, a circumstance he often deplores in his essays. At seventeen he was sent to Cambridge, where his fellow-collegians were Macaulay, who was soon to take his degree; Charles Villiers, who was long the "father of the House of Commons," Mackworth Praed, the brilliant poet, satirist, and politician, who died young; Alexander Cockburn, afterward Lord ChiefJustice of England, and Charles Buller, subsequently a distinguished member of parliament. It was Macaulay's omnivorous reading and power of oratory even at that early day that stirred young Bulwer's emulation, and in a letter to his mother describing Macaulay's successes he writes: "The trophies of Miltiades will not suffer me to sleep." Even among such brilliant youths his industry was noticeable, and his then ambition being to be a poet, he won the Chancellor's medal