2707 (#271) ###########################################
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
2707
amphitheatre were comparatively humane and rare; and in this
as in other respects, Pompeii was the miniature, the microcosm
of Rome.
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
2707
amphitheatre were comparatively humane and rare; and in this
as in other respects, Pompeii was the miniature, the microcosm
of Rome.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v05 - Bro to Cai
2696 (#260) ###########################################
o cresch
៨
BULWER-LYTTON.
## p. 2697 (#261) ###########################################
2697
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
(1803-1873)
BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE
He patrician in literature is always an interesting spectacle.
We are prone to regard his performance as a test of the
worth of long descent and high breeding. If he does well,
he vindicates the claims of his caste; if ill, we infer that inherited
estates and blue blood but surface advantages, leaving the
effective brain unimproved, or even causing deterioration. But the
argument is still open; and whether genius be the creature of cir-
cumstance or divinely independent, is a question which prejudice
rather than evidence commonly decides.
Certainly literature tries men's souls. The charlatan must betray
himself. Genius shines through all cerements. On the other hand,
genius may be nourished, and the charlatan permeates all classes.
The truth probably is that an aristocrat is quite as apt as a plebeian
to be a good writer. Only since there are fewer of the former than
of the latter, and since, unlike the last, the first are seldom forced to
live by their brains, there are more plebeian than aristocratic names
on the literary roll of honor. Admitting this, the instance of the
writer known as “Bulwer) proves nothing one way or the other.
At all events, not, Was he a genius because he was a patrician ?
but, Was he a genius at all? is the inquiry most germane to our
present purpose.
An aristocrat of aristocrats undoubtedly he was, though it con-
cerns us not to determine whether the blood of Plantagenet kings
and Norman conquerors really flowed in his veins. On both father's
and mother's side he was thoroughly well connected. Heydon Hall
in Norfolk was the hereditary home of the Norman Bulwers; the
Saxon Lyttons had since the Conquest lived at Knebworth in Derby,
shire. The historic background of each family was honorable, and
when the marriage of William Earle Bulwer with Elizabeth Barbara
Lytton united them, it might be said that in their offspring England
found her type.
Edward, being the youngest son, had little money, but he hap-
pened to have brains. He began existence delicate and precocious.
Culture, with him, set in almost with what he would have termed
the "consciousness of his own identity, and the process never inter-
mitted: in fact, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, his
## p. 2698 (#262) ###########################################
2698
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
spiritual and intellectual emancipation was hindered by many ob-
stacles; for, an ailing child, he was petted by his mother, and such
germs of intelligence (verses at seven years old, and the like) as he
betrayed were trumpeted as prodigies. He was spoilt so long before
he was ripe that it is a marvel he ever ripened at all. Many years
must pass before vanity could be replaced in him by manly ambi-
tion; a vein of silliness is traceable through his career almost to the
end. He expatiated in the falsetto key; almost never do we hear in
his voice that hearty bass note so dear to plain humanity. In his pil-
grimage toward freedom he had to wrestle not only with flesh-and-
blood mothers, uncles, and wives, et id genus omne, but with the more
subtle and vital ideas, superstitions, and prejudices appertaining to
his social station. His worst foes were not those of his household
merely, but of his heart. The more arduous achievement of such a
man is to see his real self and believe in it. There are so many
misleading purple-velvet waistcoats, gold chains, superfine sentiments,
and blue-blooded affiliations in the way, that the true nucleus of so
much decoration becomes less accessible than the needle in the hay-
stack. It is greatly to Bulwer's credit that he stuck valiantly to his
quest, and nearly, if not quite, ran down his game at last. His
intellectual record is one of constant progress, from childhood to age.
Whether his advance in other respects was as uniform does not
much concern us. He was unhappy with his wife, and perhaps they
even threw things at each other at table, the servants looking on.
Nothing in his matrimonial relations so much became him as his
conduct after their severance: he held his tongue like a man, in spite
of the poor lady's shrieks and clapper-clawings. His whimsical, hair-
splitting conscientiousness is less admirable. A healthy conscience
does not whine - it creates. No one
cares to know what a man
thinks of his own actions. No one is interested to learn that Bulwer
meant Paul Clifford to be an edifying work, or that he married his
wife from the highest motives. We do not take him so seriously: we
are satisfied that he wrote the story first and discovered its morality
afterwards; and that lofty motives would not have united him to
Miss Rosina Doyle Wheeler had she not been pretty and clever. His
hectic letters to his mamma; his Byronic struttings and mouthings
over the grave of his schoolgirl lady-love; his eighteenth-century
comedy-scene with Caroline Lamb; his starched-frill participation.
in the Fred Villiers duel at Boulogne, - how silly and artificial is
all this! There is no genuine feeling in it: he attires himself in
tawdry sentiment as in a flowered waistcoat. What a difference
between him, at this period, and his contemporary Benjamin Dis-
raeli, who indeed committed similar inanities, but with a saturnine
sense of humor cropping out at every turn which altered the whole
## p. 2699 (#263) ###########################################
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
2699
was
a
man
complexion of the performance. We laugh at the one, but with the
other.
Of course, however, there
hidden somewhere in
Edward Bulwer's perfumed clothes and mincing attitudes, else the
world had long since forgotten him. Amidst his dandyism, he learned
how to speak well in debate and how to use his hands to guard his
head; he paid his debts by honest hard work, and would not be dis-
honorably beholden to his mother or any one else. He posed as a
blighted being, and invented black evening-dress; but he lived down
the scorn of such men as Tennyson and Thackeray, and won their
respect and friendship at last. He aimed high, according to his
lights, meant well, and in the long run did well too.
The main activities of his life — and from start to finish his energy
was great — were in politics and in literature. His political career
covers about forty years, from the time he took his degree at Cam-
bridge till Lord Derby made him a peer in 1866. He accomplished
nothing of serious importance, but his course was always creditable:
he began as a sentimental Radical and ended as a liberal Conserva-
tive; he advocated the Crimean War; the Corn Laws found him in a
compromising humor; his record as Colonial Secretary offers nothing
memorable in statesmanship. The extraordinary brilliancy of his
brother Henry's diplomatic life throws Edward's achievements into
the shade. There is nothing to be ashamed of, but had he done
nothing else he would have been unknown. But literature, first
seriously cultivated as a means of livelihood, outlasted his political
ambitions, and his books are to-day his only claim to remembrance.
They made a strong impression at the time they were written, and
many are still read as much as ever, by a generation born after his
death. Their popularity is not of the catchpenny sort; thoughtful
people read them, as well as the great drove of the undiscriminating.
For they are the product of thought: they show workmanship; they
have quality; they are carefully made. If the literary critic never
finds occasion to put off the shoes from his feet as in the sacred
presence of genius, he is constantly moved to recognize with a
friendly nod the presence of sterling talent. He is even inclined to
think that nobody else ever had so much talent as this little red-
haired, blue-eyed, high-nosed, dandified Edward Bulwer; the mere
mass of it lifts him at times to the levels where genius dwells, though
he never quite shares their nectar and ambrosia. He as it were
catches echoes of the talk of the Immortals, the turn of their
phrase, the intonation of their utterance, — and straightway repro-
duces it with the fidelity of the phonograph. But, as in the phono-
graph, we find something lacking: our mind accepts the report as
genuine, but our ear affirms an unreality; this is reproduction, indeed,
## p. 2700 (#264) ###########################################
2700
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
but not creation. Bulwer himself, when his fit is past, and his criti-
cal faculty re-awakens, probably knows as well as another that these
labored and meritorious pages of his are not graven on the eternal
adamant. But they are the best he can do, and perhaps there is
none better of their kind. They have a right to be; for while
genius may do harm as well as good, Bulwer never does harm,
and in spite of sickly sentiment and sham philosophy, is uniformly
instructive, amusing, and edifying.
« To love her,” wrote Dick Steele of a certain great dame, «is a
liberal education;" and we might almost say the same of the reading
of Bulwer's romances. He was learned, and he put into his books
all his learning, as well as all else that was his. They represent
artistically grouped, ingeniously lighted, with suitable acompani-
ments of music and illusion — the acquisitions of his intellect, the
sympathies of his nature, and the achievements of his character.
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 har-
mony 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 incredi-
bilities of (The Coming Race shall wear the guise of naïve 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
## p. 2701 (#265) ###########################################
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
2701
a name.
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 (Sred-
wardlyttonbulwig' of Thackeray to the Condensed Novels burlesque
of Bret Harte, they harp upon that facile string. The thing satir-
ized is after all not cheaper than the satire. The ideal is the true
real; the only absurdity lies in the pomp and circumstance where-
with 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 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.
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
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,'
(
never cease
## p. 2702 (#266) ###########################################
2702
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
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 Chill-
ingly. 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.
But in comparing him with others, we must admit that he had
better opportunities than most. His social station brought him in
contact with the best people and most pregnant events of his time;
and the driving poverty of youth having established him in the
novel-writing habit, he thereafter had leisure to polish and expand
his faculty to the utmost. No talent of his was folded up in a
napkin: he did his best and utmost with all he had. Whereas the
path of genius is commonly tortuous and hard-beset: and while we
are always saying of Shakespeare, or Thackeray, or Shelley, or Keats,
or Poe, “What wonders they would have done had life been longer
or fate kinder to them! » — of Bulwer we say, “No help was wanting
to him, and he profited by all; he got out of the egg more than we
had believed was in it! » Instead of a great faculty hobbled by
circumstance, we have a small faculty magnified by occasion and
enriched by time.
Certainly, as men of letters go, Bulwer must be accounted fortu-
nate. The long inflamed row of his domestic life apart, all things
went his way. He received large sums for his books; at the age of
forty, his mother dying, he succeeded to the Knebworth estate ;
three-and-twenty years later his old age (if such a man could be
called old) was consoled by the title of Lord Lytton. His health
was never robust, and occasionally failed; but he seems to have been
## p. 2703 (#267) ###########################################
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
2703
able to accomplish after a fashion everything that he undertook; he
was “thorough,” as the English say. He lived in the midst of
events; he was a friend of the men who made the age, and saw
them make itlending a hand himself too when and where he
could. He lived long enough to see the hostility which had op-
posed him in youth die away, and honor and kindness take its place.
Let it be repeated, his aims were good. He would have been can-
did and un-selfconscious had that been possible for him; and perhaps
the failure was one of manner rather than of heart. Yes, he was
a fortunate man.
His most conspicuous success was as a play-writer. In view of
his essentially dramatic and historic temperament, it is surprising
that he did not altogether devote himself to this branch of art; but
all his dramas were produced between his thirty-third and his thirty-
eighth years. The first —La Duchesse de la Vallière). was not to
the public liking; but “The Lady of Lyons,' written in two weeks,
is in undiminished favor after near sixty years; and so are Riche-
lieu' and 'Money. There is no apparent reason why Bulwer should
not have been as prolific a stage-author as Molière or even Lope de
Vega. But we often value our best faculties least.
(The Coming Race,' published anonymously and never acknowl-
edged during his life, was an unexpected product of his mind, but is
useful to mark his limitations. It is a forecast of the future, and
proves, as nothing else could so well do, the utter absence in Bulwer
of the creative imagination. It is an invention, cleverly conceived,
mechanically and rather tediously worked out, and written in a style
astonishingly commonplace. The man who wrote that book (one
would say) had no heaven in his soul, nor any pinions whereon to
soar heavenward. Yet it is full of thought and ingenuity, and the
central conception of “vril has been much commended. But the
whole concoction is tainted with the deadness of stark materialism,
and we should be unjust, after all, to deny Bulwer something loftier
and broader than is discoverable here. In inventing the narrative
he depended upon the weakest element in his mental make-up, and
the result could not but be dismal. We like to believe that there
was better stuff in him than he himself ever found; and that when
he left this world for the next, he had sloughed off more dross than
most men have time to accumulate.
durian Haultone
## p. 2704 (#268) ###########################################
2704
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
THE AMPHITHEATRE
From "The Last Days of Pompeii)
ON
IN THE upper tier (but apart from the male spectators) sat the
women, their gay dresses resembling some gaudy flower-
bed; it is needless to add that they were the most talka-
tive part of the assembly; and many were the looks directed up
to them, especially from the benches appropriated to the young
and the unmarried men. On the lower seats round the arena
sat the more high-born and wealthy visitors — the magistrates
and those of senatorial or equestrian dignity: the passages
which, by corridors at the right and left, gave access to these
seats, at either end of the oval arena, were also the entrances
for the combatants. Strong palings at these passages prevented
any unwelcome eccentricity in the movements of the beasts, and
confined them to their appointed prey.
Around the parapet
which was raised above the arena, and from which the seats
gradually rose, were gladiatorial inscriptions, and paintings
wrought in fresco, typical of the entertainments for which the
place was designed. Throughout the whole building wound in-
visible pipes, from which, as the day advanced, cooling and fra.
grant showers were to be sprinkled over the spectators. The
officers of the amphitheatre were still employed in the task of
fixing the vast awning (or velaria) which covered the whole, and
which luxurious invention the Campanians arrogated to them-
selves: it was woven of the whitest Apulian wool, and variegated
with broad stripes of crimson. Owing either to
some inex-
perience on the part of the workmen or to some defect in the
machinery, the awning, however, was not arranged that day so
happily as usual; indeed, from the immense space of the circum-
ference, the task was always one of great difficulty and art -- so
much so that it could seldom be adventured in rough or windy
weather. But the present day was so remarkably still that there
seemed to the spectators no excuse for the awkwardness of the
artificers; and when a large gap in the back of the awning was
still visible, from the obstinate refusal of one part of the velaria
to ally itself with the rest, the murmurs of discontent were loud
and general.
The ædile Pansa, at whose expense the exhibition was given,
looked particularly annoyed at the defect, and vowed bitter
1
## p. 2705 (#269) ###########################################
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
2705
vengeance on the head of the chief officer of the show, who,
fretting, puffing, perspiring, busied himself in idle orders and
unavailing threats.
The hubbub ceased suddenly — the operators desisted -- the
crowd were stilled the gap was forgotten – for now, with a
loud and warlike flourish of trumpets, the gladiators, marshaled
in ceremonious procession, entered the arena. They swept round
the oval space very slowly and deliberately, in order to give the
spectators full leisure to admire their stern serenity of feature -
their brawny limbs and various arms, as well as to form such
wagers as the excitement of the moment might suggest.
“Oh! cried the widow Fulvia to the wife of Pansa, as they
leaned down from their lofty bench, do you see that gigantic
gladiator ? how drolly he is dressed! »
“Yes,” said the ædile's wife with complacent importance, for
she knew all the names and qualities of each combatant: "he is
a retiarius or netter; he is armed only, you see, with a three-
pronged spear like a trident, and a net; he wears no armor, only
the fillet and the tunic. He is a mighty man, and is to fight
with Sporus, yon thick-set gladiator, with the round shield and
drawn sword but without body armor; he has not his helmet on
now, in order that you may see his face — how fearless it is!
By-and-by he will fight with his visor down. ”
“But surely a net and a spear are poor arms against a shield
and sword ? »
“That shows how innocent you are, my dear Fulvia: the
retiarius has generally the best of it. ”
"But who is yon handsome gladiator, nearly naked - is it
not quite improper ? By Venus! but his limbs are beautifully
shaped! »
"It is Lydon, a young untried man! he has the rashness to
fight yon other gladiator similarly dressed, or rather undressed -
Tetraides. They fight first in the Greek fashion, with the cestus;
afterward they put on armor, and try sword and shield. ”
“He is a proper man, this Lydon; and the women, I am
sure, are on his side. »
"So are not the experienced bettors: Clodius offers three to
one against him. ”
“Oh, Jove! how beautiful! » exclaimed the widow, as two
gladiators, armed cap-à-pie, rode round the arena on light and
prancing steeds. Resembling much the combatants in the tilts
V-170
## p. 2706 (#270) ###########################################
2706
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
of the middle age, they bore lances and round shields beautifully
inlaid; their armor was woven intricately with bands of iron, but
it covered only the thighs and the right arms; short cloaks ex-
tending to the seat gave a picturesque and graceful air to their
costume; their legs were naked with the exception of sandals,
which were fastened a little above the ankle. “Oh, beautiful!
Who are these ? » asked the widow.
"The one is named Berbix: he has conquered twelve times.
The other assumes the arrogant Nobilior. They are both Gauls. ”
While thus conversing, the first formalities of the show were
over. To these succeeded a feigned combat with wooden swords
between the various gladiators matched against each other.
Among these the skill of two Roman gladiators, hired for the
occasion, was the most admired; and next to them the most
graceful combatant was Lydon. This sham contest did not last
above an hour, nor did it attract any very lively interest except
among those connoisseurs of the arena to whom art was prefer-
able to more coarse excitement; the body of the spectators were
rejoiced when it was over, and when the sympathy rose to terror.
The combatants were now arranged in pairs, as agreed before-
hand; their weapons examined; and the grave sports of the day
commenced amid the deepest silence— broken only by an excit-
ing and preliminary blast of warlike music,
It was often customary to begin the sports by the most cruel
of all; and some bestiarius, or gladiator appointed to the beasts,
was slain first as an initiatory sacrifice. But in the present in-
stance the experienced Pansa thought better that the sanguinary
drama should advance, not decrease, in interest; and accord-
ingly the execution of Olinthus and Glaucus was reserved for
the last. It was arranged that the two horsemen should first
occupy the arena; that the foot gladiators, paired off, should then
be loosed indiscriminately on the stage; that Glaucus and the
lion should next perform their part in the bloody spectacle; and
the tiger and the Nazarene be the grand finale. And in the
spectacles of Pompeii, the reader of Roman history must limit
his imagination, nor expect to find those vast and wholesale
exhibitions of magnificent slaughter with which a Nero or a
Caligula regaled the inhabitants of the Imperial City. The
Roman shows, which absorbed the more celebrated gladiators
and the chief proportion of foreign beasts, were indeed the very
reason why in the lesser towns of the empire the sports of the
## p.
2707 (#271) ###########################################
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
2707
amphitheatre were comparatively humane and rare; and in this
as in other respects, Pompeii was the miniature, the microcosm
of Rome. Still, it was an awful and imposing spectacle, with
which modern times have, happily, nothing to compare; a vast
theatre, rising row upon row, and swarming with human beings,
from fifteen to eighteen thousand in number, intent upon no
fictitious representation - no tragedy of the stage — but the actual
victory or defeat, the exultant life or the bloody death, of each
and all who entered the arena!
The two horsemen were now at either extremity of the lists
(if so they might be called), and at a given signal from Pansa
the combatants started simultaneously as in full collision, each
advancing his round buckler, each poising on high his sturdy
javelin; but just when within three paces of his opponent, the
steed of Berbix suddenly halted, wheeled round, and, as Nobilior
was borne rapidly by, his antagonist spurred upon him. The
buckler of Nobilior, quickly and skillfully extended, received a
blow which otherwise would have been fatal.
“Well done, Nobilior! ” cried the prætor, giving the first vent
to the popular excitement.
"Bravely struck, my Berbix! » answered Clodius from his
seat.
And the wild murmur, swelled by many a shout, echoed from
side to side.
The visors of both the horsemen were completely closed (like
those of the knights in after times), but the head was neverthe-
less the great point of assault; and Nobilior, now wheeling his
charger with no less adroitness than his opponent, directed his
spear full on the helmet of his foe. Berbix raised his buckler to
shield himself, and his quick-eyed antagonist, suddenly lowering
his weapon, pierced him through the breast. Berbix reeled and
fell.
"Nobilior! Nobilior! shouted the populace.
"I have lost ten sestertia,” said Clodius, between his teeth.
“Habet! ” (He has it) said Pansa deliberately.
The populace, not yet hardened into cruelty, made the signal
of mercy: but as the attendants of the arena approached, they
found the kindness came too late; the heart of the Gaul had
been pierced, and his eyes were set in death. It was his life's
blood that flowed so darkly over the sand and sawdust of the
arena.
## p. 2708 (#272) ###########################################
2708
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
"It is a pity it was so soon over — there was little enough for
one's trouble,” said the widow Fulvia.
“Yes, I have no compassion for Berbix. Any one might
have seen that Nobilior did but feint. Mark, they fix the fatal
hook to the body — they drag him away to the spoliarium - they
scatter new sand over the stage! Pansa regrets nothing more
than that he is not rich enough to strew the arena with borax
and cinnabar, as Nero used to do. ”
"Well, if it has been a brief battle, it is quickly succeeded.
See my handsome Lydon on the arena ay, and the net-bearer
too, and the swordsmen! Oh, charming! ”
There were now on the arena six combatants: Niger and his
net, matched against Sporus with his shield and his short broad-
sword; Lydon and Tetraides, naked save by a cincture round the
waist, each armed only with a heavy Greek cestus; and two
gladiators from Rome, clad in complete steel, and evenly matched
with immense bucklers and pointed swords.
The initiatory contest between Lydon and Tetraides being less
deadly than that between the other combatants, no sooner had
they advanced to the middle of the arena than as by common
consent the rest held back, to see how that contest should be
decided, and wait till fiercer weapons might replace the cestus
ere they themselves commenced hostilities. They stood leaning
on their arms and apart from each other, gazing on the show,
which, if not bloody enough thoroughly to please the populace,
they were still inclined to admire because its origin was of their
ancestral Greece.
No persons could at first glance have seemed less evenly
matched than the two antagonists. Tetraides, though no taller
than Lydon, weighed considerably more; the natural size of
his muscles was increased, to the eyes of the vulgar, by masses
of solid flesh; for, as it was a notion that the contest of the
cestus fared easiest with him who was plumpest, Tetraides had
encouraged to the utmost his hereditary predisposition to the
portly. His shoulders were vast, and his lower limbs thick-set,
double-jointed, and slightly curved outward, in that formation
which takes so much from beauty to give so largely to strength.
But Lydon, except that he was slender even almost to meagre-
ness, was beautifully and delicately proportioned; and the skillful
might have perceived that with much less compass of muscle
than his foe, that which he had was more seasoned - iron and
## p. 2709 (#273) ###########################################
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
2709
compact. In proportion, too, as he wanted flesh, he was likely
to possess activity; and a haughty smile on his resolute face,
which strongly contrasted with the solid heaviness of his enemy's,
gave assurance to those who beheld it and united their hope to
their pity; so that despite the disparity of their seeming strength,
the cry of the multitude was nearly as loud for Lydon as for
Tetraides.
Whoever is acquainted with the modern prize-ring - whoever
has witnessed the heavy and disabling strokes which the human
fist, skillfully directed, hath the power to bestow — may easily
understand how much that happy facility would be increased by
a band carried by thongs of leather round the arm as high as
the elbow, and terribly strengthened about the knuckles by a
plate of iron, and sometimes a plummet of lead. Yet this, which
was meant to increase, perhaps rather diminished, the interest of
the fray; for it necessarily shortened its duration. A very few
blows, successfully and scientifically planted, might suffice to
bring the contest to a close; and the battle did not, therefore,
often allow full scope for the energy, fortitude, and dogged per-
severance that we technically style pluck, which not unusually
wins the day against superior science, and which heightens to so
painful a delight the interest in the battle and the sympathy for
the brave.
"Guard thyself! ” growled Tetraides, moving nearer and
nearer to his foe, who rather shifted round him than receded.
Lydon did not answer, save by a scornful glance of his quick,
vigilant eye.
Tetraides struck - it was as the blow of a smith
on a vise; Lydon sank suddenly on one knee - the blow passed
over his head. Not so harmless was Lydon's retaliation; he
quickly sprang to his feet, and aimed his cestus full on the
broad chest of his antagonist. Tetraides reeled — the populace
shouted.
“You are unlucky to-day,” said Lepidus to Clodius: “you
have lost one bet; you will lose another. ”
“By the gods! my bronzes go to the auctioneer if that is the
I have no less than a hundred sestertia upon Tetraides.
Ha, ha! see how he rallies! That was a home stroke: he has cut
open Lydon's shoulder. - A Tetraides ! - a Tetraides! »
“But Lydon is not disheartened. By Pollux! how well he
keeps his temper! See how dextrously he avoids those hammer-
like hands! - dodging now here, now there— circling round and
round. Ah, poor Lydon! he has it again. ”
case.
## p. 2710 (#274) ###########################################
2710
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
« Three to one still on Tetraides! What say you, Lepidus ? »
“Well — nine sestertia to three - be it so!
so! What! again
Lydon. He stops — he gasps for breath. By the gods, he is
down! No-he is again on his legs. Brave Lydon! Tetraides
is encouraged - he laughs loud - he rushes on him. ”
“Fool — success blinds him -- he should be cautious. Lydon's
eye is like a lynx's! ” said Clodius, between his teeth.
"Ha, Clodius! saw you that ? Your man
totters! Another
blow- he falls — he falls ! »
“Earth revives him then. He is once
more up; but the
blood rolls down his face. ”
"By the Thunderer! Lydon wins it. See how he presses on
him! That blow on the temple would have crushed an ox! it has
crushed Tetraides. He falls again — he cannot move - habet!
habet! »
« Habet! repeated Pansa. « Take them out and give them
the armor and swords. ”
While the contest in the amphitheatre had thus commenced,
there was one in the loftier benches for whom it had assumed
indeed a poignant, a stifling interest. The aged father of Lydon,
despite his Christian horror of the spectacle, in his agonized
anxiety for his son had not been able to resist being the spec-
tator of his fate. Once amid a fierce crowd of strangers, the
lowest rabble of the populace, the old man saw, felt nothing
but the form, the presence of his brave son! Not a sound had
escaped his lips when twice he had seen him fall to the earth;
only he had turned paler, and his limbs trembled. But he had
uttered one low cry when he saw him victorious; unconscious,
alas! of the more fearful battle to which that victory was but a
prelude.
“My gallant boy! ” said he, and wiped his eyes.
"Is he thy son ? ” said a brawny fellow to the right of the
Nazarene: “he has fought well; let us see how he does by-and-
by. Hark! he is to fight the first victor. Now, old boy, pray
the gods that that victor be neither of the Romans! nor, next to
them, the giant Niger. "
The old man sat down again and covered his face.
The fray
for the moment was indifferent to him — Lydon was not one of
the combatants. Yet, yet, the thought flashed across him— the
fray was indeed of deadly interest — the first who fell was to
make way for Lydon! He started, and bent down, with strain-
ing eyes and clasped hands, to view the encounter.
## p. 2711 (#275) ###########################################
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
2711
The first interest was attracted toward the combat of Niger
with Sporus; for this spectacle of contest, from the fatal result
which usually attended it, and from the great science it required
in either antagonist, was always peculiarly inviting to the spec-
tators.
They stood at a considerable distance from each other. The
singular helmet which Sporus wore (the visor of which was down)
concealed his face; but the features of Niger attracted a fearful
and universal interest from their compressed and vigilant fero-
city. Thus they stood for some moments, each eying each, until
Sporus began slowly and with great caution to advance, hold-
ing his sword pointed, like a modern fencer's, at the breast of his
foe. Niger retreated as his antagonist advanced, gathering up
his net with his right hand and never taking his small, glitter-
ing eye from the movements of the swordsman. Suddenly, when
Sporus had approached nearly at arm's length, the retiarius threw
himself forward and cast his net. A quick inflection of body
saved the gladiator from the deadly snare; he uttered a sharp
cry of joy and rage and rushed upon Niger; but Niger had
already drawn in his net, thrown it across his shoulders, and now
fled around the lists with a swiftness which the secutor* in vain
endeavored to equal. The people laughed and shouted aloud to
see the ineffectual efforts of the broad-shouldered gladiator to
overtake the flying giant; when at that moment their attention
was turned from these to the two Roman combatants.
They had placed themselves at the onset face to face, at the
distance of modern fencers from each other, but the extreme
caution which both evinced at first had prevented any warmth of
engagement, and allowed the spectators full leisure to interest
themselves in the battle between Sporus and his foe. But the
Romans were now heated into full and fierce encounter: they
pushed returned — advanced on - retreated from each other,
with all that careful yet scarcely perceptible caution which charac-
terizes men well experienced and equally matched. But at this
moment Eumolpus, the elder gladiator, by that dextrous back-
stroke which was considered in the arena so difficult to avoid,
had wounded Nepimus in the side. The people shouted; Lepidus
turned pale.
* So called from the office of that tribe of gladiators in following the foe
the moment the net was cast, in order to smite him ere he could have time
to re-arrange it.
## p. 2712 (#276) ###########################################
2712
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
«Ho! ” said Clodius, “the game is nearly over. If Eumolpus
fights now the quiet fight, the other will gradually bleed himself
away.
“But, thank the gods! he does not fight the backward fight.
See! - he presses hard upon Nepimus. By Mars! but Nepimus
had him there! the helmet rang again! - Clodius, I shall win! ”
Why do I ever bet but at the dice ? groaned Clodius to
himself; — “or why cannot one cog a gladiator ? ”
"A Sporus! - a Sporus! ” shouted the populace, as Niger, now
having suddenly paused, had again cast his net, and again un-
successfully. He had not retreated this time with sufficient
agility — the sword of Sporus had inflicted a severe wound upon
his right leg; and, incapacitated to fly, he was pressed hard by
the fierce swordsman. His great height and length of arm still
continued, however, to give him no despicable advantages; and
steadily keeping his trident at the front of his foe, he repelled
him successfully for several minutes.
Sporus now tried by great rapidity of evolution to get round
his antagonist, who necessarily moved with pain and slowness.
In so doing he lost his caution - he advanced too near to the
giant — raised his arm to strike, and received the three points
of the fatal spear full in his breast! He sank on his knee.
moment more the deadly net was cast over him,- he struggled
against its meshes in vain; again – again – again he writhed
mutely beneath the fresh strokes of the trident - his blood flowed
fast through the net and redly over the sand. He lowered his
arms in acknowledgment of defeat.
The conquering retiarius withdrew his net, and leaning on his
spear, looked to the audience for their judgment. Slowly, too, at
the same moment, the vanquished gladiator rolled his dim and
despairing eyes around the theatre. From row to row, from
bench to bench, there glared upon him but merciless and unpity-
ing eyes.
Hushed was the roar the murmur! The silence was dread,
for in it was no sympathy; not a hand — no, not even a woman's
hand - gave the signal of charity and life! Sporus had never
been popular in the arena; and lately the interest of the com-
bat had been excited on behalf of the wounded Niger. The
people were warmed into blood the mimic fight had ceased to
charm; the interest had mounted up to the desire of sacrifice and
the thirst of death!
In a
1
1
.
1
## p. 2713 (#277) ###########################################
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
2713
The gladiator felt that his doom was sealed; he uttered no
prayer - no groan. The people gave the signal of death! In
dogged but agonized submission he bent his neck to receive the
fatal stroke. And now, as the spear of the retiarius was not a
weapon to inflict instant and certain death, there stalked into the
arena a grim and fatal form, brandishing a short, sharp sword,
and with features utterly concealed beneath its visor. With slow
and measured step this dismal headsman approached the gladi-
ator, still kneeling — laid the left hand on his humbled crest
drew the edge of the blade across his neck — turned round to the
assembly, lest, in the last moment, remorse should come upon
them; the dread signal continued the same; the blade glittered
brightly in the air — fell — and the gladiator rolled upon the sand:
his limbs quivered
were still — he was a corpse.
His body was dragged at once from the arena through the
gate of death, and thrown into the gloomy den termed technically
the “spoliarium. ” And ere it had well reached that destination
the strife between the remaining combatants was decided. The
sword of Eumolpus had inflicted the death-wound upon the less
experienced combatant. A new victim was added to the recep-
tacle of the slain.
Throughout that mighty assembly there now ran a universal
movement; the people breathed more freely and settled them-
selves in their seats. A grateful shower was cast over every row
from the concealed conduits. In cool and luxurious pleasure
they talked over the late spectacle of blood. Eumolpus removed
his helmet and wiped his brows; his close-curled hair and short
beard, his noble Roman features and bright dark eye, attracted
the general admiration. He was fresh, unwounded, unfatigued.
The ædile paused, and proclaimed aloud that as Niger's
wound disabled him from again entering the arena, Lydon was
to be the successor to the slaughtered Nepimus and the new
combatant of Eumolpus.
“Yet, Lydon,” added he, if thou wouldst decline the combat
with one so brave and tried, thou mayst have full liberty to do
Eumolpus is not the antagonist that was originally decreed
for thee. Thou knowest best how far thou canst cope with him.
If thou failest, thy doom is honorable death; if thou conquerest,
out of my own purse I will double the stipulated prize. ”
The people shouted applause. Lydon stood in the lists; he
gazed around; high above he beheld the pale face, the straining
So.
## p. 2714 (#278) ###########################################
2714
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
eyes of his father. He turned away irresolute for a moment.
No! the conquest of the cestus was not sufficient he had not
yet won the prize of victory -- his father was still a slave!
“Noble ædile! ” he replied, in a firm and deep tone, “I shrink
not from this combat. For the honor of Pompeii, I demand that
one trained by its long-celebrated lanista shall do battle with this
Roman. ”
The people shouted louder than before.
"Four to one against Lydon! ” said Clodius to Lepidus.
“I would not take twenty to one! Why, Eumolpus is a very
Achilles, and this poor fellow is but a tyro! ”
Eumolpus gazed hard on the face of Lydon: he smiled; yet
the smile was followed by a slight and scarce audible sigh-a
touch of compassionate emotion, which custom conquered the
moment the heart acknowledged it.
And now both, clad in complete armor, the sword drawn, the
visor closed, the two last combatants of the arena (ere man, at
least, was matched with beast) stood opposed to each other.
It was just at this time that a letter was delivered to the
prætor by one of the attendants of the arena; he removed the
cincture glanced
it for moment — his countenance
betrayed surprise and embarrassment. He re-read the letter, and
then muttering,— «Tush! it is impossible ! - the man must be
drunk, even in the morning, to dream of such follies! ” — threw
it carelessly aside and gravely settled himself once more in the
attitude of attention to the sports.
The interest of the public was wound up very high. Eumol-
pus had at first won their favor; but the gallantry of Lydon,
and his well-timed allusion to the honor of the Pompeiian lan-
ista, had afterward given the latter the preference in their eyes.
o cresch
៨
BULWER-LYTTON.
## p. 2697 (#261) ###########################################
2697
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
(1803-1873)
BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE
He patrician in literature is always an interesting spectacle.
We are prone to regard his performance as a test of the
worth of long descent and high breeding. If he does well,
he vindicates the claims of his caste; if ill, we infer that inherited
estates and blue blood but surface advantages, leaving the
effective brain unimproved, or even causing deterioration. But the
argument is still open; and whether genius be the creature of cir-
cumstance or divinely independent, is a question which prejudice
rather than evidence commonly decides.
Certainly literature tries men's souls. The charlatan must betray
himself. Genius shines through all cerements. On the other hand,
genius may be nourished, and the charlatan permeates all classes.
The truth probably is that an aristocrat is quite as apt as a plebeian
to be a good writer. Only since there are fewer of the former than
of the latter, and since, unlike the last, the first are seldom forced to
live by their brains, there are more plebeian than aristocratic names
on the literary roll of honor. Admitting this, the instance of the
writer known as “Bulwer) proves nothing one way or the other.
At all events, not, Was he a genius because he was a patrician ?
but, Was he a genius at all? is the inquiry most germane to our
present purpose.
An aristocrat of aristocrats undoubtedly he was, though it con-
cerns us not to determine whether the blood of Plantagenet kings
and Norman conquerors really flowed in his veins. On both father's
and mother's side he was thoroughly well connected. Heydon Hall
in Norfolk was the hereditary home of the Norman Bulwers; the
Saxon Lyttons had since the Conquest lived at Knebworth in Derby,
shire. The historic background of each family was honorable, and
when the marriage of William Earle Bulwer with Elizabeth Barbara
Lytton united them, it might be said that in their offspring England
found her type.
Edward, being the youngest son, had little money, but he hap-
pened to have brains. He began existence delicate and precocious.
Culture, with him, set in almost with what he would have termed
the "consciousness of his own identity, and the process never inter-
mitted: in fact, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, his
## p. 2698 (#262) ###########################################
2698
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
spiritual and intellectual emancipation was hindered by many ob-
stacles; for, an ailing child, he was petted by his mother, and such
germs of intelligence (verses at seven years old, and the like) as he
betrayed were trumpeted as prodigies. He was spoilt so long before
he was ripe that it is a marvel he ever ripened at all. Many years
must pass before vanity could be replaced in him by manly ambi-
tion; a vein of silliness is traceable through his career almost to the
end. He expatiated in the falsetto key; almost never do we hear in
his voice that hearty bass note so dear to plain humanity. In his pil-
grimage toward freedom he had to wrestle not only with flesh-and-
blood mothers, uncles, and wives, et id genus omne, but with the more
subtle and vital ideas, superstitions, and prejudices appertaining to
his social station. His worst foes were not those of his household
merely, but of his heart. The more arduous achievement of such a
man is to see his real self and believe in it. There are so many
misleading purple-velvet waistcoats, gold chains, superfine sentiments,
and blue-blooded affiliations in the way, that the true nucleus of so
much decoration becomes less accessible than the needle in the hay-
stack. It is greatly to Bulwer's credit that he stuck valiantly to his
quest, and nearly, if not quite, ran down his game at last. His
intellectual record is one of constant progress, from childhood to age.
Whether his advance in other respects was as uniform does not
much concern us. He was unhappy with his wife, and perhaps they
even threw things at each other at table, the servants looking on.
Nothing in his matrimonial relations so much became him as his
conduct after their severance: he held his tongue like a man, in spite
of the poor lady's shrieks and clapper-clawings. His whimsical, hair-
splitting conscientiousness is less admirable. A healthy conscience
does not whine - it creates. No one
cares to know what a man
thinks of his own actions. No one is interested to learn that Bulwer
meant Paul Clifford to be an edifying work, or that he married his
wife from the highest motives. We do not take him so seriously: we
are satisfied that he wrote the story first and discovered its morality
afterwards; and that lofty motives would not have united him to
Miss Rosina Doyle Wheeler had she not been pretty and clever. His
hectic letters to his mamma; his Byronic struttings and mouthings
over the grave of his schoolgirl lady-love; his eighteenth-century
comedy-scene with Caroline Lamb; his starched-frill participation.
in the Fred Villiers duel at Boulogne, - how silly and artificial is
all this! There is no genuine feeling in it: he attires himself in
tawdry sentiment as in a flowered waistcoat. What a difference
between him, at this period, and his contemporary Benjamin Dis-
raeli, who indeed committed similar inanities, but with a saturnine
sense of humor cropping out at every turn which altered the whole
## p. 2699 (#263) ###########################################
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
2699
was
a
man
complexion of the performance. We laugh at the one, but with the
other.
Of course, however, there
hidden somewhere in
Edward Bulwer's perfumed clothes and mincing attitudes, else the
world had long since forgotten him. Amidst his dandyism, he learned
how to speak well in debate and how to use his hands to guard his
head; he paid his debts by honest hard work, and would not be dis-
honorably beholden to his mother or any one else. He posed as a
blighted being, and invented black evening-dress; but he lived down
the scorn of such men as Tennyson and Thackeray, and won their
respect and friendship at last. He aimed high, according to his
lights, meant well, and in the long run did well too.
The main activities of his life — and from start to finish his energy
was great — were in politics and in literature. His political career
covers about forty years, from the time he took his degree at Cam-
bridge till Lord Derby made him a peer in 1866. He accomplished
nothing of serious importance, but his course was always creditable:
he began as a sentimental Radical and ended as a liberal Conserva-
tive; he advocated the Crimean War; the Corn Laws found him in a
compromising humor; his record as Colonial Secretary offers nothing
memorable in statesmanship. The extraordinary brilliancy of his
brother Henry's diplomatic life throws Edward's achievements into
the shade. There is nothing to be ashamed of, but had he done
nothing else he would have been unknown. But literature, first
seriously cultivated as a means of livelihood, outlasted his political
ambitions, and his books are to-day his only claim to remembrance.
They made a strong impression at the time they were written, and
many are still read as much as ever, by a generation born after his
death. Their popularity is not of the catchpenny sort; thoughtful
people read them, as well as the great drove of the undiscriminating.
For they are the product of thought: they show workmanship; they
have quality; they are carefully made. If the literary critic never
finds occasion to put off the shoes from his feet as in the sacred
presence of genius, he is constantly moved to recognize with a
friendly nod the presence of sterling talent. He is even inclined to
think that nobody else ever had so much talent as this little red-
haired, blue-eyed, high-nosed, dandified Edward Bulwer; the mere
mass of it lifts him at times to the levels where genius dwells, though
he never quite shares their nectar and ambrosia. He as it were
catches echoes of the talk of the Immortals, the turn of their
phrase, the intonation of their utterance, — and straightway repro-
duces it with the fidelity of the phonograph. But, as in the phono-
graph, we find something lacking: our mind accepts the report as
genuine, but our ear affirms an unreality; this is reproduction, indeed,
## p. 2700 (#264) ###########################################
2700
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
but not creation. Bulwer himself, when his fit is past, and his criti-
cal faculty re-awakens, probably knows as well as another that these
labored and meritorious pages of his are not graven on the eternal
adamant. But they are the best he can do, and perhaps there is
none better of their kind. They have a right to be; for while
genius may do harm as well as good, Bulwer never does harm,
and in spite of sickly sentiment and sham philosophy, is uniformly
instructive, amusing, and edifying.
« To love her,” wrote Dick Steele of a certain great dame, «is a
liberal education;" and we might almost say the same of the reading
of Bulwer's romances. He was learned, and he put into his books
all his learning, as well as all else that was his. They represent
artistically grouped, ingeniously lighted, with suitable acompani-
ments of music and illusion — the acquisitions of his intellect, the
sympathies of his nature, and the achievements of his character.
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 har-
mony 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 incredi-
bilities of (The Coming Race shall wear the guise of naïve 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
## p. 2701 (#265) ###########################################
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
2701
a name.
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 (Sred-
wardlyttonbulwig' of Thackeray to the Condensed Novels burlesque
of Bret Harte, they harp upon that facile string. The thing satir-
ized is after all not cheaper than the satire. The ideal is the true
real; the only absurdity lies in the pomp and circumstance where-
with 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 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.
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
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,'
(
never cease
## p. 2702 (#266) ###########################################
2702
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
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 Chill-
ingly. 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.
But in comparing him with others, we must admit that he had
better opportunities than most. His social station brought him in
contact with the best people and most pregnant events of his time;
and the driving poverty of youth having established him in the
novel-writing habit, he thereafter had leisure to polish and expand
his faculty to the utmost. No talent of his was folded up in a
napkin: he did his best and utmost with all he had. Whereas the
path of genius is commonly tortuous and hard-beset: and while we
are always saying of Shakespeare, or Thackeray, or Shelley, or Keats,
or Poe, “What wonders they would have done had life been longer
or fate kinder to them! » — of Bulwer we say, “No help was wanting
to him, and he profited by all; he got out of the egg more than we
had believed was in it! » Instead of a great faculty hobbled by
circumstance, we have a small faculty magnified by occasion and
enriched by time.
Certainly, as men of letters go, Bulwer must be accounted fortu-
nate. The long inflamed row of his domestic life apart, all things
went his way. He received large sums for his books; at the age of
forty, his mother dying, he succeeded to the Knebworth estate ;
three-and-twenty years later his old age (if such a man could be
called old) was consoled by the title of Lord Lytton. His health
was never robust, and occasionally failed; but he seems to have been
## p. 2703 (#267) ###########################################
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
2703
able to accomplish after a fashion everything that he undertook; he
was “thorough,” as the English say. He lived in the midst of
events; he was a friend of the men who made the age, and saw
them make itlending a hand himself too when and where he
could. He lived long enough to see the hostility which had op-
posed him in youth die away, and honor and kindness take its place.
Let it be repeated, his aims were good. He would have been can-
did and un-selfconscious had that been possible for him; and perhaps
the failure was one of manner rather than of heart. Yes, he was
a fortunate man.
His most conspicuous success was as a play-writer. In view of
his essentially dramatic and historic temperament, it is surprising
that he did not altogether devote himself to this branch of art; but
all his dramas were produced between his thirty-third and his thirty-
eighth years. The first —La Duchesse de la Vallière). was not to
the public liking; but “The Lady of Lyons,' written in two weeks,
is in undiminished favor after near sixty years; and so are Riche-
lieu' and 'Money. There is no apparent reason why Bulwer should
not have been as prolific a stage-author as Molière or even Lope de
Vega. But we often value our best faculties least.
(The Coming Race,' published anonymously and never acknowl-
edged during his life, was an unexpected product of his mind, but is
useful to mark his limitations. It is a forecast of the future, and
proves, as nothing else could so well do, the utter absence in Bulwer
of the creative imagination. It is an invention, cleverly conceived,
mechanically and rather tediously worked out, and written in a style
astonishingly commonplace. The man who wrote that book (one
would say) had no heaven in his soul, nor any pinions whereon to
soar heavenward. Yet it is full of thought and ingenuity, and the
central conception of “vril has been much commended. But the
whole concoction is tainted with the deadness of stark materialism,
and we should be unjust, after all, to deny Bulwer something loftier
and broader than is discoverable here. In inventing the narrative
he depended upon the weakest element in his mental make-up, and
the result could not but be dismal. We like to believe that there
was better stuff in him than he himself ever found; and that when
he left this world for the next, he had sloughed off more dross than
most men have time to accumulate.
durian Haultone
## p. 2704 (#268) ###########################################
2704
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
THE AMPHITHEATRE
From "The Last Days of Pompeii)
ON
IN THE upper tier (but apart from the male spectators) sat the
women, their gay dresses resembling some gaudy flower-
bed; it is needless to add that they were the most talka-
tive part of the assembly; and many were the looks directed up
to them, especially from the benches appropriated to the young
and the unmarried men. On the lower seats round the arena
sat the more high-born and wealthy visitors — the magistrates
and those of senatorial or equestrian dignity: the passages
which, by corridors at the right and left, gave access to these
seats, at either end of the oval arena, were also the entrances
for the combatants. Strong palings at these passages prevented
any unwelcome eccentricity in the movements of the beasts, and
confined them to their appointed prey.
Around the parapet
which was raised above the arena, and from which the seats
gradually rose, were gladiatorial inscriptions, and paintings
wrought in fresco, typical of the entertainments for which the
place was designed. Throughout the whole building wound in-
visible pipes, from which, as the day advanced, cooling and fra.
grant showers were to be sprinkled over the spectators. The
officers of the amphitheatre were still employed in the task of
fixing the vast awning (or velaria) which covered the whole, and
which luxurious invention the Campanians arrogated to them-
selves: it was woven of the whitest Apulian wool, and variegated
with broad stripes of crimson. Owing either to
some inex-
perience on the part of the workmen or to some defect in the
machinery, the awning, however, was not arranged that day so
happily as usual; indeed, from the immense space of the circum-
ference, the task was always one of great difficulty and art -- so
much so that it could seldom be adventured in rough or windy
weather. But the present day was so remarkably still that there
seemed to the spectators no excuse for the awkwardness of the
artificers; and when a large gap in the back of the awning was
still visible, from the obstinate refusal of one part of the velaria
to ally itself with the rest, the murmurs of discontent were loud
and general.
The ædile Pansa, at whose expense the exhibition was given,
looked particularly annoyed at the defect, and vowed bitter
1
## p. 2705 (#269) ###########################################
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
2705
vengeance on the head of the chief officer of the show, who,
fretting, puffing, perspiring, busied himself in idle orders and
unavailing threats.
The hubbub ceased suddenly — the operators desisted -- the
crowd were stilled the gap was forgotten – for now, with a
loud and warlike flourish of trumpets, the gladiators, marshaled
in ceremonious procession, entered the arena. They swept round
the oval space very slowly and deliberately, in order to give the
spectators full leisure to admire their stern serenity of feature -
their brawny limbs and various arms, as well as to form such
wagers as the excitement of the moment might suggest.
“Oh! cried the widow Fulvia to the wife of Pansa, as they
leaned down from their lofty bench, do you see that gigantic
gladiator ? how drolly he is dressed! »
“Yes,” said the ædile's wife with complacent importance, for
she knew all the names and qualities of each combatant: "he is
a retiarius or netter; he is armed only, you see, with a three-
pronged spear like a trident, and a net; he wears no armor, only
the fillet and the tunic. He is a mighty man, and is to fight
with Sporus, yon thick-set gladiator, with the round shield and
drawn sword but without body armor; he has not his helmet on
now, in order that you may see his face — how fearless it is!
By-and-by he will fight with his visor down. ”
“But surely a net and a spear are poor arms against a shield
and sword ? »
“That shows how innocent you are, my dear Fulvia: the
retiarius has generally the best of it. ”
"But who is yon handsome gladiator, nearly naked - is it
not quite improper ? By Venus! but his limbs are beautifully
shaped! »
"It is Lydon, a young untried man! he has the rashness to
fight yon other gladiator similarly dressed, or rather undressed -
Tetraides. They fight first in the Greek fashion, with the cestus;
afterward they put on armor, and try sword and shield. ”
“He is a proper man, this Lydon; and the women, I am
sure, are on his side. »
"So are not the experienced bettors: Clodius offers three to
one against him. ”
“Oh, Jove! how beautiful! » exclaimed the widow, as two
gladiators, armed cap-à-pie, rode round the arena on light and
prancing steeds. Resembling much the combatants in the tilts
V-170
## p. 2706 (#270) ###########################################
2706
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
of the middle age, they bore lances and round shields beautifully
inlaid; their armor was woven intricately with bands of iron, but
it covered only the thighs and the right arms; short cloaks ex-
tending to the seat gave a picturesque and graceful air to their
costume; their legs were naked with the exception of sandals,
which were fastened a little above the ankle. “Oh, beautiful!
Who are these ? » asked the widow.
"The one is named Berbix: he has conquered twelve times.
The other assumes the arrogant Nobilior. They are both Gauls. ”
While thus conversing, the first formalities of the show were
over. To these succeeded a feigned combat with wooden swords
between the various gladiators matched against each other.
Among these the skill of two Roman gladiators, hired for the
occasion, was the most admired; and next to them the most
graceful combatant was Lydon. This sham contest did not last
above an hour, nor did it attract any very lively interest except
among those connoisseurs of the arena to whom art was prefer-
able to more coarse excitement; the body of the spectators were
rejoiced when it was over, and when the sympathy rose to terror.
The combatants were now arranged in pairs, as agreed before-
hand; their weapons examined; and the grave sports of the day
commenced amid the deepest silence— broken only by an excit-
ing and preliminary blast of warlike music,
It was often customary to begin the sports by the most cruel
of all; and some bestiarius, or gladiator appointed to the beasts,
was slain first as an initiatory sacrifice. But in the present in-
stance the experienced Pansa thought better that the sanguinary
drama should advance, not decrease, in interest; and accord-
ingly the execution of Olinthus and Glaucus was reserved for
the last. It was arranged that the two horsemen should first
occupy the arena; that the foot gladiators, paired off, should then
be loosed indiscriminately on the stage; that Glaucus and the
lion should next perform their part in the bloody spectacle; and
the tiger and the Nazarene be the grand finale. And in the
spectacles of Pompeii, the reader of Roman history must limit
his imagination, nor expect to find those vast and wholesale
exhibitions of magnificent slaughter with which a Nero or a
Caligula regaled the inhabitants of the Imperial City. The
Roman shows, which absorbed the more celebrated gladiators
and the chief proportion of foreign beasts, were indeed the very
reason why in the lesser towns of the empire the sports of the
## p.
2707 (#271) ###########################################
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
2707
amphitheatre were comparatively humane and rare; and in this
as in other respects, Pompeii was the miniature, the microcosm
of Rome. Still, it was an awful and imposing spectacle, with
which modern times have, happily, nothing to compare; a vast
theatre, rising row upon row, and swarming with human beings,
from fifteen to eighteen thousand in number, intent upon no
fictitious representation - no tragedy of the stage — but the actual
victory or defeat, the exultant life or the bloody death, of each
and all who entered the arena!
The two horsemen were now at either extremity of the lists
(if so they might be called), and at a given signal from Pansa
the combatants started simultaneously as in full collision, each
advancing his round buckler, each poising on high his sturdy
javelin; but just when within three paces of his opponent, the
steed of Berbix suddenly halted, wheeled round, and, as Nobilior
was borne rapidly by, his antagonist spurred upon him. The
buckler of Nobilior, quickly and skillfully extended, received a
blow which otherwise would have been fatal.
“Well done, Nobilior! ” cried the prætor, giving the first vent
to the popular excitement.
"Bravely struck, my Berbix! » answered Clodius from his
seat.
And the wild murmur, swelled by many a shout, echoed from
side to side.
The visors of both the horsemen were completely closed (like
those of the knights in after times), but the head was neverthe-
less the great point of assault; and Nobilior, now wheeling his
charger with no less adroitness than his opponent, directed his
spear full on the helmet of his foe. Berbix raised his buckler to
shield himself, and his quick-eyed antagonist, suddenly lowering
his weapon, pierced him through the breast. Berbix reeled and
fell.
"Nobilior! Nobilior! shouted the populace.
"I have lost ten sestertia,” said Clodius, between his teeth.
“Habet! ” (He has it) said Pansa deliberately.
The populace, not yet hardened into cruelty, made the signal
of mercy: but as the attendants of the arena approached, they
found the kindness came too late; the heart of the Gaul had
been pierced, and his eyes were set in death. It was his life's
blood that flowed so darkly over the sand and sawdust of the
arena.
## p. 2708 (#272) ###########################################
2708
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
"It is a pity it was so soon over — there was little enough for
one's trouble,” said the widow Fulvia.
“Yes, I have no compassion for Berbix. Any one might
have seen that Nobilior did but feint. Mark, they fix the fatal
hook to the body — they drag him away to the spoliarium - they
scatter new sand over the stage! Pansa regrets nothing more
than that he is not rich enough to strew the arena with borax
and cinnabar, as Nero used to do. ”
"Well, if it has been a brief battle, it is quickly succeeded.
See my handsome Lydon on the arena ay, and the net-bearer
too, and the swordsmen! Oh, charming! ”
There were now on the arena six combatants: Niger and his
net, matched against Sporus with his shield and his short broad-
sword; Lydon and Tetraides, naked save by a cincture round the
waist, each armed only with a heavy Greek cestus; and two
gladiators from Rome, clad in complete steel, and evenly matched
with immense bucklers and pointed swords.
The initiatory contest between Lydon and Tetraides being less
deadly than that between the other combatants, no sooner had
they advanced to the middle of the arena than as by common
consent the rest held back, to see how that contest should be
decided, and wait till fiercer weapons might replace the cestus
ere they themselves commenced hostilities. They stood leaning
on their arms and apart from each other, gazing on the show,
which, if not bloody enough thoroughly to please the populace,
they were still inclined to admire because its origin was of their
ancestral Greece.
No persons could at first glance have seemed less evenly
matched than the two antagonists. Tetraides, though no taller
than Lydon, weighed considerably more; the natural size of
his muscles was increased, to the eyes of the vulgar, by masses
of solid flesh; for, as it was a notion that the contest of the
cestus fared easiest with him who was plumpest, Tetraides had
encouraged to the utmost his hereditary predisposition to the
portly. His shoulders were vast, and his lower limbs thick-set,
double-jointed, and slightly curved outward, in that formation
which takes so much from beauty to give so largely to strength.
But Lydon, except that he was slender even almost to meagre-
ness, was beautifully and delicately proportioned; and the skillful
might have perceived that with much less compass of muscle
than his foe, that which he had was more seasoned - iron and
## p. 2709 (#273) ###########################################
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
2709
compact. In proportion, too, as he wanted flesh, he was likely
to possess activity; and a haughty smile on his resolute face,
which strongly contrasted with the solid heaviness of his enemy's,
gave assurance to those who beheld it and united their hope to
their pity; so that despite the disparity of their seeming strength,
the cry of the multitude was nearly as loud for Lydon as for
Tetraides.
Whoever is acquainted with the modern prize-ring - whoever
has witnessed the heavy and disabling strokes which the human
fist, skillfully directed, hath the power to bestow — may easily
understand how much that happy facility would be increased by
a band carried by thongs of leather round the arm as high as
the elbow, and terribly strengthened about the knuckles by a
plate of iron, and sometimes a plummet of lead. Yet this, which
was meant to increase, perhaps rather diminished, the interest of
the fray; for it necessarily shortened its duration. A very few
blows, successfully and scientifically planted, might suffice to
bring the contest to a close; and the battle did not, therefore,
often allow full scope for the energy, fortitude, and dogged per-
severance that we technically style pluck, which not unusually
wins the day against superior science, and which heightens to so
painful a delight the interest in the battle and the sympathy for
the brave.
"Guard thyself! ” growled Tetraides, moving nearer and
nearer to his foe, who rather shifted round him than receded.
Lydon did not answer, save by a scornful glance of his quick,
vigilant eye.
Tetraides struck - it was as the blow of a smith
on a vise; Lydon sank suddenly on one knee - the blow passed
over his head. Not so harmless was Lydon's retaliation; he
quickly sprang to his feet, and aimed his cestus full on the
broad chest of his antagonist. Tetraides reeled — the populace
shouted.
“You are unlucky to-day,” said Lepidus to Clodius: “you
have lost one bet; you will lose another. ”
“By the gods! my bronzes go to the auctioneer if that is the
I have no less than a hundred sestertia upon Tetraides.
Ha, ha! see how he rallies! That was a home stroke: he has cut
open Lydon's shoulder. - A Tetraides ! - a Tetraides! »
“But Lydon is not disheartened. By Pollux! how well he
keeps his temper! See how dextrously he avoids those hammer-
like hands! - dodging now here, now there— circling round and
round. Ah, poor Lydon! he has it again. ”
case.
## p. 2710 (#274) ###########################################
2710
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
« Three to one still on Tetraides! What say you, Lepidus ? »
“Well — nine sestertia to three - be it so!
so! What! again
Lydon. He stops — he gasps for breath. By the gods, he is
down! No-he is again on his legs. Brave Lydon! Tetraides
is encouraged - he laughs loud - he rushes on him. ”
“Fool — success blinds him -- he should be cautious. Lydon's
eye is like a lynx's! ” said Clodius, between his teeth.
"Ha, Clodius! saw you that ? Your man
totters! Another
blow- he falls — he falls ! »
“Earth revives him then. He is once
more up; but the
blood rolls down his face. ”
"By the Thunderer! Lydon wins it. See how he presses on
him! That blow on the temple would have crushed an ox! it has
crushed Tetraides. He falls again — he cannot move - habet!
habet! »
« Habet! repeated Pansa. « Take them out and give them
the armor and swords. ”
While the contest in the amphitheatre had thus commenced,
there was one in the loftier benches for whom it had assumed
indeed a poignant, a stifling interest. The aged father of Lydon,
despite his Christian horror of the spectacle, in his agonized
anxiety for his son had not been able to resist being the spec-
tator of his fate. Once amid a fierce crowd of strangers, the
lowest rabble of the populace, the old man saw, felt nothing
but the form, the presence of his brave son! Not a sound had
escaped his lips when twice he had seen him fall to the earth;
only he had turned paler, and his limbs trembled. But he had
uttered one low cry when he saw him victorious; unconscious,
alas! of the more fearful battle to which that victory was but a
prelude.
“My gallant boy! ” said he, and wiped his eyes.
"Is he thy son ? ” said a brawny fellow to the right of the
Nazarene: “he has fought well; let us see how he does by-and-
by. Hark! he is to fight the first victor. Now, old boy, pray
the gods that that victor be neither of the Romans! nor, next to
them, the giant Niger. "
The old man sat down again and covered his face.
The fray
for the moment was indifferent to him — Lydon was not one of
the combatants. Yet, yet, the thought flashed across him— the
fray was indeed of deadly interest — the first who fell was to
make way for Lydon! He started, and bent down, with strain-
ing eyes and clasped hands, to view the encounter.
## p. 2711 (#275) ###########################################
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
2711
The first interest was attracted toward the combat of Niger
with Sporus; for this spectacle of contest, from the fatal result
which usually attended it, and from the great science it required
in either antagonist, was always peculiarly inviting to the spec-
tators.
They stood at a considerable distance from each other. The
singular helmet which Sporus wore (the visor of which was down)
concealed his face; but the features of Niger attracted a fearful
and universal interest from their compressed and vigilant fero-
city. Thus they stood for some moments, each eying each, until
Sporus began slowly and with great caution to advance, hold-
ing his sword pointed, like a modern fencer's, at the breast of his
foe. Niger retreated as his antagonist advanced, gathering up
his net with his right hand and never taking his small, glitter-
ing eye from the movements of the swordsman. Suddenly, when
Sporus had approached nearly at arm's length, the retiarius threw
himself forward and cast his net. A quick inflection of body
saved the gladiator from the deadly snare; he uttered a sharp
cry of joy and rage and rushed upon Niger; but Niger had
already drawn in his net, thrown it across his shoulders, and now
fled around the lists with a swiftness which the secutor* in vain
endeavored to equal. The people laughed and shouted aloud to
see the ineffectual efforts of the broad-shouldered gladiator to
overtake the flying giant; when at that moment their attention
was turned from these to the two Roman combatants.
They had placed themselves at the onset face to face, at the
distance of modern fencers from each other, but the extreme
caution which both evinced at first had prevented any warmth of
engagement, and allowed the spectators full leisure to interest
themselves in the battle between Sporus and his foe. But the
Romans were now heated into full and fierce encounter: they
pushed returned — advanced on - retreated from each other,
with all that careful yet scarcely perceptible caution which charac-
terizes men well experienced and equally matched. But at this
moment Eumolpus, the elder gladiator, by that dextrous back-
stroke which was considered in the arena so difficult to avoid,
had wounded Nepimus in the side. The people shouted; Lepidus
turned pale.
* So called from the office of that tribe of gladiators in following the foe
the moment the net was cast, in order to smite him ere he could have time
to re-arrange it.
## p. 2712 (#276) ###########################################
2712
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
«Ho! ” said Clodius, “the game is nearly over. If Eumolpus
fights now the quiet fight, the other will gradually bleed himself
away.
“But, thank the gods! he does not fight the backward fight.
See! - he presses hard upon Nepimus. By Mars! but Nepimus
had him there! the helmet rang again! - Clodius, I shall win! ”
Why do I ever bet but at the dice ? groaned Clodius to
himself; — “or why cannot one cog a gladiator ? ”
"A Sporus! - a Sporus! ” shouted the populace, as Niger, now
having suddenly paused, had again cast his net, and again un-
successfully. He had not retreated this time with sufficient
agility — the sword of Sporus had inflicted a severe wound upon
his right leg; and, incapacitated to fly, he was pressed hard by
the fierce swordsman. His great height and length of arm still
continued, however, to give him no despicable advantages; and
steadily keeping his trident at the front of his foe, he repelled
him successfully for several minutes.
Sporus now tried by great rapidity of evolution to get round
his antagonist, who necessarily moved with pain and slowness.
In so doing he lost his caution - he advanced too near to the
giant — raised his arm to strike, and received the three points
of the fatal spear full in his breast! He sank on his knee.
moment more the deadly net was cast over him,- he struggled
against its meshes in vain; again – again – again he writhed
mutely beneath the fresh strokes of the trident - his blood flowed
fast through the net and redly over the sand. He lowered his
arms in acknowledgment of defeat.
The conquering retiarius withdrew his net, and leaning on his
spear, looked to the audience for their judgment. Slowly, too, at
the same moment, the vanquished gladiator rolled his dim and
despairing eyes around the theatre. From row to row, from
bench to bench, there glared upon him but merciless and unpity-
ing eyes.
Hushed was the roar the murmur! The silence was dread,
for in it was no sympathy; not a hand — no, not even a woman's
hand - gave the signal of charity and life! Sporus had never
been popular in the arena; and lately the interest of the com-
bat had been excited on behalf of the wounded Niger. The
people were warmed into blood the mimic fight had ceased to
charm; the interest had mounted up to the desire of sacrifice and
the thirst of death!
In a
1
1
.
1
## p. 2713 (#277) ###########################################
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
2713
The gladiator felt that his doom was sealed; he uttered no
prayer - no groan. The people gave the signal of death! In
dogged but agonized submission he bent his neck to receive the
fatal stroke. And now, as the spear of the retiarius was not a
weapon to inflict instant and certain death, there stalked into the
arena a grim and fatal form, brandishing a short, sharp sword,
and with features utterly concealed beneath its visor. With slow
and measured step this dismal headsman approached the gladi-
ator, still kneeling — laid the left hand on his humbled crest
drew the edge of the blade across his neck — turned round to the
assembly, lest, in the last moment, remorse should come upon
them; the dread signal continued the same; the blade glittered
brightly in the air — fell — and the gladiator rolled upon the sand:
his limbs quivered
were still — he was a corpse.
His body was dragged at once from the arena through the
gate of death, and thrown into the gloomy den termed technically
the “spoliarium. ” And ere it had well reached that destination
the strife between the remaining combatants was decided. The
sword of Eumolpus had inflicted the death-wound upon the less
experienced combatant. A new victim was added to the recep-
tacle of the slain.
Throughout that mighty assembly there now ran a universal
movement; the people breathed more freely and settled them-
selves in their seats. A grateful shower was cast over every row
from the concealed conduits. In cool and luxurious pleasure
they talked over the late spectacle of blood. Eumolpus removed
his helmet and wiped his brows; his close-curled hair and short
beard, his noble Roman features and bright dark eye, attracted
the general admiration. He was fresh, unwounded, unfatigued.
The ædile paused, and proclaimed aloud that as Niger's
wound disabled him from again entering the arena, Lydon was
to be the successor to the slaughtered Nepimus and the new
combatant of Eumolpus.
“Yet, Lydon,” added he, if thou wouldst decline the combat
with one so brave and tried, thou mayst have full liberty to do
Eumolpus is not the antagonist that was originally decreed
for thee. Thou knowest best how far thou canst cope with him.
If thou failest, thy doom is honorable death; if thou conquerest,
out of my own purse I will double the stipulated prize. ”
The people shouted applause. Lydon stood in the lists; he
gazed around; high above he beheld the pale face, the straining
So.
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2714
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
eyes of his father. He turned away irresolute for a moment.
No! the conquest of the cestus was not sufficient he had not
yet won the prize of victory -- his father was still a slave!
“Noble ædile! ” he replied, in a firm and deep tone, “I shrink
not from this combat. For the honor of Pompeii, I demand that
one trained by its long-celebrated lanista shall do battle with this
Roman. ”
The people shouted louder than before.
"Four to one against Lydon! ” said Clodius to Lepidus.
“I would not take twenty to one! Why, Eumolpus is a very
Achilles, and this poor fellow is but a tyro! ”
Eumolpus gazed hard on the face of Lydon: he smiled; yet
the smile was followed by a slight and scarce audible sigh-a
touch of compassionate emotion, which custom conquered the
moment the heart acknowledged it.
And now both, clad in complete armor, the sword drawn, the
visor closed, the two last combatants of the arena (ere man, at
least, was matched with beast) stood opposed to each other.
It was just at this time that a letter was delivered to the
prætor by one of the attendants of the arena; he removed the
cincture glanced
it for moment — his countenance
betrayed surprise and embarrassment. He re-read the letter, and
then muttering,— «Tush! it is impossible ! - the man must be
drunk, even in the morning, to dream of such follies! ” — threw
it carelessly aside and gravely settled himself once more in the
attitude of attention to the sports.
The interest of the public was wound up very high. Eumol-
pus had at first won their favor; but the gallantry of Lydon,
and his well-timed allusion to the honor of the Pompeiian lan-
ista, had afterward given the latter the preference in their eyes.
