thers, two from Miss Landon ("L.E.L."); two
from Mrs. S. C. Hall, the versatile and clever author of _Tales
and Sketches of the Irish Peasantry_, cordial, closely--written and
recrossed to the remotest margin; one from her husband, Mr. S.C. Hall;
three or four from Mr. Chorley; and lastly, five or six elaborate
letters from Mr. E. Lytton Bulwer, sent through his American
publishers, the Brothers Harper, by Washington Irving, then secretary
of legation to the American embassy "near the court of St. James."
Enclosed with these last-mentioned letters was a communication from
Miss Fanny Kemble, to whom they had been sent for perusal, and who,
in returning them, did not hesitate to say that she did Not share his
young American correspondent's admiration for the author of _Pelham_.
She had met him frequently in London society, and regarded his manners
as affected and himself as a reflex of his own conceited model of
a gentleman--a style which Thackeray perhaps did not too grossly
caricature when he made Chawls Yellowplush announce, from his
own lips, his sounding name and title to a distinguished London
drawing-room as "Sa-wa-Edou-wah'd-a-Lyttod-a-Bulwig!"

The poems which my brother had written for two London journals at
the time of their first appearance and sudden popularity, the
_London Literary Gazette_ and, I believe, the _Athenaeum_, led to the
correspondence I have mentioned; and from the letters of Mr. Bulwer I
have extracted a few passages, as somewhat personal in their nature,
besides being characteristic of his tone of thought and manner of
expression at that period of his career:

"An author who has a just confidence in his attainments and powers,
who knows that his mind is imperishable and capable of making daily
additions to its own strength, is always more desirous of seeing the
censures (if not _mere_ abuse) than the praises of those who aspire to
judge him; and any suggestions or admonitions thus bestowed are seldom
disregarded. But if he is to profit by criticism, the _motive_ must
be known to him. It is by no means natural to take the advice of an
enemy. When the critic enters his department of literature in the
false guise of urbanity and candor merely to conceal an incapable and
huckstering soul, he only awakens for himself the irrevocable contempt
of the very mind that he would gall or subdue; since that mind, under
such circumstances, invariably rises _above_ its detractor, and leaves
him exposed on