BULWER AND WALTER SCOTT.

THIS is the age of discoveries of wonderful and astounding discoveries. A spirit of fermentation and free inquiry has got abroad, and put that restless little animal man into a state of preternatural disquietude, insomuch that he has adopted for the sober rule of his conduct Shakspeare's hibernicism,

tors.

"We will strive with impossibilities,
Yea, get the better of them!"

and he lightly projects schemes and broaches doctrines that would have made the hair stand on end upon the heads of his respectable ancesThe world never saw such times. Science and quackery have become so intermixed, that worthy though obtuse people are puzzled to discover the difference, and hence spring those two large parties-the innovators and the anti-innovators-that keep society fermenting like a barrel of ale at mid

summer.

In the eyes of the former, nothing is good but what is new; they are for turning the poor old world topsy-turvy, for shaking religion, poetry, law, learning and common sense out of it, and governing it hereafter by steam, mathematics, and a sublime code of morals calculated for use when the era of human perfectibility commences. The anti-innovation faction are ridiculous in another way they are good fat sort of people, full of beef, beer, and prejudice, who are continually "perplexed with fear of change" who think that time and custom sanctify all things, and that whatever has been, ought to be. Their ranks are headed by

grave, solemn old owls, who shut their eyes to the light in a very owlish manner, while the recruits of the other are, for the most part, pert, prating jackdaws, dressed out in the borrowed robes of philosophy and philanthropy, and their cackle is worse than the croak of their opponents, inasmuch as it is more intrusive and presuming, the one being active ignorance, the other only passive. Thank heaven, a third party with knowledge of their own, unite the zeal of one faction with the caution of the other.

Such being the state of things, the number of sublime and ridiculous discoveries daily made in physics, metaphysics, law, government, and litera

ture, are scarcely to be wondered at.

But the most

The

notable discovery of modern times is, undoubtedly, the one recently made, that Edward Lytton Bulwer is a writer equal to Sir Walter Scott! author of Pelham, Devereux, and the Disowned, equal to the author of Waverley! And this is in strict accordance with the spirit of the age, which is characterized by nothing so much as mutability and love of change. The Athenians grew tired of always hearing Aristides called "the just," and a section of the literary world are tired of hearing Sir Walter styled "the great," and have therefore set up this opposition idol, whose claims, they say, have been weighed in the balance and not found wanting. It has long been the fashion to estimate men of genius after the manner of "Plutarch's Lives," by their comparative rather than their positive merits, and some singular, and it is now confessed, outrageous comparisons, have been instituted. By many of the writers of his own time Shakspeare was adjudged to be inferior to Ben Jonson; but with this solitary exception, the hardihood of the preceding assertion has perhaps never been equalled. To be sure, for some time past, Sir Walter Scott, like the Bay of Naples, has been a standard for small comparisons; and the several admirers of all the second and third-rate novelists

have been endeavoring to exalt their particular favorites by insinuating that "the northern magician would have to look well to his laurels," or that "the great unknown must be content to bear a rival near his throne," and such half-way phrases; but this is the first time a direct claim of equality has been put in--nay, some have asserted Mr. Bulwer's superiority, but that appeared to be carrying the joke a little too far. These valuable and extraordinary critics have for the most part been content to make known their opinions to the public, without stating the grounds and causes on which they are based. Like persons who have resolved on committing a rash action, they at once bolt forth their assertion of equality, and then, as if aghast at their own temerity, dare not approach the question a second time, coolly to give their reasons for what they have advanced.

The admirers of the author of Waverley may quietly and calmly invite comparison, and they can afford to do it in a spirit of the utmost candor and liberality, for there is little occasion to exalt their favorite (if that were possible) by the depreciation of any writer whatever. Render unto Mr. Bulwer all that can reasonably be claimed for him, (and he has proved that he has many noble qualifications for an author,) yet what does that all amount to in

comparison with the merits of Scott? Mr. Bulwer is a man of talent if not of genius, a fine thinker and a ripe scholar; his mind is rich in classical lore and philosophic reflection; his style is polished and nervous, impassioned and harmonious, and he has produced three works of great and varied merit, Pelham, the Disowned, and Devereux; but is this to put him at once on an equality with the man who has conceived and executed those glorious and imperishable series of works known by the name of the Waverley novels"-a world within themselves, teeming with living, breathing characters, stamped with nature's impress-abounding in descriptions as vivid and magnificent as ever poet fancied or painter drew, and filled with humor and pathos that flow from a source as prodigal and inexhaustible as the widow's cruise ;-a "new edition of human nature," as it were, in its most picturesque forms? To place him on a level with one who has done more for literature, both in quantity and quality, with the single exception of Shakspeare, than any man since Noah left the ark? As Othello says, "'tis monstrous!"

But to come to particulars. Much has been said of the qualifications Mr. Bulwer possesses, though but scant mention has been made of those in which he is deficient. His first great point of inferiority to