play that should conquer the public and hold the stage. So to those who affirmed that, whatever else he might do, he never could be a Parliamentary speaker, he replied by standing up when approaching the very brink of old age, and delivering speeches which won the willing and generous applause of Disraeli, and extorted the reluctant but manly and frank recognition of such an opponent as John Bright. Bulwer-Lytton once insisted, in an address delivered to some English literary institution, that the word "versatile" is generally used wrongly when we speak of men who do a great many things well; that it is a comprehensive, not merely a versatile mind, each of these men has; not a knack of adroitly turning himself to many heterogeneous labors, but a capacity so wide that it unfolds quite naturally many fields of labor. In this sense Bulwer-Lytton has undoubtedly a more comprehensive mind than any of his English contemporaries. He has written the most successful dramas and some of the most successful novels of his day; and he has so varied the method of his novel-writing that he may be said to have at least three distinct and separate principles of construction. Some of his poetic translations seem to me almost absolutely the best done in England of late years; many of his essays approach a true literary value, while all or nearly all of them are attractive reading; his satire, "The New Timon," is the only thing of the kind which is likely to outlive his age; and his political speeches are what I have already described. Now, to estimate the personal value of these successes, let us not fail to remember that their author never was placed in a condition to make literary or other labor a necessity, and that for nearly a whole generation he has been in the enjoyment of actual wealth; that in England literature adds little or no social distinction to a man of Bulwer-Lytton's rank; and that during a considerable portion of his life the author of "The Caxtons" and "My Novel" has been tortured by almost incessant ill-health. Almost everything that could tend to make a man shun continuous and patient labor (opulence and ill-health would be quite enough to make most of us shun it) combined to render Bulwer-Lytton an idle or at least an indolent man. Yet almost all the literary success he attained was due to a patient toil which would have wearied out a penny-a-liner, and a laborious self-study and self-culture which might have overtaxed the nerves of a Königsberg professor. "Easy writing is cursed hard reading," is a maxim which Bulwer-Lytton fully understood, and of which he showed his appreciation in his personal practice.