The student of the biography, if he is already familiar with the more characteristic works of Bulwer-Lytton, will find himself for the first time provided with a key to much that has puzzled him in the nature of that author. The story itself, apart from the tragic matrimonial trouble which runs through it like a blood-red cord, is of unusual interest. It is a story of strife, without repose, without enjoyment, but with a good deal of splendour and satisfaction. Almost to the end Bulwer-Lytton was engaged in struggle. As an ambitious social being he was fighting the world; as an author he was battling with his critics; as a statesman he was always in the wild storm of party politics. As a private individual he was all the time keeping his head up against the tide of social scandal which attacked him when he least expected it, and often threatened to drown him altogether. This turmoil contrasts with the calm of the evening years, after the peerage had been won, the ambition satisfied, the literary reputation secured. Few writers have encountered, in their own time and after their death, so much adverse criticism, and yet have partly survived it. It is hardly realised, even perhaps by Lord Lytton, how unwilling the reviewers were to give credit to his grandfather. He never found favour in their eyes, and it was a matter of constant resentment with him that they did him, as he thought, injustice. The evidence of his wounded feelings is constant in his letters. The Quarterly Review never mentioned him without contempt until 1865, when the publication of his works, in forty-three volumes, forced it to consider this indefatigable and popular writer with a measure of respect. Sir Walter Scott, with his universal geniality, read _Pelham_ in 1828 and "found it very interesting: the light is easy and gentlemanlike, the dark very grand and sombrous." He asked who was the author, and he tried to interest his son-in-law in the novel. But Lockhart was implacable: "_Pelham_," he replied, "is writ by a Mr. Bulwer, a Norfolk squire, and horrid puppy. I have not read the book, from disliking the author." Lockhart, however, did read _Devereux_, and three years afterwards, when reviewing some other novel, he said of the historical characters in that romance: "It seems hard to disquiet so many bright spirits for the sole purpose of showing that they _could_ be dull." That was the attitude of the higher criticism to Bulwer-Lytton from, let us say, 1830 to 1860; he was "a horrid puppy" and he was also "dull."