We may, nevertheless, so far imitate "the grand Napoleon of the realms of criticism," as to congratulate our readers on the appearance of a work, which promises to be the commencement of a new style in novel writing. Since the days of Fielding, unimitated and inimitable--and of Smollett, between whose different productions there was scarce a family likeness, we have had a succession of _dynasties_ reigning over the regions of romance. We have had the Ratcliffe dynasty, the Edgeworth dynasty, and the Scott dynasty; each, like the family of the Cæsars, passing from good to bad, and from bad to worse, until each has run out. Partial movements in the provinces have occasionally set up the standard of rival aspirants: but these have soon passed away. Heroines from the bogs, and heroes from the highlands of Scotland, or the Polish wilds, could not maintain their pretensions, though uniting in themselves all that is admirable both in the civilized and the savage character. Perhaps this was the reason. We like to read of things that may a little remind us of what we have seen in real life. Sir Charles Grandison in the Scottish Kilt, is a startling apparition. The younger D'Israeli has indeed, occasionally flashed upon us the light of his capricious genius; but one of his caprices has been to disappoint the hope that he had raised. He has shown us what he could do, and that is all. Mr. Bulwer too, in a sort of freak of literary radicalism, has set up for himself. He scorned to add to the number of those who dress themselves in the cast-off habiliments of Scott; and study, as at a glass, to make themselves like him, as if ambitious to display their thefts. _He_ learned the craft of plagiarism in the Spartan school, where _detection_ was the only disgrace. He would not steal, not he, from any but "the poor man, who had nothing save one little ewe lamb, that lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter." He would imitate none but himself, and draw from no other models. His novels are all echoes of each other. There is hardly a page which might not be known for his, nor a favorite character which is not an exhibition of one of the phases of his _exquisite_ self. The variety is between what he imagines himself to be, and what he imagines that he might have been, had he been a cavalier of the seventeenth century, or had circumstances made him a highwayman or a murderer. We are aware that he denies all this, and may be unconscious of it: but his identity can no more be mistaken than that of the one-eyed companion of Hogarth's "idle apprentice." We are aware too, that Mr. Bulwer is a member of a certain literary cabal, who aspire to direct the public taste, and bring all the influence of wealth and fashion and political connexion in aid of their pretensions. He is a sort of literary Jack Cade. "His mouth is the law." We know that the "amphitrion on l'on dire" is always the true amphitrion. But we never expect to travel as caterers for a public journal.