and act splendidly for the moment; but their thoughts and actions are incongruous as a whole--they war among themselves. A man cannot at once be patient and resentful, thoughtful and careless, or learned and an idler. Again--his style is as bad as it is brilliant--it is affected--sometimes tawdry. His novels are bad, _very_ bad, in their tendency. He marries vice and virtue; he joins nobleness to sin; he makes man the puppet of fate or circumstance; around the desperate offender he weaves a spell of enchantment; we follow his heroes with wonder and pity and love, through all their paths of crime and glory, and we close the book with a sigh that ourselves were not born with natures so high, and destinies so splendid, even at the price of all their wretchedness, and all their guilt. Bulwer may talk, and talk of virtue and religion, till his hair is gray--but his principles are poison. And if he be dangerous, his imitators are contemptible. Without a tithe of his power, they are more corrupt. Their works are prolific as the rod of Aaron, and lean as the kine of Pharaoh. In regard to talent, making allowance for the greater freshness of his novels, and that sympathy which we feel for every thing of our own day, and remembering that he had all _their_ excellencies to build upon, and imitate, I should place him far below both Fielding and Smollett in mental power. Those older writers, though freer in language, are far less corrupt and enervate in thought, than these modern profligates. In _those_, there is a style simple, vigorous, and clear, and reflection solid, rational, and just--in _these_ there is a continual reaching forth after singularity and power. _Those_ draw faithful figures, though larger, perhaps, than life--but _these_ present distortions--wicked daubs--gross flatteries, or else vile libels upon human nature. _There_ is thought--_here_, sentiment--_there_, rough gold--_here_, spangled tinsel. _Those_ are chalybeate streams, which come tumbling from mountains of iron, with waves dark, but salubrious: while _these_ are rivulets from mercurial mines, that dance swiftly along their shining bed, with waters bright, but destructive.” Ego. AMBITION--A FRAGMENT. --“I charge thee, fling away Ambition; Love thyself last.” _Henry VIII._