25 JANUARY 1873, Page 1

The week has been very fatal to notabilities. On Saturday,

Lord Lytton, the novelist, dramatist, orator, and poet, died at Torquay, after a brief illness, aged sixty-seven. He is buried to-day in Westminster Abbey, an honour deserved by his position in the world of letters, though not, as we contend, by his literary achievements. He was a man of extraordinary cleverness, in- dustry, and aptitude for getting up things, could make himself prepare a striking speech, or a pleasing poem, or a taking play, or a readable novel almost at will, but the divines afflatus was not in hini. He has charmed a genera- tion not uncleservedly, but future wneratiens will feel it difficult to understand wherein the charm lay. It consisted, as we have argued elsewhere, in a power of keen observation less recognisable when the subjects of observation have passed away. Personally he was popular, having many social capacities, among others that of talking, and he had a genuine feeling both for literature and its professors. He would rather have taken rank in England as Bulwer the novelist than as Lord Lytton Sec- retary of State, and always obtained therefore from literature at least his due.