A Hundred Years Ago
" THE SPECTATOR," OCTOBER 18TH, 1834.
MR. E. BULWER'S " LAST DAYS OF POMPEII."
A sojourn at Naples, a visit to Pompeii, and an examination of the relics of the- buried city collected in the Neapolitan Museum, suggested to Mr. Bur.wER the idea of his work. His object was to give to the world a representation of classical life, as it appeared in the manners, amuswEents, and 'sdperatitions of the ancients. His judgment would have accomplished the task by means of a novel : his fancy or genius appears to, have better liked a romance. Hence there is a mixture of the common and the strange, the possible and the fabulous, which creates. harsh discord, rather than variety or contrast ; and it unluckily happens that the wild and wonderful form the main part of the plot. It is evident, too, that, with the excitement natural to genius, Mr: BiTLWER com- menced the attempt as soon as he conceived it, and-without more preparation than the facts of his tour and the general classical reading of an elegant scholar could supply. It may therefore be supposed that the Last Days of Pompeii is not one of Mr. BrmwEE's most successful, efforts. It is not a representation of life as it is, as it was, or even as it could have been. Neither are faults or deficiencies in the characters and manners redeemed by a well-conceived and finely-developed story; or by such a felicity of execution as would carver us "to overlook all other defects. Passages of eloquence, touches of truth and brilliancy, may of course be found : there is that peculiar turn-sometimes happy, sometimes beautiful, sometimes forcible-whieh seems the essential property of this. writer : there are also xieveral lyrical pieces scattered about, which, though not equal to the " Lament of the Last Faun," are not unworthy of the author : but the whole, when weighed in the critical balance. _will be found wanting.
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