BOOKS.

THE FIRST EARL OF LYTTON.*

" WHO now reads Bolingbroke P " wrote the ingenious Mr. Burke; and a similar question might be asked concerning "Owen Meredith," whose very name and identity have descended—to follow up the quotation—" to the family vault of 'all the Capulets.' " Yet there was a time, not so far distant, when the author of The Wanderer was hailed in discerning circles, and still more by men and women who had loved unhappily, as a new luminary which threatened to eclipse the idols of mid-Victorian worship. And even to-day in the inner drawer of some locked davenport may be found, resting by the side of a tress of hair or a faded sprig of heather, a volume of Robert Lytton's early poems. From the dawn of a precocious boyhood to the closing scene in the Embassy at Paris, literature, art, poetry were the ruling passion of his existence. And when the end came with merciful swiftness his pen was literally in his hand,—" be was actually writing a line of a new poem when an arterial clot passed from the heart to the brain." The idea that such tastes should be combined with an endless capacity for hard routine work, with an innate power of overcoming difficulties, with a bounti- ful store of practical sagacity, and with a courage which no danger could daunt is foreign to our insular notions. Both during his lifetime and after his death Lord Lytton's claims to recognition as a serious man of affairs have had to contend with an almost invincible prejudice, and his daughter's appeal for a saner and more generous judgment will be received with no ordinary sympathy.

Edward Robert Lytton, to give him his full baptismal name, was born on November 8th, 1831. He received a desultory education at private schools and under tutors, including three years at Harrow, which he would never consent to regard as entirely wasted ; his happiest time was spent imbibing German at Bonn. While his future career was still un- certain, it was clinched by an offer from his uncle, Sir Henry Bulwer, afterwards Lord Dalling, to join him at Washington as an unpaid attache. His father consented reluctantly, and before be was nineteen he had sailed for the United States. "He was destined never again to live in his own country, except for a few holiday months, until be reached the age of fifty." Florence, Paris, the Hague, Vienna, Copenhagen, Athens, Lisbon, Madrid, were all in turn his homes; the roving life, the ever-changing society, the companionship with men and women of every nationality, gave him a singularly detached outlook, though nothing ever robbed him of his love for England. He worked hard and be enjoyed his profession, but he was far from happy ; narrow means and a succession of unfortunate love affairs kept him perpetually on the rack ; he suffered from a great loneliness, and books and friendship were his main solace. While still a child he had been befriended by John Forster, who then occupied Mr. Tulkinghorn's chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Here the little schoolboy would arrive in his holidays, "sometimes with scarcely enough clothing, or proper shoes to his feet. Mr. Forster would supply these deficiencies, and then take him to see Macready at the Haymarket (for be already had an enthusiasm for the stage), or to dine with Dickens, or to share the bachelor dinners in Forster's own rooms." Lytton's affection for that " harbitrary gent" never faltered, and it was amply returned. His time in Italy brought him into relations of the closest intimacy with the Brownings ; from both of them he encountered sympathy and encourage- ment in his literary ambitions, and the death of the poetess deprived him of "a most dear true friend; a lovelier life never went bank to God." On Robert Browning, consciously or unconsciously, he moulded his style to a fatal extent. "Browning has never been reproduced so well," wrote Dr. Garnett, "but reproduction it is." And unhappily, for

• Personal and Literary Litton. of Robert, First Earl of Lytton. Edited by Lady Betty Balfour. With Portraits. 2 vols. London : Lougmana and Co. [213, net,1

reasons which are only hinted at, the friendship of the two Roberts did not long survive Mrs. Browning's death. They drifted apart. "I can never again love him," wrote Lytton, "as I once loved, trust him as I once trusted ; with me it can never be 'glad confident morning again ' "; and he was wont to express himself in highly disparaging terms of

"The Ring and the Book," and the whole mass of Browning's later verse.

His marriage in 1864 to Miss Edith Villiers, a niece of

Lord Clarendon, dissipated for ever his melancholy and moodiness, and gave him at last an assured domestic happi- ness; and he was gradually acquiring high reputation in his profession. He first attracted the attention of his superiors by some valuable commercial reports on the resources of Servia,—a strange beginning for a poet. But more stirring experiences were not lacking. He was at Copenhagen during the iniquitous war which ended with the capture of Diippel and the bombardment of Sonderborg ; and be was at Perla during those eventful years after the war of 1870 when Bismarck was "just playing with this unhappy country as a cat plays with a mouse before eating it." His appoint- ment to the Lisbon Legation in 1875 seemed to crown his official career. His father was dead, be was lord of Knebwortb, and "his future was filled with dreams of fame as a man of letters. He neither desired nor expected any higher public position in the service of his country."

Suddenly, on the last day of November, came the amazing invitation to succeed Lord Northbrook as Viceroy of India. In Lytton's own words, no man was ever so greatly or surprisingly honoured, though in the previous year he had declined the post of Governor of Madras. He replied in a letter of qualified acceptance that he was bound to assume

that his "absolute ignorance of every fact and question concerning India, as well as my total want of experience in every kind of administrative business," bad been fully taken

into account. A telegram assured him that the Cabinet were unchanged in their opinion.

Lytton was by no means a had administrator ; his faults in India were of another sort. We cannot here discuss the frontier policy or any of the vexed questions of the years 1876-80. Lord Lytton's memory has gradually been cleared from the obloquy which gathered round it in Midlothian and elsewhere. We have learnt much and can see much which it was impossible for the critics of a quarter of a century ago to guess at. But, questions of policy apart, his Viceroyalty can hardly be regarded as a success. He won the passionate attachment of all his immediate circle, the secretaries, the

aides-de-camp, the soldiers, and the civilians whom he trusted, men like Sir George Colley and Sir John Strachey ; but Anglo-Indian society was never reconciled to him. Uncon- ventionality in small things and in great was among his most

strongly marked characteristics. Etiquette and red-tape regulate, or ought to regulate, every hour of a Viceroy's existence. Lytton kicked, and suffered; and it should be remembered that his knowledge of English ways and the ordinary English type of mind was not much more extensive

than his acquaintance with India as defined by himself. A cosmopolitan to the core, he was steeped in the somewhat exaggerated courtesies of Southern Europe, which accorded ill with sudden and unexpected assertions of his dignity as the Queen's representative. And in India Mrs. Candour and Mrs. Grundy between them can wear out the longest day. A cloud of lying stories of untraceable parentage passed from the

Indian newspapers to the Press at home, and prepared the way for the ferocious outburst with which the inception and the disasters of the Afghan War were greeted.

Writing from Cintra in March, 1866, Lytton had inveighed against the " chivalry " which "would defend against justice, humanity, and common sense, woman-flogging and man- murdering Governor Eyre." These cruel words were to have their Nemesis. In a letter to the Queen on resigning office he complains that-

" Lord Hartington had twice declared in Parliament his opinion that I was personally, as well as politically, unfit to exercise that high function, being 'everything which a Viceroy ought not to be' ; that Mr. Gladstone had publicly imputed to me financial dishonesty, trickery, treachery, tyranny, and cruelty ; that the Duke of Argyll, in a more elaborate indictment: had charged me with a deliberate desire to shed blood, systematic fraud, violence, and inveracity of the vilest kind."

What the rabble said had best be left in oblivion. Under

Lytton to realise at its full worth, as he might not otherwise athering the t

have done, the warm heart and rugged loyalty of Sir James policy in Afghanistan had largely contributed to the downfall insul parodies of the religious and civil ceremonials of his political friends at home. To the end misfortune proper on a Royal accession, the Emperor called for a horse that he might take a gallop across country, afterwards, in the pursued him ; an extraordinary financial muddle in the military department gave fresh occasion for his enemies to middle of the night, ringing up poor Bertrand and the blaspheme, and before he landed in England he had learnt the

news of our defeat at Maiwand. From his place in the House He told that amazed official that he would breakfast with him adminis-

of Lords he made an eloquent defence of his Indian at nine next morning, and afterwards be conducted round the tration, followed up by an attack on the Gladstonian Ministry famous works,—an arrangement entailing a start at 5 a.m. for the evacuation of Kandahar. It seemed that a political The inspection of the mines and works concluded, the new career might be opening for him in his native land ; but he bad Sovereign, escorted by Colonel Campbell and a numerous suite, made a complete tour of his island, examining all the little sympathy with party warfare, and after a few admirable forts, " often walking for ten hours under heat that would speeches—one of them, which Lady Betty Balfour does not have felled an ox," and giving orders right and left for mention, being delivered to the Chatham and Canning Clubs at immediate work, the annexation of an adjacent islet included. Oxford—he gradually withdrew from the arena. For the first Ferrajo, and time he could taste the joys of English country life, and there, Next, by altering two small houses in Porto pulling down certain sheds and windmills, he contrived to con- writing poetry and rejoicing in the companionship of his wife and children, the days fleeted happily and carelessly. He was coct a miniature Tuileries, drawing all the plans himself, and moving into that so-called Mulini " Palace " (a residence really fated, however, to die in harness. In 1888 Lord Salisbury sent fitted for a shopkeeper's family !) before the plaster and paint him, in succession to Lord Lyons, to the Paris Embassy, where these proceedings ran the erection of he died somewhat suddenly on November 24th, 1891, a few days were dry. Parallel to of San Martino and town stabling for after reaching the age of sixty. It was an office for which he the country residence make room for an was admirably fitted, and its duties were admirably die- the Emperor's chargers, while the harbour was cleansed and charged. In English society be disliked "the absence of any enlarged, and a church knocked down to sort of impromptu element" ; at Paris he was thoroughly at opera-house which was completed in three months. Mean- home, and, like Charles Townshend, he hit the Parisians

between wind and water ! His esprit was undeniable ; he was judicial, and financial administration, and, of course, an as much in his element with the poets and the novelists, the Admiralty. Mr. Haldane should study our author's record of the Elban War Office : how, dispensing with "ideas," the ruler actors, the savants, and the artists, as with the statesmen of

kept his army corps of fifteen hundred and ninety-two soldiers the Third Republic. Lord Salisbury considered him one of the best Ambassadors of his time. (a third of them veterans of his Old Guard, sent him conformably If we have not quoted more freely from these delightful with the agreements of Fontainebleau) always ready to meet a raid ; how, again, the garrisons were strengthened, new citadels letters, it is because selection is so difficult. They deserve a place on the shelf sold, and, in fine, technical instruction provided for young and of his best to his friends ; his worst detractors acknow- ledged that he had no equal as a writer of despatches, and his ta works of art. We doubt whether tein all her long reign Queen Victoria had ever known a correspondent so entertaining or so perfect in combining amusement and information with the delicate homage of pirates :—