SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF BULWER LYTTON.

Otago Witness, Issue 2004, 21 July 1892, Page 39

SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF BULWER LYTTON.

Dickens gave me an introduction to Lord Lytton, then Sir Edward Bulwer, who asked me to stay with him at Kaebv/orth in the summer of 1801. The grounds of Knebworth are lovely, and the house itself is beautifully proportioned; but it is disfigured to my mind by heraldic monstrosities, and a strange jumble of Wardour street fuaniture. Lytton himself used to go about all day in the most wonderful old clothes. He stooped very much, and in his frayed untidy suit looked at least 70 years old.

At dinner time, however, a wonderful change took place in him. It was as though he had taken a draught of some elixir.

He appeared in evening dress as spruce as possible, and seemed to have left about 20 years of his age in his bedroom with his ancient garments. During dinner he was animated and most interesting. His wine was claret, a bottle of which stood beside him, and as soon as experience bad taught me that this bottle contained the only wine which was good to drink, I contrived to make him shaie it with me. Immediately after dinner he smoked a large chibouk. We then used to adjourn to the library, a noble room containing fine family portraits. Our host's conversation was most fascinating. In a large party his deafness prevented him from joining freely in the general conversation, but in the midst of a few friends willing and eager to listen, no talk could have equalled his. He was essentially what I call a monologist, but Dickens, the only man who perhaps could have disputed tho supremacy with him, used to call him the greatest conversationalist of the age. At about 11 o'clock the power of the elixir 3eemed to wane ; he became again a bent old man, his talk flagged, and he faded away from us to his bed roam, where it may be he sat down to work, for he was the most industrious of men, and was said often to write half the night through. I find in a letter 1 wrote at tho time the following description of my experiences : — " ... In fine weather this place would be a paradise. As it is, we are in a very fine old house full of curiosities, a splendid libiary, and Sir Edward B. Lyttcn. Yesterday it rained mercilesslj all day ; we read, talked, Bhiveied, ate, and drank. After dinner Sir Edward was very entertaining: He passed all the principal orators of both Houses in review— Derby, the late Earl Grey, Bright, Disraeli, and Gladstone. Ho gave us his opinion of Louis Napoleon, anecdotes of Madame de Stael, Kichard Owen, Fourierism, and an account of his experiences at Cannes with Lord Brougham, which would have made you die of laughing. Then suddenly he burst out into a splendid recitation of Scott's ' Young Lochinvar.' tie thought the 'Woman in White' great trash, and 'Great Expectations ' so far Dickens best novel. He cannot read Tennyson. After a course of Emerson's ' Conduct of Life,' and some other philosophical writer whose name I forget, he happened to read, Goethe, and felt like a man escaping from a black hole into pure air. Ho said he was constantly impressed with the wonderful universality of the Gc-rmanp, and in particular was amazed at Schiller's knowledge of history, philosophy, and all manner of studies which to Byion, for instance, were a sealed book. " Round the banqaetinej hall, high up, runs the following inscription :—: — Read the Rede of this old Roof-tree. Here be Trust Fast, Opinion free, Knightly Right Hand, Christian Knee, Worth in all, Wit in some, Laughter open, Slander dumb. Hearth where rooted Friendships grow, safe as Altar even to Foe. And ye Sparks that upward go, when the Hearth flame dies below ; If thy sap in these may be, fear no winter, old Root-tree." Lytton had a curious drawling manner of speech, his words being interspersed with frequent " err-as " to help him out when he was waiting for the proper word. Then, again, he would emphasise a sentence or a single word bj loudly raising his voice, a peculiarity which gave bis talk a ceitain dramatic character. I remember once, when I was dining with him en petit comi f e, the conversation turned upon the universality of belief In a Divine Creator, and even now I fancy I hear him saying: — "When — err-a — I had the honour — err-a— of becoming her Majesty's Secretary of State for the colonies, I made it my first business — err-a — to instruct my agents all over the habitable globe — err-a — to report to me if they knew of any nation, tribe, or community — err-a;" thus far he had spoken in a low melodious voice, then suddenly he changed his register, and shot out the following wor3s as from a catapult, " mho did, not believe in a God." He added that he had only found one savage community with such a want of belief. In the garden at '.Knebworth he was fond of pointing out the tfee under which " young Robert" (the late Earl Lytton) wrote hia poetry. He was always buying and selling houses in town or places in the country. — Oornhill Magazine.