novelty. But with the year 1826, when Edward Bulwer-Lytton, at the age
of three-and-twenty, became engaged to Rosina Doyle Wheeler, all is
positively new. The story of the marriage, separation, and subsequent
relations has never before been presented to the world with any approach
to accuracy or fulness. No biographical notices of Bulwer-Lytton even
touch on this subject, which has been hitherto abandoned to the gossip
of irresponsible contemporaries. It is true that a Miss Devey composed a
"Life of Rosina, Lady Lytton," in which the tale was told. This work was
immediately suppressed, and is inaccessible to the public; but the only
person who is known to be familiar with its contents reports that it
"contains fragments of the narrative, obviously biassed, wholly
inaccurate, and evidently misleading." So far as the general public is
concerned, Lord Lytton's impartial history of the relations between his
grandfather and his grandmother is doubtless that portion of his book
which will be regarded as the most important. I may, therefore, dwell
briefly upon his treatment of it.

The biographer, in dealing with a subject of this incalculable
difficulty, could but lay himself open to the censure of those who
dislike the revelation of the truth on any disagreeable subject. This
lion, however, stood in the middle of his path, and he had either to
wrestle with it or to turn back. Lord Lytton says in his preface that it
was necessary to tell all or nothing of the matrimonial adventures of
his grandparents, but, in reality, this was not quite the alternative,
which was to tell the truth or to withdraw from the task of writing a
Life of Bulwer-Lytton. The marriage and its results were so predominant
in the career of the man, and poisoned it so deeply to the latest hour
of his consciousness, that to attempt a biography of him without clear
reference to them would have been like telling the story of Nessus the
Centaur without mentioning the poisoned arrow of Heracles. But Lord