served to establish reputations. Tennyson and Browning owed him
much in their literary career. Me, I think, he served in that way
less than any of his other friends. But, indeed, I know of no
critic to whom I have been much indebted for any position I hold in
literature. In more private matters I am greatly indebted to his
counsels. His reading is extensive. What faults he has lie on the
surface. He is sometimes bluff to rudeness. But all such faults of
manner (and they are his only ones) are but trifling inequalities
in a nature solid and valuable as a block of gold."

This was written with full experience, as the names of Tennyson and
Browning will remind us, for Bulwer-Lytton was slow to admit the value
of these younger talents. His relations with Tennyson have always been
known to be unfortunate; as they are revealed in Lord Lytton's biography
they approach the incredible. He met Browning at Covent Garden Theatre
during the Macready "revival" of the poetic stage, but it was not until
after the publication of _Men and Women_ that he became conscious of
Browning's claim, which he then very grudgingly admitted. He was
grateful to Browning for his kindness to Robert Lytton in Italy, but he
never understood his genius or his character.

What, however, we read with no less pleasure than surprise are the
evidences of Bulwer-Lytton's interest in certain authors of a later
generation, of whom the general public has never suspected him to have
been aware. Something almost like friendship sprang up as lately as 1867
between him and a man whom nobody would suppose him to admire, Matthew
Arnold. It sometimes happens that a sensitive and petulant artist finds
it more easy to acknowledge the merits of his successors than to endure
those of his immediate contemporaries. The _Essays in Criticism_ and
_The Study of Celtic Literature_ called forth from the author of _My