Novel_ and _The Caxtons_ such eulogy as had never been spared for the
writings of Thackeray or Carlyle. Matthew Arnold appeared to
Bulwer-Lytton to have "brought together all that is most modern in
sentiment, with all that is most scholastic in thought and language."
Arnold was a guest at Knebworth, and brought the Duke of Genoa with him.
He liked Bulwer-Lytton, and their relations became very cordial and
lasted for some years; Arnold has given an amusing, but very
sympathetic, account of the dignified hospitalities of Knebworth.

No revelation in Lord Lytton's volumes is, however, more pleasing or
more unexpected than his grandfather's correspondence with Swinburne. It
is thought that he heard of him through Monckton Milnes; at all events,
he was an early reader of _Atalanta in Calydon_. When, in 1866, all the
furies of the Press fell shrieking on _Poems and Ballads_, Bulwer-Lytton
took a very generous step. He wrote to Swinburne, expressing his
sympathy and begging him to be calm. The young poet was extremely
touched, and took occasion to beg the elder writer for his advice, the
publisher having, without consulting him, withdrawn his volume from
sale. Bulwer-Lytton's reply was a most cordial invitation to stay with
him at Knebworth and talk the matter over. Swinburne gratefully
accepted, and John Forster was asked to meet him. It was Bulwer-Lytton,
it appears, who found another publisher for the outraged volume, and
helped Swinburne out of the scrape. He was always kindness itself if an
appeal was made to his protection, and to his sense of justice. However,
pleasant as the visit to Knebworth was, there is no evidence that it was
repeated. Bulwer-Lytton considered Swinburne's opinions preposterous,
and indeed if he told Swinburne, as in 1869 he told his son Robert, that
Victor Hugo was "but an epileptic dwarf in a state of galvanism," there
must have been wigs on the green at Knebworth.