Devereux — Complete Read online

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  DEVEREUX

  BY

  EDWARD BULWER LYTTON (Lord Lytton)

  ADVERTISEMENT TO THE PRESENT EDITION.

  IN this edition of a work composed in early youth, I have not attemptedto remove those faults of construction which may be sufficientlyapparent in the plot, but which could not indeed be thoroughly rectifiedwithout re-writing the whole work. I can only hope that with the defectsof inexperience may be found some of the merits of frank and artlessenthusiasm. I have, however, lightened the narrative of certainepisodical and irrelevant passages, and relieved the general style ofsome boyish extravagances of diction. At the time this work was writtenI was deeply engaged in the study of metaphysics and ethics, and out ofthat study grew the character of Algernon Mordaunt. He is representedas a type of the Heroism of Christian Philosophy,--a union of love andknowledge placed in the midst of sorrow, and labouring on through thepilgrimage of life, strong in the fortitude that comes from belief inHeaven.

  KNEBWORTH, May 3, 1852.

  E. B. L.

  DEDICATORY EPISTLE

  TO

  JOHN AULDJO, ESQ., ETC.,

  AT NAPLES

  LONDON.

  MY DEAR AULDJO,--Permit me, as a memento of the pleasant hours we passedtogether, and the intimacy we formed by the winding shores and the rosyseas of the old Parthenope, to dedicate to you this romance. It waswritten in perhaps the happiest period of my literary life,--whensuccess began to brighten upon my labours, and it seemed to me a finething to make a name. Reputation, like all possessions, fairer in thehope than the reality, shone before me in the gloss of novelty; and Ihad neither felt the envy it excites, the weariness it occasions, nor(worse than all) that coarse and painful notoriety, that, somethingbetween the gossip and the slander, which attends every man whosewritings become known,--surrendering the grateful privacies of life to

  "The gaudy, babbling, and remorseless day."

  In short, yet almost a boy (for, in years at least, I was little more,when "Pelham" and "The Disowned" were conceived and composed), and fullof the sanguine arrogance of hope, I pictured to myself far greatertriumphs than it will ever be mine to achieve: and never did architectof dreams build his pyramid upon (alas!) a narrower base, or a morecrumbling soil!... Time cures us effectually of these self-conceits, andbrings us, somewhat harshly, from the gay extravagance of confoundingthe much that we design with the little that we can accomplish.

  "The Disowned" and "Devereux" were both completed in retirement, andin the midst of metaphysical studies and investigations, varied andmiscellaneous enough, if not very deeply conned. At that time I wasindeed engaged in preparing for the press a Philosophical Work whichI had afterwards the good sense to postpone to a riper age and a moresobered mind. But the effect of these studies is somewhat prejudiciallyvisible in both the romances I have referred to; and the external anddramatic colourings which belong to fiction are too often forsaken forthe inward and subtile analysis of motives, characters, and actions. Theworkman was not sufficiently master of his art to forbear the vanityof parading the wheels of the mechanism, and was too fond of callingattention to the minute and tedious operations by which the movementswere to be performed and the result obtained. I believe that an authoris generally pleased with his work less in proportion as it is good,than in proportion as it fulfils the idea with which he commenced it. Heis rarely perhaps an accurate judge how far the execution is in itselffaulty or meritorious; but he judges with tolerable success how far itaccomplishes the end and objects of the conception. He is pleased withhis work, in short, according as he can say, "This has expressed whatI meant it to convey." But the reader, who is not in the secret of theauthor's original design, usually views the work through a differentmedium; and is perhaps in this the wiser critic of the two: for the bookthat wanders the most from the idea which originated it may oftenbe better than that which is rigidly limited to the unfolding and_denouement_ of a single conception. If we accept this solution, we maybe enabled to understand why an author not unfrequently makes favouritesof some of his productions most condemned by the public. For my ownpart, I remember that "Devereux" pleased me better than "Pelham" or"The Disowned," because the execution more exactly corresponded with thedesign. It expressed with tolerable fidelity what I meant it to express.That was a happy age, my dear Auldjo, when, on finishing a work, wecould feel contented with our labour, and fancy we had done our best!Now, alas I I have learned enough of the wonders of the Art to recognizeall the deficiencies of the Disciple; and to know that no author worththe reading can ever in one single work do half of which he is capable.

  What man ever wrote anything really good who did not feel that he hadthe ability to write something better? Writing, after all, is a cold anda coarse interpreter of thought. How much of the imagination, how muchof the intellect, evaporates and is lost while we seek to embody itin words! Man made language and God the genius. Nothing short of aneternity could enable men who imagine, think, and feel, to expressall they have imagined, thought, and felt. Immortality, the spiritualdesire, is the intellectual _necessity_.

  In "Devereux" I wished to portray a man flourishing in the last centurywith the train of mind and sentiment peculiar to the present; describinga life, and not its dramatic epitome, the historical charactersintroduced are not closely woven with the main plot, like those inthe fictions of Sir Walter Scott, but are rather, like the narrativeromances of an earlier school, designed to relieve the predominantinterest, and give a greater air of truth and actuality to the supposedmemoir. It is a fiction which deals less with the Picturesque than theReal. Of the principal character thus introduced (the celebrated andgraceful, but charlatanic, Bolingbroke) I still think that my sketch,upon the whole, is substantially just. We must not judge of thepoliticians of one age by the lights of another. Happily we now demandin a statesman a desire for other aims than his own advancement; but atthat period ambition was almost universally selfish--the Statesman wasyet a Courtier--a man whose very destiny it was to intrigue, to plot, toglitter, to deceive. It is in proportion as politics have ceased to bea secret science, in proportion as courts are less to be flattered andtools to be managed, that politicians have become useful and honestmen; and the statesman now directs a people, where once he outwitted anante-chamber. Compare Bolingbroke--not with the men and by the rules ofthis day, but with the men and by the rules of the last. He will losenothing in comparison with a Walpole, with a Marlborough on the oneside,--with an Oxford or a Swift upon the other.

  And now, my dear Auldjo, you have had enough of my egotisms. As ourworks grow up,--like old parents, we grow garrulous, and love to recurto the happier days of their childhood; we talk over the pleasant painthey cost us in their rearing, and memory renews the season of dreamsand hopes; we speak of their faults as of things past, of their meritsas of things enduring: we are proud to see them still living, and, aftermany a harsh ordeal and rude assault, keeping a certain station in theworld; we hoped perhaps something better for them in their cradle, butas it is we have good cause to be contented. You, a fellow-author, andone whose spirited and charming sketches embody so much of personaladventure, and therefore so much connect themselves with associations ofreal life as well as of the studious closet; _you_ know, and must feelwith me, that these our books are a part of us, bone of our bone andflesh of our flesh! They treasure up the thoughts which stirred us, theaffections which warmed us, years ago; they are the mirrors of howmuch of what we were! To the world they are but as a certain numberof pages,--good or bad,--tedious or diverting; but to ourselves, theauthors, they are as marks in the wild maze of life by which we canretrace our steps, and be with our youth again. What would I not give tofeel as I felt, to hope as I hoped,
to believe as I believed, when thiswork was first launched upon the world! But time gives while it takesaway; and amongst its recompenses for many losses are the memories Ireferred to in commencing this letter, and gratefully revert to atits close. From the land of cloud and the life of toil, I turn to thatgolden clime and the happy indolence that so well accords with it; andhope once more, ere I die, with a companion whose knowledge canrecall the past and whose gayety can enliven the present, to visit theDisburied City of Pompeii, and see the moonlight sparkle over the wavesof Naples. Adieu, my dear Auldjo,

  And believe me, Your obliged and attached friend, E. B. LYTTON.