Gentlemen, it is not for me here to recall, after what you have
heard this night, what I have seen and known in the bygone times of
Mr. Macready's management, of the strong friendship of Sir Bulwer
Lytton for him, of the association of his pen with his earliest
successes, or of Mr. Macready's zealous and untiring services; but
it may be permitted me to say what, in any public mention of him I
can never repress, that in the path we both tread I have uniformly
found him from the first the most generous of men; quick to
encourage, slow to disparage, ever anxious to assert the order of
which he is so great an ornament; never condescending to shuffle it
off, and leave it outside state rooms, as a Mussulman might leave
his slippers outside a mosque.
There is a popular prejudice, a kind of superstition to the effect
that authors are not a particularly united body, that they are not
invariably and inseparably attached to each other. I am afraid I
must concede half-a-grain or so of truth I to that superstition;
but this I know, that there can hardly be--that there hardly can
have been--among the followers of literature, a man of more high
standing farther above these little grudging jealousies, which do
sometimes disparage its brightness, than Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton.
And I have the strongest reason just at present to bear my
testimony to his great consideration for those evils which are
sometimes unfortunately attendant upon it, though not on him.
Pages:
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284