A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Bulwer, Lady
BULWER, LADY,
Has gained an unfortunate celebrity both from unhappy family occurrences, and from the manner in which she has used her talents to avenge her real or fancied injuries. Her maiden name was Wheeler, only daughter of a respectable widow who resided in London. Miss Wheeler is represented to have been "a pale, slender, beautiful girl;" Edward Lytton Bulwer, fresh from college, saw and loved her; they were married against the wishes of his mother. The sequel is too well known to require detail; there was "incompatibility of temper"—unhappiness—separation. It was not till after this last event that Lady Bulwer became an author; we regret to say that her pen has not improved the respect we should like to entertain for one who has suffered. She is unquestionably a woman of talents; but her genius is not always well-directed. There is, throughout her works a sort of daring, a way of writing that seems like loud talking, when you are disposed to beg for less vociferation. "Chevely," her first novel, has some good scenes and fine passages, but it is a book of which we cannot approve; its tendency is wrong, its views of life unsound: still in reading it we feel disposed to make allowance; it appears like the outpourings of a sadly grieved spirit. Her next work, "The Bubble Family" is, in a literary point of view, a better book; yet it is disfigured by a coarse, sailor-like humour, such as would amuse coming from Captain Marryatt; from the pen of a lady it is sadly out of keeping. "Bianca Capello" shows great acquaintance with Italian learning, yet is rather a dull book. Lady Bulwer, however, displays so much information upon this interesting portion of Italian history, that we wonder she did not choose the simple vehicle of memoirs rather than this cumbrous romance. "The Peer's Daughters" is a later novel, and displays a minute knowledge of French history and manners, during the reign of Louis the Fifteenth. Critics have praised this work very highly. She has written other novels.