Rienzi, the Last of the Roman Tribunes by Edward Bulwer-Lytton - I began this tale two years ago at Rome. On removing to Naples, I threw it aside for 'The Last Days of Pompeii, which required more than 'Rienzi' the advantage of residence within reach of the scenes described. The fate of the Roman Tribune continued, however, to haunt and impress me, and, some time after 'Pompeii' was published, I renewed my earlier undertaking.I regarded the completion of these volumes, indeed, as a kind of duty;-for having had occasion to read the original authorities from which modern historians have drawn their accounts of the life of Rienzi, I was led to believe that a very remarkable man had been superficially judged, and a very important period crudely examined. (See Appendix, Nos. I and II.) And this belief was sufficiently strong to induce me at first to meditate a more serious work upon the life and times of Rienzi.(I have adopted the termination of Rienzi instead of Rienzo, as being more familiar to the general reader.-But the latter is perhaps the more accurate reading, since the name was a popular corruption from Lorenzo.) Various reasons concurred against this project-and I renounced the biography to commence the fiction. I have still, however, adhered, with a greater fidelity than is customary in Romance, to all the leading events of the public life of the Roman Tribune; and the Reader will perhaps find in these pages a more full and detailed account of the rise and fall of Rienzi, than in any English work of which I am aware.