wife entered. He dared not look up at her. He sat with his eyes bent down, and as she went towards him she thought he looked smaller-he seemed so withered and shrunken. A movement of new compassion and old tenderness went through her like a great wave, and putting one hand on his which rested on the arm of the chair, and the other on his shoulder, she said, solemnly but kindly

""Look up, Nicholas."

'He raised his eyes with a little start and looked at her half amazed for a moment: her pale face, her changed, mourning dress, the trembling about her mouth, all said, "I know; and her hands and eyes rested gently on him. He burst out crying and they cried together, she sitting at his side. They could not yet speak to each other of the shame which she was bearing with him, or of the acts which had brought it down on them. His confession was silent, and her promise of faithfulness was silent. Open-minded as she was, she nevertheless shrank from the words which would have expressed their mutual consciousness, as she would have shrunk from flakes of fire. She could not say, "How much is only slander and false suspicion?" and he did not say, "I am innocent."

In contrast to the ostentatious religionist George Eliot does not fail to produce some of those ecclesiastical portraits of which, notwithstanding all the fun and tragedy that Mr. Trollope has found in the Church of England, his own early Studies of Clerical Life remain the prime examples. Mr. Farebrother, whose love of whist, which in the old time would have been a diversion especially adapted to his profession, is his only failing -and Mrs. Cadwallader, whose witty gossip is seasoned by her position of rightful critic of the morals of her neighbours, force upon us the contrast of the sad prospect of the dead clerical level which the special pieties and envious politics of the time are preparing for us, when the clergyman will cease to be a member of good society, not so much from any defects of nature or education as from a supposed incompatibility between general interests and special duties-between a recognised social 'status' and an indefinite spiritual claim. From the great Vicar' downwards the varieties of our national Church have produced delineations we should be sorry to have lost, nor would we exclude Parson Adams from the procession, though as little of a gentleman as many of our reformers would now desire a Christian Minister to be.

Mr. Garth is a notable compensation for the series of fraudulent and heartless agents who have ruined the noble and genteel families of so many British fictions; even our fault-finding author lets him go untouched. The simplicity of his motives and domesticity as distinct from those of the bourgeoisie,' though with no great apparent difference of position, and the disap

pointment of the manufacturer, who believes in the gentility of the clerical profession as contrasted with that of the farmmanager, are very finely touched, leaving the impression that, if the bettermost human nature is to be looked for, the search should be rather in the direction of the country than in that of the town, notwithstanding that the close-fisted farmer and rural ignorance have their proper place in our history. Now that everybody grumbles if they have not a railway station at their park gates, and rent depends as much on means of communication as on the fertility of the soil, the following dialogue is a useful reminder of the times when Charles Austin and Serjeant Wrangham fought, as might be, for or against the landowner or the Company, as for dear life-when a parliamentary committee lasted for a session and cost as much as an Autumnal Manœuvre.

"But come, you didn't mean any harm. Somebody told you the railway was a bad thing. That was a lie. It may do a bit of harm here and there, to this and to that; and so does the sun in heaven. But the railway's a good thing."

"Aw! good for the big folks to make money out on," said old Timothy Cooper, who had stayed behind turning his hay while the others had been gone on their spree ;-"I'n seen lots o' things turn up sin' I war a young un-the war an' the peace, and the canells, an' the oald King George, an' the Regen', an' the new King George, an' the new un as has got a new ne-ame-an' it's been all aloike to the poor mon. What's the canells been t' him? They 'n brought him neyther me-at nor be-acon, nor wage to lay by, if he didn't save it wi' clemmin' his own inside. Times ha' got wusser for him sin' I war a young un. An' so it'll be wi' the railroads. They'll on'y leave the poor mon furder behind. But them are fools as meddle, and so I told the chaps here. This is the big folks's world, this is. But yo're for the big folks, Muster Garth, yo are."

We have allowed ourselves to use the words Hero and Heroine in connexion with Lydgate and Dorothea; but, in seriousness, this story has neither the one nor the other. In different hands Lydgate would have been the greater man, uncomprehended, and though, perhaps, misunderstood to the last, and failing to realise his ideal, he would have had his glory and success in some brilliant martyrdom. But that is not George Eliot's estimate of the providential management of the world, and, though it would have been more consonant to the rules of fiction, it is not the business of the historian of the hearts and minds of men to make it so. Thus the Philosopher who is ready to do battle with all prejudice for the truth of science, and make every sacrifice to raise the dignity of his calling, loses not only the appropriate field of action which he has made, but with it the van

tage-ground of pure and high repute, from which alone he could
attack and conquer. The hopes and aims of his being come to
nothing through a combination of small incidents and unwise
connexions, and he passes away to an obscure station and a pre-
mature death, leaving behind him the author of his calamities to
find her appropriate satisfaction on an inferior level of existence.
Thus, again, the sweet sad Enthusiast with whom the first pages
are occupied, and in whose career, as seen in the foreshadow-
ings of life, we look forward to some such lofty and historic
presence as that which still shines over the
cypresses of Scutari
and the arid Crimean hills, where-

'The loving heart of Woman rose
To guide the hand and clear the eye,
Gave life amid the sternest woes,

And saved what Man had left to die;'

this Dorothea-to whom the love of the Beautiful itself is but a form of selfish delight and Culture useless without the Passion of Humanity -yields to the common charms of personal affection, and makes the graceful and pleasant Artist the lord of her future.

6

This realistic treatment of human aspirations and illusions must recall to every one familiar with European literature the images of disappointment and despair with which Balzac has peopled the imagination of our times. But, as in the person of Felix Holt,' and the Compagnon du Tour de France,' we are far more conscious of the discrepancies than of the resemblances between the artisan of George Eliot and the ouvrier' of George Sand, so here we feel that the satirical eos of the writers is very distinct. They are both sad chroniclers of the weakness of our race-both, either from love of truth or pride in a higher intuition, have a pleasure in raising aloft the hopes and feelings of mankind, and then leaving them to themselves, to find their end just as they would in the pitiless and inconstant world, with little for the novelist to preach about, but with much for the tears of women and gentler thoughts of men. But while in Balzac there is ever the diabolic consciousness of the corruptions of the world, at once casting a glamour over evil in the minds of others and vindicating it in our own, George Eliot and George Sand are inspired with a generous pity for their own creations, and whilst they punish are content to do their best to pardon.

An eminent French writer has remarked that the English, in society and conversation the most taciturn of people, are in their novels the most interminably garrulous, and that even Walter Scott is not an exception. This is undoubtedly true, and a curious essay might be written on the employment of

Dialogue in our fiction, where almost every important writer makes his own use of it either in developing plot or character. In George Eliot's hands it tends little to advance the narrative, but it is often made the vehicle of the deepest passion and the best wit, and it could rarely be shortened without damage to the effect of the whole. Yet some of his characters will dwell in the memory of thousands by what they are here made to say, and it is astonishing how little it is. Mrs. Poyser's deliverances were not large, and Mrs. Dollop's, and Mrs. Waule's (what excellent names!) are still fewer, but they are equally delightful. The former lady's views of two of the learned professions are so satisfactory that her rare appearance on the scene excites the hope that-like those of the Trollope personages-they are only deferred to a future narrative.

First, of the Law:

"Don't they say as there's somebody can strip it off him? By what I can understan', they could take every penny off him, if they went to lawing."

"No such thing!" said the barber, who felt himself a little above his company at Dollop's, but liked it none the worse. "Fletcher says it's no such thing. He says they might prove over and over again whose child this young Ladislaw was, and they'd do no more than if they proved I came out of the Fens-he couldn't touch a penny."

Look you there, now!" said Mrs. Dollop, indignantly. "I thank the Lord He took my children to Himself, if that's all the law can do for the motherless. Then by that, it's o' no use who your father and mother is. But as to listening to what one lawyer says without asking another--I wonder at a man o' your cleverness, Mr. Dill. It's well known there's always two sides, if no more; else who'd go to law, I should like to know? It's a poor tale, with all the law as there is up and down, if it's no use proving whose child you are. Fletcher may say that if he likes, but I say, don't Fletcher me!"'

Then of the Medical Profession:

6.66

Why shouldn't they dig the man up, and have the Crowner?" said the dyer. "It's been done many and many's the time. If there's been foul play they might find it out."

And

"Not they, Mr. Jonas!" said Mrs. Dollop, emphatically. "I know what doctors are. They're a deal too cunning to be found out. this Doctor Lydgate that's been for cutting up everybody before the breath was well out o' their body-it's plain enough what use he wanted to make o' looking into respectable people's insides. He knows drugs, you may be sure, as you can neither smell nor see, neither before they're swallowed nor after. Why, I've seen drops myself ordered by Doctor Gambit, as is our club doctor and a good charikter, and has brought more live children into the world nor ever another i' Middlemarch-I say I've seen drops myself as made no difference whether they was in the glass or not, and yet have griped you the next day. So I'll

leave your own sense to judge. Don't tell me! mercy they didn't take this Doctor Lydgate on to many a mother's child might ha' rued it."'

All I say is, it's a our club. There's

Nor is what might be called the 'genteel comedy' of the piece overdone, although there is no more serious temptation to a writer than to produce to superfluity a character which combines oddities of speech and manner with weak and ludicrous points of character. Mr. Brooke's combination of some real information and pretension to universal knowledge with an invincible dullness that makes the true relations and meanings. of all things and persons about him absolutely void to his intelligence, is so amusingly drawn in itself that it hardly required to be brought to the hard test of a popular Election: there is something cruel in exposing those confused and amiable intentions to the brutal realities of political life, and t› make him pelted off the hustings by a mob as stupid, and not as benevolent, as himself.

But there are scenes of supreme emotion which seem to us masterpieces of concentrated power. The first declaration of Ladislaw's passion-the thunder-storm without and withinwill at once suggest itself to the reader; but to us the explanation between Dorothea and Rosamond is unsurpassed for the vividness of inner life shining through the most delicate and perfect words. This is the situation, in itself a stroke of genius.

Dorothea (Mrs. Casaubon) secretly and proudly loves Will Ladislaw she visits Rosamond (Mrs. Lydgate), and discovers them in passionate and lover-like conversation. Influenced, as she believes, with the sole motive of saving Rosamond from her imprudence, she determines to see her again the day after, and try to bring her back to love and loyalty to her husband. The two women treat one another with distrust, and desire to keep apart, but some strange sense of mutual sorrow makes them sit down on the chairs that happen to be nearest, and, once close together, Dorothea speaks of the injustice done to Mr. Lydgate how she has, to a great degree, succeeded in removing the unhappy impressions concerning him: she then pleads earnestly to Rosamond to forget any faults of her husband towards her in his great trouble, adding that he would have borne it all the better if he had been able to be quite open with her.

"Tertius is so angry and impatient if I say anything," said Rosamond, imagining that he had been complaining of her to Dorothea. “He ought not to wonder that I object to speak to him on painful subjects."