At first the more captious of the critics accented their discovery that "Ben-Hur" showed no rhetorical improvement over "The Fair God"; and, though they were right, they erred sadly in trying to measure the book with narrow rules. It has defects, as the most sympathetic critic must admit; but the impartial critic must also admit that in boldness and grandeur of conception and in vigor and beauty of style, the story stands unequalled in American literature, and, in parts, unexcelled in the romantic literature of any nation. Here and there are unbalanced sentences, graceless phrases, misplaced words, and interpolations that detract from the unity of effect desirable in all works of art; but here and there, too, especially in the chapters descriptive of the Grove of Daphne and of the chariot race, is a vivid power at once more charming and more thrilling than anything to be found in any other English novel. "A great historical romance," as one of our critics remarked many years ago, "is not to be made with reference to the square and the compass. It must be a vivid historical impression, and at the same time a wisely considered story of life." "Ben-Hur" adequately fulfills these two fundamental conditions. Moreover it perfectly fulfills, delicately yet impressively, the great moral purpose which the author imposed upon himself. As we recall the author's narrative of the writing of the tale, this moral purpose, beginning gently, gradually acquired a force that mastered him completely. It was like a flood that first trickles through the seam in the dam, and then, gathering in volume, sweeps all before it. The characters themselves, from Christ to the faithful steward, display the highest flight of imagination to be found in any American novel. Indeed, many of the landscape features themselves are so wonderfully vivid that the same praise awarded Tom Moore for his imaginative descriptions of the East may judiciously be extended to General Wallace. We have heard the General say that a scene which he had regarded as purely fictitious or imaginative appeared in surprising reality when, years after the book was published, he first visited Palestine.