moral plague spot,” which debases her into something too vile for pity or redemption! Verily, this is the squeamishness of the true ascetic who has somehow mistaken his vocation, and there will be a scant allowance of cakes and ale for any of us when it is Mr. Swinburne’s turn to be virtuous. As for the humor of George Eliot’s novels, that mysterious humor which she herself was not humorous enough to appreciate, it deserves better treatment at our hands, were it only for the sake of its valuable adaptability, were it only because it is pliant enough to fit in all the time with our own duller imaginings, and to afford a basis and an illustration for our own inadequate thoughts. From what depths of her sombre nature came those arrow-points tipped with fire, or, choicer still, those tempered shafts of reflective ridicule, which are kindly enough to win our unhesitating acquiescence? With what pleasure we are reminded that “people who live at a distance are naturally less faulty than those immediately under our own eyes, and it seems superfluous, when we consider the geographical position of the Ethiopians, and how very little the Greeks had to do with them, to inquire further why Homer calls them ‘blameless’”! Surely, to express a truth humorously is to rob that truth of all offensive qualities, and Lucian himself would be prepared to admit that, in a case like this, it is almost as pleasant as falsehood. But to beguile us into the grateful shades of fiction, as Jael beguiled Sisera into the shelter of her tent, and then, with deadly purpose, to transfix us with a truth as sharp and cruel as the nail with which Jael slew her guest, is a dastardly betrayal of confidence. When a novelist undertakes to sit in judgment upon his characters, for the sake of illustrating some moral lesson with which he has no need to concern himself, he rudely breaks the mystic web of illusion, and destroys the charm which binds us to his side. What is it that gives to “Henry Esmond” its supreme artistic value, if not the fact that Thackeray sank himself out of sight; was content for once to look at things with Esmond’s gentle eyes, to judge of things with Esmond’s tolerant soul; and forbore to whip his actors through the play like criminals at the cart-tail? On the other hand, what whimsical sense of responsibility induced Bulwer to elaborate a character like Randal Leslie, only to make of him an educational sign-post, after the approved fashion of Miss Edgeworth’s “Early Lessons”? Judged by a purely ethical standard, Randal no doubt merited his failure; judged by the standard of his ability and energy, Reynard the Fox was as little likely to fail; and though Mr. Froude tells us that “women, with their clear moral insight, have no sympathy with Reynard’s successful villainy,” yet I doubt whether we should really like to see him outwitted by a fool like Bruin, or beaten by a bully like Isegrim. He is a terrible scamp, to be sure, but the charm of the