_Romola_ is certainly a wonderful monument of literary accomplishments; but it remains a _tour de force_, too elaborate, too laboured, too intricate, too erudite. As the French say, it has _trop de choses_, it is too long, too full, over-costumed, too studiously mounted on the stage. We sometimes see nowadays "a Shakespearean revival," with scenery studied by eminent artists on the spot, costumes archaeologically accurate, real armour, "properties" from famous collections, a _mise-en-scene_ of lavish splendour and indefatigable research--and then we ask, how can "Hamlet" or "Lear" live up to such learning, and why is "Romeo" such a melancholy devil? Few men enjoyed the earlier portions of _Romola_ more than I did. _Italianissimo_ and _Florentissimo_ as I was, it was an intense treat. But, though I have read and re-read _Romola_ from time to time, it has always been in sections. I have never read it straight through at one time; and to this hour, I am not quite clear about all the ramifications of the plot and the various cross-purposes of the persons. Could any one say this about _Quentin Durward_ or _Ivanhoe_, or of the _Last Days of Pompeii_, or of _Esmond_ or even of _Hypatia_ or _Westward Ho!_ _Romola_, we know, tried its author most cruelly in composition, nor need we wonder at this. "I began it,", she said, "a young woman--I finished it an old woman." "It ploughed into her," said her husband, "more than any of her other books." And, in my opinion, it marks the decline of her genius. I cannot count any of the later books as equal to her earlier works. Her great period of production reaches at most over the six years 1858-1863 (aetat. 39-45), in which she produced _Scenes of Clerical Life_ (1858), _Adam Bede_ (1859), _The Mill on the Floss_ (1860), _Silas Marner_ (1861), and _Romola_ (1863). If we measure by strict success in the highest art, this period should not be extended beyond the four years which closed with _Silas Marner_. _Romola_ is an ambitious, beautiful, altogether noble essay to fly skyward like Icarus, whose ingenious mechanism was melted by the sunlight in mid-career. And I cannot count any of the later pieces, prose or verse, as anything but inferior to _Romola_. They have great beauties, fine passages, subtle characters, and high conceptions--but they are the artificial products of a brain that showed symptoms of exhaustion, of a great writer who was striving after impossible tasks without freedom and without enjoyment.