The fact that has led me to a belief in the fundamental equality between the worth of _Romola_ as a moral argument and its value as a work of art, is the fact that in each character it seems to me essentially prosaic. The excellence both of the spirit and of the execution of the book is emphatically an obvious excellence. They make no demand upon the imagination of the reader. It is true of both of them that he who runs may read them. It may excite surprise that I should intimate that George Eliot is deficient in imagination; but I believe that I am right in so doing. Very readable novels have been written without imagination; and as compared with writers who, like Mr. Trollope, are totally destitute of the faculty, George Eliot may be said to be richly endowed with it. But as compared with writers whom we are tempted to call decidedly imaginative, she must, in my opinion, content herself with the very solid distinction of being exclusively an observer. In confirmation of this I would suggest a comparison of those chapters in _Adam Bede_ which treat of Hetty's flight and wanderings, and those of Miss Bronté's _Jane Eyre_ which describe the heroine's escape from Rochester's house and subsequent perambulations. The former are throughout admirable prose; the latter are in portions very good poetry. One word more. Of all the impressions--and they are numerous--which a reperusal of George Eliot's writings has given me, I find the strongest to be this: that (with all deference to _Felix Holt, the Radical_) the author is in morals and æsthetics essentially a conservative. In morals her problems are still the old, passive problems. I use the word "old" with all respect. What moves her most is the idea of a conscience harassed by the memory of slighted obligations. Unless in the case of Savonarola, she has made no attempt to depict a conscience taking upon itself great and novel responsibilities. In her last work, assuredly such an attempt was--considering the title--conspicuous by its absence. Of a corresponding tendency in the second department of her literary character,--or perhaps I should say in a certain middle field where morals and æsthetics move in concert,--it is very difficult to give an example. A tolerably good one is furnished by her inclination to compromise with the old tradition--and here I use the word "old" _without_ respect--which exacts that a serious story of manners shall close with the factitious happiness of a fairy-tale. I know few things more irritating in a literary way than each of her final chapters,--for even in _The Mill on the Floss_ there is a fatal "Conclusion." Both as an artist and a thinker, in other words, our author is an optimist; and although a conservative is not necessarily an optimist, I think an optimist is pretty likely to be a conservative. ON A DRAMA OF MR. BROWNING