Silas Marner is artistically the most perfect of George Eliot’s novels, and we venture to analyze it as typical of her ideals and methods.  We note first the style, which is heavy and a little self-conscious, lacking the vigor and picturesqueness of Dickens, and the grace and naturalness of Thackeray.  The characters are the common people of the Midlands, the hero being a linen weaver, a lonely outcast who hoards and gloats over his hard-earned money, is robbed, thrown into utter despair, and brought back to life and happiness by the coming of an abandoned child to his fire.  In the development of her story the author shows herself, first, a realist, by the naturalness of her characters and the minute accuracy with which she reproduces their ways and even the accents of their speech; second, a psychologist, by the continual analysis and explanation of motives; third, a moralist, by showing in each individual the action and reaction of universal moral forces, and especially by making every evil act bring inevitable punishment to the man who does it.  Tragedy, therefore, plays a large part in the story; for, according to George Eliot, tragedy and suffering walk close behind us, or lurk at every turn in the road of life.  Like all her novels, Silas Marner is depressing.  We turn away from even the wedding of Eppie—­which is just as it should be—­with a sense of sadness and incompleteness.  Finally, as we close the book, we are conscious of a powerful and enduring impression of reality.  Silas, the poor weaver; Godfrey Cass, the well-meaning, selfish man; Mr. Macey, the garrulous, and observant parish clerk; Dolly Winthrop, the kind-hearted countrywoman who cannot understand the mysteries of religion and so interprets God in terms of human love,—­these are real people, whom having once met we can never forget.

Romola has the same general moral theme as the English novels; but the scenes are entirely different, and opinion is divided as to the comparative merit of the work.  It is a study, a very profound study of moral development in one character and of moral degeneracy in another.  Its characters and its scenes are both Italian, and the action takes place during a critical period of the Renaissance movement, when Savonarola was at the height of his power in Florence.  Here is a magnificent theme and a superb background for a great novel, and George Eliot read and studied till she felt sure that she understood the place, the time, and the people of her story. Romola is therefore interesting reading, in many respects the most interesting of her works.  It has been called one of our greatest historical novels; but as such it has one grievous fault.  It is not quite true to the people or even to the locality which it endeavors to represent.  One who reads it here, in a new and different land, thinks only of the story and of the novelist’s power; but one who reads it on the spot which it describes, and amidst the life which it pictures, is continually