d it with pleasure or profit.
In a word, _Romola_ is a great moral study and a very interesting book; but
the characters are not Italian, and the novel as a whole lacks the strong
reality which marks George Eliot's English studies.

MINOR NOVELISTS OF THE VICTORIAN AGE

In the three great novelists just considered we have an epitome of the
fiction of the age, Dickens using the novel to solve social problems,
Thackeray to paint the life of society as he saw it, and George Eliot to
teach the fundamental principles of morality. The influence of these three
writers is reflected in all the minor novelists of the Victorian Age. Thus,
Dickens is reflected in Charles Reade, Thackeray in Anthony Trollope and
the Bronte sisters, and George Eliot's psychology finds artistic expression
in George Meredith. To these social and moral and realistic studies we
should add the element of romance, from which few of our modern novelist's
can long escape. The nineteenth century, which began with the romanticism
of Walter Scott, returns to its first love, like a man glad to be home, in
its delight over Blackmore's _Lorna Doone_ and the romances of Robert Louis
Stevenson.

CHARLES READE. In his fondness for stage effects, for picturing the
romantic side of common life, and for using the novel as the instrument of
social reform, there is a strong suggestion of Dickens in the work of
Charles Reade (1814-1884). Thus his _Peg Woffington_ is a study of stage
life from behind the scenes; _A Terrible Temptation_ is a study of social
reforms and reformers; and _Put yourself in his Place_ is the picture of a
workingman who struggles against the injustice of the trades unions. His
masterpiece, _The Cloister and the Hearth_ (1861), one of our best
historical novels, is a somewhat laborious study of student and vagabond
life in Europe in the days of the German Renaissance. It has small
resemblance to George Eliot's _Romola_, whose scene is laid in Italy during
the same period; but the two works may well be read in succession, as the
efforts of two very different novelists of the same period to restore the
life of an age long past.

ANTHONY TROLLOPE. In his realism, and especially in his conception of the
novel as the entertainment of an idle hour, Trollope (1815-1882) is a
reflection of Thackeray. It would be hard to find a better duplicate of
Becky Sharp, the heroine of _Vanity Fair_, for instance, than is found in
Lizzie Eustace, the heroine of _Th