haracters,
its ideal dairy, the fertile stretches of meadow lands, the squire's
birthday party, the harvest supper, and the sweet Methodist woman
preaching on the green.

_The Mill on the Floss_ also gives a fine picture of village life.
This novel is one of George Eliot's most earnest productions. She
exhibits one side of her own intense, brooding girlhood, in the
passionate heroine, Maggie Tulliver. There is in this tragic story a
wonderfully subtle revelation of a young nature, which is morbid,
ambitious, quick of intellect, and strong of will, and which has no
hand firm enough to serve as guide at the critical period of her life.

_Silas Marner_, artistically considered, is George Eliot's
masterpiece. In addition to the ruddy glow of life in the characters,
there is an idyllic beauty about the pastoral setting, and a poetic,
half mystic charm about the weaver's manner of connecting his gold
with his bright-haired Eppie. The slight plot is well planned and
rounded, and the narrative is remarkable for ease and simplicity.

_Romola_ (1863) is a much bolder flight. It is an attempt to present
Florence of the fifteenth century, to contrast Savonarola's ardent
Christianity with the Greek aestheticism of the Medicis, and to show
the influence of the time upon two widely different characters, Romola
and Tito Melema. This novel is the greatest intellectual achievement
of its author; but it has neither the warmth of life, nor the vigor of
her English stories. Though no pains is spared to delineate Romola,
Tito, and the inspiring monk, Savonarola, yet they do not possess the
genuineness and reality that are felt in her Warwickshire characters.

_Middlemarch_ (1871-1872) and _Daniel Deronda_ (1876) marked the
decline of George Eliot's powers. Although she still possessed the
ability to handle dialogue, to analyze subtle complex characters, and
to attain a philosophical grasp of the problems of existence, yet her
weakening powers were shown in the length of tedious passages, in an
undue prominence of ethical purpose, in the more studied and, on the
whole, duller characters, and in the prolixity of style.

George Eliot's poetry does not bear comparison with her prose. _The
Spanish Gypsy_ (1868) is her most ambitious poem, and it contains some
fine dramatic passages. Her most beautiful poem is the hymn
beginning:--

"Oh, may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by thei