d without losing all identity. And on the other
hand, Mr. Reade, for a reason to be mentioned hereafter, is quite
incapable of borrowing characters--still using the word in its most
rigid meaning: the characters in his books are always in an emphatic
sense his own. The plot, too, and the action of the one book, bear as
little resemblance to those of the other as an exhibition of fireworks
bears to the "after-glow" of an Alpine sunset. It is, as we have said,
the "situation" which Mr. Reade has taken, and this with a palpable
purpose, as if, after reading _Middlemarch_, he had said: "Ha! here is a
good idea; but George Eliot, with her commonplace, humdrum way of
treating things, has missed the effects of which it was capable. I,
Charles Reade, who see beneath the surface, besides being a master of
pyrotechnics, will work up the theme in that flashing, whizzing,
startling, dazzling way which shall reveal its full proportions as well
as my own transcendent powers." Accordingly, while Rosamond continues to
be Rosamond throughout, each fresh exhibition of her traits only showing
their natural growth or furthering the reader's knowledge of them, Rosa
passes through the swift transformations which a "Hey, presto!" is quite
sufficient to announce. In the early part of the book she is an
embodiment of silliness, levity and selfishness--in the latter part she
is reason, self-devotion and passionate love personified. As for Dr.
Staines, there is no need of any apotheosis in his case: as the hero of
the book he must perforce be that renowned prestidigitateur whom Mr.
Reade long since presented to an admiring audience as the principal
performer in his troupe. It is needless, therefore, to say that he goes
through the programme with the highest dexterity and eclat, displaying
the marvelous knowledge, encountering the terrific dangers, achieving
the prodigies which belong to his part, without the least falling off in
vivacity or suppleness. When he finally hurls his treacherous friend
from a cottage window and impales him on the garden railings, who can
withhold the well-merited applause?

It may seem paradoxical to say of a very successful novel-writer that he
has mistaken his vocation, yet such, we think, is Mr. Reade's case. For
the novelist, as for the dramatist, an essential combination is that of
a strong individuality with an equal endowment of the imitative faculty.
This union is found, perhaps, in its perfection only in Shakes