itting down before the thing
with tools and dynamite like burglars at a safe; of mustering crucibles
and reagents like assayers at some doubtful and recalcitrant piece of
ore. Now these not very adept defenders of Mr. Meredith seem to assert
that these processes are desirable in any case, and necessary in his. As
a matter of fact the necessity is not omnipresent: but it is present far
too frequently. It is the first duty of the novelist to "let himself be
read"--anything else that he gives you is a _bonus_, a trimming, a
dessert.

It is not unamusing to those who regarded Mr. Meredith during almost his
whole career with those mingled feelings of the highest admiration and
of critical reserve which this notice has endeavoured to express, to
note a new phase which seems to be coming over the youngest criticism.
The original want of appreciation has passed, never, one may hope, to
return; and the middle _engouement_, which was mainly engineered by
those doughty partisans, Mr. Stevenson and Mr. Henley, is passing
likewise. But the most competent and generous juniors seem to be a
little uncomfortable, to have to take a good deal on trust, and not
quite to "like the security." To those who know the history of critical
opinion these signs speak pretty clearly, though not so as to authorise
them to anticipate the final judgment absolutely. Genius, all but of the
highest, can hardly be denied to Mr. Meredith: but it is genius marred,
perhaps by unfortunate education, certainly by undue egotism, by a
certain Celtic _tapage_, and by a too painful and elaborate endeavour to
be unlike other people.

A very interesting subject for examination from the present point of
view is Mr. Blackmore, because, on the one hand there is complete
_parrhesia_, and on the other (here at least) enthusiastic admiration.
Few of our modern novelists have combined so much scholarship with so
much command of mother wit and racy English, so much close study of
minor character and local speech with such wealth of romantic fancy;
such a thorough observance of "good form" with so complete a freedom
from priggishness and prudery. To this day there are lively
controversies whether he worked up the Doone story from local tradition
or made it "out of his own head." But whichever he did (and the present
historian owns that he cares very little about the point) the way in
which he has turned a striking, but not extraordinary, and certainly not
very extensive West