within his
sphere. There was, therefore, in "Jane Eyre," as the reviewer supposed,
the influence of a corrupt male mind, although this influence had been
exerted through an unsuspected medium. We now know how it was that a
clergyman's daughter, herself innocent, and honourably devoted to the
discharge of many a painful duty, could have written such a book as
"Jane Eyre" but without such explanations as Mrs. Gaskell has placed
(perhaps somewhat too unreservedly) before the world, the thing would
have been inconceivable. Indeed there is very sufficient evidence that
the Quarterly reviewer was by no means alone in entertaining the
opinions we have referred to: for the book was most vehemently cried up--
the society of the authoress, when she became known, was most eagerly
courted--assiduous attempts were made (greatly to her annoyance) to
enlist her, to exhibit her, to trade on her fame--by the very persons
who would have been most ready to welcome her if she had been such as
the reviewer supposed her to be. And it is clear that the gentleman who
introduced himself to her acquaintance on the ground that each of them
had "written a naughty book" must have drawn pretty much the same
conclusions from the tone of Miss Bronte's first novel as the writer in
this Review.

In like manner a great and remarkable departure from ordinary forms and
conditions has caused extreme uncertainty and many mistaken guesses as
to the new novelist who writes under the name of George Eliot. One
critic of considerable pretensions, for instance, declared his belief
that "George Eliot" was "a gentleman of high-church tendencies"; next
came the strange mystification which ascribed the "Eliot" tales to one
Mr. Joseph Liggins; and finally, the public learnt on authority that the
"gentleman of high church tendencies" was a lady; and that this lady was
the same who had given a remarkable proof of mastery over both the
German language and her own, but had certainly not established a
reputation for orthodoxy, by a translation of Strauss's "Life of Jesus."

It is now too late to claim credit for having discovered the female
authorship before this disclosure of the fact. But it seems to us
impossible, when once the idea has been suggested, to read through these
books without finding confirmation of it in almost every page. There is,
indeed, power such as is rarely given to woman (or to man either); there
are traces of knowledge which is not usual among wome