f effect which a more limited purpose would have secured. It
gives the impression of having been written by a vigorous thinker rather
than by a genius of the first order. The critic has no right to complain of
this, however, or even to assume that genius might do other work than it
has done. Had George Eliot been less thoughtful than she was, she would not
have been George Eliot. _Romola_ grew out of a genius so large and original
that it can well endure the criticisms caused by any defects it may have.

The ideas of the time appear subtly expressed in the influence they produce
on the persons who entertain them. Savonarola's mysticism and high moral
purpose made him at once a prophet and a reformer, but he was not able to
separate the spiritual realities of life from devotion to his party. His
courage, purity and holiness cannot but be admired, while his fanaticism is
to be deplored. George Eliot has well conceived and expressed the effect
produced in all but the very greatest minds by the assumption of
supernatural powers. Savonarola was strong and great as a preacher and a
reformer, weak only on the side of his visions and his faith that his party
represented the kingdom of God. Not that his visions were weak, nor are
they assumed to be untrue; but his mysticism clouded his intellect, and his
fanaticism led him to overlook the practical truths to be inculcated by a
genuine reformer. He is a true type of the mystical churchman of the time,
who saw the corruption about him and desired a better order of things,
but who hoped to secure it by reviving the past in all its imagined
supernatural features. He would have ruled the world by visions to be
received by monks, and he would have made Jesus Christ the head of the
republic. Yet his visions entangled his clear intellect and perverted his
moral purpose.

On the other hand, Tito Melema was intended to represent the renaissance
movement on its Greek, or its aesthetic and social side. He was not a bad
man at heart, but he had no moral purpose, no ethical convictions. He had
the Greek love of ease, enjoyment and unconcern for the morrow; a spirit
which the renaissance revived in many of its literary devotees. He lived
for the day, for self, in the delight of music, art, social intercourse and
sensual enjoyment. He had the renaissance quickness of assuming all parts,
its love of wide and pretentious learning, its superficial scholarship,
its social and political deftness and