he central moral purpose of all the author's works,
that it can scarcely escape the notice of the most superficial reader.
Affirmatively and negatively, in Romola and Tito--the two forms of
illustration to some extent combined in Savonarola--the constant,
persistent, unfaltering utterance of the book is, that the only true
worth and greatness of humanity lies in its pursuit of the highest truth,
purity, and right, irrespective of every issue, and in exclusion of every
meaner aim; and that the true debasement and hopeless loss of humanity
lies in the path of self-pleasing. The form of this work, the time and
country in which the scene is laid, and the selection of one of the three
great actors in it, leads the author more definitely than in almost any
of those which preceded it to connect her moral lesson, not merely with
Christianity as a religious faith, but with that Church which, as called
by the name of Christ, howsoever fallen away from its "first love," is
still, in the very fact of its existence, a witness for Him. While, on
the other hand, through many of its subordinate characters, we have the
broad catholic truth kept ever before us, that, irrespective of all
formal profession or creed, voluntary acceptance of a higher life-law
than the seeking our own interests, pleasure, or will, is, according to
its degree, life's best and highest fulfilment; and thus we trace Him who
"pleased not Himself" as the life and the light of the world, even when
that world may be least formally acknowledging Him.

The three in whom this great lesson is most prominently illustrated in
the work before us are, of course, Romola herself, Tito Melema, and
Savonarola. And in each the illustration is so modified, and, through
the three together, so almost exhaustively accomplished, that some
examination of each seems necessary to our main object in this survey of
George Eliot's works.

Few, we think, can study the delineation of Romola without feeling that
imagination has seldom placed before us a fairer, nobler, and completer
female presence. Perfectly human and natural; unexaggerated, we might
almost say unidealised, alike in her weaknesses and her nobleness;
combining such deep womanly tenderness with such spotless purity; so
transparent in her truthfulness; so clear in her perceptions of the true
and good, so firm in her aspirations after these; so broad, gentle, and
forbearing in her charity, yet so resolute against all that is