tter
than your fun.'"

The first part of _Amos Barton_ appeared in the January number of
_Blackwood_. The publisher paid the author fifty guineas. Afterwards,
when the series of stories dealing with clerical life was published in
book form, she was paid L120; later, when the publishing firm decided
to issue a thousand copies instead of seven hundred and fifty, L60 was
added to the original sum. George Eliot expressed herself as sensitive
to the merits of checks for fifty guineas, but the success of her
later writings was so pronounced that a check for fifty guineas would
have made little impression, except a feeling of disdain.

_Amos Barton_ was followed by _Mr. Gilfil's Love Story_, and _Janet's
Repentance_. The three comprise _Scenes from Clerical Life_. The
stories are based upon events which happened in the early life of the
writer when she lived in Warwickshire. The village of Milby is really
Nuneaton. When the villagers and country people read the _Scenes from
Clerical Life_ there was great excitement. Who could this _George
Eliot_ be? Some one who had lived among them and heard all the gossip
of the neighborhood. But they could not recall any man with enough
literary ability to do what had been done. Finally they did remember
that a man, Liggins by name, had written poetry. The poetry was rather
weak stuff, but perhaps his strength lay in fiction. Liggins was
flattered by the suspicions of his neighbors. His own doubt was
gradually changed to belief. Yes, he was the author of this new
fiction, because every one said he was. The voice of the people is the
voice of God. He was invited to write for a theological magazine.
Finally George Eliot was obliged to reveal her identity when the
public was about to subscribe a sum of money for the pseudo-literary
Liggins who was so fastidious as to refuse money for the product of
his genius. Here ends the career of Liggins, the liar.

One reason the villagers had for believing one of their own number was
the author was based on the conversations in the _Scenes from Clerical
Life_. Not only were they true to life, but they were conversations
that had actually taken place. How did George Eliot hear them? Had she
loitered in the public room of the village tavern? Mr. C.S. Olcott
writes in the _Outlook_,--"The real conversations which were so
cleverly reported were actually heard by Robert Evans, the father of
George Eliot, who doubtless often visited the Bull in company with