ife" which appeared. Mr. Blackwood saw at once the
great merit of the work, and although it was not calculated to arrest
the attention of ordinary readers he published it, confident of its
ultimate success. He did not know whether it was written by a man or by
a woman; he only knew that he received it from the hand of Mr. Lewes, an
author already well known as learned and brilliant. It is fortunate for
a person in the conventional world of letters, as of society, to be well
introduced.

This story, though gloomy in its tone, is fresh, unique, and
interesting, and the style good, clear, vivid, strong. It opens with a
beautiful description of an old-fashioned country church, with its high
and square pews, in which the devout worshippers could not be seen by
one another, nor even by the parson. This functionary went to church in
top-boots, and, after his short sermon of platitudes, dined with the
squire, and spent the remaining days of the week in hunting or fishing,
and his evenings in playing cards, quietly drinking his ale, and smoking
his pipe. But the hero of the story--Amos Barton--is a different sort of
man from his worldly and easy rector. He is a churchman, and yet
intensely evangelical and devoted to his humble duties,--on a salary of
L80, with a large family and a sick wife. He is narrow, but truly
religious and disinterested. The scene of the story is laid in a retired
country village in the Midland Counties, at a time when the Evangelical
movement was in full force in England, in the early part of last
century, contemporaneous with the religious revivals of New England;
when the bucolic villagers had little to talk about or interest them,
before railways had changed the face of the country, or the people had
been aroused to political discussions and reforms. The sorrows of the
worthy clergyman centered in an indiscreet and in part unwilling
hospitality which he gave to an artful, needy, pretentious, selfish
woman, but beautiful and full of soft flatteries; which hospitality
provoked scandal, and caused the poor man to be driven away to another
parish. The tragic element of the story, however, centres in Mrs.
Barton, who is an angel, radiant with moral beauty, affectionate,
devoted, and uncomplaining, who dies at last from overwork and
privations, and the cares of a large family of children.

There is no plot in this story, but its charm and power consist in a
vivid description of common life, minute but not e