after his forty years in the wilderness, Mr. Meredith's position may be described, like Browning's in 1870, as that of a distinguished unpopularity. Every one has heard of his writings; a small company have read them; and among his fervid or even fanatical admirers we may reckon younger and more famous men, who are never weary of praising "The Egoist" and lauding his feminine creations as "Shakespearean." With Burton he might fairly divide the claim to be Democritus Junior; adding that all knew him and no one had ever set eyes on him. As Blake was Pictor Ignotus, so, despite reviews, a cheap reprint, and American pirates, Mr. Meredith still remains Scriptor Ignotus, a treasury of good things which few will be at the trouble of unlocking; and, what is more to the purpose, he is George Eliot's successor in logical order, though her coeval in time. The situation is piquant, the moral instructive.

ago, brought her large genius to the revolution, she has gone up into that presentation of those country folk in sphere from which the throned gods look whose aboriginal, uneducated passions, down, immortal and immovable, upon and family pride, the world suddenly rec- struggling mankind. Mr. George Mereognized a chapter of existence it had never dith has undergone a far different fortune. been shown how to read until she re- His first book, a collection of poems dedihearsed it. Not, however, in her most cated to that remarkable and brilliant successful writings do we find the new scholar, the late Thomas Love Peacock, tone of realism, or, as she herself would whose daughter he married, saw the light have it termed, of positivism, fully devel-in 1851. His last, the three-volume novel oped. The note is struck, doubtless, in entitled "One of our Conquerors," was "The Mill on the Floss;" but the solemn published not many months ago. But oratorio, which was waiting to be played in that key, does not resound with overpowering effect until we open "Middle march" and "Romola." The Florentine story, indeed, being a record of facts, cannot bend altogether, as George Eliot would have wished, to her rule and compass. In "Middlemarch" she is free, and her patient dissection of motives, her reliance upon "environment" to explain character, and her "physiology of the soul," may be fairly compared with Balzac's mechanical fatalism; except that where the French author beheld only a conflict of individualities, an unchecked and undiluted passion for self, the agnostic English lady, mindful of her Christian bringing up, could still discern the beauty of sacrifice and the struggle towards perfection. Her profound sadness touched, as with pensive evening light, the vast battlefield over which she gazed, tenderly, yet despairing of an immortal issue. She could have analyzed tears, with the chemist who sought for the absolute; but her own eyes were dimmed while she steeled herself to the operation. George Eliot was a repentant realist, for she could not be satisfied with the melancholy facts of existence; she lamented the lost spiritual kingdoms even while she denied that they had ever been, outside the pious imagination of believers. She borrowed her art from Christianity; and, so long as it was not overborne by her science, she wrote what will hardly die before the English language itself.

It is curious to reflect that "Adam Bede" and "Richard Feverel" are of nearly the same age. Thirty-two years have passed since George Eliot became famous; and now, saving the chances of

"Would you grasp the secret of life?" said a wise man; "then study the failures; they teach more than success, which only dazzles." If popularity be a test, the gallery of curious figures invented by Mr. Meredith can hardly be pronounced a success, for who pays it a visit when the learned, and the all-enquiring journalist stay away? It may be good to steal from, as Fuseli said of Blake; and stealing implies a compliment to our property if a wrong to ourselves. George Eliot won the ear of the whole English-speaking race with "Adam Bede" and "The Mill on the Floss." She made us all read, not "Middlemarch" alone, but (as now seems wonderful) that partisan, wire-drawn pamphlet, known as "Daniel Deronda." But the public sturdily declines to look at "Beau.

champ's Career," puts aside with a "thank you "the "Adventures of Harry Richmond," and would as soon think of plunging into a Parliamentary blue-book as of tracing the mental zigzags and psychological evolutions of Sir Willoughby Patterne. Is the public in the wrong? or is it the author who will not stoop to satisfy the demands of good sense, and the canons by which all great masters of his craft have been guided? These questions open a discussion of no small interest, and may help to throw a light upon the central problem of literature which we have indicated above, namely, the true method of marrying science with art, so that we may attain once more to the prose drama, which is a criticism of life, and an inspiration to lift life towards the ideal.

For one side of his enterprise, no man could stand better equipped than Mr. Meredith; who is a born philosopher, analyst, and watcher of the moods of soul. If sheer abstract thinking could result in a work of art, his would be prodigies, for to the making of a picture there never went such deep and patient meditation as he employs. He has an eye, not for striking scenes or stage situations, not for the cut and thrust of vulgar action, but for the fine inward machinery which men and women are content to use without knowing anything about it. To him, the very flesh, which he can paint admirably on occasion, is a transparent network, showing, as through innumerable meshes, the spirit with all its motives and movements. He takes a soul, neither hating nor much loving it, that he may explain how it works; and he lays the fibres bare, separating them coolly, or, as it would seem to the shivering spectator, remorselessly; never heeding the reproach of cynicism which springs to the lips of the young whom he is conducting through the sombre galleries of the college of surgeons. "This," he would say, "is life when you turn it in side out; by such mechanism does the pulse beat higher, and your ingenuous rosy blush, signifying innocence or the first throbbings of affection, may be thus produced." When Robert Browning, to whom he bears a singular likeness, declared that his ambition was merely to "paint a soul," it may have struck more than one of his readers, even among those who thought most highly of his splendid gifts, that all he painted was a diagram, and that the soul oftentimes escaped. For by analysis and dissection no Pygmalion will breathe life into his statue; the true method of art is exactly the opposite.

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Or suppose it to be "skeleton-anatomy," who is there, except a surgeon, that does not insist on the skeleton being concealed? It must be clothed upon with life. Now the living, creative breath of the drama, whether comic or tragic, is love, passion, a keen interest, not in the abstract workings of a heart, but in the heart itself. 'Si vis me flere!" Do not tell me that tears are thus and thus produced; let me see them flow, and I shall be touched by the emotion which has stirred their springs. Art altogether, and not poetry alone, must be simple, sensuous, and direct; whereas Mr. Meredith, relying on his science with a conviction that it will give the required inspiration, is never, but in half-a-dozen happy scenes, either simple or sensuous. He appeals to the calm, logical understanding, as though romance were a game of chess; and while the listener is all for moving on, the story-teller cannot persuade himself to leave the spot where he perceives some wretched shred of psychology still undissected. He lectures, and the story flags; he shows astounding skill in tossing up a number of motives at once, as the juggler tosses up plates; but he will not move a step forward, and we throw down the volume in despair. To the tired victim of analysis he puts, in a sparkling manner which does but increase our irritation, the apparently conclusive query, "What is action without motives?" But did not Aristotle long ago suggest the yet more pregnant question, "What are motives without action?" The action is the story; and where the story is wanting, art cannot possibly exist.

Well, Mr. Meredith cares not at all for the story. In more than one instance, he deliberately, with malice prepense, ruins it, setting probabilities at defiance rather than allowing poetical justice to have its rights. The marriage-bells ring out their golden chimes for mismatched couples, which the reader longs to unyoke and rearrange as the true moral of the narrative demands. Does realism invariably mean putting up with the second best? Why should the lovely pastoral of Richard and Lucy, in Mr. Meredith's greatest book, conclude with harsh discords, like a ghost shrieking in the bridal chamber? Forsooth because the writer has a problem to work out, the tragic struggle between a father whose affection has turned to pedantry, and a son in whom nature will have its way. But a son like Richard would not kill his wife; and experience proves that out of the given elements a far hap pier as well as a more probable conclusion

might have been drawn. The drop-scene wonder he is dry beyond any writer of of "Beauchamp's Career" is admittedly novels known to us, dry and exasperatout of keeping with the rest of the story; ing; tediously brilliant; witty and wise not, we mean, that Beauchamp should out of season; filling our eyes with dia have died by water in rescuing a drowning mond dust which is as blinding as sand or child, but his marriage with Jenny Den- steam; not ponderous like his own Dr. ham and all the marriages are a mistake. Middleton, but suffocating; and in short, Harry Richmond is luckier than Beau- if one could say it without incivility, a champ, since if he loses the first heroine he bore. "But the man has genius," you wins the second, and is not, as Shake- object. That is the very head and front speare would say, fobbed off with a wife of our accusation. With such endowthat cares not for him and for whom he ments of mind, with fancy and metaphor, does not care. But he deserved the with an eye for every grave and tender Princess Ottilia, - one of Mr. Meredith's aspect of the sky, with insight into man's noble women, and in real life he would nature and woman's nature (those widely have been raised to her side. Here again, divergent species), with unswerving faith the father intervenes, with disastrous yet in the joy which keeps life going, how is comic effect. Be the circumstances how it that he does not charm, but repels ? touching or delightful they may, our per- Because he is resolved to practise "moverse author seems to have been subdued tive-grinding" to the end of the chapter? by the maxim," Difficile est satiram non When Carlyle had finished Richard scribere." Satirize he must, though na- Feverel," he paid Mr. Meredith the high ture and truth assure him that lovers have compliment of remarking to Mrs. Carlyle conquered fate, and that experience does in his gruff dialect, "The man's no fool," not always spell discomfiture. We can which is as true as it is terse. But Carunderstand the proud and sensitive Diana lyle thought "motive-grinding" fatal to Warwick marrying Redwood; he is the religion and the philosophy of life. It is honest, sturdy wooer, patient but loyal, no less fatal to art. Analysis in this dewhom no ill-fortune can wear out. Is it partment never will be victorious, for the possible, however, to understand the deep but simple reason that life itself, match between Cecilia Halkett, that rare which art copies, is something beyond and admirable study in woman's develop-anatomy. Pure science must descend ment, and the wooden Tuckham? A from the brain to the heart, and be steeped daughter's sacrifice? But neither was in passion, feeling, enthusiasm, or whatMr. Halkett resolved to be a new Aga-ever the divine element is termed, ere it memnon, nor did any goddess thirst for can make the cold blaze warm and kindle the blood of this Iphigenia. She could while it enlightens. not take Beauchamp. Why not, then, have made her a present of Seymour Austin? Because it would have savored of the stereotyped?— the cliché, to employ a word which in journalist slang condemns a situation wholly and without appeal? No doubt all the stories have been told, and stereotype is another name for the infinite warehouse which we call the past. But genius seizes upon the letter to make it live again; nor will haphazard combinations be allowed to pass, under the cloak of realism, for wonders denied to the romanticist whose memory kills his invention.

Sooner than ride round in the trodden sawdust, Mr. Meredith leaps the barrier and declines the customary feats of horsemanship. There shall be no story because he cannot invent a new one. He slurs over the moving incidents, slackens his pace when he should be running full tilt, narrates instead of painting a scene, and balks the primitive instinct which longs for picturesque and exciting action. No

There is just one focal point, however, where Mr. Meredith, forgetting analysis yet possessing it, becomes a clear and noble poet. Set him face to face with nature, and his unmusical yet over-subtle chords melt to the whisperings, the sighings, that steal away the heart, to the fitful, exquisite melodies of an Eolian harp. At other times, he is a deaf Beethoven, skilled, above all praise, in counterpoint, but with science instead of an ear to guide, to correct him. But the silverclouded Alps, the "unsounded purple sea of marching billows," the "unattainable blue summits" of a bridal Hesper, which some disdained poet has called "the pas. sion-flower of heaven," these are visions of things real, yet most airy and spiritlike, which never abandon him to the tyranny of abstraction. We have touched here the one fibre in him that quivers incessantly, answering to nature as the murmur of the shell is rhythmic with ocean-tides. The inspiration masters him, and he shows the man he might be,

were he to cast off the strait-jacket of system and satire; and were he to describe what he feels, not merely what he can dissect.

to be scorched a little, or let us say, burnt in the hand. Far be it from us to upbraid him with the millionaire riches of his metaphor. He is quick at seizing affinities, A vain hope; for who can escape the and, like all the robust poets, a Titan min. snare of cleverness, when it is his own? gling heaven and earth in undreamt-of The daring aphorism has been uttered, confusion. He has chambers of imagery not by Mr. Meredith, that "a good style full to overflowing, and if all his pages are means a warm heart." How perfect this in a breeze, and the whole book produces author's style can be when he follows a kind of electrical agitation in the mind inspiration, the pages wherein Richard and joints, that too is a fault we can easily Feverel plays Ferdinand to Lucy's Mi- pardon; for it is better that books should randa bear sufficient witness; or that be electric than that, with the usual run, "morning at sea under the Alps," when they should be soporific. Rude strength "the incredible flickering gleam of new is a virtue; by reason, however, of its heights arose, that soared, or stretched strength, not of its rudeness. Again, we their white, uncertain curves in the sky, cannot think it forbidden to extend, by due like wings traversing infinity." A Celtic, and well-attempered effort, the metes and or more truly Cymric poet, he holds the bounds of our English prose, to color it key to nature's enchantments; he is at with the dainty hues of French, to bathe home in the boundless magic forest, alive it in some tonic elixir of poetic or philoin all pulsations of the wandering wind, sophic ingredients, to make it a little more delighting especially to bluster and shine supple and springing, to infuse into its full of sun-gleams with his dropping south- granite fire, and to mix with its admirable west, and fixing with a unique word the dulness the yeast of Celtic wit. By all ever-varying tempests, the flying or float-means; who shall blame the effort, if it ing cloud, the shadows on the grass, and succeeds? the shiftings and tremulous chatter of the silver birch. Look down his most wearisome page; and if so much as half a line of natural description occurs, fasten upon it, for it will be unerringly correct and beautiful. Here it is that he may vaunt "Reality's infinite sweetness; here is the problem solved of closely searching analysis, the artist's anatomy, incarnated (no less towering word will serve) in a form which is perfection, either simple or splendid, as you shall choose, but magically giving forth as in a clear giass the scene which eyes and spirit have combined to interpret. We cannot, in such triumphant phrasing, distinguish between body and soul, sense and substance; "single nature's double name, neither two nor one was called." The passion of word-painting has at length snatched this grace beyond the reach of art; and coolest observation, with genius employing it as an instrument, nor overpowered by the pride of mere skill, has, in Mr. George Meredith, given us the natural background, even as we see it and as it is, upon which all our stories should henceforth be painted.

The sanbenito which we are fitting on Mr. Meredith is, it will be seen, decorated with charming figures of zephyr and the cherub-winds, putting silver trumpets to their rosy mouths. For we think he deserves to be at least led round the fire, bearing his own volumes instead of a bundle of faggots on his shoulder, if not

But that which can never be praised is the originality that makes bad worse, and will be affected in its resolve to escape from the common. Just as Mr. Meredith, though not of the cynic's temperament, perplexes or flings aside the web of his story, in dread of the cynic audience he seems ever to have in view, so, in like manner, he decks his table with outlandish meats, offers the indignant Englishman Sauerkraut or Blutwurst instead of wholesome roast beef, and misses the charm of speech that lies in old association. Shrinking from the vulgarity of current tropes, of half-worn expressions which pass continually from hand to hand in our hurried converse, he cannot bid you good-morning but in strange, new-minted sentences. Consequently, there is no point of rest anywhere in his dialogues, and nothing familiar about his characters; not even their names, which we find ourselves forgetting ten times a day. Like his plots, they are novel, seldom attractive, and quite unrememberable. The secret of richness in music, we know, is the presence of harmonics; in language, the harmonics are pleasant household words, constant sayings known to us from childhood, the ripple of sounds which we love because we have always heard them. For this subtle demand of nature Mr. Meredith makes no provision; he is like the chemist who should weigh and mix our diet by the atomic scale, giving us accu