her tongue's keen, her heart's tender. She's one of those women as are better than their word." And though she chooses to enlarge upon the cares and anxieties of a farmhouse life, the delights of which are a fine thing to talk about" for them as look on, an' don't know the liftin', an' the stannin', an' the worritin' o' th' inside as belongs to 't,"-yet she is really as happy as she is industrious in her vocation, and much prefers it to pleasuring, of which she has but a poor opinion.

"Eh!' she said to her husband, as they set off in the cart, I'd sooner ha' brewin' day and washin' day together than one o' these pleasurin' days. There's no work so tirin' as danglin' about an' starin' an' not rightly knowin' what you're goin' to do next; and keepin' your face i' smilin' order like a grocer o' market-day, for fear people shouldna think you civil enough. An' you've nothing to show for't when it's done, if it isn't a yallow face wi' eatin' things as disagree.'"

can

Her great forte is proverbial philosophy; and her style forms, in point and lucidity, a remarkable contrast to Mr Martin Tupper's. She considers, indeed, that in this as in every other use of language, her own sex has the decided superiority. When she wants to say a thing, she " mostly find words to say it in, thank God." With the men it is far otherwise; "you're forced partly to guess what they mean, as you do wi' the dumb creatures." There is no difficulty whatever, we are glad to say, in comprehending Mrs Poyser; and her apothegms, if not always the most refined, have a classicality of their own about them which will make them household quotations for many a day. It seems hardly fair to the author to pick these good things out of the context where they come in so happily; but the mine is so rich that the extraction of a nugget or two as specimens will not sensibly impoverish it, and will serve to give some idea of what are certainly some of the most original modern contributions of their kind :

heads, and then say the fault was i' their boots."

"Eh! it's a poor look-out when the old folks doesna like the young uns,' said old Martin.Ay, it's ill living in a henroost for them as doesn't like fleas,' said Mrs Poyser."

But perhaps a sample of Mrs Poyser's quality will best be gleaned from the following dialogue between her and the schoolmaster, Bartle Massey, who is a confirmed bachelor, and looks upon women as among "the evils which belong to this state of probation, which it's lawful for a man to keep as clear of as he can in this life, hoping to get quit of them for ever in another:"

"Like enough,' said Mrs Poyser; for the men are mostly so slow, their thoughts overrun 'em, an' they can only catch 'em by the tail. I can count a stocking-top while a man's getting's tongue ready: an' when he out wi' his speech at last, there's little broth to be made on't. It's dead chicks take the longest hat Howiver, I'm not denyin' the w e foolish: God Almighty mad atch the men.' "Match!" ;'ay, as vine

enough to have made the acquaintance, in real life, either of Adam or Dinah; but in the hall or in the cottage we have all of us met Mr Gedge.

It will be seen at once that the great merit of Adam Bede consists in the singular grace and skill with which these characteristic details of country life are rendered. To say of such a book that it does not depend for its main attraction on the development of a carefully-constructed plot, is little more than saying that it is a novel of character rather than action. With one great exception, the masters of fiction of our own day-and among these Mr Eliot has incontestably made good his place-either fail in the constructive power, or will not condescend to write a story. They throw all their force into the delineation of character, and the enunciation of their own favourite philosophy by the actors whom they place upon the stage. This Mr Eliot has done, and done it admirably. The story in itself is simple enough, and the interest of a very quiet order, until the commencement of the third volume, when it is worked up with great power of detail, and becomes even painfully absorbing. The whole account of Hetty Sorrell's night-wandering in the fields is as strong an instance of the author's power in vivid melodramatic description, as the lighter parts of the book are of genuine humour and truth. But we prefer to leave our readers the pleasure of beginning the story for themselves with an unalloyed appetite.

It is quite possible that some of those who can devour with satisfaction the green trash of the railway stall, may lay by Adam Bede without much consciousness of having been in unusually good company. But the more thoughtful reader will feel at once that he has been sitting at the feet of a master; that he has been reading a book which, for original power and truth, has rarely been equalled. He will not lay it aside as is the fate of many a novel of perhaps higher dramatic interest -content with having read and admired it: he will recur to it again and again-and each time, we can promise him, with increased de

to enjoy at leisure its quiet humour, its truthful feeling, its wise and large philosophy. There are gems of this kind in its pages which are as perfect in their way as anything in English literature. What can be truer or more beautiful in thought and language than this description of the effect of sorrow ?

"For Adam had not outlived his sor

row-had not felt it slip from him as a temporary burthen, and leave him the forbid. It would be a poor result of all same man again. Do any of us? God our anguish and our wrestling, if we won nothing but our old selves at the end

of it if we could return to the same blind loves, the same self-confident blame, the same light thoughts of human suffering, the same frivolous gossip over blighted human lives, the same feeble sense of that Unknown towards which we have sent forth irrepressible cries in our loneliness. Let us rather be thankful that our sorrow lives in us as an in

destructible force, only changing its form, as forces do, and passing from pain into sympathy-the one poor word which includes all our best insight and our best

love."

Or this again, in a lighter tone :

"Leisure is gone -gone where the horses, and the slow-waggons, and the spinning-wheels are gone, and the packpedlars who brought bargains to the door on sunny afternoons. Ingenious philosophers tell you, perhaps, that the great work of the steam-engine is to create leisure for mankind. Do not be

lieve them: it only creates a vacuum for eager thought to rush in. Even idleness is eager now-eager for amusement: prone to excursion-trains, art-museums, periodical literature, and exciting novels prone even to scientific theorising, and Leisure was quite a different personage: cursory peeps through microscopes. Old he only read one newspaper, innocent of leaders, and was free from that periodicity of sensations which we call post-time. He was a contemplative, rather stout gentleman, of excellent digestion, of quiet perceptions, undiseased by hypothesis: happy in his inability to know the causes of things, preferring the things themselves. He lived chiefly in the country, among pleasant seats and homesteads, and was fond of sauntering by the fruit-tree wall, and scenting the apricots when they were warmed by the morning sunshine, or of Meltering himself under the orchard

boughs at noon, when the summer pears were falling. He knew nothing of weekday services, and thought none the worse of the Sunday sermon, if it allowed him to sleep from the text to the blessing-liking the afternoon service best, because the prayers were the shortest, and not ashamed to say so; for he had an easy, jolly conscience, broad-backed like himself, and able to carry a great deal of beer or port-wine-not being made squeamish by doubts and qualms and lofty aspirations. Life was not a task to him, but a sinecure: he fingered the guineas in his pocket, and ate his dinners, and slept the sleep of the irresponsible; for had he not kept up his charter by going to church on the Sun day afternoons?

"Fine old Leisure! Do not be severe upon him, and judge him by our modern standard: he never went to Exeter Hall, or heard a popular preacher, or read Tracts for the Times or Sartor Resartus."

Mr Eliot confesses that he is fond of Dutch painting; to which, indeed, in its most refined school, the construction of these volumes presents a very apt parallel. It may be doubted whether in some cases he does not carry this fondness to excess. An instance of it may be found in the expressions put into the mouth of Adam the carpenter. He and others are too fond of talking shop. He speaks of Dinah as "a rare bit of workmanship-you don't see such women turned off the wheel every day." When he finds his imagination running away with him-" a pretty building I'm making without either bricks or timber; I'm up in the garret a'ready, and haven't so much as dug the foundation." "That screw can wait," when he puts off a visit to the school. "I seem as if I'd been measuring my work from a false line." This seems to us carrying out the Horatian rule rather too literally; "Sit Medea ferox”—by all means; but do not let her always smell of drugs. Like all persons who dwell in houses made with hands, we confess to have paid pretty dearly for an intimate acquaintance with the habits and language of carpenters and masons, in more than one county; and they certainly do not, as a rule-except it be in the fairy realm of Loamshire-import the terms of their art into their

It is very

ordinary conversation. true that this kind of "appropriate language" is conventional on the stage; we expect Jack to say "shiver my timbers," of course; but Mr Eliot paints character far too well to have any occasion to put scrolls into the mouths of his figures in order to distinguish them; and the carpenter in actual life is no more likely to say, like Wiry Ben, "I don't care a chip," than the author is to protest that he "doesn't care a criticism." But after all, this may be taken as a proof of the conscientious care and finish which, with the writer, has touched every point of the dialogue, which runs off so easily and naturally throughout, that the skill of the contriver is seldom apparent, and the uncritical reader is tempted to think such writing the simplest thing in the world.

One of the most real things in these volumes, which will at once strike all those who have had any experience of its truth, is the picture they give of the state of religious feeling in country villages-as it was fifty years ago, and as it is now, for there has been little change. If any think that there has been any material progress since Mr Irwine's days, it will be those who have no means of judging in such questions except by the outside. Few and far between still are the Seth or Adam Bede. It is as true now as then, that even Methodism "takes no hold on the farmers" as a class. It may still be said of our farm-labourers that they "are not easily roused: they take life almost as slowly as the sheep and cows." If Dinah were to preach tomorrow in many a romantic-looking model parish, she might say as she does here

"I've noticed, that in these villages where the people lead a quiet life among the green pastures and the still waters, tilling the ground and tending the cattle, there's a strange deadness to the Word, as different as can be from the great towns like Leeds."

We are not sure whether the explanation be that which she would give

"I think maybe it is because the promise is sweeter when this life is so dark

and weary, and the soul gets more hungry when the body is ill at ease."

It is probable that the marked difference in intellectual life between the town mechanic and the country labourer, well known to all who have to deal with it even in their children, may have at least as much to do with it. Strong exercise in the open air feeds the animal at the expense of the spiritual powers. Many a country pastor will recognise as one of his own flock Alick the shepherd at the Hall Farm :

"Alick was of opinion that church, like other luxuries, was not to be indulged in often by a foreman who had the weather

and the ewes on his mind. 'Church! nay-I'n gotten summat else to think on,' was an answer which he often uttered in a tone of bitter significance that silenced further question. I feel sure Alick meant no irreverence; indeed, I know that his mind was not of a speculative, negative cast, and he would on no account have missed going to church on Christmas Day, Easter Sunday, and Whissuntide. But he had a general impression that public worship and religious ceremonies, like other non-productive employments, were intended for people who had leisure."

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In how many rustic congregations may the majority still be seen lowing the service without any very clear comprehension indeed, but with a simple faith in its efficacy to ward off harm and bring blessing!" So again Lisbeth Bede at the funeral

"Had a vague belief that the psalm was doing her husband good; it was part of that decent burial which she would have thought it a greater wrong to withhold from him than to have caused him

many unhappy days while he was living. The more there was said about her husband, the more there was done for him, surely the safer he would be. It was poor Lisbeth's blind way of feeling that human love and pity are a ground of

faith in some other love."

These are the sure tokens of an observer who has looked below the surface, and who knows far more of the secrets of our village population than most of those seem to do who write religious stories either for or about them.

Adam Bede is not " a religious novel." It would hardly be recommended without reservation to that large class of readers who take Miss Yonge and Miss Sewell for their highpriestesses; and will run some risk of being placed in the index expurgatorius of Evangelicalism. The author has a presentiment that to some minds the Rector of Broxton will seem "little better than a pagan." Yet for both parties it would be a very wholesome change to lay aside for an hour or two the publications of their own favourite school, and to read Mr Eliot's story. For its religious principle is a large-hearted charity. And this, after all, is surely the right ground on which to treat religious questions in a work of fiction.

For the preacher, contro

versy may sometimes become a duty; it may be needful for him to dwell on the distinctive points of his own creed, and to point out in all charity the errors of his opponents. The physician may administer drugs; but the unprofessional Samaritan had better keep to the oil and wine. For the lay-teacher (and the novelist is now no less) it cannot be needful-it is hardly decorous-to wield the rod of excommunication. In his hands it is often the reverse of successful. The anathema not only falls harmless, but is apt to be received with a shout of ridicule. It may well be doubted whether any religious fiction, in which a party bias, however honest, is suffered to appear, can possibly effect the good at which it conscientiously aims. The reader whose sympathies are already with the writer, closes such a book with an air of triumph and self-satisfaction, rejoicing that his enemies are smitten hip and thigh. The victim whose doctrine has been attacked-supposing him to read such a book at allclings to his belief the more firmly, in a spirit of cheap vicarious martyrdom. It may well be doubted how far a Christian temper is produced in either. But the author of Adam Bede is not one of those who, in the eloquent words of a late preacher,* have restricted God's love, and narrowed the path to