Too many women cultivate with superfluous care their own original narrowness, by shutting themselves up in a circle of family interests which is but a wider form of selfish isolation. Esther Lyon, like the ordinary reader of her history, fails wholly to understand the principle on which Felix has resolved to belong to the working classes; but after some hesitation, and with a temporary disposition to favour a rival lover, she yields to the logic of personal attachment, and allows his life to be shaped according to his own ideal of nobleness. sketch in a magazine, and not an episode or excrescence in a novel. For the purposes of the story Mr. Lyon's time is better employed in receiving the confidence of Mrs. Holt on the self-denying honesty of her son. The old contrast between lofty impulses and selfish prudence is as well illustrated by Felix Holt and his mother as by Don Quixote and Sancho Panza; but, with a happy sense of the fitness of things, George Eliot makes her hero fight with vulgar considerations of questionable profit, and not with imaginary giants. The late Mr. Holt had left to his family the gainful secret of three specifics, which had acquired much popularity in the neighborhood. Having learned enough of medicine to ascertain that Holt's Pills, Holt's Elixir, and Holt's Cancer Cure were mere impostures, Felix made up his mind to discontinue the sale. His mother was naturally shocked at a decision which deprived her of her livelihood. Her husband, as she informed Mr. Lyon, had a wonderful gift in prayer, as the old members well know, if any one likes to ask them not believing my words; and he believed himself that the receipt for the Cancer Cure, which I've sent out in bottles till this very last April before September as now is, and have bottles standing by me Mr. Lyon, the simple-minded Independent Minister, is one of the most agreeable characters in the book; and yet it is a commonplace contrivance to make a modern preacher talk in the long-winded sentences of the seventeenth century. His involuntary contempt for the tradesmen of his congregation, and his preference of the secular reformer Felix Holt to orthodox church members,' relieve Mr. Lyon from the imputation of weak and excessive softness. There is a pleasant fallacy in his argument that Wellington and Brougham may be introduced into sermons as properly as Rabshakeh and Balaam; but one of his eccentric proceedings is improbable in itself, and it makes the story run capriciously off on a siding. Mr. Lyon takes advantage of a warm he believed it was sent in answer to prayer; acknowledgment for a trifling service which he had rendered to the Tory candidate for the county, to ask Mr. Debarry to induce his uncle the rector of Treby Magna to engage in a public discussion on Church-government and the theory of an Establishment. The Reverend Augustus Debarry, in defiance of all probability, accepts the challenge, not for himself but for his curate; and after general expectation has been excited in the town, the curate takes fright, Mr. Lyon is disappointed, and the whole digression ends in nothing. It seems as if the writer had changed her intention at the last moment, on the ground that an ecclesiastical controversy would be an incumbrance on the plot; and it would have been better to pull down the scaffolding when the project of the building was abandoned. Some such abortive experiments seem to have been tried during the development of organic life by natural selection; but art compensates for its inability to copy the multiplicity of Nature by deliberate attention to unity. Mr. Lyon's desire for a public debate is not inconceivable, but a sensible aristocratic rector would never have indulged his fancy. If the proposal and the subsequent failure were worth describing at all, they ought to have formed a separate and nobody can deny it, for he prayed most regular, and read out of the green-baize Bible.' The profane Felix has told his mother that she had better never open her Bible, for it's as bad poison to me as the pills are to half the people as swallow 'em.' Like several of George Eliot's favourite female characters, Mrs. Holt is profoundly impressed with her own moral and religious excellence. Mr. Lyon mildly remarks that Felix ought not to be judged rashly. And when "Many eminent servants of God have been led by ways as strange." "Then I'm sorry for their mothers, that's all, Mr. Lyon, and all the more if they'd been well spoken women. For not my biggest enemy, whether it's he or she, if they'll speak the truth, can turn round and say I've deserved this trouble. everybody gets their due, and people's doings says they will be, it'll be known what I've gone are spoken of on the house-tops, as the Bible through with those medicines - the pounding, and the pouring, and the letting stand, and the weighing-up early and down late-there's nobody knows yet but One that's worthy to know; and the pasting o' the printed labels right side upward.' Such touches as the green-baize Bible, and the merit of letting the medicine stand, and of pasting the labels right side upwards are only given by the hand of genius. The story has the defect of running in two parallel lines with only an occasional and arbitrary connexion. Mrs. Transome and her son know nothing of the world of Independent Ministers, and, if they had heard that the son of a quack-medicine vendor had voluntarily become a journeyman watchmaker, they would scarcely have appreciated so imperceptible a declension in the remoter portion of the social scale. Except in a single interview in matters connected with the election, Felix Holt never speaks to Harold Transome, and to Mrs. Transome his existence is probably unknown. The heroine indeed turns out, as in many other novels, to be the heiress of the estate, and for a time she wavers between the admirer whom she expects to dispossess, and the stern ascetic who requires her to take a non-celibate vow of poverty; yet it is evident that either half of the story would have stood by itself, if Esther Lyon had not been employed as a link between the Minister's little house in Malthouse Yard and the stately park with the bad title. At the beginning of the book the docile reader thinks that he is to be exclusively perplexed and interested by the fortunes of the Transome family, and by the results of their past misdeeds. Mr. Sampson, the coachman, is supposed in the introductory chapter to amuse his passengers with a vague account of the Transome baronets, summing up his narrative with the luminous remark that “There had been ins and outs in times gone by, so that you could'nt look into it straight backward." At this Mr. Sampson (everybody in North Loamshire knew Sampson's coach) would screw his features into a primary expression of entire neutrality, and appear to aim his whip at a particular spot on the horse's flank. At the opening of the story, Mrs. Transome, who has long administered the affairs of her paralytic husband, awaits the arrival of her son Harold from Smyrna, where, before the recent death of his elder brother, he had made a fortune in trade. The disappointment of the proud and energetic mother when she finds that her son intends to assume the exclusive control of the estate is described with admirable intuition into character, and with less perfect apprehension of the legal relations of the parties. The good-natured selfishness of Harold, his contempt for the business capacities of women, his cleverness, and the obtuseness of his perception, are so elaborately delineated, that some disappointment arises when, in the course of the story, he subsides into comparative insignificance. Mrs. Transome wishes to retain the management of the estate, not merely from a love of authority, but because she has placed herself in the power of Mr. Jermyn, the fraudulent family solicitor. Her son, however, supersedes her without even perceiving that she is dissatisfied, and he inflicts an additional shock by announcing his intention of standing for the county as a Radical, although he might easily have been returned on the hereditary Tory principles of her family. The necessity of employing Jermyn as agent for the election postpones the impending rupture and the consequent disclosures, and the contest forms a considerable part of the action of the story; but the paradoxical radicalism of Harold Transome leads to as abortive a result or absence of result as Mr. Lyon's projected discussion on Established Churches. Felix Holt is convicted of riot and manslaughter at the election, on evidence which would satisfy any juryman who was not in the secret of the novel; and Harold Transome scarcely troubles himself about a defeat which leaves him at liberty to quarrel with Jermyn. By filing a bill against the dishonest agent he produces an explosion, which might have been avoided if Harold and the author of his fictitious being had remembered that his father was alive. As long as old Mr. Transome ostensibly owned the estate of which he was tenant in possession, his resolute and active wife might have defied her son's ur.welcome intrusion. Even if Mrs. Transome had over-estimated the privileges and power of the stronger sex, Mr. Jermyn, having a common interest in supporting her administration of affairs, would not have failed to dispute the pretentions of an encroaching remainder-man. The part of the mystery which concerns the title to the estate disappoints expectation; for, although Mrs. Transome and Jermyn had resorted to questionable methods of resisting an action of ejectment twenty years before, the Bycliffe claim had been at that time invalid, as Tommy Trounsem was still alive. Jermyn seems to have concealed from his client the strong point of her case, and to have aided her in an unintelligible plot for imprisoning Bycliffe by mistake for a total stranger. It is difficult to comprehend how a charge of forgery, whether true or false, could have divested Bycliffe's unfounded or premature claim. Bycliffe died in prison, and it was believed that his family was extinct, until half the personages in the story discovered by a cluster of simultaneous accidents that Esther Lyon was his daughter and heiress. An early intrigue between Mrs. Transome and Mr. Jermyn introduces a gratuitous and disgreeable complication. Near the close of the story Harold strikes Jermyn over the face in public, and in a scuffle which ensues Jermyn tells him in a grating voice, "I am your father." The episode is equally purposeless and painful, for Jermyn disappears, Harold proposes on the same day to Esther, and he heard from her lips that she loved some one else, and that she resigned all claim to the Transome estates.' If Mr. Sampson had not been superseded by the railway, he might have remarked more impressively than ever, that 'there had been ins and outs in time gone by, and that you couldn't look into it straight backward.' Harold Transome must have looked forward with grave anxiety to the termination of twenty years from the death of Tommy Trounsem. An estate held under a verbal resignation of her rights by a woman may involve many alarming ins and outs. that office, and especially clerical office, should imply corresponding duties, nor indeed is it improbable that in some future generation property itself may be regarded as the salary of a public function. From an age long anterior to the Reformation till a time within living memory, a benefice was by a large portion of the clergy and of the laity regarded as a life-estate, burdened with certain definite payments in the form of ceremonial observances, as well as by a general understanding that the clergy ought to lead tolerably decorous lives. An incumbent of good income was a smaller kind of country squire, who was generally resident, unless he happened to be a pluralist. It never entered into his mind, or into the imagination of his parishioners, that he had undertaken to be a rural missionary, or to visit from house to house. His modern successor, like himself, conforms to the public opinion of his time, not without some good results, and not with unmixed moral gain to himself. The English clergy of former times were entirely exempt from a desire to aggrandise the Church, inasmuch as they valued their position as gentlemen far more highly than any privileges of the priesthood. They were also exceptionally free from the sacerdotal propensity to work on the feelings of women, because in the ordinary intercourse of society, on the bench of magistrates, and in the management of local business, they had their fair share of influence with men. George Eliot, who perhaps inclines to Mr. Lyon's revolutionary doctrines on church establishments, always dwells with affectionate minuteness on the peculiarities of the old-fashioned parson. In 'Felix Holt' there are two well-born specimens of the class, Mr. Debarry being somewhat more refined than his neighbour. Mr. Lingon's electioneering speech in support of his nephew is a model of bucolic rhetoric. It is not surprising that the Tory farmers in the neighbourhood were heartily amused by their favourWhen he is left to himself he reflects ite parson's transparent assumption of a new Harold Transome's radical doctrines are not so amusing as the external and temporary conversion of his uncle Mr. Lingon, the Tory parson of the parish. On the night of Harold's return, over a second bottle of port, Mr. Lingon was not indisposed to persuade himself that Toryism was extinct, and that Whiggery was a ridiculous monstrosity. The next day he was less satisfied with his own arguments, but his nephew relieved his scruples, by informing him that he was a Radical only in rooting out abuses. "That's the word I wanted, my lad," said the Vicar, slapping Harold's knee. "That's a spool to wind a speech on. Abuse is the very word, and if anybody shows himself offended, he'll put the cap on for himself."' that fangled creed. ""Come, now, you'll say I used to be a Tory, I know the head of my own crabstick, will say and some of you, whose faces I know as well as that's why I'm a good fellow. But now, tell you something else; it's for that very reason low-that I go along with my nephew here, - that I used to be a Tory and am a good felwho is a thorough-going Liberal. For will anylow has no need to tack about and change his body here come forward and say, "A good felroad." No, there's not one of you such a Tom Noddy. What's good for one time is bad for another. If any one contradicts that, ask him to eat pi kled pork when he's thirsty, and to bathe in the Lapp there when the spikes of ice are shoo ing. And that's the reason why the men who are the best Liberals now are the very men who used to be the best Tories. There is and the drink into these parts; for afore that it was all kep up the Lord knows where.' Eloquence, however, even when seasoned with beer, is an enjoyment too not a nastier horse than your horse that'll jib purely intellectual for the Midland collier mind. "Let's have our pipes then," said Old Sleck, "I'm pretty well tired o' this." So am I," said Dredge, "it's wriggling work, like following a stoat; it makes a man dry. I'd as leef hear preaching, ony there's nought to be got by't. I shouldn't know which end I stood on if it wasn't for the tickets and the treatin'.' and back, and turn round, when there is but one road for him to go, and that's the road before him And my nephew here he comes of a Tory breed, you know. I'll answer for the Lingons. In the old Tory times there was never a pup belonging to a Lingon but would howl if a Whig came near him. The Lingon blood is good rich old Tory blood, and that's why, when the right time comes, it throws up a Liberal cream. There's plenty of Radical scum. I say, beware of the scum and look out for the The best and wisest inhabitant of Treby cream.... Harold Transome will do you on the whole displays the smallest amount credit. If anybody says the Radicals are a set of common sense. Felix Holt, who had of sneaks; Brummagem halfpennies; scamps who want to play at pitch and toss with the been endeavouring to persuade the colliers property of the country; you can say, "Look to send their children to school, is indignant at the Member for North Loamshire." And at the attempt of his own party to employ mind what you'll hear him say; he'll go in for his sluggish disciples for purposes of riot. making everything right-Poor laws, and On the election day he takes command of a Charities, and Church-he wants to reform riot, for the sole purpose of leading the riot'em all. Perhaps you say, "There's that Par-ers out of mischief, and from the same moson Lingon talking about Church reformwhy he belongs to the Church himself-he wants reforming too." Well, well, wait a bit, and you'll hear by and by that old Parson Lin gon is reformed; shoots Lo more; cracks his joke no more; has drunk his last bottle; the dogs, the old pointers, 'll be sorry, but you'll hear that the Parson at Little Treby is a new man. That's what Church reform is sure to come to before long. So now here are some more nuts for you, lads, and I leave you to listen to your candidate. There he is give him a good hurray. Wave your hats, and I'll begin Hurray!"" tive he trips up and accidentally kills a constable who attempts to interfere with the proceedings. He is more fortunate than he deserves in obtaining a pardon on the application of the magistrates headed by the Tory and Radical candidates; but the story was coming to an end; Esther had, after some wavering, determined to refuse Harold Transome; and Felix was required to accept the hand which had long awaited his condescension. It is impossible to judge, from any summary of the plot, of the abundance of thought and humour which more than compensate for any complications or some's old attendant, with her cynical phiimprobabilities in the story. Mrs. Tran The farmers were quite right in giving the parson a friendly hurray' before he began. "Let's hear what Old Jack will say for him-losophy of life, forms a life-like and remarkself," was the predominant feeling among them; "he'll have something funny to say, I'll bet a penny." If the North Loamshire election fails to assist the progress of the story, it displays the writer's extraor linary knowledge of outof-the-way modes of English thought, and her dramatic faculty of giving life to the most insignificant character. The address of a Radical agent to the colliers of Sproxton, assembled for their Sunday drinking, is exactly adapted to the peculiar minds of the audience. One of the colliers had heard that it was the time to get beer for nothing, and his companion sagely infers, That's sin the Reform - that's brought the 'lections able portrait, although her character is only indicated in one or two short conversations with her mistress; and the farmers and tradesmen who visit the butler at the Manor are each distinguished by some natural and recognisable peculiarity. Less original writers identify their minor characters by some trite or cant saying, but George Eliot always denotes the intellectual or moral differences of the dullest and most commonplace of mankind by some little idiosyncrasy of lan-. guage or of thought. If Felix Holt' has none of the tragic depth of Romola,' it is a truer picture of life, and the changes which have occurred since the date of the story almost give the book a historical value. From the Spectator, 20 Oct. THE IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON. our political course suspended, the negroes left unprotected, the army filled with democrats, the bureaus stuffed with men whom we do not trust, concessions made to Fenians, fillibusters, and schemes for foreign war, all proTHE immediate future of the United gress paralyzed, and all finance rendered unStates depends now on the resolutions at certain, because of the wrongheadedness of a which Mr. Andrew Johnson may within the man whom we did not elect to be the head next few weeks arrive. Pennsylvania has of the States. It is impossible, allow the modgiven its decision, and the Pennsylvanian erate, and the fiercer men behind them vote, from the equality which in quiet times add that, whether possible or not, at least it exists there between the two great parties, shall not be. The great project of removing is the test vote of the Union. It is no longer the President, to which we have so frepossible for the President to doubt that the quently pointed as the inevitable alternative North has almost unanimously rejected his to his submission, is rapidly acquiring form. policy, that it has determined to support The extreme Liberals have been ready for Congress as against the Executive, and that it ever since Mr. Johnson vetoed the Freedit has decided to impose conditions upon the man's Bill, and now the nation has begun South which will ensure the two primary to perceive that the dismissal of a single of results of the war - the freedom of labour ficer, however highly placed, is a less evil and the ascendancy of the North in the than the continuance of political anarchy, councils of the Union. If he can make up of the old-world form of conflict between his mind to submit to these terms, to obey the individual and the country. Unfortuthe people as he has so frequently expressed nately, the difficulties in the way of such his readiness to obey them, the danger is removal are unprecedented, not only in deover, and American politics will go on in gree, but in kind. In a despotic country their accustomed course. Congress will be the matter would be settled by a short revvery strong and the Executive very weak, olution, the objectionable monarch giving a law or two will have to be passed over the place to a successor more amenable to the President's head, and there will be some re-national will. In a constitutional country laxation in the reins of official discipline, but the evil will be temporary and endurable. The South will either yield and accept its new position as a strong but not a dominant section of the commonwealth, or remain outside until in 1868 the election of some determined Northerner demonstrates the futility of further resistance to the inevitable. The collection of one good crop of cotton by paid labour will greatly improve the temper of the great planters, while the lower whites will have time to perceive that as the aristocracy of caste cannot continue, the free-soilers are their natural allies against the aristocracy of the land, a danger which the planters are sure to perceive, and sure also to try to avert by granting the freedmen full political rights. They may lead the negroes if they like a fact which comes out at every turn but between them and the landless whites there is a deep gulf fixed. If Mr. Johnson will only yield, and suffer emancipation to be made a reality, the immediate future may be, if not satisfactory, at least endurable, but if not -- Then, say American Liberals, Mr. Johnson must be deposed. The President's term of office does not expire till March, 1869, and it is quite impossible that we can endure for two years and a half more a conflict between the Government and the nation. We cannot have the representative body would contrive to signify in some unmistakeable way that it intended to be sovereign, and the executive would either be changed or the dynasty dismissed. But in the United States the people, while determined to change either their ruler or his policy, are equally determined to preserve, if it is in any way possible, the forms of the Constitution, and under those forms it is nearly, though not quite, impossible to remove the President. The framers of that great document did indeed contemplate the contingency, but either from a belief that no such case could occur, or a lingering respect for the idea of kingship, or a wish to preserve the Preisdent's independence at all hazards, they left the law in a very uncertain state. The tribunal, indeed, is clear. The very able correspondent who writes to the Daily News exaggerates unconsciously the difficulties of the mere trial, for the second and third sections of the first article give the House of Representatives the power of impeachment by a simple majority and the Senate the right of trial. The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried the Chief Justice shall preside, and no person shall be convicted with |