than most of her contemporaries, and was among the first to welcome the promise of Mr. Herbert Spencer. Of all the chief gifts of intellect displayed in her works we find adumbrations before she left Coventry. We miss, however, every indication of wit or humour till the life of the capitals is reached in Geneva and London. The spirit of observation becomes self-conscious,, and Lewes is hit off as a 'sort of miniature Mirabeau,' Alboni as 'a very fat siren,' Combe as 'an apostle with a front and back drawing-room.' Leroux 'disagrees with all but Pierre Leroux.' In short, we have all the indications of George Eliot the novel-writer except the novels. And even about these there is a remarkable quotation from a letter of Mrs. Bray to her sister on September 25th, 1846, exactly ten years before Amos Barton: 'Miss Evans looks very brilliant just now. We fancy she must be writing her novel.' Yet this must have only been an Ahnung—as Mr. Cross is fond of saying—for no people were more surprised at the revelation of George Eliot's abilities as a novelist than the Brays a dozen years after.
Her relation to the Brays is in many respects decisive and typical. We come to the secret recesses of her being, to the key of all that is problematic in her career and character, when we encounter the remarkable union of
