two parts is recognisably drawn from the life; but that does not prevent a shadowy masquerade of this vicious brute appearing for a short period later on as a ranting preacher. It is not that vicious brutes may not become ranting preachers—they may, and do; but that this particular vicious brute of Mr. Hardy's, thanks to the want of energy in his realisation, does nothing of the kind.
One artistic gift Mr. Hardy has which rarely seems to desert him, and that is what Henri Beyle calls so aptly l'originalité de lieu. His people are at one with his places, a single harmonious growth of spiritual and natural circumstance; and this, the true artistic 'charity,' covers, or helps to cover, a multitude of sins. Here it is permitted us to praise him fully and almost unreservedly. The best examples of his landscape reach high—indeed, as high as anything of the kind now done among us. Let us even go further, and say that no one has rendered certain aspects of English scenery with such soft, clear perfection of touch as he has—that no one has produced anything approaching it for years. What else but this extraordinary gift renders credible and even poignantly real the final wanderings of the two lovers world-weary and doomed? (The murder, of course, like most of his would-be dramatic work, is absurd.) The love-nest in the empty, furnished
