Page:Historical Essays and Studies.djvu/296

284 George Eliot always read with a purpose before her, and there was no waste and little raw material in her learning. But her acquirements were mainly those of a person who had taught herself, and might not have satisfied University tests. The Latin is dubious in Romola and the Italian in Mr. Gilfil’s Love Story. The Princess of Eboli, who is supposed in the Life to have been a beauty, wore a patch over her eye. A questionable date is assigned to the Platonic anniversary in Romola, and the affair of the Appeal is misunderstood. There is a persistent error regarding the age of Pico ; and Savonarola, instead of proclaiming that he went straight to heaven, gave his evidence the other way. These and all other mistakes which the patience of readers has detected are immeasurably trivial compared to those which occur in the most famous historical novels, such as Ivanhoc and John Inglesant.

Caution and vigilance in guarding even the vestige of inaccuracy are apparent in other ways than the trip to Gainsborough and the consultation with Mr. Harrison on the legal obscurities of Felix Holt. Ladislaw's fatal allusion to German scholarship, which shattered Dorothea's belief in her husband, was an audacious hyperbole. Comparative mythology was as backward in Germany as elsewhere, besides which the Aglaophamus was written in Latin and the Symbolik was already appearing in French. But George Eliot takes care to warn us that Ladislaw did not know what he was talking about, and that Casaubon scorned to learn from a German even writing in Latin. Macchiavelli, in Romola, blows hot and cold on the Frate, but the inconsistency is faithfully taken from his writings. While the enthusiasts prevailed he went easily with the tide ; but after he had been ruined and tortured for the Republic, and had become the officious expounder of Borgian theory to Medicean experts, he spoke as became him of the man who had the blood-feud with Borgias and Medicis. The discovery of a single epithet, of a single letter (versuto for versato), has determined his real opinion since George Eliot wrote. The supreme test of