its rightful place, not merely as by far the finest and highest of all
the author's works, but as perhaps the greatest and most perfect work of
fiction of its class ever till then produced.

Of its artistic merits we do not propose to speak in detail. But as a
historical reproduction of an epoch and a life peculiarly difficult of
reproduction, we do not for a moment hesitate to say that it has no
rival, except, perhaps,--and even that at a distance,--Victor Hugo's
incomparably greatest work, 'Notre Dame de Paris.' It is not that we
_see_ as in a panorama the Florence of the Medicis and Savonarola,--we
live, we move, we feel as if actors in it. Its turbulence, its struggles
for freedom and independence, its factions with their complicated
transitions and changes, its conspiracies and treasons, its classical
jealousies and triumphs,--we feel ourselves mixed up with them all. Names
historically immortal are made to us familiar presences and voices. Its
nobles and its craftsmen alike become to us as friends or foes. Its very
buildings--the Duomo and the Campanile, and many another--rise in their
stateliness and their grace before those who have never been privileged
to see them, clear and vivid as the rude northern houses that daily
obtrude on our gaze.

So distinct and all-pervading, in this great work, is what we are
maintaining to be the central moral purpose of all the author's works,
that it can scarcely escape the notice of the most superficial reader.
Affirmatively and negatively, in Romola and Tito--the two forms of
illustration to some extent combined in Savonarola--the constant,
persistent, unfaltering utterance of the book is, that the only true
worth and greatness of humanity lies in its pursuit of the highest truth,
purity, and right, irrespective of every issue, and in exclusion of every
meaner aim; and that the true debasement and hopeless loss of humanity