ABSTRACT
George Eliot's review of William Edward Hartpole Lecky's History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, 2 vols., 1865, was finished, according to her Journal, on 4 May 1865. It appeared in the first number of the Fortnightly, a periodical designed in imitation of the Revue des Deux Mondes and intended to supply the independent and responsible journalism that its founders, Anthony Trollope among them, felt was lacking in the English periodical press. G. H. Lewes had agreed to edit the magazine, and for this reason, as George Eliot said in a letter, 'it was seemly that I should write a little in it'. 1 In accordance with the Fortnightly's policy against anonymous articles, the review was signed 'George Eliot'.
