Further adventures in Victorian criticism of the novel

From "Novel-Reading," an article in The Month: A Catholic Magazine and Review (1883):

A third class of writers, perhaps the smallest and most dangerous of all, combine in some of their novels a very high degree of literary talent, not to say genius, with subject matter and treatment of the same, which is often, at best, extremely questionable. Without returning to the last century for examples, Mr. Mallock is a most powerful writer, George Eliot is nearly always charming, Bulwer Lytton, though somewhat out of fashion, will ever hold a foremost place amongst English novelists, and yet neither A Novel of the Nineteenth Century, nor Adam Bede, nor Ernest Maltravers, with its sequel Alice, not to mention other works, have succeeded in warding off adverse and well-deserved criticisms on moral grounds.

Some observations:

1) I suspect that only Victorianists will recognize "Mr. Mallock"--that is, W. H. Mallock, a rather ardent conservative in matters religious and political.     Mallock's A Human Document is the raw material for A Humument.  

2) George Eliot is...charming? Really? I suppose you could extract some charm from Silas Marner. 

3) A useful reminder that Bulwer Lytton, now reduced to a bad writing contest, was not a joke at the time (which is why Victorianists actually do need to--gulp--read at least some of his work).