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A character in Middlemarch

Tertius Lydgate

A young doctor from a good family, trained in Paris, who comes to Middlemarch to practise medicine properly and reform it.

What they want

He wants to make a real discovery in medicine and to be a better kind of doctor than the town has ever had.

The book

MiddlemarchGeorge Eliot, 1872

A clever young woman marries a dry old scholar, an ambitious young doctor marries the prettiest girl in town, and a Midlands town watches both go wrong.

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Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Lydgate is the novel's second hero. He is talented, well-meaning and proud, and he has a blind spot about money and women. The story of his decline runs beside Dorothea's from start to finish.

How Tertius Lydgate Is Portrayed

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

  • The valves of the heartIn Chapter XV, as a schoolboy stuck indoors on a wet holiday, he takes down a dusty old encyclopedia and reads about the valves of the heart. From then on he means to be a doctor.
  • Laure at the Porte Saint-MartinIn Chapter XV, as a student in Paris, he falls for an actress who stabs her husband on stage. He follows her to Avignon and proposes, and she tells him she meant to do it.
  • The vote for TykeIn Chapter XVIII he votes with Bulstrode to make Mr Tyke chaplain of the new hospital, against his friend Mr Farebrother. He dislikes knowing that the vote suits his own interests.
  • The dropped chainIn Chapter XXXI he calls on Rosamond meaning nothing serious. She drops her chain, he stoops for it, sees tears in her eyes, and is engaged within minutes.
  • A bill of saleIn Chapter LVIII he has to give a creditor a bill of sale on the furniture of his house, meaning it can be taken if he does not pay.
  • The basil plantIn the Finale he once calls Rosamond his basil plant, and explains that basil flourished wonderfully on a murdered man's brains.

Tertius Lydgate quotes

Lines spoken by or about Tertius Lydgate, each verified verbatim against the text and located in the book.

I meant to do it.
— Laure · Laure in George Eliot's Middlemarch (1871–72)
Their ending, and the commentary — spoilers aheadHow the book leaves them, what happened after, and what the record says. Open when you're ready.

Bulstrode lends him a thousand pounds just before Raffles dies, and the town decides he was bribed. He leaves Middlemarch, becomes a successful doctor to wealthy patients and dies of diphtheria, always regarding himself as a failure.

If you like Middlemarch

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