d-fellowship. Mr. Trollope inaugurated a new
era in British book-making upon America, when he wrote: 'If I could in
any small degree add to the good feeling which should exist between two
nations which ought to love each other so well, and which do hang upon
each other so constantly, I should think that I had cause to be proud of
my work.' In saying this much, Mr. Trollope has said what others of his
ilk--Bulwer, Thackeray, and Dickens--would _not_ have said, and he may
well be proud, or, at least, he can afford _not_ to be proud, of a
superior honesty and frankness. He has won for himself kind thoughts on
this side of the Atlantic, and were Americans convinced that the body
English were imbued with the spirit of Mr. Trollope, there would be
little left of the resuscitated 'soreness.'

In his introduction, Mr. Trollope frankly acknowledges that 'it is very
hard to write about any country a book that does not represent the
country described in a more or less ridiculous point of view.' He
confesses that he is not a philosophico-political or
politico-statistical or a statistico-scientific writer, and hence,
'ridicule and censure run glibly from the pen, and form themselves into
sharp paragraphs, which are pleasant to the reader. Whereas, eulogy is
commonly dull, and too frequently sounds as though it were false.' We
agree with him, that 'there is much difficulty in expressing a verdict
which is intended to be favorable, but which, though favorable, shall
not be falsely eulogistic, and though true, not offensive.' Mr. Trollope
has not been offensive either in his praise or dispraise; and when we
look upon him in the light in which he paints himself--that of an
English novelist--he has, at least, done his best by us. We could not
expect from him such a book as Emerson wrote on _English Traits_, or
such an one as Thomas Buckle would have written had death not staid his
great work of _Civilization_. Nor could we look to him for that which
John Stuart Mill--the English De Tocqueville--alone can give. For much
that we expected we have received, for that which is wanting we shall
now find fault, but good-naturedly, we hope.

Our first ground of complaint against Mr. Trollope's _North-America_, is
its extreme verbosity. Had it been condensed to one half, or at least
one third of its present size, the spirit of the book had been less
weakened, and the taste of the public better satisfied. The question
naturally arises in an inquir