numerous works. It is by no
means different in kind from its predecessors; for it stands in the path
struck out by "The Warden" ten years ago. But it is better, inasmuch as
it is later; that is, it is by ten years better than "The Warden," and
by four years better than "Framley Parsonage." Mr. Trollope's course has
been very even,--too even, almost, to be called brilliant; for success
has become almost monotonous with him. His first novel was a triumph,
after its kind; and a list of his subsequent works would be but a record
of repeated triumphs. He has closely adhered to the method which he
found so serviceable at first; and although it is not for the general
critic to say whether he has felt temptations to turn aside, we may be
sure, in view of his unbroken popularity, that he has either been very
happy or very wise. His works, as they stand, are probably the exact
measure of his strength.

We do not mean that he has exhausted his strength. It seems to be the
prime quality of such a genius as Mr. Trollope's that it is exempt from
accident,--that it accumulates, rather than loses force with age. Mr.
Trollope's work is simple observation. He is secure, therefore, as long
as he retains this faculty. And his observation is the more efficient
that it is hampered by no concomitant purpose, rooted to no underlying
beliefs or desires. It is firmly anchored, but above-ground. We have
often heard Mr. Trollope compared with Thackeray,--but never without
resenting the comparison. In no point are they more dissimilar than in
the above. Thackeray is a moralist, a satirist; he tells his story for
its lesson: whereas Mr. Trollope tells his story wholly for its own
sake. Thackeray is almost as much a preacher as he is a novelist; while
Mr. Trollope is the latter simply. Both writers are humorists, which
seems to be the inevitable mood of all shrewd observers; and both
incline to what is called quiet humor. But we know that there are many
kinds of laughter. Think of the different kinds of humorists we find in
Shakspeare's comedies. Mr. Trollope's merriment is evoked wholly by the
actual presence of an oddity; and Thackeray's, although it be, by the
way, abundantly sympathetic with superficial comedy, by its _existence_,
by its history, by some shadow it casts. Of course all humorists have an
immense common fund. When Cradell, in the present tale, talks about Mrs.
Lupex's fine _torso_, we are reminded both of Thackeray and Dickens. But