He rarely consorted with dukes or county magnates, and he
never lived in the centre of the political world. Yet this rough,
self-taught busy Post-Office surveyor in Ireland, perpetually
travelling about the country on the inspections of his duty, managed to
see to the very marrow of the prelates of a cathedral, to the inner
histories of the duke's castle and the squire's home, into the secret
musings of the rector's daughter, and into the tangled web of
parliamentary intrigue. He did all this with a perfectly sure and
subtle touch, which was often, it is true, somewhat tame, and is never
perhaps of any very great brilliance, but which was almost faultlessly
true, never extravagant, never unreal. And, to add to the wonder, you
might meet him for an hour; and, however much you might like his bluff,
hearty, resonant personality, you would have said he was the last man
to have any delicate sympathy with bishops, dukes, or young ladies.

His insight into parliamentary life was surprisingly accurate and deep.
He had not the genius of Disraeli, but his pictures are utterly free
from caricature or distortion of any kind. In his photographic
portraiture of the British Parliament he surpassed all his
contemporaries; and inasmuch as such studies can only have a local and
sectional interest, they have probably injured his popularity and his
art. His conduct of legal intricacies and the ways of lawyers is
singularly correct; and the long and elaborate trial scene in _Phineas
Redux_ is a masterpiece of natural and faithful descriptions of an Old
Bailey criminal trial in which "society" happens to be involved. Yet
of courts of law, as of bishops' palaces, rectory firesides, the
lobbies of Parliament, and ducal "house parties," Trollope could have
known almost nothing except as an occasional and outside observer. The
life of London clubs, the habits and _personnel_ of a public office,
the hunting-field, and the social hierarchy and ten commandments
observed in a country town--these things Trollope knew to the minutest
shade, and he has described them with wonderful truth and zest.

There was a truly pathetic drollery in his violent passion for certain
enjoyments--hunting, whist, and the smoking-room of his club. I cannot
forget the comical rage which he felt at Professor Freeman's attack on
fox-hunting. I am not a sporting man myself; and, though I may look on
fox-hunting as one of the less deadly sins involved in "sport," I