It?" combines examples of the heroic, the humorous, the pathetic, and
the villainous, and affords, perhaps, the best general view of the
author's varied talents. Sir Bulwer Lytton is one of the most
voluminous writers of a very prolific class, and yet he has never
repeated himself. Mr. Anthony Trollope and several other novelists have
shown how fallacious is the idea that the imagination is a fickle
mistress to be courted and waited for. They have proved that she can be
made to settle down and accustomed by habit to working at stated hours
and for regular periods. But Bulwer Lytton not only forced his
imagination to continuous labor, but he was able to insure an unending
novelty of conception. In each one of his novels we are introduced to
an entirely new set of characters inhabiting quite unfamiliar scenes.

With a few exceptions, Mr. Anthony Trollope has confined himself to the
novel of English social life, but that mine he has worked with
wonderful assiduity and success. In "The Warden," in "Barchester
Towers," are studies of clerical character for which this writer has
won a special reputation. "The Small House at Allington" is a love
story of particular fascination. Few writers have described the
manifestations of love in the acts and thoughts of a modest, sweet girl
as delicately as Mr. Trollope has done in the case of the deserted
Lily. Her rejection of a second suitor is felt by the reader to be the
inevitable consequence of so pure a passion, and the treachery of
Crosbie is traced through its various gradations with true fidelity to
nature. "Phineas Finn" is an excellent example of a parliamentary
novel. That work and its companions, "Phineas Redux," "The Prime
Minister," and "The Duke's Children," keep up our acquaintance with the
family and connections of Plantagenet Palliser, Duke of Omnium, than
which few groups of fictitious characters are more continuously
interesting. Mr. Trollope's novels will have a special value for the