As long as an artist tries his hand upon one kind of picture only, it is impossible positively to assert that he might not excel in any line of his art which he may choose to attempt; and whilst Mr. Trollope kept to the ground on which he was strong, criticism could scarcely do more than hazard a conjecture as to the points on which he was likely to be weak. In his minor tales he has once or twice attempted subjects not suited for a display of his special talents, and thereby enabled the public to perceive exactly what are his deficiencies. It may, for instance, be confidently asserted by any one who studies the history of "The Man who kept his Money in a Box," that Mr. Trollope lacks the vigorous, almost rollicking, humour to be found in the best passages of Dickens. The misfortunes of the luckless Robinson are meant to be farcical, but after all they do not lead to laughter. The situation is well imagined. The vulgarity of the Greenes, the series of accidents by which an honest man who, after being bullied for three days, and having looked with suspicion upon his fellow-travellers, is himself made to wear the appearance of a thief, are exquisitely ludicrous. Still, the whole story does not excite more than a smile, and utterly fails to arouse the sense of fun which Mr. Dickens would have excited by a few broad touches. When once readers perceive that there is a sort of humour of which Mr. Trollope is not master, they begin to understand why certain portions of his more elaborate works manifestly fail in producing their intended effect, and why it is that the elaborate description of Moulder and his family leaves, after all, no impression on the mind except that the bagman was a person disgustingly fond of hot brandy and fat turkeys. Another deficiency, which injures the interest of even the best of Mr. Trollope's novels, is glaringly apparent in his smaller writings. In common with almost all the novelists of the day, he has no power of inventing a story. Had Wilkie Collins, for instance, though in almost every respect Mr. Trollope's inferior, handled subjects similar to those treated in the Tales of many Lands, he would have made each chapter tell some definite and striking series of events. As it is, no one can read Mr. Trollope's collection without feeling that the only appropriate motto for the tales is the knife-grinder's remark-" Story I have none to tell.” Justice compels the admission that, though Tales of many Lands are, for the most part, productions unworthy of their author's pen, yet two stories, in different ways, bear the marks of his genius. Mrs. General Tallboys is not a pleasing character, but she could not have been described by any other writer than Mr. Trollope. A lady who played at impropriety because she felt conscious that she kept all the strictest laws imposed by conventional propriety or prudery, and who burst forth into open-mouthed indignation when a weak-minded Irishman conceived that a woman who talked bold words must necessarily be prepared for reckless acts, could scarcely belong to any other nation than the English, and could not, we feel assured, develop her peculiarities to their full extent in any other situation than in the midst of the little English world at Rome. It is the admirable skill with which Mr. Trollope hits off the whole tone of English men and women when abroad, their useless enthusiasm for foreign patriots, over whose griefs they lament without understanding their language or seeking their society, their affected fervour for works of art, and their feeble attempts to cast aside for a moment the rules of English life, which gives to the account of Mrs. Tallboys and her admirers an interest sufficient to overpower the reader's disgust at the meanness of the men and women with whom Mr. Trollope forces him to associate. One other tale gives evidence of power, though of power of a description which the rules of modern taste forbid Mr. Trollope to employ with freedom. The "Ride through Palestine" is a lengthy double entendre. Mr. Smith's sex is very soon apparent to every one but the victim of the unprincipled deception, and the whole beauty of the narrative depends upon the art with which the reader is let into the open secret which is unrevealed to Mr. Jones, and, at the same time, is made to feel that Mr. Jones's blindness is natural. To write pages which a lady might read without coming across a single expression which in itself could cause a blush, and yet to tell in those pages a tale which savours, to say the least, though not of the style yet of the spirit of Sterne, is a difficult feat, and Mr. Trollope has performed it. Whether such a performance will quite suit the taste of the classes who admire his ordinary novels is dubious. We are, at any rate, sure that an author who publishes nine stories, of which only two can, by the most lenient judgment, be pronounced good, is adopting the best way to lose the name which alone ensures a sale for his most trivial works. M M BOOKS OF THE QUARTER SUITABLE FOR READING SOCIETIES. The Invasion of the Crimea. By A. W. Kinglake. Vols. I. and II. Blackwood and Sons. [Reviewed in Article II.] Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church. Part I. By Professor Stanley. Murray. [Reviewed in Article V.] The Empire. By Professor Goldwin Smith. J. H. and J. Parker. [A series of vigorous and thoughtful letters on the chief political problems of the day.] History of Federal Government. Vol. I. By E. A. Freeman. Macmillan. [A learned work on a subject hitherto unattempted.] The Life of Bolingbroke. By T. Macknight. Chapman and Hall. [Reviewed in Article VI.] Roba di Roma. By W. W. Story. Chapman and Hall. [Reviewed in Article VII.] Antiquities of Man. By Sir Charles Lyell. Murray. [An admirable and interesting statement of the facts ascertained as yet about the primitive races of man.] Life in the South. By a Blockaded British Subject. Chapman and Hall. Italy under Victor Emmanuel. By Count Arrivabene. Hurst and Blackett. The Polish Captivity. By H. Sutherland Edwards. Murray. Glimpses into Pet-land. By the Rev. J. G. Wood. Bell and Daldy. [A charming book on favourite animals.] The Odes of Horace. Translated into English Verse by Professor Conington. Bell and Daldy. Biographical Sketches. By Nassau W. Senior. Longman. The Greek Christian Poets. By Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Chapman and Hall. The Capital of the Tycoon. By Sir Rutherford Alcock. Longman. [Badly arranged, but full of interesting detail.] Books of the Quarter suitable for Reading-Societies. 527 H.M.S. Hannibal at Palermo and Naples. By Admiral Sir Rodney Mundy. Murray. Miscellanies. Collected by Earl Stanhope. Constitutional History of England. Vol. II. By T. E. May. Long man. [Reviewed in the Short Notices.] Letters on some Questions of International Law. By Historicus. Macmillan [An able statement of the law of nations on points of immediate interest.] The Tropical World. By Dr. G. Hartwig. Longman. Memoirs of the Rev. T. Sedgwick Whalley. Bentley. The Life of Father Lacordaire. By Count Montalembert. Bentley. The Voyage of the Novara. Vol. III. By Dr. K. Scherzer. Saunders, Points of Contact between Science and Art. By Cardinal Wiseman. Hurst and Blackett. Lawrence Struilby; or, Bush Life in Australia. Longman. Chronicles of Carlingford; Salem Chapel. Blackwood. [Reviewed in Article IV.] Sylvia's Lovers. By Mrs. Gaskell. Smith and Elder. [Full of melancholy power.] Tales of all Countries. By Anthony Trollope. Chapman and Hall. [Reviewed in the Short Notices.] Verner's Pride. By Mrs. H. Wood. Bradbury and Evans. The Story of Elizabeth. Smith and Elder. At Odds. By the Author of " The Initials." Bentley. The Ice Maiden. By H. C. Andersen. Bentley. [Inferior to earlier tales by the same author.] Thalatta a Political Romance. Parker. Titan. From the German of Jean Paul Richter. Trübner and Co. [A philosophical romance.] |