The house is on the summit of a little hill or rather The rectory garden at Dinglefield is a delightful place. tableland, for in the front, towards the green, all is level and soft as becomes an English village; but on the other side the descent begins towards the lower country, and from the drawing-room windows and the lawn, the view extended over a great plain, lighted up with links of the river, and fading into unspeakable hazes of distance, such as were the despair of every artist, and the delight of the fortunate people who lived there, and were entertained day by day with the sight of all the and soft prolonged twilights. Mr Damerel was fond of sunsets, the mid-day splendours, the flying shadows, saying that no place he knew so lent itself to idleness as this. Idleness! I speak as the foolish ones speak,' he would say, 'for what occupation could be more ennobling than to watch those gleams and shadows—all nature spread out before you, and demanding attention, though so softly that only they who have ears hear? I allow, my gentle Nature here does not shout at you, and compel your regard, like her who dwells among the Alps for instance. My dear, you are always practical-but so long as you leave me my landscape I want little more.' Thus the rector would discourse. It was very little perfect order, swept and trimmed every morning like more he wanted-only to have his garden and lawn in a lady's boudoir, and refreshed with every variety of flower: to have his table not heavily loaded with vulgar English joints, but daintily covered, and oh! so daintily served; the linen always fresh, the crystal always fine, the ladies dressed as ladies should be: to have his wine, of which he took very little, always fine, of choice vintage, and with a bouquet that rejoiced the heart: to have plenty of new books: to have quiet undisturbed by the noise of the children, or any other troublesome noise such as broke the harmony of nature: he declared, at once shorten the life and take all pleasure and especially undisturbed by bills and cares, such as, out of it. This was all he required: and surely never man had tastes more moderate, more innocent, more virtuous and refined.

Innocent, 1873; May, 1873; For Love and Life, of refinement what sentiment existed between the Mr Damerel was perfectly 1874; A Rose in June, 1874; The Story of cottagers and the curate. Valentine and his Brothers, 1875; Whiteladies, kind and courteous to everybody, gentle and simple, 1875; The Curate in Charge, 1876; &c. Mrs who came in his way, but he was not fond of poor Oliphant has been more versatile than any other people in the abstract. He disliked everything that of our living female novelists. She has tried the was unlovely, and alas! there are a great many unlovely things in poverty. pure character story, with which, indeed, she may be said to have started in Kate Stewart, a tale of Fifeshire (to which county she belongs), and since then she has been sensational, domestic, and psychological by turns. Her critical and historical papers in Blackwood are ably and finely written. In her novels, Mrs Oliphant has great powers of construction, knowledge of human nature, and penetration, added to extensive knowledge of society, and the modes and manners of foreign countries. Her Salem Chapel, which first raised its author to wide popularity, is an excellent specimen of the story of character, full of shrewd observation; and the same remark applies to The Chronicles of Carlingford. In The Squire of Arden and in Madonna Mary, we have the novel of society and plot; whilst in such tales as At His Gates we find plot and sensation most prominent, and in Agnes, The Minister's Wife, Innocent, and Valentine and his Brother, we have what are really psychological stories, in which the morbid or exceptional type of character is a main element. Mrs Oliphant, however, takes care to accompany all such effects with enough of relief and variety of other characters and situations to maintain general interest. For example, the Italian child Innocent-half idiot-is thrown into such situations as introduce us to many characters in whom we are deeply interested, though they never overshadow the chief figure; and in the father of 'Valentine and his brother,' we are introduced to various Scotch characters and to sketches of fine society abroad. In pathos, we think this accomplished novelist deficient that is, inferior to herself in other respects-and occasionally careless as to style. She rambles into long-winded sentences and paragraphs in which repetition is frequent. But for this defect, her tale of Whiteladies would have been a most powerful story of motive and conscience, worthy of Hawthorne. The Curate in Charge is one of the happiest of her long file of creations. It may be considered an exposé of the evils of patronage in the church; and, though cynical, possesses scenes of true pathos-such as the death of the old curate, and the efforts of his daughters afterwards to support themselves. Mrs Oliphant's latest novel, Phabe, Junior, is no less interesting and life-like.

An English Rector and Rectory. 'Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things. Let the child alone-she will never be young again if she should live a hundred years!'

These words were spoken in the garden of Dinglefield Rectory on a very fine summer day a few years ago. The speaker was Mr Damerel, the rector, a middle-aged man, with very fine, somewhat worn features, a soft benignant smile, and, as everybody said who knew him, the most charming manners in the world. He was a man of very elegant mind as well as manners. He did not preach often, but when he did preach all the educated persons of his congregation felt that they had very choice fare indeed set before them. I am afraid the poor folk liked the curate best, but then the curate liked them best, and it mattered very little to any man or woman

The little scene to which I have thus abruptly introduced the reader took place in the most delicious part of the garden. The deep stillness of noon was over the sunshiny world; part of the lawn was brilliant in light; the very insects were subdued out of their buzz of activity by the spell of the sunshine; but here, under the lime-tree, there was grateful shade, where everything took breath. Mr Damerel was seated in a chair which had been made expressly for him, and which combined

the comfort of soft cushions with such a rustic appearance as became its habitation out of doors; under his feet was a soft Persian rug in colours blended with all the harmony which belongs to the Eastern loom; at his side a pretty carved table, with a raised rim, with books upon it, and a thin Venice glass containing a rose.

Another rose, the Rose of my story, was half-sitting, half-reclining on the grass at his feet-a pretty, light figure, in a soft muslin dress, almost white, with bits of soft rose-coloured ribbon here and there. She was the eldest child of the house. Her features I do not think were at all remarkable, but she had a bloom so soft, so delicate, so sweet, that her father's fond title for her, 'a Rose in June,' was everywhere acknowledged as appropriate. A rose of the very season of roses was this Rose. Her very smile, which came and went like breath, never away for two minutes together, yet never lasting beyond the time you took to look at her, was flowery too, I can scarcely tell why. For my own part, she always reminded me not so much of a

garden rose in its glory, as of a branch of wild roses all blooming and smiling from the bough, here pink, here white, here with a dozen ineffable tints. In all her life she had never had occasion to ask herself was she happy? Of course she was happy! Did not she live, and was not that enough?

Fiction and Biography.—From 'Agnes?

1865; The Belton Estate, 1866; The Last Chronicle of Barset, 1867; The Claverings, 1867; Lotta Schmidt and other Stories, 1867; He Knew he was Right, 1869; Phineas Finn, 1869; AnEditor's Tales, 1870; The Vicar of Bullhampton, 1870; Ralph the Heir, 1871; Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite, 1871; The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson; The Eustace Diamonds, 1872-3; The Golden Lion It has always been my opinion that, as the great of Grandpere, 1872-3; Harry Heathcote of Ganvalue of fiction lies in its power of delineating life, goil, Lady Anna, Phineas Redux, 1874; The there may be cases in which it may assume to a cer- Way We Live Now, and Diamond Cut Diamond, tain extent the form of biography; I do not mean of 1875; The Prime Minister, 1876; &c. Besides autobiography, which is sufficiently common in novels; the above works of fiction, Mr Trollope has writbut that the writer of fiction may occasionally be per- ten The West Indies and the Spanish Main, a mitted to supplement the work of the serious biographer pleasing volume of travels and description, pub-to depict scenes which never could be depicted as happening to any actual individual, and to reveal senti- lished in 1859; North America, 2 vols., 1862; ments which may be in many minds, but which none Hunting Sketches, 1865; Travelling Sketches, would care in their own person to give expression to. 1866; Clergymen of the Church of England, 1866 I do not believe that there ever was, or could be, in (these last three works were reprints from the this world a wholly true, candid, and unreserved biog- Pall Mall Gazette); British Sports and Pastimes, raphy, revealing all the dispositions, or even, without 1868; Australia and New Zealand, 2 vols., 1873. exception, all the facts of any existence. Indeed, the Mr Trollope was for about three years editor of thing is next to impossible; since in that case, the sub-Saint Paul's Magazine, and he has contributed ject of the biography must be a man or woman with- largely to other periodicals. out reserve, without delicacy, and without those secrets which are inevitable even to the most stainless spirit. Even fiction itself, which is less responsible, can in many instances only skim the surface of the real. Most people must be aware, in their own experience, that of those passages of their lives which have affected them most they could give only the baldest description to their friends; and that their saddest and supremest moments are hidden in their own hearts, and never find any expression. It is only in the region of pure invention that the artist can find a model who has no secrets from him, but lies all open and disclosed to his investigation.

ANTHONY TROLLOPE.

Mr Trollope is emphatically a 'man of the time,' the very antipodes of imaginative writers like George MacDonald. He is a realist, a painter of men and manners of the present day, a satirist within a certain range, ready to make use of any type that may present itself, and seem characteristic as a product of the special conditions of the present century. He is rather conservative and High Church, his best portraitures being those of the clergy. Who can ever forget Mr Slope, Dr Grantly, Bishop Prowdie or Mrs Prowdie? Ladies of rank, aspiring members of parliament (Irish and English), habitues of the clubs, Australian stockmen, female adventurers-all of these, and The most prolific novelist of the present times- many more, he has taken up, and so set them in far exceeding Scott and Dickens in the number of midst of their surroundings, that his pictures look his works-is MR ANTHONY TROLLOPE, second like photographs, and they seem to be produced son of the late Mr T. A. Trollope, barrister, and as easily as the photographer throws off his scenes of Mrs Trollope, noticed in a previous page as a and portraits. Mr Trollope is eminently practical distinguished authoress. Anthony was born April and also public-minded, for his characters fre24, 1815, and was educated at Winchester and quently refer to great public questions, and suggest Harrow. Having obtained an appointment in the political changes. His humour is peculiar to General Post-office, he rose high in the service, himself, dry, direct, and with no infusion of sentiand was despatched to Egypt, America, and other ment. In his excellent story, The Small House of countries, in order to arrange postal conventions. Allington, he will not allow sentiment to suggest He retired from the service in 1867, having made even the slightest poetical justice in reference to a handsome competency by his literary labours, his beautiful and brave, but unfortunate heroine, which he was enabled to carry on during the Lily Dale. The reality of his subsidiary charbusiest portions of his life by means of the invalu-acters, and his manner of seizing on peculiar able habit of early rising. It was while stationed traits without dwelling on them, so as to suggest in Ireland, in the surveyor's department of the oddity, separate him entirely from the school of Post-office, that Mr Trollope commenced his Dickens, whilst his dislike of moralising, and his career as an author. In 1847 he published the trick of satire, separate him as distinctly from the first of his long file of novels-an Irish story en- school of Thackeray, in whom tenderness always titled The Macdermotts of Ballycloran. This was lies alongside the cynical touches and bitterness. followed, a twelvemonth afterwards, by another Irish tale, The Kellys and the O'Kellys, or Landlords and Tenants. Conscious of his powers, and sure of readers, Mr Trollope continued to pour forth works of fiction, among which are the following: La Vendée, 1850; The Wanden, 1855; Barchester Towers, 1857; _The_Three Clerks, 1858; Doctor Thorne, 1858; The Bertrams, 1859; Castle Richmond, 1860; Framley Parsonage, 1861; Orley Farm, 1861; Tales of All Countries, 1861; Rachel Ray, 1863; Can You Forgive Her? 1864; The Small House at Allington, 1864 ; Miss Mackenzie,

* In a lecture delivered in Natal by the Hon. Mr Broome, secretary to the colony, and republished in the literary journal Evening Hours, is the following:

""Don't you ever," said a friend of mine to Mr Trollope, "find a difficulty in beginning?" "Not at all-why should I? I sit down to write, and what difficulty is there? I do just four hundred words in a quarter of an hour." Nothing seems to disturb the even tenor of Mr Trollope's pen. The other day, going out to Australia round the Cape, he had a cabin fitted with a desk, and wrote novels at sea just as usual for a certain time and a certain number of pages every morning. He published about one every two months for some time after he returned to England. But Mr Trollope's ruling passion is not novel-writing, but the hunting-field, and the last time sling from a bad fall with the Berkshire hounds.' 557

met him, in the vestibule of the Garrick Club, his arm was in a

Mr Trollope's style is clear, natural, sometimes eloquent, and without any trace of artifice.

necessarily remain ignorant of much, while he would know everything belonging to the diocese. At first, doubtless, he must flatter and cajole, perhaps yield in some things; but he did not doubt of ultimate triumph. If all other means failed, he could join the bishop against his wife, inspire courage into the unhappy man, lay an axe to the root of the woman's power, and emancipate the husband.

Such were his thoughts as he sat looking at the sleeping pair in the railway-carriage, and Mr Slope is not the man to trouble himself with such thoughts for nothing. He is possessed of more than average abilities, and is of good courage. Though he can stoop to fawn, and stoop low indeed, if need be, he has still within him the power to assume the tyrant; and with the power he has certainly the wish. His acquirements are not of the highest order; but such as they are, they are completely under control, and he knows the use of them. He is gifted with a certain kind of pulpit eloquence, not likely indeed to be persuasive with men, but powerful with the softer excites the minds of his weaker hearers with a not In his sermons he deals greatly in denunciations, unpleasant terror, and leaves an impression on their minds that all mankind are in a perilous state, and all womankind too, except those who attend regularly to the evening lectures in Baker Street. His looks and tones are extremely severe, so much so that one cannot but fancy that he regards the greater part of the world as As he walks being infinitely too bad for his care. through the streets, his very face denotes his horror of the world's wickedness; and there is always an anathema lurking in the corner of his eye.

sex.

The Archdeacon's Sanctum and the Old Church. No room could have been more becoming for a dignitary of the church. Each wall was loaded with theology; over each separate book-case was printed in small gold letters the names of those great divines whose works were ranged beneath; beginning from the early fathers in due chronological order, there were to be found the precious labours of the chosen servants of the church down to the last pamphlet written in opposition to the consecration of Dr Hampden; and raised above this were to be seen the busts of the greatest among the great-Chrysostom, St Augustine, Thomas à Becket, Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop Laud, and Dr Philpotts. Every application that could make study pleasant and give ease to the over-toiled brain was there: chairs made to relieve each limb and muscle; reading-desks and writing-desks to suit every attitude; lamps and candles mechanically contrived to throw their light on any favoured spot, as the student might desire; a shoal of newspapers to amuse the few leisure moments which might be stolen from the labours of the day; and then from the window a view right through a bosky vista, along which ran a broad green path from the rectory to the church, at the end of which the tawny-tinted fine old tower was seen with all its variegated pinnacles and parapets. Few parish churches in England are in better repair, or better worth keeping so, than that at Plumstead Episcopi; and yet it is built in a faulty style; the body of the church is low-so low that the nearly flat leaden roof would be visible from the church-so strict a mind can be called tolerant of anything. yard, were it not for the carved parapet with which it is surrounded. It is cruciform, though the transepts are irregular, one being larger than the other; and the tower is much too high in proportion to the church: but the colour of the building is perfect; it is that rich yellow gray which one finds nowhere but in the south and west of England, and which is so strong a characteristic of most of our old houses of Tudor architecture. The stonework is also beautiful; the mullions of the windows and the rich tracery of the Gothic workmanship are as rich as fancy can desire; and though in gazing on such a structure, one knows by rule that the old priests who built it, built it wrong, one cannot bring one's self to wish that they should have made it other than it is.

A Low-church Chaplain.-From Barchester Towers. Mr Slope soon comforted himself with the reflection, that as he had been selected as chaplain to the bishop, it would probably be in his power to get the good things in the bishop's gift, without troubling himself with the bishop's daughter; and he found himself able to endure the pangs of rejected love. As he sat himself down in the railway carriage, confronting the bishop and Mrs Proudie, as they started on their first journey to Barchester, he began to form in his own mind a plan of his future life. He knew well his patron's strong points, but he knew the weak ones as well. He understood correctly enough to what attempts the new bishop's high spirit would soar, and he rightly guessed that public life would better suit the great man's taste, than the small details of diocesan duty.

He, therefore-he, Mr Slope-would in effect be bishop of Barchester. Such was his resolve; and to give Mr Slope his due, he had both courage and spirit to bear him out in his resolution. He knew that he should have a hard battle to fight, for the power and patronage of the see would be equally coveted by another great mind -Mrs Proudie would also choose to be bishop of Barchester. Slope, however, flattered himself that he could out-manoeuvre the lady. She must live much in London, while he would always be on the spot. She would

In doctrine, he, like his patron, is tolerant of dissent, if

With Wesleyan Methodists he has something in common, but his soul trembles in agony at the iniquities of the Puseyites. His aversion is carried to things outward as well as inward. His gall rises at a new church with a with him a symbol of Satan; and a profane jest-book high-pitched roof; a full-breasted black-silk waistcoat is would not, in his view, more foully desecrate the church seat of a Christian, than a book of prayer printed with red letters, and ornamented with a cross on the back. Most active clergymen have their hobby, and Sunday observances are his. Sunday, however, is a word which The 'desecration of the Sabbath,' as he delights to call never pollutes his mouth-it is always 'the Sabbath.' it, is to him meat and drink-he thrives upon that as policemen do on the general evil habits of the community. It is the loved subject of all his evening discourses, the source of all his eloquence, the secret of all his power over the female heart. To him the revelation of God appears only in that one law given for Jewish observance. To him the mercies of our Saviour speak in vain. To him in vain has been preached that sermon which fell from divine lips on the mountain: 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth'-' Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.' To him the New Testament is comparatively of little moment, for from it can he draw no fresh authority for that dominion which he loves to exercise over at least a seventh part of man's allotted time here below.

Mr Slope is tall, and not ill made. His feet and hands are large, as has ever been the case with all his family, but he has a broad chest and wide shoulders to carry off these excrescences, and on the whole his figure is good. His countenance, however, is not specially prepossessing. His hair is lank, and of a dull, pale reddish hue. It is always formed into three straight lumpy masses, each brushed with admirable precision, and cemented with much grease; two of them adhere closely to the sides of his face, and the other lies at right angles above them. He wears no whiskers, and is always punctiliously shaven. His face is nearly of the same colour as his hair, though perhaps a little redder : it is not unlike beef-beef, however, one would say, of a bad quality. His forehead is capacious and high, but

than good. Uphill together have we walked peaceably his prostration by misfortune, had been independent labouring; and now arm in arm ye shall go down the in thought and vigorous in action to a marked extentgradual slope which ends below there in the green conditions which, powerless without an opportunity, as churchyard. 'Tis good and salutary to walk thus. But an opportunity without them is barren, would have for the full cup of joy, for the brimming springtide of given him a sure and certain lift upwards when the human bliss, oh give me back! Well, well, well; favourable conjunction should have occurred. But this it is nonsense; I know it, but may not a man dream incurable loitering beside Bathsheba Everdene stole his now and again in his evening nap, and yet do no harm? time ruinously. The spring tides were going by without floating him off, and the neap might soon come which could not.