however, which may point rather to a case of suspended vitality. Mr. Frederic Harrison, in a very appreciative article upon Trollope, regards his temporary obscurity as illustrating an ordinary phenomenon. As literary fashions change, the rising generation throws aside too contemptuously the books which pleased its immediate predecessors, and which will again interest its successors. Trollope, he thinks, may have for our children the interest at least of a singularly faithful portrait of the society of fifty years ago. Such of our unfortunate descendants as have a historical turn will be overwhelmed by the masses of material provided for them; and no doubt it will be a relief to them when weary of official despatches and blue-books, and solemn historical dissertations, to clothe the statistical skeleton in the concrete flesh and blood of realistic fiction. They may learn what the British squire or archdeacon of the period looked like, besides ascertaining the amount of his income and his constitutional position. In course of such reading, they may discover that such personages, if taken in the right spirit, are really attractive. Nobody can claim for Trollope any of the first-rate qualities which strain the powers of subtle and philosophical criticism; but
