WRITINGS OF T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE.
"I AM indebted to you for a knowledge of life in the old cathedral towns of England,—of the ecclesiastical side of society, so minute and authentic that it is like a personal experience." Thus I replied to Anthony Trollope's declaration that he lacked an essential quality of the novelist,—imagination. "Ah," he replied, "when you speak of careful observation and the honest and thorough report thereof, I am conscious of fidelity to the facts of life and character; but," he added, with that bluff heartiness so characteristic of the man, "my brother is more than an accurate observer: he is a scholar, a philosopher as well, with historical tastes and cosmopolitan sympathies,—a patient student. You should read his books";—and he snatched a pencil, and wrote out the list for me.[1] Only two of Thomas Adolphus Trollope's volumes have been republished in this country, one a novel of English life, in tenor and traits very like his brother's, the other a brief memoir of a famous and fair Italian.[2] This curious neglect on the part of American publishers induces us to briefly record this industrious and interesting author's claims to grateful recognition, especially on the part of those who cherish fond recollections of Italian travel, and enjoy the sympathetic and intelligent illustration of Italian life and history.
In a literary point of view "An Englishman in Italy," in the last century, would be suggestive of a classical tour like that of Addison and Eustace, a field of study and speculation quite apart from the people of the country, who, except for purposes of deprecatory contrast, would probably be ignored; and, in our own times, the idea is rather identified with caricature than sympathy,—we associate these insular travellers with exclusiveness and prejudice. As a general rule, they know little and care less for the fellow-creatures among whom they sojourn, holding themselves aloof, incapable of genial relations, and owning no guide to foreign knowledge but Murray and the Times. Farce and romance have long made capital out of this obtuse and impervious nationality; and it is the more refreshing, because of the general rule, to note a noble exception,—to see an Englishman, highly educated, studious, domestic, and patriotic, yet dwelling in Italy, not to despise and ignore, but to interpret and endear the country and people,—making his hospitable dwelling, with all its Italian trophies and traits, the favorite rendezvous for the best of his countrymen and the native society, there discussing the principles and prospects of civic reform, doing honor to men of genius and aspiration, irrespective of race,—blending in his salon the scholarly talk of Landor with the fervid pleas of "Young Italy," giving equal welcome to English radical, Piedmontese patriot, American humanitarian, and Tuscan dilettante,—and thus, as it were, recognizing the free and faithful spirit of modern progress and brotherhood amid the old armor, bridal chests, parchment tomes, quaintly carved chairs, and other mediaeval relics of a Florentine palazzo.
But this cosmopolitan candor, so rare as a social phenomenon among the English in Italy, is no less characteristic of Adolphus Trollope as a writer. As he entertained, in his pleasant, antique reception-room or garden-terrace, disciples of Cavour, of Mazzini, and of Gioberti, with men and women of varied genius and opposite convictions from England and the Unit-
- ↑ A History of Florence, in four volumes; Paul the Pope and Paul the Friar; Filippo Strozzi; The Girlhood of Catharine de' Medici; A Decade of Italian Women; Tuscany in 1849; La Beata; Marietta; Giulio Malatesta; Beppo the Conscript. London: Chapman and Hall. 1856–1865.
- ↑ Lindisfarn Chase. Harper and Brothers, 1863. Life of Vittoria. Colonna. Sheldon & Co., 1859.
