some thirty years produced a great many novels -in fact it is difficult to say how many. He rather prided himself upon the mechanical habits of work which enabled him to put forth so much. As a matter of fact his novels are by no means lacking in excellence. Trollope may be termed a thoroughly good novelist-so long as we remember the distinction between "good" and "better." He was always widely read, and his best work is seen in the group of novels written between 1855 and 1867. are largely concerned with the life of a cathedral town-Barchester-which is really Winchester. In depicting the scenes and humors of this life Trollope cannot be surpassed. The series of stories is known as the "Barchester" series, and the names of some are: Barchester Towers, Doctor Thorne, and The Last Chronicle of Barset.

These

The difference between Trollope and CHARLES READE (1814-1884) is, as some one has very well said, the difference between talent and genius. Trollope never attains the "fine fury" of passion and pathos which is reached by Reade in The Clois ter and the Hearth especially, and in several other books as well. Reade went to Oxford, studied law, and was called to the Bar. But his independent means and his eccentric tastes and habits rendered him little amenable to any profession. He had strong dramatic leanings, and began, while still a young man, to write dramas; one of them— Gold-was acted in 1853. But as a dramatist he

of his loved Scotland was too strong for him. He went to Paris and Southern Europe; afterwards to the Adirondacks and California. In California he lived some years, and it appears in some of his novels. Finally, after wandering about the South Pacific generally, he settled down in Samoa upon a beautiful tract of land which he called Vailima. This was in 1887. Thenceforth it was his home, for the climate was eminently suitable and the scenery captivating. But his heart yearned sorely for the windy streets of Edinburgh and the bitter skies of the north. He cried :

Be it granted me to behold you again in dying, Hills of home!

But it was not granted; for he died suddenly at his home on the mountain-side in the South Sea Island, in December, 1894.

He left behind him a legacy of splendid prose, and also what some would be inclined to call more splendid still-the record of a noble life. He was sick and weak and harassed by the pressing need to find health; over his head was suspended the fatal sword: in his ears sounded the ocean of death. Yet his indomitable energy enabled him to write and to keep on writing under circumstances which would have deterred most men. It is not improbable that his dour confronting of fate won more years to his life. His career is a precious possession for the world, proving what bravery and honest faith may

achieve. Very fitting were the words of his noble

little Requiem :

Under the wide and starry sky,

Dig the grave and let me lie.

Glad did I live and gladly die

And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me;
"Here he lies where he longed to be:
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill ! "

Stevenson, when once his bent was manifest, consciously laid out for himself the life of a novelist. He had a very high conception of the duties and responsibilities of him who would speak for the world's delight. Hence he toiled hard to perfect himself in his art, to render himself fit to take up the torch of romance in Scotland that had fallen from the hand of the Wizard of the North. "Nobody ever took such pains to learn a trade as I did." He made the most elaborate studies in style. He wrote continuously. And in the end he developed a style which has a peculiar individuality and charm. As a story-teller he was not only born but made→→→ made by the severest processes of conscientious training. He combines, to a remarkable degree, the respective excellences of style and subject:

"Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof; but in the open world it passes lightly, with its stars and dews and perfumes, and the hours are marked by changes in the face of Nature, What

hand. By his brave life, and his high romance, Stevenson has won the love of every heart-so much so that he is difficult to criticise fairly. No higher praise, however, can be given him than what is his just due-that he, the first Scotch novelist since 1832, was worthy to succeed the author of Waverley.

Of living novelists brief word. Most important is GEORGE MEREDITH, who was almost contemporary with Dickens and Thackeray. Born in 1828, he was educated in Germany with the object of becoming a lawyer. But as early as his twenty-third year he published a volume of Poems, which decided him to take up literature. A very powerful romance appeared in 1859-The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. Here may be seen his extraordinary epigrammatic style. This novel attracted the notice of thoughtful readers; it would probably have become far more popular but for the existence of the rival work of Dickens and Thackeray. Meredith has written with great regularity ever since. His more important works-besides Richard Feverel, which may be called the best of all-are: Beauchamp's Career (1875), The Egoist (1879), Diana of the Crossways (1885), The Amazing Marriage (1895). His poetry is considerable, and characterised by the same stimulating qualities that mark his prose. His novels, never likely to be widely popular, will repay a careful study by their presentations of social and political problems, their skilful analysis of character, their brilliant descriptive passages, and

the often inspiriting style in which they are written. The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, as was said, gives the best idea of Meredith as an author. The system of Richard's education-and its failure, due to eminently natural causes-is a subject that lends itself to the author's sparkling and cynical treatment.

Mr. THOMAS HARDY occupies a commanding position among living writers of fiction. He was trained for architecture, and won distinction in that field. Not till he was thirty-one did his first novel appear-Desperate Remedies (1871). His métier is almost exclusively the peasant life to be found in Wessex. The striking work, published in 1891, called Tess of the D'Urbervilles, marks a departure from the motif of his earlier novels. It is true to life-realistic—and there is a marked cynicism throughout. The scene is laid in his favorite Wessex, and the story traces the career of a beautiful girl who is driven by fate to sin and the gallows. It is powerful and tragic; this is not the place to criticise its ethical significance, which would seem to be that human beings are helpless sufferers by a Divine misrule.

Mr. HALL CAINE (b. 1853) was also an architect. He lived with Dante Gabriel Rossetti for some years prior to the poet's death in 1882. Beginning as a journalist, he entered the field of fiction about 1887. Since then he has written many skilful novels, the best of which are perhaps The Deemster (1887), and The Manxman (1894). Mr. Caine's scenes are