emigrated to Canada soon after her marriage, has for several years maintained a brisk intercourse with the mother country by a succession of novels and sketches, of which we may mention "Flora Lyndsay," "Life in the Clearings," "Mark Hurdlestone," "Matrimonial Speculations," "The Moncktons," &c., &c.

GEORGE W. THORNBURY.

AMONGST the crowds of young men of ready wit and extensive reading, who form the rising generation of authors, Mr. Thornbury stands forth prominently and honourably. A patient and laborious student, he has acquired a store of knowledge rarely possessed by one who from early youth has fought the battle of life with the pen. Besides contributing articles without number to the leading magazines and the columns of the Athenæum, he has given to the world a succession of distinct works, in which he appears to equal advantage, whether regarded as an antiquarian, a poet, an historian, or a biographer. In 1851 appeared "Lays and Legends, or Ballads of the New World," and since then he has produced " Monarchs of the Main, or Adventures of the Buccaneers," "Shakspeare's England," "Art and Nature," "Songs of the Cavaliers and Roundheads," and several minor works.

As a novelist, Mr. Thornbury is not much known to the public, though they are few who have not been delighted with the remarkable tales he has anonymously sprinkled over the pages of serials. But a novel, it is rumoured in literary circles, will shortly appear from his pen in the orthodox three volumes, entitled "Every Man his own Trumpeter."

The work, however, which is looked for with general eagerness and especial longing from this author, is the

"Life of Turner," which he has undertaken with the approval and encouragement of Ruskin, and several distinguished artists who were intimately connected with the great painter. In his treatment of this subject it is confidently anticipated that Mr. Thornbury will win lasting laurels, for he is not only a painter of no ordinary merit, but he is one of the best art-critics living, and has a lively admiration for Turner's genius. Perhaps never has an author had a better field for the display of his peculiar talents.

ANTHONY TROLLOPE.

In the person of this most agreeable writer, another firm and strong tie has been placed between fictitious literature and the name of Trollope. "La Vendee: an Historical Romance," published in 1850, did not gain more attention or in any respect greater commendation than first attempts usually meet with. But the last three novels that have come from Mr. Trollope's pen within the last three years, have received the praise and circulation they merit. We sincerely trust that the author of "The Warden," "The Three Clerks," and "Barchester Towers, will go on as he has begun, and not cease writing ere his works are as numerous as those of the eminent lady who, bearing his name, has preceded him in time, but is not before him in genius.

FRANCES TROLLOPE.

No catalogue of celebrated English novelists would be complete without the name of this lady, whose rare endowments seem to have descended to her son. Mrs. Trollope has been much abused, sometimes justly, and sometimes unjustly. She is censured by ladies who plume themselves

on their refinement and delicacy; but then such ladies are apt to be so very squeamish and particular; and she is hated by America-but then America, like a young lady in her teens, has not yet acquired the dignified composure of self-respect-blushes when she is stared at, and indulges in a fit of crying when the make of her dress is condemned, or her manners are said to be unformed. Without a doubt, Mrs. Trollope has her foes, but she has also a powerful army of adherents. Circulating libraries cannot do without her, for the more time-honoured patronesses of those much frequented and traduced sources of entertainment cry out for "Mrs. Trollope's last" at least nine times where they ask for the more decorous productions of Miss Yonge. It is all well for reviews, the writers of which are in favour of mediæval restorations and mild womanly proprieties, to say that the author of "The Vicar of Wrexhill" has outwritten herself, and grown dull; it may be so, but in that case her faithful readers have undergome a similar deterioration, for they are as much amused by the Mrs. Trollope, who has numbered seventy winters, as they were by the Mrs. Trollope of a quarter of a century since.

66

Mrs. Trollope was born about the year 1787; but it was not till she had fairly entered upon middle life that she began her brilliant career as an author. In 1829 she visited America, and after a residence in that country for three years, published the work which made the old world laugh, and the new howl with rage, 'Domestic Manners of the Americans." Much of this work is as valuable as it is amusing, and we see no reason to question the author's truthfulness of intention; but the picture of life it contains, taken as a whole, must be sentenced as calumnious and false. It is difficult for sketches of a comparatively strange society to be otherwise. The artist, let his will be ever so honest, is more impressed by the new and grotesque and unusual, than he is by that which accords with old

associations, which is matter-of-fact, or which does not contradict the ordinary monotony of existence. The scenes put on his paper are too highly coloured by what tickled him. This egotism is inseparable from a painter of manners. His object is to amuse others, and he can do this only by repeating what amused himself. Bent on creating a favourable impression, on making a striking picture, on avoiding the reputation of being a dull fellow, he insensibly falls into a habit of setting down that which will tickle and excite laughter, rather than that which is calculated to instruct. Thus, even if he does not fall into mistakes of attributing the manners of one class to another from failing to estimate the position of his companions, he becomes a caricaturist in giving undue prominence to a certain class of ludicrous or startling incidents.

Amongst Mrs. Trollope's best known works of imagination are "The Refugee of America," "The Abbess," "The Adventures of Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw," "The Vicar of Wrexhill," "Tremordyn Cliff," "The Widow Barnaby," "The Widow Married," "The Blue Belles of England," "Hargreave; or, the Adventures of a Man of Fashion," "The Laurringtons; or, Inferior People," "The Clever Woman," &c., &c.

MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER.

THE author of "Proverbial Philosophy," a work much esteemed by country clergymen, and copies of which are extensively used as prizes in young ladies' schools, was born in London in 1811, the same year that saw Thackeray enter life, and was educated at Charterhouse, the same school where the author of the Newcomes became acquainted with Virgil and Homer and mastered the graceful art of making Greek and Latin verses,

From Charterhouse Mr. Tupper proceeded to Oxford, where he obtained respectable honours; and on quitting Alma Mater with his degree, he consumed the required number of dinners at Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the bar. Though a member of the legal profession, he has never practised in the Inns or Courts of Law, but has devoted his vigorous and polished intellects to literary pursuits. As a poet, he has been handled by the critics not less cruelly than was Robert Montgomery, but like Mr. Montgomery he has had substantial consolation for the severe castigations he has received from the self-elected judges of his art in the positively enormous circulation of his metrical compositions -a circulation far exceeding that of Tennyson's works. And this great success is in some measure merited; for, though no sane man would attempt to defend the pompous balderdash and blatant emptiness of many passages of "The Proverbial Philosophy," it cannot be denied that much of Mr. Tupper's poetry embodies noble thoughts, long and deeply meditated, and that several of his ballads for their healthiness of sentiment, vigour of expression, and command over the reader's affections are beyond praise.

As a novelist, Mr. Tupper has not a very distinguished place in literature; but the artistic strength and many beauties of "The Crock of Gold," "The Heart, a Social Novel," and "The Times, a Domestic Novel," make us wish that he would again undertake a work of prose fiction.

SAMUEL WARREN, D.C.L., F.R.S., Q.C., M.P.

THE reputation of this author is very wide, but still not a very desirable one. His works have been extensively circulated, and are universally admired by all persons possessed of any refinement natural or acquired. The motto on the title-page of the "Diary of a late Physician," the