him--this is to tell us palpable nonsense.

Trollope's sixty works no doubt exceed the product of any Englishman of
our age; but they fall short of the product of Dumas, George Sand, and
Scribe. And, though but a small part of the sixty works can be called
good, the inferior work is not discreditable: it is free from
affectation, extravagance, nastiness, or balderdash. It never sinks
into such tawdry stuff as Bulwer, Disraeli, and even Dickens, could
indite in their worst moods. Trollope is never bombastic, or
sensational, or prurient, or grotesque. Even at his worst, he writes
pure, bright, graceful English; he tells us about wholesome men and
women in a manly tone, and if he becomes dull, he is neither ridiculous
nor odious. He is very often dull: or rather utterly commonplace. It
is the fashion with the present generation to assert that he is never
anything but commonplace; but this is the judgment of a perverted
taste. His besetting danger is certainly the commonplace. It is true
that he is almost never dramatic, or powerful, or original. His plots
are of obvious and simple construction; his characters are neither new,
nor subtle, nor powerful; and his field is strictly limited to special
aspects of the higher English society in town and country. But in his
very best work, he has risen above commonplace and has painted certain
types of English men and women with much grace and consummate truth.

One of Trollope's strong points and one source of his popularity was a
command over plain English almost perfect for his own limited purpose.
It is limpid, flexible, and melodious. It never rises into eloquence,
poetry, or power; but it is always easy, clear, simple, and vigorous.
Trollope was not capable of the sustained mastery over style that we
find in _Esmond_, nor had he the wit, passion, and pathos at
Thackeray's command. But of all contemporaries he comes nearest to
Thackeray in easy conversations and in quiet narration of incidents and
motives. Sometimes, but very rarely, Trollope is vulgar--for good old
Anthony had a coarse vein: it was in the family:--but as a rule his
language is conspicuous for its ease, simplicity, and unity of tone.
This was one good result of his enormous rapidity of execution. His
books read from cover to cover, as if they were spoken in one sitting
by an _improvisatore_ in one and the same mood, who never hesitated an
instant for a word, and who never failed to seize the word