e is a sameness in
these works; and yet it is evident that the author has put his invention
on the rack to create new intrigues, and to mystify his reader from the
beginning to the end of each story.

_Charles Reade_, born 1814: he is one of the most prolific writers of the
day, as well as one of the most readable in all that he has written. He
draws many impassioned scenes, and is as sensuous in literature as Rubens
in art. Among his principal works are: _White Lies_, _Love Me Little, Love
Me Long_; _The Cloister and The Hearth_; _Hard Cash_, and _Griffith
Gaunt_, which convey little, if any, practical instruction. His _Never Too
Late to Mend_ is of great value in displaying the abuses of the prison
system in England; and his _Put Yourself in His Place_ is a very powerful
attack upon the Trades' Unions. A singular epigrammatic style keeps up the
interest apart from the story.

_Mary Russell Mitford_, 1786-1855: she was a poet and a dramatist, but is
chiefly known by her stories. In the collection called _Our Village_, she
has presented beautiful and simple pictures of English country life which
are at once touching and instructive.

_Charlotte Mary Yonge_, born 1823: among the many interesting works of
this author, _The Heir of Redclyff_ is the first and best. This was
followed by _Daisy Chain_, _Heartsease_, _The Clever Woman of the Family_,
and numerous other works of romance and of history,--all of which are
valuable for their high tone of moral instruction and social manners.

_Anthony Trollope_, born 1815: he and his brother, Thomas Adolphus
Trollope, are sons of that Mrs. Frances Trollope who abused our country in
her work entitled _The Domestic Manners of the Americans_, in terms that
were distasteful even to English critics. Anthony Trollope is a successful
writer of society-novels, which, without being of the highest order, are
faithful in their portraitures. Among those which have been very popular
are: _Barchester Towers_, _Framley Parsonage_, _Doctor Thorne_, and _Orley
Farm_, He travelled in the United States, and has published a work of
discernment entitled _North America_. His brother Thomas is best known by
his _History of Florence to the Fall of the Republic_.

_Thomas Hughes_, born 1823: the popular author of _Tom Brown's School-Days
at Rugby_, and _Tom Brown at Oxford_,--books which display the workings of
these institutions, and set up a standard for English youth. The first is
the best, and h