The Express.
London, England, 1867-08-09 00:00:00

X iterature.

The Last Chronicle of Barset. By ArrtroNv
TROLLOPE. Two vols. Smith, Elder, and Co.
We shall hear no more of Barchester. The men
and women in whose society we have spent so
many pleasan hours, whose foibles we havelaughed
over, and whose virtues have charmed us, retire
from the stage in this " last Chronicle." We con-
fess our grief at parting with them. They have
been our companions so long that we like them
better than new personages. Is it possible that
Archdeacon Grantley will never more stand with
his back to the lire and exclaim " Good Heavens t"
Shall we see no more of Mr. Arabin, who, as
Eleanor Bold, inflicted such condign punishment
on the unctuous Mrs. Slope ? Has Lily Dale de-
parted for ever with the two fatal letters inscribed
after her name? Shall we hear no more of the
indomitable Mrs. Proudie, and of the bishop's
domestic sufferings I Is there an end to Johnny
Eames and his long love story, to dear Grace
Crawley, to Mr. Thumble, and Dr. Tempest ?
Mr. Trollop° inforMs us that he has left the dio-
cese of Bsrchester for ever, and on taking leave he
says :—" To me Barret has been a real county, and
its city a real city, and the spires and towers have
been before my eyes, and the voices of the people
are known to my cars, and the pavement of the
city ways are familiar to my footsteps ;" and then
he asks to be forgiven, because from his love of old
friendships and the sweetness of old faces he has
been induced to wander among them too long,
none of Mr. Trollope's readers--and this means
the whole novel-reading public—will think that
this apology is necessary. They will, on the con-
trary, regret with us that the familiar record is
I closed.

" The Last Chronicle of Barnet " is, we think,
the best novel Mr. Trollope has written, the most
I interesting es a narrative, the most felicitous as a
work of art. Like almost all his tales it abounds
with dramatis persomr whose characters stand out
.as distinctly before us as if in very truth we had
known them in the flesh. A novelist who is so prodi-
' gal of his materials must have wonderful resources.
There is nothing nebulous about the people who talk
and act for us in his pages. They have human
affections, human frailties, and seem to be living
just the every-day life to which we are accustomed
ourselves. Some critics, indeed, complain that
Mr. Trollope is too realistic, and when not very
' long ago he concluded a tale with a nocturnal
conversation between his hero and heroine about
Ia lady's red nose, ho was laughed at for his terrible
realism, as if forsooth art would suffer if nature
were so closely followed. Mr. Trollope can afford
to laugh in his turn at the critics, for he manages,
despite his propensity, or rather by the exercise of
it, to retain his reader's interest unimpaired. Grant
that the men and women wheel he summons before
us have ordinary faces and familiar dresses, that
their aims are seldom lefty, that they speak on
common subjects in ordinary language, that they
seldom think like heroes 9r act like heroes, and you
must grant at the same time that if they are human
being whose doings are unfitted for an epic poem,
they are human beings whom we are forced to love
and hate, to laugh at or with, whose fortunes we
follow with keen anxiety, and who have afterwards
at least as distinct a hold upon the memory as the
creations of poetical romance writers.
Mr. Trollope tells the tale of familiar life with
exquiaite ease and skill. What he does is always
a success, because he knows so well his own powers,
and never oversteps them ; but the author of ' The
Warden," of " Orley Farm," and of this " Laat
Chronicle of Barret," has shown that his range is
not always and necessarily thus limited. We
scarcely know a character in fiction more delicately
drawn or more finely conceived than that of the
Warden, to whose peaceful deathbed we are here
summoned ' • and perhaps the chief interest of the
story will be found in the psychological study
afforded by Mr. Crawley. His character is a con-
ception of which the most idealistic artist of the
day might be proud. His morbid nature, his sensi-
tive conscientiousness, his profound humility,
which was, after all, but a veil for his pride, his
high intellectual strength, combined with a strange
and almost childlike weakness, the fierce independ-
ence and impracticability of the man, and the quaint
humours inseparable from such a nature, are de-
scribed in the Chroniclewithgreat force and distinct-
ness.
In the depth of his degradation, when a heavy
charge hangs over him and his barren subsistence
is threatened, he does not forget that his wealthy
brethren are his intellectual inferiors, that he can
make Greek iambics as he walks along the lanes,
and that there is not one of the prosperous clergy-
men around him whom he could not instruct in
Hebrew. It was always a gratification to him to
remember that his old friend the dean was weak
in that language. "He pitied himself with a com-
miseration that was sickly in spite of its truth. It
was the fault of the man that he was imbued too
strongly with self-consciousness. He could do a
great thing or two. He could keep up his courage
in positions which would wash all courage out of
most men. He could tell the truth, though
truth should ruin him. He could sacrifice
all that ho had to duty. He could do
justice though the heavens should fall, but
he could not forget to pay a tribute to himself
for the greatness of his own actions ; nor, when
accepting with an effort of meekness the small pay-
ment made by the world to him in return for his'
great works, could he forget the great payments
made to others for small work. It was not suffi-
cient for him to remember that he knew Hebrew,
but he must remember also that the dean did not."
Poor Crawley was sorely tried, but he found these
alleviations to his sorrow ; and it is probable, such
was the nature of the man, that in a smoother ca-
reer ho would have suffered from the lack of suf-
fering.

Archdeacon Grantley is a very conspicuous per-
sonage in the series of tales which terminate with
the Last Chronicle of Barset, and we must con-
fess to a great partiality for him, notwithstanding
his worldly ambition and other clerical deficiencies.
Mr. Trollope has seldom conceived any scene more
'charming than the interview between the Arch-
deacon and Grace Crawley narrated in the second
volume.

In " Barchester Towers," Mr. Trollope expressed
a hope that Mrs. Proudie would live for ever, but
he has thought fit to bring about her death in the
present story. This important event will not be
such a relief to the novelist's readers all it must
have proved to the poor bishop, who we may hope,
after passing through the troublesome waves of his
married life, is now resting in a peaceful harbour.
Mr. Septimus Harding, too, the dear old friend
we have met with so often, yields up the ghost
cheerfully at a serene old age.
We can allow ourselves but a word for the
minor portraits thatfigure on this crowded canvas :
for that vain and feeble woman, Mrs. Dobbs
Broughton, who is theoretically in lore with
the artist, Conway Dalrymple, and would like
him to declare his passion every day, that
she might enjoy the pleasure of telling him how
wrong it was to do so ; for Mr. Croabie, who plays
so conspicuous a part in the " Small House at
Allinf;ton," but falls into the background in the
present story ; for kind-hearted Mr. Toogood, the
lawyer, who remembers that blood is thicker than
water, and although " long in family "—the lovely
Thais having borne him twelve children, " who go
in and out, boy and girl, boy and girl, like the
I cogs of a wheel "—is ready to work for love for the
sake of his cousin Crawley ; for Grace's zealous
friend, Miss Prettyman, and her " inquisitive"
sister, who is so eager to know whether Major
Grantley has " popped," or means to " pop ;" for
the major himself, affectionate, manly, and obsti-
nate ; for Jane Crawley, though she is only 16, and
has as vet read nothing but Latin and Greek, the
twelve books of Zuclid, and Wood's Algebra ;

and for Disdains Demolines, who wishes to be a
finger-post to John Eames, and may assuredly serve
as one to all impulsive and inconsiderate ycung
gentlemen. These and other characters equally
noteworthy appear, some of them for the first and
all for the last time, in the " Last Chronicle of
'target." We are sorry to part with them, and
should be more so if we did not hope to receive
from the hand of the artist who has called them
into being fresh groups of men and women and fair
English maidens, worthy of the gallery which con-
tains the Grantleys and Crawley., the Robarts's
and Arabina, and the refined, sensitive, pure-
minded gentleman who was once warden of Hiram's
Hospital in the city of I3archester.