The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-25 00:00:00

LITE It A T II II F.

Anthony Trollope's Masterpiece.
Already we cannot hesitate to declare our convic-
tion that there will, in all probability, be even-
tually recognised in the new serial story, now
appearing, from week to week in sixpenny
numbers, from the hand of Mr. Anthony
Trollope, a work that, if it only be continued and
completed as it has commenced, must inevitably
take rank as his masterpiece. Than in it, the easy
grace of his narrative has never been more apparent.
His style, always pure, fluent, and conversational,
is, here, in this story of his, entitled The Las
Chronicles of Barset, in its very perfection. It is,t
moreover, wholly without affectation. But beyond
that, it is more than ever idiomatic, winning our
attention as we turn the leaves almost unconsciously.
The novelist, for one thing, is on familiar ground.
With the bulk of imaginary people introduced into
his new story, we are already long ago perfectly
familiar. And they are all of them in their several
ways thoroughly welcome to us—Mrs. Proudie,
Bishop Proudie, Archdeacon Grantley, the Mar-
chioness of Ilartletop, Mr. and Mrs. Crawley—even
those of our old acquaintance of whom as yet in the
Chronicles but just now commenced we have only
heard of once more, and not yet again actually seen
or listened to—such, let us say, as Dean Arabiu and
the Duke of Uranium, and his grace's heir, the
phlegmatic autocratic, aristocratic Chancellor of the
Exchequer in the hereafter, Mr. Plantagenet Pal-
liser. As fdr the delineation by Mr. Trollope in
these opening chapters of this his latest, and,
as we confidently anticipate it will prove, his
greatest fiction —as for his delineation, we say,
of Mr. and Mrs. Crawley, they are as true
to life as anything he has ever yet penned. The
irritated, sullen, obdurate, half-maddened curate—
the suppressed anguish, the tearless, tender, wo-
manly solicitude in his behalf of his long-suffering
and long-enduring helpmate—than these two, as
they are here pourtrayed by a series of minute but
masterly touches, nothing in its way could well be
finer. In effect, the few chapters of the tale that
have already appeared, and as yet they only number
up eleven altogether, in the four instalments that
have now been published since the tale commenced,
show that the novelist, much and industriously as
he has written for a good many years, so far
from having in any respect written himself out, has
only attained the full and complete mastery of his
powers—writing about no mere puppets, of which
he has caught the trick of adroitly handling the
strings, but about human beings, people of flesh
and blood, as real, some of them, in their way, as
any within the range of fiction—such individuals as
Mrs. Proudie and Archdeacon Grantley—or such, let
us say again, as poor, afflicted Mrs. Crawley, or as
poor, half-maddened Mr. Crawley—people as well
known to us---as Mrs. Nickleby or as Parson Adams.
Fortunate as are the readers of Mr. Anthony Trol-
lope in finding him thus so completely "in the
vein"—he himself appears to us to have been, in his
turn, in luck's way, as Mr. Wilkie Collins was before
him (vide "Arinadale") when he selected Mr. G.
H. Thomas as his illustrator upon his thus un-
dertaking for the last time to limn again the
Chronicles of the Notabilities of Barsetshire. Does
any one doubt this ? Let him or her glance but
for one moment at the embellishment prefixed to the
last (the 4th) number of the tale, the No. issued from
the press on Saturday ! Do but for an instant look
at the world of character thrown into the Mr.
Thomas's sketch (to the very life) of Mrs. Proudie
—the low-browed, supercilious, delightfully intoler-
able old harridan there revealed (as usual) harangu-
ing the Bishop and inveighing in no measured terms
against somebody or another—this time, of course,
the somebody being no other than that most unfor
tunate wight, the Rev. Mr. Crawley.

Christmas Numbers of the Periodicals.

As radiant in colouring as the holly boughs—
as variously composed as the plum-puddings—as
plentiful as blackberries in October—are the Christ-
mas numbers poured forth by the popular periodi-
cals of the day every December. The most modestly
attired, the cheapest and yet the most seasonably
welcome of them all, has already been noticed by
us, and that too at some length—meaning, of
course, Charles Dickens's Christmas Number of
All the Year Round; this time entitled " Mugby
Junction." A collection of stories, giving us a good
deal of the romance of our railway system ; and the
sale of which is understood to have already very far
advanced beyond the astonishing number of 260,000
—thanks less to its own intrinsic merits doubtless
than to the fair fame of its immediate predecessor,
the incomparable " Doctor Mangold." Besides
the blue-green fourpenny Christmas Number of the
greatest of all our Christmas Tale-tellers, however,
there have dropped in, now one by one, now by twos
and by threes, in resplendently parti-coloured
coverings, clusters of Christmas Numbers appealing
to every taste, grave and gay, prose and verse,
stories upon stories, pictures upon pictures.
Routledge's, and Warne's, and Beeton's have com-
peted with each other by the brilliancy of their
illustrations, by the variety of their contents,
by the celebrity of their leading contributors, by
the popularity of the artists engaged upon them,
and last, but not least, by thelr cheapness.
Owe a Ma: has spoken in the same way
seasonably enough upon the approach of thatfestival
proverbial for coming but once a year—to wit, Merry
Christmas ! London Society, after the same fashion,
has again made good its annual claim to be ad-
mitted into itself—in association with all kinds of
hilarious home-festivities, dinners, balls, private
theatricals, games of romps, and cosy chats by the
fireside. Punch's Almanack, though amusing
enough upon the whole, again makes us wistfully
recall to mind that irreparable loss which came home
to us, one and all, when the ill-tidings were heard
more than a year ago that John Leech had died
prematurely while a children's party was taking
place in his house. As for the Fun Almanack, it
would be well worth its price thricetold if only
for that wonderful group of likenesses (hardly
in any way distorted, they are so true to the
life—such veritable likenesses) by Bab (who
is Bab ?) -- portraits of the leading dramatic
critics of the day—John Hollingshead, John
Oxenford, Leicester Buckingham, G. F. Tom-
lins, and E. L. Blanchard. The Band of Hope Re-
view again wins a wintry welcome with its rich store
of boldly-drawn and beautifully-executed wood-
cuts—the very cover of the publication, a cover
iichly colour-printed and varnished, is well worthy
of being framed and glazed for preserva-
tion on the nursery walls. The same
equally well might have been said of the British
Workman, had the subject selected for that still
larger publication only been a trifle more attractive.
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal revives in its Christ-
mas number our recollections of Albert Smith's
Mont Blanc, by recounting a similar exploit in
scaling the Monarch of the Mountains. As a mat-
ter of course, however, The Illustrated London News
by the splendour and variety of its embellishments,
sets all competition at defiance, considering the
price at which it is published and the scope of its
enterprise as a Christmas gala-number, full of fun,
frolic, and festivities, described in thoroughly
readable letterpress, and delineated in admirably
executed drawings.
Separate stories, again, drop in, here and there, from
the press—as in the instance of Alfred CT' ardner's
interesting Christmas tale, entitled, The Cloud and
the Beam, recalling to mind the world-famous
"Trap to Catch a Sunbeam."
Almanacs, too, still continue to follow each other
in rapid succession—one of the last that has come to
hand being M'Corquodale and Co.'s surprisingly
comprehensive and perfectly- reliable one for the
Railways—an indispensable broadsheet for every
well appointed counting-house in the United King-
dom. AllSoll'S Dramatic and Musical Almanac, again,
still bears off the palm, or the bell, or however
you may like to express it, as the companion to the
box-lobby and the green-room. 2 he Law Almanac
for the New Year is, according to usual custom,
issued as a most acceptable and valuable supplement
to the Law Times. Blackwood's Shilling Scribbling
Diary also reappears very acceptably, as does the
same publisher's more compact and portable Diary
No. 5.