PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. 1081 
of a statesman of the first rank disburdening himself to his fellow- 
countrymen by means of fiction—of satirical fiction. 
In Thackeray we have one of the finest masters of English prose 
since the days of Addison ; and his English is equally perfect in 
all his works, from the earliest production to the last volume. In 
parody of all kinds he excelled, and his ‘‘ Novels by Eminent 
Hands,” are of real service to the literary critic, but are apt to 
lead the novice to over-estimate the faults parodied. Another of 
his gifts was the power of imitation, wonderfully exhibited in the 
letters attributed to his characters. Usually we feel inclined to 
skip the letters in a novel, but letters penned by Thackeray for 
his characters are always read with pleasure. With all his geniality 
in private life, Thackeray’s writings would make one regard him 
as an embittered cynic, gloating over the falseness and ‘snobbery 
and hypocrisy of the world. 
It has been said of him by a living critic: “If we run over the 
characters of Shakespeare, or of Scott, we have to reflect before we 
find the villains. If we run over fie characters in Thackeray, it 
is an effort of memory to recall the generous and the fine 
natures.” 
The great humorist of the Victorian age is Charles Dickens ; but 
his humour, like Cruickshank’s sketches, depends mainly on 
caricature; and like Punch with his nose and his hump, each of 
Dickens’s characters has his sign or shibboleth by which he is 
recognised. Artificial as this may seem, we know that he studied 
his characters with the most minute care ; and, by skilful touches 
here and there, threw their peculiarities into more striking relief. 
Like Chaucer and Shakespeare he had a most wonderful fund of 
gaiety and vitality ; his energy was immense, and hilarity and 
drollery run like twin veins of gold through all his works. 
In his mastery over English prose, and in his wit and character- 
building, Trollope is much inferior to Thackeray ; yet a certain 
comparison is possible. There is the same undeviating standard of 
merit through all his composition—the same smooth easy flow of 
language, and the same exactitude of expression. There is a 
plentiful supply of natural conversation, and an utter absence of 
all that is obscure, oracular, or enigmatic. 
Harrison states respecting Trollope, that : ‘From the first line 
to the last there is never a sentence or a passage which strikes a 
discordant note ; we are never worried by aspasmodic phrase, nor 
bored by fine writing that fails to come off.” It is a curious fact 
that Trollope had little opportunity in early life for the study of 
the clerical and aristocratic characters that fill his pages, and whom 
he depicts with such a master hand. 
George Eliot, like our own Rolfe Boldrewood, was a writer of 
slow development, publishing her first tale when nearly 40 years 
of age. She was a woman of the highest culture, richly stored 
