Everywhere, moreover, as one of her translators has said, this literary Amazon marches, armed with a bold and vivid criticism, which gathered around her eager readers and bitter foes. Do not expect that she will relate to you (as Lady Morgan does) the tittle-tattle of the boudoirs of the countries she visits or in which she resides; for from the particularity and range of her observations it is clear that she made no flying visit, that her masculine mind penetrated below the surface. When she arrived in a new land she planted there her flag, and with pen upraised set forth to attack or energetically praise, according to her sympathies or her hatreds, the social and political manners exposed to her searching gaze.
France was not the only field of study which she found in Europe. In 1838 she published her "Vienna and the Austrians," in which her old antipathies and causticities reappeared; and in 1843, a "Visit to Italy," which was far from being a success. The classic air of Italy was not favourable to the development of her peculiar powers, and among the antiquities of Rome the humour which sketched so forcibly the broad features of American society was necessarily out of place.
Our business in these pages is with Mrs. Trollope the traveller, but of the industry of Mrs. Trollope the novelist we may reasonably give the reader an idea. In 1836 she published "The Adventures of Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw," in which she renewed her attacks on American society, and drew a forcible sketch of the condition of the coloured population of the Southern States. Some of the scenes may fairly be credited with having suggested to Dickens the tone and sentiment of his American pictures in "Martin Chuzzlewit." Her best novel, "The Vicar of Wrexhill"—a highly-coloured portrait of an Anglican Tartuffe, bitter in its prejudices, but full of talent—appeared in 1837; the "Romance of Vienna," an attack on caste distinctions, in 1838. To the same year belongs her "Michael Armstrong," in which her Ishmael hand fell heavily on the narrow-mindedness of the manufacturing class—anticipating, in some degree, Dickens's "Hard Times." "One Fault," a satire upon romantic exaggeration; and the coarse, but clever "Widow Barnaby," a racy history of the troubles of a vulgar-genteel bourgeoise in search of a second husband, were published in 1839; and in the following year appeared its sequel, "The Widow Married," which is quite as coarse as its predecessor, but not so amusing. With indefatigable pen she produced, in 1843, three three-volume novels, "Hargreave," "Jessie Phillips," and "The Laurringtons"—the first a not very successful sketch of a man of fashion; the second, an unfair and exaggerated delineation of the action of the new Poor Law; and the third, a forcible and lively satire upon "superior people," in which some of the passages are in her best style.
In 1844 the industrious satirist, who would have been more generally successful had she selected the objects of her attacks with greater discretion, withdrew to Florence, from the host of enemies her "free hitting" had provoked, burying herself in an almost absolute seclusion. But her active mind could not long enjoy repose, and in 1851 she resumed her pen, selecting the Roman Catholic Church for her target in "Father Eustace." This was followed in 1852 by "Uncle Walter." It is unnecessary, however, to enumerate the titles of her later works, as they lacked most of the qualities which secured the popularity of her earlier, and have already passed into oblivion. It is doubtful, indeed, whether even her better work is much known to the reading public of the present day.[38]
This clever and industrious woman died at Florence on the 6th of October, 1863, in the eighty-fifth year of her age. Her name has been highly honoured in her two surviving sons, Anthony and Thomas Adolphus Trollope, both of whom have attained to a place of distinction in English literature.
FOOTNOTES:
[38] We have omitted from our list "The Blue Belles of England" (1841); "Tremordyn Cliff" (1838); "Charles Chesterfield" (1841); "The Ward of Thorpe-Combe" (1842); "Young Love" (1844); "Petticoat Government" (1852); and "The Life and Adventures of a Clever Woman" (1853). Between the last-named and "The Vicar of Wrexhill" the gulf is very wide. One cannot help admiring, however, the indefatigable perseverance and the astonishing fertility of this accomplished novelist.