Disraeli and Trollope have been praised at each other’s expense. Disraeli had immensely greater political experience, but Trollope was by far the better novelist. Trollope’s books are much more readable, and the student of the political novel will find just as much information in them. Of his six parliamentary novels, three make particularly profitable reading. _Phineas Finn, The Irish Member_ (1869) chronicles the rise and fall of a young Liberal. Standing in 186- for the Borough of Loughshane in County Clare, Finn comes in with the Liberal government which succeeds that of the Tory Lord de Terrier. A member of the new cabinet is Mr. Gresham, obviously modeled after Gladstone. The leader of the Conservative opposition is Mr. Daubeny, who bears a striking resemblance to Disraeli. The Reform Bill for England carries and Finn becomes Under Secretary for the Colonies. When his conscience forbids him to conform to party policy by voting against the Reform Bill for Ireland, he resigns his office and returns to Ireland, feeling that he has ruined his career in any case. In _Phineas Redux_ (1874) he returns to Parliament. Now Daubeny’s Tories are in, hanging tenaciously to a dwindling advantage in order to retain patronage and power as long as possible. Daubeny’s purposes are clear. Because of his parliamentary tactics, he earns from Trollope the sobriquets “the great Pyrotechnist” and “a political Cagliostro.” The culmination of the novel’s love story, with which Trollope parallels the politics, is a spectacular trial in which Finn is acquitted of murder. He is offered his old job at the Foreign Office, but once more he retires from the field. Finn reappears in _The Prime Minister_ (1876). When Daubeny’s government goes out, neither he nor Gresham can muster enough strength to form a new one. The result is that now familiar phenomenon, a coalition government. The new Prime Minister is the Duke of Omnium, and his Secretary for Ireland is Phineas Finn. The country prospers under the coalition. But eventually signs of strain appear, and with them the resignations of two ministers. Finally, in its fourth year, the coalition founders on the County Suffrage Bill. Winning his vote of confidence by the slim margin of nine, Omnium resigns. It is left for the next government to complete the near-assimilation of the county suffrages with those of the boroughs. The two thousand-odd pages of these novels contain close likenesses of real politicians. They also describe some of the basic issues and attitudes of this era, and detail the workings of three distinctly different types of ministries. =George Meredith: The Early Radical=