in the way of such perils as this? Has she not sworn to herself that over thee at least she would watch as a hen over her young, so that no unfortunate love should quench thy young spirit, or blanch thy cheek's bloom?' Is this not sufficient to make the gentlest reader swear to himself? Fortunately this and some other appalling passages occur after the story is in full swing and after the three Clerks and those with whom they come into contact have proved themselves thoroughly interesting companions. Despite all his old-fashioned tricks Trollope does undoubtedly succeed in giving blood and life to most of his characters; they are not as a rule people of any great eccentricity or of profound emotions; but ordinary, every-day folk, such as all of us have met, and loved or endured. Trollope fills very adequately a space between Thackeray and Dickens, of whom the former deals for the most part with the upper 'ten', the latter with the lower 'ten'; Trollope with the suburban and country-town 'ten'; the three together giving us a very complete and detailed picture of the lives led by our grandmothers and grandfathers, whose hearts were in the same place as our own, but whose manners of speech, of behaviour and of dress have now entered into the vague region known as the 'days of yore'. _The Three Clerks_ is an excellent example of Trollope's handiwork. The development of the plot is sufficiently skilful to maintain the reader's interest, and the major part of the characters is lifelike, always well observed and sometimes depicted with singular skill and insight. Trollope himself liked the work well:-- 'The plot is not so good as that of _The Macdermots_; nor are any characters in the book equal to those of Mrs. Proudie and the Warden; but the work has a more continued interest, and contains the first well-described love-scene that I ever wrote. The passage in which Kate Woodward, thinking she will die, tries to take leave of the lad she loves, still brings tears to my eyes when I read it. I had not the heart to kill her. I never could do that. And I do not doubt that they are living happily together to this day.