But Trollope indulged in no tirades and no fantastic-grotesque caricature--in fact he actually drew a humorous sketch of a novel _a la Dickens_ on the matter.

His real object was evidently to sketch faithfully, but again not without humour, the cathedral society of "Barchester" as it actually spoke, dressed, thought, and lived: and he did it.

The first book had a little too much talk about the nominal subject, and not enough actual action and conversation.

_Barchester Towers_ remedied this, and presented its readers with one of the liveliest books in English fiction.

There had been nothing like it (for Thackeray had been more discursive and less given to small talk) since Miss Austen herself, though the spirits of the two were extremely different.