But between _The Warden_ and _The American Senator_, twenty-two years later, he had written nearer thirty than twenty novels, of which at least half were much above the average and some quite capital.[26] Moreover, it is a noteworthy thing, and contrary to some critical explanations, that, as his works drop out of copyright and are reprinted in cheap editions, they appear to be recovering very considerable popularity.

This fact would seem to show that the manners, speech, etc., represented in them have a certain standard quality which does not--like the manner, speech, etc., of novels such as those of Hook and Surtees--lose appeal to fresh generations; and that the artist who dealt with them must have had not a little faculty of fixing them in the presentation.

In fact it is probably not too much to say that of the _average_ novel of the third quarter of the century--in a more than average but not of an extraordinary, transcendental, or quintessential condition--Anthony Trollope is about as good a representative as can be found.

His talent is individual enough, but not too individual: system and writer may each have the credit due to them allotted without difficulty.
[26] His most ambitious studies in strict _character_ are the closely connected heroines of _The Bertrams_ (1859) and _Can you Forgive Her ?_ (1864-1865).

But the first-named book has never been popular; and the other hardly owes its popularity to the heroine.
A novelist who might have been in front of the first flight of these in point of time, and who is actually put by some in the first flight in point of merit, is Mrs.Gaskell.Born in 1810, she accumulated the material for her future _Cranford_ at Knutsford in Cheshire: but did not publish this till after Dickens had, in 1850, established _Household Words_, where it appeared in instalments.