ANTHONY TROLLOPE'S "AUTOBIOGRAPHY."
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—In your review of Anthony Trollope's 'Autobiography" you say :—" His own explanation' of his unpopularity 'is that he was impecunious, badly dressed, and neglectful of his own ap- pearance; but boys have never cared much about these draw- backs.'" Six years' experience of public-school life lead me to dispute this last assertion in the strongest possible manner, and dispose me to trust the novelist's analysis of the causes of his own unpopularity. His penetration in this respect is evidence to my mind that the " disagreeable dullard" was even at school a.keen observer of human nature. Disagreeable in some respects he must probably have been, to account for permanent unpopularity of so extreme a kind ; but the three causes enumerated by himself account for a great deal, a very great
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