The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ireland in Fiction, by Stephen J. Brown, S.J.

— PRO PATRIA: the Autobiography of a Conspirator. Two Vols. (Remington). 1883.

The narrator, Ptolemy Daly, is a weak, conceited youth, given to hysterics and poetry. Full of visions of Robert Emmet, he joins the staff of “The Sunburst,” the organ of an insurrectionary movement led by Phil Gallagher, a fine character, evidently modelled on T. C. Luby. At the critical moment Daly plays the traitor and decamps to England. Isaac Butt and John Rea are introduced, under thinly disguised names. Scene: Dublin and Wicklow. Written in ironical vein: Daly’s only “Speech from the Dock” was on a charge of drunk and disorderly. The Author was one of three brothers, all well-known London journalists. He was born in Belfast in 1846. Wrote also A Popular Idol and Beside Still Waters.

— FINN AND HIS WARRIOR BAND; or, Tales of Old Alban. Pp. 248. (Blackie). 2s. 6d. 1910.

Stories, arranged in a connected series, of the Fenian cycle, adapted for children from twelve to fourteen or thereabouts. Told in picturesque language, but perfectly simple and direct. For the most part folklore, full of magic and wonder, nine-headed giants and fire-breathing dogs. But here and there the antique hero-tale appears, as in the Battle of Gavra and the death of Dermaid. Localities mostly Scotch. The illustrations (6 coloured, 34 in black and white) are charming in every way. Picture cover.

“A series of Irish stories and legends collected from the peasantry,” familiar to the Author in youth (see pref.). It is a volume of miscellanies. Includes three stories of Blarney Castle told in serio-comic manner by a schoolmaster; some local legends of Finn McCool, &c.; eccentric characters (the bard O’Kelly, Father Prout, Irish dancing masters, Charley Crofts, Buck English); Irish publicists; sketches of Grattan and O’Connell (the former enthusiastic, the latter not wholly favourable—O’C. “the greatest professor of Blarney these latter days have seen or heard”). He speaks of O’C. from personal knowledge. On the whole thoroughly nationalist in tone. The Author, b. in Co. Limerick, 1809, educated Cork and Fermoy, was a journalist in London, afterwards in New York, and wrote or edited many valuable works, historical and biographical. D. 1880.

Scene: Co. Kilkenny. Eight little sketches of peasant life, pathetic and sad. In one a glimpse is given with knowledge and sympathy of the work of a country priest.

— SPANISH JOHN. Pp. 270. (Harper). 6s. Eighteen v. g. Illustr. by F. de Myrbach. 1898.

Adventures of Col. John McDonnell from the Highlands, when a lieutenant in the regiment Irlandia, in the service of the K. of Spain, operating in Italy (1744-6). At the Scots College in Rome, whither he had been sent to be made a priest, he had met a young student, a Mr. O’Rourke. This latter, now a chaplain in the Irish Brigade, saves McD.’s life on the field of Villetri. Subsequently the two are sent by the Duke of York to Scotland on a mission to Prince Charlie. They find that all is lost. Characters admirably drawn, notably the humorous, warm-hearted, heroic Father O’Rourke.

“MACLEOD, Fiona”; William Sharp. B. Paisley, 1856. Ed. Glasgow Univ. Spent his boyhood in the West Highlands and Islands and became imbued with love for things Celtic. Even as late as 1899 it was positively stated that, in spite of conjectures to the contrary, William Sharp and Fiona MacLeod were not the same person, and Mrs. Hinkson says in her Twenty-five Years’ Reminiscences that she is not yet convinced that they were.

— THE LAUGHTER OF PETERKIN. Pp. 288. (Constable). Four Drawings by S. Rollenson. 1897.

“A re-telling of old tales of the Celtic Wonder-World. Contains: ‘The Laughter of Peterkin’; ‘the Four White Swans (Sons of Lir)’; ‘the Fate of the Sons of Tuireann’; ‘Darthool and the Sons of Usnach.’” Told in language of great beauty and simplicity.

— The collected works written under the above pen-name (between 1894 and 1905). Ed. by his widow, and publ. by Heinemann in seven Vols., 5s. net each. Three Vols. have appeared, viz.:—I. Pharais; The Mountain Lovers. II. The Sin Eater; The Washer of the Ford (April). Pp. 450. III. The Dominion of Dreams; Under the Dark Star (April). Pp. 438. The following are announced:—IV. The Divine Adventure; Iona, &c. V. The Winged Destiny. VI. The Silence of Amor; Where the Forest Murmurs. VII. Poems and Dramas.

Some titles of the stories in these three vols.:—“Morag of the Glen,” “The Dan-nan-Ron,” “The Sin-Eater,” “The Flight of the Culdees,” “The Harping of Cravetheen,” “Silk o’ the Kine,” “Cathal of the Woods,” “St. Bride of the Isles,” “The Awakening of Angus Ogue,” “Three Marvels of Iona,” &c.

These books of Fiona Macleod’s are, for the most part, shadowy, elusive dream-poems in prose, wrought into a form of beauty from fragments of old Gaelic tales heard in the Western isles (where the Author lived for years) from fishermen and crofters. They are full of the magic of words subtly woven, of vague mystery, and of nature—wind and sea and sky. He strives to infuse into his stories the sadder and more mystic aspects of the Gaelic spirit, as he conceives it. “I have not striven to depict the blither Irish Celt.” But many of his stories are simply Irish legends, e.g., The Harping of Cravetheen. The Author thus describes his work: “In certain sections are tales of the old Gaelic and Celtic Scandinavian life and mythology; in others there is a blending of paganism and Christianity; in others again are tales of the dreaming imagination having their base in old mythology, or in a kindred mythopæic source.... Many of these tales are of the grey wandering wave of the West, and through each goes the wind of the Gaelic spirit which turns to the dim enchantment of dreams.” On the other hand, some of these stories deal with life in modern Gaelic Scotland, e.g., The Mountain Lovers, which, however poetically told, is after all a tale of seduction. The Winged Destiny, amid much matter of a different nature, contains several tales of Gaelic inspiration.

— SONGS AND TALES OF ST. COLUMBA AND HIS AGE. By Fiona Macleod and J. Arthur Thomson. Third edition. Large paper 4to. (Edinb.: Patrick Geddes). 6d. nett.

M’MAHON, Ella. Dau. of late Rev. J. H. MacMahon, Chaplain to the Lord-Lieutenant. Ed.: home. Has written much for various magazines and periodicals, and particularly on historical and archæological subjects. Has publ. about seventeen novels. Now resides in Chelsea.—(Who’s Who).

A tragedy of city life centering in the betrayal and desertion of Bridgie Doyle by Fancy O’Brien. Full of human interest, careful and skilful study of character and motive. Catholic in sympathy. “In its minor details the book is true to life, photographic in its realism.” The story is of high dramatic and literary excellence. In the account of the Easter Monday excursion to Bray “the story of Bridgie’s undoing is told with a rare combination of poetry, force, and restraint.”—(N.I.R., Aug., 1909).

Sir Thady, a Cromwellian-Irish baronet, grows interested in his Irish surroundings on his estate of Ballymaclashin. He ceases to haunt the Bath Club, Piccadilly, and takes to starting carpet factories (The Job). Many of the incidents are furnished by the difficulties that beset the task owing to the amateurish innocence of the baronet and the stupidity of his local helpers. And besides there are the love affairs of Sir Thady and the English Miss Devereux. The point of view is Anglo-Irish, the “mere” Irish being regarded de haut en bas as rather impossible, thriftless, poor people, in short, as a problem to be dealt with philanthropically. The style is easy and pleasant.

MACMANUS, Miss L. Holds a distinct place among Irish authors of to-day as being one of the very few writers of Irish historical fiction who write from a thoroughly national standpoint. Her books are straightforward, stirring tales, enthusiastically Irish, free from tedious disquisitions, but based on considerable historical research. She is a worker in the ranks of the Gaelic League, and in her Co. Mayo (Kiltimagh) home does much for the cause of Irish Ireland. She is interested in folklore, and some of the tales she has collected have recently been publ. in the Folklore Journal. Some of her stories in the Dublin weeklies deal in the weird and the mysterious. The following have been publ. by The Educational Co. of Ireland as penny pamphlets:—In the High King’s Camp, A Battle Champion, Felim the Harper, The Prince of Breffny’s Son, How Enda went to the Iceland, The Leathern Cloaks. She has publ. two serials in Sinn Fein: The Professor in Erin and One Generation Passeth.

— THE SILK OF THE KINE. Pp. 282. (Fisher Unwin). 3s. 6d. (N.Y.: Harper). 1.00. 1896.

Scene: chiefly Connaught and south-west Ulster during the Parliamentary Wars. The heroine is a daughter of the Maguire of Fermanagh. Her capture by the Roundheads, her rescue from the man-hunters by a Parliamentarian officer, her condemnation to slavery in St. Kitt’s, and her escape, are told in vivid and thrilling style. It is a story for young readers especially.

Adventures, during the War of the Spanish Succession, of a Colonel of the Brigade, who, after many thrilling experiences, distinguishes himself at Cremona, and marries a girl whom he had met during the war under romantic circumstances. The tale is lively and interesting, and makes one realize somewhat of the intrigues and dangers of war.... Young readers may derive a great deal of amusement and instruction from the book.—(N.I.R.). Lally is a young captain in the regiment of Dillon. “James III.,” Louis XIV., Prince Eugène, Marshall Villeroy, and General O’Mahony all appear in the story.

— NESSA. Pp. 147. (Sealy, Bryers). 2s. (N.Y.: Benziger). 0.60. n.d. (1904).

A tale of the Cromwellian Plantation, characterized by a simple unpretentious style and considerable power of description, both of character and scenery.—(Press notices). The little book was highly praised by the Academy and by the Irish Times. It is, of course, strongly national in sentiment. Scene: an old castle near Lough Conn, Co. Mayo.

“A Passage from the Memoirs of Brigadier Niall MacGuinness of Iveagh, sometime captain in Sarsfield’s Horse.” Scene: Limerick during Siege. Includes account of Sarsfield’s Ride and of the repulse of William’s assault. The plot hinges on the disappearance of Balldearg O’Donnell’s cross, which Iveagh is suspected of having stolen. The central figure is perhaps the wayward and imperious Ethna Ni Briain. The story moves rapidly, unencumbered by descriptions or digressions. The scenes are vivid and dramatic. The Author’s play, “O’Donnell’s Cross,” is founded on this novel. Publ. in U.S.A. (N.Y.: Buckles), 1.50, under title The Wager.

— NUALA. Pp. 322. (Browne & Nolan). 3s. 6d. Four Illustr. by Oswald Cunningham. 1908.

Tells how the only child, aged fifteen, of the head of the O’Donnells, then in the service of the Austrian Government, is entrusted by her father just before his death with the mission of obtaining the Cathach, or battle-book of the O’Donnells, from the monks at Louvain. On the way she passes through exciting adventures, being captured by some of Napoleon’s soldiers. Gen. Hoche figures in the story. Juvenile.

MACMANUS, Seumas. B. Mountcharles, Co. Donegal, 1870. Son of a peasant farmer. Was for some years a National School teacher, but subsequently turned entirely to journalism. Has written for most of the Irish papers and magazines and for many English and American periodicals. Is well known in the States, where he frequently goes on lecturing tours.

The Author’s earliest poems and three prose sketches:—“Micky Maguire” (the last of the hedge schoolmasters), “How you bathe at Bundoran,” and “A Trip with Phil M’Goldrick.”

— THE LEADIN’ ROAD TO DONEGAL. Pp. 246. (Digby, Long). 3s. 6d. (N.Y.: Pratt). 2.00. [1896]. Second ed., 1908; others since.

Twelve short stories of the Donegal peasantry, full of very genuine, if somewhat broad, humour and drollery. They are not meant as pictures of peasant life. The dialect is exaggerated for humorous purposes, and at times the fun goes perilously near “Stage-Irishism.” But they are never coarse or vulgar.

Eight tales dealing with the humorous side of the home-life of Donegal peasants. A few, however, are folk-tales of the Jack the Giant-killer type. Told with verve and piquancy and with unflagging humour, but the skill in story-telling is naturally not as developed in this as in the Author’s later work, drawing a good deal upon humorous padding to aid the intrinsic humour of the incidents.

— THE BEND OF THE ROAD. (Gill, Duffy). 2s., 3s. (N.Y.: Pratt). 1.75. [1897].

This is a sequel to A Lad of the O’Friels,[7] but consists of detached sketches, and is not told in the first person. Most of the sketches are humorous, notably “Father Dan and Fiddlers Four”; but there is pathos, too, as in “The Widow’s Mary,” a scene at a wake before an eviction. The Introduction is an admirable summing up of the peculiarities, emotions, and vicissitudes of life in an out-of-the-way Donegal countryside.

[7] Yet seems to have been publ. before it. I give the dates as they are given (doubtless by the Author) in the Literary Year Book.

Seven stories admirably told, and full of the richest and most rollicking humour. In the first only, viz., “When Barney’s Thrunk Comes Home,” is there a touch of the pathetic. It would be hard to beat “Shan Martin’s Ghost,” and “Why Tómas Dubh Walked,” and “How Paddy M’Garrity did not get to be Gauger.” “One St. Patrick’s Day” gives the humorous side of Orange and Green rivalry.

— THROUGH THE TURF SMOKE. (Fisher Unwin). 2s. (N.Y.: Doubleday. Toronto: Morang). 2.00. [1899]. 1901.

Simple tales of the Donegal peasantry. There is both pathos and humour—the former deep, and at times poignant; the latter always rich and often farcical. The Author writes with all the vividness of one who has lived all he writes about. He has full command of every device of the story-teller, yet never allows his personality to show except, as it should, through the medium of the actors.

— IN CHIMNEY CORNERS. Pp. 281. (N.Y.: Harper). Illustr. by Pamela Colman Smith. 1899.

“Subtle, merry tales of Irish Folk-lore.”—(Pref.). The stories are very similar in kind to the same Author’s Donegal Fairy Tales. There is the same quaint, humorous, peasant language, the same extravagances and impossibilities. The illustrations are very numerous. They are very brightly coloured, but for the most part extremely bizarre.

— THE BEWITCHED FIDDLE, and Other Irish Tales. Pp. ix. + 240. (N.Y.: Doubleday and McClure). 1900.

Ten short stories, humorous for the most part, but one, “The Cadger Boy’s Last Journey,” moving and pathetic. They are an exact reproduction in dialect and phraseology of stories actually heard by the Author at Donegal firesides, and the fidelity of the reproduction is perfect.

Dedication in Irish and English. Thirty-four full-page pen and ink drawings, signed “Verbeek.” These latter are quaint and amusingly grotesque. The stories are folk-tales, told just as the peasantry tell them, without brogue, but with all the repetitions, humorous extravagances and naïveté of the folk-tale. They are just the thing for children, and are quite free from coarseness and vulgarity.

— A LAD OF THE O’FRIELS. Pp. 318. (Gill; Duffy). 2s., 2s. 6d., 3s. (N.Y.: Pratt). 2.00. [1903]. Third ed., 1906.

In this book one actually seems to have been living among the childlike and quaint yet deep-natured, true, and altogether lovable little circle of Knocknagar, and to have shared its joys and sorrows. Every character described stands out altogether distinct, old Toal a’Gallagher the sententious; his wife, Susie of the sharp tongue; their son, Toal the “Vagabone,” with his wild pranks; the grandiloquent “Masther,” and all the rest. Through it all runs the simple love story of Dinny O’Friel and Nuala Gildea, companions from childhood. The book is full of deep, but quiet and restrained, feeling. The description of the pilgrimage to Lough Derg has much beauty.

A string of loosely-connected after-dinner stories chiefly about comic duelling and electioneering. Told with pleasant drollery.

— YOURSELF AND THE NEIGHBOURS. Pp. 304. (N.Y.: Devin Adair Co.). Five Illustr. by T. Fogarty. 1914.

A picture by one who has lived it of the life of the Donegal peasant—not their outward life merely, but their most intimate thoughts and beliefs, hopes and joys, their whole outlook on things. The Author is discerning and sympathetic in a high degree. “Yourself and Herself” gives a Donegal man’s life story from “the barefoot time” through love and marriage to “evening’s quiet end.” Some of the remaining stories show the Author’s humour at its best—the Homeric struggles of the “priest’s boy” with the New Curate and the Tartar of a postmistress, the “come home Yankee,” and so on.

An endless series of love affairs between charming ladies and wealthy gentlemen, all of the upper classes, very proper, very stilted, and dull. The eccentricity is on the part of an old soldier who is a misanthrope and a hermit, but resolves to return to normal life and renew acquaintance with his daughter. He descends upon the friend’s family in which he has left her, carries off another by mistake, &c. The plot never really moves on.

[8] So the name is given on the title-page, and it seems improbable that this Author is the same as the Author of the following item, first because there is a difference of thirty-four years between the dates, and secondly because the two books are wholly unlike. But the B. Museum Catal. assigns both to the same person.

The fort is Dunalong, on Inisherkin, in Baltimore Bay, a stronghold of the O’Driscoll’s towards close of 16th cent. English ship captured. O’D.’s natural son, a ferocious pirate, falls in love with captain’s daughter. She is true to her English officer. The beautiful daughter of O’D. saves her from his fury. Vengeance of the English—destruction of the fort—double wedding of the two fair maids to two English officers. A prominent rôle is assigned to money-grabbing, idle, besotted Franciscan friar.

“Artless records of life among the very poor in West of Ireland, the fruit of kindly observation, and, obviously, essays in the Thrums style. Larry is a poor blind fiddler, whose one joy in life is his son, and he turns out a reproach to his father. “Katty’s Wedding” is a very Irish bit of farce, and “Mulligan’s Revenge” expresses the vindictive passions of the Celt, an episode of jealousy and crime, alleviated at the close by repentance and reconciliation.”—(Baker).

Fingal and Lutie are lovers somewhere in the wilds of Ireland. Enter an Interloper (a danseuse of doubtful reputation), who falls genuinely in love with F., and tries to win him. She fails, and exit. The atmosphere is very ideal and the language, especially the conversations, somewhat high-flown. Author writes well, and is clearly sympathetic to Ireland. The housekeeper cousin of “county family” status, with her genteel notions, is well sketched.

M’NULTY, Edward. B. 1856, Randalstown, Co. Antrim. Ed. in the Incorporated Society’s School, Aungier St., Dublin, where he was a schoolmate and intimate of G. B. Shaw. Contributes to various periodicals—Irish Society, The Occult Review, &c., and has written a play, “The Lord Mayor,” for the Abbey Theatre. Satirizes Irish failings, but is proud of being an Irishman himself. Resides in Ranelagh, Dublin.

A priest, squat, red-faced, whiskey-loving, unspeakably vulgar, and a ruffian to whom he is disgracefully related, organize a branch of the “Lague,” and boycott a farmer who will not join. The latter’s daughter dies tragically in consequence. The typical “pesint” is introduced as cringeing, priest-ridden, and wholly degraded. Impossible brogue throughout.

A great advance on Misther O’Ryan, q.v. A tragic-comedy of life among lower middle class people in a small provincial town. The “son of a peasant” is Clarence Maguire, an obscure young schoolmaster, who in the end comes in for great wealth and all but wins the daughter of Sir Herbert O’Hara, an impoverished gentleman. A sub-plot is furnished by the love affairs of Constable Kerrigan and his determined efforts after promotion. The plot affords the Author scope for many genuinely humorous scenes, especially those in the Flanagan family, which are admirably done, and for the clever portrayal of some of the meaner aspects of human nature—class pride, servility, the worship of the moneyed man, time serving, &c. The plot largely turns on an absurd superstition about changelings. This leads to the hideous tragedy of the close. The book is marred by a travesty of the brogue. Otherwise it is not anti-national.

Of the same type as Misther O’Ryan. One of the priests introduced trades with a miraculous statue on the superstition of the people; the other is a sleek, smooth fop, thoroughly and heartlessly vicious. There is little else besides this in the book.

A broad farce, with Irish people (of the worst stage-Irish type) as actors, and a small, vulgar Irish town for scene. Mrs. Mulligan is a very low species of tramp. She is supposed suddenly to come in for a fortune, and her relations tumble over one another in efforts to gain her favour—until the bubble bursts. There is much caricature of Irish traits and manners. Local journalism is specially ridiculed.—(News cuttings).

— THE LEGEND OF M’DONNELL AND THE NORMAN DE BORGOS. Pp. 213, close print. 16mo. (Gill). 1s. [Belfast, 1829]. Still in print.

Writer (1795-1850?) was a school-master in Derry, who emigrated to America in 1830, where he published Tales and Stories of the Alleghenys and The Hermit of the Rocky Mountains. A tale of the struggles between O’Neills, O’Donnells, O’Cahans, M’Quillans, M’Donnells, and other Ulster septs. Scene: northern portions of Antrim, Derry, and Donegal. The work of a half-educated man. A rambling story marked by frequent lapses from literary good taste and numerous grammatical mistakes. The peasantry talk in broad modern brogue, full of “arrah,” “musha,” “tare-an-ouns,” &c. Shows a considerable though undigested knowledge of Irish history and topography. The book had considerable vogue both here and in U.S.A.

MACSWEENEY, Rev. Patrick M., M.A. One of the most erudite of Irish priests. Was Chancellor’s Gold Medallist in the Royal University. Was afterwards Professor of Mod. Lit. in Holy Cross College, Clonliffe. Is at present editor of the Irish Ecclesiastical Record.

— THE MARTIAL CAREER OF CONGHAL CLÁIRINGHNEACH. Pp. lxvii. + 225. (Nutt, for Irish Texts Society). 1904.

Ed. for the first time with all the apparatus of scholarship—critical study of the Tale or Saga, literary study of the text, grammatical study, notes, glossary, and index. The story belongs to the pre-Cuchulainn stage of the Red Branch Cycle. Conghal is supposed to have reigned from 177 to 162 B.C.

Wrote also The Irish Reformation Movement, 1852; Modern Mystery, 1854, &c. The object of these three stories is to point out the wickedness and the evil influence, especially in Ireland, of the Catholic Church. In “Betty Bryan’s Fortune,” Thady becomes a Protestant, and all goes well with him: the sign of the Cross is called a charm; and there is a description of Beltaine superstitions. In “The Terry Alt,” a girl is seized just after marriage and immured in a convent for life: the conspirators are a monk, a priest, and “Blackboys.”

— THE FITZGERALD FAMILY. (R.T.S.). 2s. Three cold. ill. by Victor Prout. 1910.

The family is left very poor on death of father, a C. of I. clergyman. Rich and vulgar relations adopt Barry and Moya, the former of whom becomes an unbearable bounder, the latter a heartless flirt. The rest of the family remains very poor, very good, and rather dull. There is an occasional mention of Irish peasants and the Irish language. Apart from this, the persons, their doings, and the atmosphere are wholly un-Irish. The story has a moral purpose that is good and not too obtrusive.

MAGENNIS, Peter. A retired National School teacher. B. near Derrygonnelly, Co. Fermanagh, in 1817, the son of a farmer. D. 1910, aged 93, at his birth-place.

An unskilfully constructed, rambling narrative, interspersed with indifferent verse. The Author says in his Preface: “This novel is founded on fact, almost every incident in it actually occurred, and many of them within the recollection of the writer. It contains local traditions and legendary lore. It treats of highway robbery, illicit distilling, rural manners, party feeling, and a rather disorganized state of society.”

A very crude, rambling tale, bringing in a few incidents of the Confederate War and several historic characters, but mainly taken up with private love affairs, abductions, &c. No character study and no real portrayal of the times. Occasional vulgarity. Scene: chiefly the shores of Lough Erne.

Deals with Fenian and Land League movements. The Author is unacquainted with the history and organization of Fenianism. The land agitation he represents as forced upon an unwilling peasantry by a kind of murder-club in America. Scene: mainly Co. Sligo. Parnell and Biggar are brought in under assumed names, and are broadly caricatured. The portrayal of Butt is truer to reality and less marred by bias. The Author is uninformed and, on the whole, uncomprehending: hence some absurd statements about things Irish, some objectionable (but evidently unintentionally so) references to the Catholic Church, and a quite impossible Irish brogue. But he is on the whole not unfriendly to Ireland.

MAGINN, William. B. Cork, 1793. Ed. T.C.D. Began early to write for the magazines (Blackwood’s, &c.), chiefly parodies and other jeux d’esprit. Went to London, 1823, where, in 1830, he established Fraser’s Magazine, which with Carlyle, Thackeray, Maclise, Prout as contributors, for some years was at the head of English periodical literature. He fell more and more into habits of drunkenness, and engaged in disreputable journalism. Writing to the end, he died in 1842. Thackeray drew a portrait of him as Captain Shandon in Pendennis. Many memoirs of him have been written. His “Bob Burke’s Duel with Ensign Brady” is said to be the raciest Irish story ever written.

— MISCELLANIES: Prose and Verse. (London). [First collection, 1840]. Selections ed. by “R. W. Montagu.” 1885. (N.Y.: Scribner). 9.60.

Contains “Bob Burke’s Duel,” “The Story without a Tail,” and other Irish stories, published in magazines between 1823 and 1842. These stories are told mostly in a vein of broad comedy. Their characters are roysterers and swaggerers. Maginn was a man of brilliant gifts. The fantastic humour and wild gaiety of his stories give them an original flavour. Maginn was a high Tory and an Orangeman.—(Krans). Dr. Mackenzie edited, in 1857, The Miscellanies of William Maginn (5 vols.), published in America. Contents:—Vols. I. and II. “The O’Doherty Papers.” III. “The Shakespeare Papers.” IV. “Homeric Ballads.” V. “The Fraserian Papers,” with a life of the Author.

MAHONY, Martin Francis; “Matthew Stradling.” B., Co. Cork, 1831. D. 1885. Was a nephew of “Father Prout.” Also wrote Cheap John’s Auction.

“New ed. in four chapters.” The original was publ. by Gill, Dublin, 1871. Really a pamphlet showing up the place-hunting whiggery that prevailed in the Irish Bar at that time, and giving a picture of Irish politics after the Fenian insurrection, and at the outset of the Home Rule movement.

— THE MISADVENTURES OF MR. CATLYNE, Q.C. An Autobiography. Two Vols. (Tinsley). 1873.

Elaborates the idea of the above-mentioned work. Depicts, under assumed names, well-known Irish lawyers of the day. Intrigues of the candidate for a small Irish borough, and his difficulty in placating all parties well described. This originally appeared in Fraser’s Magazine. There is little plot, and no romantic interest.

— JERPOINT. An ungarnished Story of the Time. Three Vols. (Chapman & Hall). 1875.

A satirical study of parvenus, snobs, and various curious types, very cleverly characterised. The story is chiefly concerned with the Courtneys, risen from the publichouse to county-family importance. P. 49 sq. gives an excellent picture of a meet, with a study of the personages present. Full of close observation and excellent descriptions. Among the best portraits are those of the Hanlon family, always shabby and out-at-elbows, yet ever struggling with fortune. We are not told the situation of “the Cathedral City of Jerpoint on the Sea.”

A study of Dublin slum-children, told with humour, insight, and sympathy, by one who thoroughly knows their ways. The dialect is faithfully rendered.

“Novelized” from a popular play. Peg is daughter of an Irish agitator of the eighties who goes to America in the troubled times. On the death of Peg’s mother her father returns to Ireland, and lives there for many years, till bright prospects call him back to America. But the main part of the action is taken up with Peg’s visit of a month to her English relations in Scarborough. The Author rather overdraws the contrast between English and Irish types. There is much clever dialogue. Ends with passing of second reading of Home Rule Bill, and the glorification of the one-time agitator.

— MICHAEL O’DONNELL; or, The Fortunes of a Little Emigrant. (Boston: Flynn). 0.60. [1900]. In print, 1910.

“Michael, an honest, industrious youngster, not too good to use his fists when attacked by other boys, comes to the U.S., and steps into an excellent situation after three months of walking across the Continent. By a series of innocent misunderstandings, combined with hostile malice, he is made to appear guilty of theft; but the truth is soon manifest.... Told with much animation and liveliness.”—(American Eccles. Rev.) Juvenile.

The main plot is a somewhat slight story of a lost heir returning to claim his inheritance, which had been usurped by an intruder. But the chief interest lies in the numerous side incidents and digressions which are designed to portray various phases of the life of the times. Opens and closes at Clonmel, but the scene shifts to Dublin, Bantry, Paris, and other places. Introduces Jacobite conspiracies, street-rioting, hedge schools, city entertainments, political discussions, the working of the Penal laws, and historical personages, such as Primate Stone, Thurot, Prince Charles Edward, Archbishop Dillon, and many others. Is more or less on the side of the English colony, but is not unfair to any party. Has little or no character study, and not much human interest, but abounds in incident.

Published as one of the O’Hara’s tales. An elaborate tale of matchmaking and marriage among the upper classes, written with a moral purpose. Incidentally there is a good picture of an election contest in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

Appeared in a series of illustrations of political economy. Written in the cause of the Irish poor, aiming to show “how long a series of evils may befal individuals in a society conducted like that of Ireland, and by what a repetition of grievances its members are driven into disaffection and violence.” Shows three sources of evils—thriftlessness in tenants, rapacity in landlords, misplaced benevolence.

“A Tale of 1849.” “The specific object of this work is to exemplify the various ways in which the poor are placed at a disadvantage, and the misery and, almost of necessity, the crime that ensue from their present crowded condition.” “Miss M. describes the life of one who might be called a Sister of Charity living in the world.... She tells us she has witnessed the incidents of her tale, which are described with vivacity.... The Author has entangled her heroine in a love affair, which, in itself, is very frigid and tedious.”—(D.R.).

— CLEMENTINA. (Methuen). 2s. Eight illustr. by Bernard Partridge. [1901]. Second ed., 1903. (Nelson). New ed., 7d. 1911.

The story of the romantic escape in 1720 of the Princess Clementina Sobieski from Austria, and how she was conducted to Rome to be married to the Pretender by the Chevalier Charles Wogan, member of an Anglo-Irish family of Clongowes Wood, in the County Kildare. Some glimpses of the Irish Brigade. A lively narrative. Mr. Baker calls it “a particularly close imitation of Dumas.”

— THE FOUR FEATHERS. Pp. 338. (Smith, Elder). 6s. (Nelson). 7d. [1903]. 1912.

Scene varies between London, Devonshire, the Soudan, and Donegal (Ramelton and Glenalla), the scenery of which latter is finely described. The theme is original and striking. The hero, an English soldier, is all his life haunted by the fear of showing “the white feather” at a critical moment. He resigns his commission rather than risk in a campaign his reputation for courage. This action brings on him the dreaded imputation of cowardice. How he redeems his honour is finely told. A delicate soul-study. The heroic self-sacrifice of Jack Durance still further raises the moral worth of the book.

MATHEW, Frank. A grand-nephew of Father Mathew, the Apostle of Temperance. B. 1865; ed. Beaumont, King’s College School, and London University. The writer of the Preface to the New Ed. of the Cabinet of Irish Literature says: “A good many people of excellent judgment look upon Mr. Mathew as the Irish novelist we have been so long awaiting.... He does not write merely from the point of view of a sympathetic outsider. He has the true Celtic temperament, with the advantage of education, inherited and otherwise, over the peasants of genius who have so long represented the Irish spirit.” Wrote also Father Mathew, his Life and Times, One Queen Triumphant, The Royal Sisters, &c. Resides in London.

— AT THE RISING OF THE MOON. Pp. 240. (M’Clure). 3s. 6d. Twenty-seven good Illustr. (N.Y.: M’Clure). 1.50. 1893.

Twenty tales (memories of the old days, says the Author), picturing many phases of peasant life on the West coast: incidents of the moonlighting days, faction fights, the joke of the potheen-makers, the attachment of priests and people, the hardships of the poor, the days of sorrow, the love of home and country. Told with sympathy in simple but literary style. Dialogue clever and full of bright snatches of Celtic humour.

Gives a grotesque picture, intended for vivid realism, of the rebellion. The rebels are comic savages, their leaders (the priests included) little better than buffoons. It is a burlesque ’98. It is well, however, to add the following estimate from the prefatory essay to the new edition of The Cabinet of Irish Literature: “A born critic here and there will find out that Mr. Frank Mathew’s Wood of the Brambles is as full of wit, wisdom, observation, and knowledge as genius can make it; but to the ordinary reader it is deliberately and offensively topsy-turvy, and there’s an end of it.”

A tale of Dunluce Castle, Co. Antrim, in the days when the MacDonnells from Scotland were Lords of Antrim, and Perrott was Elizabeth’s deputy. The story is told in form of reminiscence, the actual movement of the plot occupying only a few hours. Little attempt at description of scenes or times. The Author’s sympathies are with the MacDonnells, who were on the English side at the time. The book has been greatly admired, especially for the vividness of its historical atmosphere and its poetic and romantic glamour.

“Ultra romantic. The sprightly daughter of a Wicklow squire, bosom friend of Lord Strafford (then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland), goes on a perilous journey disguised as a gallant, with a message of life or death to Strafford at Dublin.”—(Baker, 2).

MATURIN, Charles Robert. 1782-1824. Born in Dublin, and educated at Trinity College. Was a clergyman of the Church of Ireland, and all his life the sworn enemy of Catholicism and of Presbyterianism, both of which, especially the latter, he treats unsparingly in some of his books. Besides his novels he wrote tragedies, such as “Bertram,” and bloodcurdling melodramas, such as “Fredolpho.” In his way of life he was somewhat of an oddity—the madness of genius, his admirers said—and this is reflected in his works. “His romances attracted Scott and Byron, and many critics have given them great though qualified praise. Bombastic extravagance of language, tangled plots, and impossible incidents characterize them all. A remarkable eloquence in descriptions of turbulent passion is his strong point.” Besides the novels mentioned below, he wrote Melmoth, the Wanderer, generally considered his masterpiece, and “The Albigenses, his last and best (1824), which was pronounced by Blackwood to be ‘four volumes of vigour, extravagance, absurdity, and splendour’” (compiled from Krans and Read). It should be noted that this writer sometimes violates good morals by indecency. Mr. N. Idman, of Lotsgotan, Helsingfors, Finland, is at present engaged on a study of M. which he intends to publish. The 1892 ed. of Melmoth contains an introductory memoir of M., a bibliography, and a criticism of each of his works.

Republ. in “The Romancists’ and Novelists’ Library,” two vols. (Clements), 1839. The original ed. was anon.—by the Author of “Montorio” [i.e., “Dennis Jasper Murphy”]. Intended as an exposition of the unhappy condition of Ireland and as a picture of the life and manners of the time. The former is soon lost sight of, but the latter is well carried out. The hero is a strong Nationalist who works wholly for Ireland’s cause. Apart from this graver purpose, interest is sustained by a succession of exciting incidents and by good character drawing. There is little plot, a great deal of sentiment, and a great many disreputable intrigues, without, however, objectionable details. The scene varies between Dublin and the W. of Ireland—life in the family of a Protestant landowner and in that of a Catholic feudal chief. Period, c. 1806-8. The society depicted is that of the aristocratic classes. Author’s standpoint full of sympathy and even admiration for Ireland, strongly Protestant (Ch. of I.) and anti-“Roman.”

“Was generally well received by the critics. Even Talfourd, who had been rather hard on his first novel (The Fatal Revenge), said of this: ‘There is a bleak and misty grandeur about it which, in spite of all its glaring defects, sustains for it an abiding place in the soul.’”—(C. A. Read). Deals with the “prehistoric” Milesian invasion. Gustave Planche in his critique on M. says of this book, “C’est un livre où étincellent ça et là des pages magnifiques.”

— CONNAL OU LES MILESIENS. Traduit de l’anglais par Madame la Comtesse [de Molé]. Four tom. (Paris). 1828.

Young de Courcy rescues Eva, who had been carried off to be made a Catholic of by a fanatical grandmother, and he falls in love. This brings him into Calvinistic Methodist circles in Dublin. These the Author describes minutely and with satire. The Methodist gloom and coldness drive the hero to the company of a brilliant actress (really Zaira, Eva’s mother). He is long torn between the two, but finally goes to Paris with Zaira. There he deserts her for another. There is a fine description of Z.’s despair. Eva dies of decline, and de Courcy, repentant, soon follows. “A moral and interesting tale.” “The full praise both of invention and of execution must be allowed to Mr. M.’s sketch of Eva.” As regards Methodism, Mr. M. “has used the scalpel, not, we think, unfairly but with professional rigour and dexterity.”—(From a review by Sir Walter Scott in the Edinb. Rev., xxx., 234).

— EVA; ou, Amour et Religion. Traduit de l’anglais sur la 2e éd. par M. 4 tom. (Paris). 1818.

— THE IRISH CHIEFTAIN; or, The Isles of Life and Death. Pp. 316, v. close print. 16mo. (Glasgow: Griffin). 1848.

A wild story, in which historical names (O’Ruarc of Breffny, Dermod MacMurrough, Strongbow, Eva, Devorgilla) are given to the personages, but which has no foundation in history. The incidents are supposed to take place some short time after the Norman invasion, but the book bristles with anachronisms. It is a series of thrilling adventures, fighting, revenge, murders, hairbreadth escapes, and so forth. Highly melodramatic, sentimental, and extravagant.

An outlandish sort of story, full of murders, perhaps a dozen, if not more. Nearly all the characters have some terrible secret connected with their past; hardly any of them are legitimate children. A duel between two brothers, and banshees, and mysterious ladies with dark prophesyings, etc., and all the fee-faw-fum of the times when all this was popular.

MAXWELL, W. Hamilton. 1792-1850. He was a clergyman of the Church of Ireland, with a parish at Ballagh, in the wilds of Connaught, but was largely relieved of pastoral duties by the absence of a flock. He divided his leisure between field sports of all kinds and the writing of books. Wild Sports of the West, Stories of Waterloo, and The Bivouac were the most successful of these; they are still much read. He tells a story capitally, with verve and spirit, and his situations are as exciting as those of any modern novelist. Maxwell was the first writer of military novels: he is the forerunner and even the inspirer of Lever. Mr. Baker describes his Stories of Waterloo as “A farrago of Irish stories, sensational, with a dash of Hibernian character and local colouring.” This book is still to be had (Routledge, 2s.), and a new ed. publ. by The Talbot Press, Dublin (Every Irishman’s Library), and ed. by Lord Dunraven, has recently (Sept., 1915) appeared of his Wild Sports.

A Protestant landowner casts in his lot with the United Irishmen. The Government attaints him of treason; he is tried by a jury of drunken bigots, and hanged as a traitor. His son, the hero of the tale, then throws himself heart and soul into the rebellion. The interest centres in the accounts of the fighting in the North. The hero is a leader at the battle of Antrim. Some light is thrown on the nature of the friction between the Catholic and the Protestant commanders, which constantly threatens the disruption of the rebel forces.—(Krans). Publ. anon.

— THE DARK LADY OF DOONA. [1836]. Also (Smith, Elder) 1837. Pp. 306. (Belfast) 1846. (Lond.) 1854. (Warne). 6d. 1891.

“A weak historical novel, in Scott’s manner, which attempts a picture of sixteenth-century life.”—(Krans). The heroine is Grace O’Malley. The story opens in 1601, but there is a retrospective portion going back to tell the early life of the heroine. A tale of love and wild vengeance. In the story figure the heir of the Geraldines (who marries Grace’s granddaughter), Hugh O’Neill, and Sir Richard Bingham. Grace joins the latter against O’Neill. Well written on the whole.

— LA DAME NOIRE DE DOONA. Roman historique traduit par Pâquis. Two tom. (Paris). 1834(!).

— ADVENTURES OF CAPT. BLAKE; or, My Life. (Routledge). 6d. [Bentley, 1835]. 1838. Third ed., 1882.

Really two practically independent stories, that of Major Blake and that of his son, the Captain. The former is far the more interesting, giving a good account of Gen. Humbert’s invasion and of the manners of the peasantry at the time (especially their open-hearted hospitality and kindliness), and some nice descriptions of Connaught scenery. But for an absurd scene of confession in a courthouse no religious bias is displayed. The remaining two volumes are a rambling series of miscellaneous adventures in Portugal, Paris, and London, consisting largely of amorous episodes not edifying, to say the least, and told in a facetious and somewhat vulgar strain.

— THE ADVENTURES OF HECTOR O’HALLORAN AND HIS MAN, MARK ANTONY O’TOOLE. (Warne). 6d. Paper. (N.Y.: Pratt). 0.30. [1842]. n.d. (recently reprinted).

The hero is the son of a landlord and ex-soldier living in the South of Ireland. Beginning with an attack on the castle by local malcontents, Hector and his man pass through a series of adventures (some of which are described with considerable “go”), first in Dublin, then in London, and finally in the Peninsular War under Wellington. Most of the incidents take place amid the lowest society, and some of them are distinctly coarse. There is no character-drawing and little or no attempt to picture the life of the period. The military experiences in Spain form, perhaps, the best part of the book. There is no sympathy for Ireland, and there are some gibes at Catholicism.

— THE ADVENTURES OF CAPT. O’SULLIVAN. Three Vols. (Colburn). [1848]. 1855.

“Or adventures civil, military, and matrimonial of a gentleman on half-pay.” Some of these take place near “Ballysallagh,” in Connaught, where the hero is stationed, his duties being mainly to keep down the Ribbonmen and to hunt for illicit stills. Attitude towards the former somewhat bloodthirsty. The two chief houses belong to the priest and the tithe-proctor, the task of the latter being described as the grinding of money “out of the wretched serfs.” Little plot, long and tedious conversations.

— ERIN GO BRAGH; or, Irish Life Pictures. Two Vols. (Bentley). Portrait. 1859.

A posthumous collection of short stories originally contributed to Bentley’s Miscellany and other magazines. Written in the light, rollicking, high-spirited vein characteristic of Maxwell. Many of them are recollections of actual experience. Prefaced by biographical sketch by Dr. Maginn.

— LUCK IS EVERYTHING; or, The Adventures of Brian O’Linn. Pp. 440. (Routledge). (N.Y.: Pratt). 3.00. 1860.

An infant, child of a dying mother who had been abducted, is landed on Innisturk. He is adopted by the head man there, grows up, goes to England, and after many exciting adventures, love episodes, and hair-breadth escapes, finds out his own origin and succeeds to ancestral estates. Originally appeared as serial (with illustrations on steel by John Leech) under the title of Brian O’Linn in Bentley’s Miscellany.

MAYNE, Thomas Ekenhead. Son of a well-known bookseller of Belfast, was fast earning for himself a considerable literary reputation, but died at 32, 1899.

— THE HEART O’ THE PEAT: Irish Fireside and Wayside Sketches. Pp. 214. (Belfast: W. Erskine Mayne). 1s. Paper. 1899.

“These are all Irish stories, written on the spot, with a faithfulness that can be felt in every line. There is no attempt at meretricious workmanship, no maudlin sentimentality, no mock heroics. They are simple tales, simply told; but occasionally the restraint, which is everywhere discernible, is relaxed for a moment, and the fire of the poet glows in half a dozen lines, as a landscape or a sea-piece is enthusiastically drawn, or some incident touches the gentle human heart of the writer.”—(James H. Cousins, in Sinn Fein).

“MEADE, L. T.”; Elizabeth Thomasina Toulmin Smith. She was a daughter of Rev. R. T. Meade, of Nohoval, Co. Cork. She was b. at Bandon. She lived in England from 1874 till her death in 1915. Mudie’s catalogue enumerates 185 of her novels, many of which were stories for school girls. Of these novels several, no doubt, besides those here mentioned, relate to Ireland.

— THE WILD IRISH GIRL. Pp. 444. (Chambers). 6s. Eight coloured Illustr. by the well-known Punch artist, Lewis Baumer. 1910.

Warm-hearted, impulsive Patricia has been allowed to run wild at her own sweet will in Ireland. She is brought to London, finds the conventional restraints of society too narrow for her, and as a consequence gets into many amusing and harmless scrapes, and out of them again.—(Press Notices).

Scene: near Tralee, in Kerry. Patrick D. contracts a runaway marriage with a beautiful peasant girl. He falls heavily in debt, finds that his mother, on whom he had relied, is even more heavily involved, and that the only way out is a marriage with a rich heiress. Patrick basely yields, and the poor wife consents to “disappear,” but in a strange way, connected with a certain “silent room” in the D. mansion, whose secret we shall not divulge, things right themselves at last. Peter Maloney, Patrick’s faithful foster-brother, is curiously similar to Griffin’s Danny Mann. The moral tone is high.

— PEGGY FROM KERRY. Pp. 330. (Chambers). 6s. Pretty cover and eight coloured Illustr. by Miss A. Anderson. 1912.

Peggy is the daughter of a poor Irish peasant and of an officer. She is now an orphan, but has been adopted by an English friend of her father’s and sent to an English boarding school. The story is made up of plots and petty jealousies amongst the schoolgirls. Peggy, though much ridiculed for her dreadful brogue, triumphs over her special enemy and the latter’s followers and ends by being popular and happy.

— KITTY O’DONOVAN. Pp. 330. (Chambers). 5s. Six good coloured Illustr. by J. Finnemore. 1912.

Doings in a select English boarding school, where the pretty heroine from Kerry comes scatheless through the spiteful plots of her jealous rivals, and is crowned Queen of the May. There is a pretty description of Kerry scenery, but most of the action takes place outside of Ireland.

“A tale of the novelette class about a young Irishman forced into crime and faithlessness to his young wife by his family’s need of money.”—[Times Lit. Suppl.]. Another “Colleen Bawn” story. Brilliant young officer marries penniless girl. Financial straits. Murder; and nemesis.

Scene: “Arranmore,” on the sea coast of Cork. Sheila O’Connor is long sundered from her lover by the suspicion, shared by herself, that he is the murderer of her father, the Squire. Whether they are ever united again we leave the reader to discover. There are many scenes that show us the life of the peasantry, in particular their religious customs. The book seems free from bias, and the brogue is not exaggerated.

— CONFESSORS OF CONNAUGHT; or, The Tenants of a Lord Bishop. Pp. viii. + 319. (Philadelphia: Cunningham). [1864]. n.d. (still in print).

Hardly a story: rather a relation of real incidents in which the names are thinly disguised. Turns chiefly on the proselytising efforts of Lord Plunkett, Protestant Archb. of Tuam, resulting in the Partry evictions. Archb. MacHale, Father Patrick Lavelle, Mgr. Dupanloup, and J. F. Maguire play parts in the tale. Written with strong Catholic bias, but among the chief characters are a Protestant minister and his wife, who are represented as estimable in every way. Style lively, and at times humorous. Dialogue good and natural. The Author is a great admirer of William Smith O’Brien. She has also publ. Grace Morton; or, The Inheritance. A Catholic Tale.

MEANY, Stephen Joseph. B. nr. Ennis, Co. Clare, 1825. A noted journalist, first in his native Clare, then in Dublin. In 1848 he was imprisoned for some months. Then he went to Liverpool, where he founded the first English Catholic paper outside London—The Lancashire Free Press. Went to U.S.A., 1860. Returned to England, and was arrested on a charge of Fenianism, 1867, and sentenced to 15 years. D. N.Y., 1888. His “Life” has been written by John Augustus O’Shea.

The “Terry Alts” was a name adopted by the secret agrarian agitators in Munster, previously known as “Whiteboys.” Not in British Museum Library.

— KILLINCHY; or, The Days of Livingston. Pp. 156. 12mo. (Belfast: McComb). 1839.

Description of Presbyterian life in Ulster immediately after the Scottish Plantation, with biographical details concerning Rev. John Livingston, a Scot from Kilsyth, who was minister of Killinchy, Co. Down, from 1630-5. Story element slight. The Author was a schoolmaster in the district.

— THE IRISH CHIEFTAIN AND HIS FAMILY. Four Vols. Pp. 910. (London: Lane, Newman). 1809.

The chieftain is The O’Donoghue of Killarney, dispossessed for loyalty to the Stuarts. His family, that of Lord Roskerrin, a Williamite, rewarded with an estate, and an exiled Venetian are the dramatis personæ. Scene: chiefly Killarney. Period, only vaguely indicated, 18th century. Conrad O’D. the hero, falls in love with the daughter of the hated Lord R. There are kidnappings and highly sensational adventures of all kinds, told in a romantic manner, among others how Conrad helps to reinstate the exiled Venetian grandee. Author’s sympathies thoroughly on the Irish side, but does not seem unfair to the English. He wrote also The White Knight, The Benevolent Monk, &c. Good descriptions of Killarney.

MEREDITH, George. B. Portsmouth, 1828. He had, as he used to boast, both Welsh (from his father) and Irish blood (from his mother) in his veins. Ed. chiefly in Germany. The writer of his life in the Encyclopedia Brittanica says of him, “In Meredith went the writer who had raised the creative art of the novel, as a vehicle of character and constructive philosophy, to its highest point.... The estimate of his genius formed by “an honourable minority,” who would place him in the highest rank of all, by Shakespeare, has yet to be confirmed by the wider suffrage of posterity.” He died in 1909.

Left unfinished, like Dickens’s Edwin Drood. The plot has hardly begun to work out. The chief interest lies in the purpose which was—the author tells us—to contrast English, as typified in John Bull, to the description of whose characteristics a whole chapter is devoted, with Celtic character and ideals. This purpose is manifest throughout the book. There is a set of Irish and a set of English characters, and within these two sets are types differing widely from one another. One of the most pronounced types of Irishman is married to a lady of peculiarly English characteristics, and the resulting ménage affords the author scope for much dry humour. A romantic episode is just beginning to develop. The highly-wrought Meredithian style is as distinctive as in his former books, and there are stray glimpses of the Meredithian philosophy.

“MERRY, Andrew”; Mrs. Mildred H. G. Darby, née Gordon-Dill. B. 1869, in Sussex, d. of a North of Irelander, a cousin of Sir Samuel Dill, and of an English mother. Ed. at home. Married in 1889 J. C. Darby, Esq., D.L. Her writings are noted for their impartial standpoint as regards Irish questions, and for their virile style. Never in the criticisms of her literary work has it been suggested that the pen-name hid a woman.

Little studies, humorous or pathetic, of the Irish people of to-day. Both the landlord class and the peasantry, Catholics as well as Protestants, figure in the tale. The Author makes (c.f. Pref.) her characters responsible for the views they express. She applies herself with insight and sympathy and without bias to a careful presentation of various aspects of the national character, its shadows no less than its lights. But there is no preaching. The story entitled “The love of God or Men” is full of true religious feeling.

— PADDY RISKY; or, Irish Realities of To-day. Pp. 367. (Grant, Richards). 1903.

Seven stories dealing with aspects of Irish life from the landlord and Unionist point of view, yet tone not anti-Irish, nor unjust to any class. The spirit is that of Davis’ “Celt and Saxon,” quoted at outset:—