hunting widow; Michael Armstrong, or the Factory Boy, a caricature of the evils attendant on the manufacturing system; and One Fault, a domestic story, illustrating with uncommon vigour and effect the dismal consequences of that species of bad temper which proceeds from pride and over sensitiveness. In 1840 we had The Widow Married; and in 1841 The Blue Belles of England, and Charles Chesterfield. The latter relates the history of a youth of genius, and contains a satirical picture of the state of literature in England, branding authors, editors, and publishers with unprincipled profligacy, selfishness, and corruption. In 1842 Mrs Trollope, besides throwing off another novel (The Ward of Thorpe Combe), gave the public the result of a second visit to Belgium, describing the changes that had been effected since 1833, and also A Visit to Italy. The smart caustic style of our authoress was not so well adapted to the classic scenes, manners, and antiquities of Italy, as to the broader features of American life and character, and this work was not so successful as her previous publications. Returning to fiction, we find Mrs Trollope, as usual, prolific. Three novels, of three volumes each, were the produce of 1843-Hargrave, Jessie Phillips, and The Laurringtons. The first is a sketch of a man of fashion; the second an attack on the new English poor-law; and the third a lively satire on 'superior people,' the 'bustling Botherbys' of society. Reviewing the aggregate labours of this industrious authoress, we cannot say that she has done good proportioned to her talents. Her satire is directed against the mere superficialities of life, and is not calculated to check vice or encourage virtue. In depicting high life, she wants the genial spirit and humanity of Theodore Hook. She has scattered amusement among novel-readers by some of her delineations; but in all her mirth there is a mocking and bitter spirit, which is often as misplaced as it is unfemi nine. JOHN BANIM. The Tales of the O'Hara Family, first and second series, 1825 and 1826, produced a strong and vivid impression on all readers of fiction. The author seemed to unite the truth and circumstantiality of Crabbe with the dark and gloomy power of Godwin; and in knowledge of Irish character, habits, customs, and feeling, he was superior to even Miss Edgeworth or Lady Morgan. The story of the Nowlans, and that of Croohore of the Bill-Hook, can never be forgotten by those who have once perused them. The force of the passions, and the effects of crime, turbulence, and misery, have rarely been painted with such overmastering energy, or wrought into narratives of more sustained and harrowing interest. The probability of his incidents was not much attended to by the author, and he indulged largely in scenes of horror and violence-in murders, abductions, pursuits, and escapes-but the whole was related with such spirit, raciness, and truth of costume and colouring, that the reader had neither time nor inclination to note defects. The very peculiarities of the Irish dialect and pronunciation (though constituting at first a difficulty in perusal, and always too much persisted in by Mr Banim) heightened the wild native flavour of the stories, and enriched them with many new and picturesque words and phrases. These original and striking tales were followed up in 1828 by another Irish story, The Croppy, connected with the insurrection in 1798. We paint,' said the author, 'from the people of a land amongst whom, for the last six ceased to keep alive the strongest and often the worst passions of our nature; whose pauses, during that long lapse of a country's existence, from actual conflict in the field, have been but so many changes into mental strife, and who to this day are held prepared, should the war-cry be given, to rush at each other's throats, and enact scenes that, in the columns of a newspaper, would show more terribly vivid than any selected by us from former facts, for the purposes of candid, though slight illustration.' There was too much of this 'strong writing' in The Croppy, and worse faults were found in the prolixity of some of the dialogues and descriptions, and a too palpable imitation of the style of Sir Walter Scott in his historical romances. The scenes peculiarly Irish are, however, written with Mr Banim's characteristic vigour: he describes the burning of a cabin till we seem to witness the spectacle; and the massacre at Vinegar Hill is portrayed with the distinctness of dramatic action. Nanny the knitter is also one of his happiest Irish likenesses. The experiment made by the author to depict, like Scott, the manners and frivolities of the higher classes-to draw a sprightly heroine, a maiden aunt, or the ordinary characters and traits of genteel society-was decidedly a failure. His strength lay in the cabin and the wild heath, not in the drawingroom. In 1830 Mr Banim published The Denounced, in three volumes, a work consisting of two tales -The Last Baron of Crana, and The Conformists. The same beauties and defects which characterise The Croppy are seen in The Denounced; but The Conformists is a deeply-interesting story, and calls forth Mr Banim's peculiarities of description and knowledge of character in a very striking light. His object is to depict the evils of that system of antiCatholic tyranny when the penal laws were in full force, by which home education was denied to Catholic families unless by a Protestant teacher. The more rigid of the Catholics abjured all instruction thus administered; and Mr Banim describes the effects of ignorance and neglect on the second son of a Catholic gentleman, haughty, sensitive, and painfully alive to the disadvantages and degradation of his condition. The whole account of this family, the D'Arcys, is written with great skill and effect. In 1838 Mr Banim collected several of his contributions to periodical works, and published them under the title of The Bit ở Writin', and other Tales, In 1842 he came forward with an original and excellent novel, in three volumes, Father Connell, the hero being an aged and benevolent Catholic priest, not unworthy of association with the Protestant Vicar of Wakefield. This primitive pastor becomes the patron of a poor vagrant boy, Neddy Fennell, whose adventures furnish the incidents for the story. There | is, as usual with Mr Banim, a variety of incidents minutely related-scenes of gloom and terror-and a complete knowledge of the moral anatomy of our nature. This was destined to be the last work of the author. He died in August 1842, in the prime of life, in the neighbourhood of Kilkenny, which also was his birthplace. 'Mr Banim began life as a miniature painter; but, seduced from his profession by promptings too strong to be resisted, and by the success of a tragedy, Damon and Pythias, he early abandoned art, and adopted literature as a profession; and he will be long remembered as the writer of that powerful and painful series of novels, "The O'Hara Tales." Some years previous, the general sympathy was attracted to Mr Banim's struggle against the suffering and privation which came in the train of disease that precluded all literary exertion; and on that occasion Sir Robert Peel came to the hundred years, national provocations have never | aid of the distressed author, whose latter years were 1 1 1 1 1 i 1 restored to his native country, and made easy by a yearly pension of £150 from the civil list, to which an addition of £40 a-year was afterwards made for the education of his daughter, an only child.'* Besides the works we have mentioned, Mr Banim wrote Boyne Water, and other poetical pieces; and he contributed largely to the different magazines and annuals. The O'Hara Tales' had given him a name that carried general attraction to all lovers of light literature; and there are few of these short and hasty tales that do not contain some traces of his unrivalled Irish power and fidelity of delineation. In some respects Mr Banim was a mannerist: his knowledge extended over a wide surface of Irish history and of character, under all its modifications; but his style and imagination were confined chiefly to the same class of subjects, and to a peculiar mode of treating them. Thus the consciousness of power in the description of unhallowed and unregulated impulse, appears to draw him often away from contemplating those feelings of a more pleasing kind, to comprehend and to delineate which is so necessary a condition to the attainment of perfection in his art. Thus the boldness and minuteness of detail, which give reality to his frequent scenes of lawless ness and violence, are too often forced close on the verge of vulgar honour and melodramatic artifice. To be brief, throughout the whole of his writings there is a sort of overstrained excitement, a wil ful dwelling upon turbulent and unchastened pas sions, which, as it is a vice most often incident to the workings of real genius, more especially of Irish genius, so perhaps it is one which meets with least mercy from well-behaved prosaic people.'† This defect he partially overcame in his later writings. 'Father Connell' is full of gentle affectionate feelings and delineation, and some of his smaller tales are distinguished by great delicacy and tenderness. [Description of the Burning of a Croppy's House.] The smith kept a brooding and gloomy silence; his almost savage yet steadfast glare fastened upon the element that, not more raging than his own bosom, devoured his dwelling. Fire had been set to the house in many places within and without; and though at first it crept slowly along the surface of the thatch, or only sent out bursting wreaths of vapour from the interior, or through the doorway, few minutes elapsed until the whole of the combustible roof was one mass of flame, shooting up into the serene air in a spire of dazzling brilliancy, mixed with vivid sparks, and relieved against a background of darkgray smoke. Sky and earth appeared reddened into common ignition with the blaze. The houses around gleamed hotly; the very stones and rocks on the hill-side seemed portions of fire; and Shawn-a-Gow's bare head and herculean shoulders were covered with spreading showers of the ashes of his own roof. His distended eye fixed too upon the figures of the actors in this scene, now rendered fiercely distinct, and their scabbards, their buttons, and their polished black helmets, bickering redly in the glow, as, at a command from their captain, they sent up the hillside three shouts over the demolition of the Croppy's dwelling. But still, though his breast heaved, and though wreaths of foam edged his lips, Shawn silent; and little Peter now feared to address a word to him. And other sights and occurrences claimed whatever attention he was able to afford. Rising to a pitch of shrillness that over-mastered the cheers of the yeomen, the cries of a man in bodily agony struck on the ears of the listeners on the hill, and looking * Athenæum for 1842. † Westminster Review, 1828. hard towards a spot brilliantly illuminated, they saw Saunders Smyly vigorously engaged in one of his tasks as disciplinarian to the Ballybreehoone cavalry. With much ostentation, his instrument of torture was flourished round his head, and though at every lash the shrieks of the sufferer came loud, the lashes themselves were scarce less distinct. A second group challenged the eye. Shawn-a-Gow's house stood alone in the village. A short distance before its door was a lime-tree, with benches contrived all round the trunk, upon which, in summer weather, the gossipers of the village used to seat themselves. This tree, standing between our spectators and the blaze, cut darkly against the glowing objects beyond it; and three or four yeomen, their backs turned to the hill, their faces to the burning house, and consequently their figures also appearing black, seemed busily occupied in some feat that required the exertion of pulling with their hands lifted above their heads. Shawn flashed an inquiring glance upon them, and anon a human form, still, like their figures, vague and undefined in blackness, gradually became elevated from the ground beneath the tree, until its head almost touched a projecting branch, and then it remained stationary, suspended from that branch. Shawn's rage increased to madness at this sight, though he did not admit it to be immediately conAnd now came an event that made a climax, for the present, to his emotions, and at length caused some nected with his more individual causes for wrath. expressions of his pent-up feelings. A loud crackling crash echoed from his house; a volume of flame, taller and more dense than any by which it was preceded, darted up to the heavens; then almost former darkness fell on the hill-side; a gloomy red glow alone remained on the objects below; and nothing but thick smoke, dotted with sparks, continued to issue from his dwelling. After everything that could interiorly supply food to the flame had been devoured, it was the roof of his old house that now fell in. 'By the ashes o' my cabin, burnt down before me this night-an' I stannin' a houseless beggar on the hill-side lookin' at id-while I can get an Orangeman's house to take the blaze, an' a wisp to kindle the blaze up, I'll burn ten houses for that one!' And so asseverating, he recrossed the summit of the hill, and, followed by Peter Rooney, descended into the little valley of refuge. T. CROFTON CROKER. MR CROKER has been one of the most industrious and tasteful collectors of the legendary lore, the poetical traditions and antiquities of Ireland. In 1824 appeared his Researches in the South of Ireland, one volume, quarto, containing a judicious and happy mixture of humour, sentiment, and antiquarianism. This was followed by Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland, 1827; Legends of the Lakes, or Sayings and Doings at Killarney, two volumes, 1828; Daniel O'Rourke, or Rhymes of a Pantomime founded on that Story, 1828; Barney Mahoney, 1832; My Village versus Our Village, 1832; Popular Songs of Ireland, 1839, &c. The tales of Barney Mahoney' and 'My Village' are Mr Croker's only efforts at strictly original composition, his other works being compilations, like Scott's Minstrelsy, and entered upon with equal enthusiasm and knowledge of his subject. Barney is a low Irish servant, and his adventures are characteristic and amusing, though without much force or interest. My Village' is an English tale, and by no means happy either in conception or execution. Miss Mitford may have occasionally dressed or represented her village en vaudeville, like the back-scene of a theatre, but Mr Croker errs on the opposite side. He gives us a series of Dutch 1 paintings, too little relieved by imagination or passion to excite or gratify the curiosity of the reader. He is happiest among the fanciful legends of his native country, treasuring up their romantic features, quoting fragments of song, describing a lake or ruin, hitting off a dialogue or merry jest, and chronicling the peculiarities of his countrymen in their humours, their superstition, and rustic simplicity. The following is the account which he puts into the mouth of one of his characters, of the last of the Irish serpents. Sure everybody has heard tell of the blessed St Patrick, and how he druve the sarpints and all manner of venomous things out of Ireland; how he 'bothered all the varmint' entirely. But for all that, there was one ould sarpint left, who was too cunning to be talked out of the country, and made to drown himself. St Patrick didn't well know how to manage this fellow, who was doing great havoc; till, at long last he bethought himself, and got a strong iron chest made with nine boults upon it. So one fine morning he takes a walk to where the sarpint used to keep; and the sarpint, who didn't like the saint in the least, and small blame to him for that, began to hiss and show his teeth at him like anything. 'Oh,' says St Patrick, says he, 'where's the use of making such a piece of work about a gentleman like myself coming to see you. 'Tis a nice house I have got made for you agin the winter; for I'm going to civilise the whole country, man and beast,' says he, 'and you can come and look at it whenever you please, and 'tis myself will be glad to see you.' The sarpint hearing such smooth words, thought that though St Patrick had druve all the rest of the sarpints into the sea, he meant no harm to himself; so the sarpint walks fair and easy up to see him and the house he was speaking about. But when the sarpint saw the nine boults upon the chest, he thought he was sould (betrayed), and was for making off with himself as fast as ever he could. ''Tis a nice warm house, you see,' says St Patrick, 'and 'tis a good friend I am to you.' 'I thank you kindly, St Patrick, for your civility,' says the sarpint; 'but I think it's too small it is for me meaning it for an excuse, and away he was going. ، Too small!' says St Patrick, 'stop, if you please,' says he, 'you're out in that, my boy, anyhow-I am sure 'twill fit you completely; and I'll tell you what,' says he, 'I'll bet you a gallon of porter,' says he, 'that if you'll only try and get in, there'll be plenty of room for you.' The sarpint was as thirsty as could be with his walk; and 'twas great joy to him the thoughts of doing St Patrick out of the gallon of porter; so, swelling himself up as big as he could, in he got to the chest, all but a little bit of his tail. There, now, says he, 'I've won the gallon, for you see the house is too small for me, for I can't get in my tail. When what does St Patrick do, but he comes behind the great heavy lid of the chest, and, putting his two hands to it, down he slaps it with a a bang like thunder. When the rogue of a sarpint saw the lid coming down, in went his tail like a shot, for fear of being whipped off him, and St Patrick began at once to boult the nine iron boults. 'Oh, murder! wont you let me out, St Patrick?' says the sarpint; ' I've lost the bet fairly, and I'll pay you the gallon like a man.' 'Let you out, my darling,' says St Patrick, 'to be sure I will, by all manner of means; but you see I haven't time Low, so you must wait till to-morrow.' And so he cook the iron chest, with the sarpint in it, and pitches it into the lake here, where it is to this hour for certain; and 'tis the sarpint struggling down at the bottom that makes the waves upon it. Many is the living man (continued Picket) besides myself has heard the sarpint crying out from within the chest under the water-'Is it to-morrow yet?-is it to-morrow yet? which, to be sure, it never can be and that's the way St Patrick settled the last of the sarpints, sir. The national character of Ireland was further illustrated by two collections of tales published anonymously, entitled To-day in Ireland, 1825; and Yesterday in Ireland, 1829. Though imperfectly acquainted with the art of a novelist, this writer is often correct and happy in his descriptions and historical summaries. Like Banim, he has ventured on the stormy period of 1798, and has been more minute than his great rival in sketching the circumstances of the rebellion. MR CROWE, author of The English in Italy and France, a work of superior merit, is said to be the author of these tales. The REV. CESAR OTWAY, of Dublin, in his Sketches of Ireland, and his Tour in Connaught, &c. 1839, has displayed many of the most valuable qualities of a novelist, without attempting the construction of a regular story. His lively style and humorous illustrations of the manners of the people render his topographical works very pleasant as well as instructive reading. Mr Otway was a keen theologian, a determined anti-Catholic, but full of Irish feeling and universal kindliness. He died in March 1842. GERALD GRIFFIN. GERALD GRIFFIN, author of some excellent Irish tales, was born at Limerick on the 12th of December 1803. His first schoolmaster appears to have been a true Milesian pedant and original, for one of his advertisements begins - When ponderous pollysyllables promulgate professional powers!'-and he boasted of being one of three persons in Ireland who knew how to read correctly; namely, the Bishop of Killaloe, the Earl of Clare, and himself, Mr Mac- Eligot! Gerald was afterwards placed under a pri vate tutor, whence he was removed to attend a school at Limerick. While a mere youth, he became connected with the Limerick Advertiser newspaper; but having written a tragedy, he migrated to London in his twentieth year, with the hope of distinguishing himself in literature and the drama. Disappointment very naturally followed, and Gerald betook himself to reporting for the daily press and contributing to the magazines. In 1825 he succeeded in getting an operatic melodrama brought out at the English Opera House; and in 1827 appeared his Holland-Tide, or Munster Popular Tales, a series of short stories, thoroughly Irish, and evincing powers of observation and description from which much might be anticipated. This fortunate beginning was followed up the same year by Tales of the Munster Festivals, containing Card-Drawing, the Half-Sir, and Suil Dhuv the Coiner, three volumes. The nationality of these tales, and the talent of the author in depicting the mingled levity and pathos of the Irish character, rendered them exceedingly popular. His reputation was still further increased by the publication, in 1829, of The Collegians; a Second Series of Tales of the Munster Festivals, three volumes, which proved to be the most popular of all his works, and was thought by many to place Griffin as an Irish novelist above Banim and Carleton. Some of the scenes possess a deep and melancholy interest; for, in awakening terror, and painting the sterner passions and their results, Griffin displayed the art and power of a master. The Collegians,' says a writer in the Edinburgh Review, 'is a very interesting and well-constructed tale, full of incident and passion. It is a history of the clandestine union of a young man of good birth and fortune with a girl of far inferior rank, and of the consequences 1 which too naturally result. The gradual decay of an attachment which was scarcely based on anything better than sensual love the irksomeness of concealment the goadings of wounded pride-the suggestions of self-interest, which had been hastily neglected for an object which proves inadequate when gained-all these combining to produce, first, neglect, and lastly, aversion, are interestingly and vividly described. An attachment to another, superior both in mind and station, springs up at the same time; and to effect a union with her, the unhappy wife is sacrificed. It is a terrible representation of the course of crime; and it is not only forcibly, but naturally disply.yed. The characters sometimes express their feelings with unnecessary energy, strong emotions are too long dwelt upon, and incidents rather slowly developed; but there is no common skill and power evinced in the conduct of the tale.' In 1830 Mr Griffin was again in the field with his Irish sketches. Two tales, The Rivals, and Tracey's Ambition, were well received, though improbable in plot and ill-arranged in incident. The author continued his miscellaneous labours for the press, and published, besides a number of contributions to periodicals, another series of stories, entitled Tales of the Five Senses. These are not equal to his 'Munster Tales,' but are, nevertheless, full of fine Irish description and character, and of that 'dark and touching power' which Mr Carleton assigns as the distinguishing excellence of his brother novelist. In 1832 the townsmen of Mr Griffin devolved upon him a very pleasing duty -to wait upon Mr Moore the poet, and request that he would allow himself to be put in nomination for the representation of the city of Limerick in parliament. Mr Moore prudently declined this honour, but appears to have given a characteristically kind and warm reception to his young enthusiastic visitor, and his brother, who accompanied him. Notwithstanding the early success and growing reputation of Mr Griffin, he appears to have soon become tired of the world, and anxious to retreat from its toils and its pleasures. He had been educated in the Roman Catholic faith, and one of his sisters had, about the year 1830, taken the veil. This circumstance awakened the poetical and devotional feelings and desires that formed part of his character, and he grew daily more anxious to quit the busy world for a life of religious duty and service. The following verses, written at this time, are expressive of his new enthusiasm : Seven dreary winters gone and spent, How passed those years I will not say; With even mind and tranquil breast Returning from that stormy world, Oh, darling of a heart that still, The warmth of nature and of God! Still be his care in future years To learn of thee truth's simple way, And when our Christmas days are past, When her pure hands are raised for him! His mind, fixed on this subject, still retained its youthful buoyancy and cheerfulness, and he made a tour in Scotland, which afforded him the highest satisfaction and enjoyment. He retired from the world in the autumn of 1838, and joined the Christian Brotherhood (whose duty it is to instruct the poor) in the monastery at Cork. In the second year of his noviciate he was attacked with typhus fever, and died on the 12th of June 1840. WILLIAM CARLETON. WILLIAM CARLETON, author of Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, was born at Prillisk, in the parish of Clogher, and county of Tyrone, in the year 1798. His father was a person in lowly station-a peasant-but highly and singularly gifted. His memory was unusually retentive, and as a teller of old tales, legends, and historical anecdotes, he was unrivalled; and his stock of them was inexhaustible. He spoke the Irish and English languages with nearly equal fluency. His mother was skilled in the native music of the country, and possessed the sweetest and most exquisite of human voices. She was celebrated for the effect she gave to the Irish cry or 'keene.' 'I have often been present,' says her son, 'when she has "raised the keene" over the corpse of some relative or neighbour, and my readers may judge of the melancholy charm which accompanied this expression of her sympathy, when I assure them that the general clamour of violent grief was gradu ally diminished, from admiration, until it became ultimately hushed, and no voice was heard but her own-wailing in sorrowful but solitary beauty.' With such parents Carleton could not fail to imbibe the peculiar feelings and superstitions of his country. His humble home was a fitting nursery for Irish genius. His first schoolmaster was a Connaught man, named Pat Frayne, the prototype of Mat Kavanagh in the Iledge School. He also received some instruction from a classical teacher, a 'tyrannical blockhead' who settled in the neighbourhood, and it was afterwards agreed to send him to Munster, as a poor scholar, to complete his education. The poor scholars of Munster are indebted for nothing but their bed and board, which they receive from the parents of the scholars. In some cases a collection is made to provide an outfit for the youth thus leaving home; but Carleton's own family supplied the funds supposed to be necessary. The circumstances attending his departure Mr Carleton has related in his fine tale, The Poor Scholar.' As he journeyed slowly along the road, his superstitious fears got the better of his ambition to be a scholar, and stopping for the night at a small inn by the way, a disagreeable dream determined the home-sick lad to return to his father's cottage. His affectionate parents were equally joyed to receive him; and Carleton seems to have done little for some years but join in the sports and pastimes of the people, and attend every wake, dance, fair, and merry-making in the * These particulars concerning the personal history of the novelist are contained in his introduction to the last edition of the Traits and Stories.' i neighbourhood. In his seventeenth year he went to assist a distant relative, a priest, who had opened a classical school near Glasslough, county of Monaghan, where he remained two years. A pilgrimage to the far-famed Lough-derg, or St Patrick's Purgatory, excited his imagination, and the description of that performance, some years afterwards, 'not only,' he says, 'constituted my debut in literature, but was also the means of preventing me from being a pleasant strong-bodied parish priest at this day; indeed it was the cause of changing the whole destiny of my subsequent life.' About this time chance threw a copy of Gil Blas in his way, and his love of adventure was so stimulated by its perusal, that he left his native place, and set off on a visit to a Catholic clergyman in the county of Louth. He stopped with him a fortnight, and succeeded in procuring a tuition in the house of a farmer near Corcreagh. This, however, was a tame life and a hard one, and he resolved on precipitating himself on the Irish metropolis, with no other guide than a certain strong feeling of vague and shapeless ambition. He entered Dublin with only 2s. 9d. in his pocket. From this period we suppose we must date the commencement of Mr Carleton's literary career. In 1830 appeared his 'Traits and Stories, two volumes, published in Dublin, but without the author's name. Mr Carleton, in his preface, 'assures the public, that what he offers | is, both in manufacture and material, genuine Irish; yes, genuine Irish as to character, drawn by one born | amidst the scenes he describes reared as one of the people whose characters and situations he sketches -and who can cut and dress a shillaly as well as any man in his majesty's dominions; ay, and use it too; so let the critics take care of themselves.' The critics were unanimous in favour of the Irish various scenes which passed before him in his native district and during his subsequent rambles. In examining into the causes which have operated in forming the character of the peasantry, Mr Carleton alludes to the long want of any fixed system of wholesome education. The clergy, until lately, took no interest in the matter, and the instruction of the children (where any instruction was obtained) was left altogether to hedge schoolmasters, a class of men who, with few exceptions, bestowed 'such an education upon the people as is sufficient almost, in the absence of all other causes, to account for much of the agrarian violence and erroneous principles which regulate their movements and feelings on that and similar subjects.' The lower Irish, too, he justly remarks, were, until a comparatively recent period, treated with apathy and gross neglect by the only class to whom they could or ought to look up for sympathy or protection. Hence those deep-rooted prejudices and fearful crimes which stain the history of a people remarkable for their social and domestic virtues. 'In domestic life,' says Mr Carleton, 'there is no man so exquisitely affectionate and humanised as the Irishman. The national imagination is active, and the national heart warm, and it follows very naturally that he should be, and is, tender and strong in all his domestic relations. Unlike the people of other nations, his grief is loud, but lasting; vehement, but deep; and whilst its shadow has been chequered by the laughter and mirth of a cheerful disposition, still, in the moments of seclusion, at his bed-side prayer, or over the grave of those he loved, it will put itself forth, after half a life, with a vivid power of recollection which is sometimes almost beyond belief.' A people thus cast in extremes-melancholy and humorous-passionate in affection and in hatred sketcher. His account of the northern Irish-the-cherishing the old language, traditions, and recol Ulster creachts-was new to the reading public, and the dark mountains and green vales' of his native Tyrone, of Donegal, and Derry, had been left untouched by the previous writers on Ireland. A second series of these tales was published by Mr Carleton in 1832, and was equally well received. In 1839 he sent forth a powerful Irish story, Fardorougha the Miser, or the Convicts of Lisnamona, in which the passion of avarice is strikingly depicted, without its victim being wholly dead to natural tenderness and affection. Scenes of broad humour and comic extravagance are interspersed throughout the work. Two years afterwards (1841) appeared The Fawn of Spring Vale, The Clarionet, and other Tales, three volumes. There is more of pathetic composition in this collection than in the former; butone genial lighthearted humorous story, The Misfortunes of Barney Branagan,' was a prodigious favourite. The collection was pronounced by a judicious critic to be calculated 'for those quiet country haunts where the deep and natural pathos of the lives of the poor may be best read and taken to heart. Hence Mr Carleton appropriately dedicates his pages to Wordsworth. But they have the fault common to other modern Irish novels, of an exaggerated display of the darker vicissitudes of life: none better than the Rydal philosopher could teach the tale-writer that the effect of mists, and rains, and shadows, is lost without sunbreaks to relieve the gloom.' The great merit, however, of Mr Carleton, is the truth of his delineations and the apparent artlessness of his stories. If he has not the passionate energy-or, as he himself has termed it, the melancholy but indignant reclamations' of John Banim, he has not his party prejudices or bitterness. He seems to have formed a fair and just estimate of the character of his countrymen, and to have drawn it as it actually appeared to him at home and abroad-in feud and in festival-in the lections of their country-their wild music, poetry, and customs-ready either for good or for evil-such a people certainly affords the novelist abundant materials for his fictions. The field is ample, and it has been richly cultivated. [Picture of an Irish Village and School-house.] The village of Findramore was situated at the foot of a long green hill, the outline of which formed a low arch, as it rose to the eye against the horizon. This hill was studded with clumps of beeches, and sometimes enclosed as a meadow. In the month of July, when the grass on it was long, many an hour have I spent in solitary enjoyment, watching the wavy motion produced upon its pliant surface by the sunny winds, or the flight of the cloud shadows, like gigantic phantoms, as they swept rapidly over it, whilst the murmur of the rocking trees, and the glancing of their bright leaves in the sun, produced a heartfelt pleasure, the very memory of which rises in my imagination like some fading recollection of a brighter world. At the foot of this hill ran a clear deep-banked river, bounded on one side by a slip of rich level meadow, and on the other by a kind of common for the village geese, whose white feathers during the summer season lay scattered over its green surface. It was also the play-ground for the boys of the village school; for there ran that part of the river which, with very correct judgment, the urchins had selected as their bathing-place. A little slope or wateringground in the bank brought them to the edge of the stream, where the bottom fell away into the fearful depths of the whirlpool under the hanging oak on the other bank. Well do I remember the first time I ventured to swim across it, and even yet do I see in imagination the two bunches of water flagons on |