The above heading was suggested to us by a friend as the subject of a paper some months back, but it was not until much time had elapsed, and not a little reflection had been devoted to the matter, that we felt ourselves constrained to admit its unwelcome truth. For to acknowledge that Irish humor is on the wane is a serious admission at the present day, when we are suffering from an undoubted dearth of that commodity on this side of the Channel; when laughter has been effectually quenched at St. Stephen's; when our interest in the best comic paper is almost entirely centred in the illustrations, and not the text; and when we have grown to be strangely dependent upon America for light reading of all sorts. This year—an exceptionally uninteresting year for the reader—has, it is true, been marked by a new departure or a reaction in the direction of startling sensation and melodramatic plots—engendered perhaps by a desire to escape from the unromantic common placeness of our daily surroundings, culminating in Mr. Stevenson's tale, “The Bodysnatcher,” in the Christmas number of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, which literally reeks of the charnel-house. But this movement, apart from its general literary or constructive merit, is from its very nature opposed to sunshine and mirth. The advent of a new humorist was hailed by some critics on the appearance of “Vice Versâ,” but his second considerable contribution to fiction, “The Giant's Robe,” is anything but a cheerful book. Lastly, at least two conscious and elaborate attempts have been made during the last six months to transplant the squalid anatomical photography of Zola into the realm of English fiction. Where, then, in these latter days are we to look for native humorists? Not in the ranks of Irish politicians surely, for the Irish political fanatic is anything but a comic personage, and the whole course of the Nationalist agitation has been unredeemed by any humorous passage. There are no Boyle Roches, or O'Connells, or Dowses, or even O'Gormans, to be found amongst the followers of Mr. Parnell. The cold, impassive address of their leader, utterly un-Irish in its character, and, perhaps, only the more effective on that account, has infected them all. Mr. O'Donnell has now and then let fly a sardonic shaft; but Mr. Justin McCarthy reserves his graceful pleasantry for the pages of his novels, save no one occasion when Mr. Gladstone pounced down on a “bull” of preternatural magnitude. Acrimony, virulence, and powers of invective, these are abundantly displayed by Messrs. Sexton, Healy, and O'Brien; but as for humor, there is none of it. For otherwise would they not have seen the logical outcome of their decision (we speak of the Nationalists as a whole) to rename the Dublin streets,—we mean the corollary that they should in many cases divest themselves also of their indubitably Sassenach patronymics in favor of Celtic and national names? From their own point