Pronounced the best Irish novel by Aubrey de Vere, Gavan Duffy, and Justin M’Carthy. Its main interest lies in its being a tragedy of human passion. The character of Hardress Cregan, the chief actor, is powerfully and pitilessly analysed. Eily O’Connor is one of the most lovable characters in fiction. Danny Man, with his dog-like fidelity; Myles, the mountainy man, simple yet shrewd; Fighting Poll of the Reeks; Hardress Cregan’s mother, are characters that live in the mind, like the memories of real persons. There are pictures, too, of the life of the day, the drunken, duelling squireen, the respectable middle-class Dalys, the manners and ways of the peasantry, whose quaint, humorous, anecdotal talk is perfectly reproduced, but who are shown merely from without. The scene is laid partly in Limerick and partly in Killarney. Dion Boucicault’s drama “The Colleen Bawn” is founded on this story, which itself is founded on a real murder-trial in which O’Connell defended the prisoner and which Griffin reported for the press. ⸺ CARD-DRAWING, &c. 1829. Second series of _Tales of the Munster Festivals_, _q.v._ ⸺ THE CHRISTIAN PHYSIOLOGIST. Tales illustrative of the Five Senses. Pp. xxvi. + 376. (_Bull_). 1830. The tales are:—1. _The Kelp Gatherers_; 2. _The Day of Trial_; 3. _The Voluptuary Cured_; 4. _The Self Consumed_; and, 5. _The Selfish Crotarie_. All are clever little stories of ancient and modern Ireland, several of which have been reprinted separately. ⸺ THE INVASION. Very long. (_Duffy_). 2_s._ [1832]. Still reprinted. (N.Y.: _Benziger_). 0.75. Scene: chiefly the territory of the O’Haedha sept on Bantry Bay. The story deals chiefly with the fortunes of the O’Haedhas, but there are many digressions. The innumerable ancient Irish names give the book a forbidding aspect to one unacquainted with the language. The narrative interest is almost wanting, the chief interest being the laborious and careful picture of the life and civilization of the time, the eve of the Danish Invasions. The archæology occasionally lacks accuracy and authority, but these qualities are partly supplied in the notes, which are by Eugene O’Curry. The invasion referred to is an early incursion on the coasts of West Munster by a Danish chief named Gurmund. Some of the characters are finely drawn, _e.g._, the hero, Elim, and his mother and Duach, the faithful kerne. ⸺ THE RIVALS. 1832. Third series of _Tales of the Munster Festivals_, _q.v._ ⸺ TALES OF THE MUNSTER FESTIVALS. (N.Y.: _Pratt_). 0.50.