Scene: Glenflesk (between Macroom and Bantry) and Killarney. Period: from just before to just after the French expedition to Bantry. The O’Donoghue, poor and proud, is intended as a type of the decaying Catholic gentry of ancient lineage, living in a feudal, half-barbaric splendour, beset by creditors and bailiffs whom fear of the retainer’s blunderbuss alone kept at a distance. Mark O’Donoghue, proud, gloomy, passionate, filled with hatred of the English invader, wears a frieze coat like the peasants, sells horses, hunts and fishes for a livelihood. He joins the United Irishmen, who are represented as making an ignoble traffic of conspiracy, and takes part in Hoche’s attempted invasion. Other characters are: Kate O’Donoghue, educated abroad; Lanty Lawler, horse-dealer, who supplies plenty of humour; in particular Sir Marmaduke Travers, a well-meaning but self-sufficient Englishman, who, knowing nothing of Ireland, makes ludicrous attempts to better his tenants’ condition. “I was not sorry to show,” says Lever (Pref.), “that any real and effective good to Ireland must have its base in the confidence of the people.” For this book Lever was bitterly accused of Repeal tendencies. ⸺ THE MARTINS OF CRO’ MARTIN. Pp. 625. (N.Y.: _Harper_). 1856. [1847]. Scene: chiefly Connemara; the novel opening with a fine picture of the old-time splendours of Ballynahinch Castle, the seat of the “Martins.” For awhile the scene shifts to Paris during the Revolution of 1830. The story illustrates the practical working of the Emancipation Act. Martin is a type of the ease-loving Irish landlord, “shirking the cares of his estates, with an immense self-esteem, narrow, obstinate, weak, without ideas, and with a boundless faith in his own dignity, elegance, and divine right to rule his tenants” (Krans). Rejected by his tenantry at an election he quits the country in disgust, leaving them to the mercies of a Scotch agent. Lever pictures vividly the sufferings of the people both from this evil and from the cholera, drawing for the latter upon his own experiences when ministering to cholera patients in Clare. He says of the people that “no words of his could do justice to the splendid heroism they showed each other in misfortune.” Mary Martin is one of Lever’s most admirable heroines. There is a fine study, also, of a young man of the people, son of a small shopkeeper in Oughterard, who, by his sterling worth, raises himself to the highest positions. ⸺ THE KNIGHT OF GWYNNE. (PHILADELPHIA: _Peterson_). 1847.