A close study, based on considerable knowledge, of the ways and means adopted by the English Government to destroy the Irish Parliament. Castlereagh figures in no flattering fashion. Con Heffernan is a type of his unscrupulous tools. The Knight himself is an engaging portrait of a lovable old Irish gentleman, frank, high-spirited, courteous, chivalrous. At first placed in ideal circumstances for the display of all his best qualities, he shows himself no less noble in meeting adversity. Other notable characters are Bagenal Daly (a portrait of Beauchamp Bagenal), the villainous attorney Hickman, and Mr. Dempsey, the story-telling innkeeper. In describing the coasts of Antrim and Derry and the country about Castlebar and Westport, Lever draws upon his own experiences. ⸺ ROLAND CASHEL. Pp. 612. [1850]. (N.Y.: _Harper_). 1849. Opens with wonderfully vivid and picturesque description of life in the Republic of Columbia. A harum-scarum young Irish soldier of fortune almost promises marriage to the daughter of a Columbian adventurer. Then he learns he is heir to a large property in Ireland, and he immediately returns there. In Dublin the daughters of his lawyer, Mr. Kennyfeck, and others try to capture the young heir, but instead he falls in love with a penniless girl. Then there are exciting and romantic adventures. The villain, Tom Linton, with the intention of ruining Roland, introduces him to fast society, nearly implicates him with the young wife of Lord Kilgoff; the Columbian adventurer turns up to claim him; he is charged with murder; but eventually all is well. Lady Kilgoff is an admirably drawn character, as also is the Dean of Drumcondra, a portrait of Archbishop Whately. In the last chapter there is a passage which seems to show how Lever realized that the anglicized society of the Pale is far from being the true Ireland. Incidentally, too, the evils of landlordism are touched upon. ⸺ THE DALTONS; or, Three Roads in Life. Pp. 700. (N.Y.: _Pratt_). 1.50. [1852]. The longest and most elaborate of Lever’s novels. Subject: the careers of Peter Dalton, an absentee Irish landlord—needy, feckless, selfish, Micawberish—and his children, on the Continent in Germany, Austria, and Italy. Some of the leading characters are involved in the Austro-Italian campaign of 1848, and in the Tuscan Revolution. There is a study—a flattering one—to Austrian military life, and lively, amusing pictures of Anglo-Italian life in Florence. A noteworthy character is the Irish Abbé d’Esmonde, who towards the close of the book takes part in some dramatic incidents during a visit to Ireland, undertaken in the cause of the Church. There is in the book a good deal about “priest-craft.” ⸺ MAURICE TIERNAY. (N.Y.: _Harper_). 1.00. [1852].