The narrator, Ptolemy Daly, is a weak, conceited youth, given to hysterics and poetry. Full of visions of Robert Emmet, he joins the staff of “The Sunburst,” the organ of an insurrectionary movement led by Phil Gallagher, a fine character, evidently modelled on T. C. Luby. At the critical moment Daly plays the traitor and decamps to England. Isaac Butt and John Rea are introduced, under thinly disguised names. Scene: Dublin and Wicklow. Written in ironical vein: Daly’s only “Speech from the Dock” was on a charge of drunk and disorderly. The Author was one of three brothers, all well-known London journalists. He was born in Belfast in 1846. Wrote also _A Popular Idol_ and _Beside Still Waters_. =MACKENZIE, Donald A.= ⸺ FINN AND HIS WARRIOR BAND; or, Tales of Old Alban. Pp. 248. (_Blackie_). 2_s._ 6_d._ 1910. Stories, arranged in a connected series, of the Fenian cycle, adapted for children from twelve to fourteen or thereabouts. Told in picturesque language, but perfectly simple and direct. For the most part folklore, full of magic and wonder, nine-headed giants and fire-breathing dogs. But here and there the antique hero-tale appears, as in the Battle of Gavra and the death of Dermaid. Localities mostly Scotch. The illustrations (6 coloured, 34 in black and white) are charming in every way. Picture cover. =MACKENZIE, R. Shelton.= ⸺ BITS OF BLARNEY. (N.Y.: _Redfield_). [1854]. (N.Y.: _Alden_). 1884. “A series of Irish stories and legends collected from the peasantry,” familiar to the Author in youth (see pref.). It is a volume of miscellanies. Includes three stories of Blarney Castle told in serio-comic manner by a schoolmaster; some local legends of Finn McCool, &c.; eccentric characters (the bard O’Kelly, Father Prout, Irish dancing masters, Charley Crofts, Buck English); Irish publicists; sketches of Grattan and O’Connell (the former enthusiastic, the latter not wholly favourable—O’C. “the greatest professor of Blarney these latter days have seen or heard”). He speaks of O’C. from personal knowledge. On the whole thoroughly nationalist in tone. The Author, b. in Co. Limerick, 1809, educated Cork and Fermoy, was a journalist in London, afterwards in New York, and wrote or edited many valuable works, historical and biographical. D. 1880. =M’KEON, J. F.= ⸺ ORMOND IDYLLS. Pp. 144. (_Nutt_). 1_s._ Paper. 1901. Scene: Co. Kilkenny. Eight little sketches of peasant life, pathetic and sad. In one a glimpse is given with knowledge and sympathy of the work of a country priest. =M’LENNAN, William.= ⸺ SPANISH JOHN. Pp. 270. (_Harper_). 6_s._ Eighteen v. g. Illustr. by F. de Myrbach. 1898.