A very crude, rambling tale, bringing in a few incidents of the Confederate War and several historic characters, but mainly taken up with private love affairs, abductions, &c. No character study and no real portrayal of the times. Occasional vulgarity. Scene: chiefly the shores of Lough Erne. =MAGINN, J. D.= ⸺ FITZGERALD, THE FENIAN. Two Vols. Pp. 576. (_Chapman & Hall_). 1889. Deals with Fenian and Land League movements. The Author is unacquainted with the history and organization of Fenianism. The land agitation he represents as forced upon an unwilling peasantry by a kind of murder-club in America. Scene: mainly Co. Sligo. Parnell and Biggar are brought in under assumed names, and are broadly caricatured. The portrayal of Butt is truer to reality and less marred by bias. The Author is uninformed and, on the whole, uncomprehending: hence some absurd statements about things Irish, some objectionable (but evidently unintentionally so) references to the Catholic Church, and a quite impossible Irish brogue. But he is on the whole not unfriendly to Ireland. =MAGINN, William.= B. Cork, 1793. Ed. T.C.D. Began early to write for the magazines (BLACKWOOD’S, &c.), chiefly parodies and other _jeux d’esprit_. Went to London, 1823, where, in 1830, he established FRASER’S MAGAZINE, which with Carlyle, Thackeray, Maclise, Prout as contributors, for some years was at the head of English periodical literature. He fell more and more into habits of drunkenness, and engaged in disreputable journalism. Writing to the end, he died in 1842. Thackeray drew a portrait of him as Captain Shandon in _Pendennis_. Many memoirs of him have been written. His “Bob Burke’s Duel with Ensign Brady” is said to be the raciest Irish story ever written. ⸺ MISCELLANIES: Prose and Verse. (LONDON). [First collection, 1840]. Selections ed. by “R. W. Montagu.” 1885. (N.Y.: _Scribner_). 9.60. Contains “Bob Burke’s Duel,” “The Story without a Tail,” and other Irish stories, published in magazines between 1823 and 1842. These stories are told mostly in a vein of broad comedy. Their characters are roysterers and swaggerers. Maginn was a man of brilliant gifts. The fantastic humour and wild gaiety of his stories give them an original flavour. Maginn was a high Tory and an Orangeman.—(_Krans_). Dr. Mackenzie edited, in 1857, _The Miscellanies of William Maginn_ (5 vols.), published in America. Contents:—Vols. I. and II. “The O’Doherty Papers.” III. “The Shakespeare Papers.” IV. “Homeric Ballads.” V. “The Fraserian Papers,” with a life of the Author. =MAHONY, Martin Francis; “Matthew Stradling.”= B., Co. Cork, 1831. D. 1885. Was a nephew of “Father Prout.” Also wrote _Cheap John’s Auction_. ⸺ THE IRISH BAR SINISTER. Pp. 136. LONDON. 1872.