“And other Folk-lore Tales of Westmeath.” The author is a member of the Royal Society of Antiquaries. Intended as a contribution to folk-lore. But the title-story (54 pp.) is a fantastic story told in melodramatic modern English, and has little or no connexion with folk-lore. The remainder consists of ghost stories, spirit-warnings, superstitions, chiefly of local interest. Appended are a few explanatory notes of some value. =BARLOW, Jane.= ⸺ IRISH IDYLLS. Pp. 284. (_Hodder & Stoughton_). 6_s._ [1892]. Ninth ed. (N.Y.: _Dodd & Mead_). 2.00. 1908. Doings at Lisconnell, a poverty-stricken little hamlet, lost amidst a waste of unlovely bogland. These sketches have been well described as “saturated with the pathos of elementary tragedy.” Yet there is humour, too, and even fun, as in the story of how the shebeeners tricked the police. The illustrated edition contains about thirty exceptionally good reproductions of photographs of Western life and scenery. ⸺ KERRIGAN’S QUALITY. Pp. 254. (_Hodder & Stoughton_). 6_s._ Eight Illustr. [1893]. (N.Y.: _Pratt_). 1.75. Second edition. In this story the peasants only appear incidentally. The main characters are Martin Kerrigan, a returned Irish-Australian; the invalid Lady O’Connor; her son, Sir Ben; and her niece, Merle. The story is one of intense, almost hopeless, sadness, yet it is ennobling in a high degree. It is full of exquisite scraps of description. ⸺ STRANGERS AT LISCONNELL. Pp. 341. (_Hodder & Stoughton_). 6_s._ [1895]. (N.Y.: _Pratt_). 1.75. A second series of Irish Idylls, showing the Author’s qualities in perhaps a higher degree even than the first. A more exquisite story than “A Good Turn” it would be hard to find. Throughout there is the most thorough sympathy with the poor folk. The peasant dialect is never rendered so as to appear vulgar or absurd. It is full of an endless variety of picturesqueness and quaint turns. No problems are discussed, yet the all but impossibility of life under landlordism is brought out (see p. 15). There are studies of many types familiar in Irish country life—the tinkers; Mr. Polymathers, the pedagogue (a most pathetic figure); Mad Bell, the crazy tramp; and Con the “Quare One.” It should be noted that, though there is in Miss Barlow’s stories much pathos, there is an entire absence of emotional gush. ⸺ MAUREEN’S FAIRING. Pp. 191. (_Dent_). Six Illustr., of no great value. [1895]. (N.Y.: _Macmillan_). 0.75. Eight little stories reprinted from various magazines in a very dainty little volume. Like all of Jane Barlow’s stories, they tell of the “tear and the smile” in lowly peasant lives, with graceful humour or simple, tender pathos. The stories are very varied in kind. ⸺ MRS. MARTIN’S COMPANY. (_Dent_). Uniform with _Maureen’s Fairing_. [1896]. (N.Y.: _Macmillan_). 0.75.