“A tale of the Irish famine of to-day.” Period: 1879-80. Place: Ballinaveen, not far from Cork. Black Hugh, a kind of outlaw of the mountains is the hero. He had loved Mrs. Sullivan before she married the drunken, worthless Pat. He promises her when she is on her deathbed to care for the children she is leaving, and the worthless husband. Hugh takes the blame of the latter’s crime, and is hanged in Dublin. The family is rescued by benevolent English people. A well-told, but very sad story. The people’s miseries are feelingly depicted. Standpoint of a kind-hearted Englishwoman who pities, but does not in the least understand Ireland. =BERTHET, Elie.= ⸺ DERNIER IRLANDAIS, LE. Three Vols. 16mo. (BRUXELLES: _Meline_). 1851. Ireland in the eighteen forties. Abortive rising under one of the O’Byrnes of Wicklow (_Le dernier Irlandais_). O’Connell looms in the background as the opponent of all this. The rebellion, which at once fizzles out, is the result of an insult to O’Byrne’s sister by a _roué_ named Clinton. O’B. flies to Cunnemara (_sic_) with Nelly Avondale, daughter of the landlord of Glendalough, is besieged there in a fortress. Nelly returns to marry the above-mentioned _roué_ and O’B. flies. The Author is evidently not consciously hostile to Ireland, but he is totally ignorant of it. The peasants are travestied. They are all drunkards, slovenly, sly, mean, lawless. Some descriptions of scenery in Wicklow and Connemara. =BERTHOLDS, Mrs. W. M.= ⸺ CONNOR D’ARCY’S STRUGGLES. (N.Y.: _Benziger_). 2_s._ 1914. =BESTE, Henry Digby, 1768-1836.= Son of the prebendary of Lincoln. Became a Catholic 1798. An interesting biographical sketch of him (largely autobiographical) is prefixed to the novel here noticed. It includes a full account of his conversion. ⸺ POVERTY AND THE BARONET’S FAMILY: An Irish Catholic Novel. Pp. xxxii. + 415. (LONDON: _Jones_). 1845. Bryan O’Meara, son of a poor Irish migratory labourer, is educated as a gentleman by Sir Cecil Foxglove, of Denham, near Grantham, in gratitude for the rescue of his child by Bryan’s father. Coming to man’s estate, and being refused by the Baronet’s daughter he returns to his father’s people at Athlone, where for some time he plays at being a farmer’s lad—and at rebellion. But a fortunate chance puts great wealth into his hands, and he returns to marry the Baronet’s daughter. Interesting glimpses of Catholic life in penal days (the story opens in 1805) when Catholicism was at the lowest ebb in England. The DUBLIN REVIEW says (1848, Vol. xxiv., p. 239): “The hero is a pious pedant, a truculent fellow, and a self-conceited proser. The story itself is purposeless; bitter in sentiment, and swamped in never-ending small-talk.” The “small-talk,” however is, if anything, over-serious and moral.