Between 1857 and 1870, Baring-Gould had published nine volumes, the best known of these being 'Curious Myths of the Middle Ages.' From 1870 to 1890 his name appeared as author on the title-page of forty-three books: sermons, lectures, essays, archaeological treatises, memoirs, curiosities of literature, histories, and fiction; sixteen novels, tales, and romances being included. From 1890 to 1896 he published seventeen more novels, and many of his books have passed through several editions. His most successful novels are 'Mehalah; a Tale of the Salt Marshes,' 'In the Roar of the Sea,' 'Red Spider,' 'Richard Cable,' and 'Noémi; a Story of Rock-Dwellers.' In an essay upon his fiction, Mr. J.M. Barrie writes in The Contemporary Review (February, 1890):-- "Of our eight or ten living novelists who are popular by merit, few have greater ability than Mr. Baring-Gould. His characters are bold and forcible figures, his wit is as ready as his figures of speech are apt. He has a powerful imagination, and is quaintly fanciful. When he describes a storm, we can see his trees breaking in the gale. So enormous and accurate is his general information that there is no trade or profession with which he does not seem familiar. So far as scientific knowledge is concerned, he is obviously better equipped than any contemporary writer of fiction. Yet one rises from his books with a feeling of repulsion, or at least with the glad conviction that his ignoble views of life are as untrue as the characters who illustrate them. Here is a melancholy case of a novelist, not only clever but sincere, undone by want of sympathy.... The author's want of sympathy prevents 'Mehalah's' rising to the highest art; for though we shudder at the end, there the effect of the story stops. It illustrates the futility of battling with fate, but the theme is not allowable to writers with the modern notion of a Supreme Power.... But 'Mehalah' is still one of the most powerful romances of recent years." ST. PATRICK'S PURGATORY From 'Curious Myths of the Middle Ages' In that charming mediaeval romance 'Fortunatus and his Sons,' which by the way is a treasury of popular mythology, is an account of a visit paid by the favored youth to that cave of mystery in Lough Derg, the Purgatory of St. Patrick.