This is Ireland. This is the undying affection of the people for the “rale ould stock.” This is the imperishable sentiment, as fresh at this hour as the emerald verdure upon the summit of Croagh Patrick. In _A Day’s Ride: a Life’s Romance_, Mr. Lever has given us Algernon Sydney Potts—one of those romantic visionaries who believe in destiny, bow to their _Kismet_, and, going with the tide, clothe the meanest accidents of life in dreamy panoply. The adventures which befall the Dublin apothecary’s son, from his ride in Wicklow to his imprisonment in an Austrian fortress, are as varied as they are exciting, and we are strongly inclined to believe that Lever, “letting off” a good deal of Bohemia, is at his best in the wild vagaries of this reckless day-dreamer. _Tom Burke of Ours_ is a dashing military story, as is also _Jack Hinton, the Guardsman_. _The O’Donoghue_ is charmingly written and is thoroughly Irish. _That Boy of Norcott’s_ is unsatisfactory. Commencing in Ireland, it wanders from the old country with the evident intention of returning to it; but a change came o’er the spirit of the author’s dream, and it bears all the imprint of having been hastily written, a changed venue, and of being “hurried up” at its conclusion. _Sir Brook Fosbrooke_, on the other hand, bears traces of the utmost care, the details of character being worked out with microscopic minuteness. The old lord chief-justice is supposed to have been meant for Lord Chief-Justice Lefroy, of the Court of Queen’s Bench in Ireland, who died at a very advanced age a few years since, in full possession of the astounding legal acumen which marked his extended career at the bar, and subsequently upon the bench. The writer spent a long-to-be-remembered day with Charles Lever in the April before his death. He was stopping in Dublin at Morrison’s Hotel, Dawson Street. We found him seated at an open window, a bottle of claret at his right hand and the proof-sheets of _Lord Kilgobbin_ before him. It was a beautiful morning borrowed from the month of May; the hawthorns in the college park were just beginning to bloom, and nature was young and warm and lovely.