and annoyed, to be silent for this evening. Let the poor girl have as much enjoyment as she can. It may be the last time we shall ever have her among us; and I should be quite sorry if the disapprobation of her friends should cause her to remember it with pain."

"I did not mean to express any opinion. I intended simply to inquire, if what Mrs. Robarts mentioned was true ?"

"Your countenance would betray you; so do not allude to the subject if you speak to her. I am quite disappointed and vexed, and could be downright angry; but, supposing that she means to marry this man, we have no right to interfere farther than by advice, if it be asked. She must be allowed to be happy in her own way, though it is a most extraordinary way. Her home was far from being comfortable; and, I assure you, it has once or twice occurred to me, that, were I in her situation, even a Mr. Wilkinson might be a temptation, if he brought with him independence, and a fire-side, where a welcome awaited me."

Mr. Ravenscroft shook his head, but he acted upon her suggestion; and, during the remainder of the day, avoided speaking to Miss Vaughan, who, on her part, kept aloof from her friend, Mrs. Somerville, to whom, in general, she attached herself almost too exclusively. Mrs. Merrygrief, as usual, was on the look-out for wit, and humour, and bulls, and everything Irish, but without much success. Miss Massinger and her four sisters were too much occupied with Mr. William Somerville, whom they monopolized for the day, to devote much of their time to her instruction. Mr. De Lacy was not in a genius humour. Miss Plant had vainly essayed one or two quotations which she could not explain; she was, therefore, obliged to fasten herself upon Colonel Asker, who exerted himself to the utmost, to convey to her the meaning of the many inconprehensibilities which reached her ears at every moment.

"You may remember, Colonel." he said, "how he was the first in this barony to get up petition for Catholic emancipation; and what a silly figure he cut by speaking such a sensible speech in their favour, the day that you had the opposition meeting to reconcile all parties. You know, too, how he ran down the Orangemen for wearing party colours, by setting up a green hunting frock. Well, because he would not put his name to the Repeal, they made a complaint of him to the Castle; and, in one week, he was sent about his business."

"What was the ostensible offence for which he was dismissed from the magistracy?" asked Captain Somerville.

"Just what I told you the union. There was no other reason given that I could hear. You see, he met a suspicious-looking fellow one day, soon after the robbery at Callery, on the road going to Tandaragiffin, and he asked him where he was come from? and where he was going? The fellow said he was nothing but a travelling man, and would give no other answer. Now, though I was always opposite to Selbridge, on the other side, yet I must do him the justice to say, that he was bound to take the man up; for you all know, as well as myself, that the road he was going is the road to nowhere. But the priest trumped up a story about pulling and hauling with the point of a bayonet; and the sum total is this, that if ever, by any mistake, he signs J. P. after his name, they will have him prosecuted for forgery."

I don't understand that in the least," said Mrs. Merrygrief. "How could any person be accused of forgery for signing his own name?"

"Not by the English law, certainly," said the Colonel; "but we sometimes do strange things in Ireland. I promised to show you the view from that point. The setting sun will embellish the scene very much."

They walked away; and Mr. Bright was called off to accompany his party, who were already embarking for the opposite shore.

"This has been rather a dull piece of business," said Frederick Massinger to Mr. Merrygrief. "You are sorry, I suppose, that the day is pretty well over?"

not

"I have not found it dull," he answered. "On the contrary, I enjoyed the day very much. The weather has been delightful-the scenery very beau

"Not at all, I assure you. I merely conceived that the society was too mixed that the style of thing, altogether, was too un-English to suit your taste."

"I really do not know exactly what my taste, in this particular, may be," said Mr. Merrygrief; "and I am not aware that such entertainments may not be given in England. I think I have read of something like them in the newspapers, at times."

"After all," said Mr. De Lacy, joining in the conversation; "the mixture of society was not so very heteroge neous as to excite much annoyance.With few exceptions, the whole of the company assembled here to-day, were pretty much on an equality. And even, if the party were less select, I can see no very great objection to itoccurring, as it does, so seldom, and under such circumstances; at all events Colonel Asker manages the whole affair admirably. No one is forced upon the intimacy of another; even a bowing acquaintance with one of inferior easte can be readily avoided. The aristocratic feeling must be very sensitive, indeed, that would writhe under the sufferings produced by a day like this."

My dear fellow," said Mr. De Lacy, "if you continue to parade me as an author, on all occasions, and to betray the secrets of my branch of the profession, I shall be as communicative on yours. Now, Mr. Merrygrief, you are not to suppose that my friend here is not as deeply indebted to this day for subjects to employ his pen or pencil, if he chooses to call it so, as I could possibly be. Do you not see his eye at this moment, in a fine frenzy rolling,' as it takes in the scene before us? and you may be assured, that he has already laid up in store, as many

slanting sunbeams, and lights, and shadows, and rippling waters, and sighing trees, and kissing zephyrs, as would serve a prudently economical poet, for pages of description; besides affording food, and clothing, and employment, for half a hundred Dryads, and Naids, and Fawns, and all the other inhabitants, big and little, of the poetical regions."

་

"Hush! hush!" cried the poet, good humouredly; "I see Mrs. Macawley coming this way; and, if you are desirous that the secrets of one profession should not be divulged to all the. world, it will be advisable to keep silence in her company."

My dear Mr. Ravenscroft," said the lady, as she passed on; "I am so glad to have caught you at last. The whole day I have been dying to speak to you; I could not enjoy myself, I felt so agitated and distrest. I called, this morning, on Mrs. Smallcraft, hoping- I may as well say it to youthat she would offer me a seat in her carriage here; for one feels awkward stepping out of a jaunting car, in such a place as this. I asked her, as if undesignedly, how she meant to go; and really she terrified me. She said, that she never joined in such worldly amusements that Colonel Asker was very inconsistent to give an entertainment of the kind that no proper person ought to go to them; and that I was wrong to go. I was so alarmed that I made no answer, except to say that it was too late to send an apology. But I was so anxious to see you-I wished to know your opinion-I wished to know if you thought it so wrong."

"Could you not have made a tolerable guess at it by seeing me here ? Could you suppose that I would sanction by my presence what my conscience disapproved of?"

No such thought ever glanced upon my mind, believe me. I knew, from the first, that you would not object to a little innocent recreation; and then, I had so little confidence in Mrs. Sinallcraft's judgment, that my mind was quite at ease. She is herself so odd; she is so dreadfully shabby; she is

"A very conscientious woman," interrupted Mr. Ravenscroft; "with a few peculiarities, which we have nothing to do with. I differ from her in her estimate of what she calls worldly amusements I differ from her in many points, and regret her failings; but I respect her for her conscientious ad

THE author of the volumes before us was rather favourably known by the publication of one, or we believe two little volumes of Irish tales; in which he dressed up with considerable humour, some of the queer stories and traditions, which form the staple of our country's legendary lore. These publications attained a certain degree of popularity which was not altogether undeserved. Without any of the features of genius, they were marked by a degree of cleverness that might be mistaken for its indications. His tales had at least this merit, that they made no pretensions to the higher attributes of fiction-and they accomplished all they aimed at—the amusement of the reader. Many persons, indeed, believed, that there was a species of dishonesty in the way in which old jests were revived and old stories long since printed, in catch-penny books, were copied-in one or two instances spoiled without the slightest hint as to the source from which either the wit or the incident was borrowed. For our own parts, however, we had no such feeling, perhaps, because we never thought of applying to a writer of Mr. Lover's calibre the tests by which we would judge of original talent. We judged of him as a retailer of amusing anecdotes-and, as such, we found him most agrecable; and, although we were frequently obliged to make allowance for much coarseness, and not a little vulgaritythe legends of Ireland were well adapted to give entertainment to an idle hour.

Mr. Lover has, however, now come before us in another character. He has attempted to write a novel, or as he himself terms it, a romance. He has miserably failed. It is not merely that he has made his book the vehicle of as much factious malignity and misrepresentation as could well be hazarded; but in the plot-the characters the incidents he has failed. The book would be intolerably dull if it were not for its amusing exhibitions of ignorance; which are certainly frequent enough to enliven, almost numerous enough to weary. Occasionally, too, we meet the author upon his own ground; some stale old jests and stories are in

troduced, which, to those who have never heard them are entertaining; and the situations too, are sometimes so ludicrously absurd as to provoke a laugh, where the author evidently intends to produce a very different effect. The book, however, makes higher pretensions than a mere volume of fiction. It purports to be a historical romance. Real characters, or, at least, the names of real characters, arc introduced; and events in which they figured are described with minuteness of detail. Before we conclude our remarks, we will have an opportunity of examining the accuracy of the historical portions; and, in the examination, our readers will find, perhaps, the richest fund of entertainment. must, however, in the first place, endeavour to give an account of the plot of the romance.

We

The scene opens in the year 1797. Rory O'More, the hero of the tale, a veritable descendant of the old kings of Leinster, and a united Irishman, resides in a remote district of the south of Ireland-the locality of which we conjecture, from some hints at the end of the story, to be not far from Cork. Mr. Lover, however, preserves a discreet silence as to locality-our readers will, before we have done, fully appreciate the prudence which leaves as few opportunities as possible, for detecting inaccuracies. Rory has a mother and a sister, who live with him; the latter, of course, a lovely girl, the very impersonation of purity and grace. He is in love with Kathleen Regan, the sister of Shan Regan, a fellow of desperate character, between whom and Rory a desperate antipathy existed. Shan Regan fell in love with Mary O'More, by whom he was scornfully rejected; and this, of course, widened the breach between him and her brother. Regan, to make matters even, is violently opposed to the match between Rory and Kathleen-the young lady, however, is determined on having a way of her own; and like most young ladies, she succeeds in getting her mother on her side-and in this state matters are at the opening of the tale.