formed on circus posters, had little chance of making a good bargain at Drumcurran horse fair:

forty-five

""The fellow's asking pounds for her,' said Bernard Shute to Miss Sally; 'she's a nailer to gallop. I don't think it's too much.'-'Her grandsire was the Mountain Hare,' said the owner of the mare, hurrying up to continue her family history, 'and he was the grandest horse in the four baronies. He was forty-two years of age when he died, and they waked him the same as ye'd wake a Christian. They had whisky and porther -and bread-and a piper in it.'"Thim Mountain Hare colts is no great things,' interrupted Mr. Shute's groom contemptuously. 'I seen a colt once that was one of his stock, and if there was forty men and their wives, and they after him with sticks, he wouldn't lep a sod of turf.'-'Lep, is it!' ejaculated the owner in a voice shrill with outrage. 'You may lead that mare out through the country, and there isn't a fence in it that she wouldn't go up to it as indepindent as if she was going to her bed, and your honor's ladyship knows that dam well, Miss Knox.'-"You want too much money for her, McCarthy,' returned Miss Sally, with her little air of preternatural wisdom. 'God pardon you, Miss Knox! Sure a lady like you knows well that forty-five pounds is no money for that mare. Forty-five pounds! He laughed. 'It'd be as good for me to make her a present to the gentleman all out as take three farthings less for her! She's too grand entirely for a poor farmer like me, and if it wasn't for the long weak family I have, I wouldn't part with her under twice the money.'-"Three fine lumps of daughters in America paying his rent for him,' commented Flurry in the background. "That's the long weak family!"

The turn of phrase in Irish conversation has never been reproduced in print with greater fidelity, and there is hardly a page in the book without some characteristic Hibernianism such

as "Whisky as pliable as new milk," or the description of a horse who was a "nice flippant jumper," or a bandmaster who was "a thrifle fulsome after his luncheon," or a sweep who "raised tallywack and tandem all night round the house to get at the chimThe narrative reaches its bleys." climax in the chapter headed “Lisheen Races. Second-hand." Major Yeates and his egregious English visitor Mr. Leigh Kelway, an earnest Radical publicist, having failed to reach the scene, are sheltering from the rain in

"*"Skelp her, ye big brute," says I. "What good's in ye that ye aren't able to skelp her?" . . . Well, Mr. Flurry, and gintlemen . . . I declare to ye when owld Bocock's mare heard thim roars she sthretched out her neck like a gandher, and when she passed me out she give a couple of grunts, and looked at me as ugly as a Christian. "Hah!" says I, givin' her a couple o' dhraws o' th' ash plant across the butt o' the tail, the way I wouldn't blind her, "I'll make ye grunt!" says I, "I'll nourish ye!" I knew well she was very frightful of th' ash plant since the winter Tommeen Sullivan had her under a sidecar. But now, in place of havin' any obligations to me, ye'd be surprised if ye heard the blaspheemious expressions of that young boy that was ridin' her; and whether it was over-anxious he was, turnin' around the way I'd hear him cursin', or whether it was some slither or slide came to owld Bocock's mare, I

The very wind that blows softly over brown acres of bog carries perfumes and sounds that England does not know: the women digging the potatoland are talking of things that England does not understand. The question that remains is whether England will ever understand."

The hunting sketches in these volumes include the wonderful "Patrick Day's Hunt," which is a masterpiece in the high bravura of the brogue. Another is noticeable for a passage on the affection inspired by the horses. When John Connolly heard that his mistress was driven to sell the filly he had trained and nursed so carefully, he did not disguise his disappointment:

"Well, indeed, that's too bad, miss,' said Johnny comprehendingly. "There was a mare I had one time, and I sold her before I went to America. God knows, afther she went from me, whenever I'd look at her winkers hanging on the wall I'd have to cry. I never see a sight of her till three years afther that, afther I coming home. I was coming out o' the fair at Enniscar, an' I was talking to a man an' we coming down Dangan Hill, and what was in it but herself coming up in a cart! An' I didn't look at her, good nor bad, nor know her, but sorra bit but she knew me talking. an' she turned in to me with the cart. 'Ho, ho, ho!' says she, and she stuck her nose into me like she'd be kissing me. Be dam, but I had to cry. An' the world wouldn't stir her out o' that till I'd lead her on meself. As for cow nor dog nor any other thing, there's nothing would rise your heart like a horse!"

And if horses are irresistible, so are Centaurs. That is the moral to be drawn from "Dan Russel the Fox," the latest work from the pens of Miss Somerville and Miss Martin, in which the rival claims of culture and foxhunting are subjected to a masterly analysis.

The joint authors of the "R.M."

have paid forfeit for their popularity by being expected to repeat their first resounding success. Happily the pressure of popular demand has not impaired the artistic excellence of their work, though we cannot help thinking that if they had been left to themselves they might have given us at least one other novel on the lines of "The Real Charlotte." Their later work, again, has been subjected to the ordeal, we do not say of conscious imitation, but of comparison with books which would probably have never been written, or would have been written on another plan, but for the success of the "R.M." To regard this rivalry as serious would be, in the opinion of the present writer, an abnegation of the critical faculty.

formidable

The only competitor Miss Martin and Miss Somerville have encountered is the genial writer who chooses to veil his identity under the freakish pseudonym of "George A. Birmingham." Canon Hannay-for there can be no longer any breach of literary etiquette in alluding to him by his real name had already made his mark as a serious or semi-serious observer of the conflicting tendencies, social and political, of the Ireland of to-day before he diverged into the paths of fantastic and frivolous comedy. "The Seething Pot," "Hyacinth," and "Benedict Kavanagh" are extremely suggestive and dispassionate studies of various aspects of the Irish temperament, but they do not come within the scope of the present survey. It is enough for our present purpose to note the consequences of a request addressed to Canon Hannay by two young ladies somewhere about the year 1907 that he would "write a story about treasure buried on an island." The fact is recorded in the dedication of "Spanish Gold," his response to the appeal, and the first of that series of jocund extravaganzas

which have earned for him the gratitude of all who regard amusement as the prime object of fiction.

The contrast between his methods and those of the joint authors discussed above is apparent at every turn. He maintains the impartiality which marked his serious novels in his treatment of all classes of the community, but it is the impartiality not of a detached and self-effacing observer, but of a genial satirist. His knowledge of the Ireland that he knows is intimate and precise, and is shown by a multiplicity of illuminating details and an effective use of local color. But the co-operation of non-Irish characters is far more essential to the development of his plots than in the case of the novels of Miss Somerville and Miss Martin. The mainspring of their stories is Irish right through. He depends on a situation which might have occurred just as well in England or America, while employing the conditions of Irish life to give it a characteristic twist or series of twists. Even his most notable creation, the Reverend Joseph John Meldon, is too restlessly energetic to be an altogether typical Irishman, to say nothing of his unusual attitude in politics: "Nothing on earth would induce me to mix myself up with any party." An Irishman of immense mental activity, living in Ireland, and yet wholly unpolitical is something of a freak. Again, while the tone of Canon Hannay's books is admirably wholesome, and while his frank distaste for the squalors of the problem novel will meet with general sympathy, there is no denying that his treatment of the "love interest" is for the most part perfunctory or even farcical. Lastly. in regard to style he differs widely from the authors of the "R.M." Their note is a vivid conciseness; his the easy charm of a flowing pen, always unaffected, often picturesque and even

eloquent, never offending, but seldom practising the art of omission.

But it is ungrateful to subject to necessarily damaging comparisons an author to whom we owe the swift passage of so many pleasant hours. It might be hard to find the exact counterpart of "J.J." in the flesh, but he is none the less an unforgettable person, this athletic, exuberant, unkempt curate, unscrupulous but not unprincipled, who lied fluently, not for any mean purpose, but for the joy of mystification or in order to carry out his plans, or justify his arguments. His crowning achievement is his conquest of Mr. Willoughby, the Chief Secretary, by a masterly vindication of his conduct on the lines of Prag. matism-"a statement isn't a lie if it proves itself in actual practice to be useful-it's true." "J.J." only once meets his match-in Father Mulcrone, the parish priest of Inishmore, who sums up the philosophy of government in his criticism of Mr. Willoughby's successor: "A fellow that starts off by thinking himself clever enough to know what's true and what isn't will

do no good in Ireland. A simplehearted innocent kind of man has a better chance." Needless to say, the rival treasure-hunters, both of them rogues, are bested at all points by the two padres, while poetic justice is satisfied by the fact that the treasure falls into the adhesive hands of the poor islanders, and "J.J.'s" general integrity is fully re-established in the epilogue, where, transplanted to an English colliery village, he devotes his energies to the conversions of agnostics, blasphemers and wifebeaters.

The extravagance of the plot is redeemed by the realism of the details; by acute sidelights on the tortuous workings of the native mind, with its strange blending of shrewdness and innocence; by faithful reproductions

of the talk of those "qui amant omnia dubitantius loqui” and habitually say "it might" instead of "yes." And there are delightful digressions on the subject of relief works; hits at the Irish-speaking movement; pungent classifications of the visitors to the wild west of Ireland; and, now and again, in the rare moments when the author chooses to be serious, passages

marked by fine insight and sympathy. Such is the picture of Thomas O'Flaherty Pat, the patriarch of the treasure island:

"An elderly man and five out of the nine children resident on the island stood on the end of the pier when Meldon and the Major landed. The man was clad in a very dirty white flannel jacket and a pair of yellow. ish flannel trousers, which hung in a tattered fringe round his naked feet and ankles. He had a long white beard and grey hair, long as a woman's, drawn straight back from his forehead. The hair and beard were both unkempt and matted. But the man held himself erect and looked straight at the strangers through great dark eyes. His hands, though battered and scarred with toil, were long and shapely. His face had a look of dignity, of a certain calm and satisfied superiority. Men of this kind are to be met with here and there among the Connacht peasantry. They are in reality children of a vanishing race, of a lost civilization, a bygone culture. They watch the encroachments of another race and new ideas with a sort of sorrowful contempt. It is as if, understanding and despising what they see around them, they do not consider it worth while to try to explain themselves; as if, possessing a wisdom of their own, and æsthetic joy of which the modern world knows nothing, they are content to let both die with them rather than attempt to teach them to men of a wholly different outlook upon life."

The element of extravaganza is more strongly marked in the plot of "The

Search Party," which deals with the kidnapping of a number of innocent people by an anti-militant anarchist who has set up a factory of explosives in the neighborhood of Ballymoy. "J.J." does not appear in propria persona, but most of his traits are to be found in Dr. O'Grady, an intelligent but happy-go-lucky young doctor. The most attractive person in the story, however, is Lord Manton, a genially cynical peer with highly original views on local government and the advantages of unpopularity. Thus when he did not want Patsy Devlin, the drunken smith, to be elected inspector of sheep-dipping, he strongly supported his candidature for the following rea

sons:

"There's a lot of stupid talk nowadays about the landlords having lost all their power in the country. It's not a bit true. They have plenty of power, more than they ever had, if they only knew how to use it. All I have to do if I want a particular man not to be appointed to anything is to write a strong letter in his favor to the Board of Guardians or the County Council, or whatever body is doing the particular job that happens to be on hand at the time. The League comes down on my man at once, and he hasn't the ghost of a chance."

Other of the dramatis personæ verge on caricature, but the story has many exhilarating moments.

Exhilarating, too, is "The Major's Niece," which is founded on an ex

tremely improbable imbroglio. So precise and businesslike a man as Major Kent was not likely to make a mistake of seven or eight years in the age of a visitor especially when the visitor happened to be his own sister's child. However, the initial improbability may be readily condoned in view of the entertaining sequel. "J.J." reappears in his best form, Marjorie is a most engaging tomboy, and the fun never