TALES OF THE JIIRY-ROOM.

BEYOND a more quiet ease of manner, as if the writer felt conscious of his strength and had less need of straining after effect, the post- humous Tales of a Jury-room will not add to GERALD GRIFFIN'S reputation. In composition they display the facility of a practised writer ; the dialogue is often brisk, and not unadapted to the characters of the speakers; and the incidents, though in many of the tales too few or too elaborated, are well-contrived and effective without being unnatural. But as a whole, the work is the produc- tion of a litterateur manufacturing for an occasion such waste material as was left unused from former fiction, or such matter as could be readily got hold of, rather than the result of original ob- servation suggesting a series of life-like pictures to a mind which nature and study had enabled to portray them.

The framework is of the same character as the tales—contrived rather than produced : it serves its purpose, or might serve any other purpose ; but it is not so appropriate to the character of the stories and their narrators as to appear to have grown out of them. A curious traveller is driven to ensconce himself in an Irish jury- room, to avoid the twelve good men and true who are inducted into it to " consider their verdict." Unluckily for the prying tourist, they cannot agree; and, to while away the night, each juryman tells a story ; to which a thirteenth is added by the stranger, who discovers himself by sneezing. The dilemmas of the jury and the stranger, and the denoue- ment of the trial, which is for a breach of promise of marriage,

furnish some incidents, and make • the framework a sort of story itself. The occurrence of the tourist's hiding is unnatural : but this would be of little consequence had the tales been adapted to the characters of the country and company, furnishing sketches of Irish superstitions and life, or of foreign service, such as might naturally fall within the experience of twelve men chosen from various but respectable vocations. This consistency of the tales with the men who tell them is not observed. One of the stories is an expansion of the anecdote of the Chevalier Bayard and the young maiden, whose mother's distress had induced her to offer her daughter to prostitution : another is a classical tale, in which Julian the Apostate figures ; and the scene of the opening story is laid in Poland, and derived from CALDERON; though the insertion of this is the act of the editor, who considered the original tale unfinished. So little regard, however, did GRIFFIN himself pay to any thing beyond writing a batch of stories, that the English stranger chooses as Irish a subject as any of the others. The generality of the national stories are characteristic of the superstitions of the people; and do not greatly differ from some of those which Mr. Caorrox Cam= has published; or they ex- hibit life and character among the peasantry, and resemble the tales of Loviia, though there is no trace of plagiarism or imita- tion—both have drawn from the same stream ; or they refer to bygone ages, sometimes historical—as "The Raven's Nest," some- times mythological—as "The Swans of Lir." These stories are all readable; and so indeed are those with a foreign subject : but they are frequently too discursive, or a little too prolix, as if they had not received the condensation they admitted of. The defect of the work, looked at merely as a collection of tales, however, is slightness; the series is fitter for publication in a magazine than in volumes. Nevertheless, the Tales of a Jury-room will answer one main purpose of fiction exceedingly well—that of furnishing amusing reading for leisure-hours.

As an example of one of the best topics of the writer—rale Irish story—we will quote an incidental tale.

TRUTH SEVERE IN FAIRY FICTION DREST.

Meanwhile, the story-teller and his strange master found themselves on a wild heath in Sligo, where they beheld O'Connor of Connaught at the head of a powerful army, with a vast herd of cattle and other spoils, which he had driven from the bondsmen of Munster. The Caol Riava went up and saluted him : " Save yon, O'Connor," be said boldly.

" And you likewise," replied the Monarch ; "what is your name ? " " Call me Giolla De," said the Caol Riava : what is the cause of the con- fusion which I observe among your forces ?" " We are expecting an attack from the Munster men," replied the King, " and are at a loss how to drive the spoils and repel the enemy at the same time."

" What made you drive them at all ?" said the Caol Riava.

" You kuow," replied the King, " that a monarch ought always to he ready to redress the slightest grievance of his subjects. Now it happened that a Connaught woman lent a basket to a woman of her aqnaintance in Munster, who refused to return it at the appointed time. I heard of the injury, and im- mediately raised an army to avenge it. I am now returning with the spoils ; a portion of which I intend to bestow on the poor woman who lost her basket." " And what will you do with the rest ? " inquired the Giolla De.

" I will keep them myself," said the King, " to signalize my victory, and enhance the national glory, after the way of all great kings." " I'm afraid it will give you enough to do,', replied the Caol Riava ; "for before you leave this heath you will have more Munster men to meet you than there are purple bells all over it."

" That's what I fear," said the King.

" What will you give me if 1 help you ?" said the Caol Riava.

" Yon I" cried one of O'Connor's men with a burst of laughter; " it cannot make much difference to O'Connor whether you go or stay."

"What reward would you require ? " asked O'Connor. " A share, little or much, of any thing you may get while I am with you," replied the Giolla De. " Agreed," exclaimed the King. " "Very well," said the Giolla De; " do you hold on your journey driving your spoils, while I coax the Munster men home again."

The King proceeded, and saw nothing of the men of Munster until be reached his own domain, where he arrived before any of his retinue. As he did so, he perceived the Giolla De and the story-teller again by his side. Wearied from the fatigue of the expedition, after welcoming them he entered a shieling by the wayside, and called for a drink. It was brought, and he drank it off without even thinking of the Giolla De.

" I am sorry to see you forget your agreement," said the latter. " Do you call that trifle a breach of my agreement ?" said the King. " All, replied the Giolla De, " it is trifles that show the mind. You went to war for a basket, and you call a cup of wine a trifle." And he immediately spoke these lines-

" The a rung a King doth. were it huge as a mountain

He weighs it no more than a drop from the fountain. The wrong a Kiug suffers, though light as a bubble, Sends fools to the slaughter and kingdoms to trouble.

Thenceforth I'll not swear by the aright or a feather

Nor the firmness of ice in the sunny spring weather,

But I'll *wear by a lighter, more slippery thing.

And my trail shall be plight by the word of a King."

The instant he had uttered these lines, the Caol Riava and the story-teller vanished from the eyes of O'Connor, who looked around for them in vain in all directions. But what astonished him still more was, that not a particle of all the spoils he had driven from Munster remained with his boat; nor could any thing be found throughout the whole army but an old basket, which the Con- naught woman, already spoken of, recognized as the one she had lent to the

Munster woman.