AN IRISH NOVEL.*

To present a picture of the life of the Irish peasantry which shall be at once faithful to the original and intelligible to the chenille of the circulating libraries, is such a difficult task, that we hardly like to predict that popularity for Miss Brew which she has done so much to deserve in this excellent story. Viewed as a novel, her work is not free from obvious imperfections. It is . too long; the action is delayed by disquisitions which, interesting in themselves, are out of place in a work of fiction ; and, finally, the higher the social rank of her characters, the less successful is Miss Brew in the delineation of them. Thus, while the antecedents of the Dillon family are ably sketched, and the episodes of their gradual decay calculated to interest the reader, the representatives themselves are artificial, stilted in speech, and devoid of that humour which the writer is capable of infusing into her creations to an extent quite unusual in a writer of her sex. Let us add, to complete the category of her shortcomings, that her grammar is not invariably infallible, nor her quotations of the accuracy to be expected in a writer who has herself a turn for graceful and flowing verse. Having frankly discharged the duty of censure, we gladly turn to that of commendation. The alternative title of Pictures of the Munster People exactly describes the character of the work, which is a series of scenes in which the abiding traits of the Celtic character, its savagery, instinctive courtesy, fatalism, clan-affection and devotion to the soil, are drawn with rare impartiality and unsparing detail. With the exception of the gentlefolk, the dramatis personce have been excellently chosen to illustrate these traits and carry out the plot, which, shorn of some conventional episodes, is simple and effective, hinging upon the observance of one of those superstitions rites so dear to the Celt. What the feeling of the Irish peasant exactly is with regard to the ordinances of fate may best be told in the words of Miss Brew. The heroine, a sincerely religions girl, had, half in jest, taken part in one of these ceremonies, and the gradual fulfilment of the dreams of her companions on the occasion made her realise that her share of the future also would come true as it was foretold. Her Church forbade the practice as a rash effort to read what " God thought fit to conceal." Yet of the truth of this illicit glimpse she entertained no doubt. "A common Irish maxim is that what's allotted can't be blotted;' and the truth of this piece of fatalism was not doubted by Oonagh for a moment. No Oriental believed in Kismet more devoutly and unquestioningly than did this credulous country girl believe in destiny."

• The Chronicles of Castle Coyne; or, Pictures of the Munster People. By M. W. Brew. London : Chapman and Hall.

We have spoken of the writer's impartiality, in evidence of which the following passage is worth quoting

For a people so imaginative and impressionable as the Irish, it is extraordinary how prosaic and practical they are in the matter of marriage. A real love-match is rare ; and in nine cases out of ten the marriages of the Irish peasantry are downright Smithfield bargains. The parents of the young people arrange everything beforehand without any reference to them ; and their motto is 'penny for penny,' or, when that is not possible, as near an approach to it as can be got. They fight and haggle over every acre and every shilling ; and what involves the future happiness or misery of two human beings is reduced to a mere matter of pounds, shillings, and pence. The author has often known a match, that had gone on swimmingly for a long time, broken off at the last moment, because the old father on one side would not consent to let the calf go with the cow ; or the mother on the other side demurred to having the washing-tub or the clutch of chickens thrown in as a makeweight

with the rest of her daughter's portion Strange to say, these mercenary marriages turn out extremely well Con- jugal infidelity on either side is almost unknown ; and when an instance of it unhappily occurs, which is very rarely indeed, it is looked upon by the people with the greatest horror and disgust."

Written obviously by a member of the Roman Catholic com- munion, this book is happily free from the slightest taint of sectarian bias ; though in the relations which it represents as existing between the priests and the gentry of the Protestant persuasion a more faithful picture is given of the past than of

the present generation. One may now look in vain for men of the type of Father O'Rafferty, one of Miss Brew's best portraits —a peasant by birth, but endowed with the heart and instincts of a gentleman. Of her consistent truth to life, we get perhaps the most notable proof in her treatment of her heroine. The average novelist would have mated her to a lover of high degree ; whereas Oonagh, a girl of simple and devoted nature,

lavishes her affection on a shallow, handsome, avaricious, glib-tongued farmer. This rustic Adonis was destined for the priesthood, but failed to satisfy the Bishop that he was a fit candidate for ordination. Only those who know the South of Ireland will admit the truth to nature of "Buck Molloy's ', extraordinarily ornate style, of which this extract will serve as a sample :—

"Oh, darlin', if you only knew how I was excruciatin' to behold you, an' to communicate to the tindherness of your sensibility all the injurious condemnation that I had to put up with from that mild ancient father of yours."

" Otild ancient" is an inimitable touch, arising out of a Celtic love for tautology as old as the Brehon laws. Of the Irish famine of 1847 and 1848 Miss Brew gives an unvarnished tale, bearing on it the unmistakable impress of truth. Her account is told in homely language, but is none the less pathetic on that account, and illustrates in striking fashion the patience of the sufferers, culminating in a sort of moral paralysis, "a dull numb- ness," in which all the impulsiveness of their nature was crushed ont of them. "They suffered silently, and died in silence as the dumb die." Here the writer's intimate acquaintance with every detail of peasant life lends great force to her descriptions, which are grimly but never morbidly realistic. There is, indeed, no rose-colour in Miss Brew's palette when she is at work upon this gloomy period, which affords her much excellent material for the working out of her plot. Oonagh's lover, who had cast her off and married another woman, falls a victim to the fever ; and Oonagh, who had come too late to rescue him or his wife, adopts his son, and educates him for the priesthood. Of her heroic exertions to fulfil this resolve, and of its final attainment, the concluding chapters give a most touching account. We know of few more pathetic figures in modern fiction than that of this simple woman, attended by her faithful dog—Miss Brew has a very genuine feeling for animals—dedicating her life to the memory of a man whom she could not help loving, though she had learnt to despise. Her acquiescence in his faithlessness is quite valid from the point of view of the Irish peasant. Her dream had foretold the severance, and he was only fulfilling the decree of fate.

After Oonagh MacDermott, Pat Flanagan is Miss Brew's most successful creation, and quite worthy of a place alongside of Lever's immortal Mickey Free. Pat, the privileged body-

servant of the Dillons, is one of those strange compounds of 41 conceit, ignorance, and dog-like devotion," only to be found in Ireland, and hardly there in these days. Amongst his many

exploits we have only space to record his stratagem to secure a vote for his master at a contested election. Pat boldly brings up a man to personate a tenant who had recently died :—

" 'Unless I am much mistaken," observed the clerk, old Martin XacDermott is dead ; at least, I heard so nearly a fortnight ago.'— 'Why, thin, you hard a blazin' lie," cried the unabashed Pat—' It was given out surely that he was dead, for the poor man was very sick, an' got such a sthrong wakeness in the heighth of it, that it lasted from mornin' till night, an' that's why it was reported that he was dead.

I certainly did hear that he was dead,' said the clerk, with a bewildered look on his face.—' Begor, thin, you're not the only wan that hard it. It was strongly reported, I know, but sure tellin' lies of a man don't kill him."

Another admirable specimen of Pat's powers of romancing is the ridiculous rigmarole related for the benefit of the company

assembled at a "wake," one of those gatherings where sorrow and sociability mingle so grotesquely. This whole scene is described with great vividness and realism, but at too great length, and the digression upon the Irish "keen" is hardly in place. The real reason for the con- demnation of this barbaric custom is that it is not the outcome of natural grief, professional " keeners" being often called in who are not united by any ties of blood or friend-

ship with the deceased. To admit this, and at the same time lament the neglect into which the custom has fallen, is to us incomprehensible in a person of Miss Brew's intelligence. Her familiarity with peasant idiom is quite remarkable ; and the dialogue abounds throughout with characteristic distortions, picturesque expletives, and quaint idioms of every conceivable kind. The Irish are as felicitous in their blessings as they are ornamental in their curses. Two of the former, as given by Miss Brew, are quite worth quoting. "God open a gap for you!" is a beautiful phrase ; and "God keep the hurt and harm of the year from you I" is hardly less effective. On the other hand, there is a delightful malediction on p. 174, Vol. IL:—

" Sweet bad luck to all the lawyers and bailiffs, an' long life to 'em to enjoy that bad luck. That they may walk in their own funeral, an' swing high on a windy day, dancing a hornpipe to the tune of the Rogues' March' upon nothing at all."

The item in the farrier's bill, "By min' the black cow that died, tin shillins," we seem to have heard before ; but it will bear repetition, and the loan—if it is a loan—may readily be condoned in a writer who has given us so many good things. What can be more eloquent than the following description

of the heroine's unsympathetic aunt P—" The mild garron ! 'tis a gizzard that's inside of her instead of a heart, an' a very hard

one too She was ever an' always a great collecthor of a woman Alliloo 'tis she that makes that poor dis- ciple of a husband of hers shake in his shoes." The remarks of the crowd at the election are intensely diverting. An old huckster, whose wares are upset, exclaims, "Oh, millia murther !

I'm kilt and ruinated horse an' fut." And there is an excel- lent malaprop in the remark of a partisan of the Dillon faction :—" 'Tis yourself that has the open hand and the feelin' heart for the poor and the dissolute." With a great part of the third volume, which deals with the fortunes of the last of the Dillons at the gold-diggings in California, and his

courtship in England, we could readily have dispensed, save for the remarks of Pat, which enliven the monotony of these chapters. A true and characteristic touch is that of the authors by which she represents him as desirous of delaying his de- parture from the diggings simply that he might have the satis- faction of seeing a ruffian hanged who had shot their comrade. Pat is a most attractive savage notwithstanding, with an irre- sistible faculty for excuse, which safely extricates him from the

most desperate scrapes.

Such a book as this may not satisfy the demands of the average novel-reader; but it is of a high value, in that it enables readers on this side of the water to get a grasp of the Irish character ten times truer and more complete than can be obtained by dramatic and journalistic travesties, or those absurd carica- tures of Irish life and society which pass current with the patrons of the three-volume system, but fill educated Irishmen with disgust and amazement. These ignorant and vulgar burlesques are not infrequently the work of Irishwomen who neither by culture nor experience are qualified to treat the themes they essay. Miss Brew is happily very far indeed from coming under such a condemnation. Her faults are the result of a minute observation, which leads her to dwell unduly on details. But although her tale is wrought out of the homeliest materials, it is redeemed by its humour and simple pathos from

all suspicion of the commonplace. By the vividness and straightforward vigour of her description and dialogue, we have more than once, especially in the chapters relating to the Irish famine, been reminded of certain scenes in Mrs. Gaskell's Mary Barton. And by such a comparison it is needless to say that

we mean to convey praise of a very high order.