The Rebel Lady. By John Barnett. (Nisbet and Co. 6s.)—,
Mr. Barnett, within the limits of fiction, ranges over a wide field of subjects. He has written, and we have read, an admirable school story, a moderately interesting modern novel, and now a' romance of some ingenuity. The degree of his success varless of course, with each fresh adventure, but he is never quite' conventional. Writers of historical fiction make use, as a rule,f of one of two devices : either their hero is incredibly heroic, or, his deficiencies are hidden beneath thick layers of local colour.' Mr. Barnett's story is simply the tale of a woman who used her feminine charm to gain her most masculine ambitions. The' woman was Grace O'Malley, Irish rebel, who, with the help of the famous Hugh O'Donnell, defied the English efforts to subdue• Ulster in the sixteenth century ; who married Domhnall, O'Flakerty, and was as fine and brave as a who as she had been as a maid ; who met and overruled Elizabeth herself. The twenty-four chapters of Mr. Barnett's book are thrilling adven- tures, but they have one fault in common ; we are certain, as we begin each, that Grace will be the winner ; in this matter Mr. Barnett has yielded, alas I to the whitewashing principles of his contemporary romancers.
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