23 OCTOBER 1897, Page 25

Ninety-Eight. Edited by Patrick C. Faly. (Downey and Co.) —To

such Irishmen as contemplate the celebration of the cen- tenary of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 this story ought to be welcome. It purports to be "the recollections of Cormac Colin O'Connor Faly (late Colonel in the French service) of that awful period," which have been "collected and edited by his grandson, Patrick C. Faly, Attorney-at-Law, Buffalo, N.Y. ; " and as old Fitly declaimed at the very end of his long life his hatred of England, the spirit in which he writes may readily be conceived. As the book, however, is an honest attempt at historic realism, an& reproduces the military movements and political intrigues of a very stormy period, it may be read with profit by many be- sides modern "patriots." Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Napper Tandy, and Bagenal Harvey, live again in these pages, but we confess that they are not quite so distinctly flesh-and- blood as they might be. The next best character in the book, indeed, after the hero, is Miss Doyle, "the most beautiful girl in the world," bright-eyed, high-spirited, and intensely Irish. The story of her adventures, which close, of course, in tragedy, the "butchery of New Ross," and the illusive victory of The Races of Castlebar is told with great power and spirit.