2 SEPTEMBER 1893, Page 24

The _Return of the Olfahoney. By Harold Frederic. (W. Heinemann.)—At

last we get an Irish story which it is possible to enjoy in something of the same fashion as that in which we enjoyed the Irish stories of our youth. "The O'Mahoney" is, we are compelled to confess, an impostor, a "claimant of the most audacious kind; " but those is something so quaint, so humorous, and, if the contradiction can possibly, be allosven, even so honest about him, that we cannot help liking him. Really, he is an American of the very newest type, and his feelings, sayings, and doings, when he is bronght into contact with Irish sentiment—as, for instance, with the hereditary bard of the O'Mahoney family— are most entertaining. Irish life in a remote village of the Western coast is pictured with much skill, while the conduct of the ale—reconciling

as it does the reader to the hero, for all his t want of scruple—is admirably managed. A "Romantic Fantasy" Mr. Frederic calls his tale, by way of disarming, we may suppose, all criticism on its probability. No reader however, we imagine, will be inclined to question too nicely the incidents of a story which it is so pleasant to follow,