NOVELS.
THE NORTHERN IRONS . .
'0,B•tbe.first,tinie since his incursion into the arena of fiction, Mr. Birmingham deserts the Ireland of to-day. for that of the past. Cynics and sympathisers may unite in observing that, Ireland being a land-of secular unrest, it makes less difference what phase. of her career a novelist decides to depict than it would in the case of any other country. That is no doubt true in a sense,. but it is bound to make a certain difference to an author like Mr. Birmingham, who in his previous ventures, without directly resorting to the methods of the rontan a clef, has relied a good deal on portraiture of living models. In The Northern Iron such aids are no longer possible, and as he is thrown back on his own invention the test of his creative quality is proportionately more severe. Again, this is the first novel from his pen, in which the conventional love interest plays a prominent part in the development of the plot. Thus in more ways than one his, new novel, breaks new ground. It retains, however, that engaging quality which .distinguishes Mr. Birmingham's work from that of most other writers of Irish political romances,—an almost Quixotic chivalry in dealing with political opponents. He has given us a stirring picture on a limited canvas of the rebellion of '98, in which it is clearly his aim to enlist the sympathies of his readers on the side of the rebels. Yet unquestionably the most romantic and attractive figure in these pages is that of the Loyalist peer, Lord Dunseveric. It is true that Lord Dunseveric construes his attachment to the Union with considerable elasticity. But the fact remains that Mr. Birmingham is ready to admit that Unionists may be true lovers of Ireland, and, unless we err in our interpretation of his Nationalism,. he sets little store by any realisation of such aims which is based on adhesion to a creed or proscription of a class. We cannot better illustrate this point of view than by reference to. an episode in the last chapter of the novel. The hero's father, a Presbyterian minister, has been imprisoned in a Scottish. fortress for complicity in the insurrection, and is rejoined by his son after the Act of Union "Beside the fire, in the chair that had once belonged to the master of the house, sat Micah Ward. He looked very old now and infirm: The months in a prison hulk in Belfast Lough and the long weariness of his confinement in bleak Fort George had set their mark upon him. On his knees lay a Greek lexicon; but he was pursuing no word. through its pages. It was open at the
• Do: The Northers /ma. By George A. Birmingham. Dublin: Ilanneel and
fly-leaf inside the cover. Ho was reading lovingly for the hundredth time an inicription. written there—' This book was given to Rev. Micah Wad by his fellow-prisoners in Fort George, in witness of their gratitude to him for his ministrations during their captivity, and as a token of their admiration for his forti- tude, his patience, and his unfailing charity.' There followed a list of twenty names. Four of them belonged to men of the Roman Catholic faith, six of them were the 'lamas of Presby- terians, ten were of those who accepted the teaching of that other Church which, trammelled for centuries by connection with the State, hampered with riches secured to her by'the bayonets of n foreign power, dragged down very often by officials placed Over her by Englishmen; has yetin•spite of all won glory. • Out of 'her womb have come the men whose names • shine brightest on the melancholy roll of the Irish patriots of the last two centuries. She has not cared to boast of them. She has hidden their names from her children as if they were a shame to her, but they are hers. Thus far off in a desolate Scottish fortress, after the telal failure of, every plan, in the hour of Ireland's most hopeless degradation, the great dream which had fired the imagination of Tone and 'Neilson and the others, the dream of all Irishmen uniting in a common love of their country, a love which. should transcend the differences of rival creeds, found a realisation. The witness, written in crabbed characters on the fly-leaf of ,a lexicon, lay on the knees of a broken old man in the cottage of a widow within earshot of the perpetual clamour of 'the bleak
northern sea." • -
A writer wh6 is 'animated by such a Spirit assuredly need not "fear to speak Of '98," though we can well understand that his impartiality may be resented by extremists. What lends his story a peculiar interest is that it deals exclusively With the North, and largely with the part played in the outbreak by the fainily of 'a Presbyterian minister. Mi60.11 Ward, the hero's father, is at once scholar, Puritan, and fanatic. Though hie years and infirmity Prevent him from joining the fighting ranks, he is an active organiser of revolt, stores arms in-.his chapel; and' when • the" inevitable infciriner appears on the scene, is one of the .firet to be denounced' to
Lord Dunseveric. The situation is further complicated the fact that . Lord Dunseveric's heir, Maurice St. Clair, and
his daughter. Una are inseparable companions of Neal :Ward, thg minister'S only son. In the nisefuel„ Neal joins this rebels with his uncle Donald, a returned Irish-American who has seen active service in the American War of Independence, and after a good deal of fighting is captured by the yeomanry,. but rescued from the gallows by;Maurice,.and after hiding .in.a cave, where his lady-love swims to succour the hunted fugitive, he is finally smuggled on board an American vessel. All this is told with spirit and vigour, but, like many. others who have trodden the same path before him, Mr. Birmingham is more impressive in dealing with the grim realities of civil strife than when he enters the realm of sentiment. The break-tin of the minister's home, the eicesses of the -Soldiery; the terrible fate of the informer,—all these scenes are powerfully drawn. But the romantic courtship of the high-born heroine, though
gracefully handled, is not free from a touch of conventional melodrama. With all deductions, however, we Can heartily
commend Mr. Birmingham's new venture. He writes with simplicity and distinction, and fully justifies his choice of
title by the harmony Le has 'shown to exist between the Northern coast and the Northern temper.
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