The Popular Idol. By William Mackay. 2 vols. (Bentley.)—This is
a very amusing book. Every Englishman will laugh at it, and we hope that our Irish friends will have the good-sensa to laugh at it too. The "popular idol" himself, Mr. Murphy, of Bally maroon, was, after all, only half an impostor, and the love with which his countrymen regarded him, if somewhat deluded, was at least wholly genuine and disinterested. Those who have watched the personal history of some of the Irish patriots in the House of Commons will not find anything of caricature in the portraits of The O'Banagher and of Mr. Jacob Butler, who has re- presented such a surprising number of constituencies, and undergone such a surprising variety of changes of opinion. On the other hand, Mr. Mackay does equal justice to the Anti-Irish side. Mr. Marshall, the English literary member, is an unprincipled snob, Mr. McTavish, the Ulster Orangeman, a frantic bigot, and Mr. Fitzgerald. the Tory magistrate, an amiable fool. Perhaps we might suggest that Norah is a little too impulsive, and that the hero might have been advanta- geously endowed with a little more constancy. But the love-story is probably not meant for more than the necessary padding of some really good sketches of national character and manners.
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