The Lloyds of Ballymore. By Edith Rochfort. 2 vols. (Chap-
man and Hall.)—We expect now, when we open "a story of Irish life," not the entertainment of which we were once sure, but something peculiarly dismal. It may be said, of course, that Lever was frivolous, even that he represented the sowing of the wind from which we are now reaping the whirlwind. But then there were Carleton and Gerald Griffin ; there was a dark side to their stories, but it had not the repulsive aspect which Irish life now presents. Miss Rochfort's sympathies are with order. But she is not incapable of seeing that there are two sides to a ques- tion. And she does her best to relieve with something brighter, with sketches of bright and cheerful natures, the sombre colours which she cannot help putting into her picture. It is her mission, we suppose, to write about Irish life. It is the subject that she knows. Let us hope that she may one day find it more attractive, more suited for the exercise of her undeveloped powers,—powers which, after all, must always find their most legitimate function in pleasing. Unhappily, pleasure is not what we can expect to find in this particular branch of literature.
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