Ki/groom : a Story of Ireland. By John A. Steuart.
(Sampson Low and Co.)—Since Mr. Anthony Trollope wrote "The Mac- dermota of Ballycloran," no such pathetic picture of an Irish- man has been drawn as that of Ned Blake in Mr. Steuart's powerful and painful story of Irish life. Thady Macdermot and his fate has a setting far inferior in interest and picturesqueness to that which surrounds the tragic figure of the ruined young man who loses his life in the effort to save his malignant per- secutor from the stealthy murderer, although a minute before his own soul has been full of vengeance, and Thady is a less interesting person until the supreme catastrophe occurred ; but the same kind of fatality, the dramatic force of " merciless .disaster," follows each under absolutely dissimilar circumstances, with similar effect. The whole story is full of force and truth of -delineation, but there is too much local dialect for English readers in general. The ending of the love-tale is very fine indeed ; any writer might be proud of the scene in which Aileen tells her father how she has " given up " her true lover, and to whom.
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