Some Time in Ireland. (London : Henry S. King and
Co.)—This is a curious rigmarole, written nominally, and we should think really, by some old lady who remembers vividly her youth in Ireland. It begins at the beginning—in the nursery—and describes, with more truth than interest, the scrambling sort of contrivances by which, not the trite Irish household, either hospitable and wealthy, or hospitable but not wealthy, but the class which pares behind the scenes to keep up appear- ances before the world, makes both ends meet. There are the worldly parents; the quarrelsome daughters, jealous of each other, bullying their mother, and flirting with anyone they can get hold of; the under-hand governess, the neglected children, the unprincipled servants, and the ambitious agent. These unpromising ingredients are worked into a marvellously uninteresting story, mixed up with election riots and agrarian murders, and interspersed with grumbling& at the English Governments of every date, and with wailings over the fate of the Irish landlords and Protestant clergy, evincing mighty little sympathy with either Catholic or peasant When we add that a number of anecdotes of Irish notabilities, especially clerical, are lugged in by the head and shoulders, apropos of absolutely nothing, it will be clear that we have no groat admiration for the book, though it may amuse old folks who knew something of the political and social state of Ireland a generation or two back.
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