SHORTER NOTICES
Lady Louisa Conolly. By Brian FitzGerald. (Staples Press. i cs.) THIS eighteenth-century biography will be much enjoyed by the large public that despises novels because they are not "true." When Mr. FitzGerald tells us that Lady Louisa was a great-grand. daughter of Charles II and died in 1821, we know that these are facts. But if she takes a journey we have to hear that "there was the coach with the horses champing, waiting to take them to Chester, twelve miles distant Louisa climbed within ; there was some shout- ing and a cracking of whips. They were off." These are the fur- bishings of an indifferent historical novel. But Mr. FitzGerald knows his period, and gives many excellent quotations from letters hitherto unpublished which he is editing for the Irish Manuscript Commission. And, although so much is known of eighteenth- century England, it is 'mall/III to hear about life in Ireland. The excerpts from documents are of real value to students of the
eighteenth century. •
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