Marcella Grace. By Hose Mulholland. (Began Paul, Trench, and Co.)—This
is a finely tragical story, the passion of the drama being wrought to a high point when the heroine states that which is false to save the man whom she loves, and is compelled by him to tell the truth, though it seems certain to bring about his condemnation, rather than that she should burden her soul, and disgrace the cause for which both were ready to suffer, with a lie. Marcella is a well-drawn picture of a noble woman, one who with all her heroism never ceases to be truly womanly ; and Bryan is almost worthy of her. There•are scenes, too, of Irish life that are vividly and powerfully described. Unfortunately, however, Miss Mulholland is carried away by the passion which seems to beset nearly all who deal with Irish subjects. She does her beat to spread that great plague of Irish politics, the hatred to law, by maligning the administration of justice. She-de- scribes one of the Judges in language that can only apply to another Jeffreys ; she implies that the Crown is careless of truth so that it can secure a conviction ; and that, "under the present stern regime," a condemned man will be sent to the gallows though the evidence on which he was found guilty should be found to have been false. There is an evident allusion here to recent trials. Is Miss Mulholland so well acquainted with the facts that she can set aside the de- liberate judgment which every one who has reviewed the evidence, whatever his prepossession or wishes, has concurred in forming. All this is the stock-in-trade of paid agitators; but it is a discredit to snob a writer as Miss Mulholland. Is it part, by the way, of the general " topsy-turviness " which Irish affairs seem to produce that she makes the moon "rise out of the Atlantic" P (p. 166.)
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