THE CHARM 01? IRELAND.*
THERE is a tradition current in Dublin of an American visitor who summarized his impressions of that city on the correspondence portion of a picture-postcard, thus : "Teems of rain. Priests and policemen. Everybody always drunk" Even if the story is not true historically, it is so typically ; for what a tourist takes away from a country depends almost entirely upon what he brings to it. The value of Mr. Burton E, Stevenson's book is largely due to his previous acquaintance with the history and legends of Ireland, her literature and antiquities, her archi- tecture and art, for he knew before he landed what he ought to see and how to see it ; so that the apparently desultory tour described so pleasantly in The Charm of Ireland includes most of what is charac- teristic and significant in the country. But it owes something also to the engaging qualities of its author's personality. He has a vivid appreciation of fine craftsmanship, whether on stone, metal, wood, or paper ; while his eager and friendly curiosity, his unaffected good humour, and his readiness to please and be pleased combined with his nationality to recommend him to a race to which America has long been the land of promise and the bestower of good things.
In minor details he is often inaccurate. It is not true, for example, that "the Irish schools are controlled by a board which sits at Dublin Castle " ; or that the dispensary doctors are Government nominees ; or that the Irish railways are built with an entire disregard of the towns on the route ; or that the Dublin police are members of the Royal Irish Constabulary ; or that the poorer classes in Ireland are "gin. sodden." Conclusions, however sanely drawn, which depend upon such premiases as these—and unfortunately there are many such— are obviously open to hostile criticism ; they have, in fact, a family likeness to the author's photographs, which are always interesting and frequently illustrative, but in falsity of values and absence of shadow detail often betray the hand of the amateur. An error more serious, because it implies deficient insight, is the repeated identification of poverty with wretchedness. Mr. Stevenson should have learned from his own Emerson that " good " does not mean good things to eat and drink—least of all in Ireland, where "Poor but pleasant" is a standing toast and a universal fact. This, however, is his only grave fault ; the spirit in which ho has set about his task is, in general, entirely admirable. His free colloquial style, compounded indifferently
• The Charm. of Ireland. By Burton E. Stevenson. London: John Murray. 101. Gd. net.I
from English, Irish, and American idiom as the need arises, is exactly fitted to communicate his own infectious zest for his subject, and its easy gossiping flow and freedom from pedantry are no small factors in making the title of his book a faithful guide to its contents.
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