of the "Speeches" of Mr. Bright and Mr. Thorold Rogers (the editor of the published edition) would do a useful work in separating tho Irish speeches from tho rest, and giving them to the public in a popular form. Those speeches are historical in form, statesmanlike in substance, and in style models, as everyone knows, of the purest English. Mr. Goldwin Smith's "Irish History and Irish Character" is an admirable work, and I should advise those who have been reading the latest productions of that gentleman to peruse it carefully, and thus turn from "Philip drunk to Philip sober." Dr Sigerson's "Land Tenures" is a work worthy in every respect of its learned author. It is scientific and scholarly, and bears signs of great research, and much thought. Mr. Gilbert's "Irish Viceroys" and "History of Dublin" are the production of one of the most reliable Irish writers of our time. Of Irish ecclesiastical historians the best are Brenan ("Eccles. Hist. of Ireland"), and Lanigan ("Eccles. Hist. of Ireland") at the Catholic side, and Mant ("History of the Irish Church"), Reid ("History of the Irish Presbyterians"), and Killen ("Eccles. Hist of Ireland") at the Protestant side.
In this connection Dr Moran's "Catholic Archbishops of Dublin," and Dr Brady's "Irish Reformation" should be mentioned as books written with great care and ability. Of books published within the past five or six years the first place must be given to Sir C Gavan Duffy's "Young Ireland" and "Four Years' of Irish History. " These books are the best of their kind. They are history at first hand. Sir Gavan Duffy was the founder of one of the most important movements in the annals of our country, and in these volumes he tells the story of that movement with great brilliancy and power.
At the risk of exceeding the limit which I had assigned myself, and committing an anachronism, I cannot avoid mentioning O'Callaghan's "Irish Brigade," a work of -real historical value.
The books I have mentioned are mainly historical or politico-historical. I have chiefly confined myself to the "broad, beaten track," as Carlyle says, "from which all the country is more or less visible but there are by-paths which must not be lost to view. The novelist who pourtrays national character and manners is in some degree historian too, and must not be forgotten. Mr. Rusk in has recently said that Miss Edgeworth's three stories, "Ormond," "Ennui," and "The Absentee," contain more essential truths about Ireland than can be learned from any other source whatever. This is far too sweeping a statement, and would not be true of all the Irish novelists put together. But the insight of Irish character and society which Miss Edgeworth and her fellow-workers in the regions of fiction give us must be regarded as a valuable aid to the acquisition of knowledge about Ireland or the Irish. Miss Edgeworth, viewing Irish life from the standpoint of her own, tho landlord class, is always vivid in narrative, shrewd in observation, and sympathetic in feeling. That she understood or felt the character of the Irish peasantry as thoroughly as did Griffin, Banim, and above all Carleton may be doubted, but she certainly both felt and understood it to a very great extend. Eminently characteristic is the answer which she puts into the mouth of a peasant on being reprimanded by his master for giving a "lift" to the owner of an illicit still. "Is that the way Larry," says Lord Colombre in "The Absentee," "you give a lift to the laws?" "If the laws," replied Larry, "would give a lift to me, maybe I'd do as much by them." Miss Edgeworth understood the secret of the lawlessness of the Irish peasantry. They did not help the laws, because, the laws did not help them. While, however, Miss Edgeworth is generally read, and is popular in England, the Irish favourites are Banim, Griffin, and Carleton, who, upon the whole, may be regarded as the best authorities on Irish character. Griffin's "Collegians" is a thrilling tale, and his "Munster Festivals" is full of life and interest; both are familiar books in almost every household in the South of Ireland. Banim's best novels are "The Nowlans," "Crohoore of the Billhook," and "Father Connell;" and Banim is among the most pathetic and national of Irish writers or singers. As an artist, Lever is entitled to a distinguished place among Irish novelists, but, as one who dealt chiefly in caricatures it is doubtful if his works ought to be reckoned among the "best Irish" books, His pictures of Irish life are always vivid, but the colours in which they are painted are not always true. There is plenty of Irish fun in "Harry Lorrequer," "Charles O'Malley," and
