to a great extent it is loss of time. Keep to your handbook, and refer to the more copious works when you have need of them. These remarks, I may be told, refer to beginners only. I speak with some experience when I say that very many begin to study Irish history late in life, and too many never begin it at all. A beginner is a beginner at any age, and if "His- toricus" will quietly and silently cast about for information on the subject, he will be astonished at the number of otherwise well educated people who have never mastered a decent handbook of their country's history. What object can there Vie in talking about "The Four Masters" and "Harris's Ware" to such people ?
We have two excellent handbooks of Irish his- tory quite available — Havarty's "History of Ire- land," and Darcy M'Gee's "Popular History of Ireland." Without at all disparaging the latter, I prefer the former, because it has copious notes and references.
I dismiss the leading Irish novelists in a few words. The Banims and Gerald Griffin have done noble and national work in this line. Carleton is wonderfully graphic as far as his knowledge and observation went, but they were limited to a por- tion of Ulster; besides he sometimes asperses the character of his fellow-countrymen in order to spice his stories for the English market. I sup- pose the fine novels of the Banims and Gerald Griffin are scarcely read now. They are too pure and healthy in tone for the novel readers of to- day, whom nothing seems capable of satisfying but the thinly veiled immorality and the blood- and-murder sensationalism of the modern novel. — Your obedient servant,
John Can. O'Rourke, P.P.
MISS CHARLOTTE O'BRIEN.
Ardanoir, Foynes.
Dear Sir — I can in no sense claim to be a student of Irish or any other literature, but this list gives the names of books relating to Ireland, or by Irishmen, in which I have found consider- able interest.— Yours faithfully,
Charlotte G O'Brien.
I only speak of these as individually interesting to me, not as "best" books.
Works issued by Ossianic Society:—
Book of the Dean of Lisraore. This refers to Scotch Gaelic poems, but they are in so many cases nearly identical with the Irish I think we may fairly include it.
Standish O'Grady's Philosophical History of Ireland. Joyce's Old Celtic Romances. Joyce's Deirdre. Montalembert's St Columba. Ferguson's Lays and Irish Poems. Daly's Jacobite Relics. Pacata Hibernia. Maine's Aiicient Law. Prendergast's Cromwellian Settlement. Pope Heunessy, Sir Walter Raleigh. Spencer's State of Ireland. Sir John Davies. M'DoniieU'H Ulster War. O' Hagan's Song of Roland. Wilde's Memoirs of Swift.
That terrible paper of Swift's in which he suggests the devouring of Irish children — I forget the name.
Sheridan's plays. (Sheridan, hitherto unclaimed, I think). Goldsmith's works. Lecky's History and Leaders of Public Opinion. Grattan's Speeches. Life of Flood.
A very old Irish Dictionary, of which the title is lost, which is full of curious old English words and country phrases, &c.
Past and Present Policy of England towards Ireland. English Misrule and Irish Misdeeds, A De Vere. "Mary Tudor," Sir A De Vere. Poems, A De Vere and Sir S De Vere. Mangan's Poems. Mrs S C Hall's Ireland, Edgeworth's Novels. Castle Daly, Miss Keary. The Collegians, Griffin. Lever's St Patrick's Eve. Uncle Pat, Upton. Sir C G Duffy's two vols. M'Carthy's History of Our Own Times. J B O'Reilly's Poems, Hull's Geology, Ireland. Moore's Cybele Hibernica.
I may be allowed to mention what I think a beautiful life, though of my father's sister, Harriet Monsell, by Carter, Spirit of the Nation, and generally the song literature of Ireland and Joyce's Irish Melodies.
LORD JUSTICE BARRY.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE FREEMAN.
3 Fitzwilliam-square.
Dear Sir — I thank you very much for your courtesy in sending me the proof of the article by "Historicus" on Irish books and works relat- ing to Ireland, and your flattering request for my opinion.
I do not profess to have read all the books mentioned ; many of them I have not looked into for years ; some of them I read with a spe- cific purpose, which, doubtless, engrossed my at- tention more than the literary merits of the work; and some of them it wouxd be difficult to discuss, without the risk of appearing to express, however indirectly, an opinion upon matters of a politico- polemical character, which, since I have had a seat on the judicial bench, I have studiously avoided doing.
In these circumstances it is obvious that I could not attempc any detailed analytical or comparative criticism of the list or its contents, Speaking from memory, 1 would observe in p iss- ing that unless for students having very much time at their disposal, it may be found that some of the books specified treat with unnecessary elaboration of propositions once disputed, but for long passed into truisms; of theories long ago con- clusively accepted or finally rejected; of contro- versial details, important in their day, but in the lanse of time banished from practical thought, submerged in the tide of human events, for all which class of topics a briefer consideration might in general suffice- But however all this may be, the article of "Historicus" manifests on the whole deep reading, profound thought, cultivated taste, and keen judgment, and must neces- sarily constitute a most valuable guide to every one desirous of studying the his-
