"You must matriculate, doctor,' said Father John, goodhumoredly.'

66. Matriculate!'

Certainly. And after that you'll feel quite at home.' "Humph!' ejaculated the doctor. My matriculation thenas you call it-is ended, for I leave to-morrow.'

"To-morrow!' repeated the captain; 'nonsense!

Lord Harry, my dear fellow, you'll do no such thing.'

By the

"To-morrow, sir, at daybreak; you may rest assured of it.' "What! and Mary Lee to be married to-night, and Uncle Jerry to dance at the wedding! you mustn't think of it.' "I've made up my mind, captain.'

"But Kate-you know Kate has an apology to make about that quarrel you've had. She'll never forgive you if you don't come with us to Castle Gregory.'

666

'No, sir, I've been once at Castle Gregory, and that I think is quite enough for me. I thank you, captain, however, for your proffered hospeetality.'

"But, my dear sir,' urged the captain, 'I should feel very sorry to have you leave with bad impressions of the country.' "Humph!' said the doctor, in reply, 'I'm vary much inclined to think, if I remained longer, they would grow worse.'

"Worse!'

"Ay, sir, worse. Here's abduction, robbery, forgery, riot, and murder, all in a single week. Good Heavens! Sir, there's not such another country on the face of the globe, and what makes its condition the more deplorable is, that its religion is no longer able to redeem it.'

"Its religion!' said the priest.

"Yes, sir; there's not even the ghost of your old Katholeecity remaining. No, sir; what's left is but syllabub and water gruel.' "I'm sorry you think so.'

"And so am I too, sir. But so it is-between your deeviltry and your Katholeecity, I have had enough of Ireland. Good-by, gentlemen, good-by!' and the doctor, having taken his leave of the party, thrust his thumbs into the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and wended his way slowly to the village inn."—pp. 386, 387.

The Irish are, no doubt, impulsive, imaginative, with whom sentiment and affection, as with most people, have

more weight than logic; they love fun and frolic, and abound in both smiles and tears, but we have entirely mistaken their character, if they do not act far more from principle and less from mere impulse, and if they are not a far more sedate and self-sustained people than our author represents them. Indeed, none of the Irish writers of fiction seem to us to do full justice to the Irish character, not even Gerald Griffin. The best of them fail to catch the heroic element of the Irish nature, or to bring out its poetry. The Irish are, as they represent them, a mixture of the ascetic and the rowdy, the saint and the rapparee, great in a row, intractable and treacherous in the cause of liberty and nationality. The pictures of Irish life and character in Banim, Carleton, Lever, Lover, and even our author, make us weep over the sufferings of the Irish people, excite our pity, but rarely win our love or respect. As we read these authors, we feel that, say what they will against the English, Irishmen deserve the credit of being the worst enemies of Ireland. They present us black-hearted villains and coldblooded criminals whom it would be difficult to match among any other people; and they seldom fail to represent the Irish as regarding as simple venial offences, or no of fences at all, things which other nations usually regard as great sins or grave crimes. We confess, that we do not trust these authors, and we look upon their pictures of Irish life, manners, and society, as coarse caricatures, almost as gross libels. They are untrue, and do more to degrade the Irish in the estimation of Englishmen and Americans than could be done by a thousand such journals as The Times. No people have suffered so much from their own national writers, and they actually appear to better advantage in foreign than in native authors, who seem, in striving to exalt their countrymen, to succeed only in writing them down.

Now this is a phenomenon we should like to see explained. The Irish people seem to us, if not all that some of their writers would have us believe, to be inferior to no people in the world, in genuine mother wit, quickness of

parts, sagacity, shrewdness, intelligence, religion, virtue, intellectual capacity, bravery, and true heroism. They furnish more than their quota of the best soldiers and officers, the first orators and statesmen, authors, journalists, and artists in the English-speaking world. They very nearly control the press and the politics of our own country, and the descendants of their exiles are honorably distinguished in Spain, France, and Austria. They are more imaginative, more genial, more brilliant, more poetic than the Scotch or English, and have no less romance in their hearts or in their history; and yet in the pages of their own national writers they bear no comparison with the English in the pages of English, or the Scotch in the pages of Scottish, national writers. Why is this? Why is it that Irish fiction almost uniformly paints the Irish hero as a rollicking, hard-drinking, fighting, blundering, devil-maycare, though, perhaps, a good-hearted fellow, and the Irish people without manliness or dignity, as compounded of fine sentiments and atrocious deeds, tenderness and ferocity, servility and independence, suspiciousness and confidence, fidelity and treachery, obedience and rebellion, bravery in a row or faction fight, and cowardice and imbecility in the national cause? Is it that we do not rightly understand the Irish national writers, and that they make an entirely different impression on us from that which they make on their own countrymen? Is it that in the low and base qualities they ascribe to them, or in the villains and criminals they present, they draw on their imaginations alone, and so overdo the matter, as do all who have not experience or knowledge for their guide? We sometimes think these writers owe their popularity to the very innocence of their countrymen, and to the fact, that they make their appeal not to their experience, but to their love of the marvellous, and to their fondness for fun and practical jokes. Probably the greatest practical joke possible would be to take their pictures as faithful pictures of Irish society. We can explain the fact, only by supposing that these writers address them

selves to one or two traits in the Irish character, and neglect its deeper and nobler elements.

However this may be, we tell Paul Peppergrass, Esq., that we do not trust his account of his own countrymen, save in mere external and local coloring. There may

be such characters in Ireland as he draws-characters which you cannot respect, though often such as you cannot help liking, much against your will. There are deeper, stronger, nobler, and more manly elements in the Irish character than he draws forth, and the Irish, when thoroughly understood, present as much to respect as to love and admire. To give them credit only for mere shrewdness, cunning, practical jokes, buffoonery, and revengefulness, even though mingled with many generous impulses, is to do them gross injustice, and to degrade them from the high rank they are entitled to in the scale of nations. The great fault we find with our author and the class of writers to which he belongs, is not that he and they give the Irish more, but far less than they deserve, that instead of presenting the better side and nobler elements of their character, they seize upon its darker side, its lighter traits, or its defects even, and exaggerate and caricature them, till the real likeness almost wholly disappears. We wish some Irish Walter Scott would make his appearance and give to the genial, and warm-hearted, and, we add, brave and heroic Irish people, their true interpretation in English literature.

We hope Mr. Peppergrass is a good enough patriot to forgive us these criticisms on his delineation of Irish character, and the frank expression of our opinion, that his countrymen are far better than he paints them. We think better of them than he does, although we have never been, and are not blind to their faults, for no people are ever faultless. Our strictures do not, however, extend to all the characters in the book before us. Mary Lee is a sweet, charming girl, but is kept too much out of sight. We hear much of her, but hardly catch a glimpse of her beautiful face and lovely form. Kate Petersham is a glorious crea

ture, full of life and mischief, tender and affectionate, lealhearted and true, but the author has judged wisely not to marry her; for a young lady who prides herself on sailing a boat, or riding a steeple chase," with the best blood in the county," is not precisely the woman a quiet man would take for his wife. Uncle Jerry is generous, even to a fault, but unmanned by disappointed affection. The priest, Father John, is very well, but nothing very remarkable one way or another. Captain Petersham is a good-hearted, whole-souled fellow, full of good impulses, and full also of inconsistencies, free from all malice, with his heart in the right place; constantly offending and apologizing; one whom you cannot respect much, but cannot help liking. He is not a very loyal magistrate.

The Yankee, Mr. Ephraim C. B. Weeks, is, of course, a cool, calculating villain, with a great contempt for the Irish, and a high opinion of his own country as well as of his own ability and acuteness, who visits Ireland on a matrimonial speculation, in which he also, of course, fails. Paddy proves too sharp for Jonathan, who is unable to stand before even an Irish goat, or to manage even an Irish pony. We see in the exigencies of the story, no great necessity for introducing a Yankee at all. An Irish adventurer might have played the part assigned him just as well, and in real villany his Irish cousin, Hardwrinkle, far surpassed him. The only motive for introducing him was to show up a live Yankee, and the universal Yankee nation. In this the author is not entirely successful. Abroad, the term Yankee designates any white native born citizen of the United States; at home it designates only a white native of one or another of the six New England States. It does not appear in which of the two senses the author takes the term. Weeks is represented as a merchant, and a native of Connecticut; but he is also represented as a Virginia slaveholder, and as an overseer on a Virginia plantation, and nigger-driver. We cannot very well reconcile these several characters in the same person. Weeks is too low and vulgar in his language and pronunciation for any one of