Part 2 — THE WORKS OF GERALD GRIFFIN.[208]

THE WORKS OF GERALD GRIFFIN.[208]

Of the works of fiction in the English language of which the first half of this century has been so prolific, Ireland has contributed at least a fair proportionate share. Her writers in this department of literature are numerous, and their productions have been generally received with due favor on this side of the Atlantic as correct portraitures of the habits and manners of a people in whom we take so deep an interest, and whose very contradictions of character render them interesting studies for the curious and philosophic. Of so large a number four at least deserve special notice, standing, as they do, prominently in the front rank of Irish authors and exhibiting in a marked degree a pleasant diversity of talent and invention, as varied as the peculiar characteristics of the provinces to which they belong. Carleton, for example, was an Ulster-man, rugged and ungraceful, yet possessing a deep vein of caustic humor, while his figures are struck out as distinctly as if his pen had some of the power Of Michael Angelo's chisel; John Banim was the embodiment of Leinster propriety and stability; Lever is never so much at home as at the mess-table of the "Rangers," or when endangering the neck of his hero or heroine over a Galway fence; while through Gerald Griffin's pages flow, now gently as a meandering stream and anon with the impetuosity of a mountain torrent, the poetry and passion of Munster. Still, in the strictest sense, none of these novelists can be considered national; yet all are true to Irish character. To those unacquainted with the radical difference of mind, temperament, and even physique, which is to be found in so comparatively small a country, this may seem paradoxical; but it is nevertheless true. Mickey Frees and Lowry Lovbys are plentiful enough in Ireland, but only in their respective sections; while Valentine McClutchy terrifies the northern tenant each recurring gala-day, and Banim's Paddy Flynn, to use the pithy remark of Sir Philip Crampton, "is hanged twice a year regularly in the south of Ireland."

If any of them be entitled to the term national, that honor should be awarded to Griffin, who in his Invasion, Duke of Monmouth, and some minor stories, has travelled out of his favorite province with some degree of success. But even in his wanderings in Wicklow, Taunton dene, and the wilds of Northumbria, we are constantly catching glimpses of the Shannon and Killarney. The reason of this is obvious. He aimed to be a strict and minute copyist of nature; and nature to him was bounded by the lovely scenery of Munster and the people with whom he had been in daily intercourse for almost the whole of his short life. His power of observation, thus limited, became intensified, and what he lost in breadth of view and amplitude of knowledge, he gained in the distinctness and fidelity of his pictures. Besides, the merits of the true novelist, like those of the painter, should never be estimated by the square of the canvas, but by his faithfulness, either to human figure, action, and circumstance, or to the embodiment of noble ideas. It is not so difficult as it may seem to call up imaginary kings and princes, noble lords and ladies, clothe them with all the gorgeous panoply so easily found in the pages of dear old Froissart, or in the latest book of fashions, and make them speak and act in the most approved manner of our modern romances, because few of us care to inquire into the correctness either of design or execution. Cervantes and Goldsmith painted the men and manners of their day with rare fidelity, and their works will be read by the learned and unlearned as long as the languages in which they wrote shall exist; and no one can doubt that two of the most popular authors of our time, Balzac and Dickens, no matter how inferior in some respects to the authors of Don Quixote and the Vicar of Wakefield, have truly held up to us panoramas of modern society in the two great cities of Europe. For Gerald Griffin we may not, perhaps, claim the universality of those great masters; but in purity of expression, truthfulness to nature, and delicacy of moral perception he is the equal of any of them.

There are some persons conversant with Irish character who maintain that its essential element is neither gayety nor combativeness, but melancholy, and sustain their apparently singular theory by reference to the national music and poetry. Griffin's writings would afford an additional argument in favor of this position. His genius was decidedly tragic, his muse sad and retrospective. His pauses to give us a glimpse of fireside enjoyment appear to be more as tributes to old home memories, than as arising from any natural desire to linger over the recollections of such tranquil scenes; and his snatches of humor and merriment seem thrown in artistically, not so much to relieve the sombre shading of his picture as to give its most prominent figures greater depth and boldness. He also labored under the disadvantage of all tragic minds; for, though he never can be said to have ignored the "eternal fitness of things" in rewarding the good and punishing the wicked, we close many of his volumes with a feeling more akin to sorrow than rejoicing, and while admitting the righteousness of his judgments, we sigh to think how God's best gifts to man may be turned to his own destruction. It seems to be the law of tragedy that the bad men must be more men of action than the good, in order to produce the proper effect. They dress better, talk more persuasively, and display high mental and physical qualities which, say what we may, will generally provoke a certain sympathy for them, evil as may be their acts. This inherent defect Griffin labored to modify, if he could not entirely eradicate. His moral heroes are good enough in their way, but their virtues are of too negative a character. Kyrle Daly, in the Collegians, and young Kingsly, in the Duke of Monmouth, have all the qualities we could desire in a friend or brother; but while we honor and respect them, a something akin to sympathy is clandestinely stealing out to the proud and wilful Hardress Cregan, and even to the cool malignity of that unparalleled scoundrel, Colonel Kirke. O'Haedha, in the Invasion, is an exception. He is sui generis in Griffin's pantheon, being not only a man of pure morality and well up in the lore of his times, but he is also a chieftain governing wisely and firmly, a man of war as well as of love and peace, strong in his affections and hatreds, living, moving, and breathing like one who has a subtle brain, warm blood, and a powerful arm to enforce his authority. He is decidedly not only Griffin's grandest conception, but will stand in favorable comparison with any we can recall in historical romance.

The Collegians is Gerald Griffin's best known and most popular novel; and, when we consider the early age of the author at the time it was written, and the circumstances amid which it was composed, we are equally surprised at his knowledge of the springs of human action, and at the excellences of the book, both as regards correctness of style and completeness of plot. Though the working of some of the strongest passions of our nature is portrayed in it—love, hatred, revenge, ambition—there is nothing about them sensational or melodramatic; and though many different characters are introduced, and incidents necessarily occur in a short space of time, there is nothing hurried or disjointed, one character acting upon another and each event following and hinging on the one preceding so gracefully and naturally that the reader is borne along on an unbroken current, as it were, from cause to effect till he reaches the final catastrophe. It is related that a portion of this admirable book was written in court while the author, who had attained considerable proficiency as a short-hand writer in London, was engaged in reporting an important law case. During an interval in the proceedings, Griffin took out his manuscripts, and, as was his habit, when a moment of leisure presented itself, proceeded to continue his story, regardless of his surroundings. It happened that Daniel O'Connell was employed professionally in the suit, and not knowing the writer, and supposing him to be occupied transcribing his notes, looked over his shoulder to read the evidence; but finding that it was something very different from the dry question and answer of counsellor and witness, the great advocate turned away in silent indifference. He little thought at the time that the quiet, industrious young reporter was Gerald Griffin, and that the work upon which he was so intently engaged was the Collegians—a work which, from the day of its publication, was ever the favorite solace of the hours of relaxation of that illustrious statesman.

The moral of the book, however, is its greatest merit. The character of Hardress Cregan is inimitably drawn. Young, gifted both in person and mind, with a disposition naturally inclined to good, but warped and misled by a fond, proud, worldly mother, and the example of a dissolute father and his associates; early left to his own guidance and the indulgence of his whims and fancies, he descends from the high position in which we find him at the opening chapter, through all the stages of crime—parental disobedience, ingratitude, deceit, debauchery, and finally murder. Through each step in guilt we can trace the cause of his ruin—moral cowardice, false pride, absence of self-control, alternating or uniting, but always with disastrous effect, until in the culminating scene, in which, torn by remorse and conscious guilt, he leaves his native shores a condemned felon and dies at sea, we feel that the punishment, no matter how severe, is but in strict accordance with our highest sense of retributive justice. Nor are the almost equally, though perhaps unconsciously, guilty parents forgotten. Like a just judge, Griffin not only punishes the actual perpetrator of crime, but metes out penalties to those whose duty it is to correct the excesses of youth, restrain their passions, and lead them by precept and example to the practice as well as the knowledge of good, and who neglect the sacred trust. What parent, after reading the Collegians, can contemplate without a shudder the pangs of the haughty mother and the utter hopelessness of her dissipated husband, when they found their only child, so tenderly nurtured and so thoroughly schooled, torn from their arms in chains, and dying the death of an outcast and a convict. Their punishment abided in their parental hearts, and the author goes no further. Many years ago, we casually overheard one of the most thoroughly read, as well as one of the most profound thinkers in America, say, upon being asked his opinion of the Collegians, that he considered it the best novel in the language; for, while it made you hate the crime, it did not take away your charity for the criminal; an opinion which we think will be concurred in by all who have attentively read the book and applied the moral it contains. Kyrle Daly is an antipode of his friend and fellow-student, Hardress Cregan. His filial reverence and moral rectitude are depicted in his every action, and his whole character is as beautiful and lovable as that of the other is dark and fraught with terrible warnings. Not that young Daly is presented as a model lackadaisical individual, by any means; but as a strong man of matured mind and deep feelings, true in friendship and trusting in love; yet withal guided by the dictates of his religion and directed by the authority and advice of his father and mother, a weakness, if it be one, we are sorry to say, not often indulged in at the present day.

Did the limits of our article permit, we might furnish many extracts from this remarkable novel in testimony of the high opinion of the merits found in its pages by so many distinguished scholars, but the Collegians is now so generally read that this is hardly necessary. We transcribe, however, the following brief sketch of a morning on the Shannon, and a breakfast scene, as a specimen of the author's power of minute description of rural scenery and felicitous rendering of social life:

"They had assembled, on the morning of Eily's disappearance, a healthy and blooming household of all sizes, in the principal sitting-room, for a purpose no less important than that of dispatching breakfast. It was a favorable moment for any one who might be desirous of sketching a family picture. The windows of the room, which were thrown up for the purpose of admitting the fresh morning air, opened upon a trim and sloping meadow, that looked sunny and cheerful with the bright green after-grass of the season. The broad and sheety river washed the very margin of the little field, and bore upon its quiet bosom (which was only ruffled by the circling eddies that encountered the advancing tide) a variety of craft, such as might be supposed to indicate the approach to a large city. Majestic vessels, floating idly on the basined flood, with sails half-furled, in keeping with the languid beauty of the scene; lighters burdened to the water's edge with bricks or sand; large rafts of timber borne onward toward the neighboring quays under the guidance of a shipman's boat-hook; pleasure-boats with gaudy pennons hanging at peak and topmast; or turf-boats with their unpicturesque and ungraceful lading, moving sluggishly forward, while their black sails seemed gasping for a breath to fill them—such were the incidents that gave a gentle animation to the prospect immediately before the eyes of the cottage dwellers. On the further side of the river arose the Cratloe hills, shadowed in various places by a broken cloud, and rendered beautiful by the checkered appearance of the ripening tillage and the variety of hues that were observable along their wooded sides. At intervals, the front of a handsome mansion brightened up a passing gleam of sunshine, while the wreaths of blue smoke, ascending at various distances from among the trees, tended to relieve the idea of extreme solitude which it would otherwise have presented.

"The interior of the cottage was not less interesting to contemplate than the landscape which lay before it. The principal breakfast-table (for there were two spread in the room) was placed before the window, the neat and snow-white damask cloth covered with fare that spoke satisfactorily for the circumstances of the proprietor, and for the housewifery of his helpmate. The former, a fair, pleasant-faced old gentleman, in a huge buckled cravat and square-toed shoes, somewhat distrustful of the meagre beverage which fumed out of Mrs. Daly's lofty and shining coffee-pot, had taken his position before a cold ham and fowl which decorated the lower end of the table. His lady, a courteous old personage, with a face no less fair and happy than her husband's, and with eyes sparkling with good nature and intelligence, did the honors of the board at the further end. On the opposite side, leaning over the back of his chair with clasped hands, in an attitude which had a mixture of abstraction and anxiety, sat Mr. Kyrle Daly, the first pledge of connubial affection that was born to this comely pair. He was a young man already initiated in the rudiments of the legal profession; of a handsome figure, and in manner—but something now pressed upon his spirits which rendered this an unfavorable occasion for describing him.

"A second table was laid in a more retired portion of the room, for the accommodation of the younger part of the family. Several well-burnished goblets, or porringers, of thick milk flanked the sides of this board, while a large dish of smooth-coated potatoes reeked up in the centre. A number of blooming boys and girls, between the ages of four and twelve, were seated at this simple repast, eating and drinking away with all the happy eagerness of youthful appetite. Not, however, that this employment occupied their exclusive attention; for the prattle which circulated round the table frequently became so boisterous as to drown the conversation of the older people, and to call forth the angry rebuke of the master of the family.

"The furniture of the apartment was in accordance with the appearance and manners of its inhabitants. The floor was handsomely carpeted, a lofty green fender fortified the fireplace, and supplied Mr. Daly in his facetious moments with occasions for the frequent repetition of a favorite conundrum, 'Why is that fender like Westminster Abbey?'—a problem with which he never failed to try the wit of any stranger who happened to spend a night beneath his roof. The wainscoted walls were ornamented with several of the popular prints of the day, such as Hogarth's Roast Beef, Prince Eugene, Schomberg at the Boyne, Mr. Betterton playing Cato in all the glory of

'Full wig, flowered gown, and lackered chair;'

of the royal Mandane, in the person of Mrs. Mountain, strutting among the arbors of her Persian palace in a lofty tête and hooped petticoat. There were also some family drawings done by Mrs. Daly in her school-days, of which we feel no inclination to say more than that they were prettily framed. In justice to the fair artist, it should also be mentioned that, contrary to the established practice, her sketches were never retouched by the hand of her master, a fact which Mr. Daly was fond of insinuating, and which no one who saw the pictures was tempted to call in question. A small book-case, with the edges of the shelves handsomely gilded, was suspended in one corner of the room, and, on examination, might be found to contain a considerable number of works on Irish history, for which study Mr. Daly had a national predilection, a circumstance much deplored by all the impatient listeners in his neighborhood, and (some people hinted) in his own household; some religious books, and a few volumes on cookery and farming. The space over the lofty chimney-piece was assigned to some ornaments of a more startling description. A gun-rack, on which were suspended a long shore gun, a brass-barreled blunderbuss, a cutlass, and a case of horse-pistols, manifested Mr. Daly's determination to maintain, if necessary, by force of arms, his claim to the fair possessions which his honest industry had acquired.

"'Kyrle,' said Mr. Daly, putting his fork into a breast of cold goose, and looking at his son, 'you had better let me put a little goose (with an emphasis) on your plate. You know you are going a-wooing to-day.'

"The young gentleman appeared not to hear him. Mrs. Daly, who understood more intimately the nature of her son's reflections, deprecated, by a significant look at her husband, the continuance of any raillery upon so delicate a subject.

"'Kyrle, some coffee?' said the lady of the house; but without being more successful in awakening the attention of the young gentleman.

"Mr. Daly winked at his wife.

"'Kyrle!' he called aloud, in a tone against which even a lover's absence was not proof, 'do you hear what your mother says?'

"'I ask pardon, sir—I was absent—I—what were you saying, mother?'

"'She was saying,' continued Mr. Daly, with a smile, 'that you were manufacturing a fine speech for Anna Chute, and that you were just meditating whether you should deliver it on your knees or out of brief, as if you were addressing the bench in the Four Courts.'

"'For shame, my dear! Never mind him, Kyrle; I said no such thing. I wonder how you can say that, my dear, and the children listening.'

"'Pooh! the little angels are too busy and too innocent to pay us any attention,' said Mr. Daly, lowering his voice, however. 'But, speaking seriously, my boy, you take this affair too deeply to heart; and whether it be in our pursuit of wealth, or fame, or even in love itself, an extreme solicitude to be successful is the surest means of defeating its own object. Besides, it argues an unquiet and unresigned condition. I have had a little experience, you know, in affairs of this kind,' he added, smiling and glancing at his fair helpmate, who blushed with the simplicity of a young girl.

"'Ah sir!' said Kyrle, as he drew nearer to the breakfast-table with a magnanimous affectation of cheerfulness, 'I fear I have not so good a ground for hope as you may have had. It is very easy, sir, for one to be resigned to disappointment, when he is certain of success.'

"'Why, I was not bidden to despair indeed,' said Mr. Daly, extending his hand to his wife, while they exchanged a quiet smile, which had in it an expression of tenderness and of melancholy remembrance.

"'I have, I believe, been more fortunate than more deserving persons. I have never been vexed with useless fears in my wooing days, nor with vain regrets when those days were ended. I do not know, my dear lad, what hopes you have formed, or what prospects you may have shaped out of the future; but I will not wish you a better fortune than that you may as nearly approach to their accomplishment as I have done, and that time may deal as fairly with you as he has done with your father.' After saying this, Mr. Daly leaned forward on the table, with his temple supported by one finger, and glanced alternately from his children to his wife while he sang in a low tone the following verse of a popular song:

with a glance at Kyrle—

We cannot close this imperfect sketch of the Collegians without commending the treatment of the humbler personages introduced, equally free as they are from that stilted phraseology and broad caricature which too often disgrace Irish novels and so-called Irish plays. Poor Eily O'Connor, in all her simple innocence and ignorance of the world, is a beautiful creation; and though travestied in three or four different forms on the stage, she still holds a lasting place in our affections. Her meeting with her discarded lover, Myles Murphy the mountaineer, presents us a scene of touching pathos such as only, we imagine, an Irish peasant could express in his native tongue:

"'There is only one person to blame in all this business,' murmured the unhappy girl, 'and that is Eily O'Connor.'

"'I don't say that,' returned the mountaineer. 'It's no admiration to me you should be heart-broken with all the persecution we gave you day afther day. All I'm thinking is, I'm sorry you didn't mention it to myself unknownst. Sure it would be betther for me than to be as I was afther, when I heerd you were gone. Lowry Lovby told me first of it, when I was eastwards. Oh ro! such a life as I led afther. Lonesome as the mountains looked before, when I used to come home thinkin' of you, they looked ten times lonesomer afther I heerd of that story. The ponies, poor crathers—see 'em all, how they're lookin' down at us this moment—they didn't hear me spring the rattle on the mountain for a month afther. I suppose they thought it is in Garryowen I was.'

"Here he looked upward, and pointing to his herd, a great number of which were collected in groups on the broken cliffs above the road, some standing so far forward on the projections of rock as to appear magnified against the dusky sky, Myles sprang the large wooden rattle which he held in his hand, and in an instant all dispersed and disappeared, like the clan of a Highland chief at the sound of their leader's whistle.

"'Well, Myles,' said Eily, at length collecting a little strength, 'I hope we'll see some happy days in Garryowen yet.'

"'Heaven send it! I'll pack off the boy to-night to town, or I'll go myself, if you like, or I'll get you a horse and truckle, and guide it myself for you, or I'll do any thing in the whole world that you'll have me. Look at this. I'd rather be doing your bidding this moment than my own mother's, and heaven forgive me, if that's a sin! Ah Eily! they may say this and that o' you, in the place where you were born; but I'll ever hold to it, I held to it all through, an' I'll hold to it to my death, that when you darken your father's door again, you will send no shame before you.'

"'You are right in that, Myles.'

"'Didn't I know I was? And wasn't it that that broke my heart! If one met me afther you flitted away, an' saw me walking the road with my hands in my pockets and my head down, an' I thinking; an' if he sthruck me on the shoulder, an' "Myles," says he, "don't grieve for her, she's this an' that," and if he proved it to me, why, I'd look up that minute an' I'd smile in his face. I'd be as easy from that hour as if I never crossed your threshold at Garryowen! But knowing in my heart, and as my heart told me, that it never could be that way; that Eily was still the old girl always, an' hearing what they said o' you, an' knowing that it was I that brought it all upon you—O Eily! Eily!—O Eily O'Connor! there is not that man upon Ireland ground that can tell what I felt. That was what kilt me! That was what drove the pain into my heart, and kept me in the doctor's hands till now.'"

Altogether different in design and scope is the Invasion, a historical novel intended to describe the institutions, manners, and ways of life of the ancient Irish, and it is much to be regretted that it is so little read by the descendants of that peculiar people, especially by those who turn aside from the difficulties of nomenclature presented by the actual history of Ireland. With the same motive that actuated Scott to present the otherwise unattractive and obscure facts of the early history of Britain in the fascinating garb of romance, our author, always deeply imbued with love of country and reverence for the past, sought in this book to give a complete picture of the public, social, and religious life of his ancestors as it was known or supposed to exist in the eighth century, before the repeated incursions of the Northmen had desolated their valleys, razed their towns, and pillaged their churches and seats of learning. To most men of a fine imagination and poetic temperament like Griffin, the study of laws long disused and customs forgotten centuries ago, wrapt up as they were in a language almost unintelligible to modern scholars, would have presented insuperable difficulties; but to him it seems to have been a labor of love, and it is a source of lasting regret that his opportunities for research were not in proportion to his diligence. The invaluable records of Irish history and antiquities since brought to light through the labors of O'Curry, Pietrie, O'Donovan, and others, were then slumbering in the mouldy archives of Trinity College, or scattered in inaccessible places over England and the continent; nor are we aware that the author of the Invasion had such thorough knowledge of his native language as would enable him to decipher those ancient manuscripts, even had he the facility for so doing. The barbarous policy of the dominant power, which formerly not only sought to destroy the language of the conquered people by prohibiting its being taught in colleges, but made it penal to allow it to be spoken in the humbler country schools, was equally interested in keeping from the world at large the Irish people's records and book of laws, the evidences of their former glory and greatness and the muniments of their nationality; and even in this advanced age we owe mainly to local enterprise and private generosity whatever contributions to ancient Irish history we have been favored with for the last twenty years. The government of England is willing to spend annually tens of thousands of pounds sterling to facilitate the discovery of the sources of the Nile or to encourage the translation of the high-flown vagaries of East Indian poets; font it cannot afford, it appears, a miserable allowance to rescue from obscurity the annals of one of the most ancient and civilized nations of Europe; a nation, too, that has the misfortune to be called an integral portion of the British empire.

This necessarily limited knowledge of the epoch which he proposed to illustrate, while it in some degree unfortunately lessens the authority of the novel in an antiquarian point of view, does not impair its harmony of design, or weaken the moral and intellectual beauty of its entire composition; and even its technical defects are, to a great extent, corrected in the edition before us, by the insertion, in the form of an appendix, of the very valuable critical notes of the late Professor O'Curry. The principal figure in the book is O'Headha, (O'Hea,) a young chieftain born on the day of his father's death in battle. It describes the ceremonies of the marriage of his parents and of his own baptism, as introductory to his career. His education is supposed to be conducted at Mungharid (Mungret) Abbey, then famous for the number and rank of its scholars; and this gives the author an opportunity of describing the monastery, a description which may be taken as applying equally to the many similar institutions of piety and learning which at that time, and for centuries before, dotted the then happy island:

"Unlike many of the religious foundations of that period, which were constructed, after the national manner, of wood, the college of Muinghairid was a damhliag, or stone building, and its grouted fragments, diffused at this day over an extensive tract of ground, demonstrate the masonic skill of its founders. The religious, who were of the order of St. Mainchin, the founder of the abbey, and of prodigious number, had, as is usual in such establishments, their various duties appointed to them. Some devoted themselves wholly to a life of contemplation and of manual labor. Others employed themselves in the care of the sick, the entertaining of strangers, the giving of alms, and the instruction of the numerous youth who flocked hitherward in great numbers from different parts of the island, from the shore of Inismore, and even from those of some continental nations. Those who were skilled in psalmody succeeded each other in the choir, night and day, which for many a century sent forth its never-ceasing harmony of praise; while far the greater number were employed in cultivating with their own hands the extensive tracts of ground which lay around the convent and the neighboring city. Morn after morn, regular as the dawn itself, the tolling of the convent-bell, over the spreading woods which then enriched the neighborhood, awoke the tenants of the termon-lands, warning them that its cloistered inhabitants had commenced their daily rule, and reminding them also of that eternal destiny which was seldom absent from the minds of the former. The religious, answering to the summons, resumed their customary round of duties. Some aided the almoner in receiving the applications of the poor and attending to their wants. Some assisted the chamberlain in refitting the deserted dormitory. Some were appointed to help the infirmarian in the hospital. Some aided the pittancer and cellarer in preparing the daily refection, as well for the numerous members of the confraternity as for the visitors, for whose accommodation a separate refectory was furnished; and after the solemn rite of the morning, at which all assisted, had been concluded, the great body of the monks departed to their daily labor on the adjoining tillage and pasturage lands.

"Sometimes at this early hour the more infirm and aged, as well as the more pious of the neighboring peasantry, were seen thridding their way along the woodland paths to mingle in the morning devotions of the religious. The peasant as he trotted on by his car, laden with the produce of the season, paused for an instant to hear the matin hymn, and added a prayer that heaven might sanctify his toil. The fisherman, whose curach glided rapidly along the broad surface of the river, rested on his oars at the same solemn strain, and resumed his labor with a more measured stroke and less eager spirit. The son of war and rapine, who galloped by the place, returning with sated passions from some nocturnal havoc, reined up his hobbie at the peaceful sounds, and yielded his mind unconsciously to an interval of mercy and remorse. The oppressive chieftain and his noisy retinue, not yet recovered the dissipation of some country coshering, hushed for a time their unseemly mirth as they passed the holy dwelling and yielded in reverence the debt which they could not pay in sympathy. To many an ear the sounds of the orison arrived, and to none without a wholesome and awakening influence."

Arrived at manhood, the future chieftain is duly installed in office according to the prevailing customs of the sept, and henceforth we find him performing all the duties appertaining to his high position, including his attendance at the triennial assembly of Tara, à propos to which we have an elaborate and highly interesting account of that historical gathering of all the estates of the kingdoms into which the island was then divided. A romantic adventure, ending in a love scene, of course, brings him among the Hooded people, the last remnant of those who, rejecting the teachings of St. Patrick and his disciples, continued to practise the Druidical rites in seclusion; and, as a consequence, we find a detailed description of the objects and forms of that extinct species of idolatry. The invasion itself, the first descent of the Northmen on the coast, successfully repulsed by O'Hea's forces, naturally leads to a disquisition on the gloomy superstition and uncouth manners of those terrible barbarians. Thus we find grouped together, gracefully and artistically, the leading historical features of the period, the old superstitions and the beneficent fruits of the new faith, the faults and follies, virtues and graces of the christianized Celts, contrasted with the physical prowess and ferocious temperament of the hordes who were so soon to deluge with blood, not only Erin, but the adjacent isles and the greater part of the coasts of Europe. Strange to say, the Invasion is the only Irish historical novel ever written, and, as Augustin Thierry was induced to write his celebrated history of the Norman Conquest of England by reading Scott's Ivanhoe, may we not hope that some present or future writer may be inspired by the Invasion to give us a detailed and intelligible account of the Danish wars in Ireland?

The Duke of Monmouth is also a historical novel, but more modern in its character and incidents. It is intended to describe the condition of the people of the rural districts in the west of England about the close of the seventeenth century; and the principal events upon which the story depends are the invasion of England by the ill-starred Duke of Monmouth, the illegitimate son of Charles II., during the reign of the latter's successor, the fatal battle of Sedgemoor, and the execution of the adventurer and his principal followers. The style is faultless, the prominent actors mostly taken from real life, though few are truthfully drawn. Still, we cannot but regret for the sake of poetical justice that Griffin chose this subject for a novel, from the fact that the truth of history compelled him to let the notorious Kirke, who figures so largely in his pages, go unwhipped of justice. The portrait of this infamous soldier, whose vices were proverbial, is thus briefly sketched:

"He beheld before him a man somewhat over the middle size, and rather spare than otherwise; his features not ill-looking, but marked by that expression of malign placidity which is no less characteristic of the genuine tyrant than all the ogre-like contortions and grimaces vulgarly associated with the idea of habitual cruelty. There was something like a smile upon his lips; but it was a smile that spoke not of benevolence of the heart, and held out no light of promise to the hope of the supplicant. His very courtesy, all easy as it was, seemed the refined dissimulation of a callous nature. There was a kind of sternness in his very courtliness of manner, a severity even in the smoothness and gentleness of his demeanor and discourse, that was more withering than the open violence of the unmasked and ruffian oppressor. At times, too, it was said he could be all the savage; but it was only when the security of his position afforded a free scope to license. His hair was already tinged with gray, though in so slight a degree as to be scarcely perceptible. His complexion had much of the sallowness, but little of the languor, usually acquired by long residence in tropical countries; and, as he stood glancing rapidly over the paper which he held in his hand, it might be judged from the keenness and concentration of his look that his mind, in like manner, had lost nothing of its activity beneath the enervating influence of an African sun."

Notwithstanding the fault referred to, the book is one that merits attention both as being the production of the author's more mature years and as furnishing us an insight into the modes of life, manner of living, and unreasonable preconceptions of politics and religion of the humbler classes of England at the period immediately preceding the downfall of the house of Stuart. The so-called reformation in that country, while it deprived the peasantry of all the attractions and consolations of true religion, as well as of the innocent sports and pastimes so much encouraged by the church, left nothing in their stead to lighten the heavy burden of labor save the sensual attractions of the ale-house, or the more invigorating, if more hazardous, luxury of rebellion. Deprived of the refuge always afforded by the eleemosynary institutions of the monks to the deserving needy and afflicted, the wants of the widow and the orphan were neglected, the poor became poorer and more discontented, and the nobles more haughty and overbearing. The reformers succeeded in unsettling the religious faith of the masses, as the wars of the Commonwealth destroyed their ideas of authority and obedience. Hence followed in rapid rotation the restoration of Charles II., the dethronement of James, the Scotch rebellions of 1715 and 1745, and many if not all the evils which have afflicted the people of Great Britain up to the present time—evils which have become so glaring that a thousand acts of parliament cannot hide them, and distress, ignorance, and its attendant vices, so gross and general as to be beyond the cure of the poor-house and the penitentiary. Considered in the aggregate, England is one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Individually, her people are the poorest in Christendom; for she contains within her boundaries a larger percentage of paupers and those who live by crime of various degrees than any civilized country on the face of the globe.

It was while in this transition state, from "merrie" England in Catholic times to her present anomalous condition, that the Duke of Monmouth, relying on the ignorance and anti-Catholic prejudices of the rustic population, resolved to dispute the possession of the throne with James II., whose only fault, in the eyes of his enemies at that time, was his desire to concede some degree of toleration to his dissenting and Catholic subjects. Monmouth's miserable failure is a matter of history; but in this book we have likewise a glimpse of the feeling of the people who followed his standard, and which afterward led to the elevation of William of Orange, and of the sentiments which actuated the British portion of that prince's army in his subsequent wars in the sister island. The author also gives a very just idea of Monmouth and his subordinate rebels. The duke himself is represented as possessing all those exterior graces which are said to have distinguished the Stuarts, with more than all their vices and instability of character—false to his friends, cringing to his enemies, superstitious without faith, and ambitious without the courage or capacity to command success. Fletcher, his chief counsellor and best officer, is a keen, hard-headed, but passionate Covenanter, a theoretical republican of the Roundhead school engrafted on the antique; Lord Grey and Ferguson are simply respectable adventurers, equally destitute of honesty or brains, and worthy instruments in so desperate an enterprise. In comparison with those men, the devotion of young Fullarton to a hopeless cause becomes less blamable; and even the ultra loyalty of the old cavalier, Captain Kingsly, is respectable.

In addition to what we have before remarked of the design of this work, there is a feature in its composition which by some readers may be considered a grave defect. The interest which surrounds the heroine, Aquila Fullarton, from the very beginning of the tale deepens by degrees until it becomes painfully intense, and the scene between her and Kirke, wherein that monster perpetrates one of the greatest crimes known to humanity, and she in consequence loses her reason, though founded on well-authenticated facts, and described with all the delicacy of diction possible, is almost too horrible to receive mention. The necessarily gloomy pages of the story are occasionally enlivened by the introduction of two Irish characters—brothers—Morty and Shamus Delaney, who, like so many of their countrymen, then and since, have left home to seek their fortunes, and find themselves in Taunton on the eve of the stirring events related in the novel. Morty, being of a practical turn of mind, forthwith enlists in "Kirke's Lambs;" but Shamus, whose tastes are also pugnacious, but whose ambition is to wear epaulettes, takes service on the other side, and raises a company of ragamuffins not unlike that which shamed the redoubtable Falstaff at Coventry. There are many exquisite bits of humor scattered through Griffin's works, which might be quoted as evincing his keen appreciation of the ludicrous; but we prefer to extract the following address of Captain Delaney to his command, for the benefit of our military readers who have neglected studying the articles of war. Shamus loquitur:

"'Well, I see ye're all here, exceptin' those that's absent. Well, then, fall in, fall in, an' much good may it do ye! An' now attind to my ordhers, an' mind 'em well. Every man is to fight, an' nobody is to run; that's plain enough. Secondly, any man that wants arms, is to fight hard for 'em first, an' to fight with 'em at his aise afther. Thirdly, any booty whatsomever that any o' ye may take in the war, such as goold rings, watches, sails, valuable clothing, an' the likes—but above all things, money—ye're to bring it all to me. Do you hear me?'

"'Ay, ay, ay!'

"'Very well. Because I'm captain, ye know, an' best judge how it ought to be divided. For it is one o' the maxims of war, that it's the part o' the common sodgers for to fight, an' for the ladin' officers for to have all the call to the booty an' the likes, how 'tis to be shared, an' what's to be done with it. Do ye hear?'

"'Ay, ay!'

"'An' if there's any thing that's very dangerous—certain death, for instance—as a place where one would be blown up, an' the likes, it's the custom o' war for the common sodgers to have it all to themselves, an' for the officer to give 'em ordhers for to face it, but to stay behind himself, bein' more valuable. Do ye hear?'

"'Ay, ay!'

"'An' if there be a scarcity o' food or clothin', or beddin', an' the likes, or a dale to do, sech as diggin' threnches an' the likes o' that, then it's the custom o' war for the officer to have the first o' the victuals an' things that way; but the sodgers is to have the first o' the labor always. Do ye understand?'

"'Ay, ay!'

"'Very well, why. Now, mind the word! Shoulder your picks! Quick, march!'"

Of Griffin's minor works, included under the titles of Tales of the Munster Festivals and Tales of my Neighborhood, the Rivals, Barber of Bantry, and Shuil Dhuv are decidedly the most entertaining. The latter particularly, though irregular in composition, is a story evincing great dramatic power and knowledge of the human heart. The dark-eyed hero, if such he may be called, who gives the title to the tale, stands out before us in all the enormity of his guilt as distinctly as if he had been an actual acquaintance, and we venture to say that there are few who have read the book but have experienced that feeling. In this story, also, Griffin departs from his usual custom of avoiding personal description of his female characters, and gives us an elaborate picture of his heroine, which, whether it be drawn from life or the creation of his own imagination, calls up before us an image of surpassing loveliness.

Griffin's other tales, such as the Half-Sir, Card-Drawing, and Tracey's Ambition, have all much merit, and, though not so prolonged as those we have mentioned, exhibit in a greater or lesser degree the skilful hand and rich imagination of the author. The Christian Physiologist, comprising a series of beautiful tales intended to illustrate the use and abuse of the senses, is worthy a place near the writings of that friend of childhood, Canon Schmidt.

As a poet, Griffin is remarkable for the beauty of his delineations of natural scenery, his elevation of sentiment and purity of conception. His lyrics remind us of Moore, and are scarcely inferior to some of the best of that immortal bard's in feeling and choiceness of metaphor; but being somewhat deficient in rhythm, they have never found much favor in the drawing or concert-room, "A Place in thy Memory, Dearest," "My Mary of the Curling Hair," and one or two others excepted. Many of his poems were from time to time contributed to the London journals, while he was yet a literary drudge in that city; others are to be found interspersed in his novels, and not a few were written to gratify his friends, and were first given to the public when his entire poetical works, as far as it was possible, were collected together in book-form, and now fill a large volume, not the least important of the present edition. We are not aware that he ever attempted an epic or any thing more extended than the beautiful ballad of Matt Hyland, of the merits of which we can only judge by the fragment which has been preserved, the original having been destroyed by the author immediately previous to his joining the order of Christian Brothers; nor do we think his ambition ever soared to higher flights than songs and short descriptive poems. The most meritorious of these, or, at least, the one which has obtained the greatest popularity, is the Sister of Charity, written on the occasion of a dear friend becoming a religious; and, though several gifted pens have been employed on the same subject, we know of none who has embodied so true an appreciation of the self-denial and entire devotion which mark that order—the boast and glory of all womanhood. Several of his best pieces, indeed, are written in the same devotional spirit, particularly the following verses, in illustration of a seal, representing a mariner on a tempestuous ocean who, reclining in his bark, fixes his eye on a distant star, with the motto—

"SI JE TE PERDS, JE SUIS PERDU.

(IF I LOSE THEE, I'M LOST.)

Of his dramas but one remains to us, Gisippus, and enough dramatic ability is displayed in that to make us regret that Griffin abandoned writing for the stage so early in life. We are inclined to imagine that a young man, scarcely twenty years of age, who was capable of managing so successfully a subject that required the highest powers of Boccaccio, could in his maturer years have effected even greater things. However, we must console ourselves with the reflection that what has been lost to the drama, we have gained in the excellent works before us; and as the drama is necessarily limited to the few, the world is also the gainer by the change.