An account of the Emmet rising related with scrupulous fidelity to fact and in minute detail. The Author introduces no reflections of his own, leaving the facts to speak. His narrative is graphic and vivid, the style of high literary value. The minor actors in the drama—Quigley, Russell, Hamilton, Dwyer—are carefully drawn. Though he gives a prominent place in the story to Emmet’s romantic love for Sarah Curran, Mr. Gwynn has sought rather to draw a vivid picture of the event by which the young patriot is known to history than to reconstruct his personality.
HALL, E.
⸺ THE BARRYS OF BEIGH. Pp. 394. (M’Glashan & Gill). [1875.]
Scene: banks of Shannon twenty miles below Limerick. Story opens about 1775.
HALL, Mrs. S. C. Born in Dublin, 1800. Brought by her mother (who was of French Huguenot descent) to Wexford in 1806. Here she lived, mixing a good deal with the peasantry, until the age of fifteen, when she was taken away to London, and did not again return to Wexford. Wrote nine novels, and many short stories and sketches. Besides the works noticed here, she and her husband produced between them a very large number of volumes. See his Reminiscences of a Long Life. Two vols. London. 1883. A reviewer in Blackwood’s describes her work as “bright with an animated and warm nationality, apologetic and defensive.” She died in 1881.
⸺ SKETCHES OF IRISH CHARACTER. Pp. 443. (Chatto & Windus). 7s. 6d. With Sixty-one Illustrations by Maclise, Gilbert, Harvey, George Cruikshank, &c. [1829]. 1854 (5th), 1892, &c., &c.
Mrs. Hall intends in these sketches to do for her village of Bannow, in Wexford, what Miss Mitford did for her English village. This district, she says, “possesses to a very remarkable extent all the moral, social, and natural advantages, which are to be found throughout the country.” The author proclaims (cf. Introduction) her intention “so to picture the Irish character as to make it more justly appreciated ... and more respected in England.” She applies to the peasantry the saying “their virtues are their own; but their vices have been forced upon them.” Again she says, “the characters here are all portraits.” Yet it must be confessed that the standpoint is, after all, alien, and something strangely like the traditional stage Irishman appears occasionally in these pages. There is, however, not a shadow of religious bias. The “Rambling Introduction” makes very pleasant reading.
⸺ LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF IRISH LIFE. Three vols. (long). (Colburn). 1838.
In five parts:—1. “The Groves of Blarney” (whole of Vol. I.). 2. “Sketches on Irish Highways during the Autumn of 1834” (whole of Vol. II.). 3. “Illustrations of Irish Pride” (two stories). 4. “The Dispensation.” 5. “Old Granny.” No. 1 “derives its title from an occurrence ... in ... Blarney ... about the year 1812.”—(Pref.). It is a thoroughly good story, telling how Connor in order to win the fair widow Margaret, his early love, takes an oath against drinking, flirting, and faction-fighting for a year, and how a vengeful old tramp woman makes him break it on the very last day. Amusingly satirical portrait of the little Cockney, Peter Swan. Author’s sympathies thoroughly Irish. Contents of Vol. II.:—“The Jaunting Car,” “Beggars,” “Naturals,” “Servants,” “Ruins” [or stories told a propos of them], &c. The dialect is very well done, full of humour and flavour. Characters all drawn from peasant class.