Scene: chiefly Connemara; the novel opening with a fine picture of the old-time splendours of Ballynahinch Castle, the seat of the “Martins.” For awhile the scene shifts to Paris during the Revolution of 1830. The story illustrates the practical working of the Emancipation Act. Martin is a type of the ease-loving Irish landlord, “shirking the cares of his estates, with an immense self-esteem, narrow, obstinate, weak, without ideas, and with a boundless faith in his own dignity, elegance, and divine right to rule his tenants” (Krans). Rejected by his tenantry at an election he quits the country in disgust, leaving them to the mercies of a Scotch agent. Lever pictures vividly the sufferings of the people both from this evil and from the cholera, drawing for the latter upon his own experiences when ministering to cholera patients in Clare. He says of the people that “no words of his could do justice to the splendid heroism they showed each other in misfortune.” Mary Martin is one of Lever’s most admirable heroines. There is a fine study, also, of a young man of the people, son of a small shopkeeper in Oughterard, who, by his sterling worth, raises himself to the highest positions.
⸺ THE KNIGHT OF GWYNNE. (Philadelphia: Peterson). 1847.
A close study, based on considerable knowledge, of the ways and means adopted by the English Government to destroy the Irish Parliament. Castlereagh figures in no flattering fashion. Con Heffernan is a type of his unscrupulous tools. The Knight himself is an engaging portrait of a lovable old Irish gentleman, frank, high-spirited, courteous, chivalrous. At first placed in ideal circumstances for the display of all his best qualities, he shows himself no less noble in meeting adversity. Other notable characters are Bagenal Daly (a portrait of Beauchamp Bagenal), the villainous attorney Hickman, and Mr. Dempsey, the story-telling innkeeper. In describing the coasts of Antrim and Derry and the country about Castlebar and Westport, Lever draws upon his own experiences.
⸺ ROLAND CASHEL. Pp. 612. [1850]. (N.Y.: Harper). 1849.
Opens with wonderfully vivid and picturesque description of life in the Republic of Columbia. A harum-scarum young Irish soldier of fortune almost promises marriage to the daughter of a Columbian adventurer. Then he learns he is heir to a large property in Ireland, and he immediately returns there. In Dublin the daughters of his lawyer, Mr. Kennyfeck, and others try to capture the young heir, but instead he falls in love with a penniless girl. Then there are exciting and romantic adventures. The villain, Tom Linton, with the intention of ruining Roland, introduces him to fast society, nearly implicates him with the young wife of Lord Kilgoff; the Columbian adventurer turns up to claim him; he is charged with murder; but eventually all is well. Lady Kilgoff is an admirably drawn character, as also is the Dean of Drumcondra, a portrait of Archbishop Whately. In the last chapter there is a passage which seems to show how Lever realized that the anglicized society of the Pale is far from being the true Ireland. Incidentally, too, the evils of landlordism are touched upon.
⸺ THE DALTONS; or, Three Roads in Life. Pp. 700. (N.Y.: Pratt). 1.50. [1852].
The longest and most elaborate of Lever’s novels. Subject: the careers of Peter Dalton, an absentee Irish landlord—needy, feckless, selfish, Micawberish—and his children, on the Continent in Germany, Austria, and Italy. Some of the leading characters are involved in the Austro-Italian campaign of 1848, and in the Tuscan Revolution. There is a study—a flattering one—to Austrian military life, and lively, amusing pictures of Anglo-Italian life in Florence. A noteworthy character is the Irish Abbé d’Esmonde, who towards the close of the book takes part in some dramatic incidents during a visit to Ireland, undertaken in the cause of the Church. There is in the book a good deal about “priest-craft.”
⸺ MAURICE TIERNAY. (N.Y.: Harper). 1.00. [1852].
Adventures of a young Jacobite exile in many lands, 1793-1809. Opens with vivid description of “The Terror.” Later Maurice joins the Army of the Rhine, and then Humbert’s expedition to Ireland. The latter is fully related, and also the capture and death of Wolfe Tone. After some adventures in America, the hero returns to Europe, and is in Genoa during its siege by the Austrians. Taken prisoner by the latter, he escapes and joins Napoleon, of whose Austrian campaign a brilliant description is given. Napoleon and some of his great marshals loom large in the story, and the military life of the period on the Continent is described. But perhaps the best part of the book is the account of Humbert’s invasion of Ireland.
⸺ CON CREGAN. Pp. 496. (Philadelphia: Peterson). [1854].