some money, and procured her death by drowning. He was arrested at
his mother's house and a terrible scene took place, terribly rendered in
the book. Griffin, of course, changes the motive; the girl is carried
off not for money but for love, and she is sacrificed to make way for a
stronger passion. Eily O'Connor, the victim, is a pretty and pathetic
figure; the hero-villain Hardress Cregan, and the mother who indirectly
causes the crime, are effective though melodramatic; but the actual
murderer, Danny the Lord, Hardress Cregan's familiar, is worthy of Scott
or Hugo.

In his sketches of society, Hyland Creagh, the duellist, old Cregan, and
the rest, Griffin is describing a state of affairs previous to his own
experience, the Ireland of Sir Jonah Barrington's memoirs; he is not, as
were Carleton and Miss Edgeworth, copying minutely from personal
observation. Herein he resembles Lever who, when all is said and done,
remains the chief, as he is the most Irish, of Irish novelists. It is
true that Lever had two distinct manners: and in his later books he
deals chiefly with contemporary society, drawing largely on his
experiences of diplomatic life. Like most novelists he preferred his
later work; but the books by which he is best known, _Harry Lorrequer_
and the rest, are his earliest productions; and though his maturer skill
was employed on different subjects, he formed his imagination in studies
of the Napoleonic Wars and of a duelling, drinking, bailiff-beating
Ireland. His point of view never altered, and the peculiar attraction of
his writings is always the same. Lever's books have the quality rather
of speech than of writing; wherever you open the pages there is always a
witty, well-informed Irishman discoursing to you, who tells his story
admirably, when he has one to tell, and, failing that, never fails to be
pleasant. Irish talk is apt to be discursive; to rely upon a general
charm diffused through the whole, rather than upon any quotable
brilliancy; its very essence is spontaneity, high spirits, fertility of
resource. That is a fair description of Lever. He is never at a loss. If
his story hangs, off he goes at score with a perfectly irrelevant
anecdote, but told with such enjoyment of the joke that you cannot
resent the digression. Indeed the plots are left pretty much to take
care of themselves; he positively preferred to write his stories in
monthly instalments for a magazine; he is not a conscientious artist,