Mr. Orosland is toning down a little. Ho still soos clearly and writes vigorously of-what he sees; but it is not necessary for him to beat the big drum so loudly, now that audiences have learnt to come to his show as soon as he sets it up in the market-place. When he wrote " The Unspeakable Scot," he showed such an intimate and peculiar knowledge of Caledonia, stern and wild, that many people concluded that he was a Scotsman; but ho explains in his preface: "I wish to add that I am neither a Roman Uatholic nor an Orangeman, but a Yorkshireman. Therefore 1 shall not forego my right to say what I believe to be true." The result is a very fairly written book, Hoe says; "I have called this book The Wild Irishman ' in a spirit of conciliation. As a fact there are no wild Irishmen left in Ireland. But to have suggested thus much on one's title-page would, I am sure, have meant offence to the Irish, bitter disappointment to the English, and honour and glory to my ancient enemies the Scotch." Observe the subtloty of this; how by a side wind he confers honour and glory on the race h really loves while protending that they are his enemies.
We have said that this is a very fairly written book. The following extract from the first chapter will help to prove this: " Wo are beginning to perceive that out of the quarrels and bloodshed of the past hundred years, Ireland has emerged triumphant, "It has been a case of a bankrupt, downtrodden, and dwiudlin, Tominant people, and the weaker side copie's fight against a rich and poworf
has proved that in the long run God is on the side of justice.' To all intents and purposes Ireland is at the present mo-mont in full. possession of al herself has felt it Yet while the Irish question has almost entirely disappeared, thanks in a large measure to the love of truth and justice of a Briton, Mr, Gladstone, Ireland is are born to misfortune, whose lives are touched with melancholy from beginning to end, and who cannot be brought to rejoice even by Act of Parliament. Treland's woo may be said to be largely temperamental and still more largely misfortunate.' Her very position in the geographical scheme of things is strikingly Ionesome and unhappy. Practically she is the last outpost of Europe, and a little one at that. With sheer Atlantic on one side of hor, and sixty miles of sea between herself and England, it is impossible for her to get rid of a certain feeling of isolation which is not good for the spirits, 'The soft rain that is always over her may heighten the green of her meadows, but it keeps her damp and watery, and preternaturally boggy. She has no harbours of the: kind that are essential to fishermen, and though' some of her ports may be admirable, there is Jittle in the country that calls for th use of them, capped, Ireland-hes necessarily produced 8 people who are in all respects a people to themselves. The religious faculty in them has been highly developed, the commercial faculty might seem to have been left out of their composition. By nature they are a simple, cheerful, unambitious, warm-hearted race, and they have suffered accordingly. Sir Francis Drake, or some instrument of his, planted the potato upon'them. James I planted the Scotch on them. George III gave them a Lord Lieutenant and a Secretary. The potato, the Scotch, and Dublin Castle have been the three bitter cures which have brought this people to the ghastliest social and political passes. All three are ineradicable, but they may be mitigated. This is what Ireland wants."
Mr. Crosland uses violent langu, order to arrest attention, but that language are keen observation clear reasoning. This notice may s as an introduction to "The Wild Irishman our readers will thank us for it if to improve their acquaint.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.