cut off all his tail-feathers, but which the urchin could not rob of the majesty of his severe eye.

Might not one say that Mr. Gladstone has the usual mind raised to the nth power?

And

what better mental constitution could a man of affairs have than that? To have the ability to get all the knowledge that is necessary, and then the mental power to judge and use that knowledge, what more is wanted? What necessity is there for that peculiarity of mind which accompanies genius, or, at any rate, literary genius? It is, no doubt, true that, as a rule, men of Mr. Gladstone's great powers have this quality. But I cannot see that Mr. Gladstone has it.

I

HAVE with me some Irish books, or books relating to Ireland. One of them is Carleton's "Traits of the Irish Peasantry." The pathos of these stories is of the profoundest character. The humor is perhaps not equal to the pathos, but is still fine. The basis upon which these powers are exerted is a knowledge, varied and singularly exact - SO far as I am able to judge-of the details of Irish life. I have never read a more tragic and affecting story than "The Geography of an Irish Oath." I know nothing of the author, except what one may fancy from a rugged and friendly face which appears in the frontispiece, above one of those prodigious

stocks which were worn fifty

years ago.

I am also reading Froude's "English in Ireland." This was written some years ago, and is in that tone universal in England before the creation of the present Irish parliamentary party – that of the wolf up stream to the lamb down stream. "The cockroach is always wrong when it argues with a chicken," says the Haytian proverb, and this book is in the manner of the chicken. Mr. Froude is a brilliant writer, and has literary gifts much superior to those of certain English historical writers who are very hard upon him. It is his misfortune, however, that he unites with his power of color and fine talents for description and narration an unsound and flighty judgment. He is full of attitudes, and is always making faces at the reader. He indulges himself in these with a

simplicity which is almost infantile; his expressions, not only in this but in other works, being mostly of a ferocious character. He is such a Draco. He revels to such a degree in accounts of floggings, massacres, and executions; one peculiarity of his being to mention a succession of blood-curdling incidents with a naked literalness which causes the reader to infer that to a person of his sanguinary disposition these are trifles not worth a second thought. I fancy that these faults are less harmful than they might otherwise be because they are so very obvious. The plainest reader can see that the author has not a good judgment, is not possessed of an adequate steering apparatus. So he decides that he will enjoy the limber and lucid style and the brilliant gifts of color and narration, and will some day look up the facts and form his own

interpretation of them, which very likely he forgets to do. Froude is one of the most eminent of the fast narrowing circle of true literary men. Mr. Bret Harte is another. Is there, indeed, in the English-speaking world a writer now left who has, or has had, so distinct a literary genius as Mr. Harte ?

race.

The English have always believed and taught that the Irish are a reckless and ne'er-do-well But the facts of the career of this people in the United States have shown that their failure to get on in Ireland was due to their situation and not to their inherent qualities. The Irish have held their own in New England, where the Jew has never been able to get a foothold. Their inherited landhunger has made them in the American cities large holders of real estate. They have taken