Irish Books and Irish People | Page 7

from their own experience. What one may call the melodramatic Irish story, in which Lever was so brilliantly successful, has its first famous example in The Collegians of Gerald Griffin. The novel has no concern with college life, and is far better described by its stage-title, The Colleen Bawn. Here at least is a man with a story to tell and no object but to tell it. Griffin belonged to the lay order of Christian Brothers: his book deals principally with a society no more familiar to him than was the household of Mr. Rochester to Charlotte Bront?; and his method recalls the Bront?s by its strenuous imagination and its vehement painting of passion. The tale was suggested by a murder which excited all Ireland. A young southern squire carried off a girl with 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, but he lays himself out to amuse you, and he does it. If he advertises a character as a wit, he does not labour phrases to describe his brilliancy; he produces the witticisms. He has been accused of exaggeration. As regards the incidents, one can only say that the memoirs of Irish society at the beginning of this century furnish at least fair warranty for any of his inventions. In character-drawing he certainly overcharged the traits: but he did so with intention, and by consistently heightening the tones throughout obtained an artistic impression, which had life behind it, however ingeniously travestied. His stories have no unity of action, but through a great diversity of characters and incidents they maintain their unity of treatment. That is not the highest ideal of the novel, but it is an intelligible one, not lacking famous examples; and Lever perfectly understood it.
If one wishes to realise how good an artist Lever was, the best way is to read his contemporary Samuel Lover. Handy Andy appeared somewhat later than Harry Lorrequer. It is just the difference between good whiskey and bad whiskey; both are indigenous and therefore characteristic, but let us be judged by our best. Obviously the men have certain things in common; great natural vivacity, and an easy cheerful way of looking at life. Lover can raise a laugh, but his wit is horseplay except for a few happy phrases. He has no real comedy; there is nothing in Handy Andy half so ingenious as the story