in which he bore a part, and destruction was at his fingers' ends.' Thus his creator describes him, and plunges him at once into a series of appalling disasters. He enjoys the same career as the old man in the pantomime: he is fair game for everybody's stick, and whatever happens he gets thoroughly beaten. But here, again, the romantic method has an advantage, and you are saved from a too poignant sympathy by the conviction that the bruises which should have been given are as unreal as the cudgel which should have given them. To pretend that Andy's misadventures are uniformly amusing would be extravagant; but not a few are cunningly invented, and they seem to have been received by the victims with the utmost good nature. It was an age of practical jokes, so that a master could scarce do more than laugh when his servant bidden to ice the champagne emptied the whole half-dozen into a pail. Also, when Andy, at a first experience of soda-water, put out two candles, struck the Squire in the eye, and drenched the Squire's lady, you feel that he was living up to the high spirits of his master, Dick the Devil. Commonly his exploits are without result; but when he drove a cork into the trumpet, on the pretence of bottling the music, he saved the election from many discordant sounds, and succeeded in irritating the enraged Squire O'Grady to a blind fury. His later career was not entirely reputable: it is a sad falling-off for a youthful pantaloon to sacrifice himself for his cousin's honour, and not even Lover's extravagance should have detected in his amiable fool the son and heir of the long-lost Lord Scatterbrain. But Handy Andy is an incident of the book, whose irresponsible action is but slightly interrupted by the rascal's follies. There are two squires, well drawn and admirably contrasted. Squire Egan is a scholar and a gentleman and a Protestant, to boot, who well deserved to represent his country in Parliament, while O'Grady is the most appalling fire-eater of fiction. He makes no appearance without yelling and screaming; the most infamous blasphemies are ever on his tongue, and his hatred of the human race is untempered either by fear or pity. When he loses a letter through Andy's folly, he launches forth upon a magnificent tirade: 'I wish all the post-offices in the world were blown up; and all the postmasters hanged, postmaster-general and all-I do-by the 'ternal war-and all the mail-coaches in the world ground to powder, and the roads they go on, into the bargain-devil a use in them but to carry bad news over the universe. Blow the post-office, say I,-blow it, and sink it!' Thus roars O'Grady, at every entrance, until an ill-tended wound makes an end of him. The sketch of Neck-or-Nothing Hall and its inmates is Lover's masterpiece. It is evident that he drew it with his eye upon the object, and, while the more respectable of his creations are sad shadows, O'Grady and his family live and storm and wrangle. The Justice of the Peace, himself, who maintains a plucky siege against his creditors, and flagrantly bullies the neighbourhood, is a most spirited portrait. His insolence is as remarkable as his bravery, and he dies because he neglects a wound received in a desperate encounter with the virtuous prig. The wild squalor of his house, the reckless courage of his sons, the stupidity of his daughter, are admirably realised. But best of all is the portrait of O'Grady's mother, an old dowager, who once had been a belle in the Irish court, who rouged her cheeks, painted her eyebrows, and wore an ancient tin cowl upon her head. She lives entirely in the past, murmurs of Mrs. Jordan and dead tenors, plays an English guitar, and takes counsel with a cuckoo-clock. The picture is excellently imagined; and the old lady's appearance in Dublin, with a brace of duelling pistols and the cuckoo to see fair play was assuredly seized from life. But it is not only Handy Andy who is always in the mêlée. The other characters put the most monstrous jokes upon one another. They resemble rather large schoolboys than grown men, and even their duels, in spite of their danger, are opportunities for a humorous display. Sometimes the battles are between friends and without reason, as when Dick Dawson meets Murtough Murphy; at other times a real offence justifies the encounter, as when Ned O'Connor pinks Squire O'Grady. But in any case the world is there to see the fun, and to treat the duel in the best style of Irish levity. Thus, also, is the election conducted, and a large part of the book is devoted to the humours of the combat. When Squire Egan is returned by a comfortable majority, the Sheriff has the last word and returns the Hon. Mr. Scatterbrain. But even the virtuous Egan is not superior to the tricks of the time, and his supporters intercept a coach-load of voters, steal their boots, drench their small-clothes, and leave them helpless many a mile from the polling-booth. The serious blot upon the work is the serious hero, Edward O'Connor. He is a sort of Mr. Barlow, caught young, and he should have worn side-whiskers and check trousers. His accomplishments were many and various. He could fight, or sing, or moralise, or weep, or make love, as often as he was called upon. But he was as incapable of dishonour as of unkindliness. He is described as a poet-singer, whose mellow tones vibrated with feeling, and whose dark, earnest eyes beamed with devotion. Assuredly he had a talent for the making of preposterous verses, and on the smallest excuse or none he would break forth into song and oblige the company with a trifle of his own composition. In the presence of the ineffable Fanny he would content himself with making sheep's eyes; but if unhappily she were absent he would lean distracted over the piano, push back the black curls which lay scattered upon his lofty brow, and break forth into this simple song: How sweet is the hour we give, When fancy may wander free, Then wing'd, like the dove from the ark, Melting, isn't it! And do you wonder that before the first verse was over, 'the room was filled with eager listeners'? But Lover's gift lay in the domain of the humorous and grotesque. He had far too heavy a hand to deal with early Victorian sentiment, and the entrance of Edward or of Fanny is a signal of desperate weariness. When in their honeymoon they linger on the shore of Killarney Lake, 'Do you not think, Fanny,' said Edward O'Connor-for it was he who spoke to his bride-'do you not think 'tis more in unison with the tranquil hour and the coming shadows to glide softly over the lulled waters?' And Fanny of course thought it was, and they lived happily ever after. But despite the sentiment, despite the style which induced Lover to describe a left eye as a 'sinister luminary,' Handy Andy is a work of abounding energy and merriment. The dialogue is often so crisp and sharp as to suggest the stichomuthia of the Greeks; the more high-spirited of the characters-the most admirable doctor, for instance keep up a ceaseless fire of anecdote; and the sketches of Irish life are pleasantly interspersed with folk-lore and legend. The author was modest enough in his appraisement of his work. 'Composed as it was, it could not,' said he, 'be other than sketchy and desultory.' But it has already amused several generations of readers, and after fifty years its power of entertainment is still fresh. CHARLES WHIBLEY. |