that
overwhelm him in the end do not leave his readers unmoved; bankrupt and
beaten he goes down fighting with the final characteristic wire, in
response to a suggestion of compromise by his chief enemy, "Surrender be
damned." A little book to enjoy.

The village priest of Clogher, as depicted in two colours on the paper
wrapper of _Father O'Flynn_ (Hutchinson), is a man of plethoric habit
and sanguine countenance engaged in brandishing a large horsewhip. The
book is dedicated by Mr. H. de Vere Stacpoole, to Sir E. Carson and Mr.
Redmond, and in a short preface he says: "The Irish Roman Catholic
priest is the main factor in present-day Irish affairs. I have attempted
to catch him at his best in the butterfly net of this trivial story...."
I am anxious not to do Mr. Stacpoole an injustice, but I do feel that
(as an entomologist) he gets easily tired. In the 250 pages of _Father
O'Flynn_ there is a good deal of very tolerable Irish "atmosphere"; a
very tepid love affair between _Miss Eileen Pope_ and a gentleman from
England "over for the hunting;" a lot about old _Mr. Pope_--a moody
maniac who owned an illicit still at Clon Beg House, incurred the enmity
of the United Patriots, was in the habit of keeping followers away from
his beautiful step-daughter with a duck-gun, and finally (after locking
up his brother who came to recover a debt) set fire to his own
mansion--but practically nothing at all about the reverend gentleman
outside. Beyond a few conversations with the "boys" and some rescue work
at the end, _Father O'Flynn_ scarcely comes into the plot. There is
humour in the book and some good description in patches, but towards
understanding the Irish priest it will probably assist Sir Edward Carson
and Mr. John Redmond very little more than it will assist a settlement
of the problems of Ulster. However, it may give them an agreeable hour
or so in a railway train, and the announcement (also made on the cover)
that it is "an entirely new novel, now published for the first time,"
may call their attention to the value, in art as well as politics, of
emphatic tautology.

I could wish that _The Escape of Mr. Trimm, His Plight and Other
Plights_ (Hodder and Stoughton) had been one continuous whole, instead
of a number of separate items, for though Mr. Irvin S. Cobb tells a tale
well he has not such a genius for the short story that he needs must
express himself through that medium. Moreover, the people of his
imaginat