The Life Story of an Old Rebel

etort that "the fount from which he drew his patriotism was a more genuine source than a fount of Irish type"--alluding to the plentiful use of the Gaelic characters in "The Spirit of the Nation," the world-famed collection of songs by the Young Ireland contributors to the "Nation" newspaper. There are passages in Lover's novel of "Rory O'More" and his "He Would be a Gentleman" that show he was a sincere lover of his country. I agree in the main with what the "Nation" said of him in 1843--"Though he often fell into ludicrous exaggerations and burlesques in describing Irish life, there is a good national spirit running through the majority of his works, for which he has not received due credit."

One of his stories, "Rory O'More," achieved universal popularity also as a play, a song and an air. In it there is a passage which, when I first read it, I looked upon as an exaggeration, and as somewhat reflecting upon the dignity of a great national movement like that of the United Irishmen. Lover brings