VI INTRODUCTION. 



that but for this book the vivacious works of Miss 

 Somerville and ** Martin Ross " — to say nothing of 

 Miss Jane Barlow and Cannon Hannay — might never 

 have been written. But he is to a certain extent, their 

 forerunner ; and, to a still greater degree, his book is 

 the forerunner of such stories as " Handy Andy," 

 " Harry Lorrequer," and *' Castle Rackrent." And, 

 indeed, as pointed out in the preface, Lever drew from 

 personal intercourse with him, as well as from a full 

 acquaintance with his Irish writings, the desire to follow 

 him in the same field of fiction. 



One great advantage of the book is that it is written 

 from the outside point of view — the standpoint of an 

 intelligent Anglo- Irishman educated at Trinity College, 

 Dublin, and that the author visited Connaught much 

 as an explorer might visit a newly-discovered savage 

 island. We hear too much, perhaps, of the value of 

 observations written from the inside. These are, 

 strictly speaking, not observations at all, but expo- 

 sitions ; and although they have their place in pro- 

 viding the material from which full knowledge of a 

 subject must be derived, it is the outsider who really 

 sees a thing as a whole, in its truest proportions and 

 in reasonable relationship to the rest of the world. 



It is obvious that our author has but a very external 

 knowledge of the Connemara people of his day. He 

 did not know their thoughts, and might, perhaps, have 

 been surprised if he could have learned their view of 

 him. To him they were just the natives of the place, 



