with what might be called something of a "Frenchified" style about him,
but having with it all a bright eye and thoroughly Irish face which,
with all his bodily movements, displayed great animation. I can readily
believe his biographers, who say he excelled in all the arts he
cultivated, for his was a most charming entertainment.

Lover undoubtedly had patriotism of a kind, and some of his songs show
it. It certainly was not up to the mark of the "Young Irelanders," one
of whom attacked him on one occasion, when he made the clever retort
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 his hero, Rory, into somewhat questionable
surroundings in a Munster town--intended for Cork or some other
seaport--to meet a French emissary. One would think that a struggle for
the freedom of Ireland should be carried on amongst the most lofty
surroundings. But I found in after life that the incidents described by