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Art. XLVI. The Refugees, an Irish Tale. By the Author of Correction, Decision, &c. &c. 3 Vols. 8vo. 1l ls. Longman and Co. 1822.
The principal interest of this tale hinges upon the fate of an Irish baronet and his family, whose ancestors, after suffering severely in the troubles of their native country, in the seventeenth century, had settled in France. A favourable train of circumstances produced for their descendants the restoration of confiscated estates, but they still clung to the land, which had opened her arms to receive them when banished from their own, and they continued to spend their lives, and the income of their Irish property in France. When the French Revolution arose, the representative of this family with his eldest son, espoused the republican cause, while his lady, his second son, and his daughter, were the adherents of aristocracy. Domestic dissentions were thus superadded to the horrors of that gloomy period; the second youth fell a sacrifice to popular phrenzy, and the reign of terror finally drove the baronet to seek refuge for his family in Ireland. Unschooled by experience and adversity, he had no sooner taken possession of his Irish estates, than, with his son, he embarked deeply in the machinations of the disaffected among his misguided countrymen. [596] In the unhappy scenes which followed in Ireland, the son became the victim of the principles which an erroneous education had implanted: and the father only survived to linger out his days, a prey to bitter remorse and blasted enthusiasm.
Such is the prominent outline of the story; and it is relieved by an interesting underplot. The work on the whole, though not without its share of the common places of such fictions, possesses some merit. Without any powerful delineation of character, the excitement of the incidents is seldom permitted to flag; the bent of the moral is good, and the ensemble is calculated to suggest salutary reflection on the criminality and folly of attempting to wade through oceans of blood for the doubtful production of a visionary political good. [complete]
Provided by Julie A. Shaffer, January 2000
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