PS 54M5I n ■/^i•■■^C;^ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. ©j^p, iopipgi^t Ifn. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. mAlmorda A MKIklCAl, KOMANCI' jOSl'J'll I.ft. rCLAkKI'- virriiDK 111- " KOIIKIM' I'.MMKT, A •|KA(;P.I)V Ol' IKISII III- ^4i (;. p. PUTNAM'S SONS NKW VOKK LONDON ■i^ West Twciity-lliir' by becoming its apostle. 92 MALMORDA. " The viking ring,'' page 58. In the sagas it is described as the "viking burgh," or fortress. The warriors were pledged so to gather to the last around their king or standard when hard pressed in battle, and it was a point of the highest honor never to break the burgh, but by falling dead in arms. " The pimtacle of Golden Spear,'' page 62. The Golden Spears was the fine figurative name given by the ancient Irish to the two cone-shaped mountains in Northern Wicklow, now vulgarly called the Great and Little Sugar Loaf. The crest of the Great Sugar Loaf, towering above the neighboring mountains, catches the last rays of the sun upon its white point, and so shines as a veritable Golden Spear above the darkening land. This mountain seems by day to bar the southern end of the Scalp, but its base is several miles from the mouth of that sombre pass. BY THE SAME AUTHOR. ROBERT EMMET, A TRAGEDY OF IRISH HISTORY, SECOND EDITION PRICE, ONE DOLLAR. Handsomely hound in cloth, gilt embossed, and illustrated 7oith the original portraits and autograph. G. P. PUTNAM'S SON'S, Publishers, 27 West 23d Street, New York City, and all booksellers. JUSTIN McCarthy, m.p. (In a letter to the author.) I have at last found time to read all through your powerful, pathetic "Robert Emmet." You know how busy a man I am— and I was travelling over the Country all Autumn and Winter making speeches ! I began the book often and often and I had to put it down — but now I have read it and I shall read it again. I admire it very much. It is bold, striking, dramatic— in very true sense poetic, and it rings with the genuine music of patriotic sympathy THE NEW YORK SUN. We trust that no sincere friend of Ireland and no lover of strong and honest work in literature will fail to read the drama entitled " Robert Emmet," written by Mr. J. 1. C. Clarke, and published by the Putnams. The career of Robert Emmet is of profound political significance, for his voice and hand were resolute and potent organs of unheeded millions, and his death was the bloody baptism of a nation's protest against the rape of its ancient independence. In the closing events of his brief life there was also a succinctness and cumulativeness that peculiarly adapt them to dramatic treatment. These conditions have been recog- nized, and with no common skill turned to account by the author of thisplay, which is the first adequate portrayal of perhaps the most affecting episode in the story of a country fraught with sad and bitter memories. THE CHICAGO CITIZEN. It is but the barest truth to say that the reading of Mr. J. I. C. Clarke's tragedy of "Robert Emmet" has been the choicest literary treat we have enjoyed for many a day. The subject is perhaps the noblest and most fascinating that could have been chosen for an Irish play — the beautiful story that is "throbbing like Erin with sorrow and love" — and the author, being blessed with the gifts of com- passion and sympathy and rare literary skill, has been competent to do it excellent justice. THE NEW YORK MAIL AND EXPRESS. The story of an insurrection which is hopeless, viewed from the poUtical side, gives for that very reason perhaps a better canvass for the picture of a young hero who stakes his hfe in his country's cause when the very decrees of destiny are against success. This picture the author puts before us with a direct simplicity that is the besi effect of art. His Emmet is a man with whom, his country's honor is even more a primary purpose than her independence ; and who never hesitates to believe that it is better for a people to perish in the battle for liberty than to live without it. The character of Miss Curran is even with the noble delicacy of the lines drawn by Washington Irving, and more could scarcely be said for it. It is a characteristic hint of the ways of fate happily worked into the drama, that while the hero's life is forfeited for what he has done in the cause of his country, it is in the effort to see his lady love that he loses it. In the last act of this tragedy the highest note of human passion — the lover's farewell at the foot of the gallows, on which he is to die for his country — is very finely and beautifully touched. At this place there might be for an author, less filled with the artistic sense of the modesty of nature, a terrible temptation to write rant ; but we have here a fine literary realization of the best conception of such a scene. NEW YORK HERALD. The story of Emmet is followed faithfully, and there could not be a gentler type of fair and pure womanhood than Sarah Curran. Emmet himself is rather an ideal impersonation of the Irish hope of independence, and as we read his speeches, with their eloquence and courage, we feel as if they were a protest and a prayer. As a work of art Mr. Clarke's tragedy is of high order. The scenes are concise, definitive, the plot moving to its purpose with Greek simplicity and directness. Mr. Clarke has written an honest, powerful tragedy which will hold a high place in dramatic literature. THE PHILADELPHIA TIMES. In " Robert Emmet— A Tragedy of Irish History " (G. P. Putnam's Sons), by Joseph I. C. Clarke, our literature is enriched with the best play in prose ever written and printed in America. Simple in language, direct in narration and masterly in arrangement, Mr. Clarke's play can scarcely fail to act as well as it reads, and it reads like a romance. The casual reader, who may chance to take it up, will find it impossible to lay it down until he has finished the absorbing story. CHRISTIAN AT WORK. Interwoven with the story of his pure patriotism is that of a love so true and touching that all the higher dramatic elements are present, awaiting only the hand of art to arrange them. This Mr. Clarke has done most successfully in his tragedy. NEW YORK TIMES. The parting scene in jail and the court scene, when Emmet rnakes his historic address to the judge, are managed with power, and are most moving to the reader. TRUTH. It is the only work upon that hero which rises to the height of his own deeds. The diction is pure and elevated, the scenes dramatic and effective, while the simple pathos of the work will appeal to every reader, whatever may be his political opinions. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 016 211 713 mmm feiiiiii ■I W mm MmB mm ■VW-i'