14 JULY 1928, Page 19

Miss Henley has gone thoroughly about her business in Spenser

in Ireland (Cork University Press and Longmans, 6s.) ; we have all the necessary information in her pages as to the posts which Spenser held and the lands which he occupied : we can even follow out to vanishing point the fortunes of his descendants in Ireland. She does not attempt to reconcile us to Spenser's advocacy of extermination ; but she has compassion for him when the wheel comes full circle and the would-be exterminator is himself cast out naked on the world. Previous commentators have perhaps made too little of the past which Irish legend and poetry played in shaping Spenser's mythology : it is possible that Miss Henley has made rather too much of it : her reasoning does not carry conviction. But beyond yea or nay, Ireland colours the whole of the Faery Queen : and it is interesting to know that where Spenser's oak spreads branches over one of the best salmon pools on the Blackwater there was once a house which he inhabited.