12 NOVEMBER 1898, Page 15

IRISH HUMOUR.

iTo THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] 'S Ei—In his notice of a volume of sermons by the Bishop of Derry in the Spectator of November 5th, your reviewer instances, as "a touch of what may fairly be considered Irish humour," a phrase describing bow the Royal state of Solomon "left the Queen of Sheba no more breath in her." Surely the humour—if humour it be—is not Irish, but Hebrew, for the Bishop seems simply to give an alternative rendering of the passage in 1 Kings x. 5, which both Authorised and Revised Versions translate, "There was no

more spirit in her."—I am, Sir, &c., J. C. B.