6 AUGUST 1927, Page 25

PORCELAIN: THE SOUL OF IRELAND. By John Mackay. (Berm. 10s.

6d.)—In a series of essays, character- istically Irish in that an outward merriment masks an under- lying melancholy, Mr. Mackay describes his recent progress through Ireland by donkey-cart. He went in search of " the thick honey, the hospitality, the aura of an Ireland that was a land of rainbows to the whole wide world." But he found " the long clouds over them," and he writes with gay, yet bitter, humour of the sophistication that has replaced the old insouciance. His pages contain some good description of scenery- and some deftly sketched portraits, and his reflections are amusing and often penetrating, if a little too flamboyant in style.