Again it is possible (though hardly probable one would think) that Mr George Moore does not really enjoy the fun so cleverly poked at him in the stanzas, "George Moore Comes to Ireland." Safe in our own detachment, the criticism seems delicious, brightly hitting off the personality which has grown so familiar in Mr Moore's work, and especially in "Hail and Farewell": the delightful garrulity, the disconcerting candour, the intimacy and naïve egoism, and the perfectly transparent what-a-terror-I-was-in-my-youth air. The speaker in the poem is, of course, Mr Moore himself; and it will be seen how cunningly the author has caught his attitude, particularly to the work of Mr W. B. Yeats-- I haven't tried potato cake or Irish stew as yet; I've lived on eggs and bacon, and striven to forget A naughty past of ortolan and frothy omelette. ..... But W. B. was the boy for me--he of the dim, wan clothes; And--don't let on I said it--not above a bit of pose; And they call his writing literature, as everybody knows. If you like a stir, or want a stage, or would admirèd be, Prepare with care a naughty past, and then repent like me. My past, alas! was blameless, but this the world won't see. When Miss Mitchell's satire is engaged on personalities in this way, it has a piquancy which may obscure the subtler flavour of it. But the truth is that it is often literary in a double sense, both in subject and in treatment. So we may find a theme of considerable general interest in the world of literature, treated in the allusive literary manner which has so much charm for the booklover. And to that is added a racy and vigorous satirical touch. Thus, for instance, is the question of Synge's _Playboy_ handled. Ridicule is thrown on the stupid rage with which it was received, and on the folly which generalized so hotly from the play to the nation, deducing wild nonsense against a whole people and its literature because the man who killed his father in the story is befriended by peasants. Here is a snatch of it: I can't love Plato any more Because a man called Sophocles, Who lived in distant Attica, Wrote a great drama _Oedipus_, About a Greek who killed his da. I know now Plato was a sham, And Socrates I brush aside, For Phidias I don't care a damn, For every Greek's a parricide. So, too, comes the burlesque touch in the "Ode to the British Empire": God of the Irish Protestant, Lord of our proud Ascendancy, Soon there'll be none of us extant, We want a few plain words with thee. Thou know'st our hearts are always set On what we get, on what we get.