Leeam O’Rooney’s Burial.
[Page 95.] Might not Spenser have come across some Irish legend of an imitation man made by enchantment, which gave him the idea of Archimago’s imitation of Una:
“Who all this time, with charms and hidden artes,
Had made a lady of that other spright,
And framed of liquid ayre her tender partes,
So lively and so like in all men’s sight
That weaker sence it could have ravished quite,” etc.
I never remember meeting this easy deus ex machinâ for bringing about a complication before.
[Page 101.] Leeam imprecates “the devil from me,” thus skilfully turning a curse into a blessing, as the Irish peasantry invariably do, even when in a passion. H’onnam one d’youl—“my soul from the devil” is an ordinary exclamation expressive of irritation or wonderment.