" It is published by the Clarendon Press, Oxford; Mr Rudyard
Kipling contributes twenty-three pieces of verse, and a Mr C. R. L.
Fletcher, whose qualifications are not stated, appears to be responsible
for the prose. The book has been praised in most of the papers, and it
will no doubt go far. This is the picture of the coming to Ireland of
the Cymro-Frankish adventurers which its pages will imprint on the minds
of the youth of England:
"One event of his reign (Henry II.'s) must not be forgotten, his
visit to Ireland in 1171-2. St Patrick, you may have heard, had
banished the snakes from that island, but he had not succeeded in
banishing the murderers and thieves who were worse than many
snakes. In spite of some few settlements of Danish pirates and
traders on the eastern coast, Ireland had remained purely Celtic
and purely a pasture country. All wealth was reckoned in cows; Rome
had never set foot there, so there was a king for every day in the
week, and the sole amusement of such persons was to drive off each
other's cows and to kill all who resisted.
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