12 



to explain Spenser's text on this supposition, for it never occurred to 

 him to question it. Instead of taking the poet at his own word, that 

 the Alio was the Broadwater, and reading the passages in their natural 

 and obvious meaning, both Smith and Walker adopt the incredible sup- 

 position that Spenser confounds the Alio and the Blackwater. Spenser 

 had a good knowledge of the topography of Ireland so far as it was 

 known in his time ; his descriptions of our Irish rivers are always ex- 

 ceedingly correct, and it would be strange indeed to find him confound- 

 ing two remarkable rivers in his own immediate neighbourhood, with 

 both of which he must have been perfectly well acquainted. 



Whether the whole of the Blackwater was anciently called the 

 Alio, or only a part of it, as O'Donovan believes ; whether also the 

 present Alio was ever known by a different name, and whether it got 

 the name Alio by transference from the Blackwater — these are ques- 

 tions I am not now able to decide ; my object has been to prove that 

 Spenser's Alio is the Munster Blackwater. 



Let us now return to the enumeration of the rivers. The order 

 followed is Liffey, Slaney, Aubrian, Shannon, Boyne, Bann, Auniduff, 

 Liffer, Drowes, Alio, Mulla. Here I must observe that the writers 

 referred to evidently never grasped the whole of Spenser's rivers in 

 one view ; for if they did they could not fail to perceive that the Auni- 

 duff is the Ulster Blackwater, the classification alone being sufficient to 

 prove it. When this river is restored to its proper place, Spenser's 

 enumeration becomes perfectly natural. He first names the Liffey, and 

 proceeds southwards till he reaches the Shannon. He then begins at 

 the Boyne, and, proceeding north and west round the coast, he takes 

 the northern rivers in their exact order, ending with the Drowes; he 

 then returns to Munster, and finishes his stanza with" his own two 

 rivers : — 



" Strong Alio tombling from Slewlogher steep ; 

 And Mulla mine, whose waves I whilom taught to weep." 



After a careful search I find myself unable to identify "the Stony 

 Aubrian." The first syllable Au is probably the common Irish prefix 

 signifying " river." Prom the order in which Spenser names it in con- 

 junction with three well-known rivers (Liffey, Slaney, Aubrian, Shan- 

 non), it may be inferred that it lies somewhere in Cork or Kerry. The 

 river Feale in Kerry, flowing by Abbeyfeale, would naturally strike one 

 as being possibly the river Spenser meant, as its bed is very " stony," 

 and its position would answer the classification ; but I cannot find that 

 this river was ever called by any name resembling Aubrian, and at best 

 it is only a conjecture, I thought also of the Galway River, for this 

 too would answer the classification very well; and its bed is very rocky 

 near the town. Lough Corrib, from which it flows, was anciently 

 called Lough Orbsen, which is not wholly unlike Aubrian, bat the re- 

 semblance is too faint to found any conclusion on it. This is the only 

 one of Spenser's rivers that remains unidentified. 



