atisfied that this title
or simile--call it what you will--is the key-word of the mystery;
and we must now look around the neighborhood of the Mulla for a
family-surname out of which this "Angel" can be extracted by the
"alchemy of wit."

On consulting the "Great Records of Munster," Vol. VI., we find a
family residing in the neighborhood of Kilcolman Castle whose name
and circumstances correspond exactly with all the requirements of
our Angel-ic theory. The Nagles were a very ancient and respectable
family, whose principal seats were in the northern parts of the
County of Cork and the adjoining borders of the County of Waterford.
There seem to have been two races of them, distinguished by the
color of their hair into the Red Nagles and the Black Nagles; and of
the former, the lord or chieftain of the tribe resided at Moneanymmy,
an ancient preceptory of the Knights of St. John, beautifully seated
on the banks of the Mulla, where it disembogues its tribute into the
Blackwater, on its passage to Cappoquin and Youghal, and at a
convenient distance from Spenser's Kilcolman. Elizabeth Nagle
belonging to the _Red_ branch of the family, we shall find no
difficulty in accounting for her alleged resemblance to Queen
Elizabeth.

The proprietor of Moneanymmy, strictly contemporaneous with Spenser,
was John Nagle, whose son, David, died in the city of Dublin in 1637.
It is therefore but fair to suppose that in 1593 (the year of
Spenser's marriage) this David might have had a sister of
marriageable age; for he himself, by his marriage with Ellen Roche
of Ballyhowly, had a daughter, Ellen, who in due time was married to
Sylvanus, the eldest son of Edmund Spenser. If our supposition be
correct, therefore, Ellen and Sylvanus were linked by the double
bond of cousinhood and matrimony.

Unfortunately for our Spenserian inquiry, however, the full and
regular pedigree of these Nagles commences only with David, whose
marriage and the issue thereof are recorded at large in Irish books
of heraldry; whereas the preceding generations, to a remote antiquity,
are merely notified by the bare names of the son and heir as they
succeeded to the inheritance.

John Nagle may have had a daughter marriageable at the time of
Spenser's marriage; and she may have married the poet,--and did, we
are convinced,--even though her family belonged to the Romish
persuasion, and the bridegroom to the Protestant Church.

To this untoward circumstance--the di