For Miss Rathbone is something more than a most inde-
pendent Member for the Combined English Universities; she is more than a contemporary political figure; she is a character out of the Faetie Oueene; she is the Britortart of 1939. At the slightest wail of distant distress, down goes her visor, up goes her lance, and off she goes " Pricking on the plaine." It is all most disconcerting. Yet I should beg Miss Rathbone, if she has really taken Britomart as her example, to read again the passage in which is described the visit of that militant lady to the House, not of Commons, but of Busyrane:
"The warlike Mayd, beholding earnestly The goodly ordinance of this rich Place Did greatly wonder . . And as she looked about she did behold How over the same door was likewise writ, " Be bolde, be bolde and everywhere be bolde" That much she muzed, yet could not construe it By any ridling skill, or commune wit. At last she spyed at that rowne's upper end Another yron door, on which was writ
" Be not too bolde" whereto though she did bend
Her earnest minde ; yet wist not what it might intend."
Miss Rathbone, I fear, wists not what is meant by appease- ment.
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