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Seeing Europe with Famous Authors

F >> Francis W. Halsey >> Seeing Europe with Famous Authors




I think, in walking the streets, and looking at the ragged urchins
crowding there, every Englishman must remark that the superiority of
intelligence is here, and not with us. I never saw such a collection of
bright-eyed, wild, clever, eager faces. Mr. Maclise has carried away a
number of them in his memory; and the lovers of his admirable pictures
will find more than one Munster countenance under a helmet in company of
Macbeth, or in a slashed doublet alongside of Prince Hamlet, or in the
very midst of Spain in company with Signor Gil Blas. Gil Blas himself
came from Cork, and not from Oviedo.

I listened to two boys almost in rags: they were lolling over the quay
balustrade, and talking about one of the Ptolemys! and talking very well
too. One of them had been reading in Rollin, and was detailing his
information with a great deal of eloquence and fire. Another day,
walking in the Mardyke, I followed three boys, not half so well drest as
London errand-boys: one was telling the other about Captain Ross's
voyages, and spoke with as much brightness and intelligence as the
best-read gentleman's son in England could do. He was as much of a
gentleman, too, the ragged young student; his manner as good, tho
perhaps more eager and emphatic; his language was extremely rich, too,
and eloquent. Does the reader remember his school-days, when half a
dozen lads in the bedrooms took it by turns to tell stories? How poor
the language generally was, and how exceedingly poor the imagination!
Both of those ragged Irish lads had the making of gentlemen, scholars,
orators, in them.

I have just been strolling up a pretty little height called Grattan's
Hill, that overlooks the town and the river, and where the artist that
comes Corkward may find many subjects for his pencil. There is a kind of
pleasure-ground at the top of this eminence--a broad walk that draggles
up to a ruined wall, with a ruined niche in it, and a battered stone
bench. On the side that shelves down to the water are some beeches, and
opposite them a row of houses from which you see one of the prettiest
prospects possible--the shining river with the craft along the quays,
and the busy city in the distance, the active little steamers puffing
away toward Cove, the farther bank crowned with rich woods, and
pleasant-looking country-houses--perhaps they are tumbling, rickety, and
ruinous, as those houses close by us, but you can't see the ruin
from here.

What a strange air of forlorn gaiety there is about the place!--the sky
itself seems as if it did not know whether to laugh or cry, so full is
it of clouds and sunshine. Little fat, ragged, smiling children are
clambering about the rocks, and sitting on mossy doorsteps, tending
other children yet smaller, fatter, and more dirty. "Stop till I get you
a posy" (pronounced pawawawsee), cries one urchin to another. "Tell me
who is it ye love, Jooly," exclaims another, cuddling a red-faced infant
with a very dirty nose. More of the same race are perched about the
summerhouse, and two wenches with large purple feet are flapping some
carpets in the air. It is a wonder the carpets will bear this kind of
treatment at all, and do not be off at once to mingle with the elements;
I never saw things that hung to life by such a frail thread.

This dismal pleasant place is a suburb of the second city in Ireland,
and one of the most beautiful spots about the town. What a prim,
bustling, active, green-railinged, tea-gardened, gravel-walked place
would it have been in the five-hundredth town in England!--but you see
the people can be quite as happy in the rags and without the paint, and
I hear a great deal more heartiness and affection from these children
than from their fat little brethren across the Channel.



BLARNEY CASTLE [Footnote: From "Ireland: Its Scenery, Character, Etc."]

BY ME. AND MRS. S. C. HALL

Few places in Ireland are more familiar to English ears than Blarney;
the notoriety is attributable, first, to the marvelous qualities of its
famous "stone," and next, to the extensive popularity of the song,--

"The groves of Blarney, they are so charming."

When or how the stone obtained its singular reputation, it is difficult
to determine; the exact position among the ruins of the castle is also a
matter of doubt; the peasant-guides humor the visitor according to his
capacity for climbing, and direct, either to the summit or the base, the
attention of him who desires to "greet it with a holy kiss." He who has
been dipt in the Shannon is presumed to have obtained, in abundance, the
gift of that "civil courage" which makes an Irishman at ease and
unconstrained in all places and under all circumstances; and he who has
kissed the Blarney stone is assumed to be endowed with a fluent and
persuasive tongue, altho it may be associated with insincerity; the term
"Blarney" being generally used to characterize words that are meant
neither to be "honest nor true."

It is conjectured that the comparatively modern application of the term
"Blarney" first had existence when the possessor, Lord Clancarty, was a
prisoner to Sir George Carew, by whom he was subjected to several
examinations touching his loyalty, which he was required to prove by
surrendering his strong castle to the soldiers of the Queen; this act he
always endeavored to evade by some plausible excuse, but as invariably
professing his willingness to do so. The particulars are fully detailed
in the "Pacata Hibernia."

It is certain that to no particular stone of the ancient structure is
the marvelous quality exclusively attributed; but in order to make it as
difficult as possible to attain the enviable gift, it had long been the
custom to point out a stone, a few feet below the battlements, which the
very daring only would run the hazard of touching with their lips. The
attempt to do so was, indeed, so dangerous, that a few years ago Mr.
Jeffreys had it removed from the wall and placed on the highest point of
the building; where the visitor may now greet it with little risk. It is
about two feet square, and contains the date 1703, with a portion of the
arms of the Jeffreys family, but the date, at once, negatives its claim
to be considered the true marvel of Blarney. A few days before our visit
a madman made his way to the top of the castle, and after dancing round
it for some hours, his escape from death being almost miraculous, he
flung this stone from the tower; it was broken in the fall, and now, as
the guide stated to us, the "three halves" must receive three distinct
kisses to be in any degree effective.

The stronghold of Blarney was erected about the middle of the fifteenth
century by Cormac Mac Carthy, surnamed "Laider," or the Strong; whose
ancestors had been chieftains in Munster from a period long antecedent
to the English invasion, and whose descendants, as Lords of Muskerry and
Clancarty, retained no inconsiderable portion of their power and estates
until the year 1689, when their immense possessions were confiscated,
and the last earl became an exile, like the monarch whose cause he had
supported. The castle, village, mills, fairs, and customs of Blarney,
with the land and park thereunto belonging, containing 1400 acres, were
"set up by cant" in the year 1702, purchased by Sir Richard Pyne, Lord
Chief Justice, for £3000, and by him disposed of, the following year, to
General Sir James Jeffreys, in whose family the property continues.
Altho the walls of this castle are still strong, many of the outworks
have long since been leveled; the plow has passed over their
foundations, and "the stones of which they were built have been used in
repairing the turnpike-roads."



MUCROSS ABBEY [Footnote: From "Ireland: Its Scenery, Character, Etc."]

BY MR. AND MRS. S. C. HALL

The abbey of Mucross adjoins the pretty village of Cloghreen, [in Kerry]
and is in the demesne of Henry Arthur Herbert, Esq., which includes the
whole of the peninsula. The site was chosen with the usual judgment and
taste of "the monks of old," who invariably selected the pleasantest of
all pleasant places. The original name was Irelough--and it appears that
long prior to the erection of this, now ruined structure, a church
existed in the same spot, which was consumed by fire in 1191. The abbey
was built for Franciscan monks, according to Arehdall, in 1440; but the
annals of the Four Masters give its date a century earlier: both,
however, ascribe its foundation to one of the Mac Carthys, princes of
Desmond. It was several times repaired, and once subsequently to the
Reformation, as we learn from the inscription on a stone let into the
north wall of the choir.

The building consists of two principal parts--the convent and the
church. The church is about one hundred feet in length and twenty-four
in breadth; the steeple, which stands between the nave and the chancel,
rests on four high and slender pointed arches. The principal entrance is
by a handsome pointed doorway, luxuriantly overgrown with ivy, through
which is seen the great eastern window. The intermediate space, as
indeed every part of the ruined edifice, is filled with tombs, the
greater number distinguished only by a slight elevation from the mold
around them; but some containing inscriptions to direct the stranger
where especial honor should be paid. A large modern tomb, in the center
of the choir, covers the vault, in which in ancient times were interred
the Mac Carthys Mor, and more recently the O'Donoghue Mor of the Glens,
whose descendants were buried here so late as the year 1833.

Close to this tomb, but on a level with the earth, is the slab which
formerly covered the vault. It is without inscription, but bears the
arms of the Earl of Clancarty. The convent as well as the church is in
very tolerable preservation; and Mr. Herbert has taken especial care, as
far as he can, to balk the consumer, time, of the remnants of his
glorious feast. He has repaired the foundations in some parts and the
parapets in others, and so judiciously that the eye is never annoyed by
the intrusion of the new among the old; the ivy furnishing him with a
ready means for hiding the unhallowed brick and mortar from the sight.
In his "caretaker," too, he has a valuable auxiliary; and a watch is
set, first to discover tokens of decay, then to prevent their spread,
and then to twist and twine the young shoots of the aged trees over and
around them.

The dormitories, the kitchen, the refectory, the cellars, the infirmary,
and other chambers, are still in a state of comparative preservation;
the upper rooms are unroofed; and the coarse grass grows abundantly
among them. The great fireplace of the refectory is curious and
interesting--affording evidence that the good monks were not forgetful
of the duty they owed themselves, or of the bond they had entered into,
to act upon the advice of St. Paul, and be "given to hospitality." This
recess is pointed out as the bed of John Drake--a pilgrim who, about a
century ago, took up his abode in the Abbey, and continued its inmate
during a period of several years. As will be supposed, his singular
choice of residence has given rise to abundant stories, and the mention
of his name to any of the guides or boatmen will at once produce a
volume of the marvelous.

The cloister, which consists of twenty-two arches, ten of them
semicircular and twelve pointed, is the best preserved portion of the
abbey. In the center grows a magnificent yew-tree, which covers, as a
roof, the whole area; its circumference is thirteen feet, and its height
in proportion. It is more than probable that the tree is coeval with the
abbey; that it was planted by the hands of the monks who built the
sacred edifice centuries ago. The yew, it is known, lives to a
prodigious age; and in England, there are many of a date considerably
earlier than that which may be safely assigned to this.



FROM GLENGARIFF TO KILLARNEY [Footnote: From "The Irish Sketch Book."]

BY WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

The journey from Glengariff to Kenmare is one of astonishing beauty; and
I have seen Killarney since, and am sure that Glengariff loses nothing
by comparison with this most famous of lakes. Rock, wood, and sea
stretch around the traveler--a thousand delightful pictures; the
landscape is at first wild without being fierce, immense woods and
plantations enriching the valleys--beautiful streams to be seen
everywhere.

Here again I was surprized at the great population along the road; for
one saw but few cabins, and there is no village between Glengariff and
Kenmare. But men and women were on banks and in fields; children, as
usual, came trooping up to the car; and the jovial men of the yacht had
great conversations with most of the persons whom we met on the road. A
merrier set of fellows it were hard to meet.

After much mountain-work of ascending and descending (in which latter
operation, and by the side of precipices that make passing cockneys
rather squeamish, the carman drove like mad to the hooping and
screeching of the red rovers), we at length came to Kenmare, of which
all that I know is that it lies prettily in a bay or arm of the sea;
that it is approached by a little hanging-bridge, which seems to be a
wonder in these parts; that it is a miserable little place when you
enter it; and that, finally, a splendid luncheon of all sorts of meat
and excellent cold salmon may sometimes be had for a shilling at the
hotel of the place.... For almost half the way from Kenmare, this wild,
beautiful road commands views of the famous lake and vast blue mountains
about Killarney. Turk, Tomies, and Mangerton were clothed in purple like
kings in mourning; great heavy clouds were gathered round their noble
features bare. The lake lay for some time underneath us, dark and blue,
with dark misty islands in the midst. On the right-hand side of the road
would be a precipice covered with a thousand trees, or a green rocky
flat, with a reedy mere in the midst, and other mountains rising as far
as we could see.... And so it was that we rode by dark old Mangerton,
then presently past Mucross, and then through two miles of avenues of
lime-trees, by numerous lodges and gentlemen's seats, across an old
bridge, where you see the mountains again and the lake, until, by Lord
Kenmare's house, a hideous row of houses informed us that we were in
Killarney.

We rattled up to the Kenmare Arms; and so ended, not without a sigh on
my part, one of the merriest six-hour rides that five yachtsmen, one
cockney, five women and a child, the carman, and a countryman with an
alpeen, ever took in their lives. The town of Killarney was in a violent
state of excitement with a series of horse-races, hurdle-races,
boat-races, and stag-hunts by land and water, which were taking place,
and attracted a vast crowd from all parts of the kingdom. All the inns
were full, and lodgings cost five shillings a day, nay, more in some
places; for tho my landlady, Mrs. Macgillicuddy, charges but that sum, a
leisurely old gentleman whom I never saw in my life before made my
acquaintance by stopping me in the street yesterday, and said he paid a
pound a day for his two bedrooms.... Mrs. Macgillicuddy's house is at
the corner of the two principal streets in Killarney town, and the
drawing-room windows command each a street. A sort of market is held
there, and the place is swarming with blue cloaks and groups of men
talking; here and there is a stall with coarse linens, crockery, a
cheese; and crowds of egg-and milk-women are squatted on the pavement,
with their ragged customers or gossips. Carts, cars, jingles, barouches,
horses, and vehicles of all descriptions rattle presently through the
streets; for the town is crowded with company for the races and other
sports, and all the world is bent to see the stag-hunt on the lake.

The morning had been bright enough, but for fear of accidents we took
our macintoshes, and at about a mile from the town found it necessary to
assume those garments and wear them for the greater part of the day.
Passing by the Victoria, with its beautiful walks, park, and lodge, we
came to a little creek where the boats were moored; and there was the
wonderful lake before us, with its mountains, and islands, and trees.
Unluckily, however, the mountains happened to be invisible; the islands
looked like gray masses in the fog, and all that we could see for some
time was the gray silhouette of the boat ahead of us, in which a
passenger was engaged in a witty conversation with some boat still
farther in the mist.

Drumming and trumpeting was heard at a little distance, and presently we
found ourselves in the midst of a fleet of boats upon the rocky shores
of the beautiful little Innisfallen. Here we landed for a while, and the
weather clearing up, allowed us to see this charming spot. Rocks,
shrubs, and little abrupt rises and falls of ground, covered with the
brightest emerald grass; a beautiful little ruin of a Saxon chapel,
lying gentle, delicate, and plaintive on the shore; some noble trees
round about it, and beyond, presently, the tower of Ross Castle, island
after island appearing in the clearing sunshine, and the huge hills
throwing their misty veils off, and wearing their noble robes of purple.
The boats' crews were grouped about the place, and one large barge
especially had landed some sixty people, being the Temperance band, with
its drums, trumpets, and wives. They were marshaled by a grave old
gentleman with a white waistcoat and queue, a silver medal decorating
one side of his coat, and a brass heart reposing on the other flap. The
horns performed some Irish airs prettily; and, at length, at the
instigation of a fellow who went swaggering about with a pair of
whirling drumsticks, all formed together, and played "Garryowen"--the
active drum of course most dreadfully out of time.

Having strolled about the island for a quarter of an hour, it became
time to take to the boats again, and we were rowed over to the wood
opposite Sullivan's cascade, where the hounds had been laid in in the
morning, and the stag was expected to take water. Fifty or sixty men are
employed on the mountain to drive the stag lakeward, should he be
inclined to break away; and the sport generally ends by the stag, a wild
one, making for the water with the pack swimming afterward; and here he
is taken and disposed of, how I know not. It is rather a parade than a
stag-hunt; but, with all the boats around and the noble view, must be a
fine thing to see.

Some scores more boats were there, darting up and down in the pretty,
busy waters. Here came a Cambridge boat; and where, indeed, will not the
gentlemen of that renowned University be found? Yonder were the dandy
dragoons, stiff, silent, slim, faultlessly appointed, solemnly puffing
cigars. Every now and then a hound would he heard in the wood, whereon
numbers of voices, right and left, would begin to yell in
chorus--Hurroo! Hoop! Yow--yow--yow! in accents the most shrill or the
most melancholious. Meanwhile the sun had had enough of the sport, the
mountains put on their veils again, the islands retreated into the mist,
the word went through the fleet to spread all umbrellas, and ladies took
shares of mackintoshes and disappeared under the flaps of silk cloaks.

The wood comes down to the very edge of the water, and many of the crews
thought fit to land and seek this green shelter. To behold these moist
dandies the natives of the country came eagerly. Strange, savage faces
might be seen peering from out of the trees; long-haired, bare-legged
girls came down the hill, some with green apples and very sickly-looking
plums; some with whisky and goat's milk; a ragged boy had a pair of
stag's-horns to sell: the place swarmed with people. We went up the hill
to see the noble cascade, and when you say that it comes rushing down
over rocks and through tangled woods, alas! one has said all the
dictionary can help you to, and not enough to distinguish this
particular cataract from any other. This seen and admired, we came back
to the harbor where the boats lay, and from which spot the reader might
have seen the following view of the lake--that is, you would see the
lake, if the mist would only clear away.

But this for hours it did not seem inclined to do. We rowed up and down
industriously for a period of time which seemed to me atrociously long.
The bugles of the Erin had long since sounded "Home, sweet home!" and
the greater part of the fleet had dispersed. As for the stag-hunt, all I
saw of it was four dogs that appeared on the shore at different
intervals, and a huntsman in a scarlet coat, who similarly came and
went: once or twice we were gratified by hearing the hounds; but at last
it was agreed that there was no chance for the day, and we rowed off to
Kenmare Cottage--where, on the lovely lawn, or in a cottage adjoining,
the gentry picnic, and where, with a handkerchief full of potatoes, we
made as pleasant a meal as ever I recollect.

What is to be said about Turk Lake? When there, we agreed that it was
more beautiful than the larger lake, of which it is not one-fourth the
size; then, when we came back, we said, "No, the large lake is the most
beautiful." And so, at every point we stopped at, we determined that
that particular spot was the prettiest in the whole lake. The fact is,
and I don't care to own it, they are too handsome. As for a man coming
from his desk in London or Dublin and seeing "the whole lakes in a day,"
he is an ass for his pains; a child doing sums in addition might as well
read the whole multiplication table, and fancy he had it by heart. We
should look at these wonderful things leisurely and thoughtfully; and
even then, blessed is he who understands them.

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