the old castle of blarney, like the castle of macbeth, by inverness,
“hath a pleasant seat; the air
nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
unto our gentler senses;”
and it commands a fine view “over the water and over the lee” over lake and meadow, and over “the groves of blarney,” renowned in song. the landscape rewards your exertions, when you have ascended the narrow staircase of the sole remaining tower, and this somewhat resembles (“magna componere”) an excellent “stilton,” which has gone the way of all good cheeses, and is now a hollow ruin—a ruin on which some sentimental mouse might sit, like marins at carthage, and bitterly recall the past.
looking down this cavity, made gloomier by the dark ivy and wild myrtle, which grow from floor to battlement, one feels that fainty thrill and chilliness which is equally unpleasant and indescribable, and gladly divert our attention, first to the stone displaced by a cannon shot, in the days of the incomparable lady jeffreys, when
“oliver cromwell, he did her pummell,
and broke a breach all in her battlement,”
and then to another stone lower down in the tower, and bearing the inscription, “cormac macarthy fort is me fieri fecit, a.d. 1446,” which may be translated liberally,
“cormac macarthy, bould as bricks,
made me in fourteen forty-six.”
this is said to be the original blarney stone, but as no man could possibly kiss it, unless (as sir boyle roche observed) he happened to be a bird, or an acrobat, twelve feet long, and suspending himself by his feet from the summit of the tower, we were content to believe in the conventional granite, which now bears the name, and which, being situated at the top of one of the turrets, is very accessible for osculation.
of this lapideous phenomenon, the author of “the groves of blarney” sings,
“there is a stone there, that whoever kisses,
oh, he never misses to grow eloquent;
'tis he may clamber to a lady's chamber.
or become a member of parliament.
“a clever spouter he'll sure turn out, or
an out-an-outer, to be let alone:
don't hope to hinder him, or to bewilder him,
sure he's a pilgrim from the blarney stone!”
now it is my conviction, primarily suggested by my own sensations, and subsequently confirmed by what i noticed in others, as i lingered on that ancient tower, that the majority of those who kiss the blarney stone, do wish and try to believe in it. we english have so scanty a stock of superstitions, and some of these so wanting in refinement and dignity, as, for instance, the “crossing out” of an isolated magpie, the ejection of spilt salt over the left shoulder, deviations into the gutter to avoid a ladder, the mastication of pancakes upon shrove tuesday, and the like, that we are glad of any pretext for gratifying that innate love of the marvellous, which exists, more or less, in us all,—ay, and will exist, until john bright is premier of england, and our fairy tales and arabian nights, and all our books of pleasant fiction are solemnly burnt at oxford, before a synod of costive quakers.
and then it is so gratifying for mammas to fancy, as they bend to kiss the magic stone, that assuredly they “stoop to conquer,” henceforth, by a new and dulcet eloquence, those little idiosyncrasies of “dear papa,” which have thwarted their happiest schemes, such as his insuperable apathy on the subject of that new conservatory, although “you know, darling, both mr. nesfield and mr. thomas declared it to be indispensable.”
pleasant, too, for their charming daughter of nineteen, to think that she hereafter shall not ask in vain for that tour in switzerland, that ball at home, those boxes, varying in shape and size; small, from the stores of howell and of james; medium, from messieurs hill and piver; and large, very large, from “the infallible mrs. murray,” and jane clark, in the street of the regent.
enlivening, moreover, for that eton boy to believe, as he salutes the blarney stone, that now he has only to give the governor a hint, and “that clipping little horse of young farmer smith's” will be purchased forthwith, and presented to him, to carry him next season with the belvoir hunt.
miserable father, how shall he meet this irresistible incursion upon his purse and peace. well may he look coldly on the blarney stone! well may he express, from heart and hope, his belief that it's “all humbug.” and yet, methinks, remembering that last election, that distressingly effete experiment to nominate sir john golumpus, that fearful silence, when he came to grief, that vulgar gibe “go 'ome, and tak' a pill,” he too must sigh for this gift of blarney, and long to kiss the stone.
see, they are leaving the battlements,—first the etonian, then his sister, and then mamma. o, wily paterfamilias! suddenly remembering that he “has left his stick” (he has, and purposely), he steps briskly back, and, stooping for his cane,—salutes the rock! he, at all events, won't “kiss, and tell!”
but everybody kisses it. the noisy old girl, whom we met yesterday at the table d'hôte, and who preferred steel to silver, as a medium for the transmission of food, reached the summit of the tower very short of wind, but resumed, as soon as ever she could speak, a severe sermon upon the errors of “room,” and its superstitions in particular. and yet, ultimately (affecting to do it in ridicule,—let us be charitable, and hope that, in her heart of hearts, she had in view the conversion of her “genteel aconite”), she kissed the stone; and we were glad to have already done so.
we saw the kitchen, where beeves were cooked in the merry old times, and the banquet-hall wherein they were carved. the latter was appropriated to a miscellaneous collection of rickety old farming implements,—rust, and dust, and decay, where brave knights laughed over the winecup,—
“and tapers shone, and music breath'd,
and beauty led the ball.”
shall we re-ascend the tower, and preach, from that old stone pulpit, on “pulvis et umbra sumus?” perhaps, as there is no congregation, and a lunatic asylum mighty convanient, we may as well postpone our sermon, and turn our steps to the gardens and groves of blarney.
if the poet had not told us that “they are so charming,” i should scarcely have discovered the fact for myself, as they are but feebly ornamented with flowers, and—
“the gravel walks there, for speculation,
and conversation, in sweet solitude,”
are damply suggestive of a cold in the head. at the same time, from their pleasant position and varied surface, these grounds have a charm about them; and i should much like to wander in them, by moonlight, with—(i must decline, like the standard bearer, to communicate the young lady's name), just to see whether i had derived any benefit from my salutation of the blarney stone; whether i could say mavourneen with a sweeter tenderness, and discourse more fluently those “sugared glosses,” which are called by the sentimental “heart music,” and by the unsentimental “bosh.”
in these grounds the portly old gardener showed us one of those cromlechs, which were used by the druids for sacrificial or sepulchral purposes, and in which, i am ashamed to say, we professed an all-absorbing interest, though, on my asking frank, as we left the gardens, “what a cromlech was?” he replied that, prior to inspection, his idea had always been that it was a species of antediluvian buffalo!
then we saw the lake
“that is stored with perches,
and comely eels in the verdant mud;
besides the leeches, and groves of beeches,
all standing in order for to guard the flood.”
they say that, from this lake enchanted cows, snow-white and of wondrous beauty, come forth in the summer mornings, and wander among the dewy meads, to the intense astonishment and admiration, doubtless, of the celebrated irish bulls. 1
1 the only lapsus linguar, resembling a bull, which i heard
during our tour, was from a fellow-passenger, in connamara,
who was repeating a conversation, of which he declared
himself to have been an eye-witness.
and they say, moreover, that beneath these waters (which we ventured to designate cowesharbour, in allusion to the mysterious kine), lies the plate-chest of the macarthys, about the size of a gasometer, and never to be raised until once again a macarthy shall be lord of blarney. it will be a busy day for the butler, and a happy one for those who deal in plate-powder, whenever this restoration shall occur.
our driver gave us, as we returned, a taste of his autobiography. i wish that i could repeat it verbatim, for irish humour loses its bloom if it is not faithfully rendered; but my memory only retains the incidents, and, here and there, a phrase of his story.
he was in england several years ago, at the time of harvest, travelling, sickle in hand, with a dozen of “the boys,” and looking out for employment in the neighbourhood of, or, as he termed it, “contagious to th'ould castle of newark-upon-trent.” a hot wind blew the dust along the road, for “the good people were a-going their journeys;” 1 and they were resting awhile, and looking at a fine crop of wheat, by the wayside, when two young men on horseback stopped, and asked them “whether they wanted work?”
1 “the irish have a superstition, that when the dust is
caught up and blown about by the wind, it is a sign that the
fairies are travelling.”—tales and novels by maria
edgeworth, vol. iv. p. 72.
now, it seems, that there lived in these parts, at the period of our history, one of those unhappy malcontents whose counsel, like moloch's, is for open war with everything and everybody about them; who can believe no good of their neighbours, because they find none in themselves; who murmur at the rich, and are mean and merciless to the poor; who go to meeting house to spite the parson, and to church to vex the preacher; who attend parish-meetings to stir up quarrels, and to set one class against another; who poison foxes, and put their great ugly boots into partridge-nests; and sedulously devote themselves in every way to promote the misery of mankind.
a bear of this calibre, calling himself a farmer, was tenant of the field on which the irishman gazed; and a plan occurred to the merry young gentlemen by which they might amuse themselves, occupy the reapers, and annoy “that mangy old hunks.” accordingly, they at once retained our friend the car-driver, and his company, to cut the crop before them, giving them particular directions to get it down as quickly as they could, and agreeing to pay them liberally by the acre, as “their father was anxious to get it stacked, and would not mind their doing the work a bit slovenly, if only they lost no time.” and then, having warned them “not to take any notice of a poor half-witted fellow, who lived near, and who, fancying that all the land about was his own, might possibly try to interrupt their proceedings,” the horsemen wished them “good-day.”
they had been at work for nearly an hour, and had left behind them, in their anxious haste, such an untidy example of sheaf and stubble as would have broken mr. mechi's heart, when a loud bellowing in the distance announced the arrival of the unhappy lunatic! he came on, roaring and raving, shaking his fist, and foaming at the mouth. he actually danced with rage among the sickles, until the reapers, fearing the excision of his legs, forcibly removed him, and with twisted strawbands, secured him to his own gate! there, trussed and pinioned, he sent forth such howlings through “the alarmed air,” as scared every crow from the parish, and very speedily attracted the surprised attention of the british public travelling upon the great north road.
the reapers, eventually, found it expedient to retire with considerable agility, much disgusted and discomfited, at being “sich a distance on the wrong side of the wage, bedad,” until they were met by their delighted employers, who not only presented them with a couple of sovereigns, but introduced them, with the anecdote, to a jolly old gentleman, hard by, from whom they had employment until the end of harvest.
in allusion to the subject of irishmen in england, i asked the car man, when he had concluded his story, whether he was aware that there were as many of his countrymen living in london as in the city of dublin itself? 1 and his reply, to the effect, that i had “brought away a dale o' vartue from th' ouldstone a top o blarney,” reminded me of an observation made, when i was at school, by our french master, to a boy named drake. “monsieur canard, i shall not call you a liar but i do not believe von vord of vot you say!”
1 see an interesting account of the irish in london, in the
million-peopled city, by the rev. j. garwood, p. 246.
we had a fine view, as we returned, of the beautiful city and its environs, and re-entering by another route, we passed the ornate chapel, commenced by father mathew, at the date and with the design, so charmingly recorded by the poet,
“the first beginning of this new chapel
was in eighteen hundred and thirty-three;
it will soon be finish'd by the subscribers,
and then all tyrants away must flee.”
next morning, having purchased, as we were commissioned and as we recommend other tourists to do, a good stock of highly finished but low-priced gloves from mollard, in the street of st. patrick, we started by rail for dublin.
