worthy of him, he was always felicitous. I shall give you an instance. There stands on the borders of his parish, near the village of Blarney, an old castle of the M'Carthy family, rising abruptly from a bold cliff, at the foot of which rolls a not inconsiderable stream-the fond and frequent witness of Prout's angling propensities. The well-wooded demesne, comprising an extensive lake, a romantic cavern, and an artificial wilderness of rocks, belongs to the family of Jeffereys, which boasts in the Dowager Countess Glengall a most distinguished scion; her ladyship's mother having been immortalised under the title of "Lady Jeffers," with the other natural curiosities produced by this celebrated spot, in that never-sufficiently-to-be-encored song, the Groves of Blarney. But neither the stream, nor the lake, nor the castle, nor the village (a sad ruin! which, but for the recent establishment of a spinning-factory by some patriotic Corkonian, would be swept away altogether, or possessed by the owls as a grant from Sultan Mahmoud);-none of these picturesque objects has earned such notoriety for "the Groves" as a certain stone, of a basaltic kind, rather unusual in the district, placed on the pinnacle of the main tower, and endowed with the property of communicating to the happy tongue that comes in contact with its polished surface the gift of gentle insinuating speech, with soft talk in all its ramifications, whether employed in vows and promises light as air, ETEC TTEgoevra, such as lead captive the female heart; or elaborate mystification of a grosser grain, such as may do for the House of Commons; all summed up and charac terised by the mysterious term Blarney.* Prout's theory on this subject might have remained dor *To Crofton Croker belongs the merit of elucidating this obscure tradition. It appears that in 1602, when the Spaniards were exciting our chieftains to harass the English authorities, Cormac M'Dermot Carthy held, among other dependencies, the castle of Blarney, and had concluded an armistice with the lord-president, on condition of surto dering this fort to an English garrison. Day after day did his lordship look for the fulfilment of the compact; while the Irish Pozzo di Borgo, as loath to part with his stronghold as Russia to relinquish the Dardanelles, kept protocolising with soft promises and delusive delays, until at last Carew became the laughing-stock of Elizabeth's ministers, and "Blarney talk" roverbial, mant for ages, and perhaps been ultimately lost to the world at large, were it not for an event which occurred in the summer of 1825, while I (a younker then) happened to be on that visit to my aunt at Watergrasshill which eventually secured me her inheritance. The occurrence I am about to commemorate was, in truth, one of the first magnitude, and well calculated, from its importance, to form an epoch in the Annals of the Parish. It was the arrival of SIR WALTER SCOTT at Blarney, towards the end of the month of July. Years have now rolled away, and the "Ariosto of the North" is dead, and our ancient constitution has since fallen under the hoofs of the Whigs; quenched is many a beacon-light in church and state-Prout himself is no more; and plentiful indications tell us we are come upon evil days: but still may I be allowed to feel a pleasurable, though somewhat saddened emotion, while I revert to that intellectual meeting, and bid memory go back in "dream sublime" to the glorious exhibition of Prout's mental powers. It was, in sooth, a great day for old Ireland; a greater still for Blarney; but, greatest of all, it dawned, Prout, on thee! Then it was that thy light was taken from under its sacerdotal bushel, and placed conspicuously before a man fit to appreciate the effulgence of so brilliant a luminary—a light which I, who pen these words in sorrow, alas! shall never gaze on more! a light "That ne'er shall shine again That day it illumined the "cave," the "shady walks," and the "sweet rock-close," and sent its gladdening beam into the gloomiest vaults of the ancient fort; for all the recon dite recesses of the castle were explored in succession by the distinguished poet and the learned priest, and Prout held a candle to Scott. We read with interest, in the historian Polybius, the account of Hannibal's interview with Scipio on the plains of Zama; and often have we, in our school-boy days of unsophisticated feeling, sympathised with Ovid, when he told us that he only got a glimpse of Virgil; but Scott basked for a whole summer's day in the blaze of Prout's wit, and witnessed the coruscations of his learning. The great Marius is said never to have appeared to such advantage as when seated on the ruins of Carthage: with equal dignity Prout sat on the Blarney stone, amid ruins of kindred glory. Zeno taught in the "porch;" Plato loved to muse alone on the bold jutting promontory of Cape Sunium; Socrates, bent on finding Truth, "in sylvis Academi quærere verum," sought her among the bowers of Academus; Prout courted the same coy nymph, and wooed her in the " groves of Blarney." I said that it was in the summer of 1825 that Sir Walter Scott, in the progress of his tour through Ireland, reached Cork, and forthwith intimated his wish to proceed at once on a visit to Blarney Castle. For him the noble river, the magnificent estuary, and unrivalled harbour of a city that proudly bears on her civic escutcheon the well-applied motto, "Statio bene fida carinis," had but little attraction when placed in competition with a spot sacred to the Muses, and wedded to immortal verse. Such was the interest which its connexion with the popular literature and traditionary stories of the country had excited in that master-mindsuch the predominance of its local reminiscences-such the transcendent influence of song! For this did the then "Great Unknown wend his way through the purlieus of "Golden Spur," traversing the great manufacturing fauxbourg of "Black Pool," and emerging by the "Red Forge;" so intent on the classic object of his pursuit, as to disregard the unpromising aspect of the vestibule by which alone it is approachable. Many are the splendid mansions and hospitable halls that stud the suburbs of the "beautiful city," each boasting its grassy lawn and placid lake, each decked with park and woodland, and each well furnished with that paramount appendage, a batterie de cuisine; but all these castles were passed unheeded by, carent quia vate sacro. Gorgeous residences, picturesque seats, magnificent villas, they be, no doubt; but unknown to literature, in vain do they plume themselves on their architectural beauty; in vain do they spread wide their well-proportioned wings-they cannot soar aloft to the regions of celebrity. On the eve of that memorable day I was sitting on a stool in the priest's parlour, poking the turf fire, while Prout, who had been angling all day, sat nodding over his "breviary," and, according to my calculation, ought to be at the last psalm of vespers, when a loud official knock, not usual on that bleak hill, bespoke the presence of no ordinary personage. Accordingly, the "wicket, opening with a latch," ushered in a messenger clad in the livery of the ancient and loyal corporation of Cork, who announced himself as the bearer of a despatch from the mansion-house to his reverence; and, handing it with that deferential awe which even his masters felt for the incumbent of Watergrasshill, immediately withdrew. The letter ran thus: Council Chamber, July 24, 1825. Very RevereND DOCTOR PROUT, Cork harbours within its walls the illustrious author of Waverley. On receiving the freedom of our ancient city, which we presented to him (as usual towards distinguished strangers) in a box carved out of a chip of the Blarney stone, he expressed his determination to visit the old block itself. As he will, therefore, be in your neighbourhood tomorrow, and as no one is better able to do the honours than you (our burgesses being sadly deficient in learning, as you and I well know), your attendance on the celebrated poet is requested by your old friend and foster-brother, GEORGE KNAPP,* Mayor. *The republic of letters has great reason to complain of Dr. Maginn, for his non-fulfilment of a positive pledge to publish "a great historical work" on the mayors of Cork. Owing to this desideratum in the annals of the empire, I am compelled to bring into notice thus abruptly the most respectable civic worthy that has worn the cocked hat and chain since the days of John Walters, who boldly proclaimed Perkin Warbeck, in the reign of Henry VII., in the market-place of that beautiful city. Knapp's virtues and talents did not, like those of Donna Ines, deserve to be called "Classic all, Nor lay they chiefly in the mathematical," for his favourite pursuit during the canicule of 1825, was the extermination of mad dogs; and so vigorously did he urge the carnage during the summer of his mayoralty, that some thought he wished to eclipse the exploit of St. Patrick in destroying the breed altogether, as the saint did that of toads. A Cork poet, the laureate of the mansion Never shall I forget the beam of triumph that lit up the old man's features on the perusal of Knapp's pithy summons; and right warmly did he respond to my congratulations on the prospect of thus coming in contact with so distinguished an author. "You are right, child!" said he; and as I perceived by his manner that he was about to enter on one of those rambling trains of thought-half-homily, half-soliloquy-in which he was wont to indulge, I settled myself by the fire-place, and prepared to go through my accustomed part of an attentive listener. "A great man, Frank! A truly great man! No token of ancient days escapes his eagle glance, no venerable memʊrial of former times his observant scrutiny; and still, even he, versed as he is in the monumentary remains of bygone ages, may yet learn something more, and have no cause to regret his visit to Blarney. Yes! since our 'groves' are to be honoured by the presence of the learned baronet, 'Sylvæ sint consule digna!' let us make them deserving of his attention. He shall fix his antiquarian eye and rivet his wondering gaze on the rude basaltic mass that crowns the battlements of the main tower; for though he may have seen the "chair at Scone," where the Caledonian kings were crowned; though he may have examined that Scotch pebble in Westminster Abbey, which the Cockneys, in the exercise of a delightful credulity, believe to be "Jacob's pillow;" though he may have visited the mishapen pillars on Salisbury plain, and the Rock of Cashel, and the "Hag's Bed," and St. Kevin's petrified matelas at Glendalough, and many a cromlech of Druidical celebrity,-there is a stone yet unexplored, which he shall contemplate to-morrow, and place on record among his most profitable days that on which he shall have paid it homage: 'Hunc, Macrine, diem numera meliore lapillo!' "I am old, Frank. In my wild youth I have seen many house, has celebrated Knapp's prowess in a didactic composition, entitled Dog-Killing, a Poem, in which the mayor is likened to Apollo iz the Grecian camp before Troy, in the opening of the Iliad:— Αυταρ βους πρωτον εφ' ωκετο και ευνας Άργους. |