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To these childish pursuits we were indebted for much pleasure in older years. Many of the traditions we gathered then have proved of considerable value when turned to illustrate the local history now. In tracing the source of the legend we have been led to some hidden mine of statistical and topographical lore that otherwise might have continued hidden for ages. Old ballads, rudely chaunted, have preserved events ungleaned in the field of the historian, and from the peasant's lips have we heard narratives unrecorded by former explorers. This object led us to visit the localities in which Spenser had laid the scenes of his exquisite stanzas the founts whence he drew his inspiration-the humble rills along which he rambled, and from the glassy depths of which he extracted the smooth harmony that gives its magic to his verse; we wished to see how far the reality corresponded with what we read, to find out with what truthfulness the scenes had been depicted, how much was due to imagination, how much to fact. These were among the motives which led us to Spenser's streams, and now we hear the "Strong Allo," or the "echoing river" tumbling from its cradle of hills.

A long chain of highlands form the boundary on the north of the County of Cork, and separate it from Limerick. They run through a primitive region, each height denoted by some appropriate name, as Knock Duff, the Black Hill; Knock Temple, the Hill of the Church, and so on; extensive bogs stretch their long dark surface from the foot of these hills, and through the glens, broken into patches where cultivation has successfully invaded the turf mould. This district is rich in geological subjects, and in the neighbourhood of the Red Bog a vein of culm has lately been discovered, but, like the rest of our national resources, the want of enterprise, or the absence of means, has hitherto kept it quite neglected. It is here the Allo has its birth. There are few habitations of any pretension in this wild region, Castle Ishen, the seat of Sir James Fitzgerald, and Glenfield, a mansion of the Boyle family, being almost the only ones. There are some ruins of the old castle near the former, but they have no claim to a detailed notice. This entire country once belonged to the powerful Fitzgeralds of Desmond, and a chain of castles, oc

cupied by their chieftains and followers, defended the frontiers throughout this district.

The river flows due south to Kanturk, a very considerable town in the County of Cork. This place formerly belonged to the Mac Carthys, kings of Desmond, and a splendid Castle still rears its quadrangular sides about a mile south, commenced by Donough Mac Carthy in Queen Elizabeth's reign. It is a parallelogram, 120 feet in length, 80 in breadth, flanked by four square towers. It was built of such durable materials--the window-frames, coynes, beltings, and battlements of hewn stone, that it does not seem to have suffered much from the lapse of time, and has almost the same appearance as when the works were stopped; for a representation having been made to the Queen that this Castle was too important to belong to a private subject, and nothing short of a strong and regular fortress, the lords of the Council of England transmitted an order to this country to suspend the works. It would appear from history that so far from any cause of fear being justly entertained with reference to Mac Carthy's loyalty, a well-grounded confidence should have warded off suspicion, for this very Donagh Mac Carthy fought to the death against the insurgents, having been killed in Tyrone's rebellion, and his lands in Duhallow seized by his kinsman, Dermod MacCarthy, who aided the rebel chief. In January, 1611, Cormac, the heir of Donagh, had the lands restored on petition to James I. The lands subsequently were ruled over by the Egmont family. Kanturk forms the confluence of the Allo and Dalua, or the river of two rapid streams which flows by Castle M'Auliffe to Newmarket, and after running under a handsome bridge at Kanturk unites with the echoing Allo.

The town of Kanturk and its neighbour Newmarket must possess considerable interest to the lovers of Irish bar eloquence, for both boast of a distinguished lawyer having his nativity in their respective precincts-Yelverton in Kanturk and Curran at Newmarket. It was not without some emotion we wandered to the latter town, and beheld the rushing Oon Dalua leaping from the dark recesses of the impending mountains. Minds do exist, souls dead to every fine impulse, that

would feel no patriot throb on the hills

"That look o'er sea-born Salamis,"

or gaze with vacant air on the chapel of Tell, by the banks of Lake Lucerne. Thank heaven we are not of that des

picable class! We feel the deepest reverence for every memorial of genius, and love to contemplate what once was great and glorious in men's eyes, though its day is over, in the same way that we look on the western clouds which the sun, though sunk to his rest, still gilds, with his parting rays, the latest objects on which his bright beams rested. Here in this little street Curran played when a boy-here he walked as a man-one of the most celebrated of his time. Like Erskine, his soul was in his client's cause; with the power of his eloquence he vindicated the right, appalled the unjust, compelled the strong arm of power to release the victim of tyranny, and coerced hostile juries to listen to the dictates of a terrified conscience. Like Erskine, and other distinguished advocates, he was not remarkable as a parliamentary speaker. It would have been impossible in one so gifted to have failed in his spirited addresses in the Irish House of Commons; but none of them equal his forensic efforts; in these he was unequalled and unapproachable. A small country mansion, on the brink of a glen near Newmarket, belonged to Curran, and was called the Priory.* This name originated from the convivial society of the wits of the day, called the Monks of the Screw, in which Curran held the office of Prior. He seems to have prided himself upon holding so prominent a place amongst the brethren, as the same name was given to his residence near Dublin. At this country seat he was wont to assemble a party of his friends after the close of the Munster circuit, to which he always went while a practising barrister, and, with the dear companions of his life, enjoyed the familiar intercourse which he enlivened by his gaiety, and elevated by his patriotism.

Tracking the course of the Dalua through the windings of the well

wooded hills that skirt its rapid way, we reach a wild and singularly picturesque region, a wide sylvan expanse, now unpeopled and solitary, where vegetation seems under some ban, and the very air chilled and unnatural. Here, in ancient days, ruled the MacCarthys, Kings of Desmond. Here were the wild deer hunted and the great boars slain. Trees in scanty patches yet cling to the earth with tenacious vitality, but they are stunted and deformed, as if struck by sudden and incurable blight. Heath and moorland seem to have banished vegetation from the soil, and, while the river murmured as if complainingly, on its fretful and tortuous course, hurrying through this sterile region, it rung in our ear like the voice of wailing spirits for the desolation of the land they loved. It is not wonderful that the country people preserve a strong superstitious feeling when traversing this tract. They rarely venture at night, or when the gray mantle of evening has fallen on the drooping day, for strange lights, they say, flicker across the plain, and suddenly illumine the broken walls and open casements of Castle M'Auliffe, a bare, bleak mass of shattered masonry that topples over the Dalua's bed; and ere the eyes can follow the meteor ray, lo! gloom again has seized the chieftain's dwelling, and all around is dark and drear.

Of course this castle has left its tradition, weird and strange enough in all conscience, and only that it has already occupied our pages, we should narrate it here. In our paper on the Blackwater the reader will find the legend of Mealan M'Auliffe, as given in Mr. O'Flanagan's Blackwater Guide. This castle is now ruined and lonesome; but it stands the only object that gives a life-like notion to the re gion where silence and solitude have fixed their awe-inspiring impress. We gladly leave this desolate scene.

Returning to the confluence of the river at Kanturk, the united streams glide past the majestic walls of Castle M'Donagh, and mingle with the rolling currents of the Blackwater, within sight of Clonmeen Castle.

Our wanderings beside the streams which Spenser sung are over. We have

Vide Memoir of J. P. Curran, by Davis, xxxvi. † DUBLIN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE, vol. xxvi. p. 444.

marked the localities which have been encircled with a halo of undying glory by the poet's lays. Other rivers mentioned by him have been described in previous papers. When presenting to the reader an account of the Funcheon, the Brackbawn, one of its tributaries,

called by the poet Molanna, came under our notice, so that to go over the same ground would be needless repetition. The source of this river is so beautifully described, we cannot resist inserting it again :

"For first she springs out of two marble rocks,
On which a grove of oaks high mounted grows;
That as a garland seems to deck the locks

Of some fair bride, brought forth with pompous shows,

Out of her bower, that many flowers strows;

Lo, thro' the flowery dales she tumbling down,

Thro' many woods and shady coverts flows,

(That on each side her silver channel crown)

Till to the plain she comes whose valleys she doth drown."

It is a great privilege to feel the beauty of the poet's language when describing the scenes he has so exquisitely painted. We regret our own poverty of expression hinders us from doing justice to the subject, and would willingly have entrusted the theme to abler pens. We fear our dull prose must have given a poor idea of the

scenery which stirred the imagination of Edmund Spenser; but we must remember that the elevation of thought and felicity of expression in which the Faerie Queen is written, is quite beyond the reach of any modern writer; and though ardently fond of Nature's beauty, we do not write poetry.

"The curious bard examined every drop
That glistens on the thorn; each leaf surveyed
That autumn from the rustling forest shakes

And marked its shape; and traced in the rude wind

Its eddying motion. Nature in his hand,

A pencil dipped in her own colours placed
With which he ever faithful copies drew
Each feature in proportion."

UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE.

No. CCXXV. SEPTEMBER, 1851. VOL. XXXVIII.

CONTENTS.

RUSKIN'S STONES OF VENICE •

LEAVES FROM THE PORTFOLIO OF A MANAGER.-No. VIII. STEPHEN GOSSON,
STUBBES, COLLIER, BEDFORD, LAW, AND SOME LATER WRITERS AGAINST THE
STAGE

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WARM WATER VERSUS COLD; OR, A VISIT TO WARMBRUNN IN PRUSSIAN AND
GRÆFENBERG IN AUSTRIAN SILESIA. PART II.

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MAURICE TIERNAY, THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE. CHAPTER XLIII-A FOREST
RIDE. CHAPTER XLIV.-AN EPISODE OF '94, CHAPTER XLV.-THE CABINET
OF A CHEF-DE-POLICE

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SCENES AND STORIES FROM THE SPANISH STAGE.-No. IV. CALDERON'S "CONSTANT PRINCE"

Page

253

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272

283

298

306

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THE CHURCH OF ROME IN HER RELATIONS WITH SECULAR GOVERNMENTS

369

DUBLIN

JAMES MCGLASHAN, 50 UPPER SACKVILLE-ST. WM. S. ORR AND CO., LONDON AND LIVERPOOL.

SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS.

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