The linen manufacture is very general aboutColeraine, coarse ten-hundred linen. It is carried to Dublin in cars, one hundred and ten miles, at 5s. per cwt. in summer, and 7s. 6d. in winter.
From Limavady to Derry there is very little uncultivated land. Within four miles of the latter, rents are from 12s. to 20s.; mountains paid for but in the gross. Reached Derry at night, and waited two hours in the dark before the ferry-boat came over for me.
August 7. In the morning went to the bishop’s palace to leave my letters of recommendation; for I was informed of my misfortune in his being out of the kingdom. He was upon a voyage to Staffa, and had sent home some of the stones of which it consists. They appeared perfectly to resemble in shape, colour, and smell, those of the Giant’s Causeway.
August 8. Left Derry, and took the road by Raphoe to the Rev. Mr. Golding’s at Clonleigh, who favoured me with much valuable information. The view of Derry at the distance of a mile or two is the most picturesque of any place I have seen. It seems to be built on an island of bold land rising from the river, which spreads into a fine basin at the foot of the town; the adjacent country hilly. The scene wants nothing but wood to make it a perfect landscape.
August 11. Left Mount Charles, and passing through Donegal took the road to Ballyshannon; came presently to several beautiful landscapes, swelling hills cultivated, with the bay flowing upamong them. They want nothing but more wood, and are beautiful without it. Afterwards likewise to the left they rise in various outlines, and die away insensibly into one another. When the road leads to a full view of the bay of Donegal, these smiling spots, above which the proud mountains rear their heads, are numerous, the hillocks of almost regular circular forms. They are very pleasing from form, verdure, and the water breaking in their vales.
Before I got to Ballyshannon, remarked a bleach green, which indicates weaving in the neighbourhood. Viewed the salmon-leap at Ballyshannon, which is let for £400 a year. The scenery of it is very beautiful. It is a fine fall, and the coast of the river very bold, consisting of perpendicular rocks with grass of a beautiful verdure to the very edge. It projects in little promontories, which grew longer as they approach the sea, and open to give a fine view of the ocean. Before the fall in the middle of the river, is a rocky island on which is a curing house, instead of the turret of a ruined castle for which it seems formed. The town prettily situated on the rising ground on each side of the river. To Sir James Caldwell’s. Crossing the bridge, stopped for a view of the river, which is a very fine one, and was delighted to see the salmon jump, to me an unusual sight; the water was perfectly alive with them. Rising the hill, look back on the town; the situation beautiful, the river presentsa noble view. Come to Belleek, a little village with one of the finest water-falls I remember anywhere to have seen; viewed it from the bridge. The river in a very broad sheet comes from behind some wood, and breaks over a bed of rocks, not perpendicular, but shelving in various directions, and foams away under the arches, after which it grows more silent and gives a beautiful bend under a rock crowned by a fine bank of wood. Reached Castle Caldwell at night, where Sir James Caldwell received me with a politeness and cordiality that will make me long remember it with pleasure.
August 15. To Belleisle, the charming seat of the Earl of Ross. It is an island in Loch Earne, of two hundred Irish acres, every part of it hill, dale, and gentle declivities; it has a great deal of wood, much of which is old, and forms both deep shades and open, cheerful groves. The trees hang on the slopes, and consequently show themselves to the best advantage. All this is exceedingly pretty, but it is rendered trebly so by the situation. A reach of the lake passes before the house, which is situated near the banks among some fine woods, which give both beauty and shelter. This sheet of water, which is three miles over, is bounded in front by an island of thick wood, and by a bold circular hill which is his lordship’s deer park; this hill is backed by a considerable mountain. To the right are four or five fine clumps of dark wood—somany islands which rise boldly from the lake; the water breaks in straits between them, and forms a scene extremely picturesque. On the other side the lake stretches behind wood in a strait which forms Belleisle. Lord Ross has made walks round the island, from which there is a considerable variety of prospect. A temple is built on a gentle hill, commanding the view of the wooded islands above-mentioned, but the most pleasing prospect of them is coming out from the grotto. They appear in an uncommon beauty; two seem to join, and the water which flows between takes the appearance of a fine bay, projecting deep into a dark wood: nothing can be more beautiful. The park hill rises above them, and the whole is backed with mountains. The home scene at your feet also is pretty; a lawn scattered with trees that forms the margin of the lake, closing gradually in a thick wood of tall trees, above the tops of which is a distant view of Cultiegh mountain, which is there seen in its proudest solemnity.
They plough all with horses three or four in a plough, and all abreast. Here let it be remarked that they very commonly plough and harrow with their horses drawing by the tail: it is done every season. Nothing can put them beside this, and they insist that, take a horse tired in traces and put him to work by the tail, he will draw better: quite fresh again. Indignant reader, this is no jest of mine,but cruel, stubborn, barbarous truth. It is so all over Cavan.
At Clonells, near Castlerea, lives O’Connor, the direct descendant of Roderick O’Connor, who was king of Connaught six or seven hundred years ago; there is a monument of him in Roscommon Church, with his sceptre, etc. I was told as a certainty that this family were here long before the coming of the Milesians. Their possessions, formerly so great, are reduced to three or four hundred pounds a year, the family having fared in the revolutions of so many ages much worse than the O’Niels and O’Briens. The common people pay him the greatest respect, and send him presents of cattle, etc., upon various occasions. They consider him as the prince of a people involved in one common ruin.
Another great family in Connaught is Macdermot, who calls himself Prince of Coolavin. He lives at Coolavin, in Sligo, and though he has not above one hundred pounds a year, will not admit his children to sit down in his presence. This was certainly the case with his father, and some assured me even with the present chief. Lord Kingsborough, Mr. Ponsonby, Mr. O’Hara, Mr. Sandford, etc., came to see him, and his address was curious: “O’Hara, you are welcome! Sandford, I am glad to see your mother’s son” (his mother was an O’Brien): “as to the rest of ye, come in as ye can.” Mr. O’Hara, of Nymphsfield, is inpossession of a considerable estate in Sligo, which is the remains of great possessions they had in that country. He is one of the few descendants of the Milesian race.
To Lord Kingston’s, to whom I had a letter, but unfortunately for me he was at Spa. Walked down to Longford Hill to view the lake. It is one of the most delicious scenes I ever beheld; a lake of five miles by four, which fills the bottom of a gentle valley almost of a circular form, bounded very boldly by the mountains. Those to the left rise in a noble slope; they lower rather in front, and let in a view of Strand mountain, near Sligo, above twenty miles off. To the right you look over a small part of a bog to a large extent of cultivated hill, with the blue mountains beyond. Were this little piece of bog planted, the view would be more complete; the hill on which you stand has a foliage of well-grown trees, which form the southern shore. You look down on six islands, all wooded, and on a fine promontory to the left, which shoots far into the lake. Nothing can be more pleasing than their uncommon variety. The first is small (Rock Island), tufted with trees, under the shade of which is an ancient building, once the residence of Macdermot. The next a mixture of lawn and wood. The third, which appears to join this, is of a darker shade, yet not so thick but you can see the bright lawn under the trees. House Island is one fine, thickwood, which admits not a gleam of light, a contrast to the silver bosom of the lake. Church Island is at a greater distance; this is also a clump, and rises boldly. Rock Island is of wood; it opens in the centre and shows a lawn with a building on it. It is impossible to imagine a more pleasing and cheerful scene. Passed the chapel to Smithfield Hill, which is a fine rising ground, quite surrounded with plantations. From hence the view is changed; here the promontory appears very bold, and over its neck you see another wooded island in a most picturesque situation. Nothing can be more picturesque than Rock Island, its ruin overhung with ivy. The other islands assume fresh and varied outlines, and form upon the whole one of the most luxuriant scenes I have met with.
The views of the lake and environs are very fine as you go to Boyle; the woods unite into a large mass, and contrast the bright sheet of water with their dark shades.
The lands about Kingston are very fine, a rich, dry, yellow, sandy loam, the finest soil that I have seen in Ireland; all grass, and covered with very fine bullocks, cows, and sheep. The farms rise to five hundred acres, and are generally in divisions, parted by stone walls, for oxen, cows, young cattle, and sheep separate. Some of the lands will carry an ox and a wether per acre; rents, 15s. to 20s.
Dined at Boyle, and took the road to Ballymoat.Crossed an immense mountainy bog, where I stopped and made inquiries; found that it was ten miles long, and three and a half over, containing thirty-five square miles; that limestone quarries were around and in it, and limestone gravel in many places to be found, and used in the lands that join it. In addition to this I may add that there is a great road crossing it. Thirty-five miles are twenty-two thousand four hundred acres. What an immense field of improvement! Nothing would be easier than to drain it (vast tracts of land have such a fall), that not a drop of water could remain. These hilly bogs are extremely different from any I have seen in England. In the moors in the north the hills and mountains are all covered with heath, like the Irish bogs, but they are of various soils, gravel, shingle, moor, etc., and boggy only in spots, but the Irish bog hills are all pure bog to a great depth without the least variation of soil; and the bog being of a hilly form, is a proof that it is a growing vegetable mass, and not owing merely to stagnant water. Sir Laurence Dundass is the principal proprietor of this.
Reached Ballymoat in the evening, the residence of the Hon. Mr. Fitzmaurice, where I expected great pleasure in viewing a manufactory, of which I heard much since I came to Ireland. He was so kind as to give me the following account of it in the most liberal manner:—
“Twenty years ago the late Lord Shelburne came to Ballymoat, a wild uncultivated region without industry or civility, and the people all Roman Catholics, without an atom of a manufacture, not even spinning. In order to change this state of things, his lordship contracted with people in the north to bring Protestant weavers and establish a manufactory, as the only means of making the change he wished. This was done, but falling into the hands of rascals he lost £5,000 by the business, with only seventeen Protestant families and twenty-six or twenty-seven looms established for it. Upon his death Lady Shelburne wished to carry his scheme into execution, and to do it gave much encouragement to Mr. Wakefield, the great Irish factor in London, by granting advantageous leases under the contract of building and colonising by weavers from the north, and carrying on the manufactory. He found about twenty looms working upon their own account, and made a considerable progress in this for five years, raising several buildings, cottages for the weavers, and was going on as well as the variety of his business would admit, employing sixty looms. He then died, when a stand was made to all the works for a year, in which everything went much to ruin. Lady Shelburne then employed a new manager to carry on the manufacture upon his own account, giving him very profitable grants of lands to encourage him to do it with spirit. He continued for five years, employingsixty looms also, but his circumstances failing, a fresh stop was put to the work.
“Then it was that Mr. Fitzmaurice, in the year 1774, determined to exert himself in pushing on a manufactory which promised to be of such essential service to the whole country. To do this with effect, he saw that it was necessary to take it entirely into his own hands. He could lend money to the manager to enable him to go on, but that would be at best hazardous, and could never do it in the complete manner in which he wished to establish it. In this period of consideration, Mr. Fitzmaurice was advised by his friends never to engage in so complex a business as a manufacture, in which he must of necessity become a merchant, also engage in all the hazard, irksomeness, etc., of commerce, so totally different from his birth, education, ideas, and pursuits; but tired with the inactivity of common life, he determined not only to turn manufacturer, but to carry on the business in the most spirited and vigorous manner that was possible. In the first place he took every means of making himself a complete master of the business; he went through various manufactures, inquired into the minutiæ, and took every measure to know it to the bottom. This he did so repeatedly and with such attention in the whole progress, from spinning to bleaching and selling, that he became as thorough a master of it as an experienced manager; he has wovelinen, and done every part of the business with his own hands. As he determined to have the works complete, he took Mr. Stansfield the engineer, so well known for his improved saw-mills, into his pay. He sent him over to Ballymoat in the winter of 1774, in order to erect the machinery of a bleach mill upon the very best construction; he went to all the great mills in the north of Ireland to inspect them, to remark their deficiencies, that they might be improved in the mills he intended to erect. This knowledge being gained, the work was begun, and as water was necessary, a great basin was formed by a dam across a valley, by which means thirty-four acres were floated, to serve as a reservoir for dry seasons, to secure plenty at all times.”
August 30. Rode to Rosshill, four miles off, a headland that projects into the Bay of Newport, from which there is a most beautiful view of the bay on both sides; I counted thirty islands very distinctly, all of them cultivated under corn and potatoes, or pastured by cattle. At a distance Clare rises in a very bold and picturesque style; on the left Crow Patrick, and to the right other mountains. It is a view that wants nothing but wood.
September 5. To Drumoland, the seat of Sir Lucius O’Brien, in the county of Clare, a gentleman who had been repeatedly assiduous to procure me every sort of information. I should remark, as I have now leftGalway, that that county, from entering it in the road to Tuam till leaving it to-day, has been, upon the whole, inferior to most of the parts I have travelled in Ireland in point of beauty: there are not mountains of a magnitude to make the view striking. It is perfectly free from woods, and even trees, except about gentlemen’s houses, nor has it a variety in its face. I do not, however, speak without exception; I passed some tracts which are cheerful. Drumoland has a pleasing variety of grounds about the house; it stands on a hill gently rising from a lake of twenty-four acres, in the middle of a noble wood of oak, ash, poplar, etc.; three beautiful hills rise above, over which the plantations spread in a varied manner; and these hills command very fine views of the great rivers Fergus and Shannon at their junction, being each of them a league wide.
There is a view of the Shannon from Limerick to Foynes Island, which is thirty miles, with all its bays, bends, islands, and fertile shores. It is from one to three miles broad, a most noble river, deserving regal navies for its ornament, or, what are better, fleets of merchantmen, the cheerful signs of far-extended commerce, instead of a few miserable fishing-boats, the only canvas that swelled upon the scene; but the want of commerce in her ports is the misfortune not the fault of Ireland—thanks for the deficiency to that illiberal spirit of trading jealousy, which has at times actuated and disgraced so many nations. The prospecthas a noble outline in the bold mountains of Tipperary, Cork, Limerick, and Kerry. The whole view magnificent.
At the foot of this hill is the castle of Bunratty, a very large edifice, the seat of the O’Briens, princes of Thomond; it stands on the bank of a river, which falls into the Shannon near it. About this castle and that of Rosmanagher the land is the best in the county of Clare; it is worth £1 13s. an acre, and fats a bullock per acre in summer, besides winter feed.
To Limerick, through a cheerful country, on the banks of the river, in a vale surrounded by distant mountains. That city is very finely situated, partly on an island formed by the Shannon. The new part, called Newtown Pery, from Mr. Pery the speaker, who owns a considerable part of the city, and represents it in Parliament, is well built. The houses are new ones, of brick, large, and in right lines. There is a communication with the rest of the town by a handsome bridge of three large arches erected at Mr. Pery’s expense. Here are docks, quays, and a custom-house, which is a good building, faces the river, and on the opposite banks is a large quadrangular one, the house of industry. This part of Limerick is very cheerful and agreeable, and carries all the marks of a flourishing place.
The exports of this port are beef, pork, butter, hides, and rape-seed. The imports are rum, sugar, timber,tobacco, wines, coals, bark, salt, etc. The customs and excise, about sixteen years ago, amounted to £16,000, at present £32,000, and rather more four or five years ago.
Whole revenue
1751
£16,000
“ “
1775
£51,000
Revenue of the Port of Limerick. Year ending
March 25, 1759
£20,494
“ 1760
29,197
“ 1761
20,727
“ 1762
20,650
“ 1763
20,525
“ 1764
32,635
“ 1765
31,099
Com. Jour.,
vol. xiv., p. 71.
Price of Provisions.
Wheat, 1s. 1d. a stone
Wild ducks, 20d. to 2s. a couple.
Barley and oats, 5¾d. to 6d.
Teal, 10d. a couple.
Scotch coals, 18s.; Whitehaven, 20s.
Plover, 6d. a couple.
A boat-load of turf, 20 tons, 45s.
Widgeon, 10d. ditto.
Salmon, three-halfpence.
Hares, 1s. each, commonly sold all year.
Trout, 2d., very fine, per lb.
Woodcocks, 20d. to 2s. 2d. a brace.
Eels, 2d. a pound.
Oysters, 4d. to 1s. a 100.
Rabbits, 8d. a couple.
Lobsters, 1s. to 1s. 6d., if good.
Land sells at twenty years’ purchase. Rents were at the highest in 1765; fell since, but in four years have fallen 8s. to 10s. an acre about Limerick. They are at a stand at present, owing to the high price of provisions from pasture. The number of people inLimerick is computed at thirty-two thousand; it is exceedingly populous for the size, the chief street quite crowded; many sedan chairs in town, and some hackney chaises. Assemblies the year round, in a new assembly-house built for the purpose, and plays and concerts common.
Upon the whole, Limerick must be a very gay place, but when the usual number of troops are in town much more so. To show the general expenses of living, I was told of a person’s keeping a carriage, four horses, three men, three maids, a good table, a wife, three children, and a nurse, and all for £500 a year:
£. s. d.
£. s. d.
A footman
4 4 0 to
6 6 0
A professed woman-cook
6 6 0
A house-maid
3 0 0
A kitchen-maid
2 0 0
A butler
10 0 0 to
12 0 0
A barrel of beef or pork, 200lb. weight. Vessels of 400 tons can come up with spring tides, which rise fourteen feet.
September 9. To Castle Oliver; various country, not so rich to appearance as the Caucasus, being fed bare; much hilly sheep walk, and for a considerable way a full third of it potatoes and corn: no sign of depopulation. Just before I got to the hills a field of ragwort (senesio jacobœa) buried the cows. The first hill of Castle Oliver interesting. After rising amountain so high that no one could think of any house, you come in view of a vale, quite filled with fine woods, fields margined with trees, and hedge plantations climbing up the mountains. Having engaged myself to Mr. Oliver, to return from Killarney by his house, as he was confined to Limerick by the assizes, I shall omit saying anything of it at present.
September 16. To Cove by water, from Mr. Trent’s quay. The view of Lota is charming; a fine rising lawn from the water, with noble spreading woods reaching on each side; the house a very pleasing front, with lawn shooting into the woods. The river forms a creek between two hills, one Lota, the other opening to another hill of inclosures well wooded. As the boat leaves the shore nothing can be finer than the view behind us; the back woods of Lota, the house and lawn, and the high bold inclosures towards Cork, form the finest shore imaginable, leading to Cork, the city appearing in full view, Dunkettle wooded inclosures, a fine sweep of hill, joining Mr. Hoare’s at Factory Hill, whose woods have a beautiful effect. Dunkettle House almost lost in a wood. As we advance, the woods of Lota and Dunkettle unite in one fine mass. The sheet of water, the rising lawns, the house in the most beautiful situation imaginable, with more woods above it than lawns below it, the west shore of Loch Mahon, a very fine rising hill cut into inclosures but without wood, land-locked on every side with highlands, scattered with inclosures, woods, seats, etc., with every cheerful circumstance of lively commerce, have altogether a great effect. Advancing to Passage the shores are various, and the scenery enlivened by fourscore sail of large ships; the little port of Passage at the water’s edge, with the hills rising boldly above it. The channel narrows between the great island and the hills of Passage. The shores bold, and the ships scattered about them, with the inclosures hanging behind the masts and yards picturesque. Passing the straits a new basin of the harbour opens, surrounded with high lands. Monkstown Castle on the hill to the right, and the grounds of Ballybricken, a beautiful intermixed scene of wood and lawn. The high shore of the harbour’s mouth opens gradually. The whole scene is land-locked. The first view of Haulbowline Island and Spike Island, high rocky lands, with the channel opening to Cove, where are a fleet of ships at anchor, and Rostellan, Lord Inchiquin’s house, backed with hills, a scenery that wants nothing but the accompaniment of wood. The view of Ballybricken changes; it now appears to be unfortunately cut into right lines. Arrived at the ship at Cove; in the evening returned, leaving Mr. Jefferys and family on board for a voyage to Havre, in their way to Paris.
Dunkettle is one of the most beautiful places I have seen in Ireland. It is a hill of some hundred acresbroken into a great variety of ground by gentle declivities, with everywhere an undulating outline and the whole varied by a considerable quantity of wood, which in some places is thick enough to take the appearance of close groves, in others spreads into scattered thickets and a variety of single groups. This hill, or rather cluster of hills, is surrounded on one side by a reach of Cork Harbour, over which it looks in the most advantageous manner; and on the other by an irriguous vale, through which flows the river Glanmire; the opposite shore of that river has every variety that can unite to form pleasing landscapes for the views from Dunkettle grounds; in some places narrow glens, the bottoms of which are quite filled with water, and the steep banks covered with thick woods that spread a deep shade; in others the vale opens to form the site of a pretty cheerful village, overhung by hill and wood: here the shore rises gradually into large inclosures, which spread over the hills, stretching beyond each other; and there the vale melts again into a milder variety of fields. A hill thus situated, and consisting in itself of so much variety of surface, must necessarily command many pleasing views. To enjoy these to the better advantage, Mr. Trent (than whom no one has a better taste, both to discover and describe the beauties of natural scenes) is making a walk around the whole, which is to bend to the inequalities of the ground, so as to take theprincipal points in view. The whole is so beautiful, that if I were to make the regular detour, the description might be too minute; but there are some points which gave me so much pleasure that I know not how to avoid recommending to others that travel this way to taste the same satisfaction. From the upper part of the orchard you look down a part of the river, where it opens into a regular basin, one corner stretching up to Cork, lost behind the hill of Lota, the lawn of which breaks on the swelling hills among the woods; the house obscured, and therefore seeming a part of your home scene; the losing the river behind the beautiful projection of Lota is more pleasing than can be expressed. The other reach, leading to the harbour’s mouth, is half hidden by the trees, which margin the foot of the hill on which you stand; in front a noble range of cultivated hills, the inclosures broken by slight spots of wood, and prettily varied with houses, without being so crowded as to take off the rural effect. The scene is not only beautiful in those common circumstances which form a landscape, but is alive with the cheerfulness of ships and boats perpetually moving. Upon the whole, it is one of the most luxuriant prospects I have anywhere seen. Leaving the orchard, pass on the brow of a hill which forms the bank of the river of Glanmire, commanding the opposite woods of Lota in all their beauty. Rise to the top of the high hill which joins the deer park, and exhibits ascene equally extensive and beautiful; you look down on a vale which winds almost around at your feet, finishing to the left in Cork river, which here takes the appearance of a lake, bounded by wood and hills, and sunk in the bottom of a vale, in a style which painting cannot imitate; the opposite hills of Lota, wood, and lawn, seem formed as objects for this point of view: at your feet a hill rises out of the vale, with higher ones around it, the margins scattered wood; to the right, towards Riverstown, a vale; the whole backed by cultivated hills to Kallahan’s field. Milder scenes follow: a bird’s-eye view of a small vale sunk at your feet, through which the river flows; a bridge of several arches unites two parts of a beautiful village, the meadow grounds of which rise gently, a varied surface of wood and lawn, to the hills of Riverstown, the whole surrounded by delicious sweeps of cultivated hills. To the left a wooded glen rising from the vale to the horizon, the scenery sequestered, but pleasing; the oak wood which hangs on the deer-park hills, an addition. Down to the brow of the hill, where it hangs over the river, a picturesque interesting spot. The inclosures of the opposite bank hang beautifully to the eye, and the wooded glen winds up the hill. Returning to the house I was conducted to the hill, where the grounds slope off to the river of Cork, which opens to view in noble reaches of a magnitude that fills the eye and the imagination; a whole country of a character trulymagnificent, and behind the winding vale which leads between a series of hills to Glanmire.
A St. Michael, etc., the subject confused, by Michael Angelo. A St. Francis on wood, a large original of Guido. A St. Cecilia, original of Romanelli. An Assumption of the Virgin, by L. Carracci. A Quaker’s meeting, of above fifty figures, by Egbert Hemskerk. A sea view and rock piece, by Vernet. A small flagellation, by Sebastian del Piombo. A Madonna and Child, small, by Rubens. The Crucifixion, many figures in miniature, excellent, though the master is unknown. An excellent copy of the famous Danæ of Titian, at Monte Cavallo, near Naples, by Cioffi of Naples. Another of the Venus of Titian, at the Tribuna in Florence. Another of Venus blinding Cupid, by Titian, at the Palazzo Borghese in Rome. Another of great merit of the Madonna della Sedia of Raphael, at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, by Stirn, a German, lately at Rome. Another of a Holy Family, from Raphael, of which there are said to be three originals, one at the king’s palace in Naples, one in the Palais Royal in Paris, and the third in the collection of Lord Exeter, lately purchased at Rome. A portrait of Sir Patrick Trent, by Sir P. Lely. An excellent portrait of a person unknown, by Dahl.
September 17. To Castlemartyr, the seat of the Earlof Shannon, one of the most distinguished improvers in Ireland; in whom I found the most earnest desire to give me every species of information, with a knowledge and ability which enabled him to do it most effectually. Passed through Middleton, a well-built place, which belongs to the noble lord to whom it gives title. Castlemartyr is an old house, but much added to by the present earl; he has built, besides other rooms, a dining one thirty-two feet long by twenty-two broad, and a drawing one, the best rooms I have seen in Ireland, a double cube of twenty-five feet, being fifty long, twenty-five broad, and twenty-five high. The grounds about the house are very well laid out; much wood well grown, considerable lawns, a river made to wind through them in a beautiful manner, an old castle so perfectly covered with ivy as to be a picturesque object. A winding walk leads for a considerable distance along the banks of this river, and presents several pleasing landscapes.
From Rostellan to Lota, the seat of Frederick Rogers, Esq. I had before seen it in the highest perfection from the water going from Dunkettle to Cove, and from the grounds of Dunkettle. Mrs. Rogers was so obliging as to show me the back grounds, which are admirably wooded, and of a fine varied surface.
Got to Cork in the evening, and waited on the Dean, who received me with the most flattering attention. Cork is one of the most populous places I haveever been in; it was market-day, and I could scarce drive through the streets, they were so amazingly thronged: on the other days the number is very great. I should suppose it must resemble a Dutch town, for there are many canals in the streets, with quays before the houses. The best built part is Morrison’s Island, which promises well; the old part of the town is very close and dirty. As to its commerce, the following particulars I owe to Robert Gordon, Esq., the surveyor-general:
Average of Nineteen Years’ Export, ending March24, 1773.
Hides, at £1 each
£64,000
Bay and woollen yarn
294,000
Butter, at 30s. per cwt. from 56s. to 72s.
180,000
Beef, at 20s. a barrel
291,970
Camlets, serges, etc.
40,000
Candles
34,220
Soap
20,000
Tallow
20,000
Herrings, 18 to 35,000l. all their own
21,000
Glue 20 to 25,000
22,000
Pork
64,000
Wool to England
14,000
Small exports, Gottenburg herrings, horns, hoofs, etc., feather-beds, palliasses, feathers, etc.
35,000
£1,100,190
Average prices of the nineteen years on the custom books. All exports on those books are rated at thevalue of the reign of Charles II.; but the imports have always 10 per cent. on the sworn price added to them. Seventy to eighty sail of ships belong to Cork. Average of ships that entered that port in those nineteen years, eight hundred and seventy-two per annum. The number of people at Cork mustered by the clergy by hearth-money, and by the number of houses, payments to minister, average of the three, sixty-seven thousand souls, if taken before the 1st of September, after that twenty thousand increased. There are seven hundred coopers in the town. Barrels all of oak or beech, all from America: the latter for herrings, now from Gottenburg and Norway. The excise of Cork now no more than in Charles the Second’s reign. Ridiculous!
Cork old duties, in 1751, produced
£62,000
Now the same
140,000
Bullocks, 16,000 head, 32,000 barrels; 41,000 hogs, 20,000 barrels. Butter, 22,000 firkins of half a hundredweight each, both increase this year, the whole being
240,000 firkins of butter,120,000 barrels of beef.
Export of woollen yarn from Cork, £300,000 a year in the Irish market. No wool smuggled, or at least very little. The wool comes to Cork, etc., and is delivered out to combers, who make it into balls. These ballsare bought up by the French agents at a vast price, and exported; but even this does not amount to £40,000 a year.
Beef, 21s. per cwt., never so high by 2s. 6d.; pork, 30s., never higher than 18s. 6d., owing to the army demand. Slaughter dung, 8d. for a horse load. Country labourer, 6d.; about town, 10d. Milk, seven pints a penny. Coals, 3s. 8d. to 5s. a barrel, six of which make a ton. Eggs, four a penny.
Cork labourers. Cellar ones, twenty thousand; have 1s. 1d. a day, and as much bread, beef, and beer as they can eat and drink, and seven pounds of offals a week for their families. Rent for their house, 40s. Masons’ and carpenters’ labourers, 10d. a day. Sailors now £3 a month and provisions: before the American war, 28s. Porters and coal-heavers paid by the great. State of the poor people in general incomparably better off than they were twenty years ago. There are imported eighteen thousand barrels annually of Scotch herrings, at 18s. a barrel. The salt for the beef trade comes from Lisbon, St. Ube’s, etc. The salt for the fish trade from Rochelle. For butter English and Irish.
Particulars of the woollen fabrics of the county of Cork received from a manufacturer. The woollen trade, serges and camlets, ratteens, friezes, druggets, and narrow cloths, the last they make to 10s. and 12s.a yard; if they might export to 8s. they are very clear that they could get a great trade for the woollen manufactures of Cork. The wool comes from Galway and Roscommon, combed here by combers, who earn 8s. to 10s. a week, into balls of twenty-four ounces, which is spun into worsteds of twelve skeins to the ball, and exported to Yarmouth for Norwich; the export price, £30 a pack to £33, never before so high; average of them, £26 to £30. Some they work up at home into serges, stuffs, and camlets; the serges at 12d. a yard, thirty-four inches wide; the stuffs sixteen inches, at 18d., the camlets at 9½d. to 13d.; the spinners at 9d. a ball, one in a week; or a ball and half 12d. a week, and attend the family besides; this is done most in Waterford and Kerry, particularly near Killarney; the weavers earn 1s. a day on an average. Full three-fourths of the wool is exported in yarn, and only one-fourth worth worked up. Half the wool of Ireland is combed in the county of Cork.
A very great manufacture of ratteens at Carrick-on-Suir; the bay worsted is for serges, shalloons, etc. Woollen yarn for coarse cloths, which latter have been lost for some years, owing to the high price of wool. The bay export has declined since 1770, which declension is owing to the high price of wool.
No wool smuggled, not even from Kerry; not a sloop’s cargo in twenty years, the price too high; the declension has been considerable. For everyeighty-six packs that are exported, a licence from the Lord Lieutenant, for which £20 is paid.
From the Act of the last sessions of Great Britain for exporting woollen goods for the troops in the pay of Ireland, Mr. Abraham Lane, of Cork, established a new manufacture of army clothing for that purpose, which is the first at Cork, and pays £40 a week in labour only. Upon the whole there has been no increase of woollen manufacture within twenty years. Is clearly of opinion that many fabrics might be worked up here much cheaper than in France, of cloths that the French have beat the English out of; these are, particularly, broadcloths of one yard and half yard wide, from 3s. to 6s. 6d. a yard for the Levant trade. Friezes which are now supplied from Carcassone in Languedoc. Friezes, of twenty-four to twenty-seven inches, at 10d. to 13d. a yard. Flannels, twenty-seven to thirty-six, from 7d. to 14d. Serges of twenty-seven to thirty-six inches, at 7d. to 12d. a yard; these would work up the coarse wool. At Ballynasloe Fair, in July, £200,000 a year bought in wool. There is a manufactory of knit-stocking by the common women about Cork, for eight or ten miles around; the yarn from 12d. to 18d. a pair, and the worsted from 16d. to 20d., and earn from 12d. to 18d. a week. Besides their own consumption, great quantities are sent to the north of Ireland.
All the weavers in the country are confined to towns,have no land, but small gardens. Bandle, or narrow linen, for home consumption, is made in the western part of the county. Generally speaking, the circumstances of all the manufacturing poor are better than they were twenty years ago. The manufactures have not declined, though the exportation has, owing to the increased home consumptions. Bandon was once the seat of the stuff, camlet, and shag manufacture, but has in seven years declined above three-fourths. Have changed it for the manufacture of coarse green linens, for the London market, from 6d. to 9d. a yard, twenty-seven inches wide; but the number of manufactures in general much lessened.
Rode to the mouth of Cork Harbour; the grounds about it are all fine, bold, and varied, but so bare of trees, that there is not a single view but what pains one in the want of wood. Rents of the tract south of the river Caragoline, from 5s. to 30s.; average, 10s. Not one man in five has a cow, but generally from one to four acres, upon which they have potatoes, and five or six sheep, which they milk, and spin their wool. Labour 5d. in winter, 6d. in summer; many of them for three months in the year live on potatoes and water, the rest of it they have a good deal of fish. But it is remarked, at Kinsale, that when sprats are most plentiful, diseases are most common. Rent for a mere cabin, 10s. Much paring and burning; paring twenty-eight men a day, sow wheat on it and then potatoes;get great crops. The soil a sharp, stony land; no limestone south of the above river. Manure for potatoes, with sea-weed, for 26s., which gives good crops, but lasts only one year. Sea-sand much used; no shells in it. Farms rise to two or three hundred acres, but are hired in partnership.
Before I quit the environs of Cork, I must remark that the country on the harbour I think preferable, in many respects, for a residence, to anything I have seen in Ireland. First, it is the most southerly part of the kingdom. Second, there are very great beauties of prospect. Third, by much the most animated, busy scene of shipping in all Ireland, and consequently, fourth, a ready price for every product. Fifth, great plenty of excellent fish and wild fowl. Sixth, the neighbourhood of a great city for objects of convenience.
September 25. Took the road to Nedeen, through the wildest region of mountains that I remember to have seen; it is a dreary but an interesting road. The various horrid, grotesque, and unusual forms in which the mountains rise and the rocks bulge; the immense height of some distant heads, which rear above all the nearer scenes, the torrents roaring in the vales, and breaking down the mountain sides, with here and there a wretched cabin, and a spot of culture yielding surprise to find human beings the inhabitants of such a scene of wildness, altogether keep the traveller’s mindin an agitation and suspense. These rocks and mountains are many of them no otherwise improvable than by planting, for which, however, they are exceedingly well adapted.
Sir John Colthurst was so obliging as to send half a dozen labourers with me, to help my chaise up a mountain side, of which he gave a formidable account: in truth it deserved it. The road leads directly against a mountain ridge, and those who made it were so incredibly stupid, that they kept the straight line up the hill, instead of turning aside to the right to wind around a projection of it. The path of the road is worn by torrents into a channel, which is blocked up in places by huge fragments, so that it would be a horrid road on a level; but on a hill so steep, that the best path would be difficult to ascend—it may be supposed terrible: the labourers, two passing strangers, and my servant, could with difficulty get the chaise up. It is much to be regretted that the direction of the road is not changed, as all the rest from Cork to Nedeen is good enough. For a few miles towards the latter place the country is flat on the river Kenmare, much of it good, and under grass or corn. Passed Mr. Orpine’s at Ardtilly, and another of the same name at Killowen.
Nedeen is a little town, very well situated, on the noble river Kenmare, where ships of one hundred and fifty tons may come up; there are but three or fourgood houses. Lord Shelburne, to whom the place belongs, has built one for his agent. There is a vale of good land, which is here from a mile and a half to a mile broad; and to the north and south, great ridges of mountains said to be full of mines.
At Nedeen, Lord Shelburne had taken care to have me well informed by his people in that country, which belongs for the greatest part to himself, he has above one hundred and fifty thousand Irish acres in Kerry; the greatest part of the barony of Glanrought belongs to him, most of Dunkerron and Ivragh. The country is all a region of mountains, inclosed by a vale of flat land on the river; the mountains to the south come to the water’s edge, with but few variations, the principal of which is Ardee, a farm of Lord Shelburne’s to the north of the river, the flat land is one-half to three-quarters of a mile broad. The mountains to the south reach to Bear-haven, and those to the north to Dingle Bay; the soil is extremely various; to the south of the river all are sandstones, and the hills loam, stone, gravel, and bog. To the north there is a slip of limestone land, from Kilgarvon to Cabbina-cush, that is six miles east of Nedeen, and three to the west, but is not more than a quarter of a mile broad, the rest, including the mountains, all sandstone. As to its rents, it is very difficult to tell what they are; for land is let by the plough-land and gineve, twelve gineves to the plough-land; but the latterdenomination is not of any particular quantity, for no two plough-lands are the same. The size of farms is various, from forty acres to one thousand; less quantities go with cabins, and some farms are taken by labourers in partnership.
Soon entered the wildest and most romantic country I had anywhere seen; a region of steep rocks and mountains which continued for nine or ten miles, till I came in view of Mucruss. There is something magnificently wild in this stupendous scenery, formed to impress the mind with a certain species of terror. All this tract has a rude and savage air, but parts of it are strikingly interesting; the mountains are bare and rocky, and of a great magnitude; the vales are rocky glens, where a mountain stream tumbles along the roughest bed imaginable, and receives many torrents, pouring from clefts, half overhung with shrubby wood; some of these streams are seen, and the roar of others heard, but hid by vast masses of rock. Immense fragments, torn from the precipices by storms and torrents, are tumbled in the wildest confusion, and seem to hang rather than rest upon projecting precipices. Upon some of these fragments of rock, perfectly detached from the soil, except by the side on which they lie, are beds of black turf, with luxuriant crops of heath, etc., which appeared very curious to me, having nowhere seen the like; and I observed very high in the mountains—much higher than anycultivation is at present, on the right hand—flat and cleared spaces of good grass among the ridges of rock, which had probably been cultivated, and proved that these mountains were not incapable from climate of being applied to useful purposes.
From one of these heights I looked forward to the Lake of Killarney at a considerable distance, and backward to the river Kenmare; came in view of a small part of the upper lake, spotted with several islands, and surrounded by the most tremendous mountains that can be imagined, of an aspect savage and dreadful. From this scene of wild magnificence, I broke at once upon all the glories of Killarney; from an elevated point of view I looked down on a considerable part of the lake, which gave me a specimen of what I might expect. The water you command (which, however, is only a part of the lake) appears a basin of two or three miles round; to the left it is inclosed by the mountains you have passed, particularly by the Turk, whose outline is uncommonly noble, and joins a range of others, that form the most magnificent shore in the world: on the other side is a rising scenery of cultivated hills, and Lord Kenmare’s park and woods; the end of the lake at your feet is formed by the root of Mangerton, on whose side the road leads. From hence I looked down on a pretty range of inclosures on the lake, and the woods and lawns of Mucruss, forming a large promontory of thick wood, shootingfar into the lake. The most active fancy can sketch nothing in addition. Islands of wood beyond seem to join it, and reaches of the lake, breaking partly between, give the most lively intermixture of water; six or seven isles and islets form an accompaniment: some are rocky, but with a slight vegetation, others contain groups of trees, and the whole thrown into forms, which would furnish new ideas to a painter. Farther is a chain of wooded islands, which also appear to join the mainland, with an offspring of lesser ones scattered around.
Arrived at Mr. Herbert’s at Mucruss, to whose friendly attention I owed my succeeding pleasure. There have been so many descriptions of Killarney written by gentlemen who have resided some time there, and seen it at every season, that for a passing traveller to attempt the like would be in vain; for this reason I shall give the mere journal of the remarks I made on the spot, in the order I viewed the lake.
September 27. Walked into Mr. Herbert’s beautiful grounds, to Oroch’s Hill, in the lawn that he has cleared from that profusion of stones which lie under the wall; the scene which this point commands is truly delicious; the house is on the edge of the lawn, by a wood which covers the whole peninsula, fringes the slope at your feet, and forms a beautiful shore to the lake. Tomys and Glená are vast mountainousmasses of incredible magnificence, the outline soft and easy in its swells, whereas those above the eagle’s nest are of so broken and abrupt an outline, that nothing can be imagined more savage, an aspect horrid and sublime, that gives all the impressions to be wished to astonish rather than please the mind. The Turk exhibits noble features, and Mangerton’s huge body rises above the whole. The cultivated tracts towards Killarney form a shore in contrast to the terrific scenes I have just mentioned; the distant boundary of the lake, a vast ridge of distant blue mountains towards Dingle. From hence entered the garden, and viewed Mucruss Abbey, one of the most interesting scenes I ever saw; it is the ruin of a considerable abbey, built in Henry VI.’s time, and so entire, that if it were more so, though the building would be more perfect, the ruin would be less pleasing; it is half obscured in the shade of some venerable ash trees; ivy has given the picturesque circumstance, which that plant alone can confer, while the broken walls and ruined turrets throw over it
“The last mournful graces of decay;”
“The last mournful graces of decay;”
heaps of skulls and bones scattered about, with nettles, briars, and weeds sprouting in tufts from the loose stones, all unite to raise those melancholy impressions, which are the merit of such scenes, and which canscarcely anywhere be felt more completely. The cloisters form a dismal area, in the centre of which grows the most prodigious yew-tree I ever beheld, in one great stem, two feet diameter, and fourteen feet high, from whence a vast head of branches spreads on every side, so as to perform a perfect canopy to the whole space. I looked for its fit inhabitant; it is a spot where
“The moping owl doth to the moon complain.”
“The moping owl doth to the moon complain.”
This ruin is in the true style in which all such buildings should appear; there is not an intruding circumstance, the hand of dress has not touched it, melancholy is the impression which such scenes should kindle, and it is here raised most powerfully.
From the abbey we passed to the terrace, a natural one of grass, on the very shore of the lake; it is irregular and winding; a wall of rocks broken into fantastic forms by the waves: on the other side a wood, consisting of all sorts of plants, which the climate can protect, and through which a variety of walks are traced. The view from this terrace consists of many parts of various characters, but in their different styles complete; the lake opens a spreading sheet of water, spotted by rocks and islands, all but one or two wooded; the outlines of them are sharp and distinct; nothing can be more smiling than this scene, soft and mild, a perfect contrast of beauty to the sublimity ofthe mountains which form the shore: these rise in an outline, so varied, and at the same time so magnificent, that nothing greater can be imagined; Tomys and Glená exhibit an immensity in point of magnitude, but from a large hanging wood on the slope, and from the smoothness of the general surface, it has nothing savage, whereas the mountains above and near the eagle’s nest are of the most broken outlines; the declivities are bulging rocks, of immense size, which seem to impend in horrid forms over the lake, and where an opening among them is caught, others of the same rude character rear their threatening heads. From different parts of the terrace these scenes are viewed in numberless varieties.
Returned to breakfast, and pursued Mr. Herbert’s new road, which he has traced through the peninsula to Dynis Island, three miles in length; and it is carried in so judicious a manner through a great variety of ground, rocky woods, lawns, etc., that nothing can be more pleasing; it passes through a remarkable scene of rocks, which are covered with woods. From thence to the marble quarry, which Mr. Herbert is working, and where he gains variety of marbles, green, red, white, and brown, prettily veined; the quarry is a shore of rocks, which surround a bay of the lake, and forms a scene consisting of but few parts, but those strongly marked; the rocks are bold, and broken into slight caverns; they are fringed withscattered trees, and from many parts of them wood shoots in that romantic manner so common at Killarney. Full in front Turk Mountain rises with the proudest outline, in that abrupt magnificence which fills up the whole space before one, and closes the scene.
The road leads by a place where copper-mines were worked; many shafts appear; as much ore was raised as sold for twenty-five thousand pounds, but the works were laid aside, more from ignorance in the workmen than any defects in the mine.
Came to the opening on the great lake, which appears to advantage here, the town of Killarney on the north-east shore. Look full on the mountain Glená, which rises in very bold manner, the hanging woods spread half way, and are of great extent, and uncommonly beautiful. Two very pleasing scenes succeed; that to the left is a small bay, hemmed in by a neck of land in front; the immediate shore rocks, which are in a picturesque style, and crowned entirely with arbutus, and other wood; a pretty retired scene, where a variety of objects give no fatigue to the eye. The other is an admirable mixture of the beautiful and sublime: a bare rock of an almost regular figure projects from a headland into the lake, which, with much wood and highland, forms one side of the scene; the other is wood from a rising ground only; the lake open between, in a sheet of no great extent, but infront is the hanging wood of Glená, which appears in full glory.
Mr. Herbert has built a handsome Gothic bridge, to unite the peninsula to the island of Brickeen, through the arch of which the waters of the north and south lake flow. It is a span of twenty-seven feet, and seventeen high, and over it the road leads to that island. From thence to Brickeen nearly finished, and it is to be thrown across a bottom into Dynis.
Returned by the northern path through a thick wood for some distance, and caught a very agreeable view of Ash Island, seen through an opening, inclosed on both sides with wood. Pursued the way from these grounds to Keelbeg, and viewed the bay of the Devil’s Island, which is a beautiful one, inclosed by a shore, to the right of very noble rocks in ledges and other forms, crowned in a striking manner with wood; a little rocky islet rises in front; to the left the water opens, and Turk Mountain rises with that proud superiority which attends him in all these scenes.
The view of the promontory of Dindog, near this place, closes this part of the lake, and is indeed singularly beautiful. It is a large rock, which shoots far into the water, of a height sufficient to be interesting, in full relief, fringed with a scanty vegetation; the shore on which you stand bending to the right, as if to meet that rock, presents a circular shade of dark wood: Turk still the background, in a character ofgreat sublimity, and Mangerton’s loftier summit, but less interesting outline, a part of the scenery. These views, with others of less moment, are connected by a succession of lawns breaking among the wood, pleasing the eye with lively verdure, and relieving it from the fatigue of the stupendous mountain scenes.
September 28. Took boat on the lake, from the promontory of Dindog before mentioned. I had been under a million of apprehensions that I should see no more of Killarney; for it blew a furious storm all night, and in the morning the bosom of the lake heaved with agitation, exhibiting few marks but those of anger. After breakfast it cleared up, the clouds dispersed by degrees, the waves subsided, the sun shone out in all its splendour; every scene was gay, and no ideas but pleasure possessed the breast. With these emotions sallied forth, nor did they disappoint us.
Rowed under the rocky shore of Dindog, which is romantic to a great degree. The base, by the beating of the waves, is worn into caverns, so that the heads of the rocks project considerably beyond the base, and hang over in a manner which makes every part of it interesting. Following the coast, open marble quarry bay, the shore great fragments of rock tumbled about in the wildest manner.
The island of rocks against the copper-mine shore a remarkable group. The shore near Casemilan is of adifferent nature; it is wood in some places, in unbroken masses down to the water’s edge, in others divided from it by smaller tracts of rock. Come to a beautiful land-locked bay, surrounded by a woody shore, which, opening in places, shows other woods more retired. Tomys is here viewed in a unity of form, which gives it an air of great magnificence. Turk was obscured by the sun shining immediately above him, and, casting a stream of burning light on the water, displayed an effect to describe which the pencil of a Claude alone would be equal. Turn out of the bay, and gain a full view of the Eagle’s Nest, the mountains above it, and Glená; they form a perfect contrast; the first are rugged, but Glená mild. Here the shore is a continued wood.
Pass the bridge, and cross to Dynis, an island Mr. Herbert has improved in the most agreeable manner, by cutting walks through it that command a variety of views. One of these paths on the banks of the channel to the upper lake is sketched with great taste; it is on one side walled with natural rocks, from clefts of which shoot a thousand fine arbutuses, that hang in a rich foliage of flowers and scarlet berries; a turf bench in a delicious spot; the scene close and sequestered, just enough to give every pleasing idea annexed to retirement.
Passing the bridge, by a rapid stream, came presently to the Eagle’s Nest: having viewed this rockfrom places where it appears only a part of an object much greater than itself, I had conceived an idea that it did not deserve the applause given it, but upon coming near I was much surprised; the approach is wonderfully fine, the river leads directly to its foot, and does not give the turn till immediately under, by which means the view is much more grand than it could otherwise be; it is nearly perpendicular, and rises in such full majesty, with so bold an outline, and such projecting masses in its centre, that the magnificence of the object is complete. The lower part is covered with wood, and scattered trees climb almost to the top, which (if trees can be amiss in Ireland) rather weaken the impression raised by this noble rock. This part is a hanging wood, or an object whose character is perfect beauty; but the upper scene, the broken outline, rugged sides, and bulging masses, all are sublime, and so powerful, that sublimity is the general impression of the whole, by overpowering the idea of beauty raised by the wood. This immense height of the mountains of Killarney may be estimated by this rock; from any distant place that commands it, it appears the lowest crag of a vast chain, and of no account; but on a close approach it is found to command a very different respect.
Pass between the mountains called the Great Range, towards the upper lake. Here Turk, which has so long appeared with a figure perfectly interesting, isbecome, from a different position, an unmeaning lump. The rest of the mountains, as you pass, assume a varied appearance, and are of a prodigious magnitude. The scenery in this channel is great and wild in all its features; wood is very scarce; vast rocks seem tossed in confusion through the narrow vale, which is opened among the mountains for the river to pass. Its banks are rocks in a hundred forms; the mountain-sides are everywhere scattered with them. There is not a circumstance but is in unison with the wild grandeur of the scene.
Coleman’s Eye, a narrow pass, opens a different scenery. Came to a region in which the beautiful and the great are mixed without offence. The islands are most of them thickly wooded. Oak Isle in particular rises on a pretty base, and is a most beautiful object: Macgillicuddy Reeks, with their broken points; Baum, with his perfect cone; the Purple Mountain, with his broad and more regular head; and Turk, having assumed a new and more interesting aspect, unite with the opposite hills, part of which have some wood left on them, to form a scene uncommonly striking. Here you look back on a very peculiar spot; it is a parcel of rocks which cross the lake, and form a gap that opens to distant water, the whole backed by Turk, in a style of the highest grandeur.
Come to Derry Currily, which is a great sweep of mountain, covered partly with wood, hanging in a verynoble manner, but part cut down, much of it mangled, and the rest inhabited by coopers, boat-builders, carpenters, and turners, a sacrilegious tribe, who have turned the Dryads from their ancient habitations. The cascade here is a fine one; but passed quickly from hence to scenes unmixed with pain.
Row to the cluster of the Seven Islands, a little archipelago; they rise very boldly from the water upon rocky bases, and are crowned in the most beautiful manner with wood, among which are a number of arbutuses; the channels among them opening to new scenes, and the great amphitheatre of rock and mountain that surround them unite to form a noble view.
Into the river, at the very end of the lake, which winds towards Macgillicuddy Reeks in fanciful meanders.
Returned by a course somewhat different, through the Seven Islands, and back to the Eagle’s Nest, viewing the scenes already mentioned in new positions. At that noble rock fired three cannon for the echo, which indeed is prodigious; the report does not consist of direct reverberations from one rock to another with a pause between, but has an exact resemblance to a peal of thunder rattling behind the rock, as if travelling the whole scenery we had viewed, and lost in the immensity of Macgillicuddy Reeks.
Returning through the bridge, turn to the left round Dynis Island, under the woods of Glená; open on thecultivated country beyond the town of Killarney, and come gradually in sight of Innisfallen and Ross Island.
Pass near to the wood of Glená, which here takes the appearance of one immense sweep hanging in the most beautiful manner imaginable, on the side of a vast mountain to a point, shooting into the great lake. A more glorious scene is not to be imagined. It is one deep mass of wood, composed of the richest shades perfectly dipping in the water, without rock or strand appearing, not a break in the whole. The eye passing upon the sheet of liquid silver some distance, to meet so entire a sweep of every tint that can compose one vast mass of green, hanging to such an extent as to fill not only the eye but the imagination, unites in the whole to form the most noble scene that is anywhere to be beheld.
Turn under the north shore of Mucruss; the lake here is one great expanse of water, bounded by the woods described, the islands of Innisfallen, Ross, etc., and the peninsula. The shore of Mucruss has a great variety; it is in some places rocky; huge masses tumbled from their base lie beneath, as in a chaos of ruin. Great caverns worn under them in a variety of strange forms; or else covered with woods of a variety of shades. Meet the point of Ardnagluggen (in English where the water dashes on the rocks) and come under Ornescope, a rocky headland of a most bold projectionhanging many yards over its base, with an old weather-beaten yew growing from a little bracket of rock, from which the spot is called Ornescope, or yew broom.
Mucruss gardens presently open among the woods, and relieve the eye, almost fatigued with the immense objects upon which it has so long gazed; these softer scenes of lawn gently swelling among the shrubs and trees finished the second day.
September 29. Rode after breakfast to Mangerton Cascade and Drumarourk Hill, from which the view of Mucruss is uncommonly pleasing.
Pass the other hill, the view of which I described the 27th, and went to Colonel Huffy’s monument, from whence the scene is different from the rest; the foreground is a gentle hill, intersected by hedges, forming several small lawns. There are some scattered trees and houses, with Mucruss Abbey half obscured by wood, the whole cheerful and backed by Turk. The lake is of a triangular form, Ross Island and Innisfallen its limits; the woods of Mucruss and the islands take a new position.
Returning, took a boat again towards Ross Isle, and as Mucruss retires from us, nothing can be more beautiful than the spots of lawn in the terrace opening in the wood; above it the green hills with clumps, and the whole finishing in the noble group of wood about the abbey, which here appears a deep shade, and so fine a finishing one, that not a tree should be touched.Rowed to the east point of Ross, which is well wooded; turn to the south coast. Doubling the point, the most beautiful shore of that island appears; it is the well-wooded environs of a bay, except a small opening to the castle; the woods are in deep shades, and rise on the regular slopes of a high range of rocky coast. The part in front of Filekilly point rises in the middle, and sinks towards each end. The woods of Tomys here appear uncommonly fine. Open Innisfallen, which is composed at this distance of the most various shades, within a broken outline, entirely different from the other islands, groups of different masses rising in irregular tufts, and joined by lower trees. No pencil could mix a happier assemblage. Land near a miserable room, where travellers dine. Of the isle of Innisfallen, it is paying no great compliment to say it is the most beautiful in the king’s dominions, and perhaps in Europe. It contains twenty acres of land, and has every variety that the range of beauty, unmixed with the sublime, can give. The general feature is that of wood; the surface undulates into swelling hills, and sinks into little vales; the slopes are in every direction, the declivities die gently away, forming those slight inequalities which are the greatest beauty of dressed grounds. The little valleys let in views of the surrounding lake between the hills, while the swells break the regular outline of the water, and give to the whole an agreeable confusion. The wood has all thevariety into which nature has thrown the surface; in some parts it is so thick as to appear impenetrable, and secludes all farther view; in others, it breaks into tufts of tall timber, under which cattle feed. Here they open, as if to offer to the spectator the view of the naked lawn; in others close, as if purposely to forbid a more prying examination. Trees of large size and commanding figure form in some places natural arches; the ivy mixing with the branches, and hanging across in festoons of foliage, while on one side the lake glitters among the trees, and on the other a thick gloom dwells in the recesses of the wood. The figure of the island renders one part a beautiful object to another; for the coast being broken and indented, forms bays surrounded either with rock or wood: slight promontories shoot into the lake, whose rocky edges are crowned with wood. These are the great features of Innisfallen; the slighter touches are full of beauties easily imagined by the reader. Every circumstance of the wood, the water, the rocks, and lawn, are characteristic, and have a beauty in the assemblage from mere disposition. I must, however, observe that this delicious retreat is not kept as one could wish.
Scenes that are great and commanding, from magnitude or wildness, should never be dressed; the rugged, and even the horrible, may add to the effect upon the mind: but in such as Innisfallen, a degree of dress, that is, cleanliness, is even necessary to beauty. Ihave spoken of lawn, but I should observe that expression indicates what it ought to be rather than what it is. It is very rich grass, poached by oxen and cows, the only inhabitants of the island. No spectator of taste but will regret the open grounds not being drained with hollow cuts; the ruggedness of the surface levelled, and the grass kept close shaven by many sheep instead of beasts. The bushes and briars, where they have encroached on what ought to be lawn, cleared away; some parts of the isle more opened; in a word no ornaments given, for the scene wants them not, but obstructions cleared, ruggedness smoothed, and the whole cleaned. This is what ought to be done; as to what might be made of the island, if its noble proprietor (Lord Kenmare) had an inclination, it admits of being converted into a terrestrial paradise; lawning with the intermixture of other shrubs and wood, and a little dress, would make it an example of what ornamented grounds might be, but which not one in a thousand is. Take the island, however, as it is, with its few imperfections, and where are we to find such another? What a delicious retreat! an emperor could not bestow such a one as Innisfallen; with a cottage, a few cows, and a swarm of poultry, is it possible that happiness should refuse to be a guest here?
Row to Ross Castle, in order to coast that island; there is nothing peculiarly striking in it; return the same way around Innisfallen. In this little voyagethe shore of Ross is one of the most beautiful of the wooded ones in the lake; it seems to unite with Innisfallen, and projects into the water in thick woods one beyond another. In the middle of the channel a large rock, and from the other shore a little promontory of a few scattered trees; the whole scene pleasing.