I remember nothing of the _table d'hôte_ that evening, except that a Cambridge man, who sat next to me, remarked of some miserable carving hard by, that “the gentleman seemed well up in _Comic_ Sections;” and that a boy of seventeen, with a violent shooting-coat, and a few red bristles in the vicinity of his mouth, officiating as “Vice,” and looking it, mumbled three hurried words as grace after meat, in the presence of four English clergymen, and two Roman Catholic priests.
HAPPY and expectant, as two young cricketers, who, having made no “end of a score” in their first innings, go forth a-gain to the wicket, we started next morning in the _currus militarius_, or Car of Miles, for another joyous day at _Killarney_. Stopping at the entrance of the town, we went into the Cathedral (R.C.), a very handsome edifice of beautiful proportions, in the severe, Early-English style. The carving in stone over the high altar, in the Chapel of the Sacrament, and especially in the exquisite symmetry of the figures in the arches of the doorways, is exceedingly chaste and clear, and some Connamara marble about one of the lesser altars has a very pleasing effect. Not so the numerous confessionals, which, with their new wood and bright drapery, are somewhat suggestive of wardrobes, and detract, as novelties always do, from the ecclesiastical aspect of the interior.
Hard by, upon the hill, stands the spacious Asylum for the Insane, sadly reminding us of poor Pugin, who designed the Cathedral; and, less painfully, of Swift's last act of penitent charity, the bequest of £12,000, nearly all he had to bequeath, for the erection of a similar institution.
_Egans Bog-oak and Arbutus warehouse_ well deserves a visit. Here you learn from a ledger, opening, as ledgers will, at a brilliant galaxy of noble names, which makes a commoner's eyes wink, how the Right Honourable the Earl of Cash bought an elaborate table for my Lady's boudoir, and how Rear-Admiral Sir Bowline Bluff made purchase of a Backgammon board, marvellously inlaid, over which I venture to surmise, he has ere this discoursed in stormy language, when the gout and the dice have been against him. Let us tread, softly and at a distance, in these illustrious footprints, and buy our meek memorials of Killarney.