1 His motto was, “_Recepi non rapui_,” which Swift happily translated, “the receiver is as bad as the thief.”
2 Smollett, who says, “His conversation was dry, and his manners disgusting, _except in battle!_”--Hume Continued, vol. i., p. 442.
Here, feebly murmuring something about “the new bridge, which spans the noble stream, being a handsome structure,” we came to a decided check, Frank making a cast by ringing the bell, and requesting the waiter to “bring in a large dish of startling incidents, connected with the history of _Athlone_,”--an order, which seemed to amuse three good-looking priests, (en route for a Consecration at Ballinasloe, to be presided over by Cardinal Wiseman), and who were discussing, (and why not?--I'm not the man, at all events, to write and tell the Pope,) a small decanter of whiskey.
_The Shannon_ is a glorious river, broad and deep, and brimming over, extending, from source to sea, a distance of two hundred miles, and “making its waves a blessing as they flow” to ten Irish counties. I should think that hay for the universe might be grown upon its teeming banks, and we saw a goodly quantity studding the fields with those (to us) quaint-looking tumuli, which, like the “hobbledehoy, neither man nor boy,” are too large for haycocks, and too small for stacks. Six miles from _Athlone_, we pass _the Seven Churches of Clonmacnoise_, (once, as its name signifies, the _Eton_ of Ireland, “the school of the sons of the nobles,”) by whom despoiled and desecrated we English need not pause to inquire; and close to these a brace of those famous Round Towers, which have so perplexed the archaeological world, and which, according to Frank, were, “most probably Lighthouses, which had come ashore at night for a spree, and had forgotten the way back again.” The scenery, which at first is flat and uninteresting, except to an agricultural eye, increases in attraction, as you progress towards _Limerick_, and is exceedingly beautiful about _Lough Derg_. There are delightful residences on either side, of which we admired particularly _Portumna_, my _Lord Clanricarde's_ 1 and a place called _Derry_. The view from the upper windows of this latter home must be “a sight to make an old man young.” The mountains, inclosed and cultivated, have a tame unnatural look, as though they had been brought here from Connamara, and been broken to carry corn; and they wear a strange uncomfortable aspect, like some Cherokee Chief in the silk stockings and elegant attire of our Court.