1 This applies throughout Ireland. See “Inglis's Tour,” vol. ii., p. 42.
There is an extraordinary structure at the top of Killiney Hill, which could only have been devised by an Irish architect. It is not a tower, nor a lighthouse, nor a summer-house: nay, the builder himself confesses he knows not what it is, in the following inscription:--“Last year being hard with the poor, the walls about these hills, and This, &c. &c., erected by John Mapas, Esq., June, 1742.”
Hard by, a young Duke of Dorset was thrown and killed, while hunting. It must have been a very Irish fox that led hound and horse into such a perilous position, and the only wonder is that any of the riders came down alive. A monumental pillar perpetuates the sorrowful history, and warns enthusiastic sportsmen from galloping over the broken ground and hidden fissures of misty mountain tops.
Apropos of mountain and of mist, we saw a sight which reminded us of Anne of Geierstein, as she appeared to Arthur Philipson, “perched upon the very summit of a pyramidical rock.” For among the works executed by the benevolent behest of Mapas, there is one, hewn in stone, a four-sided staircase, leading to an apex, intended, doubtless, for a statue. But this was wanting when we first arrived; for the design, like so many others in poor old Ireland, had never been completed, and there were no
But by the goddess Vanus, just as Frank and I were lamenting this sad omission, the loveliest--at all events one of the loveliest--girls I ever remember to have seen, tripped lightly up the steps, laughing at a dear old clerical papa, who pretended to be alarmed, but wasn't; and something, beating violently under my left brace, told me that my heart had returned from Crewe, as a traveller comes home for a day or so, to prepare himself for another tour. It stayed with me four seconds, and then 'twas hers. “Behold,” I said,
“'Car les beaux yeux Sont les deux sceptres de l'amour,'
the enthronement of the Queen of Beauty.” And the sea-breeze forsook the jealous waves to woo her; the sunlight beamed on her with golden smiles; and the very swallow, turning from his favourite fly, flew past her, twittering admiration. Rough sailors out at sea that day caught sight of this fair vision through the glass, and ceased for half an hour to swear. There she stood, as
