Another teacher, from Mountrussell, was great in astronomy, and was continually holding forth on his favourite subject and his own knowledge of it. The poet makes him say:--
The course of a comet with ease I can trail, And with my ferula I measure his tail; On the wings of pure Science without a balloon Like Baron Munchausen I visit the moon; Along the ecliptic and great milky way, In mighty excursions I soaringly stray; With legs wide extended on the poles I can stand, And like marbles the planets I toss in my hand.
The poet then, returning to his own words, goes on to say
The gods being amused at his logical blab, They built him a castle near Cancer the Crab.
But this same astronomer, though having as we see a free residence, never went to live there: he emigrated to Australia where he entered the priesthood and ultimately became a bishop.
One of the ablest of all the Munster teachers of that period was Mr. Patrick Murray, already mentioned, who kept his school in the upper story of the market house of Kilfinane in south Limerick. He was particularly eminent in English Grammar and Literature. I went to his school for one year when I was very young, and I am afraid I was looked upon as very slow, especially in his pet subject Grammar. I never could be got to parse correctly such complications as 'I might, could, would, or should have been loving.' Mr. Murray was a poet too. I will give here a humorous specimen of one of his parodies. It was on the occasion of his coming home one night very late, and not as sober as he should be, when he got 'Ballyhooly' and no mistake from his wife. It was after Moore's 'The valley lay smiling before me'; and the following are two verses of the original with the corresponding two of the parody, of which the opening line is 'The candle was lighting before me.' But I have the whole parody in my memory.
MOORE: I flew to her chamber--'twas lonely As if the lov'd tenant lay dead; Ah would it were death and death only, But no, the young false one had fled. { 155} And _there_ hung the lute that could soften My very worst pains into bliss, And the hand that had waked it so often Now throbb'd to my proud rival's kiss.
Already the curse is upon her And strangers her valleys profane; They come to divide--to dishonour-- And tyrants there long will remain: But onward--the green banner rearing, Go flesh ev'ry brand to the hilt: On _our_ side is Virtue and Erin, And _theirs_ is the Saxon and Guilt.