busy thoroughfare. Blackrock Castle soon catches the eye, and its situation and happy construction can hardly be improved by imagination. It looks out upon Lake Mahon and the picturesque islands which dot it; and farther on upon the right is Mount Patrick, where stands the tower dedicated to Theobald Mathew; and before reaching Cork, embosomed in trees, is the seat of Mr. Penrose, called Woodhill, and possesses the undying honor of the spot where the daughter of Curran was married to Captain Henry Sturgeon. It is long since Moore sung in sweet strains the never-to-be-forgotten melody of
"She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps,
And lovers are round her sighing;
But coldly she turns from their gaze and weeps,
For her heart in his grave is lying.
"O! make her a grave where the sunbeams rest,
When they promise a glorious morrow,
They'll shine o'er her sleep like a smile from the West,
From her own lov'd island of sorrow."
Cork stands on a marshy spot; its name in Irish is Corcaig, signifying a moor or marsh, and the city owes its origin to St. Fin Bar, who first founded a cathedral, in the seventh century, near the south branch of the Lee, and from this beginning Corcaig-more, or the great Cork, arose; and though this city has passed through changes and great sufferings, yet it has for a long time maintained a respectable, if not high standing, for intelligence. Schools are numerous, and some of them of a high order, and the laboring classes are mostly well educated in a plain way. The Roman
11
