er Raleigh, who first introduced this fruit, as well as
the tobacco plant and the potato, into Ireland. At Cappoquin, which
stands beautifully on the river, I should have been glad to halt for the
night, in order to visit the Trappist Monastery there, an offshoot of La
Meilleraye, planted, I think, by some monks from Santa Susanna, of
Lulworth, after Charles X. took refuge in the secluded and beautiful
home of the Welds. The schools of this monastery have been a benediction
to all this part of Ireland for more than half a century.

Lismore has nothing now to show of its ancient importance save its
castle and its cathedral, both of them absolutely modern! A hundred
years ago the castle was simply a ruin overhanging the river. It then
belonged to the fifth Duke of Devonshire, who had inherited it from his
mother, the only child and heiress of the friend of Pope, Richard,
fourth Earl of Cork, and third Earl of Burlington. It had come into the
hands of the Boyles by purchase from Sir Walter Ealeigh, to whom
Elizabeth had granted it, with all its appendages and appurtenances. The
fifth Duke of Devonshire, who was the husband of Coleridge's "lady
nursed in pomp and pleasure," did little or nothing, I believe, to
restore the vanished glories of Lismore; and the castle, as it now
exists, is the creation of his son, the artistic bachelor Duke, to whom
England owes the Crystal Palace and all the other outcomes of Sir Joseph
Paxton's industry and enterprise. His kinsman and successor, the present
Duke, used to visit Lismore regularly down to the time of the atrocious
murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish, and many of the beautiful walks and
groves which make the place lovely are due, I believe, to his taste and
his appreciation of the natural charms of Lismore. I dismissed my car at
the "Devonshire Arms," an admirable little hotel near the river, and
having ordered my dinner there, walked down to the castle, almost within
the grounds of which the hotel stands. It is impossible to imagine a
more picturesque site for a great inland mansion. The views up and down
the Blackwater from the drawing-room windows are simply the perfection
of river landscape. The grounds are beautifully laid out, one secluded
garden-walk, in particular, taking you back to the inimitable Italian
garden-walks of the seventeenth century. In the vestibule is the sword
of state of the Corporation of Youghal, a carved wooden cradle for which
still stands in the churc