Part 3

There was to be a complete English population established on these lands in this manner: "For any seigniory containing 12,000 acres, the gentleman was to have for his own domain 2100 acres; six farmers, 400 acres each; six freeholders, 100 acres each; and lands to be appropriated for mean tenures of 50, 25, and 10 acres, to the amount of 1500 acres; whereon thirty-six families, at least, must be established. The other seigniories to be laid out in like proportion. Each undertaker was to people his seigniory in seven years." These articles received the royal signature on the 27th of June, 1586. The following list of undertakers presents some curious particulars. In the first place, Sir Walter Raleigh and Arthur Robbins by some means managed at once to overleap the grand provision, that no undertaker should be permitted to have more than 12,000 acres: Sir Walter Raleigh getting 42,000, and poor Spenser, poet-like, only 3029! He is just tacked on at the end like an after-thought.

Acres. Sir Walter Raleigh 42,000 Arthur Robbins, Esq. 18,000 Fane Beecher, Esq. 12,000 Hugh Worth, Esq. 12,000 Arthur Hyde, Esq. 11,766 Sir Thomas Norris 6,000 Sir Richard Beacon 6,000 Sir Warham St. Leger 6,000 Hugh Cuff, Esq. 6,000 Thomas Jay, Esq. 5,775 Sir Arthur Hyde 5,774 Edmund Spenser, Esq. 3,029

The difference did not consist merely in the quantity either. Some of their lands, like Sir Walter's at Youghal, on the Blackwater, were splendid lands; those of Spenser were wild moorlands, facing the wilder mountains, where the Irish, yet smarting under defeat and expulsion, the destruction of their great chief, and this plan, which was to continue that expulsion forever, and plant on their own soil the hated Saxon, were looking down, ready to descend and take sanguinary vengeance. Such was the lot which Spenser chose in preference to the degrading slavery of court dependence. No doubt he pleased himself with the idea of a new English state, established in this newly-conquered region; where, surrounded by English gentlemen, and one of the lords of the soil, he should live a life of content and happiness, and hand down to his children a fair estate. But in this fond belief how much of the poet's self-delusive property was mixed! Hear what the authority I have already made such use of, because I know it to be good, says: "It was a wild and lonesome banishment at best, for one who had lived so much in courts, and in companionship with the rich and high-born. Mountains on all sides shut in the retreat, and in the midst of the long and level plain between them stood a strong fortalice of the Earl of Desmond, which was to be the poet's residence, Kilcolman Castle. Hard by the castle was a small lake, and a mile or two distant, on either side, a river descended from the hills. In position, likewise, it was insecure, forming, as it did, the frontier of the English line in the south, and the contiguous hills affording lurking-places for the Irish kerns, whence they could pour down in multitudes to plunder. In the insurrectionary warfare that shortly succeeded, these mountain passes became the scene of many a skirmish; and the first object of the commander of the English forces, when he heard of any partial outbreak, was to send off a detachment of light-armed troops to occupy them in the name of the queen."

But, overlooking all these hazards, Spenser came hither full of bright views of the future. "The sunshine of the years to come," says the author we have been quoting, "were to atone for the darkness and the gloom of life's morning." His poetry, which had been previously of a pastoral cast, became now imbued with the wildness of the sylvan solitude around him: wood-nymphs and fairies were inhabitants he could summon up at will, and with them the hill-tops about him were peopled. Such names of places and things as his musical ear pronounced inharmonious were exchanged for others which quaint fancy suggested, and which read more sweetly in his tender verse. He sang sweet strains of the bridal or separation of his rivers; told how their stern sires, the mountains, ofttimes forced their unwilling inclinations, and brought about a union which the water-nymph detested; and how sometimes she, in her faithful attachment to the one she loved, effected her wish by a circuitous course, or even sought beneath the earth's surface the waters dear to her bosom. Before an imagination so vivid the iron desolateness of Kilcolman vanished; and in its stead a fairy world arose to gladden the eyes of the dreamer with its bowers of bliss, and enchanted palaces, and magnificence more gorgeous than the luxuries of Ind.

"The Ballyhowra Hills, which formed the northern boundary of the poet's retreat, appeared in this new world under the feigned title of the Mountains of Mole; while the highest of them, which, like Parnassus, has a double summit, was dignified by the name of "Father." Sometimes Spenser seems to have extended the name of Mole to the entire range of hills which run along the northern and eastern limits of the county of Cork, and divide it from Limerick and Tipperary. In one place he speaks of a river rising from the Mole, and thence styled by him Molana; which undoubtedly takes its origin from the Tipperary Hills. The plain in which his castle stood was rebaptized in Helicon by the name of Armulla Dale. Of his two streamlets, one was suffered, for a special purpose, to retain its original name of Bregoge, _i. e._, false, or deceitful:

"'Bregog hight So hight became of his deceitful traine;'

and the other, the Awbeg, was specially appropriated to himself by the name of Mulla:

"'And Mulla mine, whose waves I whilom taught to weep.'

"The rivers here mentioned flowed at some distance on each side of Spenser's castle. The Bregoge on the east, at the distance of a mile; the Mulla on the west, at about two miles. Both rise, as the poet sings, in the Mole Mountain. They spring from wells, in glens about a mile and a half asunder, on the opposite sides of _Corringlass_, the highest mountain in the range. The Bregoge proceeds, in a winding course, to the southwest, and falls into the Mulla a mile above the town of Doneraile. It is a very inconsiderable stream, forcing itself with difficulty among the rocks with which its channel is encumbered; and, like many mountain rivulets, is dry during the summer heats. When we saw it, in the course of the present year, its bed was a mass of dusty sand.

"The Mulla rises on the remote side of the hill from the Castle of Kilcolman, but has a more northerly head in Annagh bog, five miles from Anster's birth-place, Charleville, which perhaps, in strictness, should be deemed its source. Spenser, in the foregoing passage, describes it as springing out of Mole. It proceeds to Buttevant, and receives a branch a little above that town, at Ardskeagh; it then winds away toward Kilcolman, and meets the Bregoge near Doneraile. Directing its course thence, it turns to the south, and flows through a deep romantic glen to Castletown Roche, after which it enters the Blackwater at Bridgetown Abbey. It is now called the Awbeg, in contradistinction to the Awmore or Avonmore, one of the names of the Blackwater."

I have been the more particular in quoting from one well acquainted with the scene the geography of Spenser's domain, because those who have not been on the spot can really form no idea of the proportion of matter drawn hence, and from Ireland generally, in his poems. The Faërie Queene, Colin Clout, and his two cantos on "Mutabilitie," abound with allegorical or actual descriptions of his Irish life, and of the scenery, and especially the rivers, about his estate here. I must now trace my own visit to it.

Starting from Fermoy with a car, I ascended the Valley of the Blackwater, a river which for beauty of scenery is worthy of all its fame. About six miles up, I was told that Spenser had lived at a place called Rennie. I found it a gentleman's house, standing at a field's distance from the highway, and drove up to it. It is the property of Mr. Smith, a merchant and magistrate of Fermoy. He was there with his lady, come out to see their splendid dairy of cows which they kept there, forty in number. They were at luncheon, and would insist on my going in and partaking; after which they both set out, most hospitably, to show me the place. The house stands on a lofty rock, overlooking the valley of the river, but at a field's distance from it. It is one of the places of exuberant vegetation, where vegetation in grass and trees seems perfectly exhaustless. The richest pastures, the most abundant and overshadowing trees, every where. In the little garden close to the house, and lying on the verge of the precipice, all glowing with dahlias, still remains a wall of the castle, which was undoubtedly inhabited by Spenser. There is an old oak on the river bank, at some distance above the house, under the precipice, which is called Spenser's Tree, and where he is said to have written part of the Faërie Queene. This property was inherited by Spenser's eldest son Sylvanus, who married a Miss Nagle, of Monanimy, in Cork, and lived at this Rennie.

In a life of Spenser, the following scanty information, which has been collected relative to his descendants, is given, and may help us to a clearer conception of the matter. Sylvanus had, by the marriage with Miss Nagle, two sons, Edmund and William. Peregrine Spenser, the third son of the poet, the second being Lawrence, is described, in a MS. deposition relative to the rebellion in 1641, as a Protestant resident about the barony of Fermoy, and so impoverished by the troubles as to be unable to pay his debts; and a part of the estate had been assigned to him by his elder brother, Sylvanus; this part of the estate is distinctly stated to have been Rennie. Hugoline, the son of Peregrine, opposed the designs of the Prince of Orange, and after the Revolution was outlawed for treason and rebellion; his cousin, William Spenser, the son of Sylvanus, became a suitor for the forfeited property, and obtained it. Dr. Birch has described him as a man somewhat advanced in years, and as unable to give any account of the works of his ancestor which are missing. His case, as he presented it to Parliament, has been printed by Mr. Todd in his Life of Spenser, from the copy in the British Museum, presented by Mr. George Chalmers. In this document Hugoline is described as "very old and unmarried." Dr. Birch informs us that, in 1751, some of the descendants of Spenser were living in the country of Cork; and Mr. Todd, coming later down, observes, that "a daughter of a Mr. Edmund Spenser, of Mallow, the last lineal descendant of the poet, is now married to a Mr. Burne, of the English custom-house." A Mr. Price, in a MS. in the British Museum, states that he was told by Lord Cartaret, that when he was Lord-lieutenant of Ireland in 1724, a true descendant of Edmund Spenser, who bore his name, had a trial before Baron Hall, and he knew so little of the English tongue that he was forced to have an interpreter.

Now Mr. Smith informed me that not only was it the fixed tradition that this house at Rennie was inhabited by Spenser the poet, but that it was also as positively asserted that one of his descendants was murdered in it in a very extraordinary manner. The story was that of two brothers; one, banished for high treason, and the other, who succeeded him, murdered by his housekeeper out of jealousy. That this woman had been led to hope that her master would marry her, but finding that he was going to marry another lady, proposed, one morning as he was shaving, to do it for him, and being permitted, cut his throat with the razor. There seemed, however, some suspicion that the cousin of the murdered man, who was next heir, the elder brother being outlawed, had instigated or urged upon the woman to commit this act; but such was the state of the times, that, notwithstanding this suspicion, his cousin came in for the property.

Wild and terrible as this tradition is, it is there; and what is curious, we see in the above slight tracing of the descent of the Spensers, that Hugoline, a son of Peregrine, was outlawed for treason and rebellion, and that William, a cousin, and the son of Sylvanus, became a suitor for the forfeited property, and obtained it. In O'Flanagan's Guide to the Blackwater, this is stated to have happened to the last descendant of Spenser at Rennie, and that "in the small antique dwelling at Rennie is pointed out the room in which she did the deed." This is very different to the account I received from the present proprietor, which is that given above: nor does the house at Rennie prove to be "a small antique one." It is a good modern mansion. The property of Rennie continued in the family long after it had lost Kilcolman; in fact, till about 1734, when, on the death of Nathaniel Spenser, the then possessor, it was sold; the family became landless, and soon after extinct.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith set out with me to explore the scene. The house is modern; the land on the level of the house of the richest quality, and beautified with fine trees; the views up and down the river, and over it into the woods of Lord Listowell, with the tower of his castle peeping over them, are rich and beautiful. We descended into the meadows below the house, attended by four of the finest greyhounds ever seen, one of them as white as snow, and three or four terriers; and the dogs were soon in full chase of rabbits, up among the rocks and trees. We were soon below the house, and at the foot of the precipice on which it stands. The place was fit for Spenser's Pan, with all his fauns and sylvans. In the meadow, which extended to the banks of the river, grazed the fine herd of cattle, and amid them the sturdy bull; and all around us, above us on the rocks, in the meadow itself, and on the banks and green slopes on the other side of the river, grew the most prodigal trees. The whole scene told of ancient possession and a most affluent nature. At the foot of the precipice under the house, laurels and filberts, which must have been planted long ago, and probably by Spenser himself, had attained the most enormous size; the laurels were as large as forest-trees; they had, some of them, stems, I suppose, half a yard in diameter, and had assumed a shape of sylvan massiveness and woodland rudeness, such as before I had no conception of in laurels. Some had been blown down by the winds and grew half prostrate; others had been sawed off, and had left huge stumps, knit, as it were, into one mass with the foot of the rocks. All was one scene of Arcadian greenness, and excess of growth.

Beneath the rock there was a sort of damp cave, where water stood as if oozing through from the river, and the plants above hung down their long arms, and made a fitting retreat for Spenser's satyrs. Around, seen from the shadow of this spot, lay the deep-green meadow, the swift, broad river, the rich masses of trees, closing in a little world of solitude; and as if to mark it for a spot in which the poet of fairy-land had sojourned, and left the impress of his spirit, in his own words:

"Beside the same a dainty place there lay, Planted with myrtle-trees and laurels green, In which the birds sung many a lively lay Of God's high praise, and of their sweet loves' teene, As it an earthly paradise had been."

Perhaps Spenser might revel here till his castle was fitted up for his reception; perhaps it might be a retreat at times from the more open perils of the desolate Kilcolman; and a sweet change from moorland wildness to a sort of Italian richness and softness of scenery.

The way was still enchanting. Now down into the Valley of the Blackwater, among mills and rocks, and resounding waters; now aloft again, overlooking the white house of Rennie on its precipice, and opposite to it spreading out the woods and mountains of Ballynahoolly. Now arose a bare district of hedgerows without trees, and little brown huts, with geese, and goats, and swine. Now, again, passing some gentleman's park, with its ocean of trees, and under a sort of tunnel rather than avenue of beeches, which are planted on banks, so that they meet close above, sometimes for half a mile, and which at night are as dark as a dungeon. Then, again, I passed between hedges of cider-apple, all grown into trees, and giving the country--for the fields right and left were inclosed with the same--a very wild look; and I came out on bare heights, and with view of far-off bleak and brown mountains. Near Doneraile, I saw the ocean of green woods belonging to Lord Doneraile's park and domain lying before me in the valley, and passed through it for a mile or more in highest admiration of the splendid growth and richness of foliage of its beeches, its superb wayside ashes, and its other trees. Surely where it is allowed to produce trees, Ireland does exhibit them in a beauty and prodigality of growth which is almost unrivaled by those of England. To this contributes, not merely the fertility of the soil, but the moisture of the atmosphere.

About two miles beyond Doneraile I found, on a wide plain, the ruins of Kilcolman. These ruins have frequently been drawn and engraved, and the views we have of them are very correct. Indeed, so vividly were the features of the scene impressed on my mind by the views, and by reading of it, that I seemed to know it quite well. Its old black mass of wall catches your eye as soon as you have passed the woody neighborhood of Doneraile, standing up on the wild moorland plain, a solitary object amid its nakedness. A tolerable highway, newly constructed, leads up near to it, along which you advance amid scattered Irish cabins, and their usual potato plots. To reach the castle, you have to turn to the left up one of those stony lanes that threaten to jolt a car to pieces, and then have to scale a gate belonging to the farm on which the ruin stands, and advance on foot, through a farm-yard, and along the lake side. The remains of the castle, which consist only of part of the tower, at the southernmost corner, stand on a green mound of considerable extent, overlooking the lake, or rather a winding sort of pond, overgrown with potamogeton. On one side, masses of limestone rock, on which the castle, too, stands, protrude from the banks, and on the other extends the green marsh, and the black peat bogs, with their piles of peat stacks. To the north, at about a mile's distance, stretch those brown moorland mountains, called by the natives the Ballyhowra Hills, but dignified by Spenser with the name of Mole. Of either of these names the peasants seemed to know nothing, but assured me the one nearest to the castle eastward was called Slieve Ruark. Southward, at a couple of miles' distance, stands another somber-looking tower, the remains of an ancient castle, which they called Castle Pook. On a hill, nearer Doneraile westward, are also the ruins of an abbey; so that, probably, in Spenser's time, this scene might be well wooded; these places inhabited by families of the English settlers; and might form some society for him; but at present, nothing can be more wild, dreary, and naked than this scene, and the whole view around. Turn which way you will, you see nothing but naked moorlands, bare and lonely, or scattered with the cabins and potato plots of the peasantry. To the northeast stands, at perhaps half a mile's distance, a mass of plantations, inclosing the house of a Mr. Barry Harold; and that is the only relieving object, except the distant mass of the woods of Doneraile Park, and the bare ranges of mountains that close in this unpicturesque plain at more or less distance.

As I stood on the top of the massy old keep, whose walls are three yards thick, and its winding stairs of slippery gray marble, I seemed to be rather in a dream of Spenser's castle, than actually at it. The sun was hastening to set, and threw a clear shining light over the whole silent plain, and thousands of pewets and of rooks from Lord Doneraile's woods spread themselves over the green fields near the weedy water, and seemed to enjoy the calm dreamy light and stillness of the scene. The hour and the scene naturally brought to my mind the melodious stanza of Mickle, which has special reference to this solitary memorial of the history both of Ireland and its troubles, and the English poet of fairy-land and his fate:

"Awake, ye west winds, through the lonely dale, And Fancy, to thy fairy bower betake; Even now, with balmy sweetness breathes the gale Dimpling with downy wing the stilly lake; Through the pale willows faltering whispers wake And evening comes with locks bedipped with dew; On Desmond's mold'ring turrets slowly shake The withered rye-grass, and the harebell blue, And ever and anon sweet Mulla's plaints renew."