1 From The Banquet of Dun na-gedh, and the Battle of Magh Rath. Translated from the original Irish by John O'Donovan. Printed for the Irish Archaeological Society.
Blades, I say, might have been meditating mournfully on this accursed egg, but, whether or no, there he sat; and Melancholy marked him for her own. _Quantum mutatus!_ The remains of a fire balloon, soaked and rusting in some long damp grass, not less resemble the gaudy globe, which went up yesternight; and never can I obliviate the agony of his expression, as the waiter presented a large dish of bacon in close proximity to his nose.
“A moment o'er his face A tablet of unutterable thoughts was traced, And then,” with a groan, which won all our sympathy, “_abiit, excessif, evasit, erupi_, Anglicé, poor Blades, he bolted!
We also, having contributed to Mr. Carr's Album autographs, which will, no doubt, be ultimately sold at sixty guineas a-piece, (say pounds, if you take the pair) proceeded by the car to _Kylemore_.
THE scenery on leaving _Clifden_ is for a time bleak and monotonous, but soon becomes varied and beautiful. You pass, by _Streamstown_ and _Ballinakill_, through the pleasant village with its pretty cottages, fuchsia-hedges, and general look of neatness and comfort, which it owes to Mr. Ellis, an English resident, and who, (so it was told to me, as our friend Herodotus hath it) is much respected, although a Quaker, by the Roman Catholics around. Between this place and _Kylemore_, you enter upon one of the grandest scenes, to my taste, to be found in all _Connamara_, a kind of mountain pass, with the rocks rising to a great height, in huge blocks and broken masses, piled one above another, and sometimes jutting over the road in fearful contiguity, densely timbered from base to summit, the gray stone contrasting beautifully with the bright green foliage of the trees. Here the eagles build, and had become so numerous, (so our driver said), that the owner had had recourse to _poison_. It sounded awfully in our ears, like trapping a fox or shooting an albatross; and, surely, if the king of birds must be slain (and I cannot deny that his majesty's conduct, in perpetually flying off with lambs, is open to some criticism) he might fall more nobly to the rifle of the sportsman.