"The school-house at Glendalough was situated near the romantic river which flows between the wild scenery of Drumgoff and the Seven Churches. It was a low stone building, indifferently thatched; the whole interior consisting of one oblong room, floored with clay, and lighted by two or three windows, the panes of which were patched with old copy-books, or altogether supplanted by school slates. The walls had once been plastered and whitewashed, but now partook of that appearance of dilapidation which characterised the whole building. In many places which yet remained uninjured, the malign spirit of satire (a demon for whom the court is not too high nor the cottage too humble), had developed itself in sundry amusing and ingenious devices. Here, with the end of a burnt stick, was traced the hideous outline of a human profile, professing to be a likeness of Tom Guerin,' and here might be seen the 'woeful lamentation and dying declaration of Neddy Mulcahy,' while that worthy dangled in effigy from a gallows overhead. In some instances, indeed, the village Hogarth with peculiar hardihood seemed to have sketched in a slight hit at 'the Masther,' the formidable Mr. Lenigan himself. Along each wall were placed a row of large stones, the one intended to furnish seats for the boys, the other for the girls; the decorum of Mr. Lenigan's establishment requiring that they should be kept apart on ordinary occasions, for Mr. Lenigan, it should be understood, had not been furnished with any Pestalozzian light. The only chair in the whole establishment was that which was usually occupied by Mr. Lenigan himself, and a table appeared to be a luxury of which they were either ignorant or wholly regardless. "A traveller in Ireland who is acquainted with the ancient chronicles of the country, must be struck by the resemblance between the ancient and modern Irish in their mode of education. In that translation of Stanihurst, which Hollinshed admits into his collection, we find the following passage: 'In their schools they grovel upon couches of straw, their books at their noses, themselves lie flat prostrate, and so they shout out with a loud voice their lessons by piecemeal, repeating two or three words thirty or forty times together.' The system of mnemonics described in the last sentence is still in vigorous use. "On the morning after the conversation described in the last chapter, Mr. Lenigan was rather later than his usual hour in taking possession of the chair above alluded to. The sun was mounting swiftly up the heavens. The rows of stones before described were already occupied, and the babble of a hundred voices like the sound of a beehive filled the house. Now and then a school-boy in frieze coat and corduroy trousers with an ink-bottle dangling at his breast, copy-book, slate, Voster, and 'reading-book' under one arm, and a sod of turf under the other, dropped in and took his place upon the next unoccupied stone. A great boy with a huge slate in his arms stood in the centre of the apartment, making a list of all those who were guilty of any indecorum in the absence of the Masther.' Near the door was a blazing turf fire, which the sharp autumnal winds already rendered agreeable. In a corner behind the door lay a heap of fuel formed by the contributions of all the scholars, each being obliged to bring one sod of turf every day, and each having the privilege of sitting by the fire while his own sod was burning. Those who failed to pay their tribute of fuel, sat cold and shivering the whole day long at the farther end of the room, huddling together their bare and frostbitten toes, and casting a longing, envious eye towards the peristyle of well-marbled shins that surrounded the fire. "Full in the influence of the cherishing flame was placed the hay-bottomed chair that supported the person of Mr. Henry Lenigan, when that great man presided in person in his rural academy. On his right lay a close bush of hazel of astounding size, the emblem of his authority, and the implement of castigation. Near this was a wooden sthroker, that is to say, a large rule of smooth and polished deal, used for sthroking lines in the copy-book, and also for sthroking the palms of refractory pupils. On the other side lay a lofty heap of copy-books, which were left there by the boys and girls for the purpose of having their copies 'sot' by the Masther! ' "About noon a sudden hush was produced by the appearance at the open door of a young man, dressed in rusty black, and with something clerical in his costume and demeanour. This was Mr. Lenigan's classical assistant; for to himself the volumes of ancient literature were a fountain sealed. Five or six stout young men, all of whom were intended for learned professions, were the only portion of Mr. Lenigan's scholars that aspired to those lofty sources of information. At the sound of the word 'Virgil!' from the lips of the assistant, the whole class started from their seats, and crowded round him, each brandishing a smoky volume of the great Augustan poet, who, could he have looked into this Irish academy, from that part of the infernal regions in which he had been placed by his pupil Dante, might have been tempted to exclaim in the pathetic words of his own hero: 666 -Sunt hic etiam sua præmia laudi, Sunt lachryma rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt.' "Who's head?' was the first question proposed by the assistant, after he had thrown open the volume at that part marked as the day's lesson. "Jim Naughtin, Sir.' Well, Naughtin, begin. Consther,* consther now, an' be quick.' 66 At puer Ascanius mediis in vallibus acri Gaudet equo; jamque hos cursu, jam præterit illos: "Go on, Sir. Why don't you consther?' "At puer Ascanius,' the person so addressed began, 'but the boy Ascanius; mediis in vallibus, in the middle of the valley; gaudet, rejoices.' "Exults, ara gal, exults is a betther word.' "Gaudet, exults; acri equo, upon his bitther horse.' 666 'Oh, murther alive; his bitther horse, inagh? Erra, what would make a horse be bitther, Jim? Sure 'tis not of sour beer he's talking! Rejoicin❜ upon a bitther horse! Dear knows what a show he was! what raison he had for it. Acri equo, upon his mettlesome steed; that's the consthruction.' "Jim proceeded : * Construe-translate. VOL. II. R "Acri equo, upon his mettlesome steed; jamque, and now; præterit, he goes beyond—' "Outsthrips, achree!' "Præterit, he outsthrips; hos, these; jamque illos, and now those; cursu, in his course; que, and; optat, he longs-' "Very good, Jim; longs is a very good word there; I thought you were going to say wishes. Did anybody tell you that?' 66 6 'Dickens a one, Sir !' "That's a good boy. Well?' "Optat, he longs; spumantum aprum, that a foaming boar; dari, shall be given; votis, to his desires; aut fulvum leonum, or that a tawny lion—' "That's a good word again. Tawny is a good word; betther than yellow.' "Decendere, shall descend; monte, from the mountain.' 666 Now, boys, observe the beauty of the poet. There's great nature in the picture of the boy Ascanius. Just the same way as we see young Misther Keiley, of the Grove, at the fox-chase the other day, leadin' the whole of 'em right and left, jamque hos, jamque illos, an' now Misther Cleary, an' now Captain Davis, he outsthripped in his course. A beautiful picture, boys, there is in them four lines, of a fine high-blooded youth. Yes, people are always the same; times an' manners change, but the heart o' man is the same now as it was in the day of Augustus. But consther your task Jim, an' then I give you an' the boys a little commentary upon its beauties.' "The boy obeyed, and read as far as prætexit nomine culpam, after which the assistant proceeded |