Page:Notable Irishwomen.djvu/67

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
NOTABLE IRISHWOMEN.
47

beautiful groves of a large extent. Industry reigns among this happy society, all their works are executed with taste, corrected by judgment, and seem to prosper as if Heaven smiled on their honest labours."

Prose seemed all too poor for Mary Leadbeater to describe her beloved Ballitore, so she celebrates it in a very long poem, of which one specimen may be given here:—

"Then come, my friend, and taste once more,
The beauties of sweet Ballitore;
This charming spot, where joys abound,
By rising hills encompass'd round—
Fair hills, which rear the golden brow,
And smile upon the vale below."

The famous school, kept first by Abraham Shackleton, and then by Richard, his son (father of Mary Leadbeater), was principally intended for Quakers, though some of the pupils did not belong to the society.

The three young Burkes—Edmund and his two brothers—had such an aversion to a cross old woman who had been teaching them, before they went to Ballitore, that one evening they set out for her cabin with the intention of killing her. Fortunately she happened to be out. Very different were Edmund Burke's feelings towards