BLARNEY CASTLE.
"A local habitation and a name."
Although Mr. Crofton Croker has devoted no less than eighteen quarto pages of research to the history of Blarney Castle, and has minutely told us how its Lord (Clancarty) lost his property, how his ring was fished up, and where his plate may be found,—he has nevertheless left the precise meaning of the word Blarney unexplained.—Those who are curious on the subject of its extended use, may consult Salt's Abyssinia. I shall only attempt, by illustration, to shew the accordance of what in England has long been termed "a French compliment," with our notion of Irish blarney: as it is impossible better to illustrate Blarney Castle, than by compositions which embody its very spirit.
Voltaire's Impromptu to a Lady, who wished him yet another eighty years of life:
Lady, it is a selfish boon,
The life your prayer would give;
We're fain to keep what is our own,
We wish our slaves to live.
Marmontel’s Impromptu to Madame de Stael, on his giving her a pen which she had dropt:
Love dropt this feather at your feet;
What time, his wanderings o'er—
He trusted you to clip his wings,
And wished to rove no more.
Marie Antoinette, finding a lady of her court writing to M. le President Hainault, added a few lines with her own hand, which called forth the following:
Who traced these words, where loveliness
Has stamped its own divine impress?—
Dare I imagine who?
It were ungrateful not to guess;
Too daring, if I do.
