Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets, Vol. 1 (of 2)Howitt, William
History
Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Howitt, William
Literary landmarks -- Great Britain; Poets, English -- Homes and haunts
"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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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