"Munster may Curse
The time that Villiers came
To make us Worse.
While leaving such a Name
Of noble Parts
As none can Imitate.
But those whose Harts
Are married to the State.
But if they Press
To imitate his Fame
Munster may Bless
The time that Villiers Came."
Mrs. Charles Fleetwood, daughter of Oliver Cromwell and widow of General
Ireton, who died from wounds during the siege of Limerick, is buried in
the center of the chancel. Cromwell had his headquarters here for some
time and appointed his son-in-law, Fleetwood, lord deputy in 1649.
Raleigh was twenty-eight years old when he came to Ireland from
Devonshire in 1579 as captain of a levy of troops, and Youghal is the
only home he ever had so far as we know. He sailed from there upon his
last and fatal voyage on Aug. 6, 1617.
There is still another association which will appeal with force to the
majority of the masculine readers of these lines. From Myrtle Lodge Sir
Walter Raleigh introduced tobacco into the United Kingdom, having
brought it home from the West Indies where the Spaniards found the
natives smoking it at the time of the discovery of America. Columbus and
his followers carried it back with them to Spain. Fifty years afterward
Sir Walter Raleigh introduced it at the court of Queen Elizabeth and
brought to Youghal the first tobacco ever seen in Ireland, which he
smoked under a group of four wonderful yew trees while he read the
manuscript of Edmund Spenser's "Faerie Queene," which had been submitted
for his criticism by the author. A considerable part of the fourth book
of the poem was written at Myrtle Lodge while Spenser was Sir Walter's
guest, and the remainder at Kilcolman Castle on the River Blackwater.
The poem was never finished, but its publication is due to Sir Walter,
for he took the manuscript to London, placed it with the printer, and
provided the means to pay the expense. He thought so highly of the poem
that, in a double sonnet, composed while Spenser was visiting him at
Youghal, he says:
"All suddenly I saw the Faerie Queene,
At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept."
It is therefore very natural that Spenser should reply in these lines:
"Thou only, fit this argument to write,
In whose high thoughts pleasure hath built her bower,
And dainty love learnt sweetly to indite."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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