The famed Blarney Stone is one of the coping-stones of the outside projecting cornice, near the top of the tower, and resting on large, but plain, stone corbels, or brackets. In appearance from the ground, it is six feet long and eighteen inches thick, and projects two feet or so. Many years ago it appeared to be insecure, and two iron bars were put on the outside, securing it in its position. There are courses of stone upon it, falling back from the front surface, and making a parapet to the tower. It was over this parapet that persons, head downwards, held and aided by others, performed the task of kissing the stone. A stairway on the inside leads nearly to the top of the tower; but now, for a more convenient and safe way of performing the operation, another stone, bearing date 1703, is kept within the tower. Its magic is as effectual, while it is reached with comparative safety. It is indeed marvellous that a few lines of worse than doggerel poetry have materially aided in giving this stone a notoriety that is world-wide, and which, but for this aid, would hardly have been heard of outside of its neighborhood. It was long a superstitious belief that whoever kissed it would ever after be in possession of such sweet, persuasive, and convincing eloquence as to put the listener entirely under the control of the speaker. Rev. Father Prout's allusion to the stone is in part as follows:-- There is a stone there that whoever kisses, Oh! he never misses to grow eloquent; 'Tis he may clamber to a lady's chamber, Or become a member of Parliament. A clever spouter he'll sure turn out, or An out and outer, to be let alone! Don't hope to hinder him or to bewilder him, Sure he's a pilgrim from the Blarney Stone. The grounds by which the castle are surrounded were once adorned with statues, bridges, grottos, but all are now gone, and Father Prout deplores the condition as follows:-- The muses shed a tear, When the cruel auctioneer, With his hammer in his hand to sweet Blarney came.