CHAPTER XIV.
A Fine Old City--Norman Master-Work--Lollards' Hole--Good Blood--The Spaniard's Sword--Old Retired Officer--Writing to a Duke--God help the Child--Nothing like Jacob--Irish Brigades--Old Sergeant Meredith--I Have Been Young--Idleness--Only Course Open--The Bookstall--A Portrait--A Banished Priest.
From the wild scenes which I have attempted to describe in the latter pages I must now transport the reader to others of a widely different character.

He must suppose himself no longer in Ireland, but in the eastern corner of merry England.

Bogs, ruins, and mountains have disappeared amidst the vapours of the west: I have nothing more to say of them; the region in which we are now is not famous for objects of that kind: perhaps it flatters itself that it can produce fairer and better things, of some of which let me speak; there is a fine old city before us, and first of that let me speak.
A fine old city, truly, is that, view it from whatever side you will; but it shows best from the east, where the ground, bold and elevated, overlooks the fair and fertile valley in which it stands.

Gazing from those heights, the eye beholds a scene which cannot fail to awaken, even in the least sensitive bosom, feelings of pleasure and admiration.

At the foot of the heights flows a narrow and deep river, with an antique bridge communicating with a long and narrow suburb, flanked on either side by rich meadows of the brightest green, beyond which spreads the city; the fine old city, perhaps the most curious specimen at present extant of the genuine old English town.