us most kindly and hospitably is a marvel of Elizabethan woodwork.  The shelves are filled with a quaint and miscellaneous collection of old and rare books.  I opened at random one fine old quarto, and found it to contain, among other curious tracts, models of typography, a Latin critical disquisition by Raphael Regini on the first edition of Plutarch’s Life of Cicero, “nuper inventa diu desideraia ”—­a disquisition quite aglow with the cinquecento delight in discovery and adventure.  In the grounds of this charming house stand four very fine Irish yews forming a little hollow square, within which, according to a local legend, Sir Walter sat enjoying the first pipe of tobacco ever lighted in Ireland, when his terrified serving-maid espying the smoke that curled about her master’s head hastily ran up and emptied a pail of water over him.  In the garden here, too, we are told, was first planted the esculent which better deserves to be called the Curse of Ireland than does the Nine of Diamonds to be known as the Curse of Scotland.  The Irish yew must have been indigenous here, for the name of Youghal, Father Keller tells me, in Irish signifies “the wood of yew-trees.”  A subterranean passage is said to lead from Sir Walter’s dining-room into the church, but we preferred the light of day.

The precincts of the church adjoin the grounds and garden, and with these make up a most fascinating poem in architecture.  The churches of St. Mary of Youghal and St. Nicholas of Galway have always been cited to me as the two most interesting churches in Ireland.  Certainly this church of St. Mary, as now restored, is worth a journey to see.  Its massive tower, with walls eight feet thick, its battlemented chancel, the pointed arches of its nave and aisles, a curious and, so far as I know, unique arch in the north transept, drawn at an obtuse angle and demarcating a quaint little side-chapel, and the interesting monuments it contains, all were pointed out to me with as much zest and intelligent delight by Father Keller as if the edifice were still dedicated to the faith which originally called it into existence.  It contains a fine Jacobean tomb of Richard, the “great Earl of Cork,” who died here in September 1643.  On this monument, which is in admirable condition, the effigy of the earl appears between those of his two wives, while below them kneel his five sons and seven daughters, their names and those of their partners in marriage inscribed upon the marble.  It was of this earl that Oliver said:  “Had there been an Earl of Cork in every province, there had been no rebellion in Ireland.”  Several Earls of Desmond are also buried here, including the founder of the church, and under a monumental effigy in one of the transepts lies the wonderful old Countess of Desmond, who having danced in her youth with Richard III. lived through the Tudor dynasty “to the age of a hundred and ten,” and, as the old distich tells us, “died by a fall from a cherry-tree then.”