“Such is the arrangement of them, ample roads between them; even as letters in their lines.
“Each thread of road, bare, smooth, straight, firm, is contained within two threads of smooth, conical roofed houses.
“The ridge of the bright-furrowed slope is a plain lined with houses, behind the crowded plain is a fort, as it were a capital letter.”
The castle itself was worthy of one born into the Irish inheritance, of the great lineage of their race: far off it is recognised, the star-like mass of stone, its outer smoothness like vellum—a castle which was the standard of a mighty chieftain; bright is the stone thereof, ruddy its timber.
“Close is the joining of its timber and its lime-washed stone; there is no gaping where they touch; the work is a triumph of art.
“There is much artistic ironwork upon the shining timber: on the smooth part of each brown oaken beam workmen are carving animal figures.
“On the smooth wall of the warm mansion—amazing in its beauty—is the track of a slender, pointed pen; light, fresh, narrow.
“The bardic companies of pleasant-meadowed Fóla, and those of Scotland—a distant journey—will be acquainted with one another after arriving in William’s lofty castle.
“Herein will come the seven grades who form the shape of genuine poesy; the seven true orders of poets, their entrance is an omen of expenditure.