"I must beg a thousand pardons, most gallant, illustrate, and learned Sir Patricius," said Captain Heaviside, interrupting the Baronet, "but, under favour, my good Sir, I do not in verity understand one word of Hebrew; no, nor any of these nostrums; albeit I have little doubt that Archimedes the great was, in good sooth, a most famous and skilful physician and gifted leech in his celebrated day." [11]
"Nay, Captain Heaviside, I cry nay. Mark me, he was a geometrician and astronomer, and very celebrated as both! The passage which I have put into the mouth of the renowned philosopher of Syracuse is Greek; and if I may be indeed permitted to pique myself upon any kind of erudition, (although, perhaps, in modesty I might say, Vix ea nostra voco), I should then pride myself upon a knowledge of the Greek tongue; and moreover too, the proper pronunciation and due intonation of voice, what Horace so sonorously and emphatically calls the ore rotundo Græcorum. Indeed I do flatter myself that I speak the best Greek beyond any other person in the island!"
"Oh, come, no disparagement, good Sir Patricius! to all your learned acquirements; you excel in speech, and no doubt succeed as well in the gift and exercise of your pen! but I, Sir, the hapless child of wayward fortune, am only acquainted with this! [half drawing his sword from its scabbard.] On this simple stake rest all my fortune and my hope, which, while I have a hand to wield, shall be held forth in the defence of my king and country!"
"Well said, i' faith, my master! and spoken nobly, like a brave and honest soldier! Ay, to be sure, Sir! every man in his vocation, Hal! as the inimitable Shakespeare sagely saith; although, nevertheless, a little knowledge methinks, after all, to the tune of the old proverb, is in sooth no great burden! But come, presto! we shall change the topic and the scene. The day beams forth its vernal glow beneath a brilliant sky, and the melodious strains of the feathered songsters, vying in harmonious notes, invite us abroad. Come, we have stayed too long."
Thus at last the learned physician and the preux chevalier sallied forth to behold the varied and noble domains of the illustrious proprietor. The lawns, shrubberies, walks, gardens, &c., were all kept with the greatest possible care and neatness. Several artificial lakes fed by a living stream, and of great extent, so as to seem as if placed there by the hand of nature, wound along beneath the shadow of ancient groves, and fully diversified the scene. The lawns and parks were smooth and verdant as a bowling-green from the frequent pressure of the roller. While the walks, parterres, and terraces, were so trimly kept that not a fallen leaf was to be seen; which order and regularity was placed to the account and agency of several old females, habited as witches, whose brooms, ever on the alert, kept all in due and perfect neatness. Part of the grounds which adjoined the castle were laid out in that old-fashioned style which we confess we are antediluvian enough to admire; however, be it known that no tree, shrub, nor ever-green, whatever, was clipt and mutilated by the shears to shrink into the abortioned form and pressure of a wizard's broom, or a true-lover's knot! no pyramid of clipped beech, no cypress-tree which assumed the fantastic form of Cleopatra's needle. No: nor did shivering Adam and Eve, and the cold clammy serpent and "forbidden tree," astound the spectator in shorn yew; no fountain impotently attempted to spring upward in boxwood; no such puerilities were tolerated to disfigure by grotesqueness the scenery of nature. So far on the contrary, that every thing was in good taste—at least it was so at the distant time of which now we write. The grounds were laid out in what would now be called the improved English taste: here lawns of richest verdure, and cultivated to the highest degree of luxuriance; there wild rocks of granite or limestone, as placed by the hand of nature, trailed and festooned around with lichen grey and ivy green; while the Osmunda regalis, the royal fern, spreading wide its majestic plumes, and undulating in the breeze, gracefully waved and bent over the apex of these romantic rocks, and gave a pleasure to the eye that scenes of nature only can bestow. The terraces which surrounded the castle were kept gravelled and rolled to the extreme of neatness, and were hedged with luxuriant myrtle. The now old-fashioned ponds, which it would have been little less than sacrilege to remove, reposed beneath the terraces, which gave a tone of grandeur to the whole; jets d'eau sprung from the centre of these to an elevated height, and over the head of many a triton and river deity; while the waters, as the declination of the ground permitted, bursting forth at once the bonds of artificial force, they
"From large cascades in pleasing tumult roll'd, Or rose from figured stone,"
brightly spreading and sparkling beneath a brilliant sun. It must, however, be admitted, that it was somewhat chilling, even in the merry month of May, to behold the shivering deities who presented them-selves in cold tangible marble sans chemisé, sans robé, et sans drapé, while they sentinelled the verdant banks of pond, lake, or canal; and which, in some degree to qualify our praise, we are ready and free to admit were after all somewhat selon le ecole d'Hollandé!
Here suddenly a vernal shower coming on, the Doctor and Captain, at no great distance from the castle, were glad to make a race to avoid a wetting; and before their dress could receive any damage they entered the castle-hall, having luckily accomplished their object. Sir Patricius now proposed to show to Captain Heaviside the Duke's great gallery of paintings, pour passer le temps until the hour appointed for the baptismal ceremony should arrive.
Just at this moment the Duchess of Tyrconnel drove up in her equipage to the castle door. It was a low demesne cabriole, drawn by two small ponies, and driven by a postillion; in it was seated the Duchess, Mrs. Judith Braingwain, the nurse, and in her arms the lovely child, the Lady Adelaide. Sir Patricius hastened forth to hand them from the vehicle, and the Duchess most graciously saluted both her guests, the little Adelaide sweetly smiled, and the Duchess with all due courtesy retired.