This property was inherited by Spenser's eldest son, Sylvanus, who married a Miss Nagle, of Monanimy, in Cork, and lived at this Rennie. In a life of Spenser the following scanty information, which has been collected relative to his descendants, is given, and may help us to a clearer conception of the matter. Sylvanus had, by the marriage with Miss Nagle, two sons, Edmund and William. Peregrine Spenser, the third son of the poet, the second being Lawrence, is described in a MS. deposition relative to the rebellion in 1641, as a Protestant resident about the barony of Fermoy, and so impoverished by the troubles, as to be unable to pay his debts; and a part of the estate had been assigned to him by his elder brother, Sylvanus; this part of the estate is distinctly stated to have been Rennie. Hugoline, the son of Peregrine, opposed the designs of the Prince of Orange, and after the revolution was outlawed for treason and rebellion; his cousin, William Spenser, the son of Sylvanus, became a suitor for the forfeited property, and obtained it. Dr. Birch has described him as a man somewhat advanced in years, and as unable to give any account of the works of his ancestor which are missing. His case, as he presented it to Parliament, has been printed by Mr. Todd in his Life of Spenser, from the copy in the British Museum, presented by Mr. George Chalmers. In this document Hugoline is described as "very old and unmarried." Dr. Birch informs us that, in 1751, some of the descendants of Spenser were living in the county of Cork; and Mr. Todd, coming later down, observes, that "a daughter of a Mr. Edmund Spenser of Mallow, the last lineal descendant of the poet, is now married to a Mr. Burne, of the English Custom-house." A Mr. Price, in a MS. in the British Museum, states that he was told by Lord Cartaret, that when he was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in 1724, a true descendant of Edmund Spenser, who bore his name, had a trial before Baron Hall, and he knew so little of the English tongue, that he was forced to have an interpreter. Now, Mr. Smith informed me that not only was it the fixed tradition that this house at Rennie was inhabited by Spenser the poet, but that it was also as positively asserted that one of his descendants was murdered in it in a very extraordinary manner. The story was that of two brothers; one, banished for high treason, and the other, who succeeded him, murdered by his housekeeper out of jealousy. That this woman had been led to hope that her master would marry her, but finding that he was going to marry another lady, proposed, one morning as he was shaving, to do it for him, and being permitted, cut his throat with the razor. There seemed, however, some suspicion that the cousin of the murdered man, who was next heir, the elder brother being outlawed, had instigated or urged upon the woman to commit this act; but, such was the state of the times, that, notwithstanding this suspicion, his cousin came in for the property. Wild and terrible as this tradition is, it is there; and what is curious, we see in the above slight tracing of the descent of the Spensers, that Hugoline, a son of Peregrine, was outlawed for treason and rebellion, and that William, a cousin, and the son of Sylvanus, became a suitor for the forfeited property, and obtained it. In O'Flanagan's Guide to the Blackwater, this is stated to have happened to the last descendant of Spenser at Rennie, and that "in the small antique dwelling at Rennie is pointed out the room in which she did the deed." This is very different to the account I received from the present proprietor, which is that given above: nor does the house at Rennie prove to be "a small antique one." It is a good modern mansion. The property of Rennie continued in the family long after it had lost Kilcolman: in fact, till about 1734, when, on the death of Nathaniel Spenser, the then possessor, it was sold; the family became landless, and soon after extinct. Mr. and Mrs. Smith set out with me to explore the scene. The house is modern; the land on the level of the house of the richest quality, and beautified with fine trees; the views up and down the river, and over it into the woods of Lord Listowell, with the tower of his castle peeping over them, are rich and beautiful. We descended into the meadows below the house, attended by four of the finest greyhounds ever seen, one of them as white as snow, and three or four terriers; and the dogs were soon in full chase of rabbits, up amongst the rocks and trees. We were soon below the house, and at the foot of the precipice on which it stands. The place was fit for Spenser's Pan, with all his Fauns and Sylvans. In the meadow, which extended to the banks of the river, grazed the fine herd of cattle, and amidst them the sturdy bull; and all around us, above us on the rocks, in the meadow itself, and on the banks and green slopes on the other side of the river, grew the most prodigal trees. The whole scene told of ancient possession and a most affluent nature. At the foot of the precipice under the house, laurels and filberts, which must have been planted long ago, and probably by Spenser himself, had attained the most enormous size; the laurels were as large as forest trees; they had, some of them, stems, I suppose, half a yard in diameter, and had assumed a shape of sylvan massiveness and woodland rudeness, such as before I had no conception of in laurels. Some had been blown down by the winds and grew half prostrate; others had been sawn off, and had left huge stumps, knit, as it were, into one mass with the foot of the rocks. All was one scene of Arcadian greenness, and excess of growth. Beneath the rock there was a sort of damp cave where water stood as if oozing through from the river, and the plants above hung down their long arms, and made a fitting retreat for Spenser's satyrs. Around, seen from the shadow of this spot, lay the deep-green meadow, the swift, broad river, the rich masses of trees, closing in a little world of solitude; and as if to mark it for a spot in which the poet of Fairy-land had sojourned, and left the impress of his spirit, in his own words : "Beside the same a dainty place there lay, : Of God's high praise, and of their sweet loves' teene, Perhaps Spenser might revel here till his castle was fitted up for his reception; perhaps it might be a retreat at times from the more open perils of the desolate Kilcolman; and a sweet change from moorland wildness, to a sort of Italian richness and softness of scenery. The way was still enchanting. Now down into the valley of the Blackwater, amongst mills and rocks, and resounding waters; now aloft again, overlooking the white house of Rennie on its precipice, and opposite to it spreading out the woods and mountains of Ballynahoolly. Now arose a bare district of hedgerows without trees, and little brown huts, with geese, and goats and swine. Now again passing some gentleman's park, with its ocean of trees, and under a sort of tunnel rather than avenue of beeches, which are planted on banks, so that they meet close above, sometimes for half-a-mile, and which at night are as dark as a dungeon. Then again I passed between hedges of cyder-apple, all grown into trees, and giving the country, for the fields right and left were enclosed with the same, a very wild look; and I came out on bare heights, and with view of far-off bleak and brown mountains. Near Doneraile, I saw the ocean of green woods belonging to Lord Doneraile's park and domain lying before me in the valley, and passed through it for a mile or more in highest admiration of the splendid growth and richness of foliage of its beeches, its superb way-side ashes, and its other trees. Surely where it is allowed to produce trees, Ireland does exhibit them in a beauty and prodigality of growth which is almost unrivalled by those of England. To this contributes, not merely the fertility of the soil, but the moisture of the atmosphere. About two miles beyond Doneraile I found, on a wide plain, the ruins of Kilcolman. These ruins have frequently been drawn and engraved, and the views we have of them are very correct. Indeed, so vividly were the features of the scene impressed on my mind by the views, and by reading of it, that I seemed to know it quite well. Its old black mass of wall catches your eye as soon as you have passed the woody neighbourhood of Doneraile, standing up on the wild moorland plain, a solitary object amid its nakedness. A tolerable highway, newly constructed, leads up near to it, along which you advance amid scattered Irish cabins, and their usual potato plots. To reach the castle, you have to turn to the left up one of those stony lanes that threaten to jolt a car to pieces, and then have to scale a gate belonging to the farm on which the ruin stands, and advance on foot, through a farm-yard, and along the lake side. The remains of the castle, which consist only of part of the tower, at the southernmost corner, stand on a green mound of considerable extent, overlooking the lake, or rather a winding sort of pond, overgrown with potamogeton. On one side, masses of limestone-rock, on which the castle, too, stands, protrude from the banks, and on the other extends the green marsh, and the black peat-bogs, with their piles of peat-stacks. To the north, at about a mile distance, stretch those brown moorland mountains, called by the natives the Ballyhowra Hills, but dignified by Spenser with the name of Mole. Of either of these names the peasants seemed to know nothing, but assured me the one nearest to the castle eastward was called Slieve Ruark. Southward, at a couple of miles' distance, stands another sombrelooking tower, the remains of an ancient castle, which they called Castle Pook. On a hill, nearer Doneraile westward, are also the ruins of an abbey; so that, probably, in Spenser's time, this scene might be well wooded; these places inhabited by families of the English settlers; and might form some society for him; but at present, nothing can be more wild, dreary, and naked, than this scene, and the whole view around. Turn which way you will, you see nothing but naked moorlands, bare and lonely, or scattered with the cabins and potato plots of the peasantry. To the north-east stands, at perhaps half-a-mile distance, a mass of plantations, enclosing the house of a Mr. Barry Harold; and that is the only relieving object, except the distant mass of the woods of Doneraile Park, and the bare ranges of mountains that close in this unpicturesque plain at more or less distance. As I stood on the top of the massy old keep, whose walls are three yards thick, and its winding stairs of slippery grey marble, I seemed to be rather in a dream of Spenser's castle, than actually at it. The sun was hastening to set, and threw a clear shining light over the whole silent plain, and thousands of pewets and of rooks from Lord Doneraile's woods, spread themselves over the green fields near the weedy water, and seemed to enjoy the calm dreamy light and stillness of the scene. The hour and the scene naturally brought to my mind the melodious stanza of Mickle, which has special reference to this solitary memorial |