A clever spouter, he'll sure turn out, or
An 'out-an'-outer' to be let alone;
Don't hope to hinder him, or to bewilder him,
Sure he's a pilgrim from the Blarney Stone."

Thackeray, like many another man before his time and since, has paid
tribute to the loveliness of the girls of Cork. There is a graceful
charm about them before which the most inveterate bachelor succumbs. The
accents of the Siren singers were never so insinuating and caressing as
the Munster brogue as it slips off the tongue of a gentlewoman. Blue
eyes predominate, but are excelled in lustre by what Froude has been
pleased to call "the cold grey eyes of the dark Celt of the south of
Ireland." Edmund Spencer, when he was not busy "undertaking" Rapparees,
or smoking Raleigh's fragrant weed--"than which there is no more fair
herb under the broad canopy of heaven"--wooed and won and wedded a fair
woman of Cork; not of the city, though, but of the county. She was a
country lass, as he is at pains to point out to the Shandon belles who
fain would vie with her:--

"Tell me, ye merchant daughters, did ye see
So fayre a creature in your town before?
Her goodlie eyes, like sapphyres shining bright;
Her forehead, ivory white;
Her lips like cherries charming men to byte."

There is nothing of peculiar interest about the streets of Cork but
their number, their narrowness, and the irregularity of the houses. St.
Patrick's-street, which is the principal thoroughfare, has many handsome
shops, and winds its way in three curves through the city.

From the "Dyke," as it is locally known, through the "Band Field"--the
baby park of Cork--we can cross to an entrance to the Queen's College on
the Western-road. The College itself is a handsome building of white
Cork limestone, in the later Tudor style, forming three sides of a
quadrangle, and consisting of lecture-rooms, museum, examination hall,
&c. It is built in the centre of well-laid pleasure grounds, which are
open to the public, and which formerly were the site of St. Finbarr's
old monastery. During the session proper, practically from November to
June, visitors will not be admitted through the building without an
official order, which may be had at the Registrar's office.

[Illustration: _Photo, Roche, Dublin._ Queen's College, Cork.]

During the vacation the steward or assistant officials are in attendance
to conduct visitors. The large palm-house is one of the most successful
in Ireland,