The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck by Mary Shelley

Then Paridell, in whom a kindly pride Of gracious speech, and skill his words to frame Abounded, being glad of so fit tide Him to commend to them, thus spake, of all well eyed. --SPENSER.

Cork was an asylum for civilization in the centre of a savage district. The cautious burghers, made wealthy by trade, and ever in fear of incursions from the surrounding septs, kept the strictest guard upon their city, as if they had a continual siege laid to it. They forbade all intercourse or intermarriage between those within and without the walls, till every citizen became linked together by some sort of kindred. It is true, that the country around was peopled to a great degree by English lords; but they were the degenerate English, as they were styled, who imitated the state and independance of the native chiefs. Such was the Earl of Desmond, of the family of the Geraldines, who ruled as a king over Munster, and with whom the Barrys, the De Courcys, the Barretts, and the Mac Carthys, Mac Swineys, and other native chiefs, were connected by marriage, or struggling with him for "Chieferie" in the mutable chance of war.