conviction even on Boeotian stupidity), the whole gallery stood up as a spontaneous and involuntary tribute of admiration. Mr. Grattan is a thin and delicatelooking little man, but his eye is full of genius and fire

-he is, I believe, considerably upwards of sixty, though his step has all the lightness and elasticity of youth: he lives at a beautiful place about nine or ten miles from Dublin: he is, I learn, an excellent husband and father, and as distinguished for his private as his public virtues.

I would strongly recommend to the perusal of my reader his letter to the citizens of Dublin, published in the year 1797. It is almost as interesting at the present as at that period, and to England as to Ireland.

Mr. Grattan by this eloquent letter subjected himself to much obloquy and some danger-as a composition it was severely criticised; and by many pronounced as deficient in reasoning as in loyalty. In the glowing language of oratory, which stops not to examine, he had said, "a naked man, oppressed by the state, is an armed post ;" this was pronounced an absolute bull; and certainly though a strong, it is a singular expression. This, however, if we are to credit Mr. Boswell, is not the first instance of the same imputation being fixed upon him: some person repeated with enthusiasm before Dr. Johnson, the following passage from one of his earliest speeches" I will persevere in my efforts until there is not one link remaining of the chain of English slavery to clank on the rags of the meanest peasant in Ireland."-" Nay, sir," said Dr. Johnson," that is a bull; if there is only one link, how should it clank ?"

CHAPTER VI.

Search for Earl Strongbow's house-His monument in Christ Church-Barracks-Dublin and London mobs-Duel between Mr. Colclough and Mr. Allcock-Irish beggars—Palmerston fair-Hospital-Field's burying-ground.

Dublin.

Ar the house where I breakfasted this morning, I was inquiring after curiosities—“I will show you one," said the gentleman, " and a very wonderful one toothe very house where Earl Strongbow lived, and for aught I can tell, built, for houses made of stone and lime were not very much the fashion, when he came first amongst us." This was something worth looking at, and we set off immediately after breakfast to see it : he took me to the street which contained this rare treasure; we walked several times up and down, but saw neither castle nor palace, neither shattered column nor decayed gateway.-The houses were mean and oldlooking enough; but after surveying them all, with more exactness than they deserved, we could trace no more resemblance to a Gothic edifice than to a Chinese pagoda. We stopt every passenger to inquire after the house Earl Strongbow built; nobody could give us any information about it; we' inquired at several shops; they were not a whit better antiquarians than the passengers; we might as well have asked after the house that Jack built. My friend, in a passion, swore he would stay there to doomsday, or he would find it out. He might have stayed to doomsday, and been

no nearer his purpose-there was no such house there, though there had been an old one taken down some time before. It appeared, however, from an inscription on one of the beams, that it was not of earlier date than Queen Elizabeth: so that not even poetic licence could make it the residence of Earl Strongbow.

Disappointed in the purpose we came for, we were resolved, as we could not see the house in which this great warrior had lived, to see at least the one in which he was laid; and went to Christ Church accordingly. The monument of Earl Strongbow has a lofty and venerable appearance, and bears all the marks of great antiquity; the statue of the son is continued only to the middle, with the bowels open and supported by the hands. He was a youth of seventeen, and, as tradition records, so terrified at the first onset of the Irish army, that he fled to Dublin in the utmost consternation, declaring that his father and all his forces had perished; that when, convinced of his mistake, he appeared before the earl, and congratulated him on his victory, the father rigidly condemned him to death for cowardice, and executed it with his own hand, by cutting him in two. There is the utmost reason to suspect, however, that this narrative has no other foundation than the fiction of some Irish bard, who invented it for a people delighting in the marvellous and affecting; and who would readily credit any evil story of a man, who had inflicted so much evil on themselves.

After having completed our survey, my friend proposed going to Palmerston fair; I readily consented.I have more pleasure in contemplating the moving picture of man, than the stationary one of statues and monuments. At the fair where we were going, many,

no doubt, in the words of Shakspeare, would "put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains." But clowns, even without brains, are better than heroes without bowels. As the day was fine, we resolved to walk, to avoid the crowd, we passed through the Barrack squares, and from thence into Phoenix Park. The Barracks are esteemed among the largest and most commodious in Europe. They consist of four squares, situated at the west end of the town, on the north side of the river; three or four regiments are constantly quartered here. The Dublin mob have at all times been rather unruly, and now more than ever a watchful eye is kept over them; a regiment of dragoons is always stationed in the neighbourhood, whose formidable appearance is a peculiar object of their terror. The nerves of a London mob seem to possess similar sensibility: though armed so strong with zeal for the worthy baronet and the cause of freedom on a recent occasion, they immediately dispersed at the sight of the immense sabres and large cocked hats of the horse guards: the most vociferous clamourer took to flight, and I know one instance of activity in a courageous and unwieldy friend of mine, that would reflect credit on Captain Barclay himself—he was a great admirer of Sir Francis, drank his health, and wore his colours; abused his enemies, and swore, "let others do as they chose, but he would never forsake him." He was huzzaing with great strength of lungs in Piccadilly, when one of the dragoons gave him a smart blow with the flat side of his sabre across the shoulders:—all his zeal, like Acres's courage, oozed out of his fingers' ends; and he ran, without stopping or looking behind him, to his lodgings in Holborn. For some evenings after, he drank his

porter with a much less warlike air than formerly; though now, I understand, he gives himself great credit for the desperate battle he fought with an armed dragoon.

The day was fine, and we had a delightful walk through the park, where there is a charming assemblage of rural beauty. I was glad to be in it for that and other reasons.- -I wished to hear my friend's voice and my own, which, in the streets of Dublin, is impossible; the wheel-cars follow each other in a long line like a flock of wild geese, with a nasty kind of teasing and jingling noise that is insufferable; the heavy sound of a London cart is not half so bad, and commands something like respect;-a Dublin car is not much larger than a wheel-barrow: we endure the barking of a mastiff, but lose all patience at the yelping of a cur.— My companion is surgeon to a regiment which has been stationed in Ireland for several years; he has been in all parts of it, and speaks in the most favourable terms of the kindness of heart he has met with every where; obscured as it too often is in the lower classes by poverty and ignorance, and in the higher by habits of dissipation and the want of a good education. In the course of his peregrinations he has been very much employed in his profession; the country surgeons in Ireland being in general no Esculapius's. In the unfortunate duel which took place about three years ago at Wexford, between Mr. Colclough and Mr. Allcock, he was engaged to attend as surgeon by the latter: he told me the whole business exactly as it happened; and as it contains some circumstances not uninteresting, and to a certain degree