1829.] [ 173 3 



WALKS IN IRELAND : N°. III. — THE CITY OF THE SEVEN 



CHURCHES. 



And so the Irish pedestrian has found favour in your eyes ! The 

 gentle denizens of the West-end have admitted him into their bou( oirs, 

 and listened with complacency to his wild patois, and smiled approba- 

 tion : — fact, — literal fact ! I saw myself, my printed self, slumbering, 

 in languid, lettered ease, on the little mystic table, beside " La Belle 

 Assemblee ;" and grouped around me lay, in orderly disorder, " The 

 King's Page," fair " Geraldine of Desmond," my pretty countrywoman, 

 and half-a-dozen other fashionables. Well, these same printers' devils 

 have a winning way about them, for all their murky looks ! 



To tell the truth, I was in rather a sulky humour when I began my 

 last ; but I am better now, and I feel disposed to tell you a little more 

 about myself. — Now you need not smother a yawn, and settle yourself 

 into a martyr-like attitude of well-bred patience : I am not going to 

 inflict my birth, parentage, and education upon you ; I am only going 

 to tell you how, and why, and wherefore I am a pedestrian, and a soli- 

 tary one. 



I love a ramble among mountains. Born and reared in romantic 

 scenery, though at present a sojourner in a city, I cannot forget the 

 pleasures of my early childhood, in the din and bustle of artificial life 

 (though. Heaven knows, we have but little din or bustle in Dublin, now, 

 except at a contested election, or a civic feast) ; and I gladly escape, 

 when my avocations permit me, to the romantic solitudes of the county 

 of Wicklow, to taste a sweet forgetfulness of Coke, and Blackstone, and 

 Vesey, Jun. Sometimes I take unto myself the wings of the morning, 

 in the shape of the box-seat of one of the southern coaches, and flee 

 away to the uttermost ends of Cork or Kerry, and am at rest ; but 

 Wicklow, from its vicinity to Dublin, is my favourite haunt, and a 

 vacant day or two rarely passes without caiTying me to one or other of 

 its sequestered beauties. 



Be it understood, that I hate most cordially what is here called " a 

 party of pleasure," and that a " pic-nic" is an abomination unto me : I 

 hate the dust, and noise, and revelry of the day, especially if the place 

 of destination be some still and tranquil spot, where tumult sounds 

 unholy : I love not to spout poetry with sentimental misses, fresh from 

 the boarding-school, each a Lucy Ashton, or Diana Vernon, in her own 

 mind ; nor to talk politics or scandal with their sedater Pa's and JMa's ; 

 nor does my soul find pleasure in the deep and hasty carouse of the 

 boisterous brothers and cousins, " while the ladies are shawling," pre- 

 paratory to certain horse and chariot races, which they perpetrate on the 

 way home, to the infinite peril of their brains, if any they have. No, 

 no; my ramble is, as I have said, a solitary one; my dog is my only 

 companion (pray God our worthy Lord ]\Iayor, who is at present 

 afflicted with prospective hydrophobia, hang him not !*), and, as he is a 

 dog of a reflective and philosophical turn of mind, we agree exceedingly 

 ^\•ell. I know he is much better company than many a biped of my 

 acquaintance; for, if he docs not join in conversation, he at least listens 



• Tlic Lord Mayor and police of Dublin are at present (September lf!28) employed in 

 hanging all tlio (lo;;s they can lay tlicir hands on, " to prevent lliem from going lllad." 

 Hanging has been in iise in Ireland, as a prcvcnlive, time out of mind. 



