Within constituted, will at least fancy that you see, a long, heaving 

 the Pale line, rising and sinking along the edge of the horizon, one at 

 sight of which your thoughts will, I trust, leap up with a swift 

 and unhesitating response. 



Cross the Island, and all this changes. Between any given 

 bit of the east coast of Ireland and an equal extent of Scotch or 

 English coast, the difference is one of degree merely, rather than 

 of kind. It is possible that you, if an exceptionally ingenuous 

 traveller, may notice a little extra exuberance upon the part of 

 a certain number of its inhabitants, a rather more liberal display 

 of rags, an occasional wild gleam in some eye which for a 

 moment crosses yours, but such trifles as these are hardly 

 worth our delaying to talk about! As for endeavouring to 

 describe that scenery in detail, or even any selected por- 

 tion of it, such an attempt would be utterly foreign to the 

 purpose of this sketch. The space of paper which lies at this 

 moment before me is dedicated to gardens ; duty requires, 

 therefore, that to gardens and gardens only the words upon 

 it should be limited. 



The gardens, then, upon this east coast of Ireland, it is safe 

 to begin by asserting, are both numerous and are many of them 

 justly celebrated. Their fame has gone out into all lands, 

 and their praises will be found in most of the gardening 

 magazines. To discriminate with any approach to particularity 

 between their merits, or to enter into dangerously technical 

 details, is a proceeding from which I am debarred by discretion 

 of course, but also by ignorance. A few of their more salient 

 characteristics may, however, be noted down, if only by way of 

 distinguishing them from others of the like merit elsewhere. 

 Thus the gardens which circle round about the bay of Dublin 



