36 LIFE IN IRELAND 



Sea-point House, and after a hasty refreshment, joined 

 by Captain Grammachree, took the field. ' You will 

 now,' said Sir Shawn, 'see a little of Life in Dublin.' 

 * Blood and turf ! ' exclaimed Grammachree, ' how can 

 that be when we are three miles out of it ? ' ' No 

 matter,' said Brian, 'a mile in my country is as far as 

 you can see from the top of a hill, and as long as the 

 city is in sight, I maintain we are in it.' 



On every side of the path now could be seen parties 

 having their dejeiifies on the grass, buxom girls, rosy- 

 cheeked children, all neatly clad, jolly looking fellows 

 in emerald green coats, dashing belles dind petit ma'itres 

 were mingled together en masse^ and perfectly sociable ; 

 the smoke of pipes scented the air, and the smell of 

 whiskey qualified its somnorific powers. The tavern 

 doors were thronged with visitors, who en passant 

 peeped into the arbours and paid a tribute to the 

 excise in a roller of thunder attd lightning, alias shrub 

 and w^hiskey, with a Sally Lun in it — {^Sally Luns are 

 a peculiar cake, so called from the inventor, now 

 defunct). The trees waved their green heads in the 

 gale, the cowslip, primrose, and daisy embroidered the 

 carpet of nature, every breeze wafted health, and every 

 little valley breathed perfume. Our party sat down on 

 a grassy eminence before the cottage of John Bourke 

 Fitzsimon ; everybody that knows Lord Donoughmore 

 knows him, — the proprietor of the Hibernian Journal, 

 and once an exciseman. Apropos of John ; he was 

 one of a thousand poor relations to his Lordship, who 

 having got rich by jockeyship both on and off horse- 

 back, he made a song called ' The last Rose of Summer' ; 

 it bloomed, faded, and died ; so has John's political 



