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 
14 
