AN IRISH JAUNTING CAR.

13

better than nire my car; besides, I will drive your honours up straight to your hotel, and that's what the railroad won't do for you."

Since the reasons were valid, we accepted this offer which honoured us so much, and set off for Dublin in a little coach, which, from its strange and comical appearance, seemed very inviting. It was a kind of four-cornered box, fixed upon two wheels, and provided with glasses in front. We crept into it from behind. Methinks I have seen pictures of such carriages in books of Chinese travels. The driver sits in front of this box, with his feet on the shafts. The shafts are not attached to the axle of the wheels, but to the box-carriage itself, and they are even fastened to it without any hinge. Behind the horse's tail is a little board on the shafts, ike a tray. It is intended for the feet of the driver, but is regularly used by the horse at certain intervals for a very different purpose. This little board must appear to all who have travelled in Ireland to be a strange invention of Paddy's. Since the horse holds the carriage by the stiff shafts, it follows all his hopping motions, and one sits in the shaking equipage just as if it were tied on the horse's back. All Irish carriages, covered and not covered, whether used for the purposes of agriculture or for pleasure, are built upon this principle. The character of a people expresses itself in their inventions and the peculiarities of them.

In such an invention, then, we seated ourselves, and galloped and hopped with it along the shore of the bay of Dublin, till we at last drew up before our hotel, where our little equipage made the following manœuvre. The driver ran the vehicle obliquely across the street, and then backed the horse till the wheels struck the curb-stone directly opposite the hall door; and now our little coach gave out from behind its entire contents, passengers and luggage, as a hen lays eggs.

Of all the three capitals of the three united kingdoms, Dublin is the youngest. Ptolemæus, it is true, mentions this city; it is also true that no less than 25 Ostman (Danish) kings resided here from the 9th till the 12th century; and who knows how many kings of Leinster before? But the city, at that time, was a town as unknown to the rest of the world as the other capitals of the numerous Danish and Norwegian sea-kings, or those of the countless Irish sovereigns. Its houses were built of hurdles and clay, and its entire circumference was scarce an English mile. Nor did it attain any importance until the English viceroys took up their residence here; and even then its progress was, at first, slow and inconsiderable. It was not until

Elizabeth's time that houses began to be built of timber; and stone did not take the place of wood until the reign of James I. Even so late as in 1610, the walls and boundaries of the city, properly so called, did not exceed their old circle of one mile. It is now ten miles in circumference. Its increase and prosperity may be dated from William III., who once more subdued Ireland, in the battle of the Boyne against James II. His statue is accordingly the oldest royal statue in Dublin. Edinburgh and London both date their greatness from a more remote period. Both were long the seats of the governments of kingdoms which played a part in the affairs of Europe; while Dublin was but the provincial capital of that disputed and frequently invaded district called "The Pale." Hence Dublin has neither an old, narrow-streeted, crook-cornered City, like London, nor an antique, many-laned quarter, speaking of by-gone centuries, like Edinburgh.

Dublin, whilst it is the second city of the United Kingdom, is at the same time one of the first and largest cities in Europe; for, in respect of number of inhabitants, it approaches St. Petersburgh, Moscow, and Vienna; rivals Berlin and Lisbon; and exceeds Brussels, Stockholm, Rome, Milan, or Pesth. But few of those capitals have so quickly raised themselves from comparative insignificance to so high a rank. In this respect, Petersburgh alone surpasses it.

Dublin is, in its exterior, an entirely English city. Except its miserably poor, filthy suburbs, and its lanes so thickly peopled with beggars, it possesses nothing which the great English cities do not also possess, and which it has not received from the other side of the Channel. The private houses of the wealthy are just as small, neat, unornamented, and precisely of the same cut and design, as private houses in all English towns. And the public buildings are just as rich in ornaments and columns, as full of rotundas, colonnades, and porticos, as the public buildings of English cities, like the houses of Pericles on the Acropolis of Athens. Beautiful moles and harbours-lighthouses, docks, and patent slips, such as are seen in Liverpool, London, and other English seaports. The sumptuous Custom-house-the Post-office, with columns of the Ionic order-the Four Courts, with columns of the Corinthian, "highly ornamental! remarkably beautiful! exceedingly fine!" as the English say-are met with just as they are found in every English city. Moreover, there are just such wide streets, and wide convenient footways, as in London; just such charming green squares in the middle of the city as in the middle of English cities; except perhaps that the squares are something more beautiful, and the buildings something

more

DUBLIN ITS ENGLISH APPEARANCE.

15

ornamental." This word "ornamental," which the English use so much, is characteristic of their cities. As the French are always talking about "villes monumentales," so the English are continually speaking of "ornamental" and "very ornamental towns," by which they mean towns which have a great many columned edifices. Only the Russian, and next to them the American towns, can be compared with the English in regard to richness in columns. In this respect our continental towns appear to the English very "unornamental." We Germans speak more of "antique and picturesque towns," and we have them; while the English, notwithstanding all their columns, have them not there are of course a few exceptions to this rule. Nelson's Pillar (a lofty, handsome column) stands in the middle of Sackville-street, the most splendid street in Dublin; whilst Wellington Testimonials and King George's Statues are as plentiful in this city as in English towns. Trinity College (the Dublin University) has its beautiful walled-in garden, like the Oxford colleges; and the Castle, the seat of the Viceroy, is a repetition of many similar castles to be found in England. You must not however imagine, because you are now in a Catholic country, that this its capital possesses anything peculiar in the way of old churches and cloisters, splendid Catholic cathedrals, or many-coloured chapels at the street corners. One remarks as little of Catholicism in Dublin as of Protestantism in Praguejust as little as in all the other towns of the British empire. Although in Ireland there are five Catholics for one Protestant, yet there is scarce a trace of the Catholics in the capital of the country. No processions, no monks, no priests, are to be seen in the streets. The Catholic buildings (here called merely "Catholic chapels") set apart for the worship of God are very small and few in number, and concealed in I know not what bylanes of the city. Till the middle of the last century, the Irish Catholics could only hear mass within the walls of their own houses, and the religious wants of the poor were satisfied by some travelling priest, in some spacious stable, or ruined, uninhabited house. It was only in 1745 that they dared again to open some of their old chapels. Now, it is true, they have several, but, as I have said before, a stranger scarcely remarks them; whilst the twenty-two or twenty-three Episcopal churches (among which St. Patrick's, Christ Church, and the chapel of the Viceregal Castle are the most worthy of notice,) resemble the Protestant churches of the Established Church in England. The famed St. Patrick's, which is the most distinguished old ecclesiastical structure in Ireland, is, in its entire style of architecture, only the

counterpart of the old cathedrals in the west of England, those of Chester, Carlisle, &c. At first I could not reconcile it to myself when I found no Catholic service in churches called St. Patrick's, St. Kevin's, St. Audeon's, St. Michan's-all national names of Irish Catholics and saints, which can have scarcely any meaning for Protestant Englishmen.

As I had not braved a storm in her Majesty's mail-packet to find myself again in England, and as I came to see Irelandnational Ireland-which is not to be found in her great cities, I made but a short stay in the beautiful and (as it is called) "merry capital" of the island. I resolved to make a tour through the West and South, and then return to Dublin, in order to prosecute my inquiries concerning matters characteristic of the country and generally interesting.

CHAPTER II.

FROM DUBLIN TO EDGEWORTHTOWN.

STAGE-COACHES AND POST-CARS-OUTSIDE PASSENGERS-" ALL'S RIGHT!" -MEATH, WESTMEATH!-APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY-TILLAGE—

LOOK THROUGH THE ROOFS-BROWN WATERS-MULLINGAR-LAKES.

A person must now travel pretty far on the English railroads, and even cross over to Ireland, to see such old-world stagecoaches and stage-coach establishments as were in former days found in all parts of the land, and which have been so humourously described by English travellers. Such an establishment I saw for the first time, in Dublin, on the 26th of September, on which day I prepared to commence my journey into the interior of the country. The spectacle, at a first glance, was not calculated to give much pleasure. The numerous long printed bills which hang on the walls contain plain protests from the proprietors against the appeals of the passengers, and give notice that they will not be auswerable for the loss or injury of property, nor even guarantee a seat once taken, should the passenger himself not look after it. Thus, in observing where and how his luggage is stowed, the traveller is kept in a state of perpetual terror, either for himself or his effects. It is in vain that he seeks where to sit most comfortably on the coach. In the inside, which is as narrow as a herring-barrel, he thinks himself in danger of suffocation; and on the outside, where nothing but a single slight iron rail, four inches high, separates him from an abyss of fifteen

PERILS OF OUTSIDE PASSENGERS.

:

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feet, he grows dizzy. In fact, the seats, whether inside or out, of the English stage and mail-coaches, are the most uncomfortable to be found on earth; and it was at first very difficult for me to discover how those seats are consistent with the great love of comfort which characterizes the English nation. But I think I have found the solution of this problem. The English are a people who, in every undertaking, keep the principal object only in view. In their dwellings, in their chambers, domestic comfort is their greatest wish these consequently are so full of it, that out of England one cannot find perfection in this point. So also, in travelling, the chief object is accomplished in a style of excellence not to be surpassed. The coaches, even the largest, are as light as feathers, yet as strong as steel or iron can make them; the horses as fleet as birds, yet strong withal and lasting; and the coachman, in fine, such a master of his art, that any one of the 3000 public drivers to be found in the United Kingdom might win a prize in our country. But you must not look for a comfortable seat: for that purpose you have your domestic conveniences at home. Much luggage, or articles easily injured, you should not venture to carry with you. Whoever wishes to travel witn speed, should leave the vanity of his fine clothes at home. This much only will we promise you: dry, or drenched to the skinclean, or splashed with mud from top to toe-with or without your effects-with fractured or sound limbs-we will bring you, at the appointed hour, to the right place. Every thing else is a matter of mere secondary importance, especially for men of business; and ninety out of every hundred of the travellers in public conveyances in England are of this class.

I naturally chose an outside place, for there one can sit as if in an observatory, and at his ease survey the entire country, far and wide, right and left, before and behind; provided that he does not lose his head at setting out, and thus fortunately avoid the fate which threatens every British outside passenger, at the first step the horses take. The gateways of most posting establishments in the United Kingdom (and this again is a problem) are built so low, that the outside passengers would to a certainty leave their heads hanging on the architrave, if they did not attend to the warning of the guard, who in a loud voice directs them to stoop their heads. I think I have discovered the true explanation of this problem, namely, that the existence of outside passengers is of later date than the erection of most posting houses. Those were built at a time when the throng of travellers was not so great, and when the coachman only had to risk his neck; and since then, the owners of posting houses have not had