A TOUR IN IRELAND.

JUNE 19, 1776. Arrived at Holyhead, after an instructive journey through a part of England and Wales I had not seen before. Found the packet, the Claremont, Captain Taylor, would sail very soon. After a tedious passage of twenty-two hours, landed on the 20th in the morning, at Dunlary, four miles from Dublin, a city which much exceeded my expectation. The public buildings are magnificent, very many of the streets regularly laid out, and exceedingly well built. The front of the Parliament-house is grand, though not so light as a more open finishing of the roof would have made it. The apartments are spacious, elegant, and convenient, much beyond that heap of confusion at Westminster, so inferior to the magnificence to be looked for in the seat of empire. I was so fortunate as to arrive just in time to see Lord Harcourt, with the usual ceremonies, prorogue the Parliament. College is a beautiful building, and a

Trinity

numerous

society; the library is a very fine room, and well filled. The new Exchange will be another edifice to do honour to Ireland; it is elegant, cost forty thousand pounds

bat deserves a better situation.

From everything I

saw, I was struck with all those appearances of wealth which the capital of a thriving community may be supposed to exhibit. Happy if I find through the country in diffused prosperity the right source of this splendour! The common computation of inhabitants 200 000, but I should suppose exaggerated. Others guessed the number 140,000 or 150,000.

June 21. Introduced by Colonel Burton to the Lord Lieutenant, who was pleased to enter into conversation with me on my intended journey, made many remarks on the agriculture of several Irish counties, and showed himself to be an excellent farmer, particularly in draining. Viewed the Duke of Leinster's house, which is a very large stone edifice, the front simple but elegant, the pediment light; there are several good rooms; but a circumstance unrivalled is the court, which is spacious and magnificent, the opening behind the house is also beautiful. In the evening to the Rotunda, a circular room, ninety feet diameter, an imitation of Ranelagh, provided with a band of music.

The barracks are a vast building, raised in a plain style, of many divisions; the principal front is of an immense length. They contain every convenience for ten regiments.

June 23. Lord Charlemont's house in Dublin is equally elegant and convenient, the apartments large, handsome, and well disposed, containing some good

pictures, particularly one by Rembrandt, of Judas throwing the money on the floor, with a strong expression of guilt and remorse; the whole group fine. In the same room is a portrait of Cæsar Borgia, by Titian. The library is a most elegant apartment of about forty by thirty, and of such a height as to form a pleasing. proportion; the light is well managed, coming in from the cove of the ceiling, and has an exceeding good effect; at one end is a pretty ante-room, with a fine copy of the Venus de Medicis, and at the other two small rooms, one a cabinet of pictures and antiquities, the other medals. In the collection also of Robert Fitzgerald, Esq., in Merion Square, are several pieces which very well deserve a traveller's attention; it was the best I saw in Dublin. Before I quit that city I observe, on the houses in general, that what they call their two-roomed ones are good and convenient. Mr. Latouche's, in Stephen's Green, I was shown as a model of this sort, and I found it well contrived, and finished elegantly. Drove to Lord Charlemont's villa at Marino, near the city, where his lordship has formed a pleasing lawn, margined in the higher part by a wellplanted thriving shrubbery, and on a rising ground a banqueting-room, which ranks very high among the most beautiful edifices I have anywhere seen; it has much elegance, lightness, and effect, and commands a fine prospect. The rising ground on which it stands slopes off to an agreeable accompaniment of wood,

beyond which on one side is Dublin Harbour, which here has the appearance of a noble river crowded with ships moving to and from the capital. On the other side is a shore spotted with white buildings, and beyond it the hills of Wicklow, presenting an outline extremely various. The other part of the view (it would be more perfect if the city was planted out) is varied, in some places nothing but wood, in others breaks of prospect. The lawn, which is extensive, is new grass, and appears to be excellently laid down, the herbage a fine crop of white clover (trifolium repens), trefoil, rib-grass (plantago lanceolata), and other good plants. Returned to Dublin, and made inquiries into other points, the prices of provisions, &c. The expenses of a family in proportion to those of London are, as five to eight.

Having the year following lived more than two months in Dublin, I am able to speak to a few points, which as a mere traveller I could not have done. The information I before received of the prices of living is correct. Fish and poultry are plentiful and very cheap. Good lodgings almost as dear as they are in London; though we were well accommodated (dirt excepted) for two guineas and a-half a week. All the lower ranks in this city have no idea of English cleanliness, either in apartments, persons, or cookery. There is a very good society in Dublin in a Parliament winter: a great round of dinners and parties; and balls and suppers every

night in the week, some of which are very elegant; but' you almost everywhere meet a company much too numerous for the size of the apartments. They have two assemblies on the plan of those of London, in Fishamble Street, and at the Rotunda; and two gentlemen's clubs, Anthry's and Daly's, very well regulated : I heard some anecdotes of deep play at the latter, though never to the excess common at London. An ill-judged and unsuccessful attempt was made to establish the Italian Opera, which existed but with scarcely any life for this one winter; of course they could rise no higher than a comic one. La Buona Figliuola, La Frascatana, and Il Geloso in Cimento, were repeatedly performed, or rather murdered, except the parts of Sestini. The house was generally empty, and miserably cold. So much knowledge of the state of a country is gained by. hearing the debates of a Parliament, that I often frequented the gallery of the House of Commons. Since Mr. Flood has been silenced with the ViceTreasurership of Ireland, Mr. Daly, Mr. Grattan, Sir William Osborn, and the prime serjeant Burgh, are reckoned high among the Irish orators. I heard many very eloquent speeches, but I cannot say they struck me like the exertion of the abilities of Irishmen in the English House of Commons, owing perhaps to the reflection both on the speaker and auditor, that the Attorney-General of England, with a dash of his pen, can reverse, alter, or entirely do away the matured