Childhood's the only golden age;
Then had I many a fairy vassal,
Then even the miser who lived on the hill
Was Giant Despair, of Doubting Castle.

A RECENT LOUNGE IN DUBLIN.

FINE days, and finer nights too, these for the
newsmen—hoarse with shrieking through the
streets of Dublin that there are later and yet
later editions. For the old custom still obtains
there of such stentorian heralds scouring every
street and square at nightfall, and of chanting
"the great news" obstreperously, as the old
watchmen did the hour. Heads of houses — a
little languid after dinner, and after the good
claret or Rhenish— catch the sound of this
declamation with a "God bless me, there must
be some news!" and Jeames is presently on
the steps, hailing the noisy vendor.

Fine times, too, for the newspaper offices, with
enormous placards hung outside, and great
crowds gathered, reading over each other's
heads, and a band of vendors shouting against
one another, and competing for every buyer.
Fine times, too— but not so agreeable—for the
machinery inside, thundering and clattering
round without a moment's rest, and rolling
out sheet after sheet, as if they were enormous
conjurors, drawing yards and yards of white
ribbon from their mouths. The air seems so
charged with valuable intelligence, with the
contending cries of " The J'dge's charge! The
great and phowherful addheress of Counshillor
Butt!" and " the Defince, and findin' of the
Djury!" Thus, by a little careful attention,
and the operation known as " putting this and
that together," it seems that one could save
all outlay, and be thus gratuitously supplied
with a full oral report of the entire proceedings.

In short, all this shouting and excitement
refers to the men of the hour, or perhaps of
the moment — the would-be resuscitators of
the ancient militia of Ireland, of whom, in a
recent number of this Journal, was given a
short account.* So the natives, enrolled by the
great Finn, who, it will be remembered, was of
the family of Con of the hundred battles, were
denominated. The attempts to revive these useful
fencibles has been most disastrous for those
who supposed that there was a craving for such
an organisation. The ground has either been
preoccupied by the regular force called out for
their twenty-one days' training, or else there is
a dearth of the marvellously gifted men who
could walk over rotten branches without a
sound, or who could poise heavy rocks in their
hands to win brides; and perhaps most of all
was wanting a man of the calibre of Finn
himself. One endowed with a fiftieth part of the
qualifications of that great chief, as set out in
panegyrical poems of enormous length, would
have been invaluable at such a crisis.
* See page 300 of the present volume.

The gentlemen who would restore the arrangement
of the old Irish militia, have, as all the world
knows, been unfortunate in their efforts. We
have seen how their office was rudely burst into,
sacked, and their archives, muster-rolls, &c.,
carried away. Since then, the prosy operation
of judicial retribution has been applied, and the
project of founding a grand Irish militia thrown
back, hopelessly, for many years. It is hard
to import even a little romance into matters of
this sort as adventured in our own kingdom.
The skies — say even the fogs—are against us.
The rare appearance of the soldiery, the sober
livery of the officers of the law, the practical
manufacturing air of the whole, makes it desperate
up-hill work to lift any attempt into the
character of " a rising." In Italy they have the
bright skies, the Masaniello background, the
Italian opera scenery, and the red shirts. The
original Finnians wore saffron shirts; but this is
scarcely a fast colour. In this matter of romance,
the militia project had been all but shipwrecked,
but for a recent providential escape effected
under circumstances of some skill and daring.

The stranger or tourist who now visits Dublin
and walks through its spacious and handsome
modern quarter, Sackville-street, broadest of
Broadways, where now trees are being planted
(and there are people alive who remember two
rows of noble chesnut-trees, known as the Mall,
where " fashionables" of that day used to alight
from their coaches and walk), the squares
Merrion and Fitzwilliam, and the Greater
Green, where gentlemen were then shooting
snipe—strangers would not suspect that the
select and desirable quarter which " persons of
quality" affected, was then far off, down in the
meaner slums, the narrow lanes, and fœtid alleys,
which spread out near the Four Courts. Here
used to be the theatres and the assembly-rooms,
and the houses of chief justices and chancellors,
now become tenements almost in a state of
leprosy, and swarming with flocks of lodgers,
Here, that Tate Wilkinson, the actor, first
landed some hundred and twenty years ago,
was bewildered by the block of rattling coaches
and the gorgeous dresses of the ladies and
the running footmen carrying flambeaux, and
thought he had never seen such a sight. Here,
in a mean slum by the river, marked by a broken
arch, was the "Smock Alley Theatre," where
Garrick played to such crowded and heated
audiences, that an epidemic for which he was
said to be thus accountable, was named after
him. Here it was that on a dark night, when
Lord Kilwarden, the chief justice, was going
home in his coach to a fine house in another
mean lane, a rebellion broke out on the spot, and
he was dragged from his coach and murdered.
Here, too, is the CASTLE OF DUBLIN, where
are the guard mountings, and the levees, and
the drawing-rooms by night, and the balls, and
the St. Patrick's night ball, to some twelve
hundrcd people, all in court dresses, where the
feathers, and the lappets, and the trains, and
the toupees, and the white stockings and ruffles,
all fly round in a mêlée to the Guards' Valse.
And here, too, crossing Essex Bridge, and
striking off in another unsavoury direction, we