liveries attended on every one in the boxes.
The orchestra was filled with amateurs, and the
players were Lord Westmeath, Captain Aske,
Lord Thurles, Lord Cunningham, Buck Whaley,
and many more. They played the Beggar's
Opera, the Poor Soldier, the Rivals, School
for Scandal, and such pieces. These were
not mere stray performances; but there was
a regular season, and the theatre was rented
for a number of years, until the Rebellion
and the Union scattered both audience and
company.

Nor must we pass by a picturesque
tribute to music, which is not so honoured
in our time. St. Cecilia, the patroness of
music, had her day kept with all honour. At
the Castle was maintained a full state band,
generally under the command of some musician of
eminence, and Dubourg, who played with
Handel, filled his office for a long time. On St.
Cecilia's day, all the court and persons of
quality repaired in great pomp to St. Patrick's
Cathedral, where the Reverend Doctor Swift,
the dean, no doubt objected to such "tweedle
dum and tweedle-dee." A fine orchestra
erected, and Mr. Dubourg and his men fiddled
away at Corelli, and Dr. Blow, and Purcell.
The performance lasted from ten till three
o'clock, and there was not standing room.
Another custom obtained, which was that of
keeping the king's birth-day with great state
and solemnity. There was a court in the morning,
with a ball at night, and Sheridan, or Mr.
Brooke, or Captain Jephson, or some Irish
laureate, wrote an ode, which Mr. Dubourg
"set," and which was sung and fiddled by a
larger choir and orchestra. A "Castle" festival
a hundred and forty years took place in the
"old Beefeaters' Hall," and with seven hundred
people all seated in tiers, the topmost row of the
ladies' heads touching the ceiling. By eleven at
night all the minuets were over, and the Viceroy
and his lady adjourned to the basset table in
another room.

After an hour's play, the Duke and Duchess
and their nobility adjourned to the supper-room,
where there was a holly tree lit up with a
hundred wax tapers, which made a prodigious
impression; but an English lady who was present
and saw the spectacle of the noble company
bursting into the supper-room, says the scene
was not to be described, "squalling, shrieking,
all sorts of noises;" ladies were stripped of
their lappels, hustled, squeezed in the scuffle;
and poor Lady Santry was left more dead than
alive.

A glimpse, too, of the old coffee-houses,
where the gentlemen of Ireland drank
wonderful claret at "Lucas's," deservedly
considered the most "convenient," as there was a
charming garden, or enclosure, at the back,
where "difficulties" were settled with delightful
promptitude. The gentlemen had only to move
their chairs near to the windows, and were
thus able to see the whole "fun" with comfort
and ease. Lucas's was a haunt for
certain persons of quality, and where any one
who wished to see what were called "The
Bucks" was sure to be gratified. The Bucks
were the fine gentlemen of the time, if
finery consisted in ostentatiously savage
manners and barbarous behaviour. Some
belonged to the "Hell Fire Club," and one
of this society's feats is recorded—namely
setting their club-room on fire, and enduring
the flames until they were all but suffocated and
burnt to death. This was by way of bravado,
and to show their contempt for the torments
which were held up to them from pulpits.
Some were called Pink Dindies, whose
pastime was cutting off an inch or so of the
scabbard of their swords, and prodding the
victims of the jests with the blades, which thus
could not penetrate much below the surface.
The odious race of duelling bullies swarmed
over the town—the "Tiger Roches" and
others. One Buck would walk up and down
Lucas's with a train to his cloak, and if any
one trod on it, would instantly draw his sword.
An old gentleman who was alive not long since,
recollected a scene of this sort at Lucas's,
produced by this literal challenge to tread on the
tail of one's coat, and where the unconscious
offender was lucky enough to anticipate the
bully's attack by running him through the body.
In short, the fashionable mode for the Bucks
was to range the city and seek for excitement
by maiming or annoying the canaille, which was
carried out by "pinking" or "sweating."
We know what "pinking" was; "sweating"
was bursting into a house and carrying off guns
and swords as trophies, just as knockers used
to be wrenched by the "bloods" of yesterday's
generation.

Another set of gentlemen went about as
"Chalkers." Their pastime consisted of marking
or maiming a person about the face. And
the quality of these ruffians is at once
characteristically determined by the Acts of
Parliament passed against the practice, in which,
though visiting it with the severest penalties,
it is stipulated there shall be nothing to corrupt
the offender, or prejudice his family.

Even now, next to the old Parliament
House stands a stately building, cut up into
half a dozen houses of business. This was
once "Daly's Club-house," where all the noblemen
and gentlemen of both Houses would
adjourn to dine and drink; where were
seen Mr. Grattan, and Mr. Flood with "his
broken beak," and Mr. Curran, and those
brilliant but guerilla debaters whose
encounters both of wit and logic make our modern
parliamentary contests sound tame and languid.
There was seen that surprising Sir Boyle
Roche, whose name and whose surprising
"Bird" has done such good service, both in
books and speeches. And there, too, we see
honourable members emerging from under the
classical portico, hot with rage and fury, and
driving away to "the Phœnix" to arrange
their differences. As we pass by and see that
picturesque temple given over to the money-
changers, and transformed into the Bank of
Ireland, it is impossible for one who is thoroughly
Irish not to regret those brilliant days, and