unpicturesque stone-yards, or uncouth ship-building sheds, or tumble down crazy houses,
or slimy stairs, line the banks of Dublin river
or obstruct the spectators view. The stream is
visible throughout; and you may travel on
either bank by a broad well-paved road,
running immediately between the houses and
the river. In this and in numerous other
instances there is a striking and agreeable
resemblance between the quays of Dublin and
the quays of Paris. The long unbroken lines
of parapets and balustrades, and the shining
river rippling and glistening at their feet.
The numerous watchmakers, knick-nac, toy
and curiosity or bric-à-brac shops, with the
good humoured throng of well-dressed
loungers—(it is astonishing what a number
of persons in Dublin, male as well as female,
seem to have nothing to do)—peering at
watches, toys, and jewellerly, turning over
shells and bog-wood bracelets, and thrusting
their fingers into parrots' and macaws' beaks.
The numerous shops for the sale of fishing
tackle, devotional books, and queer little
pictures of the Virgin and saints, rosaries,
scapularies, agnus Deis, and religious medals and
ornaments. The short but handsome and
often recurring bridges, the bent double old
women muffled in cloaks, who want but the
coloured handkerchief twisted round the
head to be completely French; the absence
(above the Custom-House) of navigation, and
of any very heavy traffic, save that destined
apparently for the supply of the city with
provisions; what street traffic there is being
carried on in low, clumsy looking drays
drawn by horses not inelegantly caparisoned,
and notably resembling French charrettes.
The military police (there is a municipal
force as well), the abundance of soldiers of all
arms, the continual trotting of orderlies, and
dusky bands of infantry going to relieve
guard. The noble public edifices, with
bookstalls nestling under the lee of their
porticos, and blind men basking in the sun
on their steps. All these, with the sun and
sky and genial atmosphere, are so many
points of affinity between the quays of
Eblana and Lutetia.

We set out on our ramble down the length
of the Quays at the Royal Barracks, close to
Arbour Hill, where is the great military
hospital, and adjoining the Phœnix Park.
We stand before a huge pile of stone buildings,
calculated, so my information goes, to
accommodate two regiments of cavalry and
one of infantry. There is not much to repay
curiosity in a barrack, wherever it may be—
whether on Dublin Quay or the Quai d'Orsay,
or the Birdcage Walk, or in Berlin, Vienna,
or St. Petersburg. When we say that a
barrack is a barrack all is pretty nearly told.
The same listless men, in apparently
unimproveable slovenliness, lolling out of open
windows; the same men on guard in as
apparantly an unimproveable state of neatness
and disciplined dandyism; the
monotonous lines of walls and chimneys pierced
by windows and doors; the busy sergeants
plodding past with parchment covered
books; the same sergeant-major with
the same stick; the same weary parties at
drill, looking very much as if they did not
like it at all, which is very probable; the
same slatternly women and children, with the
ummistakeable baggage-waggon stamp about
them; the officers with their clanking sabres
and bored expression of countenance, lounging
to or from parade; the dirty apparitions
of men with dirty shirts and military
trousers, baggy for want of braces, flitting
across the level dusty square with baskets of
coal, or wheelbarrows full of rubbish, or
besoms worn to the stump; the privates in
knots of twos or threes lounging in and out,
twirling cheap sticks or jingling their spurs;
the equivocal hangers-on; the same one
grave dog watching the sentinel on guard
which evidently belongs to "ours," and seems
to know the countersign and to be ready to
fly at anybody who does not; the prevailing
stillness, gravity, dulness, pigeon-holedness,
ready to burst forth at a moment's notice
with the blast of gunpowder, and the clang
of steel and alrums of drums and trumpets.

Down the length of the Quays beyond the
barrack, past busy shops and through busy
throngs, we find ourselves beside the oldest
of the bridges. It is a grim grey structure
of heavy frowning arches upon solid piers.
This is called by the startling name of
Bloody Bridge. Why, you shall near. The
first bridge was built of wood in
sixteen hundred and seventy; but in the
following year a great riot took place
among a body of apprentices who assembled
here for the purpose of pulling the bridge
down. The soldiers were called out, and took
some scores of the rioters into custody; but, in
an attempted rescue, several were killed and
thrown from the bridge, and their blood
mingling with the water went purpling down
the Liffy. The bridge was reconstructed,
afterwards, of stone; but its evil name adhered
to it, and it has been known ever since as
Bloody Bridge. How many were hanged
afterwards for taking part in this riot, besides
those who fell by powder and lead, I know
not; but those were cruel days, and many
swung I have no doubt.

Two more bridges—the Queen's and
Whitworth; but just ere we come to the latter
we pause before the Roman Catholic chapel
of St. Paul, upon Arran Quay. Hither come
on Sundays the Roman Catholic soldiers
to attend mass. It is a sight to see them
with their bright scarlet and brighter
accoutrements. Pass Whitworth Bridge, and on
the left bank of the Quays is a public building
you have, I warrant, heard and read of many
a time. On the site of a Dominican monastery,
called St. Saviour, was built, in seventeen
hundred and seventy-six, a pile of buildings
devoted to the judicature of the Chancery,