stray to drink their whisky, and find, as
accidentally, such waifs and strays as
"materials," i.e., hot water, sugar, and lemons,
under a water-butt, or what not; but, in
general, there seems no disguise about the
matter; and, in the dram-drinking line,
the grocery as plainly means whisky, as,
in England, the Alton ale-house means
beer.

I turn into Bull Alley, a very narrow and
filthy little bulk-headed avenue of butchers'
stalls—the very counterpart of a street in
Stamboul. I have but time to notice that the
butchers' wives and daughters are very rosy
and comely looking—as all butchers' wives
and daughters in all climes and countries
seem to be—and make my escape as
soon as ever I can; for Bull Alley has
anything but an agreeable perfume, and there
are puddles of blood between the uneven
paving-stones, and should an animal of the
species from which Bull Alley derives its
name be disposed to manifest himself therein
(which I do not consider unlikely), stung to
frenzy by a "sense of injured merit," I would
rather (Bull Alley being but contracted) be
anywhere else, so I wend my way into
Patrick's Close,

Where, looming large in the very midst of
the old clothes, dirt, bare feet, slaughter-houses,
and whisky-shops, is the metropolitan
church of Dublin—the Cathedral of St.
Patrick. It is a venerable majestic building
—a chaste and elegant example of that most
glorious period of pointed Gothic architecture,
the close of the twelfth century. Originally
built, so it is said, by St. Patrick, the present
church dates from the year one thousand
one hundred and ninety, when John Comyn,
Archbishop of Dublin, demolished the elder
structure.

It is magnificent in conception and detail,
built in one uniform style, with a glorious
nave and transept, a chapter-house and a
Lady chapel. The banners of the Knights of
St. Patrick hang over the arches of the nave.
There is a fine choir, and monumental tombs,
and cathedral service daily; but within and
without the whole fabric is in a lamentable
state of decay, and the feelings that come over
one in gazing on it are inexpressibly melancholy.
With its gray tower and noble
proportions it dominates the city; but it stands
here an anomaly, a discrepancy, an almost
unused fane, unreverenced, unsympathised
with, unhonoured, disavowed, disliked.

In St. Patrick's Cathedral are the tombs
of Dean Swift; of the woman who loved him
so truly, and whom he used with such
fantastic cruelty, the unfortunate Stella (Mrs.
Hester Johnson); of Michael Tregury,
Archbishop of Dublin; of the famous Duke
Schomberg killed at the battle of the Boyne
in one thousand six hundred and ninety; and
of Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork. The noise
and riot, and lumbering cars and waggons
in the Coombe will not wake them, though
they may shake the chain near the
communion table, from which hangs the
cannon ball that dealt the death blow to
General St. Ruth at the battle of Aughrim,
in one thousand six hundred and ninety-one.
Hie we back to the Coombe.

Pursuing my further researches in this
interesting district, I am struck by the
apparently irresistible liking that the Irish
have for hanging miscellaneous articles,
principally rags, from their windows. Pantaloons,
coats, and body-linen, and textile odds
and ends of every imaginable hue and stage
of raggedness flutter and dangle from poles
and nails and clothes lines from every window.
The effect in the Coombe and in the
numerous little vomitoria I have hinted at,
adjoining it, is pictorial, scenic, continental
in the highest degree, but scarcely, I should
say conducive to interior comfort—a defect
I have somewhat largely observed in this
aspect of the Picturesque, in the course of my
small travels. Further, I confess my inability
to discover why the male portion of the
Coombian population should monopolise the
whole available stock of boots and shoes
and hose, to the detriment of the ladies or
Coombianæ; why they should appear to
hold soap and water in such apparent
detestation—the Liffey being close at hand,
and a clear stream; and why they should
not live a little less like pigs, and a little
more like human beings.

END OF VOLUME THE SEVENTH.