The shops in Dublin are very fine, the prices lower than in London, and the attendance excellent.
"But Dublin—are you going to describe Dublin?"
Not much, dear reader. Describing cities would only be copying the guide-book, or doing what every newspaper correspondent thinks it necessary to do. Now, if I can think of a few unconsidered trifles, which correspondents do not write about, but which tourists, on their first visit, always wish information about, I shall think it doing a service to present them in these sketches.
The Nelson Monument, a Doric column of one hundred and ten feet high, upon which is a statue eleven feet high of the hero of the Nile, always attracts the attention of visitors. The great bridges over the Liffey, and the quays, are splendid pieces of workmanship, and worth inspection, and of course you will go to see Dublin Castle.
This castle was originally built by order of King John, about the year 1215. But little of it remains now, however, except what is known as the Wardrobe Tower, all the present structure having been built since the seventeenth century. Passing in through the great castle court-yard, a ring at a side door brought a courteous English housekeeper, who showed us through the state apartments. Among the most noteworthy of these was the presence-chamber, in which is a richly-carved and ornamental throne, frescoed ceilings, richly-upholstered furniture, &c., the whole most strikingly reminding one of those scenes at the theatre, where the "duke and attendants," or the "king and courtiers," come on. It is here the lord lieutenant holds his receptions, and where individuals are "presented" to him as the representative of royalty. The great ball-room is magnificent. It is eighty-two feet long, and forty-one wide, and thirty-eight in height, the ceiling being decorated with beautiful paintings. One represents George III., supported by Liberty and Justice, another the Conversion of the Irish by St. Patrick, and the third, a very spirited one, Henry II. receiving the Submission of the Native Irish Chiefs. Henry II. held his first court in Dublin in 1172.
The Chapel Royal, immediately adjoining, is a fine Gothic edifice, with a most beautiful interior, the ceiling elegantly carved, and a beautiful stained-glass window, with a representation of Christ before Pilate, figures of the Evangelists, &c. Here, carved and displayed, are the coats-of-arms of the different lord lieutenants from the year 1172 to the present time. The throne of the lord lieutenant in one gallery, and that for the archbishop opposite, are conspicuous. This edifice was completed in 1814, and cost forty-two thousand pounds. It was the first Church of England interior I had seen over the ocean, and its richness and beauty were impressive at the time, but were almost bleached from memory by the grander temples visited a few weeks after. The polite housekeeper, whom, in my inexperience, I felt almost ashamed to hand a shilling to, took it, nevertheless, very gratefully, and in a manner that proved that her pride was not at all wounded by the action.
In obedience to the advice of an Emeralder, that we must not "lave Dublin widout seein' St. Patrick's Church," we walked down to that celebrated cathedral. The square which surrounds it is as much a curiosity in its way as the cathedral itself. The whole neighborhood seemed to consist of the dirtiest, quaintest tumble-down old houses in Dublin, and swarmed with women and children.
Hundreds of these houses seemed to be devoted to the sale of old junk, sixth-hand clothing, and fourth-hand articles of every description one could name or think of—old tin pots and kettles, old rope, blacking-jugs, old bottles, old boots, shoes, and clothing in every style of dilapidation—till you could scarcely say where the article ended being sold as a coat, and became rags—iron hoops, old furniture, nails, old hats, bonnets, cracked and half-broken crockery. It verily seemed as if this place was the rag fair and ash-heap of the whole civilized world. The contents of six American ash-barrels would have given any one of these Cheap John stores a stock that would have dazzled the neighborhood with its magnificence.
You could go shopping here with two-pence. Costermongers' carts, with their donkeys attached, stood at the curbstones, ragged and half-starved children played in the gutters, great coarse women stood lazily talking with each other, or were crouched over a heap of merchandise, smoking short pipes, and waiting or chaffering with purchasers. Little filthy shops on every hand dealt out Ireland's curse at two-pence a dram, and "Gin," "Choice Spirits Sold Here," "Whiskey," "Spirits," were signs that greeted the eye on their doorposts. The spring breeze was tainted with foul odors, and there was a busy clatter of tongues from the seething and crowded mass of humanity that surged round in every direction.
Upon the farther corner of the third side of the square, where the neighborhood was somewhat better, we discovered the residence of the sexton who had charge of the church—a strong Orangeman, bitterly opposed to the Romish church, and with a strong liking for America, increased by the fact of having a brother in the American Union army, who rose from sergeant to colonel in one of the western regiments.