ttered by this eagerness of attention, and
pleased by our hero's manners and conversation; so that, to their mutual
satisfaction, they spent much of their time together whilst they were
at this hotel; and, meeting frequently in society in Dublin, their
acquaintance every day increased and grew into intimacy--an intimacy
which was highly advantageous to Lord Colambre's views of obtaining a
just idea of the state of manners in Ireland. Sir James Brooke had at
different periods been quartered in various parts of the country--had
resided long enough in each to become familiar with the people, and had
varied his residence sufficiently to form comparisons between different
counties, their habits, and characteristics. Hence he had it in his
power to direct the attention of our young observer at once to the
points most worthy of his examination, and to save him from the common
error of travellers--the deducing general conclusions from a few
particular cases, or arguing from exceptions as if they were rules.
Lord Colambre, from his family connexions, had of course immediate
introduction into the best society in Dublin, or rather into all the
good society of Dublin. In Dublin there is positively good company, and
positively bad; but not, as in London, many degrees of comparison: not
innumerable luminaries of the polite world, moving in different orbits
of fashion, but all the bright planets of note and name move and revolve
in the same narrow limits. Lord Colambre did not find that either his
father's or his mother's representations of society in Dublin resembled
the reality, which he now beheld. Lady Clonbrony had, in terms of
detestation, described Dublin such as it appeared to her soon after the
Union; Lord Clonbrony had painted it with convivial enthusiasm, such as
he saw it long and long before the Union, when FIRST he drank claret
at the fashionable clubs. This picture, unchanged in his memory, and
unchangeable by his imagination, had remained, and ever would remain,
the same. The hospitality of which the father boasted, the son found in
all its warmth, but meliorated and refined; less convivial, more social;
the fashion of hospitality had improved. To make the stranger eat or
drink to excess, to set before him old wine and old plate, was no
longer the sum of good breeding. The guest now escaped the pomp of grand
entertainments; was allowed to enjoy ease and conversation, and to taste
some of that feast of reason and that flo