United Irish
movement, Orangeism, Irish Jacobitism, the effect of French and Swiss
Republicanism in the evolution of public sentiment, and the close
relation and affection that formerly existed between the north of
Ireland and New England. (This last topic seems to appeal to Salemina
particularly.) He also alludes to Tories and Rapparees, Rousseau and
Thomas Paine and Owen Roe O'Neill, but I have entirely forgotten their
connection with the subject. Francesca and I are thoroughly enjoying
ourselves, as only those people can who never take notes, and never
try, when Pandora's box is opened in their neighbourhood, to seize the
heterogeneous contents and put them back properly, with nice little
labels on them.

Ireland is no longer a battlefield of English parties, neither is it
wholly a laboratory for political experiment; but from having been both
the one and the other, its features are a bit knocked out of shape and
proportion, as it were. We have bought two hideous engravings of the
Battle of the Boyne and the Secret of England's Greatness; and whenever
we stay for a night in any inn where perchance these are not, we pin
them on the wall, and are received into the landlady's heart at once. I
don't know which is the finer study: the picture of his Majesty William
III. crossing the Boyne, or the plump little Queen presenting a huge
family Bible to an apparently uninterested black youth. In the latter
work of art the eye is confused at first as the three principal features
approach each other very nearly in size, and Francesca asked innocently,
"Which IS the secret of England's greatness--the Bible, the Queen, or
the black man?"

This is a thriving town, and we are at a smart hotel which had for two
years an English manager. The scent of the roses hangs round it still,
but it is gradually growing fainter under the stress of small patronage
and other adverse circumstances. The table linen is a trifle ragged,
though clean; but the circle of red and green wineglasses by each plate,
an array not borne out by the number of vintages on the wine-list, the
tiny ferns scattered everywhere in innumerable pots, and the dozens of
minute glass vases, each holding a few blue hyacinths, give an air of
urban elegance to the dining-room. The guests are requested, in printed
placards, to be punctual at meals, especially at the seven-thirty table
d'hote dinner, and the management itself is punctual at this function
about seven forty-five.