cabin. For a week before it arrives, the beggars

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wish you many happy Patrick's days;" Patrick's crosses are sold in every street; every field in the vicinity of the metropolis is crowded with searchers after "green shamrocks;" and the dealers in this national emblem (most appropriate to a people accustomed to be trodden on) carry on a bustling and a thriving trade, till the whole population comes forth like "Birnham wood to Dunsinane's high hill." From the lowest mendicant to the lord lieutenant,* all are supplied with shamrocks. Not only bishops, priests, and deacons," of the church, as by law established, decorate their consecrated persons with the venerable emblem of a catholic saint; but the law itself, and its great conservators, "prank it in green," like the "merry

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Their Graces the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland, though in the noviciate of their Irish Regency, had the condescension to appear, this day (March 17th, 1829) at the windows of the state apartments of the castle, with large shamrocks decorating their persons; while hundreds of the common people danced in the court beneath, to the enlivening air of Patrick's Day, played by the band of the guard.

“Chi ben principia ha il mezzo del opra.”

men

" of Sherwood forest. From the protestant keeper of the king's conscience to the papistical attorney, who has no conscience to keep, all are adorned, though not distinguished by the shamrock.

As soon as the domestic day begins, and breakfast is announced, the head servant in every house makes his appearance with a salver of shamrocks, each tied up into a bouquet, presenting one to each of the family, and usually receiving a buona mano, "to drown his shamrock in St. Patrick's pot. The fumes of whiskey punch, the proper libation to the patron saint, arise from every kitchen and servants' hall, throughout the country; and the court ball given at the Castle of Dublin, in that noble temple dedicated at once to the saint, and to Terpsichore, St. Patrick's hall, surpasses in numbers and in splendour even the like celebration of the king's birthday. Feathers wave, lappets flutter, diamonds sparkle; and the red bench still presents the descendants of the Geraldines, the De Burgos, and the Brien Borrus, with six hundred years' nobility at their backs, upholding the patron

saint of their ancient dynasties, in the very face of the protestant church, and of the constitution of 1688.

When all are seated, (and what an amphitheatre of beauty presents itself to the eye of the lucky stranger, who chances to visit the Irish court on a Patrick's day,) and when the vice-regal procession has passed up the centre of the hall, and the representatives of majesty have taken their seats on the throne, once consecrated by the august person of majesty itself; then the national air is struck up with an enlivening influence, to which even Lord F's protestant heart might beat responsively. Chamberlains and masters of the ceremony, officiating as high priests on this most catholic festival, arrange the "office" to be celebrated, in honour of the merriest saint in the calendar; to whose glory, and to whose tune, the beautiful youths of his own Ireland dance, with a devotional ardour, far beyond the saltatory piety of the zealous jumpers of Wales, or of the dancing dervishes of Constantinople. None of the cold forms and still-life movements of the quadrille, invented by philosophers,

"atheists and politicians," neutralize its fervour. Fifty couples, danced down in dislocating springs and hops, attest the fanaticism of the devotees; and every joyous face and glittering eye, seems to say, with the disciples of a certain Italian saint, "plead for us, we dance with you."

St. Patrick's day is the saturnalia of all the elderly gentlemen, who have not "forgot themselves to stone." Many veterans de la vieille roche, go through a course of champooing for the occasion, and anoint their joints, like the athletes of old, to attest their adherence to the creed of their fathers, and preach the doctrine of Paddy O'Rafferty, and of the Cameronian rant, in opposition to the heresy and schism of Di tanti palpiti, dos-à-dos, and "cavalier seul." This, too, is the hegira of ladies of a certain age, who, taking flight from the fatal pre-eminence to which Time had consigned them, bring the weight of their personal consequence to the support of an oppressed faith; and yielding to the flattering proposition of some young aid-de-camp on service, (and very hard service too,) drag the "feathered mercury" after

them, down the middle, and up again, to the interesting intonations of "go to the devil and shake yourself," or, "Patrick's day in the morning."*

At last arrives the media noche of the well worshipped saint, who for once sees the religious acrimony and christian animosity of the country he vainly protects, laid at the feet of national gaiety and sociality. Supper is announced; and the feast of the cocagne in France, or Naples, was but a luncheon, to this truly catholic entertainment. Hands that never met before, meet now on the necks of flasks and decanters. Fingers habitually raised in mutual scorn, are now busy in the same pie; while protestant nods at papist, in a tolerant hob-nob from "humble port to imperial tokay." Sir Harcourt takes wine with the author of "Florence Macarthy," and Counsellor O'Connell is helped to the wing of a pheasant by a pro

This is the only occasion on which country dances are performed at the Irish Court. The ball on Patrick's night is always opened by the lively dance of "Patrick's day." The Dowagers of both sexes then come into play; and the " Irish trot" of many a veteran belle, recals the good old times of the Rutland Court; when French quadrilles were "undreamed of in the philosophy" of the dancing of that noted epoch.