enix. There, in the grand wainscoted back-parlour, with
'the great and good King William,' in his robe, garter, periwig, and
sceptre presiding in the panel over the chimneypiece, and confronting
the large projecting window, through which the river, and the daffodils,
and the summer foliage looked so bright and quiet, the Aldermen of
Skinner's Alley--a club of the 'true blue' dye, as old as the Jacobite
wars of the previous century--the corporation of shoemakers, or of
tailors, or the freemasons, or the musical clubs, loved to dine at the
stately hour of five, and deliver their jokes, sentiments, songs, and
wisdom, on a pleasant summer's evening. Alas! the inn is as clean gone
as the guests--a dream of the shadow of smoke.

Lately, too, came down the old 'Salmon House'--so called from the
blazonry of that noble fish upon its painted sign-board--at the other
end of the town, that, with a couple more, wheeled out at right angles
from the line of the broad street, and directly confronting the
passenger from Dublin, gave to it something of the character of a
square, and just left room for the high road and Martin's Row to slip
between its flank and the orchard that overtopped the river wall. Well!
it is gone. I blame nobody. I suppose it was quite rotten, and that the
rats would soon have thrown up their lease of it; and that it was taken
down, in short, chiefly, as one of the players said of 'Old Drury,' to
prevent the inconvenience of its coming down of itself. Still a peevish
but harmless old fellow--who hates change, and would wish things to stay
as they were just a little, till his own great change comes; who haunts
the places where his childhood was passed, and reverences the homeliest
relics of by-gone generations--may be allowed to grumble a little at the
impertinences of improving proprietors with a taste for accurate
parallelograms and pale new brick.

Then there was the village church, with its tower dark and rustling from
base to summit, with thick piled, bowering ivy. The royal arms cut in
bold relief in the broad stone over the porch--where, pray, is that
stone now, the memento of its old viceregal dignity? Where is the
elevated pew, where many a lord lieutenant, in point, and gold lace, and
thunder-cloud periwig, sate in awful isolation, and listened to orthodox
and loyal sermons, and took French rappee; whence too, he stepped forth
between the files of the guard of honour of the Royal Irish Artillery
from th