the facility with which an
Irish girl receives your early attentions and appears to like them,
that invariably turns a young fellow's head very long before he has any
prospect of touching her heart. She thinks it so natural to be made love
to, that there is neither any affected coyness nor any agitated surprise.
She listens to your declaration of love as quietly as the chief justice
would to one of law, and refers the decision to a packed jury of her
relatives, who rarely recommend you to mercy. Love and fighting, too,
are so intimately united in Ireland, that a courtship rarely progresses
without at least one exchange of shots between some of the parties
concerned. My first twenty-four hours in Dublin is so pleasantly
characteristic of this that I may as well relate it here, while the
subject is before us; besides, as these "Confessions" are intended as
warnings and guides to youth, I may convey a useful lesson, showing why
a man should not "make love in the dark."

It was upon a raw, cold, drizzling morning in February, 18__, that our
regiment landed on the North-wall from Liverpool, whence we had been
hurriedly ordered to repress some riots and disturbances then agitating
Dublin.

We marched to the Royal Barracks, our band playing Patrick's Day, to the
very considerable admiration of as naked a population as ever loved
music. The __th dragoons were at the same time quartered there--right
pleasant jovial fellows, who soon gave us to understand that the troubles
were over before we arrived, and that the great city authorities were now
returning thanks for their preservation from fire and sword, by a series
of entertainments of the most costly, but somewhat incongruous kind--the
company being scarce less melee than the dishes. Peers and playactors,
judges and jailors, archbishops, tailors, attorneys, ropemakers and
apothecaries, all uniting in the festive delight of good feeding, and
drinking the "glorious memory"--but of whom half the company knew not,
only surmising "it was something agin the papists." You may smile, but
these were pleasant times, and I scarcely care to go back there since
they were changed. But to return. The __th had just received an
invitation to a ball, to be given by the high sheriff, and to which they
most considerately said we should also be invited. This negociation was
so well managed that before noon we all received our cards from a green
liveried youth, mounted on a very emaciated