11 AUGUST 1849, Page 14

THE COURT AT DUBLIN CASTLE.

A LEVEE in Dublin is not like one at St. James's, but a far big- ger and more laborious affair. It is a sort of wholesale pa- geant, quantity superseding quality. To set it forth in money, each Individual going to court in Dublin would do it at a lower figure. The provincial folks have a special privilege, and it is evident that Majesty is obliged to draw the line of exclusion much lower down —possibly "at bakers." A denizen of Dublin can claim the entr6 though his London parallel would never think of such a flight. Dubliners rush in where Londoners fear to tread. The very colour of the thing is different in Dublin ; it is all red and black—soldiers in hosts, reverend" gentlemen too tedious to enumerate, and " doctors " numberless as the migratory pigeons that oppress the winds of America. It is truly awful to see the mass of multitudinous " doctor " which Ireland can produce on one spot : doctors of what? Who can possibly tell ? It is a mystery—a black mystery—better left unexplored.

"Non ragioniam di lor, ma guards e passe.'

The very sound, too, is different. Whenever an Irishman opens his mouth, out issues the redundant breath collected in the frontal sinus and other appropriate depositories. They call it the brogue. It is a sort of audible smoke; as though you heard the breath as well as saw it on a frosty morning : a congenital cigar, visible to the ear. To think of all the brogue from that mass of doctor! It made, no doubt, a very atmosphere of audible fog—the same which besets the Irishman chronically, and makes him so giddy.

Then there was the drawingroom—but that was chiefly of women, and we must leave the critical distinction to Le Follet ; for as to the flesh and blood and good heart, it must be pretty much the same in Dublin and in Westminster. The brogue is there, of course—an audible mist ; but it is the silver cloud round the voice of the Irish Venus as she enters the Victorian Olym- pus—a halo of whispered melody.

But the numbers of that endless levee—the numbers! One can't shake off the idea. It is said that Queen Victoria, in spite of her fatigue, declared that the proceedings were "most gratify- ing." Of course no one can be a better judge of the labours of royalty, and every vocation has its peculiar acquired taste ; but people in any other line of business will be apt to transfer the credit of that declaration from her frankness to the patient sweet- ness which it must indicate : four hours and a half of that red and black levee, and a kind smile to the last 1