Hark! The thunder of artillery. The first procession is on its way. It is that of the Viceroy, who, attended by as many peers as he can muster, will solemnly protest against the new-fledged insolence of a domineering soldiery who dare to set their house in order and sweep away the cobwebs. He will make a pompous progress round the promenade of Stephen's Green; thence by the chief streets and quays to King William's statue, where he will gravely descend from his equipage and bow to the Protestant Juggernaut. This awful ceremony over, he will walk on foot to the House of Lords hard-by, and the holiday-makers will be stricken with repentant terror. He has his private suspicions upon this subject though--a secret dread of the mob and of the College lads of Trinity; for rumour whispers that the wild youths will make a raid on him, and they have an ugly way of running-a-muck with bludgeons and heavy stones sewn in their hanging sleeves. So he has taken his precautions by establishing about the statue a bodyguard--a cordon of trusty troops--whose aggressive band has been braying since daybreak 'Protestant Boys,' 'God save the King,' and 'King William over the water.' But the undergraduates are too much occupied at present in struggling for seats within the Commons to trouble about the English Viceroy. For the heads of the Convention are to arrive in state, and Colonel Grattan, it is said, will appear in person to impeach the Assembly of which he is a member. Their gallery is crammed to suffocation. Peers' sons with gold-braided gowns occupy the bench in front, silver-braided baronets crowd in behind. Peeresses too there are in their own place opposite, like a bevy of macaws. A sprinkling only; for most of the ladies, caring more for show than politics, prefer a window at Daly's club-house next door, where members drop in from time to time by their private passage to gossip a little and taste a dish of tea, while their wives enjoy the humours of the crowd and ogle the patriot soldiers.