Thereupon the jolly boys, determined to win yet further commendation, and delighted to give vent unrestrained to the native brutality of uneducated man, set their wits to work and gave birth to other inventions. We know that a demand invariably creates a supply. The gentlemen of the yeomanry vied one with the other in cultivation of their inventive faculty and the result was an array of practical jokes, novel and splendid indeed! Even the great French reign of terror was thrown into the shade. The French, as we all know, are not inventive or witty. A guillotine--a constant flow of blood and falling heads; a boat with a trap-door to drown people by the dozen--amusing rather for a minute, then nauseously dull and monotonous. The jolly Irish boys were much wittier than this, and more ingenious; and yet, by one of the strange chances of history, people shudder still over Robespierre and Marat and their doings, and are absolutely careless and ignorant as to what was done at home not ninety years ago. Lady Camden grew terrified at reports which reached her ears. Lord Camden shut himself up at the Viceregal Lodge, and promenaded the Ph[oe]nix Park, round which was a protecting military cordon. Lords and ladies left Dublin furtively. Some for England--some for their family acres in the far west; impelled--some by fear--some by the promptings of the chancellor--a few only by a sense of duty to their tenantry. A certain earl set up a triangle in his barrack-yard, and was never weary of flaying the backs of the neighbouring peasants. To such lengths went he and his, that an English colonel, also quartered there, was forced to expostulate with his lordship, to the chagrin of the latter. My Lord Downshire retired to his hills, and kept his regiment within bounds. Indeed, he and my Lord Powerscourt were severely rebuked by the chancellor--the latter especially; for he dared to say that his tenants had been armed at his own expense for the protection of property, not for the commission of murders--upon which the chancellor groaned aloud; for this was a malignant example to others. My Lord Powerscourt, however, was not to be persuaded. He locked up his grand house in Dublin, and revisited it no more until the legislative struggle took place which concluded the century.