The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 03, July 18, 1840Various
History
The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 03, July 18, 1840
Various
Ireland -- Periodicals
Mr Willis proceeds to the hotel called the Donegal Arms, which he allows
is a handsome house, in a broad and handsome street; and then he adds,
"But I could not help pointing out to my companion the line of soiled
polish at the height of a man's shoulder on every wall and doorpost
within sight, showing, with the plainness of a high-water mark, the
average height as well as the prevailing habit of the people. We
certainly have not yet found time to acquire _that_ polish in America
[most civilized people!]; and if we must wait till the working classes
find time to lean, it will be a century or two at least before we can
show as polished an hotel as the Donegal Arms at Belfast, or (at that
particular line above the side walk) as polished a city altogether." Such
is Mr Willis's description of the Gresham's Hotel of Belfast, a house
which we had foolishly thought was remarkable for its cleanliness, order,
and good accommodation. Of course he got a miserable dinner of
"unornamented chops and potatoes," after which he proceeded to visit the
lions of Belfast. But we cannot follow him in all his wanderings, though
he tells us many things that are not a little amusing, as, for instance,
that the houses have a _noseless_ and flattened aspect; that he saw
Dubufe's pictures of Adam and Eve, and sagaciously remarks how curious
it is to observe how particularly clean they are (that is, Adam and Eve)
before they sinned, and how very dingy after--being dirtied by their
fall; and, what was very agreeable to him, the exhibitor of the pictures
actually called him by name, having remembered seeing the great penciller
in America! After having read the advertisements stuck on every wall, of
"vessels bound to New York," and having "_done_ that end of the town," he
returned towards the inn. He then sallied out again to _do_ the other
end, and tells us with great satisfaction of a successful petty larceny
of a very sentimental kind which he achieved in the Botanical
Gardens--namely, plucking a _heart's-ease_, as an expressive remembrance
of his visit--"in spite of a cautionary placard, and the keeper standing
under the porch and looking on." After this feat he returned to the inn,
and very wisely went to bed. "A bare-footed damsel, with very pink
heels"--recollect, reader, that this was in the Donegal Arms--"was
'My grim chamberlain,
Who lighted me to bed:'
and in some fear of oversleeping the hour for the coach in the morning, I
reiterated, and 'sealed with a silver token,' my request to be waked at
six. Fortunately for a person who possesses Sancho's 'alacrity at sleep,'
the noise of a coach rattling over the pavement woke me just in time to
save my coffee and my place. I returned to my chamber the moment before
mounting the coach for something I had forgotten, and as the clock was
striking _eight_, the faithful damsel knocked at my door and informed me
that it was _past six_."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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