THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL. NUMBER 15. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1840. VOLUME I. [Illustration: THE TOWN AND CASTLE OF LEIXLIP, COUNTY OF KILDARE.] Localities are no less subject to the capricious mutations of fashion in taste, than dress, music, or any other of the various objects on which it displays its extravagant vagaries. The place which on account of its beauties is at one period the chosen resort of pleased and admiring crowds, at another becomes abandoned and unthought of, as if it were an unsightly desert, unfit for the enjoyment or happiness of civilized man. Some other locality, perhaps of less natural or acquired beauty, becomes the fashion of the day, and after a time gets out of favour in turn, and is neglected for some other novel scene before unthought of or disregarded. Yet the principles of true taste are immutable, and that which is really beautiful is not the less so because it has ceased to attract the multitude, who are generally governed to a far greater extent by accidental associations of ideas than by any abstract feelings of the mind. Perhaps it is less attributable to any characteristic volatility in the character of the inhabitants of our metropolis, than to the singular variety and number of the beautiful localities which surround our city, and in emulous rivalry attract our attention, that this inconstancy of attachment to any one locality is more strikingly instanced among ourselves, than among the citizens of any other great town with which we are acquainted. But, however this may be, the fact is unquestionable, that there is scarcely a spot of any natural or improved beauty, within a few miles of us, which has not in turn had its day of fashion, and its subsequent period of unmerited neglect. Clontarf, with its sequestered green lanes, and its glorious views of the bay--Glasnevin, the classical abode of Addison, Parnell, Tickell, Sheridan, and Delany--Finglas, with its rural sports--Chapelizod, the residence of the younger Cromwell--Lucan, Leixlip, with their once celebrated spas, and all the delightful epic scenery of the Liffey--Dundrum, with its healthy mountain walks and atmosphere, and many others unnecessary to mention, all experiencing the effects of this inconstancy of fashion, have found their once admired beauties totally disregarded, and the admiration of the multitude almost wholly transferred to a wild and unadorned beauty on the rocky shores of Kingstown and Bullock, which our forefathers deemed unworthy of notice. But let that beauty take warning from the fate of her predecessors, and not hold her head too high in her day of triumph, for she too will assuredly be cast off in turn, and find herself neglected for some rival as yet unnoticed.