There may still be seen on the right hand side of the road leading from Dublin through Mount Brown to Inchicore, a small portion of a granite wall which formerly was in front of "Old Kilmainham," the common gaol of the County of Dublin. That building was considered one of the worst prisons of the kingdom, in consequence of its insufficient size and lax discipline. Swift is said to have been, in his youthful days, a frequent, although not a criminal visitor at this old gaol; and there, perhaps, in the conversation of its inmates, he acquired much of the coarseness and indelicacy which mar the wit and vigor of his productions. I shall, however, most willingly and scrupulously abstain from offering to my readers any specimens of the language of such a time and place, when the building echoed with drunken revelry, and the sufferings of a prisoner were aggravated by indecent buffoonery or ribald jests. To my narrative such expressions are neither necessary nor ornamental. CHAPTER II. VESEY AND KEOGH. On the 15th of February, 1743, a gentleman named James Vesey, who held a commission in the army, was returning to Dublin from a southern county where he possessed a respectable landed property. The facilities which now exist for the safe and prompt remittance of money were then almost unknown, and he had with him upwards of eighteen hundred pounds in specie. He was so unfortunate as to be stopped on the road at Castleknock, and robbed of the money, his watch, and its appendages. The highwayman who opened the door of the post-chaise had an associate who kept at the horses' heads, and could not be recognized. After the perpetration of the crime, the traveller proceeded on to Dublin and apprised the authorities of his loss. A vigilant search terminated, after a few days, in the apprehension of two brothers named Martin and Sylvester Keogh. They were men of a sinister reputation, who resided near Rathcoole, and spent more money than they could be supposed to have acquired honestly, being the occupiers of a thatched house of humble dimensions, and a neglected farm of six or seven acres. On being brought before a magistrate, Martin Keogh was fully identified by Mr. Vesey, as the man who, pistol in hand, opened the door of the chaise and despoiled him of his property. Against the other there was no criminating evidence, and after a detention of some days, he was discharged. The closest search after the money terminated unsuccessfully, not a guinea could be found. Martin Keogh was committed for trial at the ensuing commission of _Oyer and Terminer_ for the county of Dublin, and was there convicted of the robbery, on the positive and undoubtedly true testimony of Mr. Vesey. Sentence of death was passed, and the doomed felon became an occupant of the condemned cell at Old Kilmainham, from the dreary precincts of which he was to issue at the end of twenty-one days, to die upon the gallows. Mr. Vesey's leave of absence had been