etc., etc. And I am persuaded that a Commission to inquire into and
report upon the numerical strength, habits, haunts, etc., etc., of
supernatural agents resident in Ireland, would be a great deal more
innocent and entertaining than half the Commissions for which the country
pays, and at least as instructive. This I say, more from a sense of duty,
and to deliver my mind of a grave truth, than with any hope of seeing the
suggestion adopted. But, I am sure, my readers will deplore with me that
the comprehensive powers of belief, and apparently illimitable leisure,
possessed by parliamentary commissions of inquiry, should never have been
applied to the subject I have named, and that the collection of that
species of information should be confided to the gratuitous and desultory
labours of individuals, who, like myself, have other occupations to
attend to. This, however, by the way.

Among the village outposts of Dublin, Chapelizod once held a
considerable, if not a foremost rank. Without mentioning its connexion
with the history of the great Kilmainham Preceptory of the Knights of St.
John, it will be enough to remind the reader of its ancient and
celebrated Castle, not one vestige of which now remains, and of the fact
that it was for, we believe, some centuries, the summer residence of the
Viceroys of Ireland. The circumstance of its being up, we believe, to the
period at which that corps was disbanded, the headquarters of the Royal
Irish Artillery, gave it also a consequence of an humbler, but not less
substantial kind. With these advantages in its favour, it is not
wonderful that the town exhibited at one time an air of substantial and
semi-aristocratic prosperity unknown to Irish villages in modern times.

A broad street, with a well-paved footpath, and houses as lofty as were
at that time to be found in the fashionable streets of Dublin; a goodly
stone-fronted barrack; an ancient church, vaulted beneath, and with a