TUSCULUM, Sunday 15.
After a charming tour in the county of Wicklow, where the beauty of the natural scenery, and the taste with which those natural beauties had been cultivated, far surpassed the sanguine expectations Lord Colambre had formed, his lordship and his companions arrived at Tusculum, where he found Mrs.Raffarty, and Miss Juliana O'Leary, very elegant, with a large party of the ladies and gentlemen of Bray, assembled in a drawing-room, fine with bad pictures and gaudy gilding; the windows were all shut, and the company were playing cards with all their might.

This was the fashion of the neighbourhood.

In compliment to Lord Colambre and the officers, the ladies left the card-tables; and Mrs.Raffarty, observing that his lordship seemed PARTIAL to walking, took him out, as she said, 'to do the honours of nature and art.' His lordship was much amused by the mixture, which was now exhibited to him, of taste and incongruity, ingenuity and absurdity, genius and blunder; by the contrast between the finery and vulgarity, the affectation and ignorance of the lady of the villa.

We should be obliged to STOP too long at Tusculum were we to attempt to detail all the odd circumstances of this visit; but we may record an example or two which may give a sufficient idea of the whole.
In the first place, before they left the drawing-room, Miss Juliana O'Leary pointed out to his lordship's attention a picture over the drawing-room chimney-piece.

'Is not it a fine piece, my lord ?' said she, naming the price Mrs.Raffarty had lately paid for it at an auction.--'It has a right to be a fine piece, indeed; for it cost a fine price!' Nevertheless this FINE piece was a vile daub; and our hero could only avoid the sin of flattery, or the danger of offending the lady, by protesting that he had no judgment in pictures.
'Indeed, I don't pretend to be a connoisseur or conoscenti myself; but I'm told the style is undeniably modern.