things their London brethren were doing—with a difference. If there were unholy revels at Medmenham Abbey on the Thames, they were imitated or excelled by their Irish prototypes, whose clubhouse you will still see standing up before you a ruin on top of the Dublin mountains. In many ways the society of Dublin models itself on London to this day.

The Lords and Commons of Ireland were already living about the Rotunda in Sackville Street, Rutland Square, Gardiner’s Row, Great Denmark Street, Marlborough Street, and North Great George’s Street, when John Claudius Beresford began his work. He bridged the river with Carlisle—now O’Connell—Bridge. He constructed Westmoreland Street right down to the Houses of Parliament.

SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN.

He built the Custom-House, now a rabbit-warren of Government offices, on a scale proportioned to the needs of the greatest trading city in Europe, oblivious of the fact that Irish trade was going or gone; or, perhaps—who knows?—building for the future. All that part of the city lying between the new bridge and the Custom-House was laid out in streets. Meanwhile the nobility and gentry who had town-houses were seized with the passion for beautifying them. The old Dublin houses were of an extraordinary stateliness and beauty. Money was poured out like water on their beautification. The floral decoration in stucco-work on walls and ceilings still makes a dirty glory in some of the old houses. Famous artists, like Cipriani and Angelica Kauffmann, painted the wall-panels and ceilings with pseudo-classical goddesses and nymphs. A certain Italian named Bossi executed that inlaying in coloured marbles which made so many of the old mantelpieces things of beauty. The old Dublin houses still retain their stately proportions, although some of them have been dismantled and others come down to be tenement-houses. But there is yet plenty to remind us that Dublin had once its Augustan Age.

If you have the tastes of the antiquary, the old Dublin houses and buildings will afford you matter of great interest.

In the first place, there is Dublin Castle, which was built by King John. Of the four original towers, only one now remains. The castle has been the town residence of the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland since Sidney established himself there in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. For the rest, it is a congerie of Government offices of one sort or another.

The castle was built over the Poddle River, which now creeps in darkness, degraded to a common sewer, under the dark and dismal houses, and empties itself in an unclean cascade through a grating in the Quay walls, whence it flows away with the Liffey to the sea. You can visit the Chapel Royal, if you will, and the viceregal apartments are sometimes open to inspection if the Viceroy is not in residence. I lived many years in Dublin without desiring to inspect what may be seen of Dublin Castle, though I have often stood in the castle yard under the Bermingham Tower, and, looking up at that great keep, have remembered how Hugh O’Donnell and his companions escaped by way of the Poddle one Christmas Eve in the spacious days of great Elizabeth, and how the young chieftain of Tyrconnel narrowly escaped the frozen death which befell his companions as they climbed those Dublin mountains over yonder to find refuge with the O’Tooles and O’Byrnes of the Wicklow Hills.

Those were the Irish clans that used to make the English burghers of Dublin shake in their shoes. While they sold their silks or woollens, or sat at meals or exchange, or said their prayers in their churches, they never could be sure that the wild Irish cry would not come ringing at their gates. The O’Byrnes and O’Tooles would swoop down at intervals, and raid the cattle from the fat pastures of the pale, sweeping back again with their spoil to their impregnable fastnesses. Some years ago a Father O’Toole published a book on the Clan of O’Toole, which contained the genealogical tree of the O’Tooles, tracing their descent without a break from Noah. This is a matter of interest to me, as I myself am an O’Toole.

The history of nations is, after all, the history of men—of men and of movements—and it is individual and outstanding men who make for us the milestones of history. Ireland has produced, in proportion to her population, a more than usual number of outstanding men; and, thinking of Dublin houses and monuments of one kind or another, we find it is of men we are thinking, after all.

Thinking of Christ Church, that beautiful Gothic cathedral, I think of St. Patrick, because his staff was preserved there, and was an object of great reverence till it was burnt by a too-zealous reforming Bishop in the days of Elizabeth. St. Patrick was a very delightful saint. One loves the legends that gather about him. I like especially how he wrestled with the angel on Croagh-Patrick, and would not come down from the mountain till he had been granted his several prayers. There were three in particular. The first one was that Ireland should never depart from the Christian faith. “Very well, then,” said the angel, “God grants you that.” “Next,” said Patrick, “I ask that on the Judgment Day I may sit on God’s right hand and judge the Irish people.” “That you can’t have,” said the angel. “Be quiet now, and go down from the mountain.” “What!” said Patrick, “is it for this that I have fasted so many days on the mountain, wrested with evil ones, been exposed to the rain and tempest, prayed hard, fought temptations—only for this?” “Very well, you shall have this,” replied the angel. “And now that you have your wish satisfied, go down from the mountain.” “Not till my third prayer be granted.” “What! a third prayer?” cried the angel. “You ask too much, O Patrick, and you shall not have it. You are too covetous.” “Was it for this?” began Patrick again, with a recital of all he had done and suffered. “Very well, then,” said the angel, tired out; “have your third prayer, but ask no more, for it will not be given to you.” “I ask that all who recite my prayer” (i.e., the prayer known as St. Patrick’s Breastplate) “shall not be lost at the Last Day.” “Very well, then,” said the angel, “you shall have that; but now go down.” “I am content now,” said Patrick; “I will go down.”

He was a fighting saint, despite his many gentlenesses. At Downpatrick, where he built his cathedral, he took a little fawn which his men would have killed, and carried it in his breast. I like the description of him by his friend St. Evan of Monasterevan, which tells us how he was sweet to his friends, but terrible to his enemies.

I think of St. Patrick at Christ Church rather than of St. Lawrence O’Toole, Archbishop of Dublin, who, with Strongbow, that fierce Norman who seized Ireland for Henry II. of England, built Christ Church. St. Lawrence O’Toole’s heart lies here in a reliquary. Here also Lambert Simnel was crowned; but who thinks of that ignoble impostor now?

Christ Church presents an effect of lightness and brightness very different from St. Patrick’s, in which it seems to me it is always afternoon, and winter afternoon. Patrick is in a particularly picturesque slum of the city, in the Earl of Meath’s liberty, hard by the Coombe, which was once a pleasant dell, no doubt, but is now the raggedest of slums. To the Earl of Meath’s liberty came