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resided privately in Dublin, till he retired to France in 1649 for two years. He declined a baronetcy and viscounty from Charles II., and died in 1666, in the midst of his literary labours.

Leaving the castle, and turning our steps eastward, we stand on the summit of the steep acclivity known as Cork Hill. It took its name from Cork House, built by Richard

THE STATUE OF WILLIAM III.

Boyle," the Great Earl of Cork," and founder of the family. His life was almost a romance, his success surprising, his ability as a statesman and a soldier conspicuous; and his sagacity in knowing how to make the best of every contingency led to his establishing four peerages in his family, and at his death, in 1643, "raised such an honour and estate, and left such a family, as never any subject of these three kingdoms did." Cromwell said of him, "If there had been an Earl of Cork in every province, it would have been impossible for the Irish to raise a rebellion." After having served various purposes as public offices and trading establishments, part of Cork House was fitted up as Lucas's Coffee House, the great rendezvous of the fashionable and Amongst these were the eccentric Luttrel, who was assassinated one

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fast men of the day, of sharpers, gamblers, and bullies.
Talbot Edgworth, and the notorious duellist, Colonel
night after leaving it. Indeed, the yard behind it was the scene of numerous duels,
which were witnessed by the company within from the windows. A noted "buck" was
in the habit of strutting up and down the room in his morning gown, and if any one
trod on his long train he drew his sword and assailed him. On one occasion a gentleman
did so accidentally. The buck's sword was instantly out; the other drew his to defend
himself, and as the buck was about to pin him to the wall the other pierced him.
through the body. The whole block of buildings was demolished in 1768 by the Wide
Street Commissioners. A considerable part of Cork Hill was occupied by the Church of
Sainte Marie del Dam, in which was a statue of the Virgin, whose diadem is said to have
been used at the coronation of Lambert Simnel, in Christ Church. On the site of all these was

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erected the Royal Exchange, facing Parliament Street. It was commenced in 1769, and completed in 1779, at a cost of £40,000. It is a very handsome building in the Corinthian order, 100 feet square, with four fronts, and well elevated above the slope of the hill, and its fine dome is a striking termination to the vista down Parliament Street. The north or principal front, which faces Parliament Street, has a portico of six columns and pilasters supporting a decorated pediment. Round the large circular hall inside are twelve composite

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fluted columns, with rich entablature supporting the dome, which is spacious and lofty, having a very striking effect. Over the entablature are twelve elegant circular windows. The ceiling of the dome is decorated with stucco ornaments imitating mosaics, and, above all, in the centre is a large lantern window. Here are still to be seen statues of eminent men, amongst them that of Dr. Charles Lucas, an honest and fearless patriot. He represented Dublin in the Irish Parliament, to which he was elected in 1761, and spent his life in the endeavour to benefit his country both by his writings and in the House. His death in 1771 was mourned by the nation, who honoured him with a public funeral. Hogan's statues of Drummond and O'Connell, and Chantrey's of Grattan. Unhappily, the building was far in excess of the necessities of commerce, and it was soon applied to other

There are here, too,

purposes. Public meetings, chiefly political, were held here. The celebrated Volunteers" assembled for review under its dome, as did the delegates of the National Convention for Parliamentary Reform. But this building was destined to pass to other masters and for other purposes. In the present century it was appropriated to the sittings of the Commissioners of Bankruptcy. And after their abolition, the Municipal Corporation in 1852 took possession of and still hold it as a Town Hall.

At the foot of Cork Hill stood, before the Anglo-Norman Conquest, the eastern gate of the city-La Porte de Sainte Marie del Dam, as it was called. It was flanked by strong towers and secured by a portcullis, and surmounted by a statue of the Virgin, which remained there till the Reformation. It was one of the narrowest entrances into the city. The gate was demolished in 1698; nevertheless, till the last century the fiction was continued of the King-at-Arms, when about to make proclamation, demanding admission from the Lord Mayor. With it too has passed away the Church of Saint Andrew the Apostle, and the King's Mills, to make way for the fine street that now, as Dame Street, runs eastward to College Green. A short way from Dame's Gate in the suburbs was a chapel dedicated to St. George, the memory only of which survives in the name of George's Street, yet was it very notable. The Parliament of the English pale in 1457 enacted "that any person in the county of Dublin making a prey upon the Irish enemies exceeding forty cows should deliver one cow, or five shillings in money, towards its repairs." The pageant of St. George and the Dragon was enacted with great ceremony here. "The mayor," says Stanihurst, "with his brethren was accustomed, with great triumphs and pageants, yearly on St. George's feast to repair to that chapel and there to offer." Passing on we reach College Green, which has an interesting history. In old times there stood here a large village called Hogges, signifying hills or sepulchral mounds, and in fact such were discovered to have existed here, probably erected by the Ostmen. Then a convent of Augustinian nuns was founded on the spot in 1146; next, in 1166, was founded the Priory of All Hallows, or All Saints. name of Hoggen was after a time bestowed upon this locality. It was used for the sports of the citizens in archery and games of ninepins. It served also a different purpose as a place of execution for criminals; and in 1528 we learn that "every day in Christmas " a new play was enacted before the Lord Deputy. Strange mixtures they were of Christian saints and heathen deities, enacted by the various guilds, upon a stage on the Green. Furthermore, when a Viceroy landed he was met here by the civic authorities with prancings of horses and blare of trumpets. On the dissolution of monasteries, the Priory of All Hallows was granted by Henry VIII. to the citizens of Dublin, who in the reign of Elizabeth transferred it to Loftus, Archbishop of Dublin, for a University, which was founded in 1591 by Royal Charter, as "the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, near Dublin."

The

College Green has many great memories, and some fine memorials. Handsome buildings. have sprung up in it of late years, such as the National and Hibernian Banks and others, replacing the old residences of the Clancartys and the Charlemonts, while the statues of some of Ireland's greatest men have found a fitting location here, where once William III. on his clumsy leaden horse reigned supreme in solitary grandeur. The history of that great man it would be an impertinence to touch on here. The eloquent eulogy of Macaulay has told

STATUES ON COLLEGE GREEN.

231

it to the world, but the history of his leaden effigy in College Green requires a few words. On the 1st of July, 1701-the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne-out rang the joy-bells from the churches, the citizens closed their shops and made holiday. Forth issued from the Tholsel the Lord Mayor and all the corporate magnates, and, preceded by music and militia, walked to College Green; there they were joined by the Lords Justices and the Provost and Fellows of the College. Thrice they marched (uncovered) round the statue, and an oration of the Recorder, a volley of musketry, and a discharge of ordnance inaugurated the statue and testified to the loyalty of the citizens. Feasting and drinking followed, and fireworks and illuminations closed the night. Thenceforth yearly a high ceremony was observed, and a procession round the statue took place-despite the effort of Sir Constantine Phipps to prevent it in Queen Anne's time. But evil days were to come. First, the mischief-loving College lads took it into their heads that the statue designedly insulted them by turning its back on the University, and so they would at one time decorate it with green boughs, at another bedaub it with filth, or clothe it with hay, or put a straw figure astride behind the king. Nay, some one despoiled him of sword and truncheon; whereupon, at the instance of the House of Lords, the Viceroy issued a proclamation, and offered £100 reward for the discovery of the felon. Some of the College lads were afterwards detected in new indignities, and were duly punished, and even fined and imprisoned. At length the effigy of one noted for religious toleration became the rallying-point for religious and political rancour. While one party annually decorated it with orange lilies, their opponents tried to cut off his head, and succeeded in daubing him over with black paint, or putting a halter round his neck, all which was immortalised in a witty ballad. At last, on the night of the 7th of April, 1836, the king was blown off his horse with a terrific explosion, and with contused head, and broken legs and arms, was found at a considerable distance. The perpetrators were never discovered, and each party charged the other with the disloyal insult. The rider was set to rights, and put again on his horse. In 1842 it was coloured bronze, and now remains unmolested either by ovations or insults.

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If King William turned his back upon the College, a great man now intervenes and faces it. The statue of Henry Grattan, from the chisel of Foley, stands with up-raised arm in the attitude one might suppose him to have assumed when on the 19th of April, 1780, he moved the celebrated "Declaration of Rights," in one of the ablest speeches he ever delivered in the Irish House of Commons, holding it spell-bound and astonished by his burning eloquence. The Grattans were for generations distinguished in Dublin for genius, learning, and hospitality. Pray, my lord," said Swift to Lord Carteret, when he came to Ireland as Viceroy, "have you the honour to be acquainted with the Grattans?" The reply being in the negative, the dean added, "Then pray, my lord, take care to obtain it; it is of great consequence." James, the father of Henry, was an eminent barrister, and became Recorder of Dublin, where his famous son was born in 1746. He graduated in his native University, and was called to the Irish Bar in 1772; and in 1775 he was returned for the borough of Charlemont, and joined the Opposition. In 1790 he was elected member for Dublin. The biography of Grattan is the political history of his country during his time. In his great conflicts with power his nervous and passionate eloquence was so sustained by his lofty and unsullied reputation, that his influence in Ireland was enormous.

To him was due the organisation of the celebrated "Volunteers," that exercised so powerful a control over the British Cabinet, and obtained important concessions in favour of Ireland. After the Union he was again returned for Dublin in 1806. He died in London in 1820, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. One of the greatest of Ireland's patriots, orators, and statesmen, he was ever the friend of civil and religious liberty-"one," said Mackintosh, "as eminent in his observances of all his duties of private life, as heroic in the discharge of his public obligations." The Irish Parliament voted him a sum of £10,000 for his services, one-half of which he only accepted.

And facing Grattan, at either side of the entrance to Trinity College, stand the statues of two other illustrious Irishmen-wrought by the same great sculptor-Oliver Goldsmith and Edmund Burke. What higher names in the rolls of literature

than the first? what greater in political wisdom than the second? Every Irishman loves the memory of Gold

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STATUE OF BURKE.

STATUE OF GRATTAN.

smith. Born in an obscure hamlet in 1728, the son of a poor clergyman, he struggled with difficulties, social and physical. Illfavoured, ungainly, eccentric, simple and sensitive, slow at book-lore, and heavy in his manners, of a most gentle, loving, and kindly nature, yet with a latent wit that flashed out when assailed, he entered College as a sizar in 1745, and drudged through his course, suffering privations and contumelies, writing street-ballads to save him from starving; yet, reckless, improvident, and generous, he would spend his last shilling and give his last coat to aid one poorer than himself. In 1754 he went to Edinburgh to study medicine; thence to Leyden two years after; and then he sallies forth, shirt to his back, and a flute in his hand," to fight his way throughout a considerable portion of Europe, filling his mind with the moral, physical, and intellectual features of the countries he traversed, to give them back to the world in the finest poem since Pope's time, as Johnson said "The Traveller." Drudging as a bookseller's hack, he wrote at intervals "The Vicar of Wakefield," "The Deserted Village," and "She Stoops to Conquer." These require no eulogy. Over all that he wrote he shed the light of a fine genius, a benevolent nature, and a tender heart. Loved by all who knew him, at once the darling and the butt of the Literary Club, protected by Johnson and honoured by Burke, at his death in 1774 Reynolds threw his pencil aside and Burke burst into tears. And now a few yards from him stands the impersonation of that same friend, Edmund Burke. Born in Dublin in 1730, he displayed even in boyhood those powers of apprehension, industry, and memory which ultimately made him one of the greatest men of his day. Entering College in 1774, he passed through his course with distinction, and

"with a guinea in his pocket, one

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