been spared to raise upon their sides magnificent shops, warehouses, and other buildings worthy of a city which takes so foremost a place in trade. Bold Street may, without exaggeration, be compared to Regent Street, the Rue Quatre Septembre, or the Avenue de la Paix; so might Lord Street; while Church Street, Dale Street, and Water Street are worthy homes of the merchant-princes and colossal traders of this busy town. In Church Street stands the Athenæum, originated, as has been said above, by Roscoe: the first institution of its kind in England. In Dale Street is the Exchange, a splendid building, designed originally, at the commencement of the present century, by Forster, but revised and restored from designs of Sir Matthew Wyatt not fifteen years ago. Water Street, reaching down from the Town Hall to St. George's Dock, is lined with warehouses and offices.

The Liverpool docks as they stand at the present day are among the wonders of the world. Since the formation of the first wet dock in 1719, the extension of these inland basins has been continuous. Fif

teen years ago they covered an area of water-space to the extent of two hundred and seventy-seven acres, and the quays were nineteen miles in length. Since then there has been no cessation of dock extension. To enumerate or describe them all would fill many pages. There are the Salthouse, Albert, and Canning Docks, the Clarence half-tide Dock, the Prince's half-tide Dock, the Manchester Basin, the Wapping

Basin, the Coburg, Brunswick Union, Toxteth, and dozens of other docks, with the Goree Piazzas at the bottom of St. James Street, a short distance from the Town Hall. Every convenience and facility for the despatch of business surrounds them. A broad open thoroughfare, tapping at right angles many of the principal streets, runs along their whole length; in this roadway is a double line of rails, which branch off also and surround several of the basins and docks; omnibuses and tram-cars traverse it perpetually during the day from end to end. The scene is a busy one always. A hurrying polyglot multitude, constantly on the move in and out and about the sheds; great vans and wains laden with produce, cotton bales, ores, Manchester piece goods, cases of every size and description containing cochineal, indigo, flax, jute, guano, mahogany, dressed hides and untanned, molasses, raw silk, and the thousand and one articles of home, colonial, and foreign produce needed to carry on the manufacturing processes of the world: the engines snorting and puffing impatiently, as they rattle along with their long line of attendant waggons, en route for the great terminus higher up in the town.

The landing-stages are another feature of the place. The principal is Prince's Landing-stage, which was recently nearly destroyed by fire, but which has now been re-constructed entirely. This stage, which is built upon pontoons that rise and fall with

the tide, is used by the steam ferry-boats across the Mersey, which ply to and fro with the regularity of omnibuses in the Strand, by the steamers which go coastwise or to the Isle of Man, the last-named being among the finest that leave any English port, those from Holyhead for Ireland alone excepted. It is from this stage that passengers embark to go on board the ocean-going steam-ships, which cross the Atlantic, and which are now so numerous that one belonging to one or other of the lines, Cunard, Inman, White Star, and so forth, leaves Liverpool on every day of the week. A small steam-tender lies alongside the stage to receive its living freight: Americans returning from a trip to Europe and the old country, men of business bound for Boston and New York, perhaps

some star of the London stage about to make a professional tour in the States. Here land also the rough tars, Jack ashore after a long voyage, with his bag and baggage and his pockets well lined, to be wasted ere long in riotous living. It was for them when thus stranded in the midst of potent temptations that the Sailors' Home was instituted just thirty years ago. The Prince Consort, who very closely identified himself with Liverpool, as may be seen from the number of public buildings and institutions which bear his name, laid the first stone in 1846; since then it was nearly destroyed by fire, but has been rebuilt on larger outlines, comprising now a chapel, reading-room, library, savings-bank, and nautical school.

Among the most noticeable of the many fine public buildings with which Liverpool has been enriched within the last fifty years, are the Custom House and St. George's Hall. The first occupies the site of the old Dock, and was erected by the corporation, with substantial aid from Government in annual payments of £25,000, on the understanding

that after twenty years the building should be given up to the State. The Custom House is of the Ionic style of architecture, of chaste design, but richly decorated within. It contains also the Post Office, the Office for Inland Revenue, and the Dock Offices. St. George's Hall is a noble and imposing edifice, raised on one side high above the streets, and seen to the best advantage from the Lime Street or London and North-Western Station. It is of the Corinthian order, and consists of a large central and two outlying blocks, containing respectively a concert-room and the Assize Courts. The central, which stands out and above the others, contains the Great Hall itself-a magnificent room, seventy-five feet wide and one hundred and sixty-nine in length, with an arched roof supported on porphyry columns, a tiled floor, and adorned with statues of great men, including George Stephenson and Sir Robert Peel. There is a grand organ, constructed by Willis, at the north end of the hall, used at Handel and other great festivals, for Liverpool is musical and æsthetic in no common degree. It has always encouraged the fine arts, sharing with Manchester the character of buying pictures largely and at great prices from the best painters of the day. Of late Liverpool has established a Fine Art Gallery, with annual exhibitions, to which contributions are gladly sent from London and all parts of the kingdom. The liberality of its citizens has established and endowed many other institutions to promote the education and culture of the place. Sir William Brown, a native of Liverpool, who had amassed a colossal fortune, presented the town with a splendid Free Library and Museum, which was erected on Shaws-Brow, entirely at his own expense. This handsome building contains public and students' reading-rooms, class-rooms, lecture-rooms, and a wide central hall. The library has accommodation for 100,000 volumes. An older edifice is the Royal Institution, projected in 1814 to encourage science and literature, which it has done. through the medium of lectures and its valuable collections, especially that of natural history, which is very varied and full. There are also in Liverpool many schools and colleges, especially the Corporation North Schools, the Collegiate Institution, the Liverpool Institute, the Queen's College, the Ladies' College, and many others too numerous to mention.

LIVERPOOL COLLEGE.

It has been calculated that Liverpool is more densely populated than any other city in the kingdom. It has ninety-three persons per acre, while London has only thirty-nine, and Leeds only ten. There were, moreover, until lately but few open spaces, and those most recently added are beyond the limits of the town itself. Now there are parks extending north, south, and east. Newsham Park, Shiel Park, Stanley Park, and Prince's Park are among the principal of these.

But it is her trade and traffic by sea and land which are the principal glories of modern

Liverpool: the docks already described; the great highway of the Mersey, with its deep waters constantly crowded with craft of all kinds, from the hoy of the fisherman or light sloop of the pilot to the colossal ocean-going steamers which, with blue-peter flying at the fore, or with masts and rigging ice-encrusted and battered sides, are about to face or have just returned from a tussle with North Atlantic storms. It is this vast trade which gives Liverpool its character; to meet its requirements, hotels innumerable have sprung up on every side, through which pass a perpetual stream of visitors-the Adelphi to wit, with its Americans lavish of dollars; the Lime Street Hotel, in connection with the London and North-Western Railway, an hotel of vast dimensions managed much upon the American plan. This trade fills the streets and the dock quays with multitudes of sea-going folk of every category and nation; Lascars and Congo blacks rub shoulders with Greeks and Italians; Pat is present in great numbers, the keen Scot also, with an eye to business always, and among the crowd move dapper clerks from the counting-houses, rough seacaptains in pilot coats and tall hats, portly and substantial owners whom every one treats with deference and respect.

The Liverpool of to-day, with its vast operations, surprising activity, and enormous wealth, is a concentrated epitome of the commercial greatness of England. Well may we share the surprise of Lord Erskine that all in this place "where there are riches overflowing, and everything that can delight a man who wishes to see the prosperity of a great community and a great empire-all this-has been created by the industry and well-disciplined management of a handful of men since I was a boy."

St. Patrick's Cathedral-Foundation and Early History-Decay and Restoration-The great Dean of St. Patrick's-The "Coombe" and the French Refugees-Thomas Street-Arrest of Lord Edward Fitzgerald-The United Irishmen -Skinners' Row-Christ Church Cathedral-Famous Relics-Restoration of the Building Strongbow's Monument -The Old Law Courts-Wine-tavern Street-The Quays and Bridges-Riots on Ormond Quay--Carlisle BridgeGrafton Street-The Royal Irish Academy-Molesworth Fields-Leinster House-The Royal Dublin Society-Merrion Square-Stephen's Green-Westmoreland and Sackville Streets-The Pro-cathedral-The King's Inns-The Law Courts. -Irish Orators-Curran-Sheil-O'Connell-Mary's Abbey-Trade of Dublin-The Custom House-General Resumé.

'N the fifth century the native converts to Christianity built, it is said, a church, which they dedicated to Saint Patrick, and where there is a tradition that the saint himself preached. Upon the same site John Comyn, Archbishop of Dublin, in 1190 built a parish church, which was also dedicated to the great missionary. It was then raised to the dignity of a sacred college by a charter sanctioned by a Bull of Pope Celestine III., and was consecrated with great pomp. A new charter was obtained by Henri de Londres, who succeeded Comyn, from Pope Honorius III., confirming the Dean and Chapter. In the time of Henry VIII. the Courts of Law sat here, and a university was established in it, which continued till the founding of Trinity College. In the feuds between the Earls of Kildare and, Ormonde, the cathedral was the scene of a riot between the rival factions eminently characteristic of the times in Ireland.

The cathedral suffered other trials and vicissitudes. In 1632 it was accidentally burned down, but was rebuilt by Archbishop Minot, who added the steeple to it, on which a spire was afterwards erected. There is an old record which states that "after the burning of St.