Grafton Street to Harcourt Street

ROUTE II

Grafton Street - Pitt Lane - William Street - Aungier Street - Golden Lane - York Street - Digges Street - Cuffe Street - St. Stephen’s Green - Harcourt Street.

Running south from College Green, in a line with the front of Trinity College, is **

GRAFTON STREET. **

Provost's House.gif (6002 bytes)In the College grounds stands the **Provost’s House, **a stone edifice of excellent design, with courtyard, and screened from the street by a high wall with a heavy-looking gateway. Three notable names are recalled arnong its Occupants **John Hely-Hutchinson **was Provost of Trinity College from 1774 to his death in 1794 – “a man,” as described by Taylor (History of Dublin University) “of enlightened mind and extended views,” but of whom Grattan said “neither his avocations not his habits fitted him to discharge the duties” of his office.

“As a speaker he was good; he possessed, perhaps, greater power of satire than any other man. It was incomparable” *(Life of Grattan). *His appointment, as an eminent lawyer merely and without antecedent connection with the College, was looked upon as an unwarrantable stretch of power: unable to propitiate in any way the injured dignity of the Fellows, he appealed to the folly and vanity of the students by the establishment of a dancing school, a riding school, and gymnasium.

“He was voracious of office and emoluments, and it was said that when he appeared at the court of St. James’s, and the king inquired respecting him, Lord North replied, ‘That is your Majesty’s principal Secretary of State in the Irish establishment, a man on whom if your Majesty were pleased to bestow England and Ireland, he would ask for the Isle of Man as a potato garden’ (Wills’ Irish Nation*).*

Hie fought a duel with one William Doyle, who had impeached his conduct

• a duel which was not an easy matter to arrange, “for the Provost had the gout and Doyle the rheumatism, and the latter was so ill that he was obliged to lean upon a crutch. Both fired, but neither party was wounded. Hely-Hutchinson died, as above recorded, in 1794, being seventy-nine years of age.

Provosts Murray, Kearney, and Hall followed successively, and in 1811 **Thomas Elrington, **noteworthy as the editor of Euclid, a strict disciplinarian in his government of the College, “yet munificent, kind, hospitable, and beloved by all.” The cause of his death was peculiar - being paralysis said to have been induced by sea-sickness. He died in 1837, aged seventy-seven.

Provost Lyle, who succeeded him, was followed in 1831 by Bartholemew **Lloyd, **whose fame and reputation are especially associated with the University as “the most devoted, the most enlightened, and the most energetic governors it ever possessed… His whole heart and feelings were absorbed in concern for its interests. His nervous anxiety for its welfare amounted almost to a weakness: it would have been altogether such if it had not been under the direction of an enlightened and philosophic mind” (Dublin Univ., Mag., vol. ii.) **

To No. *17, *now part of a large drapery establishment, Percy Bysshe Shelley removed from Sackville Street, when on his visit to Dublin in 1812.

“On March 7th,” says Professor Dowden, “appeared in the *Dublin Weekly Messenger *an article headed ‘Percy Bysshe Shelley, Esq.,’ which pointed out the young English gentleman as a ‘missionary of truth’ devoted to ‘social benevolence’ and benefactor to the persecuted Mr. Finerty of nearly a hundred pounds.

Naturally, after this, Mr. Shelley had visitors, and we can imagine that No. 17 Grafton Street, to which he had moved from his Sackville Street lodgings, became a kind of Hibernian cave of Adullam - ‘and every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him, and he became a captain over them.”’

Curran dined twice with Shelley here. Shelley, his wife and sister-in-law were strong advocates of vegetarianism at this time, being recent converts to its principles. In practice, however, they were not consistent. We read of Shelley making a substantial meal on board the steamer when leaving Ireland, and Hogg, his biographer, reports on the ill-cooked beef and mutton of his London lodgings few weeks later.

He also tells that when the poet “felt hungry he would dash into the first baker’s shop, buy a loaf, and rush out again, bearing it under his arm, and as he strode onward in his rapid course, breaking off pieces of bread and swallowing them… . . He made his meal of bread luxurious by the addition of common pudding raisins, … . and these he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket.” **

No.79, **formerly No. 75, was, in the last decade of the century and the first of the present, the school of the famous Samuel Whyte, the preceptor of Sheridan, Moore, Emmet, George Petrie, and also of the Duke of Wellington, according to Mr. Fitzpatrick *(Friends, &c., of Lady Morgan) *whose authority was *a *“Mr. J---, of Blackrock, now in his eighty first year, and the sole surviving pupil of Whyte,” by whom the writer was also informed that “Whyte’s tastes and talent for flogging were not inferior to Mr. Squeers’ passion in the same direction. Although his right arm was short almost to deformity, it possessed great strength, and was the terror of every pupil.

Stokes, in his Life of Petrie, says: “It is stated of Whyte that of all the schoolmasters, of his time, none gave more attention to the moral training of his pupils.. Being himself a man of the highest character, and with all the old chivalrous manners of the Irish gentleman of the day, he never lost an opportunity of inculcating the love of truth and the shamefulness of equivocation.” He died in 1811.

Harry Street, on the west side, leads into **

PITT STREET,

No.10, **bearing a memorial tablet, was the birthplace of **Michael William Balfe, **who made his first public appearance as a violinist in 1817 at nine years of age, compositions from his pen having been produced before he was seven.

10 Pitt Street.gif (7830 bytes)In his *Life, *by C. Kenny, it is recorded that “success attracted towards him a tide of fashionable notice and fussy patronage. Fortunately for the little Michael the sound good sense and sincere affection of his father saved him from these dangers… By some accounts, during a certain interval, he was seized upon by Dublin society and petted and beset with all those flattering cajoleries to which such young phenomena are unhappily exposed.

Among other matters, there is a story of a goat carriage with a complete team of bearded steeds presented to the child and drivenby him in triumph through the streets - an infant car of fame - but the equipage had to be put down.”

At his father’s death, which occurred when he was sixteen, he removed to London with the assistance of Charles Horn, the vocalist and composer. Bayle Bernard, in his *Life of Samuel Lover, *refer’s to Balfe as a “little, sturdy, but alert figure,” and to “his large, round, honest eyes, and his hearty, jocund, ringing laughter;” and gives the following instance of his humour: “He was disputing with a friend on the merits of a new German opera. which the latter praised as eminently original. ‘Original,’ exclaimed Balfe, ‘and what do you mean by that?’ ‘Why, I mean to say that it is music which was never heard before.’ ‘Well, I say,’ he replied, ‘that it is music which will never be heard again.’”

In 1864 Balfe left London, where he had resided for some years, for a small estate which he had purchased in Hertfordshire, and died there in 1870 at the age of sixty-two.

Chatham Street, at the end of Pitt Street, and Chatham Row, lead into **

WILLIAM STREET.

Powerscourt House, **the large mansion on the east side, now in the occupation of a commercial firm, was erected by **Richard Wingfield, Viscount Powerscourt **at a cost of £80,000 in 1771-4. The gateway to the right of the house led to the stables, that to the left to the kitchen and other offices.

Hardy, in his *Life of Lord Charlemont, *says Powerscourt was one of the few men of high rank who resided almost constantly in Ireland, and not more from attachment than from duty. On his death in 1788 his remains were laid out in state in the parlour, and the public were admitted for two days to view the ceremonial.

Richard, fourth Viscount, sold the house to the Crown for £15,000, and it was devoted to the use of the Commission of the Stamp Duties in Ireland until 1811.

Returning down William Street, and passing the front of Mercer’s Hospital, Lower Stephen Street conducts us to **

AUNGIER STREET.

No. 12** – on which a memorial tablet is placed – is one of the most, if not the most notable of Dublin houses as the birthplace in 1779 of Thomas Moore, his father being at the time in business here as a grocer and spirit dealer.

12 Aungier St.gif (9553 bytes)At an early age he exhibited a taste for music and recitation, and dramatic performances, and gained the enviable position of a “show pupil” in Mr. Whyte’s Academy.

He entered Trinity College in 1794 and graduated in 1798, and in the following year went to London (where he lodged in George Street, Portman Square). Lady Morgan says in her *Memoirs: *“Moore had just returned after his first or second visit to London, I forget which; he had come back, as we read in the papers, the guest of princes, the friend of peers, and the translator of Anacreon!

From royal palaces and noble mansions he had returned to his family seat at a grocer’s shop, at the corner of Little Longford Street and Aungier Street. The palace Borghese at Rome was called the ‘Cymballa’ from its resemblance to a harpsichord in shape; and certainly the tiny apartment over the shop where Mr. Moore’ received us might be described by the same epithet both for size and shape.”

In his diary, 1799, Moore writes: “I have no very clear recollection of the details of this my first visit to London, nor even of its duration. All that I do recollect, and that most vividly, is the real delight I felt on getting back to dear home again.” Again we have a description of “the entertainments given by my joyous and social mother; our small front and back; drawing-rooms, as well as a little closet attached to the latter, were on such occasions distended to their utmost capacity; and the supper table in the small closet, where people had least room, was accordingly always the most merry.”

Mr. Wakeman, in his pamphlet on Old Dublin, tells how Dr. Petrie informed him that on the occasion of the poet’s last visit to Dublin he, in **company with Dr. Petne, “hired a conveyance for the purpose of visiting the Castle or Viceregal Lodge. Moore, to Petrie’s suprise, ordered the driver to proceed by Aungier Street, a course which was by no means a direct one for their proposed destination.

Upon arriving nearly opposite No. 12 he desired the car to be stopped, and, gazing at the well-remembered domicile, his eyes became suffused with tears. ‘I am looking, Petrie,’ he explained, ‘for the little gable window by which I penned my earliest verses., the Melodies, &c.’”

The gable has disappeared, and plate glass windows have replaced the old-fashioned sashes: the interior remains almost unchanged, and by the courtesy of the present proprietor may at convenient times be visited. An ancient chair stands in the room which was ‘at one time Moore’s bed-chamber,* *where will be seen also an engraved portrait placed there by request of the poet, who sent it fifty years and more ago to the then proprietor of the business, the character of which has remained the same to the present day. Moore died in 1852, at the age of sixty-three.

Great Longford Street, opposite Moore’s house, leads direct to Golden Lane, which is our extreme point westward, and if the house noted there lack interest for the reader, he may economise the physical forces by taking the first turning to the left going south from Moore’s house, into York Street. **

GOLDEN LANE.

At No. 36, **the house of her father, Mr. Brownell Murphy, a miniature painter, **Anna Jameson **was born in 1794. Murphy was a patriot, and an adherent of the United Irishmen. Fortunately for him, before the explosion came, a professional engagement offered in England, and the little Anna accompanied her parents to Cumberland.

Her marriage, in 1824, proved unfortunate, and resulted in a separation. Her *Diary of an Ennuyee, Memoirs of Early Italian Painters, *and other works, excited the admiration of “Christopher North,” who writes of her as “one of the most eloquent of our female writers; full of feeling and fancy, a true enthusiast with a glowing soul.” She died in 1860, aged sixty-three.

Whitefriars Street and York Row lead into **

YORK STREET. **

At No. 6, in 1822, lived James Clarence Mangan, one of those imperfect characters, intellectually strong, morally weak, who, perhaps on account of their imperfectness, excite our interest and sympathy more than the record of those who claim from its unqualified admiration.

The address is derived by Mr. MacColl *(Life of Mangan) *from the puzzling diaries, *Grant’s Almanac and The New Ladies’ Almanac, *which were so much **in **fashion at the time, and to which Mangan contributed, but MacColl suggests that it *may *be the address only of the scrivener for whom he worked.

For seven years he toiled at this drudgery, contriving, however, to acquire a knowledge of German, French, and Spanish, and to become a good classical scholar. “It must be,” writes his biographer, “while still engaged at the weary toil of transcribing abstruse law parchments that the remarkable love affair occurred which had the effect of rendering him miserable for the remainder of his existence.”

Afterwards he passed two years in an attorney’s office, but “sometimes he could not be found for weeks; and then would reappear like a ghost or a ghoul, with a wildness in his blue glittering eye, as of one who had seen spectres… . Yet he was always humble, affectionate, almost prayerful.”

He was, in. fact, the bond slave of opium and intemperance. At one time he was engaged on the ordnance survey, and some interesting notes of him are given by Mr. Wakeman, one of his co-workers at Petrie’s house in Great Charles Street , in *Duffy’s Magazine: *“There was … . poor Clarence Mangan, with his queer puns and jokes, and odd little cloak and wonderful hat, which really resembled the tile that broomstick-riding witches are usually represented with, his flax-coloured wig, and false teeth… . . Mangan was a man of many peculiarities. In addition to the curious little hat and little round cloak, he made himself conspicuous by wearing a huge pair of dark green spectacles, which had the effect of setting off his singularly wan and wax-like countenance with as mud force as might be accomplished by contrast of colour. Sometimes, even in the most settled weather, he might be seen parading the streets with a very voluminous umbrella under each arm.”

Mangan died from cholera, contracted in a miserable lodging in Bride Street, in 1849, at the age of forty-six. **

At No.19, **lived, at the time of his death, the **Rev. Edward Ledwich, **author of Antiquities of Ireland, a **work now entirely fallen into disrepute. “Following the lead of Dr. Ryves, he all but denied the existence of St. Patrick, and advanced the theory, effectually set aside by Petrie and later writers that a large proportion of Irish remains were to be attributed to the northmen. ” (Webb’s Ieish Biography).

The “malevolent and malignant errors” of the *Antiquities *so aroused the indignation of worthy Dr. Lanigan, working at his *Ecclesiastical History *under the inflammatory influence of a sky-lighted, sun-heated room, in the Dublin Society house, that he launched no less than ninety-five “proofs of and animadversions oil” - so styled in the index - Ledwich’s “ignorance, errors, and malevolence. ”; It is stated in the *Gentleman’s Magazine, *September,. 1823, that Ledwich “was a member of a little society for investigating the antiquities of Ireland, … but which was dissolved in consequence of the free pleasantry with which Mr. Ledwich treated certain recoveries circulated among them, and occasionally alluded to in his Antiquities of Ireland.

Ledwich died in 1823, aged about eighty-four, the date of his birth being uncertain. **

No. 37** is memorable as the residence and scene of the death of Charles Robert Maturin, the author of Bertram - which Talfourd called “a piece of fine writing wrought out of a nauseous tale ” - and other plays, and several novels.

Wills *(Irish Nation), *says of him: “He was one of the curates of the most extensive and laborious parishes in Dublin, of which he discharged the duties with conscientious zeal; but with the exuberant vivacity of a mind which was endowed with far too much movement for any of the ordinary levels of social life, he sometimes incurred the reprehension of more staid and common spirits, and so somewhat fell under the misrepresentation of that large class which judges of all by reference to a few habitual standards, and can make no allowance when unusual tastes arise… . He was deeply arid effectively engaged in two opposite services, and while the giddy and shallow circle of fashionable society claimed him with an eagerness which would have turned ordinary brains, Maturin was drawn into courses of gay frivolity which he could hardly have broken from if he would. Another state of character was slowly maturing when a lingering and painful disease removed him.”

In** **the *Dublin University Magazine, *1858, we read; ” He was eccentric in his habits, almost to insanity, and compounded of opposites; an inveterate reader of novels, an elegant preacher, an incessant dancer, which propensity he carried to such an extent that he darkened his drawing-room windows and indulged during the daytime; a coxcomb in dress and manner, an extensive reader, vain of his person and reputation, well versed in theology, and withal a warm and kind-hearted man.

Amongst his other peculiarities he was accustomed to paste a wafer on his forehead whenever he felt the estro* *of composition coming on him, as a warning to the members of his family that if they entered the study they were not to interrupt his ideas by question or conversation.”

“He was strangely forgetful,” writes Bayle Bernard (*Life of Lover). *“He had been known to make a call in his morning gown and slippers. He was proverbial for going to parties the day after their occurrence; and once he invited a friend to dinner and kept him talking till the fish had been full an hour on the table-his famishing guest being all the while too polite to apprise him of the tantalizing fad.”

His ready wit stood him in good stead on one occasion when a friend committed the unbecoming joke of substituting a secular pamphlet for his sermon in the case which he found lying on the table on calling on Maturin to accompany him to the church. He rapidly recovered from the momentary discomposure the discovery cost him in the pulpit, and preached an excellent sermon from the text, “An enemy hath done this.”

He died in 1824 at the age of forty-two.

Mercer Street, midway in York Street, leads, south-ward into **

DIGGES STREET.

At No. 5 lived the **sculptor, **John Hogan, **whose reputation was first made by his “Drunken Faun” at Rome, about 1828. He visited Ireland the following year and exhibited *The Dead Christ, *afterwards placed in the Roman Catholic chapel in Clarendon Street.

When the revolution of 1848 occurred at Rome - a course of events to which he was bitterly opposed - he finally returned to Dublin, but it is said that the change from the glories of Rome to a narrow and uncongenial life in Dublin preyed upon his spirits, and the rejection of his model for the Moore statue, added the bitterness of disappointment.

He died here in straitened circumstances, leaving a widow and eleven children unprovided for. His biographer, in the Irish Monthly, 1874, says: “His tall, lithe, powerful frame, and his noble head and eagle look were eminently characteristic. He was full of gesture and vivacity. yet withal was simple in manner and direct in speech.”

UpperMercer Street, at the east end of Digges Street, leads into **

CUFFE STREET. **

This street, now sadly deteriorated in character, was formerly much affected by barristers, proctors, and others of good social 47 Cuffe St.gif (9008 bytes)position. **No.47, **(pictured, left) one of the most dilapidated of its houses, was the residence of Dean Walter Blake Kirwan at the end of last century. His sermons are eminently unreadable; his spoken discourses are said to have exercised extraordinary power over his congregations.

“The church presented a singular, and, in truth, not a very decorous spectacle. The military were drawn around it, but the scene within defies description. A bear garden was orderly compared with it. The clothes were torn off men’s backs, ladies were carried out fainting or in hysterics, disorder the most unseemly disgraced the entire service, and so continued till Kirwan reached the pulpit.

What a change was there then? Never did mortal man produce such wonderful effects. And yet he had his disadvantages to overcome: his person was not imposing; he was somewhat wall-eyed, and his voice at times was inharmonious… . . There was no less than £1,200 collected in the church after one of his sermons. .

People went forearmed against his seductions, furnished only with such a sum as they could afford to give. Fruitless precaution! Next day the vestry-room was crowded with pilgrims coming to redeem the watches and earrings they had left upon the plate” (Phillips’ Curran and his Contemporaries).

Kirwan removed to Mount Pleasant, Ranelagh, in 1800, and died in 1805, aged about 51.

At No. 35 lived, in 1813, John Lawless, a prominent member of the Liberal party during the agitation for Catholic emancipation; and known as “Honest John Lawless” for his unflinching integrity.

Here** Percy Bysshe Shelley **was received on his second visit to Ireland in 1813. A letter from his wife to Hookham is dated from here, and Professor Dowden *(Life Qf Shelley) *concludes that “Shelley stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Lawless, or found lodgings in the same street.”

Continuing along Cuffe Street we arrive at the ‘north-west corner of **

ST. STEPHEN’S GREEN.**

Passing along the western side, on the north side, near the corner **(No. 9), **is St. Stephen’s Club, which is, to some extent, reminiscent of **Sir Walter Scott, **inasmuch as before it received its present stone facing, and when its brick frontage was pierced by a *portecochere, *in 1825, he was entertained there by his son, Captain Scott, then in Dublin with his regiment.

“On Thursday, the 14th” [July, 1825], writes Lockhart, “we reached Dublin in time for dinner, and found young Walter and his bride established in one of those large and noble houses in St. Stephen’s Green (the most extensive square in Europe), the founders of which little dreamt that they should ever be let at an easy rate in garrison lodgings.

Never can I forget the joy and pride with which Sir Walter looked round him as he sat for the first time at his son’s table” (Life *of’ Scott). *Here Sir Walter was visited by Archbishop Magee, William Cunningham Plunket, and other notabilities.

“It would be endless to enumerate the distinguished persons who morning after morning crowded his levee,” writes Lockhart. “If his carriage was recognised at the door of any establishment the street was sure to be crowded before he came out again, so as to make his departure as slow as a procession. When he entered a street the watchword was passed down both sides like lightning, and the shopkeepers and their wives stood bowing and curtseying all the way down; while the mob and boys huzza’ed as at the chariot-wheels of a conqueror… .Baillie who had been in the crowd. called afterwards in St. Stephen’s Green … and observed to me as he withdrew that, ‘you was ow’re like worshipping the creature.’”

A story is current of the young Walter Scott, that riding one day by the canal he witnessed a young lady miss her footing at its verge, and, rendering her some assistance, discovered that the mishap was due to her being so much engrossed by the perusal of one of Sir Walter’s novels. **

16 Stephen's Green.gif (9338 bytes)No. 16 **(pictured, left) is the “Palace” of the Protestant Archbishop of **Dublin. Lord George Beresford, **whose birthplace we find in Marlborough Street , was resident here 1820-22, being raised in the last-named year to the Primacy. He made handsome gifts to the library of Trinity College, and erected the bell-tower which fronts the visitor to the college on entering Parliament Square.

The successor to Beresford was William Magee, whom Mr. Fitzpatrick describes, in his Life of Whateley, as a “perfect petit maitre” in appearance, … fond of daily parading his little person on horseback through the most fashionable streets,” and quotes Shiel, that “every look and gesture indicated a self-sufficiency carried to an excess’ almost amounting to the delirium of conceit.”

Further, he says, “His life was all work and worry, plot and counterplot: at last the entire cerebral machinery fell in… . For three years before his death Archbishop Magee groped in dark and helpless infancy.”

Other sources, however, supply a more agreeable picture. In the *Dublin University Magazine *for 1846 (vol. xxviii.)., we read: “The income of the Archdiocese was £7,000 a year, of this he set apart £2,000 a year for charitable and public uses. On Sundays he allowed no dinners to be dressed in the palace, and always, with his entire household, walked to church that his servants might not be detained from their higher duties, or his horses of their enjoined rest.”

From the same source we learn that “a stranger from England, who had been invited by one of the Archbishop’s sons to spend a few days at the Palace, mentioned his apprehensions of meeting a severe and sententious scholar, and his surprise and ‘unqualified delight’ at the ease, playful kindness, and freedom from pretension and pedantry which he saw.”

In Wills’ *Irish Nation *we find the following anecdote, “illustrative of his strenuous activity and the gentle temper in which he exerted an effective control” when Bishop of Raphoe: “It was his habit to visit every part of his diocese, and from the nature of the country he was often compelled to ride through wide and solitary districts; but his Sunday visits were most commonly to those churches which lay within a ride of his dwelling: on which occasions he was generally an unexpected visitor.

On one of these occasions he found a closed church and no appearance of Sunday preparation. He sent for the sexton, who came presently. ‘Why does not the bell toll?’ was the Bishop’s next question. ‘The clergyman’s away, sir’,’ was the reply. ‘Will you do your duty?’ ‘No use, sir, no person to do the duty.’ ‘Do as I desire you?’ The sexton shrugged his shoulders, looking askance at the peremptory stranger, and went reluctantly to his task. The bell soon brought a goodly congregation, and the strange gentleman performed the duty of the day, called for the preacher’s book, entered his signature, and quietly rode off. When the parson returned he soon heard of the incident, and, doubtless, with no idle curiosity called for the preacher’s book, in which he found the entry ‘W. Raphoe.’

Seriously alarmed he repaired to the Bishop, meditating, perhaps, some lame exculpation by the way, and anticipating a severe rebuke. He was kindly received, not a word on the unpleasant subject was spoken, and he was invited to dine. The Bishop knew that he had done enough and even did not mention the matter to his family.”

Magee died in 1831, at the age of sixty-five. **

Richard Whateley, **the famous writer on logic and rhetoric succeeded. Mr. Fitzpatrick, in his *Life of Whatelep, *quoting from *The Times, *that “he found Dublin at least as congenial and pleasant as Oxford.

He was immediately admired and soon liked,” says *The Times, *usually so well-informed, is not correct in this retrospect. Dr. Whateley was received with a storm which has continued to howl angrily over his unburied body and open grave … it was as ‘an alien by blood and birth’ that the great objection to him lay… . No indisposition was manifested to hunt down the Archbishop in his life-time; but he was of tough composition, and the tusk of his retorts sank deep into the flesh of his tormentors; but the persecution, as he assured his chaplain, Hercules Dickinson, ate into his very life, and shortened it.”

“His tastes,” says the same writer, “were extremely simple and unostentatious. Unlike his predecessor (Dr. Magee) he hated parade or pomp. The gilded decorations in the Palace at St. Stephen’s Green, which cost Dr. Magee so large an expenditure, were particularly obnoxious to Dr. Whateley, and he had no sooner crossed the threshold of his new dwelling than he threatened to have them all whitewashed… . There was no state or elegance in his equipages or manner of living; both were plain … but he was ready with his purse to aid all who needed his assistance.

In his rambles “he was generally attended by three uncompromising looking dogs; . . during the winter season he might be daily seen in St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin, playing ‘tig’ or ‘hide-and-seek’ with his canine attendants.

Sometimes the old Archbishop might be seen clambering up a tree, secreting his handkerchief or a pocket knife in some cunning nook, then resuming his walk, and after a while suddenly affecting to have lost those articles, which the dogs never failed immediately to regain.”

In manners he appears to have been strangely deficient. “At the Privy Council he used to stand the whole time before the fire, with his coat-tails separated and pulled forward… It was in reference to this act and to the circumstance of a noble lord, afflicted with baldness, who put on his hat for warmth, that Master Gould wittily observed ‘A bishop keeps uncovered what ought to be covered, and a peer keeps covered what ought to be uncovered.’

Having accepted an invitation to dine with Lord Anglesey at the Viceregal Lodge, it is almost incredibly told of him that, having arrived before the bulk of the guests, he drew over an arm-chair to the. fire, and stretched to the uttermost his legs, until their heels seemed to repose among some articles of *vertu *on the mantelpiece.”

Other odd ways are noticed; such as nursing his right leg, in company, in such a way that the small clothes of his next neighbour on the left suffered from the contact of his foot, paring and pruning his nails with his pocket scissors in a large drawing-room, or placing his legs on a chair.

“Dr. Parr,” says Mr. Fitzpatrick, “was regarded as the greatest smoker of his day; but Dr. Whateley boasted of being .‘above Parr.’

“He is represented as smoking a long clay pipe as he sat on the chains hi front of his house in St. Stephen’s Green, or, provided with a similar attribute, sauntered along the Donnybrook Road.”

As a preacher the Rev. Maurice Day was far more popular than Whateley (as being one of the ‘practical’ sort), which called forth the pun from the latter, “The ladies of Dublin run to-day for a sermon, and to-morrow (Morrow being then as now the Mudie of Dublin) for a novel.”

Whateley’s superabundant puns and conundrums have passed long ago into the common stock, and become more or less familiar. One of the latter may be recalled for its neatness: “Why can a man never starve in the Great Desert?” “Because he can eat the sand which is (sandwiches) there.” “But what brought the sandwiches there.” “Noah sent Ham, and his descendants mustered and bred (mustard and bread).”

“His sermons,” says Mr. Fitzpatrick, “might have been more popular if there had been more of heart and less of head in them;” and quotes Rogers’ epigram-

“Whateley has got no heart ‘tis said, but I deny it;

He has a heart and gets his sermons by it.”

Lever resented some snub he had received front Whateley, and introduced him in *Roland Cashel, *at Mrs. Kennyfeck’s dinner party, where he is represented demonstrating bow to lasso a Swiss bull by holding up his napkin over the head of his hostess to the injury of her turban and bird of paradise plume.

As evidence’ of Whateley’s liberality it has been remarked that whereas Magee died worth £46,000, after nine years of office, Whateley only left £39,000, after a term of thirty-two years. He died in 1863*, *at the age of seventy-seven. Stanley, in his *Life of Arnold, *says that Dr. Arnold, who knew him well, said of him ; ‘I am sure that in point of real holiness, so far as ,am can judge, there does not live a truer Christian man than Whateley… .He is a truly great man in the highest sense of the word.” **

Richard Chevenix Trench, author **of *Notes on the Parables and The Miracles, The Study of Words and Past and Present, *succeeded Whateley in the Archbishopric.

He resigned in 1884, and died iii London the following year. The Latin inscription on the slab of Irish marble which covers his grave in Westminster Abbey was written by Dean Church - the present Dean of St. Paul’s - who wrote when sending it: “There is a public aspect of his character and career which I have attempted to express in what I have written. It is the peculiar combination in him of the poet, the theologian, and the champion of primitive and Catholic doctrine in his trying career as archbishop.

There was in him an imaginative love of truth as not merely true but beautiful. What others deal with wholly as divines, he saw as a poet.” He died at a house in Eaton Square, London, which he had taken for the winter and spring, and among the records of his last days, in his *Letters and Memorials, *he is reported to have said, “I have cared for a good Greek play as much as most things; but it does not do to die upon.”

At** No. 18, in the third and fourth decade of the century, lived William Cunningham Plunket, **Lord Chancellor of Ireland, 1830-1841. Here is his portrait from Phillips’ Curran and his Contemproaries:

“A square-built, solitary, ascetic-looking person, pacing to-and-fro, his hands crossed behind his back, so apparently absorbed in self-the observed of all, yet the companion of none,… externally cold, but ardent in his nature, in manner repulsive, yet warm, sincere, and stedfast in his friendship; severe in his aspect, yet in reality sociable and companionable…

A man of the foremost rank, a wit, a jurist, a statesman, an orator, a logician - the Irish Gylippss, as Curran called him, ‘in whom are concentrated all the talents of his country.’”

“His chief displays,” says the same writer, “were on a single subject in the Irish House of Commons - that of the Union; and in the British Parliament-that of the Roman Catholic question… Hie always seemed to speak for a purpose-never for mere display; and his wit like his splendour appeared to be struck out of the collusion of the moment… He would jest sometimes at his own expense. Everybody knew how acutely he felt his forced resignation of the chancellorship, and his supersedeas by Lord Campbell.

A violent tempest arose on the day of his* expected arrival, and a friend remarking to him how sick of his promotion the voyage must have made him; ‘Yes,’ said he, ruefully, ‘but it won’t *make hint throw up the seals?”

Crabb Robinson tells the following of Plunket when at the Bar: “The Lord Chancellor, Redesdale, was slow at taking a joke. in a bill case before him he said, ‘The learned counsellor talks of flying kites. What does that mean? I recollect flying kites when I was in England? ‘Oh, my lord,’ said Plunket, ‘the difference is very great. The wind raises those kites your lordship speaks of - ours raise the wind.”

O’Flanagan (Lives of the Chancellors) says, “On one occasion he defended a horse-dealer with signal success. Another of the fraternity was heard loudly eulogizing the successful lawyer, and closed his panegyric by the emphatic declaration; ‘I tell you what boys, if I’m **lagged for the next horse I steal, by jabers I’ll have Plunket.’”

On his resignation, in 1841, Plunket retired to Bray, where he died in 1854, at the age of ninety. **

No. 33 **was the residence of **William Saurin, **Attorney-General in 1822. Saurin was of French origin, but his family had been naturalized for two generations in Ireland. “In the year 1798,” says Shiel, “Mr. Saurin was at the head of his profession, and was not only eminent for his talents, but added to their influence the weight of a high moral estimation” (Sketches, Legal and Political).

During the rebellion he was chief of the lawyers’ military corps. An amusing picture is presented by Shiel of the ordinary business of the court discharged by barristers in regimentals: “The plume nodded over the green spectacles, the bag was transmuted into the cartridge pouch, the flowing and full-bottomed wig was exchanged for the casque, the chest, which years of study had bent into a professional stoop, was straightened in a stiff imprisonment of red.”

The same writer describes Saurin as of the middle size, plain and correct in his manners and dress, his eye black and wily,” glittering “under the mass of rugged and shaggy eyebrows,” his forehead neither bold nor lofty, and his aspect suggestive of cautious shrewdness rather than intellectual elevation. He died in 1839, at the age of eighty-one. Saurin occupied the house, No. 31 - removed when the Shelborne Hotel was built - previously to living at No. 33. as shown by the Directories of the time.

At **No. 36, (pictured, right) in 1833, lived Felicia Hemans. “I have **removed here,” she writes, “much for the sake of having back rooms, as I suffered greatly from the noise where I lived before.”

36 Stephen's Green.gif (5981 bytes)“Early in the autumn of 1831,” we read in her *Memoirs - *from a letter in which the above extract is taken-” Mrs. Hemans took up her abode in Dublin, where she at first resided in Upper Pembroke Street… . Mrs. Hemans entered very little into the general society of Dublin, but enjoyed with a few real and attached friends that kindly intercourse most congenial to her tastes and habits.

Amongst these must be particularly mentioned the Graves family, their venerable relatives. Dr. and Mrs. Perceval; the household circle of Colonel D’Aguilar,,and that of Professor, now Sir William Hamilton.”

Mrs. Hemans removed from, Stephen’s Green to Dawson Street, where she died in 1835, at forty-one years of age.

Passing down the east side of the square, in which Grattan’s house formerly stood, on part of the site of St. Vincent’s Hospital, we come, on the south side, to **No.72. This was the residence of The “Sham Squire,” Francis Higgins, **born in a cellar in Dublin, errand-boy and shoe-black as a lad, afterwards waiter in a porter house in Lord Edward Street, and then writing clerk to an attorney-to become in due course an attorney himself, proprietor of the *Freeman’s Journal, *and owner of a large fortune, yet inasmuch as he was an unmitigated rascal, and gained his position by flagitious means, unworthy of the admiration such self-elevation ordinarily excites.

He acquired the title of “Sham Squire” by gaining the hand of a lady - who subsequently died of grief - by personating a gentleman of landed property. Mr. Fitzpatrick has established beyond a doubt the fact that Higgins was the betrayer of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, for the sum of £1,000.

That writer quotes a description of him as “daily to be seen with Buck Whaley upon the Beaux Walk, in Stephen’s Green”, wearing “a three-cocked hat (which paid a duty) fringed with swan’s down, a canary-coloured vest, with breeches to match, a bright green body coat …** **the only buck in Dublin who carried gold tassels on his Hessian boots,” and violet gloves.

The memoir of him in *Irish Political Characters, *printed in 1799, says, “From his law practice, his gambling-table contributions, and newspaper, the Sham now enjoys all income that supports a fine house in a fashionable quarter of the city.”

He died in 1806, being fifty-six years old. **

No. 81 **has absorbed the site of Curran’s house, formerly No. 80; her Lived Sir Benjamin Lee **Guinness, **the opulent brewer, best remembered as the restorer of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, at an estimated cost of £130,000, and for his great and practical interest in Irish archaeology. Wills says of him, “Few men ever enjoyed so worthily the sincere respect and attachment of their fellow-citizens. In his personal character he displayed a rare combination of all those qualities which win the hearts of the people: he was a favourite with all classes, and his death excited universal feelings of the most profound regret.”

He died in 1868, aged sixty-nine. **

No.86, **a handsome stone-fronted mansion, now the Catholic University, was the residence, at the end of the last century, of **Thomas Whaley, **known as “Buck Whaley” and “Jerusalem Whaley,” having laid a bet that he would perform the journey to the Holy City on foot, except where a sea passage was unavoidable, and play ball against its walls, returning also on foot, within a year. As the ballad ran:

“One morning walking Arran Quay,**

**A monstrous crowd stopped up the way,

Who came to see a sight so rare

A sight that made all Dublin stare.

Buck Whaley, lacking much some cash,

And being used to cut a dash,

He wagered full ten thousand pound

He ‘d visit soon the holy ground.”

Whaley won the bet. Another feat *was *leaping windows over a mail coach, which he accomplished by having the vehicle drawn up beneath either his own house or Daley’s Club House in College Green - the accounts vary - but, according to Lord Cloncurry, at the cost of rendering himself a cripple for life.

“Burn Chapel Whaley” was another of his appellations, derived from the lawless behaviour of the yeomanry corps he commanded. **

HARCOURT STREET.

No. 14 **was the residence of **Sir Jonah Barrington, **to whose Personal Sketches, Historic Memoirs, and other works, the writer of the present work, like those of many previous commentaries on his times, is much indebted.

14 Harcourt Street.gif (8591 bytes)He came to live here after his marriage to the daughter of Mr. Groggan, the silk mercer, preferring a life of matrimonial ease to the dangers. of the “tented field,” and refusing an ensign’s commission when he found it meant fighting in Canada, in favour of prosecuting his studies at the bar.

Mr. W. J. Fitzpatrick, in The Sham Squire, tells the following anecdote of the projecting bow window long since built up, which overhangs the side of Sir. Jonah’s residence.

“Lord Clonmell occupied the house at the opposite corner, and Lady Clonmell affected to be much annoyed at this window overlooking their house and movements. Here, Lady Barrington, arrayed in imposing silks and satins, would daily take up position and placidly commence her survey.

Sir Jonah was remonstrated with, but he declined to close the obnoxious window. Lady Clonmell then took the difficulty in hand, and with the stinging sarcasm peculiarly her own, said: ‘Lady Barrington was so accustomed to look out of a shop window for the display of her silks and satins that I suppose she cannot afford to dispense with this.’

The large bow window was immediately built up, and has not since been re-opened.”

S. R. O’Flanagan (The* **Irish Bar) *enumerates the following “more varied than valuable juvenile accomplishments of Sir Jonah. “Before he was eight years old he could read prose and poetry, write text, draw the outlines of a man, a horse, a house, and a gamecock, tin a copper saucepan, and turn his own tops.

He could also perform the manual exercise, and had learnt how to mould bullets, make pins, to dance a jig, sing a cronane, and play the Jew’s harp.”

In *Sketches of Irish Political Characters *(1799) it is said of him: “He does not rank high, either as a lawyer or a speaker, but he has great application, and consequently some business. As a speaker his manner is bold and daring, and to his intrepidity he owes his advancement… His marriage with the daughter of’ a Dublin silk mercer, who had a large fortune, was his first step to distinction. It enabled him to keep a genteel establishment, and he soon dashed into public notice with an effrontery which has seldom been surpassed. He is supposed to have the same notion of blushing that a blind man has of colours.” In 1793 Barrington removed to Merrion Square. **

Nos. 16 **and 17 were formerly one house, presenting its side aspect (No. 15 not being built) to that of Sir Jonah Barrington’s (No.14), and formed the mansion of **John Scott, Earl of Clonmell; **until five years before his death Viscount Clonmell, a rank which Wills *(Irish Nation) *says “he did not think high enough,” and so achieved the higher dignity. We have used the double “I” in his name in accordance with what Mr. Fitzpatrick has shown to be his *later *signatures, “verifying,” as he says, “a contemporary joke, ‘give Scott an inch and he will take an I.”’ Barrington *(Historic Memories) *thus indicates his first step towards the position he afterwards obtained.

“Mr. Scott had become distinguished at the Bar for a bold and undaunted address, when Lord Townsend, being hard pressed by the Opposition, desired the present Sir John Lear to look out for some hard-bitted, stout barrister who would not give or take quarter with the patriots.”

John Scott was chosen and his rise ensured. He was of very humble birth, and,” says Barrington, “came to the Bar without any money or connection. The coarse effrontery of his address procured him the name of ‘Copper-faced Jack.’ . . His skill was unrivalled, and his success proverbial. He was full of anecdote, though not the most refined”

In 1789 he was compelled to make a public apology in the papers for an act of rudeness to a member of the Bar, by the utter desertion of the court by all the attorneys, who made common cause with their insulted associate.

He records in his diary for 1774 a resolution to “give up wine and strive to contract his sleep to four or at most six hours in twenty-four,” a resolution which Wills *(Irish Nation) *remarks, “we rather think he never put in practice… . . for he appears to have been at all times foremost in the convivial parties of Dublin… . . He was ever ready to support his assertions with sword or pistol.

His mode of speaking was thus described by Grattan: ‘He struck his breast, slapped his hat constantly, appealed to his honour, and laid his hand on his sword.”’

Mr. Fitzpatrick *(The Sham Squire) *says: “He possessed very extensive pleasure grounds on the east side of Harcourt Street, stretching behind the entire south side of Stephen’s Green. A subterranean passage under Harcourt Street opened communication with those grounds, which joined the garden at the rere of Francis Higgins’s mansion in Stephen’s Green, and there is a tradition to the effect that some of the chief’s inquisitive neighbours often used to see him making his way through the pleasure grounds for the purpose of conferring with the Sham Squire.”

About 1780 the rioters broke the windows here on account of Clonmell’s unpopularity during the excitement caused by the announcement of’ new taxes. In 1787 he writes in his diary, after commenting adversely on his contemporaries: “Thus I stand a public character *alone, *but at the head of the Law Courts, Assistant Speaker of the House of Lords, and in receipt of £15,000 per annum.”

“This extract,” says Wills, “shows the learned Chief Justice had not much respect for his colleagues. Boyd, another judge of the King’s Bench, is described by O’Connell as so addicted to brandy that he kept a quantity on the bench before him in a vessel shaped like an inkstand: be had a tube made like a pen, through which he sucked the liquor he loved, and flattered himself he escaped observation.”

Clonmell, as appears from the extracts from his diary in Mr. Fitzpatrick’s *Ireland before the Union, *was constantly forming good resolutions against “snuff, sleep, swearing, gross eating, sloth, malt liquors, and indolence,” and never to taste “anything after tea but water or wine and water at night,” and, according to an “old member of the Irish Bar,” quoted by the writer of that work, still continuing to require “a couple of able-bodied lacqueys to carry him nightly to bed,” as a result of his own indulgence. His size increased from this cause so much that, as he himself records, he had broken two carriage springs with his superabundant weight. He died just before the rebellion in 1798, aged fifty-nine.

At No. 22, Leonard MacNally died in 1820 at the age of 78, having resided here since 1800. In 1815 a pension of £300 was conferred upon him, which Madden *(United Irishmen) *says was for secret services performed long previously, of which his legal associate, Curran, was in ignorance at that period.

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