The dates of all the principal edifices in Dublin are here enumerated, and show how untenable the first postulate is, when tested by chronology. A minute examination of official documents and the writings of credible authorities enable me to assert with confidence, that neither Dublin, nor Ireland in general, was indebted either for embellishment or improvement in any way to the turbulent assembly which sat from 1782 to 1800; nor indeed to the Irish Parliament at any period. In 1729, Dr. Bindon, in an address on the better means of providing for the poor of Ireland, states that "one person in every twenty was a pauper; and that the unusal poverty reigning among the common people of Ireland, and the number who daily quit the country, are strong presages of yet greater calamities." In 1732, the weavers of the Liberty of Dublin represented their trade as ruined. 1793. Mr. Trevelyan, in his narrative of the "Irish Crisis,” (1847) says, that "in 1739 an early and severe frost destroyed the potatoes in the ground, and, the helplessness and despair of the people having led to a great falling off of tillage in 1740, the calamity was prolonged to the ensuing year, 1741, which was long known as the bliadhain an air, or year of slaughter. The ordinary burialgrounds were not large enough to contain those who died by the road-side, or who were taken from the deserted cabins. The 'bloody flux' and 'malignant fever,' having begun among the poor, spread to the rich, and numerous individuals fell victims." * “No measures were adopted either by the Executive or the Legislature for the purpose of relieving the distress caused by this famine. There is no mention of grants or loans, but an Act was passed by the Irish Parliament in 1741 (15 Geo. II. cap. 8) for the effectual securing the payment of rents and preventing frauds by tenants." What a contrast this legislation and conduct presents to that of the Imperial Parliament in 1846-7, when 10,000,000l. was voted by the Legislature for the relief of Ireland, and the British nation poured its thousands by private and unostentatious charity into Ireland for the relief of those who were suffering from the loss of the potato crop. In 1757, a public authority declared that, "from the vast numbers to be found in every corner of the metropolis, one might take the city of Dublin to be the general rendezvous of all the beggars in the whole kingdom." There was great misery this year throughout Ireland. An address from the Roman Catholic clergy to their flocks in 1757 has the following passage:-"It is now time, Christians, that you offer your most grateful thanks to the Almighty God, who, after visiting you with a scarcity which approached near unto a famine, has been graciously pleased, like a merciful father, to hear your prayers, and feed you with a plentiful harvest; nor ought you to forget those kind benefactors who in the severest times generously bestowed without any distinction of persons those large charities by which thousands of you were preserved who otherwise must have perished of hunger. The chief governor and magistrates proved the fathers and saviours of the nation." Taaffe's Ireland, page 55, vol. IV. In 1776 it was announced that "the manufacturers of Dublin were reduced to such extreme distress that they would have perished by thousands had they not been relieved by charity. The Government expenditure exceeded the income by 8,000l. so that 166,000l. were borrowed from England at four per cent." In 1777 a petition to the English Parliament stated "that misery and distress prevailed over Ireland. The Dublin manufacturers stated in their petition that 300,000l. worth of goods remained on their hands, and that they had to dismiss their workmen, who were now subsisting on half a pound of oatmeal per day, provided from a fund raised by the nobility and gentry. The English House of Commons granted permission for the free export and import of all the manufactures of Ireland except woollen goods to the British plantations, and the import of all the produce of the British settlements except tobacco." In 1779 Mr. Grattan, in reply to Sir R. Dean on the Address, said, "The distresses of this kingdom are two fold, the beggary of the people, and the bankruptcy of the state." He asked "whether there were not too many inhabitants in this kingdom" [though containing not half its present population], and "was there one rich merchant in the kingdom?" In 1787, in the fifth year of "glorious prosperity and peace," the Irish Government found it necessary to introduce a new police bill to suppress the disturbers of the peace in the South and West of Ireland. The Parliament voted an address to his Majesty deploring the state of the country. The Attorney-general, after detailing the enormities of an illegal society called the Right-Boys,' said, "I am well acquainted with the province of Munster, and I know that it is impossible for human wretchedness to exceed that of the miserable peasantry. I know that the unhappy tenantry are ground to powder by relentless landlords. I may add, that some landlords have been so base as to instigate the insurgents to rob the clergy of their tithes in order to add the clergy's share to the cruel rack-rents already paid. Nothing can be done for their benefit while the country continues in a state of anarchy." The Reverend Mr. Whitelaw, minister of St. Catherine's parish, Dublin, who, a few years previous to the Union, prepared a valuable work on the state of Dublin, while engaged in making his census of the population, affords the following melancholy illustration of the state of Dublin at that period. Mr. Whitelaw's evidence is to the following effect: "When he attempted to take the population of a ruinous house in Joseph's-lane, near Castle-market, he was interrupted in his progress by an inundation of putrid blood, alive with maggots, which had, from an adjacent yard, burst the back door, and filled the hall to a depth of several inches. By the help of a plank and some stepping-stones which he procured for the purpose (for the inhabitants, without any concern, waded through it), he reached the staircase. It had rained violently, and from the shattered state of the roof a torrent of water made its way through every floor from the garret to the ground. The sallow looks and filth of the wretches who crowded round him indicated their situation, though they seemed insensible to the stench, which he could scarcely sustain for a few minutes. In the garret he found the entire family of a poor working shoemaker, seven in number, lying in a fever, without a human being to administer to their wants. On Mr. Whitelaw's observing that his apartment had not a door, he informed him that his landlord, finding him unable to pay the week's rent in consequence of his illness, had the preceding Saturday taken it away, in order to force him to abandon the apartment. Mr. Whitelaw counted in this sty thirty-seven persons, and computed that its humane proprietor received out of an absolute ruin, which should be taken down by the magistrates as a public nuisance, a profit rent of about 301. per annum, which he exacted every Saturday night with unfeeling severity." It would not be possible to find such a parallel in Dublin at the present moment, although it might not be difficult to do so in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, and perhaps in London. Independent of the increase of several of the suburbs of Dublin of late years, particularly in the neighbourhood of Kingstown, and along the south side of the metropolis generally, we find that there has been an augmentation of population and houses since the Union, notwithstanding the large increase in all the provincial towns. The number of houses built in Dublin from 1800 to 1834 was Parish of St. Peter, 582; St. Mark, 298; St. George, 438; St. Thomas, 481; St. Paul, 78; Grange Gorman, 86; St. Andrew, 16; Werburgh, 20; St. Mary, 214 -Total, 2213. STATE OF DUBLIN. Number of houses (in 1833) by Parliamentary valuation Rental, as estimated. Or an average of . 17,324 704,7577. 401. per house. Increase of houses since the Union, within the Circular Road 2,213 3,213 -The num In these papers we trace the following results:-' ber of houses built since the Union, within the Circular Road, amounts to 2,213; the number of houses built within the city, but without those limits, not embracing, however, the immediate outskirts and villages, amounts to about 1,000 more; thus 3,213 new houses have been built since the Union. Fitzwilliam Square has been entirely built since the Union; Merrion-square has been completed; Harcourt-street, Leeson-street, and many others, have been greatly extended. The average value of the rental on the number of houses in 1833, was 40l. per house. The annual house rental which has been added to Dublin by reason of new buildings erected since the Union amounts at the least to 128,520l. Since the Union there has been advanced by the Imperial Parliament to the Wide-street Commissioners the sum of 261,2647. for the improvement of the city of Dublin. At the period of the Union there was but one respectable Roman Catholic chapel in Dublin-namely, in Clarendon Street; now there are twelve handsome chapels, one of which has cost 40,000l. for its erection. Throughout Ireland we everywhere find noble structures raised by our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects, equally indicative of their piety and their augmenting wealth. HOUSES-Increase in Provincial Towns since the Union. About the middle of the last century, all Europe made rapid progress in knowledge and freedom; and where the latter (as in the case of France) did not degenerate into anarchy and despotism, an improvement in commerce necessarily ensued. Ireland participated in the general advantages of the times. Mr. Arthur Young,* whose remarks are cited by all men as profoundly accurate, says that "Ireland had improved more during the last twenty years, i. e. from 1755 to 1775, than in a century before:" -that "the great spirit of improvement began in 1749 and 1750;" that "thirty years previous to the time of writing (1776) the export of linen and yarn was only in value about 500,000l., but that it had risen in 1776 to the value of 1,500,000%." These, and other equally striking facts, were adduced without contradiction, by the Right Honourable Silvester Douglas, in his speech, 23d April, 1799. Of Dublin, even, it may be stated, that by a Government survey in 1753, the increase of citizens from 1711 to 1753 was stated at 32,000. Immediately after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, *Tour through Ireland, 1776. F |