WILLIAM. AND MAEY.
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bore little resemblance to their posterity; for this complimentwas so distasteful to him that he ordered his retinue to keepthem at a distance.*
On the twenty fourth of March he entered Dublin. Thatcity was then, in extent and population, the second in theBritish isles. It contained between six and seyen thousandhouses, and probably above thirty thousand inhabitants.** Inwealth and beauty, however, Dublin was inferior to manyEnglish towns. Of the graceful and stately public buildingswhich now adorn both sides of the Liffey scarcely one had beeneven projected. The College, a very different edifice from thatwhich now stands on the same site, lay quite out of the city.***The ground which is at present occupied by Leinster House andCihaiiemont House, by Sackville Street and Merrion Square,was open meadow. Most of the dwellings were built of'timber,and have long given place to more substantial edifices. TheCastle had in 168 G been almost uninhabitable. Clarendon hadcomplained that he knew of no gentleman in Pall Mall who wasnot more conveniently and handsomely lodged than the LordLieutenant of Ireland. No public ceremony could be performedin a becoming manner under the Viceregal roof. Nay, in spiteof constant glazing and tiling, the rain perpetually drenchedthe apartments.f Tyrconnel, since he became Lord Deputy,had erected a new building somewhat more commodious. Tothis building the King was conducted in state through the
* A full and true Account of the Landing and Reception of the lateKing James; Ireland’s Lamentation; Light to the Blind,
** See the calculations of Petty, King, and Davenant. If the averagenumber of inhabitants to a house was the same in Dublin as in London, thepopulation of Dublin would have been about thirty four thousand.
*** John Dunton speaks of College Green near Dublin. I have seenletters of that age directed to the College, by Dublin. There are someinteresting old maps of Dublin in the British Museum.
•{• Clarendon to Rochester, Feb. 8. 1G8£, April 20. Aug. 12. Nov. 30.