In the year 1770, when the penal statutes
were in all their fearful force, Dublin (some of
its aristocratic palaces excepted) was a city of
lanes and alleys, of cribs and dens ; whose filthy
avenues swarmed with a squalid and mendicant
population ; and whose trading streets exhibited
but few images to cheer the eye, or to exhilarate
the heart. From the year 1782, however, the
city rose from its rubbish, and the hovel of mud
became a palace of marble. It was from this
period, that the partial amelioration of the terri-
fic code, the influence of national independence,



of a bet trader awoke the
of tihe pBOfife. The ancieiit capital d

beautiful couDtries under

desj^nates it, then begm

CK vpect, aad to exhibit the s{deD-

citT. Then its dark
cfflHts gave way to spacioitt
il <|iBJ% where the air of
liMvi» ws( lnuMJUMil to circtilate, and its
bieitneii i^jhc i» Aiafc. Then eififices in the best
laiaew ac tMK» mAk aad saqife, wae erected fior
f dl i k «K^ «r Ar aa J iiid m l enjojnient. The
<itai^ v:af 3ilX oKiaoed br the despotic wis-
ijcta ot :$ciiM !Si^5ac»& manu but bj the par-
cuik ^vxxii cc btthi iaws. and the fimited intro-
c^'Cica oc etLh^ife-oed prinopLssw

WjsctV^ X^w\:v^fr« the ni.wth and east diores of
tbfcT S»c:if:i ri^^-r whkh winds through the
Irisct BKsrcrvfxii?^ fcifcuae crowned, as if by
magic, w;:h iill :be pomp of architecture, the
west (or that part of old Dublin which once
mdoaed by its ibrti&d walk, indudii^ the



THE o'flahebtys.. 255

castle, law courts, cathedrals, and the houses of
the few gentry who anciently possessed man-
sions in the capital), remained but little changed.
