Samuel Madden and Mr. Thomas Prior, formed a voluntary association, for which, in 1749, a charter was obtained from George II., under the name of the Royal Dublin Society. Its specific object was to promote husbandry and other useful arts in Ireland; but it affords to its members the advantages of a general literary as well as scientific establishment. It now occupies the once ducal palace of Leinster, in Kildare street, containing an excellent library; two museums, one general, the other agricultural; a reading-room, lecture-room, and board-room; with schools of design in painting, sculpture, and the fine arts. It has professors of chemistry, geology, botany, natural philosophy, etc. Its extensive and wellfurnished Botanic Garden at Glasnevin is surpassed by few in the world.

A French tourist, giving an account of Ireland in 1734, says: "The better to judge of this people in matters of learning, I have passed some hours in a bookseller's shop, whereof there are a great many in the capital, (Dublin.) I found there is no city in Europe (cæteris paribus) where there are so many good pieces printed, and so few bad. They do not believe this; but it is because they do not know what is done in other places. Printing and books are cheaper here than in London, but dearer than in Holland, and near a par with France. English editions are sold at the same rate as in London. But the prices of foreign books are exorbitant, and pass all bounds, the prime cost whereof in Holland, whether they be bought new, or at auctions, is very moderate,

and a mere trifle. Coffeehouses here are much frequented they have the best English papers, the "Amsterdam Gazette," and three good newspapers, taken out of the English, of their own. After the four capitals of Europe, Paris, London, Rome, and Amsterdam, Dublin, I think, may take place. It is a very large, populous, and well-built city. It stands on near as much ground as Amsterdam, and would take an oval wall of six miles and a half to encompass it. According to the manuscript account (taken in 1733) of all the several baronies and counties in the kingdom of Ireland, as the same were returned, and are now remaining in his Majesty's Surveyor-General's office, there are twelve thousand houses in Dublin, which at the rate of ten persons to a house, makes the number of inhabitants amount to one hundred and twenty thousand. The river Liffey, over which there are five stone bridges, runs through the middle of the city: ships of good burthen come up to the lowermost bridge, and unload at the Custom House quay. From this bridge there is a noble view down the river, which is always full of vessels; and in winter evenings, when all the lamps are lighted, you have three long vistas, resembling fireworks, both up and down the river, and before your face as you pass the bridge from the old town. The outlets of Dublin into fine fields, the banks of the river, a royal park, the seashore, etc., are very beautiful; and in this far exceed London, and indeed most other cities in Europe which I have seen.”

The "three good newspapers" referred to above,

as then published in Dublin, were "Pue's Occurrences," begun in 1700, the first Irish newspaper; the "Dublin Gazette," and "Faulkner's Dublin Journal. Essex bridge was then the lowest on the river. The "long vista" before you as you passed over this bridge from the "old town" is Capel street. What would this tourist have said had he come again a century later, and stood on Carlisle bridge, with Sackville street, containing the Post-Office, Nelson's Pillar, and the Rotunda, northwards-the lines of quays, with bridge after bridge succeeding, up the river towards the Four Courts and the Park, westwards-other lines of quays down the river, with the splendid CustomHouse, and crowds of vessels, including steamers not a few, and the North Wall Lighthouse, eastwards Westmoreland street, terminating with the Bank, the University, and College Green, southwards and d'Olier street branching off to the south-east-and all these ranges well lighted through their whole extent every evening, not with the dingy oil-tins of that now olden time, but with the brilliant gas which modern science and art have given?

Handel is yet held in remembrance, and will be till the loftiest strains of human music give place to those yet loftier of the perfected redeemed myriads before the throne of God and thé Lamb. Dublin is interestingly associated with Handel's history. Fishshamble street is now abandoned to the occupancy of trunk-sellers and such like crafts: a century ago, it was a resort of the fashionables of the city. There yet stands,

within a courtyard, what was the Deanery-house of Christ Church Cathedral, now a parish school and workhouse; and lower down a building mean, neglected, and in decay, not long since a theatre, but before that a Music-hall, erected by the subscriptions of a charitable musical society, and opened on the 2d of October, 1741. Here a musical academy, whose members were amateurs, exclusively moving in the first classes of society, held its meetings, under the presidency of the Earl of Mornington, father of the Duke of Wellington, as leader of the band. To Lord Mornington we are indebted for the tune called "Ferns," one of the most exquisite that taste has supplied to aid the utterance of devotion. About six weeks after the opening of the Music-hall, Handel came to Dublin on the invitation of the Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Devonshire. By the "Account" lately published, it appears that he prepared his well-known production, "The Messiah," in prospect of his visit to the Irish metropolis, and that this incomparably grand composition, including the "Hallelujah Chorus," and "Worthy is the Lamb," in which earthly music seems to have reached the ne plus ultra of its wondrous power, was first performed in the Music Hall, Fishshamble street, on Tuesday, the 13th of April, 1742, "for the relief of prisoners in the several jails, and for the support of the Mercer's Hospital, and of the Charitable Infirmary on Inn's Quay." The proceeds on the occasion amounted to upwards of £400, or $2000. The "Society of Friends" had formed congre

gations in Ireland during the Commonwealth, and were numerous at the time of the Revolution. Early in this century those in Dublin were subject to gross molestations; but after a while they obtained protection. In the year 1727, their yearly meeting in Dublin recorded on its minutes a "declaration of censure upon the practice of importing negroes from their native country?' The first record of a similar resolution in England was from the yearly meeting in London, in 1758. Hence it appears that the public movement against that traffic began in Dublin.

Subsequently to the revolution, and particularly on the threatened invasion by the Pretender in 1715, severe penal statutes were enforced against Roman Catholics. Among them were some to prevent the celebration of their worship. Whatever was done in administering its ritual, had to be performed privately and by stealth. No chapels were permitted, and the priest moved his altar, books, and every thing necessary for the celebration of his religious rites, from house to house, among such of his flock as were enabled in this way to support an itinerant domestic chaplain; while for the poorer some wash-house or stable, in a remote and retired situation, was selected, and here the service was silently and secretly performed, unobserved by the public eye." In consequence, however, of serious accidents frequently occurring to parties thus crowded together, combined with a disposition to less severity on the part of the government, the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Chesterfield, in 1745, permitted the