The last of the Irish noblesse in this street was Lady Harriet, widow of the Right Hon. Denis Bowes-Daly, on whom Grattan passed such warm eulogies, and who was the original of Lever's happiest creation, The Knight of Gwynne.
It has been a frequent subject of conjecture why the Phoenix Park was so called. The best explanation seems to be that on a site within its boundaries there formerly stood, close to a remarkable spring of water, an ancient manor-house. The manor was called Fionn-uisge, pronounced finniské, which signifies clear or fair water, and this term easily became corrupted into Phoenix. The land became Crown property in 1559, and was made into a park in 1662. It was immensely improved and put into its present shape by the earl of Chesterfield, author of the Letters—one of the best viceroys Ireland ever had—about 1743. The area is seventeen hundred and sixty acres. With the exception of Windsor and our own Fairmount, no public park in the world can compare with it. The ground undulates charmingly, the views are extensive and beautiful.
Grouped around the Phoenix Park are many beautiful seats: the finest is Woodlands. This belonged formerly to the Luttrells, a notorious family, the head of which was raised to the Irish peerage as earl of Carhampton. It was with a Lord Carhampton that his son declined to fight a duel, not at all because he was his father, but because he "did not consider him a gentleman." Early in the century, Woodlands, then known as Luttrellstown, became the property of Luke White, one of the most remarkable men that Ireland has produced. In 1778, Luke White was in the habit of buying cheap odds and ends of literature from a bookseller, named Warren, in Belfast to peddle about the country. In 1798 he loaned the Irish government, then in great difficulty, a million of pounds! Mr. Warren, who found him very punctual and exact, used to permit him to leave his pack behind his counter and call for it in the morning. No one would then have dreamed that the greasy bag was to lead to such results. By degrees, White scraped together some means. He used to take odd volumes to a binder in Belfast and employ him to get the "vol." at the beginning and end of an odd volume erased, so as to pass it off among the unwary as a perfect book, and generally furbish it up. Then he used to sell his literary wares by auction in the streets of Belfast. The knowledge he thus acquired of public sales procured him a clerkship with a Dublin auctioneer. He opened first a book-stall, and then a regular book-shop, in Dawson street, a leading thoroughfare of Dublin. There he became eminent. He sold lottery-tickets, speculated in the funds and contracted for government loans. In 1798, when the rebellion broke out, the Irish government was desperately in need of funds. They came into the Dublin market for a loan of a million, and the best terms they could get were from Luke White, who offered to take it at sixty-five pounds per one hundred pound share at five per cent.—not unremunerative terms.
At the time of his death, in 1824, he had long been M.P. for Leitrim, and his son was member for the county of Dublin. He left property worth a hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars a year. Eventually almost the whole of it devolved on his fourth son, who some years ago was created a peer of the United Kingdom as Lord Annaly.
The family has probably spent more than a million and a half of dollars on elections. It has always been on the Liberal side. The present peer has property in about a dozen counties, and is lord-lieutenant of Langford, whilst his younger son holds the same high office in Clare.
The University of Dublin consists of a single college—Trinity. This edifice forms a prominent feature in the Irish metropolis. It stands in College Green, almost opposite to the Bank of Ireland, the former legislative chambers. Since the Union, Trinity College has been but little resorted to by men of the upper ranks of Irish society, although it has certainly contributed some very eminent men to the public service—notably, the late unfortunate governor-general, Lord Mayo, and Lord Cairns, ex-lord-chancellor of England. Trinity is one of the largest owners of real estate in the country. The fellowships are far better than those of the English universities. The provost, who occupies a large and stately mansion, has a separate estate worth some fifteen thousand dollars a year, which he manages himself.
Trinity has a very fine library. It is one of the five which by an act of Parliament has a right to demand from the publisher a copy of every work published. The origin of the library is quite unique. It dates from a benefaction by the victorious English army after its defeat of the Spaniards at Kinsale in 1603, when they devoted one thousand eight hundred pounds—a sum equivalent to five times that money at present rates—to establish a library in the university, being, it may be presumed, instigated by some eminent personage, who suggested that such a course would be acceptable to the queen, who had founded the university.
Dr. Chaloner and Mr. (afterward Archbishop) Ussher were appointed trustees of this donation; "and," says Dr. Parr, "it is somewhat remarkable that at this time, when the said persons were in London about laying out this money in books, they there met Sir Thomas Bodley, then buying books for his newly-erected library in Oxford; so that there began a correspondence between them upon this occasion, helping each other to procure the choicest and best books on moral subjects that could be gotten; so that the famous Bodleian Library at Oxford and that of Dublin began together."
The private collection of Ussher himself, consisting of ten thousand volumes, was the first considerable donation which the library received, and for this also, curiously enough, it was again indebted to the English army. In 1640, Ussher left Ireland. The insurgents soon after destroyed all his effects with the exception of his books, which were secured and sent to London. In 1642—when the troubles between King and Parliament had broken out—Ussher was nominated one of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, but having offended the parliamentary authorities by refusing to attend, his library was confiscated as that of a delinquent by order of the House of Commons. However, his friend, the celebrated John Selden, got leave to buy the books, as though for himself, but really to restore them to Ussher. Narrow circumstances subsequently caused him to leave the library to his daughter, instead of to Trinity. Cardinal Mazarin and the king of Denmark made offers for it, but Cromwell interfered to prevent their acceptance. Soon after, the officers and, soldiers of Cromwell's army then in Ireland, wishing to emulate those of Elizabeth, purchased the whole library, together with all the archbishop's very valuable manuscripts and a choice collection of coins, for the purpose of presenting them to the college. But when these articles were brought over to Ireland, Cromwell refused to permit the intentions of the donors to be carried into effect, alleging that he intended to found a new college, in which the collection might more conveniently be preserved separate from all other books. The library was therefore deposited in Dublin Castle, and so neglected that a great number of valuable books and manuscripts were stolen or destroyed. At the Restoration, Charles II. ordered that what remained of the primate's library should be given to the university, as originally intended.
One of the most extraordinary persons who ever occupied the position of provost, or indeed any position, was John Hely Hutchinson. He was a man of great ability, and perfectly determined to succeed, without being troubled with any very tiresome qualms as to the means he employed in the process. Such an officeholder as this man the world probably never saw. He was at the same time reversionary principal secretary of state for Ireland, a privy councilor, M.P. for Cork, provost of Trinity College, Dublin, major of the fourth regiment of horse, and searcher of the port of Strangford. When he was appointed provost—a situation always filled since the foundation by a bachelor—there was great indignation amongst the fellows, and to appease them he ultimately procured a decree permitting them to marry—a privilege which they, unlike their brethren at Oxford and Cambridge, enjoy to this day. His position as provost did not prevent his righting a duel with a Mr. Doyle, but neither was hurt. Mr. Hutchinson had a great dislike to a Mr. Shrewbridge, one of the junior fellows, who had shown opposition to him. Mr. Shrewbridge died, and the under—graduates attributed his death to the provost's having refused him permission to go away for change of air. A thoroughly Hiber-man émeute was the consequence. The provost ordered that the great bell, which usually tolls for a fellow, should not toll, and that the body should be privately buried at six A.M. in the fellows' burial-ground. The students immediately posted up placards that the great bell should toll, and that the funeral should be by torchlight. They carried the point. Almost all the students attended the corpse to the grave in scarfs and hatbands at their own expense, and when the funeral oration was pronounced they flew in wild excitement to the provost's house, burst open his doors and smashed the furniture to pieces. The provost had a hint given him, and with his family had retreated to his house near Dublin. It was subsequently stated on good authority that Mr. Shrewbridge could not in any case have recovered.