CHAPTER IV.

MONASTERY OF AUGUSTINIAN HERMITS-CROW'S NEST THE DUBLIN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY-CROW-STREET-MUSICHALL THE THEATRE ROYAL.

ON that portion of the southern bank of the River Liffey at present occupied by Cecilia-street and the northern part of Crow-street, a monastery was erected about the year 1259 by one of the family of Talbot, for friars of the order of Augustinian Hermits. Of this establishment no records are now known to exist; and of its Priors, the names have been only preserved of Roger, A. D. 1309, one of the witnesses against the Templars; Thomas de Carlow, A. D. 1328, and John Babe, 1357, Vicar-General of his Order.

Henry VIII., in the thirty-third year of his reign, in consideration of the sum of £114 13s. 4d. paid into the Hanaper by Walter Tyrrel, of Dublin, merchant, granted to him "the site and precinct of the late Monastery or House of Friars of St. Augustine, near Dublin, with all hereditaments in or near said site; also one messuage, three orchards, and ten gardens, in the parish of St. Andrew, near Dublin; four acres of meadow, and one park, containing four acres, near 'le Hoggen grene;' one messuage and one garden in St. Patrick's-street, near the city of Dublin; two messuages and three gardens in St. Michan's parish; sixty acres, arable land, two acres of meadow, and twenty acres of pasture in Tibber Boyne; with all messuages, lands, &c., in the city, suburbs, and county of Dublin, which were reputed parcel of said Monastery, to hold in capite by knight's service, at the rent of six shillings and one penny, Irish." The official return of the

possessions of this institution, at the suppression, will be found in the Appendix. Another document of the same period mentions that the last Prior was seised of a church and belfry, hall, dormitory, cemetery, and garden, &c., within the precincts. Tyrrel's heirs assigned the site of the Monastery to William Crow, to whom had been granted by patent, in 1597, the offices of Chirographer and Chief Prothonotary to the Court of Common Pleas in Ireland. Crow was removed from the Chirographership in 1604, having absented himself in England without the King's license; but, in 1605, his Majesty, conceiving that he "was fit and expert" in the office, re-granted it to him, together with the Clerkship of the King's Silver in the same Court, for levying fines.

In an unpublished Inquisition, dated January 20, 1627, we find mention of "one large garden with one capital messuage thereupon lately built by William Crow, Esq., lying in St. Andrew's parish, in the suburbs of the city, and in the occupation of the said William Crow, abutting or adjoining unto the King's pavement or street called Dame's-street on the south, and upon the lane going to the river of the Liffey on the west." At this period the grounds of the late Monastery were occupied by several other houses and gardens, amongst which was the residence of Sir George Sexton, abutting on Dame-street; and on the bank of the river had been built various houses called "Usher's," the access to which was by a lane from Dame

street.

In "Crow's Nest," a name apparently applied to William Crow's mansion, were held the offices of the Survey of the Forfeited Irish Lands, undertaken for the Government in December, 1654, by Dr. William Petty, and, notwithstanding innunumerable obstacles, completed by him in thirteen months, according to his contract, "with such exactness, that there was no estate, though but of sixty pounds a year, which was not distinctly marked in its true value, maps being likewise made of the whole performance." In June, 1657, having obtained the

release of his sureties, Petty delivered into the Exchequer "all books, with the respective maps, well drawn and adorned, being duly engrossed, bound up, and distinguished, placed in a noble depository of carved work." On this subject Colonel Larcom, to whom we are indebted for the history of the "Down Survey," observes:"It would be no easy task in our own day to accomplish, in thirteen months, even a traverse survey in outline of five millions of acres in small divisions, and it was immeasurably greater then. It stands to this day, with the accompanying Books of Distribution, the legal record of the titles on which half the land of Ireland is held; and for the purpose to which it was and is applied, it remains sufficient." After the completion of the "Survey," the distribution of the forfeited lands was carried on in "Crow's Nest" under the superintendence of Petty, in conjunction with whom, Vincent Gookin and Major Miles Symmer, "persons of known integrity and judgment," were appointed Commissioners. The entire weight of the arduous task, however, fell on Dr. Petty, who avers, that his life in "Crow's Nest" was little better than incarceration; "for the daily directing of near forty clerks and calculators, cutting out work for all of them, and giving answers as well to impertinent as pertinent questions, did lie chiefly upon the Doctor." The lots for the forfeited lands appear to have been drawn by children out of hats, and disputes. were perpetually occurring relative to the profitable or barren tracts assigned to the various claimants. "In truth," observes Colonel Larcom, "it is difficult to imagine a work more full of perplexity and uncertainty than to locate thirty-two thousand officers, soldiers, and followers, with adventurers, settlers, and creditors of every kind and class, having different and uncertain claims on lands of different and uncertain value, in detached parcels sprinkled over two-thirds of the surface of Ireland." Petty's diligence was such that, “when upon some loud representations, the Commissioners of the Forfeited Lands in Ireland would refer to him, the stating of all that had passed,

which seemed to require a week's work, he would bring all clearly stated the next morning to their admiration." How he contrived to fulfil the different duties of the various government appointments which he held is explained by his habit of retiring early to his lodgings, "where his supper was only a handful of raisins and a piece of bread. He would bid one of his clerks, who wrote a fair hand, go to sleep; and, while he eat his raisins and walked about, he would dictate to the other clerk, who was a ready man at short-hand. When this was fitted to his mind, the other was roused, and set to work, and he went to bed, so that next morning all was ready." Many curious traditions," says Crofton Croker, “are current in Ireland respecting the manner in which Elizabethan and Cromwellian grants have been obtained from their soldiers by the native Irish. An estate in the south of Ireland, at present worth a thousand a year, was risked by a trooper to whose lot it fell, upon the turn-up of a card, and is now commonly called the 'Trump-acres.' And an adjoining estate of nearly the same value was sold by his comrade to the winner for five Jacobuses (five pounds) and a white horse.' A singular story is also told of a considerable property having been purchased for a silver tobacco-stopper and a broadsword."

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The Dublin Philosophical Society, the establishment of which has been noticed at page 13, took, in 1684, rooms for their meetings at "Crow's Nest," then belonging to an apothecary named Wetherel, where they established a Botanic Garden, formed a Museum, and erected a Laboratory, under the direction of Dr. Allan Mullen, already mentioned as having dissected the elephant in Essex-street, in 1681. At the first meeting of the Society in their room in "Crow's Nest," held on the 14th of April, 1684, William Molyneux showed the company an experiment of viewing pictures in miniature with a telescope, on the theory and practice of which he read a paper. Mr. St. George Ashe, afterwards Provost of Trinity College, read a discourse concerning the evidence of mathematical demon

stration; he also produced a stone curiously wreathed like a screw of a very fine thread, promising to procure more figured stones from a place he had lately visited in the country. Dr. Mullen gave an account of experiments he had lately made on dogs, on blood, and on rennet. Dr. Huntington read an account he had written of the porphyry pillars in Egypt. A letter was read from Mr. Aston, Secretary of the Royal Society, containing Dr.Lister's account of the Baroscope. The 1st of November was fixed for the annual anniversary meeting of the Society, the Members of which, enrolled up to 23rd December, 1684, were as follows:-Richard Acton, B.D.; St. George Ashe, A.M.; Mark Baggot, Esq.; John Barnard, A.M.; Richard Bulkeley, Esq.; John Bulkeley, Esq.; Paul Chamberlain, M.D.; R. Clements, Esq.; Francis Cuffe, Esq.; Christopher Dominick, M.D.; Narcissus Marsh, Lord Bishop of Ferns and Leighlin; Henry Ferneley, Esq.; J. Finglass, M.A.; Samuel Foley, M. A.; Robert Huntington, D.D.; Daniel Houlaghan, M.D.; John Keogh, M. A.; William King, M. A.; John Maden, M. D.; William Molyneux, Esq., Secretary; William Lord Viscount Mountjoy; Allan Mullen, M. D.; William Palliser, D. D.; Sir William Petty, Knight, President; William Pleydall, Esq., Treasurer; Sir Robert Redding, Bart.; Edward Smith, M. A.; John Stanley, M.A.; Jacobus Sylvius, M.D.; George Tollet, Professor of Mathematics; Sir Cyril Wyche, Knight, President of the Royal Society of London; Charles Willughby, M. D.; John Worth, D. D., Dean of St. Patrick's.

The original rules for the government of the Society were drawn up by Dr. Narcissus Marsh, afterwards Primate of all Ireland, Sir William Petty, Dr. Willoughby, and William Molyneux. Petty also compiled the following "Advertisements," adopted by the Society in 1684, for regulating and modelling their future progress :

"1. That they chiefly apply themselves to themaking of experiments, and prefer the same to the best discourses, let