became unnecessary for its original purpose. The Chamber of Commerce therefore applied to Government to be enabled to sell the building, and apply the produce to purposes beneficial to the trade of the port (Government having previously intimated a wish to be the purchaser for £35,000). But proceedings were suspended, chiefly in consequence of legal difficulties, various Acts of Parliament requiring that all meetings of bankrupts' commissioners, &c., should be held at the Exchange, and these Acts could not be repealed until the new Bankrupt Courts, &c., were completed."

After the death of Henry Grattan, a marble statue of him, executed by Chantrey, was erected in the Exchange, its cost being defrayed by a private subscription among the friends of the deceased orator. John Hogan's statues of Daniel O'Connell, and Thomas Drummond, Under-Secretary of Ireland, have of late years been placed in this building, which was inaugurated as the City Hall of the Corporation of Dublin in September, 1852.

CHAPTER II.

SMOCK-ALLEY · THE THEATRE-ROYAL·

ORANGE-STREET

ESSEX-STREET, WEST.

ON a portion of the site of "Preston's Inns," and extending westwards from Essex-gate to Fishamble-street, at the rere of the lower Blind-quay, stands a narrow street, formerly styled "Smock-alley," memorable in the history of the Drama as having been for upwards of a century the site of the principal theatre in Ireland.

In 1661 John Ogilby, after a competition with Sir William Davenant, succeeded in obtaining the office of Master of the Revels in Ireland, under a patent which specially empowered him to build one or more theatres in Dublin or elsewhere, upon such ground as he should purchase in fee. His original play-house in Werburgh-street, noticed in our first volume, having been ruined during the Civil War, Ogilby, immediately on receiving his appointment, erected a "noble theatre," at a cost of about two thousand pounds, on a portion of the Blind-quay, described in a document of 1662 as "a house and piece of ground on the quay, heretofore called the White House, on a part whereof the new theatre and other houses are built."

In this theatre, soon after its opening, was performed the tragedy of "Pompey," a translation from the "Pompée" of Corneille by Mrs. Catherine Philips, known among her contemporaries as the "matchless Orinda." At its first representation the Duke of Ormond, then Viceroy, was present, and the prologue, written by the Earl of Roscommon, commenced with the following allusion to Ireland having never been under the dominion of the Roman Empire :

"Cæsar from none but you will hear his doom,
He hates th' obsequious flatteries of Rome :
He scorns, where once he rul'd, now to be tried,
And he hath rul'd in all the world beside.

When he the Thames, the Danube, and the Nile,
Had stain'd with blood, Peace flourish'd in this isle;
And you alone may boast you never saw

Cæsar till now, and now can give him law,"

According to the stage directions, after the first act the King, Ptolemy, and Photinus should be discovered sitting and hearkening to a song, at the conclusion of which an antic dance of gipsies was presented; the second act was followed by another song, and chorus, by two Egyptian priests; after the third act, "to Cornelia asleep on a couch," Pompey's ghost sang eleven verses in recitative, succeeded by a military dance; at the end of the fourth act Cleopatra sat hearkening to a song of seven stanzas; on the conclusion of the fifth act the two Egyptian priests again appeared, and sang ten strophes, after which a grand masque was danced before Cæsar and Cleopatra. The epilogue, written by Sir Edward Dearing, concluded with the following lines, addressed to the audience :

"The sad Cornelia says, your gentler breath

Will force a smile, ev'n after Pompey's death;
She thought all passions buried in his urn,
But flattering hopes and trembling fears return.
Undone in Egypt, Thessaly, and Rome,
She yet in Ireland hopes a milder doom:
Nor from Iberian shores or Lybian sands,
Expects relief, but only from your hands.
Ev'n Cleopatra not content to have
The Universe, and Cæsar, too, her slave,

Forbears her throne, till you her right allow,—

'Tis less t' have rul'd the world, than pleas'd you."

The masque, dances, and tunes performed between the acts were composed by Ogilby, and the songs, written by

Mrs. Philips, appear to have been partly sung by the choristers of the adjacent cathedral, as, among the unpublished records of the Chapter of Christ Church, we find the following entry: “1662, Feb. 22. Mr. Lee, one of the stipendiarii of this church, having sung amongst the stage-players in the Play-house, to the dishonor of God's service and disgrace to the members and ministers of this church, is admonished that he do so no more."

From this period no notice of the Theatre occurs till 1671, on St. Stephen's day in which year, during the performance of the play of "Bartholomew Fair," the upper gallery, being overcrowded, gave way, killing three persons, and injuring several of the audience. Ogilby, being occupied at London in issuing several illustrated publications, could not have devoted much of his personal attention to the Dublin Theatre in the years immediately preceding his death in 1676. Thomas Stanley, his co-patentee, resigned in 1683 the Mastership of the Revels in Ireland, which was conferred in the same year on William Morgan, apparently the "Will Morgan" noticed by Antony Wood as the associate of Ogilby in producing the large Map of London, with other chorographical publications. In the archives of St. John's parish we find Morgan in 1671 assessed in thirty shillings "for the Play-house" in Smockalley; and "Morgan's Court" still exists on the southern side of the street.

Of the history of the Dublin Theatre from this period to the end of the wars between James and William, the details are not accessible; but that dramatic performances were continued here appears from some incidental statements in writings of the time. Thus, we are told that John, Lord Robarts, during his viceroyalty from September, 1669, to May, 1670, "stopped the public players, as well as other vicious persons ;" and in November, 1677, when news reached Dublin of the marriage of the Princess Mary to William of Orange, "the Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of this kingdom, and all

the nobility and gentry in town, met in great splendour at the Play, where there passed a general invitation of all the company to spend that evening at the Castle."

Among the players who performed at Smock-alley during this interval was Mr. Richards, excellent both in tragedy and comedy, with his brother-in-law, Joseph Ashbury. The latter had served in the army, was one of the officers who seized Dublin Castle for Charles II.; subsequently was appointed Lieutenant of the City Company of Infantry, and Gentleman of the retinue of the Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant, with a reversion of the office of Master of the Revels in Ireland. At the conclusion of the war of the Revolution, Othello was performed at Smock-alley, chiefly by officers, the part of the Moor being acted by Wilks, and that of Iago by Ashbury. Three months subsequently, on the 23rd of March, 1691-2, on which day the war was proclaimed to be at an end, Smock-alley Theatre opened with a regular company, including Ashbury, Wilks, Booth, Keen, Estcourt, Norris, Griffith, Bowen, Cross, and Trefusis, "most of them eminently great in their different ways of acting." Robert Wilks held a Government appointment in Dublin, but the applause he received for his first performance of "Othello" at Smockalley "warmed him to so strong an inclination for the stage, that he immediately preferred it to all his other views in life, for he quitted his post, and with the first fair occasion came over to try his fortune in the then only company of actors in London. The person who supplied his post in Dublin, he told me," says Colley Cibber, "raised to himself a fortune of fifty thousand pounds." Wilks subsequently attained to the highest eminence in his profession, and became joint manager of the Haymarket and Drury-lane Theatres.

Viscount Sydney, while Lord Lieutenant, is stated, after having prorogued the Parliament of Ireland in 1692, to have promoted plays, sports, and interludes, to divert the attention of the people from the conduct of himself and his agents.