St. Patrick's Well was one of the great features of Dublin in the early part of the last century. It stood in the narrow way by Trinity College, the name of which had not long been altered from Patrick's Well Lane to Nassau Street. The change had been made in compliment to a bust of William the Third, which adorned the front of one of the houses, but for long after the place was much more associated with the well than with the House of Orange. The waters of the well were popularly supposed to have wonderful curative and health-giving properties, and it was much used. It dried up suddenly in 1729, and gave Swift the opportunity of writing some fiercely indignant national verses. But the water was restored to it in 1731, and it still exists in peaceful, half-forgotten obscurity in the College grounds. Dawson Street, off Nassau Street, had only newly come into existence. It was called after Joshua Dawson, who had just built for himself a handsome mansion with gardens round it. He sold the house in 1715 to the Dublin Corporation, to be used as a Mansion House for their Lord Mayors. Where Molesworth and Kildare Streets now stand there was at this time a great piece of waste {82} land called Molesworth Fields. Chapelizod, now a sufficiently populous suburb, was then the little village of Chappell Isoud, said to be so called from that Belle Isoud, daughter of King Anguish of Ireland, who was beloved by Tristram. The General Post-office in Sycamore Alley had for Postmaster-general Isaac Manley, who was a friend of Swift. Manley incurred the Dean's resentment in 1718 by opening letters addressed to him. The postal arrangements were, as may be imagined, miserably defective. Owing to the carelessness of postmasters, the idleness of post-boys, bad horses, and sometimes the want of horses, much time was lost and letters constantly miscarried. [Sidenote: 1714--Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Belfast]