In the year 1688, a most interesting monument of antiquity in Dublin was demolished to make way for City improvements. The old Danish _Thingmote_, or Parliament Hill, an artificial mound some forty feet high, that stood on the spot now partially occupied by the new Ulster Bank, and not a hundred yards from the Provost’s House, was levelled with the ground.[166] And the earth of the old mound, as it was removed, was carted away and thrown down in front of a poor street, St. Patrick’s Well Lane, facing the dreary and neglected expanse of waste land that is now the College Park. The street so widened and levelled was called--in honour of William of Orange Nassau, Protestant King of England--Nassau Street. The College authorities soon afterwards built a high brick wall on the boundary between the City and the College property; and the level of the street, in consequence of the immense accumulation of added soil from the _Thingmote_, was left, as it now is, some six feet higher than that of the College land which adjoins it. The College Park was first laid out and planted with elm and plane trees in 1722; and in the same year a wall was built on the north-eastern boundary of the College grounds, with a gateway and lodge for a porter.[167] For over a hundred years there was no great change of any kind, either in the Park or in its surroundings; but in 1842, one of the greatest improvements that has been made for the last half-century in the Dublin streets was effected by the College authorities, who pulled down the ugly brick wall of 1688, and supplied its place by the present fine granite wall, surmounted by a round coping and a handsome iron railing, which marks the boundary of the College Park on the north side of Nassau Street. The stonework is four feet six inches in height; the railing rises about seven feet higher, and is the work of the once well-known firm of William Turner & Co. And about the time this most admirable change was made, Nassau Street was still further improved by the demolition of some houses and shops, of which the leases fell in to the College, at the north-west corner of the street, and a considerable slice of ground was given up by the College to the City to widen and improve the street. The new stables--of fine cut granite--attached to the Provost’s House were erected at the same time. Nassau Street, thus raised, as it were, by favour of the University, from a third-rate to a first-rate street, became and continued for some considerable time to be the chosen afternoon resort of fashionable Dublin. But of late, although the street has been greatly improved by new buildings and high-class shops, it is neglected by the smart pleasure-seekers, who have to a great extent abandoned the town for more attractive residences in the suburbs. And a place of public meeting--like Hyde Park or the Boulevards, the Prater or the Prado, the Corso or the Rambla, Unter den Linden or even “Under the