Our hotel fronts Stephen’s Green, whose twenty acres of beautiful grounds form only one of six such ornamented breathing places for that portion of the city which lies on the right bank of the Liffey, beyond the confines of the ancient town. Our coachman knows his business, and halts to point out the equestrian statue of George the Second, showing through the trees in the center of the square. Then we must look at the old Mansion House, and at the site of the great exposition building which stands in twelve acres of garden, and was, if successful, to have been what the Crystal Palace of Sydenham is to London. Financially, it was not a success, and the future use of the building is not yet decided. We halt again to admire the architectural beauty of “the finest building in Dublin, if not in Ireland,” formerly the Irish House of Parliament and now used as the Bank of Ireland. If it were not too late we could go in and see the whole process of printing the bank notes. As it is, we jog slowly on to the eastern end of College Green, which is entirely occupied by the imposing front of Trinity College. The huge Corinthian pile covers an extent of thirty acres. The income is derived largely from landed estates. Its library of one hundred and thirty thousand volumes grows rapidly, for the University is one of the five that has the right to a copy of every volume published in the United Kingdom. The number of students, usually about two thousand, is diminished somewhat by the new Queen’s University, founded by Victoria in 1850, which grants degrees to the graduates from the Queen’s Colleges at Belfast, Galway, and Cork. To a company of learners, nothing could be more interesting than to visit the museums, observatories, botanic gardens, and printing houses of this great institution, which has had such an influence on education in Ireland; but, if we could not see all, we confess to a preference for a day at the Royal Dublin Society, whose professors lecture to the public gratuitously, and whose schools in the fine arts instruct worthy pupils without charge. We want also to see the male and female training schools, under the charge of the Board of Education, the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, and the Drummond Orphanage, owned and supported by a merchant of that name. Other societies for the promotion of science and literature are too numerous to name. No city is more generously provided with the means of education, or produces more learned scholars, yet nowhere is the ignorance of the lowest classes more marked. No place more abounds in charitable institutions. The charity schools number over two hundred, yet the condition of the poor is wretched in the extreme. The city is one of striking contrasts, of grand architectural effects, heightened by the meanness of the dwellings of the poor. The nine bridges over the Liffey add greatly to the picturesqueness of the place, but the water of the stream is as notoriously filthy as ever.