The Dublin of Dorset's time was squalid, dirty, and disease-ridden. The gentry were drinking themselves into penury; the city was crowded with young bloods, who gambled, and drank, and called out each other to give satisfaction on the famous duelling-ground of Phoenix Park. Clubs of all sorts abounded, and were in reality drinking dens. The most famous of all, Daly's, was the headquarters of most of the notorious gamblers and debauchees of the metropolis. Five theatres ministered to the pleasures of the Court and people, and the leading actress was Peg Woffington, the mistress of the Provost of Trinity College. Peg, as we all know, was a high-spirited woman, and full of a sparkling audacity that often amounted to impertinence. On one occasion, when the Duke of Dorset was seated in the royal {157} box at the theatre, she saucily concluded a recitation with the lines: 'Let others with as small pretentions 'Tease you for places or for pensions, I scorn a pension or a place. My sole design upon your grace-- The sum of my petition this-- I claim, my lord, an annual kiss.' The verses were written by Dr. Andrews, the Provost, and caused great offence in the ranks of the fashionable ladies, who cut the actress for a time. Peg Woffington, however, did not suffer to any considerable extent as a result of her pert address to the viceroy. Virtue was not the duke's strong point. Many have been the scrapes Viceroys of Ireland have got themselves into, but the Duke of Dorset was the only one whose conduct enabled an outraged husband to divorce his wife. The lady in the case was Mrs. La Touche, who declared that love was the hereditary passion in her family. A woman who could resist nothing was easy prey to the tenant of Dublin Castle. Dorset had secured his reappointment by lavish promises. He undertook to restore sanity to Ireland--meaning, of course, Dublin, for officialism did not recognize the provinces--and he guaranteed to bring the Irish Parliament to its senses. In the circumstances Dorset had his way, and in 1751 he re-entered Dublin. He might have succeeded in scoring a personal triumph if he had not brought his youngest son, Lord George Sackville, with him. Hitherto it had been Dorset's policy to let well alone--he did nothing particularly well, {158} and was popular on that account. Lord George Sackville, however, had neither the complacence nor the dignity of his father; he came as the viceroy's Secretary of State, his adviser, the man who saw that things were done. One of his first acts was to quarrel with the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. This was Henry Boyle, afterwards Earl of Shannon. Boyle was an Irish Parliamentary Hampden, who jealously guarded the rights of his assembly and of the country. Harrington had left Parliament triumphant, and the House was not going to be brow-beaten by George Sackville. [Sidenote: The struggle with Parliament]