office who
has no wish to hold it. A great peer with half a million of dollars'
income doesn't care about accepting troublesome and occasionally anxious
duties, from which he, at all events, has nothing to gain. For some time
Lord Derby was in a quandary to get any one who would do to take it, and
it may be doubted whether the marquis of Abercorn would have sacrificed
himself if the glittering prospect of a coronet all strawberry leaves
(for he was created a duke while in office) had not been held before his
eyes. The vice-regal lodge is a plain, unpretending building. It is
charmingly situated in the Phoenix Park (1760 acres), and commands
delightful views over the Wicklow Mountains. Within, it is comfortable
and commodious. The viceroy resides there eight months in the year. He
goes to "the Castle" from December to April. The Castle is "no great
thing." It is situated in the heart of Dublin. Around it are the various
government offices. St. Patrick's Hall is a fine apartment, but
certainly does not deserve the name of magnificent, and is a very poor
affair compared with the reception-saloons of third-rate continental
princes.

The Dublin season culminates, so far at least as the vice-regal
entertainments go, in the ball given here on St. Patrick's Day (March
17). On such occasions it is _de rigueur_ to wear a court-dress. Even
those who venture to appear in the regulation trowsers admissible at a
levee at St. James's are seriously cautioned "not to do it again."

Though Dublin is now deserted by the aristocracy, most of the
_grand-seigneur_ mansions are still standing. Leinster House, built
about 1760, and said to have served as a model for the "White House,"
was in 1815 sold by the duke to the Royal Dublin Society. Up to 1868 the
duke of Leinster[1] was Ireland's only duke, and the house is certainly
a stately and appropriate ducal residence.

It must, however, be confessed that there is something decidedly
_triste_ and severe about this big mansion. A celebrated whilom tenant
of it, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, appeared to think so, for in 1791 he
writes to his mother, after his return from the bright and sunny
atmosphere of America: "I confess Leinster House does not inspire the
brightest ideas. By the by, what a melancholy house it is! You can't
conceive how much it appeared so when first we came from Kildare. A
country housemaid I brought with me cried for two days, and said she
thought that she was in a prison."