oons which were wont to be thronged with the most brilliant and
splendid society of the Irish metropolis in its heyday are now the abode
of perhaps the very poorest outcasts who are to be found in the whole
wide world.

The district in which Moira House stands has long ceased to be
fashionable. The mansion stands close to the Liffey, a few yards back
from the road. An elderly man who has charge of the mendicity
institution for whose purposes the house is at present used, told me
that he remembered it when kept up by the family, although its members
were not actually residing there. What is now a fearfully dreary
courtyard, where the outcasts of Dublin disport themselves, was then, he
said, a fine garden with splendid mulberry trees, which he, being a
favorite with the gardener, was permitted to climb--a circumstance which
had naturally impressed itself on his childish memory. I told him that I
had heard that long after the difficulties of the first marquis--who
lent one hundred thousand pounds to George the Magnificent when that
glorious prince was at the last gasp for _L s. d_.--had compelled him to
part with his large estates; in the county Down, he had retained
possession of this mansion, and that it had even descended to the last
marquis, whose wild career concluded when he was only six-and-twenty;
but the old man thought it had passed from them long before. He
remembered, he said, the last peer (with whom the title became extinct)
coming to Dublin, because he had an interview with him about some
furniture for his yacht, my informant being at that time in business,
and he thought he should have heard if the property had been still
retained. I asked if the marquis had exhibited any interest as to the
old historical mansion of his family. "Not the slightest," he replied.

Hardy, in his well-known life of Lord Charlemont, says: "His (Lord
Moira's) house will be long, very long, remembered: it was for many
years the seat of refined hospitality, of good nature and of good
conversation. In doing the honors of it, Lord Moira had certainly one
advantage above most men, for he had every assistance that true
magnificence, the nobleness of manners peculiar to exalted birth, and
talents for society the most cultivated, could give him in his
illustrious countess."

Powerscourt House, a really noble mansion in St. Andrew street, is now
used by a great wholesale firm, but is so little altered that it could
be fitted for a priva