Читать книгу The Book of Trinity College Dublin 1591-1891 онлайн

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THE EARLIEST EXTANT COLLEGE SEAL.

Let us now turn from our new-founded College to cast a glance at the City of Dublin of that day, as it is described to us by Elizabethan eye-witnesses, and as we can gather its features from the early records of the City and the College. Mr. Gilbert has quoted from Stanihurst’s account of Dublin, published in 1577, a curious picture of the wealth and hospitality displayed by the several Mayors and great citizens of his acquaintance; and that the Mayoralty was indeed a heavy tax upon the citizen who held it, appears from the numerous applications of Mayors, recorded in the City registers, for assistance, and the frequent voting of subsidies of £100, though care is taken to warn the citizens that this is to establish no precedent. The City is described as very pleasant to live in, placed in an exceptionally beautiful valley, with sea, rivers, and mountains around. Wealthy and civilised as it was, it would have been much more so, but that the port was open, and the river full of shoals, and that by the management of the citizen merchants a great mart of foreign traders, which used to assemble outside the gates and undersell them, had been abolished. The somewhat highly-coloured picture drawn by Stanihurst is severely criticised by Barnabe Rich,ssss1 who gives a very different account, telling us that the architecture was mean, and the whole City one mass of taverns, wherein was retailed at an enormous price, ale, which was brewed by the richer citizens’ wives. The moral character of the retailers is described as infamous. This liquor traffic, and the extortion of the bakers, are, to Rich, the main features in Dublin. The Corporation records show orders concerning the keeping of the pavements, the preserving of the purity of the water-supply, which came from Tallaght, and the cleansing of the streets from filth and refuse thrown out of the houses. These orders alternate with regulations to control the beggars and the swine which swarmed in the streets. Furthermore, says Stanihurst—“There are so manie other extraordinarie beggars that dailie swarme there, so charitablie succored, as that they make the whole civitie in effect their hospitall.” There was a special officer, the City beadle, entitled “master” or “warden” of the beggars, and “custos” or “overseer” of the swine, whose duty it was to banish strange beggars from the City, and keep the swine from running about the streets.ssss1