Page:Eight Friends of the Great - WP Courtney.djvu/31



Rh to support them." Three of them had been discarded from the diocese, but "though refused certificates by me and my clergy have obtained good livings in America and found room for repentance."

Very soon after his arrival at his see Rundle began rebuilding a house at Dublin. In January 1738-9 six weeks would suffice for its completion. The whole of it was handsome but only the room in which he had lodged his books was magnificent. Many critics had censured him for building a house "too splendid for me in my station" and too elegant for an Irish prelate. He had better have locked his money in a chest or "sent to France for social claret," which was more in accordance with Irish custom at that time, but the bishop preferred to spend it among Irish workmen so as to provide "beef and potatoes for their hungry families."

The glory of the structure was the library. It was 64 feet long, 20 feet wide and only 16 high. At the west side was the chimney, "formed in the best taste, of an Irish marble of an excellent polish" over which he purposed placing memorials of those members of the Talbot family who were dearest to his heart and to whom he owed his rise in life. The entablature of the Ionic order which was round the whole room was supported by 32 three quarters columns on a pedestal and the "frieze was enriched with the Vitruvian scroll adorned with its proper foliages." A bow window at the east commanded a view of the mountains in Wales and the highest hills in Ireland; "the ocean with its islands, a large river, a harbour rich with ships, a city . . . woods and meadows are mingled together in the most amusing contrast." Three windows on the south supplied a view of "nursery gardens and meadows ever verdant." His chief pleasure was to collect his friends around him in this room." Gentlemen and ladies, old and young, rich and