These two faithful and attached members of Dublin College executed their task with great diligence and skill. It is not a little remarkable that they met in London Sir Thomas Bodley, then engaged in a similar occupation for the purpose of making his magnificent bequest to the University of Oxford, and these distinguished individuals became known to each other, giving mutual assistance in their difficult undertaking.

Soon after the return of Ussher from London he was presented by Archbishop Loftus to the chancellorship of St. Patrick's Cathedral. To this dignity the parish of Finglass belonged, and there he preached every Lord's day. His biographers are not content with detailing his anxious fulfilment of the duties imposed upon him, but always strive, with unnecessary zeal, to find some extraordinary cause for exalting his services. They state, in the present instance,

uncle with Goodman, when he went over to Ireland as chaplain to Sir Henry Sydney. Ussher certainly could not at any time of his life have approved of Goodman's opinions. The truth is, says Wood, "Goodman was a most violent nonconformist, and for rigidness in opinion he went beyond his friend Calvin, who remembers and mentions him in his Epistles, 1561." Goodman was known by a book against the government of women, which he published in hatred to Queen Mary. The title was, "How superior Powers ought to be obeyed of their Subjects, and wherein they may lawfully, by God's Law, be disobeyed and resisted, wherein is declared the Cause of all this present Misery in England, and the only way to remedy the same. Printed at Geneva by John Crispin, MDLVIII.” This book (as also the similar one by John Knox) was disapproved of by Beza, Fox, and most of the Protestants at Geneva. In the reign of Elizabeth Goodman promised "never to write, teach, nor preach any such offensive doctrine," and in the year 1571 was compelled to sign a protestation of his obedience to the Queen. The whole document is given by Strype, Annals, vol. ii. p. 1, pag. 141; yet he does not appear to have much changed his sentiments, for Strype says, "I find him in Cheshire, anno 1584, a refuser of subscription to the Articles, and a dissuader of others thereto. Of whom Archbishop Whitgift complained unto the Lord Treasurer, that it was Mr. Goodman, a man that for his perverseness was sufficiently known."

↳ The date of the presentation cannot be ascertained. Harris, in his edition of Ware, gives the date of 1607, but this must be a mistake, as Archbishop Loftus died in April, 1605. The appointment must have taken place between the end of 1603 and the beginning of 1605. It is probable that he then resigned his fellowship. He certainly was not a Fellow in 1606.

that, as Chancellor, he was not under any obligation to preach at Finglass; but this must be a mistake, for as there was not a vicar endowed, the cure of souls was in the dignitary. That he fulfilled the duty imposed upon him with exemplary fidelity and diligence is surely praise enough. He indeed took care that his successors should be exonerated from this duty, and when he was about to resign the chancellorship for the bishopric of Meath, he endowed a vicarage with a glebe, and a portion of the tithes. The deed bears date in 1621. This dignity was the only ecclesiastical preferment which Ussher enjoyed, until his promotion to the episcopal bench. "Here," says Dr. Parr," he lived single for some years, and kept hospitality proportionable to his income, nor cared he for any overplus at the year's end (for indeed he was never a hoarder of money); but for books and learning he had a kind of laudable covetousness, and never thought a good book, either manuscript or print, too dear."

In the year 1606, Ussher again visited England for the purpose of consulting books and manuscripts. During this visit he became acquainted with the two celebrated antiquarians, Camden and Sir Robert Cotton. Camden was, at this time, preparing a new edition of his Britannia, and he applied to Ussher for information about Nennius and St. Patrick, and also with respect to the antiquities of Ireland, particularly of Dublin. The answers to these inquiries Camden inserted in his description of Dublin, and added this flattering acknowledgment, "Hæc de Dublinio, quorum plurima diligentiæ et doctrinæ Jacobi Usheri, cancellarii ecclesiæ S. Patricii, qui annos varia doctrina et judicio longe superat, me debere agnosco." The history and ecclesiastical antiquities of Ireland had for a long time attracted the attention of Ussher, and now divided his studies with his laborious undertaking of reading through the works of the Fathers. From this period it was his practice to visit Eng

'He also purchased a considerable number of books for himself and for his college. A list of them, with the prices annexed to several, is still extant in his handwriting, and preserved among the MSS. of Trinity College, Dublin.

land every third year, and spend one month at Oxford, another at Cambridge, and the third in London, where the collection of Sir Robert Cotton was the object of greatest attraction.

In the year 1607 Ussher took the degree of Bachelor of Divinity. His biographers have not transmitted the subjects of disputation on this occasion; but Dr. Bernard states, that when he performed the acts, he only committed to paper the heads of the several subjects, and, as in his English sermons, trusted for the rest to "the strength of his memory and his present expression." He expressed himself in Latin with great fluency, and, even at a late period of his life, when, during his Primacy, he acted as moderator of a disputation', at St. Patrick's, he excited the admiration of his auditory by the fluency of his language, though he could not have had any practice for more than seventeen years.

Immediately after his taking this degree he was appointed Professor of Divinityk in the University of Dublin, and continued to deliver lectures during the following fourteen years, at first twice, afterwards once in every week. His principal subject was an answer to the controversies of Bellarmine. Dr. Bernard says, he read three volumes of these lectures, and that it would be an honour to the University where they were read, to have them published. There is only one volume now in existence, and it does not appear that the other two were ever deposited in the Library of Trinity College. The volume now in existence bears evidence of having been commenced with an intention of publishing the lectures, but they are left unfinished in every part; I have, however, printed them in the fourteenth volume of the Archbishop's works, as much anxiety was expressed to have them made public. There is a great deal

Dr. Bernard has recorded, that in the speech which the Archbishop delivered on that occasion, he took occasion to defend the use of hoods for graduates, against the charge of being Popish ornaments, and maintained that they were used in the time of Basil and Gregory Nazianzenus.

The origin of the Divinity Professorship was a legacy from James Cottrell, Esq., of £8 per annum for ever, towards the maintenance of a Divinity lecturer.

of information contained in them, imperfect as they are, and a remarkable display of logical acuteness in a contest with the most learned and able disputant of the Romish Church.

It appears from the letters that passed between him and Dr. Ward', that he was at this time laboriously employed in arranging the Canons of the ancient Church. His discovery of the true arrangement was, however, anticipated, as he states himself, "by a learned Parisian :" that learned Parisian was Leschassier, who published an anonymous tract, the title of which is, "Consultatio Parisii cujusdam de controversia inter Sanctitatem Pauli Quinti et serenissimam rempublicam Venetam ad virum clarissimum Venetum." They both arrived at the same conclusion, that the first collection of Canons consisted only of those made at the first general Council, and the five provincial Councils, the Canons of Nice, Ancyra, Neocæsarea, Gangra, Antioch, and Laodicea, to which were subsequently added those promulgated in the general Councils which followed. Ussher, however, states that he "resolved after the same manner, but upon somewhat a more sure ground." I suppose he alludes to the testimony of Dionysius Exiguus, which had been made use of by him, and not noticed by Leschassier, for in all other respects the arguments are similar; they discovered that the Canons quoted at Chalcedon as the ninety-fifth and ninetysixth were the same as the sixteenth and seventeenth Canons of the council of Antioch, and by adding the number of Canons framed at Nice with the number of those of the five provincial Synods, the numbers were found to agree. The letters of Ussher and Ward on this subject are well deserving of attention, and we must feel surprised at the forbearance of these learned men, in not making public their laborious investigations on this intricate subject. It is probable that Ussher reserved this, along with his history of the Decretal Epistles, for the Bibliotheca Theologica, which he had already commenced. He notices the common mistake of attributing the collection to Isidorus, and adds, "as in

I See vol. xv. pag. 37.

my Bibliotheca Theologica, God willing, I shall fully declare."

About the same time the attention of Ussher was turned to a very different subject, by the constant disputes and litigations to which it had given rise, and he composed a work on the original and first institution of Corbes, Herenaches, and Termon lands. This treatise was not publishedm but sent over to Archbishop Bancroft, and presented by him to King James. The substance of it was printed by Sir Henry Spelman in his Glossary, and due acknowledgments made to the author, whom he designates as "Literarum insignis Pharus." In this learned treatise Ussher maintains that the Termon lands were those set apart for the endowments of churches, as by the Canons of various Councils it was ordered that a bishop should not consecrate a church until an instrument of such donation were presented to him. The name he derives from the Irish Teapmain, signifying a sanctuary, and brings forward as an example Termonfechin, the sanctuary of Fechin, with little expectation, no doubt, that ere long those lands would form his residence as Archbishop of Armagh. Of these Termon lands the bishops were the chief lords. The Herenachs he supposes to have been archdeacons, not the archdeacons who exercise jurisdiction under the bishop, but those who, according to primitive practice, were of a rank inferior to presbyters. The Corbes were of a still higher rank, and were the rural deans, arch presbyters, or chorepiscopi, from which latter name, by a barbarous contraction, the word was derived, comorbanus, corbanus, corba". Both Corbes and Herenachs were anciently married men, until celibacy was enforced upon the clergy, and we find their sons succeeding to their offices. The Herenachs held these lands

m It was first published by General Vallancey in the "Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis," from the MS. in the handwriting of Ussher preserved in the library of Trinity College, and dated 1609. It will be found in vol. xi. of the Archbishop's works, p. 419.

Colgan derives it from comorban, a successor, as frequent mention is made in the Annals of Ireland, of the comorbans of St. Patrick, Albe, Jarlath, Columb, Fechin, and others.-Trias. Thaum. p. 293.