controverted between the Roman Catholics and Protestants. Fitz-Symonds was confined in the Castle of Dublin, and declared that, "as he was a prisoner, he was like a bear tied to a stake, and wanted some to bait him." This was considered as a challenge. Dr. Smith says, that two or three theologians, venerable for their age and ecclesiastical station, had entered the lists; but finding it of no use to answer his calumnies, or chastise his madness, relinquished the task. But from the other biographers it would appear that Ussher was the only person who encountered him in a public disputation; but how he came to be selected is not mentioned. Saldenus asserts, that he was chosen by the unanimous consent of the University; but he does not give his authority, and we search for it in vain. Fitz-Symonds boldly offered to maintain those points in the Roman Catholic religion which were considered by Protestants as the weakest, and to oppose those in their doctrine which they thought the strongest. Dr. Bernard states, that the subject of disputation was the controversies of Bellarmine; that a meeting once a week was agreed upon; and that the first topic proposed was concerning Antichrist; that twice or thrice they had solemn disputations, though the Jesuit acknowledges but one; that Ussher was ready to go on, but the Jesuit was weary of it. Far different is the account which Fitz-Symonds published of the transaction, many years afterwards, in the dedication of his work called Britannomachia Ministrorum. He says: " Prodiit quidem semel in summa vocis vultusque trepidatione, octodenarius præcocis sapientiæ (non tamen malæ, ut videtur, indolis) juvenis, nescio an auræ popularis cupidior, saltem de abstrusissimis rebus theologicis, cum adhuc philosophica studia non esset emensus, nec ephebis egressus, disputandi avidus. Hunc autem jussi suorum calculos adferre, quibus pugil seu agonista idoneus renunciaretur, et vel cum ipso disputationem me initurum. Sed sicut ipsi eum minime tanto honore dignati sunt, ita me vicissim sua and the greatest defender of their religion in his time.-Wood, Athen. Oxon., vol. iii. p. 97. Sald. de lib., p. 368. Act. Erud. Lips. 1687, p. 115. deinceps præsentia dignatus ipse non fuit." In quoting this passage the biographers of Ussher have stopped at the word "avidus," and put an et cetera after it. This afforded to Bayle grounds for a sneer at them, as if they suppressed whatever was inconsistent with their own story; and he adds, that some untruths must necessarily be told, either in the Jesuit's narrative, or in that of the authors of Ussher's life. On the alternative it is not difficult to decide. A letter from Ussher to Fitz-Symonds is still preserved, which demonstrates that the statement made by the Jesuit is false. The letter is as follows: "I was not prepared, Mr. Fitz-Symonds, to write unto you before you had first written unto me concerning some chief points of your religion, as at our last meeting you promised. But, seeing that you have deferred the same (for reasons best known to yourself), I thought it not amiss to inquire further of your mind concerning the continuance of the conference begun between us; and to this I am rather moved because I am credibly informed of certain reports, which I would hardly be persuaded should proceed from him who, in my presence, pretended so great love and affection to me. If I am a boy (as it hath pleased you very contemptuously to name me), I give thanks to the Lord that my carriage towards you hath been such as could minister no just occasion to despise my youth. Your spear, belike, is, in your own conceit, a weaver's beam; and your abilities such that you desire to encounter with the stoutest champion in the host of Israel, and, therefore, like the Philistine, you contemn me as being a boy. Yet this I would fain have you to know, that I neither came then, nor do come now, unto you in any confidence of any learning that is in me (in which respect, notwithstanding, I thank God I am what I am), but I come in the name of the Lord of Hosts, whose companies you have reproached, being certainly persuaded that even out of the mouths of babes and sucklings he was able to shew forth his own praises; for the further manifestation whereof, I do again earnestly request you that, setting aside all vain comparison of persons, we may go plainly forward in examining the matters that rest in controversy between us. Otherwise I hope you will not be displeased if, as for your part you have begun, so I also, for my own part, may be bold, for the clearing of myself, and the truths which I profess, freely to make known what hath already passed concerning this matter. Thus entreating you, in a few lines, to make known unto me your purpose in this behalf, I end. Praying the Lord that both this and all other enterprises that we take in hand may be so ordered as may most make for the advancement of his own glory, and the kingdom of his Son, Jesus Christ, "Tuas ad aras usque, This letter, written at the time, and addressed to FitzSymonds himself, must give a more correct account of the transaction than the preface to the Britannomachia, published in a foreign country, and twenty years afterwards. The letter, indeed, is quite decisive. Ussher could not address a letter to Fitz-Symonds, alluding directly to more than one disputation which had been carried on between them, if Fitz-Symonds had refused to dispute at all with him, unless accredited by some competent authority. He could not refer to the terms of love and affection which Fitz-Symonds had professed towards him, if he had been treated in the manner which the Jesuit describesTM. In the year 1600 Ussher took the degree of Master of Arts. It does not appear from the College records at what time he was appointed a Fellow of Trinity College. At that period it appears to have been the practice to appoint Masters of Arts lecturers, who assumed by degrees the name and privileges of Fellows; and in the first College * Were it necessary to confirm the evidence of Ussher's letter, the Jesuit himself acknowledged that he was silenced. Saldenus says: "Fastidiosam viri præfidentiam ita perdomuit ut ad novum provocatus conflictum declinarit eum non tantum, sed et ad ἐχεμυθίαν redactum se esse ipse confessus sit." De libr., p. 368. Fitz-Symonds called Ussher, "Acatholicorum doctissimum." account-book there is an entry, in December-quarter, 1600, of £10 wages for four Masters, viz., Mr. Walsh, Mr. Ussher, Mr. Lee, and Mr. Richardson. Ussher was immediately after appointed Catechist to the College, and the first Proctor, as he himself mentions in a letter to Archbishop Laud*. The first public commencement in the College was held on Shrove Tuesday, 1600-1. In October, 1601, we first find the name of Ussher subscribed to a College document, a consent on the part of the Fellows to the appointment of John Alvey to the Provostship. Travers, who had been the first Provost (for the appointment of Archbishop Loftus was merely nominal), left the College in 1598, frightened, as it is said, by the disturbances in Ireland, or more probably feeling that his great support was lost by the death of Lord Burleigh. The Fellows did not proceed to an election, and the College was without a Provost till 1601, when the Queen named Henry Alvey". The extraordinary selections made by the English government for the management of the infant Irish College must have materially contributed to influence the early theological opinions of Ussher. The newly-founded society must have been considered by Lord Burleigh, and others of his party, as a proper refuge for Puritans, who would not have been tolerated in any similar position in England. No other reason can be assigned for the selection of Travers, perhaps the most improper man in England * See Works, vol. xv., p. 551. The form was as follows: "Actum est 8vo die Oct., 1601., Regni Reginæ Eliz. 43. "Noverint universi per præsentes, quod cum magister Gualterus Travers nuper Collegii Sanctæ et Individuæ Trinitatis Reginæ Eliz., juxta Dublin dignissimus Præpositus esset, eodemque munere per quinquennum fidelissime fungeretur, quod nunc in ejus locum magister Henricus Alvey, qui binis Sociorum Collegii publicisque regni senatorum literis vocatus et invitatus fuit, nobis ejusdem Collegii Sociis et prælectoribus consentientibus, suffectus sit. In cujus rei testimonium nomina infra subscripsimus anno et die supra memoratis. "LUCAS CHALONER. CAROLUS DUNN. JOHANNES BRERETON. ABELL WALSHE. JAMES USSHER. GEORGIUS LEE. JAMES BOYD. JOHANNES RICHARDSON." for the place. When the Mastership of the Temple was vacant, Lord Burleigh wished to appoint Travers; but Archbishop Whitgift opposed the nomination, and told the Queen "that Mr. Travers had been one of the chief and principal authors of dissensions in the Church, a contemner of the Book of Prayers, and other orders by authority established; an earnest seeker of innovation, and either in no degree of the ministry at all, or else ordered beyond the seasa, not according to the form in this Church of England used." When Lord Burleigh wrote to the Archbishop strongly recommending Travers, and stating that he would be conformable to the orders of the Church, the Archbishop, replied, "that Travers was better known, he thought, to no man than himself; that when he (the Archbishop) was Master of Trinity College he had elected him Fellow of that house; that he had been before rejected by Dr. Beaumont, the former Master, for his intolerable stomach. Whereof he (the Archbishop) had afterwards such experience that he was forced, by due punishment, so to weary him that he was fain to travel, departing from the College to Geneva, otherwise he should have been expelled for his want of conformity towards the orders of the house, and for his pertinacity; and that there never was any under his government in whom he found less submission and humility than in him; that his book, De Disciplina Ecclesiastica, was wholly against the State and Government." Such was the man selected to be the first Provost of the College founded for the education of the Irish clergy. Nor were the Government more successful in their choice of a successor. Henry Alveyb was a Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and appears in his religious opinions not to have differed much from Travers. He was certainly connected with Cartwright and the other Puritans of that day. His puritanical principles did not, however, teach * Strype's Life of Whitgift, vol. i., p. 173. 3 Travers was ordained by the Presbytery at Antwerp. The testimonial of his ordination is given by Fuller, Ch. Hist. b. 9, p. 214. His only literary publication was a treatise in defence of usury, for which, says Ware, "he was severely handled in an answer which I have never seen." |