permit; it consists principally of a collection of texts from Scripture skilfully arranged. There does not seem any thing peculiar in his view of the subject.

At this time the Primate was again involved in a dispute with Bishop Bedell, and it must be acknowledged, that his Grace allowed his ancient friend to be most unjustly trampled upon by his Court. The Primate had particularly recommended to Bishop Bedell Mr. King, a convert from Popery, as the fittest person to assist him in translating the Bible into Irish. The Bishop was so pleased with Mr. King, that he gave him a living in his diocese, where he finished his translation. But soon a stop was put by violence to this most useful undertaking. Representations were made to the Archbishop of Canterbury, that King was not a person fit to be intrusted with such an undertaking, and his Grace informed Bishop Bedell, that "the man whom he employed to translate the Bible into Irish was a man so ignorant that the translation cannot be worthy publick use in the Church, and besides obnoxious, so as the Church can receive no credit from any thing that is his." Bishop Bedell, in a letter to Lord Strafford, vindicates him from this charge, by appealing for his character to Archbishop Ussher, the Bishop of Meath, Lord Dillon, and Sir James Ware. He then proceeds to detail the various outrages that have been perpetrated under the color of law. It appears that a young man named Bailey pretended that the living, which the Bishop had given to Mr. King, had lapsed to the Crown, obtained a grant of it under the Great Seal, and thrust the legal incumbent out of his benefice. The Bishop cited Bailey before him, and remonstrated with him upon his violent intrusion into another man's benefice, and upon his having perjured himself, for he had taken an oath on receiving a vicarage not to accept any other. Bailey procured a dispensation from the Prerogative Court, notwithstanding his oath, to hold more benefices. The Bishop considering this as one of the worst and most scandalous abuses of Popery, and having tried all gentler methods of influencing Bailey, finally proceeded to deprive him of his benefice, and excommunicated him. Bailey appealed to the Prerogative Court, and the Bishop was cited to appear before them. He appeared, but declined the authority of the Surrogates. He gave in his reasons in twenty-four articles for refusing to answer to any person but the Primate. The Court, however, persevered, declared the Bishop contumacious, absolved the offender from his sentence, and restored him to his benefice. "The strangest part," says Bishop Burnett, "of this transaction was that which the Primate acted, who though he loved the Bishop beyond all the rest of his order, and valued him highly for the zealous discharge of his office, that distinguished him so much from others; yet he could not be prevailed on to interpose in the matter nor to stop the unjust prosecution that this good man had fallen under for so good a work." It cannot be ascertained what was the cause of the Primate's conduct. His biographers are silent upon the subject. From a letter of Lord Strafford's, already quoted, it appears that the Primate had not been in Dublin, and he might, therefore, not be fully acquainted with the proceedings of the High Commission Court; but it is not within the limits of possibility, that one of his Suffragan Bishops could have been summoned to his Court without notice having been given him of such a remarkable circumstance. It has been already remarked, that the Primate had

P The unfortunate Mr. King, now far advanced in years, suffered even more than the Bishop. His sufferings are thus detailed by Bishop Bedell to Lord Strafford: "Touching his being obnoxious, it is true there is a scandalous information put in against him in the High Commission Court by his despoiler Mr. Baily (as my Lord of Derry told him in my hearing he was) and by an excommunicate despoiler, as myself before the execution of any sentence declar'd him in the Court to be. And Mr. King being cited to answer and not appearing (as by law he was not bound) was taken pro confesso, deprived of his ministry and living, fined an hundred pound, decreed to be attached and imprisoned. His adversary Mr. Baily, before he was sentenced, purchased a new dispensation to hold his benefice, and was the very next day after (as appears by the date of the institution) both presented on the Kings title (although the benefice be of my collation) and instituted by my Lord Primate's Vicar: shortly after inducted by an Archdeacon of another diocess, and a few days after he brought down an attachment and delivered Mr. King to the Pursuvant: He was haled by the head and feet to horseback, and brought to Dublin, where he hath been kept, and continued under arrest there four or five months: and hath not been suffered to purge his supposed contempt by

been very averse to Bishop Bedell's mode of proceeding towards the Irish, but his scruples with respect to instructing them in the Irish language must have been entirely removed, when he recommended Mr. King as a fit person to translate the Bible into Irish. The cause of the Primate's abandoning the Bishop to his enemies must have been, that his Grace felt alarm at the novel measures which were adopted by Bishop Bedell, and dreaded the subversion of the Establishment. While this contest with Bailey was proceeding, Bishop Bedell had summoned a synod of his clergy, and enacted canons for their government. This was considered as a measure of a very questionable character, and though the High Commission Court did not take any proceedings against the Bishop, and though it is said that the Primate recommended his opponents to let him alone, “lest he should be thereby provoked to say more for himself, than any of his accusers could say against him," yet many able civilians considered that the assembly was illegal, and that the enacting of canons subjected him to a Præmunire; and certainly no bishop, either in England or Ireland, ever ventured to follow his example. The Primate's mild disposition might have shrunk from engaging in such turbulent discussions, as he had some years before from the controversies about the ecclesiastical courts, yet we must deplore the abandonment of the pious and ardent Bishop to the tyrannical proceedings of the High Commission Court, and the suspension of his most salutary measures for the propagation of true religion among the Irish peasantry. From a passage in the letter of Bishop Bedell to the Lord Deputy, it would seem that Bishop Bramhall had taken his part against Bailey, but without success. It is strange that, when so many circumstances connected with the Church, of much less consequence, are mentioned in the correspondence between the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Deputy, there should be no allusion to the case of Bishop Bedell. It might reasonably be expected, that the enactment of diocesan canons would have attracted the notice of the Archbishop, ever watchful about the minutest questions of Church discipline, but, while the disputes in remote parishes form a subject of correspondence, not the slightest mention is made of the diocese of Kilmore.

In August, 1639, was published the Primate's long expected work, " Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates." It had been commenced at the request of King James, and, at the interval of nearly twenty years, was published with a dedication to his son. To panegyrize this extraordinary monument of human learning is unnecessary, to detail its
contents impossible. The author, commencing with the first
introduction of Christianity into the British isles, continues
his laborious researches to the close of the seventh century.
He commences his history with the various fabulous narra-
tives respecting the introduction of Christianity into Britain,
through which he steers his course with great caution. He
thence proceeds to the formation of the different British
sees, and the first notices of British bishops in ecclesiastical
history, with the accounts of the Diocletian persecution, and
the early events of the life of Constantine. Upon the in-
troduction of the Pelagian heresy he dwells more fully, and
gives a minute and detailed account of its various forms and
various authors, down to the arrival of Augustine in Eng-