the honour. It cannot be very clearly ascertained what was his reason for refusing such a situation: Dr. Parr states, that it arose "from his fear of its proving a hindrance to his studies;" perhaps, also, he thought its duties would interfere with his visits to England, which would be necessary for the completion of the studies in which he was engaged; and perhaps he shrunk from encountering the difficulties in which the unsettled state of the College must involve its new Provost, difficulties which could only be overcome by greater promptness and decision, than ever appeared in his character. Dr. Smith says that Ussher recommended and procured the election of William Temple. It is to be hoped he did not, for Temple does not seem to have been at all fitted for his situation. Temple was the third appointment made by the English government, of persons whom they were anxious to get rid of, and unwilling to promote in England. Temple had been secretary to the unfortunate Earl of Essex at the time of his death, and fled into Ireland to escape the enmity of Cecil: there he remained in retirement till he was appointed Provost: though the appointment was nominally in the Fellows, yet in no case was it ever made without the direction of the government. Temple had strong puritanical tendencies, and resisted the orderst of Archbishop Abbot to wear a sur

The letter of Archbishop Abbot, the Chancellor of the University, to Archbishop Jones, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, gives a curious account of Irish uniformity at that time, and I therefore give an extract from it. Feb. 25, 1613.

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His Majesty hath been informed by some or other lately come out of Ireland, of an abuse which his Highness doth exceedingly take at heart, and that is, that at the cathedral churches in Dublin as also at the College, the Prebendaries and dignitaries of the one, and the Provost and fellows of the other do refuse to come into the quire or into the chapel on Sundays and Holydays in their surplices and hoods fit for their degrees. I cannot express to your Lordship how exceedingly his Majesty is offended thereat, and therefore hath been pleased to command me to write a peremptory direction with all speed and with all the authority which his Highness can give me, that you call before you the dignitaries and prebendaries of the cathedral churches who offend in this kind, as also the Provost and such of the fellows as transgress, and that you let them know that it is his Majesty's express commandment, that they con

plice in the College chapel on Sundays and Holydays. He wrote a long and elaborate answer to prove how unreasonable it was to call upon a layman to wear a surplice; and he states the curious fact, that Sir John Cheke, Provost of King's College, Cambridge, Sir Thomas Smith, and Sir Henry Savile, Provosts of Eton, were excused from wearing surplices. Though the conscience of Temple was so tender on the subject of wearing a surplice, it did not prevent him from making improper leases of the College lands for his own emolument, or violating the Statutes for the purpose of getting two sons appointed Fellows: the disputes between him and the Fellows and his mismanagement became so notorious, that we shall find Ussher joining in a plan to procure his resignation of the Provostship.

In 1612 Ussher took the degree of D. D. at a grand Commencement" held in the Cathedral of St. Patrick, because there was no room sufficiently large in Trinity College. The subjects of the two Latin treatises, which he delivered as part of the exercises for the degree, were, The seventy Weeks of Daniel, and, The Reign of the Saints with Christ for a thousand years, Rev. xx. 4, " explaining," says Dr. Parr, "these texts so misapplied by the millenaries both in elder and latter times." At this Commencement Dr. Dun was Vice-Chancellor, and Dr. Hampton, Archbishop of Armagh, acted as Moderator of the Divinity disputations.

form themselves to the laws and decent orders of the realm, or that they leave their places to such as will observe them. For his Majesty sayeth, that it is no reason to suffer those places which should be seminaries of obedience, to be the ground plotte of disorder and disobedience; neither is there any reason to be severe against the Papists, if his Highness should be remiss against the Puritans. I do therefore in his Majesty's name require your Lordship to be resolute and peremptory in this business and withall to send unto me the names of such as shew themselves refractory in this kind; that forthwith there may be order taken for the removing of them, since it is an intolerable wrong unto our Church, that they who live by it should distract themselves from the obedience thereof, and so either be separatists, or else be a distinct Church in a Church, to the great scandal and offence of such real papists as may be coming towards us, if they might be assured upon what settled grounds to find us."

It would have been well for the Church if Archbishop Abbot had followed his own directions.

"For a detailed account of this Commencement see Appendix No. II. VOL. I.

D

In 1613 Dr. Ussher went to London for the purpose of publishing his first work, the title of which was, “Gravissimæ Quæstionis de Christianarum Ecclesiarum in Occidentis præsertim partibus ab Apostolicis temporibus ad nostram usque ætatem, continua successione et statu, Historica Explicatio." The work was dedicated to James I., and gratified greatly that monarch, who considered himself preeminently qualified to understand its apocalyptic discussions. The great object of this work was to answer the question of the Romanists, where was the religion of the Protestants before Luther? and to prove that Christ had. always a Visible Church of true Christians, who had not been tainted with the errors and corruptions of the Church of Rome. Ussher himself states in his preface, that his work may be considered as a continuation of Bishop Jewell's Apology for the Church of England, in which he had proved that her doctrines were the same as those professed by the Church in the first six centuries. The design of Ussher was to bring down the argument to the Reformation. The first part extended to the accession of Gregory VII. in the eleventh century. The second part was to have extended to the year 1370, and the third part to the year 1513. The third part never was published, nor the last hundred years of the second part. Ussher, in a letter to Lydiat, says: "you have rightly observed that in my discourse, De Christianarum Ecclesiarum successione et statu, there is wanting for the accomplishment of the second part an hundred years' story: which defect in the continuation of the work is by me supplied. I purpose to publish the whole work much augmented: but I do first expect the publication of my uncle Stanihurst's answer to the former, which I hear since his death is sent to Paris to be there printed. I am advertised also that even now there is come out at Antwerp a treatise of my countryman Christopher de Sacro Bosco, De veræ Ecclesiæ investigatione, wherein he hath some dealing with me. Both these I would willingly see, before I set out my book anew: that if they have justly found fault with any thing, I may amend it ; if unjustly, I may defend it." Stanihurst had published at

Douay a letter to his nephew with this title, "Richardi Stanihursti Hiberni Dubliniensis brevis præmonitio pro futura concertatione cum Jacobo Usserio Hiberno Dubliniensi : Qui in sua historica explicatione conatur probare Romanum pontificem (legitimum in terris Christi Vicarium) verum et germanum esse Antichristum." There is very little argument in the book. He calls his nephew "Historiarum helluonem," and admits him "plurimorum scriptorum ætates et tempora haudquaquam sane indiligenter fuisse persecutum." The letter consists of thirty-eight pages, and one-half only is devoted to a refutation of the argument, if indeed any part can be so called, for the principal subject is an invective upon the character and writings of Luther. The last half of the letter is employed in enumerating some of the cruelties said to be inflicted on Irishmen for their profession of the Roman Catholic religion, principally detailing the death of the two Romish bishops', Richard Creaghe titular Archbishop of Armagh, and Dermot Hurley of Cashel.

He avails himself of an unfortunate expression in the dedication to King James, as an excuse for leaving his subject and wandering into abusive declamation. Ussher says in the dedication, "Unum adhuc superest, quod votis omnibus a Majestate tua expetunt omnes boni, ut populo nostro pereunti propere succurrere et peste Pontificia misere laboranti facere velis medicinam." This Stanihurst interprets as an exhortation to the King to have recourse to the infliction of punishment, in order to crush the Roman Ca

The death of these two martyrs put forward by Stanihurst, and embellished by the author of the Analecta, has formed a fruitful source of declamation for Roman Catholic writers from that period to the time of Dr. Milner. That Bishop Hurley was guilty of treason, and was hanged for that crime, and not for his religion, can admit of no doubt. That he was tortured previous to his execution, in direct violation of the law, must require stronger evidence than the testimony of two witnesses who contradict each other, as to the mode in which the torture was inflicted, in such a manner as would invalidate their testimony in any court of justice. The account of the poisoning Bishop Creaghe, and of the mode of its discovery, was too ridiculous for Stanihurst to insert, and it seems extraordinary that any writer could venture to publish such a monstrous absurdity. I must refer the curious reader to the Analecta, as it would be impossible to give the detail here.

tholic religion in Ireland. He says, " Quod si regia Majestas te consiliario, in hac ancipiti deliberatione, uteretur, quid quæso remedii post maturam disquisitionem proponendum suaderes? Anne bonorum direptionibus Catholicos castigandos? At hoc esset actum agere. Nec enim obscurum est non paucos melioris notæ Hibernos, priusquam Rex Jacobus ad patriæ nostræ gubernacula sederet, gravem rei familiaris jacturam fecisse, quod vestris orgiis interesse, atque in mulierarium (quem obstupescent posteri) in rebus ecclesiasticis principatum jurare renuerint. Forte in carceres condi censebis. Atque istis miseriis callum jamdudum obduxerunt. Si gravioras exigas, quam quæ ante actis annis latæ fuerunt, eo sententiæ tuæ summa collineare videtur, ut Catholicos Hibernos, quos Calvinianus magistratus jam olim cecidit flagellis, noster Rex Jacobus cedat te suasore, scorpionibus." This idle declamation was not the mode of answering the arguments of his nephew, whom he addresses as "Jacobe nepos."

The work of Ussher is a prodigious mass of quotations from different writers, the author professing that he never used his own words, when he could find those of another. He makes the binding of Satan in the Apocalypse commence with the rise of the Gospel, which may be dated either from the incarnation or passion of Christ, or from the termination of the Jewish polity by the destruction of Jerusalem. The coming of Antichrist he places at the end of the first six centuries, and the loosing of Satan at the end of ten centuries. The 1000 years from the incarnation go down to the pontificate of Sylvester II., from the passion to that of Benedict IX., and from the destruction of Jerusalem to that of Gregory VII., the celebrated Hildebrand. He next proceeds to describe the state of the Church under the tyranny of Antichrist, more particularly in the reign of Innocent III., and concludes the work with a defence of the Albigenses and Waldenses, and an account of the various misstatements made by the different Roman Catholic writers confounding them with heretics of the worst description. Dr. Smith states that the publisher of the edition of 1678 was guilty of fraud in putting on the title-page