Aid sought from

the gentry,

Undivided Trinity, near Dublin, founded by the most serene Queen Elizabeth;" thirdly, that it consist of one provost and three fellows, in the name of more, and three scholars, in the name of more. These were followed by other ordinances, amounting in the whole to twelve, for the constitution and future government of the new incorporation.

To provide a fund for the necessary expenses of this infant society, on the 11th of March, 1592, the Lord Deputy and the Privy Council issued circular letters to some principal gentlemen in each barony of the kingdom, entreating the benevolence of the well-disposed inhabitants. In these they set forth her majesty's tender care for the good and prosperous estate of her realm of Ireland; and her knowledge, by experience of the flourishing estate of England, how beneficial it is to any country to have places of learning erected in the same; and they earnestly requested contributions in putting forward so excellent a purpose, as the new foundation, "for the benefit of the whole country, whereby knowledge, learning, and civility may be increased, to the banishing of barbarism, tumults, and disorderly living from among them, and whereby their children, and their children's children, especially those that be poor, (as it were in an orphan's hospital freely,) may have their learning and education given them with much more ease, and lesser charges, than in other univerwithout success. sities they can obtain it". What this application produced in general does not appear; but the return made to the warrant by a gentleman in the barony, if that be taken for a criterion, leads to the conclusion that the sum was very small: "He had applied History of Dublin, i. 542—544.

34

to all the gentlemen of the barony of Louth, whose answer was, that they were poor, and not able to give anything towards the building of the college."

In the meanwhile, the queen's licence having been obtained, "The Archbishop of Dublin went a second time to the Tholsel, and returned to the mayor, aldermen, and commons of the city, thanks, not only from the clergy, but from her majesty, whose letter he showed them for their satisfaction. And immediately labourers were set to work, to pull down the old ruinous buildings, which they quite demolished, save only the steeple "."

Thanks of the

Archbishop to

the Mayor, &c.,

of Dublin.

menced,

March, 1592.

admitted,

On the 13th of March, 1591, according to the College.comcomputation of the Church of England, or 1592, according to the common computation, Thomas Smith, then mayor of Dublin, laid the first stone of Trinity College; and on the 9th of January, 1593, Students the first students were admitted into it. "Sir Wil- Jan. 1593. liam Cecil, Lord Baron of Burleigh, Lord High Treasurer of England, Knight of the most noble Order of the Garter, and one of her Majesty's most honourable Privy Council," for he is thus described by Ware in his narrative of the event, "was the first Chancellor thereof; Adam Loftus, Archbishop of Dublin, the first Provost; Lucas Challoner, William Daniel, James Fullerton, and James Hamilton, the first Fellows; Abel Walsh, James Ussher, and James Lee, the first scholars of the same." "The year 1593," says Sir Richard Cox, with becoming respect for the character of this invaluable institution, the creation of which throws the brightest light upon the reign of Queen Elizabeth over Ireland, "is memorable for the college of Dublin, which was then finished, and made an university; whereof the

35 WARE'S Annals.

Spenser's

account of the Irish Church.

His connexion

Lord Burleigh was the first Chancellor, and Ussher, afterwards the learned primate, was the first,” he should have said, one of the three first scholars, "entered there; which proved a good omen, that that noble foundation would produce many good and learned men, for the service of God and King, both in Church and State"."-Esto perpetua!

SECTION IV.

Edmund Spenser's Account of the Irish Church. Sir Francis Bacon's Plan for its improvement. Difficulty of the Subject. Henry Ussher. James Ussher. An eminent Controversialist and Preacher. Conduct of the Government towards the Papists. Act of Uniformity not enforced. Forebodings of Ussher. Benefaction to the University. State of the Church at the Queen's Death.

THE foundation of Trinity College seems to determine this to be the proper period for noticing the state of the Irish Church in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, as delineated by one who possessed the best means for informing himself on the subject by local observation, and who has communicated his information in a form which bears strong testimony to its veracity.

Edmund Spenser, the illustrious author of The with the country. Faerie Queene, accompanied Arthur Lord Gray of Wilton, lord deputy of Ireland, to that country in 1580, in quality of his secretary, In 1585 he obtained a grant of above 3,000 acres of land at Kilcoleman, in the county of Cork, where he settled and resided with his family, and composed his incomparable poem. There, also, he composed, A

state of Ireland.

View of the State of Ireland, written Dialogue-wise, His view of the between Eudoxus and Irenæus, the MS. of which, taken from Archbishop Ussher's library, was first published by Sir James Ware, in 1633'. His death, Date of the work. in 1596, or 1598, fixes the latest date at which this work can have been written, as the time of his settling in Ireland fixes the earliest. A passage in the Dialogue, where he makes respectful mention of persons "who were lately planted in their new college," reduces the question within the few years which preceded his death; the college, as we have seen, having been completed in 1593.

picture in his

It is, in truth, a frightful and a painful portrait, Melancholy which the following abstract will exhibit; but, even work on Ireland. if some features should be deemed to be exaggerated, "a want of moderation" being a fault which Harris imputes to Spenser, it is to be feared, nevertheless, that the copy bears too close a general resemblance to the original.

ter of the clergy.

Of the ministers of religion he affirms, that "the Worldly charac clergy there, excepting the grave fathers which are in high place about the state, and some few others which are lately planted in their new college, are generally bad, licentious, and most disordered." "Whatever disorders you see in the Church of England, ye may find in Ireland, and many more; namely, gross simony, greedy covetousness, fleshly incontinency, careless sloth, and, generally, all disordered life in the life in the common common clergymen. And, besides all these, they have their particular enormities; for all Irish priests, which now enjoy Church. livings, they are in a manner mere laymen, saving that they have taken holy orders: but otherwise they do go and live like laymen, follow all kind of hus1 WARE'S Writers of Ireland, p. 327.

Y

Arbitrary conduct of the bishops.

Intention of the

legislature as to

bandry, and other worldly affairs, as other Irishmen do. They neither read the Scriptures nor preach to the people, nor administer the Communion; but baptism they do: for they christen yet after the popish fashion. Only they take the tythes and offerings, and gather what fruit else they may of their livings, the which they convert as badly; and some of them, they say, pay as due tributes and shares of their livings to their bishops, (I speak of those which are Irish,) as they receive them duly.” Persons such as these were not likely to forward the English Reformation in Ireland.

Nor were the bishops more likely, possessed as they were of absolute power over their clergy, whom, knowing, as they did, their own unworthiness and incapacity, and that they were, therefore, still removable at the bishop's will, they kept in extreme awe and subjection under them. That power they exercised, as a mean of procuring what portion they chose for their own emolument of their clergy's benefices; "yea, and some of them," as Spenser says, "whose dioceses are in remote parts, somewhat out of the world's eye, do not at all bestow the benefices which are in their own donation upon any, but keep them in their own hands, and set their own servants and horseboys to take up the tythes and fruits of them, with the which some of them purchase great lands, and build fair castles upon the same. Of which abuse, if any question be moved, they have a very seemly colour and excuse, that they have no worthy ministers to bestow them upon, and keep them so bestowed for any such sufficient person as any shall bring unto them."

It was intended by the first promoters of the vacant benefices, Reformation in Ireland, and it had been provided by