Usher, and James Lee. To some of the parties connected with the university in its earliest days, we must devote a few sentences.

The name best known among them is that of James Usher-a name that reflects honor upon his country and his age. He was born in Dublin on January the 8th, 1580: his father was one of the six clerks in chancery; his uncle, Henry Usher, was Archbishop of Armagh. The child James learned to read from two aunts who had been blind from their birth, but taught him the Bible from their recollection of it on its being read to them : he ever called it the "best of books." He was placed, for acquiring the elements of learning, under the care of Fullarton and Hamilton, the two Scottish schoolmasters, above referred to as made fellows of the college. James Usher entered college when only thirteen years old: Hamilton was his tutor there. In his nineteenth year, while yet a student, he accepted a challenge thrown out by Fitz-Symonds, a Jesuit, to a public disputation on the Protestant faith. The Jesuit reckoned on an easy triumph, but the stripling vanquished the giant. After a second conference, the latter declined a third. On this Usher wrote to him: the Jesuit sent no reply. He afterwards said of the discussion, "There came to me once a youth of about eighteen years of age, of a ripe wit, when scarce, as you would think, gone through his course of philosophy, or got out of his childhood, yet ready to dispute on the most abstruse points of divinity." The same Jesuit called Usher "Acatholicorum doctissimus"-the "most learned

of the not-Catholics." In 1601, he was ordained by his uncle, the primate, and preached a series of controversial sermons in Christ Church with What he afterwards became is

great success.

known to the world.

William Daniel, one of the first fellows of the university, was the first or second who took there the degree of doctor in divinity. He was conse

crated Archbishop of Tuam in 1609. He was an eminent scholar, and translated the New Testament out of Greek into the Irish language; which work was printed in quarto, and dedicated to King James I. It was reprinted in 1681, at the expense of the Honorable Robert Boyle. Daniel also translated the English Common Prayer into Irish. This was printed in 1608, and dedicated to the lord deputy, Sir Arthur Chichester.

Archbishop Loftus took the honorary title of "provost" to the college at its opening, in order to countenance the undertaking, but shortly resigned the office, and arranged that Walter Travers, a Puritan, who had been joint-fellow with himself in Trinity College, Cambridge, should succeed him. Travers was afternoon preacher at the Temple church, London, where Hooker, author of the Ecclesiastical Polity, preached in the morn. ing. The two ministers were strongly at variance on doctrinal and ecclesiastical matters: the same pulpit, in one part of the day, was antagonist to itself in the other. Hooker took deep umbrage, and failing to carry the mind of the congregation with him, appealed to a higher authority, Whit

gift, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, says Thomas Fuller in his Church History, "silenced Travers from preaching in the Temple or anywhere else. It was laid to his charge:-1. That he was no lawful ordained minister of the Church of England. 2. That he preached here without license. 3. That he had broken the order made in the seventh year of her majesty's reign, that erroneous doctrine, if it came to be publicly taught, should not be publicly refuted, but that notice thereof should be given to the ordinary, to hear and determine such causes, to prevent public disturbance." Hearing of what had thus occurred in London, Loftus wrote to Travers, inviting him to the provostship of the Dublin college. Travers acceded, and remained in that office till ill-health obliged him to resign in 1601, when he returned to England. Fuller gives him the highest character. "Sometimes," he writes, "he did preach; rather when he dared than when he would: debarred from all cure of souls for his nonconformity." Usher, who had studied under him, held him in high veneration, and, when Travers was in poverty for conscience' sake, offered him money; but Travers "returned a thankful refusal thereof.' He "bequeathed all his books of oriental languages, (wherein he was exquisite,) and plate worth fifty pounds, to Sion College in London. O! if this good man had had a hand to his head, or rather a purse to his hand, what charitable works would he have left behind him! But," continues Fuller, in concluding a pretty full account of him, "in pursuance of his memory, I

have entrenched too much on the modern times. Only this I will add, perchance the reader will be angry with me for saying thus much; and I am almost angry with myself for saying no more of so worthy a divine."

The University, in its charter of incorporation, was styled Collegium Sanctæ et Individuæ Trinitatis Juxta Dublin à Serenissimâ Regina Eliza-" betha Fundatum. The "Juxta" is inappropriate to describe its position now, its situation being in one of the greatest thoroughfares of the city. Its first buildings formed a square, the principal of them being on the north side. Within a few years of its commencement, its revenues failed in consequence of a rebellion in the country, and applications had to be made to the government for funds to prevent its being finally closed. The necessary aid was granted, and this university is at present second to neither Oxford nor Cambridge in the ability and zeal of its professors, its general regulations, or the conduct of the resident students. But "Trinity," in its beginning, had a very humble form compared with the noble establishment of our own day, including its handsome frontage, its magnificent library and its chapel, its examination-hall, its dining-hall, its printing-office, its squares, its spacious park for recreation, its botanic garden on the east, and its observatory on the west of the metropolis it adorns.

The rebellion which imperilled the infant college was only one of a succession which kept the country in ferment to nearly the close of Eliza

beth's reign, when the English power came to be generally acknowledged. Of the distress occasioned by these wars, some opinion may be formed by the following account of the prices at which provisions were sold in Dublin in the year 1602, signed by John Tirrel, the mayor. Wheat had risen from 36s. the quarter to 180s.; barley-malt from 10s. the barrel to 43s.; oatmeal from 5s. the barrel to 22s.; peas from 5s. the peck to 40s. ; oats from 3s. 4d. the barrel to 20s.; beef from 26s. 8d. the carcase to £8; mutton from 3s. the carcase to 26s.; veal from 10s. the carcase to 298.; a lamb from 1s. to 6s.; a pork from 8s. to · 30s. If we multiply these prices by seven, to give their equivalents in our own money, the sums almost exceed belief, and show that if money were not in proportion much more plentiful than it is with us, the cost of what are considered necessaries must at that period have been, with most persons, tantamount to a prohibition of them.