SECTION IV.

DUBLIN UNDER JAMES I. AND CHARLES I.

ALLUSION has already been made to the frequent occurrence of pestilence in Dublin. In the year 1575, a plague broke out on the 7th of June, and continued till the 17th of October, carrying off at least three thousand persons. The city is described as having been then so depopulated, by deaths or desertions, that grass grew in the streets and about the church-doors. The mayor and sheriffs held their court at Glasmanogue, and the lord deputy resided at Drogheda. In 1604, the same calamity began in October and continued till September, 1605. It broke out again the next year, and continued till the year following. Yet the annals record that in the year 1610 the inhabitants of the city and suburbs amounted to twenty thousand. The density with which the people were crowded together, the want of sewerage, and, equally, of cleanliness and ventilation, with the malaria from the swamps bordering on the river and elsewhere near the city, must have almost compelled disease in some of its worst forms to hold the place as its den and throne.

Notwithstanding all that Elizabeth's govern

ment had done to make Ireland Protestant, little, very little, had been effected. The poet Spenser gives an appalling account of what he had observed to be the state of both clergy and laity in the country, and he places in humiliating contrast the earnestness of the Roman priesthood and the supineness and selfishness of what he calls "the ministers of the gospel."

Lord Bacon thought much for Ireland, and in 1601 wrote to Cecil, secretary of state, urging 66 some course of advancing religion indeed, where the people is capable thereof; as the sending over some good preachers, especially of that sort which are vehement and zealous preachers, and not scholastic, to be resident in principal towns, endowing them with some stipend out of her majesty's revenues, as her majesty hath most religiously and graciously done in Lancashire; and the re-continuing and replenishing the college begun in Dublin, the placing of good men to be bishops in the sees there, and the taking care of the versions of Bibles, and catechisms, and other books of instruction in the Irish language; and the like religious courses, both for the honor of God, and for the avoiding of scandal and unsatisfaction here, by the show of toleration in religion in some parts there." Little or no notice appears to have been taken of Bacon's advice.

It may be hoped that Dublin itself was not so destitute of faithful Christian ministrations in the beginning of the seventeenth century as Spenser's statements show too many portions of the island to have been. Travers, who remained provost of

the college till 1601, must have had some influence for the truth of the gospel in the city. Usher, also, had been catechist-reader in the college, and, about 1602, was appointed afternoon preacher in Christ Church, where the court attended.

Having mentioned Usher's connection with the college, we may add that the English army, when they had defeated the Spaniards and disaffected Irish in the south of the country, raised among themselves the sum of £1800 to furnish a library for the Dublin University, and placed it in the hands of "Dr. Challoner and Mr. James Usher," to be expended in the purchase of books for the purpose. The military have seldom perhaps been thus forward in such good works; but, as we shall see, this was not the last instance of the college library deriving aid from the bountifulness of the English soldiery.

Under the date of 1605, Whitelaw's "History of Dublin" records, "The Jesuits and seminary priests busied themselves greatly in dissuading the people from resorting to Divine service according to the Act of Uniformity, and the king's proclamation thereon grounded. The lord deputy (Chichester) and council convened before them the aldermen and some of the principal citizens, and endeavored by persuasions and lenity to draw them to their duty. They also exemplified under the great seal, and published the Statute of Uniformity of the 2d of Elizabeth, in regard there was found to be some material difference between the original record and the printed copies, that

none might pretend ignorance of the original record, and added thereto the king's injunction for the observance of the said statute. But these gentle methods failing to have any effect, sixteen of the most eminent men of the city were convened into the court of the "Castle Chamber"answering to the "Star Chamber" in England"of whom nine of the chief were censured, and six of the aldermen fined each £100, and the other three £50 a-piece; and they were all committed prisoners to the Castle during the pleasure of the court; and it was ordered that none of the citizens should bear office till they conformed. The week following, the rest were censured in the same manner, except alderman Archer, who conformed. Their fines were allotted to the repairs of such churches as had been damaged by an accidental blowing up of gunpowder in 1596, to the relieving poor scholars in the college, and other charitable uses. This proceeding brought many to an outward conformity." The "blowing up of the gunpowder" mentioned, was an plosion of 144 barrels which had been landed at Wood Quay, and stored in Winetavern street for the use of the Castle. Nearly fifty houses were burned, and about four hundred lives lost by this accident.

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The measures adopted to enforce Protestantism, provoked resistance to the government on the part of the Romanists. In 1607, a conspiracy was formed between the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel, with other leading persons, to seize the castle, cut off the lord deputy and the coun

cil, dissolve the state, and set up a new authority. A Roman Catholic who had been invited to join, but who shrank from the design, dropped a letter in the Council Chamber, addressed to Sir William Usher, clerk of the council, giving the particulars of the plan as they had been made known to him. The conspirators were apprised that they had been betrayed, and fled before they could be apprehended; but their estates were confiscated.

After an interval of twenty-seven years, a parliament was once more called in 1613. The two parties disagreed on the choice of a speaker, and the Romanists withdrew. Another met the year after; and a convocation of the clergy was held which adopted a code of "articles" as the Confession of the Irish Church. This formulary of faith was prepared by Usher: it was essentially Puritanic, being rigidly Calvinistic in doctrine, and liberal in matters ritual and eccesiastical. It declared the pope to be the Man of Sin; taught that Lent is of merely political, not religious obligation; and affirmed that the Lord's-day is to be wholly devoted to the service of God. It set forth that the catholic or invisible Church includes all the faithful on earth and in heaven; but that "particular and visible Churches (consisting of those who make profession of the faith of Christ, and live under the outward means of salvation) be many in number; wherein the more or less sincerely according to Christ's institution, the word of God is taught, the sacraments are duly administered, and the authority of the keys is used, the more or less pure are such churches