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 Christchurch with great success. What he afterwards became is 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 consecrated 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 honourable 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 morning. 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, Whitgift, 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 licence. 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. Oh! 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 intrenched 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 Serenissima Regina Elizabetha 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,

92 DUBLIN DURING THE BRITISH REFORMATION.

its magnificent library and its chapel, its examination-hall, its dining-hall, its printingoffice, 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 Elizabeth'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 228.; peas from 5s. the peck to 40s. ; oats from 3s. 4d. the barrel to 20s.; beef from 268. 8d. the carcase, to £8; mutton from 3s. the carcase to 26s.; veal from 10s. the carcase to 29s.; 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.

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.