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Title: The Book of Trinity College Dublin 1591-1891

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF
TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN 1591-1891 ***

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TERCENTENARY CELEBRATION

JULY, 1892

PRESENTED
BY THE

PROVOST AND SENIOR FELLOWS
OF

TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN

POSVI DEVM ADIVTOREM MEVM
Mortua anno
MIserICorDIæ.

HONI SOIT QVI MAL Y PENSE

SEMPER EADEM

Nata Gronewiciæ
anno Christi
MDXXXIII.
6.Jd.Sept.

ELISABET D.G. ANGLIAE, FRANCIAE, HIBERNIAE, ET VERGINIAE REGINA, FIDEI
CHRISTIANAE PROPVGNATRIX ACERRIMA. NVNC IN DNO REQVIESCENS.

Virginis os habitumque geris, diuina Vasta Semiramiden Babylon super æthera
virago, tollat,
Sed supra sexum dotes animumque Efferat et Didona suam Sidonia tellus,
virilem; Gens Esthren Iudæa, Camillam Volsca
Quod sæpe altarum docuit rerum exitus propago,
ingens: Aut Constantini matrem Byzantion
Vnde tibi et Regni populi debere fatentur, ingens,
Christiadumque cohors, odijs rumpantur Atqúe alias aliæ gentes: tete Anglia fortis
vt hostes, Vt quondam fructa est, sic nunc clarescat
Quorum Diua tua rabies nil morte alumna.
lucrata est.

Isaac Oliuier
effigiabat.

Crispin van de Passe
incidebat.

procurante Joanne
Waldnelio.

P.B.M.Q. ludeb.

THE BOOK
OF

Trinity College
DUBLIN
1591

1891

B E L FA S T
MARCUS WARD & CO., LIMITED, ROYAL ULSTER WORKS
LONDON AND NEW YORK

DUBLIN: HODGES, FIGGIS & CO., LIMITED

1892

he Committee appointed by the Provost and Senior Fellows of
Trinity College, Dublin, to make arrangements for the
celebration of the Tercentenary of the Foundation of the
University of Dublin and of Trinity College, to be held in July, 1892,
requested the following to act as a Sub-Committee to superintend the
bringing out of a volume in which there should be a record of the chief
events of the College for the last three centuries, a description of its
buildings, &c.:—

Rev. John W. Stubbs, D.D.
Rev. Thomas K. Abbott, B.D., Litt.D., Librarian.
Rev. John P. Mahaffy, D.D., Mus. Doc.
Edward Dowden, LL.D., Litt.D.
Ulick Ralph Burke, M.A.
William MacNeile Dixon, LL.B., and
E. Perceval Wright, M.A., M.D.;

the last named to be the Convener.

Through illness, Professor E. Dowden was unable to take any active
part in the preparation of this volume, the publication of which was
undertaken by the firm of Messrs. Marcus Ward & Co., Limited, of Belfast.
The time at the disposal of the writers of the following chapters was
extremely short, and they tender an apology for the want of completeness,
which, on an exact scrutiny of their work, will, they fear, be only too
conspicuous; but it is hoped that the volume may be acceptable as a sketch
towards a History of the College.

The name of the writer of each chapter is given in the Table of
Contents, and each author is to be regarded as accountable only for his own
share of the work. The Committee’s grateful thanks are due to Mr. Louis
Fagan, of the Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, for the
help he has given them in having reproductions made from rare engravings
of some of the distinguished Graduates of the University.

CONTENTS.
PAGE

Chapter I.— From the Foundation to the Caroline Charter, by the Rev.
J. P. Mahaffy, D.D., 1
II.— From the Caroline Reform to the Settlement of William
”
III., by the Rev. J. P. Mahaffy, D.D., 29
III.— The Eighteenth Century up to 1758, by the Rev. J. P.
”
Mahaffy, D.D., 47
IV.— From 1758 to the Close of the Century, by the Rev. J. P.
”
Mahaffy, D.D., 73
V.— During the Nineteenth Century, by the Rev. J. W. Stubbs,
”
D.D., 91
VI.— The Observatory, Dunsink, by Sir Robert Ball, LL.D.,
”
Astronomer-Royal, 131
VII. The Library, by the Rev. T. K. Abbott, B.D., Litt.D.,
”
— Librarian, 147
VIII. The Early Buildings, by Ulick R. Burke, M.A.,
”
— 183
IX.— Distinguished Graduates, by William MacNeile Dixon,
”
LL.B., 235
” X.— The College Plate, by the Rev. J. P. Mahaffy, D.D., 267
XI.— The Botanical Gardens and Herbarium, by E. Perceval
”
Wright, M.A., M.D., 275
XII. The University and College Officers, 1892,
”
— 285

Tercentenary Ode, 291

L I S T OF I L L US T R AT I ONS .

PAGE

Portrait of Queen Elizabeth, Frontispiece.
The Oldest Map of the College, 7
Fac-simile of Provost Ashe’s Prayer, 10
The Earliest extant College Seal, 11
The South Back of the Elizabethan College, 25
Fac-simile of Title-page, Archbishop Marsh’s “Logic,” 37
Chapel Plate (dated 1632 and 1638), 44

Title-page of the Centenary Sermon, January 9, 16934, 52
The old Clock Tower, 62
Candelabrum, Examination Hall, 130
Dunsink Observatory, 133
South Equatorial, Dunsink, 142
Meridian Room, Dunsink, 144
Old Print of Library, 1753, 152
Interior of Library, 1858, 154
A Page from the “Book of Kells,” 161
Satchel of the “Book of Armagh,” 164

Shrine of the “Book of Dimma,” 165
Book Recesses in Library, 176
Inner Staircase in Library, 177
Interior of Library, 1860, 178
The Library, 1891, 179
Library Staircase and Entrance to Reading Room, 180
Royal Arms now placed in Library, 181
Front of Trinity College, 1728, 183
Ground Plan of Trinity College, from Rocque’s Map of Dublin, 1750, 187
Ampelopsis veitchii, 190
Trinity College—West Front, 191
The Provost’s House, from Grafton Street, 195
Drawing Room, Provost’s House, 197
Top of Staircase, Regent’s Hall, 200
Parliament and Library Squares, 201
Library Square, 202
The Chapel, 204
Baldwin’s Monument, 211
The Bell Tower, from the Provost’s Garden, 215
The Dining Hall, viewed from Library Square, 218
Interior of Dining Hall, 219
The Engineering School, from College Park, 220
Entrance to Engineering School, 222
Hall and Staircase, Engineering School, 223
Carvings at Base of Staircase, 224
The Printing Office, from New Square, 225
View in the College Park—Library—Engineering School, 228
The Medical School, 229
The Museum (Tennis Court), 230
The Dissecting Room, 231
The Printing Office, 233
Pulpit in Dining Hall, 234
Portrait of Archbishop Ussher, 238

Portrait of William King, D.D., 241
Bust of Dr. Delany, 243
Portrait of William Molyneux, 244
Bust of Dean Swift, 244
Portrait of Thomas Southerne, 245
Portrait of William Congreve, 247
Portrait of Bishop Berkeley, 249
Portrait of Earl of Clare, 256
Portrait of Lord Plunket, 258
Fac-simile of Original MS. of “The Burial of Sir John Moore,” 260, 261
Bust of James MacCullagh, 263
Portrait of Charles Lever, 263
Tomb of Bishop Berkeley, 264
Communion Cups—Meade, 1760; Garret Wesley, 1751; Caufield, 1690, 267
Salver—Gilbert, 1734, 268
The College Mace, 271
Punch Bowls—Plunket, 1702; Meade, 1708, 272
Duncombe Cup, 1680; Palliser Cup, 1709, 273
Epergne (Reign of George II.), 274
Botanical Gardens—The Pond. Winter, 281

CHAPTER I. [ 1 ]

FROM THE F O U N D AT I O N T O T H E CAROLINE C H A RT E R .

Laudamus te, benignissime Pater, pro serenissimis,
Regina Elizabetha hujus Collegii conditrice,
Jacobo ejusdem munificentissimo auctore,
Carolo conservatore,
Ceterisque benefactoribus nostris.
The Caroline Grace.

he origin of the University of Dublin is not shrouded in
darkness, as are the origins of the Universities of Bologna and
Oxford. The details of the foundation are well known, in the
clear light of Elizabethan times; the names of the promoters
and benefactors are on record; and yet when we come to
examine the dates current in the histories of the University
and the relative merits of the promoters, there arise many perplexities. The
grant of the Charter is in the name of Queen Elizabeth, and we record every
day in the College our gratitude for her benefaction; but it is no secret that
she was urged to this step by a series of advisers, of whom the most
important and persuasive remained in the background.

The project of founding a University in Ireland had long been
contemplated, and the current histories record various attempts, as old as
1311, to accomplish this end—attempts which all failed promptly, and
produced no effect upon the country, unless it were to afford to the Roman
Catholic prelates, who petitioned James II. to hand over Trinity College to
their control, some colour for their astonishing preamble.[2] It is not the

province of these chapters to narrate or discuss these earlier schemes. One
feature they certainly possessed—the very feature denied them in the
petition just named. Most of them were essentially ecclesiastical, and
closely attached to the Cathedral corporations. There seems never to have
been a secular teacher appointed in any of them—not to speak of mere
frameworks, like that of the University of Drogheda. Another feature also
they all present: they are without any reasonable endowment, the only
serious offer being that of Sir John Perrott in 1585, who proposed the still
current method of exhibiting English benevolence towards Ireland by
robbing one Irish body to endow another. In this case, S. Patrick’s
Cathedral, “because it was held in superstitious reverence by the people,”
was to be plundered of its revenues to set up two Colleges—one in Armagh
and one in Limerick. This plan was thwarted, not only by the downfall of its
originator (Perrott), but by the active opposition of an eminent Churchman
—Adam Loftus, the Archbishop of Dublin. The violent mutual hostility of
these two men may have stimulated each to promote a public object
disadvantageous to the other. Perrott urged the disendowment of S. Patrick’s
because he knew that the Archbishop had retained a large pecuniary interest
in it. Perhaps Loftus promoted a rival plan because he feared some future
revival of Perrott’s scheme. Both attest their bitter feelings: for in his
defence upon his trial Perrott calls the Archbishop his deadly enemy; and
Loftus, in the Latin speech made in Trinity College when he resigned the
Provostship, takes special credit for having resisted the overbearing fury of
Perrott, and having gained for Leinster the College which the other sought
to establish either in Armagh or Limerick, exposed to the dangers of
rebellion and devastation.[3] But before this audience, who knew the
circumstances, he does not make any claim to have been the original
promoter of the foundation. Even in his defence of S. Patrick’s, he had a
supporter perhaps more persuasive, because he was more respected. It is
mentioned in praise of Henry Ussher, “he so lucidly and with such strength

of arguments defended the rights of S. Patrick’s Church, which Perrott
meant to turn into a College, that he averted that dire omen.”[4]
Nevertheless, the Archbishop is generally credited with being the real
founder of Trinity College, and indeed his speeches to the citizens of
Dublin, of which two are still extant, might lead to that conclusion. But
other and more potent influences were at work.

Some years before, Case, in the preface to his Speculum Moralium
Quæstionum (1585), had addressed the Chancellors of Cambridge and
Oxford conjointly on the crying want of a proper University, to subdue the
turbulence and barbarism of the Irish. This appeal was not original, or
isolated, or out of sympathy with the age. Such laymen as Spencer, and as
Bryskett, Spencer’s host near Dublin, must have long urged similar
arguments. In 1547, Archbishop George Browne had forwarded to Sir
William Cecil a scheme for establishing a College with the revenues of the
then recently suppressed S. Patrick’s.[5] Another scheme is extant, endorsed
by Cecil, dated October, 1563, with salaries named, but not the source of
the endowment. In 1571, John Ussher, in applying for the rights of staple at
the port of Dublin, says in his petition that he intends to leave his fortune to
found a College in Dublin. In 1584, the Rev. R. Draper petitions Burghley
to have the University founded at Trim, in the centre of the Pale, as this site
possessed a waterway to Drogheda, and was furnished with great ancient
buildings, then deserted, and falling into decay.

But in addition to these appeals of sentiment, there were practical men
at work. Two successive Deputies, Sir Henry Sidney and Sir John Perrott,
had urged the necessity of some such foundation (1565, 1585), and the
former had even offered pecuniary aid. The Queen, long urged in this
direction, had ultimately been persuaded, as appears from her Warrant, that
the City of Dublin was prepared to grant a site, and help in building the
proposed College; and the City, no doubt, had been equally persuaded that

the Queen would endow the site. The practical workers in this diplomacy
have been set down in history as Cambridge men. This is one of those true
statements which disguise the truth. The real agitators in the matter were
Luke Challoner and Henry Ussher. A glance at Mr. Gilbert’s Assembly Rolls
of the City of Dublin the reign of Elizabeth will show how both family
names occur perpetually in the Corporation as mayors, aldermen, etc.[6] The
very site of the future College had been let upon lease to a Challoner and to
the uncle of an Ussher.[7] These were the influential City families which
swayed the Corporation. Henry Ussher,[8] who had become Archdeacon of
Dublin, went as emissary to Court; Challoner[9] superintended the gathering
of funds and the laying out of the site, which his family had rented years
before. It was therefore by Dublin men—by citizens whose sons had merely
been educated at Cambridge, and had learned there to appreciate University
culture—that Trinity College was really founded. They had learned to
compare Cambridge and Oxford, with Dublin, life, and when they came
home to their paternal city, they felt the wide difference.

Queen Elizabeth, in her Warrant, puts the case quite differently. She
does not, indeed, make the smallest mention of Loftus, but of the prayer of
the City of Dublin, preferred by Henry Ussher, thus:
December 29, 1592.

Elizabeth, R.

Trustee and right well beloved we greet you well, where[as] by your Lrēs, and the rest
of our Councell joyned with you, directed to our Councell here, wee perceive that the
Major and the Cittizens of Dublin are very well disposed to grant the scite of the Abbey of
Allhallows belonging to the said Citty to the yearly value of Twenty pounds to serve for a
Colledge for learning, whereby knowledge and Civility might be increased by the
instruction of our people there, whereof many have usually heretofore used to travaile into
ffrance Italy and Spaine to gett learning in such forreigne universities, whereby they have
been infected with poperie and other ill qualities, and soe became evill subjects, &c.[10]

The Usshers and the Challoners had no inclination to go to Spain or
France, nor is it likely that they ever thought they would prevent the Irish
Catholic priesthood from favouring this foreign education. They desired to
ennoble their city by giving it a College similar to those of Oxford and
Cambridge, and they succeeded.

The extant speech of Adam Loftus, to which I have already referred,
makes no allusion to these things. His argument is homely enough.
Guarding himself from preaching the doctrine of good works, which would
have a Papistical complexion, he urges the Mayor and Corporation to
consider how the trades had suffered by the abolition of the monasteries,
under the previous Sovereign; how the city of Oxford and town of
Cambridge have flourished owing to their Colleges; how the prosperity of
Dublin, now depending on the presence of the Lord Deputy and his retinue
and the Inns of Court, will be increased by a College, which would bring
strangers, and with them money, to the citizens. Thus it will be a means of
civilising the nation and enriching the city, and will enable many of their
children to work their own advancement, “and in order thereto ye will be
pleased to call a Common Council and deliberate thereon, having first
informed the several Masters of every Company of the pregnant likelihood
of advantage,” etc. Again, “it is my hearty desire that you would express
your and the City’s thankfulness to Her Majesty,” etc.

This harangue, in which “our good Lord the Archbushopp” gives
himself the whole credit of the transaction, is said to have been delivered
“soon after the Quarter Sessions of St. John the Baptist”—viz., about July,
but in what year I cannot discover. Mr. Gilbert says, “after Easter, in the
year 1590.” In Loftus’ Latin speech occurs—“As soon as I had proposed it
to the Mayor and Sheriffs, without any delay they assembled in full
conclave and voted the whole site of the monastery.” But in the meetings of
the Dublin Council there is no allusion whatever to this speech, no thanks to

the Queen, no resolution on the matter whatever, till under the date “Fourth
Friday after December, 1590” (33 Elizabeth), we find the following modest
business entry:—“Forasmoch as there is in this Assembly by certayne well-
disposed persons petition preferred,[11] declaring many good and effectual
persuacions to move our furtherance for setting upp and erecting a Collage
for the bringing upp of yeouth to learning, whereof we, having a good
lyking, do, so farr as in us lyeth, herby agree and order that the scite of
Alhallowes and the parkes thereof shalbe wholly gyven for the erection of a
Collage there; and withall we require that we may have conference with the
preferrers of the said peticion to conclude how the same shalbe
fynished.”[12] The Queen’s Warrant is signed the 29th December, 1592 (34
Elizabeth).[13] It is hard to find any logical place for the Archbishop’s
speech, either before, between, or after these dates and documents.

At all events, the Queen gave a Warrant and Charter, some small
Crown rents on various estates in the South and West of Ireland, and
presently, upon further petition, a yearly gift of nearly £400 from the
Concordatum Fund, which latter the College enjoyed till the present
century, when it was resumed by the Government. From the Elizabethan
Crown rents the College now derives about £5 per annum. The Charter was
surrendered for that of Charles I.

Thus the benevolences of Elizabeth, like the buildings of her
foundation, have dwindled away and disappeared.

The Archbishop’s sounding words have had their weight in benefiting
his own memory, as has been shown, beyond his merits in this matter.

The modest gift of the Corporation of Dublin, consisting of 28 acres of
derelict land partly invaded by the sea, has become a splendid property, in
money value not less than £10,000 a-year, in convenience and in dignity to
the College perfectly inestimable.

THE OLDEST MAP OF THE COLLEGE (1610).

The necessary sum for repairing the decayed Abbey of All Hallowes,
and for what new buildings the College required, was raised by an appeal of
the Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam (dated March 11, 1591) to the owners of
landed property all over Ireland. The list of these contributions is very
curious, and also very liberal, if we consider that the following sums
represent perhaps eight times as much in modern days:—
£ s. d. £ s. d.
Advanced by his means
in the Province of
“The Lord Deputy, 200 0 0 Munster, 100 0 0
Archbishop Adam Loftus, 100 0 0 Sir Francis Shane, 100 0 0
Sir Thomas Norreys, Vice- ” ” a-year
President of Munster, 100 0 0 for his life, 20 0 0

Sir Warham St. Leger, 50 0 0 Sir Henry Harrington, 50 0 0
Thomas Jones, Bishop
Sir Richard Dyer, 100 0 0 of Meath, 50 0 0
The gentlemen of the
Sir Henry Bagnall, 100 0 0 Barony of Lecale, 59 0 0
Sir Hugh M‘Ginnis,
with other
gentlemen
of his county
Sir Richard Bingham, 20 0 0 [Down], 140 0 0
The Province of Connaught
by same, 100 0 0 The clergy of Meath, 30 0 0
Thomas Molyneux,
The County of Galway by Chancellor of the
same, 100 0 0 Exchequer, 40 0 0
The town of Drogheda, 40 0 0 Luke Chaloner, D.D., 10 0 0
The city of Dublin, 27 0 0 Edward Brabazon, 15 0 0
A Concordatum from the
Privy Council, 200 0 0 Sir George Bourchier, 30 0 0
Alderman John Foster
(for the Iron-work), 30 0 0 Christopher Chartell, 40 0 0
Lord Chief Justice Gardiner, 20 0 0 Sir Turlough O’Neill, 100 0 0
Lord Primate of Ireland
[Garvey], 76 0 0

“These sums amount to over £2,000, and they must have been considerably
supplemented, for we have a return made by Piers Nugent with respect to one of the
baronies in the County of Westmeath, in which he gives the names of eleven gentlemen in
that barony who are prepared to contribute according to their freeholds, proportionally to
other freeholders of Westmeath.

“Money, however, came in very slowly, specially from the South of Ireland; Sir
Thomas Norreys informed Dr. Chaloner that the County of Limerick agreed to give 3s. 4d.
out of every Plough-land, and he promised to do his best to draw other counties to some
contribution, but he adds, ‘I do find devotion so cold as that I shall hereafter think it a very
hard thing to compass so great a work upon so bare a foundation.’

“Dr. Luke Chaloner seems to have been the active agent in corresponding with the
several contributors, and to have been most diligent in collecting subscriptions.”[14]

The coldness of Limerick—perhaps disappointed at the failure of
Perrott’s scheme—contrasted with the zeal of Dublin. Dr. Stubbs quotes
from Fuller, the Church historian, a statement which the latter had heard
from credible persons then resident in Dublin, that during the building of
the College—that is to say, for over a year—it never rained, except at night.
This historically incredible statement is of real value in showing the
feelings of the people who were persuaded of it. The great interest and keen
hopes of the city in the founding of the College are expressed in this
legendary way.

Thus by the earnestness and activity of some leading citizens of
Dublin, supported by the voice of educated opinion in Cambridge, the
eloquence of the Archbishop, and the sound policy of Queen Elizabeth’s
advisers, Trinity College was founded. The foundation-stone was laid by the
Mayor of Dublin, Thomas Smith, and for at least 150 years the liberality of
the Corporation of Dublin was commemorated in our prayers.

“We give Thee thanks for the Most Serene Princess Elizabeth, our
most illustrious Foundress; for King James and King Charles, our most
munificent Benefactors, and for our present Sovereign, our Most Gracious
Conservator and Benefactor; for the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor,
together with his brethren, the Aldermen, and the whole assembly of the
citizens of Dublin, and all our other benefactors, through whose Bounty we
are here maintained for the exercise of Piety and the increase of Learning,”
etc.[15]

THE PRAYER BEFORE SERMON.

Let thy merciful Ears, O Lord, be open to the Prayers of thy Humble Servants, and grant that
thy Holy Spirit may direct and guide us in all our ways, and be more especially assistant to
us in the Holy Actions of this day, in enabling us with grateful Hearts and zealous Endeavors
to celebrate this Pious Commemoration, and to answer to our Studies and Improvements all
the great and useful ends of our Munificent Founders and Benefactors. We render thee
humble Praise and Thanks, O Lord, for the Most Serene Princess Queen Elizabeth, our
Illustrious Foundress; for King James the First, our most Liberal Benefactor; King Charles
the First and Second, our Gratious and Munificent Conservators; for the protection and
bounty we have received from their present Majesties, our most Indulgent Patrons and
Restorers; for the Favour of our present Governours, the Right Honorable the Lords-Justices;
for the Lord Mayor and Goverment of this City, our Generous Benefactors; for the Nobility,
Clergy, and Gentry of this Kingdom; thrô whose Bounty and Charitable Generosity we are
here Educated and Established; for the Improvement of Piety and Religion, the advancement
of Learning, and to supply the growing necessities of Church and State; beseeching thee to
bless them all, their Posterity, Successors, Relations, and Dependants, with both Temporal
and Eternal blessings, and to give us Grace to live worthy of these thy Mercies, and that as

we grow in Years so we may grow in Wisdom, and Knowledg, and Vertue, and all that is
praiseworthy thrô Jesus Christ our Lord

Such being the true history of the foundation of Trinity College, as the
mother of an University, to be a Corporation with a common seal, it was
natural that upon that seal the Corporation should assume a device implying
its connection with Dublin. Accordingly, though there is no formal record of
the granting of arms to the College, the present arms, showing it to be a
place of learning, Royal and Irish, add the Castle of the Seal of the
Corporation of Dublin. Dr. Stubbs quotes (note, p. 320) a description of it in
Latin elegiacs, of which the arx ignita—towers fired proper—are a
modification of the Dublin arms,[16] which I have found on illuminated rolls
of the age of Charles I. preserved by the City. But this description is
undated, and although he ascribes it to the early years of the 17th century, it
will be hard to prove it older than the seal extant in clear impressions,
which bears the date 1612 above the shield, and upon it the towers, not
fired, but domed and flagged. This date may even imply that the arms were
then granted, and that it is the original form.[17] The recurrence of the domes
and flags upon some of our earliest plate (dated 1666) gives additional
authority for this feature, nor have we any distinct or dated evidence for the
fired towers, adopted in the 17th century by the City also, earlier than the
time of Charles II., when they are given in a Heraldic MS. preserved in the
Bermingham Tower. I have digressed into this antiquarian matter in proof of
my opening assertion that the details of the foundation are often obscure,
while the main facts are perfectly clear.

THE EARLIEST EXTANT COLLEGE SEAL.

Let us now turn from our new-founded College to cast a glance at the
City of Dublin of that day, as it is described to us by Elizabethan eye-
witnesses, and as we can gather its features from the early records of the
City and the College. Mr. Gilbert has quoted from Stanihurst’s account of

Dublin, published in 1577, a curious picture of the wealth and hospitality
displayed by the several Mayors and great citizens of his acquaintance; and
that the Mayoralty was indeed a heavy tax upon the citizen who held it,
appears from the numerous applications of Mayors, recorded in the City
registers, for assistance, and the frequent voting of subsidies of £100,
though care is taken to warn the citizens that this is to establish no
precedent. The City is described as very pleasant to live in, placed in an
exceptionally beautiful valley, with sea, rivers, and mountains around.
Wealthy and civilised as it was, it would have been much more so, but that
the port was open, and the river full of shoals, and that by the management
of the citizen merchants a great mart of foreign traders, which used to
assemble outside the gates and undersell them, had been abolished. The
somewhat highly-coloured picture drawn by Stanihurst is severely criticised
by Barnabe Rich,[18] who gives a very different account, telling us that the
architecture was mean, and the whole City one mass of taverns, wherein
was retailed at an enormous price, ale, which was brewed by the richer
citizens’ wives. The moral character of the retailers is described as
infamous. This liquor traffic, and the extortion of the bakers, are, to Rich,
the main features in Dublin. The Corporation records show orders
concerning the keeping of the pavements, the preserving of the purity of the
water-supply, which came from Tallaght, and the cleansing of the streets
from filth and refuse thrown out of the houses. These orders alternate with
regulations to control the beggars and the swine which swarmed in the
streets. Furthermore, says Stanihurst—“There are so manie other
extraordinarie beggars that dailie swarme there, so charitablie succored, as
that they make the whole civitie in effect their hospitall.” There was a
special officer, the City beadle, entitled “master” or “warden” of the
beggars, and “custos” or “overseer” of the swine, whose duty it was to
banish strange beggars from the City, and keep the swine from running
about the streets.[19]

In one of the orders relating to this subject, dated the 4th Friday after
25th December, 1601, we find the following:—“Wher[as] peticion is
exhibitid by the commons, complaineing that the auncient lawes made,
debarring of swyne coming in or goeing in the streetes of this cittie, is not
put in execution, by reyson whearof great danger groweth therby, as well
for infection, as also the poore infantes lieing under stales and in the
streetes subject to swyne, being a cattell much given to ravening, as well of
creatures as of other thinges, and alsoe the cittie and government therof
hardlie spoken of by the State, wherin they requirid a reformacion: it is
therfore orderid and establyshid, by the aucthoritie of this assemblie, that yf
eny sowe, hogge, or pigge shalbe found or sene, ether by daie or nyght, in
the streetes within the cittie walles, it shalbe lawfull for everye man to kill
the same sowe, hogge, or pigge, and after to dispose the same at his or their
disposition, without making recompence to such as owneth the same.”

Thus this present characteristic of the country parts of Ireland then
infected the capital. I have quoted the text of the order for reasons which
will presently appear.

The City walls, with their many towers, and protected by a fosse,
enclosed but a small area of what we consider Old Dublin. S. Patrick’s and
its Liberty, under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop, who lived in the old
Palace (S. Sepulchre’s) beside that Cathedral, was still outside the walls,
which excluded even most of Patrick Street, and was apparently defended
by ramparts of its own. Thomas Street was still a suburb, and lined with
thatched houses, for we find an order (1610) that henceforth, owing to the
danger of fire[20] in the suburbs, in S. Thomas Street, S. Francis Street, in
Oxmantown, or in S. Patrick Street, “noe house which shall from hensforth
be built shalbe covered with thach, but either with slate, tyle, shingle, or
boord, upon paine of x.li. current money of England.” We may therefore
imagine these suburbs as somewhat similar to those of Galway in the

present day, where long streets of thatched cabins lead up to the town. Such
I take to have been the row of houses outside Dame’s Gate, the eastern gate
of the city, which is marked on the map of 1610. They only occupy the
north side of the way, and for a short distance. There had long been a public
way to Hogging or Hoggen Green, one of the three commons of the City,
and the condition of this exit from Dublin may be inferred from an order
made in 1571, which the reader will find below.[21]

The reader will not object to have some more details about the state of
this College Green, now the very heart of the City, in the days when the
College was founded. In 1576 the great garden and gate of the deserted
Monastery of All Hallowes was ordered to be allotted for the reception of
the infected, and the outer gate of All Hallowes to be repaired and locked.
In the next year (and again in 1603), it is ordered that none but citizens shall
pasture their cattle on this and the other greens. It is ordered in 1585 that no
unringed swine shall be allowed to feed upon the Green, being noisome and
hurtful, and “coming on the strand greatly hinder thincrease of the fyshe;”
the tenant of All Hallowes, one Peppard, shall impound or kill them, and
allow no flax to be put into the ditches, “for avoyding the hurte to
thincrease of fyshe.” In the same year the use and keeping of the Green is
leased for seven years to Mr. Nicholas Fitzsymons, to the end the walking
places may be kept clean, and no swyne or forren cattle allowed to injure
them. In 1602 Sir George Carye is granted a part of the Green to build a
Hospital, and presently Dr. Challoner and others are granted another to
build a Bridewell; and this is marked on the map of 1610, near the site of
the present S. Andrew’s Church.[22]

This is our evidence concerning the ground between the College and
the City—an interval which might well make the founders speak of the
former as juxta Dublin. It was a place unoccupied between the present
Castle and College gates, with the exception of a row of cottages, probably

thatched, forming a short row at the west end and north side of Dame
Street, and under that name; opposite to this was the ruined church of S.
Andrew. On the Green were pigs and cattle grazing; refuse of various kinds
was cast out in front of the houses of Dame Street, despite the Corporation
order; a little stream crossed this space close to the present College gate,
and the only two buildings close at hand, when the student looked out of his
window or over the wall, were a hospital for the infected, by the river, and a
bridewell on his way to the City.

Further off, the view was interesting enough. The walled City, with its
gates, crowned the hill of Christ Church, and the four towers of the Castle
were plainly visible. A gate, over a fosse, led into the City, where first of all
there lay on the left hand the Castle entrance, with the ghastly heads of
great rebels still exposed on high poles. Here the Lord Deputy and his men-
at-arms kept their state, and hither the loyal gentry from the country came
to express their devotion and obtain favours from the Crown. In the far
distance to the south lay the Dublin and Wicklow mountains, not as they
now are, a delightful excursion for the student on his holiday, but the home
of those wild Irish whose raids up to the City walls were commemorated by
the feast of Black Monday at Cullenswood, whither the citizens went well
guarded, and caroused, to assert themselves against the natives who had
once surprised and massacred 500 of them close to that wood. The river, the
sea, and the Hill of Howth, held by the Baron of Howth in his Castle, closed
the view to the east. The upland slopes to the north were near no wild
country, and therefore Oxmantown and S. Mary’s Abbey were already
settled on the other bank of the river.

We must remember also, as regards the civilisation of Dublin, that
though the streets swarmed not only with beggars and swine, but with rude
strangers from the far country, yet the wealthy citizens were not only rich
and hospitable, but advanced enough to send their sons to Cambridge. This

is proved by the Usshers and Challoners, and we may be sure these were
not solitary cases. As regards education, there are free schools and grammar
schools constantly mentioned in the records of the time. It is well known
that one Fullerton, a very competent Scotchman, was sent over by James
VI. of Scotland to promote that King’s interests, and that he had a Hamilton
for his assistant, who afterwards got great grants of land for himself, as
Lord Clandeboye, and also obtained for the College those Crown rents
which resulted in producing its great wealth. Fullerton, a learned man, was
ultimately placed in the King’s household. Both were early nominated lay
Fellows of the College. These were people of education who understood
how to teach.

But most probably the great want in Dublin was the want of books.
There must have been a very widespread complaint of this, when it
occurred to the army which had defeated the Spaniards at Kinsale (in 1601)
to give a large sum from their spoil for books to endow the new College.[23]
This sent the famous James Ussher to search for books in England, and laid
the foundation for that splendid collection of which the Archbishop’s own
books formed the next great increase, obtained by the new military donation
of Cromwell’s soldiers in 1654. There is probably no other so great library
in the world endowed by the repeated liberality of soldiers. Still we hear
that, even after the founding of the collection, James Ussher thought it
necessary to go every third year to England, and to spend in reading a
month at Oxford, a month at Cambridge, and a month in London, for the
purpose of adding to that mass of his learning which most of us would think
already excessive. Yet it is a pity that smaller men, in more recent days, did
not follow his example, and so save the College from that provincialism
with which it was infected even in our own recollection.

Let us now turn to the internal history of the College. The great crises
in the first century of its existence were the Rebellion under Charles I. and

the civil war under James II., ending with the Settlements by which Charles
II. and William III. secured the future greatness of the Institution. This brief
sketch cannot enter into details, especially into the tedious internal quarrels
of the Provost and Fellows; we are only concerned with the general
character of the place, its religion, its morals, and its intellectual tendencies.
Upon all these questions we have hitherto rather been put off with details
than with a philosophical survey of what the College accomplished.

It has been well insisted on by Mr. Heron, the Roman Catholic
historian of Trinity College, that the Charter of Elizabeth is neither
exclusive nor bigoted as regards creed. Religion, civility, and learning are
the objects to be promoted, and it is notorious that the great Queen’s policy,
as regards the first, was to insist upon outward conformity with the State
religion without further inquisition. A considerable number of the
Corporation which endowed the new College were Roman Catholics, and
we know that even the Usshers had near relations of that creed. There was
no insistence that the Fellows should take orders—we know that Provost
Temple, and Fullerton and Hamilton, among the earliest Fellows, were
laymen,—and though in very early days the degree of Doctor conferred was
apparently always that in Theology, the Charter provides for all the
Faculties, and it was soon felt that Theology and the training of clergy were
becoming too exclusively the work of the place. The constant advices from
Chancellors and from other advisers to give special advantages to the
natives, and the repeated attempts to teach the Irish language, and through
its medium to educate the Irish, show plainly that they understood
Elizabeth’s foundation as intended for the whole country, and more
especially for those of doubtful loyalty in their creed, who were tempted to
go abroad for their education.

“A certain illustrious Baron,” says Father Fitz-Simons, writing in
1603, “whose lady, my principal benefactress, sent his son to Trinity

College. Notwithstanding my obligations to them for my support, I, with
the utmost freedom, earnestness, and severity, informed and taught them,
that it was a most impious thing, and a detestable scandal, to expose their
child to such education. The boy was taken away at once, and so were
others, after that good example. The College authorities are greatly enraged
at this, as they had never before attracted any [Roman Catholic] pupil of
respectability, and do not now hope to get any for the future. Hence I must
be prepared for all the persecution which their impiety and hatred can bring
down upon me.”[24]

On the other hand, the early Provosts imported from Cambridge,
Travers, Alvey, Temple, were men who were baulked in their English
promotion by their acknowledged Puritanism—a school created or
promoted by that desperate bigot Cartwright, who preached the most violent
Genevan doctrines from his Chair of Divinity in Cambridge. But these men,
who certainly were second to none in the intolerance of their principles,
were themselves in danger of persecution from the Episcopal party in
England. Complaints were urged against Temple for neglecting to wear a
surplice in Chapel—a great stumbling-block in those days; the Puritanism
of the College was openly assailed, so that its Governors were rather
occupied in defending themselves than in attacking the creed of others. Any
sect which is in danger of persecution is compelled so far to advocate
toleration; we may be sure that the Irish Fellows who lived among
Catholics in a Catholic nation curbed any excessive zeal on the part of the
Puritan Provosts; and so we find that they did not scruple to admit natives
whom they suspected, or even knew, to be Papists. Moreover, the Fellows
and their Provost were very busy in constitution-mongering. They had the
power by Charter of making and altering statutes—a source of perpetual
dispute; and, besides, the Plantation of Ulster by James I. in 1610 gave
them their first large estates, which were secured to them by the influence
of Fullerton and Hamilton, already mentioned as Scottish agents of the

King. Provost Temple spent most of his time either in framing statutes or in
quarrelling about leases with his Fellows.

A review of the various documents still extant concerning these
quarrels shows that the first of the lay Provosts was not inferior in
importance to his two successors in the eighteenth century, and that in his
day all the main problems which have since agitated the Corporation were
raised and discussed.

In the first place we may name the distinction between University and
College, one often attempted by theorists, and which may any day become
of serious importance if a new College were founded under the University,
but one which has practically had no influence in the history of Trinity
College. We even find such hybrid titles as Fellow of the University, and
Professor of the College, used by people who ought to have known the
impropriety.[25] Temple, with the consent of his Fellows, sought to obtain a
separate Charter for a University, and drew up, for this and the College,
Statutes which Dr. Stubbs has quoted.

The second point in Temple’s policy was an innovation which took
root, and transformed the whole history of the College. It was the
distinction of Senior and junior Fellows, not merely into separate classes as
regards salary and duties, but into Governors and subjects. It was rightly
felt that, after some years’ constant lecturing, the Fellows who still adhered
to the College should have leisure for their studies, and for literary work, as
well as a better income, in reward of their services. But when Temple made
a College Statute that the Seniors should govern not only the scholars and
ordinary students, but also the Junior Fellows and Probationers (which last
correspond somewhat to our present Non-Tutor Fellows), he soon came into
conflict with the Charter, which gave many privileges—the election, for
example, of the Provost—to all the Fellows without distinction; and on this
question arose a great dispute immediately on Temple’s death, there being

actually two Provosts elected—one (Mede) by the Seniors, the other (R.
Ussher) by the Juniors. Bedell was only elected by a compromise between
the two parties, with distinct protests on the part of the Juniors.[26] The
Caroline Statutes finally decided the matter, and gave the whole control to
the Seniors.

Whether this great change, introduced by Temple, and certainly
promoted by Ussher, has been a benefit or an injury to the College, is a
question not easy to answer. There is no doubt that a small body, such as the
Governing Board of Provost and Senior Fellows, is far more likely to carry
out a consistent policy, and even to decide promptly, where discussion and
divergence of opinion among a larger number cause delay and paralyse
action. But, on the other hand, the concentration of power into the hands of
a small and irremovable body sets temptations before its members to look
after their own interests unduly, and cumulate upon themselves offices and
emoluments to the damage of the Corporation.

The reservation of a large number of offices to the Senior Fellows, and
the consequent appointment, occasionally, of incompetent persons to
discharge important duties, were the necessary result of such an
arrangement, and might be of great injury to the Corporation. It might even
result in the trafficking in offices, or in acts of distinct injustice towards the
other members of the Corporation, which could not have been committed
had the acts of the Governing Body been subject to the public criticism and
control of the whole body of Fellows.

On the other hand, as some working Committee must be selected to
administer the affairs of the College, nothing was more obvious to Temple
or to Ussher than that those who had been Fellows for eight or ten years
should be preferred to those who had just entered the Corporation. In a
body, however, of celibates, with many good livings and other promotions
around them, it never occurred to the framers of the Statute that new

circumstances would arise which made a Fellowship practically a life
office, and thus placed the government in the hands of a group of men, of
whom many were disabled by age, and, moreover, distracted by family
cares. We should not stare with more wonder at a Vice-Provost of 40, than
would Ussher have stared at a Junior Fellow of 40 years’ standing. Had
such things been even dimly foreseen, it would have been easy to avoid the
danger of accumulating emolument and office upon incompetent persons by
making the Governing Body elective from the whole Corporation.

The third question which arose in Provost Temple’s day was the proper
leasing of the College estates. The tendency to take present profit at the
expense of our successors, or to postpone the interests of the abstract
Corporation to the claims of private friendship, is nowhere more
conspicuous than in the document Dr. Stubbs has printed (p. 32), in which
the Provost, and two Senior Fellows, the greatest names at the foundation,
and the most attached friends of the College, James Ussher and Luke
Challoner, actually consent to lease for ever all the Ulster estates to Sir
James Hamilton, their old personal friend and colleague, who had helped
the College to obtain these lands from the King. Had the earnest endeavours
of these two excellent Senior Fellows been carried out, the College would
not have owned nearly so many hundreds, as it now owns thousands, in
Ulster. This calamity was only averted by the active interference of the
Junior Fellows, who obtained an order from the State forbidding the Board
to give perpetual leases. Nevertheless, so long as the Senior Fellows divided
the renewal fines, there was constant danger of the rents of the College
being cut down, and the incomes of the lessors being increased: it redounds
to the credit of this “Venetian Council” that, after such vast opportunities of
plundering public property, only some few cases of breach of public trust
can be asserted against them. One of the most manifest attempts has been
just noticed. Another was partly carried through by Temple. He obtained a
lease, and appointed his son Seneschal of the Manor of Slutmulrooney—a

delightful title, but also a solid estate, which he evidently coveted for a
family property.[27]

We turn with satisfaction from such things to the two great names in
the College and the Irish Church which mark that period—Bedell and
James Ussher.

It was by rare good fortune that the nascent College secured such a
student as James Ussher. He must have made a name in any case; yet the
world is so apt to judge any system not by the average outcome, but by the
best and worst, that one such name was at that moment of the last
importance. He was the first great home growth, and, though he refused the
Provostship, he was so closely connected with the College as Fellow,
Lecturer in Divinity, as Vice-Provost and as Vice-Chancellor, that no one
has ever thought of denying him and his fame to the College. His works and
character will be discussed in another chapter. What I am concerned with is
his attitude in the great ecclesiastical quarrels of the day. It was no easy
course to steer the Church of Ireland between the “Scylla of Puritanism”
and the “Charybdis of Popery.” Ussher well knew that both were dangerous
enemies. In his youth, owing to his daily contact with Roman Catholic
relatives, with Jesuit controversialists, with the temporising policy of King
James, who offered further stages of toleration in return for subsidies of
money from the Irish Catholics, he was strong against the danger on that
side, and protested with prophetic wisdom that such concessions would lead
to rebellion and ruin in Ireland. In his old age, when living constantly, either
from his public importance or his persecutions, in England, when
witnessing and suffering from the outrages of the English Revolution, he
said in a conversation with Evelyn, “that the Church would be destroyed by
sectaries who would in all likelihood bring in Popery.” The personal
complexion of his religion, his constant preaching, his great liberality and
good feeling towards pious Dissenting ministers, show that he was a strong

Protestant, and he always showed the strongest apprehension of the
ambitious policy of the Romish priesthood, which he feared as a pressing
danger; but, nevertheless, he was so loyal a Churchman, that he was content
to overlook many abuses in the system which he administered.

It was this temper, so common in the Anglo-Irish Protestant, which
separates him in his policy from his eminent and amiable contemporary,
Bishop Bedell. But the latter was a stranger brought over from England to
be Provost, who, with all the generosity and all the kindliness of his noble
nature, set himself to instruct the native Irish, and to work out the
regeneration of these barbarians by teaching them religion through the Irish
language. So sterling and single-hearted was the Bishop, that even the
excited rebels of 1641, amid their rapine and massacre, spared and
respected the excellent old man, and at his death honoured him with a great
public funeral. But it is plain from Primate Ussher’s dealings with him that
this policy of persuading the natives was not to the Primate’s taste. Ussher
probably believed that there were serious dangers in the policy of
reclaiming the natives through kindness, and their priests through
persuasion; and if the historians note it as curious that, of all those who
ruled the College, those by far the most anxious to promote Irish studies
were two Englishmen,[28] Bedell and Marsh, it will be replied by many in
Ireland, that this contrast between the views of the English stranger, and of
the English settler who knows the country, is still perpetuated.

Such, then, was the attitude of the early rulers of the College, and such
their controversies. All of them that were not complete Puritans felt what
Provost Chappel says in his autobiographical (iambic) poem—Ruunt
agmine facto in me profana turba Roma Genevaque. But from the very
commencement the College was Puritanical enough to save it from
Ecclesiasticism. There is therefore nothing strange in the habit of making
lay Fellows read short sermons (commonplaces) in the Chapel as part of

their duty—a practice only abandoned within the memory of our seniors in
this century.[29]

We turn to the few and meagre traditions concerning the moral
condition and conduct of the students. It must be remembered that they
came up at a very early age—12 to 14 years old are often mentioned—and
were only supposed to be partly educated when they took their B.A. degree.
There were special exercises and lectures for three years more, and only
with the M.A. were they properly qualified. We may, indeed, be sure that
the post-graduate studies were far the more important for the serious section
of the lads. For they came up very raw and ignorant; they even had a special
schoolmaster to teach them the elements of Latin and Greek, and of course
the books they could command were both few and imperfect as educational
helps. I do not think that from the first the College was at all abandoned to
the poor or inferior classes. The very earliest lists of names contain those of
the most respectable citizens; there were often favourite pupils of a Provost,
or other Don, who came from England, brought over with their teacher.
Very soon the Irish nobility began to send their sons. The Court of Wards,
established by King James I. in 1617, ordered that the minors of important
families in Ireland should be maintained and educated in English habits,
and in Trinity College, Dublin; and the first instance of this kind is that of
Farrall O’Gara, heir to Moy Gara, County Sligo, who was to remain at the
College from his 12th to his 18th year. By this means many youths of
quality, or at least of important family, were enrolled among the students.
The Earl of Cork sent two sons in 1630; the famous Strafford two in 1637;
and we find Radcliffes, Wandesfords, and other aristocratic names. What
strikes us in the face of this is the extreme economy—or rather the
apparently very small prices mentioned in the various early accounts
printed by Dr. Stubbs from the Bursar’s books.[30]

This economy, however, only applies to the scholars supported by the
House, especially the natives, who had various privileges. Fellow-
Commoners, and Nobles, such as Strafford’s sons, were probably allowed
various indulgences. It is interesting to notice that from the first a certain
proportion of lads came, as they now do, from the counties of England
(especially Cheshire) nearest to Dublin. On the other hand, while natives
are carefully distinguished from lads born in Ireland, I cannot find what test
was applied to determine a “native.” Even in 1613, 20 out of the 65 students
are so denominated. The majority of the natives, says Archbishop Marsh
two generations later, had been born of English parents, and were mostly of
the meaner sort, but by having learned to speak Irish with their Irish nurses,
or fosterers, had acquired some knowledge of the vernacular. But they could
not read or write it. The names quoted by Bedell in 1628 suggest that this
account of the parentage is true. Conway, Baker, Davis, and Burton are
admonished for being absent from Irish prayers. These are not Irish names.
It is also added by Marsh that most of these native scholars, bred in the
College, turned Papists in James II.’s reign. This proves that they had Irish
mothers, and would have afforded James Ussher a strong confirmation for
his policy as against Bedell’s.

This society of students was then, as it has ever since been, very
various in race, social position, and parentage, and to this not a little of its
great intellectual activity may be traced. It should also be added here that
one of the strongest natural reasons for the great prominence of the Anglo-
Irish, and the extraordinary distinctions they have attained in every great
development of the British Empire, is that the English settlers of
Elizabethan and Jacobean days were the boldest adventurers, the young
men (often of good family) of the greatest energy and courage, to be found
among the youth of England. They came to incur great risks, to brave many
dangers, but to attain great rewards. The rapidity of promotion among the
ecclesiastics, for example, is quite astonishing: Bishops at 30, Archbishops

and Chancellors at 40, are not uncommon. And if these daring adventurers
were often unscrupulous, at all events they and their quick-witted Irish
wives produced a most uncommon offspring.

We do not find that any hereditary turbulence showed itself in
disorders among the students. The early quarrels recorded are all among the
Fellows, and upon constitutional questions. The main complaints against
the boys were very harmless freaks, if we except the constant apprehensions
of the Deans concerning ale or tippling houses in the city, which were
assumed to be haunts of vice. Stealing apples and cherries from the
surrounding orchards was a common offence, coupled, moreover, with
climbing over the wall of the College. It shows Ussher’s hand when we find
this local feature formally noted in the Caroline Statutes. A few of Bedell’s
entries are the following:—
1628. July 16 and 18.—At the examinations each forme was censured, and it was
agreed that none shall ascend out of one forme to another, however absent, till he be
examined.

August 18.—Examination for Scholars—Apposers, Mr. Thomas and Mr. Fitzgerald.

August 21.—The Bachelors to be hearers of the Hebrew Lecture, unless they that were
able to proceed in that tongue by their private industry, and those are to help in the
collation of the MSS. of the New Testament in Greek. Twelve Testaments were given by Sir
William Ussher for the Irish.

August 24.—A meeting about the accounts. Warning given of town haunting and
swearing. The Deans requested to appoint secret monitors for them.

September 13.—The Dean may punish for going in cloaks by the consent of the
Provost and greater part. Mr. Temple’s letters to the Provost and Fellows answered—his
cause of absence to study in Oxford not gravis much less gravissima.

September 22.—The course for banishing boys, not students, by occasion of Mr.
Lowther’s boy striking Johnson consented to, viz. that fire and water, bread and beer and
meat be denied them by the butler and cook, under pain of 12d. toties quoties.

September 23.—Deane and Wilson mulcted a month’s Commons for their insolent
behaviour, assaulting and striking the butler, which was presently changed into sitting at
the lower end of the Scholars’ table for a month, and subjecting them to the rod.

The order for placing the Fellow Commoners by themselves in the Chapel for having
more room begins. Service books bought and bound for the natives.

October.—Election of Burgesses for Parliament. The Provost and Mr. Donellan, upon
better advice, the Provost resigning, Mr. Fitzgerald was chosen.

December 28.—The Lord Primate dined in the College at the Hall, and the same Dr.
James Ware presented the petition for renewing the lands of Kilmacrenny. Jo. Wittar
admonished for playing at cards.

January 28.—Tho. Walworth refused to read Chapter, and enjoined to make a
confession of his fault upon his knees in the Hall—which he disacknowledging—he had
deserved expulsion.

July 23, 1629.—Sir Walworth said to have sold his study to haunt the town. Somers,
Deane, and Elliott appointed to sit bare for going out of the Hall before grace, and not
performing it, made to stand by the pulpit.

April 2.—The proclamation against Priests and Jesuits came forth.

April 5.—Easter day, at which the forms were used for conveniency about the
Communion Table.

April 11.—Mr. Travers, for omitting his Common place the second time appointed,
punished 13s. Mr. Tho. for omitting prayers reading, 5s.

May 12.—The Sophisters proposed supper to the Bachelors: prevented by sending for
them and forbidding them to attempt it.

July 11.—The Fellow Commoners complain of Mr. Price for forbidding them to play
at bowls in the Orchard; they were blamed, and it was shown that by Statute they could not
play there.

July 29.—Six natives, Dominus Kerdiffe, Ds. Conway, Ds. Baker, Ds. Davis, Ds.
Kerdiffe, jun., and Burton, admonished for being often absent from Irish Prayers.

August 19.—The natives to lose their weekly allowance if they are absent from
prayers on the Lord’s Day.

August 29.—Sir Springham said to keep a hawk. Rawley, for drunkenness and
knocking Strank’s head against the seat of the Chapel, to have no further maintenance from
the house.

Booth, for taking a pig of Sir Samuel Smith’s, and that openly in the day time before
many, and causing it to be dressed in town, inviting Mr. Rollon and Sir Conway (who knew
not of it) was condemned to be whipped openly in the Hall, and to pay for the pig.

August 6.—Communion. Sermon upon Psalm 71. 16. The Articles of the Church of
Ireland read.[31]

The entries of the 29th August (1629) are peculiarly interesting, but
have hitherto not been understood in their local connection. There is an
entry in Mr. Gilbert’s Assembly Roll (ii., p. 82) awarding a citizen £8 for a
goshawk he had purchased for the city, which hawk had died. This is a very
large sum—perhaps equal to £70 now, and out of all proportion to the
salaries and the prices of necessaries in the College. To keep a hawk was,
therefore, somewhat like keeping an expensive hunter now, and a proof of
great extravagance. As regards the story of the pig, it was nothing more than
a comic carrying out of an order (above, p. 13) frequently issued by the
Corporation, whom Booth took at their word. It seems, therefore, that either
such proclamations were a sham, or that they only referred to the right of
citizens to interfere with the roving swine.

The courts seem to have been
in grass, as there is an early item
for mowing, and 1s. 4d. for an old
scythe. A vegetable garden was
kept for the use of the College on
the site of the present Botany Bay
Square, and the further ground
belonging to the precincts is called
a firr park, which seems to mean a
field of furze, much used for fuel in
THE SOUTH BACK OF THE
those days. There was neither room ELIZABETHAN COLLEGE.
nor permission for the games and
sports so vital to modern College life. The old and strict notion of a College
life, still preserved in some Roman Catholic Colleges abroad, excluded all
recreation as waste of time. The Caroline Statutes formally forbid playing
or even loitering in the courts or gardens of the College. Nor was this any

isolated severity. In the detailed horarium laid down for a proposed College
at Ripon, to be founded by James I.’s Queen (Anne of Denmark) at this
very time, every half-hour in the day is fully occupied with study, lectures,
or prayers.[32] There was considerable license, however, allowed at
Christmas, and it was perhaps from the old Monastery of All Hallowes that
the fashion was transmitted of acting plays at that season in the College.
The performance seems to have been undertaken by the several years or
classes. In 1630 it was ordered that the play should be acted, but not in the
College. The Lord Deputy constrained the unwilling Provost Ussher to
permit it. Even in the Caroline Statutes, remains of this Christmas license
appear in the permission to play cards—at other times strictly forbidden—
in the Hall on that day. Every 17th March (S. Patrick’s Day), the town
population came in crowds from the city to S. Patrick’s well at the southern
limit of the College (now Nassau Street, opposite Dawson Street), there to
test the miraculous powers of that holy well, which at that moment of the
year worked strange cures of diseases. We can imagine the furze bushes or
trees around this well all hung with tattered rags, as may still be seen at
wells of similar pretensions in the wild parts of Ireland. If the enclosed S.
Stephen’s Green was still remarkable in the last century “for the incredible
number of snipes” that frequented it, so the College Park must have
contained them in abundance. But it was reserved for our grandfathers to
boast that they had shot a snipe in the College precincts.[33]

The intellectual condition of the average 16th century student is even
harder to ascertain, and I have sought in vain for adequate materials. It
does, indeed, appear that the Irish New Testament and Prayer Book had
been printed. Sir H. Sidney’s Irish Articles of Religion were brought out in
1566. John Ussher had promoted Kearney’s Irish Alphabet and Catechism,
produced in Dublin from type supplied by the Queen in 1571.[34] William
Ussher had produced the New Testament in Francke’s printing, 1602. This

printer is probably the man mentioned as the “King’s printer” in 1615 (for
proclamations?). But though there is extant a proposed arrangement with
the very printer of one of these books (Kearney) to live and work in the
College,[35] there is no trace of his having done any real service. Even the
Statutes were in MS., copied out by the hand of the Provost or Vice-
Provost. The annals of Dublin show, I believe, none but isolated printing till
about 1627;[36] it was in 1641, both in Kilkenny and Waterford, as well as in
Dublin, that printing began to be used for disseminating political views. But
the earliest students must have found it very difficult to obtain books, and
there is no trace that any printing press started up to meet this urgent want. I
am now speaking only of text-books for students, by which I mean such
small and handy editions as the Latin Isagoge of Porphyry, printed at Paris
in 1535, of which copies are often found in Dublin, as the work was
diligently taught in the 17th century course. Dudley Loftus’ Logic and
Introduction, printed in 1657 (Dublin), seem to me the earliest books likely
to have been used as text-books in Trinity College. Strange to say, there is
no copy of either in our College Library. But the official teaching was
strictly oral, and the students were merely required to write out in theses or
reproduce in disputations what their tutors had told them. The College
course, as laid down by Laud (or Ussher?) in the Caroline Statutes, is
plainly not a course in books, but in subjects. Not a single text-book, unless
it be the Isagoge of Porphyry, is specified, and this rather for the lecturer
than the students. Whatever practical relaxations the course then laid down
may have undergone, it was chiefly in the post-graduate studies; for the
officers of the College had no power to alter or emend the programme of
Laud till the year 1760, when a special King’s Letter gave them authority to
do so. This accounts for the great quantity of lecturing which went on, each
tutor giving three hours every day, not to speak of the efforts of the College
Schoolmaster, who undertook those that were raw in Latin and Greek.
Archbishop Loftus, indeed, in his parting address to the College (Armagh

Library MS.), exhorts the new Provost (Travers)—“See that the younger
sort be well catechised, and that you prescribe to the rest a catalogue of
approved books to be read by them as foundations of learning, both human
and divine.” But this alludes to post-graduate studies, for which the Library
was then established,[37] and not to the daily studies of the undergraduates.
Logic was the chief subject, the system of Ramus being brought into
fashion by the Cambridge Puritans, and especially by Provost Temple, who
had written a book on the subject. Chappel was also a famous Ramist
logician. Very little mathematics was taught, but, on the other hand, Hebrew
was regarded as of equal importance with Greek; and in every subject we
find the student’s knowledge tested, not by reproduction of his reading, but
by disputations, which showed that he had so far grasped a subject that he
could attack an adversary or defend himself when attacked.

F OOT NOT E S :
[1] The writer of the first four chapters here acknowledges the generous help
received from J. R. Garstin, Esq., B.D., and the Rev. William Reynell, B.D., both
in supplying him with facts and in correcting his proofs. This portion of the book
was undertaken by him suddenly, in default of a specialist to perform it. Hence
the large number of extracts inserted, in which the facts must rest upon the
authority of the authors quoted, as there was no time to verify them. Of the three
extant histories of the University, those of Taylor and of Dr. Stubbs are very
valuable in citing many original documents, the former chiefly Parliamentary,
the latter from the archives of the College. Heron’s work was written for a
special purpose, which he pleads throughout, after the manner of his profession.

[2] “That before the Reformation it [the Royal College of Dublin] was common
to all the natives of this country, ... and the ablest scholars of the nation preferred
to be professors and teachers therein, without any distinction of orders,
congregations, or politic bodies other than that of true merit,” etc. Cf. Dublin
Magazine for August, 1762. This golden age of Irish University education may
well be relegated to the other golden ages of mythology.

[3] I quote the text (which has lately been printed), of which I owe my
knowledge to the kindness of Mrs. Reeves, who lent me the late Bishop of
Down’s MS. copy:—“Nolui enim Magnatum placitis me accomodare qui
summo conatu, immo cæco impetu et consutis dolis, operam dederunt ut prope
Civitatem Lymericensem vel Armachanam fundaretur, quasi piaculum non
fuisset periculis belli incendii turbacionis et ruinæ exponere Academiam noviter
fundatam, ... nulla alia forsan ratione quam uberioris proprii quæstus gratia.
Quem et objeci viro eorundem præcipuo prænobili arteque militari conspicuo
fascibusque tunc potito, non obstante quod nimis subitaneæ iræ impetu sæpius se
monstraverat pronum ad furorem et verbera; is enim non semel se rapi sinebat
æstuantis animi violentia in proclivitatem vim hujuscemodi inferendi aliis;
notum enim est ... quam strenuum et fortem virum, sed tunc podagra laborantem
pedibusque captum percussit ipse iræ infirmitate perculsus, etc. Non defui igitur
mihi vel Academiæ obstando tanto viro,” etc. In other words, he claims to have
incurred great danger of being thrashed by Perrott for opposing him! And he
retorts the very charge brought against himself, of having pecuniary interests in
the background.

[4] I cite from Mr. Wright’s citation of Thomas Smith’s life of James Ussher,
Ussher Memorials, p. 44.

[5] Cf. E. P. Shirley’s Original Letters, &c., London, 1851, for these and other
details.

[6] Cf. Gilbert, op. cit. vol. ii., for Usshers, pp. 17, 22, 65, etc.; for Challoners,
pp. 45, 64, 88, 259, etc.

[7] Op. cit. pp. 64, 88.

[8] He was uncle to the famous James Ussher, now commonly known as
Archbishop Ussher. Henry Ussher, however, was also Archbishop of Armagh.
He was educated both at Cambridge and at Oxford, as well as abroad.

[9] On application to Cambridge, I am informed, by the kindness of the Registrar
and of Mr. W. A. Wright of Trinity College, that Luke Challoner (spelt Chalenor)
matriculated as a pensioner October 13, 1582, took B.A. degree in 1585, and
M.A. in 1589. He was never a Fellow, or even a Scholar, of Trinity College,
Cambridge, and obtained his D.D. at one of the earliest Commencements in
Dublin, probably in 16001.

[10] Stubbs’ History of the University of Dublin, Appendix iii., p. 354. None of
the histories note that there were foreign Colleges founded by Irish priests for
the Irish at this very time in Salamanca (opened 1592), Lisbon (1593), Douai
(1594). Thus there was an active policy to be counteracted by Elizabeth, and
these proposed foundations were probably set before her by Henry Ussher as a
pressing danger. Some account of the Constitution of the Salamanca seminary is
given in Hogan’s Hibernia Ignatiana, Appendix, p. 238. The students were to be
exclusively of Irish parentage.

[11] Who these well-disposed persons were is beyond doubt. The Queen
mentions Ussher in the Warrant; the College mentions Challoner on his tomb—
“Conditur hoc tumulo Chaloneri triste cadaver
Cujus ope et precibus conditur ista domus.”

James Ussher, in recommending a subsequent Provost (Robert Ussher), says
—“He is the son of that father at whose instance, charge, and trust the Charter of
the first foundation was obtained from Queen Elizabeth” (Works, i., 103). On the
epitaph of Provost Seele we read—
“Tecta Chalonerus pia condidit; obruta Seelus
Instauravit.”

In the MS. at Armagh, written in praise of Loftus, and reporting his speeches, we
have the following (p. 228):—“Among many prudent inducements suitable to

polity and reason which moved the Queen to establish this University and
College at All Hallowes, the humble peticion of Henry Ussher, Archdeacon of
Dublin, in the name of the Citty of Dublin, faithfully and most zealously
solicited by Dr. Luke Challoner, and as powerfully recommended and promoted
by Adam Loftus, etc., was not held the least of efficacye as to extrinsicall
impressions with the Queen in that behalf.” Here, then, in a panegyric of Loftus,
Archbishop and Chancellor, his name is postponed to those of the two local men
and the City of Dublin. This fact speaks for itself. I quote these various
documents to correct the current impression that Loftus was the real founder.

[12] Gilbert: Ancient Records of Dublin, ii., p. 240

[13] The Book of Benefactions (first printed in the College Calendar of 1858)
gives the date of the actual grant as July 21, in the 34th year of Elizabeth.

[14] Stubbs, op. cit. pp. 10, 11.

[15] From a Book of Common Prayer printed in Dublin, 1721, where it appears
among the “Prayers for the use of Trinity College, near Dublin.” “What authority
there was for these prayers has not been ascertained. They certainly were not an
integral portion of the book as adopted by the Irish Convocation, and in the
Dublin-printed edition of 1700 they first appear interpolated, in the T.C.D.
Library copy, between two of the Acts of Parliament which were then printed in
some issues of the Church of Ireland Prayer-book.”—J.R.G. The prayer printed
at the beginning of Provost Ashe’s secular sermon, of which an illustration is
given on p. 10, was possibly the model: it was printed in 16934.

[16] The old Dublin seal has men-at-arms shooting with cross-bows from the
tops of the towers, which are five stories high. The cause of the change is, I
believe, known, though I have not learned it.

[17] It occurs to me, as a solution of this difficulty, that in 1612 Temple and his
Fellows were occupied in preparing a Charter and Statutes for the University, as
distinguished from the College. This scheme, when almost complete, was
adjourned sine die. But if the original seal contained any allusion to Trinity
College as an University, which is very possible, then this seal, dated 1612, is
the first seal of the College as such, and there may have been another seal
prepared for the University, which disappeared with the failure of the scheme.

[18] Description of Dublin (1610).

[19] Cf. Gilbert’s Ancient Records, ii., 16, 63, 99, 142, 377, and on Stanihurst, p.
541.

[20] The other constant cause of fire mentioned is the keeping of ricks of furze
and of faggots close to the houses.

[21] “It is agreed that no person or persons frome hensforthe shall place any
dounge on the pavement betwyxt the Dames Gate and the Hoggen Greane; and
that they shall suffer no dounge to remayne upon the saide pavement against ther
houses or gardinges in the said streete above xxiv owres, and that they shall
make clean before their gardinges of all ramaylie, dounge, or outher fylthe with
all convenyent speade; and to place the same and all outher dounge that shalbe
caryed to the saide greane, in the greate hole by Allhallowes, and not elsewheare
upon the same greane, upon payne of vis viiid, halfe to the spier and finder, and
thother halfe to the cyttie worckes.”—Gilbert, ii., p. 66.

[22] On the map of 1610, facsimiled on p. 7 (from Mr. Gilbert), the Hospital and
the Bridewell, on the west and north of the College respectively, are
interchanged in names or in numbers. The descriptions in the records of each,
op. cit. pp. 390, 420, will prove this mistake in the map.

[23] The amount is usually stated at £1,800. Dr. Stubbs reduces it to £700. Even
so, it was a very large sum. Dr. Stubbs also proves that there were some books in
the College Library before 1600, op. cit. p. 170.

[24] Fitz-Simons’ Life and Letters, translated and edited by E. Hogan, S.J., p. 56.
“Non sine Collegiatorum ingenti fremitu, qui hactenus nullum alicujus
æstimationis ad se pellicere potuerunt,” evidently refers to Roman Catholic
boys, if we are to defend the learned Jesuit’s statement as one of fact.

[25] Thus a window in the College Chapel, set up as a memorial of Bishop
Berkeley, calls him a Fellow of this University. I need not point out how this
blunder has been exalted into an official title by the Examining Body called the
Royal University of Ireland, which has no Professors for its University, and no
College for its Fellows.

[26] Cf. op. cit. p. 395. The decision of the Visitors had been for the latter, but
reversed by the Chancellor (Archbishop Abbot), whose letter shows that he had
not apprehended the important distinction between Statute and Charter; the
Statutes, made by the College, being powerless to abrogate what the Charter had
ordained.

[27] It is now known as Rosslea Manor, in Fermanagh, and pays the College
about £2,000 a-year.

[28] Robert Ussher was the only Irish Provost who adopted the same policy. But
he was clearly a sentimental person, as appears from his cousin the Primate’s
judgment, that he was quite too soft to manage the College, and also from the

Latin letter to the Primate still extant (Ussher Memorials, p. 275), a very florid
and tasteless piece of rhetoric.

[29] It also existed at Oxford. Wesley preached in this way as a layman.—J. R.
G.

[30] Here is a specimen of Provost Temple’s estimates:—“Allowed to each
Scholar at dinner ¾d., at supper 1d. This allowance will be to each Scholar, out
of the kitchen, 1s. 2½d. per week, or £2 13s. 1d. per annum. After this rate, there
being seventeen and a-half messes of Scholars, and for each mess 3d. at dinner,
and 4d. at supper, the allowance out of the kitchen, made to seventy Scholars,
will amount to £185 15s. per annum. The allowance to a Scholar out of the
buttery. To each Scholar allowed in bread, at dinner ½d., and at supper a ½d.,
and for his weekly sizings 4d., it cometh to 11d. per week; To each Scholar, in
beer, ½d. per diem is per week, 3½d. At this rate a Scholar’s allowance, out of
the buttery, in bread and beer is 1s. 2½d. per week, or £3 2s. 10d. per annum.
Now the whole allowance of a Scholar, both out of the kitchen and buttery, being
2s. 2¼d. per week, and £5 15s. 11d. per annum, will amount for seventy
Scholars, to £405 3s. 4d.

“The allowance of a Fellow out of the kitchen, 1½d. per each meal, or 3d. per
diem, will come to 1s. 9d. per week or £4 11s. per annum: according to this rate,
there being four messes of Fellows, and for each mess, both dinner and supper,
6d., the allowance of the Fellows out of the kitchen will be £72 16s. per annum.
The allowance of a Fellow out of the buttery at 1d. each for bread, and 1d. for
beer, and for his weekly sizings 1½d., will be 1s. 3½d. each, and per annum £3
7s. 2d.: after this the allowances of the sixteen Fellows out of the buttery in
bread, beer, and sizings, is £53 14s. 8d. per annum.”—Op. cit. p. 40. The details
sorely need explanation.

[31] Stubbs, pp. 58, 59.

[32] Cf. this very curious document in Desiderata Curiosa.

[33] “There is to be seen here (S. Stephen’s Green), during the winter, an
incredible number of snipes, invited by the swampiness of the Green during that
season, and to avoid their enemies the sportsmen: this is an agreeable and most
uncommon circumstance not to be met with, perhaps, in any other great city in
the world.”—Harris’s History of Dublin (1766), p. 481, note.

[34] Cf. Ussher Memorials, pp. 122, 128.

[35] Stubbs, p. 22.

[36] There seem to have been a good many learned books by J. Ussher, Sir
James Ware, James Barry, and Sir C. Sibthorp printed in Dublin between 1626
and 1636. Then there seems to be a pause till about 1650, when a continuous
series of Irish prints begins.

[37] The College Library, which forms the subject of another chapter in this
book, was intended solely for graduates, and we hear that when the victors of
Kinsale voted a large part of their prize-money for books, or when the College
voted money for the same purpose, learned men like Ussher and Challoner were
forthwith sent to England to purchase them.

CHAPTER II.

FROM THE CAROLINE REFORM TO THE SETTLEMENT OF

WILLIAM III.

Ruunt agmine facto
In me profana turba Roma Genevaque.
Provost Chappel’s Autobiography.

he first fifty years of this History passed away without much
apparent advance. The attempt to supply additional room by
providing two residence-halls in the city (Bridge Street and
Back Lane) turned out a complete failure.[38] As the College grew richer by
King James’ gifts of Ulster lands, the quarrels of the Fellows and Provost
were increased by this new interest. They were also still constitution-
mongering, and we do not find that the only Dublin man, Robert Ussher,
who was Provost during this period, was more successful than the imported
Cambridge men. Among the Fellows appointed, if we except the
remarkable group of founders, not a single name of note appears save
Joshua Hoyle, who came from Oxford, and who was afterwards Professor
of Divinity, and Master of University College, Oxford. The rest supplied the
Church of Ireland with some respectable dignitaries, but nothing more. We
know that these things were weighing on the mind of the great Primate,
who could remember the high hopes and the enthusiasm of Dublin when the
College was founded. He was convinced that the Fellows wasted their
energies in College politics, and that the Provost had insufficient powers to
control them. Laud surely speaks the words of Ussher when he says that the
College is reported to him as “being as ill-governed as any in

Christendom.” Archbishop Ussher must have been determined to take from
the Fellows the management of their own affairs, and entrust it to a Provost
nominated by the Crown, administering Statutes fixed by the Crown, and
only to be altered with its sanction. This great reform he carried out by
having his friend Archbishop Laud appointed Chancellor, and so having a
new Charter forced, in 1637, upon the College—the Caroline Statutes.[39] It
was indeed a strong measure to take from the College its self-government,
but it was done after due deliberation by wise men; and the results have
certainly answered their expectations. It should, however, be added, in
fairness to those who failed during the first 45 years to maintain order, that
the Crown, while professing to give absolute liberty by Statute, had
constantly interfered in appointments, and violated the privileges granted by
Elizabeth. Nor indeed did the Caroline Statutes, which much internal
evidence shows to be the work of Ussher as well as Laud, succeed
forthwith. The experiment was baulked at the outset by the unfortunate
appointment of Chappel as Provost, a famous logician, but a weak and not
very honest man,[40] whose conduct was about to be impeached by the Irish
Parliament, when the Rebellion of 1641 burst upon the land. Chappel was
then Bishop of Cork, but had refused to resign the Provostship. Ten years of
misery supervened, when Chappel and the next Provost, Wassington, fled
home to England, when Faithful Tate and Dudley Loftus strove as vice-
regents to hold together the affairs of the starving College; when the estates
were in the rebels’ hands, the valuable plate was pawned or melted, Provost
Martin dying of the plague which followed upon massacre and starvation:[41]
the intellectual heart of Ireland suffered with its members, and responded to
the agonies of the loyal population with sufferings not less poignant.

Nevertheless, the appointment of the Lord Deputy, Ormonde (a great
benefactor to the College at the worst moment), as Chancellor is dated the
12th March, 1644. He was chosen to succeed Laud. The actual deed is now

at Kilkenny Castle.[42] The appointment of the Chancellor was made by the
Provost (Anthony Martin, Bishop of Meath) and a majority of the Senior
Fellows. Ormonde came back with the Restoration, and in high favour.

The horror of civil war in England was added to make the cup flow
over. Charles, Laud, and Ussher were too engrossed with their own troubles
to promote the regeneration of the College which they had commenced, and
so we find that this decennium of anarchy was only ended by the strong
hand of Cromwell, who undertook to establish order in Ireland. The “crowd
of Geneva” were accordingly established in the College; but justice must
admit that Henry Cromwell as Chancellor, and Winter as Provost, behaved
with good sense and zeal in promoting the interests of learning. They, of
course, pressed home their doctrines upon the students; Winter called to the
College zealous controversialists of distinguished piety;[43] private Christian
meetings among the students were encouraged rather than official Chapels.
Such of the former officers as acquiesced in these things—the Vice-
Chancellor Henry Jones, who dropped his title of Bishop, and Stearne the
physician—were continued for the sake of their learning. The care of
outward neatness appears from the entries forbidding linen to be dried in
the courts; they had washed it there long enough. The Provost undertook
several journeys to the remote parts of Ireland, to recover the abandoned
properties and collect the rents of the College. To the Commonwealth,
moreover, is due the foundation (1652) of the School of Mathematics,
which has since become so famous. This initial step was advanced by the
bequest of Lord Donegal (1660), whose Lecturership is still known by his
name.

When the Restoration supervened, Winter and his intimates were
expelled as intruders, and a new governing body and scholars appointed.
But as Cromwell had taken care to keep up the traditions of the College by
continuing some of the previous Fellows, so the Government of Charles II.

reappointed several men who had stood by the College all through the
interregnum, and saved the continuity of its teaching. Above all, the framers
of the well-known Act of Settlement took special care of the College,
securing to it all the estates to which it had a claim, and even endowing the
Provost with charges upon forfeited lands in the Archbishopric of Dublin.
Provisions were made for the founding of a second College under the
University; presently Dr. Stearne obtained a Charter for the College of
Physicians at Trinity Hall, close to the Green, in connection with the
College. Ussher’s books, which were still lying in Dublin Castle, though
long since purchased by Cromwell’s soldiers for the College, were now
formally handed over to it; and in every way its interests were fostered and
promoted. The Duke of Ormonde as Lord Deputy, and also as Chancellor of
the University, and Bishop Jeremy Taylor as Vice-Chancellor, may be
regarded as the main movers in this policy; whether other secret influences
were at work I have not been able to ascertain.[44] How firm and wise a
friend of the College Ormonde was, appears from the following protest he
made to the then Secretary of State. An Englishman had just been
nominated to an Irish bishopric. “It is fit that it should be remembered that
near this city there is an University of the foundation of Queen Elizabeth,
principally intended for the education and advantage of the natives of this
kingdom, which hath produced men very eminent for learning and piety,
and those of this nation, and such there are in the Church: so that, while
there are such, the passing them by is not only, in some measure, a violation
of the original intention and institution, but a great discouragement to the
natives from making themselves capable and fit for preferment in the
Church, whereunto, if they have equal parts, they are better able to do
service than strangers; their knowledge of the country and relations in it
giving them the advantage. The promotion, too, of the already dignified or
beneficed will make room for, and consequently encourage, students in the
University, which room will be lost, and the inferior clergy much

disheartened, if, upon the vacancy of bishopricks, persons unknown to the
kingdom and University shall be sent to fill them, and be less useful there to
Church and kingdom than those who are better acquainted with them.”[45]
The scandalous policy of setting obscure and careless Englishmen to govern
competent Irishmen, which reached its climax under Primate Boulter’s
influence, has now veered round so completely that there is an outcry if an
incompetent Irishman is not preferred to any Englishman, however
competent. Both extremes lead to the same mischief—estrangement in
sentiment from England, and in consequence narrow provincialism, which
lowers the standard to be expected in important posts, by selecting the best
local man, instead of the best man in Great Britain and Ireland, or even (for
scientific appointments) in Europe.

But though the College was thus secured in ultimate material
prosperity, there was for some years great difficulty in realising property,
and we find elections postponed for want of funds in 1664 and 1666. A
Fellow, William Leckey, was executed in Dublin for participation in the plot
of 1663 against the King. Still worse, we still find in what Jeremy Taylor
describes as “the little, but excellent University of Dublin,”[46] great poverty
in profound scholarship. Two eminent men had indeed come out of Trinity
College in this generation. Dudley Loftus and Henry Dodwell were second
to none of their contemporaries in learning. Dodwell was offered a Chair at
Oxford solely upon his general reputation. The catalogue of his and Loftus’
extant works is still astonishing. Loftus combined in him the blood of the
talented adventurer Adam Loftus with the far sounder blood of the Usshers.
[47]
But these men would not or could not be Provosts—so that high office
fell to such men as Seele, the son of a verger at Christ Church, esteemed
highly by his contemporaries,[48] and Ward, who was of the old Loftus type,
having come over from England, and obtained five great promotions,
ending with the See of Derry, in which he died, at the age of 39! No wonder

that clever lads sought their fortune in Ireland. Ward “was esteemed a
person of fine conversation and of great sagacity in dextrously managing
proper conjunctures, to which qualities his rise to so many preferments in so
short a time was ascribed.”[49]

It was a very great improvement, and of great service to the College,
when the Duke of Ormonde reverted again to Oxford, and brought over as
Provost Narcissus Marsh, whose Library at S. Sepulchre’s still attests the
learning and wide interests of the man. Like every Provost in those days, he
was promptly advanced to the Episcopal Bench; the College then afforded a
stepping-stone to the episcopal as it now does to the judicial Bench; and if
its rulers are now usually very old, they were then very young. Marsh was
only five years Provost before his promotion, and yet even in that short time
he produced a lasting effect upon the College. What would such a man have
accomplished in a lifetime of enlightened government! But he was
essentially a student, and the duties of the Provost were not then, as they
now are, compatible with a learned leisure.
January 16789.—Finding the place very troublesome, partly by reason of the multitude
of business and important visits the Provost is obliged to, and partly by reason of the ill
education that the young scholars have before they come to the College, whereby they are
both rude and ignorant, I was quickly weary of 340 young men and boys in this lewd,
debauched town, and the more so because I had no time to follow my dearly beloved
studies.[50]

I have already noted that this enterprising Englishman was bent on
promoting the study of the Irish language. Let me quote what Dr. Stubbs
says—

“Among the Smith MSS. in the Bodleian Library is preserved a letter[51] from Marsh
when Primate, in which he gives some account of the condition of the College during his
residence as Provost. He was particularly anxious, as he states, that the thirty Irish-born
Scholars, who then enjoyed salaries equal to those of the Junior Fellows, should be
thoroughly trained to speak and write the Irish language. He desired that these should be a
body from which the parochial clergy of Ireland might be recruited, in order that the people

should have the ministrations of religion in their own language. The majority of the
Natives knew nothing of the grammar of the language, and could make no attempt to read
it, or to write it. In order to counteract this ignorance, Marsh determined that he would not
elect to a native’s place any scholar who was not ready to learn the Irish language
thoroughly, and that he would not allow them to retain their places unless they made
satisfactory progress. To enable them to do this, he employed a converted Roman Catholic
priest, Paul Higgins, who was a good Irish scholar, and who had been admitted as a
clergyman of the Irish Church, to reside in his house, and to give instruction to the Scholars
of the College,[52] at a salary of £16 a-year and his board. He had also the Church Service
read in Irish, and an Irish sermon preached by Higgins in the College Chapel on one
Sunday afternoon in every month, at 3 P.M. These services seem to have been open to the
public; and we learn from Marsh’s letters that the ancient Chapel was crowded by hearers
on the occasion of the Irish sermons, the congregation numbering as many as three
hundred. We have no record of the continuance of these Irish services after Marsh ceased
to be Provost.”

He also promoted the study of mathematics, hitherto of little moment
in the College. He founded a Philosophical Society, as a sort of offshoot of
the Royal Society of London, to which he contributed a learned paper on
Musical Sounds. The curious collection of ancient music still extant in his
Library (bequeathed for the use of the City of Dublin, but mainly intended
for a Diocesan Library) shows that he had a special interest in this subject.
He wrote for the students a sensible text-book of Logic (see fac-simile of
title-page, p. 37). He got a new and larger Chapel built, which lasted till
1798. But he was still in the era when the College authorities had no idea of
building ornamentally. The houses and halls were merely modest
constructions for use, and Dr. Campbell is quoted as describing them:—

The Chapel is as mean a structure as you can conceive; destitute of monumental
decoration within; it is no better than a Welsh Church without. The old Hall, where College
exercises are performed, is in the same range, and built in the same style.—Op. cit. p. 117.

This is, I think, to be said of all the buildings in Dublin during the
seventeenth century. So far as I know, the earliest, and perhaps the best
attempt at artistic architecture is the Library, which was not commenced till
1709.[53] All the handsome houses in Dublin date from after the middle of
the eighteenth century.

FAC-SIMILE OF TITLE-PAGE, ARCHBISHOP MARSH’S “LOGIC.”

Institutiones LOGICÆ.

IN USUM Juventutis Academicæ DUBLINIENSIS.

DUBLINI, Apud S. HELSHAM ad Insignia Collegii,
in vico vulgò dicto Castle-street. 1681.

When Marsh was promoted—he became ultimately Archbishop of
Dublin and then Primate—Ormonde, the Chancellor, chose another
Orientalist, Huntingdon of Merton College, to succeed him. But he was by
no means so able a man; he came over with great reluctance (1686), and
immediately decamped upon the outbreak of the second great tumult, which
turned out even worse for the College than 1641—the Revolution under
James II., and the war which was only concluded by William’s victory at
the Boyne. The Revolution was a sore blow for the College, which was now
rapidly rising both in wealth and in intellectual position. The Senior Fellows
did all they could to conciliate James II., without, however, denying their
own Protestant character. The King, a weak man, gave them civil words;
but they had to deal with his advisers, who varied widely in their aims and
hopes from those of moderate men. The Acts passed by the brief Parliament
of James II. have been recently brought into clear light by historians,[54] and
the only wonder to be explained is the escape of the College from the secret
Bill of Attainder which was to affect the liberties and properties of all
Protestants, and from which not even the power of the Crown could grant
remission. The anecdote how the members for the University kept out of the
way, or sent the College butler out of the way,[55] and managed to have the
College names omitted, seems to be a romance invented to explain an
accidental omission, and to gain credit for some worthy people who did not
fly to England or betray their public trust.

The first acts of aggression were demands to appoint creatures of
Tyrconnell’s either to an Irish Lecturership which did not exist, or to Junior
Fellowships, which required an oath of allegiance to the Crown and of
adherence to the Church of England, as ordered by Charles II. in his Act of
Uniformity. The Crown had been in the habit of appointing Fellows by
mandamus, so that this proceeding was not so high-handed as it would be
now-a-days. But the plain intention of James II.’s advisers, and especially
of Tyrconnell, the Lord Deputy, was to force Roman Catholics into power

and to dispossess Protestant interests. It is to the credit of the adventurers
sent down to the College by Tyrconnell that they objected to take the oath.
The Lord Deputy then stopped the Concordatum Fund of £400 a-year. It
was a moment when the College so clearly felt its increasing numbers, that
there was a proposal to sell some of the fast-accumulating plate to find
funds in aid of new buildings. Apart from gifts made by the parents of
pupils, there was a charge at matriculation for argent, as there still is in
some Colleges at Oxford, and it seems to have been thought a convenient
way of laying by money which could be easily realised in times of danger.
How fast this plate had accumulated since the disasters of 1641 may be
inferred from the fact that the College actually embarked 3,990 ounces of
silver to be sent to London (7th February, 1687). On the 12th, Tyrconnell
was sworn in Lord Deputy, and had the plate seized. The College reclaimed
it, and ultimately recovered it on condition of laying out the money in the
purchase of land. It seems to have brought 5s. per ounce, and is said to have
been “profitably” invested. If the College now possessed it, the money
value would not be less than £5 per ounce; its value in adding dignity to the
establishment is not easily estimable. As Dr. Stubbs says, the succeeding
events are best told from the College Register, which he quotes:—
January 9, 16889.—The College stock being very low, and there being little hopes of
the coming in of the rents, the following retrenchment of the College expenses was agreed
upon by the Vice-Provost and Senior Fellows.

January 24, 16889.—The Visitors of the College did approve of the said retrenchment,
which is as follows:—Ordered by the Vice-Provost and Senior Fellows, because the
College is reduced to a low condition by the infelicity of the times (no tenants paying any
rents, and at present our stock being almost exhausted), it was ordered that there should be
a retrenchment of our expenses according to the model following; the approbation of our
Visitors being first obtained:—

Inp.—That there shall be but one meal a-day in the Hall, and that a dinner, because the
supper is the more expensive meal by reason of coals, &c. 2. That every Fellow be allowed
but three pence in the Kitchen per diem, and one penny in the Buttery. 3. That the Scholars
be allowed their full allowance according to the Statutes, but after this manner, viz.:—To

each Scholar in the Kitchen two pence per diem, except on Friday, on which but three half
pence. To each Scholar in the Buttery his usuall allowance, which was one penny half
penny per diem. To each Scholar at night shall be allowed out of the Buttery one half
penny in cheese or butter, except on Friday night, and that will compleat the Statute
allowance. 4. That whereas the Statute allowance to each Fellow in Buttery and Kitchen is
five shillings and three pence per week, and the present allowance comes but to two
shillings and four pence, therefore it is ordered that whenever the College is able, the first
payments shall be made to the Fellows to compleat their Statute allowance in Commons.
All these clauses above mentioned are to be understood in relation to those that are
resident. And if it shall happen that the Society shall be forc’t to break up, and quit the
place through extreme necessity, or any publick calamity, that then all members of the said
Society shall for the interim have full title and claim to all profits and allowances in their
severall stations and offices respectively, when it shall please God to bring about a happy
restoration. 5. That proportionable deductions be made from what was formerly allow’d to
the Cooks for decrements, furzes, &c. 6. That the additional charge of Saturday’s dinners
be laid aside. 7. That for the future no Scholar of the House be allow’d Commons that is
indebted to his Tutor, and that no Master of Arts, Fellow Commoner, or Pensioner, be kept
in Commons that has not deposited sufficient caution money in the Bursar’s hands. 8. That
whereas we are resolved to keep up the Society as long as possibly we can, therefore ’tis
ordered that as soon as the College money shall fail, all the plate now in our custody be
sold or pawned to defray the charges above mentioned. We, the Visitors of the College
above mentioned, having considered the expediency of the above retrenchment, do allow
and approve thereof.

Francis Dublin. Dive Downes.
Ant. Meath. John Barton.
Richard Acton, Vice-Provost. Ben. Scroggs.
George Brown.

January 24, 16889.—It was agreed upon by the Vice-Provost and Senior Fellows that
the Manuscripts in the Library, the Patents, and other writings belonging to the College, be
transported into England. At the same time it was resolved that the remainder of the plate
should be immediately sold, excepting the Chappel Plate. The same day the College waited
on the Lord Deputy, and desired leave to transport the remainder of their plate into
England, because they could not sell it here without great loss.

The Lord Deputy refused leave.

February 19, 16889.—It was agreed on by the Vice-Provost and Senior Fellows that
two hundred pounds of the College money should be sent into England for the support of
those Fellows that should be forc’t to fly thither. At the same time the dangers of staying in

the College seemed so great that it was judged reasonable that all those that thought fit to
withdraw themselves from the College for their better security might have free liberty so to
do.

February 25, 16889.—All the Horse, Foot, and Dragoons, were drawn out and posted
at severall places in the town, from whence they sent parties, who searcht the Protestant
houses for arms, whilst others were employed in breaking into stables and taking away all
their horses. Two Companies of Foot, commanded by Talbot, one of the Captains in the
Royal Regiment of Foot Guards, came into the College, searcht all places, and took away
those few fusils, swords, and pistols, that they found. At the same time a party of Dragoons
broke open the College stables and took away all the horses. The Foot continued in the
College all night; the next day they were drawn off. On the same day it was agreed on by
the Vice-Provost and Senior Fellows that the Fellows and Scholars should receive out of
the College trunk (the two hundred pounds not being sent into England as was design’d)
their salaries for their respective Fellowships, Offices, and Scholarships, which will be due
at the end of this current quarter, together with their allowance for Commons for the said
quarter.

March 1, 16889.—Dr. Browne, Mr. Downes, Mr. Barton, Mr. Ashe, and Mr. Smyth,
embark’t for England; soon after follow’d Mr. Scroggs, Mr. Leader, Mr. Lloyd, Mr. Sayers,
and Mr. Hasset. Mr. Patrickson soon after died; and (of ye Fellows) only Dr. Acton, Mr.
Thewles, Mr. Hall, and Mr. Allen, continued in the College.

March 12, 16889.—King James landed in Ireland; and upon the 24th of the same
month, being Palm Sunday, he came to Dublin. The College, with the Vice-Chancellor,
waited upon him, and Mr. Thewles made a speech, which he seemed to receive kindly, and
promis’d ’em his favour and pretection;[56] [but upon the 16th of September, 1689, without
any offence as much as pretended, the College was seized on for a garrison by the King’s
order, the Fellows turned out, and a Regiment of Foot took possession and continued in it.
[57]
]

June 13, 1689.—Mr. Arthur Greene having petitioned the King for a Senior
Fellowship, the case was refer’d to Sir Richard Nagle; upon which he sent an order to the
Vice-Provost and Fellows to meet him at his house on Monday, the 17th, to shew reason
why the aforesaid petition shud not be granted. The reasons offer’d were many, part of ’em
drawn from false allegations in the petition, part from the petitioner’s incapacity in several
respects to execute the duty of a Senior Fellow; and the conclusion was in these words:
There are much more important reasons drawn, as well from the Statutes relating to
religion, as from the obligation of oaths which we have taken, and the interests of our
religion, which we will never desert, that render it wholly impossible, without violating our

consciences, to have any concurrence, or to be any way concerned, in the admission of
him.

July 24.—The Vice-Provost and Fellows, with consent of the Vice-Chancellor, sold a
peece of plate weighing about 30 ounces for subsistence of themselves and the Scholars
that remained.

September 6.—The College was seized on for a Garrison by the King’s order, and Sir
John Fitzgerald took possession of it. Upon Wednesday the 11th, it was made a prison for
the Protestants of the City, of whom a great number were confined to the upper part of the
Hall. Upon the 16th the Scholars were all turned out by souldiers, and ordered to carry
nothing with ’em but their books. But Mr. Thewles and some others were not permitted to
take their books with ’em. Lenan, one of the Scholars of the House, was sick of the small-
pox, and died, as it was supposed, by removing. At the same time the King sent an order to
apprehend six of the Fellows and Masters, and commit ’em to the main guard, and all this
without any provocation or crime as much as pretended; but the Bishop of Meath, our
Vice-Chancellor, interceded with the King, and procured the last order to be stopt.

September 28.—The Chappel-plate and the Mace were seized on and taken away. The
plate was sent to the Custom-house by Colonel Lutterel’s order; but it was preserved by
Mr. Collins, one of the Commissioners of the Revenue.

October 21.—Several persons, by order of the Government, seized upon the Chappel
and broke open the Library. The Chappel was sprinkled and new consecrated and Mass
was said in it; but afterwards being turned into a storehouse for powder, it escaped all
further damage. The Library and Gardens and the Provost’s lodgings were committed to
the care of one Macarty, a Priest and Chaplain to ye King, who preserved ’em from the
violence of the souldiers, but the Chambers and all other things belonging to ye College
were miserably defaced and ruined.[58]

We find in the Dublin Magazine for August, 1762, p. 54, the following petition of the
Roman Catholic Prelates of Ireland, which was probably presented to James II. at this time:
—

“Humbly Sheweth

“That the Royal College of Dublin is the only University of this
Kingdom, and now wholly at your Majesty’s disposal, the teachers and scholars having
deserted it.

“That before the Reformation it was common to all the natives of this country, as the
other most famous Universities of Europe to theirs, respectively, and the ablest Scholars of
this Nation preferred to be professors and teachers therein, without any distinction of

orders, congregations, or politic bodies, other than that of true merit, as the competent
judges of learning and piety, after a careful and just scrutiny did approve.

“That your petitioners being bred in foreign Colleges and Universities, and acquainted
with many of this Nation, who in the said Universities purchased the credit and renown of
very able men in learning, do humbly conceive themselves to be qualified for being
competent and proper judges of the fittest to be impartially presented to your Majesty, and
employed as such directors and teachers (whether secular or regular clergymen) as may
best deserve it, which as is the practice of other Catholic Universities, so it will
undoubtedly prove a great encouragement to learning, and very advantageous to this
Nation, entirely devoted to your Majesty’s interest.

“Your petitioners therefore do most humbly pray that your Majesty may be graciously
pleased to let your Irish Catholic subjects make use of the said College for the instruction
of their youth, and that it may be a general Seminary for the clergy of this Kingdom, and
that either all the bishops, or such of them as your Majesty will think fit (by your Royal
authority and commission), present the most deserving persons to be directors and teachers
in the said College, and to oversee it, to the end it may be well ruled and truly governed,
and pure orthodox doctrine, piety and virtue be taught and practised therein, to the honour
and glory of God, propagation of his true religion, and general good of your Majesty’s
subjects in this realm, and as in duty bound they will ever pray,” &c.

And the following petition from the heads of the College appears upon the Register:—

“To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty.
“The Humble Petition of the Vice-provost, Fellows, and Scholars of Trinity
College,
Near Dublin,

“Humbly Sheweth

“That your Petitioners have continued in the College under your
Majesty’s most gracious protection, acting pursuant to the Statutes and Charters granted by
your Majesty’s Royal Father and others your Royal Ancestors, And during your Majesty’s
absence upon the 6th day of September last, by orders pretended to be derived from your
Majesty, Guards were placed in the said College, That upon ye 16th of ye said month Sir
John Fitzgerald came with a great body of armed men, and forceably dispossest your
Petitioners, and not only dis-seized them of their tenure and freehold, but also seized on the
private goods of many of your Petitioners, to their great damage and the ruin and
destruction of that place; that upon the 28th of the said month, under pretence for a search
for arms, seizure was made by one Hogan of the Sacred Chalices and other holy vessels
belonging to ye Altar of the Chappel, and also of the Mace; that upon the 21st of October
several persons pretending orders from the Government broke open the door of the Library,
and possest themselves of the Chappel: by all which proceedings your Petitioners conceive

themselves totally ejected out of their freehold, and despoiled of their propertyes and
goods, contrary to your Majesty’s laws, tho’ your Petitioners have acted nothing against
their duty either as subjects or members of ye College. May it therefore please,” &c.

November 20, 1689.—The Vice-Provost and Fellows met together and elected the
same officers that were chosen the year before.

Facta est hæc Electio a Vice Præposito et Sociis Junioribus locum Sociorum Seniorum
supplentibus, quam Præposito et Sociis Senioribus (cum conveniat) vel confirmandam, vel
irritam reddendam reliquimus. R. Acton, G. Thewles, Js. Hall, J. Allen.

December.—About the beginning of this month Dr. Acton died of a fever.

At the Court at Dublin Castle, April 11th, 1690. Present the King’s Most Excellent
Majestie in Council.

“Whereas His Majestie has been gratiously pleased to appoint the Right Honorable
the Ld High Chancellor of Ireland to visit and view Trinity College, near Dublin, and the
Records and Library thereunto belonging, and whereas his Majestie is given to understand
this day in Council that Mr. George Thewles and Mr. John Hall have several Keyes
belonging to ye said College in their custody, and refuse to deliver the same to his Lordship
in order to view the said College records and Library; his Majestie is gratiously pleased to
order, and doth hereby order the said Mr. George Thewles and John Hall, or either of them,
forthwith to deliver the said Keyes to the Ld High Chancellor, as they shall answer the
same at their peril.

“Hugh Reily, Copia Vera.”

Upon receipt of this Mr. Thewles and Mr. Hall consulted the Vice-Chancellor and
delivered the Keyes.

April 15, 1690.—Received from Mr. George Thewles and Mr. John Hall, by his
Majesties order in Council, ten Keyes belonging to the trunks and presses in the repository
of ye College of Dublin by me.

Fytton, C.

June 14, 1690.—King William landed at Carrick Fergus, and the same day Mr.
Thewles died of a fever.

July 1, 1690.—The armies of the English and Irish engaged at the Boyne, and the
Irish being routed, King James returned that night to Dublin, and commanded his army not
to plunder or do any harm to the city, which order was observed by ye Irish.

July 15, 1690.—Mr. Scroggs landed, and immediately after Dr. Browne, and then Mr.
Downes, Mr. Reader, the Provost, &c.[59]

The Fellows and Scholars that returned were allowed their Commons, but their salary
was reduced by agreement to the old Statute allowance, both for Fellowships and places,
till the College revenues shall increase.

Before King William left Ireland he gave order to ye College to seize upon all books
that belonged to forfeiting Papists; but the order not being known till about half a-year
after, the greatest part of the books were lost, but those which were recovered, and worth
anything, were placed in the Countess of Bath’s library.[60]

The interesting features in this crisis were, first, the steadfast and
courageous behaviour of Dr. Acton and his three colleagues, two of whom
sacrificed their lives for the good of the College; secondly, the excellent
conduct of the two Roman Catholic priests, Moore and Macarthy, who not
only exerted themselves with great humanity to save the Fellows and
scholars and their property from outrage, but showed a real love and respect
for learning, and a desire to maintain the College for the real objects of its
foundation.[61] Thus, if it had not been for the narrowness of
controversialists and the violence of soldiers, the assaults of Rome and
Geneva were by no means so disastrous as might have been expected.
Nevertheless, the College came out of the crisis of James II. with great loss
of books, furniture, plate, rents—in fact, for the moment in great distress—
but still the buildings were safe;[62] the character of the College must have
been greatly raised by the conduct of its Fellows; there had been no time to
occupy the estates with new adventurers; and the policy of the new King, in
spite of his well-known Liberal instincts, must necessarily be strongly
Protestant after the recent outburst of the opposite party under his opponent,
and therefore made him a firm friend of the persecuted College.

CHAPEL PLATE. (DATED 1632 AND 1638).

Before closing this chapter, we may say a word upon the changing
aspect of the College and its surroundings, especially College Green. The
foundation of the College soon brought with it a desire to build houses in its
neighbourhood. But in Bedell’s diary we find that the first permission given
by the Corporation to build houses close to the gate was frustrated by the
students raiding upon the works, and carrying the building-plant into the
College. The builder, indeed, recovered it by the interference of the Provost,
but whether the building proceeded is doubtful. Still, we hear of Archbishop
Ussher lodging in College Green in 1632, a very few years after; and a
lodging fit for the Primate can have been no mean dwelling. There were
several sites granted on the north side of Dame Street by the Corporation to
gentlemen of quality, who built houses, with gardens stretching behind
them to the river. I have found mention of three of these before 1640.
Presently two larger mansions were erected there—Clancarty House, at the
foot of the present S. Andrew’s Street, and opposite it Chichester House,
always a large mansion, often used for Courts, and even Parliaments, till the

present remarkable building was set upon its site. It was one of the
objections urged in 1668 to Trinity Hall (the site of the present S. Andrew’s
Church) for holding students, that they could not hear the College bell
owing to the number of intervening houses. Thus Dublin must have been
rapidly growing out in this direction.[63] There are houses in Dawson Street
and Molesworth Street whose gables show them to belong to the 17th
century. So likewise in the streets off South Great George’s Street there are
still many houses which bear the clear character of Dublin building from
1660 to 1700. All the churches were remodelled or rebuilt in the end of this
or in the succeeding century. But, as I have already said, there was as yet no
thought of stately or ornamental house architecture. The existing blocks of
that date in Trinity College (Nos. 22-31) show what was accomplished, and
though far better than the buildings of “Botany Bay,” which came a century
later, are nevertheless mainly interesting from their date as marking an
epoch in this History. There is no hint that the other lodgings for students,
since taken down, were in any sense ornamental.

I turn, in concluding this chapter, to the interesting question of the
recognition of sports and games among the students—a recognition which
reached its climax under Provost Hutchinson. The following passage gives
us some facts and dates:—
There does not appear to have been any arrangement for the recreation of the Students
inside the College until 1684, when we find the following entry on August 13:—“The
ground for the Bowling-green was granted, and the last Commencement supper fees were
allowed towards the making of it.” The bowling-green, which was near the present
gymnasium and racquet-court, and probably on the site of the existing [lawn] tennis-courts,
was maintained until early in this century, and a portion of the entrance fees of Fellow
Commoners was applied to maintain it. On July 28, 1694, leave was given to build a fives-
court at the east end of the Fellows’ garden. In Brooking’s map of Dublin there appears to
have been, in 1728, a quadrangular walled-in court on the site of the present New Square,
for the recreation of the Students. There were two gates giving access to this in the arches
under numbers 23 and 25 in the Library Square, which is the oldest existing part of the
College, and which was erected after [about] 1700. As the Students were prohibited from

going out into the city without leave, it was obviously necessary that opportunities should
be given for out-door amusements within the bounds; and the College Park had not been at
this time laid out and planted. A number of small paddocks occupied at this period the site
of the present Park; and the College Park, as we have it now, was first formed and planted
with trees in 1722.[64]

Some comment upon this passage seems desirable. In the Elizabethan
and Jacobean College recreations for the students were not only ignored but
forbidden. Young men came there and were maintained at the expense of
the Institution, not to play, but to work, as I have above explained. This
strictly theological notion was now giving way to a secular aspect of things,
which tolerated the residence of students in the city,[65] and received wealthy
young men, who came to spend, not to earn money. The facts just quoted
are therefore interesting in showing that this change of spirit was now
accomplished. For in colleges outward acts follow slowly upon new
convictions.

F OOT NOT E S :
[38] At the moment that Sir William Brereton visited Dublin (July, 1635), the
College and Church of the Jesuits in Back Lane, with its carved pulpit and high
altar, had lately (1633) been annexed to Trinity College, and lectures were held
there every Tuesday, Lord Corke paying for the Lecturer. Brereton also saw a
cloister and Chapel of the Capuchins, which had been turned into S. Stephen’s
Hall, in which 18 scholars of the College were then accommodated. It is
remarkable that all attempts, whether promoted by the College or not, to shape
the University of Trinity College according to the peculiar model of Oxford and
Cambridge have failed.

[39] It is, indeed, rehearsed with great care in these Statutes that they are
approved of by the Provost and Fellows, and imposed with their consent; but
that consent was extorted by interfering with the appointment of Provost, and
choosing Chappel to carry out the new policy.

[40] He was Milton’s College Tutor, and is said to be the Damœtas in Lycidas.
All the histories tell the anecdote of his pressing his adversary in a public
disputation at Cambridge so keenly that the unfortunate man swooned in the
pulpit, when King James, who was present, took up the argument, and presently
confessed himself worsted. This kind of subtlety may have enabled him to
reconcile his various breaches of statute with his sworn obligations. His holding
of the Bishopric and Provostship together was, however, openly sanctioned by
Laud. His Latin autobiography gives us a picture quite inconsistent with the
complaints of the Fellows and the resolutions of the Irish Parliament against
him. It is a string of pious lamentations, e.g.—
“Jam quindecim annos corpus vix ægrum traho
Estque jubilæum hic annus ætatis meæ.

Subinde climactera nova vitæ meæ
Incipit et excutit reliquias dentium
Ante putrium, monetque mortis sim memor.”

[41] Martin seems to have been the best of the early Provosts. But he had special
qualifications, being a Galway man, educated first in France, then at Cambridge,
and then appointed a Fellow of the College, by competition, in 1610. Thus he
added to his Irish blood and knowledge of the country a wide and various
experience. But the terrible insurrection which swept over the land made these

qualities of little import beside his moral strength. When driven from his
Diocese of Meath, he was made temporary Provost, according to the petition of
the Fellows, who found fault with Faithful Tate (Stubbs, appendix). He suffered
further persecution from the Parliamentary Commissioners, but through all his
adversities maintained the same constancy. “Is est qualis alii tantum videri
volunt, et in humaniori literatura, et in vitæ integritate germanissimus, certe
Nathaniel sine fraude.”—Taylor, p. 238.

[42] The reader will be glad to see the text of this document, which I have
copied from the original in Lord Ormonde’s possession:—

“Cum per Mortem Reverendissimi in Christo Patris Guilielmi nup. Archiepi

“Cantuariensis et totius Angliæ primatis Dubliniensis nostra Academia
Cancellarii necessario et nobili præsidio immature

“Sit orbata: nos Anthonius providentia divina Midensis Epus Præpositus, et
Socii Seniores Collegii sctæ et individuæ

“Trinitatis Reginæ Elizabethæ juxta Dublin, secundum licentiam et potestatem
nobis per Chartam fundationis

“Concessam, Honoratissimum Dominum, Dominum Jacobum Marchionem
Ormoniæ, Comitem Ormoniæ et Ossoriæ, Vice-Comitem Thurles, Baronem de

“Arcloe, Dūm Locumtenentem, et generalem Gubernatorem Regni Hibniæ et
Regiæ Majestati a secretioribus conciliis, Virum

“Nunquam satis laudatum, de quo quicquid in laudem dicitur, infra meritum
dicitur, Virum spectatæ integritatis et fidei erga principem et

“Patriam veræ Religionis acerrimum Vindicem, Literarum et Literatorum
Mæcenatem amplissimum et de nobis imprimis et Collegio nso in hisce

“Temporis angustiis optime meritum, quippe qui nos, et res nostras ad ruinam
inclinantes adjutrice manu sustinuit, et ab internecione et

“Interitu sæpius vindicavit, ut antehac dignissimum semper censuimus, qui ad
Clavem Academiæ sederet, ita nunc Academiæ p’dictæ

“Cancellarium junctis Suffragiis et Calculis eligimus, nominamus, et
admittimus, Hancque dictionem nominationem et admissionem

“Subscriptis nominibus et communi Sigillo, et per litt p’ntes confirmamus.
Datum e Collegio nostro duodecimo die Martii, Anno Dni. millesimo

“Sexcentesimo quadragesimo quarto.

“Tho: Seele. Ant: Midensis, Jo: Kerdiff.
“Gul. Raymond. Coll: pr. po. Tho: Locke.
Ja: Bishopp.”

There is appended the common seal—viz., on thick red wax the College Arms as
usual, but with towers domed and flagged, each flag blowing outwards, the harp
much larger than usual, and shield surrounded by an oval, and round it the usual
legend, with APRILL added, and the date (1612) in the space over the shield.
See page 11 for seal, with some of the signatures of the Senior Fellows. Three of
them who had been driven from their livings had petitioned the Lord Deputy to
be restored to their Senior Fellowships, and accordingly now show their
gratitude. Seele was afterwards Provost.

[43] Several are mentioned by Dr. Stubbs, op. cit. p. 95.

[44] As regards the estates, cf. Stubbs, p. 111. I add the copy of the appointment
of Jeremy Taylor by Ormonde, preserved among the Ormonde MSS.:—“To all
Xian people to whom these presents shall come, greeting. Know yee that I James
Marquis of Ormonde Earle of Ormond Ossory and Brecknock Visct Thurles
Lord Baron of Arcloe and Lanthony Lord of the Regalities and Libertyes of the
County of Tiperary one of the Lords of his Maties most Honble privy Councell of
both Kingdoms of England and Ireland Lord [&c., &c.] and Chancellor of the
University of Dublyn considering the great learning the eminent Piety and the
exemplary good life and conversacon of the Reverend Father in God Jeremy
Taylour Doctor of Divinity and now Lord Bpp Elect of the United Bishoprick of
Downe and Connor and his wisdome ability and experience in manageing and
governing all affaires incident to the office of a Vice-Chancellor of an university
and necessary for the advancement of Piety and Learning doe therefore hereby
nominate constitute and appoint the said Reverend Father in God Doctor Jeremy
Taylour Vice-Chancellor of the University aforesaid and doe by these presents
authorize him to doe execute & performe all such act & acts Thing and Thinges
& to exercise such powers & authorityes & to receive all such proffitts &
benefitts as to the said office of Vice-Chancellor appertaineth & that as fully
amply and beneficially to all intents & purposes as any person or persons
formerly holding or exercising the said office of Vice-Chauncellor held enjoyed
or exercised, or ought to have held enjoyed or exercised the same. In witness
whereof I have to these presents sett my hand and fixed my seall the one &
thirtieth day of August in the yeare of our Lord God 1660 & in the twelfth year
of the Rainn of our Soveraine Lord Charles the 2nd by the Grace [&c.].—
Ormonde.”

[45] Taylor’s History, p. 43.

[46] Preface to the London edition of his University Sermon, 1661.

[47] Cf. the interesting article on this eminent man by Professor G. Stokes in the
Jour. R. S. of Antiq., Ireland, for 1890, pp. 17, seq.

[48] In the MS. preserved at Armagh, containing an account of Adam Loftus’
eloquence on the subject of Trinity College, the writer, who lived about the
centenary of its foundation, says (p. 227)—“Of the old structure there remains
no more than the steeple, which belonged to that said monastery [All Hallowes]
which was lately restored and beautified under the Government of Thomas
Seele, late Provost of this Colledge.” Seele began the enlargements of the
College, which succeeded one another rapidly for the next century and a-half.

[49] Harris’ Ware. Loftus was made Archbishop of Armagh at the age of 28!

[50] In his MS. autobiography, preserved in his Library. For an interesting
account of Archbishop Marsh, see Christian Examiner, vol. xi., p. 647. 1831.
The ill education of the young scholars has again become a grave difficulty in
Trinity College, since the establishment of the so-called system of Intermediate
Education. The old hedge-school masters sent us better pupils.

[51] Printed in the Christian Examiner, vol. ii., p. 762, 2nd series (1833).

[52] Bishop Dopping, in his letter to the Hon. Robert Boyle (Boyle’s Life and
Correspondence, vol. i.), gives an interesting account of these classes, at which
he states Fellows and Students attended to the number of eighty, and that they,
following the Provost’s example, made considerable progress in the Irish
language.

[53] Dunton speaks of it in 1699 as about to be built. The present Royal Hospital
at Kilmainham is the oldest secular building of any importance about Dublin. It
was finished shortly before 1700, when it must have been quite unique.

[54] e.g., Mr. Dunbar Ingram.

[55] It may be read in Taylor’s History (pp. 55, seq.) or in Dr. Stubbs’, who
gives Archbishop King as the original authority. Mr. Heron tells us that one of
these members was a Roman Catholic.

[56] “He promised that he would preserve them in their liberties and properties,
and rather augment than diminish the privileges and immunities granted to them
by his predecessors.”—Abp. King’s State of Protestants, sec. lxxix.

[57] This entry must have been made subsequently and separately.

[58] “Many of the chambers were turned into prisons for Protestants. The
Garrison destroyed the doors, wainscots, closets, and floors, and damnified it in
the building and furniture of private rooms, to at least the value of two thousand
pounds.”—King, sec. lxxix.

[59] This entry requires further verification, for Huntingdon never resumed the
office after his flight, and the new Provost was not yet appointed. On the piece
of plate presented to the College in 1690 he calls himself nuper Præpositus,
lately Provost.

[60] Stubbs, pp. 127-133.

[61] Moore, who retired to the Continent with James II., was important enough
to be afterwards appointed Rector of the University of Paris.

[62] Wonderful to relate, the chalices which ran these and other terrible risks,
and the flagons of the same date, figured on p. 44, escaped, and are still in
constant use in the College Chapel. They will be more fully described in another
chapter.

[63] Brereton says in 1635 (Travels, p. 144)—“The cittie of Dublin is extending
his boundes and limits very farr, much additions of buildings are lately made,
and some of these very fair, stately and complete buildings. Every commodity is
grown very dear.”

[64] Stubbs, pp. 144, 145. The author does not explain what the supper
Commencement fees were, nor does he state that some land was bought by the
College to complete the Park.

[65] The proposal to recognise as students those who had matriculated, but
lodged in the city of Dublin, is as old as Bedell’s time, who favours it. Cf.
College Calendar for 1833, Introd., p. xxvi.

CHAPTER III.

THE EIGHTEENTH C E N T U RY U P TO 1758.

Nec conclusisti me in manibus inimici: statuisti in loco spatioso pedes meos.—Ps. xxx. 9.

he great expansion of the College about the time of its first
Centenary seems to have been rather the effect of
circumstances than of a strong and able government. The
Provosts were perpetually being promoted to Bishoprics, and
were in any case not very remarkable men. Nevertheless, the
Centenary was celebrated with great pomp, and in a manner
widely different from that which is now in fashion at such feasts. Almost
the whole day was occupied with various orations in praise of founders or
of the studies of the place. We do not hear that any visitors but the local
grandees of Dublin attended, nor is there any detail concerning the
entertainment of the body, after the weariness inflicted upon the mind, of
the audience. There may possibly be some details still concealed in the
College Register, the publication of which among our historical records is
earnestly to be desired. Dr. Stubbs (pp. 136-8) prints the following:—
In the morning there were the customary prayers in the Chapel and a sermon.

At 2 p.m., after a musical instrumental performance, an oration was made by Peter
Browne, F.T.C., containing a panegyric in honour of Queen Elizabeth: “Deus nobis hæc
otia fecit.” Dominus Maude, Fellow Commoner, followed with a Carmen Seculare in Latin
hexameters—
“Aspice venturo lætentur ut omnia seclo
... sequitur ramis insignis olivæ.”

Then Benjamin Pratt, F.T.C., followed with praise of King James the First:
“Munificentissimi Academiæ auctoris;” “pariter pietate vel armis egregii.”

George Carr, F.T.C., commemorated the Chancellors of the University during the
preceding century—
“Nec nos iterum meminisse pigebit Elissæ.”

Sir Richard Gethinge, Bart., followed with an English poem in memory of the
illustrious founder of the College.

Robert Mossom, F.T.C., delivered a Latin oration in praise of Charles the First and
Charles the Second—
“Heu pietas, heu prisca fides ...
... Amavit nos quoque Daphnis.”

Then followed a recitation of some pastoral verses by Dr. Tighe and Dr. Denny, Fellow
Commoners, bearing upon the revival of the University by William and Mary—
“Jam fides et pax, et honor pudorque
Priscus, et neglecta redire Virtus
Audet.”

A thanksgiving ode was then sung, accompanied by instrumental music.

A grateful commemoration of the benefits which the City of Dublin had conferred
upon the University, by Richard Baldwin, F.T.C.—
“Laudabunt alii claram Rhodon aut Mitylenen.”

Verses commemorating the hospitality shown to the members of the University when
dispersed, by the sister Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, were recited by Benjamin
Hawkshaw, B.A., William Tisdall, B.A., Jeremiah Harrison, B.A.—
“ ... Quales decet esse Sorores.”

Then there was a Latin debate on the subject, “Whether the Sciences and Arts are
more indebted to the Ancients or the Moderns.”
For the Ancients—Nicholas Foster, B.A.
For the Moderns—Robert Cashin, B.A.

Then followed a “Carmen seculare lyricum,” recited by Anthony Dopping, son of the
Bishop of Meath—
“Alterum in lustrum meliusque semper
... Proroget ævum.”

Concerning the increase of University studies, in a humorous speech by Thomas
Leigh, B.A.

Eugene Lloyd, Proctor of the University, closed the Acts.

A skilled band of musicians followed the procession as they left the building.

To this Dunton, writing from Dublin in 1699, while the memory of it
was still fresh, adds some curious details—
Leaving Dr. Phœnix’s house, our next visit was to the College of Dublin, where
several worthy gentlemen (both Fellows and others) had been great benefactors to my
auction. When we came to the College, we went first to my friend Mr. Young’s chamber;
but he not being at home we went to see the Library, which is over the Scholars’ lodgings,
the length of one of the quadrangles, and contains a great many choice books of great
value, particularly one, the largest I ever saw for breadth; it was an “Herbal,” containing
the lively portraitures of all sorts of trees, plants, herbs, and flowers. By this “Herbal” lay a
small book, containing about sixty pages in a sheet, to make it look like “the Giant and the
Dwarf.” There also (since I have mentioned a giant) we saw lying on a table the thigh-bone
of a giant, or at least of some monstrous overgrown man, for the thigh-bone was as long as
my leg and thigh; which is kept there as a convincing demonstration of the vast bigness
which some human bodies have in former times arrived to. We were next showed by Mr.
Griffith, a Master of Arts (for he it was that showed us these curiosities), the skin of one
Ridley, a notorious Tory, which had been long ago executed; he had been begged for an
anatomy, and, being flayed, his skin was tanned, and stuffed with straw. In this passive
state he was assaulted with some mice and rats, not sneakingly behind his back, but boldly
before his face, which they so much further mortified, even after death, as to eat it up;
which loss has since been supplied by tanning the face of one Geoghagan, a Popish Priest,
executed about six years ago for stealing; which said face is put in the place of Ridley’s.

At the east end of this Library, on the right hand, is a chamber called “The Countess
of Bath’s Library,” filled with many handsome folios, and other books, in Dutch binding,
gilt, with the Earl’s Arms impressed upon them; for he had been some time of this house.

On the left hand, opposite to this room, is another chamber, in which I saw a great
many manuscripts, medals, and other curiosities. At the west end of the Library there is a
division made by a kind of wooden lattice-work, containing about thirty paces, full of
choice and curious books, which was the Library of that great man, Archbishop Ussher,
Primate of Armagh, whose learning and exemplary piety has justly made him the
ornament, not only of that College (of which he was the first scholar that ever was entered
in it, and the first who took degrees), but of the whole Hibernian nation.

At the upper end of this part of the Library hangs at full length the picture of Dr.
Chaloner,[66] who was the first Provost of the College, and a person eminent for learning
and virtue. His picture is likewise at the entrance into the Library, and his body lies in a
stately tomb made of alabaster. At the west end of the Chapel, near Dr. Chaloner’s picture
(if I do not mistake), hangs a new skeleton of a man, made up and given by Dr. Gwither, a

physician of careful and happy practice, of great integrity, learning, and sound judgment, as
may be seen by those treatises of his that are inserted in some late “Philosophical
Transactions.”

Thus, Madam, have I given you a brief account of the Library, which at present is but
an ordinary pile of building, and cannot be distinguished on the outside; but I hear they
design the building of a new Library, and, I am told, the House of Commons in Ireland
have voted £3,000 towards carrying it on.[67]

After having seen the Library, we went to visit Mr. Minshull, whose father I knew in
Chester. Mr. Minshull has been student in the College for some time, and is a very sober,
ingenious youth, and I do think is descended from one of the most courteous men in
Europe; I mean Mr. John Minshull, bookseller in Chester.

After a short stay in this gentleman’s chamber, we were led by one Theophilus, a
good-natured sensible fellow, to see the new house now building for the Provost, which,
when finished, will be very noble and magnificent.[68] After this, Theophilus showed us the
gardens belonging to the College, which were very pleasant and entertaining. Here was a
sun-dial, on which might be seen what o’clock it was in most parts of the world.

This dial was placed upon the top of a stone representing a pile of books; and not far
from this was another sun-dial, set in box, of very large compass, the gnomon of it being
very near as big as a barber’s pole.

Leaving this pleasant garden, we ascended several steps, which brought us into a
curious walk, where we had a prospect to the west of the city and to the east of the sea and
harbour; on the south we could see the mountains of Wicklow, and on the north the River
Liffey, which runs by the side of the College.

Having now, and at other times, thoroughly surveyed the College, I shall here attempt
to give your Ladyship a very particular account of it. It is called Trinity College, and is the
sole University of Ireland. It consists of three squares, the outward being as large as both
the inner, one of which, of modern building, has not chambers on every side; the other has,
on the south side of which stands the Library, the whole length of the square. I shall say
nothing of the Library here (having already said something of it), so I proceed to tell you,
Madam, that the Hall and Butteries run the same range with the Library, and separate the
two inner squares. It is an old building, as is also the Regent-house, which from a gallery
looks into the Chapel, which has been of late years enlarged, being before too little for the
number of Scholars, which are now, with the Fellows, &c., reckoned about 340. They have
a garden for the Fellows, and another for the Provost, both neatly kept, as also a bowling
green, and large parks for the students to walk and exercise in. The Foundation consists of
a Provost (who at present is the Reverend Dr. George Brown, a gentleman bred in this
house since a youth, when he was first entered, and one in whom they all count themselves

very happy, for he is an excellent governor, and a person of great piety, learning, and
moderation), seven Senior Fellows, of whom two are Doctors in Divinity, eight Juniors, to
which one is lately added, and seventy Scholars. Their Public Commencements are at
Shrovetide, and the first Tuesday after the eighth of July. Their Chancellor is His Grace the
Duke of Ormonde. Since the death of the Right Reverend the Bishop of Meath[69] they have
had no Vice-Chancellor, only pro re nata.

The University was founded by Queen Elizabeth, and by her and her successors
largely endowed, and many munificent gifts and legacies since made by several other well-
disposed persons, all whose names, together with their gifts, are read publicly in the Chapel
every Trinity Sunday, in the afternoon, as a grateful acknowledgment to the memory of
their benefactors; and on the 9th of January, 1693 (which completed a century from the
Foundation of the College), they celebrated their first secular day, when the Provost, Dr.
Ashe, now Bishop of Clogher, preached, and made a notable entertainment for the Lords
Justices, Privy Council, Lord Mayor and Aldermen of Dublin. The sermon preached by the
Provost was on the subject of the Foundation of the College, and his text was Matthew
xxvi. 13: “Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole
world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her;”
which in this sermon the Provost applied to Queen Elizabeth, the Foundress of the College.
The sermon was learned and ingenious, and afterwards printed by Mr. Ray, and dedicated
to the Lords Justices, who at that time were the Lord Henry Capel, Sir Cyril Wiche, and
William Duncomb, Esq. In the afternoon there were several orations in Latin spoke by the
scholars in praise of Queen Elizabeth and the succeeding Princes, and an ode made by Mr.
Tate (the Poet Laureate), who was bred up in this College. Part of the ode was as this
following:—

Great Parent, hail! all hail to Thee;
Who has the last distress surviv’d,
To see this joyful day arriv’d;
The Muses’ second Jubilee.

Another century commencing,
No decay in thee can trace;
Time, with his own law dispensing,
Adds new charms to every grace,
That adorns thy youthful face.

After War’s alarms repeated,
And a circling age completed,
Numerous offspring thou dost raise,
Such as to Juverna’s praise
Shall Liffey make as proud a name
As that of Isis, or of Cam.

Awful Matron, take thy seat
To celebrate this festival;
The learn’d Assembly well to treat,
Blest Eliza’s days recall:
The wonders of her reign recount,
In strains that Phœbus may surmount.
Songs for Phœbus to repeat.
She ’twas that did at first inspire,
And tune the mute Hibernian lyre.

Succeeding Princes next recite;
With never-dying verse requite
Those favours they did shower.
’Tis this alone can do them right:
To save them from Oblivion’s night,
Is only in the Muse’s power.

But chiefly recommend to Fame
Maria, and great William’s name,
Whose Isle to him her Freedom owes
And surely no Hibernian Muse
Can her Restorer’s praise refuse,
While Boyne and Shannon flows.

After this ode had been sung by the principal gentlemen of the Kingdom, there was a
very diverting speech made in English by the Terræ Filius.[70] The night concluded with
illuminations, not only in the College but in other places. Madam, this day being to be
observed but once in a hundred years, was the reason why I troubled your ladyship with
this account.

The sermon preached by Dr. St.-G. Ashe, who presently resigned the
Provostship, is still extant;[71] so is the musical ode, but so scarce that there
seems to be only one copy known, which the researches for the present
feast have unearthed. Some of the text, which was composed by Nahum
Tate, sometime (1672) a scholar of the House, is given above from Dunton;
the rest, which is printed with the music, is of the same quality. It is chiefly
a panegyric of the reigning sovereigns, William and Mary, justified by their
recent indulgences to the College on account of its losses in the Revolution.
The music of the ode was composed by no less a person than Henry Purcell,
and would certainly have been repeated at our Tercentenary had it been
equal to his standard works. But it is a curiously poor and perfunctory piece
of work, whereas the anthem then recently composed by Blow, “I beheld,
and lo, a great multitude,” still holds its place in our Chapel, and we gladly
reproduce it in the present festival. The title-page of the score of the ode
states that it was performed at Christ Church, whereas the accounts of the
celebration speak of it in the College—a discrepancy which I cannot
reconcile.

TITLE-PAGE OF THE CENTENARY SERMON.

A SERMON PREACHED IN Trinity-College Chappell,
BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN
JANUARY the 9th, 16934.
Being the First SECULAR DAY SINCE ITS FOUNDATION BY Queen ELIZABETH

By St. George Ashe, D. D. Provost of Trinity College, Dublin.
Published by the Lords Justices Command.

Printed by Joseph Ray on College Green, for William Norman
Bookseller in Dames Street, Dublin. 1694

The series of Provosts to whom I have referred—Ashe (1692), G.
Browne (1695), Peter Browne (1699), Pratt (1710)—were all promoted to
Bishoprics, except the first Browne, who died of the blow of a brickbat
which struck him in a College row, and Pratt, who was so insignificant that
he could only obtain a Deanery as a bribe for his resignation. Of these but
one man has left a name, Peter Browne[72] who composed a work on the
“Procedure of the Understanding,” evidently called forth by the recent
Essay of Locke, which had been introduced into the post-graduate course
by Ashe, and was then very popular. More celebrated, and more interesting
in this history, is the well-known Charge to the clergy of Cork on drinking
healths, in which the Bishop criticises “the glorious, pious, and immortal
memory” so dear to Irish Protestants, and all such other toasts, as senseless,
heathenish, and offensive. It was always understood by his contemporaries
that this Charge showed the writer to be a Jacobite, and when we hear of the
long struggle of Provost Baldwin in subduing this spirit in the College, we
may fairly conjecture that during the reign of Browne (1699-1710) it was
allowed to grow without active interference. It may indeed be thought that
the declaration of loyalty to Queen Anne, drawn up and signed by the
Senate in 1708 (Stubbs, Appendix xxxiv.), where Peter Browne’s name as
Provost appears next to the Vice-Chancellor’s, is evidence against this
statement. The declaration was caused by the speech of one Edward Forbes,
who was deprived of his degrees. I do not, however, think this merely
formal declaration can overcome the indirect, but serious evidence of the
Bishop’s personal Charge. There seem to be very few details published
concerning this remarkable man’s life. But a group of famous young men
were then passing through the College—Swift, Berkeley, Delany; and King,
an old scholar, was Archbishop of Dublin. Berkeley was a Fellow, but we
hear nothing of him in the College politics of the day.[73]

The Foundation, therefore, had now become strong enough to live and
flourish in spite of, or in disregard of, its governors. There is now, indeed,
much insubordination mentioned. There seem to have been many
disturbances; the discipline of the place had doubtless suffered through
constantly changing Provosts, who were probably counting upon promotion
as soon as they were appointed. It was therefore of no small importance to
the ultimate success of Trinity College, that for almost the whole of the
eighteenth century it was ruled by three men who were not promoted, and
who devoted a life’s interest to their duties. In the forty years preceding
1717 there had been (counting Moore) eight Provosts. In the eighty years
succeeding there were only three, and of these the first, Baldwin, was
probably the guiding spirit during the rule of his weak predecessor, since
1710. The reasons which prevented Baldwin going the way of all Provosts
in those days, and passing on to a Bishopric, have never been explained.
His contemporaries were more surprised at it (says Taylor) than we can be.
And yet these reasons are manifest enough, and disclosed to us in one of the
most obvious sources of information—the private correspondence of
Primate Boulter. That narrow and mischievous Whig politician, whose
whole correspondence is one vast network of jobbing in appointments,
came into power in 1724, and was for eighteen years the arbiter of
promotion, even of lay promotion, in Ireland. He was a man so tenacious of
a few ideas, that he keeps repeating them in the same form with a
persistency quite ludicrous, if it had not led to very mischievous effects. He
shows the same earnestness, whether it be in importuning Bishops and
Ministers for the promotion to a Canonry of an obscure friend whose
eyesight was so defective that he was unfit for any post; or whether it be in
urging his narrow policy that all the high offices in Ireland should be filled
by Englishmen. “I hope, after what I have written in many letters before, I
need not again urge the necessity of the See not being filled with a native of
the country.”[74] And it is remarkable that by natives he only means the

Anglo-Irish who had now attained like Swift, some feeling for the rights of
Ireland. Hence he shows in many letters a marked dislike and suspicion of
Trinity College, which asserted its independence against him. This nettled
his officious and meddling temper considerably. “I cannot help saying it
would have been for the King’s service here if what has lately been
transacting in relation to the Professors had been concerted with some of
the English here, and not wholly with the natives, and that after a secret
manner; that the College might have thought it their interest to have some
dependence on the English” (i., 227). Swift and Delany he accordingly
disliked exceedingly, and so persistent was his hostility to the Fellows,
whom he calls a nest of Jacobites, that he kept hindering their promotion to
the Bench during the whole of his unfortunate reign—for such we may call
it—over Ireland. Twice he touches upon the claims of Baldwin, whom he
confesses to be a strong Whig politician; he speaks of him with coldness.
He mentions with alarm the rumour that the Provost is to be promoted,
because he regards it impossible to find a safe man to succeed him in the
College. He clearly urges this difficulty as a reason against his promotion.
In another place—which has been called a recommendation of Baldwin—
he uses the following words:—“Since my return the Bishop of Ossory is
dead, and we [the Lords Justices] have this day joined in a letter to your
Grace, mentioning the most proper persons here to be promoted to that See.
But I must beg leave to assure your Grace that I think it is of great
importance to the English interest that some worthy person should be sent
us from England to fill this vacancy. If any person here should be thought
of, I take the promotion most for the King’s service here will be the making
Dr. Baldwin Bishop, and Dr. Gilbert Provost.” To this letter he receives a
reply in ten days, to which he answers in his next—“I am glad to hear of the
promotion of Dr. Edward Tenison to the See of Ossory, and thank your
Grace for the news.”

So successful, indeed, was this malefactor to the College in impressing
his policy upon English ministers, that while the years 1703-20 had seen six
future Bishops and three future Deans obtain Fellowships, from 1721 to
1763 but one Fellow was elected, Hugh Hamilton, who obtained either
honour. The non-promotion of Baldwin was therefore a mere instance of
Boulter’s policy, which prevailed for half-a-century. But the accident of this
injustice was of great indirect benefit to the College. Instead of many
Bishoprics, we obtained our first permanent Provost.

The greatest luminary in the united Church of England and Ireland at
the time was the modest and pious George Berkeley. How does Boulter
accept his promotion, which he could not prevent? “As to a successor to the
Bishop of Cloyne, my Lord Lieutenant looks upon it as settled in England
that Dean Berkeley is to be made Bishop here on the first occasion. I have
therefore nothing more to say on that point, but that I wish the Dean’s
promotion may answer the expectation of his friends in England!”

The next two Provosts were laymen and politicians, to whom
promotion did not bar the retention of the Collegiate office. When the last
of these three men passed away, the government of the College again lapsed
into the hands of a series of Bishops-expectant, succeeding one another
with monotonous obscurity, till the advent of Bartholomew Lloyd in 1837
marks a new epoch, almost in modern times. The eighteenth century,
therefore, stands out with great distinctness in this history. Almost all the
buildings of the College that give it dignity date from this time. A new
conception of what the country owed to the University, and the University
promised to fulfil, entered into men’s minds. Grants of hundreds now
became grants of thousands; salaries were no longer pittances but prizes;
the Fellows of the College became dignitaries, not only on account of their
position, but their wealth; and the much-tried and long-struggling College at
length attained security, respect, and influence throughout the country. The

external appearance of the buildings changed as completely as the spirit of
the students. The College in 1770 was far more like that of 1892 than that of
1700.

The first of these three Provosts, Baldwin, had probably more
influence on the history of the College than any one since the founders. He
was either a self-made man, or put forward by some influence which
disguised itself, so that many varying traditions were current about his
origin and youth. Taylor, who gives very explicitly the authorities for his
story, tells us (p. 249) that Baldwin, being at school at Colne, in Lancashire,
where he was born in 1672, killed one of his schoolfellows with a blow, and
so fled to Ireland. On arriving in Dublin, being then twelve years of age, he
was found crying in the streets, when a person who kept a coffee-house
took pity on him, and brought him to his home, where he remained for
some time in the capacity of a waiter. A few months after, Provost
Huntingdon wanted a boy to take care of his horse, when Richard Baldwin
was recommended to him, and the Provost had him instructed and entered
at the College. Dr. Stubbs ignores this story altogether, apparently on the
ground of the (not inconsistent) entry in Kilkenny College, that a boy of this
name matriculated from that place in April, 1685; the College admission
book, however, gives the date April, 1684; indeed, most of the dates of his
earlier promotions appear inaccurate, for though he may have been a
scholar in 1686, how can he have been a B.A. in 1689, when he is known to
have fled to England, and to have supported himself by teaching in a school
in Chester? Dr. Barrett’s statements are evidently only hearsay. It is certain
that grants of money were given to him as a refugee in England in 1688. At
all events, he was made a Fellow in 1693, and a Senior Fellow in 1697,
from which time he either helped in governing, or governed the College, till
his death in 1758. He was Vice-Provost, under a lazy absentee Provost,
from 1710; he was appointed Provost in 1717.

Baldwin appears to have been in no sense a literary man, beyond what
was necessary for his examinations; on the other hand, he was a strong and
consistent Whig politician, a disciplinarian, and evidently very keen about
the architectural improvement of the College. He accumulated a large
fortune, which he left to endow it, and which various claimants of his name
from England strove to appropriate for seventy years. In spite of all these
merits towards the College, he is not remembered with affection. The extant
portraits of him represent a stupid and expressionless face, suggesting
severity without natural dignity or good breeding, though he became so
great a figure in the College from the mere duration of his influence. He did
little to improve the intellectual condition of the students. His temper was
morose, and his policy of crushing out not only political, but other
opposition among both students and Fellows made him for a long time very
unpopular. It is more than likely that his tyrannical conduct in politics
increased rather than diminished the Jacobite spirit in the College, for the
recalcitrant tendencies of youth were then as they now are, and neither
Queen Anne nor George I. was ever likely to inspire the Irish students with
any enthusiastic loyalty.

But Baldwin may fairly be called the architect of the College. I do not
include under that expression his vigilant supervision and enhancement of
the College rents—a very important duty,—or his large bequests to the
society, which have made the office of Provost one of wealth as well as of
dignity. His claim to be remembered by the Irish public rests upon more
obvious grounds. The undertaking of the present Library building coincides
with his advent to power. It was actually commenced when, as Vice-
Provost, he ruled for the easy-going Pratt. It was finished in the early and
stormy years of his Provostship; and when we consider that of all the
buildings which give Dublin the air and style of a capital not one then
existed, we may better understand the largeness and boldness of the plan.
The Royal Hospital at Kilmainham had indeed been recently erected, as the

arms of the second Duke of Ormonde over the main door testify. This
building, which a vague and probably false tradition in Dublin attributes to
Wren, must have produced no small impression by its splendour. It was
planned exactly as a college, with the hall and chapel in directum, forming
one side of a quadrangle, and surmounted by a belfry. Such is the plan of
many colleges at Oxford. And such was still the plan of Chapel and Hall in
Trinity College when the eighteenth century opened, and when larger ideas
suggested themselves with the increase of wealth and the disappearance of
danger from war or tumult. Building had never ceased in the College since
the Act of Settlement secured the great College estates in the North and
West. Seele had worked hard to restore and enlarge the buildings,
dilapidated through age and poverty; Marsh and Huntingdon had built a
new Chapel and Hall on the site of the present Campanile, but excessively
plain and ugly; even Pratt proposed the building of a new belfry over the
Hall, a plan which was carried out thirty years after his resignation. The
Chapel is compared by a visitor to a Welsh church. The old tower at the
north side of the College, which had lasted from the days of All Hallowes’
Abbey, was restored by Seele, who evidently strove to save this relic of the
past. The Front Square was being rebuilt, when the dangerous interlude of
James II.’s occupation beggared the College for a moment, after which the
houses of the Library Square, which still stand there, were taken in hand.
Perfectly plain they were, but solid, and have stood the wear and tear of
nearly 200 years, not to speak of the improving fury of occasional
innovators, who, even in our day, have threatened them with destruction.[75]
They have been disfigured, as the Royal Hospital has been, with ugly grey
plaster. If the original red bricks were uncovered, and a tile roof set upon
them, the public would presently find out that they were picturesque. At all
events, the west side, which was taken down in this century, was a better
and more suitable building than those erected (“Botany Bay”) by way of
compensation.

The bold undertaking of building the present great Library, without
possessing books enough to fill more than a corner of it, must have been
Baldwin’s idea. It was no doubt he who hit upon the idea of soliciting the
Irish Parliament for grants, although the College was rapidly increasing in
wealth. £15,000 was obtained in this way between 1712 and 1724, when the
building was finished. The total cost is said to have been only £17,000! Dr.
Stubbs deserves the credit of discovering the name of the architect, which
was long forgotten, and which is not mentioned, I believe, in the College
Register. He was Mr. Thomas Burgh, in charge of the fortifications of King
William III. If the Royal Barracks, lately abandoned, were also his work,
they offer a strange contrast to his plan for the Library. What his old
Custom House in Essex Street was like I do not know.[76] Neither do I know
upon what authority Dr. Stubbs adds another detail, that the two small
staircases inside the west door, which lead to the gallery, were transferred
from the older library, where Bishop Jones had set them up in 1651. If so,
these staircases are the oldest piece of woodwork in the College, unless it
be the pulpit used for grace in the present Dining Hall, which bears
evidences of being equally old. The further history of this Library, which
was rapidly enriched by many valuable bequests, forms the subject of
another chapter.

The next improvement seems to have been the laying out and planting
of the College Park, beyond a closed quadrangle behind the present Library
Square, in which the students had their recreations. The walled-in court was
probably thought sufficient, and most assuredly, until the whole College
Park was enclosed, the unfortunate students would by no means have been
allowed to wander through it. The lodge, built in 1722 for a porter, at the
north-east end, seems to imply that the fencing was then in process.[77]

These improvements were followed rapidly by the building of a new
Dining Hall, commenced in 1740. A bequest of £1,000 seems to have been

the only help required, and in 1745 it was even adorned with some of the
portraits which still survive. But in 1758 this Hall was so unsafe that it was
taken down, and after dismissing the College bricklayer for his work,[78] the
present Hall was set up on the same site, and apparently without change of
plan. It must be added, in extenuation of the bricklayer’s conduct, that the
ground in that part of the College affords very insecure foundations, as we
know from recent experiences. The present building has many great cracks
in it, and the new rooms just added have had their foundations sunk to a
great depth.[79] What is, however, more interesting as history, is to note that
the style of this Hall, not finished till after 1760, is rather the plain and
panelled building of the preceding generation. The Theatre (Examination
Hall) is decorated in a very different, but not, perhaps, a better style.

While this work was going on,
bequests of £1,000 were left to build an
ornamental front and tower at the west
end of the old Hall; and the well-known
architect, Cassels, did so, close to, but a
little west of, the site of the present
belfry, in 1745. In this the present great
bell, cast at Gloucester in 1742, was
hung.[80] The aspect of the court,
therefore, upon entering the gate, was that
of a small square, closed towards the east
with a building much nearer than the
present belfry. The centre of this east
range had the ornamental front and belfry
of Cassels’ design, which, according to
THE OLD CLOCK TOWER.
the extant plan, must always have been
ugly, and looks very top-heavy.[81] The north and south sides of this Front

Square (built 1685) were of inferior character; while the small quadrangle
beyond, on the south side, including the Provost’s lodging, was still the
original structure of Queen Elizabeth’s time. The bell tower was taken down
as unsafe, and the Hall removed, at the close of the century. We see,
therefore, that in this great building period there were many serious
mistakes made. There was so much work of the kind going on all through
the city, that there must have been a scarcity of competent artisans, and
much hurry. The buildings which remain are indeed solid and well finished;
but when we attribute these characteristics to all the Dublin buildings of
that date, we forget that their bad work has long since perished—what was
done well and carefully is all that has remained. While Cassels was building
his unsound tower, he erected another pretty building according to a bequest
of Bishop Stearne—the Printing-House, from which issued in 1741 an
edition of seven dialogues of Plato, in a good though much-contracted type
(which is still preserved in the office), and on good paper, but disfigured by
a portentous list of errata. The book is now rare, and in request among
bibliographers. A few years later, neat editions of Latin Classics issued from
the same press.

This architectural activity, based upon liberal but insufficient bequests,
somewhat excuses the systematic begging petitions with which the College
approached the Irish Parliament for the rebuilding of the Front Square,
Theatre, and Chapel, petitions which that Parliament seemed never tired of
granting, and yet never able to satisfy. If the taste for fine building and the
Parliament in College Green had not both expired with the end of the
century, Trinity College would now be the most splendidly housed College
in the world. Even as it is, intelligent visitors cannot but be struck with the
massive and dignified character of its buildings. Queen Anne and George I.
had already granted (in three sums) £15,000 for the Library. George II.
granted £45,000 for the present Front Square and Examination Hall. George
III., besides the relief of £70 yearly in pavement-tax, granted (in 1787)

£3,000, in response to a petition for £12,000. So that, in all, the country
granted the College at least £60,000 for building during the eighteenth
century.[82] It is set forth in these various petitions that the beauty of the
metropolis is one of the objects to be attained, as well as the health of the
students, and accommodation for increasing numbers.[83] There was a
curious hesitation about the plan of the west front. A central dome and two
cupolas at the north and south ends were designed; the south cupola was
actually finished. Anyone who enters the present gateway will see clearly
that it is designed to sustain a dome. But this dome was never built; the
southern cupola was even taken down in 1758, and the front left as it now
stands.[84]

These buildings are still far the best and most comfortable in the
College. All the bedrooms have fire-places, and even the inner walls are
nearly three feet thick. The rooms in the towers and beside the gate are very
spacious; and as we may presume that the streets in front of the College
were not so noisy as they now are, were evidently intended as residences
for Fellows, and were occupied by them exclusively till the rise of the
various societies, to which they have afforded excellent reading and
committee rooms. Thus they remain to the present day a noble and practical
monument of the enterprise shown by the College and the Irish Parliament
in the eighteenth century. It is now no longer the city only, but the country
which is interested in the College. Constant private bequests added to the
public liberalities no small increments; and so far as material prosperity was
concerned, the history of the College during the century is one of continued
growth in popularity and importance.

When we turn to the internal history, the estimate afforded us by the
facts recorded is by no means so satisfactory. As has been already told, the
Jacobite spirit at the opening of the century, and the violent efforts of
Provost Baldwin to subdue it, produced the insubordination which usually

accompanies tyrannical conduct among young men of spirit living in a free
country. Dignified as the Provost affected to be, he was exposed to personal
insults more than once, not only from Fellows, but from students. Some
facts have been collected by Dr. Stubbs, from whose work I quote the
following:—
During the reigns of Queen Anne and of the first two Georges, the annals of the
College show that the Society suffered from much insubordination on the part of certain of
the Students. This partly arose from laxity of discipline, and from the influence of some
disorderly and violent Students, and partly from political causes which were connected
with the party feelings which prevailed [as at Oxford] with regard to the Revolution and
the Hanoverian Succession. It is quite clear that the great majority of the Fellows,
especially of the Senior Fellows, were loyal to Queen Anne and to the House of Hanover.
Yet it could not be expected that an unanimity of views should prevail among the Students.
There appears to have been a small, but determined, body among them warmly attached to
the fortunes of James the Second and his family, while the governing body of the College
resolutely determined to suppress all manifestations of disloyalty to the reigning
Sovereign. The earliest instance of this is a case which occurred in 1708. One Edward
Forbes, on the same day on which he was admitted to the M.A. degree (July 12), took
occasion to make a Latin speech, in which he asserted that the Queen had no greater right
to sit on the throne than her predecessor had—that the title of each Sovereign eodem nititur
fundamento. This speech is said to have been made at the Commencement supper. Forbes’
words, having been repeated to the authorities, gave great offence to the loyal feelings of
the heads of the College, and to the leading members of the University, and the orator was
consequently expelled from the College, and suspended from his degrees by the act of the
Provost and Senior Fellows. On the 2nd of the following month, at a meeting of the Vice-
Chancellor, Masters, and Doctors of the University, Forbes was deprived of his degrees,
and degraded from his University rights; on the same occasion a declaration of loyalty was
put forward by the leading members of the University Senate, and signed by the Vice-
Chancellor, the Archbishop of Dublin, and the Provost. This document, with the names of
the signatories, is preserved in the College Library. [Cf. Appendix xxxiv. of Dr. Stubbs’
work.]

A strong party of Graduates was dissatisfied with the action of the Provost and Senior
Fellows in the case of Forbes, partly from political reasons, and partly, perhaps, from a
feeling that the punishment awarded was more severe than the circumstances of the case
required. There can be no doubt that the sentiments of the members of the Board agreed
very closely with those of the Whig party. We learn, however, from Dr. Edward Synge,
afterwards Archbishop of Tuam, that Forbes had a party of sympathisers in the University.

He says in his pamphlet, which he wrote vindicating his well-known sermon on Toleration,
preached in 1711:—
I remember particularly the constant efforts made in the University of Dublin (by persons without
doors against the judgment of the Provost and Senior Fellows, who did all they could to oppose them,
and, thank God, prevailed), at every Commencement for several years, to procure a repeal of the sentence
against Forbes, and a rasure (namely, from the Register of the University) of those wicked words, eodem
nititur fundamento, which placed the title of the late Queen on the same foot with that of her glorious
predecessor.

There was still a small, but troublesome, party among the Students who agreed with
Forbes in his political opinions, for we find from the College Register, under the date
August 17, 1710, that Thomas Harvey, John Graffan, and William Vinicomes, were proved
to have been intoxicated in the College, and to have crossed over the College walls into the
city, and Harvey was convicted of inflicting an indignity on the memory of King William,
by wrenching the baton out of the hand of his equestrian statue erected in College Green in
1701. The other two aided and abetted him in the act. They were all three expelled by the
Board.

The heads of the College, as well as the leading Doctors and Masters, found it
necessary to clear the character of the College from the charges of disloyalty to Queen
Anne which were persistently brought against it. Accordingly, we find in the records of the
proceedings of the Provost and Senior Fellows, 14th July, 1712, that the Vice-Chancellor
having signified that an address be presented to her Majesty from the congregation in the
Regent Houses, leave was given that such an address be brought in.

On the 8th of February, 17134, Theodore Barlow was expelled for drinking in the
rooms of one of the Scholars to the memory of the horse from which King William was
thrown, to the great danger of his life, and also to the health of the Pretender, and for
denouncing with a curse the Hanoverian Succession. The heads of the College still deemed
it necessary to set forth their loyalty in the strongest terms, for the decree of expulsion of
Barlow runs as follows. The words are evidently those of the Vice-Provost, Dr. Baldwin:—
“Visum est igitur Vice-Præposito et Sociis Senioribus, quibus imprimis cara est Wilhelmi Regis
Memoria, qui ex animorum suorum sententia juraverunt Annæ Serenissimæe Reginæ nostræ dignitatem
et indubitatum Imperii titulum necnon successionem in Illustrissimâ domo Hanoveriensi per leges
stabilitam pro virili defendere et conservare.”

They had still to combat the hostile spirit of a portion of the University, who had now
a new Vice-Chancellor, Dr. John Vesey [?], Archbishop of Tuam, a man at that time of the
age of seventy-seven; and on the day after Barlow’s expulsion, at the Shrovetide
Commencements, several Students were prepared to take their degrees; but some of the
Graduates and non-resident Masters of Arts having caused a motion to be made to the
Vice-Chancellor that the sentence of Forbes’ degradation should be read before any public
business should be proceeded with, the Archbishop was in favour of having this done; but

the Vice-Provost, Baldwin, believing that this was for the purpose of having a resolution
passed repealing the sentence on Forbes, and relying on the College regulation that no
grace could be presented to the Senate of the University without the consent of the Board,
negatived the motion. The Vice-Provost’s negative was not allowed by the Vice-
Chancellor, whereupon Baldwin withdrew from the Regent House into the Provost’s house,
followed by the rest of the Senior Fellows, the Junior Proctor, and the Beadle. Then the
Vice-Chancellor and Masters sent to them by two of the Doctors of Divinity the following
message:—
“The Proctors, Registrar, and Beadle are cited and required to repair to the Regent House, under pain
of contempt.”

To which message the Vice-Provost and Senior Fellows sent the following reply:—
“The Proctors, Registrar, and Beadle, having communicated to the Vice-Provost and Senior Fellows
the message sent to them by the Reverend Doctors Hamilton and Gourney, with all humility offer their
opinion that they hold that without the consent of the Vice-Provost and Senior Fellows nothing can be
safely done in this matter. And, moreover, the Vice-Provost and Senior Fellows notify that they, with their
above-named officers, will return without further delay, if the Vice-Chancellor will proceed to confer
degrees, and to transact the other business to which the Vice-Provost shall have consented. Otherwise
they must humbly beg to be excused, being unwilling to do anything contrary to the Charter of
Foundation, and the Laws and Customs of the University.”

Upon receiving this reply, the Vice-Chancellor adjourned the Commencement to the
11th of February.

A final outburst of political feeling took place in 1715. On the 8th of April in that
year, a Student named Nathaniel Crump was expelled for saying that Oliver Cromwell was
to be preferred to Charles I.; and five of the Students were publicly admonished for
breaking out of the College at night, and attacking the house of one of the citizens. On the
31st of May, a Master of Arts, a Bachelor of Arts, and an Undergraduate, were publicly
admonished for reading a scandalous pamphlet reflecting on the King, under the name of
“Nero Secundus;” and a notice was placed upon the gates of the College denouncing this
pamphlet, and threatening the expulsion of all Students who should read it or make a copy
of it. The examinations for Scholarships and Fellowship proceeded as usual, and on
Saturday, the 11th of June, two days before the election, an order came from the Lords
Justices to the Provost and Senior Fellows forbidding the election, based upon a King’s
Letter of the 6th of June, and stating as the grounds of this prohibition the several disputes
and tumults in Trinity College, which disturbed the Students, and prevented them from
studying for these examinations. The elections, consequently, were not held, although there
was [were] one Fellowship and eleven Scholarships vacant.

On the 27th of June a Master of Arts was expelled for making a copy of the pamphlet
“Nero Secundus,” and two Bachelors of Arts were expelled for using language
disrespectful to the King; and on the 3rd of August two more of the Students were expelled
on a like charge. On the 12th of July the Provost and Senior Fellows petitioned King

George I. with respect to the above-mentioned prohibition. They denied that there were any
disputes or tumults in the College which prevented the Students for preparing for their
several examinations, and stated that the number of candidates for Fellowships was greater
than usual, and the answering entirely satisfactory. They stated, moreover, than none of the
candidates for the vacant Fellowship or Scholarships were either accused or suspected of
any crime; but they had on all proper occasions expressed dutiful zeal to the King’s person
and Government. They asked permission to hold the election. Mr. Elwood and Mr. Howard
were sent to London to present this petition to the King.

On the 16th of February, 17156, the Prince of Wales was elected Chancellor, on the
attainder of the Duke of Ormonde, and the Provost and Dr. Howard were sent to London to
present to his Royal Highness the formal instrument of appointment.

On the 28th of April a letter was received from the Lords Justices, enclosing a copy of
a letter from the King, removing the prohibition to the election of Fellows and Scholars,
and the statutable examinations were held in the usual manner. On Trinity Monday one
Fellow and thirty-four Scholars were elected.

The following extracts from the MS. letters of Archbishop King in the College
Library will throw some light upon these proceedings:—
June 4, 1715. To Mr. Delafoy.—“The business of the College makes the greatest noise. Ten years
ago I saw very well what was doing there, and used all means in my power to prevent it; but the strain
was too strong for me, as you very well know, and ’twill be necessary to use some effectual means to
purge that fountain, which otherwise may corrupt the whole kingdom. Their Visitors are only the
Chancellor and I. We ought to visit once in three years, but I could never prevail on their Chancellor to
join with me, though I often proposed it;[85] nor is there any hope that I shall be able to do any good
whilst I am under such circumstances. I take the Chancellor to be for life, and this makes an impossibility.
I believe the Parliament when it sits will be inclined to look into this matter.”

June 21, 1715.—“The College readily submitted to his Majesty’s order to forbear their elections, and
I hope will acquit themselves much better than the University of Oxford has done by their programme.”

July 7, 1715. To Mr. Addison.—“The business of the College gives a great deal of trouble to every
honest man, and a peculiar pain to me. ’Tis plain there’s a nest of Jacobites in it: one was convicted last
Term; two are run away; and I believe bills are found against one or two more. But we can’t as yet reach
the fountains of the corruption; but I assure you no diligence is wanting, and everybody looks on it to be
of the last consequence to purge the fountain of education. I believe next Parliament will look into the
matter.”

In addition to political feeling, there appear to have been from the beginning of the
eighteenth century a few very disorderly Students in the College, who were always giving
trouble to the authorities.

During the Provostship of George Browne, one of the worst riots took place in the
College, fortunately unattended at the time by loss of life. [The Provost died of its effects!]
College discipline had become disorganised in the unsettled period which succeeded the
battle of the Boyne, and the Provost and Senior Fellows resolved to subdue the disorderly

spirit which had manifested itself in the College. They determined to admonish publicly
three or four of the Students who had been particularly disorderly, and the heads of the
College proceeded in a body to the Hall for that purpose. A few determined Students
advanced resolutely, tore the Admonition paper out of the hands of the Dean, and turned
the Provost out of the Hall. It was probably on this occasion that Provost George Browne
received the blow which has been mentioned in a previous page. A later instance of similar
insubordination occurred about thirty years afterwards, when the Provost and Senior
Fellows proceeded to the Hall for the like purpose of punishing some turbulent Students.
They were met on their way with unseemly affronts and reproaches. The doors of the Hall
were locked against them by the Students, and they were obliged to break open the doors in
order to promulgate their sentence.

In 1733 the rooms of one of the Fellows were attacked by six or eight of the Students,
and they perpetrated there disgraceful mischief and outrage. The rebellious spirit of some
of the Students went so far that, when they were expelled, or rusticated, they refused to
leave the College, and the authorities could not put them out without violence. One of the
Students so expelled actually assaulted a Senior Fellow in the Hall while the sentence of
his expulsion was being read out. These violent proceedings on the part of a few reckless
Students were aided by outsiders, who always came into College when riots were expected.
Thus the unhappy disorders in the College had become widely known, and were fast
bringing the institution to the lowest disrepute.

A contemporary pamphlet complains that while there were in the College from five
hundred to six hundred Students between seventeen and twenty-four years of age, there
were only twenty Masters to control them. The Scholars objected to the statutable custom
of capping the Fellows, and it states that—
When the Board meets to inquire into a violation of the Statutes on the part of the Students, the
young gentlemen who are conscious of their guilt assemble in the courts below; they have secured a
number of their friends; they are surrounded by a great crowd of their brethren; how many they may have
engaged to be of their party is not to be discovered, and they give, perhaps, plain intimations that they
will not suffer them to be censured. Trusting in their numbers, they will not suffer any one man to be
singled out for an example.... Physical violence is consequently to be expected by the Provost, Senior
Fellows, and the Dean proceeding to the Hall to read out censures.

Primate Boulter’s letters throw some light upon the state of discipline in the College at
this time. Baldwin, now become Provost, most likely from his known devotion to the Whig
party and the Hanoverian Succession, and his efforts to subdue the Jacobite faction in
College, was a man of a very arbitrary and determined character. He appears to have used
the full authority which the Statutes gave him, and frequently summoned the two Deans,
and removed from the College books the names of disorderly Students without consulting
the Board. Some of the Senior Fellows, notably Dr. Delany, a strong Tory, whose politics
were shared by his friend and colleague, Dr. Helsham, were opposed to these arbitrary
proceedings, and took measures in London to bring the matter before the Council, in order

to have the Provost’s statutable power in these matters curtailed. We learn from Boulter’s
letters to the Duke of Newcastle, that early in 1725—
Two Undergraduates of the College, one of them a Scholar, had company at their chambers till about
an hour after the keys of the College were carried, according to custom, to the Provost. When their
company was willing to go, upon finding the College gates shut, and being told the keys were carried to
the Provost, the Scholars went to the Provost’s lodgings, and knocked there in an outrageous manner.
Upon the Provost’s man coming to the door to see what was the matter, they told him they came for the
keys to let out their friends, and would have them, or they would break open the gates. He assured them
the keys were carried to his master, and that he durst not awake him to get them, and then the man
withdrew. Upon their coming again to knock with great violence at the Provost’s door, he was forced to
rise, and came down and told them they should not have the keys, and bid his man and the porter take
notice who they were. The next day he called the two Deans to his assistance, as their Statutes require,
and sent for the lads to his lodgings. The Scholar of the house came, but not the other. To him they
proposed his making a submission for his fault in the Hall, and being publicly admonished there. This he
made a difficulty in doing; and upon their proceeding to the Hall, when he came out of the lodgings he
put on his hat before the Provost and walked off. The Provost and Deans went on to the Hall, and after
waiting there some time to see whether he would come and submit, they expelled them both.

The Scholar’s name was Annesley, a relation of Lord Anglesea, and through his
influence with the Lord Lieutenant (Lord Carteret) and the Visitors [and upon his
apologising] he was restored.... We find that he took the B.A. degree in 1726, and that of
M.A. in 1729.

We are told in a pamphlet, supposed to have been written by Dr. Madden, that one of
the Students, after a long course of neglect of duties, as well as for a notorious insult
[committed] upon the Junior Dean, was publicly admonished. In order to resent this
punishment, ten or twelve of the Students behaved themselves in a most outrageous
manner; they stoned the Dean out of the Hall, breaking into his rooms, and destroying
everything in them. They continued to ravage other parts of the College until the middle of
the night, evidently endangering the life of the person who was the object of their
resentment. Dr. Madden adds that this was done “in a time of great lenity of discipline—
perhaps too much so.” “The Board offered considerable rewards for the discovery of the
perpetrators of these riotous proceedings; the Students retorted by offering higher rewards
to anyone who would bring in the informer, dead or alive. A threatening letter was sent to
the Provost. Strangers from town, as was usually the case, came into the College to assist
in the pillage. One of these attempted to set fire to the College gates; and had not some of
the well-disposed Students prevented this, they would have laid the whole College in
ashes, as the flames would have caught hold of the ancient buildings, extravagantly
timbered after the old manner, and would have reached the new buildings [the Library
Square], and the flames could not then have been extinguished.”

One of the Junior Fellows, named Edward Ford, who had been elected in 1730, had
rendered himself particularly obnoxious to the Students. He was not Junior Dean; but he

appears to have been an obstinate and ill-judging man, who took upon himself to restrain
the Students in an imprudent manner. They resented this interference. He had been often
insulted by them, and had received a threatening letter. This caused him much dejection of
spirits; and as his rooms had suffered in the previous tumult, he kept loaded arms always
by his side. One night he was asleep in his rooms (No. 25), over a passage which then led
from the Library Square into the playground (a walled-in enclosure which at that time
occupied the site of the present New Square). A loaded gun lay by his bedside. Some of the
Students threw stones against his windows, which was the usual way in which they
annoyed the College authorities. Ford rose from his bed and fired upon them from his
window, which faced the playground. Determined to retaliate, the band of Students rushed
to their chambers, seized the fire-arms, which they had persisted in keeping (although such
had been forbidden, under pain of expulsion, by a decree of the Board, March 24, 1730),
and they ran back to the playground. In the meanwhile one of the Scholars, who resided in
the same house, seeing the danger in which Ford was placed, and knowing the character of
the man, managed to get into his bedroom, and strongly urged him to remain in bed. Ford,
with his characteristic obstinacy, would not listen to this advice, but went to the window in
his nightdress, when the Students seeing him, fired at the window, and wounded him
mortally. Poor Ford lingered in great agony for about two hours before he died. The Board
immediately met and investigated the circumstances of the murder, and expelled Mr.
Cotter, Mr. Crosby, Boyle, Scholes, and Davis, as being the authors of or participators in
Mr. Ford’s murder. The Board employed Mr. Jones, an attorney, to prosecute them for
murder at the Commission Court, at which trial, however, they were acquitted.

We learn from contemporary pamphlets that the feeling among the upper classes in
Dublin was greatly excited about this affair. Many, especially ladies, strongly took the part
of the young men—
The Fellows were the subjects of common obloquy; every little indiscretion of their former lives was
ripped up; everything they said or did had a wrong turn given to it. Numberless false stories about them
were spread throughout the kingdom. Some of them were publicly affronted in the Courts of Law by one
of his Majesty’s servants for appearing to do the common offices of every honest man. One noble Lord
declared that a Fellow’s blood did not deserve an inquisition which might detain a man one day from his
ordinary business. However, the Judges (except one) all spoke loudly in favour of the College, and
specially the Chief Baron.

Primate Boulter is said to have often appeared astonished when he heard gentlemen
talk as if they were determined to destroy the Irish seat of learning. It is added that “many
did this for the purpose of injuring religion.” No doubt the true explanation of the
animosity to the College is to be sought in the strong political feelings which prevailed at
the time. The Fellows were mainly Whigs, and their opponents belonged to the Tory party.

Early in March, 17345, the Visitors cited the Provost, Fellows, and Scholars to appear
at a Visitation on the 20th of that month. Primate Boulter wrote to the Duke of Dorset that
—

There have been such difficulties started from the College, and so much listened to by their Vice-
Chancellor, the Bishop of Clogher [Dr. Stearne], that I fear the Visitation will not prove such as will
answer expectation. I have taken all opportunities of desiring the Fellows and their friends to avoid all
needless disputes and oppositions for fear of their falling into the hands of worse Visitors next Session of
Parliament. I hope and fear the best; but things do not promise very well.

The above cited pamphlet states that “at the late inquiry into the condition of the
College, there could not be discovered more than two or three insignificant points in which
the Statutes were deviated from by the Fellows.”

To this account we should add that Swift, who disliked and despised
Baldwin, took a great interest in the Visitation of 1734, and went down to
give his opinion concerning the management of the College, which he
thought very bad. He also wrote to the Duke of Dorset on the subject (Jan.
14, 1735). But the fact added by Dr. Stubbs, that after the affair of Ford we
hear no more of riots or of insubordination, shows that the mischief was not
deep-seated, but caused by some small knot of rowdies. It does not appear
that they were led by young men of the higher classes, for though many
frequented the College at that time, no names of prominence (save an
Annesley) are mentioned in connection with any of the outrages. Such
disorders have always been rather the fault of the Governors than of the
students of the College. The course of Irish history is so uniform, the
temper of the various classes in the nation is so unchanged (as every student
of Irish history knows), that I do not believe the discipline which is so
easily maintained now in Trinity College was ever seriously endangered,
and the very fact that so many brilliant and learned men were being
educated there at that period shows that its intellectual life was not
impaired. The particular form of the studies pursued cannot be easily
estimated. An examination of the Laudian Statutes shows that the
authorities were not allowed in any way to change the subjects laid down
for the course in 1637. The whole body of the teaching, as already
explained, was oral, and each student reproduced in essays or disputations
what he had been taught by his tutor during the week. Hence it was that
such short books as those written by Dudley Loftus or Narcissus Marsh,

though used by lecturers, were not formally proposed to the students.
Locke’s Essay, as we know, was introduced into the post-graduate studies
by the influence of Ashe and Molyneux before 1700, and has influenced the
spirit of the University ever since; but this, too, was outside the prescribed
course. It was not till 1760 that, by a special statute, the Provost and Board
were permitted to make such changes in the course as they thought
expedient. This permission, conceded long after it was needed and indeed
assumed,[86] marks an epoch in the history of the College. But it belongs to
the reign, not of Baldwin, but of his enlightened and brilliant successor,
Andrews.

F OOT NOT E S :
[66] A mistake for Loftus, the first Provost. This full-length portrait is now in the
Provost’s House. What has become of the second picture is uncertain. The tomb,
alas, is now a mere ruin, to be described in another chapter.

[67] This shows how long the project was discussed. The money was not given
till ten years later.

[68] The only mention of this house, which was replaced by the present mansion
70 years later.

[69] Dr. Anthony Dopping.

[70] This character, intended to enliven the solemnity of public acts, appears to
have been borrowed from the precedent of Oxford. In a curious book intitled
Terræ Filius (London, 1726), which consists of a series of satires upon that
University, the anonymous author says—“It has, till of late, been a custom, from
time immemorial, for one of our family to mount the Rostrum at Oxford at
certain seasons [during the Acts of the Term], and divert an innumerable crowd
of spectators, who flocked to hear him from all parts, with a merry oration,
interspersed with secret history, raillery, and sarcasm.... Several indignities
having been offered to the grave fathers of the University, they said to one
another—‘Gentlemen, these are no jests; if we suffer this, we shall become the
sport of freshmen and servitors. Let us expel him.’ And, accordingly, Terræ
Filius was expelled during almost every Act.” And again (p. xi.)—“Though it
has, of late years, been thought expedient to lay aside the solemnity of a Publick
Act, and it is very uncertain when Terræ Filius will be able to regain his antient
privileges.”

There is a frontispiece to the book, signed W. Hogarth, which represents an
enraged Don tearing in pieces the libel of the Terræ Filius, who is in the middle
of an excited crowd of collegians and ladies. The author speaks of the seditious
spirit of Oxford in the very way that the spirit of Dublin is censured at the same
time; and just as the Terræ Filius of Oxford had been censured and persecuted
when his jests became libellous, so in Swift’s day, just before the Centenary
time, one Jones, an intimate of Swift’s, had been deprived of his degrees for a
satire, which Barrett has published as possibly composed by Swift to aid his
friend.—Cf. Barrett’s Early Life of Swift (London, 1808).

The heads at Oxford, holding public acts in 1712, stopt the mouth of the Terræ
Filius (who is called a statutable orator at this solemnity), having intelligence
that he designed to utter something in derogation of the Reverend Mr. Vice-
Chancellor, op. cit. p. 100. This is probably the affair spoken of in J. C.
Jeaffreson’s Annals of Oxford, ii. 224, but referred to the year 1713. Mr.
Jeaffreson has a whole chapter on the subject.

[71] I owe to the kindness of Mr. J. R. Garstin my knowledge of this rare tract,
of which the title-page is reproduced on page 52; the bidding prayer is given on
page 10. A passage which smacks of the 17th century is as follows. The preacher
is arguing that Learning can amply satisfy all the aspirations and desires of
human nature. He concludes—“Lastly, what Raptures can the Voluptuous man
fancy, to which those of Learning and Knowledge are not equal? If he can relish
nothing but the pleasures of his Senses, Natural Philosophy exposes the
beautiful bosome of the Universe, admits him into Nature’s garden, &c.”

[72] The appointment of this Browne is the subject of various curious letters
preserved in the Ormonde MSS. at Kilkenny Castle (Vol. 156). I give the first
completely, and extracts from the others. They might have been written
yesterday.

9644 Trinity College, Dub., May 16,
’99.

May it Please Your Grace,

Our Provost in appearance is past recovery, yet I had not
so soon made any application to succeed him, but that others have been
beforehand with me by another Interest.

Tho’ I have reason to hope for a recommendation of me by Government, yet I
am not willing to use any endeavours without your Grace’s knowledge and
concurrence. I am sensible it is a place of great trust and importance to the whole
kingdom, and if your Grace upon inquiry shall find me qualified to discharge it,
I do most humbly beg your Grace’s favour in recommending me to His Majesty
for it.—That God may continue, &c., &c., Your humble & obed.

Peter Browne.

9645. The Provost of this College being now near his end, which I am heartily
sorry for, I presume amongst the many addresses, &c. I beg to recommend the
Restoring the same Person to it whom your Grace’s grandfather himself put in, I
mean Dr. Huntington, who upon the Dispersion here was as a Father to all that
then went over, and provided so well for some of them when they were in
England, that 2 of your Bps., viz., Dr. Ashe and Dr. Smith, owe their Preferments

in a manner entirely to him, for it was he who laid the foundation of them, tho’
he is now entirely neglected.

This unfortunate Person, for so I must needs call him, except your Gce becomes
his Patron, left the College upon the Revolution, or was rather by Providence
sent over to provide for those who knew not what to do for themselves. Then he
married, &c., but is still capable of the Place by the King’s Dispensation, as Dr.
Seele was, at the Restoration, and obtained it in that way. And because this
Gentleman has already showed himself one of the most usefull men in that
place, and the likelyhood to prove the most serviceable to it now it is in its
Rubbish, I now take the confidence, who was employed by the late Duke, my
master, to bring him over, &c.

Will. [Moreton, Bp. of] Kildare.

[Extracts.] Dub. 6 June, 1699.

9648. The Provost of the Coll. being dead on Sunday night, it will import your
Gce as Chancellor to interpose, &c. I know Mr. Peter Browne, who is an eminent
preacher & Senior Fellow, &c., will be recommended, &c., &c.

[Sir] Richard Cox.

9649. Ardhaccan, June 7th.

Our excellent Provost being dead, &c., that you will be pleased to recommend
Dr. Owen Lloyd, who is our Div. Prof., or Dr. John Hall, who is Vice-Provost, to
his Majesty, &c., &c.

I hear the Lords Justices have recommended one Mr. Peter Browne, who is a Sr
Fellow, & has a parish in the City of Dublin, &c., &c.

Nor is it my opinion alone, but that of the Bp. of Clogher (Ashe), who was
formerly Provost, & has now earnestly importuned me to address your G. & the
Arbp. of Cant. in Dr. Lloyd’s or Dr. Hall’s behalfe, and to Pray your Grce that
Mr. Peter Browne, who is much their junior, may not have it, &c., &c. I have
sent the Bp.’s letter to His Gce of Cant., in which the late Provost’s opinion of
Mr. Browne’s unfitness for the place is fully declared.

Rich. Meath.

[73] To him and to Swift in this generation, to Goldsmith, Sheridan, and Burke
in the next, are due in great part the development of modern English prose. In
this, as in so many other ways, the Anglo-Irish have been the masters of the
English.

[74] I may recall to the reader the dignified protest of the first Duke of Ormonde,
against this very practice, in the interests of the University, above, p. 33.

[75] I remember being told by the late Provost to formulate my protest as soon
as possible, for that the demolition of these buildings would be commenced
within a fortnight. My argument in their favour was, that while they were
perfectly sound, they were also historical evidences of the antiquity of the
College, and of its condition in 1700. I remember adding that it might be a very
long fortnight before the work of destruction began.

[76] Cf. Stubbs, p. 177.

[77] The petition to Parliament in 1787 states “that from an attention to the
health and accommodation of their students, petitioners have expended
considerable sums of money in the purchase of ground for the enlargement of
their park, the enclosing and finishing of which will be attended with
considerable expense” (Taylor, p. 95). The fact here officially stated, that the
College increased its holding of land in Dublin by purchase during the
eighteenth century, is very interesting, and is probably to be explained by
searching the Register.

[78] This seems to me one of the boldest acts of Baldwin. We should have
expected to find the incompetent workman either employed to repeat his work
on the new Hall, or at least pensioned by the Board.

[79] The east end subsided in the present century, and was then rebuilt, in the
memory of the present Vice-Provost, from whom I have learned the fact.

[80] The Dublin papers of June, 1744, speak with enthusiasm of the arrival of
this great bell, “on which the mere import duty was £20, and which all lovers of
harmony allow to be the largest, finest, and sweetest-toned bell in the kingdom.
It was cast by the famous Rudhall of Gloucester.”

[81] The picture given by Dr. Stubbs was possibly never realised. There are
several extant views of the College subsequent to 1745 and up to 1797, which all
represent the belfry as a dome without the lantern or the vane, “consisting of a
harp and crown, copper gilt” (Stubbs, p. 187). A rare aquatint of 1784 does,
however, give the vane, with other details which are highly improbable. It was a
habit to print architects’ drawings of buildings in process of completion, as may
be seen in Poole and Cash’s views, in which many plates give the intentions of
the architect, which were never carried out.

[82] Mr. Taylor, in his history, has given all the petitions and replies from the
Journals of the House of Commons. The following is the summary:—Queen
Anne and George I. for Library—in 1709, £5,000; 1717, £5,000; 1721, £5,000.

George II. for Parliament Square—1751, £5,000; 1753, £20,000; 1755, £5,000
(£20,000 asked for in the petition): 1757, £5,000; 1759, £10,000. George III., in
1787, £3,000. Between the last two dates considerable sums were obtained from
the Board of Erasmus Smith.

[83] While the impossibility of defraying these expenses without a building fund
is strongly urged in the various petitions, another set of documents, the King’s
Letters, issued for the increase of salaries of Provost, Fellows, and other officers
in 1758, 1759, 1761, and subsequently, state as the reason the great increase in
the revenues of the College, which justify such changes. No one seems to have
thought of comparing these statements with the begging petitions.

[84] No reasons are assigned by Dr. Stubbs, who reports these facts apparently
from the Register; but we may infer that the large square Hall over the gate was
thought necessary for a Regent House, or Hall for the disputations of the
Masters, in place of the older room, which disappeared with the demolishing of
decayed buildings; and by this title we know that that Hall was originally
known. This alteration of plan would make a dome impossible. As soon as the
central dome was abandoned, it would follow that the cupolas, one of which had
been already finished, must also be abandoned.

[85] This cannot easily be reconciled with the statement above made (p. 65), that
Archbishop Vesey was Vice-Chancellor in the previous year, and in the absence
of the Chancellor could act as Visitor.

[86] The facts in Dr. Stubbs’ 10th chapter, especially the classical course of
1736, show that the 15th chapter of the old Statute was liberally interpreted.
Indeed Greek and Latin are there prescribed, but the books not specified. In
Logic the directions are far more precise. Nor was there any relaxation of the
strict directions with regard to Latin Essays and summaries of work, or to
Disputations, which certainly lasted till the close of the 18th century.

CHAPTER IV.

FROM 1758 TO THE CLOSE OF THE C E N T U R Y.

Dedit ergo eis petitionem ipsorum,
Et misit tenuitatem in animam eorum.
Psalm cvi. 15.

rovost Andrews, a layman, but a Senior Fellow, and one of a
distinguished group of lay Fellows then in the College,
succeeded less than two years before George III. became king.
His Provostship is perhaps the most brilliant in the annals of
the College. He was a man of elegant tastes, of large
acquaintance, of scholarship quite adequate to his position,
and he consequently did more than any of his predecessors or successors to
bring the Society over which he presided into contact with the best and
greatest throughout Ireland. Even under the stricter and more academic
Baldwin, we learn from the Register that a large number of the highest
classes in Ireland had begun to frequent the College.[87] We may assume that
under Andrews this tendency increased. It was only necessary to prove that
the education of Dublin was equal to that of the older Universities, to
induce men of property in Ireland to avoid the troubles and anxieties of
sending their sons by the roads and boats of those days to Oxford and
Cambridge; and thus we find that from the opening of the eighteenth
century to the second decade of the nineteenth the great body of the Irish
aristocracy was educated in Dublin. It would have been so, even into recent
days, if the Senior Fellows of the latter period had thought earnestly about
the dignity of the College.

The character of this Provost, according to his contemporaries and the
historians of the College, was very different from that of Baldwin. He is
indeed accused of good living, a great crime in a College Don, when it
includes brilliant society and rich appointments; mere over-eating and
drinking incur little censure. But Andrews could speak Latin with fluency
and elegance, and we are glad to learn that in his day the Irish pronunciation
did not make him incomprehensible in Italy or France. He built and
occupied the noble Provost’s House,[88] which still remains one of the
mansions that give to Dublin its metropolitan aspect. He entertained
handsomely, both in the new Dining Hall and at his own House. He must
have been the promoter and founder of the School of Music, which has
produced a series of excellent Professors, and created a distinct school of
composition, starting from that fortunate accident, a musical Peer—the Earl
of Mornington, father of the great Duke of Wellington. The principal
Parliamentary grants for building were during the extreme old age of
Baldwin, so that I suspect the influence of Andrews, who was then a Senior
Fellow, and a member of the Irish House, must have been the chief cause of
this sudden liberality; for after the completion of the Library in 1724, there
is a pause in the Parliamentary grants till 1751, and again they disappear
after 1759, when Andrews became Provost, till 1787. But it is asserted in
Duigenan’s pamphlet that the grants of Baldwin’s time were not exhausted
during the whole of Andrews’ Provostship. I take it, then, that Andrews had
ample funds for the fine buildings erected during his office.[89] Constant
increase of the College rents and constant bequests made it possible to
rebuild the Dining Hall in his time (1759-61), and no doubt much remained
to be done in making the new front, finished in 1759, habitable. There was
much hospitality, and good society was encouraged in the College. The
greatest ceremony during his time was the installation of the Duke of
Bedford as Chancellor, which is thus described by the Registrar:—

Friday, Sept. 9 [1768].—This day his Grace John Duke of Bedford was installed
Chancellor of our University.

The Hall had been previously prepared by erecting a platform at the upper end, and a
gallery for the musicians at the lower end. The platform was erected 2 feet 6 inches from
the floor and railed in. At the back in the middle, under a canopy of green damask, and
upon a semicircular step raised six inches above the level of the platform, was placed a
chair for the Chancellor, on the right hand a chair for the Vice-Chancellor, and on the left
another for the Provost. From these chairs on each side along the back and sides down to
the rails were raised seats and forms, and on the right side, advanced before those seats,
were placed two chairs of state for the Lord Lieutenant and his Lady. Over the door of the
Hall, and eight feet above the floor, was erected the gallery for the musicians, and along the
sides of the Hall, between the platform and gallery, were seats raised and forms placed,
leaving a passage in the midst seven feet wide. On the right side, next to the platform, part
of the seats were enclosed as a box for the reception of such ladies of quality whom the
Chancellor should invite. The platform with its steps, the gallery and the seats, were
covered with green broadcloth. The passage through the midst of the Hall was covered
with carpeting, and the semicircular step under his Grace’s chair ornamented with a rich
carpet.

When the Lord Lieutenant and his Lady, the Nobility, the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs of
the city, the ladies of quality and fashion, and all who walked not in the procession, had
taken their seats in the Hall, the procession moved solemnly from the Regent House, the
chamber over the gateway, to the Hall in the following order, according to juniority:—
Undergraduates, Bachelors of Arts, candidates for Degrees, Masters of Arts, Bachelors in
Music, in Law, in Physic, in Divinity, Doctors in Music, in Law, in Physic, in Divinity,
Senior Fellows, Noble Students, Vice-Provost, Beadle with his Mace, Proctors, Chancellor
between the Vice-Chancellor on his right and the Provost on his left, Archbishops, Dukes,
Earls, Viscounts, Bishops, Barons, &c., &c.

Every gentleman who walked in the procession was habited in the robes of his Order
and Degree. The Undergraduates and Bachelors of Arts stopped at the Hall-door, opened to
right and left, and after the Nobility entered the Hall according to seniority. The candidates
for Degrees, Masters in Arts, and Bachelors in Music, Law, Physic, and Divinity, stopped
at the steps of the platform. The Doctors, &c., ascended the platform by four steps. During
this procession the musicians played a solemn March composed on the occasion by the
Earl of Mornington, Professor of Music.

The music having ceased, the Registrar read the Act of the College constituting his
Grace their Chancellor. Upon which the Vice-Chancellor and the Provost, assisted by the
Seniors, led his Grace to the canopy and installed him. And the Vice-Chancellor having
taken his place on the right, when the Mace and the University Rules were laid at his feet,
the Provost, assisted by the Seniors, delivered into his Grace’s hand a printed copy of the

College Statutes elegantly bound, promising for himself and the University all due and
statutable obedience. His Grace then arising returned them thanks for the honour they had
done him in electing him their Chancellor, expressing that it was more pleasing to him, as
this mark of the confidence of a Body so distinguished by their learning, virtue, and
loyalty, gave him reason to hope that his conduct during his administration was not
disagreeable to the people of Ireland in general, whose prosperity and welfare, and
particularly the honour and privileges of the University, he would seek every occasion to
advance, &c.

The Provost having taken his place on the left, and the Seniors having retired to their
seats, after a short pause the Provost rose and addressed the Chancellor and the University
in a most elegant Latin oration, in the close of which he addressed himself particularly to
the Professor of Music, who thereupon gave the signal to the musicians, and gave copies of
the Ode to the Lord Lieutenant and the Chancellor. The Ode was written on the occasion
by Mr. Richard Archdale, an Undergraduate, and was set to music by the Professor, the
Earl of Mornington.

After the conferring of the Degrees by the Chancellor, the Commencement was
closed, and the musicians played the March, as before, and the Procession, as before,
attended his Grace to the Provost’s House.

His Grace, with the Nobility, Fellows, Professors, &c., dined in the Eating Hall. There
were two chairs placed at the head of the table; the Lord Lieutenant sat on the right hand.

Sunday, Sept. 11.—His Grace the Chancellor was sung into Chapel by the Choir. He
sat in the Provost’s stall, the Provost in the Vice-Provost’s; the Vice-Provost, Nobility, and
Professors, were seated in the adjoining seats. Two Senior Fellows read the Lessons, the
Deans the Communion Service. The Professor of Divinity preached from Proverbs, chap.
xv., verse 14. There were two Anthems. The Te Deum and the Jubilate were composed by
the Earl of Mornington.

On Tuesday, Sept. 13, the Chancellor, attended by the Provost, Fellows, and
Professors, visited the Elaboratory, Anatomy School, Waxworks, &c. In the Natural
Philosophy School his Grace was addressed by Mr. Crosbie, a Nobilis, son of Lord
Brandon, in English verse.... As his Grace was quitting the Library, the Professor of
Oratory addressed him in an English farewell speech, which his Grace was pleased to
answer with great politeness.

The reader will remember that the Hall mentioned at the opening of
this extract was the old Hall, then entered under the dome which appears in
all the views of the College of that epoch. The date of the first edition of the
Statutes (August 22, 1768), when compared with this account, also shows

that they were first printed for the purpose of this ceremony. The
Chancellor’s copy of these Statutes had probably been lost, or never
perhaps handed over to the Royal Personages who had recently been
Chancellors; and indeed we wonder, with a printing press now over twenty
years established, that the work had not yet been issued in print. The
difficulty lay in the Laudian Statute, which specially provided that three
copies should exist, and implied that no more should be circulated.[90] There
is possibly some entry in the Registry which would explain how the Board
evaded this obstacle. The printed copy bears opposite the title-page, in print,
vera copia, Theaker Wilder, Regr.

It is much to be regretted that the Ode, with Mornington’s music, has
disappeared.[91] It is stated by Dr. Stubbs that the Duke of Bedford’s fine
portrait by Gainsborough, now in the Provost’s House, was presented upon
this occasion. But there is an exactly similar picture in the Dublin Mansion
House, which must surely have been presented by Bedford, or acquired by
the city, while he was Lord Lieutenant, seven years earlier. The portrait,
therefore, in the Provost’s House must be a replica, unless it was presented
to Provost Andrews much earlier than the date of the Installation. Our
Bursar, in his history, states with cold precision the large amounts spent
upon dinners to the Viceroys in these hospitable days. It does not appear
that the feast given to the Duke of Bedford was by any means as costly as
some of those given in later years.[92] Such are the gossiping details
preserved concerning this Provost and his social doings in the College.

It might be easily inferred, were it not stated expressly in the angry
controversies with his successor, that the discipline of the College was
much relaxed, and many abuses tolerated by this amiable man. The old
Statutes regulating studies in the autumn (out of term) had fallen into
desuetude; the Chapel was shut up in July, and all business ceased for six
weeks. Residence was not enforced at this time, or indeed at other times, in

the case of poor scholars, who went as tutors into country houses. Still
worse, the marriage of several Fellows, in spite of their solemn oath of
celibacy during their tenure, was connived at, and thus a habit tolerated of
trifling with solemn obligations, which not only brought great scandal upon
the College, but lowered the general dignity and respectability of the
Governing Body. Most of them were in debt to the College, and with the
expectation of never having payment enforced. It also appears accidentally,
from a document printed by Taylor, that the Wide Street Commissioners,
making a report to the Irish Parliament in 1799 on the condition of the
College property extending from the north precinct to the river, found that
the houses and land had, by some great oversight, been let on a long lease
(60 years), at a small rent, to the Bishop of Raphoe.[93]

We may assume that the great social successes of Andrews’
Provostship encouraged the Government, on his death, to promote another
layman, and lawyer, into the vacant post. It was doubtless argued that, with
the increase of wealth and splendour in the College, it must be represented
by a public man, a man of the world, and a good speaker. But the new
Provost, John Hely Hutchinson, lacked other and not less necessary
qualifications which had made Andrews so successful. In the first place he
had never been a Fellow, and thus was not only ignorant of the routine of
College work, but also of the characters and susceptibilities of the Fellows.
It was but natural that such of them as were baulked in their advancement
by his appointment, and who thought themselves more worthy to hold it,
resented the promotion of a stranger by political influence. Though
Hutchinson managed to gain over certain members of the Board, he found
others irreconcilable, and he is alleged to have dealt with them in
unscrupulous fashion, both by attempted bribery and by open oppression.
The moral standard of his profession, and indeed of the official classes
throughout Ireland, was very low. Every successful man seems to have
feathered his nest by obtaining or creating sinecures, nor was there any limit

to the rapacity which accumulated them in the same hands. It was well that
Hutchinson did not set himself to plunder the College for his family; the
few cases of inferior officers whom he thrust upon the College, which his
adversaries have exposed, are mere trifles.

But he was ambitious of political power for his sons; and he certainly
strove to make the College a pocket-borough. This attempt brought about
him a nest of hornets. The fact was, that bribery or intimidation, which
might be used with hardly any risk in constituencies of ordinary electors,
was sure to stumble upon some young gentleman of high character and
independence among the Fellows or Scholars, and thus be exposed.

On the other hand, the abuses tolerated by Andrews gave the new
Provost a great power of intimidation, which he could have used very
effectually. Fellows with wives and large families, who had broken their
solemn engagement to celibacy, and resided outside the College, contrary to
the Statutes, who, moreover, owed to the College large sums of money for
the purchase of rooms, which they could not pay, were practically in the
Provost’s hands. It is much to be regretted that when a layman, an outsider,
and a public man chanced to be set over the Society, he did not take in hand
thorough reforms on these all-important points—reforms which could
hardly be expected from an old member of the Corporation, promoted after
years of acquiescence or participation in the growing laxities of discipline.

But the school in which Hutchinson was educated was even morally
worse than that of the culpable Fellows. There must be substantial truth in
the constant allegation, proved by two Parliamentary inquiries, that the
Provost’s assertions of discipline were not just and uniform, but intended to
promote his political power. Both in 1776 and in 1790, when Hutchinson
secured the return of his elder and younger sons respectively by a very
narrow majority, there were petitions against them on the ground of
intimidation and bribery, and the evidence then given is the real ground of

the severe judgment which the local historians have pronounced against the
Provost. In the former petition his son was unseated; in the latter—
remarkable for having Lord Edward Fitzgerald and the future Duke of
Wellington among its members—the casting vote of the chairman saved the
sitting member. The evidence in both cases is so very similar, that we
cannot but wonder at the incaution of the Provost, who was probably saved
from a second disgrace only by his personal influence with the Chairman of
the Committee. In this latter case, however, Hutchinson disowned
altogether the person who acted as go-between, and who made offers to the
scholars. He was private tutor to the Provost’s family, but was dismissed,
and excluded from the precincts of the College by order of the Visitors.

The case is therefore strong against the Provost, though we should
remember that in those days all Parliamentary elections in Ireland were
carried on by similar means, and that bribery was only condemned by the
law, not by the moral sense of the community.

This public evidence has, however, not weighed in the minds of
historians so strongly as the violent pamphlet called Lachrymæ Academicæ,
written against the Provost by his bitter personal enemy, Dr. Patrick
Duigenan, who as a Junior Fellow was at perpetual variance with his chief,
and at last resigned his Fellowship to take a Chair of Law, which was
increased in value (with the Provost’s consent) to induce his resignation.
This exceedingly violent ex parte statement seems to me chiefly valuable
for its allusions to the internal affairs of the College not at issue in the
dispute. The tone is scurrilous, and the confident prediction that a few more
years of the Provost’s manipulation must ruin the College falsified by the
facts. Instead of securing all the posts in the College for partizans of his
own, the Provost met with more and more opposition, especially from the
Junior Fellows, as years elapsed. In 1775, a scholar whom he had deprived
insisted upon a Visitation, in which Primate Robinson, the Vice-Chancellor,

decided against the Provost. In 1791, another Vice-Chancellor, Lord Clare,
decided against him on the right of negative, which he claimed under the
Statutes in every election. The sense of the Statute is plain enough. It
ordains that the majority of Provost and Board shall decide elections; but if
such majority could not be obtained after two scrutinies—that is to say, if
the Senior Fellows had divided their votes among three or more candidates,
so that none of them had more than three—then the Provost’s vote, even if
it stood alone, shall decide the election. This very reasonable Statute was,
however, so worded, that another interpretation was possible, ordaining that
even in an absolute majority of votes the Provost’s must be one. Lord Clare
decided rightly that the disputed words una cum Præposito, vel eo absente
Vice-Præposito, merely meant that the Senior Fellows could not elect
without the presence of either of these officers.[94]

This Visitation concludes the long history of the quarrels of the
political Provost with his Fellows. He was then an old man, and though he
showed considerable vigour in arguing his case, it is evident that the fire of
his ambition was burning low, and his combativeness decreasing with the
decay of his physical powers. It is a great pity that while a collection of
scurrilous tracts—Pranceriana, Lachrymæ Academicæ, and others—were
published and widely circulated, and are still quoted against him, his own
account of the history of the College, of his own doings, and of the
character of his opponents, has remained in MS., and even this MS. is not
now in the Library, but in possession of Mr. Charles Todd. It is therefore
only known through the few extracts which those writers have made who
have had access to this source. The impression produced by these extracts is
strongly in Hutchinson’s favour; he speaks with admiration of some of his
opponents, and with great calmness of his own political mistakes. Until this
important document is thoroughly examined, the case for Provost
Hutchinson cannot be considered complete, nor can we determine all the

motives of his policy. We can, however, infer from the public acts of his
government the following conclusions.

In the first place, he clearly desired to modernise the education of the
students, not only by modifying their course of study (of which Dr.
Duigenan says he was an incompetent judge), but by making them practise
accomplishments quite foreign to old Collegiate discipline. The account of
his improvements suggests that he advanced in the direction which
Andrews had set for the College, but so rashly as to make his government a
parody of that of his predecessor. Having himself called out his man, and
fought a duel, he could not possibly interdict the use of arms among the
students; and we hear strange and probably exaggerated accounts of the
number of students killed or maimed in affairs of honour.[95] Akin to the
practice of arms was the practice of horsemanship, which brought upon him
some ridicule when he desired to have a riding-school attached to the
College. This idea was probably suggested to him by country gentlemen,
who thought that their sons should receive a complete training for their after
life in the University. The same ideas prompted him to found Chairs of
Modern Languages, which have lasted to this day, and which proclaimed
the startling novelty that not dead languages only, but the living languages
of Europe are part of a liberal education. However late and imperfect the
teaching of modern languages at the University may have been, we can here
also infer that it was the solicitation of parents of the higher classes which
made Hutchinson propose these changes, all of which tended to make the
students men of the world.

As regards his own office, he did many things to promote its
permanent dignity. He persuaded the Board to give him a grant for
enlarging the fine house which his predecessor had built, and this addition
is one of its chief features; it is the stately Provost’s study, added at the
north end of the main structure. He took care so to lease the Provost’s estate

as to preserve its rental undiminished to his successors. The same principles
appear in his improvement of the College. With the aid of a grant from the
Erasmus Smith’s Board of £2,500, he built the noble Examination Hall,
intended for a Theatre or Hall of public Academic performances, at the
fortunate moment when our 18th century builders had just reached the
zenith of their art. No room in Dublin is more perfect in its proportions, or
more rich as well as chaste in its ornamentation. He also persuaded the
Senior Fellows, who trembled for their renewal fines, to have the College
estates re-valued, and thus added a permanent £5,000 a-year to the property
of the Corporation. We are told that he could not carry out this eminently
honest and practical reform without guaranteeing each of the persons who
sat with him on the Board against loss of income. Not one of them was
willing to risk one shilling for the future improvement of the College estate.
He showed more questionable taste when he transformed a number of old
silver cups into a service of dinner plates, which his enemies said he
intended for his own use, and probably for that of his heirs; for he carried
them to his suburban residence at Palmerstown [Park], and used them in his
entertainments. The service is, however, still safe, and perhaps adds as
much to the dignity of College entertainments as would the cups that were
melted down. But we grieve to think what splendid old specimens of
Caroline or Queen Anne plate have thus been lost.

So far as Hutchinson was a politician—probably accepting the
Provostship with the determination to have the University for a pocket-
borough, and so to attain a position equal to that of the County magnates—
so far his life and conduct are open to severe criticism. In every other
respect his 20 years of rule were both brilliant and profitable to the College.
He continued the great traditions of his two predecessors, and far surpassed
the men who succeeded him for the next 40 years. But whether the
opposition of the Fellows was really irreconcilable, or whether he was

himself wanting in tact or fairness, the painful result is beyond question,
that he lived all his life at war with his subjects.

When his health began to fail in 1793, a full year before his death,
intriguing for the succession to his place began in official circles. The Bar,
who absorb so many posts outside their profession, began to speak of the
Provostship as a political office; and had they succeeded in appointing
another lawyer, we should presently have had it put forward as an axiom,
that none but a lawyer is fit to hold a post which requires any knowledge of
the law. We hear this absurd argument repeated every day with fatal effect.
On the other hand, the Senior Fellows, who had considered this great post
as their proper prize ever since the necessity of importing scholars from
England had passed away, were equally zealous in counteracting these
schemes. Four or five times did they send deputations to London to
interview Pitt, Dundas, Portland, and perhaps with most effect Edmund
Burke and the Marquis of Abercorn, both of whom exerted themselves
warmly against the politicians and the lawyers in favour of an academical
and clerical appointment. Even Burke himself was spoken of for the office,
and then an English Bishop of Cloyne, Bennett, who was deterred by a
threatening visit from some of the Fellows.

Meanwhile, the moment for the celebration of the Bi-Centenary of the
Foundation had arrived. The Centenary had been held in 1694, the 100th
anniversary of the first taking of degrees. The more correct date would have
been 1692. But neither date was debated for one moment by the creatures
who were thinking of nothing but the loss of a step in their promotion, or
the chances of succeeding to a lucrative post. All remembrance of the
dignity of the College and its historic position was obscured by these
personal anxieties, to which was added, in the minds of better men, a keen
sense of the inconvenience of having a stranger and a politician as the head
of a place of learning. Had any of the three great Provosts been guiding the

councils of the College, this disgraceful omission of so honourable a
commemoration would not have been tolerated.

But from this time onward, the College, having conquered in the great
struggle concerning Hutchinson’s successor, obtained the practical
nomination, and accordingly “the Senior Major of the Regiment,” or the
next senior, was regularly promoted. By a curious coincidence, the
influence of Primate Boulter’s policy, and the exclusion of Irishmen from
Bishoprics, had also passed away, and so we find our Provosts passed on to
the Episcopal Bench, leaving no mark upon the College, and taking no
interest in ought beyond the decent management of the routine studies of
the place. The history from the appointment of Murray to that of
Bartholomew Lloyd, in 1837, is probably the least creditable in all the three
centuries. No fine buildings were erected during these years. Even the
belfry which was taken down was not rebuilt, and the great bell relegated to
a shed in a remote corner of the College, where it lay for fifty years, till the
munificence of a Chancellor educated at Oxford retrieved the disgrace.
When the old Chapel was removed, so careless were these men of 1798 of
the memories of the dead, that the alabaster monument of the pious founder,
Luke Challoner, was thrust aside, not even into a shed, but into a corner,
where the recumbent figure was defaced by the weather beyond recognition
within thirty years. During the rule of the great Provosts there had been
frequent bequests from rich members of the Society, who justly held that
some practical expression of gratitude was due to the College which had
conferred upon them wealth and dignity. That spirit died out with the
century. From that day onward, many men drew £50,000 in salaries from
the College, and did not return to it one farthing beyond their (often second-
rate) official work. Constant gifts of plate from rich students, as well as
Fellows, for the use of the College, had replaced the tax for argent, at one
time levied (as it still is in some Oxford Colleges) on all who entered the
College. These honourable gifts were no longer made, though any but a

criminally supine set of rulers could easily have kept them up by example
and advice. In fact, the existing plate was concealed in the safes of the
Board-room, and never issued except for the Provost’s private use. During
these disgraceful forty years no public display brought the College into
notice except the lavish feast to George IV. (1821). At the same time, the
number of students was very great, the incomes of Seniors in renewal fines,
and of Juniors in Tutors’ fees, larger than they ever were before or since; yet
these were the years which justly earned for the University of Dublin the
now obsolete title of “Silent Sister.” There was a day when Oxford, for like
reasons, had obtained the kindred name of “the Widow of Sound Learning.”

And yet the moment when Murray succeeded was one more than likely
to stimulate bright spirits to do brilliant work; it was the moment when
revolutionary ideas from the Continent were making their way into Ireland;
when hot-headed politicians were speaking of National Independence, of
Republicanism, of the Rights of Man; it was the age that bore the great
poets of the early nineteenth century. One of them, Thomas Moore, whom
his greatest contemporaries have recognised and honoured as their peer, was
actually a student of Trinity College. He was the last of a considerable
series of playwrights and poets, which proves that English studies, at all
events, were not neglected in the College course. Congreve, Swift,
Goldsmith, Parnell, Sheridan, not to speak of Brady and Tate, and Toplady,
prove what Burke mentions in acknowledging the honorary degree offered
him by Hutchinson—“I am infinitely pleased that that learned body ...
condescends to favour the unaltered subsistence of those principles of
Liberty and Morality, along with some faint remains of that taste of
Composition, which are infused, and have always been infused, into the
minds of those who have the happiness to be instructed by it.”[96] He might
have added another all-important training in expression, which used to be a
peculiarity of the Dublin Classical School, and which Chatham devised as a
means of making his son the prince of debaters. It consisted in the practice

of free vivâ voce translation from Greek and Latin into English, wherein the
fluency of expression was rated as of equal importance with grammatical
accuracy. When we competed for Scholarships in the earlier half of the
century, we were required to know a long course of authors in this way; and
surely to express the thoughts of another language in fluent English is the
best preparation for those who desire to express their own thinking in apt
and ready words. So far, then, the narrowness of the Governors was not able
to affect the students. Those who went into the world became practical
orators of the first rank, while those who remained in the College sank into
learned insignificance.

Yet the time, as I have said, was full of excitement, political and social.
There were wars and rumours of wars, some men’s hearts failing them for
fear, others beating with the expectation of a millennium of Liberty. It was
impossible that the great agitation of the country should not reach the ardent
spirits whom the late Provost had permitted or encouraged to mix in the
world. They had, moreover, started a debating club, the Historical Society,
which, after various modest beginnings and failures, became of recognised
importance towards the waning of the century. The very essence of these
debating societies is to transgress sober discipline; for while it is the duty of
Governors of a College to keep their students’ attention upon abstract
science, pure philosophy, and classical languages, it is the one aim of
debaters to avoid such subjects, and choose those of present and burning
interest. Moreover, in those days the modern engines of the press and the
platform had not accustomed men to discount the mendacities, the false
passion, the gross exaggerations of political oratory. Generous natures were
more easily carried away than they now are, when the poison and the
antidote succeed one another in the columns of the same newspaper. Wolfe
Tone found even among the Fellows two distinguished men, John Stack and
Whitley Stokes—these family-names have been for more than two centuries
frequent in the honour-rolls of the College—who adopted the views of the

United Irishmen, and admitted the principle of making Ireland an
independent nation. It is hard to avoid the observation that Boulter’s policy
of filling every post of importance with English placemen must have been a
powerful agent in turning the opinions of the professional men in Ireland in
this direction. Presently the College was seized with military ardour; a
yeomanry corps was established, in which four companies were
commanded by four lay Fellows, for the purpose of aiding the Government
in the impending crisis. But along with the ardour for amateur soldiering so
universal among civilians, there crept in the feeling that, with arms in their
hands, men should secure not only peace and order in the country, but some
recognition of the claims of Ireland, so long neglected and postponed to the
most vulgar English interests. One of the captains was, in fact, already an
United Irishman, though he seems to have been deterred from going as far
as Wolfe Tone would lead him, by Tone’s open assertion that the liberties of
the country must be attained even through arms and blood.

Presently it became necessary to revive the dormant Statute forbidding
students to attend any political meetings; and when some of the scholars
went so far as to avow publicly that they were United Irishmen, in the sense
then considered seditious, and one member at least of the Board, who was
also M.P. for the University, openly declared himself opposed to taking
extreme measures against them, the time seemed come for a formal
Visitation. In all this difficult and dangerous passage of the history of the
College the Provost is hardly mentioned. The result of the great battle
between the Dons and the politicians upon Hutchinson’s death had resulted,
as has been said, in the appointment of the Vice-Provost, Murray, a
respectable, modest, benevolent old man,[97] wholly unfit to guide the
counsels of the Board, or to lead back the wilder students into the paths of
discretion or common sense. Moreover, the ultra-Protestant party were in
such panic at the state of the country as to make them cruel in their
punishments. The Vice-Chancellor was Lord Clare, a very strong and

uncompromising member of the Protestant ascendency, who all through his
life was perfectly consistent in advocating the English supremacy, and in
crushing out all Irish aspirations, even with the halter and the sword. He had
been baulked in his policy of repression by the admission of Roman
Catholics to Degrees in Trinity College, carried in 1793 by an Act of
Parliament, but which would not have been put into effect in that year but
for the stout action of Dr. Miller, who, as Senior Master Non-Regent,
stopped all the conferring of Degrees till the Vice-Chancellor consented to
remit the old oath against Popery. The facts, which are worth knowing in
their details, are thus stated by Dr. Stubbs:—

When the first Commencement day after the passing of the Act of Parliament arrived,
the Letters Patent altering the College Statutes had not been prepared, and consequently,
although the declaration had been abolished by Act of Parliament, the corresponding oath
remained. Lord Clare was well known to be opposed to the admission of Roman Catholics
to Degrees, and he presided as Vice-Chancellor of the University, and it was expected that
he would place every impediment in his power to the relaxation which had been granted by
the change in the law. Mr. Miller, who was called upon to act as Senior Master Non-
Regent, declined to take his place until he had been formally elected by the Senate,
according to the letter of the University Regulations. After some opposition to this
proceeding on the part of the Vice-Chancellor, this legal formality was carried out, and Mr.
Miller took his seat as one of the Caput.

The usual form at Commencements at that time was, that the Proctor should first
supplicate for the Degrees to be conferred, and obtain the suffrages of the Senate, after
which being done, the oath and the declaration were read. On this occasion the Vice-
Chancellor called on the Proctor to commence by reading the statutable oath. So far no
objection was made; but when that officer proceeded to recite the declaration as of old,
Miller immediately interfered, and reminded Lord Clare that this declaration had been
abrogated by Act of Parliament, and assured him that if it were then insisted on he would,
in his capacity as a member of the Caput, prevent any Degrees from being conferred.

Lord Clare was unprepared for this proceeding, and threatened to adjourn the Comitia.
However, after referring to the Act, which Mr. Miller had by him, and after a consultation
with Mr. Wolfe, the Attorney-General, who was present in the Hall for the purpose of
taking the Degree of Doctor of Laws, Lord Clare soon saw that the clause in question,
although conditional in the preamble, was peremptory in its enactment, and that the Senior
Master Non-Regent was right in point of law. The declaration was not read, and the
Commencement proceeded. Letters Patent were shortly afterwards passed making the
necessary alteration in the College Statutes, and from that time Roman Catholics have
taken lay Degrees without restriction.

It may therefore well be imagined that Lord Clare came in no very
good humour to visit the College, and that he probably desired to show to
the public that the Act of 1793 had been followed by the consequences
which the old ascendency party had foreseen, and therefore urged against it.
The second Visitor was Dr. Duigenan, a man intimate with the College in
former years, and a very good judge of the characters of the Fellows, now
that the old quarrels and animosities with the late Provost and his party had

been superseded by far graver questions. I will let Dr. Stubbs narrate the
proceedings in his own words.
The Vice-Chancellor, on opening the proceedings, intimated that the object of the
Visitors was to inquire whether the disaffection imputed to the College was founded in
reality, or was a mere rumour or surmise; and he announced his intention to punish with
severity any of the members of the College who should be proved to be encouragers or
abettors of treason or sedition. The roll of the College was called, and to every member, as
he answered his name, an oath was tendered, and when sworn he was examined as to his
knowledge of unlawful societies existing in College. Dr. Browne was asked as to his vote
at the Board in the case of Ardagh and Power, and he acknowledged that he had considered
expulsion too severe a measure, and therefore had, with two other Senior Fellows, voted
for the rustication of the two Students for a year as a suitable punishment, and that he had
publicly stated his opinion after the meeting of the Governing Body had terminated. For
this open criticism of the decision of the Board he was strongly rebuked by Lord Clare.

Whitley Stokes, when questioned by the Vice-Chancellor, denied that he knew of the
existence of societies of United Irishmen in the College, or of any illegal or secret societies
within the walls. He admitted that he had been a member of the Society of United Irishmen
in 1791, before their revolutionary tendencies had been developed; but he stated that from
that period he had altogether dissociated himself from them. He admitted that he had
professionally visited, as a physician, a man who was well known for his treasonable
proclivities, but who was very ill and very poor, but always in company of a third person,
lest his action might be misrepresented. He had also subscribed to a fund which was
formed to relieve the necessities of two members of the United Irishmen who were in
prison. The most reliable evidence was given on Dr. Stokes’ behalf that he had used his
influence among the Students, which was considerable, to induce some of them to
withdraw from treasonable associations, and to enroll their names among the members of
the College corps, and that his efforts had been successful. In fact, Lord Clare was forced
to admit the concurring testimony of so many respectable and independent witnesses in Dr.
Stokes’ favour; at the same time he stated that he was a well-meaning man who had been
led into great indiscretions.

The Students soon appeared to be reluctant to take the oath, partly because they
declined to implicate others, partly because they were unwilling to make admissions which
would criminate themselves. At the end of the first day there were fifty who had refused to
be sworn. In consequence of this, Lord Clare intimated on the following day that if any of
the Students who had been themselves implicated in the proceedings of these treasonable
societies would come forward and admit the fact, and would promise that in future they
would separate themselves from them, the Visitors would pass over their previous
complicity with these associations. Among those who had first refused to take the oath was

Thomas Moore. However, when the Vice-Chancellor had explained the matter to the
Students, Moore complied, and denied that he had any knowledge of treasonable practices
or societies in College. Many of the other Students who had at first declined to be sworn,
on the second and third days of the Visitation came forward and confessed their errors. The
result of the inquiry of the Visitors was the establishment of the fact that there were four
committees of United Irishmen in the College, the secretaries of which were Robert
Emmett, Peter M‘Laughlin, the younger Corbett, and Flynn. The sentence of the Visitors
was to the effect that Thomas Robinson, Scholar, who had lent his rooms for the meetings
of the United Irishmen, and who had in his sworn evidence before the Visitors prevaricated
in his answers, was expelled from the College.

William Corbett, Dacre Hamilton, John Carroll, and David Shea, Scholars; and
Thomas Corbett, Peter M‘Laughlin, Arthur Newport, John Browne, and George Keough,
Students, were also expelled for contumacy in refusing to be sworn, and because they had
fallen into the gravest suspicion, in the opinion of the Visitors, of being acquainted with,
and partakers in, a seditious conspiracy.

Robert Emmett, Thomas Flynn, John Penefather Lamphier, Michael Farrall, Edward
Barry, Thomas Bennett, Bernard Killen, and Patrick Fitzgerald, were expelled for
contumacy in refusing to appear before the Visitors, and because there was the gravest
suspicion that they were acquainted with, and had been partakers in, the conspiracy.

Martin John Ferrall was expelled because he admitted that he was acquainted with,
and had been engaged in, this conspiracy, and because he had not informed the authorities
of it, nor had been willing to do so.

As to Dr. Whitley Stokes, the Visitors decided that because he had confessed that he
had some intercourse with the heads of the conspiracy he should be precluded from acting
as College Tutor, and should for three years be disqualified from sitting as a member of the
Board, and from being co-opted to a Senior Fellowship.

These sentences were confirmed on the 1st of May, 1798, by the Duke of Gloucester,
as Chancellor of the University.

This drastic treatment, whether just or not, seems to have enabled the
College to tide over the crisis of 1798, and to emerge after the Union into
that period when it reflects the dulness and prosperity of the country. The
last Provost of the century, Kearney, is the type of his day. “This Provost,”
says Taylor, with unconscious naiveté, “was always remarkable for his close
attention to whatever might be considered for his improvement.” His only
notable act was to refuse, with tears in his eyes, the resignation offered him,

on the ground of religious difficulties, by the pious John Walker, and to
expel him publicly next day. The same man connived at a number of his
Fellows being married, in formal violation of their oath. Over against these
unwholesome features, and the stagnation in the publishing of solid
intellectual work, must be set the undoubted fact that there were men of
sound learning and research among the Fellows. Mat. Young, Barrett, Thos.
Elrington, Rich. Graves, Geo. Miller, were all men of respectable
attainments in their day; and if the classical school produced no compeer of
the expelled John Walker, it was at this apparently obscure period that the
University of Dublin exchanged its reputation as a school of theology, of
eloquence, and of style, for the reputation in Mathematics and Physics
which was its only distinction in this century up to the reformations of
Bartholomew Lloyd.

F OOT NOT E S :
[87] Cf. Stubbs, p. 161.

[88] Dunton speaks in 1699 of the Provost’s House as a fine structure in process
of construction. This, if he reports correctly, must have been some residence
intermediate between the old “Provost’s lodgings,” on the south side of the
original quadrangle, and the present house. But there is no other allusion to such
a house.

[89] He obtained from the Trust of Erasmus Smith, of which he was one of the
administrators, large sums for the founding of new Chairs—nearly £800 per
annum, which was distributed in salaries of £100 to £250.

[90] I conclude this from the last chapter (27) of the Statutes, which ordains that
three authentic copies shall be deposited (1) as safely as possible in the archives
of the College, (2) with the Lord Deputy of Ireland, (3) with the Chancellor of
the University. The copy held by Strafford when Lord Deputy is now in private
hands in Dublin. What has become of Laud’s copy we do not know; perhaps it is
at Lambeth. There is no provision for taking any other copy from these; nay,
rather, the opening sentence of the chapter ordains that lost any should offend
against them from ignorance, they shall be read out publicly in the Chapel at the
beginning of each Term by the Deans, in the presence of the whole College.

[91] So have Mornington’s Te Deum and Jubilate, composed for the service on
the following Sunday. The March, however, a trifling composition, survives.

[92] Cf. the list in Stubbs’ History, p. 222.

[93] This was the lineal descendant of the Wm. Hawkins who in 1672 had got a
99 years’ lease of this land, then waste, for the purpose of reclaiming it and
building a quay. The Bishop had interest enough with the Board in 1771 to stay
the resumption, and even to obtain a new lease of a valuable property from the
College estate, which his descendants still enjoy. In 1799 this lease had yet 33
years to run—hence a 60 years’ lease.

[94] Provost Baldwin had asserted this right of veto, and had nominated against
the majority, not without protest, but without being challenged at a Visitation.

[95] “The effects [of the Provost’s duel] are already visible; scarce a week passes
without a duel between some of the students; some of them have been slain,

others maimed; the College Park is publicly made the place for learning the
exercise of the pistol; shooting at marks by the gownsmen is everyday practice;
the very chambers of the College frequently resound with explosions of pistols.
The Provost has introduced a fencing-master into the College, and assigned him
the Convocation or Senate House [over the gate] of the College as a school, to
teach the gownsmen the use of the sword, though this is strictly forbidden by the
Statutes.”—Lachrymæ, p. 109. Is the first part of this true? Surely the names of
students killed or maimed in duels would have been paraded before us in the
pamphlets of the time. The Provost’s duel with Mr. Wm. Doyle, arising from
anonymous attacks attributed to the latter, is described at length in the Dublin
papers of 17th and 19th January, 1775.

[96] I quote from Dr. Stubbs, extract, op. cit. p. 264. It appears from Duigenan’s
Lachrymæ, p. 145, that in Hutchinson’s time £200 a-year was voted by the
Board of Erasmus Smith for Prizes in Composition only.

[97] He was so popular in Dublin as to receive the honorary freedom of the city.

CHAPTER V.

DURING THE NINETEENTH C E N T U R Y.

“Semel arreptos nunquam dimittet honores.”
Motto from the Earliest Gold Medal.

1792-1892.

oman Catholics were not permitted to take Degrees in the
University of Dublin up to the year 1793. By an Act of the
Irish Parliament of that year, followed by a Royal Statute of
the College in 1794, this disability was removed, but neither
Roman Catholics nor Protestant Dissenters could at that time,
nor for nearly eighty years after, be elected to Fellowships or
Scholarships on the foundation of the College. In 1843 an attempt was
made to contest the law on this point. Mr. Denis Caulfield Heron, a Roman
Catholic Sizar, became a candidate for Scholarship in 1843, and was
examined in conformity with the Statutes. There were sixteen vacancies,
and his answering would have placed him fifth in order of merit, but the
electors did not consider him to be eligible on account of his religion. Mr.
Heron appealed to the Visitors, who declined to enter into an inquiry on the
subject. He then, in Trinity Term 1844, applied to the Court of Queen’s
Bench to grant a mandamus to force the Visitors to hear his appeal. This,
after argument, was granted by the Court in June, 1845. In accordance with
this command, the Visitors held a Court of Appeal in December, 1845, and
they heard the arguments of eminent counsel on both sides, aided by their
assessor, the Right Hon. Richard Keatinge. Their decision was to the effect
that, considering the precise and pointed language of the Act of 1793, and

the whole body of College Charters and Statutes, it was the clear intention
of the Crown, by the Royal Statute of 1794, merely to give to Roman
Catholics the benefit of a liberal education and the right to obtain Degrees,
but without allowing them to become members of the Corporation of
Trinity College, or in any manner changing its Protestant character.

In order that the students who were not members of the then
Established Church should not be debarred from the advantages of
Scholarships, the Board in 1854 decided to establish a class of “Non-
Foundation Scholars,” which should not be restricted to any religious
denomination. The Scholarships were awarded as the results of the same
examination by which the Foundation Scholars were elected, and were
confined to those whose answering at the Scholarship Examination was
superior to that of the lowest of those who were elected to Foundation
places. The tenure and the value of the Non-Foundation Scholarships was
the same as of those on the Foundation, and they were awarded for good
answering either in Mathematics or in Classics.

Matters remained in this state until the year 1873, when the late Mr.
Fawcett, afterwards Postmaster-General, succeeded in passing an Act of
Parliament, 36 Vic. c. 21, with the full assent of the College authorities,
which abolished Tests in the University of Dublin, except in the case of
Professors and Lecturers in the Faculty of Theology, and opened all offices
and appointments in the College to every person, irrespective of his
religious opinions.

At the time of the Union with Great Britain, in 1800, the University
lost one of its two members, but it continued to return one member to the
Imperial Parliament, the electors being, as before, the Provost, Fellows, and
Foundation Scholars. This constituency, taking account of minors, fell much
short of one hundred. By the Reform Act, in 1833, the second member was
restored to the University of Dublin, but the constituency was enlarged so

as to include ex-Scholars, Masters of Arts, and Doctors in the several
faculties, and special Commencements were held in the following
November, at which a very large number of Masters’ degrees were
conferred; the number of registered electors at once rose to 1,570. The
constituency now numbers 4,334.

The history of Trinity College during the first half of the nineteenth
century offers but little to note, apart from the great advances which were
made in the studies of the University and the Professional Schools, and
which will be hereafter detailed in their proper places. The increase in the
funds of the College admitted, and the requirements of the College
demanded, an augmentation in the number of Junior Fellows from fifteen to
eighteen. This increase was made by a Royal Statute in 1808. It was enacted
that there should be no election to any of these Fellowships in any year in
which there was a natural vacancy, and that in the case of no such vacancy
happening, one of these new Fellowships should be filled until the number
of three was in this way completed. These three additions were made in the
years 1808, 1809, and 1811. In the years 1802, 1803, 1804, and 1806 there
had been no Fellowship vacant at the time of the annual elections, and, but
for this addition, from 1802 to 1811 there would have been seven years
without a Fellowship Examination.

At this period, although the Statutes of the College forbade the
marriage of the Fellows, yet it was well known that for a good many years
many of them more or less openly violated the law of the College in this
respect. In some cases their wives continued to be known by their maiden
names; and the public understood this, and did not discountenance it. In
1811 a new and very stringent Statute was enacted, which required every
Fellow on his election to swear that he was then unmarried, and that, should
he marry at any time of his tenure of Fellowship, he would within three
months inform the Provost. This practically required all future married

Fellows to resign. An exception, however, was made in favour of the
existing Fellows, whether married or not in 1811. The Celibacy Statute, as it
was called, remained in force until 1840, when it was repealed, and all
restrictions upon marriage removed. This repeal was not effected without
considerable agitation, which commenced in 1836. The value of the
benefices in the gift of the College had fallen at least twenty-five per cent.,
in consequence of the commutation of tithe payable by the occupier of land
into a rent charge payable by his landlord. In the greater part of the South of
Ireland where the anti-tithe war had raged, and where the clergy had found
it impossible to collect the revenues of their benefices, the change was
decidedly advantageous. In the North of Ireland, however, where the
College livings lay, no such resistance to the payment of tithes had been
experienced, and consequently the change was a loss to the clergy. This,
added to the poor’s rate, which was then introduced, and the ecclesiastical
tax upon livings, which was at that time first imposed, had so greatly
reduced the value of the College benefices, that many of them failed to
attract the Fellows. In addition to this, the income of the Junior Fellows had
become more equable and more certain, and their labours had diminished in
consequence of the change which was effected by the adoption of a division
of tutorial fees and of tutorial lectures in 1835; consequently few of the
Junior Fellows were disposed to change an agreeable literary life in Dublin
for a retirement in the country, even though they should be thus enabled to
marry.

In February, 1836, the Provost and Senior Fellows, two only
dissenting, agreed to join the Junior Fellows in an application to the Lord
Lieutenant for a repeal of the obnoxious Statute, suggesting, however, that
the six most Junior of the Fellows should be exempted from the permission
to marry. The Earl of Mulgrave, then Viceroy, declined to recommend the
change. At the end of 1838 a further memorial was presented to the
representative of the Crown, praying that the Fellows above the lower nine

of the body should be allowed to marry. The Provost and Senior Fellows
concurred in the prayer of the memorial, stipulating, however, that the plan
should be accompanied by such measures as would prevent the College
livings from being declined by the whole body of Fellows. On the arrival of
a new Viceroy (Lord Fortescue) in 1839, a memorial was presented to him
by the College asking for a repeal of the Celibacy Statute. To this there was
a considerable opposition on the part of the great body of the Scholars and
prospective Fellowship candidates, on the ground that the existing Fellows
would be settled for life in the College, and the vacancies for fresh elections
would become very rare, and thus the highest mathematical and literary
studies in the College would suffer. It was known, also, that the Archbishop
of Armagh, Lord John George Beresford, who was then Vice-Chancellor,
and who took a warm interest in the welfare of the College, was strongly
opposed to the repeal of this Statute. In the end the Government was guided
by the advice of Dr. Dickinson, afterwards Bishop of Meath, and in 1840
the Celibacy Statute was repealed; ten new Fellowships were added, one to
be elected each year; the six junior of the Fellows were excluded from the
emoluments of the tutors, and restricted to the statutable emoluments of a
Junior Fellow (about £37 a-year, with rooms and dinner in the Hall); and
the number of Tutor Fellows was increased from fifteen to nineteen, the
average income of the tutors being thus diminished by 21 per cent.

It could scarcely be expected that an institution like Trinity College,
which at that time had many political enemies, should escape a searching
inquiry at the hands of a Royal Commission; and accordingly, in April,
1851, a full and minute investigation was made into the working of the
College, the Commissioners being Archbishop Whately, Lord Chancellor
Brady, the Earl of Rosse, the Bishop of Cork, Doctor Mountiford Longfield,
and Edward J. Cooper, Esq. The Commissioners reported in April, 1853,
and in a manner highly favourable to the College. They found “that
numerous improvements of an important character have been from time to

time introduced by the authorities of the College, and that the general state
of the College is satisfactory. There is great activity and efficiency in the
different departments, and the spirit of improvement has been especially
shown in the changes which have been introduced in the course of
education, to adapt it to the requirements of the age.” They ended in
recommending some twenty-five changes. But they took care to add that
these recommendations did not involve any great or fundamental alteration
in the arrangements of the University, or in the system of education pursued
in it. “From its present state,” they add, “and from what has already been
effected by the authorities of the College, we do not believe such changes to
be required.”

Most of these recommendations have since that time been carried out
by Royal Statutes, which were obtained at the request of the Provost and
Senior Fellows, and in the application for which they were strengthened by
the report of the Commissioners. 1. The Statutes underwent a complete
revision. 2. Senior Fellows ceased to hold Professorships. 3. The Board
obtained power to vary, with the consent of the Visitors, the subjects
prescribed for the Fellowship Examinations, and to regulate the mode in
which the Examination should be conducted, so that any Junior Fellow who
holds a Professorship may now be summoned to examine in the subject of
his Professorship. 4. Each vacancy for Fellowship or Scholarship is now
filled by a separate vote of the electors, and the successful candidates are
placed in the order of merit. 5. The fees payable to the tutors are no longer
divided irrespectively of the number of pupils of each tutor, but a proportion
of the fees paid by each student is paid directly to his College tutor, and the
remainder paid into a common fund, from which certain Professorships are
endowed, which are tenable by Junior Fellows alone. 6. The general
obligation to take Holy Orders is no longer imposed on the Fellows, the
number of Lay Fellows being at first increased from three to five. 7. Ex-
Fellows are now eligible for the Regius Professorship of Divinity. 8. The

Professors of Modern Languages are now elected as other Professors, and
these languages may now be selected by students of the Sophister Classes
and for the B.A. degree in lieu of Greek and Latin. 9. The Board and
Visitors have now the power of altering the subjects for the Scholarship
Examination, and by a recent Statute the tenure of the Scholarship has been
limited to five years. 10. Twenty Senior and twenty Junior Exhibitions of
£25 each tenable for two years have been founded, and they are open to
students without respect to creed. 11. No distinction is now made between
Pensioners, Fellow Commoners, and Noblemen as to the course of
education required for the B.A. degree. 12. The formal exercises then
required for the different degrees have been discontinued, and (except the
M.A. degree) all the higher degrees have been made real tests of merit. 13.
Full power to admit readers to the College Library has been conferred upon
the Provost and Senior Fellows. 14. An auditor of the College is now
appointed by the Visitors, and an audited balance sheet and account of
income and expenditure is annually presented to them, and is open to the
inspection of all members of the Corporation. 15. The Bursar is now paid
by salary and not by fees, and local land agents have been appointed in
cases in which the occupying tenants hold directly from the College. 16.
The College officers formerly paid by fees are now paid by salaries in
proportion to the services performed by them. 17. There has been a gradual
reduction in the number of Non-Tutor Fellows created by the Statute of
1840. These form the great majority of the recommendations of the Royal
Commissioners.

In addition to these alterations some considerable improvements were
effected by the Royal Statute of the 18th Victoria. The whole of the College
Statutes were carefully revised, and the obsolete and injurious enactments
were repealed. The power of assigning or of transferring pupils from one
tutor to another, which Provost Hutchinson attempted to exercise in an
arbitrary manner, was removed from the Provost and vested in the Board;

and to the Board, with the consent of the Visitors, was given the power,
which they had not before, of founding new Professorships and offices, and
of assigning salaries to be paid to them from the revenues of the College.

Immediately after these powers had been granted by Letters Patent, the
Board and Visitors acted in conformity with their new authority. In 1855 a
decree was passed dividing the subjects of the Fellowship Examination into
four—Mathematics, Classics (including Hebrew), Mental and Moral
Sciences, and Experimental Physics; the time for the examination was
greatly extended. Science scholarships were founded, and the number of
days of examination, both for classical and science scholarships, increased;
and in the same year a similar decree regulated the salary and duties of the
Regius Professor of Greek, and founded new Professorships of Arabic and
of English Literature. In 1856 certain salaries of College officers were
fixed, and the salaries of the Professor of Geology and of Erasmus Smith’s
Professor of Natural Philosophy (when held by a Junior Fellow) were
regulated. In 1858 a decree was passed which transferred all fees hitherto
payable to College officers to the general funds of the College, and assigned
fixed salaries in lieu of them. Two Senior Tutorships, each with a salary of
£800, were founded; the salary of the Examinerships held by Non-Tutor
Fellows was raised to £100 per annum; Classical Honour Lectureships were
instituted, and a Professorship of Sanscrit and Comparative Philology. In
1862 two Professorships of Modern Languages were established, the
salaries of the holders being paid out of the funds of the College—the Act
of Parliament 18 and 19 Victoria, cap. 82, having deprived the College of
two annual sums of £92 6s. 2d. each, which had been granted by the 41
George III., cap. 32, out of the Consolidated Fund for this purpose. The
same Act dispossessed the College of its earliest, and only, subvention from
the State, which was granted by Queen Elizabeth—an annual charge of
£358 16s. on the revenues of Ireland; the grounds assigned for this
deprivation being the removal of the stamp duties on Degrees,[98] which had

been imposed on the College only thirteen years before. These duties
(which have long since been abolished in England) were £1 on
matriculation, £3 for the degree of B.A., and £6 for any other degree.

The University—consisting of the Chancellor or Vice-Chancellor,
Doctors in the several faculties, and Masters of Arts—having been
governed for more than two hundred years by certain rules or Statutes
which had, by lapse of time, become in many respects obsolete and
unsuited to the present state of the University, and doubts having been
raised as to whether the Provost and Senior Fellows of the College had the
power to alter or amend these rules, Letters Patent were asked for and
granted by the Crown (July 24, 1857), confirming all former powers,
usages, and privileges, giving the Board power to make laws concerning the
conferring of Degrees, provided that such laws should be afterwards
confirmed by the University Senate, enacting that no “grace” should be
proposed to that body which had not been first adopted by the Board;
incorporating the University Senate under the name of the Chancellor,
Masters, and Doctors of the University of Dublin, and giving the Senate
power to elect the Chancellor from three names to be submitted to them by
the Board, who relinquished their old right in this respect. Further Letters
Patent were obtained in 1858, which enabled the Board to commute the fees
of certain offices for lesser salaries, and to forego fees hitherto payable to
them for Degrees which were in future to be applied to the benefit of the
College; and out of the funds so transferred fourteen Studentships were
founded, at a salary of £100 per annum for each, tenable for seven years, to
be given every year at the Degree Examination; two new offices (Senior
Tutorships), to be held by Junior Fellows, were created; two of the Non-
Tutor Fellowships were merged among the Tutor Fellowships, and the
remaining four were gradually discontinued. The Board was given power to
sanction new rules for the distribution of the tutorial fees, and a clause was
added enabling candidates for Fellowships to attend only on the days on

which the courses in which they compete are examined in, and giving other
powers to the Board.

In conformity with the powers granted to the Board by the Letters
Patent of 1857, in December of the following year they remodelled, with
the approval of the Senate, all the University rules with respect to Degrees.
Further Letters Patent were obtained in 1865, rectifying defects in the
existing Statutes, specially with respect to the examination for Fellowships,
and in 1868 for the creation of a Regius Professor of Surgery. In 1870 the
Provost and Senior Fellows founded a Professor of Latin, under the same
regulations which prevailed with regard to the Professor of Greek; and at
the same time they founded forty Exhibitions of £25 each, tenable for two
years, twenty Senior and twenty Junior, to aid deserving students in the
prosecution of their undergraduate course. In 1871 the Professorships of
Ancient History and of Zoology were founded, and in 1872 a Professorship
of Comparative Anatomy.

The Act of Parliament amending the law with regard to promissory
oaths, and that of 1873 abolishing religious tests in the University of
Dublin, necessitated further changes in the Royal Statutes of the College,
and these were effected by Letters Patent of 1874, which also founded the
Academic Council, and transferred to it, from the Provost and Senior
Fellows, the nomination to Professorships, and gave to it, concurrently with
the Board, the power to regulate the studies of the College.

This Council consists of sixteen members and the Provost—four
elected by the Senior Fellows, four by the Junior, four by the Professors
who are not Fellows, and four by the Senate at large (excluding those who
are already represented). The representatives of each class hold office for
four years, are elected at the same time, and vacate office in rotation. The
electors can give all their votes to one candidate, or they may distribute
them among the candidates as they think fit. The election to Professorships

in the Divinity School, of Medical Professors founded by Act of Parliament,
and of Professors of private foundation the appointment of which is by the
wills of the founders vested in the Provost and Senior Fellows, remains with
the Board.

In 1851 a very important Act of Parliament was passed, which
extended the leasing powers of the College in respect to the estates
belonging to the Corporation. Prior to that year it was precluded from
giving leases of the lands belonging to the College for a longer period than
twenty-one years, except in cities, where sites for building might be leased
for forty years. The rent to be reserved should be equal to one-half of the
true value of the lands, communibus annis, at the time of making the lease.
The Provost and Senior Fellows, however, might grant leases for twenty-
one years at a rent equal to that which was hitherto payable out of the lands,
even though it was less than half the value. The custom was for the College
to renew these leases when a few years had expired, on the payment of fines
which were in some cases considerable, and which were divided among the
members of the Governing Body of the College. These renewal fines
formed the principal part of the incomes of the Senior Fellows. By the Act
of 1851 (14 and 15 Victoria, cap. 128) additional powers of leasing were
granted up to ninety-nine years without fines, reserving a minimum rent of
three-fourths of the annual value; making, however, a reduction in respect
to the tenant’s interest in an unexpired lease when it was surrendered. Also,
powers of granting leases in perpetuity were given to the Board on the
surrender by the tenants of the existing leases. These perpetuity rents were
fixed by a regulation contained in the Statute, and were variable from time
to time, at intervals of ten years, according to the changes in the prices of
certain agricultural commodities. Renewal fines were abolished, and the
Provost and Senior Fellows were compensated for the loss of them by a
fixed annual sum of £800 paid to each of them out of the revenues of the
College. Consequent upon the changes which have been indicated above,

the Senior Fellows relinquished their claims to an annual sum, which,
according to the Report of the University Commissioners, amounted to
about £2,650, their official salaries being now fixed at sums according to
the duties of the office; and, on the whole, the income of each Senior
Fellow is on the average about £363 less than it was in 1851. The difference
has been employed in the foundation of Studentships and Exhibitions, the
annual charge for which is about £2,000.

The most serious danger with which Trinity College has been
threatened during the present century arose from an attempt which the
Government of the day made in 1873 to deprive it of its University powers,
and of a large portion of its endowments. A Bill was introduced into the
House of Commons by Mr. Gladstone for the purpose of establishing one
University in Ireland, and an essential part of its proposals was that Trinity
College should cease to be the University of Dublin, and that another Mixed
Body should take its place. That the power of conferring Degrees and
regulating Professorships in this University, and of appointing and
dismissing the Professors, should be vested in a Council of twenty-eight
members, of which Trinity College should have the power of nominating
only two. It proposed that there should be a number of affiliated Colleges in
the country, and that they too should be represented on this Council, so that
a College able to matriculate fifty students should send one representative,
and a College able to matriculate one hundred and fifty should send two
members, and that no College, however numerous its students, should be
represented by a larger number of members. It was, moreover, another
essential part of this measure, that neither Mental and Moral Science nor
History should form any part of the Professorial instruction or of the
University Examinations. In order to assist in making up an endowment of
£50,000 per annum for the purposes of this University, it was proposed to
suppress Queen’s College, Galway, and allocate the £10,000 a-year of its
endowment; to put a charge of £12,000 annually on the estates of Trinity

College; and to transfer, moreover, the Degree fees, which are now paid
into the general funds of this College, to the Governing Body of the new
University. The buildings, the library, and the remainder of the endowments
were to belong to the College, which in other respects should remain, as at
present, as a teaching institution.

It is needless to say that this Bill, if carried into a law, would have
ruined Trinity College. A large number of its students would have been
withdrawn, for they could have the prestige of the Degree of the University
of Dublin without being members of the College, and the fees which they at
present pay to the support of the College and its teachers would have been
no longer available. It is not too much to assert that the College would have
lost 33 per cent. of its available revenue, and that it would have been
impossible to maintain it on the income which remained.

Fortunately for the College, the Roman Catholic Bishops opposed the
plan of the Government, which did not include the endowment of a Roman
Catholic College, and which did not meet their demand for a Roman
Catholic University. After a debate lasting for four nights, the Government
proposal was rejected on the 11th of March, 1873, by a majority of three.

There were two important occasions upon which entertainments on a
scale of considerable grandeur were given during the present century in the
Hall of Trinity College. The first was in 1821, on the occasion of the visit of
George the Fourth to Ireland, when the King honoured the College with his
presence at a great banquet. His Majesty was received in the Library, where
addresses were presented to him, and after receiving them most graciously
he was conducted through a passage made for the occasion into the
Examination Hall, where were collected at dinner a considerable number of
the Irish nobility, the Bishops of the Irish Church, the Judges, and many of
the most influential persons in the country, along with the distinguished
suite which attended the King.

His Majesty afterwards expressed himself as much gratified by the
reception which he met with in the College. On this occasion the scholars
were entertained at the same time in the Dining Hall, under the presidency
of Dr. Sadlier, then a Junior Fellow, and afterwards Provost. It was in
connection with this visit of the King that the University of Dublin asserted
and secured its right of precedency after the Corporation of the City.

The second occasion was in August, 1835, when the British
Association made its first visit to Dublin; Dr. Bartholomew Lloyd, then
Provost, was the President of the Association, and some of the leading
scientific men of England and of the Continent were present. A considerable
number of these were accommodated during the meeting with chambers in
the College, and had their breakfasts and dinners in the Hall. A great
banquet was, moreover, given to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (the Earl of
Mulgrave), and to about 300 members of the Association, in the
Examination Hall. The guests assembled before dinner in the College
Library, and His Excellency took the opportunity of conferring the honour
of Knighthood upon the Professor of Astronomy, William Rowan Hamilton.
This was the first instance in which an Irish Viceroy had so honoured an
individual for eminent scientific merit. At the dinner which followed,
Professor Whewell of Cambridge remarked in his speech that it was then
just one hundred and thirty-six years since a great man in another
University knelt down before his Sovereign and rose up Sir Isaac Newton.
Among the foreign visitors were De Toqueville, Montalembert, Barclay de
Tolly, L. Agassiz, and many others.

The general history of Trinity College during the nineteenth century
would be incomplete if some reference were not made to a matter which
elicited considerable public feeling at the time, but which is now almost
forgotten. On the 12th of March, 1858, the Earl of Eglinton, who had been
very popular as Viceroy of Ireland on a previous occasion, returned as Lord

Lieutenant on a change of Ministry. It was quite a holiday in Dublin.
Several hundreds of the students had assembled within the enclosed space
in front of the College (which was at that time larger than it is now), and
had crowded out into the street, for the purpose of witnessing the procession
in its progress up College Green and Dame Street to the Castle. For some
time previous to the approach of the Lord Lieutenant, they amused
themselves by letting off squibs and crackers, and by throwing orange peel
and other similar missiles at the crowd outside, as well as at the police. The
Junior Dean, apprehending some ill results if the disposition and temper of
the students were misunderstood by the people and by the police, went out
amongst them, and begged that they would not resent these demonstrations
on the part of the students. No political display was intended by them, and
consequently if good humour were preserved on both sides all would pass
off quietly. Colonel Browne, who was in command of the police, on two or
three occasions went inside the railings to reason with the students; his
reception on each occasion was courteous, and he was cheered by the
College men. From the period when the Viceregal procession came in sight,
there was a suspension of the bombardment from within the College rails.
As the Lord Lieutenant passed by, there was very little political
manifestation by the students. After the procession had passed, those within
the railings commenced again to throw crackers, squibs, and oranges, and
the confusion increased. Colonel Browne rode up, and in vain endeavoured
to be heard. He was struck in the face by an orange, amidst a shout of
laughter from the students and from the crowds in the street. At this time he
seemed to lose his temper, and went to Colonel Griffiths commanding the
Scots Greys, who were posted near the Bank of Ireland, and asked him to
charge. Colonel Griffiths laughed, and asked whom he was to charge—was
it a parcel of schoolboys? Colonel Browne then brought a party of the
mounted police in front of the soldiers, and drew up immediately in their
rear a body of the foot police, with their batons in their hands. At this

juncture the Junior Dean, foreseeing that something serious was likely to
ensue if the students did not at once disperse, called on such of them as
were outside the College railings to come within the College gate, and he
succeeded in getting a considerable number of them inside the College, and
had the gates closed. Many of the students, however, were unable to get
inside—some were with the Junior Dean inside the railings and some in the
street. Immediately after this Colonel Browne ordered the mounted police
to Charge. The outer gates of the enclosure were forced open; the police,
mounted as well as on foot, at once rushed on the students within the
railings (the statues of Burke and Goldsmith had not at that time been
erected); they cut at them with their sabres, rode over them, and the
unmounted men used their batons in every direction and indiscriminately as
regarded the persons with whom they came in contact. The students had no
means of defending themselves, the Junior Dean having early in the
proceedings induced them to give up to him the sticks which they carried.
Several of them were struck down, and deliberately batoned again and
again while on the ground by the foot police in a most inhuman manner.
The Junior Dean then went outside the railings, and, addressing Colonel
Browne, said that he would engage to withdraw the students if the Colonel
would withdraw the police. This was assented to, but the foot police for a
considerable time waited within the enclosure. So great was the violence of
the assault of the mounted men that, in following the students who rushed
into the College through the open wicket gate, they used their swords with
such vigour against the wooden gate that it showed several marks of their
sabres, large pieces being cut off in some places. Among the students whose
lives were endangered by the onslaught of the police were Mr. Leeson, Mr.
J. W. Gregg, Mr. Pollock, Mr. Fuller, Mr. Leathem, Mr. Brownrigg, Mr.
Kennedy, Mr. Lyndsay, and Mr. Chadwick. Some of them suffered very
severe injuries. Mr. Clarke was wounded in the back with a sabre cut while
he was stretched on the ground from the blow of a baton. The College

authorities prosecuted Colonel Browne and some of the police criminally
for an assault on the students, but they were acquitted by a jury at the
ensuing Commission. It is pleasing to add that since that time the best
relations have existed between the students and the Metropolitan police;
indeed, the feelings of the latter body were supposed at the time to have
been excited by some strong observations which were made in the columns
of a Dublin newspaper which appeared on the morning of the occurrence.

The Divinity School of Trinity College.—The institution of a special
school designed for the instruction of the future clergy of the Church of
Ireland did not take effect until the close of the eighteenth century. The
students of Trinity College, under instruction, were at the beginning of this
century either undergraduates or Bachelors of Arts. The undergraduates
were lectured in classics and mathematics by public lecturers appointed by
the College, and their religious training was specially entrusted to the
Catechist. After they took the B.A. degree they still continued under
instruction by the several Professors of the mathematical and physical
sciences, of Greek, and of the several faculties, while their religious
instruction was under the special care of the Regius Professor of Divinity,
and of a Lecturer of early but uncertain foundation, which latter post was
afterwards endowed with the interest of £1,000 by Archbishop King. Junior
Bachelors attended the prelections of this Lecturer, and Middle and Senior
Bachelors the prelections of the Regius Professor; and this attendance was
compulsory upon all graduates in residence. Many ex-Scholars of Trinity
College remember well that until recent times all Scholars who were
graduates were obliged to attend, at their choice, certain courses of lectures
with the Professors of Greek or Oratory or Mathematics or Law, but all
were, without distinction, under pain of losing their salaries, obliged to
attend lectures with either the Regius Professor of Divinity or Archbishop
King’s Lecturer. In the year 1790, at a meeting of the Irish Bishops, it was

determined that they would in future not ordain any candidate who had not
the B.A. degree and a certificate of having attended lectures in Divinity for
one academic year (at that time consisting of four terms), and they
forwarded to the Board a list of books in which the Bishops had decided
that candidates for Holy Orders should be examined prior to ordination. The
Board, in reply, informed the Bishops that they would direct the assistant to
Archbishop King’s Lecturer to prepare the students in these books. From
1790 to 1833 Divinity students attended the lectures of the assistants to
Archbishop King’s Lecturer (the Regius Professor had not at that time any
assistants) on two days in the week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, from eight to
nine in the morning. They were put through Burnet on the Thirty-nine
Articles, and if any student attended three-fourths[99] of the lectures in each
of the four terms of the Junior Bachelor year he received a certificate,
which was inserted in the testimonium of his degree, and on this he was
entitled to present himself for the Ordination Examination. The Rev.
Richard Brooke, in his Recollections of the Irish Church, gives a very vivid
account of his experience as a Divinity student in 1827. The books he then
read—they could not have been all lectured on (and there is no record of
any compulsory Divinity examination)—were Burnet, Pearson, Mosheim,
Paley’s Evidences, Magee on the Atonement, Wheatley on the Common
Prayer, Tomline on the Articles, Butler’s Analogy, and the Bible and Greek
Testament, with Patrick Lowth and Whitby’s Commentary. It is believed,
from the testimony of clergymen who were students at that period, that the
lectures were confined very much to Burnet and Butler.

At that time, Archbishop King’s Lecturer in Divinity was an annual
office poorly endowed, and, like the Professorships of Greek, of
Mathematics, and of Civil Law, held always by a Senior Fellow. Such was
the condition of things up to 1833. The Divinity Professors were mainly
engaged in prelecting to graduate Scholars, and to such graduates as desired
to attend their lectures. In that year the Divinity School was arranged upon

its present basis. Dr. Elrington was, in 1833, Regius Professor of Divinity;
and the annual office of Archbishop King’s Lecturer was separated from a
Senior Fellowship, was endowed with £700 a-year from the funds of the
College, and was given to Dr. O’Brien, afterwards Bishop of Ossory, but at
that time a Junior Fellow, as a permanent Professorship. The course was
extended to one of two years’ length, compulsory examinations were
instituted, assistants to the Regius Professor were then first appointed, and
he and they had the care of the Senior class, consisting only of those who
had passed the B.A. examination. Archbishop King’s Lecturer and his
assistants had the instruction of the Junior class of Divinity students
entrusted to them. These were for the most part Senior Sophisters.

The Divinity course now comprises two years’ study of Divinity, each
consisting of three academic terms. Students generally begin to attend
lectures at the beginning of their third year in Arts. In the Junior year they
are lectured by Archbishop King’s Lecturer on the Evidences of Natural and
Revealed Religion, and in the Socinian Controversy; and by his assistants in
the Greek of the Gospels and of the Epistle to the Romans, and in Pearson
on the Creed. There are three days set apart for composition of sermons and
essays each term, when the students are brought into the Hall, and are given
either a text of Scripture, or a subject connected with the Professor’s
lectures for that term, to write upon; two such compositions at least, in each
term, are obligatory. During the Christmas and Easter recesses the students
are obliged to study one of the Epistles in Greek, and a portion of
Ecclesiastical History, in which they are examined on the first lecture-day
of the following term. Having completed three terms’ lectures, they pass an
examination in certain text-books connected with the studies of the Junior
year, and in the English New Testament; in specified portions of the Greek
Testament, and in the Professor’s prelections. Having passed this
examination, they are permitted to attend the lectures of the Regius
Professor of Divinity and his assistants for the next three terms. The

lectures of the Regius Professor are upon the Book of Common Prayer, the
Canon of Holy Scripture, and the Roman Catholic Controversy; and his
assistants lecture upon Bishops Burnet and Browne on the Thirty-nine
Articles, and upon the Greek of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians and
the Epistle to the Hebrews. The rules with regard to study in the intervals
between the terms and composition are nearly the same as those of the
Junior year; and when the student has completed his sixth term of study, he
presents himself at the examination for the Divinity Testimonium, after he
has, in nearly every case, taken his B.A. degree. Lectures in Ecclesiastical
History, in Hebrew, in Pastoral Theology, and in Biblical Greek are
provided, but they are not compulsory. The number of Divinity
Testimoniums granted for each of the last five years averaged 35, and for
each of the previous five years the average was 32.[100]

The subjects of the Divinity lectures for the Junior year were arranged
in reference to the controversies which were most prevalent in the Irish
Church in the year 1833, and also in reference to the special theological
aptitudes of Dr. O’Brien. He was peculiarly fitted to treat of the evidences
of natural and revealed religion, and to reply to the objections to both which
were then current. Those who remember his prelections can bear testimony
to the wonderful ability and skill with which he dealt with the infidel
controversy of his time, and the light which he threw upon the well-known
arguments of Bishop Butler. The Socinian controversy at that period
occupied the serious attention of the Irish clergy, and it was necessary that
all the young ministers of the Church should be prepared to deal with the
arguments of the Unitarian when they entered upon their duties as curates.

Prior to 1814 the Regius Professor of Divinity held no public
examination in the subjects of his course. In 1813 Dean Graves, who at that
time held the office, submitted to the Board a plan for the improvement of
Divinity lectures, and a new Royal Statute was obtained regulating the

duties of the Professor. He was bound to deliver prelections during term,
but they were practically confined to the first week in Michaelmas term, the
first and second weeks in Hilary term, and the first week in Easter term. He
was also bound to hold an examination once a-year, open to Bachelors of
Arts. The subjects of this examination were fixed by Statute. On the first
morning it was the Old Testament, the first afternoon the New; on the
second morning in Ecclesiastical History, and the second afternoon in the
Articles and Liturgy of the Church of England. In 1814 the Board instituted
prizes at this examination, which was otherwise voluntary. On the first
occasion thirty graduates entered their names for the examination, but only
five attended, and it ended in only three or four highly prepared Divinity
students presenting themselves each year for a searching examination in an
extended course. In 1859 these Divinity prizes were enlarged into
Theological Exhibitions, two of which, of £60 and £40 a-year, tenable for
three years, are now awarded as the result of this examination, greatly
enlarged and extended by the addition of selections from the writings of the
Fathers and specified portions of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament.
Prizes also at the end of the first Divinity year, called after the name of
Archbishop King, were founded in 1836. Both these stimulants to
theological study, aided by annual prizes at examinations held by the
Professors of Biblical Greek and of Ecclesiastical History, have very widely
extended the reading of the best class of Divinity students. Candidates for
the degree of Bachelor of Divinity are now required to pass an examination
in the whole of the extended range of theological subjects required of
candidates for the Exhibitions; but as those who seek Divinity degrees are
generally clergymen who are engaged in the duties of their calling, they are
allowed to divide the examination into parts and to pass it in detail instead
of on one occasion. Few of the modern arrangements have been so
successful as this. By directing and encouraging a wide course of
theological reading among the younger clergy, it has produced an excellent

effect, and the popularity of the arrangement is manifested by the large
increase in the number of candidates for the B.D. degree by examination.

It would give an incomplete account of the preparation of candidates
for Holy Orders in Trinity College, Dublin, if we were to omit the mention
of the important training which the College Theological Society affords to
the students. Once in each week during term the members meet under the
presidency of either the Regius Professor or of Archbishop King’s Lecturer
in Divinity; essays on theological subjects, or on one of the important
religious questions of the day, are read by the students in turn; a debate
upon the essay follows, which is watched over and moderated by the
President, who, at the conclusion, makes such observations as he thinks fit.
The students are in this manner practised in thoughtful and carefully
prepared composition, and in extempore speaking; and the great benefits
derived by Divinity students from this voluntary society are universally
admitted—advantages which have been mainly due to the unremitting care
of the late Bishop Butcher, formerly Regius Professor, and his successors in
that chair.

The Medical School.—The marked and rapid growth of the Medical
School of the University of Dublin has been one of the most notable events
in its history during the nineteenth century. Although it was in existence in
Trinity College since 1711, it was only in 1786 that it was placed on its
present footing by an Act of the Irish Parliament, which united the College
of Physicians with Trinity College in the joint management of the
instruction given in this school. Five of the teachers are appointed by the
Provost and Senior Fellows, and four (designated King’s Professors) by the
College of Physicians, the Trustees of Sir Patrick Dun’s estates. This Statute
further required that all who shall be in attendance on medical lectures,

whether students of Trinity College or extern students in Medicine, shall be
matriculated by the Senior Lecturer.

For the first fifteen years these matriculations averaged only 4·7 each
year. The numbers gradually increased, until in the years 1809-1813,
inclusive, the average reached 41·4 each year; from 1814 to 1824 they rose
to an average of 66·5. In the next quinquennial period they increased to the
large number of 90·8 annually. In the years from 1831 to 1835 the average
fell to 63, and in the following two years the number barely exceeded 28
each year. The great increase of medical students in the period between
1814 and 1835 is to be attributed mainly to the eminence of the University
Professor of Anatomy and Chirurgery—James Macartney[101]—a man of the
greatest powers both as an anatomist, a biologist, and surgical teacher. On
his ceasing to hold the Professorship, the number of students in the Medical
School fell to what it had been before his appointment; and having
continued at a low level for thirty years, it suddenly rose to an average of
nearly 80 entrances in 1864, in which year Doctor Edward H. Bennett, the
present Professor of Surgery, was appointed to the office of University
Anatomist—an office which had, after being in abeyance for a century,
been revived in 1861. From this time the numbers have gradually risen until
they amounted to more than they were in the most flourishing period of
Doctor Macartney’s teaching. Doctor Macartney held the Chair of Anatomy
for twenty-four years, until July, 1837, when he resigned the office, very
much because he was unwilling to submit to the rules laid down by the
governing body of the College. In the year 1834 a complaint was made to
the Provost and Senior Fellows, by the other Professors of the Medical
School, that he had fixed his lectures at an hour, from 3 to 4 p.m., which
interfered with those of the other Professors of that school. In December,
1835, the Board informed him that they would permit him to continue his
lectures during that session at the hour which he had announced, but that
this privilege would not be further continued. In November, 1836, Dr.

Macartney persisted in lecturing at 3 o’clock. He was ordered by the Board
to lecture at another hour, and this order was conveyed also to the College
of Physicians. Dr. Macartney persisted; and the Board took the advice of
counsel as to their powers, and, as a result, they ordered the Anatomy
House to be closed from 3 to 4 o’clock. In the end the Professor yielded.
But another cause of dispute soon rose. In April, 1836, the Board received a
letter from the Registrar of the School of Physic, which stated that Doctor
Macartney wished to have his lectures advertised as being two in Anatomy
and two in Surgery each week. This was held by the Board to be
insufficient, inasmuch as the University of Edinburgh required five lectures
in each of these subjects every week, and would require from the Dublin
Professors certificates to that effect. Notwithstanding the remonstrance of
the Provost and Senior Fellows, Doctor Macartney persisted in his
advertisement. Doctor Sandes, one of the Senior Fellows, undertook at their
request to write to the Professor in the hope that he would be able to induce
him to change his decision, but his attempt was not followed by success. A
case was laid before Mr. Pennefather, K.C., and as a result of his opinion,
on November 26, 1836, Doctor Macartney was required to deliver five
lectures in each week at one o’clock during the session. On July 13, 1837,
he resigned the Professorship—four years before his tenure of office would
otherwise have expired.

In consequence of his quarrel with the authorities of Trinity College,
all Doctor Macartney’s valuable collection of preparations became the
property of the University of Cambridge. That learned body agreed with
Macartney that he should transfer his collections to them in consideration of
an annuity of £100 for a period not exceeding ten years. In making
arrangements with Doctor Harrison, his successor, the Board took care to
renew the understanding which they had made in 1802 with Dr. Hartigan,
but which they had, through an oversight, omitted to establish on Doctor

Macartney’s election—that all such preparations should become the
property of the College.

It should be added, in justice to Dr. Harrison, who succeeded
Macartney, and who was an excellent human anatomist and a most
painstaking and attractive lecturer, that the great falling off of medical
students in his time must be attributed to many causes beyond his control:
first, the refusal of the Irish College of Surgeons to receive certificates of
his lectures, very much through professional jealousy; secondly, the
opening of large medical schools in the central parts of England, which
drew away all the Welsh students who had before that time come to Dublin
in considerable numbers, and the opening of the Ledwich School of
Medicine in Dublin; and thirdly, to the institution of the Queen’s Colleges
in Belfast, Cork, and Galway, which retained in those towns the students in
Medicine who had previously been in the habit of coming to Dublin for
lectures.

The old Anatomy House, situated between the College Park and the
Fellows’ Garden, was a small and inconvenient building. It became
altogether unsuited to the numbers attending Doctor Macartney’s classes. In
1815 space was made for them by the removal of the wax models from the
room in which they had been placed to that over it, and a small building
was erected in the Fellows’ Garden adjacent to the old house. This was but
a temporary expedient, for we find that in 1820 the floor of the lecture-
room was reported to be in a dangerous condition, and the Board directed
that, in future, lectures in Anatomy and Chemistry should be delivered in
the public lecture-room in No. 22 of the Library Square. A committee was
appointed to arrange for a new site for the Medical School. That which was
at first fixed upon was at the east side of the Fellows’ Garden, between the
old Anatomy House and Nassau Street; but on further consideration it was
changed to the ground, hitherto the Bowling Green, at the remote extremity

of the College Park. On April 1, 1823, estimates were laid before the Board
for the building of an anatomical and chemical theatre on the above site.
The estimates ranged between £3,980 and £5,350, and a contract was made
for the work. Macartney seems to have taken a great interest in the selecting
of the site. Thus we find him writing to the Registrar, Dr. Phipps, from
Newry, in May, 1822:—
“As our interest, and that of our successors, and the future prosperity of the Medical
School, will be affected by the situation and mode of erecting of the building intended for
the Anatomical and Chemical instruction, we beg leave to lay our opinions before the
Board on this subject. (1.) With respect to situation, we consider any part of that side of the
Park next Nassau Street as being eligible, but if we were to select a particular place on this
line it would be opposite to Kildare Street, showing the front towards the street. The
Bowling Green we think a disadvantageous situation, as being damp, and the entrance
being through a private yard, which has been proposed by the architect, we think would be
highly injurious to the respectability of the School. The distance of the Bowling Green
would be very inconvenient to students in Arts, of whom our classes are chiefly composed.
The above objection equally applies to the side of the Park next Brunswick Street. (2.) We
are of opinion that, to make the buildings distinct, however contiguous in situation to each
other, would much facilitate and simplify the plans, and expedite their erection, and would
add greatly to the respectability of both establishments; as the shape and disposition of the
apartments in the two houses might be different, we are satisfied that less expense would
be incurred by adopting a separate plan for each house.”

And while the building was being erected he wrote about the light, sending
the following characteristic letter to the Board (29th March, 1823):—
“The light we want in the lecture-room may still be had without displacing a single
timber of the roof as it at present stands, but after the copper is put on, any change will be
attended with delay and expense, and I am satisfied that the Board (if not now) will
hereafter be disposed to yield to the just complaints of the pupils with respect to the want
of light. I think it will be generally acknowledged that, after the experience of teaching in
different lecture-rooms for twenty-five years, my opinion ought to have more weight than
that of any architect. I wish to add that I have no direct interest in the matter; whether there
be good or bad light would not increase or diminish my class, as is fully proved by the
number of pupils who attend in my present room, where one half of the objects used at
lecture cannot be seen for the want of light, and where, from want of space, some are
obliged to stand in the lobby; but I should think myself deficient in public duty if I did not
persist in stating to the Board the inconvenience and injury that will be sustained by the

pupils, of what they have now for several years anticipated the removal, by the erection of
a suitable building for carrying on the business of the School.”

These Medical School buildings were in use from 1825 for more than fifty
years. When of late years the number of medical students increased so
largely, and it was found that this latter building was altogether unsuited for
the modern requirements of the school, the present chemical laboratory and
dissecting-room were erected, and a histological laboratory and
physiological lecture-room were added. In 1884 a bone-room, a preparation
room, and private laboratories were built. In the same year the new
chemical theatre was opened, and in the following year the new anatomical
theatre was completed, which is fitted for a class of 230 students. Since that
time the entire of the new great Medical Schools have been finished, which,
in addition to Professors’ rooms and lecture-rooms, contain a fine chamber
specially fitted up for the great pathological collection originally purchased
from the late Doctor Robert Smith, whose lectures as Professor of Surgery
had a large share in the great recent success of the school. This collection
has been largely added to by the indefatigable labours of his successor,
Doctor Edward H. Bennett. The anatomy and chemistry lecture-rooms of
1824 were completely removed, in order to make a space for part of the
present range of buildings, which have been completed at a cost of over
£20,000.

In a lecture delivered in 1837, the Professor of the Practice of Physic
(Doctor Lendrick) attributed to Provost Bartholomew Lloyd the
improvements which were even at that time beginning to be effected in the
medical education of the members of the College. “The candidate for a
medical degree,” he said, “no longer finishes his medical education in a
single year, nor is he compelled to complete a septennial period of (perhaps)
idleness before being permitted to practise his profession.” In the years
1832-42, inclusive, the average number of degrees of Bachelor of Medicine
annually conferred by the University was 18. In the next decade this

number fell to 11·7. After the great improvements in the medical education
and the appointment of more attractive lecturers, this number rapidly
increased. In the decade 1872-1881 the average was 39, in the following ten
years the annual average was 43·6, being nearly four times that of forty
years before the present time.

During the first half of the present century the University conferred
degrees in Medicine only. The Irish College of Surgeons, towards the end of
that period, refused to recognise the lectures delivered in the Medical
School of Trinity College as a part of the professional education required
for a surgical diploma, although two of the Trinity College Professors had
previously occupied a similar position in the College of Surgeons’ School.
The University of Dublin was consequently, in 1851, obliged to institute for
their medical graduates a diploma or license in Surgery. This they did,
following the best legal advice, under the clause in their charter which gave
them authority to grant degrees “in omnibus artibus et facultatibus.” This
was followed by the institution, in 1858, of the degree of Master of Surgery.
This degree was, by the Act 21 and 22 Victoria, chap. 90, recognised as a
qualification for the holder to be placed in the Medical Register—a
privilege which was afterwards, by the Act 23 Victoria, chap. 7, extended to
diplomas or licenses in Surgery. In 1872 the degree of Bachelor of Surgery
was instituted, and placed on the basis of Bachelor of Medicine. To be
admitted to either of these degrees the candidate must have previously
graduated in Arts, and must have spent four years in the study of Medicine
and Surgery. Degrees are now given also in Obstetric Art. The University of
Dublin was the first in modern times to institute degrees in Surgery, and its
example has been since followed by Cambridge and other English, Irish,
and Scotch Universities.

The change of opinion in the Universities with respect to the status of
the profession of Surgery is well illustrated by a correspondence, which has

been preserved in the College Register, between the University of
Cambridge and the authorities of Trinity College, Dublin. On June 30,
1804, a letter was received from the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, in
which it was stated that that University had declined to consider any student
who had, subsequently to his admission, practised any trade or profession
whatsoever as qualified for a degree, and consequently had refused this to
Frederick Thackeray, who, since the time of his admission as an
undergraduate, had been constantly engaged in the practice of surgery. The
Provost and Senior Fellows, in reply, informed the Vice-Chancellor of
Cambridge that, after consideration of his letter, they had agreed to adopt
the same regulation.

In the early part of this century, before Sir Patrick Dun’s Hospital was
erected, great difficulty was experienced in the clinical instruction of the
medical students. In 1800 the Governors of Stevens’ Hospital permitted Dr.
Crampton to give reports of medical cases under his care in the Hospital for
the winter six months to matriculated medical students, and to none others.
Attendance on these lectures was required for medical degrees. In 1804
clinical lectures by Dr. Whitley Stokes at the Meath Hospital were
considered to be adequate for this purpose. In 1806, attendance for six
months with Doctor Crampton at Stevens’ Hospital was sanctioned by the
College of Physicians as adequate for a medical degree. On the completion
in 1808 of the west wing of Dun’s Hospital, which had been commenced in
1803, the clinical instruction connected with the School of Physic was
given in the wards and lecture-rooms of the Hospital; and in 1835
candidates for medical degrees were required to present a certificate of one
year’s attendance at this institution. Sir Patrick Dun’s Hospital was
originally intended for medical cases only, but in 1864 the College of
Physicians, which had hitherto occupied the central position of the building
as a library and Convocation Hall, transferred this part of the building to the
Governors of the Hospital, and it was enlarged and changed into a medico-

chirurgical institution for the complete instruction of the students both in
Medicine and Surgery. Attendance at this hospital is no longer compulsory
on the candidates for degrees; nine other Dublin hospitals are joined with it,
and the student may, if he wishes, receive his clinical teaching in any of
these.

In the early part of the century, Trinity College for a short time granted
diplomas in Medicine to matriculated students who were not students in
Arts, but who attended the same lectures and passed the same examinations
as were required of Bachelors of Medicine. This system prevailed up to
1823, when the Board received a letter from the College of Physicians in
London, in which it was stated that that College did not consider such a
diploma as sufficient to warrant them to grant an examination for a license
to practise physic in England. The issue of these diplomas was then
discontinued. For a short period the degree of Bachelor of Medicine was
granted to students who had completed two years’ study in Arts, but this
was found to be so unsatisfactory, that the University decided that no one
should be admitted to a degree in Medicine or in Surgery who had not
previously graduated as Bachelor of Arts.

As to the method of conducting examinations for degrees in Medicine,
we gather some curious information from a letter which the College of
Physicians sent to the Provost and Senior Fellows in October, 1814, in
which they informed the Board that they had ordered the King’s Professor
not to be present at any examination for medical degrees in the University
in which any question may be put, or answer received, in the English
language. The Registrar was directed to write to the Regius Professor of
Physic (Dr. Hill) to inquire whether these examinations were conducted in
Latin. In reply, Dr. Hill assured the Board that he would not, under any
circumstances, examine in English. It may be conjectured that the newly-

elected Professor of Anatomy (Mr. Macartney), who was not a University
man, broke through the old rule as to the language in which he examined.

The great growth of medical and surgical studies in the University may
be gathered from the number of the degrees of Bachelor of Medicine which
have been conferred at different periods of the present century. In nearly all
cases, students of the University who now graduate in Medicine take also
degrees in Surgery and the Obstetric Art. The number of Medical
Matriculations for the last three years has been as follows:—1889—
Students in Arts, 55, Externs, 28; 1890—Students in Arts, 61, Externs, 26;
1891—Students in Arts, 100, Externs, 28. During the five years previous to
1889 these numbers averaged—Students in Arts, 62; Externs, 34; total of
each year, 96. The religious professions of the medical students who were
matriculated in 1891 were as follows:—Church of Ireland, 85; Church of
England, 10; Presbyterian, 12; Roman Catholics, 12; Methodists, 6; other
denominations, 3;—total, 128.

Arts Course. 1792-1892.—At the beginning of this period, and for
some years after, there were four academic Terms each year, during which
the students, both undergraduates and graduates, attended lectures. In each
Term two days were set apart, according to the directions of the Statutes, for
the general examinations of all the undergraduate classes. It was found that
the increasing number of students could not be properly examined in this
limited time. Application was made to the Crown for a Royal letter giving
power to the Provost and Senior Fellows to increase the number of days for
this purpose in each Term, and a Statute to that effect was enacted in 1792.
In the following year a new and greatly improved list of the subjects for
each examination in all the parts of the Undergraduate Course was adopted.
[102]
At the same time, a scheme was devised for stimulating the study of the
Greek and Latin Classics, and for extending the cultivation of Latin

Composition, both in prose and verse, by special prizes at these
examinations.[103] The subjects for the examination for admission to the
College were also carefully re-modelled and set out for the use of schools;
and in 1794 a well-devised system of examinations and of prizes for
proficiency in Hebrew was instituted. Yet at this period there were no
special lectures for advanced students, either in Mathematics or in Classics.
The dull and the clever student were taught together, both at the public
lectures and by the College Tutor; and at the Term Examinations all the
students in each division were taken together, the Examiner having at the
same time, in a very limited number of hours, to satisfy himself of the
progress which each undergraduate had made in his studies, to distinguish
between the idle and the diligent, between the badly and the well-prepared,
and at the same time to pick out and reward the best answerer in each
division of about forty students.

The first earnest attempt to provide Classical instruction of a higher
order for the better class of students was devised by Provost Kearney in
1800. Special Classical Lectures were arranged to be given by the ablest
scholars among the Fellows twice a-week, at 7 a.m. The first special
Lecturers appointed for this purpose were—Dr. Miller in Greek, and Mr.
Walker in Latin. These lectures appear to have been instituted for the
purpose of advancing the classical studies of such graduates as intended to
devote themselves to the instruction of boys in schools; for it was arranged,
at the same time, that every graduate, who should appear to the Provost and
Senior Fellows to merit such encouragement, was to be entitled to a
certificate under the College Seal testifying that he was “qualified to
instruct youth in the grammatical principles, the classical idioms, and the
prosody of the Greek and Latin languages.” The salary of each of these
Lecturers was fixed at £40 annually. In 1804, Dr. Miller was succeeded by
Mr. Kyle as Lecturer in Greek, and Mr. Walker by Mr. Nash as Lecturer in
Latin. In 1801 the Professor of Oratory was authorised to give prizes for

excellent answering at the lectures delivered by him and his assistants; and,
in order to stimulate the study of the Hebrew language at school, prizes for
good answering in that subject, at the monthly entrance examinations, were
instituted; and in order to encourage further the study of composition, both
in Greek, Latin, and English Prose and Verse, in 1805 the Vice-Chancellor
assigned that portion of the fees for Degrees which was then payable to
him, to form a fund for prizes, to be given at the time of the
Commencements, for the best compositions in each branch. In 1808
Catechetical Lectures and Examinations in Holy Scripture for the two
Freshmen classes on the basis of the ordinary Term Examinations were first
instituted, and, at the same time, regular weekly instruction by the Clerical
Fellows in a fixed course of Holy Scripture and religious knowledge was
arranged. On the same occasion Algebra was for the first time made a part
of the Undergraduate Course, the only Mathematics which all the students
had been taught before that time being four books of the Elements of
Euclid.

In order to stimulate the more advanced students to an increased
pursuit of Mathematical Physics, Dr. Bartholomew Lloyd was appointed to
deliver lectures on Mechanics at a salary of £100 annually, on the condition
that he should resign his claims to any other Professorship, Lectureship, or
Assistant’s place, except that of Catechetical Lecturer. In 1815 a new
scheme of Mathematical Lectures was promulgated. The following
distribution of the work to be done by the Professor and his assistants was
arranged by the Provost and Senior Fellows:—
The Junior Assistant to lecture on Arithmetic and Algebra to Biquadratic Equations,
including Newton’s Method of approximation to roots of Equations, also on the application
of Algebra to Geometry as given by Newton. The Senior Assistant to lecture on
Logarithms, Analytical Trigonometry, with its application to Terrestrial Measurement,
application of Algebra to Geometry managed by the equations of figures. The Professor to
lecture on the more advanced parts of Mathematics, including the Method of Indeterminate
Coefficients, with its application to the management of Series, and other matters not

contained in the Course of the Assistant, also Differential and Integral Calculus and the
Method of Variations.

The programme of the subjects of these lectures shows that there was a
large advance in the mathematical education of the students made at this
time. Analytical Geometry and Trigonometry were taught to the Honour
men among the undergraduates, and the Differential and Integral Calculus
and the higher branches of Mathematics were expounded by the Professor
of Mathematics to the candidates for Fellowship. Hitherto the mathematical
studies of the members of the College were mainly geometrical. The great
start in analytical science, which has developed itself so largely in the
University, seems to date from this time, and is due very much to the
influence of Dr. Bartholomew Lloyd, who had in 1813 been appointed to
the Chair of Mathematics. It was not until 1830 that a similar progress was
made in the study of Mixed Mathematics. We find that in November of that
year a committee, consisting of the Professors of Mathematics and Natural
Philosophy, with Dr. Wall, was appointed to recommend to the Board a
proper course of Mixed Mathematics, and they were instrumental in
introducing the Mechanics of Poisson into the subjects for examination for
the higher mathematical honours. A small but important improvement in the
existing method of conducting the Term Examinations of ordinary students
was made at the same time. Hitherto some of the classes were submitted to
be tested by the same Junior Fellow in Science and in Classics. In 1831 it
was decided that these branches of studies should be judged by separate
examiners in every case. At this time there was no special examination for
the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Senior Sophister students who answered in
an unsatisfactory manner at the Michaelmas Term Examination were “sent
to the Regent House” to be examined.

In 1807 it was decreed that every student who is “cautioned to the
Regent House” shall be examined in every part of the Undergraduate
Course for which he has got a mediocriter at his last examination. It was not

until October, 1838, that this examination in the Regent House was
formally discontinued, although it had fallen into disuse. It was then
arranged that one vix mediocriter for the B.A. degree should subject the
candidate to another examination.

This is the suitable occasion upon which to mention in detail the great
services which the mild energy and enlightened views of Dr. Bartholomew
Lloyd performed in the reformation of the studies and the literary work of
Trinity College. To no one man during the present century does the
University owe so much. A native of the County of Wexford, he was elected
a Fellow in 1796, and after a service of twenty years as College Tutor,
which he discharged with zeal and ability, he was co-opted to a Senior
Fellowship in 1816, and he was appointed to the Provostship in 1831. Dr.
Lloyd held the Professorship of Mathematics from 1813 to 1822, when he
exchanged this chair for that of Natural Philosophy. He occupied the latter
office until he was made Provost, and he was thus for eighteen years
engaged in the direction of the highest studies of the most advanced classes
in the branches of Pure and Mixed Mathematics. He quickly saw the need
of introducing a more complete knowledge of the more advanced analytic
methods which prevailed on the Continent, and he compiled a course of
lectures, as we have seen, in order to introduce them to his class; and partly
by his lectures and partly by his writings[104] he completely revolutionised
the mathematical and physical studies of the University, and was the means
of directing the researches of the higher class of thinkers to the methods
which have rendered the Dublin school of mathematicians so celebrated in
Europe.

Shortly after his appointment to the Chair of Natural Philosophy, he
published his well-known treatise on Mechanical Philosophy, which
supplied a want widely felt by students of that science in this and the sister

country, and which was the means of introducing to them the researches of
the French labourers in the field of Applied Mathematics.

During the six years of his Provostship he was the means of effecting
very large and beneficial changes in the College. Up to 1831 all the
important Professorships were held by Senior Fellows, and in most cases
(except in those on the foundation of Erasmus Smith) they were held, like
other College offices, as the result of an annual election. Dr. Lloyd saw the
necessity of setting apart some of the Junior Fellows for the fixed and
exclusive work of Professorial study and teaching. For this purpose he
influenced the College Board to set apart three of the Junior Fellows, whose
tastes were specially directed to these particular studies, to the
Professorships of Mathematics, of Natural Philosophy, and the office of
Archbishop King’s Lectureship in Divinity. Mr. M‘Cullagh was elected to
the first of these chairs, Mr. Humphrey Lloyd to the second, and Dr.
O’Brien to the third. They were freed from all the distracting cares of
College Tutors, and the salaries were fixed at something rather below the
average value of a Junior Fellowship. The tenure of the Professorship was
terminated by the co-option of the holder to a place among the Senior
Fellows. The Fellowship Examination was improved by a Royal Statute
which was then obtained, and which enabled the Professors of Mathematics
and Natural Philosophy to be called up to undertake the examination in the
courses belonging to their respective chairs.

Provost Bartholomew Lloyd saw also the necessity of fostering the
study of Mental and Moral Philosophy among the members of the College.
Prior to 1833 the study of these sciences was joined with that of
Mathematics and Physics under the common designation of Science. But for
the attainment of prizes and other University distinctions, the Mathematical
part of the examination placed that of the Logical and Ethical portions of
the curriculum completely in the background. In 1833 a new system of

awarding Honours and Medals at the Degree Examination was instituted,
and in addition to the distinctions in Mathematics and Classics, which had
been in existence since the year 1815, a third course was fixed for a
separate examination in Ethics and Logics, and gold and silver medals were
awarded for distinguished answering in these subjects, in addition to the
similar rewards for merit under the designation of Senior and Junior
Moderatorships in Mathematics and in Classics. This arrangement was
carried out in 1834, and the first name in the list of Ethical Moderators of
that year was that of William Archer Butler—a brilliant and afterwards most
distinguished man, both as a writer and a preacher, who was taken away by
death from the service of the Church and of the University at the early age
of thirty-four.

Provost Lloyd had long seen the necessity of a separate Professorship
of the Moral Sciences, and in 1837 he induced the Governing Body of the
University to found it. On the day on which it was instituted Archer Butler
was appointed to the Professorship, which he held for ten years, much to the
benefit of the class of thinkers to whom these studies were interesting. By
these arrangements Dr. Lloyd may be well said to be the founder of the
distinguished school of Metaphysics which has taken such deep root in the
College, and has borne much fruit. In 1850, mainly through the exertions of
his son, Dr. Humphrey Lloyd, a fourth Moderatorship in Experimental
Physics was founded.[105] But it was not only with the advancement of
higher class education that Provost Lloyd was engaged: he effected
enormous improvements in the lectures and examinations of the
undergraduates at large. To this he was stimulated by a remarkably
thoughtful and searching pamphlet, written in 1828 by Dr. Richard
MacDonnell, who was then a Junior Fellow, and had an experience of
twenty years of the great defects in the method of conducting the Term
Examinations. Most of the suggestions in this pamphlet were adopted in
course of time. Before the year 1833 the work of the College was

distributed over four separate Terms, at the beginning of each of which the
students were examined in the subjects in which they had been instructed
during the previous Term. These Terms were of unequal and variable
length. The Easter Term was far too short for the appointed course of study;
and the Trinity Term, depending on the movable feasts, was often merely
nominal. In order to obviate these inconveniences, the Provost and Senior
Fellows applied for and obtained a Royal Statute reducing the number of
Academic Terms from four to three, and fixing them so that they would be
generally of equal length. The hours of examination for each class of
students were altered so as to meet the change of social habits; and while it
was formerly the custom to have the first part of the examination of each
day to continue from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., followed by a breakfast at the
chambers of the College Tutors, in 1833 the change was made to the present
hours of examination—from 9.30 to 12 in the morning of the first day, and
from 10 to 12 in the morning of the second day of each Term Examination.
The subjects of the Undergraduate Course were in the same year submitted
to a very wide-reaching review.

In the year 1793, great improvements had been made in the Classical
Course set out for the studies of the undergraduates. These were, it is said,
largely due to the influence of Dr. Thomas Elrington. On that occasion the
works of the great Greek historians, Herodotus and Thucydides, were
brought for the first time under the attention of the classical students in
Trinity College; but, during the forty years which followed, little change
had been made in the classical authors which were read by the
undergraduates. In 1833, for the first time, a distinct and shorter course was
arranged for students who were not candidates for Honours, while a larger
portion, generally of the same authors, was set out for candidates for
Honours, and a wider course of classical studies was appointed for those
who competed for Classical Moderatorships at the Degree Examination.

Similar arrangements were adopted for the students in the Mathematical
and Physical portion of their curriculum.

Before this time the students of the same division, of from thirty to
forty men, were examined together, and they had no opportunity of
competing with other men of their year in the Sciences; and in classical
studies at the Scholarship Examination only, at which they rarely competed
until the third year. It was now arranged that those who answered well at
each Term Examination in Science or in Classics should be returned by the
Examiner to compete at a more searching examination in an extended
course, at which all the best men in the class should be examined together,
on days separate from those of the Term Examinations, by three Examiners
in Science and three in Classics set apart for that purpose; and so by this
means each student was able to measure himself each Term, not only with
those who happened to be in his own division, but with all the men of his
year; and in this way the undergraduates were incited to continued study by
healthy competition. Premiums in books, which were formerly awarded at
each examination to the best answerer in each division, but which could be
obtained only once in the year, were confined to that of the Michaelmas
Term, at which there were two orders of prizes, first and second—the
number of the first rank prizes being restricted to one fortieth of the class,
and that of the second to one twentieth.

There was another and a very important improvement in the teaching
of the undergraduates which Provost Lloyd was mainly instrumental in
effecting. Hitherto the lectures of each Tutor were given to his own pupils.
He was supposed to instruct all the men of each of the three Junior Classes
at the least for an hour every day. Each Tutor received the fees of his own
pupils, and those who had a large number in what was technically called his
“chamber” had a considerable income, but others who were not so popular
had but a scanty support.

In 1835 the Tutors, under the persuasion of the Provost, agreed to
adopt a new system. The fees paid by the pupils were put into a common
fund, and the Tutors were divided into three grades, in the order of
seniority, and their dividends were fixed, not in relation to the number of
their pupils, but of the standing of the Tutor among the Fellows; each of
them was thus assured of a certain and increasing income—the only
advantage accruing to the Tutor from the number of his pupils arose from
the arrangement that, when he ceased from any cause to be a Tutor, the
payments of the Tutorial fees of his existing pupils, as long as they
remained in College, instead of being paid into the common fund, were paid
to the Tutor himself or to his representatives.

A corresponding division of Tutorial labour, as far as lectures were
concerned, was effected at the same time. Each Tutor was required to
lecture only two hours every day, except on Saturday; and the efficacy of
the lectures was greatly increased, and the regularity of the attendance of
the lecturer in the instruction of his class guarded by stringent rules. Every
student in the two Freshman Classes was now lectured for two hours
instead of one; under the old arrangement the lecture in Classics was often a
mere form, not always observed; by the new system an hour’s lecture in
Latin was secured to each undergraduate in these classes. The Junior
Sophisters were lectured by the Tutors in Mathematical Physics and
Astronomy only. In addition to the Tutorial Lectures, the undergraduates
attended, as they did before, the Public Science Lectures, the hours of the
lecture being changed from 6.15 to 7.30 a.m., and the lectures of the
assistants to the Greek Professor on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays,
which were delivered at 9 a.m. Again, there was a great improvement
effected with respect to the attendance of the undergraduates at Tutorial
Lectures. At this time these lectures were not obligatory; Terms were not
kept by attendance at them, nor did the College keep any record of them. A
student did not advance in any way his College standing by seeking the

instruction given by his College Tutor. No cognizance was taken of
irregularity, either on the part of the lecturer or of the lectured. A Tutor was
often absent from his class, and the class was oftener absent from the Tutor.
An important rule was adopted to counteract this: a weekly return was
required to be made to the Tutorial Committee of the attendance upon his
lectures, which was to be transmitted to the Provost, and the Tutor had an
opportunity of judging of the regularity of the studies of his pupils, who
were, according to this inter-tutorial system, in attendance on the lectures of
other Tutors. In a very few years the lectures were much better arranged,
some of the Tutors being set apart to lecture the candidates for Honours in
each class, while others devoted themselves to the greater drudgery of
instructing the mere pass-men.

In order to secure the diligent discharge of the duties assigned to each
Tutor, the Tutorial Committee was bound to employ deputies to lecture in
his place in case of his failure from any cause, and to remunerate the
deputies out of the income of the defaulting Tutor.

That this division of labour added very much to the ease of the
conscientious Tutors is quite evident. Doctor Romney Robinson, who was a
Fellow and Tutor under the old system, wrote as follows in the preface to
his treatise on Mechanics, published in 1820:—“The Fellows of Trinity
College can scarcely be expected to devote themselves to any work of
research, or even of compilation; constantly employed in the duties of
tuition, which harass the mind more than the most abstract studies, they can
have but little inclination at the close of the day to commence a new career
of labour.... In the present case the author happened to be less occupied than
most of his brethren, yet he was engaged from seven to eight hours daily in
academical duties, for the year during which he composed this work.”

Had Bartholomew Lloyd lived, he would no doubt have originated
many other improvements in the Arts Course, and in the other studies of the

College which have been effected since his time. He was, however,
suddenly removed by death from his exertions in reforming the College, on
the 24th November, 1837, at the age of 65, having held the Provostship for
only six years. He was succeeded by Dr. Franc Sadleir, and during the
fourteen years of his mild sway the improvements originated by his
predecessor were gradually carried into effect. Dr. Richard MacDonnell
succeeded him in the office of Provost. He had been long engaged in the
work of the College as an able and painstaking Tutor, and a vigorous
administrator of the College Estates. Dr. MacDonnell had long seen the
necessity of large reforms in the education of the students, and had ably
pointed out the abuses which required to be remedied, in the pamphlet
which has been already mentioned. Most of these defects he lived to see
corrected, and the most important of which were removed when he was
himself Provost.

One of the events which, beyond question, stimulated intellectual
exertions among the undergraduates in the University of Dublin, was the
opening of the appointments in the Civil Service of India, and of the Army
and Navy Medical Service, to public competition in 1855. A number of the
ablest students had a new career opened to them, and they were afforded an
opportunity of measuring their attainments with students of similar calibre
from Oxford and Cambridge. The course of study was at once widened.
Classical studies received an impetus which roused the teachers from their
old routine. The English Language and Literature, and Modern History, as
well as foreign languages, became important parts of Collegiate education.
The heads of the College at once saw the necessity of largely remodelling
the instruction given to the undergraduates. The Greek Professorship was
very soon separated from the offices which were restricted to Senior
Fellows; a Professor was elected from among the Tutors under the same
arrangements which had been carried out in the cases of Natural Philosophy
and Mathematics. He was enabled to give his entire time to the duties of his

chair. Similar arrangements were made as to the Professorships of Geology
and of Experimental Physics. A Professor of Arabic and Hindostanee was
established, and soon after one of Sanskrit as well. The Professorship of
Oratory was virtually changed into one of English Language and Literature.
The immediate effect of these changes was at once visible in the great and
remarkable success of the Dublin candidates at the open competitions for
the Indian Civil Service and the Army Medical Services. In the first seven
years, fifty-three succeeded from the Dublin University for the former and
twenty-nine for the latter appointments. The new regulations with regard to
the study of English Literature which were made in 1855 have produced
very widely felt effects in the intellectual life of the University. It was not
for the first time that a want of the means of being acquainted with this
important branch of knowledge was felt by the students; and in order to
remedy it, in October, 1814, during the Provostship of Dr. Thomas
Elrington, the Board directed that lectures in the English Language and
Literature should be regularly delivered by the assistant to the Professor of
Oratory, and elaborate rules were made as to the means of carrying this
course into effect, but it seems to have ended in failure; at any rate, during
the next forty years there was no public instruction given to the students in
this important subject. The plan adopted in 1855 of making History and
English Literature a distinct branch, in which honours and medals at the
Degree Examination can be obtained, aided by the special prizes which are
given for proficiency in these subjects during the Undergraduate Course,
has created a widely felt interest among the students, and has eventuated in
the spread of a refined taste for these subjects among the members of the
College. The subjects in which the student can distinguish himself at the
B.A. Degree Examination have now been increased to seven—1,
Mathematics, pure and mixed; 2, Classics; 3, Mental and Moral Science; 4,
Experimental Physics; 5, Natural Sciences; 6, History, Law, and Political
Economy; 7, Foreign Languages and Literature. Frequent and well-

considered changes in the courses for the ordinary students, and in the
subjects read by the candidates for Honours, have been made since that
period, and they have been on the whole successful.

One of the most marked developments in the intellectual life of the
College during the present century has been the growth of the great
Classical School for which it is now so well known. This may be mainly
attributed to the separation of Classics from the other branches which form
the subject of competition for Fellowships. A keen competition among
Classical men for those highly-coveted prizes has been the consequence.
The tone of Classical Scholarship has been raised among the best of the
candidates for University Honours, and some of the ablest men devote
themselves to stimulate the knowledge of the Greek and Latin Languages
and Literature among the students. There has, moreover, a higher Critical
School grown up in the University, limited in numbers, being composed of
Classical Graduates who are engaged in reading for Fellowship, or who
have competed for the Berkeley Medals in Greek, or for the Vice-
Chancellor’s Medals in Latin. This school, exclusive of the Fellows and
Professors, never numbers more than ten or twelve in the College at one
time, but from the ability and classical culture of its members it has more
influence in giving a tone to the studies which are pursued in the University
than its numbers would at first sight render probable. The causes of the
growth of this school are—1st, the Critical Examination for the highest
Classical distinctions; 2nd, the fact that there is an examination for
Fellowship every year; 3rd, the annual publication of Hermathena; 4th, the
publication of critical editions of the Classics by the Fellows of the College.

We can trace the growth of the Mathematical studies to the wonderful
genius of MacCullagh and Hamilton, and to the labours of Townsend, of
Jellett, of Roberts, and of others who have passed away. Fortunately for the

College, all the creators of the revived School of Classics are still spared to
the College, and their names are therefore not here mentioned.

Another vast improvement effected was in the method of conducting
all examinations in the College. Prior to 1835 they were (with the solitary
exceptions of those for gold medals at the B.A. Degree Examinations)
altogether oral. The examination for Fellowships was a public vivâ voce
trial of the candidates, and in the Latin language, without any use whatever
of writing. Greek authors were translated into Latin, and Latin authors were
interpreted in the same language. This continued to be the practice down to
the year 1853. Now, all this is changed. The Fellowship Examination,
which is spread over a much longer period, is mostly conducted in writing,
although there is in every course a public examination of the candidates
vivâ voce and in English. The examinations for Honours (except in
Classical subjects) are now altogether written, and at the ordinary Term
Examinations students are tested orally and by written questions by separate
Examiners. At the general Term Examination at the end of the second year,
and at the B.A. Degree Examination at the end of the fourth year, the
candidates are arranged according to their answering in three classes, and
those whose marks do not entitle them to be classed, but who satisfy the
Senior Lecturer, are passed without any mark of distinction. This method of
examination for the B.A. degree was adopted in July, 1842, at the
suggestion of the then Senior Lecturer, Dr. Singer, afterwards Bishop of
Meath. It was found to work in such a satisfactory manner that, in 1845, it
was adopted at the other public University Examination, at the end of the
second or Senior Freshman year.

Engineering School.—The University of Dublin was the first to
establish a course of education and degrees in the art of Civil Engineering.
Shortly after the construction of railways in Ireland was undertaken, there

was a necessity found for properly educated men to carry on the required
work; and the plan of an Engineering School originated with Doctor
Humphrey Lloyd, Professor of Natural Philosophy; Doctor MacCullagh,
Professor of Mathematics; and Doctor Luby, Assistant Professor of Natural
Philosophy. These three gentlemen laid a memorial before the Provost and
Senior Fellows on April 3rd, 1841, recommending the foundation of a
Professorship of Civil Engineering, and giving a plan for the studies of the
proposed school for teaching that branch of education. This was finally
approved by the Board early in the following June. The length of the course
as first proposed was two years, and on July 9th, 1842, Mr. M‘Neill
(afterwards Sir John M‘Neill) was elected to the Professorship. It was
arranged that the business of the School of Engineering should be
conducted by five lecturers—viz., the assistant to the Professor of
Mathematics, the Professor of Natural Philosophy and his assistant, together
with a Professor of Chemistry and of Geology applied to the art of
Construction, and a Professor of the practice of Engineering.

Mr. M‘Neill was so completely occupied with his large works in the
construction of railways that he could give only a general superintendence
to the school, and on the 5th of November, 1842, Mr. Henry Rennie,
formerly a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers, was appointed Assistant
Professor and Lecturer. After holding the office for two years he resigned,
and Mr. Thomas Oldham, B.A., was appointed in his room. Doctor Apjohn
was elected to the joint Professorships of Chemistry and Geology; but in
1843 it was found necessary to appoint a distinct Professor of Geology, and
on December 30th, 1843, Mr. John Phillips, the eminent geologist, was
elected to this chair at a salary of £200, to be increased to £400 on the death
of Doctor Whitley Stokes, then an old man, which took place in 1845. In
the latter year Mr. Phillips resigned the Professorship, and he was
succeeded by Mr. Thomas Oldham, afterwards Director of the Geological
Survey of India. In 1846 Mr. Samuel Downing was appointed to the

Professorship of Engineering, which he continued to hold until his death in
1882.

It was soon found that a two years’ course in Engineering was
insufficient, and in 1845 it was extended to one of three years. The studies
of the first year are in the main theoretical; in the second and third years
they are practical—viz., drawing and office work, levelling, surveying and
general engineering, and chemistry as taught in the laboratory.

At first, diplomas in Engineering were granted to students who had
passed successfully through this school. In 1860 it was resolved by the
University Senate that in lieu of these the license of the University should
be conferred publicly at the Commencements; and in 1872 it was further
resolved that the degree of Bachelor in Civil Engineering should be created,
and that it should be conferred on Bachelors of Arts who were entitled to
the license by having completed the full course in Engineering. From the
year 1860 to 1891 inclusive, 352 students obtained degrees and licenses in
Engineering. The degree of Master of Engineering is conferred on those
who, after taking the degree of Bachelor of Engineering, have practised for
three years in the work of their profession.

At each final examination in Engineering, special certificates are
awarded to students who answer in a distinguished manner in the following
subjects:—I. Practical Engineering; II. Mechanical and Experimental
Physics; III. Mining, Chemistry, Geology, and Mineralogy.

School of Law.—The lectures of the Professor of Feudal and English
Law remain very much as they were in 1792. The Professorship of Civil
Law was then and for many years afterwards held by a Senior Fellow, often
by a clergyman; the duties were nearly nominal, and the salary small. In the
year 1850, however, the Board, being anxious to found an effective Law

School in Dublin, decided that in future the Professorship of Civil Law
should be held only by a Doctor of Laws, and a Barrister of at least six
years standing; and as such he was required to regulate the courses and
lectures in the Civil Law class, and bound to deliver at least twelve lectures
in each Term.

The Law School of the University of Dublin is under the control of the
Provost and Senior Fellows of Trinity College, who, however, act in
concurrence with the Benchers of the King’s Inns.

The Regius Professor of Laws delivers lectures on Roman Law,
Jurisprudence, and International Law. The Regius Professor of Feudal and
English Law delivers lectures on the subject of Real Property; a third
professor, whose chair was founded in 1888 by Mr. Richard T. Reid for the
study of “Penal Legislation, including principles of prevention, repression,
and reformation,” delivers lectures on—(1) Penal Legislation; (2)
Constitutional and Criminal Law; (3) the Law of Evidence. These lectures
are open to the public and King’s Inns students, who have credit for the
Term’s lectures, and those who have credit for the academic year have their
names reported to the Benchers.

The Law Professors also examine all candidates for degrees in Law.
These degrees, like those in the other professional schools, can only be
obtained after a course of legal study or strict examinations in Law.

T HE COL L E GE S OCI E T I E S .

The College Historical Society, which was formed in 1770, had in
1794 come into collision with the Governing Body of the College, in
consequence of the action of many of the Graduates of some years’
standing, who, though they were no longer subject to College discipline,

continued to be active members of the Society, and acted without respect to
the orders of the Board. The Society was consequently excluded from the
College, and a new Association of the Students, under the same name, was
organised. Their meetings for debate were permitted by the Board, on the
distinct understanding that they would not choose for discussion any
question of modern politics, or admit into their proceedings any allusion to
such subjects. They continued to meet in the old rooms, now the Common
Room of the Fellows and Professors, until 1815, when they again got into
trouble with the College authorities, who insisted that they should expel,
without discussion, two of the members of the Society whose conduct in its
debates was disapproved of by the Board. The discussions upon the private
business of the Society became imbued by party spirit, and the younger
members, who exceeded in number the seniors, who had greater experience
and wisdom, took upon themselves the management of the Historical
Society, and it became continually engaged in angry debates. The Board
consequently insisted that Junior Sophisters should be no longer admitted as
members, and ordered a committee of five to be appointed to settle all
private business of the Society. Four of the five refused to act, and the result
was that on the 5th of February, 1815, the last debate was held. It is a
strange coincidence that, shortly afterwards, similar difficulties arose
between the Cambridge Union and the Cambridge University authorities. In
the month of March, 1817,[106] Mr. Whewell was President. Dr. Wood, at
that time Vice-Chancellor, took with him the Proctors, together with a Tutor
from Trinity College, and another from St. John’s: they proceeded to the
place of meeting for debate, at the Red Lion Inn. The Proctors were sent
into the room to desire the members to disperse, and to meet no more. The
President requested the Proctors to retire, in order that the Society might
discuss the subject. This they refused to do. At last a deputation, consisting
of Mr. Whewell (afterwards Master of Trinity), Mr. Thirlwall (afterwards
Bishop of St. David’s), and Mr. Sheridan, was permitted to have an

interview with the Vice-Chancellor. The deputation urged their claims
strongly, but the Vice-Chancellor insisted that, while they might conclude
the present debate, they should not meet again for a similar purpose.

After frequent petitions to the Board, supported by the Junior Fellows,
the Historical Society was again, on the 16th November, 1843, permitted to
meet within the walls of the College, on which occasion William Connor
Magee, Scholar, afterwards Archbishop of York, delivered, as Auditor of the
Society, an opening address of remarkable eloquence and of great promise,
which produced an effect such as has never yet been equalled in the Society.
Since that period the College Historical Society continues to meet regularly
for debate within the College walls. Junior Sophisters are again admitted as
members, but the subjects for discussion must always, in the first instance,
receive the approval of the Board. The Society has been allowed, moreover,
to have Reading and Committee Rooms within the College. During the
half-century which has elapsed since the restoration of the Society, perfect
harmony has existed between the members and the Governing Body of the
College.

The Philosophical Society.—During the year 1842, some of the
students of Trinity College whose age and reputation did not warrant their
seeking admission into the leading scientific societies of Dublin, but who
were anxious to improve themselves in knowledge and in the art of
composition, combined to form a Society called the Dublin Philosophical
Society, the object of which was the reading of papers on scientific and
literary subjects, and the discussion of these papers by the members after
they were read. The first meeting was held in November, 1842, in a room in
Marlborough Street, and the first volume of their transactions was published
at the end of 1843.

In the beginning of 1845, after the Historical Society had been
received back within the walls of the College, the Committee sought
permission to have the use of one of the lecture-rooms for the purposes of
their meetings. This was granted. The name of the Society was changed into
“The Dublin University Philosophical Society,” and new rules were
adopted, which were required by the closer connection of the Society with
Trinity College. The members were nearly all graduates, and although
junior students were by no means excluded from the Society, few of them
were disposed to join in the proceedings. The Society continued to exist for
some years, but the members, being generally senior men, were too soon
called away from aiding in its meetings by the requirements of professional
or official duties. This Society published five volumes of Transactions,
containing papers by young men, many of whom afterwards became
distinguished in science and literature.

The Society having fallen too much into the hands of graduates, in the
year 1854 the undergraduates, feeling the want of a similar organisation
which should give them free scope for their own literary exertions, formed a
new Society called “The Undergraduate Philosophical Society,” the ruling
body of which was composed of students who had not taken their B.A.
degrees. The new Society became rapidly popular among the students of the
College, and its numbers largely increased. The first Philosophical Society
having been at length discontinued, that which was managed by the
undergraduates took its place as the University Philosophical Society. All
undergraduates are now admissible as members, and at present it so
happens that the majority of the officers of the Society and the Committee
are graduates.

At the first, the spirit which actuated the former Philosophical Society
influenced its younger sister, and scientific subjects formed the main topic
of discussion. After one or two sessions, essays and discussions on literary

subjects were introduced, followed by poetry, fiction, biography, and
history; so that ultimately questions of abstract science disappeared from
the proceedings of the Philosophical Society, and questions of pure science
are now discussed at the meetings of the University Biological Association
and the University Experimental Science Association.

The Theological Society.—Shortly after the Divinity School was
placed upon its present basis, it was found that a place of meeting was
required where theological students could discuss the important questions
which formed the subjects to which their attention was directed. The
Society was founded outside the College on November 23, 1838. Its first
presidents were Rev. Doctor Singer, then a Junior Fellow, the Rev. Robert J.
M‘Ghee, and the Rev. Charles M. Fleury. The Society met in a room in
Upper Sackville Street, and the discussions of the members were very much
confined to the Roman Catholic controversy. It was soon found necessary
that the Society should be brought more under the control of the teachers in
the Divinity School, and in 1860 the then Regius Professor of Divinity was
appointed President; the other Professors in the Divinity School, along with
the assistant Divinity teachers, were made Vice-Presidents; and since that
year the Society meets in a public room in the College. Dr. Butcher, the then
Regius Professor, always presided at the weekly meetings up to 1866, when
he became Bishop of Meath. His successor, Dr. Salmon, gave the same
unwearied attention to the Society until he became Provost, and the
discussions of the Society, which now take a much wider range in
Theology, are always conducted under the control of the Regius Professor,
or of Archbishop King’s Lecturer in Divinity.

CANDELABRUM. EXAMINATION HALL.
CARVED OAK—GILT.

F OOT NOT E S :
[98] These stamp duties had been imposed on the English Universities by an
English Act of Parliament (55 Geo. III., cap. 184), but were not exacted in
Ireland. In 1842, when Sir Robert Peel imposed an Income Tax on England,
from which Ireland was exempted, he assimilated the stamp duties in the two
countries in order to make up for the relaxation of the Income Tax in the case of
Ireland. A few years afterwards, when the Income Tax was extended to Ireland,
the stamp duties were still exacted.

[99] In the case of scholars not students in Divinity, two-thirds of these lectures
sufficed for the term. At the present, Divinity students are obliged to attend
every lecture in the term, except one, in each subject.

[100] From a calculation made in 1880, there were at that time 2,322 names of
holders of Divinity Testimoniums in the University Calendar for that year. Of
these there were then serving as clergymen in Ireland, 841; in England, 638; in
the Colonies, unaccounted for, and dead, 843. Of holders of Divinity
Testimoniums from the disestablishment of the Irish Church in 1869 to 1880, 89
were clergymen in England, 121 in Ireland, and 30 were unaccounted for. Of
those who obtained the Divinity Testimonium from 1866 to 1880, 170 were in
England, 187 in Ireland serving as clergymen, and 67 unaccounted for.

[101] James Macartney was a native of the County of Armagh. He pursued his
studies partly in Dublin, but mostly in London. He was not a graduate of the
University, nor does he appear to have ever been a student in Arts. He became in
1800 a member of the London College of Surgeons, and shortly afterwards
commenced to lecture on Anatomy and Physiology in St. Bartholomew’s
Hospital, London. Macartney died March 6, 1843, aged 73 years. He left a sum
of money to defray the cost of editing and publishing an account of his life and
labours. This task was committed to the care of his nephew, at one time his
Demonstrator, Hugh Carlile, or Carlisle, who died in 1860, as Professor of
Anatomy and Physiology, at Queen’s College, Belfast, before he made any
marked progress in this work. The executors then handed the material left partly
sorted by Carlisle to Dr. E. Perceval Wright, but on the decease of the executors,
while the work was in preparation, it was found that the money for the book was
not forthcoming, and the wishes of Macartney have not yet been carried into
effect.

[102] See Dr. Stubbs’ History of the University of Dublin, p. 257.

[103] Ibid., p. 258.

[104] He published his treatise on Analytic Geometry in 1819.

[105] It may be well to remark that the University of Dublin was really in
advance of Cambridge in encouraging new studies at the B.A. Degree
Examination. In 1816 the examination for gold medals in Classics was
established in Dublin; eight years afterwards Cambridge instituted the Classical
Tripos. In 1834 the examination for Moderatorships in Ethics and Logics was
founded in Dublin; seventeen years after that date the Moral Sciences Tripos was
instituted at Cambridge. In 1833 Theological Examinations, as they are at
present, were first established in Dublin; this example was followed by
Cambridge in 1856. In the latter year the Provost and Senior Fellows founded a
Moderatorship in Law and History. Cambridge did the same twelve years after.
In one case the two Universities acted simultaneously, in founding in 1851 the
Honour Degree Examination in the Natural Sciences.

[106] William Whewell, by Isaac Todhunter, vol. i., page 8.

CHAPTER VI.

THE O B S E R VAT O R Y, DUNSINK.

rovost Baldwin held absolute sway in this University for forty-
one years. His memory is well preserved here. The Bursar still
dispenses the satisfactory revenues which Baldwin left to the
College. None of us ever can forget the marble angels round
the figure of the dying Provost on which we used to gaze
during the pangs of the Examination Hall.

Baldwin died in 1758, and was succeeded by Francis Andrews, a
Fellow of seventeen years’ standing. As to the scholastic acquirements of
Andrews, all I can find is a statement that he was complimented by the
polite Professors of Padua on the elegance and purity with which he
discoursed to them in Latin. Andrews was also reputed to be a skilful
lawyer. He was certainly a Privy Councillor and a prominent member of the
Irish House of Commons, and his social qualities were excellent. Perhaps it
was Baldwin’s example that stimulated a desire in Andrews to become a
benefactor to his College. He accordingly bequeathed a sum of £3,000 and
an annual income of £250 wherewith to build and endow an Astronomical
Observatory in the University. The figures just stated ought to be qualified
by the words of cautious Ussher (afterwards the first Professor of
Astronomy), that “this money was to arise from an accumulation of a part
of his property, to commence upon a particular contingency happening in
his family.” The astronomical endowment was soon in jeopardy by
litigation. Andrews thought he had provided for his relations by leaving to
them certain leasehold interests connected with the Provost’s estate. The

law courts, however, held that these interests were not at the disposal of the
testator, and handed them over to Hely Hutchinson, the next Provost. The
disappointed relations then petitioned the Irish Parliament to redress this
grievance by transferring to them the monies designed by Andrews for the
Observatory. It would not be right, they contended, that the kindly
intentions of the late Provost towards his kindred should be frustrated for
the sake of maintaining what they described as “a purely ornamental
institution.” The authorities of the College protested against this claim.
Counsel were heard, and a Committee of the House made a report declaring
the situation of the relations to be a hard one. Accordingly, a compromise
was made, and the dispute terminated.

The selection of a site for the new Astronomical Observatory was
made by the Board of Trinity College. The beautiful neighbourhood of
Dublin offered a choice of excellent localities. On the north side of the
Liffey an Observatory could have been admirably placed, either on the
remarkable promontory of Howth or on the elevation of which Dunsink is
the summit. On the south side of Dublin there are several eminences that
would have been suitable: the breezy heaths at Foxrock combine all
necessary conditions; the obelisk hill at Killiney would have given one of
the most picturesque sites for an Observatory in the world; while near
Delgany two or three other good situations could be mentioned. But the
Board of those pre-railway days was naturally guided by the question of
proximity. Dunsink was accordingly chosen as the most suitable site within
the distance of a reasonable walk from Trinity College.

The northern boundary of the Phoenix Park approaches the little river
Tolka, which winds through a succession of delightful bits of sylvan
scenery, such as may be found in the wide demesne of Abbotstown and the
classic shades of Glasnevin. From the banks of the Tolka, on the opposite
side of the park, the pastures ascend in a gentle slope to culminate at

Dunsink, where at a distance of half-a-mile from the stream, of four miles
from Dublin, and at a height of 300 feet above the sea, now stands the
Observatory. From the commanding position of Dunsink a magnificent
view is obtained. To the east the sea is visible, while the southern prospect
over the valley of the Liffey is bounded by a range of hills and mountains
extending from Killiney to Bray Head, thence to the Little Sugar Loaf, the
Two Rock and the Three Rock Mountains, over the flank of which the
summit of the Great Sugar Loaf is just perceptible. Directly in front opens
the fine valley of Glenasmole, with Kippure Mountain, while the range can
be followed to its western extremity. The climate of Dunsink is well suited
for astronomical observation. No doubt here, as elsewhere in Ireland, clouds
are abundant, but mists or haze are comparatively unusual, and fogs are
almost unknown.

DUNSINK OBSERVATORY

The legal formalities to be observed in assuming occupation exacted a
delay of many months: accordingly, it was not until the 10th December,
1782, that a contract could be made with Mr. Graham Moyers for the
erection of a meridian room and a dome for an Equatorial, in conjunction
with a becoming residence for the Astronomer. Before the work was

commenced at Dunsink, the Board thought it expedient to appoint the first Professor of
Astronomy. They met for this purpose on the 22nd January, 1783, and chose the Reverend Henry
Ussher, a Senior Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin The wisdom of the appointment was
immediately shown by the assiduity with which Ussher engaged in founding the Observatory. In
three years he had erected the buildings and equipped them with instruments, several of which
were of his own invention. On the 19th of February, 1785, a special grant of £200 was made by the
Board to Dr. Ussher as some recompense for his labours. It happened that the Observatory was not
the only scientific institution which came into being in Ireland at this period: the newly-kindled
ardour for the pursuit of knowledge led, at the same time, to the foundation of the Royal Irish
Academy. By a fitting coincidence, the first memoir published in the Transactions of the Royal
Irish Academy was by the first Andrews Professor of Astronomy. It was read on the 13th of June,
1785, and bore the title, “Account of the Observatory belonging to Trinity College,” by the
Reverend H. Ussher, D.D., M.R.I.A., F.R.S. This communication shows the extensive design that
had been originally intended for Dunsink, only a part of which was, however, carried out. For
instance, two long corridors running north and south from the central edifice, which are figured in
the paper, never developed into bricks and mortar. We are not told why the original scheme had to
be contracted; but perhaps the reason may be not unconnected with a remark of Ussher’s, that the
College had already advanced from its own funds a sum considerably exceeding the original
bequest. A picture of the building, showing also the dome for the South Equatorial, which was
erected many years later, is given on page 133.

Ussher died in 1790. During his brief career at the Observatory, he observed eclipses, and is
stated to have done other scientific work. The minutes of the Board declare that the infant
institution had already obtained celebrity by his labours, and they urge the claims of his widow to
a pension on the ground that the disease from which he died had been contracted by his nightly
vigils. The Board also promised a grant of fifty guineas as a help to bring out Dr. Ussher’s
sermons. They advanced twenty guineas to his widow towards the publication of his astronomical
papers. They ordered his bust to be executed for the Observatory, and offered “The Death of
Ussher” as the subject of a prize essay; but, so far as I can find, neither the sermons nor the papers,
neither the bust nor the prize essay, ever came into being.

There was keen competition for the Chair of Astronomy, which the death of Ussher vacated.
The two candidates were Rev. John Brinkley, of Caius College, Cambridge, a Senior Wrangler
(born at Woodbridge, Suffolk, in 1763), and Mr. Stack, Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, and
author of a book on Optics. A majority of the Board at first supported Stack, while Provost Hely
Hutchinson and one or two others supported Brinkley. In those days the Provost had a veto at
elections, so that ultimately Stack was withdrawn, and Brinkley was elected. This took place on
the 11th December, 1790. The national press of the day commented on the preference shown to the
young Englishman, Brinkley, over his Irish rival. An animated controversy ensued. The Provost
himself condescended to enter the lists, and to vindicate his policy by a long letter in the Public
Register or Freeman’s Journal, of 21st December, 1790. This letter was anonymous, but its
authorship is obvious. It gives the correspondence with Maskelyne and other eminent astronomers,
whose advice and guidance had been sought by the Provost. It also contends that “the transactions
of the Board ought not to be canvassed in the newspapers.” For this reference, as well as for much
other information, I am indebted to my friend the Rev. John W. Stubbs, D.D.

The next event in the history of the Observatory was the issue of Letters Patent (32 Geo. III.,
A.D. 1792), in which it is recited that “We grant and ordain that there shall be for ever hereafter a

Professor of Astronomy, on the foundation of Dr. Andrews, to be called and known by the name of
the Royal Astronomer of Ireland.” The letters prescribe the various duties of the Astronomer, and
the mode of his election. They lay down regulations as to the conduct of the astronomical work,
and as to the choice of an assistant. They direct that the Provost and Senior Fellows shall make a
thorough inspection of the Observatory once every year, in June or July; and this duty was first
undertaken on the 5th of July, 1792. It will thus be noted that the date fixed for the celebration of
the Tercentenary of the University happens to be the centenary of the first Visitation of the
Observatory. The Visitors on the first occasion were—A. Murray, Matthew Young, George Hall,
and John Barrett. They record that they find the buildings, books, and instruments in good
condition; but the chief feature in this report, as well as in many which followed it, related to a
circumstance to which we have not yet referred.

In the original equipment of the Observatory, Ussher, with the natural ambition of a founder,
desired to place in it a telescope of more magnificent proportions than could be found anywhere

else. The Board gave a spirited support to this enterprise, and negotiations were entered into with
the most eminent instrument-maker of those days. This was Jesse Ramsden (1735-1800), famous
as the improver of the sextant, as the constructor of the great Theodolite used by General Roy in
the English Survey, and as the inventor of the Dividing Engine for graduating astronomical
instruments. Ramsden had built for Sir George Schuckburgh the largest and most perfect
Equatorial ever attempted. He had constructed mural quadrants for Padua and Verona, which
elicited the wonder of astronomers, when Dr. Maskelyne declared he could detect no error in their
graduation as large as two seconds and a-half. But Ramsden maintained that even better results
would be obtained by superseding the entire quadrant by the circle. He obtained the means of
testing this prediction when he completed a superb circle for Palermo of five feet diameter.
Finding his anticipations were realised, he desired to apply the same principles on a still grander
scale. Ramsden was in this mood when he met with Dr. Ussher. The enthusiasm of the Astronomer
and the instrument-maker communicated itself to the Board, and a tremendous circle, to be ten feet
in diameter, was forthwith projected.

Projected, but never carried out. After Ramsden had to some extent completed a ten-foot
circle, he found such difficulties that he tried a nine-foot, and this again he discarded for an eight-
foot, which was ultimately accomplished, though not entirely by himself. Notwithstanding the
contraction from the vast proportions originally designed, the completed instrument must still be
regarded as a colossal piece of astronomical workmanship. Even at this day I do not know that any
other Observatory except Dunsink can show a circle eight feet in diameter graduated all round.

I think it is Professor Piazzi Smyth who tells us how grateful he was to find a large telescope
he had ordered finished by the opticians on the very day they had promised it. The day was
perfectly correct; it was only the year that was wrong. A somewhat remarkable experience in this
direction is chronicled by the early reports of the Visitors to the Dunsink Observatory. I cannot
find the date on which the great circle was ordered from Ramsden, but it is fixed with sufficient
precision by an allusion in Ussher’s paper to the Royal Irish Academy, which shows that by the
13th June, 1785, the order had been given, but that the abandonment of the ten-foot scale had not
then been contemplated. It was reasonable that the Board should allow Ramsden ample time for
the completion of a work at once so elaborate and so novel. It could not have been finished in a
year, nor would there have been much reason for complaint if the maker had found he required two
or even three years more.

Seven years gone, and still no telescope, was the condition in which the Board found matters
at their first Visitation in 1792. They had, however, assurances from Ramsden that the instrument
would be completed within the year; but, alas for such promises! another seven years rolled on,
and in 1799 the place for the great circle was still vacant at Dunsink. Ramsden had fallen into bad
health, and the Board considerately directed that “inquiries should be made.” Next year there was
still no progress, so the Board were roused to threaten Ramsden with a suit at law; but the menace
was never executed, for the malady of the great optician grew worse, and he died that year.

Affairs had now assumed a critical aspect, for the College had advanced much money to
Ramsden during these fifteen years, and the instrument was still unfinished. An appeal was made
by the Provost to Dr. Maskelyne, the Astronomer-Royal of England, for his advice and kindly
offices in this emergency. Maskelyne responds—in terms calculated to allay the anxiety of the
Bursar—“Mr. Ramsden has left property behind him, and the College can be in no danger of
losing both their money and the instrument.” The business of Ramsden was then undertaken by
Berge, who proceeded to finish the great circle quite as deliberately as his predecessor. After four
years Berge promised the instrument in the following August, but it did not come. Two years later
(1806) the Professor complains that he can get no answer from Berge. In 1807 it is stated that
Berge will send the telescope in a month. He did not; but in the next year (1808), about twenty-
three years after the great circle was ordered, it was erected at Dunsink, where it is still to be seen.

The following circumstances have been authenticated by the signatures of Provosts, Proctors,
Bursars, and other College dignitaries:—In 1793 the Board ordered two of the clocks at the
Observatory to be sent to Mr. Crosthwaite for repairs. Seven years later, in 1800, Mr. Crosthwaite
was asked if the clocks were ready. This impatience was clearly unreasonable, for even in four
years more, 1804, we find the two clocks were still in hands. Two years later, in 1806, the Board
determined to take vigorous action by asking the Bursar to call upon Crosthwaite. This evidently
produced some effect, for in the following year, 1807, the Professor had no doubt that the clocks
would be speedily returned. After eight years more, in 1815, one of the clocks was still being
repaired, and so it was in 1816, which is the last record we have of these interesting timepieces.
Astronomers are, however, accustomed to deal with such stupendous periods in their calculations,
that even the time taken to repair a clock seems but small in comparison.

The long tenure of the Chair of Astronomy by Brinkley is divided into two nearly equal
periods by the year in which the great circle was erected. Brinkley was eighteen years waiting for
his telescope, and he had eighteen years more in which to use it. During the first of these periods
Brinkley devoted himself to mathematical research; during the latter he became a celebrated
astronomer. Brinkley’s mathematical labours procured for their author some reputation as a
mathematician. They appear to be works of considerable mathematical elegance, but not indicating
any great power of original thought. Perhaps it has been prejudicial to Brinkley’s fame in this
direction that he was immediately followed in his chair by so mighty a genius as William Rowan
Hamilton.

After the great circle had been at last erected, Brinkley was able to begin his astronomical
work in earnest. Nor was there much time to lose. He was already 45 years old, a year older than
was Herschel when he commenced his immortal career at Slough. Stimulated by the consciousness
of having the command of an instrument of unique perfection, Brinkley loftily attempted the very
highest class of astronomical research. He resolved to measure anew with his own eye and with his
own hand the constants of aberration and of nutation. He also strove to solve that great problem of
the universe, the discovery of the distance of a fixed star.

These were noble problems, and they were nobly attacked. But to appraise with justice this
work of Brinkley, done seventy years ago, we must not apply to it the same criteria as we would
think right to apply to similar work were it done now. We do not any longer use Brinkley’s
constant of aberration, nor do we now think that Brinkley’s determinations of the star-distances
were reliable. But, nevertheless, his investigations exercised a marked influence on the progress of
science: they stimulated the study of the principles on which exact measurements were to be
conducted.

Brinkley had another profession in addition to that of an astronomer. He was a divine. When a
man endeavours to pursue two distinct occupations concurrently, it will be equally easy to explain
why his career should be successful, or why it should be the reverse. If he succeeds, he will, of
course, exemplify the wisdom of having provided two strings to his bow. Should he fail, it is, of
course, because he has attempted to sit on two stools at once. In Brinkley’s case, his two
professions must be likened to the two strings rather than to the two stools. It is true that his
practical experience of a clerical life was very slender. He had made no attempt to combine the
routine of a parish with his labours in the Observatory. Nor do we associate a special eminence in
any department of religious work with his name. If, however, we are to measure Brinkley’s merits
as a divine by the ecclesiastical preferment which he received, his services to theology must have
rivalled his services to astronomy. Having been raised step by step in the church, he was at last
appointed to the See of Cloyne in 1826 as the successor of Bishop Berkeley.

Now, though it was permissible for the Archdeacon to be also the Andrews Professor, yet
when the Archdeacon became a Bishop it was understood that he should transfer his residence
from the Observatory to the Palace. The Chair of Astronomy accordingly became vacant.
Brinkley’s subsequent career seems to have been devoted entirely to ecclesiastical matters, and for
the last ten years of his life he did not contribute a paper to any scientific society. Arago, after a
characteristic lament that Brinkley should have forsaken the pursuit of Science for the temporal
and spiritual attractions of a Bishopric, pays a tribute to the conscientiousness of the quondam
astronomer:—

“A partir du jour ou il fut revêtu de l’episcopat, l’homme dont toute la vie avait été consacrée
jusque-là à la contemplation du firmament et à la solution des questions sublimes qui recèlent les
mouvements des astres, divorca complétement avec ces douces, avec ces entraînantes occupations,
pour se livrer sans partage aux devoirs de sa charge nouvelle, afin d’échapper, je suppose, à la
tentation, l’ex-Directeur de l’Observatoire Royal d’Irlande, l’ex-Andrews Professor d’Astronomie
de l’Université n’avait pas même dans son palais la plus modeste lunette. On doit la révélation de
se fait presque incroyable, à l’indiscrétion d’une personne qui s’étant trouvée chez l’évêque de
Cloyne un jour d’éclipse de Lune, eut le déplaisir, faute d’instruments, de ne pouvoir suivre la
marche du phénomène qu’avec ses yeux.”

The good Bishop died on the 13th September, 1835. He was buried in the Chapel of Trinity
College, and a fine monument to his memory is a familiar object at the foot of the noble old
staircase of the library. The best memorial of Brinkley is his admirable book on the Elements of
Plane Astronomy. It passed through many editions in his lifetime, and even at the present day the
same work, revised first by Dr. Luby and more recently by the Rev. Dr. Stubbs and Dr. Brünnow,
has a large and well-merited circulation.

On the 4th August, 1805, a few years before the great circle was erected at the Observatory,
William Rowan Hamilton was born in No. 36, Dominick Street, Dublin. He was educated by his
uncle, the Rev. James Hamilton, at Trim, and his aunt, Jane Sidney Hamilton. The astounding
precocity of the child is thus described by his biographer, Mr. Graves, to whose laborious and
painstaking execution of his great task I must here make my acknowledgments. Of William Rowan
Hamilton it is asserted that, “continuing a vigorous child in spirits and playfulness, he was, at three
years of age, a superior reader of English and considerably advanced in arithmetic; at four, a good
geographer; at five, able to read and translate Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and loving to recite
Dryden, Collins, Milton, and Homer; at eight he has added Italian and French, and given vent to
his feelings in extemporised Latin; and before he is ten he is a student of Arabic and Sanskrit. And
all this knowledge seems to have been acquired, not indeed without diligence, but with perfect
ease, and applied, as occasion arose, with practical judgment and tact.”[107]

When Hamilton was seventeen years old (1822), he had written original mathematical papers,
and with two of these—entitled respectively, “Osculating Parabola to Curves of Double
Curvature,” and “On Contacts between Algebraic Curves and Surfaces”—he paid a visit to Dr.
Brinkley at the Observatory. The Royal Astronomer was impressed by their value, and desired to
see them in a more developed form. Thus originated an acquaintance between the scientific
veteran, soon to be a Bishop, and the brilliant lad about to enter college.

After Brinkley had been appointed Bishop of Cloyne in 1826, Hamilton was immediately
mentioned as his probable successor. Mr. Graves, to whom I am indebted for these particulars,
assures us that Hamilton never put himself forward until a week before the election, when he
received an urgent letter from his tutor, Mr. Boyton, to say that the Board were favourably
disposed towards him. On the 16th June, 1827, the undergraduate of twenty-two, William Rowan
Hamilton, was unanimously elected to the Chair of Astronomy. Nor was he without formidable
competitors. Airy was a candidate, and so were some of the Fellows of Trinity College; yet a
general approval, almost unanimous, ratified the choice of the Board. We say almost unanimous,
because there was at least one weighty opinion on the other side. Bishop Brinkley thought that
Hamilton had acted imprudently in accepting the post, and that it would have been wiser for him to
have sought a Fellowship. With Hamilton’s life before us, we can now see that the Bishop was not
right. The leisure and the seclusion of the Observatory were necessary conditions for Hamilton’s
colossal labours. After his election to the Chair of Astronomy, Hamilton proceeded to his degree in
the usual manner; but before doing so, he had, as an undergraduate, to perform the somewhat

anomalous duty of examining graduates in the higher branches of mathematics for Bishop Law’s
mathematical premium.

The history of Dunsink Observatory for the next 38 years may be epitomised in a single word
—Quaternions. It will be unnecessary to refer in any detail to the great career of our great
mathematician. The early promise of the marvellous child and the brilliant career of the
unparalleled student soon bore fruit in the congenial atmosphere of the Observatory. Conical
Refraction, the Theory of Rays, the general method of Dynamics—any one of these researches
would have conferred fame of which the greatest mathematician might have been proud, but with
Hamilton these were merely incidental to the great work of his life. With huge industry he
cultivated his powers, he wrought his mighty system of Quaternions, and found in it a weapon
adequate to deal with the most profound mathematical problems of nature. It is not Hamilton’s
fault if others have found that to wield this sword of a giant the arm of the giant is also necessary.
Most of us feel satisfied if we know enough to be able to reverence the two awful volumes which
every mathematician likes to see on his shelves, and which he generally leaves there.

So great a personality as Hamilton has naturally gathered around itself much biographical
interest. The intimacy between Hamilton and Wordsworth has given many interesting pages to Mr.
Graves’ book, and how intimate the friendship became may be conjectured from the account of
their first meeting. We are told how Hamilton walked back with Wordsworth to see him home after
a delightful evening, and how Wordsworth then turned to see Hamilton back, and how the process
was repeated I know not how often. It appears that Hamilton submitted his poetic effusions to his
friend, and they were returned with gentle criticism, though with an occasional admission by
Wordsworth that the mathematician’s verses possessed genuine feeling. Then there is the visit of
Wordsworth to Dunsink, where to this day a beautiful shady walk bears his name. Hamilton
enjoyed the privilege of intimacy with many cultivated intellects. He knew Coleridge; with Sir
John Herschel he was in frequent communication; and he had many lady correspondents, including
Maria Edgeworth. The bulk of Hamilton’s scientific correspondence was with the late Professor
De Morgan, a man whose intellectual endowments were of such a different type to those of
Hamilton, that, except in being both mathematicians, they had but little in common. On the death
of Hamilton, De Morgan writes to Sir John Herschel (Sept. 13, 1865):—

“W. R. Hamilton was an intimate friend whom I spoke to once in my life—at Babbage’s
about 1830; but for 30 years we have corresponded. I saw him a second time at the dinner you got
at the Freemason’s when you came from the Cape, but I could not get near enough to speak.”[108]

The Observatory had the usual equipment of a transit instrument, a circle, and an equatorial,
but no further additions were made to the instruments during the long sojourn of Hamilton.
Observations were made by the assistant, Mr. Thomson, who, after a life passed in the service,
retired in 1874, and lived a few years to enjoy the pension conferred on him by the Board. Just
before Sir W. Hamilton’s death an important donation was received by the College. I shall here

mention the circumstances under which it was made. The particulars were related to me partly by
the donor himself, and partly by the late Earl of Rosse. The chief incidents in the narrative may be
found in the life of De Morgan[109] to which I have already referred.

Sir James South was a medical man who acquired considerable wealth early in life, and then
devoted himself with great assiduity to astronomy. He became an expert observer, and in
conjunction with Sir John Herschel formed a series of double star measures that obtained much
fame. Honours flowed in upon South; he received a pension and a knighthood; and he prepared for
further astronomical work. His first care was to procure a superior telescope, and from Cauchoix, a
French optician of renown, he procured an object-glass 12 inches in diameter, and possessing great
optical perfection. For this lens, or rather pair of lenses, he paid either £800 or £1,000. South
returned with this prize to his observatory at Campden Hill, Kensington, and commenced to have
the mounting executed in a manner befitting the optical excellence of the lens. Brunel designed the
revolving dome; it was made of mahogany, and cost, I believe, £2,000; and inside this building the
eminent firm of Troughton & Simms were called upon to erect the telescope. But sad troubles
followed, of which an entertaining account is given in De Morgan’s Life (p. 61), and the mounting
was a dismal failure.

Sir James South, at all events in the later part of his career, dearly loved a fray. He
commissioned a friend to bear a hostile message to a distinguished scientific contemporary. The
duel never came off. Perhaps, even if it had, the results might not have been sanguinary, for it had
been suggested that the two astronomers would, of course, have been placed at telescopic distances
apart. But to those to whom he was attached his loyalty and devotion were unbounded; his purse
and his influence were alike at their disposal. To these characteristics of South we owe the great
equatorial telescope now at Dunsink Observatory.

The precious object-glass remained in his possession
for about thirty years, until such time as the late Earl of
Rosse was installed as Chancellor of the University. The
Earl was one of Sir James’ warm friends, and he
celebrated the occasion by presenting the great object-
glass to the University of Dublin. The date of the gift is
17th February, 1863.

It was thus only a few years before Sir W. R.
Hamilton’s death that Dunsink Observatory possessed a
really fine objective; but it was only an objective, it was
not a telescope. The engrossing labours of Sir W. R.
Hamilton’s mathematical work, his advancing years, and
his declining health, did not permit him to undertake the
arduous labour of its erection. Sir James South found in

SOUTH EQUATORIAL, DUNSINK.
this a sad grievance. I have heard him denounce this
inaction with that vigorous language which he was
accustomed to use. He had even offered to contribute liberally to the expenses of mounting, if the
College authorities would put it in hands. It was not, however, until Sir W. R. Hamilton’s successor
was appointed (1865) that the work was done. South lived just long enough to know that the great
instrument was at last being erected. A view of the instrument, named the South Equatorial, after
the donor, is shown in the adjoining illustration.

The successor of Sir William Rowan Hamilton as Andrews Professor of Astronomy was Dr.
Francis Brünnow. He was a German by birth, who had distinguished himself by various
astronomical researches, and by an excellent work on Practical Astronomy. He had previously
occupied the Chair of Astronomy at the University of Michigan. When Brünnow came to Dunsink,
his first care was the mounting of the great South Equatorial. A building was erected on the lawn,
surmounted by a dome, and fitted with revolving machinery by Messrs. Grubb, who also
constructed the tube and stand. A micrometer, from the Berlin firm of Messrs. Pistor & Martin,
was added, and thus the South object-glass, forty years after it was made, came into actual use.

Dr. Brünnow devoted himself chiefly to the investigation of the Parallax of Stars. In this he
was, indeed, following the traditions of the Observatory as laid down by Brinkley. Brünnow
published two parts of his researches on this difficult subject. These papers are now regarded as a
classical authority in this branch of astronomy. The pains which he took to eliminate error, and the
consummate manner in which he has discussed his results, show him to have been both a skilful
observer and an ingenious computer.

The fundamental equipment of the modern Observatory must include an equatorial and a
meridian circle. Dunsink was now provided with the former, but there was no meridian circle. The
great Ramsden instrument had become obsolete. The old transit had also seen more than half-a-
century of service, and could not be relied on for accurate work. A splendid meridian circle was
therefore ordered, by the liberality of the Board, from Messrs. Pistor & Martin, of Berlin. It was
erected in 1872-1873, at a cost of £800. The aperture of this instrument is 6·4 inches and the
length is 8 feet. The circles are divided to two-minute spaces, and read by eight microscopes, four
on each side. The instrument can be reversed, and has north and south collimators. The Meridian
Room and the fine instrument just described are shown in the subjoined illustration.

In 1874 Dr. Brünnow resigned, and was succeeded by the present writer; and about the same
time Dr. Ralph Copeland was appointed assistant. In the following year Dr. Copeland went to the
Earl of Crawford’s Observatory at Dunecht, and he now fills the distinguished position of Royal
Astronomer of Scotland. Dr. Copeland was succeeded as assistant at Dunsink by Mr. C. E. Burton.
Failing health caused Mr. Burton’s resignation in 1878, and Dr. J. L. E. Dreyer then came to
Dunsink, where he remained till the death of the late Dr. Romney Robinson in 1882 created a

vacancy in the post of Astronomer at Armagh, to
which Dr. Dreyer was then appointed. His place at
Dunsink was filled by Dr. Arthur A. Rambaut, the
present assistant.

Among the additions made to the Observatory
under my direction may be mentioned an electric
chronograph for recording transits. A time service
has also been in operation for many years, by which
the standard mean time clock in the Observatory
controls, on Jones’ system, the Front clock and the
Board-room clock in the Port and Docks Office,
Westmoreland Street, Dublin. The ball falls at this
office at 1 p.m., Greenwich time, and the fact of
falling reports itself automatically at Dunsink, while
MERIDIAN ROOM, DUNSINK. the Front clock reports itself at Dunsink every
minute. But the chief addition to the Observatory in
late years is the superb reflecting telescope for photographic purposes, which is the gift of Isaac
Roberts, Esq., F.R.S., of Crowborough, Sussex. This instrument has been established in the small
dome on the top of the Observatory.

The last chronicle of Dunsink that it may be necessary here to mention is that Sir Robert Ball
was appointed, on 20th February, 1892, to succeed Professor J. Couch Adams as Lowndean
Professor of Astronomy in the University of Cambridge.

F OOT NOT E S :
[107] Graves’ Life of Hamilton, vol. i., p. 46.

[108] Life of De Morgan, by his wife, p. 333.

[109] Ibid.

CHAPTER VII.
“The Books, but especially the Parchments.”

T HE L I BRARY.

he Library had its beginning in 1601, from a subscription by the officers and soldiers of
Queen Elizabeth’s army in Ireland. Prior to that, indeed, there were a few books; a list
(dated 1600) of forty books, ten of which were MS., has been preserved, and was
printed by Dr. J. K. Ingram in an appendix to his Address to the Library Association. It includes—
of classical authors—Euripides, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero. In 1601, however, in order to
commemorate the battle of Kinsale, in which the Spanish troops and their Irish allies were
defeated, the troops subscribed £700[110] to purchase books for the newly-founded College. “Then
souldiers,” says Dr. Bernard, “were for the advancement of learning.” Possibly; but it is significant
that the money was subscribed “out of the arrears of their pay.” However, the example, as we shall
see, proved fruitful. The money was entrusted to Luke Challoner and James Ussher (afterwards
Primate), who accordingly went to London to make their purchases. It happened that Sir Thomas
Bodley was at the same time buying books for his library at Oxford, and he and Ussher consulted,
to their mutual advantage.

It may be asked, What notable books did they buy, and what prices did they pay? As to the
first, there exists a rough shelf-list of books in the Library which must have been drawn up very
soon after this. It is in Challoner’s handwriting, and shows that rarities were not sought for, but
books useful for study and research. The prices are not recorded, but Challoner has left a list of the
prices he paid for his own books a few years earlier. A few specimens of these may be interesting.
Scapulæ Lexicon cost him 12s.; a Hebrew Bible in 4to, 16s.; an English Bible, 8vo, 6s.; Stephani
Concordantiæ, 14s.; Cicero: Opera Omnia, 8vo, 6s. 8d.; Homer: Iliad and Odyssey, each 2s. 6d.;
an 8vo Virgil, 1s. 4d.; another, in 16mo, 10d. The most expensive books are—Mercator’s Tabula,
£3, and Vatablus; Biblia Sacra (Hebrew, Greek, Latin), £3 10s. The average price was about 5s. A
few years later we find Challoner and Ussher again in London buying books for the Library.
Chiefly, no doubt, in consequence of their purchases, the number of books in 1610 was about
4,000. In 1635 the Library is already mentioned as a matter of pride to the College by Sir W.
Brereton. He specifies a MS. of Roger Bacon, which, he says, they highly esteem, considering it to
be the only copy of that great man’s Opus Majus. Brereton, however, professes himself sceptical,
on the ground that the MS. is so very clean and newly bound. How the latter fact could militate
against the antiquity of the MS. is not very clear. Brereton also pronounces the Library to be not
well furnished with books. The building, too, he reports as not large or well contrived.[111]

It was, however, at the Restoration that the Library was at once raised to the first class, at
least as regards MSS., by the accession of Archbishop Ussher’s library. The fortunes of this were
rather remarkable. During the rebellion of 1641 it was in Drogheda, the seat of the Archiepiscopal
residence, where it was in great peril of destruction, that place being besieged for four months.
Shortly after the raising of the siege it was transferred to Chester, and subsequently to Chelsea
College. Here, however, it was not much safer than in Ireland, for the Archbishop having preached
against the authority of the Assembly of Divines, the House of Commons confiscated his library,
the severest punishment they had it in their power to inflict. Happily, there were two men in the
Assembly of nobler sentiments—Dr. Featley, formerly chaplain to Archbishop Abbot, and the
learned John Selden.[112] By Selden’s help, Dr. Featley either obtained a grant of the library or was
enabled to purchase it for a small sum, and so preserved it for the Primate; but part had already
been embezzled.

When Ussher was appointed by the Benchers preacher at Lincoln’s Inn, apartments were
appropriated to his use, in which he was able to place his library, or rather pack up as much of it as
remained. It was his intention to bequeath it to Trinity College, as a token of gratitude to the place
where he had received his education; but having lost all his other property in the disturbances of
the time, he was obliged to give up this purpose and to leave it to his daughter, Lady Tyrrell, wife
of Sir Timothy Tyrrell. Ussher died in 1656. The library was famous, and Parr, in his Life of
Ussher, states that “the King of Denmark and Cardinal Mazarin endeavoured to obtain it, offering
a good price through their agents in England; but Cromwell having, by an Order in Council,
prohibited its being sold without his consent, it was bought by the soldiers and officers of the then
army in Ireland, who, out of emulation to the previous noble action of Queen Elizabeth’s army,
were incited by some men of publick spirits to the like performance, and they had it for much less
than it was really worth, or what had been offered for it before by the agents above-mentioned
[viz., for £2,200]; they had also with it all his manuscripts (which were not of his own
handwriting), as also a choice, though not numerous, collection of ancient coins. But when this
library was brought over into Ireland, the usurper and his son, who then commanded in chief there,
would not bestow it on the Colledge of Dublin, least perhaps the gift should not appear so
considerable as it would do by itself; and therefore they gave out that they would reserve it for a
new Colledge or Hall which they said they intended to build and endow; but it proved that as those
were not times, so they were not persons capable of any such noble or pious work; so that this
library lay in the Castle of Dublin unbestowed and unemployed all the remaining time of
Cromwell’s usurpation; but where this treasure was kept being left open, many of the books and
most of the best manuscripts were stolen away or else imbezled (sic) by those who were intrusted
with them; but after his late Majesty’s Restauration, when they fell to his disposal, he generously
bestowed them on the Colledge for which they were intended by the owner, where they now
remain.”

Dr. Parr’s account may perhaps require to be modified by comparison with the following
document:—“June 29, 1659.—The Commissioners of Parliament for the Government of Ireland
referred to ‘certain persons named’ to take a view of the gallery at Cork House and the armory-
room near the Castle, and to consider with workmen which place may be most convenient for
placing Dr. Ussher’s Library, and to present an estimate of the charge for making Presses and
Chains for the Books in order to their use and security.” On 1st November following it was
ordered “that the Trustees for Trinity College, as also Dr. Watson, Dr. Gorges, and Mr. Williamson,
be desired to attend the Board and to consider together how the Library formerly belonging to Dr.
Ussher, purchased by the State and army, may be disposed and fitted for Publick use. And also to
take into consideration a Letter from Dr. Berners [query, Bernard], as also a Paper delivered by Dr.
Jones, concerning the publishing of some part of the said Library or manuscripts, and of
recovering some part of the said Library being at present abroad in some men’s hands, albeit they
ought to have been returned hither with the Books as were purchased, or such only as were sent
hither and are in the custody of Mr. Williamson or others. And to inform themselves in what
condition the said Library at present is. Whether since the coming of the said Books hither any of
them have been lent out or otherwise disposed of—to whom, when, and by whose order, with what
else may concern the Business.”[113]

With respect to the part which the King had in sending the books to the College, Dr. Ingram
seems to suspect that Dr. Parr’s “effusively loyal spirit led him erroneously to attribute this act of
restitution to Charles II. His Majesty’s consent,” he adds, “would perhaps be formally necessary,
but it seems to have been really the Irish House of Commons that moved in the matter. In the
Journals of the House under that date, 31 Maii, 1661, appears an order ‘that the Vice-Chancellor
and Provost of the College of Dublin, and Mr. Richard Lingard, with such others as they will take
to their assistance, be decreed and are hereby empowered, with all convenient speed, to cause the
Library formerly belonging to the late Lord Primate of Armagh, and purchased by the army, to be
brought from the Castle of Dublin, where they now are, into the said College, there to be preserved
for public use; and the said persons are likewise to take a catalogue of all the said Library, both
manuscripts and printed books, and to deliver the same into this House, to be inserted in the
Journals of the House.’”[114] I may add that in the catalogue of MSS. drawn up by George Browne
(afterwards Provost) in 1688 (and printed by Dr. Bernard in his Catalogus Manuscriptorum Angliæ
et Hiberniæ), these MSS. are stated to have been given by the “Conventus generalis habitus
Dublinii an. 1666.” It seems probable, too, that Dr. Parr has somewhat exaggerated the losses from
the Library when he says that most of the MSS. were lost. As far as we can judge in the absence of
a catalogue earlier than the Restoration, the best MSS. would seem to be still in the collection. It
still contains, happily, the most beautiful book in the world, to be presently described more
particularly.

In 1671 the Countess of Bath, whose husband, Henry Bourchier, had been a Fellow, presented
a collection of books purchased for the express purpose, some of them handsomely bound, and

with her arms on the sides. Dr. Ingram has quoted from the Life and Errors of John Dunton an
interesting notice of the Library in 1704. From this we learn that there was nothing to distinguish
the building externally; “it is,” says he, “over the scholars’ lodgings, the length of one of the
quadrangles, and contains a great many choice books of great value, particularly one, the largest I
ever saw for breadth; it was an Herbal, containing the lively portraitures of all sorts of Trees,
Plants, Herbs, and Flowers.” The Library at that time served as a Museum as well, for he says that
he was shown in the same place “the skin of a notorious Tory which had been tanned and stuffed
with straw.” This interesting relic does not now exist, which is not surprising, considering the state
of dilapidation in which it was at the time of Dunton’s visit.[115] Not very long after Dunton’s visit
the foundation stone of the present Library was laid (1712), the House of Commons having
granted considerable sums for the purpose. It was completed in 1732. The print on next page,
dated 1753, gives an illustration of this building as it then appeared. In the interim we obtain an
unsatisfactory glimpse of the state of things in a letter from Berkeley, then a Fellow, which
mentions that the Library “is at present so old and ruinous and the books so out of order that there
is little attendance given.”

The new building speedily received large accessions of books. In 1726 Dr. William Palliser,
Archbishop of Cashel, bequeathed to the College all such books and editions in his library as the
College did not already possess. This gift amounted to about four thousand volumes. He made it a
condition that these books should always be kept next to those of Archbishop Ussher.

A still greater benefactor to the Library was Dr. Claudius Gilbert, who had been Vice-Provost
and Professor of Divinity. In forming his library he had in view the purpose of presenting it to the
College, and applied great knowledge and judgment to the selection of books. His collection, the
fruit of many years of such care, contained nearly thirteen thousand volumes, many of them early
and rare texts. His bust was placed near the books in 1758.

OLD PRINT OF LIBRARY, 1753.

Nearly at the same time as Gilbert’s gift, the MS. collection was largely augmented by the
bequest of Dr. John Stearne, Bishop of Clogher and Vice-Chancellor of the University. This
collection included that of Dr. John Madden (President of the College of Physicians), a catalogue
of which was printed in Dr. Bernard’s Catalogus Manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ. Amongst
the MSS. thus acquired was the collection in thirty-two folio volumes of the Depositions of the
Sufferers by the Rising in 1641. These records had been in the custody of Matthew Barry, Clerk of
the Council, and at his death were purchased by Dr. John Madden, at the sale of whose books they
were purchased by Dr. Stearne. From the same collection we obtained a considerable number of
letters and other documents relating to military and judicial proceedings in Ireland, especially from
1647 to 1679.

In 1786 there was added to the Library an extremely valuable collection of Irish (Celtic)
books formerly belonging to the celebrated Edward Lhuyd,[116] at whose death they were purchased
by Sir John Sebright. At the suggestion of Edmund Burke, Sir John presented the books to Trinity
College in 1786. They include Brehon Law Commentaries, the Book of Leinster, and other
important volumes.

A large and valuable acquisition was made in 1802, when the Library of M. Greffier Fagel,
Pensionary of Holland, consisting of more than 20,000 volumes, was purchased by the Board of
Erasmus Smith and presented to the College. The books had been removed to England for sale in
1794, when the French invaded Holland, and had been advertised by Mr. Christie for sale by
auction March 1, 1802, and twenty-nine following days.

In 1805 a very choice collection of books, including many Editiones Principes, as well as
books remarkable for the beauty of their printing or their binding, was bequeathed by Henry
George Quin. In this collection are found some splendid specimens of printing and binding which
will be mentioned by-and-by. In more recent times, also, we have received some valuable and
interesting donations. In 1854, the Book of Armagh, a MS. of singular interest (to be referred to
more particularly hereafter), was purchased for £300 by the Rev. W. Reeves, afterwards Bishop of
Down and Connor. As he could not afford to retain the book himself, and only desired that it
should be in safe custody in our Library, he parted with it for the same sum to the Archbishop of
Armagh, Lord John George Beresford, who presented it to Trinity College.

In the same year Dr. Charles Wm. Wall, Vice-Provost, purchased, through Rev. Dr. Gibbings,
several volumes of the original Records of the Inquisition at Rome, which had been removed to
Paris by Napoleon I. Extracts from these have been published by Dr. Gibbings.

INTERIOR OF LIBRARY, 1858.

Amongst more recent benefactors to the Library the Rev. Aiken Irvine and Dr. Neilson
Hancock deserve to be noticed, the former of whom bequeathed about 1,000 volumes, and the
latter about 250, in 1881 and 1885 respectively. Space forbids the enumeration of less important
donations.

The College authorities, meanwhile, were liberal in granting money for the purchase of
books. Between November, 1805, and March, 1806, we find them giving fifty guineas for the
Complutensian Polyglot, sixty-two for Prynne’s Records, and twenty-two and a-half for the first
folio Shakespeare. Again, in the first six months of 1813 we find £126 spent on purchases at
auctions, including some fifteenth-century books, and an Icelandic Bible which cost £14 15s. 9d.
In addition to these purchases, the booksellers’ bills paid amounted to £230. Coming to a later
period, we find for the ten years commencing with 1846 the average annual expenditure on
purchases and binding was £668. After 1856, however, it was found necessary to contract the
expenditure. The fixed sum now set apart annually for these purposes is £400. Extra grants are,
however, made occasionally for special purchases. As the expense of the personal staff has
considerably increased, the whole expenditure on the Library is larger than in 1856, and now
amounts to about £2,000. The expense of administration may appear out of proportion to the
amount available for the purchase of books. This is accounted for by the fact that English
publications are received without cost.

The chief source of the growth of the Library in the present century has been the privilege
granted by Act of Parliament in 1801—viz., the right to a copy of every book (including every
“sheet of letterpress”) published in the United Kingdom. This privilege this Library shares with the
British Museum, the Bodleian, that of Cambridge University, and the Advocates’ Library,
Edinburgh.[117] To the British Museum publishers are obliged to send their publications unasked;
the other Libraries forfeit their right to any book not claimed by them within twelve months of
publication. Accordingly, they jointly employ an agent in London for the purpose of claiming and
forwarding books. The principal firms, however, send their publications as a matter of course,
without waiting to be asked.

This obligation cannot be thought to be a grievance to authors and publishers, when we
reflect to what an extent authors, and therefore publishers, are dependent on the resources of these
Libraries. What work of research could be produced without the aid they give? We benefit by the
generosity of our forefathers; we are only asked to hand on the torch and help to do for posterity
what antiquity has done for us. A money grant, however satisfactory to the Libraries, would not
accomplish the same public end, namely, the preservation of the literature of the time,
independently of the particular tastes or predilections of the successive librarians. Even in the case
of very expensive works, of which only a small number of copies is issued, publishers take the
obligation into account, and the result is a relatively slight increase of price not felt by the
purchasers of such works.

The number of printed books in the Library in 1792 was about 46,000. In 1844 it had risen to
96,000, a large part of the increase being due to the acquisition of the Fagel Library. When the
books were last counted (August, 1891), the printed books numbered 222,648, the MSS. 1,938,
giving a total of 224,586. It should be remembered that we count volumes, not separate
publications, hence a volume containing say thirty pamphlets counts only as one book. Many of
the older volumes contain two or more books of considerable size bound in one.

his may suffice for the history of the Library: I now proceed to speak of its contents. If
precedence is given to antiquity, the first objects to claim our attention are the
Egyptian papyri. These were presented by Lord Kingsborough about 1838, and a
catalogue of them was published by Dr. Edward Hincks. One of these is very finely embellished
with pictures representing the history of a departed soul; several resemble the corresponding
pictures in the papyrus of Ani, of which a fac-simile was recently published by the British
Museum. Some of the pictures wanting in this (our) papyrus are supplied in others of the
collection, such as the weighing of the soul, the ploughing, sowing, and reaping in the fields of
Elysium.

It is, chronologically, a great step from these Egyptian MSS. to the oldest of our Greek and
Latin MSS. Of Greek Biblical MSS. we have indeed few, but two of these are of considerable
importance. One is the celebrated palimpsest codex of St. Matthew’s Gospel, known amongst
Biblical critics as Z. The original text of this, in a beautiful large uncial character, was written not
later than the sixth century. But at a later date (about the 13th century) this ancient writing was
partially erased, and extracts from some of the Greek Fathers written over it. The old writing was
detected by Dr. John Barrett, formerly Librarian, who published the text in what was called
“engraved fac-simile,” which gives a very correct idea of the original writing, although the form of
each individual letter may not always be exactly represented. Dr. Barrett added a learned
dissertation on both the more ancient and the later contents of the MS. Dr. Tregelles, with the help
of chemical applications, was enabled to read some letters which had escaped Dr. Barrett, and he
published an account of his discoveries in a quarto tract. He also entered his new readings in a
copy of Barrett’s work. Strange to say, these two records of Tregelles differed considerably, and
accordingly, when the present writer undertook to re-edit Barrett’s text with Tregelles’ additions,
he found it necessary to examine the MS. throughout. In so doing, he was able to read several
hundred letters and marks (such as marks of quotation, numbers of sections and canons, etc.)
which had escaped both Barrett and Tregelles, besides correcting a few errors. The additions and
corrections were made on Barrett’s plates, and the new edition was published in 1880.[118]

There is also a palimpsest fragment of Isaiah, apparently of somewhat earlier date, of which a
lithographed fac-simile was included in the volume just mentioned. This fac-simile enabled Dr.

Ceriani, of Milan, to identify the recension to which a certain group of MSS. of the Septuagint
belongs.[119]

Of the Gospels, there is a copy (63) in a cursive hand of the tenth century with scholia. Under
a portrait of St. Matthew is traceable a palimpsest fragment of a Greek Evangelistarium. There was
anciently another copy of the Gospels (64), which, however, was reported missing in 1742. Most
probably it had been lent to Bulkeley (a Fellow), who in fact collated it for Mill. It is now in the
library of the Marquis of Bute.

Another important though not very ancient MS. of the New Testament is the celebrated Codex
Montfortianus, historically notable as being pretty certainly the actual MS. on whose authority the
verse I John v. 7 was admitted into Erasmus’ third edition, and thence into the received text. It is
not older than the fifteenth century. A collation of the text of the Epistles is given by Barrett in his
volume, Codex Rescriptus S. Matthæi. Dr. Orlando Dobbin in 1854 devoted a volume to the MS.,
giving a complete collation of the Gospels and Acts. According to his researches, the text of the
Epistles is copied from a MS. in Lincoln College, Oxford, the verse I John v. 7 being interpolated
by the copyist.

This manuscript has the distinction that we know the names of nearly every person through
whose hands it passed. On folio 56 is the note, “Sum Thomae Clementis, olim fratris Froyhe,” and
on a leaf at the end is “Mayster Wyllams, of Corpus Christi....” After Clement it came into the
possession of William Chark, from him to Dr. Thomas Montfort, and then to Ussher. Professor
Rendel Harris, in his book on “The Origin of the Leicester Codex,” has discussed the history of the
Montfort Codex. He makes the suggestion that Froyhe is an error for Roye, the accidental
repetition of a letter changing “fratris Roye” into “fratris Froye” or “Froyhe.” There is proof that
the MS. was in Franciscan hands (the names Ἰησους, Μαρία, ϕρἀγκωκος, are scribbled in it more
than once). Barrett, for example, shows that Williams was a Franciscan, and frater Froyhe, or
Roye, was probably of the same order. Now there was a very remarkable member of the
Franciscan order, named William Roye, educated at Cambridge, who, however, in 1524, forsook
the order, and joined Tyndale at Hamburg. It is not impossible that the codex in question was
actually written by him. These, with a fragment (14th century) of the Epistle to the Romans, and a
small Psalter dated 1533, exhaust our Greek Biblical manuscripts.

Of Latin Biblical manuscripts we have a considerable number, including several remarkable
either for their text or their artistic execution. The most important for its text is that classed A. 4,
15, and called Codex Usserianus; a manuscript of the Gospels written probably in the sixth
century, and exhibiting an old Latin text of the Hiberno-British Recension. It is defective at the
beginning and the end; every leaf also is mutilated, so that no line remains complete. With the
exception of a rude cross at the end of St. Luke’s Gospel, there is no attempt at ornament. Here and
there are interlinear glosses scratched as with a needle point—as, for example, in reference to the
paralytic who was “borne of four,” the four are interpreted as the four evangelists. It is remarkable

that the pericopa de adultera is given in a text agreeing with the Vulgate. From this we may
conclude—first, that the passage was not in the archetype; secondly, that the scribe had a copy of
the Vulgate at hand; and thirdly, that it was from choice, not from necessity, that he copied the old
Latin. The full text of this manuscript was published in Evangelia Ante-hieronymiana. Its history is
unknown.

Another MS., called The Garland of Howth, exhibits in St. Matthew’s Gospel a similar text,
but elsewhere the Vulgate, or, in some parts, a mixed text. It is probably not earlier than the ninth
century, or perhaps the tenth. Pictures of two of the evangelists remain—the others are lost. The
MS. is coarsely written, and on very coarse parchment. The omissions in it, chiefly from
homœoteleuton, are frequent and instructive. Some of the scribe’s blunders are curious. Thus,
Matthew xxii. 42, “quid vobis videtur de operibus fidelis,” for “de χρο cuius filius;” Mark ii. 3,
“qui iiii rotis portabatur;” xi. 12, “a bethania cum x essurivit ii;” xiv. 50, “discipuli omnes
relinquentes eum cruci[fi]xerunt.” In Matthew xxvii. 5, an Irish gloss has got into the text
—“proiectis arcadgabuth c.,” for “argenteis.” In Luke xxiii. 12 another gloss appears in the text
—“opus malum malos in unum coniungunt.”

Remarkable both for text and ornament is the Book of Durrow (so called from Durrow, in
King’s County, where St. Columba founded a monastery), a MS. of the Gospels (with the
prologues, &c.), written perhaps in the seventh century. The text is a tolerably pure Vulgate. The
colophon contains a prayer that whoever shall hold the book in his hand may remember the writer,
Columba, who wrote this Gospel in the space of twelve days. There were many Columbas besides
the Saint, and it is pretty certain that the present book was not written by Saint Columba. It is
morally certain also that it was not written in twelve days. But there is good reason to believe that
the scribe has merely copied the colophon from the book he was transcribing,[120] and if so, the
archetype may have been written by Saint Columba, who has the reputation of being a scribe.

Except at the beginning of each Gospel, the only attempt at ornament is a series of red dots
round the initial letters; but the letters of the first words of each Gospel are elaborately embellished
in the characteristic Celtic style. Prefixed also to each Gospel is a page covered with interlaced
ornament of great beauty, as well as another page with the symbol of the Evangelist. These pages
have been represented in fac-simile (admirably as regards the tracing, but not with accurate
reproduction of the colours) in Prof. Westwood’s Fac-similes of Irish and Anglo-Saxon
Manuscripts. The volume was formerly enclosed in a silver cover, which has long since
disappeared; but a note in the book (written in 1677) gives the inscription, which stated that the
cover was made by Flann, son of Mailsechnal, King of Ireland (who died in the year 916).[121]

This MS. was presented to the Library by Henry Jones, Bishop of Meath, Vice-Chancellor
(1646 to 1660), the same whose gift of stairs, etc., to the Library in 1651 is commemorated on a
brass plate just inside the door.

Conall MacGeoghegan relates of Saint Columba, “hee wrote 300 bookes with his one [own]
hand, they were all new testaments, left a book to each of his churches in the kingdome wch
Bookes sunck to the bottom of the Deepest waters, they would not lose one letter signe or
character of them, wch I have seen partly my selfe of that book of them wch is at Dorow, in the Ks
County, for I did see the Ignorant man that hath the same in his custody, when sickness came upon
cattle, for their Remedi putt water on the booke and suffered it to rest there a while and saw alsoe
cattle returne thereby to their former or pristinate and the book to receave noe loss.”[122] In earlier
times, indeed, even in England, the scrapings of these Celtic manuscripts were believed to have
medicinal virtues.

The Book of Durrow is far surpassed in beauty by the Book of Kells, so called from Kells in
Co. Meath, in which monastery it had been preserved and doubtless written. This is also a MS. of
the Gospels containing a mixed text, i.e., the Vulgate modified by additions, etc., from the old
Latin. No words can convey an adequate idea of the beauty of this MS. This does not consist, as in
some Oriental MSS., in a profusion of gilding—there is no gold whatever—nor in the addition of
paintings independent of the text, but in the lavish variety of artistic adornment applied to the
letters of the text, which justifies Professor Westwood in calling it “the most beautiful book in the
world.” The ornament consists largely of ever-varying interlacing of serpents and of simple bands,
with countless spirals alternately expanding and contracting in the peculiar “trumpet-shaped
pattern.” The initial of every sentence throughout the Gospels is an artistic product, some of them
exquisite, and no two precisely the same. In addition to this decoration, which adorns every page,
there are many pages (about thirty) entirely full of ornament, showing the utmost skill and
accuracy in almost microscopic detail. In fact, the detail is so minute that it often requires a lens to
trace it; yet these minute lines are as firm as if drawn by a machine, and as free as if they were the
growth of nature. The exquisite harmony of the colouring is as admirable as the elegance of the
tracery. Little wonder that it was said to have been written at the dictation of an angel. “If you look
closely,” says Giraldus Cambrensis, “and penetrate to the secrets of the art, you will discover such
delicate and subtile lines, so closely wrought, so twisted and interwoven, and adorned with colours
still so fresh, that you will acknowledge that all this is the work rather of angelic than of human
skill. The more frequently and carefully I examine it, I am always amazed with new beauties, and
always discover things more and more admirable.”[123] Some pages originally left blank contain
charters in the Irish language, conveying grants of lands to the Abbey of Kells, the Bishop of
Meath, the Monastery of Ardbraccan, by Melaghlyn, King of Meath, and other monarchs in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries.

A PAGE FROM THE BOOK OF KELLS.

There are fine examples of the same school of Art in English Libraries, especially the Book of
Lindisfarne, in the British Museum; the Book of St. Chad, in Lichfield, the writing in which is
extremely like that in the Book of Kells; the Gospels of MacRegol, in the Bodleian; and the
Gospels of MacDurnan, in Lambeth. Of these Irish and Hiberno-Saxon works Dr. Wangen says:
—“The ornamental pages, borders, and initial letters exhibit such a rich variety of beautiful and
peculiar designs, so admirable a taste in the arrangement of the colours, and such an uncommon
perfection of finish, that one feels absolutely struck with amazement.” None of these, however,
equals the Book of Kells in the number, the fulness, or the perfection of detail of the great pictorial
pages, while the prodigality with which ornament is bestowed on every page and every paragraph
is a feature peculiar to it.

There is nothing in the Book of Kells itself to indicate its date, the last leaf—which may have
contained the name of the scribe—being lost. The Book of Lindisfarne contains a note (of the tenth

century) naming the scribe and the illuminator, the former being Eadfrith, Bishop of Lindisfarne
(died 721), and the latter his successor in the See, Aethelwald (died 737 or 740). MacRiagoil,
scribe, and Abbot of Birr (King’s County), died in 820. The Gospels of MacDurnan appear from
the character of the writing to be coeval with the Book of Armagh, which is known to have been
written in 807. From a comparison of the Book of Kells with these MSS., it may be inferred that it
belongs to the eighth century.

The volume was anciently enclosed in a golden cover, and the Annals of the Four Masters
record, under the year 1006, that in that year it was stolen from the Church of Kells, and was found
after twenty nights and two months with its gold stolen off and a sod over it. It is in that passage
called the great Gospel of Columbkille—i.e., St. Columba. It owes that name, probably, to its
connection with Columba’s Monastery at Kells, where, no doubt, it was written, and where it
remained until the dissolution of the monasteries. From Richard Plunket, the last Abbot, it passed
to one Gerald Plunket, and from him to Ussher.

A very interesting and important MS. is the Book of Armagh, containing the entire New
Testament (in Latin), being the only complete copy which has come down to us from the ancient
Irish Church. In it the Gospels are followed immediately by St. Paul’s Epistles, including the
fictitious Epistle to the Laodiceans. It contains also memoirs of St. Patrick, with his Confession,
and a Life of St. Martin of Tours, by Sulpicius Severus. The name of the scribe was written in
several places, but in every instance has been more or less effectually erased. However, the Bishop
of Limerick (Dr. Charles Graves) succeeded in deciphering it sufficiently to identify the name as
Ferdomnach. But there were several scribes of that name, and how to decide which was the one in
question? Dr. Graves found another note, only partly legible, and that with extreme difficulty,
which appeared to have contained the name Ferdomnach, with the words, “dictante herede Patricii
——bach.” “Heres Patricii” was the title of the Archbishop of Armagh. The only one who satisfied
the conditions of time, and whose name ended in “bach,” was Torbach, who only occupied the See
for one year. In this way the actual year in which the MS. was written was determined—viz., A.D.
807.[124] Prof. Westwood thinks the same scribe wrote the Gospels of MacDurnan, now at Lambeth.
There is a note of later date in the volume relating to certain privileges of the Church of Armagh,
and written “in the presence of Brian, imperator Scotorum”—i.e., Brian Boru, who visited Armagh
in 1004 and 1006, and died 1014. The writer of this note calls himself Calvus Perennis—a Latin
rendering of his name, Maolsuthain.[125] He was Brian’s private confessor. The book was in high
esteem, being regarded as the actual writing of St. Patrick, and called the Canon of Patrick. Oaths
taken upon it were considered peculiarly obligatory, and the violation of such an oath brought on
him the vengeance of the Saint, as well as extreme civil penalties. The book was entrusted to the
care of a hereditary keeper, whose family derived their name, “Maor” or “Moyre,” from the office,
to which, moreover, an endowment of land was attached. The book remained in the possession of
this family until the end of the seventeenth century, when, having been pawned by the keeper, it
came by purchase into the hands of Arthur Brownlow, from whose lineal representative it was

bought, as above related, by Rev. Dr. Reeves.[126] An interesting object connected with the Book of
Armagh is its leather satchel, finely embossed with figures of animals and interlaced work. It is
formed of a single piece of leather, 36 in. long and 12½ broad, folded so as to make a flat-sided
pouch, 12 in. high, 12¾ broad, and 2¼ deep. Part of it is doubled over to make a flap, in which are
eight brass-bound slits, corresponding to as many brass loops projecting from the case, in which
ran two rods, meeting in the middle, where they were secured by a lock. In early times, in Irish
monastic libraries, books were kept in such satchels, which were suspended by straps from hooks
in the wall. Thus it is related in an old legend that “on the night of Longaradh’s death all the book
satchels in Ireland fell down.”

SATCHEL OF THE BOOK OF ARMAGH.

Few of these ancient satchels have come down to us. When Dr. Reeves wrote, he knew of
only one other, namely, that now in Dublin, in the Franciscan Monastery, whither it has come from
the Monastery of St. Isidore in Rome. A third, however, much ruder, is in Corpus Christi College,
Oxford, enclosing an Irish Missal (illustrated in Gilbert’s Irish Historical MSS.); a fourth is
described and illustrated by Miss Stokes in Archæologia, vol. xliii., No. xiv.; a fifth is at Milan,
containing a Syro-hexaplar codex, and a full-size illustration of it is given in Dr. Ceriani’s
reproduction of that codex. A similar satchel, containing an Ethiopic book, is in St. John’s College,
Oxford. In Abyssinia, indeed, they are frequent; all the books in the Monastery of Suriani are so
enclosed.[127] A figure of monks with their satchels, as represented on an ancient sculptured stone,
is given in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, New Series, vol. iii., 1881.

SHRINE OF BOOK OF DIMMA.

The Annals record that in the year 937 a cover was made for the Canon of Patrick by
Donnchadh, son of Flann. This was doubtless a metal case. The satchel was clearly not made for it.

We have seen that the ancient cases of the Books of Kells and Durrow were lost long since.
Two such shrines (“cumdachs”) are in our Library—one enclosing the Book of Dimma, the other
the Book of Mulling or Moling. These books are named from their scribes, who, according to the
Annals, lived in the seventh century. Both these are copies of the Gospels; both, however, contain
also a Missa Infirmorum of later date.[128] The case of the Book of Dimma is of silver, beautifully
wrought with Celtic tracery. It bears an inscription which runs as follows:—“Tatheus O’Kearbuill
beideev meipsum deauravit, dominus domnaldus O Cuanain converbius ultimo meipsum
restauravit, Tomas Ceard dachorig in mindsa.” Thady O’Carroll Boy was Prince of Ely in the
middle of the twelfth century; Donald O’Cuanain was Bishop of Killaloe from 1230 to 1260.

The ends of the case are obviously more ancient, apparently much more ancient, than the
sides. It will be observed that the inscription says nothing about the original maker of the case.

This book, long kept in the monastery at Roscrea, disappeared at the dissolution of the
monasteries, and is said to have been found again in 1789 by boys hunting rabbits in Devil’s Bit
Mountains in Tipperary. The boys tore off part of the silver plate, and picked out some of the lapis
lazuli.[129] The MS. was purchased from Sir W. Betham by the College for £200.

The case or shrine of the Book of Mulling appears to have been originally plain, except for
some small pieces of crystal and lapis lazuli inserted on one side. In 1402, however, a very large
crystal set in fine niello work was inserted in the same side. In 1891, thinking I saw trace of a letter
under this crystal, I raised it, and thereby revealed a brass plate hitherto concealed by dust, and
bearing the inscription: “Artturus | ver domin | us & lageniae | rinsdabe | tilia & baroni | anno & dni
| millio | quadrin | gentesi | mo sedo |.” This Arthur was Arthur or Art MacMurrough Kavanagh,

who opposed Richard II. This inscription, no doubt, has reference to the insertion of the crystal and
the niello work, not to the original construction of the case. This MS. also contains a Missa
Infirmorum (published by Bishop Forbes with that in the Book of Dimma).

Another beautiful Latin MS. of Irish origin is the Psalter of Ricemarch, so called because it
was formerly in the possession of that prelate (Bishop of St. David’s, d. 1099), who has written in
it some Latin verses. It is perhaps not much older than his time. The book was the property of
Bishop Bedell, whose autograph it bears, and was lent by him to Archbishop Ussher, and to this
circumstance it owes its preservation, Bedell’s library having been destroyed in the troubles of the
time.

The last of these Latin Biblical MSS. which I shall mention is not Irish, but is somewhat of a
curiosity. It is a single leaf of the Codex Palatinus, a fifth-century MS. of the old Latin version of
the Gospels written in silver letters on purple vellum. The rest of the MS. (so far as it has been
preserved) is in the Imperial Library at Vienna, which acquired it at some unknown period
between 1800 and 1829. Our leaf was purchased by Dr. Todd in 1843. It is not improbable that the
MS. was abstracted from some monastic library during the Napoleonic wars, and that this leaf,
becoming separated from the rest, came into the hands of an Irish soldier. This dispersion of a MS.
is less unusual than might be supposed. The Book of Leinster, to be presently mentioned, furnishes
a notable example.[130] I recently received from a correspondent two leaves of a Syriac MS., which,
by the help of Wright’s catalogue, Dr. Gwynn identified as two of the missing leaves of a MS. in
the British Museum, the MS. having been imperfect when purchased for that Library.

The Book of Hymns (11th century) deserves mention both for the beauty of its initial letters
and for the interest of its contents. Some of the hymns are Latin, some Gælic; the greater part of
both has been published by the Irish Archæological Society, with learned notes by Dr. Todd, and
with reproductions of the initial letters. The remainder of the Gælic hymns has been published by
Dr. Whitley Stokes in his Goidilica.

I may appropriately mention here a remarkable Pontifical formerly belonging to the Church
of Canterbury, and, as Bishop Reeves remarked to me, probably “contrectatus manibus S. Thomae
de Becket.” In this the sentence of ordination of priests is in the old form, and in the margin is
added, in a much later hand, the new form as adopted by the Church of Rome before the
Reformation, and retained in our Ordinal.[131]

In Celtic literature we are tolerably rich. Part of our collection came to us, as already
mentioned, by gift from Sir John Sebright, who had purchased the books at Edward Lhuyd’s sale.
Amongst these is the Book of Leinster, a large folio of about the twelfth century, of very varied
contents—historical, romantic, genealogical, and hagiological. The entire text has been published
in lithographed fac-simile at the joint expense of Trinity College and the Royal Irish Academy,
with a preface by Professor R. Atkinson. When this MS. was presented to our Library, eleven
leaves were missing. These were found, however, and identified by Dr. Todd, in the Monastery of

St. Isidore in Rome, whither they had gone from the Irish College in Louvain. They are now
deposited in the Franciscan Monastery in Dublin.

The history of the Book of Lecain or Leacan, another important Irish MS., forms a curious
counterpart to that of the Book of Leinster. The former was included in Ussher’s collection, and
was in our Library in 1688 when the catalogue was compiled. It is there recorded, however, that
nine leaves were wanting. It is stated by Nicolson (Irish Historical Library, p. 39), on the authority
of Dr. Raymond, that the book was lodged in Paris by Sir John Fitzgerald in the time of James II.
If so, this must have been very soon after the catalogue was compiled. In 1787, through the Abbé
Kearney of Paris, it was sent to the Royal Irish Academy, then recently founded, and in their
Library it is now preserved. The nine missing folios were found by O’Curry in one of the Sebright
volumes (H. 2, 17). Although the original Book of Lecain has thus passed from us, we possess a
beautiful copy (on vellum) written by Eugene O’Curry in the old Irish hand. It is worth noting that
the professional scribe still exists in Ireland, and writes a hand undistinguishable from that of his
predecessors many centuries ago.

In connection with the history of these two volumes, it is not inappropriate to mention that of
another important volume, the Book of Ballymote. This was formerly in Trinity College Library,
but was lent in 1720 to Dr. Raymond, and for a time disappeared. In 1769 it turned up at
Drogheda, and being purchased by Chevalier O’Gorman, was by him presented to the Royal Irish
Academy in 1785. We possess a paper copy of a portion of it, including one folio which is now
missing from the original volume.

Here is preserved the MS. already mentioned from which Jebb published Roger Bacon’s
Opus Majus, also the two MSS. from which Howard published the Chronicle of Florence of
Worcester; the original MS., as prepared for press, of Spottiswoode’s History of the Church of
Scotland; the original draft of Berkeley’s Principles of Human Knowledge; also the originals of Sir
Thomas Roe’s Correspondence (Ambassador to the Ottoman Porte, 1621-8, published London,
1740).

Of MSS. bearing on Irish history we have a fair collection. First may be mentioned a volume
of Letters of Queen Elisabeth on Public Affairs in Ireland, 1565 to 1570, each letter having her
sign-manual. There is also a volume of Correspondence of Sir Arthur Chichester, Lord Deputy,
with the English Government, 1612-1614; the thirty-two volumes already mentioned of the
Depositions relative to the Rising of 1641; thirteen volumes of the Correspondence of Geo. Clarke,
Secretary of War, 1690-1694; as many of Archbishop King’s Correspondence, 1696-1729; Irish
Treasury Accounts, 1714-1719; and twelve volumes of Major Sirr’s papers, letters, etc., chiefly
connected with the Rebellion in 1798. We have also Dr. R. R. Madden’s large collection of papers
relating to the United Irishmen.

There are several important volumes of Waldensian literature, which have been catalogued
and described by Todd in his Books of the Vaudois. With Wyclif literature also we are well

supplied, and we have one of the two known copies of the first complete English Prose Psalter,
recently published by Dr. Karl Bülbring for the Early English Text Society. We have two MSS. of
Piers Plowman, five of Rolle’s Pricke of Conscience, and several hymns by Rolle (published by
Todd in the British Magazine, vol. ix.). Dr. Ingram, a few years ago, identified the earliest English
translation of the De Imitatione, disguised under the title the book occasionally bore—Musica
Ecclesiastica.

Nor must I omit to mention the Life of St. Alban in Norman-French, probably in the
handwriting of Matthew Paris, the text of which has been published, with glossary, etc., by
Professor Atkinson. The original MS. is adorned with pictures on nearly every page.

Illustrative of French history we possess statistical accounts of the French provinces and cities
of about the year 1698, filling thirty-two volumes; also a collection, in twenty-five volumes, of
Memoirs (some called “Secret”) of the Foreign and the Financial Affairs of France in the Reign of
Louis XV. These formed part of the Fagel Library. The same library contains a large collection of
maps, printed and MS., some of great rarity. Copies of two or three of these have lately been made
for the Colonial Office, as of value with respect to a question of the boundary of British Guiana.

Our Oriental manuscripts include a magnificent Koran from the Library of Tippoo, presented
by the East India Company; also a very fine copy of the Shâh Nâmeh from the same library,
likewise presented by the Company; some beautiful books from the Royal Library at Shiraz,
presented, with other Oriental MSS., by W. Digges Latouche; and many fine Persian MSS.,
purchased from Sir W. Ouseley. An interesting and important Syriac MS. has been lately identified
by Prof. Gwynn. It contains, besides a treatise of Ephraim Syrus, those parts of the New Testament
which are not found in the Peshitto or Syriac Vulgate; and Dr. Gwynn has demonstrated that it is
the actual MS. referred to by De Dieu and Walton as belonging to Ussher, and usually described
erroneously as containing the whole New Testament. This is the MS. from which De Dieu, and
subsequently Walton, printed the Pericopa de Adultera.[132]

To come to printed books. We have but one example of a block book—the Ars Moriendi—
and that imperfect. So far as it goes, it agrees with the British Museum copy published by Mr.
Rylands. We have a copy of the first German Bible [1466]; a single leaf (on vellum) of the famous
Mazarin Bible; and a copy of the Latin Bible printed at Cologne by Nic. Goetz de Schletzstadt
[1474].

The Quin collection includes the first edition of Petrarch: Sonetti e Trionfi (1470); the first of
the Divina Commedia (1472), and the first of Boccaccio’s Theseide (1475), very rare; also a
splendid copy, on vellum, of the second edition of Virgil (Venice: Vindelin de Spira, 1470); also,
Ystoria de re Karlo Imperatore (1473), exceedingly rare; the only known vellum Elsevir
(Heinsius: De Contemptu Mortis, 1621); Dita Mundi, by Fazio degl’ Uberti; and the Adventures of
Tewerdanck, on vellum (Nuremberg, 1517), a magnificent specimen of printing. In the Fagel
Library is an extremely fine Latin Plutarch, also on vellum (Jenson, 1478). We have only one

Caxton: Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers (1477); unless we reckon a single leaf (an
Indulgence), which Mr. Bradshaw considered to be from Caxton’s press.

Amongst rare books may be enumerated—a Sarum Horae (Paris: Poitevin, about 1498,
unique); a Sarum Breviary (Paris: Levet. 1494, unique), which seems to have been in early times
mistaken for a manuscript, and is consequently kept and catalogued among the MSS. We have a
copy of Werner Rolevinck’s Fasciculus Temporum in Dutch, printed at Utrecht by Veldener, 1480
—one of the earliest books with woodcuts in the text (coloured).

A book of some interest exhibited in the glass case is Theseus Ambrosius: Introductio in
Chaldaicam Linguam (1539). It is of interest as being the first book in which Syriac types were
used, and next as containing a specimen of spirit-writing dating from the sixteenth century. It
seems that a question having arisen about some property of a deceased lady which was supposed
to be concealed, it was resolved to evoke a demon to answer the question. A sheet of paper and a
pen were placed on the table, and the proper incantation being gone through, the pen rose up,
without anyone seeing the hand that held it, and wrote the characters of which Ambrosius gives a
fac-simile, and which, unfortunately, no one has been able to decipher. I am informed that in the
copy of this book in the Bodleian Library this particular leaf is pasted down, the “devil’s
autograph,” no doubt, being deemed uncanny.

But to enumerate our rare books, or even our fifteenth-century books, would be tedious, if it
were possible. I must not, however, omit to refer to some fine specimens of binding, most of which
are in the Quin collection. We have six of Grolier’s books[133]—namely, Erasmus: Pacis Querella;
Palladius: Coryciana; Greek Psalter (Aldus); Il Nuovo Cortegiano; Cynthio degli Fabritii; Della
Origine delli Volgari Proverbi; and (perhaps the finest) Guilelmus Tyrius: Belli Sacri Historia
(folio). Of Maioli we have—Ori Apollinis de Sacris Notis et Sculpturis, Catullus, Tibullus, and
Propertius; one by Monnier—Spaccio de la Bestia Trionfante; and last, but not least, a copy of
Quintus Calaber, which belonged to Henry II. of France and Diane de Poitiers.

There are in the Library a few interesting objects other than books which deserve notice. The
satchel of the Book of Armagh, and the shrines of the Books of Dimma and Mulling, have been
already noticed. A very remarkable object is a Mosque Staff, presented by Dr. Jolliffe Tufnell, who
professionally attended Omar Pasha’s army in 1854. Such a staff is used where there are no
mosques, and being set up on a temporary structure, as a heap of stones, it represents a mosque.
On each of the four sides is carved a sentence from the Koran. “I am in the house of the Lord.”
“Evil and good are sent by God; be content with your lot.” “Every day we offer our prayers to
Thee.” “Forgive us all our sins.” “With heart and soul we believe in Thee.”

An ancient Irish harp attracts the attention of visitors from the repute attaching to it, of being
the harp of Brian Boroimhe (pron. Boru, d. 1014). It is elegantly carved, and in form much
resembles the harp of Queen Mary, an engraving of which is exhibited beside it. It had thirty
strings. The following is the tradition respecting this harp, as quoted in the Ulster Journal of

Archæology, vol. vii., p. 99, from a MS. by Ralph Ouseley, 1783.[134] “It had been taken to Rome,
and remained there until Innocent XI. sent it as a token of good will to Charles II., who deposited
it in the Tower. Soon afterwards, the Earl of Clanricarde, seeing it, assured the King that he knew
an Irish nobleman (meaning O’Brien, Earl of Thomond) who would probably give a limb of his
estate for this relic of his great ancestor; on which his Majesty made him a present of it. Lord
Clanricarde brought the instrument to Ireland; but Lord Thomond, being abroad, never became
possessed of it. Some years after, a Lady Henley purchased it by barter, in exchange for twenty
rams and as many ewes of English breed, in order to give it to her son-in-law, Henry M‘Mahon,
Esq., of Clunagh, County Clare; from whom it passed through other hands to an accomplished
gentleman, the Right Hon. William Conyngham,” who presented it to Trinity College. Conyngham
seems to have been given the harp by Chevalier O’Gorman, who gave a history of it (published in
Vallancey’s Collectanea, vol. iv. 7) differing from that just quoted. According to O’Gorman’s
story, Brian’s son Donogh, on being deposed, took the harp (with the crown and regalia) to Rome,
and gave them to the Pope.[135] He adds the fiction that it was on the ground of possessing these
regalia that Pope Adrian claimed the right to dispose of the lordship of Ireland. The story goes on
to say that a later Pope gave the harp to Henry VIII., who presented it to the first Earl of
Clanricarde.[136] The celebrated antiquary, Dr. George Petrie, considered that our harp dated from
about A.D. 1400, and was a portable instrument used for ecclesiastical purposes. One strong
objection to the earlier date he based on the fact that it bore a silver badge with the arms of
O’Neill, armorial bearings not having been in use much earlier than the date he assigned. This
badge disappeared for some time, and fortunately came into the possession of a distinguished
antiquary, Mr. Robert Day, of Cork, affixed to a piece of armour found in some recent excavations
in the Phœnix Park. As soon as Mr. Day learned the history of the badge, he promptly presented it
to the Library. In its absence it was easy to observe that the carving was continuous, so that the
badge must have been a later addition. Petrie’s first argument, therefore, fell to the ground. It is
true, however, that the figures of two wolf-dogs are carved on the harp itself. His second objection
was founded on the occurrence of the letters IHC, which may be traced in a peculiar angular form
near the top of the front arm. But this also, in the opinion of good judges, is later than the rest of
the carving. The harp, therefore, may possibly be older than Petrie’s date. The sound-board is of
oak (as ascertained by microscopical examination), but very much decayed.

The same case which contains the harp contains also a few gold and silver ornaments of
elegant workmanship, and a large spear brooch, which, however, has none of the characteristic
Irish work, and is in fact very similar to a Scandinavian brooch figured in M. Du Chaillu’s Viking
Age, vol. ii., p. 329, but has more ornament. It is 13¾ in. long, 5½ wide across the circle, and
weighs 18 oz. It is figured in Vallancey’s Collectanea, vol. i., where it is stated that it had recently
(1786) been found near Cashel.

In the Librarian’s room is the largest of the gold ornaments yet found in Ireland. It is in form
like the small fibulae, but weighs 33 oz. 4 dwt. It is adorned with groups of concentric circles and

a series of acute angles, with no trace of the spirals so characteristic of Celtic art in Christian
times. From this it is inferred that it is of older date. This ornament was found at Clones in 1820,
and purchased by the College. The Charter horn of the Kavanaghs, after being in the Library for a
century, was a few years ago surrendered to the family. A cast of it is exhibited.

A small bas-relief which hangs on one of the pillars calls for some notice. It represents
Demosthenes at the altar of Calaureia, where he took the fatal poison. The whole posture, but
especially the head, expresses the utmost dejection. The position of the right hand also should be
observed; instead of clasping the knee, it hangs idly on one side. There is an engraving of this
work in Winckelmann’s History of Art, but the engraver, by raising the chin, has quite lost the
aspect of dejection, and rather gives the impression that the orator is meditating a speech. It is also
engraved in Allen’s Demosthenes and in Stock’s Demosthenes. This relief belonged to Dr. Richard
Mead, and is said to have been found in the ruins of Hadrian’s Villa. After Mead’s sale in 1755,
where it was purchased by a London dealer, it disappeared from view until about 1885, when I had
the good fortune to identify it in the centre ornament of a mantelpiece in the room which formerly
contained the Museum (now the Front Hall), and which was built in 1759. Certain errors in the
arrangement of the drapery have suggested doubts as to its genuineness.[137] On the other hand, in
its favour is the fact that the features resemble those of the bust found in Herculaneum in 1753; but
it was known in 1737, before the discovery of that bust, and at a time when a wholly different type
of face was accepted as that of Demosthenes. Possibly even ancient artists may have erred
sometimes.

Another objection is the misspelling of the name—viz., ΔΗΜΩΣΘΕΝΗΣ. But would not a
modern sculptor, who would presumably be too ignorant of Greek to substitute Ω for Ο, be less
likely to commit this error than a Roman sculptor of Hadrian’s time, who would probably know a
little Greek?

Just inside the entrance to the building are two Medallion Busts which were brought from
Smyrna in 1707. They are mentioned by Gudius and Boeckh.[138] They were made the subject of a
learned dissertation by Dr. Kennedy Bailie (Transactions, Royal Irish Academy, vol. xxii.). He
concludes that the larger medallion represents Plautilla, wife of Caracella, deified under the title
ΝΕΑ ἩΡΑ, but afterwards deposed and banished.

Our collection of Coins is not very large. Of Roman coins, silver and copper, we have a fairly
good collection—about 1,300 silver and a couple of thousand copper. A selection of these is
exhibited. The collection ought to be better, but unfortunately, about a hundred years ago (viz., in
1788), the room where the coins were then kept (now the Fagel) was burglariously entered, and the
most valuable coins and medals stolen. Recently, the late Rev. Dr. R. F. Littledale bequeathed a
small collection of English coins and medals.

An old Minute Book of the Library, chiefly in the handwriting of Dr. Barrett, contains
occasional items of interest. Here we read of a ship with books for the Library cast away, the

books, however, being recovered, but damaged, some irrecoverably. Again, we find some books
which had been stolen restored through the Roman Catholic priest to whom the thief had made
confession. On another occasion a parcel of stolen books is thrown into the Provost’s courtyard.
An amusing entry occurs, in which Dr. Barrett states his intention to ask permission to lock up a
certain Narrative of a Residence in Ireland, by Mrs. Anne. Plumptre (1815), stating that it is too
silly and too ill-mannered for a public library. “Hospitably entertained by the good-natured,
blundering Irish, and introduced (perhaps for the first time in her life) into good company, she
takes care to let [the] world know it by publishing all the little tea-table talk they had indulged in to
amuse her, and many of whom are probably now blushing at seeing it embodied in a pompous
quarto, illustrated with engravings. Travel in savage countries, Mrs. Anne, and publish their
conversations if you can, but spare the feelings of those who are accustomed to the rules and
decencies of civilised life.”

An account of the Library would be incomplete if the Catalogue were left unnoticed. The first
printed Catalogue was issued about 1710 in one thin volume, folio. We have now a printed
Catalogue in nine folio volumes, which includes all the printed books in the Library at the end of
the year 1872. The first volume of this Catalogue (A and B) was prepared under the direction of
Dr. Todd, and issued in 1864. The work was then suspended, and not resumed until 1872, when a
special editor, Mr. H. Dix. Hutton, was appointed, the time of the Library staff being fully
employed otherwise. The Catalogue was completed Jan. 1, 1887, the expense of printing and paper
alone having been £4,500. Since that time Mr. Hutton has been engaged in preparing a
Supplementary Catalogue, to contain the subsequent accessions. When this has been completed up
to the present time, it is intended to make it a Desk Catalogue, in which all new accessions will be
inserted on printed slips. The Catalogue is primarily an author’s catalogue—that is to say, books
are arranged under the names of their authors, where known. But by the liberal use of cross
references and secondary entries, some of the advantages of a subject catalogue are obtained. In
the Desk Catalogue now in preparation, the method adopted by the editor, Mr. Hutton, is as
follows:—One copy of the printed slip is taken, and in the upper left-hand corner the proper
subject heading is type-written by him, and this slip is then inserted in alphabetical order,
according to this heading. This saves the expense of printing a fresh title for the secondary entry.

Of our MSS. the earliest existing catalogue is that of 1688, which was compiled with great
care. This is also the only catalogue at present accessible to readers at a distance, having been
printed in Bernard’s Catalogus Manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ. In the Library itself the
catalogue most commonly used is one drawn up by Dr. John Lyon about 1745, which, however,
only extends to Classis G. A more complete catalogue, extending to Classis M, was prepared by
Dr. Henry J. Monck Mason, about the year 1814, for the Irish Commissioners of Public Records,
with a view to publication. The terms proposed by Dr. Monck Mason and his specimen of the work
were approved, and when the rough copy (in five volumes) was finished he was required to hand it
over to the Board. Then the question of remuneration was raised, and it was discovered that no

minute had been entered of the original engagement; and as some of the members of the Board had
been changed, the engagement, in the absence of a written vote, was not held to be sufficient to
outweigh considerations of public economy.

Dr. Monck Mason devoted much conscientious labour and
intelligence to the work. He was assisted in the department of
Irish MSS. by Edward O’Reilly; in that of Oriental MSS. by
Edward Hincks, then sub-librarian; and in the Icelandic MSS. by
George Cash. It is much to be lamented that the work was not
published as designed. The MSS. in the Irish language have
been catalogued by Dr. O’Donovan in one thick folio volume.
There exists also a card catalogue, consisting of about 20,000
cards, prepared under the direction of Dr. Benjamin Dickson,
assistant librarian. He employed, at his own expense, a person
acquainted with the Irish vernacular, but otherwise not as well
BOOK RECESSES IN LIBRARY. qualified as might be wished (the inevitable result of want of
means to pay a qualified scholar).

It is in contemplation to print a summary catalogue much briefer than Dr. Monck Mason’s,
but containing sufficient information about each volume to indicate to students at a distance what
they may expect to look for in it. A catalogue of this kind need not occupy more than one volume,
and might be sold at such a price as would make it generally accessible.

It may interest librarians to learn how the accommodation has been from time to time
enlarged. Up to the end of the eighteenth century, the room in the east wing, now occupied by the
Fagel Library, was set apart as the MSS. Room. In the stalls in the Long Room, where the short
bookcases are at present, there were seats like settles, the ends of which still remain. From the high
cases projected sloping desks, below which there were no books. The engraving in Malton’s Views
of Dublin represents this state of things. These seats and desks were removed in 1817. The
Reading Room was the upper room in the west wing, now the Clerks’ Room. The whole of the
ground floor, except in the wings, was an open ambulatory, divided length-wise by a central wall,
the south side being used by the Fellows. The rooms on the ground floor in both wings were
Lecture Rooms—that at the west for Law, that at the east end for Divinity. The Law Lecture Room
also contained the Lending Library. There were no bookcases in the gallery.
INNER STAIRCASE IN LIBRARY.

In 1802 the Fagel Library was placed in the East Room, and the MSS.
were removed to the room above it. The next step was the erection of the
short bookcases in the stalls. In 1844 Dr. Todd introduced the ingenious
device of low bookcases in the windows of the gallery, revolving on hinges,
and with shelves on both sides. In the central part of the building, where the

walls are thicker, there were two of these—one outside the other—so that,
with the fixed shelves at the back, there were five shelves in
depth and four in height. In the shallower windows these
were but three in depth. In 1860 it had become necessary to
reconstruct the roof, and then bookcases were placed on the
gallery over those below, and reaching to the roof. Most of
the revolving cases had then to be removed.

Meantime, in 1848, the room on the ground floor in the
east wing had been made a Reading Room, and heated by
hot-water pipes. A spiral staircase connected it with the
room above. When it became necessary to have a means of
communication with the gallery at this end, it was proposed
either to continue this staircase, or to construct a similar one
at the other end of the room. The objection to this scheme
was a remarkable one: it would give too great vent for the heated air, and so cause draughts; in
other words, it would help to ventilate the Reading Room—the very thing that was wanted!

When the new Lecture Rooms and Museum were built, the MSS. were removed to their
present place on the ground floor near the entrance, and some twenty-five years after that,
bookcases were constructed in the upper east room. A few years ago these were in their turn nearly
filled, and it became necessary to enclose the ground floor of the Library. This work was
completed this year (1892). The western third of this space constitutes the new Reading Room.

INTERIOR OF LIBRARY, 1860.

Only graduates (of Dublin, Oxford, or Cambridge) have the right of admission to the Library;
but the privilege has always been freely granted to persons properly introduced, whether graduates
of a university or not, so that it is, in fact, a public library. In 1856 it was resolved by the Board
and Visitors to grant admission to students who have entered on their third year, that being the
usual period for commencing professional studies; but admission is always granted at an earlier
period to a student whose studies are such as to make it desirable.

THE LIBRARY, 1891. (SEE PAGE 213.)

LIBRARY STAIRCASE AND ENTRANCE TO READING ROOM.

Previously to 1843, readers were allowed to take books from the shelves themselves, but in
that year this privilege was limited to the Fellows and Professors, except in the Reading Room,
where books of reference and other books in frequent demand are accessible to all readers. This
change caused a considerable diminution in the number of readers. A similar resolution had been
passed in 1817, but rescinded a few months after, it being thought to be contrary to the Statutes,
which forbade readers to replace a book anywhere except in its place on the shelves. The Provost

(Elrington) protested against the rescission, alleging, inter alia, that free access to the shelves led
to the reading of indecent books, and he had even known books of magic to be read.

The hours during which the Library was open were formerly eight to ten, and eleven to one.
We read once or twice of permission being given to readers to remain locked in between ten and
eleven. The hour of closing was afterwards postponed to two o’clock. At present, the Reading
Room is open from ten to six; the Library itself is closed at three in winter, and four in summer.

ROYAL ARMS NOW PLACED IN LIBRARY.

F OOT NOT E S :
[110] This is the amount stated in the Book of Benefactors (MS.). Dr. Bernard, in his Life of Ussher,
makes the sum £1,800.

[111] Brereton’s Travels, published by the Chetham Society in 1844.

[112] When the House of Commons was debating whether they should admit Ussher to the Assembly of
Divines Selden said, “They had as good inquire whether they had best admit Inigo Jones, the King’s
architect, to the company of mouse-trap makers.”—Elrington’s Life of Ussher, p. 231.

[113] MS., of which a copy was given to the Library by Mr. Edward Evans, 1887.

[114] The Library of Trinity College, Dublin. An address delivered at the Seventh Annual Meeting of the
Library Association, by John K. Ingram, LL.D., F.T.C.D., President.

[115] A separate room was provided for the Museum in 1777.

[116] In the judgment of the learned Dr. Rudolph Siegfried, formerly Professor of Sanskrit in this
University, the name of Edward Lhuyd as a comparative philologist deserved to stand “right after” that
of Bopp.

[117] The Bodleian was the first Library to acquire this privilege, James I. having induced the Company
of Stationers to give it a copy of every work entered at their Hall. In the reign of Anne the Royal Library
acquired the privilege, and when George II., in 1757, gave his library to the British Museum, he
transferred this privilege with it. The Act of 1801 granted it to eleven libraries, but most of these have
commuted it for an annual grant.

[118] Lithography would have had the appearance of greater exactness, but to a great extent only the
appearance, for some of the pages are so obscure that the lithographic artist would have been unable of
himself to trace the letters, and would be as dependent on a scholar for guidance as the engraver was. The
errors of even so practised a decipherer at Tregelles suffice to prove this.

[119] Rendiconti del R. Istitecto Lombardo, ser. ii., vol. xix., fasc. 4.

[120] See Hermathena, No. xviii., 1892. The colophon is as follows:—“Rogo beatitudinem | tuam sce
præsbiter | patrici ut quicumque | hunc libellum manu te | nuerit meminerit colum | bae scriptoris qui hoc
scripsi | himet evangelium per xii dierum spatium gtia dni nri s.s.” The only doubtful letters are “hi”
before “met.” If I read them rightly, the colophon must be a copy, the syllable “mi” being omitted.
Moreover, the book is copied from one in which the leaves containing the summaries or “breves causæ”
were somewhat disordered, and the copyist had not sufficient knowledge to correct the disorder. There
are blunders, too, which could hardly have been committed by Saint Columba.

[121] “Oroit agus bendacht cholumb chille do Flaund mace mailsechnaill do Righereim la sa ndernada
cumddach so.”

[122] MacGeoghegan: Annals of Ireland (MS. T.C.D.), an. 590, p. 52.

[123] Topographia Hiberniæ, ii., c. 38.

[124] Graves: Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. iii., pp. 316, 356.

[125] The note is as follows (the contractions expanded):—“Sanctus Patricius iens ad coelum | mandauit
totum fructum | laboris sui tam babtismi tam causarum et elemoisina | rum deferendum esse apos | tolicae
urbi quae scotice | nominatur arddmacha | sic reperi in beblioticis | scotorum ego scripsi | id est caluus
perennis in con | spectu briani imperato | ris scotorum et quod scripsi | finivit pro omnibus regibus

maceriae” (i.e., of Cashel). The scribe originally wrote “finit” for “finivit;” he then expunged the “t” by a
point under. This is the origin of O’Curry’s ridiculous “figuivit.”

[126] On the Book of Armagh, see Sir W. Betham: Irish Antiquarian Researches; Petrie: Essay on the
Round Towers; Bishop Graves, ubi supra; and Bishop Reeves, Proc. R. I. Acad., ser. iii., vol. ii., p. 77.

[127] See a drawing in Curzon’s Monasteries of the Levant.

[128] Published by Bishop Forbes in his Liber Ecclesiæ de Arbuthnott.

[129] This is the story as told to and by Monck Mason, from whom Sir W. Betham bought the MS., and
who had himself bought it from a Mr. Harrison of Nenagh. Sir W. Betham not unreasonably questions the
truth of the story.

[130] A remarkable instance is the Codex Purpureus N of the Gospels, of which four leaves are in the
British Museum, two in Vienna, six in the Vatican, and thirty-three at Patmos.

[131] The MS. is B.3.6. On fol. cxxx. a we read: “Expletis benedictionibus faciat Episcopus Crucem in
manus singulorum de oleo et chrismate dicens orationem. Consecrare et sanctificare digneris quaesumus
Domine manus istas per istam unctionem et nostram benedictionem ut quaecunque consecraverint
consecrentur, et quaecunque benedixerint benedicantur et sanctificentur per Christum Dominum nostrum.
Deinde patenam cum oblatis et calicem cum vino det singulis dicens ad eos lenta voce. Accipite
potestatem offerre sacrificium Deo missamque celebrare tam pro vivis quam et pro defunctis in nomine
Domini. Sequitur ultima benedictio: Benedictio Domini Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti descendat super
vos ut sitis benedicti in ordinem sacerdotalem, offerentes placabiles hostias pro peccatis atque
offensionibus populi omnipotenti Deo, cui est honor et gloria in saecula saecularum. Amen. Et osculetur
singulos et omnes qui ordinati sunt, deferant oblationes ad manus episcopi.” Opposite this in the margin,
secunda manu, is a series of different rubrics and prayers, of which the most notable is “Post
benedictionem imponat manum super capita ordinatorum dicendo: Accipite Spiritum Sanctum, et
quorum remiseritis peccata remissa sunt, et quorum retinueritis retenta sunt.” Then follows, secunda
manu, the “Finalis Benedictio.”

[132] On a Syriac MS. belonging to the collection of Archbishop Ussher, by the Very Rev. John Gwynn,
D.D., Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. xxvii.

[133] None of them mentioned by M. Le Roux de Lincy in his Recherches sur Grolier, sa vie, et sa
bibliothèque.

[134] Bibl. Egerton, Brit. Mus., MS. No. 75, p. 371.

[135] Conall MacGeoghegan, in his Annals of Ireland (1627, MS.), under 1063, makes the same
statement as to the crown, but says that Pope Adrian gave it to Henry II.

[136] On this and other Irish harps see O’Curry: Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, vol. iii., p.
266. Petrie’s remarks are in Bunting’s Ancient Irish Music.

[137] See Classical Review, May, 1888.

[138] Gudius: Inscriptiones Antiquæ, ed. Hessel; Boeckh: Corpus, ii., p. 778, n. 3346. See a paper by Dr.
Todd—Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. ii., p. 49.

FRONT OF TRINITY COLLEGE,
from Brooking’s Map of Dublin,
1728.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE E A R LY B U I L D I N G S .

hen Adam Loftus, Archbishop of Dublin, had induced Queen
Elizabeth to grant a Charter of Incorporation to a University to
be established in Dublin, he addressed himself to the Mayor
and Corporation of the City with a view to obtaining a suitable site. And,
happily for the success of the scheme which he and the more academic
Luke Challoner so successfully carried out, and for the future welfare of the
new Institution, a site the most suitable and the most admirable that could
have been found in Ireland was at that moment at the disposal of the
Corporation of Dublin—the old Augustinian Monastery of All Hallows,
lying to the eastward, and just outside the City. As far as we can gather from
the recitals in the lease of the monastic buildings and site made by the
Mayor and Sheriffs in the year 1591 to John Spensfield, the precincts,
besides a church, consisted of “a steeple, a building with a vault under it,
the spytor, otherwise called the hall, with appurtenances all along to the
north cheek of the Bawn Gate.” We find that there were also within the
precincts of the Monastery the sub-prior’s orchard and the common
orchard, and a field called the Ashe Park, wherein the prior and the monks
had their haggard and cistern, with the western storehouse by the Great
Bawn, together with a vestry cloister, a little garden within the precincts,
and a tower over the gate adjoining Hoggen Green. The buildings, without
the lands, appear to have been let to John Pepard, merchant, for sixty-one
years, at ten shillings a-year, with a clause restraining him from taking
stones, or slates, or timber out of the precincts; the materials thereon were

to be used only for building on the site. Another lease was made to Edward
Pepard, in 1584, of a small orchard in All Hallows for thirty-one years, at
twenty-four shillings a-year; and in 1583 Edward Pepard had sub-let, for
twenty-one years, to Peter van Hey and Thomas Seele, a garden with a vault
at the north side of All Hallows, at a yearly rent of forty shillings, with a
covenant that they should keep up the garden wall and the vaults. It would
thus appear that at this time the Pepards had acquired the site of the
buildings and a small orchard, possibly that formerly occupied by the sub-
prior, as tenants on a terminable lease. During the fifty years which elapsed
from the suppression of the Monastery, the buildings must have suffered
very considerable dilapidation. Most likely they had not been originally
erected in a very substantial and durable manner; and as little care seems to
have been taken as to the maintenance of the church, the hall, and the
monastic dwellings, they must have been for the most part in a ruinous
condition. The total value of the site and precincts is stated in a letter from
Queen Elizabeth to have been £20 a-year. At the close of the Queen’s reign
the City of Dublin did not extend towards the east beyond St. George’s
Lane, now called South Great George’s Street. An open space of ground
stretched from thence to All Hallows, with paths diverging to different parts
of a small stream, beyond which lay the site of the old Monastery. The
whole of the precincts at that time covered about twenty-eight acres, of
which twelve were in meadow, nine in pasture, and seven in orchard. On
the north, towards the river, there was a boggy strip of ground covered by
the water at high tide, and bounded on the south by the path leading to St.
Patrick’s Well, near the present entrance to Kildare Street, and bounded on
the east by lands formerly belonging to the Abbey of the Blessed Virgin, but
then in the tenure of John Dougan, on the site of the modern Westland Row.
[139]

And such was the influence of the Archbishop, supported by his
Archdeacon, Henry Ussher, and by Luke Chaloner, of Trinity College,

Cambridge, and two Scotch schoolmasters, James Hamilton and James
Fullerton, who were at the time in Dublin, that the Corporation convened
the citizens to a general assembly at the Tholsel, where they, after due
deliberation upon the proposal to grant the site of the monastery for the
intended College, immediately proceeded to make the grant. A Charter of
Incorporation had in the meantime been obtained from the Queen, on the
petition of Henry Ussher. The letter of Elizabeth to Sir William Fitzwilliam,
Lord Deputy, and to the Irish Council, announcing her consent to this
arrangement, is dated December 21st, 1591; and, on the 3rd of the
following March, Letters Patent passed the Great Seal.[140] The first stone of
the new building was laid on March 13th, 1592. Subscriptions from the
gentry in every part of Ireland were received for the building, and on
January 9th, 1594, the new College was completed. No remains of this
structure exist at the present day; indeed, no buildings prior to the reign of
William III. are now to be found in Trinity College. The Elizabethan edifice
consisted of a small square court, which was always familiarly called The
Quadrangle, and which was removed early in the latter half of the
eighteenth century. Some parts of the old monastery were no doubt utilised
in the new building. As the visitor approached from Hoggen Green he
crossed an outer enclosed court, which formed an entrance to the College;
he then entered through the great gate, and found himself in a small square,
probably on the site of the southern portion of the great main square of the
College, then surrounded by buildings constructed of thin red Dutch brick,
with probably a good deal of wooden framework inserted. On the north side
lay the old steeple of the monastery, having the porter’s lodge on the ground
floor, and a chamber over it; and on the second loft was hung the College
bell. Towards the east of the steeple lay the Chapel; on the same side of the
quadrangle was the Hall, paved with tiles, with a gallery, and a lantern in
the roof. The hall was separated from the kitchen by a wooden partition,
and in the same range with them was placed the Library. This room was

over the scholars’ chambers, and had a gallery, and the lower part of it was
fitted with ten pews for readers. The Regent House seems to have been
between the Chapel and the Hall, and a gallery in the Regent House looked
into the Chapel. This range of buildings extended to the east side of the
court, beyond the site of the present Campanile. On the north of this range
lay the kitchen, buttery chamber, and the storehouse. The east and west
sides of the quadrangle contained students’ chambers, and on the south side
were placed houses for the Fellows. The three sides composed in all seven
buildings for residence—three on the south side, and two on each of the
east and west sides. The upper story was lightened by dormer windows,
with leaden lattices, and in the centre of the quadrangle stood the celebrated
College pump.[141]

T HE E L I Z ABE T HAN COL L E GE .

For this interesting section as to the Elizabethan College, the writer is
indebted to the Rev. J. W. Stubbs, D.D., S.F.T.C.D.:—

For a long period it was impossible to form an accurate idea of the size
and arrangements of the buildings of the original College. The very
foundations have long since been obliterated. Speed’s map gives a rough
idea of its site and general shape; and Rocque’s map, which was constructed
in 1751, before the structure was removed, shows its position with regard to
the present Library and some of the portions of the College which remain.
Dunton’s Life and Errors gives a description of the buildings as they stood
one hundred years after their erection, yet his details are in some respects
misleading.

In the present year, a paper in the handwriting of Sir William Temple,
Provost in 1523, has been found, giving the distribution of the chambers in

the College among the Fellows and students in that year, and which, with
the aid of the preceding authorities and letters of the period, enables us to
form a fairly accurate conception of the buildings as they existed in the time
of James the First.

FROM ROCQUE’S MAP OF DUBLIN, 1750.

The College was a quadrangle, the eastern and western sides being
longer than those on the north and south. The approach was through a tower
which lay on the north side, and which was the “steeple” of the old

Monastery, having the porter’s lodge on the ground floor, and a chamber
over it. In the second story was placed the College bell. The remainder of
the north side was occupied by the Chapel and the Hall; the Chapel lay
towards the east, and the Hall towards the west, of the entrance. There
appears to have been an attic over one of these buildings, which contained
four “studies” for undergraduates. The Regent House seems to have been
located between the Chapel and the Hall, for candidates for degrees passed
through the Hall into the Regent House, and a gallery in the Regent House
looked into the Chapel. The Hall was paved with tiles, had a lantern in the
roof, and had a gallery, probably communicating with the room over the
porter’s lodge. On the south side of the quadrangle, which lay between the
present Library and the centre of the present Examination Hall, there were
four houses; the ground floors of these houses were occupied by students’
rooms, there being ten “studies” occupied by fourteen students. The house
on the east of the south side had no other chambers occupied, and the first
and second stories probably contained the library, which we may learn from
the College accounts of the period had a gallery and a lower story which
was fitted up with ten “pews” for readers. The next house had two students
resident on the ground floor, and two Fellows on the first floor. The third
house had three “studies” on the ground floor, but the first and second
stories were not occupied by students or by Fellows. Possibly it was in this
house that Ussher’s books were afterwards placed. The fourth house had
two “studies” on the ground floor, and a Fellow and a student occupied the
first floor.

On the east side of the quadrangle there were six houses, each having
“studies” for three students on the ground floor. In the first of these houses
the remaining floors were unoccupied. In the second, three students
occupied the attic. Chambers were there assigned also to one Fellow, one
Master of Arts, and to the Professor of Divinity. In the third house there
were three “studies” on the ground floor, but the remaining floors were not

assigned for chambers. In the fourth house there were three “studies” on the
ground floor—two Fellows and two Masters of Arts occupied the first floor,
and a Master of Arts the attic. The fifth house had three “studies” on the
ground floor—three Fellows and one student had chambers on the first
floor, and five students resided in the attic story. The sixth house had three
“studies” on the ground floor, and three graduates resided over them.

On the west side there were three houses, with three “studies” on the
ground floor of each. The first house had no occupied chambers over the
ground floor. In the second house one Fellow and two Masters of Arts had
chambers on the first floor; one Master of Arts and two students resided in
the attic. The first floor of the third house on this side was occupied by two
Fellows and by one Master of Arts, and the attic by two students, apparently
brothers. The remainder of the west side was possibly occupied by the
Provost’s chambers.

There was no approach to the interior of the College from Hoggen
Green, nor did the ground on the west side of the College at that time
belong to it. We find in 1639 a letter from Provost Bedell to Ussher giving
an account of a riot among the students, which arose from an attempt of one
Arthur to make an enclosure on that side of the College on land which he
had leased from the City of Dublin. A petition was forwarded from the
College to the Council complaining of Arthur’s proceeding to erect a
building on that side of the College, by which a passage would be taken
away where there was in former times a gate or way leading into the site
upon which the College was built, which, although at that time closed, was
intended to be opened again by the College. It ended in the College
acquiring Arthur’s interest in the plot, and so preserving a right of way.

COL L E GE GRE E N.

The ground at present known as College Green was once the site of a
considerable village outside the walls of the City of Dublin, known as Hog
or Hogges.[142] A convent for nuns of the rule of St. Augustine was founded
on les Hogges in 1146 by Dermot MacMurchard, King of Leinster, and the
open space obtained the name of Hoggen Green.[143] How the nunnery of St.
Mary atte Hogge was dissolved, and the buildings granted to the citizens of
Dublin in 1534; how it was proposed to turn the buildings into a jail or
bridewell; how, in consequence of some dispute with the builder, the
property was handed over to the University, and became a second College
or High School under the name of Trinity Hall; and how at length, in 1667,
thanks to the efforts of Dr. Stearne, the President, Trinity Hall was
converted into the College of Physicians of Ireland, is all very interesting,
but it is quite outside the scope of the present chapter. The modern Trinity
Street marks the site of Trinity Hall, which was only demolished about the
year 1700. Hogges Gate, the eastern gate of the City of Dublin opening
upon Hoggen Green, facing the College, and standing somewhere near the
site of the modern Forster Place, was removed in 1663 as being not only
useless, but ruinous. The equestrian statue of King William III., that is now
so prominent a feature of College Green, was erected by the Corporation of
Dublin, and unveiled with great pomp on the 1st of July, 1801. The figure
of Henry Grattan was executed by J. H. Foley, R.A., an Irish artist, and
placed in its present position in January, 1876. The fine bronze statues of
Edmund Burke and Oliver Goldsmith, truly distinguished students of
Trinity College, which are also the work of Foley, stand within the College
railings on either side of the Grand Entrance. That of Goldsmith was placed
in its present position in January, 1864; and that of Burke in April, 1868.
They are both admirable. The statue of Goldsmith especially is one of the
finest, if not the finest work of the sculptor.

T HE M ODE RN COL L E GE .
Ampelopsis veitchii.

The most distinguishing characteristic,
from a material point of view, of
Trinity College as it now stands in the
heart of the City of Dublin, is perhaps
that of spaciousness. It is the College
of magnificent distances; for a space
of over twenty-eight acres is enclosed
by the outermost walls—twenty-eight
acres of granite and of green sward, of park and
plantation, of shrubbery and wilderness, of
noble buildings and of uninteresting enclosures.
Like most people and many places, Trinity
College has what the French call les défauts de
ses qualités. With abundant elbow-room, yet not
without a touch of dreariness; with a site unsurpassed in any modern city,
and needing nothing but variety in elevation, and running water, to make it
unrivalled in the world—its very vastness makes it somewhat bare, its very
dignity makes it somewhat cold, its very spaciousness makes it somewhat
scattered. The granite of its buildings is grey; the limestone and freestone
are grey; the slated roofs are grey. It would require a regiment of scarlet
Lancers to give colour to the quadrangle.[144] To compare is usually idle, and
is often impertinent; but it is obviously impossible to find, in an enceinte of
hard upon thirty acres, the warmth and wealth of treatment, the perfection
of finish, the fulness and richness of detail, that are so happily realised
when the tender care of half-a-dozen centuries has been devoted to the
adornment of a single quadrangle, to the artistic treatment of two or three

acres of ground. And it must be remembered that all that we now see in
Trinity College is the work of little over a century of most diligent and most
faithful care. For some hundred and fifty years after the foundation of the
University,
the buildings of the new College seemed to have sufficed for the
accommodation of the students; but in October, 1751, a petition of the
Provost, Fellows, and Scholars of the College of Dublin to the Irish
Parliament set forth “That the said College does not contain chambers
sufficient for lodging the number of young gentlemen who, for several
years past, have been sent thither for education, and that many of the
buildings of the said College are, from length of time, become ruinous, and
are not capable of being restored; that by the Statutes of the College no
provision is made for new buildings, or for any other than the annual repairs
of the buildings originally provided, notwithstanding which the petitioners
have expended several large sums, which by great care they have saved out
of the ordinary expenses of the College, on necessary public buildings, and
to increase the number of chambers for the reception of students.” Five
thousand pounds were granted by Parliament in response to this petition,
and the money was expended on the necessary buildings. Two years
afterwards (1753) we find a further sum of ten thousand pounds placed at
the disposal of the College authorities by the Irish Government. The money
was spent, and well spent, on building. And a further petition, on the 1st of
November, 1755, was presented to George II., and a further grant of twenty
thousand pounds made to the College to enable them to rebuild the West
Front. In 1757, the College authorities appear once more as petitioners to
Parliament, stating that they have, with all possible expedition and care,
finished the said north side for which former grants had been made, and are
now rebuilding the front, for which further funds were needed; and a further
and final sum of ten thousand pounds was then placed at their disposal by
His Majesty’s Government. And the College accounts show that between

1752 and 1763 a gross sum of £48,820 had been expended on the work of
construction.

Of the buildings that were erected in Trinity College at the end of the
sixteenth century, we have neither roof nor foundation now remaining. Of
the still older buildings that stood on Hoggen Green in 1583, we have
neither trace nor exact record, beyond that they contained a church, a
steeple, a building with a vault under it, and the spytor already alluded to.

TRINITY COLLEGE—WEST FRONT.

In a curious old print, however, of the beginning of the eighteenth
century, some buildings are figured abutting upon the Library, and running
westwards in the direction of the present Theatre, which were probably a
portion of the old buildings erected in 1594. The lines of the Cistercian

Monastery are supposed by Mr. Drew, the accomplished architect of the
University, to have been a square, of which the south side occupied the site
now partially covered by the Theatre, and extending to the north about half
way across the present main quadrangle of Parliament Square. That a
sixteenth-century College should retain no stone of sixteenth-century
masonry is certainly regrettable. But what is far more remarkable is, that of
the presumably more appropriate and substantial structures which were in
existence when William of Orange landed at Torbay, not a vestige is
standing at the present time. And of the noble buildings which now
compose the College, by far the greater part is no older than the reign of
King George III.

The University has ever been, as it is, one of the few entirely
satisfactory and successful institutions planted by England in the sister isle,
and it has ever promoted sound learning and religious education; but
architecture, or even good building, was for the first century and a-half of
its existence most certainly not its strong point. Nor has Irish artistic feeling
at any time been commonly expressed in Architecture. Ireland has given to
the Empire soldiers and statesmen, poets and orators, philosophers and
divines, men of science and men of action, governors, ministers, judges, in
numbers and in eminence quite out of proportion to her population and her
advantages. But of architects of the first or even of the second class, no
Irishman has inscribed his name on the roll of honour as a designer of great
works at home or abroad. The domestic architecture and the national
ecclesiastical style of building is poor, mean, and uninteresting; and
although Dublin to-day is adorned with many handsome structures, none of
them can be said to have any peculiarly national characteristics, and of the
most important now existing, none are the work of native architects.
Gandon, who built the Custom House and part of the Houses of Parliament,
was a Frenchman; Cooly, who designed the Exchange and the Four Courts,
was an Englishman;[145] Cassels, who did some of the best eighteenth-