Читать книгу The Book of Trinity College Dublin 1591-1891 онлайн

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ssss1 Cf. Ussher Memorials, pp. 122, 128.

ssss1 Stubbs, p. 22.

ssss1 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.

ssss1 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.

ssss1

Ruunt agmine facto

In me profana turba Roma Genevaque.

Provost Chappel’s Autobiography.

The 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.ssss1 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.ssss1 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,ssss1 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:ssss1 the intellectual heart of Ireland suffered with its members, and responded to the agonies of the loyal population with sufferings not less poignant.