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

89 страница из 97

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.”