in confinement stood on terms approaching defiance with his foes, he came to propose to him to risk his reputation, sacrifice his pride, and violate all sense and principle of honour, by the gratuitous baseness of taking false credit for a book, to the composition of which he is allowed to have been himself fully competent. Then, following the well-known course of literary impostures, he takes the time favourable to his purpose; and when it has become unlikely that he can be authoritatively contradicted, he reveals his pretended service, with cautious stipulations of profound and inviolable secrecy, of which the manifest purpose was to prevent the lying secret from reaching the ears of a few venerable persons, who would quickly have exposed the miserable scandal. And having done so, he pressed, with a most ferocious disregard of all decency, for a bishopric, which he obtained. The Earl of Clarendon, the King, and the Duke of York, could have no direct knowledge of the truth. The royal brothers, both alike indifferent to truth, were no friends to the real reputation of their father, and not displeased to see transferred from his memory, a book the substance of which was but reproach to their whole conduct and characters. Clarendon had always professed to believe the book to be the production of the King; and when he received the guilty revelation of the scheming and mitre-hunting Gauden, it was under the seal of the most inviolable secrecy-a secrecy which, we may observe, was in no way objectionable to any party then concerned. Against a testimony little removed from infamous, we should consider that of Levet, the king's affectionate and intelligent page, who never left him during the time assigned to the composition of this work, to be far more than equivalent. "I myself very often saw the king write that which is printed in that book, and did daily read the manuscript of his own hand, in many sheets of paper; and seldom that I read it but tears came from me: and I do truly believe that there is not a page in that book but what I have read, under the King's own hand, before it was printed." To this is added, from the same authority, the evidence of several persons-the printer, the corrector of the press, and the bookseller, who speak to the handwriting, as ascertained from other documents. These, with the assertions of Bishops Inson and Earle, we should consider as decisive in the scale of testimony. As for the host of indirect testimonies, which we cannot here notice on either side, we surmount the difficulties by considering them all as amounting to no calculable value. We know too well the various resources of such frauds, not to know the impossibility, after a little time of silence, of tracing the various trains of contrived accident and seemingly unthought-of confirmation which may be laid by one who is allowed to wait his time, and work in darkness for an end unforethought of but by himself. But if, instead of this digression, we were engaged in the full discussion of this vexata questio, we must confess that the internal probability has impressed us, some years ago, in an actual perusal of the είκων βασιλικη, with a force that rejects all doubt. whole texture of the book is the most peculiarly characteristic emanation, bearing the very living stamp of the author's mind-a mind utterly beyond the reach of Gauden's coarse and low-toned spirit to conceive, and breathing the whole sentiment and affections suited to the character

The

and actual position of the royal sufferer, whose powers of composition are otherwise known to have been such, as renders unaccountable and absurd, the notion that he should have sullied the dignity of which he was so tenacious, so far as to be the accomplice of a superfluous imposture. We can here only add, what should not be omitted, that we must believe there could have been no contest upon such a question, but from the strong anxiety of a party, in everything to lower the character of Charles I.

When the Restoration, after an interval of ten years, once more revived the drooping and prostrate condition of the church in this kingdom, Margetson was appointed to the metropolitan see of Dublin, and was one of the eleven bishops consecrated by primate Bramhal, on the 27th January 1660, as mentioned in the life of that prelate. In 1662, he had occasion to enforce the principle of pulpit-jurisdiction, which has been warmly canvassed in our own times, for which reason we must here decline entering into the controversy, which would lead us far into the discussion of principles more applicable to the church of Ireland in its present state, than to the age of bishop Margetson. We may but observe, that in our own times the reasons for enforcing that degree of episcopal authority which is affirmed in the 28th and 29th of our canons, has been rendered apparent enough by cases in which infidelity has contrived to find its way into the pulpit; while the limitation of that jurisdiction which we think equally deducible from those canons, seems not to be altogether superfluous when the political character of the times must always expose us to the risk of bishops who may feel more inclined to repress than to promote the spiritual advance of the church.

During the short interval of Margetson's tenure of the see of Dublin, his liberality was shown in ample contributions to the repair of the two cathedrals. But on Bramhal's death in 1663, he was by the advice of that able and sagacious prelate, translated to Armagh; and shortly afterwards he was appointed vice-chancellor of the university. It is unnecessary here to pursue a career only marked by the same course of public events which we have already had to repeat. Margetson died in 1678, with the praise of all good men; as one who had discharged the important duties of his high office, with that rare combination of strictness and charity, which won for him from his clergy that respect tempered by love, which belongs to the parental relation. In him, severity when needful came so softened by affectionate regret, that it was felt by the person on whom it fell, to come from the office and not from the man, and to bear the sanctity of just authority without any alloy of anger. He was not less mild and paternal in the rule of the church, than firm and uncompromising in her defence, and in the maintenance of her interests and lawful rights, never failing either in the council or in the parliament to advocate and maintain them under all the varied assaults of that age of trial and emergency.

He was interred in Christ church.

JAMES USHER, PRIMATE OF IRELAND.

BORN A. D. 1580.-DIED A. D. 1656.

THE family of Primate Usher is traced from a person who came over to Ireland with King John. His name was Nevil, but (after the fashion of the time), he received the name of Usher, from the office he held under the king. This appellation was transmitted through a long line of Irish descendants. Of these, in the 17th century, two rose to the highest dignity in the Irish church. The first, Henry, may be noticed for the honour of having been instrumental in the founding of Trinity college. Arnold Usher, a brother of this prelate, and one of the six clerks in the Irish chancery, married a daughter of Mr. James Stanihurst, a master in chancery, recorder of Dublin, and speaker in three parliaments, father to the learned person noticed in a previous memoir, and by this marriage was father to the most illustrious scholar, prelate, and church historian of his age.

From these parents, James Usher was born in Dublin, in 1580. In his early infancy he had the good fortune to be brought up by two aunts, who being blind from their youth, were domesticated in his father's house. Shut out by their infirmity from the excitements and vanities of the world, they had also escaped its corruptions, and found their refuge and consolation in the sequestered ways of religion: and their blindness was enlightened by the purer inward light which is derived from divine truth. From such teachers, the infancy of Usher was from the earliest dawn of childish thought, nurtured in holy knowledge and love: and habits as well as tastes were imparted, which now may appear to have been the providential, as they surely were the appropriate, training for a high and responsible calling in times of great trial. The soil was good ground in every respect: young Usher was as apt to learn as he was afterwards to teach: he showed a quiet, submissive and studious disposition, a retentive memory and quick apprehension, with a peculiar aptitude to receive religious impressions. Nor can we have any doubt in tracing to these peculiar and most interesting circumstances, much of the affecting and impressive piety which, at a remote period of his afterlife, sustained him in so many and such great trials and adversities.

Such a childhood and such a life, indeed, offer the truest illustrations of the wisdom of the inspired precept, "Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth," &c.; for, omitting the trite truths of the power and permanence of youthful habits, and the obvious advantage of pre-occupying the heart with the impressions which are best, and least found in the ways of life, there is a natural return of the affections to the conversation of early years, which increases, the more man finds disappointment in the attractions of life. And it is a happy coincidence when this bright spot in the retrospect is a hallowed spot. It is one way of converting the natural affections into alliance with that spirit, against which our earthly nature is too much at war; and it is a blessed thing, if in a world all the hopes and desires of which

are strongly repugnant to every holy desire or good counsel, the mem ory of those parents and friends and seasons, to which every heart of human mould must from time to time turn most fondly, should come laden with still higher and holier thoughts, and carry up the heart to that seat on high, where the teachers of holiness have gone to their reward.

Such was the happy lot of that illustrious prelate of whose earthly pilgrimage we are now to trace the trying and difficult path. And if his infancy was thus happy, his subsequent education was at least attended with some curious and interesting circumstances. On his tenth year, he was sent to a school kept by two very remarkable men.

Mr Fullarton and Mr Hamilton were two Scotchmen of considerable talent and learning, sent over by the king of Scotland, to cultivate an interest in favour of his claim to the crown. And as the jealousy of Elizabeth on that point was so well known, it was both safe and prudent to adopt some specious pursuit to cover their true design. They set up a school: and considering the dearth of education in Ireland at the time, there was perhaps no course more favourable to that purpose, than one which must have rendered them at once objects of interest to all who were likely to be in any way serviceable, by influence or information. They quickly established the species of intercourse and correspondence, which was considered desirable for their employer's cause. When he came to the throne upon Elizabeth's death, he knighted Fullarton, and raised Hamilton to the peerage by the title of viscount Claudebois.

To the school thus opened, James Usher was sent. And there, for the term of five years, he distinguished himself by his rapid proficiency in latin and rhetoric, the chief school acquirements of the age. He of course attracted the favourable attention of his masters, whose care of his instruction he often afterwards mentioned with gratitude.

It is stated on his own authority, that Usher while at school, had a great love of poetry; and, considering the imitative tendency of youth, this would be a natural result of the first acquaintance with the latin poets. We have already noticed the curious and grotesque imitations of his cousin Richard Stanihurst. English poetry then offered few models, and though these were no less than Chaucer, Spenser and Shakspeare; yet considering the state of literature in Ireland, and the "great scarcity of good books and learned men" then complained of there, with the usual course of school discipline, it is not likely that Usher had formed any conceptions of style more tasteful than those of his cousin. He says, that he laid poetry aside, as likely to interfere with his more useful and solid pursuits, and to those who are acquaint ed with his writings, it will not appear to have been his calling.

The afterpursuits, in which he has acquired permanent renown, were according to his own account of himself, determined by the chance perusal of a book written by Sleidan. Of the state of learning in that period of our history, it would be difficult to speak, as we would wish, within the moderate compass afforded by the task we have in hand; but happily, the expansive literature of the age in which we live, requires little digression into collateral topics. It was one of the characteristics of the learned histories and treatises of an early age,

that they were replete with far-sought and multifarious erudition: it was a maxim, that a book should contain everything in any way connected with its subject; such was indeed the essential condition of a contracted range of knowledge and a scarcity of books. To write a book commensurate with the demands of that period, was the work of a life spent in research and diligent study; and perhaps required far more than the average of intellectual power now employed in similar undertakings. Such powers are for the most part of a nature to impose a determinate direction on the faculties; the force of genius will impel on, or create its way, because it cannot fail to have some decided tendency. In the life of Usher, the marks of such a tendency are distinct enough; but there is a deep interest in the contemplation of the spirit of the several times, in which the great master-builders of the fabric of human knowledge have severally grown up to the fulfilment of their tasks. We shall hereafter have occasion to enter on a more complete and extended view of the academic discipline of Usher's period: a few remarks may here sufficiently illustrate his entrance on the laborious and useful pursuits of a long life, spent in researches of the utmost importance to the ancient history of these isles.

For some time previous to that in which we are now engaged, a considerable revolution in literature had been slowly in progress. The recent cultivation of the literature of the ancients was beginning to improve the taste, as also to give more just notions of the use of human reason than seem to have been entertained in the middle ages, when words became invested with the dignity of things, and the forms of logic were confounded with the ends of reason. In that obscure transition of the human mind, the end of intellect had been lost in a thousand nugatory refinements upon the means. But though the world was then rapidly emerging from this chaos into daylight; yet, it was rather to be perceived in the beginnings of new things than in the disappearance of the old. Of polite literature, it would be a digression to speak; the fathers of English poetry stood apart from the obscurity of their times, and the great dramatic writers of the Elizabethan age had not as yet received any place in the shelves of general literature. The impulse of modern letters was to be received independently of all pre-existing progress, and to emanate more strictly from the standards of antiquity, than from the irregular though splendid models of the previous periods. A single glance into the best writers of the early part of the 17th century will not fail to illustrate the rudeness of men's notions of style in prose or verse: the higher efforts of intellectual power as yet rejected the undefined powers of the English language, and the works of learned men were composed in the Latin. From the pure and perfect models which had been embalmed to perpetuity in a dead language, more permanent and systematic forms of literature were to arise, in the very period at which we are arrived: Virgil and Tully sat like the ruddy and golden clouds on the edge of dawn, while the earth lay yet in a glimmering obscurity. In the university of Dublin, by far the most honourable and illustrious incident in the history of the age, this state of things may be considered as fairly represented: as it is now on the advance of human knowledge, so it then possessed the best knowledge proper to the date of its founda