FOOTNOTES:

THE OLD CLOCK TOWER.

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 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 thatParliament 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 varioussocieties, 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 Sovereigneodem 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’ degradationshould 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 candidatesfor 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, andturned 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 thenthe 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 theScholars, 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.”

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’ degradationshould 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 candidatesfor 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.”

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, andturned 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 thenthe 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 theScholars, 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 atthat 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.

(Decorative chapter ending)

FOOTNOTES:[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 intitledTerræ 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 Filiuswas expelled during almost every Act.” And again (p. xi.)—“Though it has, of late years, been thought expedient to lay aside the solemnity of aPublick Act, and it is very uncertain whenTerræ Filiuswill 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 theTerræ 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 theTerræ Filiusof 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’sEarly Life of Swift(London, 1808).The heads at Oxford, holding public acts in 1712, stopt the mouth of theTerræ Filius(who is called astatutableorator 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’sAnnals 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 onpage 52; the bidding prayer is given onpage 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 theVoluptuousman fancy, to which those ofLearningandKnowledgeare not equal? If he can relish nothing but the pleasures of hisSenses, Natural Philosophyexposes thebeautiful bosomeof theUniverse, admits him intoNature’sgarden, &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.9644Trinity College, Dub., May 16, ’99.May it Please Your Grace,OurProvost 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 Gcebecomes 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 Gceas 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 SrFellow, & 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 Grcethat Mr. Peter Browne, who is much their junior, may not have it, &c., &c. I have sent the Bp.’s letter to His Gceof 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 recallto 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 moneyin the purchaseof 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.

[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 intitledTerræ 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 Filiuswas expelled during almost every Act.” And again (p. xi.)—“Though it has, of late years, been thought expedient to lay aside the solemnity of aPublick Act, and it is very uncertain whenTerræ Filiuswill 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 theTerræ 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 theTerræ Filiusof 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’sEarly Life of Swift(London, 1808).The heads at Oxford, holding public acts in 1712, stopt the mouth of theTerræ Filius(who is called astatutableorator 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’sAnnals of Oxford, ii. 224, but referred to the year 1713. Mr. Jeaffreson has a whole chapter on the subject.

There is a frontispiece to the book, signed W. Hogarth, which represents an enraged Don tearing in pieces the libel of theTerræ 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 theTerræ Filiusof 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’sEarly Life of Swift(London, 1808).

The heads at Oxford, holding public acts in 1712, stopt the mouth of theTerræ Filius(who is called astatutableorator 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’sAnnals 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 onpage 52; the bidding prayer is given onpage 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 theVoluptuousman fancy, to which those ofLearningandKnowledgeare not equal? If he can relish nothing but the pleasures of hisSenses, Natural Philosophyexposes thebeautiful bosomeof theUniverse, admits him intoNature’sgarden, &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.9644Trinity College, Dub., May 16, ’99.May it Please Your Grace,OurProvost 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 Gcebecomes 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 Gceas 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 SrFellow, & 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 Grcethat Mr. Peter Browne, who is much their junior, may not have it, &c., &c. I have sent the Bp.’s letter to His Gceof Cant., in which the late Provost’s opinion of Mr. Browne’s unfitness for the place is fully declared.Rich. Meath.

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

May it Please Your Grace,

OurProvost 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 Gcebecomes 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 Gceas 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 SrFellow, & 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 Grcethat Mr. Peter Browne, who is much their junior, may not have it, &c., &c. I have sent the Bp.’s letter to His Gceof 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 recallto 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 moneyin the purchaseof 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.

Back to Index Next