FOOTNOTES:

(Decorative chapter ending)

FOOTNOTES:[87]Cf.Stubbs, p. 161.[88]Dunton speaks in 1699 of the Provost’s House as a fine structure in process of construction. This, if he reports correctly, must have been some residence intermediate between the old “Provost’s lodgings,” on the south side of the original quadrangle, and the present house. But there is no other allusion to such a house.[89]He obtained from the Trust of Erasmus Smith, of which he was one of the administrators, large sums for the founding of new Chairs—nearly £800 per annum, which was distributed in salaries of £100 to £250.[90]I conclude this from the last chapter (27) of the Statutes, which ordains thatthreeauthentic copies shall be deposited (1) as safely as possible in the archives of the College, (2) with the Lord Deputy of Ireland, (3) with the Chancellor of the University. The copy held by Strafford when Lord Deputy is now in private hands in Dublin. What has become of Laud’s copy we do not know; perhaps it is at Lambeth. There is no provision for taking any other copy from these; nay, rather, the opening sentence of the chapter ordains that lost any should offend against them from ignorance, they shall be read out publicly in the Chapel at the beginning of each Term by the Deans, in the presence of the whole College.[91]So have Mornington’sTe DeumandJubilate, composed for the service on the following Sunday. The March, however, a trifling composition, survives.[92]Cf.the list in Stubbs’History, p. 222.[93]This was the lineal descendant of the Wm. Hawkins who in 1672 had got a 99 years’ lease of this land, then waste, for the purpose of reclaiming it and building a quay. The Bishop had interest enough with the Board in 1771 to stay the resumption, and even to obtain a new lease of a valuable property from the College estate, which his descendants still enjoy. In 1799 this lease had yet 33 years to run—hence a 60 years’ lease.[94]Provost Baldwin had asserted this right of veto, and had nominated against the majority, not without protest, but without being challenged at a Visitation.[95]“The effects [of the Provost’s duel] are already visible; scarce a week passes without a duel between some of the students; some of them have been slain, others maimed; the College Park is publicly made the place for learning the exercise of the pistol; shooting at marks by the gownsmen is everyday practice; the very chambers of the College frequently resound with explosions of pistols. The Provost has introduced a fencing-master into the College, and assigned him the Convocation or Senate House [over the gate] of the College as a school, to teach the gownsmen the use of the sword, though this is strictly forbidden by the Statutes.”—Lachrymæ, p. 109. Is the first part of this true? Surely the names of students killed or maimed in duels would have been paraded before us in the pamphlets of the time. The Provost’s duel with Mr. Wm. Doyle, arising from anonymous attacks attributed to the latter, is described at length in the Dublin papers of 17th and 19th January, 1775.[96]I quote from Dr. Stubbs, extract,op. cit.p. 264. It appears from Duigenan’sLachrymæ, p. 145, that in Hutchinson’s time £200 a-year was voted by the Board of Erasmus Smith for Prizes in Composition only.[97]He was so popular in Dublin as to receive the honorary freedom of the city.

[87]Cf.Stubbs, p. 161.

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

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

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

[91]So have Mornington’sTe DeumandJubilate, composed for the service on the following Sunday. The March, however, a trifling composition, survives.

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

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

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

[95]“The effects [of the Provost’s duel] are already visible; scarce a week passes without a duel between some of the students; some of them have been slain, others maimed; the College Park is publicly made the place for learning the exercise of the pistol; shooting at marks by the gownsmen is everyday practice; the very chambers of the College frequently resound with explosions of pistols. The Provost has introduced a fencing-master into the College, and assigned him the Convocation or Senate House [over the gate] of the College as a school, to teach the gownsmen the use of the sword, though this is strictly forbidden by the Statutes.”—Lachrymæ, p. 109. Is the first part of this true? Surely the names of students killed or maimed in duels would have been paraded before us in the pamphlets of the time. The Provost’s duel with Mr. Wm. Doyle, arising from anonymous attacks attributed to the latter, is described at length in the Dublin papers of 17th and 19th January, 1775.

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

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

(Decorative chapter heading)

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

“Semel arreptos nunquam dimittet honores.”

Motto from the Earliest Gold Medal.

1792-1892.

Roman Catholics were not permitted to take Degrees in the University of Dublin up to the year 1793. By an Act of the Irish Parliament of that year, followed by a Royal Statute of the College in 1794, this disability was removed, but neither Roman Catholics nor Protestant Dissenters could at that time, nor for nearly eighty years after, be elected to Fellowships or Scholarships on the foundation of the College. In 1843 an attempt was made to contest the law on this point. Mr. Denis Caulfield Heron, a Roman Catholic Sizar, became a candidate for Scholarship in 1843, and was examined in conformity with the Statutes. There were sixteen vacancies, and his answering would have placed him fifth in order of merit, but the electors did not consider him to be eligible on account of his religion. Mr. Heron appealed to the Visitors, who declined to enter into an inquiry on the subject. He then, in Trinity Term 1844, applied to the Court of Queen’s Bench to grant amandamusto force the Visitors to hear his appeal. This, after argument, was granted by the Court in June, 1845. In accordance with this command, the Visitors held a Court of Appeal in December, 1845, and they heard the arguments of eminentcounsel on both sides, aided by their assessor, the Right Hon. Richard Keatinge. Their decision was to the effect that, considering the precise and pointed language of the Act of 1793, and the whole body of College Charters and Statutes, it was the clear intention of the Crown, by the Royal Statute of 1794, merely to give to Roman Catholics the benefit of a liberal education and the right to obtain Degrees, but without allowing them to become members of the Corporation of Trinity College, or in any manner changing its Protestant character.

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

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

At the time of the Union with Great Britain, in 1800, the University lost one of its two members, but it continued to return one member to the Imperial Parliament, the electors being, as before, the Provost, Fellows, and Foundation Scholars. This constituency, taking account of minors, fell much short of one hundred. By the Reform Act, in 1833, the second member was restored to the University of Dublin, but the constituency was enlarged so as to include ex-Scholars, Masters of Arts, and Doctors in the several faculties, and special Commencements were held in the following November, at which a very large number of Masters’ degrees were conferred; the number of registered electors at once rose to 1,570. The constituency now numbers 4,334.

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

At this period, although the Statutes of the College forbade the marriage of the Fellows, yet it was well known that for a good many years many of them more or less openly violated the law of the College in this respect. In some cases their wives continued to be known by their maiden names; and the public understood this, and did not discountenance it. In 1811 a new and very stringent Statute was enacted, which required every Fellow on his election to swear that he was then unmarried, and that, should he marry at any time of his tenure of Fellowship, he would within three months inform the Provost. This practically required all future married Fellows to resign. An exception, however, was made in favour of the existing Fellows, whether married or not in 1811. The Celibacy Statute, as it was called, remained in force until 1840, when it was repealed, and all restrictions upon marriage removed. This repeal was not effected without considerable agitation, which commenced in 1836. The value of the benefices in the gift of the College had fallen at least twenty-five per cent., in consequence of the commutation of tithe payable by the occupier of land into a rent charge payable by his landlord. In the greater part of the South of Ireland where the anti-tithe war had raged, and where the clergy had found it impossible to collect the revenues of their benefices, the change was decidedly advantageous. In the North of Ireland, however, where the College livings lay, no such resistance to the payment of tithes had been experienced, and consequently the change was a loss to the clergy. This, added to the poor’s rate, which was then introduced, and the ecclesiastical tax upon livings, which was at that time first imposed, had so greatly reduced the value of the College benefices, that many of them failed to attract the Fellows. In addition to this, the income of the Junior Fellows had become more equable and more certain, and their labours had diminished in consequence of the change which was effected by the adoption of a division of tutorial fees and of tutorial lectures in 1835; consequently few of the Junior Fellows were disposed to change an agreeable literary life in Dublin for a retirement in the country, even though they should be thus enabled to marry.

In February, 1836, the Provost and Senior Fellows, two only dissenting, agreed to join theJunior Fellows in an application to the Lord Lieutenant for a repeal of the obnoxious Statute, suggesting, however, that the six most Junior of the Fellows should be exempted from the permission to marry. The Earl of Mulgrave, then Viceroy, declined to recommend the change. At the end of 1838 a further memorial was presented to the representative of the Crown, praying that the Fellows above the lower nine of the body should be allowed to marry. The Provost and Senior Fellows concurred in the prayer of the memorial, stipulating, however, that the plan should be accompanied by such measures as would prevent the College livings from being declined by the whole body of Fellows. On the arrival of a new Viceroy (Lord Fortescue) in 1839, a memorial was presented to him by the College asking for a repeal of the Celibacy Statute. To this there was a considerable opposition on the part of the great body of the Scholars and prospective Fellowship candidates, on the ground that the existing Fellows would be settled for life in the College, and the vacancies for fresh elections would become very rare, and thus the highest mathematical and literary studies in the College would suffer. It was known, also, that the Archbishop of Armagh, Lord John George Beresford, who was then Vice-Chancellor, and who took a warm interest in the welfare of the College, was strongly opposed to the repeal of this Statute. In the end the Government was guided by the advice of Dr. Dickinson, afterwards Bishop of Meath, and in 1840 the Celibacy Statute was repealed; ten new Fellowships were added, one to be elected each year; the six junior of the Fellows were excluded from the emoluments of the tutors, and restricted to the statutable emoluments of a Junior Fellow (about £37 a-year, with rooms and dinner in the Hall); and the number of Tutor Fellows was increased from fifteen to nineteen, the average income of the tutors being thus diminished by 21 per cent.

It could scarcely be expected that an institution like Trinity College, which at that time had many political enemies, should escape a searching inquiry at the hands of a Royal Commission; and accordingly, in April, 1851, a full and minute investigation was made into the working of the College, the Commissioners being Archbishop Whately, Lord Chancellor Brady, the Earl of Rosse, the Bishop of Cork, Doctor Mountiford Longfield, and Edward J. Cooper, Esq. The Commissioners reported in April, 1853, and in a manner highly favourable to the College. They found “that numerous improvements of an important character have been from time to time introduced by the authorities of the College, and that the general state of the College is satisfactory. There is great activity and efficiency in the different departments, and the spirit of improvement has been especially shown in the changes which have been introduced in the course of education, to adapt it to the requirements of the age.” They ended in recommendingsome twenty-five changes. But they took care to add that these recommendations did not involve any great or fundamental alteration in the arrangements of the University, or in the system of education pursued in it. “From its present state,” they add, “and from what has already been effected by the authorities of the College, we do not believe such changes to be required.”

Most of these recommendations have since that time been carried out by Royal Statutes, which were obtained at the request of the Provost and Senior Fellows, and in the application for which they were strengthened by the report of the Commissioners. 1. The Statutes underwent a complete revision. 2. Senior Fellows ceased to hold Professorships. 3. The Board obtained power to vary, with the consent of the Visitors, the subjects prescribed for the Fellowship Examinations, and to regulate the mode in which the Examination should be conducted, so that any Junior Fellow who holds a Professorship may now be summoned to examine in the subject of his Professorship. 4. Each vacancy for Fellowship or Scholarship is now filled by a separate vote of the electors, and the successful candidates are placed in the order of merit. 5. The fees payable to the tutors are no longer divided irrespectively of the number of pupils of each tutor, but a proportion of the fees paid by each student is paid directly to his College tutor, and the remainder paid into a common fund, from which certain Professorships are endowed, which are tenable by Junior Fellows alone. 6. The general obligation to take Holy Orders is no longer imposed on the Fellows, the number of Lay Fellows being at first increased from three to five. 7. Ex-Fellows are now eligible for the Regius Professorship of Divinity. 8. The Professors of Modern Languages are now elected as other Professors, and these languages may now be selected by students of the Sophister Classes and for the B.A. degree in lieu of Greek and Latin. 9. The Board and Visitors have now the power of altering the subjects for the Scholarship Examination, and by a recent Statute the tenure of the Scholarship has been limited to five years. 10. Twenty Senior and twenty Junior Exhibitions of £25 each tenable for two years have been founded, and they are open to students without respect to creed. 11. No distinction is now made between Pensioners, Fellow Commoners, and Noblemen as to the course of education required for the B.A. degree. 12. The formal exercises then required for the different degrees have been discontinued, and (except the M.A. degree) all the higher degrees have been made real tests of merit. 13. Full power to admit readers to the College Library has been conferred upon the Provost and Senior Fellows. 14. An auditor of the College is now appointed by the Visitors, and an audited balance sheet and account of income and expenditure is annually presented to them, and is open to the inspection of all members of the Corporation. 15. The Bursar is nowpaid by salary and not by fees, and local land agents have been appointed in cases in which the occupying tenants hold directly from the College. 16. The College officers formerly paid by fees are now paid by salaries in proportion to the services performed by them. 17. There has been a gradual reduction in the number of Non-Tutor Fellows created by the Statute of 1840. These form the great majority of the recommendations of the Royal Commissioners.

In addition to these alterations some considerable improvements were effected by the Royal Statute of the 18th Victoria. The whole of the College Statutes were carefully revised, and the obsolete and injurious enactments were repealed. The power of assigning or of transferring pupils from one tutor to another, which Provost Hutchinson attempted to exercise in an arbitrary manner, was removed from the Provost and vested in the Board; and to the Board, with the consent of the Visitors, was given the power, which they had not before, of founding new Professorships and offices, and of assigning salaries to be paid to them from the revenues of the College.

Immediately after these powers had been granted by Letters Patent, the Board and Visitors acted in conformity with their new authority. In 1855 a decree was passed dividing the subjects of the Fellowship Examination into four—Mathematics, Classics (including Hebrew), Mental and Moral Sciences, and Experimental Physics; the time for the examination was greatly extended. Science scholarships were founded, and the number of days of examination, both for classical and science scholarships, increased; and in the same year a similar decree regulated the salary and duties of the Regius Professor of Greek, and founded new Professorships of Arabic and of English Literature. In 1856 certain salaries of College officers were fixed, and the salaries of the Professor of Geology and of Erasmus Smith’s Professor of Natural Philosophy (when held by a Junior Fellow) were regulated. In 1858 a decree was passed which transferred all fees hitherto payable to College officers to the general funds of the College, and assigned fixed salaries in lieu of them. Two Senior Tutorships, each with a salary of £800, were founded; the salary of the Examinerships held by Non-Tutor Fellows was raised to £100 per annum; Classical Honour Lectureships were instituted, and a Professorship of Sanscrit and Comparative Philology. In 1862 two Professorships of Modern Languages were established, the salaries of the holders being paid out of the funds of the College—the Act of Parliament 18 and 19 Victoria, cap. 82, having deprived the College of two annual sums of £92 6s. 2d. each, which had been granted by the 41 George III., cap. 32, out of the Consolidated Fund for this purpose. The same Act dispossessed the College of its earliest, and only, subvention from the State, which was granted by Queen Elizabeth—an annual charge of £358 16s. on the revenues of Ireland; thegrounds assigned for this deprivation being the removal of the stamp duties on Degrees,[98]which had been imposed on the College only thirteen years before. These duties (which have long since been abolished in England) were £1 on matriculation, £3 for the degree of B.A., and £6 for any other degree.

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

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

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

This Council consists of sixteen members and the Provost—four elected by the Senior Fellows, four by the Junior, four by the Professors who are not Fellows, and four by the Senate at large (excluding those who are already represented). The representatives of each class hold office for four years, are elected at the same time, and vacate office in rotation. The electors can give all their votes to one candidate, or they may distribute them among the candidates as they think fit. The election to Professorships in the Divinity School, of Medical Professors founded by Act of Parliament, and of Professors of private foundation the appointment of which is by the wills of the founders vested in the Provost and Senior Fellows, remains with the Board.

In 1851 a very important Act of Parliament was passed, which extended the leasing powers of the College in respect to the estates belonging to the Corporation. Prior to that year it was precluded from giving leases of the lands belonging to the College for a longer period than twenty-one years, except in cities, where sites for building might be leased for forty years. The rent to be reserved should be equal to one-half of the true value of the lands,communibus annis, at the time of making the lease. The Provost and Senior Fellows, however, might grant leases for twenty-one years at a rent equal to that which was hitherto payable out of the lands, even though it was less than half the value. The custom was for the College to renew these leases when a few years had expired, on the payment of fines which were in some cases considerable, and which were divided among the members of the Governing Body of the College. These renewal fines formed the principal part of the incomes of the Senior Fellows. By the Actof 1851 (14 and 15 Victoria, cap. 128) additional powers of leasing were granted up to ninety-nine years without fines, reserving a minimum rent of three-fourths of the annual value; making, however, a reduction in respect to the tenant’s interest in an unexpired lease when it was surrendered. Also, powers of granting leases in perpetuity were given to the Board on the surrender by the tenants of the existing leases. These perpetuity rents were fixed by a regulation contained in the Statute, and were variable from time to time, at intervals of ten years, according to the changes in the prices of certain agricultural commodities. Renewal fines were abolished, and the Provost and Senior Fellows were compensated for the loss of them by a fixed annual sum of £800 paid to each of them out of the revenues of the College. Consequent upon the changes which have been indicated above, the Senior Fellows relinquished their claims to an annual sum, which, according to the Report of the University Commissioners, amounted to about £2,650, their official salaries being now fixed at sums according to the duties of the office; and, on the whole, the income of each Senior Fellow is on the average about £363 less than it was in 1851. The difference has been employed in the foundation of Studentships and Exhibitions, the annual charge for which is about £2,000.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The general history of Trinity College during the nineteenth century would be incomplete if some reference were not made to a matter which elicited considerable public feeling at the time, but which is now almost forgotten. On the 12th of March, 1858, the Earl of Eglinton, who had been very popular as Viceroy of Ireland on a previous occasion, returned as Lord Lieutenant on a change of Ministry. It was quite a holiday in Dublin. Several hundreds of the students had assembled within the enclosed space in front of the College (which was at that time larger than it is now), and had crowded out into the street, for the purpose of witnessing the procession in its progress up College Green and Dame Street to the Castle. For some time previous to the approach of the Lord Lieutenant, they amused themselves by letting off squibs and crackers, and by throwing orange peel and other similar missiles at the crowd outside, as well as at the police. The Junior Dean, apprehending some ill results if the disposition and temper of the students were misunderstood by the people and by the police, went out amongst them, and begged that they would not resent these demonstrations on the part of the students. No political display was intended by them, and consequently if good humour were preserved on both sides all would pass off quietly. Colonel Browne, who was in command of the police, on two or three occasions went inside the railings to reason with the students; his reception on each occasion was courteous, and he was cheered by the College men. From the period when the Viceregal procession came in sight, there was a suspension of the bombardment from within the College rails. As the Lord Lieutenant passed by, there was very little political manifestation by the students. After the procession had passed, those within the railings commenced again to throwcrackers, squibs, and oranges, and the confusion increased. Colonel Browne rode up, and in vain endeavoured to be heard. He was struck in the face by an orange, amidst a shout of laughter from the students and from the crowds in the street. At this time he seemed to lose his temper, and went to Colonel Griffiths commanding the Scots Greys, who were posted near the Bank of Ireland, and asked him to charge. Colonel Griffiths laughed, and asked whom he was to charge—was it a parcel of schoolboys? Colonel Browne then brought a party of the mounted police in front of the soldiers, and drew up immediately in their rear a body of the foot police, with their batons in their hands. At this juncture the Junior Dean, foreseeing that something serious was likely to ensue if the students did not at once disperse, called on such of them as were outside the College railings to come within the College gate, and he succeeded in getting a considerable number of them inside the College, and had the gates closed. Many of the students, however, were unable to get inside—some were with the Junior Dean inside the railings and some in the street. Immediately after this Colonel Browne ordered the mounted police to Charge. The outer gates of the enclosure were forced open; the police, mounted as well as on foot, at once rushed on the students within the railings (the statues of Burke and Goldsmith had not at that time been erected); they cut at them with their sabres, rode over them, and the unmounted men used their batons in every direction and indiscriminately as regarded the persons with whom they came in contact. The students had no means of defending themselves, the Junior Dean having early in the proceedings induced them to give up to him the sticks which they carried. Several of them were struck down, and deliberately batoned again and again while on the ground by the foot police in a most inhuman manner. The Junior Dean then went outside the railings, and, addressing Colonel Browne, said that he would engage to withdraw the students if the Colonel would withdraw the police. This was assented to, but the foot police for a considerable time waited within the enclosure. So great was the violence of the assault of the mounted men that, in following the students who rushed into the College through the open wicket gate, they used their swords with such vigour against the wooden gate that it showed several marks of their sabres, large pieces being cut off in some places. Among the students whose lives were endangered by the onslaught of the police were Mr. Leeson, Mr. J. W. Gregg, Mr. Pollock, Mr. Fuller, Mr. Leathem, Mr. Brownrigg, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Lyndsay, and Mr. Chadwick. Some of them suffered very severe injuries. Mr. Clarke was wounded in the back with a sabre cut while he was stretched on the ground from the blow of a baton. The College authorities prosecutedColonel Browne and some of the police criminally for an assault on the students, but they were acquitted by a jury at the ensuing Commission. It is pleasing to add that since that time the best relations have existed between the students and the Metropolitan police; indeed, the feelings of the latter body were supposed at the time to have been excited by some strong observations which were made in the columns of a Dublin newspaper which appeared on the morning of the occurrence.

The Divinity School of Trinity College.—The institution of a special school designed for the instruction of the future clergy of the Church of Ireland did not take effect until the close of the eighteenth century. The students of Trinity College, under instruction, were at the beginning of this century either undergraduates or Bachelors of Arts. The undergraduates were lectured in classics and mathematics by public lecturers appointed by the College, and their religious training was specially entrusted to the Catechist. After they took the B.A. degree they still continued under instruction by the several Professors of the mathematical and physical sciences, of Greek, and of the several faculties, while their religious instruction was under the special care of the Regius Professor of Divinity, and of a Lecturer of early but uncertain foundation, which latter post was afterwards endowed with the interest of £1,000 by Archbishop King. Junior Bachelors attended the prelections of this Lecturer, and Middle and Senior Bachelors the prelections of the Regius Professor; and this attendance was compulsory upon all graduates in residence. Many ex-Scholars of Trinity College remember well that until recent times all Scholars who were graduates were obliged to attend, at their choice, certain courses of lectures with the Professors of Greek or Oratory or Mathematics or Law, but all were, without distinction, under pain of losing their salaries, obliged to attend lectures with either the Regius Professor of Divinity or Archbishop King’s Lecturer. In the year 1790, at a meeting of the Irish Bishops, it was determined that they would in future not ordain any candidate who had not the B.A. degree and a certificate of having attended lectures in Divinity for one academic year (at that time consisting of four terms), and they forwarded to the Board a list of books in which the Bishops had decided that candidates for Holy Orders should be examined prior to ordination. The Board, in reply, informed the Bishops that they would direct the assistant to Archbishop King’s Lecturer to prepare the students in these books. From 1790 to 1833 Divinity students attended the lectures of the assistants to Archbishop King’s Lecturer (the Regius Professor had not at that time any assistants) on two days in theweek, Tuesdays and Thursdays, from eight to nine in the morning. They were put through Burnet on the Thirty-nine Articles, and if any student attended three-fourths[99]of the lectures in each of the four terms of the Junior Bachelor year he received a certificate, which was inserted in the testimonium of his degree, and on this he was entitled to present himself for the Ordination Examination. The Rev. Richard Brooke, in hisRecollections of the Irish Church, gives a very vivid account of his experience as a Divinity student in 1827. The books he then read—they could not have been all lectured on (and there is no record of any compulsory Divinity examination)—were Burnet, Pearson, Mosheim, Paley’s Evidences, Magee on the Atonement, Wheatley on the Common Prayer, Tomline on the Articles, Butler’s Analogy, and the Bible and Greek Testament, with Patrick Lowth and Whitby’s Commentary. It is believed, from the testimony of clergymen who were students at that period, that the lectures were confined very much to Burnet and Butler.

At that time, Archbishop King’s Lecturer in Divinity was an annual office poorly endowed, and, like the Professorships of Greek, of Mathematics, and of Civil Law, held always by a Senior Fellow. Such was the condition of things up to 1833. The Divinity Professors were mainly engaged in prelecting to graduate Scholars, and to such graduates as desired to attend their lectures. In that year the Divinity School was arranged upon its present basis. Dr. Elrington was, in 1833, Regius Professor of Divinity; and the annual office of Archbishop King’s Lecturer was separated from a Senior Fellowship, was endowed with £700 a-year from the funds of the College, and was given to Dr. O’Brien, afterwards Bishop of Ossory, but at that time a Junior Fellow, as a permanent Professorship. The course was extended to one of two years’ length, compulsory examinations were instituted, assistants to the Regius Professor were then first appointed, and he and they had the care of the Senior class, consisting only of those who had passed the B.A. examination. Archbishop King’s Lecturer and his assistants had the instruction of the Junior class of Divinity students entrusted to them. These were for the most part Senior Sophisters.

The Divinity course now comprises two years’ study of Divinity, each consisting of three academic terms. Students generally begin to attend lectures at the beginning of their third year in Arts. In the Junior year they are lectured by Archbishop King’s Lecturer on the Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion, and in the Socinian Controversy; and by his assistants in the Greek of the Gospels and of the Epistle to the Romans, and in Pearson on theCreed. There are three days set apart for composition of sermons and essays each term, when the students are brought into the Hall, and are given either a text of Scripture, or a subject connected with the Professor’s lectures for that term, to write upon; two such compositions at least, in each term, are obligatory. During the Christmas and Easter recesses the students are obliged to study one of the Epistles in Greek, and a portion of Ecclesiastical History, in which they are examined on the first lecture-day of the following term. Having completed three terms’ lectures, they pass an examination in certain text-books connected with the studies of the Junior year, and in the English New Testament; in specified portions of the Greek Testament, and in the Professor’s prelections. Having passed this examination, they are permitted to attend the lectures of the Regius Professor of Divinity and his assistants for the next three terms. The lectures of the Regius Professor are upon the Book of Common Prayer, the Canon of Holy Scripture, and the Roman Catholic Controversy; and his assistants lecture upon Bishops Burnet and Browne on the Thirty-nine Articles, and upon the Greek of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians and the Epistle to the Hebrews. The rules with regard to study in the intervals between the terms and composition are nearly the same as those of the Junior year; and when the student has completed his sixth term of study, he presents himself at the examination for the Divinity Testimonium, after he has, in nearly every case, taken his B.A. degree. Lectures in Ecclesiastical History, in Hebrew, in Pastoral Theology, and in Biblical Greek are provided, but they are not compulsory. The number of Divinity Testimoniums granted for each of the last five years averaged 35, and for each of the previous five years the average was 32.[100]

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

Prior to 1814 the Regius Professor of Divinity held no public examination in the subjects of his course. In 1813 Dean Graves, who at that time held the office, submitted to the Board a plan for the improvement of Divinity lectures, and a new Royal Statute was obtained regulating the duties of the Professor. He was bound to deliver prelections during term, but they were practically confined to the first week in Michaelmas term, the first and second weeks in Hilary term, and the first week in Easter term. He was also bound to hold an examination once a-year, open to Bachelors of Arts. The subjects of this examination were fixed by Statute. On the first morning it was the Old Testament, the first afternoon the New; on the second morning in Ecclesiastical History, and the second afternoon in the Articles and Liturgy of the Church of England. In 1814 the Board instituted prizes at this examination, which was otherwise voluntary. On the first occasion thirty graduates entered their names for the examination, but only five attended, and it ended in only three or four highly prepared Divinity students presenting themselves each year for a searching examination in an extended course. In 1859 these Divinity prizes were enlarged into Theological Exhibitions, two of which, of £60 and £40 a-year, tenable for three years, are now awarded as the result of this examination, greatly enlarged and extended by the addition of selections from the writings of the Fathers and specified portions of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. Prizes also at the end of the first Divinity year, called after the name of Archbishop King, were founded in 1836. Both these stimulants to theological study, aided by annual prizes at examinations held by the Professors of Biblical Greek and of Ecclesiastical History, have very widely extended the reading of the best class of Divinity students. Candidates for the degree of Bachelor of Divinity are now required to pass an examination in the whole of the extended range of theological subjects required of candidates for the Exhibitions; but as those who seek Divinity degrees are generally clergymen who are engaged in the duties of their calling, they are allowed to divide the examination into parts and to pass it in detail instead of on one occasion. Few of the modern arrangements have been so successful as this. By directing and encouraging a wide course of theological reading among the younger clergy, it has produced an excellent effect, and the popularity of the arrangement is manifested by the large increase in the number of candidates for the B.D. degree by examination.

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

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

For the first fifteen years these matriculations averaged only 4·7 each year. The numbers gradually increased, until in the years 1809-1813, inclusive, the average reached 41·4 each year; from 1814 to 1824 they rose to an average of 66·5. In the next quinquennial period they increased to the large number of 90·8 annually. In the years from 1831 to 1835 the average fell to 63, and in the following two years the number barely exceeded 28 each year. The great increase of medical students in the period between 1814 and 1835 is to be attributed mainly to the eminence of the University Professor of Anatomy and Chirurgery—James Macartney[101]—aman of the greatest powers both as an anatomist, a biologist, and surgical teacher. On his ceasing to hold the Professorship, the number of students in the Medical School fell to what it had been before his appointment; and having continued at a low level for thirty years, it suddenly rose to an average of nearly 80 entrances in 1864, in which year Doctor Edward H. Bennett, the present Professor of Surgery, was appointed to the office of University Anatomist—an office which had, after being in abeyance for a century, been revived in 1861. From this time the numbers have gradually risen until they amounted to more than they were in the most flourishing period of Doctor Macartney’s teaching. Doctor Macartney held the Chair of Anatomy for twenty-four years, until July, 1837, when he resigned the office, very much because he was unwilling to submit to the rules laid down by the governing body of the College. In the year 1834 a complaint was made to the Provost and Senior Fellows, by the other Professors of the Medical School, that he had fixed his lectures at an hour, from 3 to 4 p.m., which interfered with those of the other Professors of that school. In December, 1835, the Board informed him that they would permit him to continue his lectures during that session at the hour which he had announced, but that this privilege would not be further continued. In November, 1836, Dr. Macartney persisted in lecturing at 3 o’clock. He was ordered by the Board to lecture at another hour, and this order was conveyed also to the College of Physicians. Dr. Macartney persisted; and the Board took the advice of counsel as to their powers, and, as a result, they ordered the Anatomy House to be closed from 3 to 4 o’clock. In the end the Professor yielded. But another cause of dispute soon rose. In April, 1836, the Board received a letter from the Registrar of the School of Physic, which stated that Doctor Macartney wished to have his lectures advertised as being two in Anatomy and two in Surgery each week. This was held by the Board to be insufficient, inasmuch as the University of Edinburgh required five lectures in each of these subjects every week, and would require from the Dublin Professors certificates to that effect. Notwithstanding the remonstrance of the Provost and Senior Fellows, Doctor Macartney persisted in his advertisement. Doctor Sandes, one of the Senior Fellows, undertook at their request to write to the Professor in the hope that he would be able to induce him to change his decision, but his attempt was not followed by success. A case was laid before Mr. Pennefather, K.C., and as a result of his opinion, on November 26, 1836, Doctor Macartney was required to deliver five lectures in each week at one o’clock during the session. On July 13, 1837, he resigned the Professorship—four years before his tenure of office would otherwise have expired.

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

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

The old Anatomy House, situated between the College Park and the Fellows’ Garden, was a small and inconvenient building. It became altogether unsuited to the numbers attending Doctor Macartney’s classes. In 1815 space was made for them by the removal of the wax models from the room in which they had been placed to that over it, and a small building was erected in the Fellows’ Garden adjacent to the old house. This was but a temporary expedient, for we find that in 1820 the floor of the lecture-room was reported to be in a dangerous condition, and the Board directed that, in future, lectures in Anatomy and Chemistry should be delivered in the public lecture-room in No. 22 of the Library Square. A committee was appointed to arrange for a new site for the Medical School. That which was at first fixed upon was at the east side of the Fellows’ Garden, between the old Anatomy House and Nassau Street; but on further consideration it was changed to the ground, hitherto the Bowling Green, at the remote extremity of the College Park. On April 1, 1823, estimates were laid before the Board for the building of an anatomical and chemical theatre on the above site. The estimates ranged between £3,980 and £5,350, and a contract was made for the work. Macartney seems to have taken a great interest in the selecting of the site. Thus we find him writing to the Registrar, Dr. Phipps, from Newry, in May, 1822:—

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