Printed by M. H. Gill & Son 50 Upper Sackville-street, Dublin.
Footnotes:
[1]His Matriculation is—“1740, April 29th. Johannes Hely, Filius Francisci Gen. Annum agens 17. Natus Corcagii. Educatus sub Dr. Baly. (Tutor) Mr. Lawson.”
[2]SeeNote A.
[3]Hutchinson had thus achieved very considerable success and distinction when he was thirty-seven years of age—“the fatal year” in the development of genius, according to Lord Beaconsfield. Grattan accomplished his great work at the age of thirty-six, the age at which Lord Byron had finished his poetry. Fitzgibbon, too, ran high in this respect. At twenty-nine he was a leading lawyer, and M.P. for the University, having displaced and replaced the Provost’s son; at thirty-four he was Attorney-General, governing the country. He was Lord Chancellor and a peer before he had attained what Dr. Webb, in his “Faust,” calls “the mature age of forty-one.” He died at 53.
[4][Pue’s Occur.]
[5]Alnager, or Aulnager, from the LatinUlna, an ell, was an officer for measuring and stamping cloth in the wool trade.Pranceriana Poeticahas the line:—
“Send Prancer back to stamping friezes.”
[6]See his will.
[7]SeeNote E.
[8]Lord Lieutenant Townshend’s organ was “The Batchelor; or, Speculations of Jeoffrey Wagstaffe, Esq.,” published at theMercuryin Parliament-street, by one Hoey, a popish printer. To be “mimicked by Jephson and libelled by Hoey,” were amongst the social terrors of the period.—[Baratariana.]
[9]Prancerianahas the line, “To storm her fane in Owen’s Arch.”
[10]It was Sir Hercules Langrishe who accounted to Lord Lieutenant Townshend for the marshy and undrained condition of Phœnix Park, by observing that the English Government “had been too much engaged indrainingthe rest of the kingdom.”
[11]In 1779 the arms which had been intended for the Militia were given by Government to the Volunteers, the Militia Enrolment Act of the previous years not having been carried out, from want of money.
In 1783 the Volunteers were—prematurely—disbanded, and in 1785 the Militia were enrolled, and Langrishe’s Bill obtained from parliament £20,000 for clothing them. Subsequently the Commissioners of Array were appointed.
[12]Anthony Malone, along with so many other grandees of the period, lived in Chancery-lane. It requires an effort of historic faith to realise that the Chancery-lane of to-day was a couple of generations ago the abode of such fashion and rank. The fact, however, is quite certain. St. Bride’s Vestry Book contains a copy of Anthony Malone’s and Alexander MacAulay’s Opinionsin rePowell’s Legacy to the Dublin parishes.
[13]Seenote E.
[14]Froude details the bargain. In 1771 it was important to secure for the Army Augmentation Bill the support of Hutchinson, who had been patriotising on the Surplus, Pension, and Septennial Bills. His terms to Lord Lieutenant Townshend were, “a provision for the lives of his two sons, one aged 11 and the other 10, by a grant to them or the survivor of them of some office of at least £500 a year. If no vacancy occurred, then either a pension, or a salary to that amount to be attached to some office for them—and his wife to be created a Viscountess.”—“English in Ireland,” vol. i., p. 632, and elsewhere.
[15]Palmerston, the Provost’s private country residence, was a noble and beautifully situated mansion on the banks of the Liffey, between Chapelizod and Lucan. It is now occupied by Stewart’s Idiot Asylum.
[16]Tisdall did not outlive him, and Hutchinson got the Principal Secretaryship.
[17]One of the severest letters in the collection is No. 22, on Edmund Sexten Pery, who, for fourteen years, was Speaker of the House of Commons. Patriotic and eminent as Pery was, and upright and loyal as he always was in the Chair, it cannot be denied that he got the Speakership by an unworthy manœuvre. The passage is fully and bitterly rehearsed in the last volume of the Historical Manuscript Reports. Pery was bought by the corrupter Townshend at the same time with Hutchinson, Tisdall, Flood, &c.
[18]The Court of King’s Bench granted an information in the name of the king, at the prosecution of the Right Hon. Hely Hutchinson, against Samuel Leathley, the printer of theFreeman’s Journal, for publishing in that paper the article signed “Crito,” in November, 1776. The article is not in the “Pranceriana.”—[Freeman’s Journal, June 9th, 1777.]
[19]ThePranceriana Poetica, orPrancer’s Garland, published in 1779, opens,
“A harlequin provost, cognomine prancer;A duellist, scribbler, a fop, and a dancer;A lawyer, prime sergeant, and judge of assizes;A parliament man, and a stamper of friezes;A councillor privy; a cavalry major;A searcher and packer, comptroller and gauger;A speecher, a critic, prescriber of rules;A founder of fencing and ’questrian schools.If various employments can give a man knowledge,Then who knows so much as the head of the College?******The Seniors and Juniors in this are agreed,As a Consul of Rome was Caligula’s steed;They very much fear that if Prancer was deadSir John would appoint a Jackass in his stead.”(Halliday Collection)
This book also is a collection of fugitive pieces, and it is dedicated to “Sir John Blacquiere, Knight of the Bath, Alnager of all Ireland, and Bailiff of the Phœnix Park.” There is not a copy in the College Library. The Royal Irish Academy copies have the excellent woodcuts. In an autograph note to his own copy of the book, Dr. Stock, F.T.C.D., afterwards Bishop of Killala, says that the engravings were made by his brother, Mr. Frederick Stock, who kept a woollen draper’s shop in Dame-street. He states that the printer, Michael Mills, was forced from his house by a party of college lads, who conveyed him to the College, and there pumped on him; and that the late Prime Serjeant Browne, then a student, had a share in the outrage. Dr. Stock gives the key to the “Poetica,” viz.—Moderator, Prancer, and Hipparchus = the Provost; Dr. Pomposo and Mendex = Dr. Leland; Matthew Ben Sadi and Dr. Dilemma = Dr. Forsayeth; Billy Bib = Dr. Hales; and Bezabel Black-letter = Michael Mills. A copy of the extract is in the possession of Mr. Traynor, Bookseller, Essex-quay.
[20]“Pranceriana Pœtica” says that the Provost multiplied the composition premiums as means of bribery. It gives one of the Provost’s advertisements (1777): “Any student may be a candidate for all, or forany moreof the said premiums!”
[21]In Sir Bernard de Gomme’s map of the city and harbour of Dublin, in 1673, given in Mr. Prendergast’s edition of “The Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublin,” p. 229, the college park is marked as set out in paddocks. Dr. Stubbs says that the park was thrown into its present champaign form, laid out, and planted in the year 1722, as appears from “Winstanley’s Poems,” vol. i., p. 269. Dublin: 1742.
[22]Other persons also were satirised occasionally in “Pranceriana,” as, for instance, Philip Tisdall in the following description:—“He was a man formed by nature, and fashioned by long practice, for all manner of court intrigue. His stature was low, so as to excite neither envy nor observation; his countenance dismal, his public manners grave, and his addresshumble. But as in public he covered his prostitution by a solemnity of carriage, so in private he endeavoured to captivate by convivial humour, and to discountenance all public virtue by the exercise of a perpetual, and sometimes not unsuccessful, irony. To these qualifications he added an extraordinary magnificence of living.(1) His table was furnished with everything that splendour could suggest, or luxury could conceive, and his position and policy united to solicit a multitude of guests. To his house, then, resorted all those who wished through him to obtain, or learn from him to enjoy, without remorse, those public endowments which are the purchase ofpublic infidelity.” Tisdall was depicted in “Baratariana” also. In the pungent rhyme on “The rejection of the Altered Money Bill,” in 1772, we have—
“The next that stepped forward was innocent Phil,Who said ‘that in things of the kind he’d no skill,But yet that he thought it a mighty good bill,’Which nobody can deny.”
And again, in “A list of the Pack,” we have—
“Lo, Tisdall, whose looks would make honest men start,Who hangs out in his face the black sign of his heart;If you thought him no devil his aim he would miss,For he would, if he could, appear worse than he is.Then kick out these rascally knaves, boys;Freemen we will be to our graves, boys;Better be dead than be slaves, boys;A coffin or freedom for me.”
Philip Tisdall enjoyed a long tenure of very distinguished success. He was educated at Sheridan’s celebrated school in Capel-street, and thence entered Trinity College as a fellow-commoner in 1718. His Matriculation is:—“1718, Nov. 11th. Philip Tisdel. Soc. Com. Educatus Dub. Mag. Sheridan. (Tutor) Mr. Delany.” He took his B.A. in the spring commencements of 1722, the shortened three-and-a-half years’ academic course, as exemplified in the case of Grattan and Fitzgibbon [seenote D], being a fellow-commoner’s privilege. In 1739, Tisdall was elected simultaneously M.P. for Armagh and for the University. He chose the latter, and succeeded in a parliamentary petition against Alexander Macaulay. He afterwards contested the seat successfully in 1761 against Mr. French, Lord Clonmel’s nominee; and in 1776 unsuccessfully against Provost Hutchinson’s second son. In 1741, Tisdall was promoted Third-Serjeant, in 1751 he was Solicitor-General, and from 1761 till his death he was Attorney-General. In 1761 he was presented by the City of Cork with its freedom in a silver box. The Solicitor-General Gore was, in consequence of some of Tisdall’s trimming, appointed over his head Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, and soon after was created Lord Annaly. Tisdall was a very eminent lawyer, and although not at all an orator, he had great weight and influence in the House of Commons. He commenced political life as a patriot, and became the organ of the Junto. He was then, along with Pery and Hutchinson, bought by the corrupter, Lord Lieutenant Townshend. Tisdall’s house was in Chancery-lane, and his country villa was in Stillorgan. He died in 1777. He was son of Richard Tisdall, Registrar in Chancery, and succeeded his father in the office, 1744. Philip’s wife, Mary, had a pension of one hundred a year, and his brother Thomas was Registrar of the Court of Admiralty. In his will, made 1772, which is in the Public Record Office, he leaves a remembrance to his daughter, Elizabeth Morgan, “heretofore amply provided for.” The whole of his real and personal estate he leaves to his wife Mary. His daughter Elizabeth, by his wife Mary (Singleton), niece and co-heiress of Lord Chief Justice Singleton, was baptised in St. Bride’s Church. She was married to Colonel Morgan, of Cork Abbey, county Wicklow, and was grandmother to the late H. U. Tighe, Dean of Ardagh, and of the Chapel Royal, Dublin, and afterwards of Londonderry.—[Burke’s Landed Gentry, Art., “Tighe of Mitchelstown;” Life of Charlemont. Life of Shelbourne, Record Office, and S. Bride’s Register.]
(1) In the pre-Union times, when a home parliament secured the residence of our aristocracy and gentry, Dublin was famous for its fashion and hospitalities. Primate Stone maintained a lordly style at Leixlip Castle; while, as we read in “Mrs. Delany’s Letters,” Bishop Clayton at St. Woolstons, close by, and in St. Stephen’s-green, kept up an equal grandeur. His house in the Green had a front like Devonshire House, and wasmagnifique. Mrs. Clayton’s coach, with six flouncing Flanders mares, was not “out-looked by any equipage except the Duke of Dorset’s, for she would not be outshone by her neighbours, a thing not easily done here.” The Delanys entertained Viceroyalty at Delville, fed their own deer, and went about in a coach-and-six. Luke Gardiner’s (Lord Mountjoy) house in the Phœnix Park was the head-quarters of fashionable life(a); and Hussey Burgh drove his coach-and-six, with outriders. The wealthy wool, linen, silk, &c., mercers, of Bride-street and Golden-lane, kept good style and equipages also, as appears by their wills in the Public Record Office.(a) Gardiner was Master of the Revels, and Surveyor-General of Customs.
(1) In the pre-Union times, when a home parliament secured the residence of our aristocracy and gentry, Dublin was famous for its fashion and hospitalities. Primate Stone maintained a lordly style at Leixlip Castle; while, as we read in “Mrs. Delany’s Letters,” Bishop Clayton at St. Woolstons, close by, and in St. Stephen’s-green, kept up an equal grandeur. His house in the Green had a front like Devonshire House, and wasmagnifique. Mrs. Clayton’s coach, with six flouncing Flanders mares, was not “out-looked by any equipage except the Duke of Dorset’s, for she would not be outshone by her neighbours, a thing not easily done here.” The Delanys entertained Viceroyalty at Delville, fed their own deer, and went about in a coach-and-six. Luke Gardiner’s (Lord Mountjoy) house in the Phœnix Park was the head-quarters of fashionable life(a); and Hussey Burgh drove his coach-and-six, with outriders. The wealthy wool, linen, silk, &c., mercers, of Bride-street and Golden-lane, kept good style and equipages also, as appears by their wills in the Public Record Office.
(a) Gardiner was Master of the Revels, and Surveyor-General of Customs.
[23]Seenote E.
[24]Flood, who did not get the provostship, bequeathed, by his will, in 1791, to the college, his estate in Kilkenny, worth £5,000 a year, to found and endow a professorship of the Erse or Irish language, and to establish a library of manuscripts and books in that language, and in the modern polished languages. Provost Hutchinson did not leave a shilling to the college. Flood’s bequest fell through owing to his illegitimacy. He entered Trinity College as a fellow-commoner, completed his junior sophister terms, and then migratedad eundemto Oxford.—[Flood’s “Life of Flood,” and Webb’s “Com. Biog.”]
[25]He was a Commissioner of Barracks; as was also Sir Herc. Langrishe. Langrishe was, besides, Commissioner of Revenue and Commissioner of Excise.
[26]There does not seem to have been any Mr. Barlow in these servile days to exercise the ancient tribunitial power of the Senior Master Non Regent—the power to veto, in the name of the community, dishonouring presentations to honorary degrees.
[27]See pageliii.
[28]In 1726, Primate Boulter wrote that unless a new Englishman was appointed to a then vacant bishopric there would be thirteen Irish bishops to nine English, to the Primate’s great dismay. The Editor of “Boulter’s Letters,” in 1770, adds, in a note, that there was at one time in the Irish House of Lords a majority of native bishops, of whom five had been fellows of the University, viz., Drs. Howard, Synge, Clayton, Whitcombe (Archbishop of Cashel), and Berkeley. These are, probably, the five alluded to by Duigenan. In a pamphlet entitled “Thoughts on the Present State of the College of Dublin,” published in 1782, the well-informed author says that in King William’s reign, at or nearly at the same time, “the people saw ten prelates on the bench, who had been Fellows.” The writer says that there was a great increase in the number of students—that the undergraduates were 565, the average of entrances 144 yearly, and the average of B.A. degrees, 78.—[Halliday Collection.]
We can ourselves remember, dating from the year 1830, eight bishops and one archbishop, all Ex-Fellows. Altogether “there have been seven archbishops and forty-two bishops of the Irish Church chosen from amongst the Fellows of Trinity College. Eight have become Members of Parliament, and six have been raised to the Judicial Bench.”—[Coll. Cal.]
[29]This seems not to have been the case in Dr. Delany’s time. See Primate Boulter’s Letters, and Mrs. Delany’s, and Swift’s.
[30]See pagexlv, &c.
[31]The rack-renting cannot have been very exorbitant, inasmuch as the average rent per acre now paid to the College by its perpetuity tenants is four shillings and twopence. The great bulk of the College property is situated in the counties of Armagh, Kerry, and Donegal. The following statement gives in round numbers the acreage and rental:—
The number of perpetuity holdings let by the College are in all fifty-four; four only are let to persons of the class of tenant-farmers; of the remaining fifty, sixteen, containing over 60,000 acres, are enjoyed by three lessees, who pay the College an average rent of 3s. 5d. per acre.—[See Letter by Rev. J. A. Galbraith, S.F.T.C.D., Bursar,Freeman’s Journal, March 6, 1882, and also “Statement to the Chief Secretary.”—Freeman, March, 15, 1882.]
[32]The renewal fines in 1850 averaged £6,700 a year. The arbitration at that time between the College and the tenants cost the College £3,000.—[See Letter by Rev. T. Stack, S.F.T.C.D., Registrar, printed in the Report of the Bessborough Commission, and also “Statement” as above.]
[33]This charge, as it stands, rests on a slender foundation, and is very misleading. The catalogue of the College plate, which, to guard against such imputations in future, Mr. Hingston, the Chief Steward, has drawn up with so much care and skill, shows that the old inscribed plate is still in use; and it enumerates pieces dated as early as 1632 and 1638. A selection of the service was sent over, in Mr. Hingston’s charge, to the late South Kensington Exhibition, and was greatly admired by all who were conversant with antique silver art—some of the choicest pieces being facsimiled for the London Institution. The collection of plate is abundant, and the store was accumulated in this way. It used to be the custom that all students at entrance should deposit “caution money,” which was returned to them on graduation. The rich men and Fellow Commoners, instead of taking back the money, used to present it to the College in the form of inscribed goblets or tankards, and in the course of years there was a large assortment of these offerings. Provost Hutchinson had a number of these tankards melted down and refashioned into the present silver plates, and this he did with the consent of the Board. Before Hutchinson’s time a large quantity of the plate was sold by the Board, and the produce was invested in the purchase of land. In 1689, when James II. seized on the College, the Vice-Provost and Fellows sold £30 worth of the plate for subsistence of themselves and the Scholars. At the same time all the rest of the plate was seized on and taken away to the Custom House by Col. Luttrel, King James’s Governor of the city, but it was preserved and afterwards restored to the College.—[See Mr. Hingston’s Catalogue andColl. Cal.List of Fellows, 1689.]
[34]In 1775, seven marriage dispensations by King’s Letters were obtained.—[Lib. Mun.]
[35]In 1796, the term of grace was extended to a twelvemonth by a King’s Letter.—[Lib. Mun.]
[36]The following—the 5th verse in Milliken’s ever popular song, “The Groves of Blarney”—was animpromptuaddition at an electioneering dinner in the south of Ireland in 1798. It is said to have been intended as an insult to Lord Donoughmore, who was present, but his Lordship’s readiness completely turned the tables. He applauded the verse, and in a humorous speech acknowledged the relationship, thanked the author, and toasted the Murphy’s, Clearys, Helys, and others who in the recent political contest had ventured life and limb in support of the Hutchinson cause, and had thus made their blood-relationship with him unquestionable.
“’Tis there’s the kitchen hangs many a flitch in,With the maids a stitching upon the stair;The bread and biske’, the beer and whiskey,Would make you frisky if you were there.’Tis there you’d see Peg Murphy’s daughterA washingpratiesforenint the door,With Roger Cleary, and Father Healy,All blood relations to my Lord Donoughmore.Oh, Ullagoane.”
Lord Hutchinson always heartily enjoyed this verse, which has become completely identified with Milliken’s song.—(See Crofton Croker’s “Popular Songs of Ireland,” pp. 144-8.)
Father Prout has not translated this verse. Why does not Professor Tyrrell render it,Græce et Latine?
[37]He challenged Mr. Doyle to single combat for daring to issue an address to the University constituency against his (the Provost’s) son’s candidature. Mr. Doyle was a helpless invalid at the time, and had to stand on a spread-out coat, for fear of cold; the combatants met on Summer-hill, “fired a pistol each, and made up the matter without blood.” Hutchinson had previously challenged Dr. Lucas, the patriot, who was crippled with rheumatism.
[38]The number now is 1,338, of whom 789 are “Residents”—i.e., living within reach of College opportunities. [See Dr. Haughton’s return analysis, quoted in theFreeman’s Journalof January 7, 1882.] The number of students on the books under the degree of M.A. is 1,253 [seeCollege Calendarfor 1882, page 434]. The number of interns now is 250.
[39]See pagexlv.
[40]On this Visitation “Pranc. Poet.” has—
“Disgrac’d by libels, worried by his foesPoor Prancer labours under endless woes;He therefore only supplicates your GraceThat right or wrong you’ll keep him in his place.”
The Visitation lasted five days, and was held before Primate Robinson as Vice-Chancellor for the Duke of Gloucester, and Archbishop Cradock of Dublin. Hutchinson published a pamphlet reviling the Visitors, and pronouncing their decision invalid.
[41]A King’s Letter was obtained for raising the salary for this special occasion.—Lib. Mun.
[42]Duigenan did not execute this intention, as appears by the following record, kindly supplied by Dr. Carson, S.F.T.C.D.:—“I have to inform you that I have gone carefully through the College Register for the years 1777 and 1778, and I cannot find therein the least trace of any Visitation having been held in either of these years. The censure on Dr. Duigenan is duly recorded under its proper date, in the year 1777; but no further Collegiate notice appears to have been taken of it.”
[43]Walker’s Hiber. Mag. 177-8.
[44]Grattan’s Life, andHib. Mag.
[45]The Round Robiners probably bethought of the case of 1753 when the patriots who resisted the Court in the matter of the disposal of surplus revenue were dismissed from office by Primate Stone. They, no doubt, were afterwards reinstated with honour, but the conspirators of 1789 had to deal with John Fitzgibbon.—[See “Plowden,” p. 311, &c.]
[46]Froude, vol. ii., p. 509.
[47]Barry Yelverton was an unsuccessful candidate in this College Election of 1776. In the next year he was elected for Donegal, Belfast, and Carrickfergus, and chose the last.—[Ho. Co. Jour.]
It was as Recorder of Carrickfergus that Barry Yelverton presented Hussey Burgh with an address and the freedom of that Corporation in a gold box for resisting the Government on the question of Supplies while Prime Serjeant, and losing his place thereby. [Freeman’s Journal, Jan. 4, 1780.]
[48]Walker’s Hibernian Magazine,Freeman’s Journal, andExshaw’s Magazine.
[49]“The case of the Borough of Trinity College, near Dublin, as heard before a Select Committee of the House of Commons,A.D.1791.”
[50]Swift made an eager canvass for MacAulay, and wrote to Pope, asking him to write to Lord George (then Mr.) Lyttleton, who was private secretary to Frederick, Prince of Wales, the Chancellor of the University. The prince complied with the request, and Tisdall’s supporters sent over a remonstrance.—[“Swift’s Letters.”]
[51]This Francis Stoughton Sullivan got Scholarship, in 1744, at fifteen, and was probably one of the youngest Scholars and the youngest Fellow in the college records.
[52]He published, through the University Press, in 1797, a scholarly Edition of “Longinus,” and was the author of several other works. (See an interesting sketch of his life prefixed to Bohn’s edition of his “Philosophy of History.”)
[53]“About a month ago considerable sensation was created in Oxford by the rumour that one of the University examiners, who is also a “coach,” had prepared his private pupils in the precise questions set for examination. This, we may observe, was one of the heavy charges brought against Provost Hely Hutchinson, of Trinity College, about a century ago, the Provost having had recourse to the unprincipled manœuvre as an electioneering dodge. The ever-memorable Counsellor Peter Burrowes, when arraigning the Provost before a committee of the Irish House of Commons, said that his trick “would have made a docile parrot appear superior to Sir Isaac Newton;” but the committee condoned the Provost, against the judgment and votes of Arthur Wesley (Duke of Wellington) and Lord Edward Fitzgerald. The Oxford authorities seem not to be disposed to view so leniently the action of Mr. Philip Aldred, D.C.L. When the matter was reported to the Vice-Chancellor a substitute for the transgressing examiner was at once appointed. We believe that a University committee has been appointed to consider the expediency of taking away Mr. Aldred’s degrees—as was done in the Tractarian controversy days with Mr. Ward, the author of the “Ideal;” and, meanwhile, Mr. Aldred is now about to bring his case before the public, with the protest that he has been condemned unheard, after challenging investigation, and that he is able and willing to meet every charge brought against him.”—[Freeman’s Journal, Jan. 13th, 1882.]
[54]He was prevented from voting, not by any University or College statute, but by the Penal Law of 1727, which took away the franchise from Catholics. All the long past exclusiveness of the college, detrimental as it was to the college and to the country, was enjoined by the foreign power which cared little for the advancement of either. Down to this period the English legislature did not recognise at all the existence of Catholics in the college, believing them to be effectually excluded by the statute enforcing attendance at Anglican worship and Sacrament, and by the Supremacy and anti-Transubstantiation Declarations for Degrees, which were swept away by the Act of 1792.
[55]In 1725, Primate Boulter estimated that Dr. Delany, a Senior Fellow, and “the greatest pupil-monger,” had from Fellowship and pupils six or seven hundred pounds per annum.—[Letters.]
Swift, in 1730, computed that Delany, “by the benefit of the pupils, and his Senior Fellowship, with all its perquisites, received every year between nine hundred and a thousand pounds.”—[Works, vol. xiii., p. 82.]
Duigenan, in 1777, reckoned Dr. Leland’s Senior Fellowship at “£800, one year with another.”—[Lachrymæ.]
In 1777, it was considered surprising that Dr. Leland refused the living of Benburb, worth £1,000 a year, while his college income fell short of £700 a year.—[Exshaw’s Magazine, 1777.]
[56]In 1713, Swift wrote to Stella:—“I have been employed in endeavouring to save one of your Junior Fellows (Mr. Charles Grattan) who came over here for a dispensation from taking orders, and in soliciting it has run out his time, and now his Fellowship is void if the College pleases, unless the queen suspends the execution and gives him time to take Orders. I spoke to all the ministers about it yesterday; but they say, ‘the queen is angry and thought it but a trick to deceive her;’ and she is positive, and so the man must be ruined, for I cannot help him. I never saw him in my life, but the case was so hard, I could not forbear interposing. Your Government recommended him to the Duke of Ormond, and he thought they would grant it; and by the time it was refused, the Fellowship by rigour is forfeited.” The College Calendar has, “Charles Grattan, Fellow, 1710—removed for not taking Holy Orders, May 25th, 1713—Master of Enniskillen School, 1714.”—[Journal, Letter lxii., March 29th.]
[57]He got Scholarship along with his brother Robert, in 1775. The brothers Roberts, the present Senior Fellows, did the same in 1836.
[58]Denis George’s name does not appear in the list of scholars. He took his B.A. in 1773. Neither does Tankerville Chamberlain’s. He graduated in 1774.
[59]From the ranks of the Scholars have proceeded 13 Provosts, 199 Fellows; 1 Archbishop; 16 Bishops, of whom two held English sees; 4 Lord Chancellors; 2 Lords Justices; 29 Judges; 27 M.P.’s; 4 Vice-Chancellors; 18 Deans; 14 Governors, &c., of British dependencies; renowned Professors in all the Faculties, and nearly all the distinguished schoolmasters of the country; 1 Poet Laureate, and several celebrated authors and editors, besides numerous eminent clergymen and lawyers. This is exclusive of the enumeration [page xxvi] of the dignities obtained by Scholar-Fellows.
[60]It is even more remarkable that this matter was not mentioned by Duigenan.
[61]In the petition of 1778 one of the points set forth was that Scholars and Fellows should be legal Protestants to entitle them to vote, whereas the Provost had received for his son and Yelverton the votes of some who were not Protestants at the time of their election.
[62]Catholics and Nonconformists were not excluded from Scholarship by the statutes or by any oath. They were, however, designedly, and in the main effectually, excluded by the statute that all scholars, students, and sizars should attend chapel and partake of Holy Communion as often as it was administered (see “History of University,”Coll. Cal., 1876, vol. ii. p. 9), and the “Heron Visitation” (Chartæ and Statuta, vol. ii., p. 3, 1862). Attendance on the Anglican Chapel service and Communicating were of course intended as tests and pledges of Conformity.
[63]Parliamentary Debates.
[64]William Conyngham, Lord, and Lord Chancellor Plunket was the son of the Rev. Thomas Plunket, minister of the Strand-street Unitarian Congregation, who died on the 18th Sept., 1776. There is a very eulogistic notice of him in theFreeman’s Journalof the date.
[65]Down to the alterations made in the Statutes by the Queen’s Letter of 1855, the words of the Lit. Pat. of Charles I. were:—“in quem vel quos major pars Sociorum Seniorum unâ cum Præposito, vel eo absente, Vice Præposito consensisse deprehendetur, is, vel illi pro electo vel electis habeantur, et mox pronunciabuntur a Præposito. Quod si primo, vel Secundo Scrutinio electorum major pars, cum Præposito, vel eo absente, Vice Præposito non consenserint, eo casu in tertio Scrutinio, is, vel illi pro electo, vel electis sunto, quem, vel quos, Præpositus, vel eo absente Vice Præpositus, nominabit.” [Caput xxv. De Elect. form. et temp.]
[66]See also “An Enquiry how far the Provost of Trinity College is invested with a negative on the Proceedings of the Senior Fellows” (1790), by Dr. Young, Ex-Fellow and afterwards Bishop of Clonfert. It takes the same view of the case as that put forward in Miller’s pamphlet.—[Halliday Collection.]
[67]Note A.
[68]Hutchinson had to say to three of these affairs of honour, and according to Duigenan he came badly out of all of them. Duigenan himself, it should be observed, once had a sham duel, in which he did not figure at all brilliantly, according to the orthodox interpretation of the code. He had insulted Sir Richard Borough so grossly that a meeting could not be evaded, and when the paces were measured Duigenan refused to take up the pistols, which in due form were laid at his feet. He then shouted to the “old rascal to fire away,” and when Borough thereon left the field Duigenan declined to fight with his second, because he “had too great a regard for him to kill him.”
[69]In George Faulkner’s “Epistle to Howard” (1771), contained in the Halliday Collection in the Royal Irish Academy, we have—
“Thou Hutchinson whom every museWith winning grace and art endues,Whose power ’gainst prejudice contendsAnd proves that law and wit are friends—In that promiscuous page aloneBy letters J. H. H. art known.”
[70][“Life of Lord Charlemont.”]
[71]SeeNote C.
[72]“History of the University of Dublin,” p. 253, &c.
[73]“Froude,” vol. ii. p. 104.
[74]“Distinguished Irishmen,” vol. v. p. 233, &c.
[75]“English in Ireland,”passim.
[76]Barrè was over here at that time as Vice-Treasurer, &c. He received the Freedom of Dublin in 1776.
[77]The Bill was to raise the army in Ireland to 15,500 men. Pery and the Nationalists saw that the object of the Crown was to have troops to send to America to crush the Colonists, and this they would not have on any terms. The Government, in reply, passed an Act through the English Parliament, giving satisfactory security that the full force of 12,000 should be kept in Ireland. Nationalists now have not to complain of any want of troops in this country, and we do not hear of their demanding any “satisfactory assurance” of the permanence of the forces.
Nothing could exceed the eagerness of the English Ministry to have the Army Augmentation Bill passed through the Irish Parliament. Lord Shelbourne, the English Home Secretary, wrote to Lord Lieutenant Townshend (March 1768) (a) that he would not hear of Malone’s and Hutchinson’s suggestions of delay in bringing in the Bill. He further announced that the English Parliament had passed an Act taking off the limitation of the troops in Ireland, imposed by the 10th of William III., and pledging that a full force of 12,000 men should be kept in Ireland. Sexten Pery led the opposition, which defeated the Bill by a majority of four. The Irish parliament was prorogued and dissolved, and did not meet for sixteen months, when they again threw out the Army Bill. Eventually, in November, 1769, Townshend succeeded in having the clause carried in another Act, whereby 3,235 men, in addition to the 12,000 to be kept here, were voted.
In 1775, Lord Lieutenant Harcourt asked for 4,000 men for the king out of the Irish establishment to be despatched to America, and he offered to supply their place by German Protestant troops. Anthony Malone was chairman of the Parliamentary Committee which, after a warm debate, granted the contingent as “armed negotiators,” but rejected the Hessians. Grattan afterwards fiercely, and not unfairly, assailed Flood for carrying this discreditable measure. The troops were in time for the surrenders at Saratoga and Yorktown. Lord Edward Fitzgerald, one regrets to read, served on this expedition as aide-de-camp to Lord Moira. Lord Effingham, on the other hand, resigned his regiment rather than serve against those who were struggling for freedom, and he was twice publicly thanked by the people of Dublin.—[PlowdenandMitchell.]
In 1782, the king was allowed to draw 5,000 men out of the kingdom. In 1793, the Irish force was raised to 20,232. Most of these acts were for one year.