accordingly met. The Jesuit made light of him at first, as being but a boy, and thinking it an easy task to baffle him, he consented to a public disputation, and because the several matters in debate could not be dispatched in one or two conferences, they appointed to meet once a week to argue the chief subjects in controversy. But it seems that the Jesuit had soon enough of it; for though he despised him at first, he did not care to have any more to do with him; for after the second conference this boasting Goliath declined the contest with this stripling, and not without cause, for he had felt the quickness of his wit, the strength of his arguments, and his skill in disputation, so that the Jesuit quickly left the field. Usher wrote a modest letter to him, desiring a continuance of the conference, but he received no answer; and the Jesuit when he was liberated from prison, said thus of him, Prodiit quidam octodenarius, præcocis sapientiæ juvenis, de abstrusisimis rebus Theologicis, cum adhuc Philosophica studia vix emensus, nec er Ephebis egressus, i. e. "There came to me once a youth of about eighteen years of age, of a ripe wit, when scarcely as you would think, gone through his course of philosophy, or out of his childhood, yet ready to dispute on the most abstruse points of divinity." At another time the same Jesuit calls Usher, Acatholicorium doctissimus, "The most learned of the Non-catholicks."

At

At the age of twenty-one Mr. Usher was admitted both deacon and priest, contrary to the canons, but the excuse for this deviation from the rule in his case, was his extraordinary merit, and the necessity which the Church then had of such a labourer.

His powers as a preacher were very great, and he had such an insight into the times and the character of the Romanists, to whom more indulgence was then shewn than he thought prudent or safe, that he ventured in a sermon preached before the court at Dublin, to utter a very remarkable prediction.

His text was Ezekiel iv. 6. And thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed the cach day for a year. This relates to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish nation, which the preacher having considered proceeded to apply to existing circumstances, and in the course of his sermon expressed the following conjecture with regard to Ireland. "From this time [1601] I reckon forty years, and then those whom you now embrace shall be your ruin, and you shall bear their iniquity." This passage says the author of the Archbishop's life, seemed to be only the present thoughts of a young man who was no friend to popery; but afterwards when it came to pass at the expiration of forty years, viz. in 1641, that the Irish rebellion broke out and so many thousands of protestants

were

were slain, then those who lived to see that day, began to think he was a young prophet.*

It is not consistent with the design of this work to enter into the exactness of biographical detail, and therefore we shall content ourselves with barely noting that this learned and modest man was advanced, first to the bishopric of Meath, by King James the first, who said on granting the conge d'elire "that Dr. Usher was a bishop of his own making," In 1626, he was elevated to the primacy of Ireland in which high station he conducted himself with equal zeal and tenderness, reforming the ecclesiastical courts, narrowly inspecting the manners of the clergy, and endeavouring to bring over the Romanists to the es~ tablished church, by reasoning and gentleness.

"To effect the last object he began," says the writer of his life, "to converse more frequently, and familiarly with the gentry and nobility of that persuasion, also with divers of the inferior sort that dwelt near him, inviting them often to his house, and discoursing with great mildness of the chief tenets of their religion; by which gen tle usage he was very successful, convincing many of them of their errors, and bringing them to the knowledge of the truth. And he also advised the bishops and clergy of his province, to deal with the popish recusants in their several dioceses

*Parr's Life of Usher, p. 9.

and

and cures, after the same manner; that if possible they might make them understand their errors and the danger in which they were: which way, in a country where there are no penal laws to restrain the public profession of that religion, was the best if not the only means, which could be used. Nor was his care confined only to the conversion of the ignorant Irish papists; but he also endeavoured the reduction of the Scotch and English sectaries to the bosom of the church, as it was by law established, confirming and arguing with divers of them, as well ministers as laymen, and shewing them the weakness of those scruples and objections they had against their joining with the public service of the church, and submitting to its government and discipline."

Notwithsanding this, the Archbishop was stigmatized by some bigots of his own communion as being puritanically inclined, for which no reason could be assigned, unless it was the mildness of his temper, and the moderation of his measures. The calumny, however, was industriously conveyed to the ear of the monarch, but James, after discoursing with Dr. Usher, observed," that the knave Puritan was a bad, but the knave's Puritan an honest man."

The Archbishop was in England when the Irish rebellion broke out, so that he escaped suffering in person, though he was despoiled of his estate, and saved nothing but his library, which was conveyed to Chester, and from thence to London.

So great and extensive was his reputation at this time, that the city and university of Leyden, hearing of his losses, offered to chuse him their honorary professor of theology, with a more ample salary than had formerly been annexed to the office; and Cardinal Richelieu invited him to France, with the promise of a noble pension and the free exercise of his religion. These offers he declined and was appointed by the king to the vacant bishopric of Carlisle, of which he was soon deprived by the Presbyterians, who abolished episcopacy, plundered the cathedrals, and confiscated the lands of the bishops. The parliament, indeed, in consequence of his great losses voted him a pension of four hundred pounds a year, but this he did not receive above once or twice.

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When the king withdrew to Oxford, the archbishop retired thither also, and often preached before the persecuted monarch, which so exasperated the prevailing faction that they made an order for seizing his books which were in Chelsea college. This decree, which would have disgraced Goths and Saracens, was carried into execution, and the books would have been publicly sold had not Dr. Featley, who was then in some favour with the party, and a member of their assembly at Westminster, obtained them for his own use; by which means they were secured for the archbishop, at least as many as were not stolen before they came into the doctor's hands. Amongst the

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