INSCRIPTION IN HONOUR OF KEATING.
The poet-priest must have died at an advanced age, though the precise date of his demise has not been ascertained. He has also left some religious works; and his "Shaft of Death" is well known and much admired both by divines and Celtic scholars.[[517]]
O'Sullivan Beare's history is too well known to require more than a passing mention. It was said that he wrote as fiercely as he fought. Archbishop Usher, with whom he had many a literary feud, appears to have been of this opinion; for, after having described O'Sullivan as an "egregious liar," he was so sensitive to any counter abuse he might receive in return, that he carefully cut out every disparaging epithet which the historian used from the copy of his reply, which at present lies, with Usher's other works, in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin.
The Four Masters are included amongst the Irish writers of this century, but I have already given ample details of their labours. The Acta Sanctorum of Colgan, and Ward's literary efforts in a foreign land for his country, are beyond all praise. Usher and Ware were also amongst the giants of these days; and, considering the state of political and religious excitement amongst which they lived and wrote, it is incomparably marvellous that they should not have dipped their pens still deeper into the gall of controversy and prejudice. Usher was one of the Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores, for his family came to Ireland with King John; but he admired and wrote Celtic history with the enthusiasm of a Celt, and he gathered materials for other men's work with patient industry, however he may have allowed party spirit to influence and warp his own judgment in their use. Usher was Ware's most ardent patron. Habits of indefatigable research did for him, in some degree, what natural genius has done for others. Nor was he slow to recognize or avail himself of native talent; and there can be no doubt, if he had lived a few years longer after his acquaintance with MacFirbis, that Irish literature would have benefited considerably by the united efforts of the man of power, who was devoted to learning, and the man of gifts, who had the abilities which neither position nor wealth can purchase. John Lynch, the Bishop of Killala, and the indefatigable and successful impugner of Cambrensis, was another literary luminary of the age. His career is a fair sample of the extraordinary difficulties experienced by the Irish in their attempts to cultivate intellectual pursuits, and of their undaunted courage in attaining their end. Usher has himself recorded his visit to Galway, where found Lynch, then a mere youth, teaching a school of humanity (A.D. 1622). "We had proofe," he says, "during our continuance in that citie, how his schollars profitted under him, by the verses and orations which they brought us."[[518]] Usher then relates how he seriously advised the young schoolmaster to conform to the popular religion; but, as Lynch declined to comply with his wishes, he was bound over, under sureties of £400 sterling, to "forbear teaching." The tree of knowledge was, in truth, forbidden fruit, and guarded sedulously by the fiery sword of the law. I cannot do more than name a few of the other distinguished men of this century. There was Florence Conry, Archbishop of Tuam, and founder of the Irish College of Louvain. He was one of the first to suggest and to carry out the idea of supplying Irish youth with the means of education on the Continent, which they were denied at home. It is a fact, unexampled in the history of nations, that a whole race should have been thus denied the means of acquiring even the elements of learning, and equally unexampled is the zeal with which the nation sought to procure abroad the advantages from which they were so cruelly debarred at home. At Louvain some of the most distinguished Irish scholars were educated. An Irish press was established within its halls, which was kept constantly employed, and whence proceeded some of the most valuable works of the age, as well as a scarcely less important literature for the people, in the form of short treatises on religion or history. Colleges were also established at Douay, Lisle, Antwerp, Tournay, and St. Omers, principally through the exertions of Christopher Cusack, a learned priest of the diocese of Meath. Cardinal Ximenes founded an Irish College at Lisbon, and Cardinal Henriquez founded a similar establishment at Evora. It is a remarkable evidence of the value which has always been set on learning by the Catholic Church, that even in times of persecution, when literary culture demanded such sacrifices, she would not admit uneducated persons to the priesthood. The position which the proscribed Catholic priesthood held in Ireland at this period, compared with that which the favoured clergy of the Established Church held in England, is curious and significant. Macaulay says of the latter: "A young levite—such was the phrase then in use—might be had for his board, a small garret, and ten pounds a year; and might not only perform his own professional functions, but might also save the expenses of a gardener or a groom. Sometimes the reverend man nailed up the apricots, and sometimes he curried the coach-horses. He cast up the farrier's bills. He walked ten miles with a message or a parcel. He was permitted to dine with the family, but he was expected to content himself with the plainest fare—till he was summoned to return thanks for the repast, from a great part of which he had been excluded."[[519]]
In Ireland there were few learned men in the Established Church, and even Usher seems to have been painfully indifferent to the necessity of superior education, as well as regular ordination, for his clergy. In 1623 Dr. Blair was invited to Ireland by Lord Clannaboy, to take the living of Bangor, vacated by the death of the Rev. John Gibson, "sence Reformacione from Popary the first Deane of Down." Dr. Blair objected both to episcopal government and to use the English Liturgy; yet he "procured a free and safe entry to the holy ministry," which, according to his own account, was accomplished thus. His patron, Lord Clannaboy, informed "the Bishop Echlin how opposite I was to episcopacy and their liturgy, and had the influence to procure my admission on easy and honorable terms." At his interview with the Bishop, it was arranged that Dr. Blair was to receive ordination from Mr. Cunningham and the neighbouring clergy, and the Bishop was "to come in among them in no other relation than a presbyter." These are the Bishop's own words; and his reason for ordaining at all was: "I must ordain you, else neither I nor you can answer the law nor brook the land." In 1627 Blair had an interview with Archbishop Usher, and he says "they were not so far from agreeing as he feared." "He admitted that all those things [episcopacy and a form of prayer] ought to have been removed, but the constitution and laws of the place and time would not permit that to be done." A few years later Mr. John Livingstone thus relates his experience on similar subjects. He had been appointed also by Lord Clannaboy to the parish of Killinchy; and, "because it was needful that he should be ordained to the ministry, and the Bishop of Down, in whose diocese Killinchy was, being a corrupt and timorous man, and would require some engagement, therefore my Lord Clannaboy sent some with me, and wrote to Mr. Andrew Knox, Bishop of Raphoe, who told me he knew my errand, and that I came to him because I had scruples against episcopacy and ceremonies, according as Mr. Josiah Welsh and some others had done before; and that he thought his old age was prolonged for little other purpose than to perform such ceremonies." It was then arranged that he should be ordained as Dr. Blair and others had been. The Bishop gave him the book of ordination, and said, "though he durst not answer it to the State," that he might draw a line over anything he did not approve of, and that it should not be read. "But," concludes Mr. Livingstone, "I found that it had been so marked by some others before, that I needed not mark anything; so the Lord was pleased to carry that business far beyond anything that I have thought, or almost ever desired."[[520]]
Such facts as these were well known to the people; and we can scarcely be surprised that they increased their reverence for the old clergy, who made such sacrifices for the attainment of the learning necessary for their ministry, and who could not minister, even if they would, without having received the office and authority of a priest by the sacrament of orders.
But literary efforts in Ireland were not confined to the clergy; O'Flaherty and MacFirbis devoted themselves with equal zeal to the dissemination and preservation of knowledge; and we envy not the man who can read without emotion the gentle complaint of the former, in his Ogygia: "I live a banished man within the bounds of my native soil—a spectator of others enriched by my birthright." And again: "The Lord hath wonderfully recalled the royal heir to his kingdom, with the applause of all good men; but He hath not found me worthy to be restored to the kingdom of my cottage. Against Thee, O Lord, have I sinned: may the Lord be blessed for ever!"
The customs and dress of the upper classes in Ireland were probably much the same as those of a similar rank in England.[[521]] Commerce was so constantly restricted by English jealousy, that it had few opportunities of development. In a curious old poem, called the Libel of English Policie, the object of which was to impress on the English the necessity of keeping all trade and commerce in their own hands, we find Irish exports thus enumerated:—