with his statue, of elegant workmanship, on which are inscribed the following verses, penned without the aid of the Muses:
‘Præsul Metropolis Michael hic Dubliniensis
Marmore tumbatus, pro me Christum flagitetis.’
And at the head of the statue,
‘Jesus est Salvator meus.’
“This monument was found under the rubbish in St Stephen’s Chapel; the cover of it was preserved by the care of the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick’s, and the Chapter, who in the year 1730 fixed it up in the wall, on the left hand, as you enter the west gate, between the said gate and the place where heretofore the Consistory Court was held; and they have placed this inscription over it: ‘Vetus hoc Monumentum, è ruderibus Capellæ Divi Stephani nuper instauratæ erutum, Decanus et Capitulum hùc transferri curaverunt, A.D. 1730.’
“The will of this Prelate, dated the 10th of December 1471, is extant among the manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin (B. 52), whereby he deviseth his two silver gilded saltsellers (salsaria) with their covers, to make cups for St. Patrick’s, to serve in divine offices. He also bequeathed his pair of organs to the said Church, to be used at the celebration of divine service in St. Mary’s Chapel. ‘I devise also (says he) that William Wyse, whose industry for this purpose I choose, shall in my stead visit with a decent oblation St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, which by vow I am bound to perform either by myself or proxy;’ and also orders him to give some largesses towards building the neighbouring churches near where his friends dwell.
“The registry[22] of the Dominican Abbey in Dublin gives an account, that above fifty persons went out of the
Diocese to Rome in 1451, to celebrate the jubilee then held under Pope Nicholas the fifth, and that this prelate gave them recommendatory certificates to the Pope; that seven of the number were pressed to death in the crowd, besides what died in their return. This squares with the relation given by Mathias Palmerius, in his additions to the Chronicle of Eusebius, ‘That there was so great a concourse of people from all parts of the Christian world at this jubilee, that at Hadrian’s Mole almost two hundred perished in the press, besides many who were drowned in the Tiber.’ They who returned sate in 1453, brought the melancholy news, that Constantinople was taken by the Turks, and the Emperor Constantine Palæologus slain. Our Archbishop was so afflicted at the account, that he ordered a fast to be kept strictly throughout his diocese for three days together, and granted indulgences of an hundred years to the observers of it; and he himself went before the clergy in procession to Christ Church cloathed in sackcloth and ashes.”
The works of Tregury are thus noticed by Pits, in his volume “De illustribus Angliæ Scriptoribus:”