Historical Memoirs of the City of Armagh, for a period of 1373 years, comprising a considerable portion of the General History of Ireland; a Refutation of the opinions of Dr. Ledwich, respecting the Non-existence of St. Patrick; and an Appendix, on the Learning, Antiquities and Religion of the Irish Nation. By James Stuart, A. B. 8vo. pp. 860. Longman and Co. THIS closely-printed Volume is an acceptable present, not only to the Topographer, but to the General Historian and the lovers of Biography, of which it contains an ample store, comprising the following subjects. "1st. Historical Memoirs of Armagh, with a statistical account of that city.-2d. Biographical sketches of the various prelates who presided, in succession, over the see of Armagh, from the year 445 till the Reformation.-3. A Biographical Account of the Protestant Archbishops of Armagh, Primates of all Ireland, from the period of the Reformation till the year 1818. 4th. A similar account of the Lives of the Roman Catholic Archbishops of Armagh, or titular Primates of all Ireland.-5th. A narrative of various important events in the General History of Ireland, in which the Archbishops of Armagh, and the Church of Ireland, were either directly or indirectly concerned.-6th. An Account of the establishment of Presbyterian congregations, and of other religious societies, in the city of Armagh; with biographical sketches of the Presbyterian Ministers in regular order.-7th, Various matters relating to the trade, manufactures, antiquities, manners, customs, learning, and religion of the country, &c. which are either interspersed through the work, or subjoined in appendixes." "In giving a biographical account," says Mr. Stuart, "of the Roman Catholie Archbishops of Armagh, subsequent to the Reformation, and in discussing many other topics comprised in these Memoirs, the author has attempted to elucidate subjects hitherto untouched." uncouth form, and composed of two pieces of hammered iron, connected with brass solder and by twelve rivets. The bell itself has probably been designed for the internal use of a chapel, being only 9 inches in height, 5 in length, and 4 in breadth. When struck by the tongue, a dull, solemu tone is produced *. So far there is little interesting about it, except that it is an instrument of considerable antiquity. But it is accompanied by a splendid cover, unique in its kind, which serves at once to preserve it from injury, and to announce the veneration in which it had been held in former times. The taste, costliness and beauty of the numerous and singular decorations of this cover, demonstrate it to have been the production of a much later age than that of the bell itself. The ground of the cover is brass, edged with copper, and enriched with a great variety of elegant ornaments, raised in all its parts. Its top represents a compressed mitre, one side of which is adorned with a fine gold fillagrean work, and silver gilt. The silver work is partly scrolled in alto relievo, and partly in bass relief, resembling the knots in the collar of St. Patrick. In the centre of the top is a blue stone, set in fine gold, and insphered in a glass bead. In its centre are four pearl-coloured stones, with four green ones of a smaller size, representing an intersected cross. Under this is a circular space, now vacant, which had probably been once occupied by a gem. other side of the mitre is silver, cut into various crosses." The "An inscription on its four edges, or margins, in old Irish characters, indicates, as far as it has been deciphered "that the bell was presented by Domnald O'Lachlin, to Domnald, the comorbha of Patrick." After minutely describing this fine cover, Mr. Stuart add's, "Domnald Mac Amalgaid, the prelate evidently alluded to in the inscription, is sometimes styled the comorban, and sometimes the chief comorban of St. Patrick; and his successors received the same appellations. He was the only preIn an elaborate Introduction of late named Domnald, (or Donald), who 70 pages, Mr. Stuart, supported by presided over the see of Armagh. In the Bale, Polydore Vergil, Camden, and year 1092 a fire, which wasted a consiMilton, very ably combats the argu-churches, and, of course, ruined the bells. derable part of Armagh, destroyed the ments adduced by Dr. Ledwich to prove "that St. Patrick never éxisted." Prefixed to the volume is a description of "a curious Relick," with the existence of which Mr. Stuart was unacquainted till the volume was nearly finished at the press. "This curious relick consists of an antique four-sided hand-bell, of rather It is not improbable that the antique bell in question may have been one of a complete set presented by the Monarch Domnald, to his namesake and friend, the Bishop, to repair his loss. From the expensive materials so profusely lavished on that curious piece of workmanship, the *It is to be observed, that there is a hole in it, worn by time. 140 cover, REVIEW. Stuart's City of Armagh. it seems manifest, that the bell itself, the principal object of former veneration, had belonged to a cathedral or monastery, and had been viewed as a precious relic of antiquity, in the eleventh century. It is improbable that after the Reformation, it had fallen into neglect." The First Chapter of the History begins with a description of the City of Armagh, the capital of the county of that name, in the Province of UÏster, and the Ecclesiastical Metropolis of Ireland. "The river Callan flows in its vicinity, and, in some parts of its meandering course, approaches within less than a quarter of a mile of the city. The surrounding country is highly cultivated, agreeably diversified with hill and dale, and rich with rural scenery, pleasing, picfuresque, and varied. Armagh, situated on the sloping sides of a gently-asceuding hill, and adorned with many public edifices built in a simple but correct and striking style of architecture, is probably the most beautiful inland town in Ireland. The ground on which this city was built, was originally denominated Druimsailech, the hill of sallows. 'Afterwards,' says Colgan, it was styled Altitudo Sailech, or Ardsailech, the height of sallows.' This city, venerable for its antiquity, and famous in the annals of our country, owes its origin, and its ecclesiastical pre-eminence, to St. Patrick, the acknowledged Apostle of Ireland. By this pious and indefatigable Christian missionary, it was built in the year 445, on a hill then called Druimsailech, distant about two miles from the ruined palace of Eamhain. Our biographical sketch of the Bishops of Armagh must, of course, commence with the founder of the see." The history of the Patron Saint, and of his successors the Catholic Primates, interspersed with the principal events of Ireland, and notices of the contending Chieftains, occupies a considerable portion of the volume; and becomes more particularly in teresting as the great changes effected by the Reformation are developed. We turn, therefore, to the reign of Henry VIII. which began in 1509. "Octavianus de Palatio died extremely old, in June, 1513. In his time, Armagh had been reduced, by various causes, from its former splendour to the state of extreme wretchedness and insignificance, sarcastically described in the following Latin rhymes, written at that period; "Civitas Armachana, Absque bonis moribus ; Paupertas in ædibus." [Feb. These doggrel rhymes are attributed by Ware to the Archbishop himself, but it is not probable that so learned ́a man would have condescended to scribble such execrable lines. Accordingly we find that Moryson, who informs us that Armagh, which he styles the metropolitan of the whole island, was ruined in the time of the rebellion, adds that the lines in question were composed by an Italian friar. "John Kite, a native of London, who had been embassador to King Henry in Spain, was advanced to the primacy by provision of Leo X. before the end of 1513. He was a man remarkable for beneficence and hospitality. On the third of August, 1521, he resigned the See, and was made Archbishop of Thebes in Greece, and Bishop of Carlisle in England. He died in extreme old age, at Stepney, near London, on the nineteenth of June 1537, and was buried there near the midst of the chancel, Northward, under a marble, on which is inscribed an epitaph in miserable English rhyme. In 1513, the great Earl of Kildare died, and his son Girald was appointed in his place.-The independent spirit, rude manners, and manly eloquence of the Anglo-Irish warriors of those days, may be estimated from the following quotation of a part of a speech made by the Lord-deputy Girald, in reply to a formal accusation, brought against him by the haughty Wolsey, who charged him with wishing to reign in Ireland as in his kingdom: "I would, my Lord, that you and I had changed kingdoms but for one month. I would trust to gather up more crumbs in that space, than twice the revenues of my poor earldom. But you are well and warm. So hold you and upbraid not me with such an odious term. I slumber in a hard cabin, when you sleep in a soft bed of down. I serve under the cope of Heaven, when you are served under a canopy. I drink water out my skull, when you drink wine out of golden cups, My courser is trained to the field, when your jennet is taught to amble. When you are graced and be-lorded and crouch ed and kneeled unto, then find I small grace with our Irish borderers, except I cut them off by the knees.'" "Kildare was of a generous disposition, open, hasty, irritable, yet soon appeased. At a particular time when he was enraged with some of his servants, for some impropriety of conduct, one of his horsemen sportively offered Boyce (his gentleman) an Irish hobby, if he would pluck a hair from the Earl's beard. Boyce went up to his master respectfully, in the very tem pest 'I pest of his passion, and said, 'So it is, and if it like your Lordship, one of your horsemen has promised me a choice horse, if I pluck one hair from your beard.' agree,' said the Earl, "but if thou pluck any more than one I promise thee to pluck my fist from thine ear.' Did Shakspeare read this saying when he wrote Take thou thy pound of flesh, &c.'? "The simplicity of the Irish chieftains may also be fully proved by the following example. In the year 1522, the embassador of Mac Guilla Phadruic Prince of Upper Ossory, met the proud despot Henry VIII. on his way to chapel, and confronting him face to face, delivered his message in the following pithy and laconic terms Sta pedibus, Domine Rex, dominus meus Gill-Patricius me misit ad te, et jussit dicere, quòd si non vis castigare Petrum Rufum, ipse faciet bellum contra te.' "Ireland was afflicted with a dreadful plague in the year 1523, and another in 1525. The Sudor Anglicus revisited the country in 1528, but with less mischievous effect. The alleged peculiarity in the 'Sweating sickness" of those times, viz. that it was confined to persons of English descent, would probably require to be supported by stronger evidence, than has ever yet been offered in proof of its truth. We do not recollect that Lord Verulam has noticed this extraordinary circumstance. Yet, if authority can establish the truth of such assertions, it appears indubitable, that some nations have been occasionally exempt from particular diseases, to which others were subject. "George Cromer, an English divine, was consecrated Archbishop of Armagh in April 1522, and in the July following he was made Lord Chancellor of Ireland. He was a learned, grave, and courteous man, and died on the sixteenth of March 1542. A short vacancy in the See ensued, in which Edmund dean of Armagh was custos, and George Dowdall subcustos of the metropolitical Church. A convocation of the English Clergy was held by Dowdal, in October 1543, in St. Peter's Church, Drogheda. February 1559, by Thomas Walsh, register of the court of Armagh. The following two lines may serve as a specimen of its style: "Dum patriæ studio celebres proficiscor ad Anglos, Londini summum fata dedere diem.' "Dowdall had obtained, as we have stated above, possession of the primacy, by donation of Henry VIII. without the approbation or concurrence of the Pope. But Paul III. had conferred the See on Robert Waucop, (or Venantius), a Scot, a divine eminent for talents, learning, and virtue. This prelate had been blind from his infancy, yet by intense application to study he had made such proficiency in literature, that he had obtained the degree of Doctor of Divinity, at Paris. He was present at the famous council of Trent, from the first session, in 1545, till the eleventh, in 1547. The Pope placed considerable confidence in this divine, and he was sent by his holiness, Legate à Latere to Germany, and from this circumstance, it is said, originated the German proverb, A blind legate to the sharpsighted Germans." "Waucop, prior to his appointment by the Pope, to the Archbishoprick of Armagh, had, in 1541, introduced the order of Jesuits into Ireland, under the patronage of Paul III. John Codure was the first of the society received there. He was followed by Alphonsus Salmeron, Paschasius Broet, aud Francis Zapata. Waucop is said by Cox to have been famous for riding post the best of auy man in Christendom. It is not easy to conceive why a blind ecclesiastic should have been so laboriously occupied, and how he could possibly have overcome the difficulties which, in the course of such severe and hazardous exercise, his defect of vision must necessarily have produced. Waucop died at Paris, in a convent or meeting of Jesuits, on the tenth of November 1551. "We have now, in these historical sketches, arrived at that particular point of time when the Church of Ireland began to be separated, by the law of the laud, from the See of Rome. Two distinct ec"George Dowdall, a native of Lowth, clesiastical hierarchies, shortly after this succeeded Cromer in the See of Armagh period, coexisted in Ireland; the one prein 1543. He was a grave and learned siding over the religion of the State, the man, and very assiduous in the exercise of other over that long adopted and steadily his episcopal functions.-This prelate wrote adhered to by the great majority of the some sermons, and translated from Latin people. Waucop ought, of course, to be into English, the Life of John De Courcy, classed as the first titular Primate of all the conqueror of Ulster. Ware says, that, Ireland, in right of his appointment by the his "Ecclesiastical Constitutions " were Pope, or in other words, as the first Roman extant in his days. He died in London, Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, nominated on the fifteenth of August 1558. His in this country, after the commencement epitaph was registered on the twelfth of of the Reformation, by the Papal See." (To be continued. 19. The 142 19. REVIEW. Shuttleworth on the Church, &c. The Church and the Clergy, exhibiting the Obligations of Society, Literature, and the Arts, to the Ecclesiastical Orders ; and the Advantages of an Established Priesthood. By George Edmund Shuttleworth. 8vo. pp. 306. Rivingtons. The object of Mr. Shuttleworth's well-intended and well-executed book, is to shew, that the great work of civilization has been, in every age, effected by an Established Clergy. Of the fact, there can be no dispute. In the present day, it is incontrovertible, that, from the thinness of the population in particular districts, there could be no religion at all maintained, unless there was a fixed appointment of ministers; and that the education of the gentry, beyond mechanical acquisitions, applicable to business, not mind, is almost without exception vested in the Regular Clergy. The great statue, therefore, of European civilization, and therein of course of European power, is the sculpture of the priesthood. The Almighty Being was the original creator of the materials; but, as if he intended that they should only be worked up into a demonstration of their real worth and power, by his own devoted servants, he has resolved that the exhibition of the Beau Ideal shall be a privilege confined to them. Paganism and superstition are no exceptions; for, from temples and idolatry arose the arts of architecture, sculpture, and poetry, and the principle of the fear of God. As to superstitions and pious frauds, they were absolutely matters of necessity; rough and undignified tools, hammers and beetles to pound ores, which, under the atmosphere of general civilization, would pulverize of themselves. Mr. Mills, in his History of the Crusades, relates an ineffectual attempt to persuade the barbarous army of the Crusaders into a measure of common sense. The effect was much like that of reasoning [Feb. the crew of a sinking vessel, out of anarchy, and starting the rum-casks. Distressed beyond measure, they fabricated a tremendous vision; and the astounded multitude were instantaneously submissive. All this is a chemical treatment of minds which cannot be decomposed by any other process. Barbarism, or an uneducated state, is, as Mr. Fosbroke observes, "a permission of Providence," resulting from deterioration of faculties, consequential upon the fall of Adam. We do not mean to speak thus in the pretended onction of Evangelicals, who neglect divinity as a science, because it has not the effect of mob oratory, but, in conformity to the principles of a Literary Journal, theologically and philosophically. The Clergy, as Swift says, have no more interest in mysteries than their hearers; but surely, if our Saviour's busbandman went out to sow wheat, and his enemy intermixed tares, the Clergy in the present day, may say, in homely allusion, that they go out to sow turnips, and that the fly destroys them, because the soil is not suffi ciently pulverized, i. e. educated, to allow the young fibres to root themselves. The inevitable tendency of all education is to augment common sense, which is hostile, upon principles of self-interest, to intemperance and folly. God cannot be the author of evil; and without the Fall, there can be no possible philosophical solution of moral evil, for if there be an exception no explication is, ac cording to the laws of philosophizing, solid. All religion implies unseen, unknown action; and it is evidently philosophical to admit such action, because it actually operates under the passions of hope and fear. The question therefore of its existence cannot be disputed; and being incorporated with a living subject, its action is matter of course, because nonagency is only the property of inanimate subjects. Mistake may resolve itself into the mere vanity of a farmer, pretending to explain a baro meter; and, if such an unavoidable suggestion of nature, as religion, was absurd in a barbarous age, the cause must be ascribed to the Fall of Adam, and the imperfect exhibition of religion to the effect. If God intended man, ever to be a most refined intellectual animal, unless, by an abuse of of free-will, he had forfeited that privilege, we cannot see any sound philosophical solution of the permitted existence of barbarism. A petitio principii may be started, but that, of course, cannot be regarded. An opinion of unknown agency, as the first principle of all religion, being established, as we presume, the next two agents are Miracle and Prophecy. If unknown agency be conceded, there can be no logical objection to Miracles, wrought in pursuance of its own intentions as a necessary part of its own action. A divine Being, such as we presume Christ to have been, may have a perfect knowledge of these laws of unknown agency; for it is an analogous inference, from the partial science of philosophers, that such a permission may have been conatural, because it has been imperfectly, conferred. If, therefore, it be no physical absurdity to allow unknown agency, we see none in the divinity of Christ, or his sacrifice of himself. Without intenseness of philanthropical feeling, there may be stoicisms, but there cannot be useful virtue; and as Christ, humanly considered, only suffered corporally, at or about the period of dissolution, we know, that the laws of life and death imply, as Paley says, a connection with providential institutions utterly unknown to us. Bishop Watson successfully opposes the earthquake at Lisbon, to Payne's excision of the Canaanites; and a philosophical explanation of the laws of life and death, so far as concerns the whole animal race, is not permitted to man. The sun, the moon, and material inanimate bodies, appear only to have indefinite duration: and, that only apparently. of the predictions were the Priests." In the same sense, the Holy Spirit was the prophet, Isaiah, David, &c. the mere utterers, though agents, of far different character to those of the heathens. We see, therefore, that the modes of It is plain, that Mr. Shuttleworth's position, could only find opponents from unphilosophical conclusions concerning the priesthood of barbarous ages, when superstition is matter of course. In the present day, the Clergy are enlightened teachers and benevolent philanthropists. Every village spire, says Mrs. Barbauld, rebukes the traveller, who profanes the Sabbath, by reminding him that religion and virtue are cultivated in the country, whose laws he is abusing; and every public foundation, as Mr. Shuttleworth observes, is either a benefaction of the Clergy, or created by their influence, or founded upon their doctrines. But the position is best proved by negatives; "what would man be," says Archbishop Secker, "were he to enter into life, without the bias of one good motive;" and think, says Lord Grenville, what a country must be without religious and moral instruction ? And here we must pause for a moment to notice, what we think would be an improvement, and is perhaps a measure highly requisite with regard to sectaries. We mean no disrespect to our Universities, if we do The next presumed part of un- not approve the course of studies, known agency is Prophecy. No per- recommended for graduation. We son will suspect us of undue partiali- cannot be thought so foolish as to ty to Christianity, if we quote that discountenance science of any kind, literary coxcomb, M. Paw, because but we think it an incontrovertible he has made a happy citation: "They, truism, that men should be educated says Plato, are grossly ignorant, who according to the profession for which think that the prophet is he who fore- they are intended. Now, at one Unitels the future; they make him the versity, perfection in verbs in same as the mantis; and the mantis is with antient chronology and geogra always a fool, or un furieux, or aphy, dates, names, and matters of remaniac." From all this it necessarily follows, as Plato observes, that the prophet was only the interpreter of the prediction, which he never made and could not make himself. The Pythia was a lunatick, "the authors ference, are studies for degrees, enjoined upon future lawyers and divines. In the other, mathematicks must be acquired by men who are intended for physicians; as if one single |