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had applied to both Universities in vain, to find one to defend them, and were driven too flie to a weak hedge, and fight for themselves with a rotten stake. And the author remarks, it is tolde mee that they haue got one_in London to write certaine Honest Excuses, for so they terme it,' afterwards adding, I stay my hande till I see his booke; when I haue perused it, I wil tell you more.'

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How far the rotten stake' and pointing Lodge out (who was of Trinity college, Oxon,) as one not belong ing to the University, provoked any ironical or sarcastic observation from our biting Satyrist' in the answer to Gosson, is not known, for no copy of the work has yet been discovered. Wood calls it a Treatise in defence of Plays *, and, if not printed, was probably freely circulated in manuscript soon after the School of Abuse appeared, being suppressed, according to our author, by the godly and reuerent that had to deale in the cause.' Gosson obtaining a priuate vnperfect coppye,' answered it in Plays confuted in five Actions, n. d. but published about 1582, if the conjecture in the note below is tenable.

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To this philippic, Lodge made no reply for two years, when, having occasion to address the Gentlemen of the Inns of Court, he first condescended to notice the virulence of his antagonist with the conscious pride of his own withers being unwrung,' by a judicious appeal against the falsehoods urged against him; and, after a temperate admonishment to amend, concludes his observations by cool disarming advice, and a candid acknowledgment that his antagonist had a good pen.'

The Dedication is inscribed

، To the right worshipfull, my curteous friends, the Gentlemen of the Innes of Court, Thomas Lodge of Lincolnes Inne, Gentleman, wisheth prosperous successe in their studies, and happie euent in their trauailes.- Curteous Gentlemen, let it not seeme straunge vnto you, that hee which hath long time slept in silence, now be ginneth publikely to salute you, since no

* ، This I have not yet seen, says Wood, and in the new edition of the Ath. Ox. Dr. Bliss only refers by note to Gosson's answer. After the laborious research of those two editors without success, there seems but slight ground to expect it ever will be discovered. See Ath. Ox. by Bliss, vol. ii. col. 384.

doubt, my reasons that induce me herevnto be such, as both you may allowe of them, since they be well meant, and account of them since they tend to your profit. I haue published heere of set purpose a tried experience of worldly abuses, describing heerein not onely those monsters which were banished Athens, I meane Vsurers, but also have fatted their fingers with many rich forsuch deuouring caterpillars, who not onely faitures, but also spread their venim among some priuate Gentlemen of your profession, which considered, I thought good in opening the wound, to preuent an vlcer, and by counselling before escape, forewarn before the mischiefe. Led then by these perswasions, I doubt not, but as I haue alwayes found you fauourable, so now you will not cease to be friendly, both in protecting of this iust cause from vniust slander, and my person from that reproch, which, about two against me: you that knowe me, Gentleyeares since, an iniurious cauiller obiected men, can testifie that neyther my life hath bene so lewd, as yt my companie was odious, nor my behauiour so light, as that it shuld passe the limits of modestie: this notwithstanding a licentious Hipponate, neither regarding the asperitie of the lawes touching slaunderous Libellers, nor the offspring from whence I came, which is not contemptible, attemted, not only in publike and reprochfull terms to condemn me in his writings, but also to slander me, as neither iustice shuld wink at so hainous an offe'ce, nor I pretermit a commodious reply. About three yeres ago one Stephen Gosson published a booke, intituled, The Schoole of Abuse, in which hauing escaped in many and sundry co'clusions, I, as the occasion the' fitted me, shapt him such an answere as beseemed his discourse, which by reason of the slenderness of ye subiect (because it was in defe'ce of plaies and play makers) ye godly and reuerent yt had to deale in the cause, misliking it, forbad the publishing, notwithstanding he comming by a priuate vnperfect coppye, about two yeres since, made a reply, diuiding it into fiue sexions, and in his Epistle dedicatory, to the right honorable Sir Francis Walsingham, he impugneth me with these reproches: that I am become a vagarant person, visited be ye heuy hand of God, lighter then libertie, and looser the' vanitie. At such time as I first came to ye sight heerof (iudge you gentlemen how hardly I could disgest it), I bethought myselfe to frame an answere, but considering that the labour was but lost, I gaue way to my misfortune, contenting myselfe to wait ye opportunitie wherein I might, not according to the impertinacie of the injurye, but as equitye might countenance mee, cast a raine ouer the vntamed curtailes chaps, and wiping out the suspition of this slander from the reme'brance of those yt knew me, not counsell this iniurious Asinius to become

more conformable in his reportes: and now, Gentlemen, hauing occasions to pass my trauailes in publike, I thought it not amisse somewhat to touch the slaunder, and prouing it to be most wicked and discommendable, leaue the rest to the discretion of those in authoritie, who if the Gentleman had not plaid bo peep thus long, would haue taught him to haue counted his cards a little better and now Stephen Gosson let me but familiarly reason with thee thus: Thinkest thou yt in handling a good cause it is requisite to indure a fals propositio', although thou wilt say it is a part of Rethorike to argue A Persona, yet is it a practise of small honestie to conclude without occasion if thy cause wer good, I doubt not but in so large and ample a discourse as thou hadst to handle, thou mightest had [have] left the honor of a gentleman inuiolate. But thy base degree, subiect to serile attempts, measureth all things according to cauilling capacitie, thinking because nature hath bestowed vpo' thee a plausible discourse, thou maist in thy sweet termes present the sowrest and falsest reports yu canst imagine: but it may be, yt as it fortuned to the noble man of Italy, it now fareth wt me, who, as Petrarch reported, giue' greatly to ye entertainme't of strangers, and pleasure of the chase, respected not the braue and gorgious garments of a courtier, but delighted in such clothing as seemed ye place where he soiourued, this noble gentleman returning on a time fro' his game, found all his house furnished with strangers, on who' bestowing his accustomed welcome, he bent himself to the overseeing of his domestical preparatio', and coming to ye stable among the hors-keepers of his new come guests, and reprehending one of the' for faultering in his office, ye fellow impatient of reproofe, and measuring ye gentleman by his plaine coat, stroke him on the face, and turned him out of ye stable, but afterward attending on his master, and perceiuing him whom he had stroken to be ye Lord of ye house, he humbly craued pardo': ye gentleman, as patient as plesant, not only forgaue him ye escape, but pretely answered thus, I blame not thee, good fellow, for thy outrage, but this companion, pointing to his coat, which hath made thee mistake my person. So at this instant esteeme I. M. Gosson hath dealt with me, who not mesuring me by my birth, but by y subiect I handled, like Will Summer striking him yt stood next him, hath vpbraided me in person, whe' he had no quarrell, but to my cause, and therein pleaded his own indiscretio', and loded me with intollerable iniurie. But if with Zoylus hee might kisse the gibet, or with Pata cion hopheadlesse, the world shoulde be rid of an iniurious slaunderer, and that tongue laboured in suppositions, might be nailed vp as Tullies was for his Philipicall declamations. But good Stephen, in like sorte will

I deale with thee as Philip of Macedon with Nicanor, who not respecting the maiestie of the king, but giuing himselfe ouer to the petulancie of his tongue, vainly inueighed against him, whom notwithstanding Philip so cunningly handeled, that not onely he ceased the rumor of his report, but also made him as lauish in commending, as once he was profuse in discommending: his attempt was thus performed, he seeing Nicanor sorely pressed with pouerty, releeued him to his content. Wherevpon altering his coppie, and breaking out into singular commendation of Philip, the king concluded thus: Loe, curtesie can make of bad good, and of Nicanor an enemie Nicanor a friend. Whose actions, my reprouer, I will now fit to theè, who hauing slaundered me without cause, I will no otherwise reuenge it, but by this meanes, that now in publike I confesse thou hast a good pen, and if thou keepe thy methode in discourse, and leaue thy slandering without cause, there is no doubt but thou shalt bee commended for thy coppie, and praised for thy stile. And thus desiring thee to measure thy reportes with iustice, and you good Gentlemen to answere in my behalfe if you heare me reproched, I leaue you to your pleasures, and for myself I will studie your profit. Your loving friend, THOMAS LODGE." EU. HOOD.

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REFORMATION IN CAVAN.

S this interesting place is situated in Kilmore, the central Diocese of Ireland, it may be interesting at the present time to trace the dawn and revival of the Reformation in it, since the year 1576. At that time this Bishoprick was possessed by one Richard Brady, of an ancient family in the county of Cavan, where this name is still a popular one. Lying in a tumultuous and unsettled country, as Walter Harris in his improved edition of Sir James Ware's Works observes, the See of Kilmore had been neglected by the Crown of England, so that even after the Reformation the Bishops of it succeeded, either by usurpation or by Papal authority.

of Ulster, that the Popish Bishop who So savage was the state of this part succeeded to this See in 1511, one Dermot, a man of learning and a lover of tranquillity, withdrew from it to the Vicarage of Swords, in the English pale, near Dublin, where he died in 1529; and his successor, Edmund Nugent, left it to be Prior of the Convent of the blessed Virgin at Tristernagh, in the county of Westmeath, retaining, however, the Bishopric by com

mendam, until he resigned it, in 1541, to King Henry VIII. who granted him an annual pension of 261. 13s. 4d. payable out of the revenues of that suppressed Priory during his life.'

Bishop Brady, according to the account given of him by the Lord Deputy, Sir John Perrot, to Queen Elizabeth in 1585, had been a “lewd Friar, who, coming from Rome as a delegate of the Pope, had usurped this See, and was dispersing abroad seditious Bulls and other such trash." The Lord Deputy added, that he had dispossessed this intruder of the place he had usurped, and expected to bring him to submission or answer for his lewdness.

He recommended John Garvey, Dean of Christ Church, Dublin, to succeed to this Bishopric, stating, that "It would be an increase of the Queen's interest among the barbarous people of this part of Ireland, if a Bishop were placed there under the Queen's authority."

Brady's character must have been extremely bad, and his conduct intolerable, to elicit such a character as this from Sir John Perrot, who was known to have been exceedingly mild, if not culpably favourable to the natives in his Government of Ireland; and we find in Sir John Davis's Reports (fol. 84), that this seditious ecclesiastic was indicted in the year 1606, upon the act of 16th of Richard II. commonly called the statute of PRÆMUNIRE, for having ordained one Richard Lawlor a Priest, and having, under the authority of a commission from the Bishop of Rome, constituted the said Lawlor, Vicar-General of the Dioceses of Dublin, Kildare and Ferns. In 1585, John Garvey, Dean of Christ Church, was, on the abovementioned recommendation of Sir John Perrot, advanced to the See of Kilmore, and was the first Protestant Bishop of it. He was of Irish parentage, and born in the county of Kilkenny, but was educated without a taint of Popery, in the University of Oxford. For the first ten or eleven years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, both Protestants and Papists were in the habit of resorting to the service of the Reformed Church, and the Pope made an offer to confirm the Book of Common Prayer, by his authority, if the Queen and her subjects would acknowledge his lawful power to do so; but this overture was rejected. In the mean time, Garvey

distinguished himself by strenuous efforts to convert his defuded countrymen from the fatal errors of Rome, and he was generally reputed to be the author of a valuable treatise (a copy of which is in the possession of the writer of this essay), intitled, "An account of the conversion of Philip Curwen, a Franciscan Friar, to the Reformation of the Protestant Religion." The conversion of Curwen was a matter of considerable importance at this time, in Ireland, for he was nephew to the Archbishop of Dublin, who himself had been born and educated before the Reformation had been accomplished in England.

Bishop Garvey was translated to the Primacy in 1589; and, to the severe injury of the cause of Christian knowledge in it, the neighbourhood of Cavan and See of Kilmore remained for fourteen years without the advantage of a Protestant Prelate. During the vacancy a custodium of it was granted to Dr. Edgeworth, Bishop of Down and Connor, for such was the confusion of the times, from the intrigues of the Romish ecclesiastics, and their influence with the uncivilized natives, that no Christian Bishop could live in that part of Ireland. In 1603, Robert Draper, Rector of Trim, was appointed to this Bishopric, and on his death in 1612, Dr. Thomas Moygne, Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, succeeded to it, and to the adjoining See of Ardagh, now for the first time united to Kilmore, and a strong Protestant plantation in the counties of Longford and Leitrim, situated in the latter See, enabled this Prelate to recover the episcopal lands which had belonged to the former Bishops of it, no less than seven of whom had, in the preceding two centuries, been of the name and family of O'Ferral, Princes of Annally, and proprietors of the whole of the tract of country afterwards called the county of Longford. The Edgeworths, Tuites, and Delamars, were at this time settled, with other English families, in this new-named county, while the Hamiltons were established at Killesandra, in the county of Cavan, where they built a castle and a town, well supplied with Scottish soldiers and inhabitants. The O'Ferrals, O'Reillys, O'Bradys, O'Curries, OʻSheridans, MacKeernans, and Plunkets, were the principal Romish families who possessed the rest of the soil in the coun

ties of Longford and Cavan, at the close of Queen Elizabeth's reign.

Dr. Moygne was a Prelate of great firmness, and well fitted for the circumstances of the time in which he lived; not content with his vigorous and successful efforts to recover the alienated property of the Sees of Kilmore and Ardagh, in which he was supported by his friend George Montgomery, the first Protestant Bishop of Derry, he was one of the eleven Irish Bishops who joined Primate Usher on the 26th of November, 1626, in a protest against the toleration of Popery in Ireland, in consideration of money be ing offered by the Pope's agents for that boon. This they declared to be "no less than setting religion to sale, and with it the souls of the people whom CHRIST OUR SAVIOUR had redeemed with his most precious blood."

Bishop Moygne could not have maintained his ground at Cavan, or even been suffered to enter on the episcopal property in it, had not a strong British settlement been established in that county a few years before his appointment to the See of Kilmore. The property there having been sacrificed in rebellion at the shrine of Popery in the reign of his illustrious predecessor, -King James the First granted it to Lord Aubigny, Lord Lambert, Sir John Hamilton, Sir William Taafe, Sir John Elliott, Sir Stephen Butler, Sir Hugh Worral, Sir Alexander Hamilton, Sir Claude Hamilton, Sir Richard Graham, Sir George Graham, Sir Thomas Ash, and Sir Thomas Phettilace, and to other British settlers of the name of Garth, Ridgeway, Tirrel, Taylor, Waldron, Fish, Horne, Mannering, Lyons, Jones, Atkinson, Russel, Aghmuty, Atcheson, Culine, Parsons, and Talbot. The King in mercy and hope of their reconciliation, granted, as native freeholds, 900 acres of these lands to Shane Philip O'Reilley, 1000 to Captain Mulmoric Mac Philip O'Reilley, called Ittery Outra; to Captain O'Reilly, 1000 acres of Lisconnor; to Mulmore Oge O'Reilly 3000 acres; and to Magouran, commonly called Prince of Glen, 1000 acres, upon which he built a strong stone house, with a ditch about it. The present Romish Bishop of Ardagh is the direct descendant and representative of this object of British elemency. He witnessed the late discomfiture of Popery at Cavan, and GENT. MAG. March, 1827.

would do well to prove his gratitude to British clemency, as well as his wish to advance the cause of Christianity in Ireland, by setting the example to his Clergy and the people under their influence, by adding his respectable name to the list of those who are now abandoning the demoralizing superstition of Rome, and joining the professors of the true religion established amongst us.

Doctor Moygne died in the begin ning of the year 1628, and was succeeded in the Sees of Kilmore and Ardagh, by the celebrated Dr. Bedell, at that time Provost of Trinity College, Dublin. The life of this eminent divine, by Bishop Burnett, is so well known, that the details in it of the progress of the Reformation in the county of Cavan, in his dark and stormy day, need not be repeated here. It may be sufficient to notice a few of them, however, with some circumstances not recorded by his eminent biographer, but noted by Walter Harris and others.

Bishop Bedell found these dioceses in a deplorable state, ignorance and superstition triumphant over knowledge and religion, and producing their never-failing fruits of vice and misery. The pretensions of Popery at that time to an ascendancy in Ireland, were strikingly similar to those advanced in it at the present day, and the means to sustain and advance them pretty much the same. Encouraged by the footing Popery had got in the English Court, by the marriage of Henrietta Maria with the unfortunate King Charles the First, the Pope, through the agency of his Nuncio residing in Brussels, contrived to maintain a direct and regular communication between the newlyformed congregation "de propaganda fide" at Rome, and the Priests of his Church regular and secular in Ireland. The number of these Priests was at least double that of the Protestant Clergy, and being generally the younger sons of the old aristocratic families, trained the ignorant populace into a complete subjugation to them, and abused them with the most flagrant misrepresentations of the reformed re-. ligion. For the education of such ecclesiastics in hostility to the religion and government of England, and in opposition to the Protestant University, founded by Queen Elizabeth, near Dublin, the Bishop of Rome erected a College in that city, the Dean or Pro

vost of which was a Friar named Harris, the author of an infamous libel against Primate Ussher. Friaries were erected through the whole island, and the Monks itinerated through it, preaching new superstitions, and doctrines so detestable, that even the Parochial Clergy of their own Church were ashamed of them, and implored the Doctors of Sorbonne to use their endeavours to have a restraint put upon their extravagancies. The peasantry, however, flocked in great numbers to these preachers, and poor as the country was, the collections made after the sermons amounted to five or six pounds, a considerable sum if we take into account the value of money in those days. By these means, as well as by the more regular demoralization of the people by their Parish Priests of the Romish communion, the morality of the island sunk to an ebb, perhaps lower than that of any heathen country in ancient or modern times, and in no part of Ireland, as the subsequent rebellion and massacre proved, were the populace more corrupted, more debased, more fallen from the lowest standard of morality, than in the diocess of Kilmore and county of Cavan. The titular Bishop, then one of the ancient family of Mac Swine, of Fanet, in the county of Donegall, was a most abandoned drunkard, and in his liquor the paroxysms of his fury against the religion of the Bible, resembled the ravings of a maniac. The Parish Priests were notorious for drunkenness and lewd

ness. Several of them were cited into Bishop Bedell's Court for fornication; where he mildly and gently reproved them for their abominations, and evinced a disposition rather to reclaim them from error by kindness, than run the risk of confirming them in it by harsh ness. His credit with such of the Romish Clergy who had a regard for morality, and were sincere in their religion, such as it was, soon became so great, that he prevailed, in a short time, over several of the most intelligent of them, to adopt the faith of the reformed Church; and as they were all well acquainted with the Irish language, then universal among the peasantry, they became the happy instruments of turning many from their errors, and reconciling them to the purified faith. The good Bishop took great pains with these clerical converts he was indefatigable in his efforts to

impress upon their minds the importance of religion, and the weighty responsibility laid upon those who undértake to teach it. He promoted some of them to benefices, and had the happiness to find, that of all his converts, there was but one who relapsed into Popery, at the breaking out of the rebellion of 1641, a severe time of trial to those who had renounced the errors of Popery, who were persecuted even with more cruelty than those who had been born and educated Protestants.

The New Testament and the Book of Common Prayer had before this time been translated into the Irish language, by Dr. Daniel, Archbishop of Tuam,-and Bishop Bedell, by the advice of Primate Usher, caused one of his converts to translate the Old Testament into the same language. He even learned this language himself, at a period of life beyond that at which Cato is said to have attained a knowledge of the Greek tongue, and such a proficiency did he make in the unpromising study, that he wrote a complete Irish Grammar, and superintended the translation of some of Chrysostom's and Leo's Homilies in praise of the Scripture, which he intended to have printed with his Irish Bible.

He furnished his converts with the means of instructing others in the elementary parts of Christian knowledge, by a short Catechism, printed on one sheet in the English and Irish languages, to which he added, in the same way, some forms of evangelical prayer, and some select passages of holy writ.

There was a convent of Friars near the palace at Kilmore, with whom this good Bishop took great pains, with proportionable success. Among his converts was one Mac Swine or Swiney, brother to the titular Bishop, and Friar Dennis Sheridan, of Togher, near Cavan. The titular Bishop, notwithstanding his bigotry, does not appear to have resented this act with respect to his brother-for he manifested some kindness towards the persecuted Bedell for two months after the massacre of the Protestants commenced. It was not until the Christmas following the dreadful 23d of October, 1641, that he took possession of the episcopal house, and when he did so, probably by the command of the rebels, he protested that he came there only to protect the venerable owner of it; and desired

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