Chapter XXI - The Library of Trinity College, Dublin, and some of The other Irish Libraries

Summary

CROMWELL our Chief of Men, who through a, cloud,

Not of War only, but Detractions rude,

Guided by Faith and matchless Fortitude,

To Peace and Truth thy glorious way hast plough’d;

and on The neck of crowned Fortune proud

Hast rear’d God’s trophies, and his work pursued. .....

MILTON, Sonnet to The Lord General Cromwell.

When Archbishop Ussher’s Library was brought over into Ireland, The Usurper and his Son … would not bestow it upon The College, …but gave out that They would reserve it for a new College or Hall that They intended to build and endow. But it proved that as those were not times, so were They not persons capable of any such noble and pious work , so that this Library lay in The Castle of Dublin unbestowed and unemployed, all The remaining time of Cromwell’s usurpation. ..... Many of The books and most of The best manuscripts were stolen away.

PARR, Life of Ussher(1686), 102.

As soon as it was known that Ussher’s… Library was to be disposed of, The King of Denmark and Cardinal Mazarin became competitors for The purchase,... but The Protector issued an arbitrary order to The Executors that They must not sell The books without his permission. We can scarcely conceive a more unjustifiable act of tyranny than this; it was an act of direct robbery.

ELRINGTON, Life of Ussher(1848), p. 303.

ON The shelves of our bookcases, The most pugnacious disputants and The bitterest foes rest peacefully side by side. But The walls of a modern Library no more suffice to keep out The strife of party spirit, than did in old times those of a monastery, albeit sacred to “Our Lady of Charity;” or, in more recent times, those of a CaThedral, though dedicated to The meek disciple “whom Jesus loved.” On Irish ground, especially, we find The lava of The old volcanoes yet warm underfoot. The writer who has to tell, in 1850, The same story which his predecessor told in 1680, keeps his wrath as fierce as though he had just mingled in The fight, or even,—in order, perhaps, that he may escape all suspicion of half-heartedness in his Theme,—gives a keener edge to his blade, or a more jagged barb to his shaft.