eth
and the Elector Palatine (1613), and the ill-starred wedding of
Somerset and the quondam Countess of Essex in the same year. In these
masques are embedded some of his best songs; others of his lyrics
appeared in several _Bookes of Ayres_ between 1601 and 1617. Many of
them were written to music, sometimes music of his composing. Such
dainty things as "Now hath Flora robb'd her bowers" and "Harke, all
you ladies that do sleep" possess the charms of freshness and
spontaneity, and his devotional poetry, especially "Awake, awake,
thou heavy Spright" and "Never weather-beaten Saile more willing bent
to shore", makes almost as wide an appeal.

II. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

Passing by with regret the illustrious seventeenth century names of
Philip O'Sullivan Beare, Sir James Ware, Luke Wadding, Hugh Ward,
John Colgan, and John Lynch, because their bearers wrote in Latin,
and those of "The Four Masters" and Geoffrey Keating, because they
wrote in Irish, we are first brought to a pause in the seventeenth
century by the imposing figure of him, whom, in a later day, Johnson
justly called the "great luminary of the Irish [Protestant] church",
none other than the archbishop of Armagh and primate of Ireland,
James Ussher himself. James Ussher (1581-1656), born in Dublin and
among the earliest students of the newly-founded Trinity College, was
in intellect and scholarship one of the greatest men that Ireland has
ever produced. Selden describes him as "learned to a miracle" (_ad
miraculum doctus_), and Canon D'Alton in his _History of Ireland_
says of him that "he was not unworthy to rank even with Duns Scotus,
and when he died he left in his own Church neither an equal nor a
second." Declining the high office of provost of Trinity, Ussher was
made bishop of Meath and was afterwards promoted to the primatial
see. His fine intellect was unfortunately marred by narrow religious
views, and in many ways he displayed his animus against those of his
countrymen who did not see eye to eye with him in matters of faith
and doctrine. For example, it was he who in 1626 drew up the Irish
Protestant bishops' protest against toleration for Catholics, therein
showing a bigotry which consorted badly with his reputation as a
scholar. On account of his well-known attitude towards Catholicism,
he was naturally unpopular with those who professed the ancient
creed, and hence, when the rebellion of 1641 broke out, much of his
property was destroyed by the