priest of the diocese of Meath.  Cardinal Ximenes founded an Irish College at Lisbon, and Cardinal Henriquez founded a similar establishment at Evora.  It is a remarkable evidence of the value which has always been set on learning by the Catholic Church, that even in times of persecution, when literary culture demanded such sacrifices, she would not admit uneducated persons to the priesthood.  The position which the proscribed Catholic priesthood held in Ireland at this period, compared with that which the favoured clergy of the Established Church held in England, is curious and significant.  Macaulay says of the latter:  “A young levite—­such was the phrase then in use—­might be had for his board, a small garret, and ten pounds a year; and might not only perform his own professional functions, but might also save the expenses of a gardener or a groom.  Sometimes the reverend man nailed up the apricots, and sometimes he curried the coach-horses.  He cast up the farrier’s bills.  He walked ten miles with a message or a parcel.  He was permitted to dine with the family, but he was expected to content himself with the plainest fare—­till he was summoned to return thanks for the repast, from a great part of which he had been excluded."[519]

In Ireland there were few learned men in the Established Church, and even Usher seems to have been painfully indifferent to the necessity of superior education, as well as regular ordination, for his clergy.  In 1623 Dr. Blair was invited to Ireland by Lord Clannaboy, to take the living of Bangor, vacated by the death of the Rev. John Gibson, “sence Reformacione from Popary the first Deane of Down.”  Dr. Blair objected both to episcopal government and to use the English Liturgy; yet he “procured a free and safe entry to the holy ministry,” which, according to his own account, was accomplished thus.  His patron, Lord Clannaboy, informed “the Bishop Echlin how opposite I was to episcopacy and their liturgy, and had the influence to procure my admission on easy and honorable terms.”  At his interview with the Bishop, it was arranged that Dr. Blair was to receive ordination from Mr. Cunningham and the neighbouring clergy, and the Bishop was “to come in among them in no other relation than a presbyter.”  These are the Bishop’s own words; and his reason for ordaining at all was:  “I must ordain you, else neither I nor you can answer the law nor brook the land.”  In 1627 Blair had an interview with Archbishop Usher, and he says “they were not so far from agreeing as he feared.”  “He admitted that all those things [episcopacy and a form of prayer] ought to have been removed, but the constitution and laws of the place and time would not permit that to be done.”  A few years later Mr. John Livingstone thus relates his experience on similar subjects.  He had been appointed also by Lord Clannaboy to the parish of Killinchy; and, “because it was needful that he should be ordained to the ministry, and the Bishop of Down, in whose