Page:A Compendium of Irish Biography.djvu/29

 Queries,  Notes and Queries, 2nd Series, will be found a notice of the sale of his library, and an anecdote concerning Sir Arthur Chichester having once unjustly accused him of stealing a purse, which a pet monkey had abstracted. 

Anster, John, LL.D., Professor, was born at Charleville, County of Limerick, in 1793, and was educated at Trinity College, where he took the degree of LL.D. in 1825. He was called to the Bar the same year; in 1837 was appointed Registrar of the Admiralty Court, and in 1849, Regius Professor of Civil Law in Dublin University. Without attaining the first rank, he was favourably known as a writer. Coleridge had a high opinion of his poetical talents. He was a frequent contributor to the University and other magazines; perhaps his best known work is a translation of portions of Faust. He died 9th June 1867. 

Arbogast, an Irish ecclesiastic, was consecrated Bishop of Strasbourg, 646. "He came a hermit and a stranger into Alsace, and there built an oratory in a sacred grove, almost where Haguenau now stands, and in that place served God diligently in fasting and prayer. Yet he was not altogether idle, for he appeared abroad and diligently instructed the inhabitants in the knowledge and fear of God, and in the true invocation of the omnipotent power of his son Christ." He was appointed by Dagobert II. to the see of Strasbourg, which he governed five years. He died in 658, and was buried near the present site of Strasbourg Cathedral. 

Archdall, Mervyn, Rev., antiquarian and genealogist, was born in Dublin, 22nd April 1723. His ancestors migrated from Great Britain in the reign of Elizabeth, and settled in the County of Fermanagh. He passed through the University with credit, and imbibed a taste for antiquities and literary research, and for collecting coins, medals, and seals. He finally resolved on collecting materials for a monastic history of Ireland. Acquaintance with Walter Harris, Charles Smith (author of the County Histories), and Thomas Prior, led him the more zealously to pursue the design. The living of Attanagh having been bestowed on him, he had leisure for these pursuits. After forty years' labour, however, he found publication in extenso beyond his means, and was obliged to cut down his Monasticon Hibernicum to one 4to volume, which appeared in 1786. Through the influence of the Right Hon. W. Conyngham, a society had been formed in 1781 for the publication of works on Ireland, and Archdall was one of the members. Vallancey's Collectanea appeared under its auspices, but differences sprang up between Ledwich and Vallancey, and the society fell to pieces— one branch publishing the Anthologia Hibernica (1793-'4), under Ledwich's editorship. In 1789 Archdall brought out an edition of Lodge's Peerage of Ireland, enlarged from four to seven volumes. Many of Lodge's valuable notes had been left in cipher, and would have been lost but that Mrs. Archdall, a woman of remarkable ingenuity (a relation of Prior, the poet), discovered the key and deciphered them. In the index to Lanigan's Ecclesiastical History are to be found eighty-two references under the head of " Archdall, blunders of, noticed." He died 6th August 1791, aged 68. (3)  

Archdekin, Richard, Rev., or MacGillacudy, a famous Jesuit, and controversial writer, was born in Kilkenny, 1619. At Louvain and Antwerp he filled successively the chairs of classical literature, moral philosophy, and theology, and acquired the reputation of an able divine. He died in Antwerp, 1690. He was the author of several books which enjoyed extensive popularity. His Essay on Miracles was said to be the first work printed in English and Irish conjointly. His Theologica Tripartita Universa reached its eleventh edition in 1700. 

Arthur, James, Rev., born in Limerick, a Dominican friar in the abbey of St. Stephen at Salamanca, Professor of Divinity, the author of a Commentary on Aquinas, and other works. He was deprived of his chair in 1642 for refusing to subscribe to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and withdrew to the convent of St. Dominick in Lisbon, where he died about 1670. 

Arthur, Thomas, Dr., a Catholic physician, born in Munster in 1593. He studied on the Continent, and became the leading practitioner in Ireland. His fee-book, published in The Journal of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society, is an interesting and valuable document, containing a list of his patients (many of them eminent characters of the day), with particulars of their illnesses, and memoranda of the fees received in each ease. Once we find him attending Archbishop Ussher, or, as he styles him, "Pseudo-Primas Ardmachanus," curing him of a severe disease, and receiving £51 for his services at Drogheda and Lambay Island. His usual fees appear to have been 10s. and 20s. Dr. Arthur lived on through the siege of Limerick in 1651, and records many liberal honorariums from Parliamentary officers. The date of his death does not 5