Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 2.djvu/615

 USHER. 611 eight years; and after profiting much under so excellent a tuition, he was admitted into the college of Dublin in 1593, the very year in which it was finished. He was one of the three first students who were admitted, and his name still stands in the first line of the roll. Here he con tracted a great fondness for history, and at the early age of fourteen, commenced a series of extracts from a l l the historical writers h e could procure; b y persevering i n which, we are informed, that h e was little more than fifteen when h e had drawn u p a n exact chronology o f the Bible, a s f a r a s the Book o f Kings, little differing from his “Annales,” which have since been published. He shortly after applied himself with much diligence t o the study o f controversy, and engaged, when i n his nineteenth year, in a public disputation with the learned Jesuit Fitzsimons, the result o f which i s variously reported, but appears from a letter o f Usher's, inserted i n h i s “Life b y Dr. Parr,” t o have been i n h i s favour, Fitzsimons having declined t o continue it. I n 1600, h e was admitted master o f arts, and appointed proctor and catechetical lecturer o f the university; and i n the succeeding year, i n consideration o f his extraor dinary acquirements, h e was ordained deacon and priest, though under canonical age, b y his uncle, Henry Usher, then archbishop o f Armagh. He was shortly after ap pointed afternoon preacher a t Christ-church, Dublin; where h e canvassed the different controversial points a t issue between the Catholics and Protestants, constantly opposing a toleration which was then solicited b y the former. On one occasion, referring t o a prophecy o f Ezekiel, h e observed, “from this year, I reckon forty years; and then those whom you now embrace shall b e your ruin, and you shall bear their iniquity.” This was afterwards, a t the rebellion i n 1641, converted into a prophecy, and there was even a treatise published, “ De Predictionibus Usserii.” I n 1606, h e went over t o London for the purpose o f purchasing books relative t o English history and antiqui"