Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 2.djvu/617

 USHER. 613 to the privy council of England, which he brought over to England in 1619, and satisfied his majesty so perfectly, that in the following year he promoted him to the bishop ric of Meath; and several years after, to the archbishopric of Armagh. In the administration of this high office, Usher exerted himself in a most exemplary manner. Observing the increase of Arminianism in Ireland, which he considered as a very dangerous doctrine, he employed much time in searching into the origin of the predestinarian controversy; and meeting with a curious work on that subject, “Gotes chalci et predestinarianae controversiae ab eo mota histo ria;” he published it in 1681, at Dublin, in quarto, which is stated to have been the first Latin book ever printed in Ireland. In the succeeding year he also published “We terum Epistolarum Hibernicarum Sylloge,” a collection of letters to and from Irish bishops and monks, from 592 to 1180, concerning the affairs of the Irish church; which clearly demonstrate the high esteem, as well for learning as piety, in which the clergy of Ireland were held in Rome, France, and England. The correspondence which he maintained in almost every country in Europe, was of considerable importance to the advancement of learning, and procured him in 1634, a very good copy of the Samaritan Pentateuch from the east; which was one of the first ever brought into western Europe; together with a copy of the Old Testament in Syriac, and several other valuable MSS. Usher collated the Samaritan with the Hebrew, marking the differences, after which he intended it for the library of Sir Robert Cotton; but having lent it to Dr. Walton, together with several other manuscripts, to use in his Polyglot Bible, they were not recovered t i l l 1686, and are now i n the Bodleian library. I n 1639, h e published “ Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates;” a work which has been o f con siderable service t o Dr. Lloyd and Bishop Stillingfleet, i n their productions o n the same subject. I n the rebellion o f 1641, Usher was plundered o f a l l his property, with the exception o f his library and some fur