241 



USHER, JAMES. 



UVAROV, SERQY SEMENOVICH. 



212 



Viscount Clandeboyo in the Irish peerage). The concealed political 

 agents were excellent scholars and teachers, and Usher in after-life 

 used mainly to attribute whatever proficiency he had made in learning 

 to the five years during which he had the benefit of their instructions. 

 From their seminary he proceeded in 1593 to the newly-opened uni- 

 versity of Trinity College, Dublin, of which he was one of the first 

 three students that were admitted. 



He had already acquired a high academic reputation, when in 1598 

 the death of his father, who had intended to educate him for the law, 

 left him at liberty to follow his own inclinations, which led him to 

 the stu 3y of theology. Upon coming to this determination he made 

 over his paternal inheritance to hia younger brothers and sisters, only 

 reserving a small annuity from the rental of the property (which it 

 seems was much involved by law- suits, as well as otherwise encum- 

 bered). Having then taken his degree of M.A. in 1600, be was the 

 next year ordained both deacon and priest by his uncle, the Arch- 

 bishop of Armagh. 



His first appointment, which he received very soon after, was of 

 Sunday afternoon preacher before, the state, as it was called, in 

 Christ Church, Dublin. Two visits which he made to England in 

 1603 and 1606, to purchase books, the first time for the library of 

 Trinity College, the second time for himself, brought him into 

 acquaintance with Sir Thomas Bodley, Sir Robert Cotton, Camden, 

 and other distinguished persons of the day, whose admiration appears 

 to have been strongly excited by the extensive acquirements he had 

 made at so early an age. From this time he usually made a journey 

 to England every three or four years, when his practice was to spend 

 one month at Oxford, another at Cambridge, and the rest of his stay 

 at London, principally in the Cottonian Library. In 1607, having 

 proceeded bachelor of divinity, ho was chosen professor of that faculty 

 in his college, and this post he held for the next thirteen years. This 

 same year also he was made chancellor of the Cathedral of St. Patrick. 

 In 1610, he was unanimously chosen provost of Trinity College, but 

 declined the office, through an apprehension, it is said, of its duties 

 interfering with his studies. In 1612 he took his degree of D.D. ; and 

 the next year, being at London, he there published in 4 to his first 

 work, entitled ' De Ecclesiarum Christianarum Successione et Statu :' 

 it is a continuation of Bishop Jewel's ' Apology for the Church of 

 England ' (also written in Latin) ; but it remains itself unfinished 

 both in this first edition and in the reprints at Hanover in 1658, Svo, 

 and at London in 1687, 4to (along with his ' Britannicarum Ecclesiarum 

 Antiquitates '), although in the last impression falsely described on 

 the title page as ' Opus integrum ab auctore auctum et recognitum.' 

 Usher had from the first been a zealous opponent of popery, which 

 he maintained the law ought to discountenance not only as politically 

 objectionable, but as idolatrous ; he was also in doctrine a decided 

 Calvinist and Predestinarian ; and besides being opposed to the 

 Arminian principles, which were now coming into vogue, he did not 

 profess in the matter of church ' government to hold the game high 

 notions as to the divine right of episcopacy with many of the clergy. 

 In consequence of all this he had obtained the reputation of being 

 inclined to Puritanism ; and some pains had to be taken by his 

 friends to satisfy the king's mind on this point ; but the representa- 

 tions that were made by influential persons in Ireland, and by Usher 

 himself, were so successful, that in 1620 James nominated him 

 to the see of Heath. In 1623 he was made a member of the Irish 

 privy council; and in January 1624, while he was in England (where 

 he was detained by illness till August 1626) he was raised to the 

 archbishopric of Armagh and the primacy of the Irish church. 

 For some years after this his life was passed tranquilly in the admi- 

 nistration of the affairs of his see and the prosecution of his studies. 

 In 1631 he published, all at Dublin, in 4 to, certain writings of 

 the old theologian Godeschalc, in defence of predestination, with 

 illustrations, under the title of ' Godeschalci et Predestinarianae Con- 

 troversise ab eo motse Historia' (said to have been the first Latin 

 book printed in Ireland); in 1632 a collection of letters of Irish 

 bishops from the 6th to the 13th century, under that of ' Veterum 

 Epistolarum Hiberuicarum Sylloge ; ' in 1 638 his ' Emanuel, or a 

 Treatise on the Incarnation of the Son of God,' reckoned one of his 

 greatest performances, and reprinted in 1643 at Oxford, in 1645 and 

 1648 at London, in 4to, and again at London in 1670, in folio ; and in 

 1639 his celebrated ' Britaunicaruin Ecclesiarum Antiquitates,' also 

 several times reprinted. 



In the beginning of 1640 he came over to England, with the 

 intention of staying a year or two at most ; but he never again saw 

 his native country. He took up his residence in the first instance at 

 Oxford, and there published, in 1641, a 4to volume of theological 

 dissertations, under the title of ' Certain Brief Treatises.' The same 

 year he was plundered of nearly everything he possessed in Ireland by 

 an attack of the rebels upon his house at Armagh ; and in the state of 

 that country, it seems to have been thought needless for him to 

 return to his archbishopric. Upon thia^the king, Charles I., conferred 

 on him the bishopric of Carlisle, to be held in commcndam ; but of 

 this he is said to have made very little ; and when soon after the 

 revenues of the bishops were confiscated by the parliament, ho did not 

 receive the pension of 4001. a year that was allotted for his support 

 above once or twice. Meanwhile, continuing to rseide mostly at 

 Oxford, where he preached every Sunday at one or other of the 



BIOG. DIV. VOL. VI. 



churches, he published there, in 1644, in 4to, an edition, in Greek and 

 Latin, of the Epistles of Polycarp and Ignatius, reprinted at London 

 in 1647. Soon after this he left Oxford, and retired first to the house 

 of hia son-in-law, Sir Timothy Tyrrell, at Cardiff; thence, after a stay 

 of six months, to the castle of St. Donate, on the invitation of the 

 dowager Lady Stradling; thence in 1646 to London, to the house of 

 his friend the Countess of Peterborough, near Cliaring Cross. In 

 1647 he was chosen preacher to the society of Lincoln's Inn, upon 

 which he took up his residence in a suit of apartments provided for 

 him in the inn, and had his library, the only part of his property he 

 had saved, removed thither. He preached regularly during term- 

 time in the chapel of the inn for nearly eight years. In 1647 he 

 published his treatise ' De Romansc Ecclesise Symbolo,' and the next 

 year his learned 'Dissertatio de Macedonum et Asianorum Anno 

 Solari.' In the end of the year 1648, during the negociation between 

 the king and the parliament about the settlement of the Church, his 

 majesty sent for Usher to come to him at the Isle of Wight; and hero 

 a scheme of Church government, which had been drawn up by the 

 archbishop seven years before, and then rejected by Charles, was now 

 proposed by him anew, but, although accepted by the king, was 

 rejected by the parliamentary commissioners. It was published by 

 Dr. Bernard at London in 1658, under the title, by which it is com- 

 monly known, of ' The Reduction of Episcopacy to the Form of the 

 Synodical government in the Antient Church.' In 1650 Usher 

 published at London, in folio, the first part of his great work, his 

 'Anuales Veteris et Novi Testament!,' which was followed by the 

 second part in 1654 ; other editions of both parts, all in folio, 

 appeared at Paris in 1673, at Bremen in 1675, and at Geneva (the 

 best) in 1722. The only other works he sent to the press were his 

 ' Epistola ad Ludovicum Capellum de Variantibus Textus Hebraici 

 Lectionibus,' 4to, London, 1652; and his 'Syntagma de Graca LXX. 

 interpretum Versione,' 4 to, London, 1655, and again Lipsise, 1695. He 

 died at Lady Peterborough's house, at Ryegate in Surrey, after a day's 

 illness, on the 21st of March 1656 ; and his remains were interred in 

 Westminster Abbey by order of Cromwell, who is said however to 

 have left the relations of the deceased prelate to pay the greater part 

 of the expense of the public funeral. By his wife Phoebe, daughter of 

 Dr. Luke Challoner, whom he married in 1613, and who died about a 

 year and a half before him, Usher left only one daughter, Elizabeth, 

 who became the wife of Sir Timothy Tyrrell. [TTRBELL, JAMES.] In 

 addition to the works above mentioned, several others were printed 

 from his papers after his death : 1, ' The Judgment of the late Arch- 

 bishop,' &c., published by Dr. Nicholas Bernard, Svo, Lond., 1658 ; 

 2, 'Chrouologia Sacra,' &c., published by Dr. Thomas Barlow (after- 

 wards bishop of Lincoln), 4to, Lond., 1660 ; 3, ' The Judgment and 

 Sense of the present see of Rome,' also by Dr. Bernard, Svo, Lond., 

 1659; 4, 'The Power of the Prince and Obedience of the Subject 

 stated,' by his grandson, James Tyrrell, 4to, Lond., 1661 ; 5, A volume 

 of Sermons ; 6, ' Historia Dogmatica Controversire inter Orthodoxos 

 et Pontificios de Scripturis et Sacris Vernaculis,' by Henry Wharton, 

 4to, Lond., 1690; 7, 'A Collection of Three Hundred Letters written 

 to James Usher, lord archbishop of Armagh, &c., collected by Richard 

 Parr, D.D., his lordship's chaplain at the time of his death,' folio, 

 Lond., 1686. To this collection Parr has prefixed an ample biograph- 

 ical memoir of the archbishop; and there are lives of Usher, in 

 Latin, by Dr. Bates (in the ' Collectio Batesiana '), and by Dr. T. Smith 

 (in his ' Vitse Eruditissimorum,' and also prefixed to the Geneva edition 

 of the ' Annales '). A complete edition of the works of Archbishop 

 Usher was undertaken a few years back by the Dublin University, 

 under the editorship of Dr. Elrington, but the doctor dying soon after 

 the 13th volume was printed, the publication was for some time sus- 

 pended, but subsequently resumed under the editorial care of Dr. 

 J. H. Todd, and eventually finished in 17 vols., the last volume being 

 an index to the whole. 



UTRECHT, A. VAN. [VAN UTBKCHT, A.] 



UVAROV, SERGY SEMENOVICH, or OUVAROFF, as the name 

 is written in French, an eminent Russian statesman and author, was 

 born about 1785 of a noble family, and received his Christian name 

 from the Empress Catherine to whom his father was aide-de-camp. 

 He studied at Gottingen, and in the year 1810 made his first appear- 

 ance as an author in a 'Project for an Asiatic Academy,' written in 

 French and addressed to the Emperor Alexander, in which he pro- 

 posed the foundation of a great institution for the study of the 

 languages and literature of Asia. In the following year he was 

 appointed, young as he was, to the curatorsbip of the university and 

 educational establishments of the district of St. Petersburg, an im- 

 portant office which he discharged with great liberality of views. 

 "The European Republic" he remarked in a Russian pamphlet, 

 published at the conclusion of the great struggle in 1814, "is now 

 preparing to emerge from chaos and to consolidate its foundations. A 

 stupid tyranny will no longer oppose itself to the efforts of reason, 

 and on the whole surface of the globe it will be permitted to think." 

 When the Emperor Alexander's views became of a more retrograde 

 character than they had been, Uvarov, after in vain offering the intro- 

 duction of some new regulations relating to education, retired, in 1S21, 

 from his curatorship, but still retained the post of president of the 

 Academy of Sciences which had been conferred on him in 1818. In 

 the following year he became director of the department of manu- 



