36 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



word of regret at the loss of this treasure, which would uow be worth many 

 times its then value. He always regarded it as a sound money transaction, 

 seeing that the estate then bought had for 160 years back been worth 

 £100 a year to the College. But he could have defended the action of the 

 Board on far sounder historical grounds. Not more than forty years had 

 elapsed since Charles T, when. at Oxford, had commandeered all the plate of 

 its Colleges, and turned it into money. He would have treated Cambridge in 

 the same way, had he not been baulked by the Puritan atmosphere of the 

 place, and the concealment of its treasures. The policy of James II had 

 already shown the danger of confiscation with which Protestant property was 

 threatened; and the dillieuliies raised during the negotiations by Chief Justice 

 Nugent, one of which was the charge that the goldsmith "had been buying 

 stolon plate which belonged to the King," and the threat of prosecuting the 

 Provost and Fellows (Stubbs, p. 137), show plainly whither the King's 

 advisors were leading him. The precedent of Charles I and Oxford was before 

 them; and no sooner was the College actually seized by an armed force in 

 1689, than the remaining plate was carried oil' to the Custom House, and 

 only saved by the friendly care of its officers, and the prompt survening of the 

 victory of the Boyne. The pol icy of the College was, therefore, quite justifiable. 

 If they kept their plate, it would 1m- seized and melted down; if they turned 

 it into landed property, this might !"• confiscated, but could be recovered 

 a, whenever the King's Acts were revei 



Still lov- can I adopt the second explanation, that the College sent pieces 

 of plate battered by ill-usage to I"- repaired or remade in the style of the 



_mal u r i 1 1 -- by goldsmiths at dates varying from 1750 to 1785. This is 

 contrary to all that I know "i the habits ami feelings of the eighteenth 

 century and its art in Dublin. The fashions ol making plate, making furni- 

 ture, and "i decorating houses, developed rapidly dm ing i bat very prosperous 

 and, * in now admit, artistic century in Ireland. The old was constantly 

 being declared antiquated, and therefore ugly, and being replaced by the 

 now. 1 can quote plenl ne (relevant) will suffice. 



On December 14. 1774. " It was this day ordered by the Board [of Trinity 

 College] that the Bervice of plate belonging to the College (consisting of 

 plates and dishes) be melted down and wrought up .mow. this being uecessar) 

 in order to make it useful and ornamental to t ti» • College." Fortunately this 

 order was not carried out, for we still have the Bervice, then scorned, in use, 

 almost all of it dating from L733 — forty years earlier. Household plate was 

 constantly being replaced by new plate in the style which had come into 



Hon Bince it had been made. It was the same in architecture, [fyou 

 had asked the decorators of first-floor drawingrooins in fjeinster Mouse ot in 



