ness, from the French. But the French itself, which is in verse, after the fashion of the time, is only a translation from the Native Irish manuscript, written by Maurice O'Regan, the individual who was employed by Dermod, King of Leinster, as ambassador to Strongbow. This tract, such as it is, was translated into English, and published by Harris in Dublin in 1770, that is, six hundred years after it had been written. Lord Lyttelton, in his History of Henry the Second, quotes the French translation from a manuscript in the Lambeth Library.*

As "it cannot but seem strange," says Harris, “that in the thirteenth century an Irishman should be courted to undertake a version into French," Godfrey, or Gotofrid of Waterford, deserves to be noticed. He was the author of translations into that language from Latin, Greek, and Arabic, of Dares Phrygius, Eutropius, and the Secretum Secretorum ascribed (erroneously) to Aristotle. Harris here alludes to Godfrey's own expressions in his preface to the latter, in which, addressing himself to a French nobleman who encouraged him, he says, "To other books which you already have,

you desire to add a book called Secretum Secretorum, or.a Treatise of the Government of Kings and Princes, and for this end you have requested me, that I would, for your sake, translate the said work from Latin into French, which I already translated from Greek into Arabic, and into Latin," &c. In the library of M. Colbert, these three treatises, on vellum, were long preserved in a folio volume, in which, besides an exposition of the articles of Faith and the Lord's Prayer in French, there is also included the Elucidarium. "Now," say Quetif and Eckard, quoted by Harris, "all these are written not only in the same hand-writing with the other works before-mentioned, which are certainly Gotofrid's, but also the style and

* Warton, 8vo, I. 89.

Iberno-Celtic Trans. p. 87. Ware's Writers, p. 71. + Ware's Writers, p. 76. The Secretum, erroneously ascribed to Aristotle, but so highly esteemed in the middle ages, was a work of Egidus, a native of Rome, and pupil of Aquinas. "It was early translated," says Warton," into French prose, and printed in English. The Secret of Aristotyle, &c. with Rules for Helth of Body and Soul, very gode to teche Children to rede English, newly translated out of French, and emprented by Robert and William Copland, 1528.'" One translation of the Secretum into French, Warton ascribes to Henry de Gande, i. e. Ghent, for Philip of France. The name to which Godfrey dedicates his translation does not appear.

66

"The Lucydayre,

manner of orthography are the same.' printed by Wynkyn de Worde," says Warton, "is translated from a favourite old French poem called Li Lusidaire, a work in dialogue, containing the sum of Christian Theology attributed to Anselm," and by others to Honorius of Autun.‡ 'Again," he says, "in the king's library at Paris, there is a translation of Dares Phrygius into Fernch rhymes by Godfrey of Waterford, an Irish writer, not mentioned by Tanner, in the thirteenth century;" and, referring again to this period, he adds, "Dares Phrygius, Eutropius, early translated into Greek at Constantinople, and Aristotle's Secretum Secretorum appeared about the same time in French ;"§ thus confirming the account already given of Godfrey, who seems to have died in France, and probably at Paris.

Thomas Hibernicus, or Thomas of Palmerstown, born in the county of Kildare, towards the declension of the thirteenth century, and well known at the beginning of the fourteenth, was an ecclesiastic who belonged to neither of the orders of the Friars. He became a fellow of the Sorbonne, and from the Bibliotheque compiled by Quetif and Eckard, it appears that he bequeathed the books he had written, with other manuscripts, and a sum of money, to that college. One of the tracts in the Sorbonne is entitled "Liber de Tribus Punctis Christianæ Religionis," or three points of the Christian religion, which he explains as matters of faith, of command, or prohibition. His" Flores Biblicos, or Tabula Originalium, sive Manipulus Florum," first published at Venice in 1492, has been often reprinted, as at Antwerp in 1568 and 1580; Geneva, 1614, and Paris, 1662.¶

The fourteenth century, to which we have now come, is rendered interesting by the appearance of one man, who is well entitled to the grateful recollections of the Native Irish-Richard Fitzrauph or Fitzralph, Archbishop of Armagh, frequently denominated Richard Armachanus. The place of his birth is said to have been Dundalk; the precise year I have not been able to ascertain; but his various appointments being noted with such accuracy, prove in some degree the interest which

* Ware's Writers, p. 76. + Warton, III. 364. The Elucidarium must not be confounded with the Elucidarium Bibliorum, or Prologue to the Bible. See Baber's Wickliffe, lii. § Warton, I. xxiii. II. 415., ¶ Ware's Writers, p. 74.

Tom I. p. 744.

his character had excited. According to Le Neve's Fasti, on the 10th July, 1334, he was collated Chancellor of Lincoln, and in 1336, became Archdeacon of Chester; on the 20th April, 1337, he was personally installed Dean of Litchfield, by Edward III., and advanced to the see of Armagh on the 8th July, 1347, by Clement VI.

This excellent man may not improperly be regarded as the Wickliffe of Ireland; and he deserves the more attention, not only from his having lived in the age immediately preceding Wickliffe, but on account of the report respecting him, that he possessed, if not with his own hand translated, the Scriptures of the New Testament into the Irish tongue. For the sake of Ireland, therefore, as well as his own, he is entitled to some special notice; more particularly as this tradition is rendered much more probable by the consideration of his character and exertions.

From the year 1240, more than a hundred years before Fitzralph, the operations of the Mendicant Friars had afforded matter of controversy and complaint; but the immediate occasion of his engaging to arraign them cannot with certainty be traced. It has been affirmed by a celebrated Irish Franciscan, Luke Wadding, the historian of their order, that, obstructed in some attempt to remove the ornaments belonging to a convent of Friars, they were protected, and their ornaments preserved to them, when Fitzralph entered into the controversy of the day with great warmth and eagerness. Such an incident, indeed, might perhaps awaken Fitzralph to exertion; but it is of more importance to observe, that he had been educated at Oxford, the nucleus of the controversy, under Baconthorpe, a doctor of the Sorbonne, and determined opponent of the Friars, who possessed great influence over his pupils. Fitzralph also was one of a select number of learned men who had sat at the table of Richard de Bury, one of the most generous and ardent cultivators of learning in the fourteenth century. But whatever was the exciting cause, in 1356, Fitzralph having occasion to be in London, in consequence of earnest solicitation, says Fox, he preached seven or eight sermons against the abuses of the Friars, which he afterwards repeated at Litchfield, and in Ireland at Drogheda,

* Warton, 8vo, vol. I. cxlvii. Townley's Illust. of Biblical Literature, II. 70.

Dundalk, and Trim. Offended with the positions contained in these discourses, the warden of the Franciscans or Minorites, then established at Armagh, and those of the order of the Predicants, cited the Primate to answer for himself before the Pope at Avignon. To this bold measure on the part of the Friars, there was presented strong encouragement in the wellknown character of Clement, who "defended the interests of the church with a zeal carried to excess, reserving to himself a multitude of benefices, which he presented at his will in defiance of all former elections." Fortunately, however, for Fitzralph, Clement died in 1352, and was succeeded by a man of different views, Innocent VI., whose policy it was to encourage men of literature, and oblige the possessors of benefices to residence. Another circumstance, probably in favour of Fitzralph, occurred the following year. The controversy respecting the Irish primacy was then in dependence, and in 1353, Innocent had decided that the Archbishop of Armagh "should entitle himself Primate of all Ireland, and the Archbishop of Dublin write himself Primate of Ireland." At all events, Fitzralph, in 1357, appeared at Avignon, and pled his cause at length again and again. Innocent listened to him, and stayed all proceedings in England during the suit. The examination being committed to four Cardinals, Fitzralph was long detained, and never returned to Ireland, but died at Avignon on the 16th of November, 1360. The MS. annals in the Cotton Library hint that he was poisoned by the Friars : of this there is no certain proof; but they allege that the controversy was terminated only by the absolute command of Innocent. One of the Cardinals, on hearing of his death, openly protested, says Fox, "that the same day a mighty pillar of Christ's church was fallen." Ten years afterwards, his body was removed to Dundalk, by Stephen de Valle, Bishop of Meath, and a monument raised over it, which still remained, says Sir Thomas Ryves, so late as the year 1624.

The theme of Fitzralph at Avignon was founded on these words-" Judge not according to the outward appearance, but judge righteous judgment." His various positions, committed to writing, he extended to a volume, which was afterwards published. The Friars mendicant were charged by him as in

* L'Advocat, the librarian of the Sorbonne.

many things acting directly in violation of their own rules, as undermining the stated duties of resident curates, but, above all, as violating the express precepts of Scripture, which he very frequently quotes, and to which he constantly appeals as paramount authority. He laments over the decay of learning, and informed Innocent not only of the great decrease in the number of the students at Oxford, but that " no book could stir, either divinity, law, or physic, but these Friars were able and ready to buy it up;" nay, that " he himself had sent forth from Armagh to the university four of his own chaplains, who sent him word again that they could neither find the Bible, nor any other good profitable book in divinity, meet for their study, and therefore were minded to return home to their country.'

The writings of Fitzralph were various, amounting to eighteen distinct tracts, on theological and other subjects. Bellarmine thought that his writings "ought to be read with caution." Prateolus and others allow him to have possessed great accomplishments, but rank him among the heretics; though Wadding, already mentioned, and of course not favourable to his cause, is of a different opinion. Trithemius, however, one of the most learned men in the fifteenth century, has given a character of Fitzralph; and when it is remembered that he was an Abbot of the Benedictine Friars, he will not be suspected of partiality. This character he sums up in these words-" Vir in Divinis Scripturis eruditus, secularis philosophiæ jurisque canonici non ignarus, clarus ingenio, sermone scholasticus, in declamandis sermonibus ad populum excellentis industriæ."+ Of the works of Fitzralph several are

* Defensio Curatorum adversus Mendicantes, 8vo, Paris, 1496. This discourse has been printed repeatedly at Paris, and a translation of it, by Trevisa, may be seen in the MSS. Harl. 1900 fol. Pergam. 2.-In the Public Library at Oxford is a volume, which contains, in addition, various sermons of Fitzralph, MSS. Bodl. A. 4. 8. Vide et ibid. B. 3. 12. MSS. and Nicolson's Irish Hist. Lib. p. 74.-At Bennet, in Cambridge, there is a curious manuscript of one of Fitzralph's sermons, which once belonged to Eston, a learned Benedictine of Norwich, and a witness against Wickliffe afterwards at Rome, in 1370. Warton, 8vo, vol. ii. 127. +"Since the canonization of saints," says Jeremy Taylor, "we find no Irish bishop canonized, except Laurence of Dublin and Malachias of Down. Richard of Armagh's canonization was, indeed, propounded, but not effected; but the character which was given of that learned primate by Trithemius (De Scriptor Eccles.) does exactly fit this our late father:- He was learned in the Scriptures, skilled in secular philosophy, and not unknowing in the civil and canon laws; he was of an excellent spirit, a scholar in his discourses, an early and industrious preacher to the people.' And, as if there were a more particular sympathy be