Alexander the Great died in the time of the Peloponessian War; but ridiculous a figure as he made in the Scholarship and Fellowship Examinations, he would not withdraw from them, because unless he examined he could not vote or nominate at the election of the Scholars and Fellows. This nomination power was with him a darling object in the execution of his electioneering projects of making the College a family borough, and he abstained from no methods to effectuate his scheme.

We are told at length how the Provost, with the consent of a majority of the Board, deprived Berwick of his Scholarship for absence, because Berwick would not vote for his son, and how the Visitors, on appeal, restored him.* How he deprived Mr. Gamble of the buttery clerkship, and replaced him, on the threat of an appeal, suggested and drawn up by Duigenan. How the Provost refused Mr. FitzGerald, a Fellow, leave to accompany his sick wife to the country, and tried to provoke FitzGerald's hot temper. The Provost's cruelties and injuries to Duigenan himself knew no limits. He says, that for the purpose of keeping him from being co-opted, the Provost had the Board Registry falsified, that he set the porters to watch him, that he persecuted him, and mulcted him in the buttery

* On this Visitation "Pranc. Poet." has

66

Disgrac'd by libels, worried by his foes

Poor Prancer labours under endless woes;
He therefore only supplicates your Grace

That right or wrong you'll keep him in his place."

The Visitation lasted five days, and was held before Primate Robinson as Vice-Chancellor for the Duke of Gloucester, and Archbishop Cradock of Dublin. Hutchinson published a pamphlet reviling the Visitors, and pronouncing their decision invalid.

books, for sleeping out of college without leave. He relates that he was attacked by the Provost's gang, and was obliged in consequence to wear arms; and that, finally, Hutchinson compelled him to go out on the Laws' Professorship on a salary which was raised to

The "Lachrymæ Academica" shows how Duigenan spent the leisure hours of his enforced retirement.

It was dedicated to King George III. Duigenan had "dragged this Cacus (the Provost) from his den," and he appealed to the Duke of Gloucester as Chancellor, and to the archbishops of Armagh and Dublin as Visitors, to rescue the college out of the hands of this worse than Vandalic destroyer, this molten calf, and pasteboard Goliath. As this remedy might fail, from the uncertainty of all events in this world, Duigenan pointed out two other remedies, the application of which lay with the King. One was to have the Provost's patent voided by a scire facias, and the other was to deprive him of all power, authority, or revenue in the college, during his life. His authority was to be transferred to the Board, and his revenue to be appropriated to pay for the new building. These suggestions were not adopted, but the Lachryma did not by any means fall still-born from the press. It produced a powerful sensation within the walls and in outer circles.

On the 19th of July it was censured by the Board in the following resolution :

* A King's Letter was obtained for raising the salary for this special occasion.-Lib. Mun.

"Whereas, a pamphlet hath lately been published in the city of Dublin, with the title of "Lachrymæ Academicæ,' to which the name of Patrick Duigenan, LL.D., is prefixed as author, traducing the character of the Right Honourable the Provost and some respectable Fellows of this society, and misrepresenting and vilifying the conduct of the said Provost and Fellows, and the government of the said college, without regard to truth or decency.

"Resolved by the Provost and Senior Fellows that the author and publishers of the said pamphlet shall be prosecuted in the course of law, and that orders to that purpose be given to the law agent of the college.

"Ordered that the said resolution be published in the English and Irish newspapers."-[Extract from College Register, July 19, 1777.]

The censure was officially published in the Dublin Journal, and in Saunders' News Letter; whereupon Duigenan inserted in the Freeman the following advertisement :

"Whereas, a false and malicious advertisement has been inserted in the Dublin Journal, and in Saunders' News Letter, containing a resolution of the Board of Trinity College, Dublin, relative to a book written and published by me, entitled, Lachrymæ Academica; or, the present deplorable state of the College of the Holy and undivided Trinity, of Queen Elizabeth, near Dublin.' It is necessary to inform the public that the said resolution was carried at the Board by the votes of Drs. Leland, Dabzac, Wilson, and Forsayeth (the very same persons who voted for the unstatutable deprivation of Mr. Berwick), against the opinions of Mr. Clement, the Vice-Provost, of Dr. Murray, and Dr. Kearney. It is also necessary to observe that

three of these gentlemen who voted for the above resolution are persons whom I have declared my intention, in my book, of accusing, before the Visitors, of having committed unstatutable crimes; which intention I shall most certainly execute.* And I do hereby pledge myself to the public that I will effectually prosecute at law every one of the junto for the said scurrilous advertisement, and the resolution therein contained.

"Chancery Lane, July 21st, 1777."

"PAT. DUIGENAN,

"N.B.-Dr. Murray signed the said advertisement officially as Registrar of the College, who is obliged to sign resolutions of the majority of the Board. He strenuously opposed the resolution therein contained, and the insertion of it in the Public Prints."

Besides these Board proceedings, the "Lachrymæ❞ led to a plentiful crop of litigation in the Courts. In Michaelmas Term, 1777, in the King's Bench, Serjeant Wood moved for an information against Duigenan at the suit of the Provost on account of the defamation in the "Lachrymæ," and the application was granted. The same time Barry Yelverton, on the part of Dr. Arthur Browne, Fellow, and Member for the University, moved

Duigenan did not execute this intention, as appears by the following record, kindly supplied by Dr. Carson, S.F.T.C.D.:-"I have to inform you that I have gone carefully through the College Register for the years 1777 and 1778, and I cannot find therein the least trace of any Visitation having been held in either of these years. The censure on Dr. Duigenan is duly recorded under its proper date, in the year 1777; but no further Collegiate notice appears to have been taken of it."

for an information against the Hibernian Journal, and Fitzgibbon moved for informations against two persons for challenging Duigenan. Applications granted.

In 1778 Counsellors Smith, Burgh, &c., showed cause on behalf of Dr. Duigenan against making absolute the Rule for information against the "Lachrymæ," when Judge Robinson dismissed the case, saying that it had already taken up fifteen days of the public time, and that he "left the School to its own correctors."*

In 1776, Duigenan insulted the Provost in the Four Courts, and the Provost, disdaining Duigenan, called upon Tisdall to make him responsible for his follower's conduct. He told Tisdall to consider that he had insulted him with a view to provoke a challenge. This was the occasion on which Duigenan threatened to bulge the Provost's eye. Tisdall at once applied for an information against him in the King's Bench. Seventeen counsel were engaged in the cause.

Hutchinson argued his own case before the Court with consummate ability. He delivered a most masterly speech, and offered an apology for calling Tisdall an old scoundrel and an old rascal. He did not recollect having used these expressions, but if he did use them, it was out of Court. He referred pathetically to all the annoyance and ridicule that he was undergoing by pamphlets and in the public press; and he excused his appearing in his own defence by the circumstance that his lawyers were harassed in attendance on the six different suits promoted against him on very unaccountable motives.

Walker's Hiber. Mag. 177-8.