worthily both. He replied: Would you prefer yourself before a single secular priest? I answered that I never yet had any controversy with any. He now being at a demur, I craved like favour in resolving not an unlike doubt of mine, Whether himself was a bare minister, or dean, or both? He said, 'I am a minister and no dean, it being a Papist title.' I replied: Then you are a Puritan, inasmuch as you refuse the name of Dean, and a Protestant as you hold the Deanery of St. Patrick's. He smiled at the conceit, and so departed."

"The De'il and the Dean begin with one letter,

When the De'il takes the Dean, the Kirk will be better."1

"When King James came to the throne of England, like a burnt child, he dreaded and hated the Puritans, and many well-beneficed Puritans exclaimed against their consorts. I informed some of the crew of Rider's conference. Rider gave me the lie, and called me traitor. Now, whatever faults soever I may have, all my acquaintances will justify me that I ever from a child abhorred swearing and lying."

In a copy of F. FitzSimon's book which is in Trinity College, and had belonged to Rider, there is a marginal note of the Dean to the following effect :-"A lying villaine; we never had any such conference." But FitzSimon confirmed his account by showing from Rider's book that Rider maintained the name priest to be proper to every believing Christian.

FitzSimon began the new year, 1604, by writing a letter to Rider, in which he challenged him again to a public discussion, and, of course, wished him all the compliments of the season.*

On the 12th of March King James the First sent an order from Whitehall for the release and banishment of "One Henry FitzSimon, a Jesuit, who hath these five years past remained in the Castle of Dublin." On the 30th of March Rider, knowing that the order for his adversary's release had come, but would not be executed for some time, published against him his Rescript, dated the 30th of March, from his house in St. Patrick's Close.5

"He blushed not," says FitzSimon, "to pretend slackness in me. How could he make it to any, even of themselves, to seem so, considering I had obliged myself to the State and College to abide their appointment, who might at will compel me to an encounter, considering I was among and in the power of his friends, and of adversaries in the highest degree

1 We take the liberty of intercalating these Puritan verses, which Rider might have murmured as he walked away. 2 "Confutation,” p. 227. 3 Mason's Hist. of St. Patrick's Cathedral. "Confutation." To the Reader, paragraphs 8, 9. 5 Replie," p. 42.

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to my profession and person; from whom I could not start, they having no intention to spare me, in so much as they never used such restraints and wardings towards any criminal malefactor as towards me?

"When my answer, by him termed a scroule, yet containing near two quires of paper, had been so legible to him, as it grieved and graveled him to behold it; and when he would not permit the printing thereof, and could not reply thereto, but in a manner as after shall appear; he hearing that licence was come for my enlargement, and fearing that I would discover his shifts and faintness towards a disputation, in all haste published a second book against me, full of venomous railing, which he calleth tart terms; wherein he trotteth, and tottereth to a hundred shifts, to purchase the people's opinion. that he was forward and resolute to encounter any adversary to his profession. This late heart of grace he entertained, partly because he thought I would not hinder the benefit of such releasement of my five years' endurance by such disputation, partly because he had observed a late willingness in them of the College to save and salve his reputation; and therefore thought that I would not accept, in that extremity, to hazard my granted departure by opposing myself to any person favoured by the State; or, if I would, that they of the College would plaster up all his discredit, by stretching favour and their arbitrament beyond right and conscience.

There being a jealousy betwixt them of the College and Mr. Rider, my appeal to their arbitraments was a heavy load upon his reputation, they not being partial in my part of the cause, and yet he loath to stand to their kindness. To gain time he would be tried nowhere but in Oxford. This evasion by all men was hissed at in all meetings, at his own table, and everywhere else; so he was constrained to approach under the lee, and into the friendship of those of the College. What packing there was betwixt them I know not; but this I know, that he seemed froward to resign his cause to them. If conjecture on probable occasion be allowed, the Collegists told him that he had utterly betrayed himself in the main point, but yet that one only refuge remained-to wrest the matter of Christ's true presence to the term of Transubstantiation : that if I should not discover this foisting in the question of the name, instead of the question of the matter, Mr. Rider might well be supported against my proofs. Such to have been the quirk of all their consultation, and the only hope whereupon Mr. Rider hanged his confidence, by diligent observation of the circumstances may be collected. But, as I said, never before the month of April, 1604, could Mr. Rider be pur

chased to abide the arbitrament of his own pew-fellows, the Collegists.

"Now was my banishment by his Majesty licensed, to the disgust and distrust of Mr. Rider, lest that, being out of his grips, I would publish the certainty of all our courses; and to the greater terror of him, because I certified all Protestants repairing to the castle, that I was sincerely determined to do no less than he feared, at my first leisure and commodity. Whereat new exprobrations at every instant falling on him, he made that wise Rescript,' to which now I answer; which being made, the Right Worshipful Mayor of the citie, not being ignorant of all the circumstances (although to his immortal infamy, a most timorous Catholic, as one that most exactly knew their impiety, yet for wordly fear conformed himself thereto), challenged him publicly of dastardliness in wounding a man bound, trampling on one in restraint, and triumphing against one not permitted to resist, by writing publicly against me who was not allowed to defend myself. For, according to Seneca, in his proverbs, "Victoria sine adversario brevis est laus:"-It is a silly and short commendation, to brag of victory without an adversary. Or, as Faustus somewhere more plainly says: "Nil tacito quæsita dolo victoria durat" the victory obtained by treachery doth never avail. Mr. Rider, at this importunate provocation, blustering into choler, assured him in the public market, that even to my face he would confound me to be guilty of all tergiversation used in the proceedings, if the Mayor would vouchsafe to accompany him to the castle, to which motion the Mayor condescended, in the meantime inviting him to dinner, lest he would relent or repent this vaunted resolution.

At dinner time the Mayor sent one of his sergeants to certify me distinctly of all the aforesaid occurrences. I answered (notwithstanding my former alienation for the aforesaid schism of the Mayor, not denying but he had otherwise ever obliged me), that I would most willingly that such motion in any case should not be overslipped, but brought to examination. On the 4th of April, 1604,1 the Mayor, Justice Palmer, Captain God (the Councillor Sir Richard Cook, out of his chamber in the castle, being within hearing and privy to all our proceedings), and others, to the number, with them of the guard, of about a hundred, standing in the castle court, I was summoned by my keeper to appear. Some little pause there was before I came, and suddenly Mr. Rider, thinking that contrary to my custom, I would temporize in the heat I ever professed

1 In reply he says May; but in "Confutation," in Advertisement to Reader, he says 4th of April.

towards maintaining religion, began to glorify that he knew I durst not come. At length I came, and inquired their pleasure. Mr. Rider declared that he came to have a promised legible copy, or my subscribing that which I had delivered, or my going to trial before them of the College.

"To the first of these three points I answered, his own mouth should confess the copy to be legible, which I proved in manner premised. To the second, that if I could not prove his falsification of my private letter, I would subscribe my whole answer; which when I did prove (as all or any then present will avow) so directly and perspicuously that he blushed, and they all blamed him for falsification, I told them there should need no such approbation, considering that our issue should be not upon the future, but even upon the 'Caveat,' and my allegations therein contained in legible print. To the last, of going to the College, I accepted it at that instant, reaching him a gold ring, which he should not deliver me but in that place. He took it, and now (as Julius Cæsar said, when he had passed the river Rubicon,-jacta est alea-the die is cast) there could be no tergiversation; either we must have gone forward with main force, or we could not retire without foil and dishonor. What was, think you, the issue? Mr. Rider would needs restore me my ring, pretending that he must have license of the State for so public an act, which license he doubted not to obtain at their sitting the day following.' Nay, said I, you have had license from the beginning for this disputation, by lawful warrant, as you showed me yourself: so that I will not receive my ring until you present it me (unless you have other excuse) in place accorded. His own consociates, the Reformed crew, what in wailing, what in railing, sought to draw or drive him from so ignominious revolting from the trial by himself first sought, in three years' space daily boasted of, at this time before my departure to be effected or not at all, and then disclaimed in the face of the world, until needless new license might be obtained. But he dividing up and down sparkles of railing rage, gave them leave to say their pleasure and to swallow their displeasure, and threatened, if I would not receive the ring, to throw it away, which, notwithstanding, I would not accept, alleging the bargain for a lawful disputation to have been fully and authentically contracted, and now to be irrevocable. But he would not retain it, and so the Mayor took it into custody, till hope and speech of a disputation vanished.

"All the Protestants were ashamed of their champion, whose provocation was a perfect imitation of the challenge sent by Francis the First to Charles the Fifth. It is not long since

this happened in the sight of so many witnesses, that it may be well remembered, and I am not so prodigal of my good name that I would forge in a matter subject to so much censures as might fall on an untruth of like quality, if the thing were not notorious and beyond all disproof. The aforesaid Justice Palmer, the Captain, and all the others publicly censured him, and said my copy was legible and correctly written. They exclaimed against him, that I so resolutely presented to go instantly with him, to hold a disputation in the College; that he was known to have long before allowance and warrant from the State towards such conference, and yet would not enter the lists; and that being publicly come to provoke, and the combat being accepted, he, like a Jubelius, would, to the dishonour of his cause, flinch away and retire most dastard-like. Surely there was among the soldiers so great hissing of their champion after his departure, and so great jealousy against the profession whereunto such sleights and acts of hypocrisy were the chief defence, that eight or ten of them thereupon shortly after came to be reconciled. Thus, Mr. Rider remained confounded

'Et clypeo simul et galea nudatus et hasta.'

"The next day the Council was sitting close upon accounts, and Mr. Rider, for his credit's sake, having attended till full dinner time, to have their allowance to dispute, and not willing to depart until he had motioned to the State what he intended towards the disputation, he came up at length to dine among us prisoners. Some gentle bickerings chanced betwixed us about the Angelical Salutation to our Blessed Lady in Greek. He and his fellow, Balfe, in presence of the Constable, who, I imagine, will not lightly lie on either side, were found so exorbitantly confounded and disgraced, and wallowed in such a plunge, that the Constable, ashamed to impose silence, could remain no longer, and Mr. Rider, according to his wont, fell from reason to railing, not sparing or respecting me more than his father's son's companion. I was no less with him than traitor, fool, liar, knave, etc." This is, no doubt, the controversy to which Fitz Simon thus refers in his "Britannomachia."

"I remember well also the nonsence which a certain young minister, the chaplain to Oliver Lambert, uttered in the presence of Tristram Eccleston, Lieutenant of Dublin Castle, of Mr. Mark Shee, and Mr. Patrick Archer, who to-day are in honour with all, but then, as illustrious confessors of Christ, were detained in prison with me. Well, this young wight Confut." Advert. to Reader, par. 11. Replie," p. 12-13.