his many offices, he was extending that learning which placed him at the head of the scholars of the day, and for which he is still read and honoured. Burnet writes of him as a man “of a most amazing diligence and exactness, joined with great judgment. Together with his vast learning, no man had a better soul and a more apostolical mind. In his conversation he expressed the true simplicity of a Christian, for passion, pride and self-will, and the love of the world seemed not so much as in his nature; so that he had all the innocence of the dove in him. He was certainly one of the greatest and best men that the age, perhaps the world, has produced.” Selden spoke of him as “vir summa pictate, judicio singulari, usque ad miraculum doctus.” To compass, even in a volume, the bare record of the important public acts of Ussher while Archbishop of Armagh, would be a difficult task. He is the towering figure of his time, and seems to stand as centre to its history, overshadowing both churchmen and statesmen of ordinary stature, a period which reckoned among its prominent men educated in Dublin such scholars as Dudley Loftus, and such antiquarians as Sir James Ware. In 1640 the Primate was forced by the troubles of the time to go for a sojourn to England, which proved to be for the rest of his life. He was taken into the counsels of King Charles about the modification of Episcopal government such as to satisfy Presbyterians, and propounded a scheme with that view. From this time he was one of the King’s confidential advisers, and warned him against the signing of the Bill of Attainder against Strafford. When he knew that it had been done, Ussher broke out with “O sir! what have you done? Pray God your Majesty may never suffer by signing this Bill!” He bore the King’s last messages to Strafford, and attended him in prison and to the scaffold, bearing back the report of his execution to Charles.