A GOSSIP ABOUT TRINITY COLLEGE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 9, 29 June 1894, Page 4

A GOSSIP ABOUT TRINITY COLLEGE.

TUB following is a paper read before the Dunedin Catholic Literary Society on Wednesday evening, June 20, by Mr J, F Perrin, 8.A. : The University of Dublin— better known as Trinity Collegeis an extensive pile of buildings, erected around courts that occupy the north-western portion of a broad expanse of land in the centre of the city. To go through its various parts in detail, pointing out their distinguishing characteristics, and recalling some event to mark each separately, would be a work of time. Many generations of Btudente have frequented the place ; many among them have left their memories there, and there would be much to record. Let us, therefore, choose at random. Let us pay a visit to the Examination Hall, one of the chief buildings in the principal court. It stands to the right as you enter the court from the archway leading from the street and is conspicuous by its massive portico. The hall is long, broad, and lofty, and at its upper end it terminates in a spacious bow, lighted by high arched windows that look out on an enclosure called the Provost's garden. Over the door of entrance is a gallery in which aa organ, taken from tbe spoils of the Spanish Armada, has its place. The instrument is, necessarily, old ; its tones are low and somewhat wheesy, but still it is occasionally played to do honour to some gala event. The merit of the performance, perhaps, lies in the good intention. Another venerable musical instrument, I may remark in passing, that belongs to the college is an ancient Irish harp. It is never played but is kept under a glass case in the museum, There is a tradition that it had been owned by King Brian Boru, but I do not know tbattbis is well founded. The instrument is, however, a most interesting relic of antiquity. The splendid relics of the early ages, which folly bear out the traditioos of the glories of ancient Ireland,' are to be found, not in Trinity College, but at the museum of the Boyal Irish Academy. On the floor of the Examination Hall the furniture ia plain. Long tables are placed at intervals, an end of each against the wall, and on either 9ide a form where the students to be examined take their Beats. On the walls are hung the full-length portraits— with one exception— of distinguished men who had been connected with the college. The exception is Queen Elizabeth, foundress of the College. Her Grace is painted as a fair and rather pretty young woman, nothing of the tigresß about her in any way. I fancy the feline face of the statue on her tomb in Henry VII. s chapel at Westminster is a more faithful likeness. Many of the men whose pictures are here are known to you. Burke is known to you, and so are Grattan and Flood, and Charlemont. He is in the uniform of the Volunteers ; the others wear the dress of the close of the last century —each having hia queue at the back of his head. Strange times were they when it was dangerous to go out into the streetß without this appendage. Such times, nevertheless, there were. In the year '98, for example, a certain student, a lad of sixteen, who had just entered college, having forgotten something in the day time, hurried out after dark to buy it. In hia haste he had not donned this queue. The consequence was that, falling into tbe hands of the notorious yeomanry officer* Mjaor Sirr, te narrowly escaped being hung k to a lamp post. Hi queuelesfl state was taken as a proof that he was a rebel, and the rope was actually around his neck. It was barely a street or two from tbe college gate, but it was not without much persuasion that Sirr sent his prisoner, still in custody, there to see if he told tha truth. How many youths and men were there in those ill-fated times wbo were leu fortunate, and had no refuge from the arbitrary executioner 7 None will ever know. The ladjin question lived to ba a judge of th c Queen's Bench, and, fifty years after, to preside at the trial of others who were also accused of rebellion. A monument in marble on the right hand side of the door of entrance, about half way up the hall, recalls a memory that possibly recommends itself but little to you that, namely, of Fitzgibbon, Lord Clare.

Among the pictures there was one that, for myself, had a particular attraction. It was that of Berkeley, Bishop of Oloyne, a handsome, large-eyed man, with the wondering expression of a visionary He was painttd in bis Bishop's robes, with a pcn — the time honoured goose-quill — in his hand, as if about to write down some deep thought or grave conclusion, whose full developement he awaited. Berkeley bears a name bigh amongst those that reflect most honour on his oollege, of which he was a Fellow. Nevertheless, we seldom hear mention of bim among [Irishmen, He was born at Kilcrin in the County Kilkenny in the year 1684, and in 1707 gained his Fellowship. His career as a clergyman of tbe Church of England was in brilliant contrast to those of many who were bis contemporaries. Of the Anglican clerics of the times we have a picture from the hand of one of tbeir own number, that if, Dean Swift, who exhibits (hem in lurid colours. Berkeley, on (he contrary, gave up the Deanery of Derry, an incumbency worth £1,100 a year, to go, with his wife, to labour as a missionary among the North American Indians, at a yearly salary of £100. The agreement made with him by Government, nevertheless, was not adhered to, and, after a fruitless struggle of reven yean he returned. Soon afterwards he was appointed Bishop of Oloyne, aod it is recorded, also to bis honour, that on quitting that dlocesr, which the King would not allow him, as he desired, to resign

he settled on the poor during hiß absence an annuity of £200, Berkeley's memory survives chiefly through his philosophical theory — one that was little understood and which was the occasion of a good deal of stupid ridicule. Bven the famous Dr Johnson betrayed a etratge misapprehension concerning it. He denied the existence of matter, Let him go and knock his head agaiost a post, said some of the wita. Dr Johusou kickod a ettoae by way ot a sufficient refutatioo. What Berkeley meant by matter, however, was corporeal subptance. "I do not," he wrote, "argue against the existence of any one thing that we can apprehend either by sensation or refiectisn. That the things I see with my eyes and touch with my hands do exist, really exiet, I make not tho least question." He claimed to hold with the vulgar that matter was that of which his senses informed him and that there was no invisible substance. He gave as a reason for the argument for the existence of substance the necessity of some synthesis of attributes— but this he placed in the mind. To tho existence of objects, he argued, a perceiving mind was necessary* An object, he said, exists for a man only so long as by some one or otber of his senses he perceives it. His conclasion was that " all the cboir of heaven and all the furniture of earth "—all bodies in shortexisted only because they subsisted in the mind of an Eternal Spirit. The theory is false, and has been fully refuted. Ido not pretend to be particularly versed in philosophic lore, but one consideration alone seems to me sufficient to overthrow Berkeley's conclusion. It ib that to grant its truth would be to affirm the eternity of bodies. We surely cannot conceive that into the eternal mind there Bhould enter anything that had not been there from eternity. But these are subjects in which I easily run a risk of getting out of my depth. Speaking of the portraits in the Examination Hall I could not pass over that which bad chiefly caught my fancy, and it was needful to say something of the man, who, moreover, as I have said, is too little remembered by Irishmen.

As to those who frequented the Hall and were not piotareß, they went there with various feelings. A lad there wan, for instance, who declared that, not being in suspense, he came up as bold as a lioo, " I don't know a word of the subjects," said he, " I am sure to be plucked and so my mind is quite easy." He, too, was evidently a philosopher, though, perhaps of a different stamp. The attributes of which hia mind formed the synthesis, were not, I imagine, very weighty. All students, as you may believe, did not contemplate, in such a philosophic frame, their want of preparation. One, on the contrary, was made desperate by finding himself in such a condition. His resolution was that he would fall sick and so escape the ordeal. Having therefore, in vain courted several maladies of a milder kind» he resorted to an extreme expedient. He went out one afternoon for a row on the river, and, in returning, managed accidentally to fall overboard. He reached borne dripping wet from bend to foot, and possibly with a certain faint odour, " an ancient fish-like smell," hanging about him, as people having acquaintance with the waters of the Liffey might expect. To his mortification, however, he was ordered to take off his clothep, dry himself, and come to dinner, and that was all that seemed likely to ensue. A sickness, nevertheless, he was determined to have, if only in appearance. Next day he came down to the rooms in college, which, with my chum, I occupied, and explained his dilemma. He was received with sympathy, and the aid he beg gad for was readily given. It consisted in an artistic touching np of his face with whites and greys. Ho went home in ao hour or two, looking more like a corpse of four or five days standing than an invalid even at the last gasp. His people were thrown into a violent state of alarm and be was ordered to bed at once. Having got there he knew bow to keep between the sheets until the danger had passed by. He was a student of the medical school, I may add, and a Catholic— tba only one among our particular set. He afterwards went to India, and the la*t I heard of him was that he had distinguished himself as a patriotic Irishman in some dispute that took place there.

A novel feature of Dublin University during tha concluding years of my course there was an Indian class. Some two or three yean before, on the termination of the Indian Mutiny, appointments in the civil service of that country, which previouly had been filled by patronage had been thrown open to competition by examination. The college authorities took advantage of the opportunity and established a class for the preparation of competitors. The subjects were the Greek and Latin c' assies, mathematics, modern languages, and English literature, among which students might make some choice, la thiß connection, strange to say, my chum — afterwards a judge of some distinction in Madras — being a Scoto-Englisbman or an AngloScotchman— my last year in college was passed largely in a foreign atmosphere— I must, however, testify that I was in excellent company. They were very good fellows. One of the lads had oome fresh from Eton. One bad been a student at Cambridge. One was the grandson of a famous Anglican ecclesiastic— a High Church Bishop of renowD, and, like his grandfather, he had some peculiarities Another was notable to us because be had come over under tbe auspices of a leader at the Irish bar — that is, a barrister named Whiteside— who was just then more than ever to the fore. He Lad recently made a splendid speech in a cause oelebre, his eloquence

being of Buch merit that, on going over immediately afterwards to take bis seat in Parliament, to which he had some time before been returned, he was cheered as he entered by the House. Yet another was the son of a man to whose career some epacs is dsvoted in Lockhart's ''Life of Scott"— that is the late Mr George Huntly Gordon described by the author as " sprung from Scotia's gentler blood," and who for some years acted as amaouensii to the Wizard of the North having, says Lcckbart, all the qualities for the post that could endear bim to a writer. With Mr Gordon who had written some of the Waverley Novels, at Scott's dictation, I subsequently became well acquainted, finding him in e»ery respect all that had been, or could be, said of him. He was a man of a finished scholarship, considerable literary ability, polished taste, and a particularly obarming type of character — to whose development I have no doubt the influence of Sir Walter had contributed, The old words—" in wit a man, simplicity a child,"— were never more fully deserved by any one. No one who had the happiness of knowing him could qu stion Scotland's power to bring forth perfect men. His devotion to the memory of Sir Walter Scott was a monument most honourable to its object. A phase of life, meantime, with which these strangers brought me practically into contact was that of various forms of religious opinion. Hitherto I had been used to what was general in Ireland. People were Roman Catholics or Protestants— respectively more or less fervent bnt all of one type— and there was an end of it. In this new element I found atheism, and Deism, and High Church. Our atheist, however, was not in the Indian class. He was a student of engineering— a Jew, hailing from the South of England. He was characterised by an extreme kindness of heart. I remember going one evening for a walk with him along the North Wall, a bank of the river's mouth. There we fell in with a sight which to me was moat familiar, but to my companion entirely new — the parting of a band of emigrants from their friends. &ome children were being separated from their parents, and the scene was harrowing. My little Jew seemed to go mad outright. I had almost to use violence to prevent his taking an active part in the proceedings. He danced about and

raved in a way that quite took my though is off the more touching scene. Bnt bo it is. I am convinced that if many — nay most of those people across the Channel who display such coldness towards Irish misery could only tee it for themselves, the sight woald be unendurable to them. There is, in fact, as experience in their own country and elsewhere has led me to believe— no kinder hearted people on the earth than the English people— Gentiles as well as Jews— and yet the irony of fate has betrayed them into playing in Ireland for centuries a most cruel part. Ooe of our young Englishmen, on ths other hand, as the Yanktes say, " got religion " soon after his arrival in Dublin. There ware what were called revival meetings going on there, and he attended one and was converted. With him, also, I once went on an expedition. It wts to a proselytising " ragged school," where every Sunday he taught a class. And what a school it was I A. squalid house in a squalid street, a big dirty room with dingy bays around it— where dirty ragged man and boys were sitting — all in a doz*. The price of their attendance was a clunch of bread given to each as he left, when the hour was over. All the class slept except the one poked up to receive his lesson— consisting of some texts of scripture, with the teacher's interpretation. When he had pretended to listen for the inevitable minutes, the pupil slept again. lam afraid my remarks on the road back to college disedifiod my companion, for I received no second invitation from him. All these Indian students wsre fine clever lads, who well sustained the reputation of the college at the subsequent examination in London.

Among the lecturers of this Indian class was one who had attained to some celebrity as the writer of a spirited poem of strong national Bentiment. I have heard it received with high applause by a gathering of these young Scotch and English men. I allude to Dr Ingram, who was their lecturer on English Literature, and to bis verses " The memory of the dead." No doubt they are familiar to most of you. How far they proved the existence of a patriotic spirit in their writer, I cannot tell. Nothing else, however, that I ever heard of, identified him with national feeling — nor has he— lice the late Bey Joseph Galbraitb, one of bis brother Fellows, taken any part

in the Home Bale movement. Among the Irish students there were three who were, indirectly at least, associated with the National cause. They were the two sons and a nephew of William Smith O'Brien, With two of these young fellows, tha nephew and the younger son, I had some slight acquaintance, but what their sentiments were towards the cause in which the chief of '48 had soffarad, I had no means of learning. They, as in any case <vas doe to the traditions of their family, received much deference from their Irish fellow students, and I remember the eomplaiot of a member of the Indian olass to the effect that it seemed to be rather a fine thing in Ireland to be related to a " traitor." And, indeed, I bare good reasoo tobelieTe that h»d they not been warped by anti*Oatholio prejudices the Protestants of Ireland would hare given fall scope to a very fervent and manly patriotism. Murrough O Brien, the nephew referred to, has since, I understand, expressed some sympathy with Home Bale, or the suffering tenants. He is now, as his father was, a olergyman of the Church of England. As for Lucius O'Brien, the younger son to whom I have alluded, I do not think be was made of the stuff to follow in his father's footsteps. He was a well-favoured stripling, slightly built, fragile looking, and evidently of no gre»t force of character. Mrs O'Brien, bis mother— as was well known— had been resolutely opposed to the national sentiments of her husband, and the part taken by the patriot's elder brother obtained from Government as a reward tha restoration to ihe family of their anoient title of Inchiquin. Dr Ingram I personally knew only as an examiner. In that capacity he was considerate and fair. With the Eev Joseph dalbraith I was better acquainted. He it was who examined me for matriculation, and I was his pupil for some time. His appointment to a professorship — that of engineering — was the cause of my being transferred to another tutor, as the professors did not take pupils. In my time, however, the relationship of tutor and pupil was very slight In former years the tutor received the fees paid by his pupils and, as a consequence, there was a great disparity in incomes.' Fellows who were popular were rich, and others were in straits. A common fund and fixed salaries bad afterwards been introduced. The tutors in my time merely arranged for the lecturers we were to attend,

the rooms that were to be allotted to those of us who lived in college and other matters of the kind. Mr Qalbraith's forte was mathematics, in which he was a distinguished scholar. He was a member of three profesiions— a clergyman of the Church of England, a medical doctor, and an engineer. In manner he was a kindly, unassuming gentleman. He stood high in the estimation of the students.

One or two of the Fellows or professors there necessarily were of whom so much can not be said. Of one or two also queer stories were told. We had no one, however, to fill the place that during the studentship of our fathers had been occupied by a certain member of the learned body , whose memory, I conclude, still lingers in the classic shades. Possibly some of you have heard of the famous Dr Barrett or Jacky Barrett as he was more familiarly called. He had entered college when quite a boy and while he acquired the|book learning of a man he preserved all the guilelessness of early youth. I was told on authority that in a minute book of the Board of Management there were notes of a discussion, in wbiob be had taken part, as to the re« moval of some rubbish that had accumulated in the College park " Do you see me now f" said Jacky. " I'd dig a hole for it." " But Dr Barrett," asked another member, " what would you do witk the stuff taken out of the hole ?" "Do you see me now," was the reply, M I'd dig another hole for that I" His blunders were innumerable, and they were made in the fla'test of all fiat brogues. I have often heard it mimicked by one who had been acquainted with him. Be was a stickler for old customs, too. Once, for example, there was a debate in the college as to whether they should introduce into Latin the English pronunciation of the first letter of the alphabet, or abide by the old Irish style. The innovation wts strongly opposed by Dr Barrett and as strongly supported by Dr Wall, another of the Fellows. One day, therefore, it happened to come to Jackey's turn to read the service in the Collsge Chapel. All went well until the minister reached the Lord's Prayer. " Our Fa-taer," said be, " or, at Dr Wall would say, our Fay-tuer." What the effect was among a orowd of worshippers, none too devoutly disposed, may be imagined.

On Bunday mornings in my time the servioe in the College Obapel was vety beautiful. It was the ohoral ttrviot of the Oaarob

of England which, when carried out in perfection, is both beautiful and grand. That in the Collige Chapel in those days was so performed. The organist was Dr, afterwards Sir Bobert, Stewart, who ranked among the first performtrs in Europe. The choristers included men also of Kuropaan reputation, and the voices of the boys were admirably sweet and thoroughly ;trained. The chanting, antiphonally, of the Psalms with their fine old English words — I say nothing for the orthodoxy of the translation — was magnificent. The semes concluded with an anthem, selected from one or other of the sacred works of the great masters. This was sung before the sermon, and tbeo the choir went away. They, however, had a hard day's work. From the College Chapel they went straight to Cbristchurch Cathedral, and, in the afternoon, they sang again at St Patrick's Thiß was, par excellence, the fashionable service of the day in the city, and the profane commonly spoke of it as " Paddy's Opera." By the " unco goid " it was held in holy hoiror. Of the Irish students who were my contemporaries in college some attained distinction in different ways. One of these was a little round, chubby-cheeked, rosy-faced, fellow named Massey. He had only jast entered college when the Crimean War broke out. He cut short his studies there, got a commission in the army, became one of the heroes of the campaign and returned in a fewyeais to resume his in errupted course, bearing before his surname the honourable title of Redan. He had notably distinguished himself at the taking of that great fortress, and by his bravery, while severely wounded, kept up the courage of his men, and inspirited them to sustain the attack. One or two others, less honourably, met with a tragic fate. This was the case, for instance, with one who had become the unfortunate Lord Mountmorres. He, as you may remember, was murdered some years ago near Cong in the count; Mayo* In college he was known as Mr De Mostmorency and had the privileges of what was called a films nobilis or nobleman's sou — that is Borne slizht concessions as to terms and examinations and an adornment of gold lace on his cap or gown. He was not in my class, and I never cams personally in contact with him, though I saw him occasionally in the courts. His appearance, notwithstanding his finery, was that of a farmer's lad. A friend of mine who was in his class and attended lectures in his company, used often to reflect on his manners as funnily typical of those of a youog nobleman—however, De mortuit nil ntii bonum. I never heard anything worse of him and, were there such to hear, it would have been sure to get abroad. The times were gone by in those later years when town and gown combats had been the order of the day. There is a proverbial saying banded down from them, It happened once that a bailiff invaded

the sacred courts. He was immediately detected and surrounded by tn angry mob of students. While they were deliberating how they should punish him for his intrusion, one more merciful than the rest called out, " Don't nail that poor man's ears to the pump." Io onr day no jman's ears were so affixed. On the contrary, it was the college boys, as they were called, who thnmseives, on one occasion, suffered. The day was that on which a statue of Moore recently erected in close neighbourhood to the college wai unveiled. A large body of the students was assembled in the railed enclosure oatiide the college gateß, and in the streets were gathered all the citiiens including the beauty, wealth, and fashion of the town. Suddenly, without a word of warning, the police broke in upon the ladi, clubbed them unmercifully, and .drove them defenceless and unprepared for such an attack inside the gates. The only excuse there ever was given was that some pebbles had been thrown, but this I greatly question. lat least saw nothing of the kind, and I knew no one who did. Party spirit was at once body aroused, and it was declared by the Protestant community that the police, as myrmidons of the Pope, had made a vicious attack on the sons of the Protestant gentry. What the actual cause of the onslaught was I conld never make out. The police had evidently for the time being lost their heads. Possibly they were badly commanded. The matter led to a case io the law courts. Mr O'Hagan, afterwards Lord Chancellor a-d the first Oatholic who had filled the post since the accession of King William 111., defended the police, and Mr McDonogb, a strong Protestant barriß'er, was counsel for the students. Nothing, however, came of the mater, and the excitement in doe time died away. Tbe last we heard of it was some weeks after, when we went to the Castle in a body one day to attend the college authorities in presenting an address to the Lord Lieutenant, who was then the Earl of Eglinton. His Excellency rebuked us sternly for conduct of which we were not guilty. Finally, I myself was taken sharply to task by an old gentleman who bad been a scholar of the college. He charged us with pusillanimity, and declared we had disgraced our Alma Mater by listening,in'silence to che undeserved reproaches of the Viceroy. As • matter of fact, I think I should now look back npon it with something of satisfaction had we treated his Excellency to a groan or two. His motive, besides, pocsibly deserved for him some such treatment. Tha intention would seem to have been — not so much that of rebuking tht boys for a fault which they had not committed — as that of warning the masses of the people that since bo loyal a body as the students of Trinity College must submit to the violence of the police, they, for their part, had little to expect when they dared to make resistance. I began my gossip with the Examination Hall. It was in tha Examination Hall also that oar University course, properly ao-called.

ended, though there were additional terms and examinations for students of the professional schools. There it waa that tha degrees were conferred. The ceremony took place in the day time but still was an occasion of Borne fun to the undergraduates. Nothing, however, like the elaborate display usual in Dunlin, occurred. Thr digni'ary, who officiated, io my time, was the Vice-chancellor, th^n Chief Justice Blackburn. The Chancellor of the University waa the Anglican Primate, Lord John George Beresford, uncle of the contemporary Marquis of Waterford, a nobleman notorious for his hairbrained exploits and practical jokes. The Primate was a man, on the contrary, of great dignity and a splendid presence, munificent, too, as a princely prelate should be. As to the Chief Justice he went in the law courts by the name of Pontius Pilate, and irreverent limbs of the law ridiculed us for going, as they said, to receive the blessing of that functionary. All that I now remember is a rather glum looking personage in a wig, before whom I taok the oath of allegiance.

With the recollection of that solemn act performed in the presence of a distinguished company, and beDeath the portraits of which I have spoken, I conclude.