the Archbishop's works, in seventeen octavo volumes, partly edited by
Dr. C.R. Elrington, and partly by Dr. J.H. Todd, with an index volume by
Dr. W. Reeves, was published in Dublin in 1847-64.

[Illustration: ARCHBISHOP WILLIAMS.]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 32: Life of Usher, by Dr. C.R. Elrington, prefixed to Usher's
works, vol. i. p. 23. Dublin, 1847.]

[Footnote 33: A list of these books, with the prices annexed to several,
is still extant in Usher's handwriting, and preserved among the MSS. of
Trinity College, Dublin. _Ibid._, p. 25.]

JOHN WILLIAMS, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, 1582-1650

John Williams, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal and Archbishop of York, was
the son of Edmund Williams of Aber-Conway, Caernarvonshire, at which
place he was born on the 25th of March 1582. He was first educated at
the public school at Ruthin, and later at St. John's College, Cambridge,
where he was sent when sixteen years of age. While at the university he
appears to have indulged in a somewhat reckless expenditure, and Bishop
Hacket, who wrote his biography, informs us that 'from a youth and so
upward he had not a fist to hold money, for he did not lay out, but
scatter, spending all that he had, and somewhat for which he could be
trusted.' He was, however, by no means neglectful of his studies, for we
are told by Lloyd in his _State Worthies_, 'that unwearied was his
industry, unexpressible his capacity: He never saw the book of worth he
read not; he never forgot what he read; he never lost the use of what he
remembered: Everything he heard or saw was his own; and what was his own
he knew how to use to the utmost.' From the time of Williams's
ordination in 1609, his career until the accession of Charles I. was a
remarkably rapid and successful one. After holding one or two livings,
he was appointed Chaplain to the King and Sub-Dean of Salisbury, and in
1620 Dean of Westminster. On the fall of Bacon, in July 1621, in whose
ruin he had taken a large share, he was sworn in as Lord Keeper. Lloyd
observes with reference to the manner in which he fulfilled the duties
of this post, that 'the lawyers despised him at first, but the judges
admired him at last.' Williams was also made Bishop of Lincoln, and
allowed to retain the deanery of Westminster and the rectory of
Walgrave; in fact the number of preferments he held was so large that
Dr. Heylyn remarks that 'he was a perfect diocese within himself, as
being bishop, dean, prebend, res