Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 1.djvu/235

224 BROWNE to his successors free from any charge, as he did also his improvements at Bishopscourt, in Cork, of a considerable value. “He was a great enemy to death-bed donations; and therefore what he left by his will to public uses, was chiefly a contingency of 3000!. if a young female relation of his died before the age of twenty-one, or her marriage or if she married without the consent of a clergyman, under whose care he left her. If any of these things should happen, then he ordered the said s000/. to be laid out on the purchase of a rent, one third part of which to be given as a salary to a librarian for the library erected near St. Finbarr's church; another third part for the purchase of books to supply the said library; and the remainder for the benefit of widows and children of poor clergymen, to be distributed according to the discretion of his successors. He left also 20l, to the poor of the parish of St. Fiabarr, 100. for clothing poor children, and putting them out apprentices; and he bequeathed a part of his books to the library aforesaid." He greatly distinguished himself by the following con- troversial writings-1. "A Refutation of Toland's Chris- tianity, not mysterious." This pamphlet was the founda- tion of his preferment, and it was the occasion of his say- ing to Toland himself, that it was he who had made him bishop of Cork. e. "The Progress, Extent, and Limits, of the Human Understanding," published in 1728, in 8vo. This was meant as a supplemental work, and displayed more copiously the principles on which he had confuted Toland. 3. "Sermons," levelled principally against the Socinians, written in a manly and easy style, and were much admired at the time of their publication. He like- wise published a little volume in 12mo, against the "Cus- tom of Drinking to the Memory of the Dead." It was a fashion among the Whigs of his time to drink to the glorious and immortal memory of king William III. which greatly disgusted our worthy bishop, and is supposed to have