Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 52.djvu/382

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ing Churches in London, i. 338; Brit. Mus. Addit. MSS. 19166 f. 15, 19170 f. 195, 24489 f. 170; Harl. MS. 6071, f. 383.]

E. I. C.


SLATTERY, MICHAEL (1785–1857), Roman catholic archbishop of Cashel, was born in Tipperary of parents of the farming class in 1785. He graduated M.A. in Trinity College, Dublin—an unusual course for a person intended for the priesthood of the Roman catholic church—and in 1805 he entered Carlow College as an ecclesiastical student. In 1809 he was admitted to clerical orders, and at the same time was appointed professor of philosophy to Carlow College. He left the college in 1815 for the pastorship of a parish in the archdiocese of Cashel. In June 1833 he was appointed president of Maynooth College; but six months later the archbishopric of Cashel was conferred on him by Gregory XVI, and he was consecrated on 24 Feb. 1834. When Sir Robert Peel's proposal in 1845 for the establishment of the Queen's University with the three Queen's Colleges of Cork, Belfast, and Galway, on undenominational lines led to a division of opinion in the Roman catholic episcopate, Slattery was a prominent member of the larger group of bishops who refused to support Dr. Daniel Murray [q. v.], the archbishop of Dublin, in his policy of giving ‘a fair trial’ to the colleges. Slattery and his friends insisted on the scheme of university education being at once condemned as dangerous to the faith and morals of catholics. This view was endorsed by a rescript from the propaganda, issued in 1847; and at a synod, held at Thurles in August 1850, the bishops unanimously took up a position hostile to the colleges. Slattery, who was an accomplished scholar and a profound theologian, died at Thurles on 5 Feb. 1857, and was interred in the catholic cathedral of the town. There is a portrait of him in Maynooth College.

[Healy's Centenary Hist. of Maynooth College; Fitzpatrick's Life of Bishop Doyle; and the Dublin newspapers of February 1857.]

M. MacD.


SLATYER or SLATER, WILLIAM (1587–1647), divine, son of a Somerset gentleman, was born at Tykeham, near Bristol, in 1587. He was admitted a member of St. Mary's Hall, Oxford, on 6 Feb. 1600–1, whence, in 1607, he removed to Brasenose College. He graduated B.A. on 23 Feb. 1608–9 and M.A. on 13 Nov. 1611. In the same year he was made a fellow, and in December 1623 proceeded B.D. and D.D. In 1616 he was appointed treasurer of the cathedral church of St. David's (Le Neve, Fasti Eccl. Angl. i. 318), and in the following year rector of Romney new church. He held for a time the post of chaplain to the queen consort (Anne of Denmark); but in 1625 he became rector of Otterden, Kent, and received a dispensation to hold the two livings together (Rymer, Fœdera, xviii. 665). About 1630 he published ‘Psalmes or Songs of Zion: turned into the Language and set to the Tunes of a Strange Land by W. S.’ (London, by Robert Young, n.d. 12mo). In connection with this work Slatyer was severely reprimanded by the court of high commission on 20 Oct. 1630. It appears that he added to it ‘a scandalous table to the disgrace of religion, and to the encouragement of the contemners thereof.’ He had to make a very humble apology and was rebuked by the archbishop, George Abbot [q. v.] His attire evoked censure as well as his publications; for Laud, then bishop of London, calling him back after Abbot's fulminations, informed him that his dress (‘a careless ruff and deep sleeves’) was ‘not fit for a minister.’ What was the nature of the ‘scandalous table’ is not clear, unless it consisted of a list of profane tunes to which the psalms might be sung. In the copy of the work in the British Museum the names of some of these tunes are found prefixed to the psalms in manuscript. Slatyer's portrait faces the title-page. He died at Otterden on 14 Feb. 1646–7. He left a son William, by his wife Sarah, who survived him. He is to be distinguished from the contemporary William Sclater [q. v.], rector of Pitminster, with whom he has been confounded.

Besides the condemned work on the psalms, Slatyer was the author of: 1. ‘Thrēnōidia, sive Pandionium Melos, in perpetuam serenissimæ simul ac beatissimæ Principis Annæ nuper Angliæ Reginæ Memoriam,’ London, 1619, 4to, which consists of elegies and epitaphs on Queen Anne of Denmark, written in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and English. 2. ‘Palæo-Albion; or the History of Great Britaine from the first peopling of this Iland to this present Raigne of or happy and peacefull Monarke K. James,’ London, printed by W. Stansby for Richard Meighan, 1621, fol. The history is written in Latin and English verse, the Latin on the one side and the English on the other, with various marginal notes on the English side relating to English history and antiquities. 3. ‘Genethliacon sive Stemma Jacobi. By William Slatyer, D.D.,’ London, 1630, fol. In this work, which is intended to supplement his history, he deduces the descent of James I from Adam. 4. ‘The Psalmes of David in four Languages and in four Parts. Set to the