[Sidenote: Loftus and Jones are too fond of money.]
Adam Loftus was fond of money. He begged so unblushingly for himself and his relations, that the chapter of Christ Church, on granting one of his requests, made him promise, before them all, not to ask for anything more. Even this promise he afterwards tried to evade. He was accused of jobbing away the revenues of St. Patrick's, and the late dean, who was married to his sister-in-law, earned a very bad name for wasting the substance of his deanery first, and afterwards of his bishopric. One extant deed in particular bears Swift's indignant endorsement, made in 1714, as 'a lease of Coolmine, made by that rascal Dean Jones, and the knaves, or fools, his chapter, to one John Allen for eighty-one years, to commence from the expiration of a lease of eighty years made in 1583; so that there was a lease of 161 years of 253 acres in Tassagard parish, within three miles of Dublin, for 2_l._ per annum... now worth 150_l._, and, so near Dublin, could not then be worth less than 50_l._ How the lease was surrendered, I cannot yet tell.'
[Sidenote: though Loftus liked a university in the abstract.]
Loftus was accused of being interested in many such leases, and it was said that in defending St. Patrick's he was really defending his own pocket. He had been dean himself, too, and very possibly he was not anxious for the inquisition which must have taken place had the cathedral been dissolved. On the other hand, the Archbishop could give good reason why Perrott's plan should not take effect. St. Patrick's, he said, was the only place in Ireland where a learned man, and especially a learned Englishman, 'could, without imminent danger, thrust his head.' There were twenty-six dignitaries, some of them very slightly endowed, and of these fifteen were university graduates. With the exception of one bishop, there were no good preachers in Ireland but those furnished by St. Patrick's, and amongst them were Dean Jones, Thompson, the treasurer, Conway, the chancellor, and Henry Ussher, the archdeacon, who lived to be Archbishop of Armagh. Of three bishops who could preach, two had been promoted out of St. Patrick's, and Christ Church neither had done nor could do anything in that way. He was ready to give what help he could towards the establishment of a university, but a university could not be maintained long if there were no benefices to bestow upon fellows. The prebends did not depend upon temporalities, but were all attached to parishes. Kildare was patron of two, but the others were in the Archbishop's gift, and they were all opposed to Perrott's scheme. Loftus himself was ready to resign rather than leave himself 'a perpetual blot and infamy' to his successor, for having consented to the destruction of his cathedral. Archdeacon Ussher was sent to England, and Loftus also employed Richard Bancroft, one of the prebendaries, to plead the cause of St. Patrick's at Court. Bancroft became Archbishop of Canterbury, and gained lasting fame for his services in connection with the authorised version of the Bible, but appears to have resided very little in Dublin, though he held his preferment there for at least thirty years.[127]