Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 50.djvu/215

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private conference; but this he declined on the ground that his case was already public. On 5 July he preached in Christ Church Cathedral, when he explained and amplified the Cashel declaration.

Sall went into residence in Trinity College, Dublin, and was admitted to the degree of D.D. He published a thesis with two main points—that there is salvation outside the Roman church, and that the church of England way to it is safer than that of Rome. By leave of Primate James Margetson [q. v.] and the college authorities he invited several learned Roman catholic doctors to argue publicly with him, but they could hardly have done so safely, and refused. Protestant graduates then took up the Roman side, and argued it ably, even by the confession of those whom Sall had challenged.

In July 1675 Sall went to Oxford, and was admitted to read in the Bodleian on 2 Aug. (Wood, Life, ii. 305). His position was strengthened by a letter from the Duke of Ormonde as chancellor of the university. Peter Walsh [q. v.], writing from London on 1 Aug. to Bishop French, says: ‘Andrew Sall himself, that very gentleman whose “doleful fall” you sent me, is come hither last week and much caressed by several persons of high quality, amongst whom is the Earl of Orrery. One of the greatest of them says his talent is not preaching. He is nevertheless in good repute among all the Church of England men’ (Four Letters, p. 69). In September Sall received an anonymous letter containing a bull of Clement X, who promised him absolution if he would return to the fold. In the meantime his Dublin thesis had elicited a ‘shower of books’ against him. One was by J. E. printed at Louvain, and dedicated to Mary of Modena; another was the ‘Doleful Fall of Andrew Sall,’ by Bishop Nicholas French [q. v.], calling himself N. N.; and a third by Ignatius Brown, a jesuit, who wrote under the name of J. S. According to Peter Walsh, French's attack rather added to Sall's reputation, for he allowed him learning and virtue. In answer to these assailants Sall published his ‘True Catholic and Apostolic Faith,’ which was licensed by the vice-chancellor on 23 June 1676, and printed ‘at the theater in Oxford.’ This book is Sall's apology for himself, and also a vigorous but temperate statement of the case for the church of England against Rome. Three hundred copies were at once taken up in Oxford, and a second edition was in preparation within two days of the first publication (Cotton, ii. 137). Sall was created D.D. on 22 June 1676, and ‘in the act this year at the vespers disputed very briskly’ (Wood, Life, ii. 342, 350). Besides the serious attacks on Sall, the library of Trinity College, Dublin, contains a stupid and abusive contemporary poem, entitled ‘A Counterpoyson for to enchant that enchanted enchanting forsworn wretch Andrew Sall.’

Sall resided at first in Wadham College. He afterwards removed to a house in Holywell Street close by, but his health was not good there, and ‘by the favour of Dr. Fell he removed to convenient lodgings in the cloister at Ch. Ch., near the chaplain's quadrangle, where he remained about two years’ (Fasti Oxon. ii. 356). He printed two books at Oxford in 1680, but returned to Ireland early in that year.

Sall gave up a good position and a certainty of preferment in the church of Rome, but he was not allowed to suffer much on that account. In 1675 he was presented by the crown to the prebend of Swords in St. Patrick's, Dublin, and in 1676 he was made chancellor of Cashel. He had, besides the rectory of Kilfithmone with other benefices in Cashel, the rectory of Dungourney in Cloyne, and two livings in Meath (Cotton, i. 44, v. 7). These Irish preferments were estimated at between 300l. and 400l. a year. Sall was also domestic chaplain to the king. Tanner had been told that he was chantor of St. David's by royal dispensation (Fasti Oxon. ii. 356), and Wood says this Welsh appointment was worth 80l. or 100l. a year, but Le Neve ignores it.

From November 1680 till his death, he lived at Dublin in the ‘next house to Young's Castle in Oxmanstown,’ on the left bank of the Liffey (Boyle, Works, v. 608). He had made some progress towards the completion of a system of philosophy, but laid all aside to advance Robert Boyle's plan of an Irish bible. With Boyle he had made friends in England, and spoke of his sister-in-law, Lady Burlington, as ‘among the best women I ever knew’ (ib. p. 605). With the translation of the New Testament into Irish it was only a question of a new edition. Bedell's translation of the Old Testament, which was unpublished, was in the hands of Henry Jones [q. v.], bishop of Meath [see Bedell, William]. After some time the manuscript reached Sall's hands, but he found it ‘a confused heap, pitifully defaced and broken’ (Boyle, Works, v. 606). With this and ‘another uncouth bulk’ sent him from Trinity College, he hoped to make up a complete Old Testament. The Irish types provided by Queen Elizabeth for the conversion of Ireland had been spirited away