Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 2.djvu/652

648 ADDEN DA. WALTER HARRIS, BARRisten at law. Respecting the family and private life of this learned and laborious Irish antiquary, the com piler has been able to ascertain but very little. We are told he was son of Hopton Harris, was born in Mountine lick, and entered college about the year 1704, where, in 1797, he was engaged in a riot, in which he was so dis respectful to his superiors, that he wrested an admonition which was against him out of the dean's hand, and tore it in his presence; while Rochfort M'Neill, another of the academicians, put on his hat, and swore there should be no more such admonitions. Harris was hereupon ex pelled: much, however, to his honour, after reason and judgment gained ascendancy over puerile passions, instead of retaining any sentiment of low resentment against that seminary, he on every occasion mentioned it with such respect, that about five years before his death, which hap pened July 4th, 1761, he was presented with the honorary degree of doctor of laws. He informs us that accident made him an editor. He married Eliza, daughter of Henry, son to Robert Ware, who was second son to Sir James Ware. With some of Sir James's books and MS. papers, Harris occasionally amused himself, to do away the sameness of a country retirement. He afterwards set about making a new translation from the Latin, of Ware's Bishops. The lives he amended, augmented and enlarged, so as to form a respectable folio volume, which he printed by subscription at l l . 18s. i n Dublin, 1739. With similar improvements, amendments, additions, and illustrations, Harris published Ware's Antiquities and Irish Writers, i n two parts, embellished with eighteen copper-plates, for shewing the monastic habits, elegantly engraved i n Paris: this was printed i n one volume, o f the folio size, a t 1