118
NOTES AND QUERIES.
[2 S. N 6., FEB. 9. '56.
being numbered in a second series. The first
being entitled :
" Collectanea Rev. admodum Viri Gulielrai King nuper Ar'pi Dublin, de Hospitalibus potissimum Ccenobiis et Monasteriis Hibernicis ; Varia etiam alia de Rebus Hiber- nicis, tarn Ecclesiasticis quam Civilibus complecteutia."
The second volume containing various copies and extracts from Bishop Stearne's (of Clogher) Col- lections ; extracts from Irish annals, as those of Innisfallen, Multifernan, &c. The third and fourth volumes comprising numerous documents relating to various periods of Irish history. The fifth volume being supplementary to the first ten, and correspondingly arranged in chronological order. The sixth volume including a catalogue of so much of the Lambeth and Chandos MSS. as re- late to Ireland, and some miscellaneous materials for Irish history, consisting of extracts from acts of parliament, letters, &c. Dr. Lanigan then pro- ceeds to mention, that these seventeen volumes had been
" purchased by parliament from Harris's widow for 500?., and presented to the Dublin Society. As to the authen- ticity of the whole Collection, it depends on Harris's authority, at least for a very great part. None of the documents seem to be originals, except perhaps Avch- bishop King's Collectanea, first volume, second series; the far greatest part of which is not in Harris's hand- writing. These seventeen volumes aref kept in a parti- cular closet in- the Society's library, and not allowed to be inspected, except for some necessary and useful pur- pose. This closet is well secured and dry, so as to leave no apprehension of injury being done to said volumes. They are in general in a good state of preservation. In two or three of them, however, many of the leaves are loose, and the margins almost worn out ; and besides, the handwriting is often very small, and the lines rather too close to each other."
Dr. Lanigan adverts to the utility of a com- plete catalogue of the whole Collection, with in- dices ; the preparation of which, he observes, would require much labour, as well as historical and diplomatic knowledge. Forty-five years have elapsed, and that work of obvious utility, which Dr. Lanigan recommended, still remains unac- complished perhaps, I might say, una^tempted. But the care and vigilance, which he describes, are now greatly relaxed. The Society has passed from one extreme to another.
Lanigan appears to have overlooked a note in the second volume of the second series, in which Harris states that he had caused the two volumes to be transcribed from Archbishop King's MS. in the year 1732 :
" Has schedas ex MS. Codice Rev. admodum viri Gu- lielmi King nuper Ar'pi Dublin, duobus voluminibus com- plexas, tran?cribi curavit Gualterus Harris arm. anno Domini, 1732."
This note is in Harris's writing.
The Collection is very creditable to the dili- gence of Harris, in bringing together so many authentic documents to serve as the material and
the evidence of his historical works. But it is not
a substitute for his intended additional volume to
Sir James Ware's Works on Ireland, nor is it
likely tha* such a supplement will now be at-
tempted. It does not appear that even a rough
draught of it was ever prepared ; if such had been
found among his papers, the celebrity of the
author would have either caused it to be published,
like his posthumous History of the City of Dublin,
or it would have been .preserved with the Collec-
tion which the Irish parliament purchased from
Harris's widow. His edition of Sir James Ware's
Works (Dublin, 1739, 1745, 1746,) is described
in the title-page of each of the two published
volumes, as being "in three volumes," a condition
which some might suppose to be answered by the
second volume, including two distinct works sepa-
rately paged, the Antiquities of Ireland, printed in
1745, and the Writers of Ireland, in 1746. But
against this are the direct announcements made by
Harris himself. At the end of his preface to the
Antiquities, which is dated January 18, 1745, is
this :
" N.B. The publick shall be duly advertised, when the III. Vol. of the Works of Sir James Ware, concerning Ireland, revised and improved, containing the Civil and Ecclesiastical History of that Country, is ready for the press."
In the Preface to the Writers of Ireland, in the subsequent year, he says :
" I have from the several offices of record in this king- dom, and from the manuscript repositories in it, made many large collections towards drawing up the civil His- tory of Ireland, down to the settlement established after the Revolution, and intend forthwith to set about putting them in form ; but the publication thereof will depend upon the reception these my labours meet with from the publick."
In the year 1747, addressing Lord Chancellor Newport, he speaks of that History as only in- tended ; so that it may be reasonably inferred, that no more was done than the continued collec- tion of its materials. It must be also borne in mind, that Mr. Harris's time must have been much occupied by his other kindred works his Hibemica, in two parts, published in 1747 and 1750, and his great work, the Life of King William III., published in 1749. I cannot, there- fore, avoid concluding, that his intended third volume of Ware's Works was never prepared ; and that the Collection, now in the Dublin Society's Library, includes whatever he had collected for it, as well as for his notes and other additions to the two published volumes.
In Thorns Irish Almanac for 1856 (p. 572.), it is mentioned, that the library of the Royal Dublin Society contains about 22,000 volumes. The utility of such a collection would be greatly ex- tended by a good catalogue. Specimens have been published in the Proceedings of that Society, which, though merely alphabetical, are far supe-
