RESULTS OF THE RECORD COMMISSIONS. 459 



to the year 1771* and composed of a catalogue of creations, &c., 

 arranged in chronological order under the heads of the respective 

 titles, to which are appended synoptical tables, and in the body of 

 which are inserted by Mr. Lascelles, crude illustrative extracts from 

 Archdall's edition of Lodge's Peerage, with a continuation down to 

 1 785, from the same authority : from the latter date, the lists are 

 ostensibly continued to the year 1800, from the journals of the Irish 

 House of Lords, and further, to the year 1827, from the King's letter- 

 books, in the Irish Department-office, at Westminster ; but in lieu of 

 the matter being at all classified in immediate continuation, or in the 

 manner of Lodge, it consists merely of memoranda, in which all titles 

 are intermingled, and just taken in the chronological order in which 

 they were to be found. The Baronetage of Lodge, which succeeds, is 

 disposed of in a similar slovenly manner ; having, first, a continuation 

 from Beatson, and, second, a list in continuation of the latter ; after 

 which, as if to set at defiance every chance of any thing useful being 

 made of the whole by index, a continuation of Lodge's peerage from 

 Beatson is inserted ; all f ' to be verified lower down, on collation with the 

 rolls of chancery in Ireland ;" instead of any one accurate list being 

 made out at once. But such an exertion of industry seems to have 

 been quite beyond the thoughts of Mr. Lascelles, for only one instance 

 of the kind is any where to be found in the work. Lodge's Parlia- 

 mentary Register follows ; but the abstracts of charters here given, 

 though perhaps including all now on official record, do not notice 

 some which are known to have been granted at a very early period, 

 and the privileges bestowed by which are yet ascertainable. 



Part II., comprising a record of Lodge's compilation, forms the 

 most valuable portion of the book; it contains first, abstracts of the 

 appointments of all patentee officers in Ireland, civil and military, 

 from 1541 to about 1772, giving the names, succession, date of 

 King's letter or privy seal for their appointment, date of patent, 

 term for which the office was granted, salary, &c.; and, secondly, 

 similar lists of the patent officers, such as are of record, during the 

 times preceding the reformation. 



Part III., a supplement to the last, begins most unpromisingly with 

 crude, unarranged, verbatim extracts from the Calendar of the Patent 

 Rolls in the Tower, published by the English Record Commissioners, 

 and also from the catalogues of the Harleian, Lansdown, and Cottonian 

 manuscripts, and the Lambeth library, a great part of which is wholly 

 irrelevant ; and the whole, had their been a plan, could never have 

 formed part of it. To make confusion worse confounded, other ex- 

 tracts from the Catalogue of the Patent Rolls in the Tower follow; and 

 then comes a broad sheet entitling itself " Project of a Schedule to 

 the Establishments of Ireland," the most prominent feature of which 

 is some ignorant whining against Catholic emancipation, and political 

 economy. To this succeeds "Mr. Le Bas's List of all Patentees of 

 offices, benefices, pensions, &c. , whose grants have passed through his 

 office for the space of twenty-two years, ending in 1817;" a mere 

 chronological list of miscellaneous entries ; next we have extracts from 

 Harris's edition of Sir James Ware's Works on Ireland, on the power 

 anciently entrusted to the three great officers of the crown in Ireland. 



