RESULTS OF THE RECORD COMMISSIONS. 461 



all the rest to be within the " scope and intent of this work," it is 

 not even the best information on the subject ; having been framed 

 long before the publication of Archdale's Monasticon. And of what 

 use but to make up an enormous book, is the insertion of lists 

 from the earliest period of the dignitaries and prebendaries of 

 St. Patrick's cathedral (and no other), from Mason's " History and 

 Antiquities ?" 



The next part, composed of 268 pages, is utterly useless ; for the 

 dislocated extracts of statutes, &c. of which it consists have no ob- 

 servations attached, showing which are and which are not in force; 

 many of them fall far wide of relevancy. Neither to this nor to either 

 of the other paris there i an index, which, indeed, would but group 

 the deformities. 



Part VII. comprises 380 pages ; of these about sixty are occupied by 

 extracts from the journals, the ostensible use of which in this work 

 it is difficult to divine. The parliamentary papers, occupying 320 

 pages, and terminating this volume of about 900, with the exception 

 perhaps of some of those from the Appendix to the Journals of the 

 Irish House of Commons, are a waste of money even as regards the 

 expenses of printing, as they are of easier reference in the sets of 

 parliamentary papers themselves than in this wilderness of type. No 

 one however can deny their essential service in making up the book ^ 

 they did not require even the trouble of transcription. 



Mr. Lascelles, we hope, will be grateful to us for making this index 

 to his work, so much superior to any thing of the kind which that 

 work itself presents ; but no index whatever can make it of any 

 moderate degree of utility ; and it is beyond the compiler's power, 

 with " the key which he has kept to himself," to open it in such a 

 manner as to let light into its pages. This any one will immediately 

 see who examines the utter want of system which prevails through- 

 out, with few exceptions, and so entangles even the minor details that 

 they can never be unravelled by supplementary aid. 



About two-thirds of these volumes are selected without one atom 

 of judgment; they consist of the broadest copying often without 

 even the necessity of transcription. The wretched style of composition 

 the vile contemptible tone of sentiment that pervades those parts 

 which aspire to originality, would have been less obnoxious to criti- 

 cism, if there had been the redeeming virtue of an useful arrange- 

 ment of the compiled matter. But there is nothing of the kind the 

 volumes are inimitable trash good-for-nothing garbage. It is fright- 

 ful to reflect how often the artisan's hungry family have been stinted 

 in bread in order to scrape up the taxes to be applied in ministering 

 to the menial luxuries of such a despicable drone as Mr. Rowley 

 Lascelles 



MERCIUS. 



jpnc 



, J ,iM lo 



. 



