2nd §, No 6., Fes. 9, 756.) 
Kendrick, baptized Noy. 21, 1678. 
Charles, baptized Feb. 27, 1679-80. 
Philip, baptized Jan. 31, 1681.” 
We have here notices of fourteen children, 
Charles and Philip, Robina and Victoria, being of 
the number, thus clearly establishing the identity 
of the family, Further confirmation, however, is 
at hand, in the subjoined abstract of Mr. Giles 
Vanbrugh’s will, dated Oct. 25, 1683, and pre- 
served in the Episcopal Registry at Chester : 
“ Giles Vanbrugh, of the city of Chester, by his will of 
this date, gave to his wife Elizabeth the whole of his 
household furniture, &c. (plate excepted), and what was 
due to her by marriage contract; and directed the whole 
of his real estate, &c., to be sold by his executor, and the 
proceeds to be divided into fourteen parts, two of which 
he gaye to his eldest son John, one part to Lucy, one to 
Anna Maria, one to Mary, one to Victoria, and one each 
to Elizabeth, Robina, Carleton, Giles, Dudley, Kendrick, 
Charles, and Philip. Appoints his wife sole executrix. 
Will proved by her July 24, 1689.” 
The foregoing extracts prove, beyond doubt, 
that Sir John Vanbrugh was the son of Mr. Giles 
Vanbrugh of Chester, and that he must have been 
born prior to 1668, although some of his bio- 
graphers give 1672 as the probable date. When 
and where that event took place has yet to be de- 
fined; but in the absence of proof to the contrary, 
Chester claims him asher son. Here he certainly 
spent the first years of his life, and was educated, 
as I believe, at the King’s School, then a seminary 
of the highest repute. At nineteen it appears he 
was resident in France; at twenty-six (1692) I 
find him auditor for the southern division of the 
Duchy of Lancaster; and what he afterwards 
became the world well knows. 
Sir John and his father bore different arms, 
the coat of the latter, ‘a very worthy gentleman” 
as he calls him, being thus emblazoned by Randle 
Holme in his Academy of Armoury, “‘ Argent, a 
fesse barry of ten, or and azure, a lion issuant, 
sable.” 
The John and James of the Court of Requests 
Petition, must have been cousins of Sir ‘John, 
and sons, most likely, of the William Vanbrugge 
referred to in the early part of Mr. Cunnine- 
nAm’s Note. 
The Vanbrugh family remained connected with 
Chester until the end of the last century. Sir 
John himself was architect of the old Eaton Hall. 
The Rev, Robert Vanbrugh was for many years, 
prior to 1780, Head Master of the King’s School, 
and a minor canon of the cathedral. Mary, relict 
of the Rev. George Vanbrugh, of Canterbury, was 
buried in the cathedral in March, 1773, aged 
eighty-two; and her son George was Rector of 
Aughton, Lancashire, from 1786 to 1834. 
T. Hueurs. 
Chester. 
NOTES AND QUERIES, 
117 
~ 
HARRIS'S WARE. 
(2 §. i. p. 34.) 
The MSS. Collections of Walter Harris, the 
laborious editor of Sir James Ware’s Works con- 
cerning Ireland, are, or at least ought to be, still 
preserved in the Dublin Society’s Library. I use 
the qualification, because, having inquired for 
those MSS. early in the year 1855, I learned with 
surprise that two of them had been lent out some 
time in the preceding year. Again, some six 
months later, when I renewed my inquiry, I re- 
ceived the same reply: and among the complaints 
to which so unusual a circumstance gave rise, 
were those of three persons engaged in various 
antiquarian and literary researches, who had been 
alike disappointed in this matter; one of whom 
remarked that the volumes might have been tran- 
scribed in less time. ‘These I do not for the pre- 
sent name, as they are certain to read “ N. & Q.,” 
and are well able to answer for themselves. It is 
but right to add, that I am informed the yolumes 
have been returned perfectly safe, after being 
nearly a year absent, in this being much more 
fortunate than several of the printed books of the 
same library, which are detained by the borrowers 
for years, or perhaps not returned at all—a de- 
gree of negligence which cannot be too severely 
censured. 
In the meagre and incorrect Catalogue of the 
- Society’s Library, Dublin, 1839, 8vo., at p. 89., we 
find Harris’s Collection thus mentioned: “ Harris 
and Kine, Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, cum 
indice MS., 20 vols., folio.” This being the whole 
amount of information which the compiler of the 
catalogue vouchsafed to give. But a satisfactory 
account had long previously been given by the 
Rey. John Lanigan, a learned Catholic clergyman, 
well known to scholars by his admirable Zcele- 
siastical History of Ireland, in 4 vols. 8vo.; and 
who held successively the offices of assistant, and 
principal librarian of the Dublin Society, which 
in his time had not yet prefixed the epithet Joyal 
to its title, though it had been incorporated by 
King George II. in 1749. 
In a letter to the late William Shaw Mason, 
Esq., bearing date Nov. 8, 1810, Dr. Lanigan 
describes Harris’s Collection as consisting of 
seventeen volumes folio, chiefly in Harris’s own 
writing. The ten first containing copies of va- 
rious patents, deeds, letters, and other documents 
relating to the affairs of Ircland, from the reign 
of Henry II. to that of William III, and having 
some papers of Queen Anne’s time. The eleventh 
volume being Harris's own catalogue of the con- 
tents of the preceding ten, giving the date of 
every document, but left unfinished by its author, 
who had only brought it down to a.v. 1633. The 
remaining six volumes, Dr. Lanigan describes as 
