118 
being numbered in a second series. The first 
being entitled : 
“ Collectanea Rev. admodum Viri Gulielmi King nuper 
Ar’pi Dublin. de Hospitalibus potissimum Ccenobiis et 
Monasteriis Hibernicis ; Varia etiam alia de Rebus Hiber- 
nicis, tam Ecclesiasticis quam Civilibus complectentia.” 
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, &e. Dr. Lanigan then pro- 
ceeds to mention, that these seventeen volumes 
had been — 
“ purchased by parliament from Harris’s widow for 5002, 
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 Arch- 
bishop King’s Collectanea, first volume, second series; 
the far greatest part of which is not in Harris’s hand- 
writing. These seventeen volumes are? 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, unattempted. 
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, transcribi 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 
NOTES AND QUERIES, 
[2m §, No 6., Fup, 9. °56. 
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 that 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 
Treland, 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: 
“ T 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 
MHibernica, in two parts, published in 1747 and 
1750, and his great work, the Life of King 
William IIT., 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 Thom’s 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- 
