[ 414 ] 



XI. 



coNCEExiyG :maesh's libeaey axd ax oeigixal 

 ixDrLGE>X'E rEo:ji caedixal tvolsey lately 



DISCOYEEED THEEEIX. By EEY. GEOEGE THOMAS 

 STOKES, D.D. 



[Read FEBRrABT 8, 1897.] 



"Whex Archbisliop Benson visited Dublin last September, he paid a 

 visit to Marsh's Library. I met him at the door, and, as -v^'e entered, 

 I told him that this was the library once owned by Bishop Stillingfleet 

 of "Worcester, and described upon his monument by the great critic 

 Bentley as " a library the like of which was not anywhere else in the 

 world." "Oh, no!" he replied; "this cannot be Stillingfleet's 

 library ; because when I was at Hartlebury Castle, the other day, 

 the Bishop of "Worcester told me he had Stillingfleet's library there 

 and he showed me some books which once belonged to Stillingfleet." 

 " "Well, your grace," replied I, " the bishop may have some few books, 

 the relics of his library, but the corpus or body of Stillingfleet's library, 

 is now before yoxir eyes ; and I wiU show you proofs thereof in various 

 presentation volumes, made to Dr. Stillingfleet by various authors, 

 even before his consecration." And so I did, showing the archbishop, 

 for instance. Cave's " Lives of the Fathers," with the autograph inscrip- 

 tion of Dr. Cave, describing Dr. Stillingfleet as " that illustrious and 

 learned man. Canon of Canterbury and of St. Paul's." But Marsh's 

 Library contains much more than Stillingfleet's collection. It is a 

 composite institution. It contains three episcopal libraries, an ordi- 

 nary clergyman's library, and a portion of another library, the 

 property of a vicar-general. Let me describe it somewhat in detail. 

 First of all, Stillingfleet's library is the basis of the whole collection. 

 Then, there is Steame's library ; and Steame was the learned Bishop 

 of Clogher. Then there comes Archbishop Marsh's own library, 

 largely composed of Oriental works, Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac — 

 though he gave many of such works to the Bodleian. For Marsh was 

 a great Oriental scholar, and is described by a contemporary Oxford 

 divine as " the greatest pLUar of Oriental learning in the "West since the 



