418 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



Breviaries, Missals, Processionals, Manuals, Psalters, and sucli like^ 

 fully a dozen at least original Sarum and York Service Books, some 

 of which, like the one I now exhibit, are not found in any of the great 

 collections to which alone Mr. Maskell referred.^ Here now you may 

 fairly ask me how comes it to pass that " Marsh's Library " is so rich 

 in these ancient service books. The best explanation of that richness 

 will be found in the original constitution of that library, as I have 

 already explained it. Its main constituents are three great episcopal 

 libraries. The three owners were wealthy men for their times. Two 

 of them. Marsh and Stearne, were old bachelors — and all three were 

 book-lovers. All three, too, belonged to the seventeenth century, 

 when the great Eebellion and its troubles had broken up old households 

 and flung large libraries on the market ; and hence the owners of 

 these libraries had unique chances of picking up rare old works, of 

 which they diligently availed themselves.- 



Now amongst the books to wliich I first turned, when I wished to 

 find out the riches of " Marsh," were those formerly belonging to Dr. 

 Stearne, once bishop of Cloghcr, and, previous to Swift, Dean of 

 St. Patiick's.' There I found a Psalter according to the use of Sarum 



' The reader will see at the end of this paper a tolerably complete list of all the 

 ancient printed English liturgical works still in " Marsh." Some of them contain 

 most interesting manuscript notes and notices. 



- In the same way the Irish Land Acts and Irish Land troubles have already 

 brought some rare old books into the Irish market. Twenty yeais ago I picked up 

 in Cork an uncut copy of Du Pin's '* Ecclesiastical History " in the original Dublin 

 edition of 1724, printed by George Grierson, at the sign of the Two]Bibles, in Essex- 

 street. The ancestor of the modern owner had been a Dublin judge of that period. 

 He was of literary taste, which was more than could be said for his descendants, 

 and he subscribed for this great work in 3 folio volumes. And there in his house it 

 lay unnoticed till necessity forced its sale. A short time since I picked up again, 

 for a few shillings, a copy of a celebrated mediasval work, the "Pupilla Oculi " 

 of John De Burgh, composed about 1300 and printed in 1504. This work was the 

 theological handbook of the English clergy from 1300 to 1560. 



2 Steame was a learned man and an antiquary of no mean powers. He was, like 

 the late Bishop Reeves, an indefatigable scribe. He was connected through his 

 grandfather with Ussher, while his ancestors had been Meath clergymen during the 

 whole of the seventeenth century. Steame copied Ussher's and Dopping's Surveys 

 and Records of Meath and left them to Marsh's Library, where they now remain. 

 They are full of information about the parishes of Meath in that period of obscurity 

 which followed the Reformation. The "Steames" often spelled their name 

 " Sterne." Thus, this very month of March, the Rev. Dr. Groves presented 

 " Marsh " with a copy of a work, " A Defence of the Protestant Faith," by Enoch 

 Sterne, LL.D., Clerk of Parliament, Dublin, 1755. He was a member of the same 

 family once seated at Garrycastle, near Athlone. The name is, however, always 

 wiitten *' Steame " in the Matriculation Book of Trinity College. 



