Lawlor — Primate Ussher's Lihrcvry before 16U1- 247 



will, if I mistake not, be demonstrated by the result of my researches. 

 ]N'ow, it is well known that these two collections were combined after 

 the Eestoration, to form the nucleus of the present Library of Trinity 

 College. Accordingly, if any considerable number of the volumes 

 specified in our lists can be recovered, the natui'al place to look for 

 them is that Library. I discovered that many volumes there pre- 

 served answer exactly to the descriptions in oiu- lists, and their 

 press-marks are recorded in the foot-notes on the preceding pages. 



But this was not enough. For our pui'pose it is necessary, not 

 only to have in our hands volumes which suit the descriptions in the 

 lists, but to be assured that they are actually the same volumes as 

 those which were contained in the library whose history we are in- 

 vestigating, and not merely other copies of the same editions. This 

 assiu-ance we can evidently have in two cases. If the volume now in 

 Trinity College has early press-marks, and if one of these be the same 

 as the press-mark of a book with the same title, as given in our lists, 

 there can be no doubt that the volumes which, but for this indication 

 might be regarded as two, are not two but one.^ Again, if the voliune 

 is a collection of tracts, published independently, but bound together 

 by their owner, we need not hesitate, even in the absence of early 

 library marks, to come to the same conclusion.- It is highly im- 

 probable that two collectors would, in any instance, choose exactly 

 the same set of treatises to be brought together in a single volume. 



On these principles it would be possible to identify, among the 

 Trinity College books, some of the volumes enumerated in our lists. 

 With the aid of the seventeenth- century manuscript catalogues of 

 printed books, the number can be considerably increased. But neither 

 the manner in which this can be accomplished, nor the table which 1 

 am now about to present, of all the volumes in the lists which I have 

 been able to identify with practical certainty, can be understood with- 

 out a few remarks on the catalogues just mentioned, and one other 

 now lost. 



To begin with the latter. The way in which our lists of missing 

 books was prepared is manifest. The librarian went over the shelves, 

 noting the press-marks of such volumes as were not in their places. 

 He then turned to a local catalogue of the libraiy to ascertain their 



' This tolds good of the volumes in the following table, numbered 6, 8, 9, 10, 

 13, 20, 26, 28, 3], 36, 38, 39, 41, 47, 59, 60, 62, 63, 65; in all 19. 



■ See numbers 26, 30, 32, 35, 54, 57, 58, 68, 71, 72, 73 ; in all 11. Compare 

 also No. 1. 



