omuls' 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 TO THE 
 
 4 
 
 LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, 
 
 Br THE PRESIDENT, JOHN K. INGRAM, LL. D. 
 
 T ET me begin by offering to the Library Association a hearty 
 welcome to Dublin, and in particular to Trinity College, 
 which gladly receives within its walls a Body pursuing ends 
 kindred to its own, and doing good work for the furtherance of 
 research and the promotion of general culture. 
 
 When Mr. Bradshaw addressed you at Cambridge, he asked 
 and answered the question. What the Association could gain by 
 visiting that place ? If the same question were proposed to me 
 in relation to Dublin, I could not in reply hold out to the 
 Members who come from the sister island the hope of 
 finding much that is novel or suggestive in our local sys- 
 tems of Library organization and management. Here in 
 Trinity College, at least, our methods are, for the most part, 
 traditional ; they have come down to us from our prede- 
 cessors, and have been fixed by lapse of time. We find 
 them practically adequate to our needs ; and they could not be 
 altered in any considerable degree, even when the change would 
 be in some respects desirable, without producing an amount of 
 confusion far outweighing the good that could be attained. 
 
 What, then, can we offer that will interest our visitors; 
 what can they gain by coming to us beyond the interchange 
 of ideas and discussion of principles, which are in a great degree 
 independent of the place of meeting ? 
 
 B 2 • 
 
( 4 ) 
 
 I answer that one important function of the Association, 
 “which its migratory habits enable it to fulfil, is to take stock’’ 
 of the book treasures of the United Kingdom. Now, not to 
 speak at present of other valuable collections in Dublin, we 
 have in Trinity College a Library which is well worthy of their 
 examination. It is well stored with ancient and modern litera- 
 ture, containing more than 200,000 volumes of printed books and 
 about 2000 MSS. There are in it, too, certain peculiar and pre- 
 cious things, some of them deserving to be called national heir- 
 looms, which give to it a special character and a dignity of its own. 
 A certain number of those who now see it for the first time will, I 
 hope, look carefully into it, allowing themselves the necessary time 
 for making some real acquaintance with it. We shall, of course, 
 give them such help and guidance as we can. By way of pre- 
 paration for such a closer view, as well as for the benefit of those 
 who will be satisfied with a more general survey, I have thought 
 that I should best occupy your time this morning in giving you 
 a brief, but tolerably comprehensive account of it. I shall first 
 explain the way in which it has grown to its present dimensions, 
 and then notice the most interesting rarities which heighten its 
 reputation and attract strangers to it for purposes of study. 
 And, lastly, since it is a profitable thing for us all to render 
 at times a public account of our stewardship, I shall describe 
 what has been done, and what we are now doing, both in adding 
 new elements to our stores, and in making what we possess as 
 accessible and useful as possible. In filling up this outline, I 
 shall of course mention much that is familiar to some of my 
 hearers, but I will ask them to bear with the repetition of 
 facts already known to them for the sake of the many to whom 
 they will probably be new. 
 
 1. Trinity College, having been founded in 1591, was opened 
 for the admission of Students on the 9th of January, 1594. A 
 College cannot do without books, and the formation of a Library 
 would naturally be amongst the first cares of the heads of the 
 institution. But funds were not immediately available, and 
 the way in which they were supplied is curious enough. Those 
 
( 5 
 
 who have visited our Library will have observed that in the 
 gallery outside the door of what is called the Long Loom is 
 suspended an old plan of the Battle of Kinsale, fought in 
 December, 1601, and may possibly have asked why this plan 
 should appear in such a seemingly incongruous place. But there 
 is excellent reason, at least from the historical point of view, for 
 its being there : it commemorates, in fact, the origin of the Library. 
 For the English army, after having suppressed the revolt of the 
 native Irish, and taken Kinsale from their allies the Spaniards, 
 subscribed £1800 out of their pay to buy books for the College.' 
 Dr. Nicholas Bernard, writing in 1656, after mentioning the 
 fact, adds the parenthetic comment, “ Then souldiers were for 
 the advancement of learning.” The sum thus contributed was 
 entrusted to Dr. Luke Chaloner and the celebrated James Ussher, 
 afterwards Archbishop of Armagh, who were sent to London in 
 1603 for the purpose of purchasing books. They there met Sir 
 Thomas Bodley, who was also buying books for his Library at 
 Oxford, and between them, says Bernard^ “ there was a com- 
 merce in supplying each other with rarities.” There is given 
 in our Register a list of the printed books in the possession of 
 Trinity College in the year 1600 : they amount to 40 volumes. 
 We have also a Catalogue of the date of 1604, the work of 
 Ambrose Ussher, brother of the future Primate. From an ex- 
 amination of this, I estimate roughly the number of volumes then 
 on the shelves at 4900. This large increase must have been the 
 fruit of the purchases of Chaloner and his colleague. James 
 Ussher collected not merely on this occasion and in later 
 years for the College, hut throughout his life for himself. 
 He had, says his biographer Parr, a kind of laudable cove- 
 tousness for books, and never thought a good book, either 
 manuscript or print, too dear. 
 
 Sir William Brereton, of the county of Chester, the well- 
 known Parliamentarian general, visited Ireland, and travelled 
 through a considerable part of the island, in the year 1635. 
 He visited Trinity College, and found it to be seated in 
 a good air^ out of the ’city and near the sea. “They 
 
glory much,” he says, in their Library, whereof I took 
 a full view, and there were showed unto me many manuscripts ; 
 one they highly esteem, and which they call Friar Bacon’s 
 work. The library is not large, well contrived, nor well fur- 
 nished with books. They say it is to be disposed of to some 
 other uses, and a new Library and schools to be erected.” Sir 
 William afterwards dined with Archbishop TJssher, whom he 
 describes as a most holy and heavenly man, and as pregnant 
 withal as any I have heard ; and TJssher showed him some of 
 his books, of which he says there were not many in his closet, 
 but those that were were much used and employed. Amongst 
 them were ‘^the whole books of the Waldenses, which are very 
 rare ; they cost him £22 sterling, about ten or twelve volumes, 
 in a miscellaneous language ’twixt French and Spanish ; these* 
 were sent him from a Counsellor in France.” 
 
 Ussher’s Library was in Drogheda, under the custody of 
 Dr. Bernard, when the town was besieged for four months in 
 1641 by the Irish insurgents; and, when the siege was raised, it 
 was transferred (both books and manuscripts) to Chester, and 
 afterwards to Chelsea College, where it was when, in conse- 
 quence of Ussher’s having preached against the Assembly of 
 Divines, it was confiscated by the Parliament. By the exer- 
 tions of a friend of the Archbishop, aided by tlie celebrated 
 John Selden, it was either obtained by grant or purchased for 
 a small sum, and restored to the owner, not, however, it is said, 
 without a part of its contents having been lost during the 
 seizure. 
 
 In September, 1645, when travelling in Wales, Ussher was 
 roughly handled by some soldiers : “ they broke open,” says 
 Bernard, two of his trunks full of books, and took all away, 
 amongst which he lost two manuscripts of the History of the 
 Waldenses, which he never got again ; most of the other books 
 were returned by the preachers exhorting of all sorts in their 
 sermons to that end ; but those two manuscripts, though the 
 most meanly clad, he never could hear of.” 
 
 ‘Hie had intended,” says his chaplain Parr, “to bestow at his 
 
deatli his Library, consisting of near 10,000 volumes, prints and 
 manuscripts, which had cost him many thousand pounds, on the 
 College of Dublin, in gratitude to the place where he received 
 his education ; but having lost all his other property by the 
 political troubles of his time, he left it to his daughter, the 
 wife of Sir Timothy Tyrrel.” Parr states that ‘‘ after his decease 
 the King of Denmark and Cardinal Mazarin endeavoured to 
 obtain it, offering a good price through their agents in Eng- 
 land ; but Cromwell having by an order in Council prohibited 
 its being sold without his consent, it was bought by the soldiers 
 and officers of the then army in Ireland, who, out of emulation 
 to the former noble action of Queen Elizabeth’s army, were 
 incited by some men of publick spirits to the like performance ; 
 • and they had it for much less than it was really worth, or what 
 had been offered for it before by the agents above mentioned ; 
 they had also with it all his manuscripts (which were not of his 
 own handwriting), as also a choice, though not numerous, col- 
 lection of ancient coins. But when this Library w^as brought 
 over into Ireland, the usurper, and his son, who then com- 
 manded in chief there, would not bestow it on the College of 
 Dublin, least perhaps the gift should not appear so considerable 
 as it would do by itself ; and therefore they gave out that they 
 would reserve it for a new Colledge or Hall which they said they 
 intended to build and endow ; but it proved that, as those were 
 not times, so were they not persons capable of any such noble 
 or pious work, so that this Library lay in the castle of Dublin 
 unbestowed and unemployed all the remaining time of Crom- 
 well’s usurpation ; but after his death, and during that anarchy 
 and confusion that followed it, the rooms where this treasure 
 was kept being left open, many of the books and most of the 
 best manuscripts were stolen away or else imbezled by those 
 who were intrusted with them; but after his late Majesty’s 
 Eestauration, when they fell to his disposal, he generously 
 bestowed them on the Colledge, for which they were intended 
 by the owner, where they now remain.” So far Dr. Parr. 
 Whether his effusively loyal spirit led him erroneously to attri- 
 
bute tbis act of restitution to Charles II., I cannot say ; his 
 Majesty’s consent would perhaps be formally necessary; but it 
 seems to have been really the Irish House of Commons that 
 moved in the matter. In the Journals of the House, under 
 date 31 Maii, 1661, appears an order ‘Hhat the Vice-Chancellor 
 and Provost of the College of Dublin, and Mr. Richard Lingard, 
 with such others as they will take to their assistance, be decreed 
 and are hereby empowered, with all convenient speed, to cause 
 the Library formerly belonging to the late Lord Primate of 
 Armagh, and purchased by the army, to be brought from the 
 castle of Dublin, where they now are, unto the said College, 
 there to be preserved for public use ; and the said persons are 
 likewise to take a catalogue of all the said Library, both manu- 
 scripts and printed books, and to deliver the same into this 
 House, to be inserted in the Journals of the House.” Twice, 
 therefore, has this College been indebted to the army in 
 Ireland for donations to its Library ; and this second gift, by 
 adding to our previous stock the books and manuscripts which 
 TJssher had brought together at so much cost of time and money, 
 at once raised our collection to a rank which without this aid it 
 might have been long in attaining. 
 
 Another glimpse of the Library we catch in 1704 through 
 the eyes of the eccentric, if not half-insane, bookseller, 
 John Dunton. In his ‘‘Life and Errors,” when giving an 
 account of what he calls his “conversation in Ireland,” he 
 describes the College as be saw it. “The Library,” says 
 he, “ is over the scholars’ lodgings, the length of one of 
 the quadrangles, and contains a great many choice books 
 of great value, particularly one, the largest I ever saw for 
 breadth : it was an Herbal, containing the lively portraitures of 
 all sorts of Trees, Plants, Herbs, and Flowers.” Dunton surely 
 must have been mistaken, and confused the Library with the 
 Museum, when he goes on to say that there was lying on the 
 table the thighbone of “ a giant or at least of some monstrous over- 
 grown man,” and that he was shown in the same place “ the 
 skin of a notorious Tory which had been tanned and stuffed with 
 
J 
 
 straw.’’ At the east end of this Library,” he proceeds, on 
 the right hand is a chamber called the Countess of Bath’s Library, 
 filled with very handsome folios and other books in Dutch bind- 
 ings, gilt, with the Earhs arms impressed upon them, for he had 
 been sometime of this house.” At the west end was “ a division 
 made by a kind of wooden lattice work, containing Ussher’s 
 books.” The Library, he says in conclusion, “ at present is but 
 an ordinary pile of building, and cannot be distinguished on tho 
 outside ; but I hear they design the building of a new Library, 
 and I am told the House of Commons in Ireland have voted 
 £3000 towards carrying it on.” 
 
 Large grants were, indeed, made at different times for tlie 
 purpose by the House of Commons, in consequence of appli- 
 cations from the College, and our now existing Library, begun 
 in 1712, was finished in 1732. 
 
 In 1722 an application having been ihade for permission to 
 take copies from some of the books, the celebrated Berkeley, then 
 a Fellow of the College, in a letter in LordEgmont’s collection, 
 answers that the Library “ is at present so old and ruinous, and 
 the books so out of order, that there is little attendance given.” 
 So that, it would seem, the new building was not completed a 
 day too soon. 
 
 By far the greatest part of our collection up to the end of 
 the last century, was due to the generosity of benefactors. Of 
 these may be mentioned particularly Sir Jerome Alexander, a 
 Justice of the Common Pleas in Ireland, who presented a large 
 number of law and other books, and some valuable MSS., in 
 1674 ; Dr. William Palliser, Archbishop of Cashel, who, in 1726, 
 bequeathed upwards of 4000 volumes, besides other gifts during 
 his lifetime ; Dr. Claudius Gilbert, Vice-Provost, who did more 
 than anyone else to make our printed-book collection what it is, 
 having bestowed on the College 13,000 volumes, many of them 
 early and rare texts ; and Dr. John Stearne, Bishop of Clogher, 
 who left to us a large number of historical and other MSS. In 
 1802, the Board of Erasmus Smith purchased the Fagel Library 
 from the Dutch family of that name which possessed it, at a cost 
 
 B 3 
 
( 10 ) 
 
 of £10,000, and presented it to tlie College ; and in 1805, 
 Henry George Quin bequeathed a small, but very precious, 
 collection of books, containing many Editiones Frincipes^ and 
 other rare and beautiful impressions. 
 
 It is a curious fact, which is at once visible on inspection of 
 the list of benefactors, that the gifts of the public to the College 
 fell off in a very marked manner about the beginning of the 
 present century. The national apathy which this indicates 
 different persons will, no doubt, explain in different ways. 
 But after about forty years the tide again began to flow, 
 and has of late strikingly increased in volume. The Library 
 was, of course, involved in these vicissitudes. From 1805, the 
 date of the bequest of the Bibliotheca Quiniana, to 1854, when 
 the late Primate provided the purchase-money of the -Book of 
 Armagh, no gift to the Library is recorded. Since then several 
 important presentations have been made, the last being the 
 bequest of the late Rev. Aikin Irvine, by which we acquired 
 more than a thousand volumes, of which we had not previously 
 possessed copies. 
 
 As regards the current supply of books, we now depend for 
 home publications on the Copyright Act of 1801, which con- 
 ferred on us the right of obtaining a copy of every book printed 
 in the United Kingdom. This privilege we enjoy in common 
 with the Library of the British Museum, the Bodleian, the 
 University Library of Cambridge, and the Advocates’ Library, 
 Edinburgh. Lacunae, which have occurred heretofore, we must 
 All at the expense of the College, which has also to purchase 
 foreign books. 
 
 Though many of the books we receive are kept in what 
 Mr. Bradshaw calls a Lower Library, yet our space is failing. 
 Not long since we fitted up for the reception of books the Upper 
 East room, which had previously been applied to other uses. 
 The accommodation thus provided, we calculate, will suffice 
 for 30,000 volumes. But the Board are well aware that we 
 are within measurable distance of the erection of an additional 
 Library building, worthy to take its place beside the one now 
 existing. 
 
2. So far on the history of the Library ; let me proceed to 
 say something of its contents. I begin with our manuscripts, and 
 the first group of these I shall notice is that of the Biblical 
 MSS. We have two Greek texts of this kind which possess 
 special interest. The first is the Palimpsest, known as Z, or 
 Codex Eescriptus Dublinensis,” in which an uncial text of 
 portions of St. Matthew’s Gospel has been partially covered 
 with more recent writings containing extracts from ecclesias- 
 tical authors. Dr. Barrett, a Fellow of this College, who 
 discovered and edited the Palimpsest, assigned it to the sixth 
 century at latest ; Hug believed it to be of the fifth. A new 
 edition of the manuscript has been published by one of our 
 present Fellows, Mr. Abbott, who has succeeded in reading 
 considerable portions in addition to the text of Barrett, even 
 when enlarged by the decipherments made by Tregelles since 
 his time. In the same volume are also Palimpsest fragments 
 of Isaiah, probably of an earlier date than the text of St. 
 Matthew. The second Greek text we possess is the ‘‘ Codex 
 Montfortianus,” a late MS., and of - little critical value, but 
 notable as containiog the verse 1 St. John, 5, 7, which is 
 wanting in all the early copies, and believed to have been the 
 actual MS. on whose authority the verse was inserted in 
 Erasmus’ second edition. There is also a third text, in cur- 
 sive characters, with commentary, of the 10th century. We 
 had formerly a fourth Greek text of the New Testament, but 
 it was lost — it is not known how — between the years 1688 
 and 1742, and after several changes of ownership is now in 
 the library of the Marquis of Bute. 
 
 We possess a number of highly interesting Latin versions of 
 portions of the New Testament. The oldest is that numbered 
 A 4, 15, an edition of which, by Mr. Abbott, has just issued 
 from the Press. It is among TJssher’s MSS., and is called by 
 Mr. Abbott ‘‘Codex Usserianus.” It has suffered much not 
 only from time, but either from fire or water, it is not easy 
 to say which ; and consists of a set of loose leaves, few of which 
 exhibit the text complete, and none have a perfect margin. The 
 
version is ante-Hieronymian, and the- Codex belongs to the 
 close of the sixth century. 
 
 I may here also mention an interesting fragment which, 
 came by purchase into the possession of Dr. Todd, when 
 Librarian, namely, a leaf containing the parable of the sower, 
 according to St. Matthew’s Gospel, in an ante-Hieronymian 
 version. This fragment, having been for some time conjectured, 
 was finally proved, to be a missing leaf from the purple ‘‘ Codex 
 Palatinus,” of the fourth or fifth century, preserved in the 
 Imperial Library at Vienna, and published by Tischendorf in 
 1847. That MS. was acquired at Vienna between 1800 and 
 1829. Whether the Codex went to Austria [from Ireland, or 
 the leaf came from Austria to Ireland, is a question which we 
 have no means of deciding. 
 
 Our Library contains several copies, executed in Ireland, 
 of the Gospels in Latin according to the Vulgate version. 
 Amongst them the place of honour belongs to the world- 
 renowned Book of Kells, of which, as Mr. Westwood has said, 
 this country may be justly proud. “ It is,” the same authority 
 adds, unquestionably the most elaborately executed MS. of so 
 early a date now in existence.” It is not the text, which, though 
 beautifully written in semiuncials, has little critical value, but 
 the marvellous illuminations, which give the volume its great 
 interest : these are thoroughly Irish in their type, the character- 
 istic spiral ornamentation constantly recurring. The MS. is of 
 the seventh or eighth century. It was preserved in the Colum- 
 ban Monastery of Kells, in Meath, whence its name is derived, 
 and came to Trinity College in the Ussher Library. Tliet'o is 
 a note in the archbishop’s handwriting giving the . number of 
 the leaves as counted by himself. 
 
 Highly interesting also, though far inferior to the Book of 
 Kells, is the Book of Durrow. It was^ once commonly believed 
 that this MS. was written by the hand of St. Columba himself, 
 who died a.d. 597. But the only foundation for this opinion 
 seems to be an inscription in the volume, containing a prayer 
 to St, Patrick that quicumque hunc libellum ihanu tenuerit 
 
( 13 ) 
 
 meminerit Colmnbae scriptoris qui hoc scrips! ; ” and the tran- 
 scriber, though named Columba, was doubtless not the Saint. 
 The Book of Durrow is so called from Durrow in King’s 
 County, where, Bede tells us, St. Columba had founded a 
 ‘‘nobile monasterium.” It had formerly a cover, now lost, 
 on which was an inscription stating that it had been made by 
 Flann, son of Malachy, King of Ireland. Flann died in the 
 year 916. The MS. was presented to Trinity College by Henry 
 Jones, Bishop of Meath, Vice-Chancellor of the University. 
 
 Other Irish copies of the Vulgate version of the Four Gos- 
 pels are the Book of Dimma and the Book of Moling, both pro- 
 bably of the seventh century. These MSS. are in. silver cases 
 ornamented with crystals. That of the Book of Dimma states 
 that the case was gilt by O’Carrol, Lord of Ely, in the twelfth 
 century, and repaired one hundred years later by a bishop of 
 Killaloe. 
 
 Last, not least, has to be' mentioned the Book of Armagh, 
 an edition of which is expected from our learned member. Dean 
 Reeves, who has printed a very interesting account of it. It 
 consists of three parts : the first containing matter, in Latin and 
 Gaelic, on St. Patrick, compiled about a. d. 750, with the cele- 
 brated Confession of the Saint, and documents on the rights 
 of the See of Armagh; the second, the Gospels in St. Jerome’s 
 translation ; and the Epistles according to the Biitish recension 
 of the old version ; and the third the Life of St. Martin of 
 Tours, by Sulpicius Severus. The volume was popularly be- 
 lieved to have been written by St. Patrick’s own .hand, and the 
 faniily of Mac Moyer derived their name from being its heredi- 
 tary keepers, in consideration of which they held lands from the 
 See of Armagh. The present Bishop of Limerick has inferred 
 from the half -erased notes in the volume that a part of it was 
 finished in 807. On one page there is an entry in Latin pur- 
 porting to have been made in the presence of Brian Borumha 
 Imperator Scotorum,” which fixes the date of this record at 
 about A. D. 1002. The MS. was presented to the Library by 
 the late Primate Lord John George Beresford. ‘‘ What ren- 
 
( ) 
 
 ders it an object of special interest/’ says Dean Eevees, ‘‘is 
 the fact that it is the only copy of the entire New Testa- 
 ment scriptures which has been transmitted to our time from 
 the ancient Irish Church.” 
 
 The Book of Armagh, containing, as we have seen, a double 
 element, textual and historical, supplies an easy transition from 
 our Biblical MSS. to our general Gaelic collection. The latter 
 is of considerable extent and value, being scarcely inferior to 
 that contained in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy, which 
 you are to visit during the present Meeting. Now that the other 
 branches of the Indo-European family of languages have been 
 pretty thoroughly studied, the attention of Philologists has been 
 more and more fixed on the Celtic branch, still insufficiently 
 explored. Hence French and German scholars not unfrequently 
 undertake pilgrimages to Dublin to examine the precious store- 
 houses of linguistic material which exist here. 
 
 A large part of our Irish collection was obtained through 
 Edmund Burke. After the death of Edward Lluyd, the cele- 
 brated antiquary, some twenty or thirty of his MSS. came into 
 the hands of Sir J ohn Sebright. Burke* was strongly impressed 
 with the importance of the publication of the materials of 
 early Irish history. Having been a scholar of this College, 
 he prevailed on Sir John to let him have the MSS., and pre- 
 sented them to our Library through Dr. Leland, a Fellow 
 of the College, the well-known historian of Ireland. Amongst 
 these Sebright volumes are Brehon Law commentaries, which 
 throw much light on Irish legal and social antiquities. Four 
 volumes of Brehon Law Tracts, from our Library and other 
 sources, with translations, have been printed by the Com- 
 missioners for the publication of the ancient Laws and In- 
 stitutes of Ireland. Another valuable item of the Sebright 
 gift is the Book of Leinster, a MS. probably of the middle 
 of the twelfth century, containing a great variety of Gaelic 
 materials, some of them of much older date — historical, 
 romantic, hagiographical, and genealogical — amongst the rest 
 
 * See his letter to Vallancey, of August 15, 1783.- 
 
( 15 ) 
 
 the celebrated Irish heroic tale of the “ Tain bo Cuailnge.’’ 
 A transcript of the Book of Leinster was made by the late 
 Mr. O’Longan, and was published at the joint expense of Trinity 
 College and the Eoyal Irish Academy, with a learned preface 
 by Professor Atkinson. I cannot refer to this transcript with- 
 out doing Mr. John T. Gilbert the justice of stating that the 
 idea of bringing out facsimile copies of the most important 
 extant Irish MSS. for the use of Celtic scholars at home and 
 abroad was first urged by him, and carried into practical effect 
 by the production, under his supervision, of the first numbers of 
 the series, the ‘^Leabhar na-h-Uidhre,” and the ‘‘Leabhar 
 Breac.’’ I cannot do more than mention other valuable Gaelic 
 MSS., such a^ the Book of Hymns, probably of the eleventh 
 or twelfth century, in part edited by Dr. Todd ; the Yellow 
 Book of Lecan, written about the end of the fourteenth century ; 
 and the Annals of Ulster, compiled in the fifteenth century, 
 and now preparing for publication by Professor William M. 
 Ilennessy. 
 
 Coming down to a later period, we possess a large body of 
 materials for the Irish history of the seventeenth century, 
 which have never, I believe, been sifted with the care they 
 deserve. Mr. Gilbert has edited from one of our MSS. the 
 ‘‘ Aphorismical Discovery of Treasonable Faction,” a contem- 
 porary history of Irish affairs from 1641 to 1652, which though 
 known to Carte, was not used by him, and had not been before 
 printed. We have a collection, in thirty-tw^o folio volumes, of 
 the Depositions of the English settlers who were sufferers by 
 the outrages consequent on the Irish rising in 1641, made 
 before royalist or republican commissioners or magistrates be- 
 tween that year and 1654. Special attention has been called 
 to these volumes by Miss Hickson’s work, published in the 
 present year, entitled — Ireland in the Seventeenth Century ; 
 or the Massacres of 1641-2,” in which 205 of these depo- 
 sitions are given. I am not here concerned with the controversy 
 as to the historical value of the statements in these depositions, 
 but the documents themselves are without doubt, in tlie great 
 
( 16 ) 
 
 majority of instances, the genuine originals, the remaining ones 
 being copies. They were removed before the close of the last 
 century from the Dublin Council Chamber, by Mr, Matthew 
 any. Clerk of the Privy Council. At his death, on the sale 
 of his books, they, with other papers, came into the possession 
 of Dr. John Madden, President of the College of Surgeons ; 
 and at Madden’s death were purchased by Stearne, Bishop of 
 Clogher, who in 1741 presented them to the College. The 
 records of the trials in the Cromwellian High Court of Justice 
 are also in our Library, and were used by Miss Hickson for her 
 work. 
 
 Of materials for English and general European history and 
 literature, our collection does not offer very much. We have, 
 indeed, copies of some of the mediaeval chronicles, such as 
 are to be found in all similar libraries. We have a fine copy, 
 which it will be remembered Brereton noticed when he was 
 here in 1635, of the Opus Ilajus of Roger Bacon, of the still 
 unprinted portion of which I gave, many years ago, a detailed 
 account, which Victor Cousin did me the honour of re-producing 
 in substance in the Journal des Savants. We also possess a 
 MS. of Piers Plowman^ which was collated for Mr. SkeaCs 
 edition of Langland’s poem. We are rather strong in Wyclif 
 literature ; Dr. Todd printed from MSS. of ours some tracts 
 attributed to the reformer ; Mr. Arnold and Mr. Matthew used 
 several of our volumes when preparing their editions of some of 
 the English Treatises ; and a Latin volume has just come back 
 to us from Dresden, where it had been in Dr. Buddensieg’s 
 hands for his assistance in the work he is doing for the Wyclif 
 Society. A set of volumes of no ordinary historical interest 
 has by a series of chances come into our possession. I mean a 
 portion of the Records of the Roman Inquisition, filling 67 
 bound, and about 12 unbound, fasciculi. The whole body of 
 records of which these volumes form a part was removed from 
 Rome to Paris by the orders of Napoleon I. Those in our 
 Library either became separated from the others in the transfer 
 to Paris, or more probably remained in France when the rest 
 
( 17 ) 
 
 were returned to the Italian ecclesiastical authorities at the 
 Eestoration of the Bourbons. They have been carefully 
 examined by Karl Benrath, who has given a tolerably de- 
 tailed account of them in the Revista Christiana, Their con- 
 tents are of three kinds: — 1. Correspondence of Popes, or 
 copies of Briefs and Bulls ; which, however, are generally, 
 if not always, to be found elsewhere ; 2. Original sen- 
 tences of the Inquisition between 1564 and 1659 ; and 
 3. Denunciations and other official documents of the same 
 tribunal. The two latter afford valuable materials towards the 
 history of the Eeformation and counter-lleformation in the 
 sixteenth century. Several cases extracted from the volumes 
 have been published by the Kev. Richard Gibbings, d.d. These 
 MSS. were purchased and presented to the Library by a former 
 Librarian, Dr. C. W. Wall. 
 
 Turning now to our printed books, I observe that the only 
 specimen of Xylography we possess is a copy, but a very im- 
 perfect one, of the Ars Moriendi. It was from the unique per- 
 fect copy in the British Museum that Mr. Rylands edited this 
 curious tract for the Holbein Society in 1881, and the copy in 
 our Library, as far as it goes, conforms to Mr. Rylands’ text in 
 the most minute particulars. Of typographical rarities we 
 have a considerable number, comprised chiefly in Dr. Gilbert’s 
 collection and in the Bibliotheca Quiniana. I hope we shall 
 one day have a separately printed list of these, with full biblio- 
 graphical details. I can now only mention some of the most 
 remarkable, whether for early date or for beauty of execution. We 
 possess the Editiones Principes of a good many classical authors, 
 as of Aristophanes (9 plays; Aid. 1498), of Euripides (18 plays; 
 Aid. 1503), of Sophocles (Aid. 1502), of Plato (Aid. 1513), of 
 Plutarch’s Morals (Aid. 1509), of his Lives (Junt. 1517), of 
 Theocritus, with other authors (1495), as well as of the great 
 Italian writers of the fourteenth century — the Divina Comniedia 
 (1472), the Theseide of Boccaccio (1475), and the Somdti e 
 Trionfi of Petrarch (1470). The gem of the Quin collection 
 is a copy on vellum of the Virgil of Vindelin de Spira, the 
 
( 18 ) 
 
 second edition of that poet (1740). Plutarch’s Lives in Latin 
 (Jenson, 1478), on vellum, a beautiful book, is in the Fagel 
 Library. The Aldine Epistles to Atticus of 1540, and the 
 Aldine Martial of 1501, both on vellum, are in the Quin 
 Library, The few editions here enumerated will suffice to 
 give a general idea of our resources in this department. 
 
 Coming to English typography, we can boast only a single 
 Caxton. It is a copy of the second edition of the Dictes 
 and Sayings of the Philosophers^ printed about 1480. In 
 its first edition it is believed by some to have been the first 
 book printed in England, though not the first printed in 
 English. We have a fair number of specimens of Wynkyn 
 de Worde, beyond whom I need not carry down the series. 
 Our examples of Irish printing I will leave in Mr. Bradshaw’s 
 abler hands.^ 
 
 3. The general fixity of Library methods, of which ! spoke 
 at the outset, does not exclude the development of new energy 
 in working according to those methods ; and our Library has 
 shared the general increase of activity which has shown itself 
 within living memory in every branch of our Collegiate system. 
 A few of the most recent improvements may be briefiy indi- 
 cated. 
 
 And first, as to the enlargement of our stores in fields previously 
 defective. Very important additions were made by purchase, in 
 the times of Drs. Todd and Malet, to our collection of 
 German Literature, and to the department of Comparative 
 Philology, towards which the learning of Drs. Siegfried and 
 Lottner, then officers of the Library, signally contributed. 
 In my own time a good deal has been done towards strengthen- 
 ing the department of foreign, especially German, works on 
 Greek and Latin Literature, as well as on Political Economy 
 and general Sociology. Mr. Mahaffy’s suggestions have led 
 to the acquisition of foreign books on Ancient Art and Archaeo- 
 logy. Dr. Haughton has procured for us many volumes, from 
 American and other sources, on Astronomy, Geology, and 
 
.( 19 ) 
 
 Palaeontology. Fiction, on which our Academic worthies in 
 past times looked very coldly, has been more favoured of late, 
 an effort being made to procure all the really standard works 
 of this class. Greater justice, too, has been recently done to 
 Music, our Professor, Sir Robert P. Stewart, assisting in the 
 selection of what deserves to he placed on the shelves. Nor 
 have we been forgetful of the important ideas put forward at 
 some of your Meetings by Mr. W. H. K. Wright and Mr. Brad- 
 shaw, as to the use of Libraries as Museums of Local Author- 
 ship and Printing ; and I have to express my obligations to 
 Professor Dowden, Dr. Stubbs, and others, for copies of a 
 number of Irish publications — now scarcely remembered, but of 
 some notoriety in their day, and which, in an Irish Library 
 like ours, should certainly not be wanting. 
 
 Let me here make a suggestion, addressed not to our visitors, 
 but to the members of Trinity College. Might it not reasonably 
 be expected that every Student, on the completion of his Course, 
 should make a pious offering to his alma mater of at least a 
 single volume, in which his name should remain as a record of 
 his connexion with the University ? The rich might offer some 
 bibliographical rarity; and to those of more limited means 
 could always be indicated some foreign publication, which we 
 should be glad to possess, or some English book of but small 
 cost, which has, by inadvertence or otherwise, not been added 
 to our collection in the past. Each of our Graduates would 
 thus feel he was contributing his mite to a great and growing 
 treasure, to be preserved within these walls for the benefit of 
 our remote posterity. 
 
 The one thing needful, in order to bring the public effec- 
 tively into relation with the contents of a Library, is a good 
 Catalogue or system of Catalogues. I go on to state what has 
 been done, or is purposed, towards providing this aid for our 
 readers. 
 
 With respect, first, to Catalogues of our MSS., the earliest 
 we have is of the date of 1688. It is perhaps not an im- 
 
( 20 ). 
 
 probable suggestion that this Catalogue was prepared for the 
 purpose of being supplied to Dr. Bernard, the celebrated 
 Savilian Professor at Oxford, for his Catalogus Mamiscriptornm 
 Anglice et Hibernice^ which appeared in 1696 after Bernard’s 
 death. About 1745, a much fuller one was made by a com- 
 petent and conscientious scholar, Dr. John Lyon, whose name 
 will be known to students of the life of Swift. A still later 
 Catalogue, comprising the more recent accessions, and giving 
 more complete descriptions, was prepared by Mr. Henry J. 
 Monck Mason, for the Irish Board of Commissioners of Public 
 Records, Edward O’Reilly, the author of the Irish Dictionary, 
 assisting him with the Celtic MSS. All these three are 
 tvritten Catalogues. A list of a large portion of our col- 
 lection, compiled by Mr. Gilbert, has been printed among 
 the Reports of the Historical MSS. Commission ; but it 
 is necessarily very summary, containing only a general 
 indication of the nature of the contents of the several 
 volumes. I am glad to be able to mention that the Board 
 of Trinity College have authorized me to prepare for publica- 
 tion a detailed catalogue of our MSS., and have associated 
 with me in the work our learned Professor of Sanscrit and 
 Lecturer in Irish, Dr. Robert Atkinson. I do not doubt that, 
 in the course of the minute researches which this work will re- 
 quire, interesting new facts and documents will be brought to 
 light. It is but^ a short time since I discovered that a manu- 
 script, loosely described in our existing catalogues, contained the 
 earliest English version of the De Imitatione Christie of which, 
 so far as I know, only one other, and that a less perfect copy, is 
 extant. 
 
 The oldest printed Catalogue of our books bears no date, 
 but is believed from internal evidence to be of about the year 
 1707. A new printed Catalogue was begun under the auspices of 
 one of my most distinguished predecessors in office. Dr. James 
 Henthorn Todd. Carried by him only as far as the end of the 
 letter B, it was ordered by the Board in 1872 to be continued 
 
( 21 ) 
 
 and completed. The work has been proseeuted under the 
 direction of Mr. Henry Dix Hutton, who will give you an 
 account of the system which has been followed. Seven volumes 
 have been printed, and letter W is nearly finished, so that Mr. 
 Hutton is within sight of port. Of course when a Catalogue is 
 made in an establishment where books are constantly coming in, 
 a point of time' must be fixed as the limit beyond which new 
 accessions will not be included. In the case of our Catalogue 
 the line was drawn at the end of the year 1872. The titles of 
 the books which have come in since then have been written, first 
 on slips, and then into three large volumes, which are kept in 
 the Reading Room. In a short time we shall be able to an- 
 nounce that, either in print or writing, the title of every book we 
 possess is on our table, and] thus directly accessible to readers. 
 There remains, however, behind, a grave question, which fronts 
 every Librarian, What is to be done in the future ? The manu- 
 script books will before very long be filled. Are we to print 
 supplemental volumes of the catalogue at intervals of fifteen or 
 twenty years ? Or are we to adopt the system of printing the 
 titles of books as they come in, and pasting them down at once 
 on paper or linen, strung into a cover, as is done in the Univer- 
 sity of Cambridge ? The latter seems the right course ; but the 
 problem is one which we are willing to postpone till it becomes 
 more urgent. Perhaps, in the meantime, the ingenuity of 
 Librarians will strike out the best possible method, and we 
 shall be able to avail ourselves of the discovery. 
 
 The use of our Library belongs of right only to Graduates 
 of the Universities of Dublin, Oxford, and Cambridge. But be- 
 sides making provision for the admission of our Undergraduate 
 Students, who have also a Lending Library at their disposal, 
 the Board have exercised with great liberality their power of 
 admitting as readers persons who are not members of any of 
 the Universities above named. Such admission is in fact never 
 refused to anyone who can show that real study is his aim, 
 and not merely amusement, for which latter object, however 
 
( 22 ) 
 
 legitimate, we could not undertake to make provision. I may 
 be permitted to add, because the statement is made in justice, 
 not to myself, but to my assistants and their subordinates, who 
 are most in contact with the public,, that in the daily conduct 
 of business it is sought to practise the three great virtues of a 
 Library staff, courtesy, promptitude, and helpfulness — and, if 
 we may judge from the testimonies and tone of our readers, 
 not altogether without success.