648 ADDENDA. WALTER HARRIS, BARRISTER at law, Respecting the family and private life of this learned and laborious Irish antiquary, the compiler has been able to ascertain but very little. We are told he was son of Hopton Harris, was born in Mountine-: lick, and entered college about the year 1704, where, in 1707, he was engaged in a riot, in which he was so disrespectful to his superiors, that he wrested an admonition which was against him out of the dean's hand, and tore it in his presence; while Rochfort M'Neill, another of the academicians, put on his hat, and swore there should be no more such admonitions. Harris was hereupon expelled: much, however, to his honour, after reason and judgment gained ascendancy over puerile passions, instead of retaining any sentiment of low resentment against that seminary, he on every occasion mentioned it with such respect, that about five years before his death, which happened July 4th, 1761, he was presented with the honorary degree of doctor of laws. He informs us that accident made him an editor. He married Eliza, daughter of Henry, son to Robert Ware, who was second son to Sir James Ware. With some of Sir James's books and MS. papers, Harris occasionally amused himself, to do away the sameness of a country retirement. He afterwards set about making a new translation from the Latin, of Ware's Bishops. The lives he amended, augmented and enlarged, so as to form a respectable folio volume, which he printed by subscription at: 1. 18s. in Dublin, 1739. With similar improvements, amendments, additions, and illustrations, Harris published Ware's Antiquities and Irish Writers, in two parts, embellished with eighteen copper-plates, for shewing the monastic habits, elegantly engraved in Paris: this was printed in one volume, of the folio size, at Dublin, 1747. This work was followed by a collection of curious articles, from the manuscripts of Trinity college, which he entitled Hibernica, Dublin, printed in 1747. Harris, about the time of the Pretender's invasion of Scotland, commenced his Life of King William; the part of this work which relates to the revolutionary war in Ireland, was compiled by him, from above twelve hundred government dispatches and letters, left by Charles Clarke, then secretary at war, to be forwarded afterwards to England. These papers remaining till the council and treasury offices were burned, in 1710, were removed in an undistinguished heap to the auditor-general's office; where they were discovered by Mr. Boyd, the keeper of that office, who communicated the use of them to Harris. The folio volume of King William's Life was printed in Dublin, in 1749. To his edition of Ware's works, Harris intended to add another folio volume, containing the civil History of Ireland, for completing the series. For this he left seventeen folio volumes of curious manuscripts, including collections made towards the ecclesiastical state of Ireland, by Archbishop King, and Bishop Sterne, which were purchased for 5001. by the Irish parliament, from his widow, and deposited in the archives of the Dublin Society, for the convenience and use of the public. In 1766, there appeared a publication, said to be a posthumous work of our author, entitled Harris's History of Dublin, compiled from his MSS. by two learned assistants. That production, however, shews neither the perseverance, industry, nor abilities of Ware's editor. "The nation," says the Abbé M'Geoghegan," are under great obligations to that learned writer (Harris) for the trouble he has taken, and the curious researches he has made, in order to complete Sir James Ware's work; a work which he has so considerably enlarged, and enriched with such a number of articles that have escaped his prototype's notice, that he should be rather esteemed its author than the editor, which is the title he has so modestly assumed." THE END. |