HARRIS, Walter. The History and Antiquities of the City of Dublin, from the Earliest Accounts: Compiled from Authentick Memoirs, Offices of Record, Manuscript Collections, and other unexceptionable Vouchers.

With an appendix containing a history of the cathedrals of Christ-Church and St. Patrick, The University, The Hospitals and other public buildings. Also two plans, one of the city as it was in the year 1610 … the other as it is at present, from the accurate survey of the late Mr. Rocque; with severall other embellishments. Complete with all maps and plates. Dublin: Printed for Lawrence Flinn, in Castle-street; and James Williams, in Skinner-row, 1766. First edition. Octavo. pp. [viii], 509, + errata. Bound at the Abrams Bindery in half morocco over marbled boards, title in gilt on red morocco label on spine. Neat library stamp and previous owner’s signature on title. A very good copy.
ESTC T115002.
Walter Harris, LL.D., one of Ireland’s most distinguished antiquarians, editor of Sir James Ware’s works, was born at Mountmellick in the late seventeenth

century. Although expelled from Trinity College in early life for participation in a riot, the degree of LL.D. was afterwards conferred on him for his services to Irish historical research and archaeology. He married Elizabeth, a great-granddaughter of Sir James Ware, thereby inheriting his valuable collection of manuscripts. This book was followed in 1740 by a much shorter work, A Topographical and Chorographical Survey of the County of Down, which was less than its title suggested but did include a plan for a new society (based on the earlier Dublin Philosophical Society) to collect materials for county surveys and then publish these. Harris pursued these plans in the early 1740s and gained support from the likes of Sir Richard Cox, MP, Lord Chief Baron Robert Jocelyn, the Rev. Samuel Madden, and Bishop Henry Maule. By 1744 Harris (with a collaborator, Charles Smith) published this much larger The Antient and Present State of the County of Down. In May 1745 he was one of the founders of the Physico-Historical Society, based on the lines of his 1740 suggestions. From 1745 to 1752 the society minutes show him very active as a travelling ‘inquirer’ in County Dublin and a keen editor of the works of Charles Smith on Cork, Waterford, and Kerry.
Plates and Maps included: John Rocque’s Map of Dublin; Map of Dubline 1610; A Synchronical Table of the Kings of Ireland, and the Kings of the Ostmen of Dublin; North Prospect of ye Cathedral Church of Holy Trinity; South Prospect of ye Cathedral of St Patricks; West Front of the College; Blue Coat Boys Hospital / The Poor House; The Barracks / The Royal Hospital; The Linnen Hall / Dr. Stevens Hospital; The Lying-in Hospital; The Custom House / The Tholsel; Essex Bridge.

[CAT 164]