would not be handled with much tenderness by the guardians
into whose hands they had now fallen. Their greatest security
was their apparent worthlessness, and they doubtless at this
time received much damage and injury.
But even down to our own times the records of the College were exposed to a danger from which they are not even now altogether secure. It was the custom that the books of each annual office were retained in the hands of the person holding that office during the year of his incumbency. At the end of that time the outgoing Senior Lecturer, Registrar, and Proctors, sent the books in their custody to the chambers of their re- spective successors: there was no permanent place where they could be regularly deposited and arranged in their proper order. The binding often became damaged, and remained for a considerable time unrepaired. The older books also, not being in constant use, often continued in the possession of the officer whose tenure of office had expired.[1] These evils have now been in a great measure remedied, but it is evident that from this cause alone, the books must have received much loss, injury, and mutilation.
These details are given to explain the cause of the many defects and omissions, which must necessarily be detected in the following pages; and it is hoped that those who may notice any such imperfections will be the less delicate in making them known to the Printer.
Another great source of difficulty to the compiler of such a work as the present arises from the different forms of the same name, as written by the bearer of the name himself, at dif-
- ↑ At the auction of Archbishop Magee's library in Dublin, after his death, in 1831, three books were found belonging to the Bursar's office. They must have been in his Grace's pos- session for 30 years. In more recent times the old parchment volume of the University Statutes, which is usually carried in procession by the Senior Proctors at all formal meetings of the Senate, was missing, and supposed to have been lost, for a considerable time; and a volume of the Senior Lecturer's Entrance Books was mislaid for many years, but was recently recovered by Mr. Miller, when Dr. Charles Graves, now Bishop of Limerick, was Senior Lecturer.
