Page:A Compendium of Irish Biography.djvu/268

 come on account of his social qualities, and was at times the boon companion of George IV. In 1801 he published his Life, Adventures, and Opinions, embellished with a representation of his own figure suspended from a gallows. In 1814 he succeeded to the family title of Lord Coleraine, which he resolutely refused to assume. He died at his house near Regent's Park, 31st March 1824, aged 73.

Hanmer, Meredith, D.D., a native of Wales, an ecclesiastic who about 1582 was appointed Treasurer of Christ Church, Dublin. He died of the plague in 1604, and was buried in St. Michan's, Dublin. Besides an Ecclesiastical Chronography, and other works, he was the author of a Chronicle of Ireland, collected in the Yeare 1571, extending from the earliest times to 1284. This valuable addition to the collected annals of Ireland has gone through several editions. It will be found in most available form as contained in Ancient Irish Histories, 2 vols. 4to., published in Dublin in 1809. It occupies almost the whole of the second volume. Probably all that is known concerning him is contained in Wood's Athenœ Oxonienses.

Hardiman, James, a distinguished Irish writer, a lawyer, probably a native of Galway, was born about the end of the 18th century. His important work, The History of Galway, 4to., with plates, appeared in Dublin in 1820; his Irish Minstrelsy, 2 vols. 8vo., in London in 1831 ; Statute of Kilkenny, 4to. 1843; and in 1846 he edited O'Flaherty's West or H-Iar Connaught for the Irish Archaeological Society. He was a prominent member of the Royal Irish Academy, and was for some time sub-commissioner on the public records : he spent the latter part of his life in Galway as librarian to the Queen's College, and died in 1855, probably in November.

Harris, Walter, LL.D., one of the most distinguished of Irish antiquarian writers, the editor of Sir James Ware's works, was born at Mountmellick late in the 17th century. Although expelled from Trinity College in early life for participation in a riot, the degree of LL.D. was afterwards conferred upon him for his services to Irish historical research and archaeology. He married a great-granddaughter of Sir James Ware, and thereby inherited his MSS., and possessed of competence, he devoted his life to literary pursuits. His principal works were : History of the Life and Reign of King William III., Dublin, 1745 ; Hibernica, a collection of eleven interesting and important tracts relating to Ireland, Dublin 1747. The great work by which he has earned the grateful remembrance of all students of Irish history, is his translation and expansion of the principal works of Sir James Ware, published in two volumes folio in Dublin, between 1739 and 1746. Abbe MacGeoghegan truly says of him : "The nation is under great obligations to that learned writer 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." Ware's Lives of the Bishops, which in the English translation of 1705 occupies about 200 pages, Harris has expanded to 660 ; the Antiquities of Ireland he has expanded from 154 to 286 pages ; and the meagre notices of Irish Writers, from 42 to 363 pages. Of Ware's Annals of Ireland he doubtless intended to make a third volume — all the early editions of Harris's Ware are noted on title pages as three volumes. Harris died 4th July 1761. His History and Antiquities of the City of Dublin, which he left in manuscript, appeared in 1766. Some of his MSS. are preserved in Armagh Library, whilst the majority were purchased from his widow by the Irish Parliament for £500. They may now be consulted in the Library of the Royal Dublin Society. They occupy twenty volumes closely written, almost entirely in Harris's hand — in themselves a monument of his indefatigable industry and research. He was a most laborious copyist, and much of these materials are copied even from printed books. Particulars of the contents of these MSS. will be found in Notes and Queries, 2nd Series, while of his printed works ample notices are given under the title "Ware" by Allibone and Lowndes.

Harvey, Bagenal Beauchamp, an estated gentleman of about £3,000 a year, in the County of Wexford, and a barrister, commander of the Wexford insurgents in 1798. He was born about 1762, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, studied at the Middle Temple, and was called to the Bar in 1782. Madden says that before the Insurrection of 1798 he "was in tolerable practice as a barrister, and was extremely popular with all parties. He was high-spirited, kind-hearted, and good-tempered, fond of society, given to hospitality, and especially esteemed for his humane and charitable disposition towards the poor." He resided at Bargy Castle, and when the insurgents took the field in May 1798, in the north of the county, 244