107 

 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 



BY THE PRESIDENT. 



My Lords and Gentlemen of the Royal Irish Academy, 



The position in which your kindness has placed 

 me, entitles me, perhaps, to address to you a few remarks. Called 

 by your choice to fill a chair, which Charlemont, and Kirwan, and 

 others, not less illustrious, have occupied, I cannot suffer this first 

 occasion of publicly accepting that high trust to pass in silence by, 

 as if it were to me a thing of course. Nor ought I to forego this 

 natural opportunity of submitting to you some views respecting the 

 objects and prospects of this Academy, which, if they shall be 

 held to have no other interest, may yet be properly put forward 

 now, as views, by the spirit at least of which I hope that my own 

 conduct will be regulated, so long as your continuing approbation 

 shall confirm your recent choice, and shall retain me in the oflEice 

 of your President. 



First, then, you will permit me to thank you for having con- 

 ferred on me an honour, to my feelings the most agreeable of any 

 that could have been conferred, by the unsolicited suflTrages of any 

 body of men. Gladly indeed do I acknowledge a belief, which it 

 would pain me not to entertain, that friendship had, in influencing 

 your decision, a voice as potent as esteem. An Irishman, and 

 attached from boyhood to this Academy of Ireland, I see with plea- 

 sure in your choice a mark of affection returned. But knowing that 

 the elective act partakes of a judicial character, and that the exer- 

 cise of friendship has its limits, I must suppose that the same long 

 attachment to your body, which had won for me your personal 

 regard, appeared also to you a pledge, more strong than promises 

 could be, that if any exertions of mine could prevent the interests 

 of the Academy from suffering through your generous confidence, 

 those exertions should not be withheld ; and that you thought they 

 might not be entirely unavailing. After every deduction for kind- 

 ness, there remains a manifestation of esteem, than which I can 



