376 Boyal Irish Academy, 



searches with any other feelings than those of profound respect, 

 and of desire and hope to see them cultivated here ; nor as present- 

 ing other than hearty congratulations to the Academy on the fact, 

 that whereas no single paper on Literature appeared in our last 

 volume, two memoirs, interesting and erudite, have been presented 

 to us, and probably are by this time printed, to be in readiness for 

 our next publication ; — one, on the Punic Passage in Plautus, by a 

 near and dear relative of my own ; and the other, on the Sanscrit 

 Language, by a gentleman of great attainments and of high station 

 in our national University : from which seat of learning, it seems 

 not too much to hope, that we shall soon receive many other con- 

 tributions in the department of Polite Literature, as well as in 

 other departments. It is, of course, understood that the awarding 

 of prizes is not to be confined to scientific papers, but is to be ex- 

 tended, as indeed it has always been, under some convenient regu- 

 lations, to literary and antiquarian papers also. 



I was to say a few words respecting that other department of 

 our Transactions, namely Antiquities, or the study of the Old ; 

 and if, at this stage of my address, those words must be very few, I 

 regret this circumstance the less, because I know that the study is 

 deservedly a favourite here, and that I am surrounded by persons 

 who are, beyond all comparison, more familiar with the subject 

 than myself. 



In general, I may say, that whether the study of Antiquities be 

 regarded in its highest aspect, as the guardian of the purity of hi- 

 story, — ^the history of nations and mankind ; or as ministering to 

 literature, by recovering from the wreck of time the fragments of 

 ancient compositions ; or as indulging a natural and almost filial 

 curiosity to know the details of the private life of eminent men of 

 old, and to gaze upon those relics which invest the past with 

 reality, as the palaeontologist from his fossils reconstructs lost 

 forms of life : in all these various aspects, the study is worthy to 

 interest any body of learned men, and to occupy a considerable part 

 of the Transactions of any society so comprehensive as our own. 

 The historian of the Peloponnesian war was also himself an anti- 

 quarian ; and prefaced that wOrk which was to be " a possession for 

 ever," by an inquiry into the antiquities of Greece. And while he 

 complained of the ourws araXaiTriopos toIs ttoWoIs r/ i^riTrjcris rrjs uXtj- 

 deias, that easy search after truth which cost the multitude nothing ; 

 he also claimed to have arrived at an e^^s TeK^ri^iov, a linked chain of 

 antiquarian proof, by which he could establish hi-s correction of their 

 errors. Indeed, the uninitiated are apt to doubt, — perhaps too they 

 may sometimes smile, — when they observe the earnest confidence 

 which the zealous Antiquary reposes in results deduced from argu- 

 ments which seem to them to be but slight ; nor dare I say that I 

 have never yielded to that sort of sceptical temptation. But I re- 

 member a fact which ought to have given me a lesson, on the 

 danger of hastily rejecting conclusions which have been maturely 

 considered by others. A learned Chancellor of Ireland, now no 

 more, assured me often and earnestly, that he gave no faith to the 



