107 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS 
BY THE PRESIDENT. 
My Lorps anp GENTLEMEN OF THE Roya Irisn 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, solong as your continuing approbation 
shall confirm your recent choice, and shall retain me in the office 
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 suffrages 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 sce 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 
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