120 
other Scientific, Literary, and Antiquarian Societies, of these and 
of foreign countries. Especially we ought to regard, with a kind 
of filial feeling of respect and love, the Royal Society of London— 
that central and parent institution, from which so many others 
have sprung ; over which Newton once presided ; and in which our 
own Brinkley wrote. While feelings of this sort are vigilantly 
guarded, and public and private jealousies excluded vigilantly, a 
vast and almost irresistible moral weight belongs to companies 
like these, of studious men; and, amid the waves of civil affairs, 
the gentle voice of mind makes itself heard atlast. Societies such as 
ours, if they do their duty well, and fulfil, so far as in them lies, 
their own high purpose, become entitled to be regarded as being, 
on all purely intellectual and unpolitical questions, hereditary 
counsellors of crown and nation. The British Association has al- 
ready made applications to government with success, for the ac- 
complishment of scientific objects; and I am not without hopes 
that our own recent memorial, for the printing, at the public ex- 
pense, of some valuable manuscripts in our possession, adapted to 
throw light on history, and interesting in an especial degree to us 
as Irishmen, will receive a favourable consideration. 
On the present occasion, which to me is solemn, and to you not _ 
unimportant, I may be pardoned for expressing, in conclusion, the 
pleasure which it gives me to believe, that while we cautiously ab- 
stain from introducing polemics or politics, or whatever else might 
cause an angry feeling in this peaceful and happy society, some great 
and fundamental principles, of duty to heaven and to the state, are 
universally recognized amongstus. Admitted at an early age to join 
your body, I now have known you long, and hope to know you 
longer ; but have never seen the day, and trust that I shall never 
see it, when piety to God, or loyalty to the Sovereign, shall be out 
of fashion here, 
