THE ROYAL DUBLIN SOCIETY 3 



consisted of about twenty members, and meetings for 

 the discussion of mathematics, physics, literature, 

 history, and medical science were held in a coffee-house 

 on Cork Hill. Dr. St. George Ashe, afterwards 

 provost ' of Trinity College, Dublin and Bishop of 

 Derry, one of Swift's circle, contributed ; and Dr. 

 Robert Huntingdon, then Provost, 1 invited the infant 

 Society to meet at his abode. Copies of the minutes 2 

 and communications were transmitted to the Royal 

 Society ; they were read at the meetings, and are still 

 to be found among its records. Meetings were subse- 

 quently held at the Crow's Nest, 3 Crow street, where were 

 established a museum, laboratory, and botanic garden. 

 In Sir John Gilbert's History of Dublin (vol. ii., p. 

 173) will be found a very full account of this society, 

 and in appendix ii. of the same volume is a list of the 

 papers read before it — " Transactions of the Dublin 

 Philosophical Society to 1686 " — classified by the late Sir 

 William Wilde, with names of the contributors. Among 

 them, Dr. Narcissus Marsh, who held successively three 

 archbishoprics, wrote an essay on the doctrine of sounds ; 

 Molyneux a paper on the theory and practice of viewing 

 pictures in miniature with a telescope ; Dr. St. George 

 Ashe discoursed on the evidence of mathematical de- 

 monstration ; Dr. Huntingdon wrote on obelisks and 

 pillars of Egypt, and other members reported as to 

 experiments on dogs, blood, &c. On the outbreak of 

 hostilities between King James and William of Orange, 

 the society appears to have broken up. 



1 Later Bishop of Raphoe. He was a great Orientalist, and, 

 during a ten years' residence in Palestine, acquired a large number 

 of Oriental documents, which are now in Oxford and Cambridge. 

 (See Life, &c, by Thomas Smith.) 



2 The original Minute Book is now in the British Museum. (Add. 

 MSS. 4811.) 



3 Recently occupied by the Cecilia Street Medical School of 

 the Catholic University. 



