THE ROYAL DUBLIN SOCIETY 133 



some of them dealing with ancient art, and others 

 with the continental schools ; they contain a vast fund 

 of information, and the series of addresses, as con- 

 tained in the Proceedings, is well worth perusal. In 

 1843, when Earl de Grey again presided, Mr. Lundy 

 E. Foot spoke learnedly and eloquently on the low 

 state of the fine arts in Ireland 150 years previously, 

 illustrating his remarks ; and he then proceeded to 

 establish the Society's claim to have been the nursing 

 mother of a great deal of the Irish talent since em- 

 ployed in their cultivation. On another occasion, Mr. 

 Henry McManus delivered an address on the origin 

 and utility of schools of design. 



The Royal Irish Art Union presented to the Society 

 the original cast of The Youth at the Stream, by J. H. 

 Foley, a former student, a work that had acquired for 

 him a considerable reputation at the national competi- 

 tion held in 1844 in Westminster Hall. 



John Henry Foley was born in Dublin in 1818, and at the 

 age of thirteen entered the Society's drawing schools, gaining 

 first prizes in them. He went to London in 1834, becom- 

 ing a student of the Royal Academy, and in 1839 exhibited 

 The Death of Abel and Innocence^ sculptures which at once 

 attracted attention. Foley executed the statue of Hampden, 

 now in the entrance corridor of the House of Commons. 

 His great equestrian statues of Lord Canning, Lord Hardinge, 

 and Sir James Outram are much admired, and the figures of 

 Burke and Goldsmith, which stand outside Trinity College, 

 Dublin, show that Foley 's was a master hand. He also 

 executed the statue of Father Mathew now in Cork, Lord 

 Cough's , equestrian statue in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, and 

 those of Grattan, Faraday, and Reynolds. Foley bequeathed 

 his models to the Royal Dublin Society. He died in 1874. 



In 1 849 the Government determined to establish a 

 school of design. A representative of the Board of 



