199 



1844, Tlie Most Noble tlie Marquis of Downshire. 



1845, Robert S. Bradshaw, Esq. 

 „ Thomas Davis, Esq. 



„ Sir Richard Franklin, 



There are therefore now on the books of the Academy, 162 life 

 Members, and 203 annual Members. 



The President delivered the following Address : 



, "My Lords and Gentlemen of the Royal Ikish Academy, — 

 Although it is, I believe, vpell known to most, perhaps to all, of you, 

 that it has been for a considerable time my wish and intention to retire 

 this evening from the Chair to which, in 1837, your kindness called me, 

 on the still lamented event of the death of my distinguished predecessor, 

 the late admirable Doctor Lloyd, and in which your continuing confi- 

 dence has since replaced me on eight successive occasions, yet a fevr 

 parting words from me may be allowed, perhaps expected; and I 

 should wish to offer them, were it only to guard against the possibility 

 of any one's supposing that I look upon my thus retiring from your 

 Chair as a step unimportant to myself, or as one which might be taken 

 by me with indifference, or without deliberation. It was under no 

 hasty impulse that I resolved to retire from the office of your President 

 into the ranks of your private members, nor was it lightly that I deter- 

 mined to lay down the highest honour of my life. 



" My reasons have been stated in an Address delivered in another 

 place, at a meeting of some members of your body. They are, briefly, 

 these: that after the expiration of several years, I have found the duties of 

 the office press too heavily upon my energies, indeed, of late, upon my 

 health, when combined with other duties; and that I have felt the anxieties 

 of a concentrated responsibility — exaggerated, perhaps, by an ardent or 

 excitable temperament — tend more to distract my thoughts from the calm 

 pursuits of study, than I can judge to be desirable or right in itself, or 

 consistent with the full redeeming of those pledges which I may be con- 

 sidered to have long since given, as an early Contributor to your 

 Transactions. 



" When I look back on the aspirations with which first I entered 



VOL. III. R 



