210 Royal Irish Academy. 



general survey of these materials, one broad general conclusion forces 

 itself upon us — namely this — the hand-writings, whether the literary 

 or the less formal, show so much facility, boldness, and variety that 

 plainly the practice of writing was quite common and habitual. 

 Further, the styles are so confirmed — they bear, as has been said, so 

 plainly on their face the stamp of matured development that they 

 cannot differ much from, those of the fifth century B.C. ; so that, as 

 Dr. Mahaffy says, Euripides and even Aeschylus wrote down their 

 plays with the same ease of penmanship as Shakspeare. But we are 

 thus carried still farther back, and the irresistible conclusion is that 

 the ordinary use of writing, as distinguished from inscriptions on 

 stone or metal, was very much older in Greece than has been 

 commonly supposed. 



I have only been able to touch some of the leading points in Dr. 

 Mahaffy's Memoir ; his careful and elaborate treatment of details must 

 be directly studied in order to be duly appreciated. If any of my 

 hearers has doubts as to the great difficulty of the task he undertook, 

 I will respectfully invite him to try his powers on the excellent 

 reproductions of the papyri by the Autotype Company. The Memoir 

 is an admirable piece of work, well deserving of being crowned 

 by the Academy. In saying so, I only add my less competent 

 testimony to that of some of the best European Grsecists and Egyp- 

 tologists. An eminent worker in the same field has reminded us, 

 " prima tentamina in re non bene perspecta optima esse, si mediocri- 

 tatem attingant." In my judgment. Dr. Mahaffy has gone far 

 beyond mediocrity : he has attained excellence. He has fully 

 recognised the liberality of our Council which enabled him to publish 

 promptly, and in fitting form and extent, the results of his labours. 

 But, on our side, acknowledgments are due to him for having 

 contributed to our Transactions a Memoir which possesses so much 

 interest for scholars, and has so largely attracted the attention of the 

 learned world, 



III. 



The third Memoir of which I have to speak is that of Professor 

 Haddon on "The Decorative Art of British IS'ew Guinea." Savage 

 art has only in recent times been the subject of systematic investiga- 

 tion ; and many persons may be unaware that there is in existence 



