Minutes of Proceedings. 25 



of the General Council of Medical Education, of wliich he was nomi- 

 nated a Member by the Crown, and in whose labours he took an active 

 and influential part. 



In 1868 was published The Life, and Lahours in Art and ArchcB- 

 ■ology, of George Petrie. Connected with that eminent man for many 

 years by the closest ties of friendship, and sympathizing profoundly 

 with his sentiments and tastes, Dr. Stokes was probably better fitted 

 than any other person to be his Biographer ; and the book is a worthy 

 memorial of the great antiquary of whom this Academy is justly 

 proud, fully and ably describing his public services, while it 

 paints with life-like truthfulness his gentle and loveable character. 

 !But it is much more than a biography: besides abounding in accurate 

 information and just criticism on subjects of Art and Archaeology, it 

 gives an account, from several points of view, of that memorable period 

 in our national history which almost deserves the name of the Irish 

 Renaissance. It is more than once observed by Dr. Stokes that, during 

 the first quarter of the present century, a noticeable apathy had come 

 over the Irish mind; there was a marked decline of intellectual 

 vitality and initiative. But the twenty years that followed form, he 

 says, "the most remarkable, and not the least glorious, epoch in our 

 history;" for it was then that a singular development of intellect and 

 energy in almost every department of mental culture showed itself 

 amongst us. " It was the time," he adds, " of Hamilton, the younger 

 Lloyd, Lord Bosse, MacCullagh, Apjohn, and Bobinson ; in literature, 

 of Todd, Anster, Butler, Hincks, and Petrie ; in medicine, of Graves, 

 the representative man of Irish medical science, and of many more 

 whose labours in various paths of original investigation have advanced 

 the honour and interests of their country." The re-awakening was 

 felt in the University, which then began the series of reforms which 

 has so much improved and expanded its entire system ; in the Clinical 

 teaching of the Medical School of Dublin — a School which rose into dis- 

 tinction with unexampled rapidity ; in general and periodical literature ; 

 but nowhere was the new life which then began to stir more active than, 

 in this Academy, as the list of names we have quoted will sufficiently 

 show. This great period is not indeed described in all its aspects in 

 Dr. Stokes' work, but such figures and incidents as group themselves 

 round Petrie — the movement in archseological study ; the Topographi- 

 cal Survey, that noble undertaking, too soon brought to a close ; the 



