26 Royal Irish Academy. 



increase of tiie manuscript treasures of the Academy ; the foundation 

 of its Museum — of all these the book contains a most trustworthy and 

 interesting record. In every page appears the genuine love of the 

 author for his country — for its scenery, its people, its traditions — and 

 his earnest zeal for its honour and its welfare. He pleads for the 

 preservation of our ancient monuments, for the publication of the 

 manuscript materials of Irish History and Philology, and protests 

 against the mistaken policy of effacing the vestiges and affec-^ 

 tions of Irish l\'ationality, instead of consecrating the one and de- 

 veloping the other as a grand portion of the common treasure of the 

 Empire. 



In 1874 Dr. Stokes was elected President of this Academy. The 

 position was one to which he was not only entitled by his eminent 

 services to science, but for which he was specially fitted by the breadth 

 of views and the respect for every form of useful intellectual effort 

 which so remarkably characterised him. iJfone of the distinguished 

 men who have filled our Chair had a more earnest zeal for the honour and 

 the welfare of the Academy. Those of its officers who in a time of peril 

 and difficulty were in constant communication with ^him can bear tes- 

 timony to the profound interest — often amounting to painful anxiety — 

 with which he followed everything which seemed likely to affect its 

 fortunes, and to the sound judgment with which he early perceived 

 what might safely be accepted, and what ought never to be con- 

 ceded. 



The general recognition of Dr. Stokes' eminent merits was evi- 

 denced by the many titles of honour and other distinctions which he 

 received fi'om learned bodies at home and abroad. The University of 

 Dublin conferred on him the Degree of II. D. lionoris causa. He was- 

 also Honorary LL. D. of the Universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh, 

 and Honorary D. C. L. of the University of Oxford. He was three 

 times President of the King and Queen's College of Physicians, and 

 was appointed by Her Majesty the Queen as her Physician in Ordinary 

 in Ireland. He was Honorary Member of the Imperial Academy of 

 Medicine of Vienna ; of the Eoyal Medical Societies of Berlin, Leipsic, 

 and Ghent; and of several other similar scientific bodies ia Europe 

 and America. Finally, he was named in 1875 one of the Members of 

 the highly distinguished German Order, Pour le Merite. During his 

 life was erected by a number of his professional and other fiiends and 



