Minutes of Proceedings. 273 



Bulben, for wMcli tie had received a grant in aid from the Academy. 

 After graduating in first class honours in jSTatural Science in the 

 Queen's University, he entered the University of Cambridge, where 

 he still further distinguished himself by obtaining various JSTatural 

 Science Scholarships and Prizes, and finally by taking his Degree of 

 B.A. in the ISTatural Sciences Tripos in June. 1882. He was elected 

 Lecturer on Botany in the University Medical and Science Schools 

 and also to Girton College. He had published numerous Papers on 

 botanical subjects in various periodicals, and in the Transactions of the 

 LinnEean and other scientific societies. 



In Dr. Alexander George Richey the Academy has lost one of the 

 class of Members whom she can least afford to lose, for the number of 

 independent thinkers who can support their principles by the reason- 

 ings of a mind so well-trained, and so familiar with abundant details 

 of historic lore, is necessarily small. His lectures on early Irish His- 

 tory will long be remembered, not so much for their literary polish or 

 graces of style, as for their faii'ness and just appreciation of the cir- 

 cumstances of the time. Their intrinsic value as a statement of fact 

 is heightened by their continuous implicit reference to the leading facts 

 of contemporary European history, with which much of the movement 

 in the early period of Anglo-Irish contact was necessarily connected. 

 His appointment on the " BrehonLaws" was one of those happy coin- 

 cidences of the hour and the man which sometimes fall to the lot of a 

 governing body : his Introductions to the two volumes published under 

 his editorship give proofs of a ripe knowledge of all the facts, com- 

 bined with a nice legal tact in discerning their mutual relations, and, 

 above all, a subtle philosophic instinct for their comparison with the 

 early usages of other countries that had passed through a parallel 

 stage of development. 



After a distinguished career in Trinity College, Dublin, he gradu- 

 ated in 1853, as Pirst Medallist of his year in Classics, and subse- 

 quently was appointed Deputy Professor of Peudal and English Law 

 in the University, a post which he filled with distinction until his 

 death. He had been for a long time an active member of our 

 Council, and had also been for many years a Vice-President of the 

 Academy. 



The Report was adopted. 



