322 Royal Irish Academy. 



depended upon, and I cannot help thanking you for very heartily 

 responding to the reference made by your esteemed President to Lady 

 Aberdeen. I am sure I can say for Lady Aberdeen and myself, that 

 we came to Ireland by no means in a state of mind the reverse of hope- 

 ful or confident of the treatment we should receive if we endeavoured 

 to do our duty — still we never could have expected to receive such 

 constant, such unvarying, and I venture to say, so increasing, marks of 

 courtesy, sympathy, and kindness. I beg once more to express my 

 appreciation of being present on this occasion, and to thank you 

 heartily for your kindness." 



The Lord Lieutenant, again rising, said : — 



"Gentlemen, I feel it to be a special privilege, and no small re- 

 sponsibility, to propose the toast of the evening, ' Success to the Royal 

 Irish Academy.' After a century of its useful and honourable existence,, 

 the Members of this Society will naturally engage in a momentary 

 retrospect. It is well known that the Academy, like many other 

 valuable institutions, was first inaugurated under modest conditions,, 

 at least so far as regards members ; but that beginning possessed the 

 best guarantee for future success, inasmuch as the original Member- 

 ship appears to have consisted entirely of men who had already been 

 spontaneously drawn together by an unfeigned love of knowledge and 

 by a lofty and unselfish confidence in the benefits which would be im- 

 parted to their fellow-men through the cultivation anddifi'usion of that 

 knowledge. And for the same reason, doubtless, we find that the 

 foundation then laid, and the field of operation then mapped out, was 

 both broad and bold. A society which aims at the promotion of the 

 sciences, polite literature, and antiquities, certainly gives ample scope 

 for energy and talent. Indeed, such width of subject might have been 

 expected to lead occasionally to some differences and uncertainty of 

 effort, which would have had a weakening effect. But that clanger 

 appears to have been averted by the sound and earnest tone and 

 method which characterized the early action of the institution, and 

 which has throughout been well maintained. As illustrative of this 

 feature it may be noted, that in the preface to the first volume of the 

 Transactions, the writer, Dr. Burrowes, who must have been a 

 sagacious and far-seeing' man as well as a fine scholar, struck an 

 excellent key-note when he expressed the hope that the Members 



