.338 Royal Ivkli Academy. 



Pew Members of the Academy knew our late President longer and 

 more intimately than I did, and in what I now venture to say, I ask 

 your pardon, if private friendship may seem to colour my words too 

 strongly. 



In the first place, I wish to state, imperatively, that our late 

 President was not (any more than I am myself) the mean hybrid for 

 whom the title " "West Briton" has been coined. 



He was intensely Irish, and, in his younger days, dangerously 

 so — 



" Si Pergama dextra 

 Defendi possent : etiam hac defensa fuissent." 



He saw in time the impossibility (as others have done) of such 

 methods ; and devoted his life to the effort to win for Ireland, if 

 possible, both in Literature and Science, the first place. His ideas 

 are, perhaps, best expressed in his own words — 



' ' The man aspires 

 To link his present with his country's past, 

 And live anew in knowledge of his sires ; 



No rootless Colonist of alien earth, 



Proud but of patient lungs and pliant limb, 



A stranger to the land that gave him birth — 

 The land a stranger to itself and him." 



In our late President's address, on the 30th November, 1882, he 

 dwells especially on the characteristics of this Academy, that it is not 

 Scientific or Literary, but essentially both. Fifteen President's have 

 preceded me in this Chair, and of them, I think, it may be fairly said 

 that, while some excelled both in Science and Literature, of none 

 can it be said with truth that he was so exclusively devoted to either 

 Science or Literature as not to appreciate and prize the value of the 

 other branch of knowledge. 



I shall endeavour to imitate their example, and I can assure you 

 that if I fail in knowledge of the Literary and Antiquarian studies 

 cultivated by so many of our distinguished members, it is not for 

 want of sympathy with, or appreciation of, tastes different from my 

 own. 



