( clxxxiii 



rendered necessary by the growing requirements of the Museum, 

 the order of his arrangements has been scrupulously preserved ; and, 

 by a system of key-reference adopted in the re-deposit, the connexion 

 of each article with its description in the Catalogue has been main- 

 tained unbroken. 



The labours of Sir William TVilde were not restricted to the field 

 of antiquarian study. His "I^arrative of a Voyage to Madeira," his 

 work on Austria, his " Popular S.uperstitions of Ireland," his " Closing 

 Years of Dean Swift's Life," and his works on Irish Topography — 

 so abounding in local and traditional knowledge, and so marked by 

 genial appreciation both of the national character and of the beauties 

 of the scenes described — all these are Kterary works of distinguished 

 merit ; whilst his professional writings, of which his Treatises on 

 Aural Surgery may be specially mentioned, and his Reports con- 

 tributed to the volumes of the Irish Census, give him an honourable 

 place in the domain of Science. 



Of his practical exertions for the benefit of his profession, or the 

 good of his fellow-countrymen generally, this is not the fitting occasion 

 to speak ; nor of the kindly spirit and attractive social qualities which 

 won for him a large circle of admiring friends. 



Yarious honorary titles and decorations were conferred upon him 

 in recognition of his public services. He received a Diploma from 

 the University of Upsala, and was elected an Honorary Member 

 of the Society of Antiquaries of Berlin. He was also presented 

 with a decoration of the Order of the Polar Star, thus becoming 

 a Chevalier of the Kingdom of Sweden. He received the honour 

 of Knighthood in acknowledgment of his services to Statistical 

 Science in connexion with the Irish Census. The Board of 

 Trinity College conferred on him the Degree of M. D., honoris 

 causd. And this Academy, by presenting to him the Cunningham 

 Medal, the highest special mark of distinction in its power to 

 bestow, expressed its grateful sense of the service rendered to 

 Scientific Archseology in general, and to our body in particular, by 

 his Catalogue of the Museum. 



A brief tribute should also here be paid to the memory of Colonel 

 Meadows Taylor. Endowed with talents of a high order, and 

 gifted with indefatigable industry, he some fifty years since left 

 Ireland for Bombay, as a clerk in a mercantile house. On his arrival 



