177 



To which His Excellency was pleased to return the follow- 

 ing answer : 



" Mr. President, and Members of the Royal 

 Irish Academy, 



" I thank you for your congratulations on my arrival in 

 Ireland. 



" It is a source of pleasure to me to feel that a part of my 

 public duty, as the Representative of her Majesty, will bring 

 me into such immediate connexion with the body of scienti- 

 fic and learned gentlemen forming the Royal Irish Academy, 



" The duties of a visitor lose the austerity of official cha- 

 racter, and merge into those of friendship and association, 

 when the person who is invested with them has the honour of 

 being received with the warmth which has distinguished your 

 reception of myself. 



" You are pleased to estimate my fitness and talents be- 

 yond their value ; but I can assure you that you cannot attach 

 more importance than I do to the welfare and prosperity of 

 such institutions as yours. As you justly observe, the pur- 

 suit of the objects principally cultivated by the Royal Irish 

 Academy enables you to foster within your body feelings of 

 mutual good-will; and when I see enrolled amongst your 

 members those who conscientiously entertain a difference of 

 opinion upon points of the very highest importance, I cannot 

 withhold my conviction of the public utility of a society which 

 affords them a point of union, and holds out to them an ob- 

 ject upon which they can honestly coincide." 



DONATIONS. 



Bericht iiber die ssur Behanntmachung geeigneten Ver- 

 handlungen der Konigl. Preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaf- 

 ten ssu Berlin. Vom Juli 1840 bis Juni 18il. 



Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. 

 Vol. VII. Part. 2. 



