No. 46.— 1895.] JUBILEE COMMEMORATION. 



69 



Fifty Years ago. 

 Our Society was founded, as everyone knows, about 

 fifty years ago — on February 7, 1845. It is rarely indeed 

 that we can explore the foundations of anything without 

 finding among them or beneath them the traces of some 

 earlier effort : even under the oldest stones of the Homeric 

 Troy lie the golden cups of those brave men who lived 

 before Agamemnon. And so we find the founders of our 

 Society acknowledging the difficulty of their undertaking by 

 repeated allusions to the " fate of former Literary Societies 

 in the Island " (I. 166, 210). Half had then passed of the 

 period that has as yet elapsed of English occupation. 

 During the second half of that century our Society has 

 endured ; and it will enter on a second century with happier 

 auguries, drawn, not from the failure of others, but from 

 its own vitality. 



First Tear. 



February 7, 1845, is j ustly reckoned as the date of our founda- 

 tion, but during the year 1814 preparations had been made for 

 it. Members had come together ; relations had been opened 

 with the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal ; and subscrip- 

 tions, it would appear, had been collected. It had been 

 already ascertained what persons were in earnest in the 

 matter, as the first selection of officers abundantly proved. 



The Governor of the Colony accepted the title of Patron, 

 and the Chief Justice, the Bishop, and the Colonial Secretary 

 were made Vice-Patrons, but none of these appear at first to 

 have played any active part. 



One of the Judges, however, Mr. Justice Stark, did signal 

 service, and was an enthusiastic President. I am not sure 

 that the proceedings prove him to have been specially 

 learned in any one branch of the Society's work, but he 

 delivered Addresses of much literary eloquence and dignity, 

 contributed a few Papers which at least suggested lines of 

 study, and by his regularity and evident devotion to the 

 interests of the Society must have contributed very 

 considerably to its early success. 



