70 JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XIV. 



Next to him, as Vice-President, came the Rev. J. G. 

 MacVicar, a gentleman who was genuinely one of our foun- 

 ders and earliest benefactors ; he read several able Papers, 

 attended the Committee Meetings with unfailing regularity, 

 and was the largest donor among those whose gifts of books 

 formed the nucleus of our Library. 



The first Treasurer was a man whose name has a per- 

 manent place among the historians of Ceylon, Mr. Wm. 

 Knighton. 



But it is to our first Secretary, above all, that we owe 

 lasting gratitude, both for his energy at the beginning and 

 for his services continued during very many years, and until 

 a time within the remembrance, I suppose, of most of us : 

 one whose name is still among those of our Honorary 

 Members. Others have held higher office in the Ceylon 

 Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society ; others have read more 

 important Papers (though his contributions have been by 

 no means insignificant) ; but none have served the Society 

 more constantly or more efficiently than Mr. John Capper. 



But the moment of our Society's foundation was a happy 

 one, not only from the presence of men so well qualified 

 to fill its offices, but even more from the presence in the 

 Island, at that one time, of a remarkable group of men, 

 whose names hold permanent places in literature. It was an 

 auspicious moment — in the language of astrology — from the 

 conjunction of many stars of the first magnitude. The 

 names of Tennent, Gogerly, Spence Hardy, and Lee will be 

 accepted in justification of what I say. With these, the Rev. 

 B. Bailey and several other men of scholarship and culture 

 combined to place the young Society at once on a distin- 

 guished level. 



The first Paper was one on Buddhism by the Rev. 

 D. Gogerly, and it was indeed well worthy to lead 

 the way. It is probable that no subsequent Paper has 

 altogether equalled it for the amount of reading which it 

 embodies in a subject and in a language then almost new to 

 European students. It is hardly too much to say that fifty 



