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We also desire to express the lively satisfaction with which we 

 see your Royal Highness about to contract a marriage with a Princess 

 possessing all the qualities which inspire affection and command respect. 

 We can offer no better wishes for the happiness of your wedded state 

 than that it may be attended by every blessing which hallowed the 

 union of your Royal Parents. 



The honest search after scientific truth, and the thoughtful study 

 of the records of the past, have always proved conducive to the interests 

 of religion, and favourable to the maintenance of those principles of li- 

 berty and subordination on which the constitution of these kingdoms is 

 securely founded. We therefore feel assured that a Prince trained 

 from his earliest years to respect and cultivate the pursuits of Art and 

 Letters, will look with favour upon bodies associated as our Academy is 

 for the advancement of the various departments of human learning. 



*'As a Councillor of our Queen, and the subject nearest to her 

 throne, your Royal Highness has before you a field affording exercise 

 for the noblest ambition. We trust you will enter upon it undiscour- 

 aged by the natural fear of falling short of what might almost seem the 

 unapproachable excellence of the example set by your lamented Father. 

 The affectionate loyalty of your countrymen Avill sustain you in all your 

 labours for the common good ; and we doubt not but that Almighty God 

 will hear our prayers, invoking in your favour that divine aid without 

 which the wisest counsels and the most strenuous efforts cannot ensure 

 success. 



Royal Irish Academy, 3Iarch 2, 1863." 

 Read, the following answer : — 



■ " Sandringham, Ath April, 1863. 



'^Lieutenant- General Knollys has received the commands of the 

 Prince of Wales to thank the President and Members of the Royal 

 Irish Academy for their address of congratulation on his marriage and 

 obtaining his majority. His Royal Highness appreciates to the fullest 

 extent their kind sentiments towards himself, and their affectionate loy- 

 alty towards her Majesty the Queen. He cannot also but feel highly 

 gratified by the terms in which they allude to his lamented father. 



" To the President of the Royal Irish Academy.''^ 



Read, the following letter from G. Y. Du N'oyer, Esq. :— 



" Sidney Avenue, Blackrock, 2&th February, 1863. 



Sir, — I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 23rd 

 instant, informing me that the Royal Irish Academy has placed me 

 amongst its Life Members, without the payment of the usual life com- 

 position, in acknowledgment for the collection of drawings of Antiqui- 

 ties and Architecture which I have from time to time presented to the 

 Library of the Academy. 



For this unexpected and most gratifying honour I beg to thank the 

 Academy. 



*'The drawings to which you allude form only a portion of those 

 which I contemplate placing in our Library, the value of which, I may 



