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Dublin ; and as his sketching tours led him after v/ards into remote parts 

 of the country, where dismantled castles, and ruined churches, and 

 time-worn crosses, besides furnishing subjects for his pencil, excited his 

 curiosity respecting their history and age, his early predilection for 

 antiquarian pursuits must have been drawn out and fostered. Never- 

 theless, he might perhaps have continued to devote himself exclusively 

 to the practice of his art as a painter, if a ramble in company with some 

 friends through the western counties of Ireland had not brought him, 

 in 1818, face to face with the ruins of the Seven Churches at Clonmac- 

 noise. There, indeed, he saw a group of ecclesiastical remains, inte- 

 resting in their architectural features, and picturesquely placed on the 

 sloping shore of our great western river ; and he perpetuated the scene 

 by making it the subject of one of his most exquisitely painted pictures. 

 But these ruins excited a still deeper interest in his mind, regarded as 

 memorials of the men who lived, and the civilization which subsisted 

 on the spot a thousand years before. Looking around him in that great 

 cemetery, he found it filled with inscribed monuments, recording the 

 names of distinguished persons who had been buried there in former 

 times. It was a favourite place of sepulture for kings and chiefs, for 

 bishops and abbots, for men of piety and learning, from the sixth to the 

 twelfth century. Applying himself first to the copying of these inscrip- 

 tions, he made drawings of above three hundred of them. But, as 

 few of them had been previously noticed or explained in any printed 

 work, he was obliged to investigate for himself the history of the per- 

 sons whose names were thus preserved. "With a view to the accomplish- 

 ment of this object, he commenced, and from that time continued, the 

 formation of such a collection of documents, whether in manuscript or 

 in print, as he hoped would lead to the illustration of the monuments. 

 Thenceforth, in fact, he became an archaeologist, devoting as much time 

 and attention as he could spare from other avocations to the study of 

 Irish history and antiquities. 



Peteie was elected a member of this Academy in the year 1828, a 

 year after the name of Hamilton was added to our roll. He was chosen 

 a member of Council in 1830, and at once applied himself, in conjunc- 

 tion with other distinguished members, to raise the Academy from that 

 state of torpor in which it had remained for the previous quarter of 

 a century. At that time it could not be said that we possessed a Mu- 

 seum ; and a stranger now visiting it, admiring its riches, and profiting 

 by the labours of Sir "William Wilde in arranging and cataloguing it, 

 could hardly believe the facts in its history which I am about to men- 

 tion. The King of Denmark had some time previously presented to the 

 Academy a collection of stone implements, of no small value and interest, 

 when placed alongside of and compared with similar objects found in 

 this country. They had, however, been allowed to lie unnoticed and 

 uncared for. Other antiquarian articles, presented to the Academy by 

 various donors, were deposited in the Museum of Trinity College, there 

 being no place fitted for their exhibition in the Academy. Immediately 

 upon his appointment as a member of Council, Peteie collected these re- 



