XXXIX 



literary collections ever formed in these countries by a single indivi- 

 dual, and as the inheritor of those cultivated tastes in which that col- 

 lection originated. 



"This Academy was chartered in the year 1786, for the promotion 

 of scientific, literary, and antiquarian research. It has numbered 

 amongst its members many of the distinguished men whom our country 

 has produced since its foundation, and we think we may venture to 

 affirm that it has in various ways done good service to the cause of 

 science and learning in Ireland. 



" It has devoted itself with special zeal to the illustration of our 

 National History and Archaeology. It has brought together a valuable 

 collection of the ancient manuscript literature of Ireland, the use of 

 which it freely offers to students of the subject. It has also formed a 

 Museum of Irish Antiquities, which has been declared by competent 

 judges to be one of the best existing national collections of its kind. 

 This Museum is open to the public, and we have printed a descriptive 

 catalogue of several of its departments with a view to make its contents 

 generally known, and enable visitors to understand and appreciate them. 



" Your Excellency will find in our Transactions a number of origi- 

 nal memoirs on the various branches of mathematical, physical, and 

 natural science, by which important discoveries and inventions were 

 for the first time brought under public notice. 



" At the meetings of the Academy, cultivators of science and litera- 

 ture, of different creeds and parties, are brought together or common 

 grounds, and the lesson of mutual forbearance and respect— so valuable 

 in a country like ours — is practically, and, we are happy to add, success- 

 fully taught. 



" By virtue of the high office your Excellency now holds, you are 

 Visitor of the Academy, Its labours have been encouraged and aided 

 by several of your predecessors in the Government of Ireland, and we 

 hope that your Excellency will find time, in the intervals of more 

 urgent occupations, to make yourself acquainted with our proceedings, 

 and that you will use the influence of your exalted position to further 

 our exertions for the public good. 



" "We trust that the period of your Excellency's administration may 

 be one marked by the happiest results for our country, in the increase 

 of social harmony and industrial activity, and in the progress of those 

 scientific and literary studies which it is the office of this Academy to 

 foster and promote." 



Mr. President, Members of the Council, and Members of the 

 Koyal Irish Academy, — 



" I receive with much pleasure the Address which you have just 

 presented to me as representative of the Queen. 



I value the important work which a Society like yours performs 

 in carefully collecting, arranging, and developing the scientific, literary, 

 and antiquarian riches of a country. 



