. During his visits to Killarney, Mr. Weld was not so wholly engrossed in contemplating the beauties of inanimate nature, that other charms were without their attractions for him. In 1802, he married Miss Alexandrina Home, an Edinburgh lady of good fortune; and, what was of more consequence, of most agreeable manners, amiable, and accomplished. This excellent lady has been the life-long partner of all his joys and sorrows; his consoler and ministrant upon his bed of sickness, and his support and comfort at his last hour. After a most happy union of over half a century, she still survives, abiding with resignation during the comparatively short space that intervenes till their reunion. Accompanied by her, Mr. Weld made an extensive continental tour; France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Holland were traversed, not with the hurried pace of modern travellers, but with the slow step and long pause of the contemplative philosopher. In Rome he passed a whole winter, investigating that world-famed treasury of ancient and modern art, and associating with the men of genius and learning that are ever to be found congregating around her glories. Turin detained him an equal time, and Naples, rich in a luxuriance and bloom almost oriental, was his sojourn for his third season. Another year he made a long stay in Geneva; a fifth in Berne. Amongst those whose acquaintance he made while thus travelling were, Sir Humphrey, Davy and Antonio Canova, the former the greatest chemist of his day. the latter then in the height of his fame, honoured by the gifts of Napoleon, pensioned by the pope, acclaimed by the academy of Saint Luke, and inscribed in the leaves of the "Book of the Capitol." From each he learned somewhat; indeed, an intellect, inquisitive and apt as his, could not come in contact with great minds and not derive from them some of their own excellence. Under the able and willingly conferred assistance of Davy, he greatly enlarged his knowledge of chemistry, and in geology added not a little to his previous acquirements, while in the studio; and by the conversation of Canova he improved, corrected, and matured his taste for the pure and the beautiful in art, and acquired that high appreciation and knowledge of statuary which in after years he displayed thoroughly, and employed so beneficially for the promotion of the fine arts. But, while thus improving himself, he seemed never to forget the interests of that society at home to which he had attached himself. This is well exemplified in the case of these two acquaintances of which we have just spoken. He was the means of inducing Davy to visit our metropolis, and deliver a course of lectures in the theatre of the Royal Dublin Society; while he so interested and surprised Canova by his details of the Drawing and Modelling schools then existing in Ireland, that the great sculptor freely offered to procure for the young Irishman, according to his own choosing, casts of the most celebrated antique statues at Rome, (from which the moulds had been then recently prepared under his inspection), at the mere expense of the plaster and the workmanship. With what eager delight this offer was accepted by Mr. Weld, may readily be imagined. He lost no time in writing to the Royal Dublin Society on the subject. "If the Dublin Society," he writes from Venice, "had funds to the amount of £300 or So, to spare, I am confident I could send home objects of national importance. They have here the mould of the celebrated horses, and one of the finest statues Canova ever made. The expense of casts, size of life, properly packed and cased for the voyage, is about £25. The like opportunity may not offer again." Already he saw in fancy the halls of his native institution enriched with a collection superior to any which Britain could boast. And so it should have been, had not the malign influence of a niggard spirit of mistaken economy interfered. The British parliament, in its fostering love of Ireland, cut down the grant which the Society had enjoyed for over twenty years, by a miserable saving of over £200 a year. The society was forced most reluctantly to forego the offer, not having funds at their disposal sufficient for the above purpose. And thus, as Mr. Weld afterwards observed, "the means were irretrievably lost of obtaining a collection of casts from the antique, which not only would have been a subject of pride to this city and to this country to have possessed, but, in extending the taste for the arts and the knowledge of the fine forms of the ancients, might have essentially contributed to the advancement of our. manufactures and our commerce.”

During the protracted absence of Mr. Weld from his native country, it may truly be stated that he lost no opportunity of furthering her interests, and giving his helping hand to her progress. And this object he rightly thought might be most efficiently, as well as most legitimately, accomplished through the instrumentality of the Royal Dublin Society. The records of that body bear ample testimony to his constant and valuable communications, and upon his return he at once entered into intimate and active co-operation with it. The history of his services in this admirable society, of which he was so prominent a member, has been so ably sketched by Mr. Foot, that we feel we can add nothing to what he has said. The duty devolved in an especial degree upon a member of the society and with peculiar propriety upon its accomplished Secretary-to inscribe in her page, already "sui plena laboris," the annals of the last departed of her worthiest sons. We shall, therefore, abstain from entering largely upon a field already so worthily preoccupied, contenting ourselves with brief allusions to these subjects; all the more readily that the public will, we are glad to say, be very soon in possession, through the pages of the "Journal of the Royal Dublin Society," of that memoir which Mr. Foot has obligingly placed in our hands.

Amongst the many valuable suggestions of Mr. Weld to the Society, we find two which claim more than a passing notice. When in Tuscany, Mr. Weld procured at Prato some of the straw of the white-bearded wheat of that district, from which the celebrated Leghorn fabric was made, and also brought home a small quantity of the seed. At his suggestion the seed was sown in the Society's gardens at Glasnevin; experiments were made from the straw of the wheat so produced, and ultimately a straw equal to that of Italy was procured, from which hats and bonnets were made of a very superior description. These were displayed at our own Exhibition, and at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. We never heard their excellence questioned, and the fact that they could be manufactured at a cheaper price than the Leghorn fabric was indisputable; but this latter disadvantage, coupled, it may be, with their Irish origin, decided their fate. They did not become the fashion, and we lost a source of industry which might have been of no small profit. Animated by a similar spirit, Mr. Weld introduced the white mulberry-tree, with a view to the propagation of native silk; but though he succeeded in raising several of those trees in his own grounds and elsewhere, yet the climate of this country did not prove sufficiently genial to their culture to warrant the production of silk as a national branch of commerce; though experiments, not altogether unsuccessful, were instituted on a large scale at Mitchelstown, in the county of Cork.

Another and unquestionable source of benefit and honor to this country and the Society owes its origin to the suggestion of Mr. Weld. Mr. Foot thus notices this fact:

Mr. Weld was the first to suggest those exhibitions of manufactures which attached triennially such prestige to the Society, and conferred great benefit on the country; ultimately setting the example to England, leading the way to the Great Monster Exhibition of 1851, in London, and of 1853, in Dublin, on these premises. I have heard Mr. Weld declare, that the first exhibition undertaken at his suggestion, and intrusted to his management, failed; from want of that tact, knowledge of, and interest with manufacturers and producers afterwards so well supplied by the late Sir Edward Stanley and other members. Confining his claim to the paternity of the idea, he cordially concurred in the universal sentiment, which ascribed ultimate success to the skill and perseverance of the venerable gentleman I have mentioned, and his associates.

Of the labours of Mr. Weld in contributing to the statistical surveys of the counties of Ireland, undertaken by the Royal Dublin Society under the patronage of the Irish Parliament, we shall only observe that his volume on the County of Roscommon, published by the Society in the year 1832, is the result of the assiduous personal inspection and researches of three months. It is a valuable contribution to Irish topography and statistics, and, in conjunction with those of his fellow-labourers, proves how competent the Society was to discharge efficiently and economically the task which has since been transferred to a department of the government. The merits of Mr. Weld

were so generally appreciated by the Society, that when in the end of the year 1844 one of the honorary secretaries (Mr. John Boyd) was elevated to the vicepresidentship, the voice of the Society at once selected Mr. Weld as his successor. This office has always been considered one of high honour, and conferred by the Society on those whose learning or devotion to the interests of the institution commends them as objects of favor. Never was that favor more worthily bestowed as regarded the man, or more judiciously as regarded the interests of the Society. The duty of delivering an address annually, on the occasion of the distribution of the prizes to the successful pupils of the Drawing and Modelling Schools by the Lord Lieutenant, is usually assigned to one of the secretaries. This duty Mr. Weld discharged on many occasions with great ability. His prelections are remarkable for a thorough knowledge of the history of the Society in all its details, a pure and correct judgment upon all subjects connected with the fine arts, and great practical common sense; while they are composed in a style rarely ornate, but always felicitous, simple, and lucid. We could refer with pleasure to many of these discourses, for they are mines of instruction wherein young artist students may find wealth inexhaustible. We must content ourselves with extracting some admirable remarks on the subject of the study of the human figure, delivered by him in his address in December, 1844. After allusions to most of the Continental schools of design in succession, he urges the importance of the study_of_the human figure in reference to ornamentation, arts, and manufactures. He then proceeds:

Of all the works which have been left to us by the ancients, illustrative of their taste in mere ornamental design, the fictile vases, commonly known under the name of Etruscan vases, are amongst the most remarkable. The discoveries made by excavations of late years in the regions of ancient Etruria, have thrown additional and indeed new light on the subject of these vases. The superb collection of vases which was made by Sir William Hamilton, during his residence as British Ambassador at the court of Naples, has long been deposited in the British Museum, and is one of the very highest interest. It was a prevailing opinion, reasoning from the places whence these vases had been obtained, that they were of Greek workmanship, that is, the workmanship of the Greeks of Magna Græcia; and the principal manufacture of them was considered to have been in the Campania in the vicinity of Capua. We have in the Museum belonging to our Society several of these vases, of a very beautiful description, presented to the Society by one of the La Touche family, much about the period that Sir William Hamilton was forming his collection. We have been assured that these vases, in the time of Pliny were so much esteemed in Rome for their beauty and antiquity, as to be considered worth their weight in silver. When I resided at Naples some twenty years ago, the government was anxiously intent upon purchasing up, for the public museum-Il Museo Borbonico-every fine vase which came to light or could be procured from private individuals. The vases, it is well known, are of various ages, and the workmanship and the designs pourtrayed upon the surfaces of varying degrees of excellence. But in all a remarkable knowledge is displayed of the form of the human body; and in the more refined and perfect paintings, the beauty of the proportions, and the grace and elegance of the human figure, male as well as female, are of a nature to command the highest admiration, and more especially the admiration of those who, being acquainted with the difficulties attending the delineation of the human form, in its true and just proportions and graceful attitudes, perceive that all such difficulties must have been further increased by the irregular and curved surfaces of the vases upon which these paintings have been executed. Now, in almost all these ancient paintings we find specimens of the highest class of ornamental patterns-patterns which, as I have remarked, have served as the purest models down to the present day; of which any individual now present may readily satisfy himself by an inspection of the vases in our Museum. It is, therefore, as it appears to me, and as I have boldly ventured to state, a most mistaken notion to suppose that the study of the human figure can in any respect unfit an artist for executing ornamental designs. Certainly the study of the higher walk of art may indispose him in some degree, especially if he finds he is likely to excel in it, from the pursuit of the less difficult and humbler path. But the position which I venture to put forward is this that as in the paintings on these ancient vases we find the most beautiful and accurate delineations of ornamental patterns, combined with delineations of the human form, which evince an extraordinary knowledge of the art of drawing, so, Figure Drawing does not of necessity impede the practice of ornamental drawing. I recollect passing, a year or two ago, into a warehouse or shop in Oxford-street, where there was a great display of English-made vases, avowedly in imitation of the antique. But alas! what drawing, what miserable wretched drawing of the human form; and yet, by means of the National Drawing School, from which the study of the human figure is proscribed,

it is supposed that fabrics and manufactures are to be improved. It has not been by discarding the study of the human figure from their public schools that the French have attained so much excellence in the manufacture of their ornamental bronzes.

But of all the services which Mr. Weld rendered to the Society, none can surely be esteemed greater than his powerful defence, for such we may justly call it, in his evidence before a select committee of the House of Commons, appointed in 1836 to inquire into the administration of the Society. The Society was arraigned, put on her trial, and prosecuted with a heartiness and zeal that filled her best friends with forebodings. The principal witness in this her hour of danger was Isaac Weld; his knowledge of the practical workings of every department was greater than that of any other man living; his integrity and honour were above all suspicion; and all who knew him felt assured that the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, would pass his lips. For five days his examination lasted, and that examination mainly contributed to the highly favorable report of the committee. It is most happily characterized by Mr. Foot, in the memoir to which we have so often alluded.

This evidence, which fills a large portion of a Parliamentary Blue Book, will be found a mine of information to those who desire to trace the history of the Society, its objects, its acts, its treasures, and its motives. Mr. Weld evinces throughout a desire to meet the wishes of Government, without stooping to subserviency; and to avert the consequences of disagreement and collision, without sacrificing independence. The Society could not have had on so trying an occasion a more worthy representative, or a more accomplished advocate. To this hour we enjoy the benefits of his knowledge, his candour, and his judgment, all so favorably eliminated on that occasion, and leading to our present constitution, which has placed us so happily in accord with the Government, and scattered to the winds all seeds of discord.

In April, 1849, Mr. Weld was elected Vice-President of the Royal Dublin Society, the duties of which high office he continued to discharge with the same earnest love that had animated him in younger days, till a very short period before his death; and so, labouring through a life of usefulness, extended much beyond the ordinary term allotted to man, his naturally strong frame and vigorous constitution at length succumbed to that hand which sooner or later prostrates every son of Adam. After an illness of a few months, his body gradually sank, while his mind retained its faculties unimpaired almost to the last, till on the 4th of August, 1856, and in his eightythird year, he died at his residence, Ravenswell, near Bray.

Such was Isaac Weld! Honored in death as in life, the best and the noblest stood around his grave as he was laid "at rest from his labors." He is gone; but he leaves behind him noble memories-to console-to animate-to energize. The watchword of his spirit was ever 66 Excelsior." The banner has fallen from his hands, but we have a strong belief that there are others in the Royal Dublin Society who will snatch it up lovingly-reverently-zealously; and press on to heights above those to which he attained. Let the recollection of what he has done inspire them. They have him constantly before them everywhere it needs not the portrait on their walls to tell thein of him; they find his monument when they look around them. He has passed indeed away in bodily presence, but spiritually he is still amongst them. They who have wrought well in their own day scarce seem to die; they rise, like the returning sunlight, again and again upon us, in the memorials of what they have achieved, filling us with light to see the work we have to do, and with courage to do it.

"So sinks the day star in the ocean bed,

And yet anon repairs his drooping head,

And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky."