The paper presents fourth order Runge–Kutta methods derived from symmetric Hermite–Obreshkov schemes by suitably approximating the involved higher derivatives. In particular, starting from the multi-derivative extension of the midpoint method we have obtained a new symmetric implicit Runge–Kutta method of order four, for the numerical solution of first-order differential equations. The new method is symplectic and is suitable for the solution of both initial and boundary value Hamiltonian

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... ms. Moreover, starting from the conjugate class of multi-derivative trapezoidal schemes, we have derived a new method that is conjugate to the new symplectic method.