x 
determined to do with his own papers, whenever they were 
of a sufficiently popular character to be likely to sell, namely, 
to publish on my own account and at my own risk; and in 
accordance with which, he sent in his Essay on the Gael 
and Cimbri to the Academy, as an anonymous competition 
paper for the prize and Gold Medal, printed as an octavo 
volume, as it afterwards appeared, with only the addition of 
a title-page, and, as I believe, a preface and index. With 
this advice, however, being anxious to sustain and advance, 
if in my power, the character of the Academy by my labours, 
I never had any intention of complying; and the delay which 
has occurred in the printing of my Essays has been entirely 
caused by circumstances over which I had no sufficient 
control. 
** And first, as regards my Essay on the Round Towers. 
This Essay did certainly, as Sir William Betham states, re- 
ceive the reward of the Academy at the close of the year 
1852; and I immediately afterwards applied myself to its 
preparation for publication by improving its matter and in- 
creasing its necessary illustrations, by every means in the 
power of a man who had to sustain a large family solely by 
the daily practice of his profession as an artist. But the 
labour was a great and a tedious one, and having soon after, 
perhaps imprudently for my own interests, accepted an em- 
ployment as director under Captain Larcom of the orthogra- 
phical and historical department of the Ordnance Survey of 
Ireland, formed in part with a view to the publication of 
memoirs to illustrate the map, its duties so entirely ab- 
stracted me as to put it wholly out of my power, while thus 
employed, to make the great number of drawings necessary 
to the illustration of the work; nor was it possible to get 
them done by others. The chagrin which this circumstance 
necessarily caused me, was, however, considerably lessened 
by the circumstance, that, in consequence of the Council 
having, at the suggestion of Sir William Betham, and on the 
ee 
Bed, 
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