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 

 1832; 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 



