Minutes of Proceedings. 77 



printer, and many other matters -which took some time. Much time 

 was spent in settling the text to be followed, and the form in which 

 the book should be printed, the extent to which the various readings of 

 the manuscript should be given, and whether as Foot-notes or Appendix, 

 as well as the extent and mode of giving explanatory notes, and lastly 

 as to the collation of the text with the original. 



" All these matters having been settled, a good deal of the text and 

 translation was put in type. Some months ago, however, the work 

 was suspended, in order to enable Mr. O'Looney to give his undivided 

 attention to the preparation of the introduction to Leabhar Breac, 

 which required an amount of work very disproportionate to its extent or 

 appearance. Mr. O'Looney is now free to take up the Tain again, 

 and we hope to be able to finish it before anything else shall inter- 

 rupt us. 



"There is one point referred to in your note about which there 

 must be some mistake. I do not think it is usual for an author or 

 editor to submit his work piecemeal to criticism, or to allow sheets of 

 an unfinished work to be circulated about. When I undertook, in con- 

 junction with Mr. O'Looney, to bring out a translation and text of the 

 Tain Bo Cuailnge, I certainly did not understand that one of the 

 conditions should be that I was to furnish copies of the sheets to any- 

 one until the work was finished. 



"Once the Academy had ordered the printing, and settled the 

 general form of the work, it appears to me that their responsibility 

 was only of the same kind as that which it undertakes in publishing 

 Papers in its Proceedings. 



" I am sure the Council must have iuadvertently made the request 

 communicated in your note, and which, so far as my experience goes, 

 is without precedent. 



" I remain, 



* ' Yours very sincerely, 

 (Signed) " "William: K. SullivajST. 



" JoHisr K. Ingram, Esq., LL. D., 

 " Secretary of Council, R.I.A.^'' 



8 a 



