'88 Royal Irish Academy. 



tliem, and now marked by the Chairman, be approved of for the Book 

 ■of Leinster." 



Matters having been thus finally arranged, the Committee on the 

 same day passed this further Eesolution — 



"That the Librarian be req[uested to have the goodness to under- 

 take the supervision through the press of the Book of Leinster, and to 

 arrange all details in connexion with it on behaK of the Com- 

 mittee." 



This duty llr. Gilbert continued to fulfil until the close of the 

 year; (he was present for the last time at the Meeting of 26th of 

 December, 1874 ;) but the state of his health soon after obliged him 

 to withdraw from his Academy duties. Towards the end of the 

 Academic Session of 1875-1876, when Mr. Gilbert, by his prolonged 

 absence, was about to become ineligible for re-election to his seat on 

 the Council, owing to non-attendance, the Council in February, 1876, 

 passed a Eesolution to advise the Academy to waive the by-law which 

 made him ineligible for non-attendance. As Mr. Gilbert's advisers, 

 however, declined to avail themselves of the offer, the matter pro- 

 ceeded no further, and Mr. Gilbert being thus no longer re-eHgible, 

 Dr. Atkinson was, at the Stated Meeting of March, 1876, elected by 

 the Academy Librarian in his stead. 



As from the date of his last attendance at this Committee, on 

 December 26th, 1874, up till this period of March, 1876, no commu- 

 nication had been received from Mr. Gilbert, and the work of tran- 

 scription of the Book of Leinster had remained entirely without any 

 other supervision than that exercised by members of this Committee, 

 the Committee, feeling the necessity of some responsible personal super- 

 intendence over the work, passed a Resolution on April 22nd, 1876 : — 



" That the Librarian be requested to supervise the publication of 

 the Book of Leinster in its passage through the press ; and, on the 

 completion of the work, to prepare such prefatory matter as may seem 

 to him suitable as an introduction to the work." 



By this Resolution, Dr. Atkinson, designated under his then official 

 title as Librarian, was instructed to prepare an introduction to the 

 work on its completion, without any special direction as to the nature 

 or contents of such preface. 



The following extract from the proceedings of the Academy, taken 

 from a Paper of Professor O'Looney, read January 13th, 1873, "On the 



