(No. 10.)
“Grafton Street, Dublin,
“May 13, 1833.
“Dear Sir,—I have been directed by the Council of the Royal Irish Academy to reply to your last letters on the subject of your Essay, and the additional matter recently sent over. As to the latter, I am directed to say that the Council had engaged to examine and publish, if approved, some small additions to your former Essay; but the papers you have sent are so large as to be nearly equal in bulk to the original dissertation; under these circumstances the Council cannot publish them as additional to, or incorporated with, the Essay to which they awarded twenty pounds prize, as thereby its character might be so altered that it would not appear in print the same Essay on which they had formed their opinion. The Council, therefore, wish to know how they may transmit to you the papers you have sent. When the gentlemen to whom your Essay has been submitted for examination report, you shall be made aware of the extent of alteration they suggest; and if you think that your paper requires the additions you have sent, and would therefore wish to publish it with them yourself, I have no doubt the Council will entertain any notice to that effect.—I am, dear sir, your most obedient,
“J. H. Singer.
“H. O’Brien, Esq.”
(No. 11.)
“London, May 20, 1833.
“Dear Dr. Singer,—I do not quite understand the closing observation of your last letter. If the Academy mean me a kindness, I should trust that my nature is too sensible of such advances not suitably to acknowledge it; and I should be sorry that, either from obscurity in the diction, or want of quickness in my perception, I were to lose the opportunity of making a grateful return. Let me, therefore, put the following interrogatory to set myself right, viz.:—
“Will the Academy procure me a publisher for my enlarged work? And will they advertise that, having previously done me injustice, by the transfer of my medal, they now, on being convinced of their error, adopt this as the only mode of reparation, the award itself not being to be recalled?