“Without some such course as this, it is obvious that the offer which they make, instead of being a kindness, would be a mockery; and, instead of making amends for oppression, would be adding insult to persecution! For who, let me ask, would publish a work which a jury have branded with the stamp of inferior, doling out their surreptitious twenty pounds as an eleemosynary deodand, while the darling of their adoption, though disfigured by all the imperfections of blindness, lameness, and untruth, and recommended only by a few painted gew-gaws, which never entered into the requisites of the original advertisement, will pass current in Dublin amongst the creatures of party!
“I have already applied to Mr. ——, and he, intimidated by the vicious state of society in Ireland, declined my proposal; but though his apprehensions were sufficient to deter him from the speculation, they were totally unfounded; for, despite of all corruption, all chicanery, and all cabals, the etc. etc. etc.
“This complaint, observe, does not refer to the new papers only, but extends itself equally to the original Essay. Why do the Academy keep it back? Believe me, it is in vain for them to defer ‘the evil day’ of their exposure. Their doom was sealed the very moment they did me injustice! I have watchfully reconnoitred their course, and have proofs of the intricacies of their internal machinery, ample as those before adduced for the solution of the Round Tower enigma, to effect their overthrow; and if the present generation be not virtuous enough to redress my cause, it shall be no fault of mine if any future age shall be ignorant of the names of the individuals who constitute the present Council; and in what light they shall be considered, their own conscience can furnish them with a tolerable foretaste!
“Was it not a cruelly perverse thing of them, after determining beforehand to award the medal to Mr. Petrie, to inveigle me into the competition by a deceptious advertisement? And then, after signally beating them under all disadvantages, to manœuvre me off by a beggarly cheat? Shame, foul shame for ever upon the Academy!
“Why, sir, the very terms of your letter show their self-convictedness, though they have not honesty enough to avow it overboard! What do they mean by saying that the new matter would ‘make my Essay not appear in print the same as that on which they formed their opinion’? Are they afraid that it would make it appear worse? Not at all; they would rejoice at the pretext, and publish it instanter as a cloak to their verdict! But as they have, in spite of them, admitted those additions to be an improvement,[39] why do they, I ask, who have advertised for truth, again repress its effulgence?
“It is now easy to see what they designed by the clauses of ‘expediency,’ ‘if approved,’ and ‘subject to revisal’; viz., if false, we will insert them in self-vindication; but if true, we will not, as being too great a victory over our own ignorance and favouritism!
“My Essay, however, does not want those new papers: the Council, therefore, will please have them sealed and handed over to the custody of Mr. Tims, my bookseller, in Grafton Street. The only additions which I shall insist upon being inserted are those contained in my letters in appropriate places, as I shall point out.
“I conclude by giving notice that I shall claim Lord Cloncurry’s premium; nor do I despair of recovering that, as I should think that his lordship is too honest a man to sacrifice the interests of literature to the intrigues of a faction!—I have the honour to be, etc.,
“Henry O’Brien.”
(No. 12.)