“Little did the Academy know what arguments I could adduce in elucidation of _certain mysteries_. As little do they now dream what proofs I can summon, though _you_ cannot have _forgotten_ one of them, while I promise I shall make _Dr. M’Donnell recollect_ another; and would not the _Rev. Cæsar Otway_, with whom I have never so much as exchanged a look, be surprised at my quoting him as a reluctant third witness, to show that the gold medal and premium were predetermined to Mr. Petrie before ever I became a candidate; and that, _consequently_, the advertisement under which I was _invited_ to contend, but from which the Council never expected an intruder, was but a specious delusion. “In this determination I violate no act of private regard, nor set light by the claims of individual acquaintance. You know yourself how earnestly I struggled, before the consummation of this nefarious proceeding, to stem the agency of that despicable under-current which I had just detected. I knew that fraud of some kind was at work; and though unable at the moment to fix upon the person in whose favour it was set agoing,--nay, though _mentally_ fastening the blame thereof upon another, whose name, however, I never _let slip_, and to whom, I rejoice to say I have since made more than recompense for this ideal injury,--yet could I not be persuaded but that something _sinister_ was designated; and to frustrate the influence of such prominent deceit, you know how vehement was my address. I implored you, I besought you, and all but upon my _knees_, and with _tears_, I invoked you, by your regard to justice and your fear of a Creator, to _check this trickery_, and allow _merit alone_ and _anonymous_ to decide the issue. “I now, in the same spirit of solemn self-composure, adjure the ‘Council’ through you, in the name of that God before whom they and I shall one day appear, that they will have my cause redressed, and make me reparation, not only for the substantial injury, but for the mental disquietude and agony which this ‘business’ has occasioned. If they do not, rest satisfied that _my path is already chalked_. All the _evolutions_ of the Council, as displayed upon the Towers, and with which I am but too familiar, shall be immortalised in letterpress; and I do not yet despair of the _hereditary fairness_ of my country but that it shall _register_ its dissent from the decision of that tribunal, which could have had at once the _obtuseness_ of intellect and the _perverseness_ of conduct to _stultify_ their own verdict by a contradictory award; and, after _inveigling me into a competition which they never meant to remunerate, deprive_ me of the fruits of my indubitable triumph, in the pursuit of which I had almost lost my life, and cut short my existence in the very spring of my manhood.