“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.) “ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY HOUSE, DUBLIN, “_May 27, 1833_. “SIR,--I am directed by the Council of the Royal Irish Academy to inform you that they feel themselves compelled, in consequence of your late letters, to decline the publication of your Essay, or the maintaining any further correspondence with you on the subject. “Your Essay and the additional matter will be sent, as you desire, to Mr. Tims, Grafton Street, as soon as a copy of the former can be taken.--I am, sir, your most obedient, “J. H. SINGER, _Secretary_. “H. O’Brien, Esq.” The discontinuance of the correspondence was to be expected, but their declining the publication of my Essay in their _Transactions_, merely because of my giving utterance to some unpalatable truths, was an excess of _magnanimity_ which I did not think that even the “Council” would personify.