A 
 
 LETTER 
 
 SIR WILLIAM R. HAMILTON, LL.D., 
 
 ROYAL ASTRONOMER OF IRELAND, AND PRESIDENT 
 OF THE ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY: 
 
 IN REPLY 
 
 CERTAIN CHARGES MADE AGAINST THE AUTHOR 
 BY SIR WILLIAM BETHAM, 
 
 IN TWO LETTERS RECENTLY PUBLISHED. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE PETRIE, R.H.A., M.R.I.A. 
 
 n 
 
 DUBLIN: 
 
 PRINTED BY R. GRAISBERRY, 
 
 AND TO BE HAD OF ALL BOOKSELLERS. 
 
 1840. 
 

 
 
£ * 
 
 
 0 
 
 01 
 
 BOOKSTACKS QEElCE 
 
 SIR WILLIAM R. HAMILTON, LL.D., 
 
 ROYAL ASTRONOMER OF IRELAND, AND PRESIDENT OF 
 THE ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 Sir, 
 
 I trust you will not consider that I take an unpardonable 
 
 liberty in addressing a letter to you, in reply to certain charges cir- 
 culated against me, not only in a letter addressed to yourself by Sir 
 William Betham, but also in an anonymous circular addressed to the 
 Academy of which you are the distinguished head ; as I have every 
 reason to believe that both are the productions of the same indivi- 
 dual. If in this supposition I do Sir William Betham an injustice, 
 let him deny his participation in the anonymous circular, (for I do 
 not believe that he can claim the credit of the sole authorship of it,) 
 and I shall most readily express my regret for the error into which I 
 have fallen. I do not, however, apprehend that I incur much risk 
 of being obliged to make any such apology, as, without allusion to 
 facts which I do not now think it necessary to publish, the characte- 
 ristic negligence of the simplest rules of English grammatical construc- 
 tion which so often appears in both, as well as the similarity of the 
 charges, have already satisfied most persons who have read these 
 epistles, of the identity of their author or authors. 
 
 Previously, however, to entering on my defence, I feel it impera- 
 tively necessary to say a few words as to the true causes of the en- 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 mity so strikingly exhibited towards me in these publications, — such 
 an explanation being in some measure essential to my exculpation, 
 inasmuch as their author or authors, with a degree of skill which I 
 cannot help admiring, have not only avoided any, even the most re- 
 mote, allusion to these causes, but have assigned others, which, if 
 founded in truth, would entitle them to the respect of all men of 
 honourable and cultivated minds. 
 
 Sir William Betham, in his letter to you, Sir, says, that when he 
 could no longer continue his approbation to the measures pursued by 
 the Council, he withdrew, with pain and regret, from responsibility for 
 acts he could neither prevent nor control. And again : that mea- 
 sures having been adopted and acted on, which, in his judgment, 
 were discreditable to the Academy, and calculated to lower its repu- 
 tation in the eyes of the literary world, he was induced to withdraw 
 from the Council. If, then, it were asked of any reader of those 
 letters unacquainted with the recent movements, as well in the 
 Council as in the Academy generally, what the measures so discredi- 
 table to the Academy were, the answer would of course be, the par- 
 tiality shewn to me by the Council in rewarding me with the honours 
 of the Academy for Essays utterly unworthy of its approbation. It 
 would never be supposed that a gentleman apparently so high-minded 
 and disinterested as the author of these letters had had himself with 
 the Council, or with me, as he describes me, an influential member 
 of that Council, any personal cause of quarrel, from which such at- 
 tacks could emanate. It is, therefore, necessary that I should state, 
 that I had an intimacy of the strictest kind with Sir William Betham 
 for more than twenty years ; and that during this period I received 
 many evidences of regard from him, which, on my part, I endeavoured 
 to return by every means in my power. For many years of this time 
 that gentleman and I had equally the honor of sitting together at the 
 Council-table of the Academy, and it is known, Sir, to you and to all 
 the members of the Council, that during this period Sir William 
 Betham was always foremost in expressions of esteem for me, and 
 loudest in his approbation of the papers of which he now speaks in such 
 terms of contempt. It is also known to you and the members of the 
 Council, that on my part I always spoke and acted as the friend of 
 
3 
 
 Sir William Betham, and that my feelings of personal regard for the 
 man sometimes so far influenced my judgment that I have approved 
 and recommended for publication several Essays by that gentleman, 
 which, in the opinion of many of the members of the Council, were by 
 no means deserving of such an honour. It is also known to many of 
 the Council that I carried this spirit of friendship so far as to avoid 
 writing on many subjects which Sir William Betham had already 
 treated of, and which I greatly desired to illustrate, because I could 
 not so write without exhibiting his want of acquaintance not only with 
 the subjects of which he treated, but with the history and antiquities 
 of Ireland generally. At length, Sir, the Council began to feel it 
 necessary, in order to save the Academy in future from the disgrace 
 of sending forth papers in their Transactions calculated to lower 
 their character in the literary and scientific world, to constitute a new 
 body, on whom the duty of reporting on the fitness of the papers 
 offered for publication should devolve. This led to the formation of 
 the Committee of Publication, a body consisting of the President, and 
 seven members selected from the classes of Science, Polite Literature 
 and Antiquities represented in the Council, and of which I had the 
 honour to be elected a member. In the faithful performance of the 
 occasionally painful duty imposed upon them, this Committee had, 
 shortly after their formation, to consider and report on the merits 
 and fitness for publication of a paper by Sir William Betham, con- 
 taining what was offered as a translation, through the medium of 
 the Irish language, of certain inscriptions on plates of bronze found 
 at Gobbio in Italy, and alleged to be of an antiquity of, at least, 
 three thousand years. From a desire to spare me the pain of doing 
 any thing which might give cause of offence to my then friend Sir 
 William Betham, the Committee referred the paper, not to me, but 
 to another and more competent judge, to report on it. The report 
 was unfavourable ; and, however unwilling to do so, my duty to the 
 Council, as well as the maintenance of my own character for inte- 
 grity, required me to acknowledge my concurrence in the justice of 
 the decision which every other member of the Committee had pro- 
 nounced, namely, that the paper would be utterly unworthy of a 
 place in the Transactions of the Academy. Having some knowledge 
 
4 
 
 of the nature of Sir William Betham’s mind, I hardly ventured to 
 anticipate that this decision would be received by him in a spirit of 
 philosophical resignation ; but I did not anticipate from a gentleman 
 the exhibition of such feelings of bitter resentment towards all the 
 members of the Committee collectively, and myself in particular, as it 
 induced him to display. I was not, however, left long in this erroneous 
 supposition. The first time I met Sir William Betham after the opi- 
 nion of the Committee had been made known to him, his rude and 
 repulsive return to my customary friendly salutation taught me that 
 our friendship was at an end. Yet I felt that much forbearance was 
 due to one acting, as I believed, under the momentary influence of 
 excited feelings ; and I could not bring myself to consider as a deli- 
 berate insult conduct which would undoubtedly have been so from 
 any one whose feelings were more under the control of sober judg- 
 ment. Hoping that, whatever his resentful feelings might be at that 
 moment, time would enable him to perceive that he had no just 
 grounds for them, I determined to exhibit towards him such a for- 
 bearance as would shew him how warm my regard had been for him, 
 and how glad I should be to avoid giving him any cause for com- 
 plaining that I retaliated injuries, however justly I might be pro- 
 voked. I accordingly addressed an expostulatory letter to him, 
 couched in my usual terms of regard, and requesting his acceptance 
 of copies of two papers of mine then recently published in the Trans- 
 actions of the Academy. These were returned to me with a tart 
 reply. I continued, nevertheless, to support Sir William Betham in 
 the Council as previously. I heard from innumerable quarters that he 
 was in the daily habit of heaping abuse on me in the most offensive 
 terms. I even heard him do so myself. I heard him abuse those papers 
 of mine which he had formerly praised, and to which he had voted 
 the rewards of the Academy ! I heard him at a general meeting of 
 the Academy, in a laboured invective, revile my paper on the Anti- 
 quities of Aileach, which he had previously praised. I bore all this 
 without betraying any feeling of irritation, except on the occasion 
 last alluded to, when I felt it my duty to call upon him to substan- 
 tiate his charges of ignorance on the part of the writer of that paper, 
 and this I did, not on my own account, but on that of Mr. O’Dono- 
 
5 
 
 van, the translator of the Irish documents contained in it, whose cha- 
 racter as an Irish scholar was so wantonly assailed in an assembly in 
 which he had not the power to defend himself. Even this momentary 
 feeling of irritation, however, passed from my mind, and I again clung 
 to the hope that Sir William Betham would desist from his unmanly 
 vituperation. I even allowed, at the risk of being deprived of my seat 
 in the Council, his anonymous letter to the Academy to pass unan- 
 swered, though written, as I may say, chiefly with the view and in the 
 confident expectation that it would produce that result ; and I have 
 reason now to rejoice that I did so, as the smallness of the minority 
 that voted against me shewed how little I had suffered in the opinion 
 of the Academy from the charges made against me in that document. 
 And even now, Sir, that Sir William Betham has come forward 
 with more manliness, — though perhaps influenced by a conclusion 
 hastily drawn from this forbearance on my part, that I was afraid to 
 encounter him, — I should treat this new ebullition of his ill will with 
 the contempt which it deserves, if I did not feel that my silence 
 might be construed by many into a disregard for the honour of the 
 Academy, whose character has been aspersed by his allegations of 
 partiality on their part towards me. I repeat, Sir, that this is the 
 only consideration which has in any degree influenced me to notice Sir 
 William Betham’s attacks ; for both my tastes and habits are utterly 
 opposed to such miserable personal warfare ; and I do not think that 
 either Sir William Betham or myself hold such a position in literary 
 society as would authorize us to obtrude our differences on the at- 
 tention of the public. 
 
 So much, then, for the original cause of Sir William Betham’s 
 hostility towards me, as well as to the other members of the Com- 
 mittee of Publication, a hostility which has since assumed so many 
 phases, and has destroyed the peaceful and scientific character pre- 
 viously distinguishing the meetings of the Academy, and given them 
 the appearance of those of a tumultuous debating-society. This 
 hostility was first evinced in repeated attacks upon the Committee 
 itself. It then took the form of an anonymous circular addressed to 
 the Aeademy for the purpose of effecting the removal of those mem- 
 bers of the Council most obnoxious to the writer, and who had be- 
 
6 
 
 longed to that Committee. It went even farther. It attempted 
 not only to deprive you, Sir, of the office of President, the highest dis- 
 tinction in the power of the science and literature of Ireland to 
 bestow, but also to strip the office itself of its dignity and value as 
 an object of honourable ambition, by making it rotatory. Failing in 
 this last attempt, it has led to the sagacious discovery that the con- 
 stitution of the Council, from the very foundation of the Academy 
 to the present moment, has been illegal ; and it would be difficult to 
 conjecture what equally important discovery is yet to follow from 
 the same cause. 
 
 I am constrained, however, to acknowledge, that Sir William 
 Betham’s hostility towards me has been increased, if increase were 
 possible, by the circumstance of my obtaining the Gold Medal of 
 the Academy for my Essay on Tara, by the all but unanimous deci- 
 sion of its Council. With Sir William Betham this was a circum- 
 stance beyond human endurance : as he has said, “ It makes one 
 melancholy to think of it !” and, having done every thing in his 
 power to prevent it, by speaking of the Essay in terms of unmea- 
 sured contempt at the Council, and this, too, before he had read it, 
 he now gives vent to his feelings of mortification by abusing me, and 
 by accusing you of negligence or partiality, and the Council gene- 
 rally of a dereliction of their duty to the Academy, or of an utter 
 incapability to form a correct judgment on the merits of my paper, or 
 of those papers by Sir William Betham himself which stood in com- 
 petition with it. 
 
 With these preliminary observations I shall proceed at once to 
 repel the charges brought against me in Sir William Betham’s 
 letters, confining myself as much as possible to those charges, as 
 I would consider it as much a presumption on my part to repel the 
 charges against the Council as their champion, as it would be beneath 
 their dignity to notice such futile attempts to lower their character. 
 I shall begin with the anonymous letter, which in order of time 
 takes precedence of the avowed one. And first, Sir, I must express my 
 entire concurrence in the truism laid down, though with questionable 
 taste, by the writer or writers of this letter : “ that every member of 
 the Council should be, like Csesar’s wife, beyond suspicion.” In com- 
 
7 
 
 meriting on this I shall not avail myself of the opportunity which it 
 might possibly afford of inflicting a wound upon my assailant, by 
 describing the other characteristics which should disqualify from hold- 
 ing a place on the Council. I shall content myself with the re- 
 mark, that most certainly there should be on it no anonymous 
 slanderers of character which they had not the manliness to attack 
 openly. But, Sir, I do believe that there is not one individual 
 now on the Council, who, in the discharge of the trust reposed 
 in him, could justly be suspected of an unworthy motive or a dis- 
 honest thought. It is true that the writer states, “ that it is by 
 no means asserted, or even insinuated, that the Council have been 
 actuated by any sinister or unworthy motive, or that the funds have 
 been either unfairly or improperly expended.” What then, Sir, 
 I may ask, is the object of the attack at all? Why attempt, by this 
 anonymous missive, to displace you, Sir, and three members of that 
 Council, and of these three, two, at least, who are among the most 
 distinguished members of it for learning, activity, and zeal for the 
 honour and welfare of the Academy ? The writers, however, say, 
 “ that it has created surprise in the minds of several of the members 
 that so many of the premiums, indeed nearly all the premiums, of- 
 fered by the Academy for the last ten years, have been adjudged 
 to members of the Council.” Is there no insinuation here ? I think 
 there is, and a very sinister one too ! But if the premiums, or any 
 of them, have been adjudged partially or improperly, should the 
 blame of such scandalous conduct rest exclusively on the shoulders 
 of those whom it was the object of this attack to have turned igno- 
 miniously off the Council? Should not the whole Council have 
 been removed ? For it is a fact, that in the adjudication of the 
 premiums complained of, the decisions of the Council were, in every 
 instance, almost unanimous. Sir, within the period stated, there 
 have been eight Medals adjudged to members of the Council; one 
 to yourself, one to Mr. D’ Alton, now no longer a member, one to 
 Dr. Drummond, one to Dr. Apjohn, one to Professor Mac Cullagh, 
 and three to myself. Did the Council act with improper partiality 
 in all these cases, or only in some ? Why leave this in doubt ? 
 But I may assume from Sir William Betham’s last letter that it was 
 
8 
 
 only in my own case that this partiality, which, according to this 
 writer, has damaged the character of the Council, was exhibited. 
 Sir, the first Medal awarded to me was for my paper on the Round 
 Towers, and on this occasion there was but one dissentient vote, 
 that of Mr. D’ Alton, who had himself previously written on the same 
 subject in support of an adverse theory. There was, indeed, one vote 
 given in my favour on this occasion, which might, perhaps, be con- 
 sidered partial ; it was that of a gentleman who has since withdrawn 
 from the Council, who declared that he never gave a vote with such 
 great pleasure, inasmuch as my paper had wholly changed his pre- 
 vious opinions on the subject, and, as he thought, settled the ques- 
 tion for ever. This gentleman, however, who was no other than 
 Sir William Betham himself, could hardly, I presume, have been 
 sincere, as I have recently heard him declare at a public Scientific 
 Meeting, which he was addressing, that he had read my paper with 
 the greatest attention, and that it had utterly failed to convince him ! 
 The next Medal and Prize awarded to me were for my Essay on the 
 Ancient Military Architecture of Ireland ; and on this I have only 
 to say, that I believe that the adjudication of the Council in its fa- 
 vour was a unanimous one, and that it certainly had the support of 
 one whose judgment will not, I suspect, be questioned by the ano- 
 nymous writer, namely, Sir William Betham himself. On the third 
 and last occasion on which I had the honour to obtain the Medal of 
 the Academy, namely, for my Essay on Tara, I had not, indeed, 
 the good fortune to have the support of that gentleman, for he was 
 not on the Council when the prize was adjudged. It is but fair, 
 however, to confess, that I believe I should not have had his vote if 
 he had been present ; for he declared in the Council, previously to 
 any adjudication, his unasked opinion, that it was not deserving of a 
 prize. As he had not, however, read my paper at the time, I might, 
 but for his recent letter, have hoped that he would have changed his 
 opinion of it when he had done so ; but, be this as it may, the adjudi- 
 cation of the Council was, in this, as in the former instances, nearly 
 unanimous; there were but two dissentients, one myself, the other Dr. 
 Orpen, one of the Committee of Antiquities, who, with a candour 
 that did him honour, declared at the ballot that he had never read a 
 
9 
 
 line of my paper, and never would ; and that he voted against it 
 because he thought I had got Medals enough already. 
 
 Thus, Sir, I have shown that, if there was any undue partiality in 
 the adjudication of Medals to me, the Council, with one or two ex- 
 ceptions, were all equally culpable ; and it would consequently be an 
 unfair thing to punish only two or three for a crime in which the 
 whole body had participated. But, Sir, I must say that I can per- 
 ceive nothing remarkable in the fact that, nearly all the Medals have 
 been adjudged to members of the Council, and nothing that should 
 on that account in the slightest degree create suspicion of unfair deal- 
 ing. Are not the members of the Council, or, at least, ought they not 
 to be, selected from the most distinguished members of the Academy ? 
 Are they not chosen for this honourable situation from the very cir- 
 cumstance of their being thought most able to uphold its character 
 in the world of science and literature ? To me, Sir, it would show 
 very little judgment on the part of the Academy if they selected 
 gentlemen from their body to represent them to the world who were 
 not generally able to compete successfully with those not of the 
 Council or Academy. 
 
 The anonymous writer, who professes that he does not mean to 
 insinuate any thing against the Council, next comes to a graver and 
 more specific charge against that body generally, and against me in 
 particular. He states that “ It is also well known, that through one 
 member has been paid to persons employed by him, large sums for 
 copying Irish MSS. — an expenditure, to say the least of it, of very 
 doubtful expediency, while those employes of the same gentleman have 
 been paid further sums for examining the accuracy of these copies, 
 possibly his own work.” It is not very easy to understand clearly 
 the meaning of this strangely constructed sentence. What does the 
 writer mean by the statement, “ that those employes of the same 
 gentleman have been paid further sums for examining the accuracy 
 of those copies, possibly his own work ?” He surely cannot mean my 
 work ? But, one thing is at least sufficiently distinct ; — that there is a 
 palpable insinuation conveyed, that I have put money into my pocket 
 by a job, and that the Council have connived at this either through 
 ignorance or dishonesty. Is there, Sir, in the Academy any gentle- 
 man of an honourable mind that would believe in the truth of such 
 
 c 
 
10 
 
 an insinuation ? The Treasurer knows that not a halfpenny of the 
 money paid for these transcripts ever passed through my hands, and 
 that the sums paid for them werewoted, not by the Council, who had 
 not the power to vote them, but by the Academy collectively. Let 
 any members of the Academy, who may be so far influenced by such 
 insinuations as to doubt of the fairness of the prices paid for making 
 these MS. copies, look at them, and judge for himself of their justice. 
 These MSS. consist of two works, — the first, the Book of Duald 
 Mac Firbis, transcribed from the autograph original belonging to the 
 Earl of Roden ; the second, the Book of Lismore, as it is popularly 
 called, transcribed from the original belonging to the Duke of De- 
 vonshire. I confess, Sir, I am answerable for the crime— if it be 
 one — of suggesting to the Council the propriety of borrowing the 
 original of the first of these from its noble owner, and also that I 
 voted for its transcription ; so did every member of the Council, with 
 the exception of Sir William Betham, who declared that would be 
 of no value whatever to the Academy, though, as he said, he would 
 be glad to have it copied for himself. The Council, however, ha- 
 ving determined to have it copied, Sir William Betham offered to 
 find a competent scribe for the task, which proposal was accepted of 
 without any opposition from me. Ultimately it appeared that he 
 would not permit this scribe to make the transcript any where but in 
 his own house; and as Lord Roden would not allow of this, or that the 
 MS. should be in any custody except that of the Academy, or of the 
 Dean of St. Patrick’s, it became necessary to look for another scribe; 
 and then, but not before, I recommended a competent person, em- 
 ployed, not in my service, but in that of the Ordnance Survey of 
 Ireland, Mr. Eugene Curry. Of the value of the work thus copied 
 some idea may, I trust, be formed from a paper on the subject, which 
 I had the honour to read to the Academy, and which has been printed 
 in their Transactions ; — and if any gentleman should desire further 
 evidence on this point, I would refer him to Dr. O’Conor’s Catalogue 
 Raisonnee of the Stowe MSS., in which an imperfect transcript of 
 this work in that Library is described as one of its most valuable 
 treasures. The second MS. was copied by the same scribe ; and 
 with regard to the value of this work it is not necessary for me to 
 offer any remark, as it will be proved by a much more competent 
 
li 
 
 authority, my friend Dr. Todd, by whom the original was procured* 
 and who is at present engaged upon a paper on the subject, to be 
 read to the Academy. With respect, however, to the sums paid for 
 the transcription of these MSS. I shall say a few' words. For the first, 
 the Academy paid the sum of fifty pounds, including five pounds to 
 Mr. O’Donovan for collating the whole MS. word for word with the 
 original, and correcting any errors that might have previously existed. 
 For the second, the sum of fifty-eight pounds was paid, including 
 eight pounds to Mr. O’Donovan for a similar collation and cor- 
 rection. And I have only to add, that if the Academy should be 
 led by the insinuations of the anonymous writer to conclude that 
 they have not received full value for their money, I am authorized 
 by more than one gentleman to state that they are ready at any 
 moment to take these transcripts at the prices paid for them by the 
 Academy. Let the Academy now judge for themselves of the ac- 
 curacy of the facts which the anonymous writer states that many of 
 the members were previously unaware of. 
 
 This writer goes on to say, — 
 
 “ It also may be proper to state, that in December 1832, about 
 nine years ago,” [it is, in fact, little more than seven,] “the member of 
 Council, to whom reference has been made, received for an Essay on the 
 Round Towers of Ireland, never yet published , a gold medal and a pre- 
 mium of fifty pounds. In March 1834, the same individual again received 
 another fifty pounds, and in 1835, a gold medal, for Essays neither of 
 which have been published .” 
 
 And to this statement the following note is appended : — 
 
 “ It is now between five and six years since several large plates of 
 ancient bells were engraved, and paid for by the Academy ; and yet, to the 
 present moment, there is no present probability of the article, which they 
 were to illustrate, being published. Should such proceedings be permitted ? 
 or would they be permitted if the Council had done their duty.” 
 
 With respect to these charges of delaying the publication of 
 my papers, I must relieve the Council from any share of blame ; 
 the delay is entirely attributable to myself. I confess, that in the 
 publication of papers which would occupy a very large portion of 
 the Transactions of the Academy, and necessarily be attended with 
 considerable expense, I was anxious that they should receive all the 
 
12 
 
 perfection which the most ample research on my part could enable 
 me to bestow on them, previous to their publication. Still, I may 
 observe, that but for certain circumstances connected with the print- 
 ing of the Transactions of the Academy, these papers should have 
 appeared long since. Within the period since they were written 
 three volumes of the Transactions have been published. In the 
 first of these volumes it was impossible that any of these papers, 
 in consequence of their length, could have found a place ; and in 
 the second I could not consent to let my Essays appear ; for the 
 printing of the Transactions had passed into the hands of a differ- 
 ent Printer ; and I must now repeat what I have often said before, 
 that the volume which he printed was done in such a manner that 
 nothing could induce me to trust my works in his hands ; and that 
 sooner than do so, I was ready, at any moment, to return to the 
 Academy the Medals and Premiums which I had received for them. 
 The printing of the Transactions w T as, however, after this volume, 
 taken out of that Printer’s hands ; and surely I cannot be charged 
 with idleness in the matter of publication since, when it is recollected, 
 that I have printed no less than three Essays in the last volume,- 
 amounting to little less than two hundred and fifty pages. And with 
 respect to the charge accusing me of delaying the printing of my 
 paper on Ancient Bells, it is easily refuted. It is not true that any 
 of the plates of the Bells have been, as stated, engraved and paid 
 for five or six years ; none of them have been engraved as yet three 
 years ; and some of them are even in the engraver’s hands at pre- 
 sent ; — and, as for the paper itself, it has, been read at the Academy, 
 and will be published as soon as the plates are ready. There is 
 another misstatement in these charges which I should also notice, 
 namely, that I received a Prize in 1834, and a Medal in 1835, for 
 Essays, “ neither of which have been published.” In those years I 
 received but the one prize, viz. : that for my paper on Ancient Irish 
 Military Architecture. 
 
 The last charge which I have to notice in this anonymous circu- 
 lar is one of a graver character than any of those I have already 
 answered 5 it is no less than this, — that I have pocketed the Medal of 
 the Academy for a paper which I did not write, and this with the 
 cognizance and connivance of the Council. This charge is conveyed 
 in the following words : 
 
13 
 
 “Lastyear he received another medal, for an Essay the adjudication 
 on the Essays having been postponed from one period to another, in order 
 to afford him time to print his, and thus enable him to compete with the 
 others ! Whether or not this was perfectly fair to other candidates, is very 
 questionable. There is one circumstance, however, with regard to this 
 Essay on Tara Hill, which should not be sanctioned by the Academy, and 
 it is this : That a very needless expenditure of the funds has been caused in 
 the printing and publishing of this Essay — to say nothing of giving a 
 medal for it. Of this the members of the Academy will judge, when in- 
 formed — that it cannot be truly said to have been written by him whose name 
 it bears; but was composed by the direction of Colonel Colby, by several 
 individuals for the trigonometrical survey, and was to have been published 
 by the officers engaged in the survey in' their work; but Colonel Colby 
 having permitted it to be read at one of the meetings of the Academy, it 
 was referred to Council, and by the Council (who were well aw r are of 
 these facts) it was forthwith ordered to be published at the expense of 
 the Academy . It occupies upwards of 200 pages of their Transactions, 
 and has cost the Academy a very large sum of money, — and this without 
 the slightest benefit to the Academy or the public, as it would have been 
 printed by Government in the Survey now in course of publication, had 
 the Academy not printed it. Why a medal should have been awarded to 
 a member of Council for an Essay composed by other individuals, or why 
 such Essay should have been printed by the Academy, are questions to be 
 answered by the Council who sanctioned the proceeding. By many it is 
 considered that no other reason can be assigned, than that it was done to 
 afford an excuse for giving a medal to a member of Council.” 
 
 Sir, with respect to the charge of postponement of a decision by 
 the Council till my paper was printed,' the Council, — who, if the charge 
 were true, would be the guilty party, — can themselves answer ; but 
 the charge is not true. The Council adjudicated on the merits of 
 the antiquarian papers without taking my Essay on Tara into con- 
 sideration, in consequence of its not being printed within the time 
 allowed ; and they decided that the printed papers of that class were 
 not deserving of a Medal ; so that those papers, at least, suffered 
 nothing by a competition with mine. As to the heavier charges, 
 that the Essay on Tara cannot truly be said to have been written by 
 me, and that it was composed by the direction of Colonel Colby, 
 by several individuals employed on the Trigonometrical Survey of 
 Ireland, they are equally untrue ; and to refute the first of these 
 allegations, that it cannot be truly said to have been written by me, 
 
14 
 
 I shall adduce the testimony of the officers of the Survey themselves. 
 In a letter addressed by Colonel Colby to me he thus expresses 
 himself : 
 
 ei Many thanks for your History and Antiquities of Tara, which I 
 shall place in my library as a record of what may be done by judicious in- 
 vestigation and comparison of facts drawn from existing relics with tradi- 
 tional accounts. Histories are among the earliest books used in the 
 instruction of youth; and to disentangle facts from the semi-fabulous 
 accounts which are handed down from age to age is a most valuable 
 service to mankind. It is, however, like the direction of the Survey, a 
 work which requires very severe thinking to produce completeness 
 and accuracy, which the world have not been accustomed to consider ne- 
 cessary, and of which they will be too long in learning the value, to bestow 
 any proportionate credit on its author. You will have the consciousness 
 of having done good service to the rising generation ; and when true his- 
 tories of mankind shall supersede the romances under the name of histo- 
 ries which mislead the unthinking and perpetuate mischievous prejudices, 
 your name will rise in estimation. 
 
 “ 9th August , 1839.” 
 
 In a letter addressed to me about the same time^ by my friend 
 Captain Larcom, from whom I received the warmest encouragement, 
 during the progress of the paper, the following passage occurs : 
 
 “ I hail your couronnement with joy, * * * * I look on this paper as one 
 of a series, and properly the first. I consider it not only— perhaps not so 
 much — an account of the remains at Tara, as a summary of proofs that in 
 the authentic existing documents of Irish literature is to be found the real 
 clue to all our antiquities. This paper then is a precursor, its ground and 
 object are general. Next comes the Towers, which will place the Early 
 Christian Antiquities on a sound footing, and bring them to the time when 
 all that is peculiar to Ireland in them ceases, and they merge in the Ec- 
 clesiastic Architecture and Antiquities of Britain and Western Europe 
 generally. Then the Military Architecture anterior to Christianity, i. e. 
 Pagan. This has been a subject either scoffed at, or considered beyond 
 the region of fact. Your Paper will place that right One subject is want- 
 ing— Sepulture, that all we know of Pagan and Ecclesiastic may be 
 brought together. And when these are published, I think you will have 
 done more than any one man has ever accomplished, and Irish Antiquities 
 and History will rest on a basis from which future investigators may start, 
 or may enlarge and detail as much as they please.” 
 
15 
 
 Sir, it is quite true that in the compilation of this Paper I have 
 availed myself of every possible assistance which the kindness of my 
 friends enabled me to obtain ; and, among the rest, that I was even 
 honoured with such aid by yourself on a point which required it. 
 To the Survey I was indebted for a map and also sections, and for 
 the assistance of my friend Mr. O’Donovan, and others, in transcrib- 
 ing, translating, and preparing for my use the crude materials which 
 I selected, and upon which Mr. O’Donovan in particular expended 
 the labour of many weary nights. I have never made any secret of 
 this. I have acknowledged it in the work itself ; and I think I rather 
 deserve praise than discredit for having so availed myself of assistance, 
 which was of unquestionable use to me. In the compilation of his- 
 torical works, or of antiquarian essays, there is nothing uncommon 
 in the writer’s acceptance of such aid, though it may not always be 
 honestly acknowledged. The great Archbishop Ussher and Sir 
 James Ware were not above receiving such assistance ; and I never 
 heard it made a ground of censure against Mr. Pinkerton, that, in 
 the compilation of his Dissertations on the Ancient History of Scot- 
 land, he availed himself of the Irish authorities which were trans- 
 lated for his use by the venerable Charles O’Conor of Belanagare. 
 But, having made these acknowledgments, I must say, that it is not 
 true that the paper is not substantially and bond fide mine ; nor is 
 there the slightest truth in the assertion, that it was drawn up by 
 the direction of Colonel Colby. It originated with myself, and it 
 was written expressly as an Academy paper, offering a specimen of 
 the memoirs illustrating the Ordnance Survey ,* but as it was on me 
 that the duty of collecting materials for the historical and antiquarian 
 department of the Survey devolved, I was bound to give to the Survey 
 the full credit of all the information connected with topographical 
 subjects which I possessed, or which I had acquired by means of it, 
 and which might properly be said to be its own ; and, consequently, 
 it was no less than my duty to obtain, and acknowledge, as I have done, 
 the permission of Colonel Colby to write this paper and to read it 
 to the Academy, with a view to its publication in their Transactions, 
 if they should deem it worthy of such an honor. The paper was, 
 indeed, as stated in the introduction, written with the intention that 
 it should subsequently constitute a portion of the Ordnance Memoir 
 
16 
 
 of the County of Meath, if that work should ever be undertaken ; 
 but that it necessarily assumed a new form, in a great degree incom- 
 patible with the fulfilment of such an intention, I shall presently 
 shew, when I come to reply to that part of Sir William Betham’s 
 avowed letter, in which this accusation is repeated. 
 
 There, is but one other remark in this anonymous circular to be 
 noticed, and I have done with it. I am charged with arrogant rude- 
 ness in an answer which I made to a member of the Academy, who 
 demanded of me certain explanations as to the causes of delay in the 
 printing of my paper on the Round Towers, and which I refused to 
 give him. Sir, if that member of the Academy had asked any 
 questions of me in courteous language, I should have replied in the 
 kindest spirit ; but it will be in the recollection of many present 
 on that occasion that such was not the case. He came to the Aca- 
 demy? which he rarely visits, to gratify his own personal hostility to 
 me, as one of the Committee of Publication, who had taken the 
 printing of the Transactions out of his hands, and attacked me in a 
 speech, which I could not help considering as personally offensive; 
 and I answered him, not arrogantly, but as I had a right to do, by 
 denying his right to interrogate me. If he was dissatisfied with the 
 delay in the printing of my paper, — which, perhaps, he would rather 
 should never see the light, — it was to the Council that he should have 
 complained; but he certainly had no right whatever to put me on 
 my trial before the Academy. 
 
 I have now done with this epistle. Sir William Betham having 
 found that it has utterly failed to produce the effects intended by it, 
 your removal from the President’s chair, and mine and that of 
 others from the Council ; — and that, with a body composed, as the 
 Academy is, of educated gentlemen, anonymous accusations are 
 taken at their true worth ; he has thrown off his mask, put on the 
 tabard, and appeared in proprid persona, with a second letter. In 
 this letter he has deemed it prudent to assume, to a great extent, a 
 different tone. The Council, against whom, as I have shown, so 
 many groundless insinuations were pointed in his anonymous letter, 
 are here treated with apparent respect ; and even you, Sir, who were 
 treated, in that document, as one unfit for your elevated position, 
 
17 
 
 with a view to your removal from the chair of the Academy, are 
 addressed in terms in some degree expressive of the respect due 
 to your station and your distinguished learning. It is towards me 
 alone that Sir William Betham appears in both letters as the same 
 person. Of the sixteen pages of which this pamphlet is composed, 
 no less than twelve are devoted to an attack on me, as bitter, and, I 
 trust I shall show, as unfair, as ever emanated from the mind of one 
 under the excitement of personal animosity. This, Sir, I have to 
 answer now ; and lest he or his supporters, if he have any, should 
 either suppose or allege that I have suppressed any of his charges, 
 or that I feared to encounter him, I shall here reprint the whole of 
 his twelve pages verbatim. 
 
 “ I am aware that the majority of the Council, in a general way, take 
 for granted what is told them on such departments, as are not their own 
 objects of study, and, therefore, I am ready to acquit them of all inten- 
 tional error. Not being acquainted with the Irish language, they were 
 the more easily led to take for granted the statements made to them. 
 
 “ Let us now see if the expenditure which has taken place, contributed 
 to * the welfare and vitality of the Society made any ‘ conquests in the 
 wide region of the unknown or be a circumstance * rather for congratula- 
 tion than regret' 
 
 “ The largest item of recent expenditure is the paper on Tara Hill, 
 which occupies 22 7 pages of vol. xviii. of the Transactions. The printing 
 of which must have cost the Academy several hundreds of pounds. 
 
 “ In your address to the Academy, at the close of the last session, 
 when you presented the gold medal for this essay, (printed Proceedings, 
 p. 350, et seq.) you said, * The award of a medal , in the name of a learned 
 body , is attended by a grave responsibility .’ 
 
 “ Again, p. 351. * Mr. Petrie’s Essay may be considered as consisting 
 
 of two principal parts : the first, containing an account of events connected 
 with Tara, compiled from Irish Manuscripts, and illustrative of the History 
 of Ireland ; and the second part being devoted to an identification of the 
 existing remains, including an examination of the various descriptive 
 notices also contained in ancient Irish Manuscripts. The documents 
 brought forward possess a great degree of curiosity and interest ; many 
 of them, also, are now for the first time published ; and (w r hich is of im- 
 portance to observe), are given in an entire unmutilated form 9 accompanied 
 
 D 
 
18 
 
 with literal translations , and with philological and other notes, adapted to 
 increase their value to the student of the ancient literature of Ireland,'' 
 
 “ Again. 6 It is this clear establishment of the authenticity of what has 
 been commonly thought doubtful — this employment of a manifestly rigor - 
 ous method of inquiry , in what had appeared to many persons a region of 
 fancy and fable ; in a word, this evident approach to the character of 
 scientific proof which has made (I own) a stronger impression on my own 
 mind, and (I believe) on the minds of others too, than even the literary 
 and antiquarian interest of those curious and valuable details, (such as 
 the Hymn of St. Patrick, and the particulars respecting the Leagh Fail 9 
 or ancient coronation stone of Ireland.') 
 
 “ (P. 252.) * At no slight expense, our volumes of Transactions have 
 
 been, and still are, open to receive such fruits of diligent and judicious 
 research in this department of study , as are contained in the paper on 
 Tara,' 
 
 “ (P. 353.) * Nor ought (I think) the presence of the representative 
 
 of our sovereign and patron, to restrain me from avowing the hope, in 
 which you all will join, that our desire, long since expressed, for the pub- 
 lication of our Irish Records, may after no long time be granted; and 
 that the state may soon resolve to undertake, or assist in the undertaking, 
 a task for which the materials and the labourers are ready, but of which 
 the expense, though to a nation trifling, is too great for an Academy to 
 bear.’ 
 
 “ c Of the possibility of accomplishing that task, and of the fruit which 
 may be expected from so doing, if a proof and a specimen be sought , 
 they may be found in that essay on Tara Hill , for which I now , in the 
 name of this Academy, present this medal to its Author,' 
 
 “ The caution at the beginning of our volumes cannot apply to this 
 Essay, viz. — ‘ That the Academy desire it to be understood, that the Authors 
 of the several Essays are alone answerable for their contents' Here you. 
 Sir, as President, in the most unequivocal manner, in the name of the 
 Academy, adopted the Essay and its contents, and conferred on the 
 Author the highest reward of merit, and by that act have indeed incurred 
 a * grave responsibility,' Neither can the Author of the Essay shelter 
 himself from the responsibility of the translations which appear in this 
 Essay, for he vouches the translator Mr. O’Donovan, in page 26, saying— 
 1 Of these previously untranslated and unvalued documents, translations 
 were made by Mr. O' Donovan, a gentleman eminently qualified for the 
 task.' 
 
19 
 
 “ I can very well imagine any thing of the Author of such an Essay, 
 that he may have considered these translations to have been genuine 
 representations of the Irish originals 3 and also that he might be easily 
 imposed upon, when he fancied the Philomaths, in whom he trusted, to 
 be the best Irish scholars of the day, and stigmatized as heretics against 
 Celtic uniformity all those who ventured to assert, or imagine, that the 
 ancient poets and authors of Ireland wrote prose with common sense, and 
 poetry with meaning : all this I can believe, and can make every allow- 
 ance for him. But, Sir, I confess the judgment you have pronounced on 
 this Essay is to me altogether unaccountable 3 I cannot imagine that you 
 would have adopted what you have stated in your address, on presenting 
 the medal, from hearsay, or the suggestion of the Author, or of any one 
 else : on the other hand, it appears incredible, that a gentleman known to 
 be an accomplished scholar, blessed with a mind of high order and supe- 
 rior understanding, could have read the trash of which, for the most part, 
 the Essay (and especially the translations) is composed, without disgust 
 and contempt 3 and surprise increases into astonishment when he pub- 
 licly gives such nonsense currency by the sanction of his eminent name, 
 and incurs the 6 grave responsibility ' of awarding for it a gold medal in 
 the name of the learned Society of which he was the head! ! ! It makes 
 one melancholy to think of it. 
 
 “ Allow me now, Sir, to call your attention to these translations, from 
 which you say in your Address, p. 352, ‘ full historic certainty may be 
 attained respecting the ancient state of Ireland' It would occupy too 
 much space to insert extracts from all the translations, I shall therefore 
 give but one in poetry, and another in prose, as fair specimens of the 
 whole. 
 
 “ Trans, xviii. p. 133. 
 
 “ * Cuan O’Lochain composed the following : — 
 
 “ c Gives beauty to the women, 
 
 Teamur without weakness after being erected. 
 
 The daughter of Lughaigh received in her hand 
 A hill plain, which was sorrowful to a harlot . 
 
 The portion which the wife of Gede requested 
 Of her husband, I have heard, 
 
 (Was) a fair coloured dingna of delightful ascent. 
 
 Which she was active and skilful in selecting. 
 
 A habitation, which was a dun and a fastness, 
 
20 
 
 Which was the glory of murs without demolition , 
 
 On which was the monument of Tea after her death , 
 
 So that it was an addition to her dowry . 
 
 The humble Heremon had 
 A woman in beautiful confinement. 
 
 Who received from him any thing she wished for. 
 
 He gave her whatever he promised her.’ ” 
 
 “ In page 130, is a translation of a prose passage from the Dinsean- 
 chus, having reference to the same subject. ‘Teamur, then said Amergin, 
 is mur Tea, i. e. the wall of Tea, the daughter of Lughaidh, son of Ith, 
 who went to Geide Olgathach .’ 
 
 “ Now, Sir, who were the worthies here mentioned — this Tea and this 
 Geide, and at what periods did they live ? According to Irish history, 
 Lughaigh, the father of Tea, was the son of Ith, uncle to Milesius, the 
 father of the Irish patriarchs, Heber, Ir, and Heremon, who according to 
 some Irish chronologers, lived about the year 1690 before Christ ; whereas 
 Geide Ollgothach was the son of Ollamh Fodla, and lived according to 
 the same authority, in the year 1240, as near as possible, 450 years after 5 
 she must have indeed been a sorrowful harlot, to have committed adultery 
 at such a patriarchal age . 
 
 “ It may be objected that Irish chronology is not altogether a certain 
 authority ; may be so, therefore be it known to you, Sir, that Geide 
 Ollgothach, who is accused of being enamoured of Tea, was the ninth 
 generation in descent from Ir the brother of Heremon, husband to the 
 aforesaid Tea! You will admit that Geide must have had an extraor- 
 dinary taste. To be serious, such gross ignorance is disgusting in those 
 who pretend to give information on Irish History. 
 
 “ Perhaps, Sir, you will condescend to communicate to the Academy, 
 at their next meeting, the meaning of this translation of Cuan O’Locliain’s 
 poem, if it has any ? and how it is calculated to c secure the welfare and 
 vitality of the Academy ,’ what ‘ conquests it is likely to achieve in the wide 
 region of the unknown, and how it will change our regrets into congratula- 
 tions ?' 
 
 " Why, Sir, are not all these alleged and pretended translations in 
 this Essay, * a parcel of unconnected absurdities,' as they are justly deno- 
 minated by an excellent Irish scholar, in a private letter received a few 
 days since ? Are they not unmitigated nonsense ? If they really repre- 
 sent the originals, ought not these poems to be allowed to remain 
 
21 
 
 unknown, and be left unvalued and untranslated ? Should the very 
 limited funds of the Academy be expended in the printing and publishing 
 such trash ? Are the members of the Academy to be frowned into silent 
 submission to such a prostitution of their funds and sacrifice of their cha- 
 racter as learned men, and because they presume to complain, are they 
 to be twitted with being factious and disposed to make a debating society 
 of the Academy ? 
 
 “ And further, let me ask, are not these pretended translations gross 
 and scandalous libels on the ancient poets and literature of Ireland, and 
 calculated to bring them into contempt ? They have been sent forth in 
 the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, with the sanction of the 
 reward of a gold medal and of a crowned Essay , and under the unequivo- 
 cal eulogy of its President. Y ou said, these are literal translations ; why. 
 Sir, they are as much like the originals in meaning, as they are like the 
 ballad of Chevy Chace, which might with as much truth be asserted to be 
 a true translation from this poem of Cuan O’Lochain. 
 
 44 It is not necessary for me to show, in this place, the true interpreta- 
 tions of these poems, or of the Dinseanchus, or for any one to be acquainted 
 with the Irish language, to judge of them — they are genuine English 
 nonsense, without any meaning. Well may these Philomaths say, that 
 the ancient Irish writers are difficult to be translated , they are indeed to 
 such pretenders to learning ; I verily believe there is not a single line in 
 this poem of O’Lochain’s correctly rendered, the other translations are 
 equally uintelligible, and exhibit the same gross ignorance. 
 
 44 Wherever these translators met with a word which they found be- 
 yond their skill, they made it a proper name, by altering from the MS., 
 and making its initial a Capital, or giving the Irish word in the transla- 
 tion ! ! For instance, in p. 124, the fifth line from the bottom — the words 
 oeip ib is rendered the Desii ofTeamur. The true meaning of these 
 words is the beautiful country of Teamur. In the next p. 130 : 
 
 44 4 Teamur, then said Amergin, is mur Tea, i. e. the wall of Tea, the 
 daughter of Lughaigh, son of Ith, who went to Geide Ollgathach . 4 The 
 
 first royal crime was the crime of Tea, the daughter of Lughaigh, with 
 Gede' I have before stated that this Gede lived 450 years after Tea. 
 This absurdity has arisen from not having understood the passage, and 
 changing into proper names, writing it thus — co ^eoi n-Ollgocac, 
 when it ought to have been written, co geo m oil jorach, i. e. *who 
 went at the head of, {or commanded,) the mighty spearmen.' This is also 
 the epithet applied by Cuan O'Lochain in the poem in page 133 — 
 
22 
 
 puaip injen luigoech na lann, ‘ For the daughter of Looe of spears, 
 evidently means the same, not Iciim. 
 
 “ Every member of the Academy, of a standing previous to the pub- 
 lication of the 18th volume, is entitled to a copy thereof, and those who 
 have been elected since can see it at the Academy’s House. I call their 
 attention to the other translations which appear in this Essay ; let them 
 judge for themselves of their merit 5 let them examine, and they will 
 find that the passages I have selected are not the sole absurdities, but that 
 they are all of the like character. 
 
 “ Having said so much, T will not remark on the absurd twaddle about 
 the Liagh Fail , which is quite unworthy of criticism — the idea of a king 
 either standing or sitting on a round-headed stone-post , at the time of his 
 inauguration, is as ridiculous as his bathing in beef broth. No such 
 absurdities are to be found in the original Irish. The post was evidently 
 put up for cows to rub themselves against. This discovery is a beautiful 
 specimen of the Nidus equce , and ought to be communicated to the Zoolo- 
 gical Society. 
 
 “ So far from Mr. Petrie’s Essay, in my humble judgment, contributing 
 in the slightest degree to forward Irish literature, or add credit to the 
 Academy, I think it has inflicted an injury, which it will never recover; 
 and as to the loss of character to the Academy, by conferring a medal on 
 such a production, I fear the stain is indelible — the leprosy can never be 
 removed. 
 
 “ But, Sir, let me now ask why this Essay ever appeared in our Trans- 
 actions at all ? I recollect the reading of the first part of it, and the 
 impression then made on my mind, that it was not intended for publica- 
 tion in the Transactions, is confirmed by the very first paragraph, to the 
 following effect in the Transactions. 
 
 “ * The Ordnance Map of the County of Meath being on the eve of pub- 
 lication, I am permitted by Colonel Colby to read to the Academy a portion 
 of the memoir written to illustrate that map , which, from its importance to 
 ancient Irish topography and history, can scarcely fail to excite a general 
 interest, and at the same time to prove in a very striking manner the 
 value and importance of the great national work, of which it will constitute 
 a portion .’ 
 
 “ It was read (or at least a portion of it) on three successive meetings 
 of the Academy, the 24th of April, 8th and 22nd May, 1837. I was not 
 present at the last meeting, when it was referred to Council, as l sup- 
 pose ; but I was not a little surprised to find it was ordered to be printed 
 
23 
 
 in the Transactions . It was printed, and there being an order made in 
 the Council, that no Essay should be allowed to compete for the gold 
 medal but those which were printed, the adjudication of the medal was 
 postponed, at the instance of Mr. Petrie himself, from month to month , 
 and one year to another, in order to let it in for the medal, and the medal 
 was given to the author ! ! ! 
 
 “ Now, Sir, I again ask how it happened that this Essay found its way 
 into our Transactions ? It was read by permission of Colonel Colby . 
 Perhaps, Sir, you will have the condescension to say if that be true ? It 
 was written for the Ordnance Survey, as part of a Memoir, intended to 
 illustrate the Map of the County of Meath. Why, may I be permitted to 
 ask, did it not appear in that work ? Can you answer this question ? 
 
 “ There is, however, a story afloat, which is believed to be true, that 
 the attention of the Lords of the Treasury having been drawn to the 
 Memoir of the Map of Derry, their Lordships had taken advice, respecting 
 the same, of certain eminent antiquaries and literary men in London, 
 whose report on the said Memoir was any thing but favourable — I mean 
 as to the antiquarian portion, and the translations in particular — and that 
 their Lordships sent over a peremptory order for the discontinuance of 
 such Memoirs, and even refused to allow the proceeds of the sale of the 
 Memoir of Derry to be expended on the Memoir of Meath. 
 
 “ Well, Sir, the story goes further, and states, that the plates for em- 
 bellishing this Memoir having been already engraved, what was to be 
 done ? The Lords of the Treasury refused to stultify themselves by 
 sanctioning the publication of any more of such delectable translations ; 
 the author, therefore, kindly offered (alleging, I suppose, the permission 
 of Colonel Colby) the precious production to the Council of the Royal 
 Irish Academy, who referred it to the Committee of Publication, of which 
 its Author was, and is, an influential member ; who having reported 
 favourably, it was printed at an expense of some hundred pounds ; and a 
 much greater expenditure of character was thereby inflicted on the 
 Academy, with the disbursement of near a third of their vested capital. 
 
 “ These circumstances, Sir, led to my resigning my seat at the Coun- 
 cil ; I could not countenance such proceedings, and therefore retired 
 from all responsibility. These facts. Sir, show clearly that the Academy 
 were indiscreet in resigning themselves, bound hand and foot, to any 
 Council, and that they ought now to interpose, to prevent the waste of 
 their remaining capital stock. 
 
 “ Four hundred pounds have already been, in unsuspicious confidence. 
 
24 
 
 placed in the hands of the Council, for woods cuts for Mr. Petrie’s Essay- 
 on the Round Towers, which we are told is to occupy an entire volume of 
 the Transactions , the printing of which will swallow up our little remain- 
 ing capital. Nearly nine years since I read the MS. of this Essay on the 
 Round Towers, which then would not occupy a quarter of a volume. I 
 suppose, by the Author’s powers of amplification, it has grown greatly 
 since, and will most likely he illustrated with translations from Irish MSS. 
 as evidence in support of his hypothesis ; and if it be done as well , and as 
 veritably , as his last great work on Tara, it will add another bell to the 
 cap which the Academy has already acquired through his exertions. 
 
 “ You express a wish, Sir, in your Address (see Proceedings, p. 353) 
 for the publication of our Irish Records , and that the Government would 
 undertake, or assist in undertaking such a work, for which the materials 
 and the labourers are ready ; adding that a proof and a specimen may be 
 found in the Essay on Tara HilL If my information be not erroneous, 
 the specimens of Aileach and Tar oh have effectually put an end to all 
 expectation of assistance for such a work by such labourers ; for no minis- 
 ter would have the hardihood to make a proposition to Parliament on the 
 grounds of such specimens ; therefore has that very desirable object been 
 most effectually defeated. 
 
 “ In conclusion, Sir, I entreat the Academy to decide whether this 
 delusion is to continue — will they allow their remaining capital to be ex- 
 pended on such rubbish ? will they, at an enormous expense, be accessary 
 to the publication of nonsense under the name of translations from the 
 Irish ? or will they at once come forward and put an end to further ex- 
 penditure, with the loss of money and character they have already sus- 
 tained ? I trust they will at once decidedly express their opinion against 
 this very improper expenditure, which is appalling, because its extent 
 reaches the utmost limit of our capital. 
 
 “ I should have been highly gratified, Sir, to have been spared the pain 
 of this statement. For the majority of the Council I feel sincere esteem 
 and respect — they have been merely passive in the business — all I com- 
 plain of with respect to them is, that they have been too facile in taking 
 statements for granted, and have allowed their high names and characters 
 to pass as vouchers for matters they never took the trouble to investigate. 
 For myself, as soon as I discovered what was going on I set my face 
 against it, and finding I had encountered an intolerable annoyance, I im- 
 mediately retired; choosing to give up my place in the Council and 
 Secretaryship for Foreign Correspondence, honours I highly prized, rather 
 
25 
 
 than to enjoy them at the expense of sacrificing what I deemed the true 
 interests of the Academy. 
 
 “ Were I to suffer the award of this medal to pass without comment and 
 protest, I might justly be charged with either ignorance or connivance; 
 having devoted many years to the study of the Irish language, and half 
 my not very short life to the history and antiquities of Ireland, I cannot 
 plead ignorance, and should be guilty of ingratitude to the Academy, from 
 whom I have received kindness and attention, were I not to warn them 
 of the disgrace which they have already suffered, and do what I could to 
 prevent its recurrence, as well as the mischievous waste pf their funds. 
 Besides, having some reputation for knowledge on the subject, I am not 
 disposed to place it in jeopardy by a silence which might appear an ac- 
 quiescence in the praise you have bestowed.” 
 
 Now, Sir, may I not ask, is the preceding critique that of a mild 
 and dispassionate searcher after truth ? Does it give an honest state- 
 ment of the causes which led its author to resign his place upon the 
 Council ? Had he any real authority for his insinuations with res- 
 pect to the cause of the suspension of the publication of the Ord- 
 nance Memoirs; or for what I can scarcely refrain from calling his 
 iniquitous insinuation as to the transfer of my paper on Tara to the 
 Transactions of the Academy ; — an insinuation, which, if true, would 
 stamp a fraud not only on my part, but on that of the officers of the 
 Survey, and the members of the Council ? It is the purpose of Sir 
 William Betham in this letter to make the public believe that his 
 resignation and withdrawal from the Council of the Academy were 
 entirely owing to his honest indignation at the wanton waste of the 
 Academy’s funds on the publication of my paper in its Transactions, 
 and to a desire to escape his share of the contempt into which the 
 Academy had fallen, in consequence of the award of a medal given 
 to that paper by the adjudication of the Council. These also are the 
 causes assigned by him for the production and publication of his letter, 
 
 “ Were I,” he observes, “ to suffer the award of this medal to pass 
 without comment and protest, I might justly be charged with either ig- 
 norance or connivance ; having devoted many years to the study of the 
 Irish language, and half my not very short life to the history and anti- 
 quities of Ireland, I cannot plead ignorance , and should be guilty of ingra- 
 titude to the Academy, from whom I have received kindness and attention, 
 
 E 
 
26 
 
 were I not to warn them of the disgrace which they have already suffered, 
 and do what I could to prevent its recurrence, as well as the mischievous 
 waste of their funds. Besides, having some reputation for knowledge on the 
 subject, I am not disposed to place it in jeopardy by a silence which might 
 appear an acquiescence in the praise you have bestowed.” 
 
 Sir, I have already shewn that the causes here assigned by Sir 
 William Betham for his virtuous resignation are not the true ones. 
 He resigned in consequence of the refusal of the Council to print his 
 paper on the Eugubian Tables ; and though, at the request of the 
 Council, he withdrew that resignation for a short period, he sent in a 
 second and final resignation before one sheet of my paper was 
 printed. I must, however, do him the justice to acknowledge, that I 
 believe his last resignation was greatly influenced by his apprehen- 
 sion that my paper should obtain that honor of the Academy which 
 he began to suspect he had little chance of receiving himself. But 
 as to his modest acknowledgment that he cannot plead ignorance of 
 the language, history, and antiquities of Ireland, and his equally mo- 
 dest confession, that he has some reputation for knowledge on the 
 subject, I think I shall be able to shew that he would have spoken 
 more wisely if he had acknowledged his ignorance on those subjects, 
 and that if he has any, however little, reputation on them, it is more 
 than he deserves. I shall pass without remark his sweeping con- 
 demnations of my Essay, such as that it is trash , absurd twaddle, 
 nonsense , rubbish , &c. &c. With certain characters the flinging of 
 dirt of this kind is an art very easily acquired, and is held in little 
 esteem by persons of a higher grade ; yet I think it is in this that 
 Sir William Betham’s forte lies, and that he shews little wisdom in 
 attempting the use of different weapons. Fortunately for me, how r - 
 ever, he has done so, for I confess I am no match for him in the for- 
 mer mode of combat ; he has attempted, by historical and philological 
 criticism to prove my ignorance, and, by doing so, has enabled me to 
 demonstrate his own ; and I hope, before I have done, so completely 
 to relieve him from the burden of his “ reputation for knowledge” 
 of such matters, that he need never again deem himself called on by 
 that reputation to protest against any award that the Council or the 
 Academy may hereafter make. 
 
 To come, then, to his criticism. After quoting a passage from the 
 
27 
 
 very obscure poem of Cuan O’Lochain, he adds the following trans- 
 lation from a prose passage, having as he says, reference to the same 
 subject : 
 
 “ Teamur, then said Amergin, is mur Tea , i. e. the wall of Tea , the 
 daughter of Lughaidh, son of Ith, who went to Geide Ollgothach .” 
 
 “ Now, Sir, who were the worthies here mentioned — this Tea and this 
 Geide , and at what periods did they live ? According to Irish history, 
 Lughaigh, the father of Tea, was the son of Ith, uncle to Milesius, the 
 father of the Irish patriarchs, Heber, Ir, and Heremon, who, according to 
 some Irish chronologers, lived about the year 1690 before Christ ; whereas 
 Geide Ollgothach was the son of Ollamh Fodla, and lived, according to 
 the same authority, in the year 1240, as near as possible 450 years after ; 
 she must have indeed been a sorrowful harlot , to have committed adultenj 
 at such a patriarchal age . 
 
 “ It may be objected that Irish chronology is not altogether a certain 
 authority; may be so, therefore be it known to you, Sir, that Geide Oll- 
 gothach, who is accused of being enamoured of Tea, was the ninth gene- 
 ration in descent from Ir, the brother of Heremon, husband to the afore- 
 said Tea ! You will admit that Geide must have had an extraordinary 
 taste. To be serious, such gross ignorance is disgusting in those who pre- 
 tend to give information on Irish history.” 
 
 This certainly is very witty and humorous, and shews the author’s 
 profound knowledge of Irish history ! But, after all, is this pecu- 
 liarity of taste in Gede so very extraordinary, or without parallel ? 
 Did Sir William Betham never hear of one Dido, Queen of Car- 
 thage, who became enamoured of one Aeneas, who lived 320 years 
 before she commenced the building of her famous city ? But, as 
 Sir William Betham says, “ to be serious.” Sir William Betham 
 wishes his readers to believe that I and Mr. O’Donovan were both 
 equally ignorant of the blunder in chronology which required his su- 
 perior historical knowledge to detect. Now, Sir William Betham 
 either read, or did not read, my paper before he criticised it; and 
 I will leave him the option either to confess that he did not read it, 
 or, that, having read it, he dishonestly suppressed the fact that I 
 was perfectly aware of this apparent chronological blunder of the 
 Irish authorities. I shall quote the passage from my Tara paper in 
 which I have touched on this subject. 
 
28 
 
 “ Cuan O’Lochain also, though he repeats the legend of the origin of 
 the name Tea-mur from Queen Tea, asserts that Teamhuir signifies any 
 flat-topped hill on which there is a fortified residence. This mode of ac- 
 counting by fabulous personifications for ancient names of places— -as 
 Britain from Brute, Scotia from Scota, Denmark from Dan, Rome from 
 Romulus, Brabant from Brabo, France from Francus— has been a general 
 practice among all ancient nations ; and seeing that, in the present in- 
 stance, the probability of such a derivation was more than doubted by the 
 learned among the ancient Irish themselves, it would be extremely puerile 
 now to consider it as of any value. Indeed, the probability is much stronger 
 that the Milesian Queen owes her name, and even her very existence, to 
 Temur, than Temur its to her. Nor would it be difficult to adduce many 
 evidences to support this hypothesis, if this were the place to do so. But, 
 though such would necessarily lead to an inquiry inconsistent with the 
 limits of this memoir, namely, the origin and age of the Scotic or Mile- 
 sian colony in Ireland, a few remarks will not be inconsistent with its 
 present object. Those who are familiar with the learned and ingenious 
 arguments of Innes, in support of his hypothesis that the Scots were a 
 northern or Teutonic colony, who could not have come into Ireland much 
 sooner than the first century, will be surprised to find in the references 
 in the ancient poem of O’Lochain, and the prose prefixed to it, given 
 among these documents, evidences which would support this hypothesis, 
 and thus settle the long disputed era and origin of the Milesian colony. 
 According to these authorities, the supposed Queen Tea, the daughter of 
 Lughaidh Mac Ith, who was the uncle of Milesius, was also the wife both 
 of Heremon and of Geide Ollgothach. It would appear, however, from 
 Irish history, that Geide and Heremon were only different names for the 
 one person , or, at least, that the names of three of their children were the 
 same. Now it is a singular fact, that the Pictish authorities make this 
 Gede the eighth of the Pictish kings, and the son of Cruithne, or Cath- 
 luan, who was the progenitor of the Piets, as the Irish make Heremon 
 the son of Milesius, who was the progenitor of the Scots. But the Irish 
 authorities make Gede also king of the Irish and Scottish Piets, but the 
 son of Ollamh Fodlila. For example : — 
 
 “ Ollarh poolct ono u. mic £,aip Ccupbpe, Pinnachca, Sla- 
 noll, ocup fteoe Olljorac ; ocup 6abpaio, oia ede pigpaio Ulao 
 •i* Clann tabpaoa.” 
 
 “ Ollamh Fodlila had five sons, namely, Cairbre, Finnachta, Slanoll, 
 
29 
 
 and Gede Ollgothach ; and Labbraidh, from whom are the Kings of Ulster, 
 namely, the Clan Labhradha.” — Book of Lecan, fol. 138, b. 2. 
 
 “ Again : Ollamh Fodhla, according to the corrected chronology of 
 O’Flaherty, would have flourished about 500 years before Christ, while, 
 according to the Pictish list of kings, Gede could not have reigned earlier 
 than the first century; and yet all the Irish authorities acknowledge not 
 only that the Pictish list of kings is correct, but also that the arrival of the 
 Piets was cotemporaneous with that of the Scots, and that their wives were 
 Scots. But, as already remarked, this is not the place to follow up an 
 enquiry of such magnitude and importance ; and it has only been touched 
 on here for the purpose of showing how necessary is a thorough investi- 
 gation of all the MS. authorities still existing in Ireland to the final set- 
 tlement of the ancient history of the British Isles.”— pp. 129, 130. 
 
 The above passage will, I think, show that I was not so disgust- 
 ingly ignorant on this subject, as Sir William Betham would have his 
 readers believe. And, as I have stated in it without giving my au- 
 thorities — because they were not deemed necessary to my purpose at 
 that time — that it would appear from Irish history that Gede Ollgo- 
 thach and Heremon were only different names for the one person, 
 I shall now adduce one or two evidences to prove it. The first is 
 found in a passage in the Book of Lecan, of which the following is 
 a strictly literal translation : 
 
 “ Cea, injen Cui^oeach mich-lra bean ^eioi Olljocaig t 
 B peamon, agup Scoca ainm ailj oi ; a$up ip \ maraip Ipeil 
 Paio, mic Bpeamoin. 
 
 “ Tea, daughter of Lughaidh, son of Ith, was the wife of Geidi Oll- 
 gothach that is Heremon, and Scota was another name for her ; and 
 she was the mother of Irial the Wise, son of Heremon.” — Fol. 193, page 
 b, col. b. 
 
 Now , Sir, “ who were the worthies abovementioned — this Tea and 
 this Geide , and at what periods did they live ?” Let Sir William 
 Betham here remember and apply the maxim he has so ostentatiously 
 put forward: “ Understand your subject before you speak upon it.” 
 It requires but little skill, I think, to translate the preceding passage; 
 but, perhaps, Sir William Betham will find a different meaning for 
 it. Be it so, then ; but he must also find some new meaning for the 
 
30 
 
 following passage extracted from a manuscript in the library of Trinity 
 College. — H. 3, 3, page 574. 
 
 u ll-Gpemon, mac TOileao, ip ppip a oepcai £jeoe Ollgocha. 
 ^jeoe Ollgocha cio oia ca ? Win, ip e nec po bu mo laBpa po 
 Boi a n-6pinn e, &c. 
 
 u Heremon, son of Milesius, was called Gede Ollgotha. Gede 011- 
 gotha whence is it ? Not difficult : He was the most loud-voiced man in 
 Ireland, &c. &c.” 
 
 Here is another passage for him from the Book of Lecan, fol. 
 218, a . a, y in which he will find a reference to the first royal crime 
 of Ireland alluded to in the prose passage on which he has joked so 
 pleasantly. 
 
 “ Ooba, ingen TTIileao, imoppa, macaip cpi mac n-Gpemon 
 j. Uluimne, luigne, laigne ; agup ip i po lig Bpemon 1 n-Bppain, 
 agup cue Uea, ingen luigoeach cap a ceno. Uamic, imoppa, 
 Ooba a n-aen lumg pe n-a macaib a h-Bppam co h-Bpmo, agup 
 ip lao po lepaich cono epbailc m n-Ooba unde dicitur Oobai. 
 Uea, ingen tuigoeach, mic Ichaip 1 chuc Bpemon cap eipOoba; 
 Qgup in celach po chogpao 1 n-Gpino 00 cobaipe ? na cinopcna 
 01 ; agup ip 1 culac po chogapcaip . 1 . tDpuim cam, m culac Fopp 
 a oa Uemaip amu, agup mup cea, . 1 . a h-aolocao.” 
 
 “ Odba, daughter of Milesius, was the mother of three sons of Here- 
 mon, namely, Muimne, Luigne, Laigne ; and it was she that Heremon 
 'put away in Spain, and he took to him Tea the daughter of Lughaidgh, in 
 preference to her. And Odba came in the same ship with her sons from 
 Spain to Ireland, and it is they who supported her until she died at Odba, 
 which took name from her. After Odba, Heremon took Tea, the daughter 
 of Lughaidh, son of Ith, (promising) to give her as a dower whatever hill 
 in Ireland she should choose. And the hill which she selected was Druim- 
 Cain, the hill on which is Temur at this day, and Mur -Tea, i. e. her place 
 of interment.’* 
 
 But Sir William Betham will probably deny the accuracy of all 
 these translations, as he has denied that of those in the Tara paper, 
 and will insist that Gede Ollgothach should be written, not as it is 
 actually written in the Irish MSS., but in the following way of his 
 
31 
 
 own : co geo m oil gorac, and translated “ who went at the head of 
 (or commanded) the mighty spearmen” thus making a phrase of a 
 man’s name, as he asserts I made a man’s name of a phrase. To save 
 my readers the trouble of reference, I shall repeat the passage in 
 which this unique piece of philological criticism occurs : 
 
 “ Teamur, then, said Amergin, is mur Tea, i. e. the wall of Tea, the 
 daughter of Lughaigh, son of Ith, who went to Geide Ollgothach. ‘ The 
 first royal crime was the crime of Tea, the daughter of Lughaigh, with 
 Gede: I have before stated that this Geide lived 450 years after Tea. 
 This absurdity has arisen from not having understood the passage, and 
 changing into proper names, writing it thus: — co geoi n-Ollgorac, 
 when it ought to have been written co geo m oil gorach, i. e. * who 
 went at the head of ( or commanded ) the mighty spearmen This is also 
 the epithet applied by Cuan O'Lochain in the poem in page 133 — 
 Pump ingen 6uigoeach na lann, * For the daughter of Looe of spears,' 
 evidently means the same, not lairn.” 
 
 Now, Sir, in defiance of this grave authority I must obstinately 
 maintain, that the passage respecting Gede, as given in the Tara paper, 
 is printed and translated with the most perfect accuracy ; and I shall 
 do more than that, for I shall prove from Sir William Betham’s own 
 words, that his acquaintance with the Irish language is as limited as 
 I have already shewn his knowledge of Irish history to be. Sir Wil- 
 liam Betham asserts that Gede Ollgothach — a name which the learned 
 O’Flaherty in his Ogygia, (p. 246, line 1,) renders Gedius Gran - 
 divocus — is not a proper name, and undertakes to prove this by being 
 allowed the license of mutilating the words as it suits his purpose, 
 and in disregard of the authority of all the Irish MSS., — the very li- 
 cense which he has most unwarrantably asserted has been taken by 
 the translator of the passage. He says it ought to have been written 
 co geo m oil gocctch, and translated, “ ivho went at the head of (or 
 commanded) the mighty spearmen .” Now, Sir, I say that it ought 
 to be written by the translator as it is written in the original, and 
 that neither he, Sir William Betham, nor any one else has a right 
 to separate words of known established meanings in an ad libitum 
 manner. If, as Sir William Betham states, the words co ^eoi n- 
 Ollgorac should be written co geo m oil gorach, and translated. 
 
‘‘ who went at the head of ( or commanded) the mighty spearmen,” 
 why did he not translate the remainder of the sentence, and let us 
 know his mode of understanding the passage which has been pub- 
 lished in the Tara paper, stating that ‘ 6 the first royal crime of Ire- 
 land was the crime of Tea, the daughter of Lughaidh, with Gede ” — 
 “ Ice cecna paep cuip h-Gpen o cuip Ueo, mgpnu Cuijoech, ppi 
 ^Jeoe?” What is the meaning of Gede here ? and why suppress this 
 part of the passage, which throws so much light upon the preceding 
 part ? But even allowing him the license, which might do very well 
 for a joke, if used in humble imitation of the equally witty Dean 
 Swift, but which Sir William Betham was the first to apply in sober 
 seriousness to philological discussions, he will gain nothing by it in 
 this instance, as, even if the words were separated, as he insists they 
 should be, they will not bear the translation which he has given of 
 them. In the first place, co never means at; secondly, jeo never means 
 head ; thirdly, oil does indeed mean huge , grand , great , but gorac 
 does not mean spearmen. There is, besides, such an utter ignorance 
 of Irish grammatical construction exhibited in this jumble of fabricated 
 words, that no person acquainted with the Irish language, ancient or 
 modern, could read it without laughter. It is, in short, a good speci- 
 men of the mode by which Sir William Betham was enabled to make 
 what he called Irish of the inscriptions on the Eugubian Tables, and 
 which had the effect of driving so many learned listeners from the 
 Academy-room to indulge their uncontrollable laughter without 
 being seen or heard by him. 
 
 Sir William Betham having thus, in his peculiar way, destroyed 
 the proper name Gede Ollgothach — as General Vallancey had, be- 
 fore him, by a similar process destroyed the cognomen of Niall of 
 the Nine Hostages, by making it Niall of the Nine Towers — he goes 
 on to sustain his dictum by adducing what he calls a parallel passage 
 from the poem of Cuan O’Lochain. Alluding to, the spearmen whom 
 he conjured up from the proper name Gede Ollgothach, he says : 
 “ This is also the epithet applied by Cuan O’Lochain in p. 133 — 
 Puaip mjen Luijoech ’na lanri, 6 For the daughter of Looe of 
 spears ,’ evidently means the same, not laim.” To make this imper- 
 fect parallelism Sir William Betham is obliged to turn the ablative 
 
33 
 
 singular form of larh, a hand, into lann, of blades. But had he any 
 authority for this reading ? any evidence whatever to produce that 
 it occurs in a single Irish MS.? Assuredly not. And are we to re- 
 ceive the unsupported dictum of Sir William Betham in opposition 
 to the texts of all the original Irish MSS. ? The truth is, that in 
 the preceding instance, Sir William Betham, not being acquainted 
 with the use of the Irish idiom ’na Idirh, in her hand , for Via 
 peilb, in her possession , fabricated a new word , which, according 
 to the context of the poem, would have no meaning, and by which the 
 concordance with the last word of the next line would be destroyed — 
 a concordance always most rigorously adhered to by the Irish poets — 
 and the necessity for which Sir William Betham probably did not 
 perceive; or, if he did, he calculated with a too rash confidence that 
 it would never be observed or commented on. May I not here 
 borrow a phrase from Sir William Betham himself, and say, “ Such 
 gross ignorance is disgusting in those who pretend to give infor- 
 mation on Irish history ?” But Sir William Betham will per- 
 haps deny the truth of all these evidences, and will call them 
 specimens of disgusting nonsense, rubbish , twaddle , or something of 
 the kind. Well, be it so; but what will he say to the evidence of 
 the following ancient Irish poem, which I have recently had the good 
 fortune to discover, and which, as he has such a distaste for closely 
 literal translations, I shall give him accompanied by one more freely 
 rendered into English verse ? It was addressed by an ancient poet 
 anonymously to Gede Ollgothach himself. 
 
 ^eo oll-gorac ru, a pip vhoip, 
 
 ’S geo oll-garac goirh oo gloip, 
 t)ap bptg ria n-apo-peann, oap eapga, 
 
 "Hip oiubpaicip gor na gar 
 Ppim Uhempaig pop ip piu ppto ; 
 
 Ofp nfl ar gor acr gar gan bpig, 
 
 ’$ 6 nac b-puil acr glogap ar glop, 
 
 ’S ar cino, — geo onconoa, mop, — 
 
 Ctcr conn apail, ’p inncinn 
 (Pip cecb pocal o’d puppamuip) 
 
 F 
 
34 
 
 Ni lep-amm 6 mu co bpae, 
 
 Sip ^Jeo Ollgorac ppic oo pao. 
 
 u O big-voiced man, who growlest like a bear ! 
 
 Thy words, it must be owned, are rather rough, 
 
 But, by the moon and stars, I do not care 
 For either them or thee one dust of snuff; 
 
 Thou and thy voice are cracked; thy words are stuff ; 
 
 And, as thy bull-dog head, though large and loose, 
 
 Holds but a goose’s brains, — just quite enough 
 To help thy tongue to hissings and abuse. 
 
 We’ll dub thee Sir Gay Ollgohagh, the loudly -cackling goose."* 
 
 The poet proceeds in a strain of increased bitterness against this 
 loud voiced-king ; but I do not think it necessary to publish the en- 
 tire of his poem on the present occasion. Now, Sir, though the above 
 translation is given as a free one, I think that even Sir William 
 Betham himself will not be so hardy as to deny, that it is as like the 
 original as he says the ballad of Chevy Chase is to the translation of 
 the poem of Cuan O’Lochain, which I have published in the Tara pa- 
 per. Any one who has the slightest acquaintance with the grammatical 
 structure of the Irish language will be able to see at a glance, that in 
 this poem Gede Ollgothach could not mean “ who went at the head 
 of the mighty spearmen ” but if Sir William Betham thinks it could 
 
 * Cormac, the glossographer of the tenth century, seems to have had 
 this ancient poem before him, when he gave the following derivation for 
 the word geo, a goose . 
 
 “ geo, i. e. nomen de sono factum gag, gag, viz. Gedh 9 a goose 9 a 
 name formed from the sound of its voice, gag , gag." 
 
 Cormac’s Glossary in voce geo, a goose. 
 
 The poet above plays upon the name of the king, as if it signified the 
 loud-voiced goose , which in all probability it does ; but we cannot ascer- 
 tain from the prose account prefixed to the poem in our MS. whether it 
 was addressed to Heremon, who was generally called Gede Ollgothach, 
 or to the son of Ollamh Fodhla, who bore that name. In either case, how- 
 ever, it is good authority to prove the meaning of oll-gorac, if not of 
 geoe, 
 
35 
 
 and does, I shall feel much obliged to him for his translation of the 
 entire extract above given. 
 
 I have now done with the first of Sir William Betham’s two ex* 
 amples of the ignorance of the translator of the Irish documents in 
 this Essay, and of my own ignorance in not being able to perceive 
 his incompetency to render them correctly. His second example 
 can be disposed of in fewer words. 
 
 “ Wherever,” says Sir William Betham, “ these translators met with 
 a word which they found beyond their skill, they made it a proper name , 
 by altering from the MS. and making its initial a capital, or giving the 
 Irish word in the translation ! ! For instance, in p. 124, the fifth line from 
 the bottom — the words oeip is rendered the Desii of Temur. The true 
 meaning of these words is the beautiful country of Teamur .” 
 
 He has said it ! Now, Sir, in the first place, even supposing that 
 it were true that my translator, whenever he met with a word which 
 he found beyond his skill, made it a proper name by altering from 
 the MS. and making its initial a capital, is it fair, kind, or considerate 
 of the translator of the Eugubian Tables to object to such trifling 
 liberties? Has he done nothing of this kind himself? Really this 
 is too bad of Sir William Betham ! But let us see if the translator 
 of the Irish documents in the Essay on Tara has actually done what 
 he complains of. He says that this translator has joined two words, 
 oeip lb, signifying “ the beautiful country,” into one, and made it a 
 proper name, and rendered it the Desii . Is Sir William Betham, 
 “ who has devoted half of his not very short life to the study of the 
 history and antiquities of Ireland, and many years to the study of 
 the Irish language,” — is, I say, this profoundly accomplished Irish 
 scholar and antiquary ignorant of a fact which the commonest 
 reader of the popular histories of Ireland is well acquainted with, 
 namely, that there was a family or tribe of people located in 
 Meath, near Tara, called the Desies , who gave name to the present 
 barony of Deece in East Meath, and that a part of this tribe, being 
 transplanted into the now County of Waterford, gave their name to 
 the district which it still bears ? This is really too bad in the Ulster 
 genealogist. Sir, it so happens, that the most competent Irish writers 
 have understood this very passage in exactly the same sense as my 
 
36 
 
 ignorant translator. It is so understood by Hugh Mac Curtin, the 
 compiler of the first English-Irish Dictionary ever printed, who, in an 
 abstract of the contents of the Dinnseanchus, written about one hun- 
 dred and fifty years ago, thus speaks of Amergin, its original compiler: 
 
 “In the Book of Ballymote, fob 188, begins the Antiquity of the 
 chief towns, palaces, loghs, and rivers of Ireland, according to Amergin, 
 the son of Amalga, son of Maileruain, of the family of the Desies of 
 Tarah.”— Orig. MS . Roijal I. Academy . 
 
 And again, the venerable Charles O’Conor, of Belanagare, speaks 
 of Amergin and his work in the following words : 
 
 “ The Royal and Senatorial House of Teamur deserves particular no- 
 tice. I take my account from the Dinsenchus of Amergin, who is sup- 
 posed to be a Filea of the Desies of Teamor in the sixth century.” — 
 Dissertations on the Hist . of Ireland , Edit. 1 766. 
 
 These writers understood thoroughly what Sir William Betham 
 only fancies he understands — the ancient language of Ireland, — 
 and consequently they could not fall into the error of rendering 
 the words oo na t)epib Ceariipach [de rotg Desiis Temorice\ in any 
 other way than they have done ; and Sir William Betham, when he 
 gives a new explanation of these words in opposition to such autho- 
 rities, only exposes the limited extent of his acquaintance with Irish 
 grammar, history, topography, and even genealogy ; — with grammar 
 in not knowing that oo na t)eipib Ueampach could mean nothing 
 but “ of the Desii of Temur,” as given in the Essay on Tara, — for the 
 article na proves that t)eipib is in the plural number, and the pre- 
 position oo, of proves that ib is an ablative plural termination, and 
 not a distinct word in the singular number, as Sir William Betham 
 asserts; — with history, modern as well as ancient, in not knowing 
 that the most popular and best informed writers on Irish history al- 
 ways speak of Amergin as of the family of the Desies of Tara; — 
 with topography, in not knowing that Deise Teamrach was the name 
 of a territory in Meath, derived from the name of a tribe, and still 
 retained in the name of the barony of Deece, in the county of East 
 Meath ; — and with genealogy, his own professional study, in not 
 knowing that Amergin, the original author of the Dinnseanchus, 
 
37 
 
 was of the people called the Desii , or Desies of Tara, and that 
 the family of the Desies of Tara were transplanted to the south of 
 Ireland, where they gave their name to a territory, which it still re- 
 tains. Now, Sir, will the public believe that my translator is wrong 
 in making Deisibh Teamhrach a proper name ? 
 
 One remark more, and I have done with the two verbal criti- 
 cisms by means of which Sir William Betham was to have over- 
 whelmed me. Even allowing him to break the word t)eipib into 
 two words, neither of those two words would near the meanings 
 which he has assigned to it ; for, in the first place, t)eip being a differ- 
 ent word from oeap or oep, with which he confounds it, does not 
 mean beautiful ; and in the second, the word lb does not properly 
 mean country , it being the dative or ablative plural of o, descendant, 
 nominative plural, uf or i, dative or ablative plur. uib or lb, and 
 always translated nepos nepotes by Adamnan. 
 
 I hope, Sir, I have now sufficiently shown what little right Sir 
 William Betham had, in selecting those two passages from the Tara 
 paper, to characterize them as striking examples “ of the disgusting 
 ignorance” exhibited by the translator of the Irish documents all 
 through it. And as he says that these are characteristic examples of 
 the whole, I think I may fairly assume, that he is as incompetent to 
 form a correct opinion of those portions which he has only condemned 
 in general terms, as of those which he has singled out for exposure. 
 I wish, Sir, that he had condescended to criticise a little more in this 
 tangible way. Sir William Betham has never given any transla- 
 tions of Irish documents in prose or metre, or written a line which 
 would indicate that he had the slightest real acquaintance with the 
 Irish language, ancient or modern. Let the public then judge from 
 the specimens of his skill which he has here adduced, how far he was 
 authorized to pronounce ex cathedra such arrogant declarations of his 
 competency to discover the true meaning of these poems as he 
 puts forth in the following passage : 
 
 u It is not necessary for me to shew the true interpretations of these 
 poems, or of the Dinsenchus, or for any one to be acquainted with the 
 Irish language to judge of them — theij are genuine English nonsense 
 without any meaning.” 
 
38 
 
 Genuine English nonsense ! Why, Sir, is not this very sentence 
 of Sir William Betham’s as beautiful a specimen of genuine English 
 nonsense, though no translation, without any perceptible meaning, 
 as any he complains of ? Supposing that it happened to be Irish, 
 how could it be translated into any other language so as to be under- 
 stood ? Will Sir William Betham allow no one to write genuine 
 English nonsense but himself? Is this power included in his patent 
 of privilege ? If it be, I can only plead ignorance of the fact, and 
 beg his pardon. Seriously, however, I must confess my astonish- 
 ment that Sir William Betham should have found nothing in this 
 Essay on Tara to which he could object in a spirit of just and sound 
 criticism. I never could and never did hope, that a work, the 
 materials of which were drawn from so many obscure and hitherto 
 untranslated and almost unknown documents, would be found altoge- 
 ther free from occasional errors, and those even of a weightier cha- 
 racter than either of the two which Sir William Betham imagined 
 he had discovered ; and to any critic who should point out such 
 errors in the spirit of a sober investigator of truth, I should have 
 felt and expressed gratitude, and have profited by his strictures on 
 some future occasion. I do not think, Sir, that such verbal criti- 
 cisms could in any important degree lessen the value of my Essay, 
 whatever its merits may be, as the first attempt to point out the 
 mode in which Irish topography may be illustrated from ancient 
 Irish historical documents, unless they proved that my general con- 
 clusions were false. And, Sir, I venture even to hope, that this hum- 
 ble attempt of mine will be viewed in a spirit of kind forbearance by 
 the truly learned of Europe for its novelty, the difficulties it had to 
 encounter, and the unprejudiced spirit of inquiry after truth which, 
 
 I trust, will be found to pervade it. Nor is this hope in the slightest 
 degree shaken by Sir William Betham’s opinion, so harshly express- 
 ed in the following words : — 
 
 u So far from Mr. Petrie’s Essay, in my humble judgment, contributing 
 in the slightest degree to forward Irish literature, or add credit to the 
 Academy, I think it has inflicted an injury which it will never recover, 
 and as to the loss of character to the Academy by conferring a medal on 
 
39 
 
 such a production, I fear the stain is indelible — the leprosy can never be 
 removed.” 
 
 This Sir William Betham may suppose very fine and eloquent ; 
 but, were it even true, he is not the man who should have said it, 
 or, at least, not till some one of known learning and authority had 
 said it before him. Sir, if I am a leper, I am, at least, not the only 
 one in the Academy. Has Sir William Betham ever heard of the 
 opinions delivered with reference to his own philological works by 
 Dr, Wiseman, a man well known over the civilized world for his solid 
 and extensive learning, elegant literary attainments, and sound judg- 
 ment ? Perhaps he has not, as I believe that his acquaintance with 
 modern works is not very extensive. Well, then, I [shall present 
 him with a specimen of the opinions given by this high authority as 
 to his contributions to the spread of antiquarian science ; and when 
 Sir William Betham has produced an equally learned and unsuspi- 
 cious authority as giving an equally unfavourable opinion of mine, I 
 shall believe that I am a fellow leper, but not till then. These 
 opinions are given in Dr. Wiseman’s Lectures, Yol. I. p. 51, and 
 have reference to the peculiar etymological system put forward by 
 Sir William Betham in his great work, The Gael and Cymbri , writ- 
 ten as a competition paper for the Medal of the Academy. 
 
 “ But a still later writer has discussed the question with all the forms 
 of the exploded school, and endeavoured to examine the origin of the 
 Celtic nations, by processes which on the Continent are almost forgotten. 
 I allude to the work entitled, c The Gael and Cymbri.’ To deny it the 
 praise of ingenuity and curious research would assuredly be unjust ; but 
 the two great ethnographic points therein treated, the radical difference 
 between the Welsh and Irish languages, and the Phenician or Semitic 
 origin of the latter, are certainly managed with all that unsatisfactory 
 display of etymology which has been long since rejected from this study. 
 If we wish to establish the Irish language as a Phenician dialect, the pro- 
 cess is very simple. We know from the most undoubted sources that the 
 Phenician and the Hebrew were two sister dialects : compare, therefore, 
 the grammatical structure of this language and Irish, and the result will 
 solve the problem. Now, instead of this simple method, see how our 
 author proceeds. The names of places on the Spanish and other coasts 
 
40 
 
 were given by the Phenicians ; now these names can all be explained in 
 Irish ; therefore the Irish and Phenician languages are identical. A few 
 years ago, an eminent geographer published an Essay in a French jour- 
 nal, ( Nouvelles Annates des Voyages , Feb . 1824,) wherein he, by a simi- 
 lar process, derived many African names of places from Hebrew, so to 
 establish their Phenician origin. Klaproth, in a letter under the Danish 
 name of Kierulf, confuted these etymologies by proposing two new ones 
 for each name, the one from Turkish, the other from Russian. ( In an 
 Appendix to his c Beleuchtang und Widerlegung der Forscliungen, u. s. w. 
 des Herrn J. J. Schmidt, Paris, 1824.) This may suffice to show how 
 unsatisfactory such processes are. For the author never takes the pains 
 to prove that the character of the places corresponds to the Irish interpre- 
 tation of their names. To examine his etymologies in detail would be 
 indeed tedious ; but I cannot refrain from taking a few examples at ran- 
 dom. Some names which we know to be Phenician, and which corres- 
 pond in that language to the exact character of the places they represent, 
 must go to Irish to receive new ones, which will do as well for any other. 
 Thus Tyre, in Phenician, Tzur, a rock, a meaning to which allusion 
 is repeatedly made in Scripture, is derived, according to him, from Tir , 
 a land or city; when we might just as well derive it from the Chaldaic 
 ■vtt Tir , a palace. Palmyra and Tadmor, which are exact translations of 
 one another, meaning the city of Palms, must be derived from Irish words; 
 the one meaning the Palace of Pleasure ; (the word pate is manifestly 
 identical with palace, palatium, the Palatine Hill, then the residence of 
 the Ciesars, and so, a palace. How did the Phenicians possess it?) the 
 other, the great house : and Cadiz, or Gadiz, as it was originally called, 
 must no longer signify, as the word does graphically in Phenician, the 
 island, or peninsula ; but, after the word, Cadaz, which only resembles 
 the modern corruption of the name, must signify glory, (pp. 100, 104.) 
 Again, taking a set of names, not of places, but of people, ending by a 
 common adjective termination in Tani ; these are cut in two, and the 
 termination is made to be the Irish word Tana, country. I might just as 
 well go to the Malayan for their interpretation; for there also tanali 
 means a country, as Tanah Papuah, the country of the Papuas. (See 
 Trans. R. A. S. Vol. III. p. 1, 1831.) But just let us take an example. 
 Lacetani means, according to our author, the country of milk. Why not, 
 therefore, from lac , milk, by a regular formation, derive lacetum, like Spi- 
 netum or rosetum, a place abounding in milk ; and so again, in regular 
 order, Lacetani, the inhabitants of such a country ? Surely, if we are to 
 
41 
 
 make such etymologies, is not this more regular than the Irish one, fait , 
 milk, o, of, tana, country ? (p. 104.) But suffice it to say, that Latin, Bis- 
 cayan, and even Spanish words, suffer strange changes into Irish to work 
 out this untenable hypothesis. For instance, we are told that S lanes came 
 from lean, a swampy plain ; while Slano in Spanish is the strict represen- 
 tation of planus, and means precisely the same. Puenta Rio de la (Rio de 
 laPuenta),frompwmte, a point, (again of Indo-Germanic origin), and not 
 from the Spanish puente, a bridge. Cantabri means, heads high above ! 
 &c. (pp. 107, 109, 111.) Then, as to the grammatical analysis proposed 
 in this work, to prove that Welsh and Irish have nought in common, I 
 must say that, in spite of all its obscurities, it produced on my mind 
 exactly a contrary impression, and seemed to me to prove before I had 
 seen the valuable work to which I shall just now refer, that both belonged 
 to the same family, and that the Indo-European.” 
 
 Having now disposed of my opponent’s historical and philological 
 criticisms, it remains for me to make one remark on a criticism 
 which he has put forth, of an antiquarian character. “ Having said 
 so much,” (i. e. about Gede Ollgothach, and the Desii of Te- 
 mur,) “ we will not remark on the absurd twaddle about the Lia 
 Fail , which is quite unworthy of criticism.” He does, however, 
 condescend to criticise the said twaddle in the following witty and 
 humorous vein. 
 
 4< The idea of a king either standing or sitting on a round-headed 
 stone-post at the time of his inauguration is as ridiculous as his bathing in 
 beef broth. No such absurdities are to be found in the original Irish. 
 The post was evidently put up for cows to rub themselves against. This 
 discovery is a beautiful specimen of the nidus equa, and ought to be com- 
 municated to the Zoological Society.” 
 
 There is no withstanding such pleasant banter as this ; and I con- 
 fess that I have been altogether mistaken in the origin and use of 
 the said stone-post ; but Sir William is, I think, equally mistaken 
 in his conjecture that his own discovery was a mare’s nest, and that 
 it “ ought to be communicated to the Zoological Society for I 
 have found in an ancient authority, too long for insertion here, that 
 the stone-post in question was nothing less than a monumental pillar, 
 erected to perpetuate the memory of Sir Gay Ollgothach, the Loud- 
 voiced Goose. 
 
 a 
 
42 
 
 Having thus disposed of Sir William Betham’s criticisms upon 
 my Essay on Tara, and in a tone too, which, I trust, will indicate 
 what little annoyance I have felt from them, I now proceed to notice 
 those graver charges of fraud upon the Academy, together with the 
 hearsay stories by which he has followed them up. To such charges and 
 stories I shall be obliged to reply in a graver and more earnest vein. 
 Yet, even in this disagreeable task, I shall continue to preserve an 
 unruffled tone, and shall not be induced to imitate the example set 
 me of making unauthorized assertions, or retailing hearsay stories 
 without any foundation in truth. Let those readers who may so far 
 honour me as to peruse this fetter, turn back to the concluding pa- 
 ragraphs of Sir William Betham’s attack, in which he says : “ Let 
 me ask why this Essay ever appeared in our Transactions at all ?” 
 Aye, Sir, there is the rub. He w r as surprised to find it ordered to 
 be printed ; aye, and grieved too ; but what most surprised and 
 grieved him was, that after the adjudication of the medal was 
 postponed from month to month, and from one year to another, in 
 order to let the paper in for the medal, by being printed, the medal 
 was given to the author. This was the unkindest cut of all ! Well, 
 Sir, but the facts are not as Sir William Betham states. My paper 
 not having been printed within the period allowed by the Council, 
 previously to their adjudication on the papers in the class of antiqui- 
 ties, I lost that chance of a medal; and the Council proceeded to adju- 
 dicate without taking my paper into consideration, and decided that 
 there was no paper printed in that class worthy of the Academy’s medal. 
 I had, however, another chance left me in the following year, 1838-9, 
 viz. : that of the medal in the classes of Antiquities and Polite Li- 
 terature ; and though it is true that the Council did postpone their 
 adjudication for a meeting or two, in order to give time to have 
 my paper entirely printed, I cannot see any thing culpable in this 
 kind consideration of theirs for a paper of such length ; and, at all 
 events, Sir William Betham has the least right to complain of it, 
 inasmuch as his own papers had been already declared unworthy of 
 a medal by the adjudication of the Council in the year before. Sir 
 William next proceeds to interrogate you, Sir, with flippant fami- 
 liarity, as to certain circumstances connected with the printing of this 
 
43 
 
 paper. He says, “ I again ask how it happened that this Essay 
 found its way into our Transactions ? It was read by the permission 
 of Colonel Colby. Perhaps, Sir, you will have the condescension to 
 say if that be true ?” Sir, I beg leave to answer for you that it is 
 true, as I have already stated in my reply to a similar interrogation 
 which appeared in the anonymous circular. “ It was written for the 
 Ordnance Survey as part of a memoir intended to illustrate the Map 
 of the county of Meath. Why, may I be permitted to ask, did it 
 not appear in that work ? Can you answer this question ?” The 
 answer is, that the memoir intended to illustrate the Map of the 
 county of Meath has never itself appeared in print, and, therefore, 
 it could hardly appear in it. Nay more, though materials have been 
 collected for it, not a page of them has been put into form for public 
 cation as yet, with the exceptions of such portions of my paper as 
 would be fit to find a place in a topographical work of that character. 
 And I may be permitted to add, that, even should the Ordnance 
 Memoirs of Ireland be carried on by the Government, as I trust 
 they will, it would probably take so many years before the Memoirs 
 of Meath could be sent to the Press, that, with the limited number of 
 years which I can now look forward to attain, there is little chance 
 that I should have any further share in their compilation. But, 
 Sir, I will answer his question, why my Essay ever appeared in 
 the Transactions at all. I have, indeed, stated in my paper that 
 the Ordnance Map of the county of Meath being on the eve of 
 publication, I was permitted by Colonel Colby to read to the Aca- 
 demy, with a view to its publication m their Transactions, a portion 
 of the memoir written to illustrate that map ; and also that my object 
 in doing so was to prove, as I hoped, in a very striking degree, the 
 value and importance of the great national work of which it was 
 designed to constitute a portion. These statements were perfectly 
 true ; and I had, as I have already said, no other intention than to 
 furnish such an illustrative account of the existing remains at Tara 
 as could be properly transferred to the Memoir of Meath, if it should 
 ever be undertaken ; and one which could be considered only as an 
 anticipatory publication of a portion of that Memoir. But, on pro- 
 ceeding to put together the materials collected, I found that such a 
 
44 
 
 paper, however suited to a memoir in the earlier volumes of which the 
 prominent facts of Irish history would have already appeared, could 
 scarcely, at the present period, be intelligible or satisfactory to the 
 class of readers for whom the Transactions of the Academy are in- 
 tended, without such an accompanying dissertation upon the leading 
 events of Irish history generally, as would enable them to understand 
 the degree of credit due to the documents which it would be neces- 
 sary for me to adduce in illustration of the topography of the place. 
 Hence the Essay necessarily assumed a form to a considerable extent 
 different from what was at first intended, and more legitimately 
 characteristic of a paper adapted for publication in the Transactions 
 of the Academy. But, even supposing that the paper had been pre- 
 pared in strict accordance with its original plan, I do not conceive 
 that under such circumstances there would have been the slightest 
 impropriety in the printing of it by the Academy, as it would have 
 been only analagous to the original publication in the Transactions of 
 the Royal Society of the accounts of the Base Measurements, and 
 of the Sector, and other operations of peculiar interest, which in the 
 early days of the English Survey were furnished by Generals Roy 
 and Mudge, and which were afterwards collected and printed in a 
 separate volume. 
 
 You will now, Sir, perhaps, be better able to judge what amount 
 of credit should be attached to the stories retailed by Sir William 
 Betham in the following paragraphs : 
 
 “ There is, however, a story afloat, which is believed to be true, that 
 the attention of the Lords of the Treasury having been drawn to the Me- 
 moir of the map of Derry, their Lordships had taken advice respecting the 
 same of certain eminent antiquaries and literary men in London, whose 
 report on the said Memoir was anything but favourable — I mean as to the 
 antiquarian portion, and the translations in particular, and that their Lord- 
 ships sent over a peremptory order for the discontinuance of such Me- 
 moirs, and even refused to allow the proceeds of the sale of the Memoir 
 of Derry to be expended on the Memoir of Meath. 
 
 “ Well, Sir, the story goes further and states that the plates for em- 
 bellishing this Memoir having been already engraved, what was to be 
 done ? the Lords of the Treasury refused to stultify themselves by sanc- 
 tioning the publication of any more of such delectable translations ; the 
 
45 
 
 author therefore kindly offered (alleging l suppose the permission of Colo- 
 nel Colby ) the precious production to the Council of the Royal Irish Aca- 
 demy, who referred it to the Committee of Publication, of which its author 
 was, and is, an influential memher, who having reported favourably, it 
 was printed at the expence of some hundred pounds ; and a much greater 
 expenditure of character was thereby inflicted on the Academy, with the 
 disbursement of near a third of their vested capital.” 
 
 Truly, Sir, I may say, that Sir William Betham, if not great in 
 other things, is, at least, great in the questionable art of story-telling. 
 Sir, it would be improper in me, at the present moment, to make any 
 statement as to the true cause of the delay in the publication of the 
 Ordnance Memoirs of Ireland ; but this much I may say, that Sir 
 William Betham’s hearsay stories as to this cause, as well as his 
 other hearsay story of the fraudulent transfer of my paper to the 
 Transactions of the Academy, after the plates had been already 
 engraved, and, of course, paid for, are utterly groundless in every 
 particular ; and I defy him to substantiate such charges by proof, 
 leaving it optional with him either to do so, or to allow his name to 
 be branded with the only epithet applicable to the fabricator or 
 retailer of such tales ; and I will say further, that I think he should 
 feel obliged to me for dealing with him on this point in so mild a 
 manner, when I had it in my power to call him to a public account 
 for accusations of such a libellous character. It is known to all the 
 members of the Council, that these plates were engraved expressly 
 for my paper, and that they were even a cause of delaying its publi- 
 cation ; and I do not envy the feelings of the man who could make 
 so wanton a charge, — a charge which assails not only my character 
 and the character of the Council, but that of the officers of the 
 Survey themselves. 
 
 Yet these are the circumstances, Sir, which he says led to his 
 resigning his seat at the Council. He could not countenance such 
 proceedings, and therefore retired from all responsibility. Mag- 
 nanimous man ! The circumstances and the proceedings which he 
 assigns for his conscientious resignation are only conjurations of his 
 own imagination. The real origin and subsequent causes of his 
 resignation I have already stated. 
 
46 
 
 With respect to his remarks upon the impropriety of publishing 
 my rubbish on the Round Towers, I do not feel it necessary to 
 make any reply to them ; they are not worthy of serious notice ; and 
 I have no desire, at the present moment, to indulge in levity or 
 ridicule. > 
 
 In conclusion, Sir, I must again repeat, that it has given me the 
 greatest pain to have been necessitated, from my respect to you and 
 the Academy of which you are the President, to defend myself 
 against the wanton and malicious attacks made upon me in these two 
 publications. I am not a person of sufficient literary importance to 
 obtrude myself upon the attention of the public in this kind of con- 
 temptible warfare. I never gave just cause of offence either to Sir 
 William Betham, or the gentleman who assisted him in sharpening 
 the weapons which he has pointed against me. I have never inten- 
 tionally offended any man. My days have been passed in the quiet 
 enjoyment of nature’s beauties, in the cultivation of a taste for the 
 fine arts, and an occasional excursion into the distant regions of an- 
 tiquity. In my humble attempts to communicate to others a taste 
 for those pursuits which had given myself such pure enjoyment, I 
 never could have anticipated, and never did anticipate, that I could 
 have made an enemy of any man ; and I believe I should have 
 continued under this delusion while life lasted, if Sir William Betham 
 had not taught me that such hopes were fallacious. 
 
 I have the honour to be, Sir, 
 
 With the highest respect and esteem, 
 
 Your very obedient, humble Servant, 
 
 GEORGE PETRIE. 
 
 21, Great Charles-Street, 
 May 30 tli, 1840. 
 
 THE END.