Page:Petty 1851 The Down Survey.djvu/14

 that a separate treatise was required for the account of that work, and it is greatly to be regretted that he did not carry out his intention of writing one. The Notes to such a work would necessarily extend to the Acts of Settlement and Explanation, involving the history of the country, and indeed, to some extent, of the families settled in it, at that period. Such a work, however, with a similar account of the contemporary removals from the other provinces into Connaught, and the manner in which they were conducted, would be a valuable addition to the general, as well as local history of Ireland.

The Editor lost no time in addressing the Marquis of Lansdowne, as well for his Lordship's concurrence in the publication of the volume, as with a view to ascertaining whether any copy still remained among the family papers. That distinguished nobleman, with his usual frankness and liberality, not only searched for the desired treasure, but intrusted it to the Editor, and sent it to Dublin, where the two copies were carefully collated and compared.

Subsequently the Editor was informed that a third copy of the manuscript was in the Library of the King's Inns, in Dublin, which was carefully read over and compared, word by word, with the others, and the differences noted. It is not known to the Librarian how the work came into the possession of the Benchers; but its agreement with the Lansdowne copy in the words or phrases in which that copy differs from the College copy, are sufficient to show it to have been taken from the former. The writing and paper are much more modern than either of the others, probably not earlier than the middle or close of the last century. It was therefore, perhaps, transcribed from the family copy, with Lord Shelburne's permission, while that nobleman resided in Dublin.

The differences between the three are wholly unimportant, confined chiefly to the spelling of words, with, in the King's Inns copy, the