Volume 1

Tracts relating to Ireland.

Date:
1841-1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Tracts relating to Ireland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    important that such documents should be printed, although in themselves they contain nothing to induce a bookseller, with any prospect of profit or remu- neration, to undertake their publication. “ Now, if such works are, from time to time, printed by this Society, along with others of a more popular and generally attractive character, and if all the publications of the Society be offered for sale to the world, it is obvious that many will be induced to abstain from becoming Members, on the ground that they can procure such of the Society’s publications as are of any interest to them, without being compelled to take those which are of a heavier or graver cast; and thus the income of the Society will be diminished, and its power of pub- lishing the less popular, and more important publications, materially limited. In short, a Society that depends for its funds, in any great degree, upon the sale of its publications, will necessarily find itself bound to consider the popular taste, rather than the advantages of solid learning, in the selection of documents for publication; and must, in fact, be guided, more or less, by the same prin- ciples, and therefore circumscribed and limited in the same way, as a bookseller would be, who should undertake the publication of a series of such works, with a view to remuneration. “ The Council, therefore, are of opinion that this regulation is a vital one, and cannot be abandoned, without abandoning in a great degree, one of the principal objects for the attainment of which the Society was instituted.” The Report having been read, it was resolved— “ That the Report now read be adopted, and that the Council be requested to consider the expediency of printing and circulating it, with a view to make the objects of the Society better known.” The following Rules were then considered and adopted as the FUNDAMENTAL RULES OF THE SOCIETY. I. The number of Members shall be limited to 500. II. The affairs of the Society shall be managed by a President and Council of twelve Members, to be elected annually by the Society. III. Those Noblemen and Gentlemen who have already been admitted Members
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