Society  for  Irish  History  Publications,  pray  put  me  on  it,  and  I
will  work  on  my  return  [to  Ireland].  Almost  my  first  enter-
prise was  to  try  to  make  such  a  thing  long  ago/^

MacNevin  still  wrote  a  little,  and  was  engaged  on  a
volume  for  the  Library  of  Ireland,  at  a  time  when  his
mind  (though  neither  he  nor  we  understood  the  case)
needed  recreation  and  repose,  I  find  among  his  corre-
spondence at  this  time  a  note  of  encouragement  on  the
book  he  was  labouring  to  finish,  the  "  Plantation  of
Ulster."

'^  I  send  for  your  preliminary  studies  a  map  of  my  native
province.  It  is  an  encyclopaedia  in  hieroglyphics.  That  con-
geries of  dotted  points  fast  by  the  Northern  Sea,  which  looks
like  an  ugly  blot,  is  the  great  centre  of  manufacturing  indnstiy.
