40 



and the Irish Examples there is no coincidence; moreover, each 

 of them has a two- fold sound, which is not noticed, except "O and 

 ^. — The aspirated mutables are treated of without any considerable 

 error. The immutable consonants are treated of correctly, 

 except where he states that '* The immutables at the beginning 

 of words which have a reference either to objects of the feminine 

 gender or to objects or things of the plural number are pronounced 

 double." This has been asserted by many of his predecessors, but 

 with deference to such respectable authorities, they have, in my opinion, 

 no variation of sound but what they obtain from the vowels with 

 which they are combined in a syllable, like the other consonants. 

 In speaking of double letters he has omitted '<f'^ ; and cc he stated 

 were used only in the beginning of words, but he forgot that they were 

 written by the ancients, in the middle and at the end of words, as 

 wi<t)CC)ti, Cf 5oti6)CC, &c. Diphthongs aud Triphthongs have a great- 

 er variety of sounds than he has mentioned, and some of the English 

 correspondences are insufficient to convey the Irish sounds. — The 

 accent of the vowels is passed over slightly, but the influence of 

 consonants on each other, commonly called Eclipsis, is correctly 

 treated, though not so diffiisely as by some of his predecessors. 



Of Parts of Speech — he reckons nine, viz. Article, Noun, Pro- 

 noun, Verb, Participle, Adverb, Conjunction, Preposition and 

 Interjection. — He admits but one article corresponding to the 

 definite article the in English. With respect to this part of speech, 

 I cannot agree with Doctor O'Brien, when he asserts, that " in the 

 genitive plural of Nouns, beginning with a vowel or with the 

 influenced letters tD and 5, the article becomes tictti, &c." I rather 

 consider the last ti to be a servile letter belonging to the initial vowel 

 of the word, or to -o aud 5 as their eclipsing letter, having no con- 

 nexion whatever, except by juxta position, with the article. It is. 



