65 



O'REILLY'S IRISH-ENGLISH DICTIONARY,— Quarto. 



—Dublin, 1821. 



This is the latest and most copious Dictionary published. The 

 author had considerable advantages over any of his predecessors in 

 the way of printed materials for his compilation, and he appears to 

 have industriously and copiously profited by them. Independently of 

 these resources, he obtained the MS. collections of the late Mr. Ha- 

 liday, prepared for a Dictionary of our language, which, notwithstand- 

 ing the publication of the present work, it will be a matter of last- 

 ing regret that this learned and ingenious youth did not live to pub- 

 lish. For these reasons, it might be expected that the present Dic- 

 tionary would, not only have excelled all those which preceded it, but 

 even have approached to the wished-for perfection in a work of this 

 nature. It was our intention here to have analyzed it minutely, but 

 having already nearly exceeded our limits, we must be contented 

 with a cursory view of what the author has achieved, and what he 

 has left undone. The mere collection of words is a task that re- 

 quires more labour than ability, and in this respect our author has 



works of General Vallancey, are thus either a chaos of Etymology or a heap of false history and 

 fanciful hypotheses. One solitary Gaelic publication, the Grammar by Mr. Stewart of Moulin, 

 deserves to be exempted from this charge. The author has obtained the praise of General Val- 

 lancey, because he understands Hebrew ; we, on the other hand, should have been more dis- 

 posed to bestow upon him our own praise, had he understood no Hebrew at all, or rather made no 

 use of it in that publication. Though we pretend to more knowledge of the oriental languages 

 than of Irish, we know enough of the latter to assert that there is not a Hebrew or an Arabic 

 type necessary in printing the dictionary which is to transmit it to posterity." — In this opinion, so 

 far as transmitting our language to posterity, I fully agree with the critic, but when he decries 

 its connection with the Hebrew, I am induced to doubt his knowledge of either. 



VOL XV. K 



