264 * OBITUARY. 



of these inscriptions were disputed for a time by men of the first class, such as 

 Eawlinson and Grotefend, who had already committed themselves to other views • 

 but we believe the principles of interpretation which he was the first to dis- 

 cover and explain, are now generally accepted as true and indisputable. 



It is not to be overlooked, when estimating the value of Dr. Hlncks' labours, 

 that they had to be carried on, for the most part in a remote Irish village, ham- 

 pered with inadequate means, and dependent wholly on indirect resources for 

 the study of the ancient inscriptions of Egypt and Assyria. 



An Irish writer in the Northern Whig, complains that men have been advanced 

 to the highest offices and honours of the Church ; to bishoprics and archbishoprics, 

 some of whom could not translate a verse of the Hebrew bible ad aperturam libri : 

 while incomparably the most learned man in the Church, and inferior to none in 

 personal and moral qualifications was left to die in the possession of the moderate 

 living he had received from his College nearly half a century before. We 

 cannot think that it would have been a wise use of the patronage of the Crown 

 to have hampered a scholar devoted to such engrossing researches, with the 

 onerous duties of a bishopric But so long as Deaneries and prebendal stalls 

 are reserved for men like Buckland or Stanley ; no fitter occupant of such could 

 have been found than the deceased Irish Scholar. In London within reach of 

 the British Museum, or placed in charge of its Egyptian and Assyrian treasures, 

 the nation would have been amply repaid by the results to which such facilities 

 would have given birth. As it is his literary remains are by no means slight. 

 Many valuable papers are printed in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, 

 the Royal Society of Literature, and the Asiatic Society : others were com- 

 municated to the British Association ; in the sections of which the present 

 writer has repeatedly met him. His profound learning seemed almost to dis- 

 qualify him from dealing with a popular audience ; and it was sometimes amus- 

 ing to observe the simplicity and naivete v/ith which he would solve the dilficulty 

 suggested by some tyro, in reference to the interpretation of a Nimroud cylinder 

 or a cuneiform inscription, by a Hebrew or Arabic quotation, or an appeal to 

 Zend or Sansekrit roots. Xevertheless when occasion required, Dr. Hincks 

 could forsake his study for the arena of public life ; and was known as a moder- 

 ate, but consistent liberal in the political questions which have of late years 

 assumed such grave significance in Ireland, in reference U) education, the fran- 

 chise, and the Church itself. The courage and independence he manifested in 

 dealing with some of those vexed questions, is believed to have been a hindrance 

 to his promotion in the Church. He was, however, in rcceijit of a small literary 

 pension bestowed on him in acknowledgement of his labours as a scholar. The 

 King of Prussia manifested the estimation in which he was held by the philolo- 

 gists of Germany by confer: ing on him an order of K.iighthood ; and the fore- 

 most litemry societies of Europe had bestowed their chief distinctions on him. 



Dr, Hincks was in his seventy-sixth year at the time of his death. Through- 

 out his long life he had laboriously devoted his rare learning to cope with the 

 most ohstruse problems in epigraphy and jihilology. But with all his great 

 attainments he was modest, simple-hearted, and kind ; and has left behind many 

 who affectionately moura liis loss on private, aa well as on public grounds. 



