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tention of the Academy to the fact that our Irish MSS. are’to a great 
extent uncatalogued and undescribed. They are consequently far less 
‘useful than they might be to the few who are capable of studying them. 
Besides this, their safety is not as well secured as it ought to be. 
The time will come when the judgment and liberality of those who 
have aided in the collection of our MSS. stores will be appreciated. Scho- 
lars trained to habits of scientific investigation will arise, I hope, amongst 
ourselves. But if Ireland doesnot furnish them, Germany will. Under 
their hands the volumes which we have accumulated will give up the ma- 
terials which they provide for the elucidation of historical and philological 
questions. Hardly one of them will be found useless. From some,*our 
Irish Niebuhr will extract all that relates to the earliest history of the 
country ; he will study the “origines” set forth in our ancient books; 
he will compare them with documents of the same class relating to other 
countries ; he will disentangle the threads of truth and fiction which are 
interwoven in them ; he will relieve us from the discredit of having suf- 
feredthisfield of historicalresearch to remainin a state but little advanced 
beyond that in which it was left by the author ofOgygia. Another will 
analyse our ancient romances, and will exhibit the relations which exist 
between them and the legends of Scotland and Wales, or Brittany and 
the other Continental countries. The fireside stories once current in 
Treland may be made links in a chain of evidence to prove the kindred 
of nations, parting, thousands of years ago, from a common stock, though 
now at last blending their influences in the formation of that society in 
which the peculiarities of race are, to a great extent, becoming merged 
in the attributes of a Christian civilization. 
And there are other tasks, laborious but full of fruit, which 
will be undertaken by students of our MSS. These volumes will 
supply to the philologist materials for the construction of an Irish 
dictionary. We know where to look for the foundation of that work. 
It must be laid in the existing dictionaries and glossaries, combined 
with the collections amassed in the life-long labours of Mr. Curry 
and Dr. O'Donovan. But we are speaking of an enterprise the ac- 
complishment of which will require the co-operation of many hands. 
Mr. Whitley Stokes, Mr. Siegfried, and others, must take part in 
it, and their labours must be spread over many years. I trust that 
the Academy may be able to give an impulse to this work. | At all 
events, individual members of it will contribute aid, when a plan of 
operation has been matured. The loss of time which has been incurred 
already has brought reproach upon us. Let us delay a little longer, 
and some foreign student, inheriting the diligence and the capacity of 
Zeuss, will put us to shame by executing the project, in planning which 
we have allowed years to pass by. To effect this object in any practi- 
cable way that has been proposed would be better than to persevere in 
the present course of doing nothing. For myself, I do not expect to 
witness the realization of the most perfect schemes which have been 
drawn up for the construction of an Irish dictionary. I trust, however, 
