Pf'oceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



Commissioners intended that he should merely edit the fifth volume 

 from materials existing in manuscript which they supposed to he 

 adequate. Atkinson, however, was far from limiting himself to the 

 functions of an editor. The translation of the fifth volume, though 

 based on the materials supplied to him, is, in great measure, his 

 work ; and he undertook of his own motion a complete Glossary 

 to the whole corpus. This was an enterprise from which any less 

 courageous spirit would have recoiled. The language of the Laws 

 is the despair of Irish scholarship. It has long ago been shown by 

 Dr. Stokes and other competent judges that the translation of the 

 first four volumes is everywhere conjectural and untrustwortliy, and 

 that it is founded on documents which have not undergone the 

 necessary preliminary criticism. Nowhere is there solid ground. The 

 text is corrvipt : the translation is often mere guess-work. Into this 

 morass Atkinson ventured, and laid in it at least the first foundations 

 of a scientific treatment. He himself never believed nor claimed 

 that his work could be regarded as final, or that he had cleared up 

 more than a fraction of the difficulties with which the whole subject 

 is overgrown. Some of the most sagacious among Irish scholars have 

 doubted whether the riddle of the Laws will ever be read, whether 

 the data necessary for a solution are present or can be obtained. 

 But at all events, if a solution is ever reached, it is safe to predict 

 that it will be largely based on Atkinson's work. In liis Glossary of 

 nearly 800 pages he has applied his usual method, examining every 

 word and form found in the five volumes, and comparing every 

 instance where each occurs. Here, as always, he thought no pains 

 too great until the exact facts coukl be determined as completely as 

 possible. 



In his shorter papers, such as his essay on Irish metric, and his 

 monograplis on grammatical subjects, there is the same scientific 

 spirit, the same profusion of labour. He never dealt in vague 

 generalities nor in fanciful speculation. Las ewige Faldum, 'the 

 eternal fact,' was a phrase he never tired of repeating ; and it was 

 through the patient study of facts that he continually strove to reach 

 the truth, at the cost of an unremitting labour that seemed almost 

 slavish : a labour that strengthened mind and will, but overtaxed the 

 body, until first his eyesight, and then, by a gradual decay, his bodily 

 health, gave way under the strain. 



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