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LIFE OF CHARLES HALIDAT.
announced that he had then " nearly ready for the press a
complete Irish Dictionary," but his death in the following
year, interfered to prevent its publication.
Charles Haliday ^iiS f
always maintained that his brother's work had been appro- J un-
priated by another, and there is an admission of some por-
tion at least of his labours having been so used, in the
following extract taken from the preface to O'Reilly's Irish-
English Dictionary, which first came forth in the year 1817,
but was republished by the late John O'Donovan, LL.D., in
the year 1804.
O'Reilly says, "my collection of words from ancient
glossaries is copious, and several of those words which I have
added to the collections published in the dictionaries of my
predecessors, were collected with a view to publication by
the late Mr. William Haliday, junior, of Arran-quay. That
young gentleman, after acquiring a knowledge of the ancient
and modern languages, usually taught in schools, enriched
his mind with the acquisition of several of the eastern
languages, and made himself so perfect
a master of the
language of his native country, that he was enabled to pub-
lish a grammar of it in Dublin, in the year 1808, under the
fictitious signature of " E. O'C.," and would have published a
dictionary of the same language, if death had not put a stop
to his career, at the early age of twenty-three."
Such is O'Reilly's admission. But it may well be doubted
if the entire is obligation confessed. Probably, Charles
Haliday 's statement is nearer the truth. The manuscript of
the work got into other hands, and Charles Haliday never
recovered it. Besides these services rendered to Irish litera-
ture by William Haliday, he may be said to be entitled to
the further merit cf infusing his own zest for Irish history
and antiquities into the heart of the late George Petrie, that
learned Irish antiquary, whose life has been published by his
friend, William Stokes, M.D. Charles Haliday told me, that
in the year 1807, Petrie, whose father and mother kept a
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