Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/88

 knowledge of the language. There was hardly a phrase book; there were no dictionaries, and no elementary grammar either for Europeans or for Japanese students, grammar being ignored in the Japanese school and college curriculum, and left entirely to philologists, whose works (few in number) were too abstruse for study by any but the most advanced students. Not until ten years after Aston's arrival was the first attempt at a grammar on European models published by the education department of the imperial government. Aston in the interval not only acquired a complete, accurate, and eloquent command of the spoken language, and a facility of using the written language, which is different from the spoken in essential characteristics, but he compiled grammars (1869 and 1872) of both the spoken and written Japanese languages on the European method, and on lines of scientific philology. Aston's grammars were superseded by the more comprehensive works of Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain on 'Colloquial Japanese' (1888) and 'The Study of Japanese Writing' (1899), but Aston led the way in the arduous task. Later he extended his studies into Chinese and Korean philology, and was the first among either European or Asiatic scholars to show the affinity of the Korean and Japanese languages.

At the same time Aston was an original and exhaustive investigator of the history, religion, political system, and literature of Japan. He was the first European to complete a literal translation of the Nihongi, the 'Ancient Chronicles of Japan' (1896); this work and Professor Chamberlain's translation of the Kojiki, the Ancient Records, form the original authorities for the mythology and history of ancient Japan. The original is written in the most abstruse style, and Aston for the purpose of his translation, which though literal is graceful and simple, had to consult hundreds of explanatory volumes by native commentators, as well as the Chinese classics.

His subsequent works on 'Japanese Literature' (1899) and on 'Shinto' (1905), the indigenous religion of Japan, became recognised text-books; they have been translated into Japanese and are used and quoted by leading native scholars in Japan. Aston also wrote on historical and philological subjects in the 'Transactions' of the Asiatic Society of Japan, the Japan Society, and the Royal Asiatic Society of London. According to Dr. Haga, professor of literature in Tokio University, Aston's literary exertions, combined with those of Satow and Chamberlain, generated that thorough understanding of the Japanese by the English which culminated in the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902.

On retiring from Japan on a pension in 1889, Aston was made C.M.G. Thenceforward he resided at Beer, South Devon, where he died on 22 Nov. 1911. He had long suffered from pulmonary trouble, but ill-health never diminished his geniality. He married in 1871 Janet, daughter of R. Smith of Belfast; she predeceased him, without issue. His unique collection of native Japanese books, numbering some 9500 volumes and including many rare block printed editions, was acquired for Cambridge University library in January 1912.  ATKINSON, ROBERT (1839–1908), philologist, born at Gateshead on 6 April 1839, was only child of John Atkinson, who was in business there, by his wife Ann. After education at the Anchorage grammar school close to his home from 1849 to 1856, he matriculated in Trinity College, Dublin, on 2 July 1856, but he spent the years 1857 and 1858 on the Continent, principally at Liège. There he laid the foundation of his knowledge of the Romance languages. On his return to Ireland he worked as a schoolmaster in Kilkenny till he won a Trinity College scholarship in 1862. Thenceforward his academic progress was rapid. He graduated B.A. on 16 Dec. 1863, M.A. in 1866, and LL.D. in 1869. In 1891 he received the honorary degree of D.Litt.

In 1869 Atkinson became university professor of the Romance languages, and from 1871 till near his death he filled at the same time the chair of Sanskrit and comparative philology. His masterly powers of linguistic analysis made him an admirable teacher, notably of composition in Latin and Romance tongues, while the immense range of his linguistic faculty enabled pupils of adequate capacity to learn in his classroom languages new to them, with almost magical rapidity and thoroughness.

Atkinson was both a linguist and a philologist of exceptional power and range. With equal facility he taught not only most of the Romance languages but also Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, and other Indian tongues. He was a brilliant Hebrew scholar, and Persian, Arabic, and several languages of Central and Western Asia were familiar to him. In all 