Ihre was led to the study of the Teutonic languages in their oldest forms by his desire to find a consistent spelling and correct understanding of the words in his own language. He was desirous of freeing it from foreign words, but only when those substituted were as expressive and comprehensible as the old. Ihre was a pioneer in the field of dialect lexicographers, publishing the outline of a Swedish dialect dictionary in 1766, and wrote a number of works pertaining to the historic forms of Gothic, Lappish, Finnish and Old Norse. Special importance is due to his epoch-making research concerning the language of the Codex Argenteus. He once for all settled the controversy, proving the Codex to contain the Gothic Bible translation of Bishop Wulfila against the assertions of M. Lacroze of Berlin, who claimed that it was written in Frankish. In regard to the Edda of Snorre Sturleson, he declared it to be intended as an introductory study of poesy, a handbook of poetics for young scalds, an opinion which has been fully established in a much later time. By these and other theories Ihre attained a much higher standpoint as a scientific critic than his contemporaries. He spoke of the resemblance between the Teutonic and the classical languages, without being able to find the reasons. He even to some extent anticipated the great discovery which after its formulator has been called Grimm’s Law, by pointing out “a certain regularity of consonant shift” in the Teutonic languages. The monumental work of Ihre and the crowning effort of his life was prepared between the years 1750-1759. This Glossarium suiogothicum, published at the expense of the government, is the best Swedish dictionary of the eighteenth century. Ihre by his severe critical method kills the wild etymologies of the “Rudbeckian philology,” turning to Old Swedish for the derivations, and, where this gave no satisfaction, to the Old Icelandic, “because this language nine hundred years ago was separated from our own and has remained undisturbed by foreign influence.” From the Old Northern dialects he turned to Old High German, Old English and Gothic, the last mentioned of which he considered the mother of the Teutonic languages. Many of Ihre’s etymologies have not been able to withstand the scrutiny of later criticism, but his great etymological dictionary is the product of versatile knowledge and unusual insight, and has not only exerted a profound influence upon his own period but also served as a model for later epochs of philological research. CHAPTER XV _Gustavian Period--Gustavus III. and Gustavus IV. Adolphus_