history of the world before the creation? Yet this anachronism of ideas is not unparalleled; it is matched, though on a more contracted scale, by an inscription on a British finger-post "Had you seen these roads before they were made, There is, however, a rabbi, mentioned by Bayle, who far exceeds both the Irishman and the fingerpost. He asserts, that Providence questioned Adam concerning the creation before he was born; and that Adam knew more of the matter than the angels who had laughed at him. Those who see things in a philosophical light must have observed more frequently than others, that there is in this world a continual recurrence or rotation of ideas, events, and blunders. With his utmost ingenuity, or his utmost absurdity, a man, in modern days, cannot contrive to produce a system for which there is no prototype in antiquity, or to commit a blunder for which there is no precedent. For example: during the late rebellion in Ireland, at the military execution of some wretched rebel, the cord broke, and the criminal, who had been only half hanged, fell to the ground. The major, who was superintending the execution, exclaimed, “You rascal, if you do that again, I'll kill you, as sure as you breathe." Now this is by no means an original idea. In an old French book, called "La Charlatanerie des Savans," is the following note :-" D'autres ont pro posé et résolu en même tems des questions ridicules; par exemple celle-ci : Devroit-on faire souffrir une seconde fois le même genre de mort à un criminel, qui après avoir eu la tête coupée viendroit à résusciter?"-Finkelth, Præf. ad Observationes Pract. num. 12. The passionate major, instead of being a mere Irish blunderer, was, without knowing it, a learned casuist; for he was capable of deciding, in one word, a question, which, it seems, had puzzled the understandings of the ablest lawyers of France, or which had appalled their conscientious sensibility. Alas, there is nothing new under the sun! "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." CHAPTER VI. 66 THOUGHTS THAT BREATHE, AND WORDS THAT BURN." WE lamented, in our last chapter, that there is nothing new under the sun; yet, perhaps, the thoughts and phraseology of the following story may not be familiar to the English. "Plase your honour," says a man, whose head is bound up with a garter, in token and commemoration of his having been at a fair the preceding night"Plase your honour, it's what I am striving since six o'clock and before, this morning, becààse I'd sooner trouble your honour's honour than any man in all Ireland, on account of your character, and having lived under your family, me and mine, twinty years, aye, say forty again to the back o'that, in the old gentleman's time, as I well remember before I was born; that same time I heard tell of your own honour's riding a little horse in green with your gun before you a grousing over our town-lands, which was the mill and abbey of Ballynagobogg, though 'tis now set away from me (owing to them that belied my father) to Christy Salmon, becààse he's an Orange-man-or his wife-though he was once (let him deny it who can), to my certain knowledge, behind the haystack in Tullygore, sworn in a United man by captain Alick, who was hanged-Pace to the dead any how! -Well, not to be talking too much of that now, only for this Christy Salmon, I should be still living under your honour." 66 Very likely; but what has all this to do with the present business? If you have any complaint to make against Christy Salmon, make it—if not, let me go to dinner." "Oh, it would be too bad to be keeping your honour from your dinner, but I'll make your honour sinsible immadiately. It is not of Christy Salmon at-all-at-all I'm talking. May be your honour is not sinsible yet who I am- -I am Paddy M'Doole, of the Curragh, and I've been a flax-dresser and dealer since I parted your honour's land, and was last night at the fair of Clonaghkilty, where I went just in a quiet way thinking of nothing at all, as any man might, and had my little yarn along with me, my wife's and the girl's year's spinning, and all just hoping to bring them back a few honest shillings as they desarvednone better!-Well, plase your honour, my beast lost a shoe, which brought me late to the fair, but not so late but what it was as throng as ever; you could have walked over the heads of the men, women, and childer, a foot and a horseback, all buying and selling; so I to be sure thought no harm of doing the like; so I makes the best bargain I could of the little hanks for my wife and the girl, and the man I sold them to was just weighing them at the crane, and I standing forenent him-Success to myself!' said I, looking at the shillings I was putting into my waistcoat pocket for my poor family, when up comes the inspector, whom I did not know, I'll take my oath, from Adam, nor couldn't know, becààse he was the deputy inspector, and had been but just made, of which I was ignorant, by this book and all the books that ever were shut and opened—but no matter for that; he seizes my hanks out of the scales that I had just sold, saying they were unlawful and forfeit, becààse by his watch it was past four o'clock, which I denied to be possible, plase your honour, becààse not one, nor two, nor three, but all the town and country were selling the same as myself in broad day, only when the deputy came up they stopped, which I could not, by rason I did not know him.— 'Sir,' says I (very civil), if I had known you, it would have been another case, but any how I hope no jantleman will be making it a crime to a poor man to sell his little matter of yarn for his wife and childer after four o'clock, when he did not know it was contrary to law at-all-at-all.’ "I gave you notice that it was contrary to law at the fair of Edgerstown,' said he.-I axe your pardon, sir,' said I, 'it was my brother, for I was by.'— With that he calls me liar, and what not, and takes a grip* of me, and I a grip of my flax, and he had a shilalat and I had none; so he gave it me over the head, I crying murder! murder!' and clinging to the scales to save me, and they set a swinging and I with them, plase your honour, till the bame comes down a'top o'the back o'my head, and kilt me, as your honour sees." "I see that you are alive still, I think." "It's not his fault if I am, plase your honour, for he left me for dead, and I am as good as dead still: if it be plasing to your honour to examine my head, you'll be sinsible I'm telling nothing but the truth. Your honour never seen a man kilt as I was and am -all which I'm ready (when convanient) to swear before your honour." + The reiterated assurances which this hero gives us of his being killed, and the composure with which he offers to swear to his own assassination and decease, appear rather surprising and ludicrous to those who * A gripe or fast hold. † An oak stick, supposed to be cut from the famous wood of Shilala. This is nearly verbatim from a late Irish complainant. |