"Then you won't have to wait long for it," said my hearty, and smiled such a rich, meaning, self-complacent smile, as lit up his whole nature, and made him rock with scarcely suppressed merriment. He fairly chuckled at the recollection of his fun, and excited my curiosity to hear his story.

XIII.

"Well, you see, Sir, last May, two gintlemen and a lot of others, and no end of ladies came down to our country to hunt up the antiquities; they b'longed to the British Ass-something-myself thinks it's Assoshiashun. These two was, what they called theirselves, savvongs, whatever that means; but I knew their own honest names were Dr. Tame and Dr. Tombs, and very decent fellows they were, though I knocked the consate out of Mr. Tame. They went here, and they poked there; and they dug this place, and they trenched that; and they upset, and turned upside down, and turned in and out everything: 'help me, if a pebble-stone or a sod of grass escaped their prying notice; the gintlemen sticking their shillelahs, and the colleen dhasses-the pretty girls their parrysoles every

where.

"Well, Sir, when I couldn't make out their business, I made bould to ax Mr. Tame;" and, says I, "May I ax what's your name?" says I.

"Dr. Tame, of Dublin," says he, mighty consequential-like, as if every one knew who Dr. Tame was, an' I never heerd of him before -Nunquam de illius famâ audivi.

"But what may you be ?" says I, not a bit put out by his consequence," and what are you doing here ?" said I.

"I'm a savvong," says he, as cool as salt cod, "I'm a savrong." "And what in the name of goodness is that," said I; "is it a monkey or a Frinchman ?"

"Well," says he,

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a savvong," says he, "is a wise man." With that I began to twig him, and guess'd that sacrong was just what Shemus Connell, the schoolmaster, used to tache me out of Horris: sapiens, a wise man. "It would be hard, yer 'anner, to find any one that ever stepp'd in breeches a bigger born fool than the same Mr. Tame, although he called himself a wise man."

"I'm a philosopher, Mr. Doherty," said he, after he had inquired my name, I'm a philosopher, and am kem all the way from Dublin to settle some knotty points about the early inhabitants of this place. Can you give me any information ?"

"Indeed and indeed," I replied, "it would be presumption in me to tache a philosopher. Sure, I'm but a frieze-coated countryman," says I, "and how could I tache the likes of you? A love-letter from the Pope to his wife and children wouldn't be half so quare or impossible, as for me to be taching philosophers."

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But local knowledge, Mr. O'Doherty," and there, your 'anner, he had me by the grip, for ye see, if I've a weakness, it is to be called

O; "local knowledge you may have, although but a feeble glimmering of general philosophy."

"Nivver a farthing candle's worth of philosophy at all," said I, "I jist know I've got a nose on my face, and I follow my nose, that's my philosophy."

"There might be worse, there might be worse," said the Dublin savvong.

"I hope savvong is nothing bad, yer 'anner," continued Tim, addressing ourselves, "for myself doesn't know rightly what it means, except that the savvong showed himself a fool. And there I think Horris slumbers, as he says Homer sometimes does : for he says the wise man is everything—a rich man, a good cobbler, a beauty, and a king:-Dives, qui sapiens est, et sutor bonus, et solus formosus, et But he left out one thing: he should have said—' he was also a fool. Now, our philosopher was a fool, your 'anner; Tim Doherty says it, and will prove it.”

est rex.

"Well, Tim, go on.”

"You see, Sir, he went on about forts, and raths, and cromlechs, and duns, and Cyclopean buildings, and Collineations, and Firbolgs, and Tuath de Danaans, and Celts and Phoenicians, and Milesians, and ethnology, and geology, and flint tools, and stone chips in the drift, and pre-Adamite men, and torques and brooches, and primitive fortifications, and Ophite temples, and Ogham stones, till I was fairly dinned and deav'd with him."

“But what did he say about pre-Adamites, Tim ?"

"Why, yer 'anner, he would make out that we mortal min of our distric' belonged to a race that lived long before Adam-that we were a peculiar race of min-that he had dissected several of us, and found that we had two additional vertebræ in our os coccygis (I remimber his Latin names for the parts right well) more than other people the remnant of a tail-a bony appendage behind to sit upon. What do you think of that now ?”

"I think it was a very unwarranted speculation."

"Arrah, yer 'anner, I wish my Norah had heard him spekkylating upon her Tim having a tail: I think she'd have astonished the sarvong with a clout of the potstick on his caubeen, if he didn't get a pail of dirty water about his ears. 'Twould make a saint mad to hear the fool. Here, my dear friends,' shouted he to the listening throng, we are repaid for our journey: here is proof positive that I am right. I cannot resist evidence before my eyes, while I am honest sceptic enough to avow that I never believe what I never saw.'”

"If that be the case," said I, aloud, "you won't believe much. Did you ever see the back of your head? Did you ever see your great-great-grandmother? Did you ever see the inside of a drum ?" "Now look at this building," continued he; "this accords with my theory, that this island was inhabited prior to the creation of Adam, by a less highly developed race of mankind. Mark these stones, how rudely laid, how coarsely cemented. Observe their size, cyclopean, as well as their irregular masonry. See how

the walls rise without any distinction of tier, and bear no indication of shingle, or other roof. How utterly unlike this is to anything ever seen before! Ladies and gentlemen, such architecture as this is demonstrative of our problem. Seeing is believing; no argument is required. The very lowest computation we can assign for such buildings as this is twenty thousand years! The chronology of the Bible is wrong, and we are right."

"That may be as you savvongs say," said I, "but I know to my own certain knowledge that one stone was not there last Midsummer; and that this very winter I helped Paddy Murphy to build it for shelter to his wee ould grey jackass. Isn't it so, Paddy Murphy ?” said I.

"True for you, Tim," said he ; "God's truth, and there's no use denying it."

"Och, your 'anner, you should a-seen the savvong; he looked like a stuck pig; he stared around him to see who sided with him; but when, partly at Paddy Murphy's remarks and mine, and partly at his own scared look, the gintlemen fell into a roar of laughing, you'd a-thought he'd been bit by a mad dog, for Dr. Tame became wild, and foam'd at the mouth, and gnashed his teeth at them all, and curs'd them, bell, book, and candle, and look'd as if he could throw all the world into the say close by, and himself after it. To make a long story short, he tuk to his heels, and, they say, never stopped running for two hundred miles, till he got into Dublin, and buried his head in his pillows to shut out the laughing. I never think, yer 'anner, of these men that would be wiser than God Almighty himself-savvongs-men that would send frogs to the blacksmith to get shod-that I don't think of the shed of Paddy Murphy's ass."

"More power to you, Tim," said we, in the idiom of his country, "in confounding those bat-like philosophers who are purblind in the light, and see clearly in the dark what no one else can descry; who dishonour God's word, and exalt poor staggering human reason above it. You served the savant right. Sic semper pereant! Sed quando huc reversarus es?—Shall we ever see you here again, Tim ?” "Proximum annum-next year, please God."

"Farewell, Tim; safe home to you, and a pleasant meeting with Norah!"

"Omnia bona tibi atque toti domo tuæ, exacervet pater Omnipotens! God bless you, master! May you and the mistress sit upon a golden chair in heaven: and drink the Falernian of immortality in sacula sæculorum!"

"Ita Deus faxit !-Vale, vale.

Good-bye, Tim, till we meet again.

P. P.

VI.

A CHANCE WORLD.

PERHAPS there are not many men now who profess to believe that the world was produced by chance. Anciently there were sages who maintained that the earth, with all its furniture, sprang up in space from a casual concourse of atoms; and there were poets, too, who did not disdain to write verses in honour of this unhappy conclusion. For cosmical theorists in general, and for these in particular, the worst fate that could be devised would be twelve months' banishment to a planet constructed upon their own principles.

Sceptics, however, still exist. Even in this famous nineteenth century of ours certainly the busiest and most cultivated which has yet been recorded in the book of Time-there are some who think it good philosophy to exclude an intelligent cause from the universe. Tearing the heart out of creation they regard it as a species of automaton, and resolve all its phenomena into pure dry mechanism. Now, as we are so much accustomed to count upon the regularity of all natural processes-and what a splendid tribute is this to their perfection, since it is a tribute paid by the Atheist and the Christian alike!—it may not be misspent time to consider what sort of a world we should have if Chance, or any other nonintelligent power were really at the head of affairs. And lest the inquiry should seem to refer to a mere phantom of Pagan cosmology alone, let it be remarked that by a slight change in the conditions of the question, the inferences are equally applicable to every form of modern unbelief.

I ask the sceptic's company, therefore, whilst we glance for a few moments at a planet which has been shaped out of atoms fortuitously assembled. Eschewing the haughty, contemptuous tone which is sometimes adopted in dealing with subjects of this character, and which necessarily frustrates its purpose by closing the avenues of approach to an incredulous intellect, I will venture to discuss the topic in a free and familiar manner.

The leading law of such an orb, if anything like law can be said to exist, must of course be this-that in a Chance world you can only expect Chance results. First of all, then, as respiration is the Alpha and Omega of existence to creatures constituted like ourselves, we must be furnished with an appropriate atmosphere. Now, seeing that the number of gases with which we are acquainted, both simple and compound, is considerable, you, my

sceptical friend, shall write down the names of each on separate slips of paper, then put them in a bag, and afterwards draw out the first which comes to hand.

If you happen to hit upon a peculiar mixture consisting of nitrogen, oxygen, and a little carbonic acid, I will frankly wit that the admirable composition which envelopes our earth may be a purely accidental production. But how is this? You dip in your fingers and bring out a slip labelled chlorine. Why, che is a deadly poison! It will never answer for your Chance world A few whiffs would exterminate the entire population. So unfit indeed, is this gas for pulmonary purposes, that it occasions feart spasms in the windpipe, and the entrance to the chest is instantly closed against the intruder. But as Chance has thus tail-i egregiously failed, be it observed, it may be reasonable to give her another opportunity, that we may see if she will retrieve her character. You shall, therefore, draw again. What now? Sulphuretted hydrogen, I perceive. Alas, my good friend, the is worse still, if possible! Imagine that all the poultry in crea tion had been laying eggs-that all these eggs had bee intensely putrid-and that all these intensely putrid egrs had been broken at your feet-and you may form some notion of the detestable gas with which your goddess might have encircled the globe. And could you expect any respectable beings to reside in such an unsavoury planet? I say, no! But, indeed, existence would be impossible, either for man or beast. Thenard found that when this substance was inhaled without dilution by an animal, the wretched creature fell down dead as if pierced by a bullet. Mixed with common air in so small a proportion as one part in a thousand it has proved fatal to a large dog, and even when the leg alone of a horse was inserted in a receiver filled with sulphuretted hydrogen the quadruped was summarily destroyed.

These two essays at an atmosphere, therefore, having lei to nothing but poisonous results, how long would it be, think you, before Chance contrived to hit upon a gas which could be breathed with perfect safety? There is only one such aerial fluid in fat. All others are either entirely irrespirable, or if they admit of inhalation for a time, like pure oxygen or nitrous oxide laughing gas), they are unfitted for regular service on other grounds, Nor is this solitary air, strictly speaking, a chemical compound; it is a mechanical mixture, whose constituents might have be adjusted in any conceivable proportions had they been determined by Chance instead of design. I might, therefore, fairly re you to draw again in order to settle those proportions that is to say): we will number 100 slips of paper with successive figur to represent the nitrogen, 100 to represent the oxygen, and an