shore; just as the palm-branch was sufficient evidence Did not the soldiers of a Ro

of a visit to Palestine. man general fill their helmets with cockles on the brink of the German Ocean? By the by, when my laborious and learned friend the renowned Abbé Trublet, in vindicating the deluge against Voltaire, instanced the heaps of marine remains and conchilia on the ridge of the Pyrenees, the witty reprobate of Ferney had the unblushing effrontery to assert that those were shells left behind by the pilgrims of St. Jaques on recrossing the mountains.

SCOTT.

I must not, meantime, forget the objects of my devotion; and with your benison, reverend father, shall proceed to examine the "stone."

PROUT.

You behold, Sir Walter, in this block the most valuable remnant of Ireland's ancient glory, and the most precious lot of her Phoenician inheritance! Possessed of this treasure, she may well be designated

"First flower of the earth and first gem of the sea ;"

for neither the musical stone of Memnon, that " SO sweetly played in tune," nor the oracular stone at Delphi, nor the lapidary talisman of the Lydian Gyges, nor the colossal granite shaped into a sphinx in Upper Egypt, nor Stonehenge, nor the Pelasgic walls

Tarsus of the Bible, and he reads the word thus12, accounting for the termination in ish, by which Carthago becomes Carshish, in a very plausible way: "now," says he, "our peoplish have de very great knack of ending dere vords in ish; for if you go on the 'Change, you will hear the great man Nicholish Rotchild calling the English coin monish."— See Lectures delivered in the Western Synagogue, by J. R. M.

But, further, does it not stand to the reason that there must be some other latent way of accounting for the purchase of as much ground as an ox-hide would cover, besides the generally received and most unsatisfactory explanation? The fact is, the Tyrians bought as much land as their Blarney stone would require to fix itself solidly,—

"Taurino quantum potuit circumdare tergo;"

and having got that much, by the talismanic stone they humbugged and deluded the simple natives, and finally became the masters of Africa.

SCOTT.

I confess you have thrown a new and unexpected light on a most obscure passage in ancient history; but how the stone got at last to the county of Cork, appears to me a difficult transition. It must give you great trouble.

PROUT.

My dear sir, don't mention it! It went to Minorca with a chosen body of Carthaginian adventurers, who stole it away as their best safeguard on the expedition. They first settled at Port Mahon, -a spot so called from the clan of the O'Mahonys, a powerful and prolific race still flourishing in this county; just as the Nile had been previously so named from the tribe of the O'Neils, its aboriginal inhabitants. All these matters, and many more curious points, will be one day revealed to the world by my friend Henry O'Brien, in his work on the Round Towers of Ireland. Sir, we built the pyramids before we left Egypt; and all those obelisks, sphinxes, and Memnonic stones, were but emblems of the great relic before you.

George Knapp, who had looked up to Prout with dumb amazement from the commencement, here pulled out his spectacles, to examine more closely the old block, while Scott shook his head doubtingly.

"I can convince the most obstinate sceptic, Sir Walter," continued the learned doctor," of the intimate connexion that subsisted between us and those islands which the Romans called insula Baleares, without knowing the signification of the words which they thus applied. That they were so called from the Blarney stone, will appear at once to any person

accustomed to trace Celtic derivations: the Ulster king of arms, Sir William Betham, has shewn it by the following scale."

Here Prout traced with his cane on the muddy floor of the castle the words

Prodigious! My reverend friend, you have set the point at rest for ever-rem acu tetigisti! Have the goodness to proceed.

PROUT.

Setting sail from Minorca, the expedition, after encountering a desperate storm, cleared the Pillars of Hercules, and landing in the Cove of Cork, deposited their treasure in the greenest spot and the shadiest groves of this beautiful vicinity.

SCOTT.

How do you account for their being left by the Carthaginians in quiet possession of this invaluable deposit?

PROUT.

They had sufficient tact (derived from their connexion with the stone) to give out, that in the storm

it had been thrown overboard to relieve the ship, in latitude 36° 14", longitude 24°. A search was ordered by the senate of Carthage, and the Mediterranean was dragged without effect; but the mariners of that sea, according to Virgil, retained a superstitious reverence for every submarine appearance of a stone :

"Saxa vocant Itali mediis quæ in fluctibus aras!"

And Aristotle distinctly says, in his treatise "De Mirandis," quoted by the erudite Justus Lipsius, that a law was enacted against any further intercourse with Ireland. His words are: "In mari, extra Herculis Columnas, insulam desertam inventam fuisse sylva nemorosam, in quam crebrò Carthaginienses commeârint, et sedes etiam fixerunt: sed veriti ne nimis cresceret, et Carthago laberetur, edicto cavisse ne quis poenâ capitis eò deinceps navigaret."

The fact is, Sir Walter, Ireland was always considered a lucky spot, and constantly excited the jealousy of Greeks, Romans, and people of every country. The Athenians thought that the ghosts of departed heroes were transferred to our fortunate island, which they call, in the war-song of Harmodius and Aristogiton, the land of O's and Macs:

Φιλταθ ̓ Αρμοδι, ουτε που τεθνηκας,

Νησοις δ' εν ΜΑΚ αρ' ΩΝ σε φασιν ειναι.

And the "Groves of Blarney" have been commemor→