their money-he was then informed that they wanted another cast of his hand, in order to put out of the way another obnoxious gentleman who lived on the other side of the Shannon, and they engaged him, nothing loth, to come along with them to do the deed. On a dark blustry night they embarked in a cot on this dreary river, that here steals through bogs and morasses its deep and silent course, and while in the middle of the stream the bravo was suddenly caught hold of, and, before he had time to collect himself for resistance, was tossed overboard; and as he rose after the plunge, and attempted to catch the boat, a heavy oar's blow, aimed with vigour and certainty at his head, sent him again to the bottom, and, as it was hoped, never more to rise. But in this they were mistaken, for by and by he was seen steadily and lustily swimming towards shore, and then it was that one of the party, resting the ruffian's own gun on the gunwale of the cot, fired with sure aim, and sent the bullet through his brain. The fellows waited till they saw that he would now rise no more. They then went home, kept their own secret, and all was safe. But some time after, in the usual process of decomposition, the body rose to the surface, and was found amongst the reeds. A coroner's jury was summoned, and after a cursory inspection the usual verdict of Found drowned' was about to pass: but while the coroner was writing out the proceedings, one of

the jury passing a small switch through the profuse curls of the dead man's head, found his switch enter, and, as through a hole, pass out at the other side. This, of course, led to a more exact examination, and the man was found to have died of a gun-shot wound, inflicted by some person unknown. Still a year or more passed on, until in the dusk of winter's evening, as the chief constable of the district was sitting by his fire, a message was brought to him stating that one in his hall wished to speak with him. He had him introduced, when, in a way not at all common with the Irish, and in арраrently the deepest agony of remorse, he told the guilty story from beginning to end. He said that though he had confessed all to the priest, and gone through many penances, yet he could not find ease for his conscience, that life was a burden, that he desired to die, even suppose it was by the hangman's hand. He named to the constable all the individuals concerned; said that a large portion of them were at that very moment on their way to the gaol of Galway, to visit others of the confederates who were confined for some other crime. By means of this information the constable succeeded in arresting almost every one of them. I do not know what became of the repentant murderer, for he was the one upon whom the lot fell to go along with the bravo to shoot the agent. The chief constable declared that in all his experience of Irish

criminality, this informer showed the only evidence of genuine and uncontrollable remorse."

The conclusion the author draws from this well-told and characteristic story is, that the "predial" evils of Ireland are in a great measure owing to the pecuniary distresses of the landlords.

Doubtless this distress, and the desperate measures resorted to in consequence, are among the proximate causes of Irish outrage; but the root of the evil lies in the destitution of moral principle. The people are led by their feelings and their passions-they have no sense of duty, except that they are bound to submit to their ecclesiastical superiors. Nevertheless, if one can escape being shot (and, after all, it is only now and then these shooting affairs take place), these Irish are not an unpleasant people to live · among.

CAUSALITY.

To understand the reasons why things are as they are in this world's wide domain-cognoscere causas rerum- -this is indeed the height of wisdom. But this, even in the limited degree in which it is possible, is a thing of much time and labour. In modern times the fashion is to take a shorter method. There never was a period when people were less content to take

things as they find them without troubling themselves about causes, but neither was there ever a time when people in general had less patience for acquiring a knowledge of these causes. The modern method, which is one of remarkable facility, is to assume a cause.

A

man might as well forswear society at once-at all events the delightful intellectual society of political economists, geologists, transcendental metaphysicians, and other illuminati-as make up his mind to simple facts, such as that eggs are eggs, or that mutton is sevenpence the pound because the butcher won't take less. No; that will never do. You must connect every fact with some profound theory. Eggs are eggs because of some general law-" principle" is the fashionable phrase-which can only be explained by a large quantity of terms derived from the Greek. Mutton is sevenpence the pound, because of some very profound relations between demand and supply, only comprehensible by such as are versed in political economy; and this "principle," upon which the price of your mutton inevitably depends, must be held to be infallible all the same, though you discover that your neighbour on the right hand obtains his requirements of sheep's flesh for sevenpence halfpenny the pound, and your neighbour on the left contracts "all round" for sixpence three farthings.

We have called this fashion of theorising

a "modern" fashion, but it is so only in this respect, that in the present time we apply it to the gravest and most practical matters, whereas when it was last in fashion it was more innocently confined to the province of merely fanciful speculation.

For example, towards the close of the sixteenth century, to wit, in the year 1597, the very learned Dr. Gaspar Tagliacozzi, of Bologna, more commonly known as Taliacotius, published a very elaborate book, of which the fifth chapter is dedicated to a treatise," on the dignity of noses." In this chapter the author is pleased to acquaint the world, not only with the great dignity and nobleness of the nose, but likewise the reason thereof. He is not quite confident of the exact and only reason, wherein it must be allowed he falls short of the moderns, who have no doubt at all in any thing which they consider scientific. But he seems quite sure that this grandeur of the nose depends upon one of two causes which he takes the pains to specify. "There is," says he, “something august and regal in the nose, either because it is the sign of corporeal beauty and mental perfection, or because it denotes some peculiar aptness and wisdom in governing." This is quite of a piece with many of the "causes" which one sees every day advanced in matters of the very highest practical moment. The illustrations, too, of the erudite Tagliacozzi,