of epic poetry, pretended to be doubtful whether
the poet had fixed on the right time for a _king's dream_; whether, said
they, a king should have a propitious dream on his _first going to bed_
or at the _dawn of the following morning_? No one seemed to be quite
certain; they puzzled each other till the controversy closed in this
felicitous manner, and satisfied both the night and the dawn critics.
Barreto discovered that an _accent_ on one of the words alluded to in
the controversy would answer the purpose, and by making king Manuel's
dream to take place at the dawn would restore Camoens to their good
opinion, and preserve the dignity of the poet.

Chevreau begins his History of the World in these words:--"Several
learned men have examined in _what season_ God created the world, though
there could hardly be any season then, since there was no sun, no moon,
nor stars. But as the world must have been created in one of the four
seasons, this question has exercised the talents of the most curious,
and opinions are various. Some say it was in the month of _Nisan_, that
is, in the spring: others maintain that it was in the month of _Tisri_,
which begins the civil year of the Jews, and that it was on the _sixth
day_ of this month, which answers to our _September_, that _Adam_ and
_Eve_ were created, and that it was on a _Friday_, a little after four
o'clock in the afternoon!" This is according to the Rabbinical notion
of the eve of the Sabbath.

The Irish antiquaries mention _public libraries_ that were before the
flood; and Paul Christian Ilsker, with profounder erudition, has given
an exact catalogue of _Adam's_. Messieurs O'Flaherty, O'Connor, and
O'Halloran, have most gravely recorded as authentic narrations the
wildest legendary traditions; and more recently, to make confusion
doubly confounded, others have built up what they call theoretical
histories on these nursery tales. By which species of black art they
contrive to prove that an Irishman is an Indian, and a Peruvian may be a
Welshman, from certain emigrations which took place many centuries
before Christ, and some about two centuries after the flood! Keating, in
his "History of Ireland," starts a favourite hero in the giant
Partholanus, who was descended from Japhet, and landed on the coast of
Munster 14th May, in the year of the world 1987. This giant succeeded in
his enterprise, but a domestic misfortune attended him among his Irish
friends:--his wife exposed h