, what a sublime picture!
The Roman legions--the wilderness--Jerusalem in the distance--an army of
murderers in the foreground!"

Mr. R., a member, now gave the next toast--"To the further improvement of
Tooling, and thanks to the Committee for their services."

Mr. L., on behalf of the committee who had reported on that subject,
returned thanks. He made an interesting extract from the report, by which
it appeared how very much stress had been laid formerly on the mode of
tooling, by the fathers, both Greek and Latin. In confirmation of this
pleasing fact, he made a very striking statement in reference to the
earliest work of antediluvian art. Father Mersenne, that learned Roman
Catholic, in page one thousand four hundred and thirty-one[1] of his
operose Commentary on Genesis, mentions, on the authority of several
rabbis, that the quarrel of Cain with Abel was about a young woman; that,
by various accounts, Cain had tooled with his teeth, [Abelem fuisse
_morsibus_ dilaceratum a Cain;] by many others, with the jaw-bone of an
ass; which is the tooling adopted by most painters. But it is pleasing to
the mind of sensibility to know that, as science expanded, sounder views
were adopted. One author contends for a pitchfork, St. Chrysostom for a
sword, Irenaeus for a scythe, and Prudentius for a hedging-bill. This last
writer delivers his opinion thus:--

"Frater, probatae sanctitatis aemulus,
Germana curvo colla frangit sarculo:"

_i.e_. his brother, jealous of his attested sanctity, fractures his
brotherly throat with a curved hedging-bill. "All which is respectfully
submitted by your committee, not so much as decisive of the question, (for
it is not,) but in order to impress upon the youthful mind the importance
which has ever been attached to the quality of the tooling by such men as
Chrysostom and Irenaeus."

[Footnote 1: "Page one thousand four hundred and thirty-one"--_literally_,
good reader, and no joke at all.]

"Dang Irenaeus!" said Toad-in-the-hole, who now rose impatiently to give the
next toast:--"Our Irish friends; and a speedy revolution in their mode of
tooling, as well as everything else connected with the art!"

"Gentlemen, I'll tell you the plain truth. Every day of the year we take
up a paper, we read the opening of a murder. We say, this is good, this
is charming, this is excellent! But, behold you! scarcely have we read a
little farther, before the word Tipperary or Ballina-something betrays t