that he swallowed the yelk and white, leaving the shell
to the pugnacious disputant. In the same way we look with a pleasing
kind of pity on the quandaries of those whom we shall call--with no
belief whatever in the pre-Adamite theory--the pre-Macadamites.

A man of talent and enterprise, Mr Macadam, proposed a means of getting
quit of one of the objections to the granite causeways. By breaking them
up into small pieces, and spreading them in sufficient quantity, he
proved that a continuous hard surface would be formed, by which the
uneasy jerks from stone to stone would be avoided, and the expense, if
not diminished, at all events not materially increased. When the
proposition was fairly brought before the public, it met the fate of all
innovations. Timid people--the very persons, by the by, who had been the
loudest in their exclamations against the ancient causeways--became
alarmed the moment they saw a chance of getting quit of them. As we
never know the value of a thing till we have lost it, their attachment
to stone and noise became more intense in proportion as the certainty of
being deprived of them became greater. It was proved to the satisfaction
of all rational men, if Mr Macadam's experiment succeeded, and a level
surface were furnished to the streets, that, besides noise, many other
disadvantages of the rougher mode of paving would be avoided. Among
these the most prominent was slipperiness; and it was impossible to be
denied, that at many seasons of the year, not only in frost, when every
terrestrial pathway must be unsafe; but in the dry months of summer, the
smooth surfaces of the blocks of granite, polished and rounded by so
many wheels, were each like a convex mass of ice, and caused unnumbered
falls to the less adroit of the equestrian portion of the king's
subjects. One of the most zealous advocates of the improvement was the
present Sir Peter Laurie, not then elevated to a seat among the Equites,
but imbued probably with a foreknowledge of his knighthood, and
therefore anxious for the safety of his horse. Sir Peter was determined,
in all senses of the word, to _leave no stone unturned_; and a very
small mind, when directed to one object with all its force, has more
effect than a large mind unactuated by the same zeal--as a needle takes
a sharper point than a sword. Thanks, therefore, are due, in a great
measure, to the activity and eloquence of the worthy alderman for the
introduction of Macadam's sys