gazine called "The Greal."

"I wish you would repeat one of them," said the old clerk.

"Here is one," said I, "which particularly struck me:--

"It is the custom of the eagle, when his young are sufficiently old, to
raise them up above his nest in the direction of the sun; and the bird
which has strength enough of eye to look right in the direction of the
sun, he keeps and nourishes, but the one which has not, he casts down
into the gulf to its destruction. So does the Lord deal with His
children in the Catholic Church Militant: those whom He sees worthy to
serve Him in godliness and spiritual goodness He keeps with Him and
nourishes, but those who are not worthy from being addicted to earthly
things, He casts out into utter darkness, where there is weeping and
gnashing of teeth."

The old gentleman, after a moment's reflection, said it was a clever
fable, but an unpleasant one. It was hard for poor birds to be flung
into a gulf, for not having power of eye sufficient to look full in the
face of the sun, and likewise hard that poor human creatures should be
lost for ever, for not doing that which they had no power to do.

"Perhaps," said I, "the eagle does not deal with his chicks, or the Lord
with His creatures as the fable represents."

"Let us hope at any rate," said the old gentleman, "that the Lord does
not."

"Have you ever seen this book?" said he, and put Smith's "Sean Dana" into
my hand.

"Oh, yes," said I, "and have gone through it. It contains poems in the
Gaelic language by Oisin and others, collected in the Highlands. I went
through it a long time ago with great attention. Some of the poems are
wonderfully beautiful."

"They are so," said the old clerk. "I too have gone through the book; it
was presented to me a great many years ago by a lady to whom I gave some
lessons in the Welsh language. I went through it with the assistance of
a Gaelic grammar and dictionary, which she also presented to me, and I
was struck with the high tone of the poetry."

"This collection is valuable indeed," said I; "it contains poems, which
not only possess the highest merit, but serve to confirm the authenticity
of the poems of Ossian, published by Macpherson, so often called in
question. All the pieces here attributed to Ossian are written in the
same metre, tone, and spirit, as those attributed to him in the other
collection, so if Macpherson's Ossianic poems, which he said were
collected by him in the Hi