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 the Irish manufacture.  Instantly we loath it; we call to the waiter; we say, Waiter, take away this paper; send it out of the house; it is absolutely offensive to all just taste.’  I appeal to every man whether, on finding a murder (otherwise perhaps promising enough) to be Irish, he does not feel himself as much insulted as when Madeira being ordered, he finds it to be Cape; or when, taking up what he takes to be a mushroom, it turns out what children call a toad-stool.  Tithes, politics, or something wrong in principle, vitiate every Irish murder.  Gentlemen, this must be reformed, or Ireland will not be a land to live in; at least, if we do live there, we must import all our murders, that’s clear.”  Toad-in-the-hole sat down growling with suppressed wrath, and the universal “Hear, hear!” sufficiently showed that he spoke the general feeling.