of the same kindred as the Lares of Latium.  “The English Puck, the Scottish Bogle, the French Esprit Follet, or Goblin, the Gobelinus of monkish Latinity, and the German Kobold, are only varied names for the Grecian Kobalus, whose sole delight consisted in perplexing the human race, and calling up those harmless terrors that constantly hover round the minds of the timid.”  “The English and Scottish terms, ‘Puck,’ ’Bogle’, are the same as the German ‘Spuk’ and the Danish ‘Spogelse,’ without the sibilant aspiration.  These words are general names for any kind of spirit, and correspond to the ‘pouk’ of Piers Ploughman.  In Danish ‘spog’ means a joke, trick, or prank, and hence the character of Robin Goodfellow.  In Iceland Puki is regarded as an evil sprite; and in the language of that country, ‘at pukra’ means both to make a murmuring noise and to steal clandestinely.  The names of these spirits seem to have originated in their boisterous temper—­’spuken,’ Germ. to make a noise:  ‘spog,’ Dan. obstreperous mirth; ‘pukke,’ Dan. to boast, scold.  The Germans use ‘pochin’ in the same figurative sense, though literally it means to strike, beat; and is the same with our poke.”

However varied in name, the persons and attributes of these immaterial beings have no variance which will not readily be accounted for by the difference of climate, territorial surface, and any priority that one tribe had gained over another in the march of mind.  The relics of such a system were much more abundant half-a-century ago, and many a tale of love and violence, garnished with the machinery of that mythos, might have been gleaned from the unwritten learning of the people.  Who would expect to find amongst the rudest of the Irish peasantry—­whose ancestors never knew the use of letters, and by whom, even down to living generations, the English tongue has not been spoken—­a number of fictions, amongst the rest the tale of Cupid and Psyche—­closely corresponding to that of the Greeks?[7] Who that has been a child does not recollect the untiring delight with which he listened to those ingenious arithmetical progressions, reduced to poetry, called “The House that Jack built,” and the perils of “The Old Woman with the Pig?” Few even of those in riper years would suspect their Eastern origin.  In the Sepher Haggadah there is an ancient parabolical hymn, in the Chaldee language, sung by the Jews at the feast of the Passover, and commemorative of the principal events in the history of that people.  For the following literal translation we are indebted to Dr Henderson, the celebrated orientalist:—­

    “1. A kid, a kid my father bought,
        For two pieces of money. 
                                             A kid, a kid.

    “2.  Then came the cat, and ate the kid,
        That my father bought,
        For two pieces of money. 
                                             A kid, a kid.