23 AUGUST 1879, Page 21

of the heroic ago of Ireland as embodied in the

border-tales and

songs. There is some grace in Mr. O'Grady's rendering of these, and whether or not we see ground for his implicit belief in the exist- once of his heroes and heroines, we most of us feel a sort of pleasure

in looking back through the golden, or it may be lurid, haze which envelopes that remote past. We must accept this section of the work for what it is worth, but to the geology of Mr. O'Grady's book we take decided exception, as wholly hypothetical and at variance with well-ascertained facts. The existence of the human race upon the earth is thrown back to an immensely remote epoch, there are astounding statements ns to various phenomena of the glacial period, the migrations of animals, &c. Tfie names of rivers,—the Seine, Thames, Berm, and Liffey, not to mention many others, together with their affluents, and the precise points at which such rivers poured their waters into the ocean, are given with the easy confidence which might be expected, if the writer hod been furnished with an ordnance map of the most unquestioned accuracy.