to attempt to explain this curious and rather elaborate caricature. [Illustration: _No. 112. An Irishman._] Similar attempts at caricature, though less direct and elaborate, are found in others of our national records. One of these, pointed out to me by an excellent and respected friend, the Rev. Lambert B. Larking, is peculiarly interesting, as well as amusing. It belongs to the Treasury of the Exchequer, and consists of two volumes of vellum called Liber A and Liber B, forming a register of treaties, marriages, and similar documents of the reign of Edward I., which have been very fully used by Rymer. The clerk who was employed in writing it, seems to have been, like many of these official clerks, somewhat of a wag, and he has amused himself by drawing in the margin figures of the inhabitants of the provinces of Edward's crown to which the documents referred. Some of these are evidently designed for caricature. Thus, the figure given in our cut No. 112 was intended to represent an Irishman. One trait, at least, in this caricature is well known from the description given by Giraldus Cambrensis, who speaks with a sort of horror of the formidable axes which the Irish were accustomed to carry about with them. In treating of the manner in which Ireland ought to be governed when it had been entirely reduced to subjection, he recommends that, "in the meantime, they ought not to be allowed in time of peace, on any pretence or in any place, to use that detestable instrument of destruction, which, by an ancient but accursed custom, they constantly carry in their hands instead of a staff." In a chapter of his "Topography of Ireland," Giraldus treats of this "ancient and wicked custom" of always carrying in their hand an axe, instead of a staff, to the danger of all persons who had any relations with them. Another Irishman, from a drawing in the same manuscript, given in our cut No. 113, carries his axe in the same threatening attitude. The costume of these figures answers with sufficient accuracy to the description given by Giraldus Cambrensis. The drawings exhibit more exactly than that writer's description the "small close-fitting hoods, hanging a cubit's length (half-a-yard) below the shoulders," which, he tells us, they were accustomed to wear. This small hood, with the flat cap attached to it, is shown better perhaps in the second figure than in the first. The "breeches and hose of one piece, or hose and breeches joined together," are also exhibited here very distinctly, and appear to be tied over the heel, but the feet are clearly naked, and evidently the use of the "brogues" was not yet general among the Irish of the thirteenth century. [Illustration: _No. 113. Another Irishman._]