IDA. As a set-off against the _virtues_ of your fairies, Castaly, you forget there was a propensity to _mischief_. They were rather fond, like the Daoine Shi, of stealing unchristened babes, and of chopping and changing these innocents, thence called _changelings_. On this fable your own Shakspere has wrought the quarrel of Oberon and Titania:— “A lovely boy, stol’n from an Indian king; She never had so sweet a changeling.” I am willing, dearest, that the _poet_ shall make a good market of these fictions; but superstitious ignorance may make a sad and cruel work of it, even among your romantic Irish peasantry. A few months since, on the demesne of Heywood (as we learn from the “Tipperary Constitution”), the death of a child, six years old, was accomplished with a wantonness of purpose almost incredible. Little Mahony was afflicted with spinal disease, and, like many other deformed children, possessed the gift,—in this case the _fatal_ gift,—of acute intellect. For this quality, it was decided that he was not the son of his reputed father, but a fairy changeling. After a solemn convocation, it was decreed that the elfin should be scared away: and the mode of effecting this was, by holding the child on a hot shovel, and then pumping cold water on his head! This had the effect of extorting a confession of his imposture, and a promise to send back the _real_ Johnny Mahony; but ere he could return to elfland and perform this promise, _he died_. But who is he sitting at your ear, Castaly? CAST. Sir, is this fair? You have played the eaves-dropper. Why come you here? EV. To counsel you to silence on these mysteries, sweetest Castaly: remember the fate of Master Kirke, of Aberfoyle, for his dabbling in elfin matters, which you may read in Sir Walter’s “Demonology.” Yet I will not flout all your fayrie legends; there may be _innocent_ illusions, that carry with them somewhat of morality and retribution,—seeing that there are good and bad spirits, which reward and punish mortality. But, in sooth, I never think of fairyland, without remembering that good Sir Walter, as sheriff of Selkirkshire, once took the deposition of a shepherd, who affirmed that he saw the good neighbours sitting under a hill-side: when, lo! it was proved that these were the _puppets of a showman_, stolen and left there by some Scotch mechanics. And, better still, the story of the Mermaid of Caithness, as related to Sir Humphrey Davy, and recorded in his “Salmonia;”—the mermaids, as I take it, being nearly allied to the _Nereid_, or Sea-fairy, and the reality of one about as true as that of the other. Nature is wild and beautiful enough, without these false creations. Read her _truth_, fair lady, and leave the _fables_ to the fairies. There is not a ripple or a stone that is not replete with scientific interest, and yields not a study that both ennobles and delights the mind.