[93] [Conan the Jester, a character in the Irish ballads, was "a kind of Thersites, but brave and daring even to rashness. He had made a vow that he would never take a blow without returning it; and having ... descended to the infernal regions, he received a cuff from the arch-fiend, which he instantly returned, using the expression in the text ('blow for blow')." Sometimes the proverb is worded thus: "'Claw for claw, and the devil take the shortest nails,' as Conan said to the devil."--_Waverley Novels_, 1829 (notes to chap. xxii. of _Waverley_), i. 241, note 1; see, too, ibid., p. 229.] [94] [The full title of Warburton's book runs thus: _The Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated on the Principles of a Religious Deist; from the omission of the Doctrine of a Future State of Reward and Punishment in the Jewish Dispensation_. (See, more particularly (ed. 1741), Vol. II. pt. ii. bk. v. sect. 5, pp. 449-461, and bk. vi. pp. 569-678.) Compare the following passage from _Dieu et les Hommes_ (_Œuvres, etc._, de Voltaire, 1837, vi. 236, chap. xx.): "Notre Warburton s'est épuisé a ramasser dans son fatras de la Divine légation, toutes les preuves que l'auteur du _Pentateuque_, n'a jamais parlé d'une vie a venir, et il n'a pas eu grande peine; mais il en tire une plaisante conclusion, et digne d'un esprit aussi faux que le sien."] [95] {210}[See _Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles_, par M. le B^on^ G. Cuvier, Paris, 1821, i., "Discours Préliminaire," pp. iv., vii; and for the thesis, "Il n'y a point d'os humaines fossiles," see p. lxiv.; see, too, Cuvier's _Discours sur les révolutions de la surface du globe_, ed. 1825, p. 282: "Si l'on peut en juger par les differens ordres d'animaux dont on y trouve les dépouilles, ils avaient peut-être subi jusqu' á deux ou trois irruptions de la mer." It is curious to note that Moore thought that Cuvier's book was "a most desolating one in the conclusions to which it may lead some minds" (_Life_, p. 554).] [96] {211}[Alfieri's _Abele_ was included in his _Opere inediti_, published by the Countess of Albany and the Abbé Calma in 1804. "In a long Preface ... dated April 25, 1796, Alfieri gives a curious account of the reasons which induced him to call it ... 'Tramelogedy.' He says that _Abel_ is neither a tragedy, a comedy, a drama, a tragi-comedy, nor a Greek tragedy, which last would, he thinks, be correctly described as melo-tragedy. Opera-tragedy would, in his opinion, be a fitting name for it; but he prefers interpolating the word 'melo' into the middle of the word 'tragedy,' so as not to spoil the ending, although by so doing he has cut in two ... the root of the word--τραγος [tragos]."--_The Tragedies of Vittorio Alfieri_, edited by E. A. Bowring, C. B., 1876, ii. 472. There is no resemblance whatever between Byron's _Cain_ and Alfieri's _Abele_.] [97] {216}[Compare--