"This book is a greater mixture of sense and nonsense than any other I ever read. What he says against the _Political_ jargon of the Economists, their evidence and their _despotisme légal_, is perfectly well reasoned. His own system of ascribing all evils to the Institution _of Separate Property_ is too absurd for any serious discussion."
It is pleasant to have these recorded opinions of such a man as Mackintosh on books the subjects of which he had deeply meditated. Indeed, to me there is a great charm in such private memoranda of a distinguished and able man, giving the passing impression on his mind in the course of his reading.
_Notes on Ireland's Freedom from Serpents._
That Ireland was infested with venomous reptiles before St. Patrick's time, that he banished them, "_and that serpents cannot survive in Ireland_," is a well-known tradition, and one universally received amongst the native Irish. In Christian symbolism it was usual to designate sin or Paganism by a serpent or dragon, and saints who converted heathen nations, or subdued the evil promptings of their own nature, were represented with a serpent or dragon beneath their feet. Thus, St. Patrick, by preaching the doctrine of the Cross, and uprooting Paganism, may be said to have banished venomous serpents from Ireland. In his case, however, the symbol may have had a deeper meaning, if, as many (and with great probability) think, _serpent worship_ formed part of that Oriental heathenism which obtained in early times in Ireland.
Dr. Geoffry Keating, in his _History of Ireland_ (in the Irish language), which he completed about the year 1625, says: "Saoilim gurab do an _deamhnaibk_ gairmithear _naithreacha nimke_ i m-beathaidh Patraic" ("I think that by the serpents spoken of in the life of St. Patrick were meant _demons_"). _Serpents_ figure among the carvings and hieroglyphical ornaments on some of the remnants of Irish antiquity which still puzzle our antiquaries. On Cruach Padruig, in Mayo, there is a sort of tarn which still bears the name of Loch na Pheiste, or the Serpent's Lake; and one of "the Two Lakes," whence Gleandaloch derives its name, has the same appellation.
Solinus, who flourished at the close of the second century, notices, I believe, the strange fact of Ireland's having an immunity from reptiles; Isidore and Bede, in the seventh and eighth centuries, respectively repeat the assertion. Donatus, Bishop of Fesulæ, who flourished about the middle of the ninth century, says, in a Latin poem on his native country: