onfidence he
would tell all. I had several times wondered why he lived in a place
which he hated so, and had a vague idea that he was some kind of a
secret emissary, though there was certainly not a single thing in his
character which might warrant such a supposition.

"Me object," said O'Halloran, looking solemnly at me, "and the whole
eem of me loife is the Oioneesoizin of the language of the Saxon. He's
thrust his language on us, an' my eem is to meek it our oun, to
illivate it--an' by one schtoopindous illusthreetion to give it a
pleece among the letherary doialicts of the wurruld."

"Oioneesoizin?" said I, slowly.

"Yis, Oioneesoizin," said O'Halloran. "An' I'm going to do this by
mains of a thransleetion of Homer. For considher. Since Chapman no
thransleetion has been made. Pope and Cowper are contimptible. Darby is
onraydable. Gladstone's attimpt on the fust buk, an' Mat Arnold's on
the seem, an' Worsley's Spinsayrians are all feclures. Ye see, they
think only of maythers, an' don't considher doialicts. Homer wrote in
the Oionic doialict, an' shud be thranslated into the modern
ayquivalint of that same."

"Oh, I see," said I, "but is there such an equivalent?"

"Yis," said he, solemnly. "Ye see, the Scotch doialict has been
illivatid into a Doric by the janius of a Burruns; and so loikewise
shall the Oirish be illivatid into an Oioneean dolalict by the janius
of O'Halloran.

"For Oirish is the natural an' conjayneal ripriseentitive of the
ancient Oioneean. It's vowel-sounds, its diphthongs, its
shuperabundince of leginds, all show this most pleenly. So, too, if we
apploy this modern Oineean to a thransleetion of Homer, we see it has
schtoopindous advantages. The Homeric neems, the ipithets, and the
woild alterneetion of dacthyls an' spondees, may all be riprisinted boy
a neetive and conjayneal mayther. Take for a spicimin _Barny
O'Brallaghan_. "Twas on a windy night about two o'clock in the mornin."
That is the neetive misure of the Oirish bards, an' is iminiutly
adapted to rendher the Homeric swinge. It consists of an Oiambic
pinthimitir followed by a dacthylic thripody; an' in rhythm projuices
the effects of the dacthylic hixamitir. Compeer wid this the ballad
mayther, an' the hayroic mayther, and the Spinserian stanzas, of
Worsley, an' Gladstone's Saxon throchaics, and Darby's dull blank
verse, an' the litheral prose, an' Mat Arnold's attimpts at hixameters,
an' Dain somebody's hindicasyllabics. They'r