166 BURIED PIPES. 



have been found between the jaws of the skull of an ancient 

 Milesian exhumed at Bannockstown, county Kildare. Upon 

 this discovery, an elaborate and learned paper was written in 

 the 'Authologia Hibernica,' setting forth this pipe as a 

 proof of the use of tobacco in Ireland ]ong before that coun- 

 try was invaded by the Danes. This pipe has been proved 

 by comparison to be probably quite late in the reign of 

 Elizabeth. They also have a more modern pipe, the stem of 

 which describes one or more circles, while another is tied in 

 a knot, yet allows a free passage of air. At another time, 



in opening an Anglo-Saxon 

 grave mound, some of the 

 men employed came across 

 a fairy pipe which evidently 

 had rolled down from among 

 the surface-soil, and, being 

 turned out in juxtaposition 



with undoubted Anglo-Saxon remains, was immediately set 

 down by the learned director of the proceedings as a relic of 

 that period. At another time I had brought to me, as a 

 great curiosity, two ' Roman pipes,' as I was informed the 

 tinders jumping to the conclusion that because they had dug 

 them up at little Chester (the Roman station Derventio), they 

 must be Roman pipes ! I believe they expected to receive a 

 large sum from these relics : how grievously they were dis- 

 appointed I need not tell. Instances of this kind are far 

 from rare. 



" I remember a man once bringing me some fragments of 

 Roman pottery and other things of the same period, which 

 he had turned up in the course of excavations, and among 

 them was a Tobacco stopper formed of a Sacheverell medal ! 

 and a George II. half-penny, all of which he was ready to 

 swear he had found " all of a heap together," inside a hypo- 

 caust tile, which, on examination, certainly had remained in 

 situ from Romano-British times! The cupidity of a man 

 had evidently led him to collect together these odds and 

 ends, and try to turn them to profitable account. Some 

 twenty years ago, a large number of " elfin pipes " were dug 

 up at Bomington, near Edinburgh, along with a quantity of 

 placks or bodies of James VI., which thus gave trustworthy 

 evidence of their true date. Others were found in the 

 ancient cemetery at North Berwick, adjoining to which is a 

 small Romanesque building of the Twelfth Century, close 

 upon the shore. Within the last half-century, the sea has 



