neither to give nor take advice at all In pursance of this excellent resolution, you shall, as far as your most affectionate friend is concerned, be permitted to hold on your course to utter failure(if it be not a breach of system to assure you of this result)-without one remark being heard during your progress. I will even promise, on the occurrence of the catastrophe, to furnish my full share of verbal sympathy; nor shall it be among more than some twenty of our common acquaintances that I will permit my tones of condolence to be animated by such observations as, "I always thought so,"-"I always knew how it would end." An opportunity will also be hereby furnished of their admiring, if they choose, my prophetical sagacity. With respect to the details of its management, as set forth in the prospectus of the Magazine, there is one point to which I would wish to refer in the most serious manner, viz., the character of its politics. From your note I collect that an intention originally existed, of limiting the articles to matters unconnected with the party discussions of the day. It was conceived that even amid the morbidly excited state of public feeling, and the habits of thought forced on the most careless observer by the tremendous events in national polity, unfolding themselves in quick and rapid succession before his eye-it was conceived, I say, that many might be found in whom a taste for less agitating speculations still vividly existed, and that even by those in whom the shaking of the social system had deeply disturbed their impassioned nature, the occasional suggestion of a train of mere literary thought would have been gratefully felt and acknowledged, as the leading them aside to the green pastures and by the still waters. That such an experiment would have utterly failed, there is every reason to believe. In this country, at least, the day is far distant, if indeed it will ever come, when the discussion of general and abstract topics will meet on the part of the reading public a suitably encouraging acceptation. Be it an omen of good or evil, this has been called, with emphatic truth, an age of newspapers; and well does it become those by whom the national destinies are wielded, to ponder intensely on the fact, for assuredly it is not matter for light consideration. Under these circum stances, when a political character was necessarily to be assumed, it required no formal announcement, to me at least, as to that party in the state, with which a periodical, conducted by so old a friend as yourself, would range itself at once.-Nor in truth would the treachery-and heartless treachery it may be well called-be easily anticipated in any individual, or body of individuals, which would court notice for its literary efforts, by employing the name of our venerable University, while those efforts in their design, partook of the virulent hostility of the day towards those institutions with which that University, through the wide extent of her interests, is so wholly identified. To every well constructed mind, therefore, it must be matter of congratulation, that one more champion has come into the field, ready to maintain, in all legitimate warfare, the noble cause of social order and national stability.-Nor should the limited nature of the exertions, which you or others can perhaps make, affect, by their consideration, the unflinching firmness which should accompany them. There never was, in truth, a time, in which the measure of a patriot's duty had less reference to the extent of his power. The humility of the individual's station, in the scale of social dignity, will not render for one moment of less imperative requirement the virtues that belong to it; and, though the shadings of a mysterious destiny be on every thing else, yet never, amid the gloom, was the path of political rectitude more luminously marked out than now, alike for King and peasant. Nor did the one great rule, by which our motions therein are to be securely guided, ever press itself on our attention, to demand that its simplicity be rigidly observed with more earnestness than at presentthat rule which bids us to look neither to the right hand nor to the left, but straight on. With what fatal consequences the departure from it, during late years, particularly among the more influential classes of the kingdom, has been attended, is a matter of record as apparent as it is distressing. Well, indeed, will it be for England if these consequences are mercifully appointed, not as instruments of vengeance but of warning-if a hope should still survive, that while she trembles at their fearful progress, there is even to them a firmly ordered limit, and that the years are not yet drawing nigh, when, the purposes for which her national existence was decreed being fulfilled, the period of her subordinate sovereignty shall be finally closed by Him who reigneth for ever and ever. And yet it were worse than useless to conceal from ourselves the presence of many things in our public concerns, which, to the speculator on the decline of the empire, must prove of awful significance; or feel surprised should such, gathering as he does, from thence the most melancholy anticipations, exclaim, in the quaint but expressive language of Talleyrand, "It is the beginning of the end." Before I pass from this topic, there is one other circumstance to which I would wish to advert. It is, I am sure, superfluous to caution you against an error into which some persons, professing the same principles as yourself, have fallen, in the choice of weapons to carry on their warfare. To any cause the advocacy that rests on personal invective and private acrimony, can bring nothing but discredit; much more to one whose rightful claim extends to the most ennobling feelings in our nature. Indeed, on the score of mere policy, all higher considerations apart, a line of argument, such as I have alluded to, should ever be declined, as calculated to mislead a careless observer, with regard to the solid foundation on which such principles as your own may be made to rest-the foundation of the coolest and most unimpassioned reason. So much is this the case, that I almost consider it physically impossible for any well-trained intellect to hesitate in assent to Conservative views, more especially as regards ulterior measures, or to turn with any thing but disgust from the loquacious sophistries of our modern politicians, who, if they are ever destined finally to attain real knowledge, have certainly not yet gone beyond that point in their progress in which words are mistaken for things; nothing being really removed from their ignorance except, perhaps, its modesty. These considerations have led me away from what you considered the business part of your note, and which I beg, in addition, to denominate the blarney-all praise to the linguist who invented the name, to facilitate the interchange of ideas among a people so liberal in their supply of the commodity. You have therein requested the honor (save the mark!) of ranking me among the contributors to your periodical; and have even taken the liberty-(a liberty, by the bye, considerably less questionable than that, with which you are in the habit of thundering and pounding at my College door, at all hours of the day and night; frequently, too, carrying off from before my eyes, to the utter confusion of all ideas of property, indeed with an openly avowed disregard on your part of their existence, whatever article may suit your convenience*.) You have taken the liberty to repeat your own words—of prescribing the species of commodity your editorship would require at my hands: you have referred me once more to those earlier and delightful days of our collegiate existence--and mine, at least, have since that period been somewhat saddened withal-when over our glass of wine after commons, or, more frequently, "the cup that cheers, but not inebriates," we used to revert to those more juvenile scenes in which we had individually been engaged, long indeed before our Alma Mater had opened her venerable arms to receive us. Some of those anecdotes, which I remember then to have related, might, perhaps, in proper hands, be made, from their locality, interesting to a certain extent, as bearing upon the manners of one of the most valuable portions of Irish society the Scoto-Hibernian Presbyterians— but I fear much that the partiality of friendship has misled you in this case, particularly in insisting on my committing to paper the mischievous details of my school-boy days, over which I am almost ashamed to say how much we chuckled together on their first recital. In a spirit of justice, we too are bound to observe of our worthy friend and Correspondent, that a similar principle of a community of goods is most practically enforced by himself, as often as he formally returns the above-mentioned visits; and, as College life is supposed to partake somewhat of a "status naturæ," no one seems more ready to vindicate, by its application, Hobbe's curious dogma of "jus omnium in omnia," which that Philosopher maintained in reference to such a condition of the human animal.-ED. VOL. I. K "But what can one do when a friend Being therefore duly installed in the solemn office of my own historian, which, I may as well here mention, will preclude, on the part of others, any claim in future to the same, I shall, out of a due regard to probability, limit my individual retrospect to somewhere about the period of my first appearance in the world; a detail of what one saw, did, or suffered, before he had any ex- "While all the girls came flocking forth, alike from field and town, The intelligent reader, (for I address myself but to congenial spirits,) will see at once, although I could not at this moment tell exactly why, that this eulogium extends as well to the physical qualities of my native soil as the moral, to which it certainly does, in the first instance, refer; so that I am justified in selecting it as perfectly apposite. For the information of the Roxburgh and Bannatyne Clubs, so well known for their zeal in bringing curious literary productions into general notice, I think it correct to state, that at all the fairs and markets in the county, copies may be readily procured of the interesting composition alluded to, being, as it is, a pleasing tribute to the Muses, which, amid the turmoil and din of his profession, such as the pipings of himself and his fellow-musicians, (for the regiment had never occasion to fire at any thing more hostile than a barn-door, by way of target, on field days,) the hero in question found leisure to pour forth, indicating in the fifer the existence of more gentle accomplishments, which blend so gracefully with the stern virtues of such a character. Those which I have seen were published on whitey brown paper, so well known to maid servants, farmer's boys, and other rustic critics, being printed, as the title-page informs us, for the "flying stationers," a body of bibliopolists, which, in the scale of dignity, bear about the same relation to Curry and Co. that the cock in Hamlet does to the Danish Prince. My first literary recollections for I account my nursery erudition as nothing -are associated with a small whitewashed building, which served as the Vestry-room, or as it was technically called, Session House, to the Presbyterian Chapel in Clonsill, but which on week days was professionally dedicated to the purposes of education, although incidentally it presented a scene of noise, mischief, and fun, which must have shaken with astonishment the ashes of Pythagoras and his silent disciples in the grave. The architecture of the Presbyterian places of worship in the North of Ireland, exhibit, generally speaking, one uniform and somewhat peculiar design. As some of the congregations comprised nearly three thousand souls, the object of the structure was to secure the utmost quantity of room within a given space, combined at the same time with the most perfect plainness, or rather rudeness of appearance, any approach to ornament being reckoned, at least some years ago, as savouring "oot and oot o' black papistrie." (It is to be noted that in the county of Down, the lower class of inhabitants retain the Scotch dialect of their progenitors.) The necessary accommodation, in point of space, was effected by the adoption of an equicrural cross in the form of the building while, how far the principle of simplicity was carried, may be shown, by the circumstance of a ceiling but rarely intervening between the rudely laid slates and the bareheaded congregation. The pulpit, (for the form of the service does not require a reading-desk,) is placed at the junction of the branches, so that with moderate natural powers of intonation, the clergyman's voice could reach to the utmost extent of the audience, a consideration of no slight importance in reference to a class of people, many of whom would not hesi tate to express their contempt of " a meenister, the haill whussle o' whose discoorse cudna be heard jeest as weel ootside as inside the hoose." This general description will not appear out of place when it is recollected, that in the centre of the green area, at one corner of which stood our academic porch, a gigantic pile of this kind rose far up into the summer sky, muffling for some hours of the day in cool gloom, its more humble but very animated neighbour—its own solitudes being never stirred into life but on the Sabbath day, by the voice of psalms and prayer-until, in obedience to the progress of the sun, it permitted us to emerge into light by the wheeling round of its mountain shadow. Of the events connected with my mere childish recollections of this place, I shall observe with Johnson (or rather his burlesquing imitator in the Rejected Addresses,) "little is thought by the public and little shall be said by myself." I had, of course, my full share of cuffs and blows-some applied on the hot house principle of forcing the young idea to shoot, and others incurred in maintaining among my compeers those small points of honor that affect a whipster's sensibility; but of which I am quite enough of a philosopher now to utterly forget the nature. As I grew up, it is but justice to myself to say, that there were few about my own standing displayed a more decided propensity to all sorts of mischief, riot, and comicality; unless, indeed, I except my two brothers, between whose ages mine formed the intermediate period, and sweetly in all our doings did we work together. Tom, the eldest of the three, was a person of a grave and settled aspect, totally at variance with his real disposition-one, from whose face nature had taken the power of being illumined by the triumph of a successful trick that he might enjoy it with undivided intensity in his head. This physical constitution, though highly advantageous to his own individual self, was by no means so in regard to his social relations; the fact being, that the unvarying demureness of his countenance, contrasted with the undisguised expression of my own, often misled the aim and directed on myself alone the full storm of pedagogical indignation on the occasion of some joint act of unheard-of insubordination being detected. During the time I was under castigation, Tom ever exhibited a strong sense of fraternal sympathy, and compensated to me in some degree for my enacting the scapegoat, as he rarely failed in projecting, with all the skill of a practised engineer, a wellcharged shell, that is, a paper full of dust, and of a conical form, so that at the right moment it would burst upon the enemy's head and baffle his hostile efforts, just as the crow in Roman story, confounded the hero of Gaul. Being by this means enabled to make my escape, I lay in ambush outside the house until the tempest had in some degree subsided. My younger brother John, also, was in the way of business by no means to be despised. He had not indeed that rigidity of muscle, that perfect command of face, which stood in such excellent stead to Tom. Neither had he by any means the same degree of ingenuity in contriving some magnificent piece of villainy, such as, in the adjusting of all the parts and arrangement of his characters, placed his eldest brother among the first school dramatists or practically epic poets in frolic of his day. John never could have devised as Tom did, (though he entered into its execution with all the spirit of an original inventor,) the plan of introducing, under the cloud of evening, the fleshless skeleton of a dead horse into the school-house, and which greeted our lord and master on his entrance next morning in the upright attitude of life; when, after many fruitless inquiries, he was obliged to grant the anticipated holiday, to be employed in conveying the unfortunate relic of bestial mortality to its original rest. John was, however, a capital fellow for steady and sure working, although so conscious was he of the limited nature of his talents-still they were certainly of a fine order-that he ever implicitly followed Tom's directtions or my own; of the latter individual's capacity, whether as regards head or hand, I do not presume to speak. Of these, my two brothers, it will take but one moment to say, that as I now write, one is toiling for subsistence in a foreign land, and the other, beneath it, is laid at rest for ever. From this general description I will turn to a detail of a day's proceedings in the Session-house school, premising that they sometimes received a little variety, not animation, for that was physically impossible, every thing being of itself at the boiling point, from some circumstances to which I may hereafter allude more fully. The potentate, during whose dynasty, (for the ferula was wielded by a large number in succession,) the best pith of my tricky days was wasted, was a probationer, as persons of his order in the Presbyterian church are technically called, being considered as noviciates in the ministry, who, until they are appointed to a distinct pastoral charge, are limited to preaching in the exercise of the sacred functions, and who, therefore, until so desirable an event should occur, devote frequently their unoccupied hours to the purposes of tuition. Mr. P. the gentleman in question, was a person of considerable learning and abilities, accompanied by many of the solid virtues that characterize, in general, the religious community among whom he was in good time to exercise his spiritual office. That a placidity of temper was among the original graces of his character, I have every reason to believe; but, that it should have continued to be evinced to any degree, amid the turbulent scenes that limited my own experience of his qualities, would be to pronounce him what, poor man, he never intended to be, an angel. Since those, his days of moral discipline, for sorely was he tried, I am given to understand that he has succeeded to a most superior congregation, and is enjoying, at once, all the pleasures of domestic life, as well as those attendant on the respect and esteem felt towards him by all with whom he is brought in contact. I heartily rejoice at the fact, and can well estimate the exquisite happiness he must experience on contrasting his present peace with the stormy scenes of his earlier days, and trust that should these pages ever meet his eyes, he will accept the feeling of congratulation I have just expressed, as the only atonement at present in my power, for that portion of his tribulations for which I doubt not but I am accountable→→ the only peace-offering of one who has now as little the heart as the opportunity to fret and weary him more. Our regular hour of assembling every day was ten o'clock, although we had our own private rules which brought us together at a considerably earlier period, for the important purpose of playing at hand-ball. This amusement was so fascinating in its nature, even to a spectator, that the farmers' servants as they passed by to their daily labour, would be found loitering and gazing, with wide-mouthed enjoyment, through the quick-set hedge, at the noisy merriment of the " young quality," as we were called. Indeed the spirit of sympathy prevailed so much over their habitual shyness and deference to rank, that upon the slightest invitation on our part, grown up men and heads of families would forthwith engage in the pastime, jumping and running with the youngest of us all. "In the name of a' that's gude, that I sud say sae, Harry Jamieson, whar hae ye been this twa hours sin syne and the pleugh graith standin idle on the beasts," would be the exclamation of some farmer to a delinquent loiterer of this kind, "Weel an deed, maister, I jeest stepped owre the meeting-house dyke, to take young Maister Robert Johnson's han at the ba', the puire thing was sae dune oot wi' the running, peching for a' the world like a mill aiver, sae that the hoose wad hae been lost, and his pairty oot, and that wad hae vexed yoursel you ken, no to speak o' the bit wean." At the period to which I refer, my brothers and I were, in point of years, nearly at the head of the school, amounting to about thirty boys, which, together with that species of ability, mental and corporeal, that the occasion put so often in requisition, and in which we, I may say modestly enough, always excelled, secured to us a pre-eminence, displayed in the undisputed character we always assumed of leaders and guides. At ten o'clock the signal was given to begin our tasks, which we readily obeyed, as by this time we were nearly exhausted |