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circulation, and begin by confessing, that there is some foundation for what Morgan asserts about Connaught. The people of that ancient kingdom, are not much more civilized than the Scotsman, though they are not altogether deficient in knowledge on some valuable points. For instance, no country is superior to them in the science of punch-making, and in the liberal arts of smuggling and private stilling they may vie with the most polite nations, even those of Roserea, Inishowen, or the West of Cork. A people with such fine capabilities cannot long remain immersed in Cimmerian gloom; they want but a stimulus to push them forward into the light; and our Magazine, gradually breaking in on them, is the very best adapted engine possible for the purpose. So convinced of this is the Belfast Society for discountenancing vice, that they have made application to us for liberty to reprint our Magazine on ballad paper, with the intention of diffusing it among the profanum vulgus of Western Ireland, to the entire demolition of the Shepherd of Salisbury plain, Parley the porter, the Two Wealthy farmers, the Hop Step and Leap in the Garden of Eden, and other such injurious compositions; and we are now actually negociating the matter. When the affair is finally adjusted, a branch society will be established in Galway, to co operate in this laudable undertaking, under the title of the Galway Association for promoting the interests of the human race, and Blackwood's Magazine. We are somewhat read in Roscommon; Dick Martin is distributing us in those regions, impervious to the awful mandates of the law itself, yea, even in the depths of Connemara, among his rude, though ingenious vassals; and the influx of strangers into Ballinasloe, at the annual great wool-fair has made our name glorious in that district, where, indeed, Doctor French had already used his best influence to disseminate us. At the last fair it was truly edifying, to see every coach, car, chaise, jaunting car, and jingle, bringing up its complement of men, each with his Magazine in hand, and the effect it had on the muttonpate graziers was amazing. Instead of the usual hubbub about Merinos,

* A handsome square in Londonderry.

South Downs, Leicesters, Denters, and other such wool-gathering terms, you could hear nothing, but disserta tions on the contents of the last Number, and we are inclined to attribute the decay of the ribbon system in the county of Galway, to that circumstance. Even in Sligo we are on the rise, in spite of the oratorical opposition alluded to by Odoherty. Mr Alexander Bolton of the Sligo Journal, informed us, some time ago, that this Counsellor spoke against us in prose, and was not attended to,—that he spoke against us in verse, and was not attended to, that he spoke against us, in that amphibious dialect, which is neither prose nor verse, the dialect of which he is the mighty master, and was not attended to. We think we heard this sentence somewhere before; but whe ther we did or not, we must only say that we wish Phillips well,-that we think he shewed pluck in his turn-up with the Edinburgh, some years ago, when it was in full wind, and the prime ruffian of the ring, and that we are sure, as soon as he gets a little sense, (and he is not much above forty,) he will be a friend to us after all.

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Ulster, as every body knows, is sọ much allied to the land of Cakes, that we are naturally loved there with no common affection by all classes, except by some unfortunate Whig people, who sadly infest that fiue province. In Londonderry, we are the diamond of the Diamond, or as Southey says, the "Gem of the gem, the living eye of fire." From Ship-gate to Bishop's-gate, we are devoured as eagerly as the rats and mice, and such small deer, were swallowed under the government of Evangelist Walker, in the siege of 1689. We suspect (on official matters we dare not speak decidedly) that the late visit of Sir Henry Torrens to his native city, was in some way connected with Ebony; but, dear public, do not on any account mention you had this piece of news from us. The archiepiscopal city of Armagh, (which we are truly sorry to see so respectable a geographer as thet reverend J Goldsmith, instructing his brother barbarians of Cockney-land, to pronounce Armar,) patronizes us in a degree not to be sneezed at. The romantic promenades

In a geography, published for the sixty-first time, says its title page, p. 166.

of Dobbin's walk, are to be heard me lodiously resounding to the dulcet strains of A, while from the Black Bull, the Dog and Duck, the Coach and Horses, issue the soul-stirring lays of Odoherty, and Dr. Scott. At Belfast we are Lords of the ascendant. Dr Neilson cannot be too much commended, for introducing us as a regular text book into the institution, and the manifest improvement of that seminary, is no doubt attributable to us. We now hear of no radical toasts, no questionable sentiments coming from any one connected with that learned body, and who but we can claim the merit of this desirable alteration? In the town itself, as well as in the dependant region of Ballymacaret, we are the circulating medium of intellect. There is nearly as great a riot on the day of our appearance at the Nelson Club, as that which we have so graphically described in our last address to you, my public, as occurring on a similar occasion in the West country, i. e. Glasgow. How could it be otherwise, if Belfast be, (as that competent authority miladi Morgan asserts,) the Athens of Ireland? This claim, however, we candidly confess, we do not admit without considerable hesitation. George Falkener, we remember, was in the habit of maintaining that Attica was the Cork of Greece; an assertion he used to ground on the celebrity of Attic salt, which he shrewdly brought forward as a proof, that in the older time, the city of Minerva must have been as famous for curing provisions as in our day the goodly city of Saint Finbar. Honest Peter Paragraph's word is, on a literary question, as good as Glarvina's, if not better; for in his department, the outside of books, he was a much more accurately learned man, than she in hers, which lies on the inside; and we have heard a pretty smart controversy between a man of Belfast, and a Corcegian, on the superior validity of the decisions of these illiterate literati. In this it is not our intention to meddle, as we have good friends in both these rival flowers of the North and South.

polis, where we are progressing dashingly under the superintendence of Hodges and M'Arthur. It would take us an amazing quantity of columns, to give even a sketch of all the circles into which we make our way in the city of Dublin. The castle,-the university, the royal Irish Academy,

the Dublin Society,-the bar,-in short, every aggregation of decent or learned men are rapturous in our applause. We never should be able to get through the proofs of attachment showered on us by these good people, with Irish profusion. A distinguished person, (it would not be delicate to mention names,) lately invited us to spend a month in a certain great house, offering at the same time, in the handsomest manner, to confer on us the honour of knighthood. We confess our vanity was not a little tickled at first with this offer; and we spent some minutes in scribbling on a dozen of visiting cards, the name of Sir Christopher North, just to see how it would look; but good sense soon resumed its wonted sway. We are too old, we think, to pick up new titles; and the recollection of Sir T. C. Mor gan, Sir Arthur Clarke, knight of the Baths, † Sir Denis O'Neil, and some others, flashing before our eyes, quite put an end to the project. We, of course, declined it with all the politeness of a Louis Quatorze.

We, however, are seriously thinking of taking the diploma of L.L.D. offered us by Trinity. Southey has turned Doctor, and why should not we? Besides Johnson, another great periodical writer got this degree from the Irish University. We are there in high repute-fellows, scholars, sophisters, and freshmen, men of standing and gibbs are all stewing at us. In the courts you meet us-in Botany Bay we stare you in the face-at commons the clattering of the knives cannot drown our name-in the park you find us under every tree-even in the seats of the muses we are not unknown. We ap pear under the scarlet of the Doctorsthe sheepskins of the bachelors, the gold-bedizened gowns of the filii noPassing into Leinster, through bilium-the tasselled velvet of the Drogheda, where we are in passable fellow-commoners-the bombazine of repute, we come at once to the metro- the pensioners and the coarse stuff

*A surgeon knighted by a Lord Lieutenant.

An apothecary knighted by a Lord Lieutenant.

A piper knighted by a Lord Lieutenant, (the Duke of Rutland.)

of the sizars. Just to show the estination we are held in, we shall merey quote an extract of a letter from a professor of that university, respecting late fellowship examination.

*" As I predicted, the fellow. ship was decided by a knowledge of your

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learned work. The successful man missed a little in other branches, but he was facile princeps in Blackwood. The last question was quis est homo qui stravit penitus Revieweros Edinenses?' One answered, Dux Wellingtonus in pugnâ Waterloo

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ensi. Bene sane, said the examiner, sed indirectè tantum. Quis eos cominus prostravit? Tu autem Domine ?-addressing the second,-who said, Nathaniel Gulielmus Wraxallus, Baronettus, an answer which excited much merriment. The third was as unfortunate, in attributing it to Thomas Morus poeta, apud vicum vulgo dictum Chalk Farm cum pistolibus suis, on which a titter was heard among the fire-eaters; Brian Macguire, in fact, burst into a horse laugh, and whispered something about flash in the pan. But when it came to the successful candidate, he confidently and sonorously sung out, Christophorus Northus, Armiger,' which was decisive. It required all the sternness of academical discipline to hinder the audience from bursting into a shout of applause at the truth and acumen of this answer."

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After this, we need not say any thing farther on this head. We must, however, before we part with T. C. D. return our thanks to our worthy correspondents, Dr Barett and Mr Hincks, for their valued papers, and the amazing good-humour with which they saw themselves in print. Hincks, indeed, has left college, but he is doing his best for us in Ardtrea, and spreading our fame among the Bestians of Donegal. Time only can tell whether the new provost (Dr Kyle) will fayour us as pointedly as the late one ; but as he is a learned and loyal gentleman, we are inclined to think he will. Just, en passant, we may drop him a hint. We perceive some of the Irish papers bothering him to restore the historical society, suppressed by his predecessor; and we, on the contrary, recommend him to let it remain, as it is, among the things that are not. It was rather a queer appendage to a grave university. We are not now going to speak of the constant danger of its members, (in general very young men, of no experience, and

warm

passions,) launching into forbidden and discreditable regions of politics, or of its continual tendency to

wage war with boyish petulancy, against the superiors and the discipline of the university; though, were we in the mood, we might easily enlarge on those points. Our chief quarrel with it is, that to it may be clearly traced the origin of that horrible perversion of language which has become so characteristic of Ireland, as to be distinguished by the name of Irish Oratory. The mighty corrupters of human speech, who are the great lights of that school of eloquence, (there all trained to their hostility to comis no need of mentioning names,) were mon sense, and the English tongue, in the historical society-and the malady was daily becoming more contagious among its members. In this point of view, we think its suppression has been of incalculable benefit to the rising speakers of Ireland; and we hope, that no clamour will induce the new provost to restore this depot of tattered trope, and murdered metaphor, (to speak in the style of the society,) although he might obtain a little transient popularity by so doing. We know we are speaking against ourselves, for it is pretty generally understood, in the best informed circles of the college, that one of the first acts of the historicals, on their revival, would be to establish a medal, to be annually bestowed on him who would pronounce the most eloquent oration in our praise; but, in spite of this douceur, we must give our vote against awaking the slumbers of the society.

We

In the four courts, it has been remarked, that if the green-bags of the young lawyers could be scrutinized by the searching eye of a secret committee, it would be discovered, that even the fullest of them owed no small portion of its plumpness to the circumstance of containing one of our numbers; and, that it forms the entire supellex of no small proportion. are quoted continually in the speeches of counsel; and, it has been insinuated, (irreverently perhaps,) that we are occasionally to be found lurking on the bench. Apropos of that, Lord Norbury has said not a bad thing about us last week. A gentleman, whose name we forget, was abusing, in good set terms, that worthy individual, the Feu Lord Maire de Londres, in Lord Norbury's presence. Wood, my Lord, says he, is a man of dark and dangerous designs ;-Hic niger est, as Ho

race would say--a very black man indeed, my Lord; and yet he is a mere blockhead, an ass. All your charges, replied his Lordship, cannot be true; if he be, as you say, a Black-Wood, so far from being an ass, he must be a prime wit. Of course, we have heard better things, but it is a very fair average pun, and quite superior to the run of those you hear in the late farces, always excepting those of our good friend Theodore Hook.

We beg leave to assure Sir Richard Phillips, that there is such a county, in Ireland, as Wicklow, although that worthy knight thought proper to inform the Quarterly Reviewer of Maurice and Berghetta, that no such shire existed; and we can still farther assure his knighthood, that it is one of the most beautiful and romantic regions in the world. As the natives are no great clerks, we do not disseminate freely among them; but no party, bent on exploring the beauties of this lovely county, is considered as perfect, unless among the delicious stores of hams, neats tongues, spiced beef, cold turkies, and other such amiable solids and the no less to be extolled hampers of liquids sweet, from laughing champaigne down to the honest extract of malta supply of our Magazine be not safely stowed away. We are thus read through the woods of the Dargle, along the lands of Tinnehinch, under Lord Powerscourts lordly waterfall, in the glen of the Downs, and all up the much sung vale of Ovoca. The custom is to appoint a reader of the Magazine, while the rest of the party amuse themselves in demolishing the vittel and drink, thereby gratifying, at the same time, body and mind. It is a pleasant sort of a plan, though we

own

we cannot help feeling some bowels of compassion for the reader. Odoherty assures us that he had frequently volunteered that office; but verily, as the newspapers say, this report wants confirmation.

At Maynooth we are not read, which is strange, particularly, as at another Roman Catholic college, that of Carlow, we sell nearly a hundred copies. There must be something rotten in the state of Maynooth, and we request Lord Fingal to look into it without delay.

We must be brief with the rest of Leinster. In Tullamore, the capital city of the Bog of Allen, we are popular, notwithstanding the dissent of the

Adjutant. In Burr we are as well known as the Duke of Cumberland's pillar, on which, by the way, we have a pretty poem by a native of the banks of the Brosna, which may hereafter see the light. We have a brisk sale in Kilkenny-so much so, indeed, that to the old boast of that elegant city, viz. that they have fire without smoke, water without mud, sky without fog, and streets paved with marble, they have added as a proud distinction, and a population universally reading Blackwood. As we have mentioned Kilkenny, we must request Mr John Pinkerton to be so kind as to give this city a place in the next edition of his Map of Ireland: we know his having omitted it has given just offence on the spot; and we remember reading a pithy letter on the subject, in the Literary Gazette, by a native.

In the jolly province of Munsterwhich, after all, is the stronghold of genuine Irishism,-we have many friendly spots, but we must pass them over currente calamo. In Limerick, Alderman Watson writes us that we are doing pretty well, both in the old city, and in the more flashy brick-buildings of Newtown Pery. The only point on which the corporators and anticorporators agree, is admiration of our Miscellany, a circumstance not a little flattering to us. Through Tipperary we range tolerably well, though, we confess, not in the barony of Middlethird, where the inhabitants have ta ken it (we know not why) into their heads, that we have been mainly instrumental in occasioning the present depressed rate of potatoes. We request some of our friends in that quarter, Lord Donoughmore for instance, to relieve us from this odious and unjust suspicion. John Bull of Waterford(what a magnificently sounding name that is! how applicable, either to an Englishman or an Irishman !) John Bull of Waterford gives us a good account of that city. The Waterford merchants, he says, who were formerly proverbial for being very busy doing nothing, are all now very busy reading Maga.

The kingdom of Kerry is the seat of literature; the very peasants, like those of Hungary and Poland, being able to address you in Latin. You may be sure then, that we are peculiar favourites. All over the country, from Listowel, as you go through the classical city of Tralee, and thence to

mare

the lakes of Killarney, we spread like wild fire. Down even to distant Needen, following the course of the Ken-the deep embayed Mayne, as Spenser calls it-our name is held in honour. Dingle rejoices in us-and some copies have even made their way into the leonum arida nutrix-Iveragh -the birth-place of the great Daniel O'Connel. Through the negligence of the bibliopoles in Kerry, we are generally a month late in the kingdom; and the natives are laughing at the jokes of October, while they, in more favoured lands, are rejoicing over those of November. It really, sometimes, is a great inconvenience to be born a degree or two of longitude out of the way. But when we do arrive, the face of the country seems gladdened; it is a kind of holiday.

Beal fires for our jubilee, Upon a hundred mountains glow. As they are a learned people, our learned articles tickle them the most. A credible gentleman assured us, that he was at a party a short time ago in Castle-Island, where one of the company being called on for a song, gave the Latin translation of Chevy Chase, which enriched a couple of our late numbers, beginning with "Persaus ex Northumbria," and never pulled bridle till he came to the last line, "Sit nobis finis bona," to the great delight of the company. We are not over popular at Killarney; for the guides, &c. of that place find that when one of our numbers is in a boat, the visitors can hardly take an eye off it; Upper and Lower Lake, Mucross, and all the other lions of the place, being quite unheeded. We are not to blame for this: we can assure the Lake School of Ciceroni, that were we to see any one attending so exclusively even to ourselves among such scenes, we should certainly, addressing him in the words of the head of another kind of Lake School, exclaim,

Up, up, my friend, and quit your book; though, to be sure, there would be no need, we flatter ourselves, of bidding him (as in the poem we quote) to clear his looks, after the perusal of our heart-enlivening lucubrations.

In Cork-but what shall we say of Cork, except to confess our obligations to it for giving us some of the best contributors we have? There is no need of mentioning the names of Dowden, Jennings, Holt, Fogarty, and VOL. VIII.

many more too long for enumeration, who are all from that great metropolis of beef and butter; they are already consecrated to fame. They have made us amazingly popular in that city; so that we are almost the only book now read by the Corcegians. Like their own salmon, we never go out of season there. What the Chaldee was to Scotland, the Luctus over Sir D. Donelly was to Ireland, and particularly to Cork. It was like Aaron's sceptre-it swallowed up all other topics of conversation. Go where you would, from the red forge to Deuroche's cross, you would see the population merry or mournful, according as the jocose or pathetic mood prevailed over Number XXXVIII. A sudden flood of criticism seemed to have burst on Cork, as rapidly as a swell in the Lee. We have read much more stupid papers in the Edinburgh than were then spoken in that city in common conversation. With a natural partiality, they preferred Dowden to Lord Byron, and Jennings to Wordsworth; and though we do not quite agree with them, we own that much may be said on both sides. At the philosophicals there, it is needless to say we are adored ;—as a proof of it, we shall just mention, that the customary fines for absence are always remitted if the absentee can show that he was detained by the unavoidable business of reading Blackwood. Their institution delights in us; at their library we are devoured; in the Minerva rooms, which, by the way, we can recommend as an admirable establishment, Higginson is fatigued to death in answering demands for us; and on the day of our arrival, the impatient subscribers press round Bolster's shop,

Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks

In Vallombrosa.

There is a certain learned Glasgow gentleman, (we rather think he is a provision-merchant; but in this we speak with hesitation, for we would fain avoid saying any thing but what is quite right), who, a few weeks ago, visited" the beautiful city," and was so impertinent, to say the least of it, as to abuse us in the hearing of certain of our friends the inhabitants. We hereby give that profound butterdealer a word of friendly caution-to keep a tight rein on his tongue in future, more particularly in quarters

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