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NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS.

All communications for the EDITOR of the DUBLIN MONTHLY MAGAZINE must be addressed to the care of Mr. MACHEN, 8, D'OLIER-STREET.

Advertisements and Books for Review to be forwarded to the same.

We cannot undertake to return short pieces, either prose or poetry.

Contributions intended for insertion in the succeeding number must be forwarded on or before the first Saturday in the month.

It is requested that persons sending to the publishers for MSS. will state in full the title of the paper required, and the name or initials affixed to it; as several mistakes have occurred for want of this precaution.

The owners of the MSS. named in detail on the fly leaf of our number for March, are requested to send for them, as we cannot undertake to be answerable for the safe keeping of papers not claimed within a certain period.

The EDITOR of the MUSICAL DEPARTMENT of the DUBLIN MONTHLY MAGAZINE,having received suggestions from several quarters, that he might greatly serve the cause of Temperance (and thereby aid the great moral movement in which Ireland is now advancing,) by having favourite National Airs arranged for wind-instrument bands, and published in the Magazine,-feels most anxious to meet the wishes of his correspondents. He has also been informed, that much good might be effected by giving, in the letter press department, an account of the scales and cliffs of the instruments generally used in these bands, their mutual relations and uses, &c. inasmuch as in many cases, the masters who are engaged to give instructions have no works within their reach, to which they could refer on the subject, and the pupils cannot in general procure them in consequence of their high price.

To give full effect to these objects would necessarily cause a considerable increase of expense in the musical department, and the Editor is therefore desirous to ascertain what increase of circulation might be expected, on carrying out the wishes of his correspondents. He believes there are at present above 300 Temperance Bands in Ireland, and if the gentlemen interested in even two thirds of them, give orders for one copy each of the magazine for their bands, on or before the 5th of September, the Editor will undertake to have the object carried into effect with as little delay as possible. The Irish airs he would propose to publish, in the first instance, are those (selected from Moore's Melodies) the words of which have been so admirably translated into our native tongue, and recently published by the Archbishop of Tuam; as their popularity must, without doubt, have been greatly enhanced by this means. sary encouragement should be extended to the proposed undertaking, four pages of If the necesmusic (specially devoted to this object) would be added to those at present published with arrangements of our native music for the voice and piano forte. The four additional pages would in general contain at least two airs arranged for wind-instrument bands, and care would be taken to avoid making the arrangements too difficult, as it is of course desirable to make them as generally useful as possible. Should the anticipations of some of our correspondents be realized, as to an increased demand for the magazine to a far greater extent than we have mentioned, in consequence of the arrangements now proposed, the Editor will feel himself called on to increase the number of pages of music devoted to this department, so as to be enabled to give a greater number of airs each month. principal towns, or directly to the Publisher, S. J. MACHEN, 8, D'Olier-street, Orders may be forwarded through the Agents in the Dublin.

Printed by Webb and Chapman, Gt. Brunswick-street.

THE UNITED IRISHMEN.*

HAVING in our last number briefly sketched the origin of the United Irishmen, the social and political circumstances that called them into being, the objects they had in view, and the means by which they sought their accomplishment, we expressed our conviction that the benefits which resulted from their association were not duly estimated even by those who may be styled their apologists. There have already issued from the press many volumes descriptive of the times in which those men bore a prominent part, but in the majority of them, the writers have either omitted all mention of their constitutional efforts for reform, or noticed them in such a manner as to give a most erroneous impression, if not a wilful misrepresentation of their exertions, and the results that followed. Dr. Madden's book, though in many other respects valuable, is open to this great exception: like most of his predecessors, with him the more useful is lost sight of in the more exciting; and while page after page is devoted to the solution of some mysterious or oft-questioned incident, the political efforts of the United Irishmen are dispatched in almost as many lines, and the popular triumphs they achieved are passed over in utter silence! Yet there are few men who, sitting down in the bookmaking mood, with the United Irishmen for their two-volume theme, would not be tempted to meet the market by devoting a disproportionate space to those exciting topics connected with the preparation for and partial outbreak of the insurrection; but should the other have been wholly omitted? Such a book, indeed, if written with animation, will be sure to find readers in abundance, aye, and purchasers too; but a book ought not to be written merely that it may be bought and read. A book should contain matter to instruct as well as to amuse, and the man who has the moral and social elevation of his country at heart, should pause ere he proceeded to place before his countrymen, as the sum total of the deeds of men whose memories they instinctively revere, those things only that were devised in secret, or performed in open hostility to the existing laws. These the expiring efforts of the Irish reformers, though an essential part, constitute but a fragment of their history; and to give the record of such things as the history of "the lives and times" of the United Irishmen, would be no less a libel on the dead, than treason against the country. The historian of those times must follow the United Irishmen throughout their entire course; and though he may occasionally have cause to censure, he will find in their early career, that which will fully warrant the reverence in which our countrymen still hold the name of United Irishman.

*THE UNITED Irishmen, their Lives and TIMES. By R. R. Madden, M. D. 2 vols. London, 1842.

MEMOIRS OF The Life and TIMES OF THE RIGHT HON. HENRY GRATTAN. By his Son HENRY Grattan, Esq. M. P. vol. iv. London, 1842.

1842-SEPTIMBER.

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