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rous'd by the noise And

musical clat-ter; They dance in a round, great as they are, I was nurs'd by their mother: Ask that of old Ma-dam,

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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.

We regret to state, that, in consequence of the illness of the author, we have been obliged, at a late period of the month, to postpone the continuation of "MACKLIN, OR THE SON'S SACRIFICE." This has occasioned an incompleteness in some of our arrangements, which we trust that, under the circumstances, our readers will excuse.

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

THE UNITED IRISHMEN.

THE point at which disobedience to the constituted authorities ceases to be a crime, and resistance becomes a duty, is one which never has been, and perhaps never will be so accurately defined, as to prevent differences of opinion in each individual case, wherein a decision must be come to between the governors and the governed. We are not just now disposed to enter on an examination of the abstract question, as to whether a nation or a people have not the right at any time, when it to them may seem fit, to change either the constitution by which they are governed, or the rulers by whom it is administered, and to adopt in their stead any and such other as may be most pleasing to them. Our space would not admit of -neither indeed are we ourselves in the mood suited to such grave disputations; nor are we quite assured that, after having puzzled our wits to string together a great deal of what has been said upon the subject, and a little of what remains unsaid, we should not find ourselves in the predicament of the preacher who, deserted by his congregation, had all his wise saws to himself. When the question of obedience or resistance comes to be mooted, general principles cease to have much influence; abstract opinions are unheeded, and the peculiar circumstances of the time, viewed too often through the distorted medium of prejudice or of personal feeling, are alone taken into consideration; and the decision arrived at is determined more frequently by the temper of the people at the critical moment, than by either the circumstances which have arisen, or their own fitness for constitutional change. How futile then must be the labour of the theorist who would seek to point out the precise limit of endurance, to tell a people when to obey with cheerfulness, and to mark the progressive degrees from the hesitating point to that of passive resistance, and so on to the point whereat an appeal to arms nay become justifiable. The wrong which the oppressor inflicts at one time with impunity, he will not at another dare to impose; and the people who in one age would not brook the slightest indignity, would in another tamely bare their backs for the tyrant's lash. History, however-that mirror in which time that is past is said to be reflected with truth-places in bold relief a line which, however useful and necessary as an ingredient in the calculations of those who may have the alternative before them, is perhaps the most deceptive of all criteria whereby to judge of the necessities which may be pleaded for an appeal to forcible resistance. Success is the

*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., Lond. 1842.

1842.-AUGUST.

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