his fate!-and, as we have entered the field where the tombs of so many of our predecessors lie scattered around us, still we hope that even our fall, should it happen, will not discourage some future adventurers to persevere to the point of triumph. But we are getting melancholy, and will bid adieu to the The Dublin Magazine :

"Let it rest in the shade,

Where cold and unhonoured its relics are laid."

The New Hibernian Magazine, 1820.—If we found fault with The Dublin Magazine for being too pedantic and metaphysical, the periodical now before us defies us to make the same charge against its pages. One of the numbers opens with a long dissertation upon the advantages of a classical education; and certainly no person could be better aware of the advantages he enumerates than the writer, for his manner of describing them clearly shews they were advantages he never had the good fortune to enjoy; therefore no other person could be more conscious of their utility than he who felt the want of them. The original papers are written in a silly, school-boy style, and the reviews are divested of either taste or discernment. The Queen's trial nearly fills an entire number, and a host of poets occupies the rest. One name alone caught our eye as it ran along the columns, which were here and there studded with nameless names at full length, and obscure initials appended to metrical effusions. It was the name of Furlong, heading a fragment, entitled, "The Church of Clone." As it deserves to be found in better company, we quote two stanzas :

In that mild hour, upon the ruin'd pile
The rays of evening rested for a while;

In that calm moment, o'er the crumbling wall,
One parting gleam of sun-shine chanc'd to fall ;
While every mossy tuft, or time-worn stone,
Touch'd and reviv'd with yellow lustre shone;
And every broken crag which met the sight,
Grew beautiful beneath that lovely light.

Still did this sickly brilliancy but dress
With a false charm the face of loveliness;
Still did this lingering flash but tend to throw
A mournful splendour on the look of woe;
That sunbeam seem'd, as o'er the wall it ran,
Like beauty dallying with an aged man.
On one small spot that ray did yet remain,
And brighten'd it—but brighten'd it in vain ;
On one small point it found a transient grace,
"Twas lost-for ruin rested on the place.

The Dublin Inquisitor came upon this breathing world in January, 1821. In the first volume of this periodical we did not meet with a single political article. What a publication for a country suffering under political disabilities! The poor slave was either contented with servitude, or afraid to complain; and amused himself by playing with the flowers of literature, which soon withered and died in his hands.

A host of nameless poets form the rear-guard of every number, as different in style as the costumes of the men in Falstaff's ragged regiment. So conscious of their own insignificance were these geniuses, that this modest title is mostly at the head of their effusions"Stanzas addressed to -, by A dramatic poem runs through the work, entitled, “Isabel,” which, like a river with a subterranean course, falls off and re-appears alternately in several numbers. An extract from an opening scene will display at once the poetic powers of the " talented author."

Act II-Scene 1st.-A gothic hall in Lindenberg Castle. A large window at the extremity, through which the distant country is visible. The moon sheds a faint light on Agnes, who stands gazing on it intently. A pause—

AGNES.

"Petrarch and Tasso, what illustrious names
Are thine-at such a silent time as this
"Tis lonely joy to contemplate and muse,

To pause upon the memory of the spell
That numbers shed upon the soul; to look
Within, where the tenacious mind has stored
A treasure beyond earthly wealth-to turn
From busy man to such a scene as this!
This is a change to my romantic heart
Most welcome," &c.

The printer's devil must have made a mistake. The scene of the above soliloquy should have been-" A gothic hall in St. Bartholomew's: Enter Agnes, a mad poetess, raving of Petrarch and Tasso, &c." Whether this work lived longer than the maturity of the first volume our inquiries have not been able to ascertain; but from the specimens of its talents which we have seen, we have no hesitation in saying, that we dare say it left this world much upon the same terms as the constant play-goer mentioned by Curran, who said, that he never missed him from the theatre whether he was there or not!

The London and Dublin Magazine, 1825.-This periodical was conducted with considerable talent for a few years; but as it was printed and published in London, it does not belong to the class of Magazines which we have already noticed, therefore it is not entitled to a place in this article.

The Dublin Literarg Gazette, 1830.-This periodical was founded in imitation of the London publication of the same name, and was designed as a vehicle for reviews, &c., to aid the booksellers of Dublin, who are the agents of the London houses. It contained some well-written dissertations upon the state of literature and the fine arts in Ireland; but the reviews displayed too much of the cant of criticism, and betrayed rather an injudicious partiality towards the puffing system. The first number of The Dublin Literary Gazette was printed on unstamped paper; but the vigilant guardians of the stamp laws, whose duty is to assist the diffusion of ignorance, and discountenance the progress of knowledge, issued a ukase, commanding the proprietors to stamp-" or else." The second number, therefore, appeared disfigured with an unseemly impression in red ink, representing a crown imperial surmounting an Irish harp rampant, encircled with a belt, upon which the motto, "Two PENCE," was inscribed!

VOL. I. NO. II.

S

The Gazette reached twenty-five numbers, and then took leave of its friends, by announcing that a nuptial contract had been concluded between itself and a monthly concern, entitled, The National Magazine, which was announced to appear in July, 1830. The alliance, however, did not turn out prosperously. The National displayed but very little nationality, and in the ensuing spring, like Beattie's neglected genius

"It pined away alone,

Then dropped into the grave, unnoticed and unknown,"

And now, gentle reader and magnanimous subscriber, we have only to announce, in the conclusion of this article, that on the first of May last appeared the first number of a new literary, political, and military Magazine, entitled, The Irish Monthly, edited by the Irish brigade, wearing a green uniform, "turned up with ink," and bearing on its standard a view of the mausoleum of Irish independence, with the words FUIT ET ERIT emblazoned thereon!

The difficulties we have already encountered in the commencement of our career, and the long-established monopoly of the foreign press, with which we have to contend upon terms so unequal, that success is scarcely afforded to our expectations. However, we have hoisted the green flag, and let those who would wish to see it triumphant rally round it; and, like the Roman standard-bearer, who sprung from the galley on the shore of Britain, we turn to our countrymen, and exclaim" Let those who would wish to save the national ensign from falling into the hands of barbarians, follow us!" Like the legions of Cæsar, we are contending with an old established system of prejudice, which is enamoured with darkness and hates the light; but, by the aid of our Maceroni tactics and tempered weapons, we will drive the modern Britons from the fields of Irish literature, as the Roman cohorts chased their ancestors from their own plains in former times.

REMINISCENCES OF A SILENT AGITATOR.-No. 1.

THE FIRST TIME I SAW O'CONNELL.

such a man

Might be a copy to these younger times;

Which followed well, would demonstrate them now
But goers backward."

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

HOWEVER paradoxical the designation I have chosen to bestow upon myself may appear, yet a silent agitator belongs to a very numerous class in the genus of Irish politicians. Methinks I hear the incredulous reader exclaim, "a silent agitator!-How can a silent

man be an agitator? What is an agitator? An agitator is a person who disturbs the tranquillity of the community by inflammatory and exciting harangues-one who is for ever endeavouring to persuade others to be as discontented and seditious as himself who goes about seeking for grievances, and prying into abuses, which were never felt or observed until he discovers them. An agitator is one who is always found wherever a crowd is assembled, a little elevated above the rest, declaiming about the rights of the people and the corruptions of all governments and governors-one who is never absent from the hustings during a contested election, and whose name is always appended to a requisition for a public meeting, to take into consideration, &c. &c. Then how can any one perform all those different parts, and still preserve an eternal taciturnity? A silent agitator is an absurdity. We have heard of dumb eloquence, and may conceive some idea of its nature; but as to silent agitation, it defies all sense and reason to comprehend its meaning." Notwithstanding these irreconcileable descriptions, I have sanguine expectations, that before I have recounted many of my past adventures, my readers will be fully satisfied with the applicability of my adopted cognomen. There are several classes of agitators in Ireland. There is first the great agitator himself, who has agitated Ireland into comparative freedom, and who will yet excite her into a state of national independence. He is a solitary specimen of his class; but the more valuable as the more scarce. Class the second is the occasional agitator-one who agitates for a particular purpose, and having achieved the object of his desires, sells off his stock at first cost, like a contented shopkeeper retiring from business. Class the third is the accidental agitator: this class includes a variety of characters in the political world, who are generally more conspicuous than distinguished amongst their fellow-men, and who owe very little to their talents or acquirements for their station or influence. The fourth class comprehends that extensive and highly-efficient portion of agitators to whom I myself have the honour to belong, and whose claims to distinction, although not the less deserving, are not generally known to the public. We are mostly to be found in the public assemblies, sitting apart from the loquacious agitators, and seemingly paying a deep attention to the passing scene. We may be known by our erudite aspects and intellectual brows. We are the persons who give the signals for applause, which are boisterously obeyed by the rest of the audience; and it is from our looks that the crowd learns when to give expresssion to their disapprobation, which they sometimes unequivocally demonstrate by well defined hisses. It is we who describe the importance of the meetings in the newspapers, and write pointed paragraphs about their tendency, and illustrate the meaning of the orators by some well applied allusions to historical instances. It is we who put the enemies of freedom in the pillory of an epigram, or make them writhe in the tortures inflicted by an antithetical sketch in one of the monthly periodicals. We are consuming the midnight lamp, and poring over antiquated tomes, to do the state some service, and to edify the public when the orators are quaffing claret at some political dinner at Morrisson's. We supply

the orators with themes, and often with ideas, which pass for their own, and yet our modesty is such that it will not allow us to reclaim our plundered plumes, and wear them ourselves. In the political world there is no ascendancy-there is a perfect equality amongst the agitators, for those who are advocates of democracy could not practise any aristocratic airs amongst themselves. No man is permitted to take a station by sufferance which he is not entitled to by his own deserts; and yet our services are performed so much in the retirement of literary life, that the sources from which they emanate escape the general observation, and they are acknowledged by the public like charitable donations from anonymous contributors, without our receiving in return even as much as the barren requital of personal praise yet our magnanimity is not lessened by the consciousness of this neglect, nor are our enthusiastic efforts diminished by such discouragement; we still write on with as much ardour, and we trust with as much talent, as ever; and when our countrymen are assembled for debate, we listen with all the exemplary patience we evinced in the youthful days of our political career. Having sufficiently described the class to which I have the distinguished honour to belong, I may be pardoned if, for our better acquaintance, I now proceed to inform my readers with a few particulars concerning myself, for although I disclaim all wish to indulge in the vanity of egotism, yet I cannot recall my reminiscences without unavoidably parading to their notice that most diffident and reluctant of mortals-myself. I was born an agitator-that is, I am descended from an ancient Roman Catholic family in the south of Ireland, whose domains were confiscated and re-confiscated in the former agitations of the country; a few acres which had escaped the claws of Elizabeth, and the clutches of Cromwell, were taken from us by the penal code; and when I opened my eyes upon the world, the first object I saw was the crumbling walls of our ancient castle, looking dreary and broken like the fortunes of its dispossessed inheritor. My education was entrusted to the tutelage of a Gallician Irish priest, a refugee from the scenes of the French revolution, which event he regarded with feelings of the sincerest horror, having once had the felicity of seeing his name in the select list of Robespierre, and having been twice led out to the guillotine, and saved from its exterminating jaws by one of those accidents to which so many were indebted for the preservation of their lives during that sanguinary period. It may be easily imagined that the Abbé O'Brien had a strong repugnance to politics, and took every pains to inculcate an equal aversion in the mind of his pupil; but unfortunately hereditary circumstances operated more effectually than all the prudent precepts of the tutor, and the pious labours of the good man to make his pupil a loyal and obedient subject, were unavailing; and, at the age of thirteen, having in a discussion given expression to some revolutionary sentiments, I was reported as irreclaimably disloyal and seditious, with a strong recommendation that I should be vigilantly attended to, and restrained from any communication with the violent politicians of the time, "whose harangues (the good man said) would act on me like sparks falling upon a heap