But the men of that city were angry with Raphael and with the sorcerers, because by reason of their fierce words, and the violence of the men that were with them; a stranger who knew them not, had been sent to speak for them unto the King; so they thought and they took counsel together, and they wrote words in a book; and they wrote how the sorcerers had overcome the voice of the men of the city; and how they desired that Raphael might not speak for them unto the King. And they sent a trusty man with the books, and they prayed that the King might make inquisition of the matters they set forth.

Now Raphael was of the council of the King, and he was sitting with the rest of the councillors when the writing came in which were written all the words of the men of that city; and those words were read in the ears of the King, and of all his councillors, and Raphael became pale, and was sore afraid, for he thought of the two thousand pieces of gold, and he was vexed. And the King said unto Raphael, "Are these things true?" And Raphael answered and said unto the King, "they are lies, O King, of mine enemies, who have slandered me unto my lord the King." And he spoke very boldly, even with the boldness of the innocent, for he thought on the words of Daniel, and of the false swearers whom the sorcerers would send.

So the king desired discreet men of his councillors to make inquisition touching the matters set forth in the writing of the men of that city, to the end that if they were true Raphael might be put away from being councillor unto the King, but that if they were not true, the men of that city might be proved liars. So these men met, and they caused proclamation to be made; and they sent word unto Raphael and unto the men of that city-but Raphael troubled not himself, for he remembered the words of Daniel that he should be at no further charge.

But behold, Daniel heeded not the cause of Raphael, neither did he get lawyers to plead for him as he had said; and the men who came from the sorcerers were not believed; and there was danger that Raphael would be put away from being councillor unto the King. So Raphael went unto Daniel, and he showed him the covenant between them twain; but Daniel heeded him not, nor made him any answer at all-and he would neither pay men to speak for him, nor give him any money at all.

Then Raphael was at charges, and he brought men to plead for him, and he gave unto lawyers yet other two thousand pieces of gold more than the two thousand which he had given unto Daniel; but the words of the men of that city prevailed, and Raphael was put away from being councillor unto the King.

Then Raphael was exceeding wroth, and angry with himself, and he went to his bouse in great tribulation; and he thought of how Daniel had cheated him, and how he had given so much gold for nothing; and he was exceedingly vexed. So he rose up, and he went unto Daniel, where Daniel, as his custom was, sat begging and brawling in the highways and in the streets; and he used hot words, and said unto him, Didst thou not say that if I gave

66

thee one thousand pieces of gold I should surely be councillor to the King? And now, behold I am put away from being so, and I have been at great charges beside. Give me, therefore, back the money, and pay me that which it hath cost me over and above what thou didst bargain for."

But Daniel heeded him not, and he put his one thumb upon his nose, and stretched out his two hands therefrom: for such was the manner of that country

when one scorned another. Then did Raphael say, "Verily, I am an ass;" and Daniel made him no answer, but he put his thumb upon his nose, and showed him the tip of his tongue; and he thought in his own heart that Raphael had rightly said: howbeit, he said nothing.

But Raphael began to revile him still more; but Daniel answered not a word, but put his thumb upon his nose, so that many people gathered together to see the strange sight. And Raphael's voice grew louder and louder, and the people wondered. At last Daniel opened his mouth, and he said

"I got thy two thousand pieces of gold; and I have been at charges with thee: therefore go thy ways in peace. But that all men may know my honesty, I will give unto thee a token, whereby thou mayest yet get thy money." And Daniel laughed as he spoke; and he took out a bit of paper, and made as though he would write; and when he had put certain marks upon the paper, he handed it unto Raphael, and he said, "Take this in thine hand, and go a long journey, even to the city of Bagdad, and when thou hast come there, tarry yet many days, even according to the days of a woman when she hath conceived; and it shall come to pass that when the days of thy tarrying are expired, thou shalt meet a man

carrying a barrel, and thou shalt show him this token, and he will give thee thy money." And Daniel looked exceeding grave.

And Raphael wist not what to say; but when he saw that the man was mocking him, he was very angry, and then he lifted up his voice and wept, for he had been made a fool of; and he wept for his gold which he should never see again; and all that passed by laughed at Raphael, but Daniel laughed the most of all.

So Raphael went his way: but it came to pass that he wrote all these things in a book, and sent it unto the King and to the council, and unto the men of the city; and though they thought Raphael was rightly served, yet they all thought Daniel was an exceeding great rogue. Besides, about that time he had become exceeding impudent-insomuch so, that he reviled every one, and, in his filthy rags, all polluted with vermin, he would jostle up against all whom he met—yea, he had taken the King's servants by the arm, and had dragged them through all the filth in which he was wont to wallow. So now, men were exceeding wroth; and when they read the book in which were written all the words of Raphael, they rose up with one consent, and

*

*

(The original is here illegible.)

66

[We verily believe that there are some men in the world so unreasonable that nothing will please them; and we further believe that the Rev. Mark Bloxham, author of the " New Paradise Regained," is among the number. Mr. Bloxham is very anxious to be a poet, and certainly belongs to the genus irritabile." Of course, gentle reader, you have read our review of the "New Paradise Regained." Now only think of Mr. Bloxham being angry with us for that review! and then of his writing us a letter to show this-and charging us in this letter with making false quotations, in order to make his book ridiculous. Works of supererogation we have long since disclaimed. But we have promised to print Mr. Blox

ham's letter, and, reader, you shall have it. No doubt, you will be anxious to see anything from the pen of so great a genius-who has "taken the shine" out of Milton entirely-if we may borrow the critical expression of Mr. Bloxham's parish clerk-the only favorable critic he has found out yet. But we must be serious, as becomes our pitiable situation; we forget that we are lying under grievous imputations, and besides suffering the wrath of Mr. Bloxham. By the way, Mr. Bloxham should have known that we are not very fond of permitting persons to dispute with us in our own pages. We do not feel much inclined to make an exception in his favour; but there is something so inexpressibly funny in the solemn manner in which Mr.

gether uninterested-we flatter ourselves that we do not presume too far in calculating upon the good wishes of our countrymen.

We have promised, however, that our words shall be but few, and we will not spend them either in preface or apology. We shall at once proceed to speak of that most interesting subject, OURSELVES; satisfied that we are privileged to regard this as one of those happy occasions that so seldom occur, when self is a topic not altogether proscribed, and when it is possible to be egotistical without being imperti

nent.

Three years have now elapsed since this periodical was first established. It then had many prejudices to overcome, and many difficulties to contend with. The failure of every preceding Irish periodical induced many to regard the attempt to sustain one as impracticable. As has been the case with Irish affairs of far more weighty moment-men attributed want of success, not to the blunders of management, but to some inexplicable fatality connected with every thing Irish. Those who had failed in the attempt would naturally be inclined to lay the blame any where but where it was deserved. Like the statesmen who have misgoverned the country, they were glad to attribute to the imagined evil destiny of Ireland those failures which a little self-knowledge might have enabled them to trace to a much simpler cause. Havng found, however, this mysterious scapegoat, they were fain to lay all their own sins upon its head. The attempt in which they had not succeeded they boldly pronounced impossible-and the evil genius of Ireland was the convenient abstraction, that bore the blame that would have more justly belonged to the incompetence of its inventors.

What was, however, so confidently asserted, was very generally believed. A prejudice arose against native literature; and the prophecy that no Irish periodical could ever succeed, tended to contribute to its own accomplishment. The chief difficulty this periodical met with in its starting was the general belief that it must fall. In contemplating the present position of our journal we have many causes for satisfaction; but none greater than this-that it has "lived down" this ca

lumny upon our country. Its success has proved that an Irish periodical can both exist and flourish; and that if the experiment was never before success. ful, it was because it was never fairly tried.

We speak thus in no spirit of personal exultation. For ourselves we can take credit but for two qualities-industry and honesty; but these are, perhaps, the qualities most essential to the management of a periodical such as ours. We speak merely of its management. We know that neither industry nor honesty can supply the place of talented contributions; but when this essential requisite is obtained, they can do much towards stamping a character of respectability upon the work. The spirit and liberality of the proprietors have se. cured for our pages the contributions of the most distinguished native talent, a liberality which has been fully met by disinterested and generous exertion; and while we cannot particularize, we must content ourselves with a general acknowledgment of obligations, the extent of which we fully feel.

With respect to the editorial management of our periodical, the principle upon which we have acted may be summed up in one word, and that word is INDEPENDENCE. Independence in politics-in criticism-in everything. No person or party could ever command our pages upon any other than public grounds; we have never permitted any private influence to control us in the line we thought it our duty to adopt; and we have never suppressed our sentiments from the fear of giving offence. To our political principles we have been steady; and by steadiness to their cause, we are proud to say we have earned the confidence of the Protestants of Ireland-a confidence of which we trust we shall never prove unworthy. It is perhaps needless to pledge ourselves to be true to those principles which we have always, it may be inefficiently but honestly, maintained. Our past political conduct is before the public, it is perhaps the best security that we will not abandon the cause to which, through evil report and good report, we have adhered.

We know that there are those who think that with our political articles there has been mingled, at times, an

unnecessary degree of bitterness and personality. There have been timesthe occasions have been rare-when we imagined that our duty called on us to expose the conduct of individuals in high station; and we admit that upon such occasions we have been more anxious to give expression to our feelings than to soften down the language in which those feelings might be conveyed. We feel strongly upon politics; and when we see political baseness in high places, we cannot always tame down the language of our honest indignation to the measured terms of polite discretion. When we felt that the rights of Britons were assailed, we did not hesitate to break down the conventional etiquette which never was intended, which never ought to protect the enormities of dignity and rank. We never have disguised our hatred of apostacy, because it might happen to be seated on the woolsack; nor concealed our contempt for meanness, even when found in the wearer of a coronet. With nothing to hope from patronage, and nothing to fear from power, we have never scrupled to denounce the faults or the crimes which seemed to us to endanger the well-being of our country, even though the delinquent might happen to be an Archbishop, a Chancellor, or a Lord Lieutenant.

But while we confess, and glory in the confession, that we have carried to its utmost bounds the liberty of the press, we defy any one to adduce from our pages a single example of its licentiousness. We have never lent our selves to the detestable occupation of private slander. Our opinions we have expressed, without any other restraint than that which our own sense of propriety imposed; but this is a controul which has ever influenced us; and we cannot recollect that, even in the heat of political excitement, an expression has escaped us of which, in our cooler moments, we have seen reason to be ashamed.

The name of our periodical is a subject upon which we are anxious to make a few observations. It is, perhaps, calculated to give a very false impression as to the nature of the work. We contemplate far more popular, and far more important objects than to send forth to the world a chronicle of scientific intelligence, or

a register of academic proceedings. We desire that there should be nothing in our pages to distinguish us as a University Magazine. The truth is, that if we had our name to choose, our present denomination is not the one we would adopt. Few persons are aware of the accidents in which this Magazine originated; and it is needless to detail the circumstances which, in the minds of its projectors, determined its appellation. With the exception of the list of honors, which we generally make it a matter of conscience to insert, there is nothing in our pages to render the name peculiarly appropriate. Still less do we wish it to be supposed that our journal is in anywise the organ of the heads of the University-of them we are perfectly independent. We are anxious, for many reasons, that this should be distinctly understood. While it is but justice to that learned body to state, they are not in any degree responsible for our sentiments upon any subject; it is, perhaps, no more than justice to ourselves to say, that we owe to them neither patronage or support. There is one sense, indeed, in which we may be entitled to the name of the University Magazine→→→ the sense, we believe, in which it was originally adopted-we do claim to speak the sentiments of the great majority of the graduates of the University. Our name was adopted at the period when the wise extension of the franchise had admitted all graduates to a species of connexion with the University; and it was supposed that the title of University Magazine would be an appropriate one for a journal which aspired to be the monthly advocate and representative of the Protestantism, the intelligence, and the respectability of Ireland. Unquestionably the graduates of the University, as a body, combine all these elements in themselves. We cannot, however, help thinking that the selection was injudicious. Unfortunately, in our Irish University, the graduate who has once left her walls has but few associations to bind him to his Alma Mater; and even the extension of the franchise has done little to connect him more closely to the institution, except, perhaps, as it creates the somewhat harsh reminiscence which is annually excited by the never-failing exaction of a pound.