51) 1 The State of Europe. [JuNE, 



November 25, 1792. 



" Next winter may be the crisis of our fate; and if you begin to improve, 

 the Constitution, you may be driven, step by step, from the disfranchisement 

 of Old Sarum to the King in Newgate, the Lords voted useless, the Bishops 

 abolished, and a House of Commons sans Culottes." 



The argument of force is even already adopted. The Tories are told, 

 " Give up, or you must be overwhelmed ; the people will break out into 

 insurrection, and your party will perish in the ruin.'' The Lords are told 

 in the same language, " The reformed House of Commons will not suffer 

 the insult of your longer repugnance. You see we have numbers on our 

 side, and numbers must carry the day. You may argue, but we will act ; 

 you may appeal to common sense, public right, or the law, we have 

 the populace. You may fly to the altar of the constitution ; but you are 

 but one to a thousand ; we will walk over the barriers, which you think 

 sacred, and shew you the weakness of human obligations against human 

 passions/' 



At such a time what should be the course of high-minded and 'patriotic 

 men ? to be just and fear not ; to do their duty to the uttermost without 

 regard to the consequences; to adopt in public life the intrepidity, the de- 

 licacy of honour, and the pure principle, which make the virtue of private 

 life: especially, to shrink from all contact with the stained, to refuse all 

 temptation to degrade their generous and hallowed cause by the aid, the 

 treacherous and despicable aid, of the men whom they have already 

 found false. There, no tears must wash away the guilt of tergiversation ; 

 the leper must be kept without the camp. Let the high-minded do 

 their duty high-mindedly, arid they need never despair of their cause. 

 The future is safe in the hands of Heaven ; and they will yet see the re- 

 ward of their sacred perseverance, in the rescue of their country. 



THE SILENT SISTER. 



SUCH is the epithet by which the University of Dublin is commonly 

 distinguished from her elder sisters of the Cam and Isis. The silence of 

 a learned body is of course a metaphorical expression, figurative of its 

 literary obscurity. It is the scope of the following observations, to ex- 

 plain the circumstances which have brought so serious a reproach on the 

 Institution in question. In the pursuit of this subject, it will be neces- 

 sary to advert to certain abuses and defects in the collegiate system. We 

 shall treat them with a freedom proportioned to the importance of the 

 subject; offering no apology for the severity of our remarks, so long as 

 they are just. 



The first aspect in which a university presents itself to notice, is that 

 of a great national school for the education of that portion of the flower 

 of the country, which is soon to be precipitated into the cares and 

 employments of the world. Considered in this light, the defects of the 

 Irish University are not peculiar to herself; she shares them with the 

 ancient collegiate establishments of this island. They have long been 

 the object of censure to the most enlarged and enlightened minds our 

 country has produced ; they were discovered by the all-pervading eye 

 of the immortal author of the " Advancement of Learning ;" they were 

 pointed out by Locke ; they did not escape the eagle glance of Milton. 

 To make this class of defects the matter of a special charge against Dublin 



