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For swiftly in flight over hill and o'er plain

Their steeds bravely bear them; pursuit is in vain.
Their retainers are near them, for valor enrolled,

"Those who join us shall stay," says MacMurchad the bold.

And though there was arming for fight to prepare,
O'Ruark was absent! ah! would he were there;
Not then had Dearbhorgil forgotten her vows,
MacMurchad in triumph not borne off his spouse.
Throughout his dominions beloved and revered,
The brave Prince of Breffni by foemen was feared;
High feats of his prowess in arms have been told,
But little of this recked MacMurchad the bold.

Now quickly their steeds the O'Ruarks bestrode ;
Some followed MacMurchad-to the monarch some rode;
And a faithful retainer soon hurried away

To relate to O'Ruark the deeds of the day,

Who from his devotions full quickly returns

To marshal his bands, and march to the Ferns;

But the spies hovering round him, his doings unfold:

"Let him come with his clan," says MacMurchad the bold.

The King sent a courier to Leinster to say
MacMurchad should answer, and not make delay;
Should give up his bride to O'Ruark again,

And make reparation most fully, in pain

Of the monarch's displeasure, who sought to restrain
The lawless, licentious, and wished to maintain

Both morals and government, pure as of old.

"I shall keep my young bride," says MacMurchad the bold.

At once to the rescue most willingly flew,

To aid brave O'Ruark, the pure and the true;

The prayers of virtue ascended for him,

And husbands and fathers with anguish looked grim;

And Roderick, the King, with his followers came;

They marched over Leinster with sword and with flame.
And now, as his army the allies enfold,
Fast flies from his country MacMurchad the bold

To Henry of England MacMurchad now hies,
While O'Ruark is watched by retainers and spies;
And Henry soon granted the succor desired,
At once with the conquest of Erin inspired.
Though the King and O'Ruark are still in the field,
And justice is theirs, in the end they must yield;
For backed by his hirelings, and flushed with his gold,
Returns to his country MacMurchad the bold.

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THIS work gives a complete Panoramic View of Public Events and Newspaper Literature for the past thirty-five years. Its pages are characterized by a spirit of candor and justice that will command the admiration of its readers, while the views entertained with respect to the facts recorded will show that Journalism, up to the present time, has been only in a transition state in this country.

The true character of the principal subject of the work is now, for the first time, made known to the public by one who can not be charged with any bias of friendship, or for prejudice, against THE LEADING JOURNALIST OF THE UNITED STATES!

[THE above advertisement called to mind an article we have had for some time lying in our drawer. As the subjects refer to the same dogma of newspaporial influence, we make ready room for the contribution of our correspondent.-ED.]

EVERY evidence of the weight attached to the printed utterance of opinion is eagerly scrutinized by the public, and forms a peculiarly gratifying bolus to the chronic self-complacency of the editorial corps. We have, therefore, proposed to ourselves, as the thesis of this well-pondered but not ponderous essay, to consider in some of its most salient aspects the supremacy over public affairs in this Republic exercised by one solitary member of the daily press in this, the self-dubbed Empire City of the Union. Ex uno disce omnes !

The paper which, after much mature deliberation, we select for special notice, is called the Daily Spasm; and is printed, edited, and published by a gentleman of foreign birth, who has generously consecrated to our service that genius which he does not hesitate to confess he finds to be his principal ingredient. He may properly be styled the "Paul Jones" of publishers: and there were at one time certain rumors very scandalously current, to the effect that he desired to import and engraft upon the literature of his adopted country the fine feudal practice of "black mail"-so highly eulogized by Sir Walter Scott, in his Rob Roy and other similar productions.

Whether his boyish predilections really tempted him to revive, or attempt the revival of this "Border Law," as it was called; or whether the report had no foundation save in the malice of his enemies and rivals, we can not undertake to say: any correspondent having the organ of inquisitiveness very largely developed, may consult the judicial records of NewYork upon this point. When he finds that the slander is unfounded, we shall be glad to hear from him. But let him write to us, in any case, the result of his researches, for otherwise the condition aforesaid might not improbably involve an eternal separation.

The Editor of the Daily Spasm-or, as for euphony and briefness we shall call him, the spasmodic editor-presents in his person a beautiful illustration of the foresight with which kind Nature has adapted a special instrument to every separate end. Not only mentally but physically, as well, his organization enables and compels him to look on both sides of a subject at one and the same moment. And as there is a silver lining to every cloud, and a golden one to a great manyand as he can always see both sides, and has a singularly strong partiality for the auriferous appearance-what wonder, we ask, that he occasionally presents to the public in all the gorgeous drapery of euphuistic phrase a subject, or a fact, which, to their partial vision, has all the blackness, all the horror of an impending thunder-storm? And as, moreover, every golden cloud must have a sunless gloom upon its outer side, what wonder, we again inquire, that the same doublesighted, double-minded censor should not unfrequently attempt to darken and befoul what seems most bright and most auspicious to the single-sighted, single-minded observer? Add

* We use the term, "a beautiful illustration," after the fashion of the dissectingThus doctors tell us of a "lovely tumor," "a most perfect cancer," and a "really beautiful suppuration."

room.

to this duplicating obliquity of vision, that his skin has the toughness and insensibility requisite to the passive part of his profession, and that his jaws, being provided with high cheekbones, offer every desirable facility to those who would make him, nolens volens, swallow his own libels-and we cease to wonder at the very questionable eminence these qualities have raised him to. With the hide of a rhinoceros, the vision of a squinting wolf, the swallow of a hungry anaconda, what needs he but a pair of horns to realize the dream of the apocalypse?

So much for the exterior and mere physical adaptations of the gentleman to whose genius and urbanity we dedicate this "first-rate notice."

We have now to speak of the influence he wields, and of the policy by which he wields it. We shall likewise embellish our discourse by some recent and illustrious examples of the victories achieved by the consummate indirectness of the spasmodic chief.

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And first, as to his influence: it is immense!

Immense for he confesses it himself: his subordinates are proud of it: his correspondents exult in it: his paper-folders fall into an ecstatic trance whenever it is alluded to: and the ragged little news-boys, as with condor lungs they bellow, "Extra Spa-a-a-a-sm" assume all the appearance and characteristics of delirious pride. His circulation, he assures us, is immense; and on each successive sheet of each edition, and in every issue, there is a spasmodic paragraph referring to the Daily Spasm's "enormous influence !" Ask any of those nameless quacks who advertise mysterious cures of all unmentionable maladies; inquire of any horological astrologer or septifilial fortune-teller; ask all the humbugs of the age; ask Barnum, Rrandreth, the Bearded-Lady, Professor Holloway, or Perham, the great founder of panoramic-lotteries; ask all or any one of these what publication they consider most likely to attract the notice of the disreputable class whose patronage they respectively solicit; and can there be a doubt but that the Daily Spasm will be their verdict and their choice?

As for the editor; more libel suits have been brought against him, more personal assaults made upon him, more savage epithets applied to him, than ever fell before to the lot of any lessaspiring publicist; his name has become a household word throughout the length and breadth of the United States; and even the sad natives of New-Jersey, as they sit beside the Hackensack or gather clams, their only esculent, along their

wreck-strewn beach, are not unconscious of the syllables which indicate the potential man.

The influence he wields is, therefore, beyond the suspicion even of the most captious caviller. It is gigantic, inscrutable, resistless; and all by indirectness!

But to illustrate this influence, we must describe his policy; while, vice versa, his policy can be made comprehensible and apparent in no other mode than by reciting some of the latest samples of its success. Let our readers now sharpen their wits and prepare to follow our experienced pilotage through the tortuous sinuosities of spasmodic power.

And first we would impress on them a very evident, but by no means obvious truism. It is this: That the forces of attraction and repulsion, though essentially antagonistic, are neither equal nor of like availability. The latter, by all odds, is the most serviceable, as we hope presently to demonstrate; and likewise, that it is to his repulsion or repulsiveness the spasmodic editor applies for the accomplishment of his designs.

Repulsion proper is equal to attraction proper; but diplomatic repulsiveness, by placing itself on the side opposite to its natural position-in other words, upon the wrong side, or behind any object which it desires to impel forward, can accomplish all that attraction would do by drawing the said object after it in its advancing course. Thus while Greeley, Abby Folsom, and Lloyd Garrison would lure on, or attract the abolition chariot (hearse were the better word) to the chasm of disunion and annihilation, the Daily Spasm, by placing itself in the rear of the dismal vehicle, adds terror to its flight, and lends the glandered jades and broken-winded hacks who work its tottering machinery a vigor not their own. What it desires, it execrates-what it lauds, it hates.

Let it be understood at this point, that we speak of diplomatic repulsiveness when exercised by the cool judgment of the great spasmal founder. There are times when he permits his excessive friendship to destroy a friend by its confession; times, too, when the rancor of some personal disappointment, such as that of a foreign mission, may blind him to the benefit his most atrocious calumnies confer.

For examples of diplomatic repulsiveness, we shall cite a few cases still fresh in the public mind. For the Judas-kiss with which he can kill an enemy, let the present disorder and disintegration of the Hindoo association suffice. He has established for himself a reputation most disastrous to whatever cause he advocates; and that the Constitution has survived,

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