[2] At the same time it must not be denied, that, if you lose by a journal in the way here described, you also gain by it. The journal gives you the benefit of its own separate audience, that might else never have heard your name. On the other hand, in such a case, the journal secures to you the special enmity of its own peculiar antagonists. These papers, for instance, of mine, not being political, were read possibly in a friendly temper by the regular supporters of the journal that published them. But some of my own political friends regarded me with displeasure for connecting myself at all with a reforming journal. And far more, who would have been liberal enough to disregard that objection, naturally lost sight of me when under occultation to _them_ in a journal which they never saw. [3] The crime of Josephus in relation to Christianity is the same, in fact, as that of Lauder in respect to Milton. It was easy enough to detect plagiarisms in the "Paradise Lost" from Latin passages fathered upon imaginary writers, when these passages had previously been forged by Lauder himself for the purpose of sustaining such a charge. [4] It is a significant fact, that Dr. Strauss, whose sceptical spirit, left to its own disinterested motions, would have looked through and through this monstrous fable of Essenism, coolly adopted it, no questions asked, as soon as he perceived the value of it as an argument against Christianity. [5] "_Solitary road_."--The reader must remember that, until the seventh century of our era, when Mahometanism arose, there was no _collateral_ history. Why there was none, why no Gothic, why no Parthian history, it is for Rome to explain. We tax ourselves, and are taxed by others, with many an imaginary neglect as regards India; but assuredly we cannot be taxed with _that_ neglect. No part of our Indian empire, or of its adjacencies, but has occupied the researches of our Oriental scholars. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD DREAM ECHOES OF THESE INFANT EXPERIENCES DREAM ECHOES FIFTY YEARS LATER CHAPTER II. INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF STRIFE CHAPTER III. INFANT LITERATURE CHAPTER IV. THE FEMALE INFIDEL CHAPTER V. I AM INTRODUCED TO THE WARFARE OF A PUBLIC SCHOOL CHAPTER VI. I ENTER THE WORLD CHAPTER VII. THE NATION OF LONDON CHAPTER VIII. DUBLIN CHAPTER IX. FIRST REBELLION IN IRELAND CHAPTER X. FRENCH INVASION OF IRELAND, AND SECOND REBELLION CHAPTER XI. TRAVELLING CHAPTER XII. MY BROTHER CHAPTER XIII. PREMATURE MANHOOD AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES. CHAPTER I. THE AFFLICTION OF CHILDHOOD.