Self-reliance, manly confidence in the effect of their own virtues, respect for the virtues that ought to adorn rank, rather than for rank itself, and a spurning of that vile servility which is only the hereditary remnant of bygone oppression, will be taught the people in such a way as to make them feel how far up in society a high moral condition can and ought to place them. Nor is this all;--the darker page of Irish life shall be laid open before them--in which they will be taught, by examples that they can easily understand, the fearful details of misery, destitution, banishment, and death, which the commission of a single crime may draw down, not only upon the criminal himself, but upon those innocent and beloved connections whom he actually punishes by his guilt. It is, indeed, with fear and trembling that the Author undertakes such a great and important task as this. If he fail, however, he may well say-- “_Quem si non tenuifc, tamon magnis excidit ausis_.” Still he is willing to hope that, through the aid of truthful fiction, operating upon the feelings of his countrymen, and on their knowledge of peasant life, he may furnish them with such a pleasing Encyclopedia of social duty--now lit up with their mirth, and again made tender with their sorrow--as will force them to look upon him as a benefactor--to forget his former errors--and to cherish his name with affection, when he himself shall be freed forever from those cares and trials of life which have hitherto been his portion. In the following simple narrative of “The Broken Pledge,” it was his aim, without leading his readers out of the plain paths of every-day life or into the improbable creations of Romance, to detail the character of such an individual as almost every man must have often seen and noticed within the society by which he is surrounded. He trusts that the moral, as regards both husband and wife, is wholesome and good, and calculated to warn those who would follow in the footsteps of “Art Maguire.” Dubin, July 4, 1845. It has been often observed, and as frequently inculcated, through the medium of both press and pulpit, that there is scarcely any human being who, how striking soever his virtues, or how numerous his good qualities may be, does not carry in his moral constitution some particular weakness or failing, or perhaps vice, to which he is especially subject, and which may, if not properly watched and restrained, exercise an injurious and evil influence over his whole life. Neither have the admonitions of press or pulpit ended in merely laying down this obvious and undeniable truth, but, on the contrary, very properly proceeded to add, that one of the most pressing duties of man is to examine his own heart, in order to ascertain what this particular vice or failing in his case may be, in order that, when discovered, suitable means be taken to remove or overcome it.