The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-11-13 00:00:00

SUPPLEMENT TO THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD. 172 and we all regularly attend Court. We are ex tremely select as to the company we keep ; and if a jay, or any other vulgar bird, ventures amongst us, we send him off immediately. Not withstanding, we are very kind-hearted ; and I'll venture to say that our chatter is unmixed with slander. The gayest young lady amongst us may pass lightly before our gravest dowagers, without getting a single peck." " I shall willingly accompany you, dear lady," I said. And then, for the first time since my disgrace, I began to sing, carolling an extempore offer of my heart and claw to the pretty little magpie. But this second musical attempt was as disastrous as the first. The lady looked frightened, flew round me in widening circles, and at length, without saying adieu, took her final departure. As to the gentle turtle-dove, she had fallen fast asleep. Shocked and disappointed, I flew away, and, neither knowing or caring whither I went, I suddenly came into rather violent contact with a bird, who was flying in an opposite direction. We both fell on the topmost branch of a tree ; and, as soon as I recovered my breath, I began to apologise to my new acquaintance, who accepted my excuses very civilly. He was larger than I, white, and wore a top-knot on his head. I ven tured to inquire his name and country. " Strange," he exclaimed, " that you do not know me ! Have you never heard of the great poet, Cockatoo ?" I humbly intimated my ignorance. " Know, then," said he " that I am that illus trious individual. My poems enjoy an European reputation ; and I was just in the act of com posing the sixth canto of a new one, when you knocked your head against mine. However, I don't bear malice, and shall be happy to serve you in any way I can. Perhaps you also cultivate the 3 fuses ?" " I tried," said I, " a short time since, to sing an extempore composition, but my verses pro duced on my auditor a strangely lulling effect. You know what I mean, sir ?" _ " Oh, yes," replied my friend, " I often ex perience the same myself. I don't know the cause, but the effect is undeniable." " And, sir," said I, " did you ever discover a remedy ?" " No, indeed," replied Mr. Cockatoo, " I never did ; and, when I was young, the drowsiness of my auditor used to annoy me greatly, but now I don't mind it. I believe, indeed, it proceeds from the public attention being distracted by other writers. People ought to confine them selves to our works." " Will you, respected sir," said I, " do me the favour to listen to one of my compositions, and give me your candid opinion of its merits ?" " Most willingly ; I am all attention." I began to chant, and had the satisfaction of seeing that Cockatoo neither fled away nor fell asleep. He looked at me fixedly, and from time to time nodded his head, uttering a sort of pleased murmur. But I soon perceived that instead of listening to me, he was composing his own poem. Suddenly he interrupted me. " Eureka ! I have found the rhyme I wanted. 'Tis the sixty thousand seven hundred and four teenth which has come from my brain. And yet the critics dare to say that I am growing old ! I will go recite my poem to some friends that can appreciate its merits." So saying, he took flight and disappeared, apparently quite oblivious of my presence. Alope and disappointed, I felt I had nothing better to do than to fly towards Paris. I asked my way from some civil birds whom I met, and, after a few hours' flight, I reached the garden where I had been born. Alas my parents were gone ; the tree on which my father used to sit, while he poured forth a melodious tide of song, was cut down ; even the cherished ancestral watering-pot had vanished, and I felt that I was indeed alone in the world. I perched on a tree which overhung the high road, and began to bewail my melancholy fate. " What am I?" I asked myself. "It seems that I am neither a blackbird, nor a pigeon, nor a Rus sian magpie, nor a turtle-dove, nor a cockatoo. What can I be ?" Just then, I heard two porters, who were passing by, dispute with each other. One of them said to his comrade—" If you succeed in doing that, I'll make you a present of a white blackbird 1" "Oh !" cried I, " that is precisely what I am —a creature totally out of the common way—a rara avis—a heaven-horn genius. The world shall soon see what I am, and what I can do !" In six weeks from that day, I published my first great work ; there certainly were some errors in it, on account of the marvellous rapidity with which it was produced, but the public of the pre sent day are not very fastidious about trifles. My success was sudden and brilliant ; my subject was myself. I recounted my past sufferings with charming facility ; I initiated my readers into a thousand domestic details of the most entrancing interest ; the description of my mother's watering pot filled no less than fourteen chapters. With the most exquisite minuteness I delineated every crack, every hole, every tint of colour, every inequality on the outside ; while not a blade of grass, a bit of straw, a dried leaf, a morsel of stick, a fly's wing, or a beetle's leg, in the inside, escaped particular notice. But do not suppose that I printed all this eloquent description in a consecutive form. No, no ; there are impertinent readers in the world who would have then skipped it ; but I cleverly cut it up into parts, and mingled it with the story, so that, precisely at the most interesting and dramatic portion of the tale, there came in some half dozen pages concerning the watering-pot. This, I think, is one of the grand secrets of modern art. All Europe was stirred by my book ; every one devoured the confidential communications with which I honoured the world. Not only did I enumerate every minute incident of my life, but I also gave at full length every dream, vision, and wild imagining which had passed through my brain since I was a month old. I even took care to bring in an ode, composed by me when I was yet enclosed in the egg-shell ! With all this, I did not fail to discuss in passing the great topic of the day—namely, what is to be the future destiny of mankind—what the result of social progress ? This problem interested me. In a few moments I sketched a solution of it, which has given, I think, general satisfaction, and has contributed, along with my other match less writings, to raise me to the rank of a rara avis, nature having already made me a white blackbird. .;_NOVEMBED 13, 1 ciPl e oin. A encouragement to the former. The down is this :—lf the end in view be r then it is worth the venture, the risk of , 1 means, and endeavours. A goo d cause di tion, sluggishness of will, and effort; it call 'forth energy of purpose and diligence, the sacrifice of one's preconceived heat launching forth, so to speak, on the human affairs in spite of the storms aL which may for bad the voyage. Courage, wanted. So said Lady Macbeth to her bad cause. "But screw your courage to the stickbli And we'll not fail." One has not forgotten reading in tales carter who besought the aid of Hercules'! waggon had stuck fast in the nand. shoulder to the wheel," replied the di'linjt prospect of harvest, it is a good old en ti many for the people to pera mbulate. , fields, headed by the clergy of the distr i purpose of praying for :blessincr nl 3 ° l a promise. Coming to a portion of gronntt commonly unfruitful, says the priest t°all t " Prayer will do no good here , it ~ There was need of bold confidence on the 'a farmer. He must venture good seed nn tl ture, and leave season and weather in Him who made and overrules all things' " Our doubts arie,,bll. And make us lose the good we, oft 17 3 ,0 By fearing to attempt it."—Sra ssr Liverpool, November, 1855. LITERARY EXTRA-° 1 50 . 4 How TO WRITE CLEARLY AND FOll-o¢lo fully possessed of his subject, and Oleo cause, may almost always write withvig ivr i ° tio.fj if he can get over the temptation of ,olv 1 and really confine himself to the 5tr0,04,1 position of the matter he has to bring ° • 0 0 1 "01 of the affectation and offensive pretelol,atte!!, with in authors, arises from a want of "f the other half, from a paltry arab/ 11°11 e J o n quent and ingenious out of place.--P i cti . 5 40 THE PARIS EXHIBITION.—The Exhibition are different from those of o il be $ 10? supposed by sanguine enthusiastics t°,12 , 0 ing of all nations, a prelude to a unive7 c , again to be broken by international str,',,o better now. The Paris Exhibition is ulllOO any such visions of dreamland. It stl ; teal merits as a display of industiy and of or„ieilio peace amid the clash of arms, but a „ e 050 impossible for any to worship without the irrA thoughts which take their colour withri,, out, confused as it is with mortal conw c ,t,t ° ing with political convulsion. With re s h ri e a state of war seems even more favoull,ww peace to her industrial energies, prob7ovil such a state her blood flows more 0 3 , t , 1 e perately. Is it a necessity of her na_ dr b" should be divided between foreignfore`i'd disquietude ? We know not ; if it i s ' A f thesd certainly preferable. Is it a conditioll'otioll:# of every ()Teat old nation—of our 0 1 2. 11 a ile 9 lo It would be a bold step to answer to1 5 „;*v oo i matically. Certain it is that it wou ld "d) 1 1.41 people if the horrors of war were i n seP 3 jr with a diminution of those of peace.'" 1 1d Magazine. MA.RAT.—Lamartine, in his " Hist °ll. stituent Assembly," which is now reaches to the death of Mirabeau- - L al , 0 /1 ing point in his " History of the Giroo,Le ICJ following portrait of Marat :—A surgeon by profession, an obscure wri te l V ‘ i his obscurity, who sought notoriety Otej stead of fame. No man of the age ' 3 , ° aA Mil a more sombre and concentrated ,cier society, because it gave no place to hi%ffd, tems, to his social ideas or to his 5- Suddenly he was thrown into his coa,elield in the midst of the ruins and anar ch y lutionary turmoil had accumulated ' tet.biip?, these ruins he quickly constructe d a r. self ; for he by instinct divined that it,`vse3il be the Marius of the Faubourgs. 11' was more dangerous than that of Coll' ILLUSTRATIONS OF ENGLISH PROVERBS. "Nothing venture, nothing have." AN old saying this, but true ; and applicable to every position of life. Man is a moral agent, and in the exercise of a free will finds himself surrounded by manifold difficulties and apparent impossibilities. Hence, it follows that enterprise and speculation is given rise to. Yes, "to hope even against hope." To venture one's all becomes in many cases the only road to final success. It is, however, by all means necessary to guard against that utter recklessness or fool-hardiness which distinguishes the improvident rather than the earnest e ekers after a laudable object. Our proverb gives no , let 1,