The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-06-19 00:00:00

• I} SUPPLEM - ENT TO O , ...,„ lc i . , AND GENERAL COMMERCIAL ADVERi'ISL'R whole, in the volume before us, Mr. Hannay estab lishes his claim to be considered a writer of fiction of the healthful order, whose mental aliment strengthens the mind while it sharpens the judgment. He is one of the numerous writers of the day with whom his readers desire the pleasure of frequent intercourse. History of Europe, from the Fall of Napoleon, in 1815, to the Accession of Louis Napoleon, in 1852. By Sir Archibald Alison, Bart., D.C.L. Vol. IV. Edinburgh and London : W. Blackwood and Sons. The difficulty attendant on the composition of any thing entitled to be clignified, with the name of his tory, upon circumstances of recent occurrence, has been so frequently remarked and so often admitted, as to have assumed a position among those popular opinions which are generally classed under the de nomination of admitted facts. The difficulty as re gards recent events, is with equal readiness and even a greater show of propriety insisted on, and exalted into impossibilities, when the facts to be treated of and the individuals whose conduct is to be canvassed belong to periods contemporaneous with those in which the narrator has himself occupied a conspicuous place, and on which his individual opinions, social position, and literary talents, have exercised a modi fying influence. Like many other adminicles of popular belief, however, this impossibility, like those which time out of mind have beset the career of un successful statesmen and defeated warriors—which have set narrow bounds to the wide aspirations of baffled ambition, are found to be difficulties only in the way of moderate talent, but vanish, as flies the morning mist before the noon-day sun, when the strong self-will of genius undertakes their conquest, guided on the path to victory by the lamp of know ledge—counselled on the way to its achievement by prudence and wisdom—sustained by courage, and im pelled by firm integrity of purpose. The work now under consideration, of which the fourth volume is before us, is an apt and satisfactory illustration of the preceding observations. Commencing with a period, which, in accordance with popular supposition, is sur rounded simply by difficulties, the work has gradually advanced till it has now reached an epoch shut up within the prescribed impossibility of treatment— an epoch with which the youngest of its readers is con nected, and in which the great majority of living men have been familiar spectators or busy actors. Within its full and flowirr , narrative, nevertheless, the most fastidious investigator will look in vain for indications of the presumed impossibilities ; and a wit of more than usual sharpness will be required to discover and point out the difficulties with which imagination has peopled the path of the successful historian. Like otherintellects of Titan mould, having first matured his plan, Sir Archibald Alison, the Tacitus of our time, has carefully selected his materials—with cau tious sagacity compared their relations, measured their importance, and weighed their influence in respect to the circumstances on which they have operated—having cautiously adjusted their propor tions and determined their powers as cause and effect, he proceeds, without halt or hesitation, in building up the fabric which his genius .has discovered them fit for the construction of. Giving each its due impor tance in the structure, displaying here an ornament of rich and vivid beauty, placing there a mass of strength and power, yet, on the whole, so skilfully balancing the varied parts—so contrasting and com mingling the elements, that the result is a fabric of solid power, symmetric beauty, and intrinsic worth. In constructing his great historic pile, Sir Archibald rejects no useful material, be it plastic or inflexible. dingy in complexion or brilliant in hue, but with well tutored skill he finds for each a place, and. out of objects the most heterogeneous. from principles the most repugnant., lie elaborates a lucid and harmonious whole. He explains, balances, and displays the mo- tives and results of public action—investigates and lays bare the tortuous and hidden operations by which classes and factions have sought to bend the course of events to a furtherance of their own selfish or mistaken ends—traces the progress and marks the importance of those great achievements in moral and physical science which have- imparted to the present age those features of distinctive superiority which se gregate it from the mental culture of bygone days. All this he does with the calm dignity of the philosopher, mingling, though slightly, the force of his judg ment with the sweet blendings of admiration—tem pering his censure by the promptings of a forgiving spirit. tinder the inspiration of a broad intelligence, he illuminates his picture by the radiance of hope, and supports its power and impressiveness by introducing bold shadows from the past, while he heightens its interest and sustains its fidelity by vigorous and strong limnings of the present. Having in the preceding volume investigated the principles and exhibited some of the more prominent results involved in that monetary revolution intro duced and carried out by the late Sir Robert Peel, he opens the present by examining the social condition of Ireland, and tracing through that condition the moral aspect of the Irish population as it was made to herald the second revolution (Catholic Emancipation) for which the country has to thank the wavering forti tude of that vacillating minister. In the published progress of his labours, the historian has not yet reached the period of the third revolution (Free Trade as it is called) inaugurated by others, but carried into effect by that versatile and unstable politician, the ever-ready agent of expediency. Conspicuous among the physical improvements which have grown out of the moral advance achieved during the continuance of the long peace which fol lowed the downfal of the first Napoleon, the sugges tion, execution and full development of railways forms one of the most striking features. As such, it meets with due attention from Sir Archibald Alison, whose reflections upon the subject show him possessed of a mind alive to all the bearings of so vast and compre hensive a subject. After having briefly, yet forcibly detailed the opening of the Manchester and Liverpool Railway, the first constructed in the empire for travel ling, and narrating in plaintive tones the "melancholy and fatal accident to Mr. Huskisson, which clouded the inauguration of that great undertaking, Sir Archi bald proceeds with his consideration of DIE RAILWAY SYSTEM With this mournful catastrophe, and thus baptised in blo - od, did the railway system arise in England. Rapid beyond all human calculation was the progress which it made, and boundless beyond all human ken are the efforts which it has produced. Like most of the discoveries destined to produce great and lasting changes on human affairs, its introduction owed little to science, by which it was distrusted, and its effects did not immediately develope themselves. But ere long they, were fully made manifest, and they have now, in a manner, changed the whole face of society in the civilised world. Before the year 1850, no less than eleven hundred and eleven acts of parliament had been passed, to form new lines or extend old ones ; and the capital authorised to be expended on them amounted to the enormous sum of £348,012,188. But the effects of the railway system have not been con fined merely to the industrial and monetary concerns of the nation, great and lasting as these effects have been. It has produced social and' political results of the very highest im portance, and which, like other things in this world, have been partly salutary and partly pernicious: It has in a great measure destroyed space, and brought the most distant parts of the empire into comparatively close proximity with its great cities and metropolis. In this way it has, to a most surprising degree, equalised the circumstances of the different parts of the country, and deprived the immediate neighbour hood of the capital S and large towns of the exclusive advan tages which they have so long enjoyed. The markets of London are supplied with beef from Aberdeenshire, pork front Ireland, and vegetables and milk from the midland counties of England, as regularly as they used to be from the fields of Surrey or the downs of Sussex. Immense and entirely bene ficial have been the effects of this equalisation ; and they have 1./ / i • f,.4) t, 4,_ ' ARLO AT 4 f , t tt g SCUTARI. )r e , 4. 4,, , fs r i ," GI BRALTAR, MAY 16, 1855. Oitti"ch4eCtiv,, n3e3, here sl eep t h e b rave! ky o , w rit ? their mangled frames ; their honoured names ; gj P %, ivit°Pies their *Taves ' 0 4 4 lch • ! osphorus cloth lave, tt r ever tel l, Consecrate IA .4 1 like k. 4,4 her and God's estate : cave. st% 4 4 , 1 . 4 4 Ni t t the m -11 r IN qtw4 s • oslems, sleep! tt we in spirit roam, 4, fe er : 1 4 t , on'a vigils keep, * l ote r ," l ltair; '‘Well in that bright home, 1 2th Da;ns and sorrows cease -44,1ea with peace, eternal peace ! !,,,,‘, _______ 4'Ne,,, 1,..• 1 / 4 -1- E Tr s . ft, 11 ; -----a „vq,t,,, " r st 44 ; 1 4 , 111 es Hannay. 'O4 .4 eon s te Dlet - 131 ackett. I tlk NA t itUt e With 4 041 ti ori le t 4 e t h 6 many of the finest \lili' and h tisiti et , a ,ssence of Mr. Hannay 's peps t e tt 14 04 4 f % ,,, 'ion. It is rather artless A tt , lo re ci , 4 h4 1 .,? 1 the seductions incident ih ?,rder trllle tk r dramatic situations of : ,,,H 4d 'oe 1ife1,44 these ; but it has charms of I. l liv t ` t ad s i o ,,Y Ivo ', O secure for it a hearty la te 4 f 4 d l 'folly. d ;at It is instinct with ( 4* e d r ' t ettta e lineated character ; and Oh t t he e , e lecti on re 1 . 8 artistically heightened ltitkit.s t o 14 , 8 ' h n.aturally evolved in the karat see Ich they relate. With a h. t hisnerY, tl Oe e ren , the author transfers his ,` Fi l i . c,%t s tlg. 4 t.ter in a strain of fervid li 1) ) t ' l lti e"i ve of , ~Ii , wi. k nst truth and productive N f 4t Icise f q , Pleasing emotions. His 14,, th e ;Illy tallier the representative of an t 4 , t 4 4 1 4 11 fonteh has been ruined by 441,4 iii for ..trtunes of the regal Stewarts, t. 14 . st t i n - I .' erary pursuits. but whose 441 14 3. r elt '' i t ) ivel v to the sea. . The longing Y f ell." the ~,, • ri c :a t cexpressed reflections on `Mlle; Dte l°ll 4ill -k .. 1.1. f 12411 ARD. Il e sea which seizes some of Pasisll.l4r thetog 1 4/ 0) esi oit ~ Lnglish? does it run in our s kt sie:i:iti t a charmo You in your that (if you are ,k4 t l iSt itt ,'ller int like that of love itself. It k kt,p t , I, e, h eeoni _ le, and blinds you to all other Ct.,;o!tst ae , e 2 ., as full of the sea as the poor it044, - i ; but was born in an inland county, Vi‘l t ?tl ieps ere i s tte ' o. lrst . for its water was now AN 114-th that , th at , bv "ern a;Yof accounting for the tAN , th st e 1)0 1% .. suPposin g , what is certainly 'lop, as others are born poets. yk sh ,(lle t , °i s th e s s ! . Ntkttitq e4 ,:eliS an V -l Ard, which has been hatched Vieci, hakes se . eaves: When it comes to its ~ I, 111 % ;!pq „ seizes it ;it rises into the air and, g, !i litt veth in the eternal waters. These sea- Ofst k sl ti . or theyknow Pine Th • ' ' must k t 4 the , 1 4 ,,1t 5 ,, ey are th at beyond it lies the great ex- I, ,tl,7'e,' tliat ri . 4 ,wake, and think how the waves t ; th e I,,La . nt ; and the genius whispers -IpNV% s 'i va gi i' ll ging' comes first as a pleasure, all t i kiT i !l ks li y ou e ,!ild Wild ; by and by it has a re ;yag dei e e l that you are shrinking from I st I,7 ir e i " lat a and narrows itself into a (Us -111 It h as 1 , 4 2,, you and the sea have a , fitlo tea you seen rranged from the begin ;tit p 'S 'NI your destiny. 1 ;I:'t of d ' the ardent youth b • :'t I ! ii Of A °tie Li nd . becomes the ;114 , 4 . 5 Food 0 s t a he .) a Seotchman, who ' t it' i 4 iht 4 eator t admiring protiql, ‘, 1 1 / 4 , , ill ati , - moral feeling and proper' 1 14' *C r . as moral as it is effec tri ar,, l k5 , 5 .4._ ,il,s, onfrather a moralising turn, th g 4,, 1 , ( 1‘ o r . useful reflection, and, like ei, whiclemachus, he is ever ready et he aptly delivers. As a London i.ll ft