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

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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

ciPle
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 good 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 perambulate. ,
fields, headed by the clergy of the distri
purpose of praying for :blessincr nl3°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 173,0
By fearing to attempt it."—Srassr
Liverpool, November, 1855.

LITERARY EXTRA-°
150.4
How TO WRITE CLEARLY AND FOll-o¢lo
fully possessed of his subject, and Oleo
cause, may almost always write withvigivri° 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 °•001"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°11e J
on
quent and ingenious out of place.--Picti. 540
THE PARIS EXHIBITION.—The
Exhibition are different from those of oilbe $10?
supposed by sanguine enthusiastics t°,12,0
ing of all nations, a prelude to a unive7c,
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 conwc,t,t°
ing with political convulsion. With reshrie
a state of war seems even more favoull,ww
peace to her industrial energies, prob7ovil
such a state her blood flows more 03,t,1e
perately. Is it a necessity of her na_drb"
should be divided between foreignfore`i'd
disquietude ? We know not ; if it is'Af thesd
certainly preferable. Is it a conditioll'otioll:#
of every ()Teat old nation—of our 012.11 aile9lo
It would be a bold step to answer to15„;*vooi
matically. Certain it is that it would "d)11.41
people if the horrors of war were inseP3 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--Lal, 0/1
ing point in his " History of the Giroo,Le ICJ
following portrait of Marat :—A
surgeon by profession, an obscure writel 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 anarchy
lutionary turmoil had accumulated '
tet.biip?,
these ruins he quickly constructed 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'

-\roVE:NiBER 13, 1855.]

it Was more sincere. Fanaticism is the
force of revolutions. Marat was the fanatic
AeOple : the people were not long in becoming
ics of 3larat. His style--uncultured, savage,
bloodanding in vulgar images, derived from tears
yet softened by passionate and earnest
'lons on social iniquities and on the scantiness
was as the sigh of a woman when it
the unfortunate, but as the growl of a lion
it turned against the happy. He made himself,
a representative of public calamities.
MANUFACTURES.—AII the invention of our
:ers can never produce the exquisite combi-
of form and colour displayed in the tissues of
India. And to do ourselves justice we give
credit for what is their own, and do not adopt
Ihiserable getting-up-behind system of Austria.
'ate conservatism of British India, like nature in
beautiful
of the spring-time, continues to reproduce
ueautiful structures of thousands of years ago ; for
cd and simple reason, that perfection having
long ago attained, there is no room for progress :
"tempts at improvement must be retrogressive
3tructive. It is the very poetry of manufacture;
is so, because in its prodigious industry it em-
holiness of antiquity. Taste, with the most
Western nations, even with Italy and France,
of culture and education ; in India it seems
thing which men imbibe with the milk of their
mothers. How often does the barrenness of
bet with us take refuge in puritanism of
pattern, whether in dress, equipages, or house
tan ; while in India the most gorgeous hues
tly materials are resorted to daringly and un-
and no error in taste is ever committed.
ott„, \ same praise may be given to the productions
c` Egypt, Tunis, and Turkey, which also par-
'. Ithe Oriental character. In China this conser-
of taste is seen in its exaggeration, and frozen
absurdity.--- Blackwood's 3fagazine.
v. CORDELIA.—The evening was so bewitch-
beautiful, that I sallied forth to enjoy it, some-
alone, more solito ; and yet not alone,
,my pocket I took a volume of Shakespeare.
had I seated myself in the silent grass-grown
representing the keep of the castle, before
her appearance with the long-desired volume
lureate's last—" Maud." When she had left
read it—beginning with the respectful and eager
in which one or two exquisite performances
might well inspire in even the most exacting
Odious—right through. . . . . So, with
I took out the volume of Shakespeare which I
,ht with me, determined to commence " King
Which I had not read for many years. Oh, don't
Sat an old contributor has grown young enough
43m' you at this time of day—at least of the even-
a critique of that magnificent play, whose
and immortal author has the humblest hom-
y heart and intellect, would they were worthier
;ring it ! In his inspiring presence even little-
ems to swell into bigger proportions ; but really
begins one shall never end, so be it understood
With one line, when I had got down to it, the
evening falling deeper and deeper around me, I
the volume, and in the recollection of that rich
-fely line have revelled ever since. It occurs in
'may.
first scene, where, while her two false-hearted
flattering their royal old father, who has
--. each of the three to tell him which loves him
Says Cordelia, aside, the first intimation she has
Of her presence—" What shall Cordelia do?
be silent !" Oh, Shakespeare ! and so will
Jkwood's Magazine.
.4STOPHER COLUMBUS.—The time of Columbus !
Picturesque and various are the scenes, how noble'
Individual the characters which this name presents
Perhaps—it is possible—the national character
as little elevated then as now, could we behold it
the same familiar eye. Perhaps the Cid himself
garlic and onions, and was not over particular
the complexion of his linen; but we cannot speak
deg,
of them agnificent Spaniard of the elder
8, grand,
`Ave painted,ihim,
sohlbre, and lofty as tradition and poetry
wftderful n nor ever lose the charm of that
out of enterprise, adventure, and con-
,khowliwwiuji revealed to the old' universe in its un-
hero of all, another world. Columbus himself, the
of 411, across whose imagination ambitious visions
14017208sessed countries and mines of gold and dia-
'l Might indeed loom faintly as his own great

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