The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-01-01 00:00:00

THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

HAVE you chosen your buckler, and weapons of war,
And proved that their temper is true ?
Have you fluttered your banner, and dreamed that the car
Of triumph is ready for you ?

It is well to be hopeful and well to be brave,
But best to be true to yourself;
And to know that Life's glory, however we rave,
Disdains the sole worship of pelf.
Oh, how strange is Life's Battle, where we have to fight
Where victims to weakness of soul
Are bewildered by phantoms deluding their sight,
And luring from victory's goal.

Do you know how these phantoms may ever be told
From Chiefs to whom honours belong?
'Tis because that mean banners they ever unfold,
Yet gild them to dazzle the young!

Never trust for a Leader the selfish or vain,
Or him who would blister his lips
With a falsehood, although he might, jesting, explain
'Twas only truth's partial eclipse.

Never list to the whispers of those who advise
That virtue will sink in the race,
And that they in the world are the happy and wise
Who rest from their wearying chase.
Obi, the soul is an armoury, where weapons of fight
Dwell silently stored in our youth :
Let us choose there a banner emblazoned and bright
With Charity, Justice, and Truth !
Let us plant on our turrets, and clasp to our heart,
Defend it with peril of life,
Whether be it our duty and true soldier's part
To act, or endure, in the strife.

Let it be for a trophy, or be for a shroud,
But still to the banner keep true;
And, whatever sour fortune, there sweeps from the crowd
The car of the Victor for you!

LITERA_TURE.

The History of England from the Accession of James
the Second. By Thomas Babington Macaulay.
Vols. 111. and IV. London : Longman and Co.
Ingenious and suggestive have been the means
which from time to time have been adopted to excite
and maintain public curiosity and expectation in regard
to the two volumes of the History of England which
have just issued from the literary nest of Mr. Macaulay,
after a tedious incubation of seven long years. The
result of those artificial stimulants which have been
so skilfully applied from time to time—the applica-
tions increasing in strength and frequency as the
interesting period for hatching the literary chicks
approached its consummation—has been a furore of
popularity such as to have no parallel in literary
annals. For a large, indeed for probably the larger
portion of these ingeniously-contrived schemes for
catching the breath of popular favour, Mr. Macaulay
may not be responsible ; the good fortune of their
skilful application being all with which he is concerned
in the prolific broadcast of their sowing. Still, as
their effect must necessarily be in a great degree to
disturb the balance of public judgment in relation to
the merits of the work, they cannot with safety be
left out of view in an endeavour to estimate the value
of that history which has been so pompously heralded.
The period of our history embraced in the two
volumes just issued by Mr. Macaulay extends from
the proclamation of William and Mary to the peace of
Ryswick, in 1697 ; that is, a space of time about eight
years in duration, viz., from the 23rd of December,
1688, to the 10th of September, 1697. Within this
limited time of action, many important events took
their origin, and many principles were laid down
which have exercised a permanent and salutary influ-
ence on the institutions and the progress of the
nation. In dealing with these the historian had a
task to perform, calling for the exercise of the highest
qualities of mind. To trace effects to their causes,
where harmony and power were to be evolved from
the prostrating influences of faction, and where stately
order was to arise out of the chaos of revolution,
required the calm judgment and keen scrutiny of the
philosopher: to unfold the course of events as they
successively present themselves in the turmoil of party
conflict called for the exercise of patient industry,
aided by sharp sagacity, and guided by inflexible
impartiality. The antecedents of Mr. Macaulay were
...not favourable to the expectation of a display of such
qualities in him, and the publication of his history has
justified the hesitation of those who doubted his pos-
session of the requisite qualifications.
In the volumes before us we find the laboured com-
position and the fertile fancy which distinguish their
author as a brilliant political essayist, and mark him
as a skilful as well as a graceful gladiator in the
literary arena of party warfare ; but we desiderate in
their carefully-elaborated pictures that breadth of
intellectual comprehension which suggests to the
mind of the reader the idea that it has been prepared
by one who, having explored the subject to its furthest
depths, measured its length and breadth, and minutely
examined its individual features, has extracted the
essence of each element, and recompounded the scene,
the circumstances, and the actors, in one homogenous
and impartial whole. His story is eloquently told ;
his pictures are carefully studied, and finished with
minute attention to detail; the lights are strongly
marked, and the shadows studiously balanced ; the
colours are laid with an attentive eye to harmony and
power of effect : but we instinctively feel that the
whole is too much the result of study ; the very elabo-
ration suggests the suspicion of something being
carefully put out of view ; the setting of the scene
Yeflects the artifice of the dramatic mechanician ; the
very eloquence suggests the pleading of the advocate
imperfectly acquainted with his brief, and but half con-
vinced of the justice of his cause. The epigrammatic
point of Mr. Macaulay's style hasbeen a frequent subject
of remark. It has been inordinately admired by one
class of readers, and unjustly condemned by another ;
the ground of offence to the latter being, chiefly, the
painful frequency of its repetition. The value of
antithesis as a weapon is great in skilful hands, and
in its use Mr. Macaulay is an adept ; like other adepts,
however, he is prone to too ostentatious a display of
his accomplishments in wielding it, and frequently
elaborates trivial affairs into important matters, that
he may give a popular conclusion the coup de grace
with the sting of epigrammatic bitterness. He informs
us, for instance, in illustration of the petty nature of
those intestine feuds which for so long a period dis-
tracted the Scottish Highlands, that " grave writers
tell of the victory gained at Inverlochy over the rebels.
But the peasants who dwell near the spot speak more
accurately. They talk of the great battle won
there by the Macdonalds over the Campbells." In this
and such instances he uses his weapon with dexterity,
and displays its power and his own skill with merited
success : but when we come upon page after page
elaborated with a similarly ostentatious sententious-
ness, the artifice becomes too palpable, the cooking too
obvious, the condiments too offensive, and the dish is
rejected with a feeling of satiety if not of loathing.
The space at our disposal forbids anything like
consecutive extracts, and such we shall not attempt
to give ; but the period treated of is so fertile in sub-
jects of abiding interest, that desultory quotation may
not only be readily tolerated, but even advantageously
employed : and availing ourselves of that conviction,
we present our readers with Mr. Macaulay's version of

TOITRVILLE'S DESCENT UPON DEVONSHIRE.
Tourville had, since the battle of Beechy Head, ranged
the Channel unopposed. On the 21st of July, his masts were
seen from the rocks of Portland. On the 22nd, he anchored in
the harbour of Torbay, under the same heights which he had,
not many months before, sheltered the armament of William.
The French fleet, which now had a considerable number of
troops on board, consisted of 111 sail. The galleys, which
formed a, large part of this force, resembled rather those ships
with which Alcibiades and Lysander disputed the sovereignty
of the 2Egean, than those which contended at the Nile and at
Trafalgar. The galley was very long and very narrow, the
deck not more than two feet from the water's edge. Each
galley was propelled by fifty or sixty huge oars, and each oar
was tugged by five or six slaves. The full complement of slaves
to a vessel was 336 ; the full complement of officers and soldiers
160. Of the unhappy rowers sonic were criminals who had
been justly condemned to a life of hardship and danger; a few
had been guilty only of adhering obstinately to the Huguenot
worship; the great majority were purchased bondsmen,
generally Turks and Moors. They were of course always
forming plans for massacring their tyrants and escaping from
servitude, and could be kept in order only by constant stripes
and by the frequent •infliction of death' T horrible forms. An
Englishman, who happened to fall in with about twelve hun-
dred of these most miserable and most .desperate of human
beings on their road from Marseilles to join Tourville, s squad-
ron, heard them vowing that, if they came near a man-of-war
bearing the cross of St. George, she would never again see a
French dockyard. In the Mediterranean, galleys were in ordi-
nary use ; but none had ever before been seen on the stormy
ocean which roars round our island. The flatterers of Lewis
said that the appearance of such a squadron on the Atlantic
was one of those wonders which were reserved for his reign ;
and a medal was struck at Paris to commemorate this bold
experiment in maritime war. English sailors, with more
reason, predicted that the first gale would send the whole of
the fair-weather armament to the bottom of the Channel.
Indeed, the galley, like the ancient trireme, generally kept
close to the shore, and ventured out of sight of land only when
the water was unruffled and the sky serene. But the qualities
which made this sort of ship unit to brave tempests and billows
made it peculiarly fit for the purpose of landing soldiers.
Tourville determined to try what effect would be produced by
a disembarkation. The English Jacobites who had taken
refuge in France were quite confident that the whole popula-
tion of the island was ready to rally round an invading army;
and he probably gave them credit for understanding the
temper of their countrymen. Never was there a greater error.
Indeed, the French admiralis said by tradition to have received,
while he was still out at sea, a lesson which might have
taught him not to rely on the assurances of exiles. He picked
up a fishing boaf, and interrogated the owner, a plain Sussex
man, about the sentiments of the nation. `Are you,' he said,
for King James ?—` I do not know much about such matters,'
answered the fisherman. `I have nothing to say against King
James. He is a very worthy gentleman, I believe. God bless

him r---` A good fellow I' said Tourville : ' then I am sure Sou
will have no objection to take service with us.'—` What!' cried
the prisoner ; ' go with the French to fight against the English !
Your honour must excuse me : I could not do it to save my life.'
This poor fisherman, whether he was a real or imaginary per-
son, spoke the sense of the nation. The- beacon on the ridge
overlooking Teignmouth was kindled : the High Tor and
Causland made answer; and soon all the hill topg of the West
were on fire. Messengers were riding hard all night from
Deputy Lieutenant to Deputy Lieutenant. Early the next
morning, without chief, without summons, 500 gentlemen and
yeomen;armed and mounted, had assembled on the summit of
Haldon Hill. In twenty-four hours all Devonshire was up.
Every road in the county from sea to sea was covered by mul-
titudes of fighting men, all with their faces set towards Torbay.
The lords of a hundred manors, proud of their long pedigrees
and old coats-of-arms, took the field at the head of their
tenantry, Drakes, Prideauxes and Rolles, Powell of Fowels-
combo and Fnlford, Sir Bourchier Wrey of Tawstock Park
and Sir William Courtenay of Powderham Castle. Letters
written by sevei?lef the Deputy Lieutenants who were most
active dunng this anxious week are still preserved. All these
letters agree in extolling the courage and enthusiasm of the
people. But all agree also in expressing the most painful so-
licitude as to the result of an encounter between a raw militia
and veterans who had served under Turenne and Luxemburg ;
and all call for the help of regular troops, in language very
unlike that which, when the pressure of danger was not felt,
country gentlemen were then in the habit of using about
1 standing armies. Tourville, finding that the whole populatiou
was united as one man against him, contented himself with
' sending his galleys to ravage Teignmouth, now a gay water-
ing-place consisting of twelve hundred houses, then an obscure
village of about forty cottages. The inhabitants had fled.
Their dwellings were burnt : the venerable parish church was
sacked, the pulpit and the conimunion table demolished, the
Bibles and Prayer-Books torn and scattered about the roads :
the cattle and pigs were slaughtered ; anda few small vessels,
which were employed in fishing or in the coasting trade, were
destroyed. By this time sixteen or seventeen thousand
Devonshire men had encamped close to the shore ; and all the
neighbouring counties had risen. The tin-mines of Cornwall
had sent forth a great multitude of rude and hardy men mor-
tally hostile to Popery. Ten thousand of them had just
signed an address to the Queen, in which they had promised .to
stand by her against every enemy ; and they. now kept their
word. In truth, the whole nation was stirred.

In the spirited narrative above quoted we have a
fair specimen of the feeling which to the present hour
pervades the British people ; in the simple and em-
phatic patriotism of the Sussex fisherman, an example
of the spirit which still animates the inhabitants of
these islands. The following picture is drawn and
painted in Mr. Macaulay's most imposing style. It
may be called