The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-08-14 00:00:00

SUPPLEMEN
Ribtrrvoi talOa'M

T TO

AND GENERAL COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER,

rous and sickening foulnesses begrime and dis-
figure his truly noble nature, still these are but
as spots on the solar disc—that there is enough
of goodness and of greatness,—although there may
be none to spare,—to redeem the world from that
condemnation which belongs but to a few. With
this feeling strongly rooted in us, we cannot bring
ourselves to offer an indiscriminate admiration of
every able expose of wickedness, nor to become
consenting parties to that generalization which
confounds guilt with innocence, and refuses to
see aught but depravity in man, because a few
loathsome features or misshapen limbs may be
revealed in a critical dissection of his social polity.
Now, as it has ever been, the world presents spots
bright and beautiful to contrast with those which
are dark and noisome—natures pure and exalted
to affront and confound those which are mean
and sordid ; and it is not a healthy state of morals,
nor is that a pure condition of literature which
contemplates only the loathsome and the vile.

What would offend the eye in a good picture,
The painter casts discreetly into shade.
Men are made good, and brave, and virtuous
quite as much at least by the incentive of example
as they are deterred from crime by the dread of
punishment. Such being our belief, we are in-
clined to question the wisdom as well as the
worth of perpetual denunciations—of continually
parading the black spots, and overlooking the
brilliancy to be found in the every-day working
of the moral world.
These reflections have grown out of an atten-
tive study of what appears to be the morbid ten-
dency of our present literature. Censoriousness
of spirit and a narrow conventionality of feeling
appear to be in a great degree its characteristics—
to disparage and degrade its business ; at least
these are leading features in the productions of
many who occupy a prominent place in popular
esteem. Such a vocation may be congenial to
to men like Mayhew, Thackery, Cruikshank, and
a few who, adopting the grosser peculiarities of
Hogarth, forcibly illustrate their familiarity with
vice without evincing a kindred intimacy with
virtue. A feeling somewhat analogous we regret
and almost fear to observe in the recent work by
Tennyson. His " Maud" is an allegorical tale,
illustrative of the feeling, spirit, and tendency of
the age, which he arraigns in style of coarse in-
vective, and with a ruggedness of rhythm scarcely
in keeping with his usual polish, or nearly allied
with his usual beauty of sentiment.
Why do they prate of the blessings of Peace ? we have
made them a curse,
Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not its own ;
And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better or worse
Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on his own
hearthstone ?

But these are the days of ailvance, the works of the men
of mind,
When who but a fool would have faith in a tradesman's
ware or his word ?
Is it peace or war ? Civil war, as I think, and that of a
kind
The viler, as underhand, not openly bearing the sword.
Sooner or later I, too, may passively take the print
Of the golden age —why not ? I have neither hope nor
trust ;
May make my heart as a millstone, set my face as a dint,
Cheat and be cheated, and die : who knows ? we are ashes
and dust.