The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-01-15 00:00:00

SPARE MY HEART FROM GROWING OLD.

OLD Time, I ask a boon of thee—
Thou'st stripped my hearth of many a friend,
Ta'en half my joys and all my glee—
Be just for once, to make amends;
And since thy hand must leave its trace,
Turn locks to grey, turn blood to cold—
Do what thou wilt with form and face,
But spare my heart from growing old.

I know thou'st ta'en from many a mind
Its dearest wealth, its choicest store,
And, only lingering, left behind,
O'er wise experience, bitter lore.
'Tis sad to mark the mind's decay,
Feel wit grow dim and memory cold—
Take these, old Time, take all away,
Eat spare my heart from growing old.

LITERATURE.

Contributions to the _Edinburgh, Review. By Henry
Lord Brougham, F.R.S. Glasgow and London :
Griffin and Co.
The publication of the three volumes now under
consideration is a matter suggestive of grave thoughts,
recalling, as the matters contained in them do, vivid
reminiscences of the literary and political history of
the last halt-century; and, with that history, recol-
lections equally interesting in connexion with the great
men who occupied conspicuous places in the various
political and literary conflicts of that protracted
period. Of all those who appeared as combatants in
the earlier and more veheinently-contested struggles
of the time over which these re-published papers
extend, how few, alas ! are now remaining to enjoy the
fruits of victory, or to rejoice in the triumph of those
principles which, by varying means and through
devious as well as diverging channels, they sought
with all their physical and intellectual vigour to estab-
lish. Of the two bands of mental athletes who sought
to expand the empire of reason—the one in accordance
with the old constitutional traditions and established
maxims of our civil and religious polity—the other
who desired to force the progress of national improve-
ment through those yawning, rugged, and dangerous
ravines which had been suddenly torn open in the
social soil by the convulsive throes of revolutionary
incendiarism—how limited, indeed, the number left !
Though the combatants have disappeared from the
arena, and the sound of battle no longer hurtles over
the former scene of strife, the efforts of the champions
have resulted in noble achievements. The right of
freedom o? thought has been successfully vindicated,
and no one is now held a personal enemy because his
political creed or ecclesiastical partialities have a
different bearing from those of the man with whom he
is conversing. Such was not the case at the time
when Henry Brougham and his confreres of the Edin-
burgh Review endeavoured to fix upon the intellect of
the age the impress of their own spurious mint. The
despotism they would have established was success-
fully resisted by a gallant band, at the head of which
stood the fearless and intrepid Lockhart, the brave
and powerful Gifford, the stately Wilson, the nimble
and indefatigable Crocker, the wise and chivalrous Sir
Walter Scott. The result of a contest sustained by
such champions could not be other than generally
beneficial, and we accordingly find that the right for
which they had to fight so fierce a battle is now enjoyed
as a common privilege.
Conspicuous among those who led the driving battle
was the versatile and keen partizan whose contribu-
tions to the Edinburgh Review, the great organ of
the party, form the matter of the three handsome
volumes before ns. The essays contained in them
range through nearly all the subjects of mental and
physical disquisition. Having touched on so multi-
farious a range of topics as he has done, and discoursed
on all with the air at least of one acquainted with
their several characteristics, Lordßroughamhas among
certain classes obtained credit for an extent and profun-
dity of learning, a range of sagacity, and a com prehensive
ness of judgment to which in reality he has but few claims.
His idolaters, and of these he has not a few, delight
to represent him as the modern " Bacon," resting his
title to that proud distinction rather on the multi-
plicity of the subjects he has handled than on the
value of the discoveries he has made, or the origi-
nality and truth of the speculations by which he has
endeavoured to popularise philosophy. Among those
who have narrowly watched his erratic and restless
career, many perceive that the golden ore of his
philosophy bears but a small proportion to the brazen
alloy with which it is inextricably compounded; and,
while scrutinizing with jealous suspicion the plausi-
bility with which he is profusely gifted, of making
" the worse appear the better reason," they are yet
prepared to admit, that he has rendered good service
to the state. Into the political bearings of the
various papers it is no part of our present intention
to enter. at length, but we cannot resist the temptation
of quoting some few of his observations on a topic of
all-absorbing interest at the present time. Those
observations acquire a double value at this moment,
as being the embodied views, expressed twenty years
ago and more, upon the subject' of European policy,
by one who, at that time a responsible adviser of
the Crown, may be presumed to have paid some at-
tention to the subject, and to have had access to good
information. That a Cabinet Minister should have
selected a partly political organ for the exposition of
his sentiments upon such important matters, is indeed
strange, but may be accounted for partly by the
ardour of his political attachments, and in part by the
constitutional idiosyncracy of the individual. The re-
marks show clearly his belief, at that time, that
sooner or later a rupture with Russia was inevitable,
pnd may be headed
TM! ESPECTS OP RUSSIAN POLICE UPON THE POLITICAL
CONDITION OF zuoura.
Whether the encroaching policy of Russia shall be suffered
to extend on the side of Turkey, is undoubtedly a question for
the serious consideration of the other European powers. She
is at the head of the Absolute Party ; her influence affects
habitually, when it does not rule, the courts of Austria and
Prussia. Her gigantic power, her resources of men, at least,
if not backed by a plentiful treasury, and, above all, her posi-
tion, which exempts her from all dangers of attack that tend
to keep other nations in awe, and bind them over, as it were,
to peace and good behaviour, have given her a weight of late
years in European affairs, very different from any she pos-
sessed, even under the reign of the ambitious Catherine. The
only thing that has hitherto made this colossal empire at all
a safe member of the European community, has been that
remote position which, in another view, makes her almost
irresponsible by making her secure. But it will be far other-
wise if she moves to the southward, and adds Constantinople
to her vast dominions. She will then have the footing on
the Mediterranean which has always been her most favourite
object; she will become in reality what as yet she has
only affected to be, a naval power; and, with the resources of
the Levant added to those of the north, no one can doubt that
she will be a naval power of the first order. The indepen-
dence of Egypt, on any account a matter of the greatest
importance to all the commercial states of Europe and
America, will, of course, be a mere impossibility ; and all
the improvements now beginning in the East will be at an
end. The view taken by some that there will be an advan-
tage gained over Russia, inasmuch as she will be brought into
the circle of the other European powers, and exposed to be
attacked in her new dominions, appears a refinement too
absurd to require a serious refutation. She still has her vast
and inaccessible empire behind, on which to retreat; and, ad-
mitting the utmost weight that can be assigned to the argu-
ment just stated, it would only follow, that she might always
ran the risk of losing her new acquisitions, in an attempt still
further to extend her encroachments ; thus playing the safe
game of either winning universal monarchy or remaining
where she was before she seized on the Dardanelles. Other
powers would still be in the very difficult position, that they
could only play for that forbidden prize by staking their
existence, by " setting their lives upon the hazard of the
die ;" while she might play for it at the risk of only losing
the last of her unfair gains.
To these considerations regarding the dangers apprehended
from Russia, many reasoners add another, derived from
observing her progress in the East. No doubt in that quarter
she has been constantly advancing ; and Persia may be said
to exist at her good pleasure. But of such a mighty operation
as a march to the provinces of India, where, independent of
the distance, and the barren and difficult country through
which the route must lie, there would be found a powerful
army, inured to the climate, admirably commanded, strictly
disciplined, and amply appointed in all respects,—we really
cannot entertain any very serious apprehension ; as long, at
least, as the lustice and lenity of our Indian administration
shall avoid all collision with the natives ; and our grasping
spirit after territory and revenue shall not throw the country
powers into the arms of the first adventurer among
themselves, or the first European rival, by whom our immense
dominions may be assailed. Besides, long before England
could have t 3 contend for her Eastern dominions at Delhi,
Cabal, or Lahore, Russia would have to encounter our fleets
at Cronstadt, and to defend Petersburg itself. Miserably ill-
informed must our government be of her movements on the
East of the Caspian, if she could make any advance towards
India before an overpowering armament laid Petersburg in
ashes.
Besides the political topics to which Lord Brougham
in these volumes devotes much attention, there are
likewise interesting papers on some important ques-
tions in the exact sciences, and on subjects connected
with chemistry and electricity, all of which are more
distinguished by the characteristics of the apt pupil
than by the erudition of the profound scholar. One
subject unconnected with any of the above topics has
been selected for the opening of the volumes, and as
every one knows the value of a good first appearance,
the papers on the Oratory of the Greeks and Romans
have no doubt been selected by their elever author
with a view to obtaining all the advantages which
can accrue from a good introduction. Waning space
instructs us that we must not follow our author much
farther in his prolific course ; but as the annexed
remarks may prove amusing to many and useful to
some of our readers, we make no further apology for
quoting the

OBSERVATIONS ON ROMAN ORAIORY.
It appears that the ancients so highly venerated the orato-
rical art, and were so much in the habit of regarding it is an
art, and its productions as works extremely artificial, that they
aaw nothing absurd in what has among us become almost

proverbially ridiculous, "a speech intended to have been
spoken." They had.not, moreover, the other facilities of pub-
lication which the press gives us ; and referring everything to
their ordinary mode of communication, in popular meetings,
they wrote and published speeches pretty much as our modern
orators sometimes speak pamphlets ; and ,would probably
have held a speech made for the sake of being published, in
as great ridicule as we do one that is published without
having been delivered. Even the grand Philippic itself, the
" conspicuce divine Philippica famce," was .in this perdica-
ment ; and there seems some reason to doubt whether the
finest of all his oration, the pro Milone, could have been
delivered more than in form, under the circumstances of
tumult and disorder which marked the day. Now, to pass
over other considerations, with the knowledge of these parti-
culars, nothing can be more grating to a modern reader, whose
idea of eloquence is that of something natural, heart-felt, in-
artificial, and extemporaneous, than the manifest conviction
of using artifice and preparation, whiCh the orator incurs as
often as we come to a passage only adapted to-a speech, and
still more in those instances where he had anticipated some-
thing which was to happen while he went on, and provided
himself with an extemporaneous burst for the occasion.
So in the Second Philippic, which was written with the
intention of not being published for some time, and certainly
never meant to be spoken at all, sitting at his Formian Villa,
he complains of Antony for filling the place in which he is
speaking with armed men, and alludes to the :senate being
held in the Temple of Concord, which draws from him a pas-
sionate exclamation; and be afterwards gives a lively picture
of the effects of his statement upon Antony, present, and
suffering under it. The Romans regarding an oration as we
do a dramatic performance, in the light of a composition pro-
fessedly prepared most elaborately, were probably no more
offended with such marks of art, than we are in reading the
dialogue and stage directions of a play. But anything that
impresses upon our minds the idea of "getting up" anything
theatrical, is so far from'being tolerated in a speech, that we
are thus wont to characterise it by names drawn from the
stage, and never fail to feel disgusted with its introduction
into the business of real life.

These three volumes form a valuable contribution
towards a selection of specimens of the political litera-
ture of the nineteenth century, and as such they will
no doubt find a welcome place in many a library, the
owner of which would shrink from acknowledging a
similarity of feeling with their author.

The Library of Biblical Literature. London :

William Freeman.

This interesting work, which is happily suited for
Sunday and other school libraries, has now reached
the third volume of its issue. It is, in reality, as it
professes to be, a repository of information on geo-
graphical, historical, biographical, scientific, archaeo-
logical, and literary subjects connected with the Holy
Scriptures. The various topics introduced are treated
with terse simplicity ; facts, rather than speculations,
being the res gestce of the work. It is copiously illus-
trated by engravings, and is quite a taking book for
children, while from its pages adults may gain satis-
factory and useful information.

The Christian Family Advocate starts on its career
of instruction and amusement for the opening year
with increased attractions. Its January number (now
before us) is inaugurated by a brief but spirited de-
scription of the new Royal residence at Balmoral, in
which not merely the dwelling of the Sovereign is
described, but, more interesting still, the moral in-
fluence of the Royal benevolence and considerate
kindness of the Queen in caring for and providing
schools for the children and asylums for the aged and
infirm of the neighbourhood, are pleasingly dwelt on
and illustrated. Other papers follow, and contribute
their share in making up a useful and pleasing literary
miscellany.
_ _ _

Punch, or the Zondon Charivari, loses none of his
frolic, fancy, and fun, in bringing his twenty-ninth
volume to a conclusion, which he appropriately does
with the close of December. The volume is dedicated
to " Brother Jonathan," and in the dedication the re-
cent disputes attempted to be fomented between this
country and America are treated in a happy spirit of
good-humoured raillery. The -volume, as usual at
the end of the year, winds up with an Almanack
richly spiced with jocular satire, which is happily
elaborated by pen and pencil.