The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1852-12-07 00:00:00

REYgNGE

In my world of a village, revenge is a common pas-
sion ; it is the sin of the uninstructed. The savage deems
it noble ; but Christ's religion, which is the sublime
Civiliser, emphatically condemns it. Why ? Because
religion ever seeks to ennoble man ; and nothing so de-
bases him as revenge. Look into your own heart, and
tell me whether, since you have cherished this passion,
you have not felt all sense of right and wrong confused—
have not felt that whatever would before have seemed to
you mean and base, appears now but just means to your
heated end. Revenge is ever a hypocrite—rage, at least,
strikes with the naked sword ; but revenge, stealthy and
patient, conceals the weapon of the assassin.

We pass on to a really clever review of " Sullivan's
Rambles in North and South America," in which
the writer exposes with great ability the enormous
lying about the romance of the American prairies
and the Red Indians. Of the latter some idea may
be formed from the following picture of

AN INDIAN PRINCESS

The princess had neither shoes, stockings, shift, nor
any kind of linen; her bridal dress consisted of a petti-
coat of red baize, and a fringed blanket, fastened about
her shoulders with a copper skewer; but of ornaments
she had great plenty. Her hair was curiously plaited,
and interwoven with bobbins of human bone ; one eye-
lid was painted green and the other yellow ; the cheeks
were blue, the lips white, the teeth red, and there was a
black list drawn down the middle of the forehead, as far
as the tip of the nose; a couple of gaudy parrot's feathers
were stuck through the division of the nostrils ; there was
a blue stone set in the chin ; her ear-rings consisted of
two pieces of hickory, of the size and shape of drum-
sticks ; her arms and legs were adorned with bracelets of
wampum ; her breast glittered with numerous strings of
glass beads ; she wore a curious pouch or pocket of
woven grass, elegantly painted with various colours ;
about her neck was hung the fresh scalp of a Mohawk
warrior, whom her deceased lover had lately slain in
battle ; and, finally, she was anointed from head to foot
with bear's grease, w hich sent forth a most agreeable odour.
" Major Moss, a Campaigning Reminiscence," is
an amusing episode in the career of General Evans'
Mercenaries in Spain. The succeeding article on
" the Church of Spain" exposes in glowing terms
the blasphemous frauds of the Church of Rome,
and what fearless treatment of the Divine Word
Popery can commit whenever it has an object to
serve. " Paris on the Eve of the Empire--

is an

impartial commentary on recent proceedings in
France, as will be judged by the following de-
scription of

THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT,

That the conflict of the 4th December was foreseen,
and even premeditated by the framer of the coup d'ltat
of the 2d, there can be hardly a doubt. We may not see
in Louis Napoleon a patriot, or anything but an un-
scrupulous and ambitious roan, far more concerned for his
own aggrandisement than for the welfare of a country
which can hardly be called his. The question does not
hinge on the merits of the individual, but reduces itself
to this : Can there, at the present moment, be found a
man better fitted to govern France ? We believe that
there cannot. The French need to be ruled with a rod of
iron. Republicanism has had its chance, and shown
itself incapable. With the single exception of Lamartine,
the baseness and selfishness of the leaders of the demo-
cratic party have been sufficiently proved. The inertness
of the Legitimist candidate is growing into a proverb.
Although possessing some able adherents, the chance of
the Orleans family appears daily to lessen. In France,
however, less than in any other country, can one risk
political predictions. It seems like a dream that Louis
Napoleon, the needy exile, the usurer's prey, the
neglected of English society, the man to whom none but
his intimates gave credit for ability of any kind, should
have raised himself in a few months to supreme power in
France, and should exercise it—if unscrupulously—at
least with unquestionable talent. After that, who shall
assert that we may not one day see the sluggish Bourbon,
or the heir of Orleans, seated on the French throne?
The chance of either of them certainly appears slender,
especially that of the Count de Paris, against whom many
disadvantages combine. Too long an orphan for his
father's temporary popularity to be reflected on himself,
too young to have personally enlisted in his behalf the
sympathies of Frenchmen, the insignificance of his uncles,
his grandfather's ignominious exit from power, have cast
an unfavourable shade over him. Odd as it appears, Paris
positively dislikes Louis Philippe for not having cannonaded
it. A little blood-letting in February might have saved
depletion in June—to say nothing of deportations to
Cayenne, shootings in December, and all the catalogue
of evils that have occurred since the spring '4B. " I will
put down the insurrection," said bluff Bugeaud to the
aged and irresolute chief of the house of Orleans, "but
it will cost a couple of thousand lives." Fifteen years
before, (judging from his determined conduct in the early
disturbances of his reign,) Louis Philippe would probably
have said, " Fire I" and given the African marshal carte
blanche. In 1848 his mood was more vacillating. " Will
that expenditure of blood," he asked, " restore per-
manent tranquillity ?" " For that I cannot answer,"
replied Bugeaud, " but I will answer for suppressing the
insurrection." The old king wavered and refused. The
man of Isly should have planted his cannon and done his
work. So say many now who bear no great love to Louis
Philippe's memory, but who would rather have seen him
end his days as King of the French than have beheld
France delivered into the hands of anarchists, to be
succeeded by an autocrat as absolute and unaccountable
as Russian czar or Oriental despot.

This is followed by " The Puff off Pernambuco," a
spirited narrative of a tornado off the coast of
South America, and a review of " Aiton's Travels
in the East ;" and after some poems entitled " Day
Dreams," the magazine concludes with a political
essay on the recent debate in the House of Com-
mons. It exposes with master hand the bitterness
of faction which dictated the move of which Mr.
Villiers was the willing tool, and few will be pre-
pared to dispute the following view of