The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-03-19 00:00:00

BY MARY HOWITT.

Sporting through the forest wide ;
Playing by the water-side :
Wandering o'er the heathy fells ;
Down within the woodland dells ;
All among the mountains wild,
Dwelleth many a little child ;
In the baron's hall of pride :
By the poor man's dull fireside ;
'Mid the mighty, 'mid the mean,
Little children may be seen,
Like the flowers that spring up fair,
Bright and countless, everywhere !
In the fair isles of the main ;
In the desert's lone domain ;
In the savage mountain glen,
'Mong the tribes of swarthy men ;
Wheresoe'er a foot hath gone :
Wheresoe'er the sun hath shone :
On a league of peopled ground,
Little children may be found !
Blessings on them ! they in me
Move a kindly sympathy,
With their wishes, hopes, and fears ;
With their laughter and their tears ;
With their wonder so intense,
And their small experience !
Little children, not alone
On the wide earth are ye known,
'Mid its labours and its cares,
'Mid its sufferings and its snares.
Free from sorrow, free from strife,
In the world of love and life,
Where no sinful thing hath trod ;
In the presence of your God,
Spotless, blameless, glorified,
Little children, ye abide !

STANZAS,
BY A LADY IN LERWICK, IN SHETLAND.

As the tender flower opens its leaves to the sun,
So the young heart expands in affection's bright ray ;
And all its deep treasures of love may be won,
Which, until that heart's broken, can know no decay.
'Heath cold withering glances, the young heart will shrink,
As the flower is shut up when the warm sun has fled ;
Each cold look and word we feel severing some link
Which was twin'd round the heart, and nought left in their
stead.

As ripe fruit and fair flowers are produced by the light,
And the heat of the warm sun's meridian glow,
Thus—the heart's latent energies spring to their height,
When nurs'd in the beams which affection bestow :
As the fairest of fruit will decay in the blast—
As the sweetest of flowerets will wither away—
So, these energies weaken, their vigour is past,
When clouds of unkindness have darken'd the day.
As the waters of some sparkling streamlet will swell
To the brink, so the heart's tender gushings will rise.
How deep is the source of its fount, who shall tell—
Though embosom'd in earth, it may spring to the skies !
But if those affections are check'd in their flow,
Like some lake's stagnant bosom, whose banks never bloom
Soft pity in vain o'er its surface may blow,
Like faint zephyrs, which stir not the deep-settled gloom

SIR ROBERT PEEL'S SPEECH ON THE
CORN LAWS.
(From the Morning Herald.)
The speech of Sir Robert Peel, last night, was wor-
thy of his genius, was worthy of his position, was
worthy of the mighty cause which boasts the benefit
of his advocacy.
Sir Robert reviewed the whole course of argument,
which has been employed by the enemies of English
agriculture throughout the recent corn-law debate ;
and, on all the leading points, he submitted to the
house the most curious, nay, at times, the most start-
ling refutation of the various free-trade doctrines. He
showed how the assertors of the existence of deep
manufacturing distress had gradually, yet completely,
changed their 'ground: He showed the fallacy of all
their assertions in reference to a decline of manufac-
turing profits, by showing (and the statement is no
less striking than true) that the small manufacturing
capitals oecupy now, relatively to the great capitalists,
a position, not dissimilar to that occupied by the hand-
loom weaver, relatively to the weaver with the power-
loom.

Sir Robert then entered into a consideration of the
question of " dear bread," and of the actual condition
of the labouring poor under the influence of high-
priced corn. The proofs, on this point, which he de-
duced from the state of the savings banks, were of the
most irresistible kind; and the withering rebuke which
he administered to the concoctors of the present scheme
of agitation will not speedily be forgotten by the anti-
corn-law delegates, and by their patrons in the cabinet.
Having discussed the purely-manufacturing portion
of the question, Sir Robert proceeded to consider the
general influences of our system of corn laws, and the
preposterous character of the objections which have
been urged against that system by the anti-corn-law
agitators. Seldom in parliamentary discussion has
there been witnessed any result more brilliant than the
result of the comparison by Sir Robert Peel of the
logical tendencies of the facts and arguments employed
in reference to the corn laws by the advocates of free
trade. The right hon. baronet singled out the state-
ments and reasonings of Lord John Russell, of Mr.
Grote, of Mr. Ward, and of Mr. Clay ; and established
with surpassing power and felicity that those reason-
ings and statements are utterly subversive of each other.
As for Mr. Villiers's assertions about the character of
the English farmer, and about the folly of buying
" dear bread" because we are burdened with a debt,
and with an " aristocracy"—Sir Robert Peel dealt with
those assertions in a way which entitles him to the
thanks of the whole agricultural body.
Sir Robert's demonstration of the utter impossibility
that universal freedom of trade should ever be suscep-
tible of adoption amidst our complicated social rela-
tions—his advice to the manufacturers to try, in the
first place, the efficacy of their prescriptions upon
themselves—his recommendation that they should, in
other words, " shear the pigs" before pressing harder
upon the sheep—his exposition of the absurdities of
the economists in reference to the elementary princi-
ples of their science—his bitter and most happy de-
nunciations of the policy of the cabinet—his sarcastic
compliments to Lord John Russell as a successful
painter of Joseph Hume in the character of a " poli-
tical economist :"—all these points in Sir Roht. Peel's
speech of last night, when regarded merely as efforts
of intellectual art, may well challenge the deepest ad-
miration ;—but when we advert to the mighty truths
which Sir Robert Peel illustrated and enforced by the
aid of wit and eloquence and logic of the most exqui-
site kind, mere admiration of the mental gifts and ac-
complishments of the great orator is swallowed up in
gratitude for the noble uses to which those accom•
plishments and gifts have been directed.
The anti-corn law agitation could not fairly be pro-
nounced to have been unproductive of general advan-
tage, if it had only given birth to the speeches of Lord
Ripon, of Sir James •Graham, and of Sir Robert Peel

INSURRECTIONARY MOVEMENTS AT HOME.

(From Felix Farley's Bristol Journal.)
While we are threatened with hostilities abroad, it is
impossible to deny that there is a turbulent hostile party
at home, which has assumed a station that cannot be
overlooked or thought lightly of, from the position it
has taken at this crisis—bitter, loud-tongued, and ut-
terly unprincipled Radicalism—the last birth' of that
lbw hypocrisy by which the Whigs have so long pam-
pered the vanity of the rabble,—Radicalism, the open
champion of overthrow, the professed clamourer for
revolution, demanding endless change, and with a pre-
cipitate folly, untaught by the old miseries of national
convulsion, and with a sanguinary frenzy incurable,
but by its own pikes and scaffolds, rejoicing in the hope
of national evil.
It is easy to talk lightly of these things. There are
indolent minds which care nothing for the deepest
public change, provided it seems not likely to molest
their own pillows. There are others who care for no
consequences whatever, if they think that they will not
occur until they themselves are out of the world. There
are still more who will not give themselves the trouble
of a second thought upon the subject, or obstinately
and foolishly persevere in thinking that nothing evil
can occur, because extreme evil has not yet fallen upon
the country. Let the reader consider whether he is in
any of those classes, and learn that it is to such apathy
that the whole menace of national ruin is due at this
moment. The villainy which threatens the Constitu-
tion would not have dared to lift its head, if the vigilance
of England had been awake to the growth of this rep-
tile adversary. But let apathy itself hear what are the
actual declarations of Radicalism, and then ask how it
would be possible for laws, religion, or public peace to
subsist from the moment they were realised. The un-
disguised demands of the Radicals, or Chartists, as they
now call themselves, are—Universal Suffrage, Vote by
Ballot, and Annual Parliaments; and, in addition, a
reformation of the House of Lords.
Now nothing can be clearer, than that the complete
operation of any one of these four measures would be a
complete Democracy. The operation of the whole four
would go still further than a Democracy, and would be
ANARCHY. And that preparations are making, and
are known to her Majesty's Government to be making,
for an outbreak at home, cannot be concealed, since the
subject was openly mentioned in Parliament last week,
and is thus judiciously commented upon by an able co-
temporary, who takes the same view as ourselves of the
apathetic feeling of the country, or rather of her Ma-
jesty's Ministers, upon the fact. " The Duke of Buck-
ingham asked Lord Melbourne, whether the Govern-
ment were well aware that a party, called the Chartists,
were collecting pikeheads, and making preparations for
arming themselves." This is, indeed, a very serious
affair, and it is one of the mischiefs of the present loose
and negligent measures of a popular Government,—
that, in consideration of their own political weakness,
the Ministers are compelled to connive at these Radical
excesses, and, instead of preventing evil whilst in a
state of manifest preparation, to take their chance of
being able to stop it by condign punishment when it
breaks out into overt commission. This is, indeed,
sometimes the practice of a vigorous and decided com-
mander of a King's ship; when he suspects the mutiny
of his crew ; he lets the mutiny break out, in order that
he may punish it more effectually and summarily. But
it must be remembered that he only does so when he is
quite assured of his own power, and entertains no dOubt
whatever but that he is competent to put down the
Mischief. But can Ministers say this ? We trow not.