The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1852-09-07 00:00:00

ARIETIES.

THE FOLLOWING ADVICE was left by a miser to his
nepliew " Buy your coals in summer ; your furniture at
auctions about a fortnight after quarter-day; and your
books at the fall of the leaf."

FRANCE AS IT WAS, AND AS IT is the peculiar
stigma of a country, which otherwise possesses in itself so
many elements of nobility and greatness, that her highest
officers have been, as a rule, devoid of common honesty
and patriotism. TO plunge the country into confusion for
the sake of a speculating in the funds—to take bribes—
to struggle for place and power by base intrigues and in
utter disregard to public interests—to hold them at any
cost—to break faith unblushingly—these are political
vices on the part of her chief men by no means of uncom-
mon occurrence in the records of the history of France.
The history of the last half century shows us with what
a happy facility Frenchmen can put on and off their alle-
giance as though it were an old glove. There is something
almost ludicrous—if it were not humiliating—in this fa-
cility, as it was manifested during the "hundred days."
Generals swearing to be faithful and to bring the usurper
" like a wild beast in a cage," and then giving the first
signal of defection ;—statesmen weeping for joy at the
sight of one whom in his absence they had diligently vili-
fied—and the Moniteur first announcing the landing of
Napoleon as that of the Anthropophagos, and then run-
ning through the several designations of ogre, usurper,
general, and emperor, as he approached the metropolis,
till it finally chronicled his advent to the Tuilleries as that
of " his imperial Majesty, amidst the acclamations of his
faithful people." These constitute a picture of political
knavery which .could not, we believe, be furnished by any
other country at present in existence. In our own day
this want of political principle has been equally manifest.
The Spanish marriage is yet in the recollection of our
readers. M. Teste has, we believe, gone to his account ;
but we have still M. Thiers, who writes knowingly of re-
volutions, and has done as much as most men to precipi-
tate them for selfish ends. We have M. Lamoriciere
virtuously indignant at the breach of public faith on the
part of the President with Abdel Kader, still a prisoner
in France; and, not to go tediously through the whole
catalogue, all Europe has been but lately scandalized with
the doings of an assembly turned into a bear-garden by a
party of public men desirous of re-enacting the scenes of
the first revolution for their own aggrandizement, and
struggling to retain their place for five-and-twenty francs
per diem which it brought them. It is true that thousands
have lately been banished from France, many of them,
doubtless, very unjustly ; but the banishment of such
numbers from their native soil is either a political neces-
sity or a great political crime. If it be a necessity, it is
a striking index to the social condition of the country : if
it be a crime, it only shows how power is attained and
held in it. Still, we have no sympathy with the tears
which public writers in our land are shedding over the
wrongs of a constitution violated by the rough band of
despotism. Constitutional government in France is no-
toriously impossible whenever it is attempted, it becomes
either a farce or a tragedy. Constitutional feeling is with
the French a sentiment and not a principle : they who
care not to fulfil the duties which constitutional rights in-
volve have surely, no just claim to the privileges which
they should confer. Louis Napoleon's coup d'e'tat has
been the subject of much declamation, peculiarly French
in its style and character, on the part f banished generals
and disappointed statesmen; but with them Louis Na-
poleon's real crime is his success. He played a game of
hazard with competitors as unscrupulous but not so clever
as himself, and won it. * * * * * The
events of French history have a peculiarly retributive
character in the aspect which they present to us. If the
house of Bourbon has met with calamities unparalleled in
the annals of royalty, it is because that family has been
essentially faithless in its compacts, selfish in its gratifi-
cations, and profligate in its vices. The unhappy Louis,
though innocent himself in these respects, suffered for
the sins of his race. The hereditary treachery bf the Or-
leans branch has been fearfully compensated by their suf-
ferings. Philip l'Egalite compassed the death of the King
and Queen for the gratification of a mean revenge. Of
this there is but little doubt, and he perished at the guil-
lotine. And if Louis Philippe died an exile in this country,
it is a significant fact that be was one of those who swore
the loudest, in the period of the hundred days, that he
would never occupy the throne from which his royal re-
latives should have been expelled.—Church of England
Quarterly Review; Art.: The Duchene D'Angoulime.

SOLOMON'S TEMPLE.—That the Jews imitated their
Egyptian masters in more things than architecture is ac-
knowledged ; but that they did not copy them in all
things is equally true. Architecture takes its styles, its
varieties, its colouring, if it may be so called, from the
people who successively invented or introduced it, and
the character of a nation may be deduced from its archi-
tecture; for, considered philosophically and as connected
with the other arts, sciences, and learning that accom-
pany it, and with legislation, it forms an immutable his-
tory of the human mind. "Art," says Wieland, "is the
half of our nature, and without art man is the most mise-
rable of animals." Imitation differs from copying, in so
far that it is not destructive of legitimate invention, but is
only a rein to wild caprice. One is a bold pursuit of a
sublime original; the other, a servile counterfeit, a sub-
stitution of falsehood for truth. The Ureeks imitated,
improved, and refined upon the wisdom of the Egyp-
tians, the Romans imitated the Greeks; Virgil imitated
Homer, and Milton imitated with glorious originality his
master by antitypes. Yet were neither the Greeks, the Ro-
mans, Virgil, nor Milton, copyists or plagiarists. In this
manner did the Hebrews imitate, but not copy, their
Egyptian masters, and, as far as we can judge from the
biblical descriptions, and in default of existing remains,
are entitled to the credit of a national style of architec-
ture. It is true that Moses, in his moveable sanctuary,
imitated the temples of the Egyptians, but he copied
them neither in the number of worship-places nor in their
plurality of gods. One God, one sole place for his wor-
ship, was the divine command that Moses promulgated
and obeyed. He also adapted many of their dresses for
the priests, imitated many of their sacred utensils, orna-
ments, furniture, and divisions of his sanctuary, even to
the smallness of the cell. or holy of holies, and the ark
which occupied it ; but he copied not their idols, erected
but one altar, and to prevent the summit of the ark from
being profaned by any form of Him who forbad any form
or representation of his divinity to be made, it was ren-
dered inviolable by the Shekinah or glory of Jehovah,
that shone from between the cherubim. He imitated the
outspread, overshadowing wings, so often found on an-
cient Egyptian monuments, and many other similar
things, but he copied them not in their application.
They were creatures of art, pleasing to the eye ; but nei-
ther they, nor anything " in the heavens above, or in the
earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth,"—pro-
hihitions levelled at the sun and planet worship, at hero-
worship, their sacred animals and their god-fish,—were
to be bowed down to nor worshipped by the children of
Israel. True it is, also, that Solomon imitated the ta-
bernacle in his temple, and applied it to his larger
and more permanent sanctuary, imitated the massive
walls, the numerous columns, ponderous architraves, and
the reed and lotus-leaved capitals of the Pharonic archi-
tecture; but the same plants were indigenous to Pales-
tine ; and he superadded pomegranates. olives, &c.,
unknown in Egyptian architecture. This gives the
Hebrews a right to claim a national style of art, particu-
larly when it is remembered that zoography was forbidden
to their artists. No Hebrew Phidias dared to indulge
the hope of seeing prostrate thousands before his gods of
ivory, and gold, and marble. Their arts were, therefore,
eminently useful ; and the skill they exhibited as recorded
by Moses, who was reared in the splendid palaces and
among the magnificent scenes of the mighty kingdom of
the Pharaohs, is highly commended by him, whose taste
in art must have been elevated by his princely education.
The Egyptians used the plants and flowers of Egypt in
their architectural sculpture, and were not restrained from
an imitation of animal nature : the Hebrews did the
same with theirs, but were forbidden the use of the ani-
mal creation as objects of worship from all their arts :
their figures, therefore, are few and subordinate, if not
menial, in their application. Tyre was built in all its
splendour before the birth of David, and as the Phoenician
merchants traded with the whole world, especially with
Egypt, it is probable that the Tyrians, amongst others,
received the elements of their arts from Egypt. There-
fore as the architect of Solomon's temple was a Tyrian by
birth, nothing is more likely than that his structure
should have been of Phoenician architecture, a free ads!).
attionuf the Egyptian to Tyrian purposese--Aurnal of
Sassed ,Literaturc.