The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-02-08 00:00:00

fltience for its principles, no other volume has ever pro-
cured in so short a time. Here is one who, like his great
Aiaster, had no form or comeliness to make him desirable
—a negro, one of that race whose facial angle is most
akin to the Simile, and most remote from the Greek an-
tique. Ungifted by wealth, unennobled by birth, the
scorn'of the proud, the neglected of the passer-by ; un-
educated, save by the teaching of Heaven ; and unre-
fined, save in God's own alembic of faith and suffering :
an African and a slave.
Yet, adorned with a sublimity which never leaves him
through the whole book, he treads down, with an elastic
step—meekly brave—the thorns of his lot. The ruffian
smites him with his horny fist, but his heart staggers not,
for an unseen hand is there, to pour in wine and oil, and
The cruel whip bites deep into his flesh,
t's love lies deeper in his soul. The chain,
the bloodhound, and the torture, are

give support

but his S:

the black root

around him ; but the flame of an unflinching trust is
burning deep in his bosom, and all heaven is above and
beyond him. With the ethereal child, lovely and refined,
he wins his way, and she delights to lean her head on his
strong, honest heart. With the clever, sarcastic, ac-
complished man of the world he wins his way, breaking
down the barriers of his educated infidelity with the very
weight of his earnest simplicity of faith, and Christian
lowliness. With the abused, wronged, high-minded, yet
semi-savage woman he wins his way, disarming her of her
murderous intents by the eloquence of his patience and
the heavenliness of his spirit, and waking up from her
heart those softening waters which long refused to flow.
With his brutalised and semi-animal executioners he
wins his way, preaching to them with the pathos of his
unmurmuring fortitude, and with the might of his unseen
supports, and exciting them to repentance and spiritual
life, at the moment they were depriving him of his exist-
ence. And why has he, in the absence of all outward at-
tractiveness, such a moral weight ? Why does power
track his teaching, and the irresistibility of persuasiveness
flow from his lips ? What has given him such a calm in-
dependence of injury, pain, and insult ? What has in-
vested him with such a sublime, yet such a sorrowful
dignity ? Why does he smile at death, and in his spirit's
generosity give back the blessing for the buffet, and the
prayer for the curse ? What has thrown such an air of
nobility around the Man, and touched his dark eye with
so much light and glory ?
It is because, like Abraham of old, " Gon DROUGHT
HINT FORTH ABROAD, AND SAID UNTO HIM, LOOK
TOWARD HEAVEN "

LITERARY

GOSSIP.

Two NEW LITERARY INSTITUTIONS have been
recently founded in the metropolis.

CURLER BELL, the author of "Jane Eyre," has pub-
lished a new novel entitled " Viilette."

FROM "BEYOND THE ATLANTIC, Whittier, the quaker
poet of New England, promises fresh strains—" The
Chapel of the Hermits."

Mn. DESBOROUGH, of Stamford, has gained a prize
of £5, offered by the Entomological Society, for the last
essay on " The Duration of Life in the Honey Bee."

MARRIANE FINCH has prepared for publication a work
entitled '' An Englishwoman's Experiences in America,"
which we believe will be published shortly by an eminent
London bibliopole.

CHARLES DICKENS is to go to Birmingham next
Christmas, and read his " Clristmas Carol" for the be-
nefit of the great Mechanics' Institution about to be
established in that town.

THE LEIPSLC BOOKSELLERS have founded a school for
the education (in the case of indigent persons it will be
gratuitous) of young men designed for assistants in the
different branches of literary commerce.

THE VICAR OF NORTON, DERBYSHIRE, is raising a
subscription for the purpose of erecting a monument in
that place to Francis Chantrey, who was born in the
parish, and who is buried in the village burial ground.

Ts THE CITY OF BATH the disunited literary institu-
tions have been quickly retrograding, and it is now pro-
posed to connect their conflicting interests and have one
grand institution, prosperous and efficient, instead of a
sickly and struggling array.

THE SHAKSPERIAN READINGS of Miss Fanny limble,
at Leeds, have created an unwonted degree of enthusiasm
in that town, where the abhorrence of players and playing
was once so strong that even David Garrick was stoned
almost to death by the populace.
" HERODOTUS SMITH " has written, in the Critic, a
long letter to Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, urging certain
practical objections against many of the principles and
details of the Guild of Literature. Mr. Smith, we believe,
represents a pretty large section of the young literary
world.

THACKERAY is still the theme of New York news.
papers. They are eloquent about his legs, and when the
last mail left, a controversy was raging among them in
this matter; one party maintaining that " he stands very
firm on his legs," while the opposition asserted that his
legs were decidedly "shaky."

IN THE CASE OF THE BARONESS VON BECK the
Athenaeum states that it has submitted to its attention
certain documents which prove that, in this lamentable
affair, Mr. Tou!min Smith, the " earnest and even
passionate believer in the imposture," was "an eager
candidate for the exposure of the unhappy Hungarian."

Ma. WILLIAM RATHEONE GREG, the brother of an
eminent Lancashire manufacturer, and commonly known
among the literati of Edinburgh as " The Cabinet-
maker," contributes articles, it is affirmed, to the Edin-
burgh, the North British, the Westminster, and the
Quarterly. One month he wrote the political article for
each of them, and cleared £6OO by the feat !

THE LITERATI OF LANCASHIRE,—The following are
some of the literati belonging to, or resident in, Lanca-
shire :—Mr. Charles Swain, author of "The Mind," and
the friend of Southey ; Miss Jewsbury, the novelist; Mr.
Thomas de Quincy, author of " The Confessions of an
Opium Eater" ; Mr. Samuel Bamford ; Mr. Archibald
Prentice; Mrs. Gaskell. authoress of " Mary Barton"
and " Ruth" ; Mr. W. R. Greg, the Reviewer; and Mr.
Somerville, the " Whistler at the Plough" ; Dr. Vaughan,
editor of the British Quarterly; and Henry S. Sutton,
the poet.

LOUIS NAPOLEON AND " TFIE IRON MASK."—A. de
la Gueronniere has publisned a clever but unprincipled
book, entitled " Napoleon the Third," designed as a
reply to the impassioned pamphlet of Victor Hugo. Here
is a curious passage from the defence of the Emperor, and
the no-meanings of his silent face :—" What problem is
this that presents itself to my pencil ? I search for a
light upon that face, and I see nothing but
looking more closely at it, my mind is graduals
recall that face, so dark, so sinister, so passion]
Aich, in its day, was called " The iron

shade. On

led to

I have read somewhere in the annals of those times, that
the jailors of that mysterious personage had remarked,
that a strange phenomenon had exhibited itself in that
terrible tragedy. The principle of life was so powerfully
condensed beneath that inflexible covering— so intense a
necessity to come to light was manifested, that at certain
moments it was revealed even through the polished steel,
and animated it, as it might have done the human face.
At those times the mask assumed the expression of nature.
The veins seemed to palpitate, the lips to move, the eyes
to brighten up, the temples to beat. The mask had
transformed itself into man. In like manner, this face,
in appearance so motionless and insensible, is but the
mask of the man within, ardent and powerful. Those
eyes are dull, but as profound as the thought in which
they dive, and which rises at times in their orbits, as the
flame rises from the hearth whence it derives its fire.
That brow is gloomy as fate, but as expansive as creative
genius. Those lips are colourless, but full of expression ;
delicately turned ; severed—scarcely sufficiently parting,
and open just to allow the curt and precise expression of a
will emanating from deep reflection, and inexorably
resolved. That voice is indolent and drawling, but self-
reliant ; and the indifference which shows itself is but the
excess of that confidence. Courage concealed by timidity,
—resolution disguised by gentleness,—inflexibility sof-
tened by mildness,—policy hidden by good nature,—life
under marble,—fire under ashes : in a word, a something
of Augustus and Titus, but with the face of Werther,—
that type of German sentimentality. Such does Louis Na-
poleon Bonaparte appear." M. de la Gu6ronnß;re has
penetrated the impenetrable !