The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-01-03 00:00:00

YEAR AFTER YEAR IS PASSING.

YEAR after year is passing
On swift but silent wing,
Yet every breath their pinions' wake,
A shade is sure to fling,
Which darkly falls upon the heart,
As o'er the lake's calm breast
A shadowy pall is thrown, when wake
The zephyrs from their rest.

Year after year is passing—
Our friends—oh ! where are they ?
'Their vacant places at the board
Tell they have passed away !
How many a smile lit up the earth,
A few brief seasons flown!
How thin the closing circle now !
Where have the members gone?

Year after year is passing—
How changed the heart is now !
Far deeper lines are written there,
Than gather on the broW;
And thought grows burdening to the mind,
Thougn words more few become—
Oh for the happy tone and smile
That lit our childhood's home!

Year after yvar is passing
On swift but silent wing,
Yet every breath their pinions' wake,
A shade is sure to fling.
And darker will the shadows fall,
As roll the seasons by ;
Till, gathering thick, death's gloomy pall
On every heart will lie.

REVIEWS OF BOOKS.

Saunter?lugs in and about London. By Max
Schlesinger. The English Edition by Otto
Wenckstern. London : Nathaniel Cooke.
The, volume before us is a very readable one,
and it abounds in such pictures of the metropolis
and its vicinity as have, in reality, a claim to be
ranked among our national peculiarities. On its
title-page it is adorned with two patronymics un-
questionably Teutonic in their origin, although,
judging from the style of the book, we incline
to the belief that, like Garrick's farce, " 'Tis
English, English, sirs, from top to toe," and
that the German is merely intended to give a
race to a series of sketches clashed off with truth-
fulness and vigour. At the conclusion of the
volume, in a sly, bantering way, one of the corps
de plume, Dr. Keif by name, is made to point out
the sins of omission, as these are to be experienced
in the perusal of the saunterings. In censuring
those omissions, he says :
" Not a word of your dog and rat fights. Not a word
on the manifest incompetency of the majority of your
sculptors and painters. Not a syllable of your unequalled
musical barbarism. Not a word of the stupendous prosti-
tution—of the dirt—the dissoluteness —the bestiality, in
the lower Thames quarters and the borough. No detailed
descriptions of your gin-palaces and sailors' saloons —your
learned "professions the intricacies of the law—medicine
swamped in charlatanism—the narrow-mindedness of
your aristocracy, and the snobism of your middle classes :
all these matters are altogether left out."
Although it must be admitted that some over-
expenditure of sarcasm is evinced in the above
catalogue of omissions, it cannot be denied that, in
not a few of the instances, the hits are well planted.
The author of these " sauntering,s," if sensitively
alive to the plague-spots whose appearance indicate
the direful nature of our social maladies, is also
conversant with those healthier indications which
mark the vigour of our moral and mental consti-
tution., Take the following remarks on the relative
positions of the court, and popular circles in Eng-
land and France.
PUBLIC MORALITY IN ENGLAND AND IN PRANCE.
" We are now in Downing-street ; and, however gloomy
the appearance of that street may be—perfidious and
egotistical as the Downing-street policy may appear to the
Continentals—which, by-the-bye, proves its popularity
here—we can, at least, say in its favour, that it has,
within the last twenty years, been less open to corruption
by means of money and female politicians, than was the
case on the other side of the channel, in the country of
" is gloire," of blue skies and " unutterable somethings."
Of course the reunions are less interesting; there is not
so wide a margin for intrigue; the ambition of roturiers
is kept within the limits of decency; the fair sex, with
all its followers and appendages, is confirmed to a narrow
sphere of action, and these are the reasons why—just as
in other matters—English politics have a more sober,
business-like, respectable, and tedious appearance than
politics in France. It is really miraculous that, in a
country which is governed by a Queen, and one who in-
herited the crown at an early age, there has never been
made mention of Court and other intrigues, which in-
fluenced the conduct of public affairs. Say it is merely by
accident ; say that such accident is partly owing to the '
coldness of the blood which runs in the veins of English
women ; or, if you please, think of the olden times, when
the women of Whitehall made history in as shameless a
manner as any women in the Tuileries or Versailles. No
matter ! It has been reserved for the 19th century to
create a Woman's Court, which excludes all love intrigues.
Such a thing is impossible in France; and if possible, the
French would not believe it, nor would they put up with
It. A government without female interference, quarrels
and corruption ! Monstrous, at least to the French, who, ,
rather than live under such a Government, would choose
to live in an austere Catonian Republic.
" The respect for public decency, which in England is
sometimes carried to a ridiculous length, is, nevertheless,
of great use, for the morality of the Government, corrup-
tion, indeed, is an important item in English electioneer-
ing tactics; money and drink are lavished on the voters;
but this corruption, however shameless, is confined to the
lower classes. Honourable members, who are very
pathetic on the neglected education of the people, think
very little of treating all the inhabitants of their borough
to a preposterous quantity of drink, in order to ensure
their re-election. But the corruptors themselves are not
so corruptible as the men who for the last ten years—for
it is not necessary to go back to an earlier date—held the
reins of the government in France. The poor are now
stztd then bought in England ; more frequently they are in-
timidated; but in France—the very French confess it—
all are renal, from the highest to the lowest. I am not an
admirer of corruption in England ; but I like it better
than I do corruption in France. If rottenness there
must be, it had better be partial and one-sided, than a
general corruption of the body politic.
" Certainly the small English boroughs, with their
electioneering tactics and venality, are disgusting ; but
still there is some difference between the treating and bri-
bing the peasants and small shopkeepers, and that nauseous
corruption of all classes of society, which is so prevalent in
France, more particularly since the reign of Louis Philippe.
In England the polling days have; from times immemorial,
been days of feasting, drinking, and fighting for the lower
classes. The want of political cultivation, ignorance of the
important questions at issue, the indifference, and, in many
instances, the brutality of the lower classes, make it a
matter of small moment to them whether the barrel of
beer, from which they drink at an election, is the gift of cha-
rity, or the devil's retaining fee. No hustings without speech-
ifying—no polling-place without swilling. The witnesses
who have been examined by the election committees have
generally confessed that the candidate, according " to the
old established custom," behaved like a " gentleman"—
that he treated the electors to ale and gin, shook hands
with them, gave them money, and hired brass bands for
their special gratification. A melancholy proof this, of
the neglected condition in politics and morals of the lower
classes in England.
" But far more saddening is the spectacle of corruption
which France has exhibited these many years past. It is
not the rude and uncultivated mass, which sins from
ignorance of its own abandoned condition; corruption there
extends its sway over the educated, the learned, the wealthy,
the refined. It is the despotism of a cynism of venality,
such as the world never saw since the days of the Roman
emperors. The French aristocracy, the army, the bour-
geoise, the church, and the press, are all in the market.
Eloquent morality solicits corruption with the most im-
pudent eagerness, and drives the hardest bargains. In
France corruption has become the fashion ; it is the law,
the essence of politics, and it has almost become a necessity
for the attainment of even honest purposes. The poison
pervades all the organs of the body politic; and eversince the
commencement of the first revolution, the Frenchnation has
been convulsed, and caused convulsions among the neigh-
bouring nations. But never at any one time—no, not among
all her changes—was there a single period, however short,
in which personal liberty obtained that respect which it
commands in England ? And although this fact is on
record, and though it cannot be contradicted, yet there
are German admirers of France (the majority of
them know nothing of France, except the boulevards
of Paris), who believe that the French are the chosen
People of liberty, the prophets of the nations, and martyrs
for their political salvation. True, the history of France
is instructive to those who take a warning from it. True,
the French are a chosen people ; indeed, they are chosen
to sound the trumpet of war into the ears of the nations.
But there never was any fortress save one, which was
conquered by the sounding of trumpets—Jericho, in the
land and the age of miracles. Singleness of purpose, and
honest perseverance, these alone can in our days ensure
the victory of great principles. But the sons of France
have always been strangers to those two qualities; and
the glory which these can give, they have never coveted.
They care not for substantial liberty, for it not only gives
rights but imposes duties also. Freedom is a treasure
which requires the most anxious care ; he who neglects it,
loses it. France obtained it three times, and thrice she
lost it ; and now the French say again—" Ca ne durera
pas." But, it is to be hoped that the phrase will be flung
back again, whenever they shall take it into their heads
once more to sound the trumpet of alarm to the countries
of Europe.
" England, with all her political and social blemishes,
has at least come to this, that any danger to the personal
liberty of her citizens may almost be considered as an
absurd impossibility, while the French, are, as yet, so
ignorant of the rudiments of national liberty, that they
still wish for a strong government ; that is to say, one
which centralises all the resources, and absorbs all the
powers of the state. The various parties are all agreed on
this point ; they differ only with respect to the person
who is to preside over this " strong government." The
Legitimists vow that that person must be a Bourbon ; the
Bonapartists claim the right, as they have established the
fact, in favour of a scion of the great Emperor ; and the
Republicans are eloquent in praise of ele tiV govern-
ment ; but every one of these Partisans reserves to himself
a large prospective share of the loaves and fishes, which,
as all the world knows, are entirely at the disposal of a
" strong government." The ambition of free self-
government, which characterises the English, is altoge-

ther unknown to the French. Hence they can die for
liberty, but they cannot live for it."

The length to which our extracts have extended
precludes the possibility of devoting much space
to commendation of the work ; this we regret the
less, as the quotations given will speak more
favourably of the style of thought and of expres-
sion which characterise the volume, than could be
conveyed in eulogy, however pointed. The sub-
jects of remark are varied and happily chosen ;
their merits and peculiarities are fairly, as well
as freely, discussed ; and the volume, while in-
dicating with artistic terseness the " Lions of
London," and how they may be seen, is also
useful in enabling us

" To see ourselves as others see us."

It is altogether very tastefully got up ; is embel-
lished by cleverly illustrative designs, cleverly
engraved ; and it is published at a remarkably
cheap rate.
The Works of Apulei us, 4i'c. A New Translation.