The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-10-04 00:00:00

ANGELS' FOOTSTEPS.

Beside an Infant, newly born
The angels of the young life stand;
Celestial rays their brows adorn,
Celestial flowers are in their hand.

"Seraph sister," whisper they,
" We bring thee tokens from above ;
Chosen for Immortality
Thy mission upon earth is Love.

" We seal on tby sweet, serious brow
The cross of holy love and fear;
That all who look on thee may know
Thou art not meant to rest thee here.

" From that all-radiant bow that bends
The arch of peace around the Throne,
This glorious beam the Spirit sends,
To make the Seraph's smile thine own.

" To veil thine eye's deep tenderness,
See, Pity's holy tear is given;
And, that thy every step may bless,
Behold, from crystal streams of heaven

" These flowers of memory we bring,
That by thy footfall, child of God !
Heaven's own Forget-me-not' may spring,
To tell where angel-footsteps trod."

The Seraphim the new-born's cot
Then strewed with flowers of azure pale;
And whispering, "Forget me not,"
Each sped some younger life to hail.

Fair, fair the infant seraph grew,
And holier from day to day;
So gentle, so benign, so true—
She was:not meant on earth to stay.

She past us on her pilgrimage,
In her young hand sweet flowers she bore;
Ab I never childhood, youth, or age.
Forgot the smile that seraph wore.

And as she went she scattered round
Those azure flowers upon the sod ;
God's own Forget-me-not is found
Where'er her gentle footsteps trod.

We marked on her sweet, serious brow
The cross of holy fear and love;
And yet we strove to keep below
Her who was chosen for above I

Fondly we prayed her yet to stay
Awhile, earth's fullest joys to share;
But she would upward look, and say,
"Come thou with me—my home is there."

Thus, sweetly smiling to the last,
A denizen of worlds to come,
Scatt'ring bright flowers, the pilgrim past
Away, to her own Heaven-home.

ever in the cause to which we have devoted ourselves. The
triumph of the cause will then be our own ; and for us ruin
can never arrive, as long as the cause is triumphant.

Having dwelt so long upon the ambition, the
disappointment, the battlings, and the sorrows of
Haydon, we are warned to proceed at a more
rapid speed with a consideration of the other papers
which make up the magazine. These are nume-
rous as well as interesting, embracing, inter alia,
" A Day in the Savoy Alps," and " Ninu•fid
Obelisk," in which much antiquarian lore is
brought to bear upon the subject. This is followed
by three sweetly-versified metrical paraphrases of
scriptural aphorisms. The succeeding paper is one
of widely-diffused interest at the present moment.
It is entitled, " France, Past and Present ;" and
the author, with a vigorous and not unphilosophic
eye, takes a glance at the present state of affairs
in France, particularly in Paris, and contrasts it
with what it was antecedent to, and at the conclu-
sion of, the last French war. For a few years past
the attention of statesmen and politicians in both
countries has been directed to the relative military
prowess of Great Britain and France, many con-
flicting opinions having, during the period referred
to, been uttered on both sides with a pertinacity of
opinion, and in so defiant a manner, as almost to
ensure that collision which each party affected to
deprecate. The author of these notes, who takes
some pains to make his readers understand that he
has some pretensions to being a military oracle, as
a matter of course, casts his eye inquiringly around
for a solution of this problem, and treats us with
the following

Where bends the emerald arch of peace,
In radiant iris-hues of glory ;
Where the redeemed never cease
The praise of Hallelujah Holy !

Where the pellucid, crystal sea
Reflects the loved ones of the world ;
And floats the flood of memory,
The seraph stands with wings unfurled.

She watches for the holy hour
When sleep enchains the thoughts of sin;
And mortal vision bath no power
To mar the spotless seraphim.

Then from that sea and iris' dyes,
Gathering more flowers and brighter beams,
The seraph angel hither flies,
To bless her loved ones in their dreams.

Through leafy trees the mourner's eye
Still sees, at dawn, from yonder sod,
That blue Forget-me-nots on high,
Mark where her angel-footsteps trod.
—Mara, in Dublin University Magazine.

REVIEWS OF BOOKS.

2The Dublin University _Magazine for October:'
Dublin : James 31`Glashan.
This, the two hundred and fiftieth number,
like most of its predecessors, is spirited and
lively. It commences with one of those delight-
ful poetical wreaths which of late have formed
an mteresting feature of its contents. The pre-
sent, under the name of " Leaves of October,"
contains a mélange of charming poetry from the
pens of many poets, some new to fame, some only
soaring into its enchanted realms. This chaplet
from the bowers of song is strung upon a thread
of golden tissue, spun by no less cunning a hand
than that of our ancient friend Anthony Poplar,
whose fine taste and delicate sensibility have fre-
quently lent lustre to the adornment of this ma-
gazine. This melange is followed by one of the
racy and clashing series, " Irish Rivers," in which
topography, statistics, and glowing descriptive
imagery are blended with a skill and gusto at once
overleaping the pales of dry propriety, and, like the
graceful gambols of a startled fawn, bounding in
wild freedom over meadow and upland, through
thicket and copse, and away far up among heath-
hells and mountains ; a varied and devious flight,
yet nimbly and joyously pursued. To this suc-
ceeds a sombre, indeed melancholy paper, illus-
trative of the unhappiness and ultimate misery of
over-sensitive genius in its unequal struggles with
the every-day world. The paper is founded on the
auto-biography of Benjamin R. Haydon, the cele-
brated historical painter, whose life, like that of
Barry, and other kindred'sons of the muses, whose
lives have been embittered, and many of their best
days wasted, in fruitless efforts to make men wiser
and more refined than the circumstances of the age
in which they lived would permit. The paper,
though of great social importance, is tragic in its
hues ; and in tracing the greatness of Hay don's
achievements, and their melancholy results, the
opportunity is not lost of inculcating the whole-
some lesson—that even the brightest genius can-
not drive society, although, judiciously employed,
it may greatly accelerate the speed of social im-
provement, while directing it into a safe and
profitable channel. At his opening, the author of
this article says truly that mere repetition of effort
is not enough to ensure success, but that these
repetitions must be directed in the course by which
they can best reach and penetrate the public mind.
He thus particularises
TM? DELUSIONS OF HAYDON.
The aspirant who struggles with fortune for fame ought
to be prepared for reverses, and know how to meet them.
His duty is to bend before them, but rise up after they
are past, and pursue his course. A long-continued effort
of this kind, when it becomes conspicuous, is called
heroism ; it often results in success.. But there is some-
thing more wanted than mere obstinacy,of intention in
the face of obstacles, to justify the epithet and realize that
lofty character. An insane shaking of the bars of his
dungeon by a madman, though it were continued ever so
long, would never command our admiration. And, on the
other hand, petulance, ill-humour, vindictiveness, animo-
sity, and despair, exhibited by the struggler, deprive us of
the power of appropriately designating his struggles. as
heroic. That disappointment should be nobly borne is
essentially necessary to the sympathy of the world for it.
And no man can expect to be canonized in its affections
who proves himself undeserving of its respect. Although,
therefore, there are distinct reasons for our directing the
reader's attention for a few moments towards the memoirs
of a very remarkable individual, we must not be under-
stood as by any means adopting the unhappy artist's
creed, as regarded either himself or his treatment by others.
His whole career was a mistake—a mistake which ended
fatally for himself. He believed he was born to be a great
historical painter, and never could be brought to suspect
that the cause of his failure might possibly lie in his own
incapacity as well as in the stolidity of the public, :the
corruption of the Academy, and the culpable apathy of
Government. He wrote a partial autobiography, and a
journal almost as comprehensive as an autobiography, as a
warning to students of art—for so he expressly says ;—but
only meant to be so as far as regarded the vexations and
repulses that would beset them throughout their career,
no matter what their talents and deserts might be ;—not
by any means intending that his own reverses should put
them upon a rigid self-scrutiny, with a view to prevent
that collision between them and the world, in which the
odds are so fearfully against the individual. In short, we
must read the book before us from the beginning in the
light of its close, and accept the revelation as another leaf
in that mysterious record, the human heart, held up to us
to humble our pride, and to reconcile us to our lot, by
showing us what too fierce a resistance to it comes to at last.
The summing up of the account between the
gifted, though erratic, artist and the public, as
given in the conclusion of the paper, is a truthful
and pregnant corollary from its opening strictures,
and may be entitled
THE MISDIRECTION OF MA:YDON'S EFFORTS.
Ambition took the guise of disinterested enthusiasm ;
and that success which he achieved for his country, and
ought to have gloried in, proved fatal to him, because he
was not destined to be the immediate instrument as well
as the remote means of its accomplishment. The magni-
ficent compartments of those halls in which the councils
of f the Empire were thenceforward to be held, were not to
~,o1 enriched by the creations of his fervid imagination.
_f_lB, which would have been a bearable disappointment to
vistic patriotism, was a death-stab—a lethalis arundo--
rtY. And the " white hairs dabbled in blood" spoke,
e ridgy affecting language, which is the last solution of the
that Haydon was blind to the last—blind to his
own true merit, fame ; to his position, to his success, to his real
being,
allowing himself only to see what he boasted of
is a moral. ineia namely, petty and paltry vexations. There
much, and soent2itisab It is a dangerous thing to write so
world, thus
heart better than he tened' will
out one's self, as Haydon did. The
probe the autobiographer's
thought. He will be seen through
where he had flattered
himself he had interposed the
opacity of language as d
a screen between himself and us.
His words will become conductors and radiate a truth
which lies deeper than themselves. 'Out of this truth we
draw our lesson. Never let us assume the office of apostle,
priest, or martyr, without first merging self once and for

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD, AND GENERAL COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER.

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

ST. PHILIP'S CHURCH, HARDMAN-STREET.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

Sin,—l well remember that, when I first attended
Divine Service at St. Philip's Church in this town, I was
struck with the careful and reverent manner in which the
service was performed, and such I believe to have. been
the general character of the services of that church ; but,
last night, I was sorry to observe a remarkable declension
from this high standard. The Rev. Dr. Hook was preach-
ing, on the occasion of opening the church for evening
service. Some alteration or renovation appears to have
been made in the organ, and perhaps the choir thought
that some of the honours of the day belonged to them ;
at any rate there was an attempt, which I certainly never
heard made in the church before, at musical responses, &c.
Nothing, Sir, could be more unfortunate ; the hole
thing was the completest failure imaginable. Unhappy
in its conception, it was worse in its execution, and
forfeited all that character which the services at St.
Philip's might always before have justly claimed. I was
sorry and grieved to observe the change, and it is to
express the hope that it was exceptional—intended,
perhaps, to honour the special occasion which it did but
dishonour—that I trouble you with this note.—l am, Sir,

&c., &c.,
September 30, 1853,

A CHURCHMAN.

INTONING THE CHURCH SERVICE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD,

Siii,--From the correspondence which has taken place
in your columns on the subject of intoning the prayers
and other parts of the Liturgy, I presume it is one which
has excited much attention, at least among those who
know how to appreciate the orderly performance of Divine
Service. For my own part, I knew so little of the prac-
tice of what is called intoning, that I was anxious to hear
and judge for myself, rather than be influenced by the
many able arguments which have been advanced pro and
con, and on Thursday last the opportunity was unex-
pectedly afforded me. I went to St. Philip's Church, to
hear the Rev. Dr. Hook preach on the Feast of St. Michael
and all Angels, and, to my surprise, found that the ser-
vice was intoned, and, as I was informed, for the first
time, on the occasion of a new organ being opened.
I am not actuated in the slightest degree by any pre-
judice against the practice, or, indeed, by any bias either
way, except it is a desire to see some mode introduced by
which the congregation generally may join heartily in the
responses. In this instance, however, I was considerably
disappointed, and feel much regret that on an occasion
when so many strangers were present the mode in which
the service was performed should be such as to deter many
from repeating their visit. Whether the fault rested with
the choir, who were imperfect in their training, or whether
the practice is in itself unfitted for an untrained congrega-
tion, I will not pretend to judge ; but I think none who
were present will dispute that it was an unhappy failure,
and that it would have been much better had the service
been gone through without any attempt at intoning.
I can easily believe the possibility of a congregation
who are regular in their attendance and partially in-
structed in music joining with good effect in a musical
service where the minister leads in the same tone, which
was not the case on 'Thursday last. But, unfortunately,
in many of our Liverpool churches the congregations are
of a fleeting character, and this would be particularly the
case in the proposed new church, the establishment of
wluch you have so ably commented upon. For this rea-
son, especially, I trust that the practice of intoning will
not be attempted—at any rate, until the principles of
music shall be as commonly known as the rudiments of
our mother tongue. I am, Sir,
Liverpool, October 1, 1853. NEMO.
[We believe :that Thursday was the first time in which
the practice of intoning was attempted.]
CLERICUS complains of the Rev. Dr. Hook having preached
at St. Philip's Church on the Feast of St. Michael and
All Angels. We believe it was in order to suit the
rev. doctor, who could not come on either Sunday, and
therefore selected one of the festivals of the Church of
England. If our correspondent would attend any of
the services at St. Philip's Church, he would see much
to admire, and nothing that the most scrupulous Evan-
gelical could object to.

CORPORATION BATHS, ST. GEORGE'S PIER.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

- -
SlR,—There is an old saying, "If a thing is worth doing
at all, it is worth. doing well." Now, if the Liverpool
Corporation think i worth while to have Baths for the
public at St. George's Pier, let them also consider it worth
while to make the accommodation what it ought to be.
I have, in the first place, to complain of the entrance from
the street, which is exceedingly confined ; for if some one
happens to be before you at the "toll gate," you are obliged
to stand at the side of the footpath like a beggar waiting
for alms from the passers-by. If, however, this thought
does not strike you, the rain does, if it happens to be an
aqueous day. Having at length got through the " turn-
stile," and the washerwoman's drying-yard, you are
ushered into the waiting-room, in which locality you have
generally to try your patience (if you want a warm bath)
for about half-an-hour, as only four can be supplied at the
same time. The said period appears twice as long, for
nothing is allowed worth mentioning to beguile the te-
dium of waiting. , This was not the case a few years ago,
for the table was well furnished with books and papers ;
but gone is " the light of other days," and bathers must,
I suppose, take up with the Corporation's dismal waiting-
room. St. George's Pier is decidedly a good place, for
baths, but why are they not to be made worthy of the
town of Liverpool ?
Your obedient servant,
A TRAVELLER.