The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-03-15 00:00:00

THE BREEZE OF SPRING.

Dull winter hastens to be gone,
He's disappearing fast;
The sunny hours are coming on,
The stormy time is past.
The ice no longer binds the rill.
Nor snows their mantle fling:
For every bleak and barren hill
Has kiss'd the breeze of Spring,

I hear its music in the wood,
It sighs along the vale,
Where summer flowers in beauty stood,
It lingers in the dale;
It plays upon the primrose banks,
And rests its merry wing;
The drooping snowdrop kindly thanks
The western breeze of Spring.

Ah ! well it knows where violets grow
In the lone and shady lane;
It bids its sweet, blue fav'rites blow,
And onward speeds again.
It wakes the flowers of the field,
And they their offerings bring;
The flowers their sweetest incense yield,
To scent the breeze of Spring.

The blackbird, from the hawthorn bush,
Renews his lively strain;
On topmost branches stands the thrush,
And tunes his throat amain :
At close of evening calm and mild,
He makes the forest ring
With native woodnotes, clear and wild—
He loves the breeze of Spring.

The robin leaves his winter friends
For hedge-rows far away—
Above his mossy nest he bends,
And pipes his plaintive lay.
The lark uprising with the light,
On merry mounting wing—
Strains all his might till out of sight,
And hails the breeze of Spring.

A hundred voices fill the air,
The sun shines warmly down ;
Away with each intruding care,
And leave the gloomy town.
Come, roam along the woodpath green,
Hear nature's favourites sing,
Enjoy the soul-enlivening scene,
And woo the breeze of Spring.—R. Totenleii

LITERATURE.

BOOKS FOR REVIEW, &c.—Books, New Prints, Music, &c.,
intended for review, may be left at Mr. C. Mitchell's, Red-
lion-court, Fleet-street, London, addressed "
_to the Editor

of the LIVERPOOL STANDARD," when they will be forwarded

and receive attention.
The Cruise of the Challenger, Life-boat, and Voyage
from Liverpool to London.—London : William

Pickering.

This smartly written publication runs full tilt
against the popular error, that boats which can be
upset, swamped, or water-logged by any contingen-
cies of winds or waves in the open seas, are worthy
the name of Life-boats. " A Life-boat," say the
authors, " should be so constructed as to take care
of itself, no contingencies of winds or waves should
be able to affect it." The most perfect principle
of buoyancy known, they assert, is displayed in
Colonel Blanchard's bridge pontoons ; and on this
principle their tubular boat, " The Challenger,"
was built. To a detail of her advantages, and
a relation of her exploits, the present book is
dedicated. None have dared to accept her chal-
lenges. None have dared, like her, to take
eighty persons on their side, and to let sixty rush
and jump on board at once ; to anchor broadside on,
in a heavy surf; to tow before a gale of wind, with sixty
fathoms cable ; to beach on a lee shore through
a heavy surf, with one person on board to every
foot in length ; land the passengers, and pull off
again. As many of our readers know, she is a
double boat, with a grated deck, on which her crew
are carried high and dry. The buoyant principle is
below them, and is hermetically sealed. " Life-
ships or steamers, of the largest size, as well as the
smallest boats, can be constructed on this principle,
and at a considerable diminution of expense.
Vessels of the first-class might sail over sand-banks,
in a few feet water, and enter shallow ports, even
run ashore in sandy bays with safety."
The account of the cruise of the Challenger from
Liverpool to London, is written with great vivacity;
and even the details of the journey from Manchester,
where the boat was constructed, to the Mersey are
not destitute of interest. While in the Mersey, Mr.
Richardson's crew played some pretty tricks on the
unsophisticated natives :