The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-11-08 00:00:00

CHARACTER OF THE ARABS.

IThere is a curious mixture of noble pride and vulgar

avarice to be found in the Arab, which is at first quite
incomprehensible to the European. Their free, noble
bearing and imperturbable repose appear to. express

nothini but a proud sense of honour ' • balanced, however,
against the smallest gain of money, it melts away like wax
before the sun, and the most contemptuous treatment is
not taken into consideration, but is borne with the most
crouching servility where money is in question. We
might, at first, imagine one of these two natures to be
hypocrisy, or dissimulation ; but the contradiction returns
too often in all forms, both great and small, not to lead to
the conviction that it is characteristic of the Arab, if not
of the entire East. Even as early as in the days of the
Romans, the Egyptians had so far degenerated that Am-
mianus Marcellinus could say of them, "He among them
blushes, who cannot show many strokes upon his body,
for non-payment of tribute ;" and in the same manner
the fellah to-day points, with a contented smile, to his
' scars as soon as the tax-gatherer has withdrawn, who, in
spite of his instruments of torture, has been curtailed of
a few piastres.

This work, by the learned Prussian doctor, not
only throws much light upon the antiquities of
Egypt, but it likewise conveys important informa-
tion relative to the geographical position and
peculiarities of the peninsula of Sinai, and contains
reflections deduced from observation on several of
the most interesting events of Jewish history,
particularly those connected with the Exodus of
that remarkable people. The volume, which has
been skilfully and cleverly translated by two ladies,
Leonora and Joanna B. Horner, daughters, we
believe, of Mr. Leonard Horner, already referred
to, is illustrated by several maps and pictorial

illustrations, and is altogether a valuable accession
to Mr. Bohn's Antiquarian Library, of which it

The Public and Domestic Life of the Right Hon.
Edmund Burke. By Peter Burke, Esq. Lon-
don : Ingram, Cooke and Co.

intended to supply a deficiency in English- bio-
graphical literature, by furnishing a clear and
continuous memoir of Edmund Burke, hitherto a
desideratum so far as the general reader is con-
cerned. Memoirs of the great statesman and
transcendant orator are no doubt numerous enough;
but these are generally confined to his political
movements and associations, conveying little know-
ledge of his private character, and almost no infor-
mation relative to his domestic life and history. In
the present memoir these latter considerations
form a prominent and interesting part, which is
elaborated with skill as well as tact. As in the
other biographies of Burke, a considerable portion
of this one is also devoted to a consideration of the
probable share, or entire claim he had in the author-
ship of the mysterious " Letters of Junius," a
politico-literary enigma which seems to have no
great chance of a satisfactory solution. One re-
mark of the present biographer connected with the
subject is worthy of notice, although brief; it is
simply " curious enough, nearly every one charged
with being Junius was really an intimate of
Burke's," a circumstance in itself no doubt re-
markable, and one which, in this memoir, is made,
to some extent, corroborative of the suspicion that
Burke was in reality connected with the author-
ship of the letters. Among the valuable sayings of

Bur-lie quoted in the volume before us, is part of a
speech delivered in the House of Commons, de-

scriptive of the patch-work Cabinet of Lord
Chatham. How applicable is it to the Mosaic
ministerial array which now marshals under the
banner of the Earl of Aberdeen ? The description
by Burke is as follows, and may be entitled—

A PRIME MINISTER AND HIS HETEROGENEOUS AIDS.
I am afraid to flatter him ; I am sure I am not disposed
to blame him. Let those who have betrayed him by their
adulation, insult him by their malevolence. But what I
do not presume to censure, I may have leave to lament.
For a wise man, he seemed to me, at that time, to be

governed too much by general maxims. I speak with the
freedom of history, and I hope without offence. One or
u maxims, flowing from an opinion not the
most indulgent to v“. .....LopnV species, and surely a little
too general, led him into measures that w b-ro.uv *nig-
chievous to himself, and for that reason, among others,

perhaps fatal to his country—measures, the effects of
which, lam afraid, are for ever incurable. He made an
administration, so
_chequered and speckled; he put tct

gether a piece of joinery, so crossly indented anal whimsi-
cally dovetailed ; a cabinet so variously inlaid.; such a
piece of diversified mosaic; such a tesselated pavement
without cement, here a bit of black stone, and there a bit