The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-11-23 00:00:00

VARIETIES.

VALMSGIVING.—If there be any truer measure of a man
than by what he does, it must be by what he gives.
Miss Edgeworth, who is now upwards of seventy years
of age, has written a tale, called "Orlandino," for" Cham-
bers's Library for Young People." a new serial work.
CORK TREE.—Upon the estate recently come into the
possession of the Honourable James Stuart Wortley, is a
cork tree, supposed to be the largest and healthiest of the
few which are known to be growing in this country.
CHARACTER.—If you lose the smoke, where will you
find it ? over the fire. If you miss the water, where can
you discover it ? in the depths of the valley. If you lose
character, where can you recover the lost treasure ? no-
where!! never !—Poynder's Literary Extracts.
DESTROYERS OF BRITISH SHIPS.—In the dockyard.
of Bombay is to be seen a new ship of the line entirely de-
stroyed by an invisible army of white ants, which had
riddled every timber to such an extent that they will
scarcely hold together. What will not united and re-
peated efforts effect ?
In one of his sermons Adam Littleton says that " every
man is made of three Egos, and has three Selfs in him ;"
and that this appears in the reflection of conscience upon
actions of a dubious nature ; whilst one Self accuses, ano-.
Cher Self defends ; and the third Self passes judgment
upon what hath been so done by the man !"
ORIGIN OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE.—" Yesterday,"
says an old newspaper, dated July 15, 1773, "the brokers
and others at New Jonathan's came to a resolution that,
instead of its being called ' New Jonathan's,' it should be
called The Stock Exchange,' which is to be wrote over
the door. The brokers then collected 6d. each and chris-
tened the house with punch."
DOOMSDAY-BOOK.—This book, in two volumes, was
the tax-book of all England, except Cumberland, West-
raoreland,Durham, and Northumberland, which may have
been in a volume by itself, now lost. The work was
drawn out in the reign of William the Conqueror, and was
seven years in completion. It contains an exact account
not only of all the cities, towns, and villages, but also of
families, and what every one possessed, either in land or
money; and when any difference arose concerning such
things, or the taxes, &c., this book cleared the point, and
the Sovereign could not be defrauded : it obtained, there-
fore, the name of " Doomsday Book," and is now kept
under two locks and keys. It may be consulted on pay-
mentof six shillings and eightpence, and any portion of it
transcribed at fourpence a line.—Schomberg's"Elements
of the British Constitution."
HERE'S THE MAN !—The Prince of Wales is, by birth.
Earl of Chester and Flint, and Duke of Cornwall, but
Prince of Wales by creation. He has a suitable revenue
granted by Parliament for the maintenance of his dignity,
and he is invested in this principality by the imposition
of a cap of state and a coronet on his head : by deliver-
ing a verge of gold into his band as the emblem of
government : by placing a gold ring on his finger in token
that he must be a husband to his country and a father to
her children ; and by giving him a patent to hold the said
principality to him and his heirs—kings of England. The
device of his coronet, adorned with the three ostrich
feathers, is " Ich Dien," which in Welsh, signifies
" Hero's the man !"—the words said to have been used
by King Edward when he showed the Welsh lords his
eldest son, born in Wales. Others derive this motto from
the Dutch, in which language " ich Dien" signifies
" I serve."—Schomberg's " Elements of the British
Constitution.

THE ESTABLISHED CRIIRCH.-Take the lowest ground;
contemplate the infinite blessing of an Established Church,
when compared with dissentient denominations and
Churches, in the matters of general unity and peace.—
What an infinitude of sects and parties ; what a multipli-
city of divisions and subdivisions in the same denomina-
tion ; what angry separations of fellow-worshippers ;
what hostile erections of antagonistic new chapels ; what
painful presumings of the people against the minister ;
what captive bonds of the minister to the people; what a
host of disruptive and peace-destroying evils, which no
man can number, are avoided by the invaluable law-pre-
served unity and uniformity of an Established Church!
It is true that there are internal differences, and even
feuds and burnings, in our national Church. But it is a
blessing not to be fully, estimated, that the union of the
Church with the throne still preserves the general body,
and the worship, one. And we are fully satisfied, from
our own experience, from a thirty years' wide concern-
ment with both parties, and from the testimonies of dis-
senters themselves, that there is more unity and peace
(as well as oneness of worship), more Christian propriety
and happiness in the worshippers, and more holy inde-
pendendence in the ministers of the Church of England,
than is to be found in the whole dissentient world put
together 'all nd for this reason, because, in the national
Church, things are, by the blessing of the throne's
civil aid still kept and preserved, as they were, by the
holy wisdom of our fathers in the faith "set in order," at
the Reformation.

DESTRUCTION OF TOADS.—Since the opening of the
atmospheric railway from Paris to St. Germain, they
have found round the large cast-metal tube, chiefly in
that part under the tunnel to the viaduct, an immense
number of dead toads. Some chemists, being desiroUs to
discover the cause of this mortality. have found the paint
in the tube has a singular property of attracting these
reptiles and poisoning them. They are, in many locali-
ties, a complete scourge; and the means of destroying
them may not be unacceptable. This composition, or
paint, is formed of forty parts of sulphate of lead, and
sixty parts of glue, which is composed of forty-five parts
of white creosote oil, fifteen of gum lacque, and five of
caoutchouc. In the rural districts, this might be used
with great advantage by agriculturists in painting their
fences. .

AN ITALIAN VILLA is very charming for a brief spring,
malarious in summer and autumn, and incommodiously
furnished for every season. Comfort makes but slow pro-
gress abroad, and has not yet found its way into Italy at
all ; neither into her dictionaries as a name, nor into her
dwellings as a thing. What should we, ease-loving Eng-
lish, think of a house, which, lined with marbles and
frescoes, carpeted with mosaics and adorned with statues,
offered nothing but niches and marble curule chairs to
write on and to sit in ? Yet such is the general scheme
and internal arrangement throughout most villas in Italy ;
for as to the prime of the house, the piano izobile,that be-
longs as by prescriptive right exclusively to the Cmsars,
being indeed only fitted for impassable marble and bronze
emperors :—while the over-hospitable entertainer of these
august guests is content to stow away himself and ,family
in apartments which are frequently little better than our
offices for menials, in which his few articles of rococo fur-
niture, of all sorts and sizes, are crazy, cumbersome, un-
dusted, and ill-matched ; in short, more like the promis-
cuous contents of some inferior broker's shop, than the
elegant ameublement we might have expected to corre-
spond to the profusion of objects of vertu which grace the
principal show-rooms of the mansion. At home we may
differ in our notions about comfort in the details, but
there are certain conditions which are rightly held essen-
tial to its possible existence; and if " the cold, neat par-
lour, and the gay, glazed bed," have their admirers, it is
because cleanliness and neatness are two of them ; but in
Italy we look in vain for either, and there is nothing to
compensate their absence.—Blackwood's Magazine.
ANCIENT BRITISH RULERS.—Of the mode of govern-
ment which prevailed among the indigenous tribes of our
island, it would he idle to attempt more than a recapitu-
lation of the remarks extracted from the Roman writers.
The kingly authority was not unknown to them, and its
nature was, no doubt, similar to that of the German
chiefs of tribes; deriving its origin most probably from
the more ancient form of patriarchal government, which
is the intermediate link in the social progress between a
single family and a tribe. Thus, in all countries, the first
rulers have been no more than elders, or heads of fami-
lies, to whom succeeded chieftains, or heads of clans,
who have gradually shifted their authority from their
followers, to a definite extent of territory, including, of
course, its inhabitants; and have thus become a species
of petty king, or, as the Roman writers have termed
them, knights. To this class would seem to belong the
sovereigns of petty states, which we have had occasion to
notice. But the next stage is the union of several of their
smaller states or principalities into one, and this was a
stage in civil government to which the Britons never ar-
rived. It is true that to meet a formidable invasion,
they could combine under one chief, generally some one
who was known as a military leader. Such was Cassi-
vellannus, who opposed and checked the progress of the
first Caesar. Such also were Cunobelin, Caractacus, and
Boadicea ; but their authority naturally ceased with the
emergency which gave birth to it, though the lapse of
another century might, perhaps, have produced some
eminent chief, who, like the Saxon Egbert in after ages,
would have united the various British tribes into one per-
manent kingdom. But the Romans came, and, as much
by their skilful management of the native quarrels, as by
the superiority of their arms, they extinguished for ever
the dynasty of the aboriginal Britons.—Dr. Giles' His-
tory of the Ancient Britons.

POWER OF THE HUMAN EYE.—" L. was staying at
Chugga for a feve•days ; and one morning he went out
with his gun, accompanied by a native Christian of the
name of Perswa. Whilst they were in the jungle they
suddenly heard a distant shout, as of some one calling
Perswa, Perswa !" Is is a tiger,' cried his follower.
They immediately hastened back to the village, but found
no one there but four old women, who told them that one
of their people was hurt by a tiger. Mr. L. started in-
stantly to his rescue, and as he left the village he was
joined by at least fifty men, who in their fear were hiding,
but, being now encouraged by the presence of a white
man, sallied forth with him. Following the direction of
the cries of the poor wretch, they soon came to the spot
where he stood facing a large tiger. It seems that the
man, whilst in the jungle, had suddenly caught sight of it
on the point of springing upon him. With great pre-
sence of mind he stood perfectly still and fixed his eyes
steadily upon the monstrous brute. The tiger wavered
for an instant, then quailing before his eye, he slunk be-
hind a bush. Still the man kept his eye upon him,
whilst the tiger every moment peered forth to see if that
dreaded eye was withdrawn. From bush to bush the
tiger moved, as if seeking to avoid the gaze, that he might
spring out to seize'his prey. Slowly the man turned from
side to side, still facing his dreaded foe, and calling upon
Perswa and the Pade Sahib to come and save him ; and
this he continued till the party came up, who by their
shouts forced the tiger to abandon his intended meal.
i• ow this seems a strong instance of the power of " the hu-
man eye." "It does indeed," replied F., "I have known
it exercised with equal success in another case. A young
officer was walking through a jungle he foolishly had
nothing but his pistols with him. Suddenly he heard a
noise, and saw the branches shaking near him; he crept
forward on his hands and knees to see what animal was
there. Presently he found himself face to face with a
huge bull bison. He started to his feet, drew a pistol
from his belt, and fixed his eye on that of the animal.
The bison tore the turf with his teeth and horns, stamping
furiously, but he dared not charge while the human eye
was fixed on his. Presently the beast appeared to become
uneasy, moved his enormous shaggy head from side to
side, and at last slunk off to join the herd that were feed-
ing in the distance ; and so my friend was saved by his
own presence of mind and the human eye."—Acland's
Customs of India.
AILSA CRAIG.—One of the most remarkable objects on
the western coast of Scotland is this stupendous ocean-
rock, which gives the British title of marquis to the Earl
of Cassifis. It stands about eight miles from the nearest
point of land, and rises in a corneal shape, to the height of
eleven hundred feet. The whole aspect is peculiarly strik-
ing, and produces an effect upon the senses similarto what
the stranger feels when he first gazes on the Pyramids, or
the Falls of Niagara. It is, in fact, not a mere rock, but
the summit of a huge mountain, elevated in abrupt and
sublime grandeur above the waves, surrounded by deep
water on all sides except the south-eastern, where a kind
of beach is formed by the accumulated debris. In almost
every feature it is the exact counterpart of the Bass, on
the eastern coast, off the town of Dunbar. Both are se-
lected as breeding places by the solan geese, and are the
habitations of countless swarms of sea-fowls. Both have
a fresh-water spring near the tumult, and both afford pas-
turage for a small number of goats or sheep, the flesh of
which acquires a peculiarly rich flavour from the salt
grass, which renders it .quite a dainty to the epicure, and
fetches a higher price in the market. About, a third f the
way up, we observed an old ruin, said to have been built
by Philip 11. of Spain. The story is not very credible ;
but it was off this coast that " Thurot's defeat" took
place, and it was on the Olympic throne of Ailsa that the
poet made the ocean deities sit, ` spectators of the fight"—
" Till sinking slow, the mimic thunders fall,
And Elliot's genius triumphs o'er the Gaul."

It is more liicely that the ruin in question is the remains
of a baronial prison, erected by some of the powerful clan
of the Kennedy's, who once held despotic sway over that
part of Ayrshire, and when
" From Wigton and the town of Ayr,
Portpatrick and the Cruives o' Cree ;
Nae man might think to prosper there,
Unless he court wi' Kennedie."
Ailsa was an excellent place in feudal times for silencing a
troublesome enemy, or confining those vassals who had in-
curred the laird's resentment. The rock and the sea-fowl
could tell no tales, and the roaring Atlantic beneath would
soon close over the doomed victims precipitated from its
immense cliffs. Many a dark deed has been perpetrated
on Ailsa, unseen by the world, and unknown to history.
Feudal vengeance could work its will far from human ha-
bitation, and with no witness that could or dared give ut-
terance to the dreadful tale. Though no longer a prison,
this rock continues to be a huge marine aviary, being al-
most covered with myriads of birds clinging to its sides,
darkening the air when on the wing, and deafening the
curious spectator with their loud and discordant scream-
ing. We were told that thrushes have taken up their
abode there, and pour out their rich melody as blithely as
among the verdant groves of Kyle or Carrick, on the op-
posite shore.—Dublin University Magazine.
THE REFORMATION.—Again, we are reminded, " that
the Reformation was not the work of a few pious indivi-
duals only, but the act of the whole British Church, in
conjunction with the State." And, important as the fact
is, perhaps in no respect is it more so, than as showing the
relation in which we stand to the Book of Common
Prayer: It must be a matter of much regret, that the
laity, in general, know so little of the authority of the
Prayer Book—that it was not only a compilation of the
Clergy in Convocation, but that it was ratified by Parlia-
ment as the representatives of the laity ; and that thus it
became a part of the law of the land, and remains so to
this day. It is the law of the Church of England to
all who continue in her communion." And having ob-
served this, having spoken of an authority in which much
of Scripture is interpreted to us, we cannot pass by the
author's remarks on the common notion " that the Re-
formation was little else than the universal permission to
exercise the unlimited right of private judgment :"—" If,"
he says, " this expression be meant, the liberty to worship
God according to the dictates of conscience, without per-
secution or molestation, there cannot be a greater mistake
than to suppose that this very reasonable and Christian
liberty was granted at the time of the Reformation. For
by whom was it then granted ? Not by Henry the Eighth,
who, with equal satisfaction to himself, is said to have
' burned some of his subjects for being Protestants, and
hanged others for being Catholics.' Not by the famous
reformer Calvin, whose burning of Servetus is sufficiently
notorious. Not by Queen Mary, the unenviable notoriety
of whose name forbids the supposition. Not by her sis-
ter, Queen Elizabeth, who threatened members of the
House of Commons with being sent to the Tower for li,
b'erty of speech, tortured and cruelly ill-treated numbers
of her Roman Catholic subjects for their religion, and
finally put the Queen of Scots to death, chiefly for the
same cause. Not by James the First, if we may trust his
significant hints as to what he would do to the Puritans if
they did not conform. Not by King Charles and Arch-
bishop Laud, if we may trust the records of the Star
Chamber. Not by Oliver Cromwell, who first preached
against persecution, and then practised it himself, making

it penal even to read the Liturgy of the Church of Eng-
land in a private house. Not in the days of Charles the
Second, if we draw our inferences from the stringent se-
verity of enactments against Roman Catholics and Dis-
senters. Not by James the Second, who sent the seven
bishops to the Tower for presuming to exercise their pri-
vate judgment, and awoke to his reason when he had
lost his crown. Here is a century and a half after the
Reformation, and very little trace of this liberty, either
in the writings of the Reformers, or in the authorities
of the realm, civil or ecclesiastical But, perhaps,
it was wisely permitted by Providence that the Re-
formation should be a struggle. not for toleration, but
for truth. In more tolerant times, though men might
be more christianly disposed towards each other, their
minds would not have been so determined ' earnestly to
contend for the faith once delivered to the saints,' and
toleration would probably have produced indifference.
Whereas by a century and a half of fierce struggles and
bitter contests, through the infirmity and corruption of
our nature, it was at last discovered that persecution for
religion is a religious crime and a political blunder,—a
crime in religion, because it is not the weapon by which
the truth should be defended ; and a blunder in politics,
because it increases the number of bad subjects, who do
not scruple publicly to profess what in private they disdain
to believe ; and diminishes the number of good subjects,
who are too honest to affirm with their lips what in their
hearts they deny. We, however, who have lived to see
universal toleration, or, at least, professed toleration,
must beware lest we confound toleration with scepticism ;
or lest we imagine that unfettered private judgment is the
unlimited power of public abuse; for it is no very un-
comn►on case to find those who are very eager for their
own right clamouring down all exercise of it in others,
and denying them the power of seeing, hearing, thinking,
and judeing for themselves."—From a Review, in " The
Colonial Church Chronicle" for the present month, of a
Sermon on the Reformation, by John, Bishop of Frede-
ricton.