The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-03-28 00:00:00

REVIEWS OF BOOKS.

in answer to any dubiety, however meekly insinu-
ated or strongly asserted, as to the intellectual
status of our contemporaries. In the abundance
of books which issue from the press, will be found
a fair justification of the opinions of each. Regarded
by mere number, the champion of existing talent, as
evinced in these books, has abundant cause of joy ;
estimated by their worth, too many of them, alas !
add deepening shadows to the gloomy picture
painted by his antagonist. The little volume which
stands at the head of this notice is calculated to
rejoice the hearts of both the classes referred to.
Its chief characteristic is a straining after the indi-
cations of exalted intellect ; and that straining is
occasionally displayed in fellowship with glimpses
of a nature sensitive and readily respondent to the
beautiful and the true. The volume opens with
some introductory lines to the ballad which bestows
a title on the work. From it we give the following
brief extracts :
So bring I thee, sweet lady; my love,
My gems, which I have ga r'd up, to find
How poor they are beside t y peerless wealth.
Th' Elysium where thy tender spirit dwells
Is written o'er with thoughts of beauty, thick
As starry mysteries written on the night.
Thy realm is rich in memory's golden mtne3,
And flashily, out with harvest-fields of hope.
*
The lights of being came out from their cloud,
As the cliffs kindle when the morning comes,
Swimming the utmost sea in ruddy haste,
With foam of glory ; and the ruby light,
Like mellow wine, runs down remotest hills.
Thou com'at, my sparkling Bird of Paradise!

Dante, translated into English Verse. By J. C.
Wright, M.A. Illustrated with engravings on
steel, after designs by Flaxman. London : Henry
G. Bohn.

The volume before us is one of " Bohn's Illus-
trated Library," and we are glad to learn that it
has already reached a third edition. This know-
ledge is highly gratifying, as it clearly proves that
the classes to whom really cheap literature is
addressed can and do appreciate excellence, when
excellence is placed within their reach. Of the
poetry of Dante it is needless for us to speak—a
popularity which has increased rather than
diminished during the onward progress of five
centuries and a half indicates a native vitality
which we cannot hope to strengthen, gives token
of a foundation the stability of which we can
neither render more secure nor aid in widening.
The fame and excellence of the great poet of
mediaeval Italy have long been familiar to the
literary circles of the wealthy ; and it is no trivial
praise to the enlightenment of our day that a
people's edition of his sublime works finds such
favour as to call for its third repetition within com-
paratively a limited period.
The translation by Mr. Wright is one which
gives a fair idea of the great original. Transla-
tions there are which in some respects may be
entitled to higher consideration, as there are others
which are much inferior ; but in this one we have
a good, readable, and suggestive rendering of the
author. His vigorous and powerful imagery is
presented in expressive form—his lofty and sonorous
diction meets with a responsive echo—and the
exalted, sublime simplicity of his wondrous tale is
preserved with distinct fidelity. Besides trans-
lating the text, Mr. Wright gives copious explana-
tory foot-notes and an essay on the " Spirit of
Dante," and he has also added such extracts from
the prose works of the poet as tend to elucidate
passages and explain circumstances occurring in
the poem, which lapse of time and changes of
manners have involved in obscurity. In short, he
has left little or nothing undone which industry
and intelligence, guided by no mean critical acumen,
could accomplish in producing an edition of Dante
deserving the confidence of the educated masses.
Having gone thus far in regard to the transla-
tion, a word remains to be said in reference to the
illustrations. Of these it may by many be consi-
dered unnecessary to say more than merely state
they are from the pencil of Flaxman, and that in
the engraving they have been faithfully trans-
cribed. To those in whose minds artistic culture
and its refining influences have become a second
nature, the bare announcement would be amply
sufficient—to the votaries of high-class delineative
invention further remark might be looked on as
superfluous ; but in the instance before us we must
remember the volume is intended as a people's
book, and, notwithstanding the praiseworthy spread
of " schools of design" among them, a knowledge
of the principles of art, and familiarity with its best
examples, are not so generally diffused as to render
a word or two on Flaxman's illustrations of Dante
unacceptable. Every English reader is familiar
with the name of Flaxman, and brows that he is
entitled to be called the great, if not indeed the
greatest, British sculptor. By numerous and
acknowledgedly excellent judges, however, high as
they class the sculptured works of Flaxman, his
fame as a creative artist is considered to rest more
securely, and at a higher elevation, on those ema-
nations of his genius which were never elaborated
farther than as outline drawings, of which he exe-
cuted many, including the famous series illustra-
tive of the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, and the
not less noble series which constitute the ornament
of the volume now under consideration. The illus-
trations to Dante are 34 in number,and they are cha-
racterised by all the excellent qualities which so pre-
eminently distinguish the works of John Flaxman
among modern artists. To the severe simplicity,
grace of form, and grave dignity of composition,which
constitute the charm and the excellence of Grecian
sculpture of the Phidian era, Flaxman was sen-
sitively alive, and of their leading attributes he
was a willing and devoted worshipper, although
not a servile copyist ; of no man could it be said
with more truth than of Flaxman, that, while
following in the footsteps of the ancients, he dis-
dained to adopt their forsaken sandals. His
journey towards his appointed niche in the Temple
of Fame was parallel to theirs—along the same
mountain side, but the path was of his own pre-
paration. The designs in illustration of Dante, of
which it is our immediate cue to speak, are beauti-
fully characteristic of the artist's mind ; severe in
beauty, full, but not redundant, in the leading
features of their composition, and eminently sug-
gestive of the vast, the grand, the mysterious of
superhuman agency ; they depict, in forcible pre-
sentment, the calm beauty of virtue, the agonised
repulsiveness and misery of vice. Grace of form
and delicacy of touch and of expression, lend charms
to the allurements of the one ; the other is clothed
in uncouth form, animated by wild and startling
expression—quivering with pain, or writhing be-
neath loads of woe. Clearly to suggest all this,
by the aid of merely a few simple outlines, is a
high attribute of .ovnius—to bring these readily
within the reach of even the humblest, is to render
a public service, and such a service is efficiently
rendered in the volume before us. The great poet
and the great delineative artist, in it meet with an
enduring and widely-diffusible representation,
which brings them home to the hearts and the
affections of the myriad masses of our intelligent
though not affluent fellow-countrymen.

Such sweet pictures give note of true inspiration,
which sparkles in numerous pages of the tiny
volume, exciting wonder as well as joy to meet with
the indications of so true a sense of beauty, in one
whose culture has, we are told, been stolen from
laborious " factory toil." If the author has eman-
cipated himself from the thraldom of the spindles,
it is sorrowful to find he has not weaned himself
from the prejudices of the " operatives' club-room,"
in which the world is represented as consisting of
only two classes—the oppressors and the oppressed
—the virtuous and suffering poor, the tyrannical
and mercenary rich. This false representation has
biassed the judgment, and obscured as well as
distorted the vision of the bard; and in his disor-
dered imagination he sees public virtue personified
in Kossuth, political wisdom and social mercy con-
centrated in the Ledru Rollin revolutionists of
Paris ; and he apostrophises the tribe of which
these worthies are taken as the representatives, in
strains as bombastical as their importance is over-
rated. Such a prostitution of even the commonest
talent is matter of regret ; but where, as in this
instance, the mistaken adulation is made to alloy
sterling ore,the misfortune is doubly to beregretted.
So it must remain, we fear : the mistake is a fatal
one, and cannot be remedied.

The -the- Trisp Quadrille—The Mail

Coach. Polka. London : Jullien

Notwithstanding the abundance of dance-music
which is being almost daily submitted to popular
favour, that which is really good is always welcome,
and the pieces before us will, no doubt, receive
their full share. We ventured to predict from
some of the earlier productions of the composer,
Mr. Charles H. Compton, that he would be a
valuable accession to the musical world, and he
has fully justified our opinion of his talent. In
both pieces will be found the combination not
always met with of pleasing melody and the time
distinctly marked, and we feel confident that many
a votary of Terpsichore will dance to the music of
the quadrille with more than ordinary zest.

MR. WARREN'S EXPOSITION OF
"THE LILY AND THE BEE."

AT the inauguration of a new public hall in Leamington,
last week, Mr. Warren, Q.C., author of the "Diary of a
Late Physician," " Ten Thousand a Year," and other
highly popular works, delivered an exposition of the pur-
pose he had in view, in the composition of " The Lily and
the Bee." The audience was numerous and highly in.

telligent, and the chair was occupied by Sir J. E. Pa aidley-
Wilmot, Bart. He commenced by paying a merited and

eloquently expressed tribute to the memory of his lamented

friend the late Mr. Justice Talfourd, whose merits, learn-

ing, talent, and goodness of heart, fie tastefully, yet feel-
ingly eulogized. He next proceeded to justify the fur-
nishing of a key to his much misrepresented work " The
Lily and the Bee," by reference to the explanatory letter
which Spencer deemed it necessary to prefix to his im-
mortal poem " The Fairey Queene." He then assured the
meeting that his object was neither to vindicate the
favourable, nor to depreciate the unfavourable criticism
which had been bestowed on his work, but to &plain, in
simplicity and sincerity, the scope and object he had in
view in the production of that poem. In proceeding with
his exposition he prefaced, it by reading one or two very ,
conflicting criticisms on the work, and went on to remark
that the " Lily and the Bee," though a little book, is one
of wide scope and significance, formed on a plan exact,
complete, and deeply considered, even in its fragmentary
and apparently rhapsodical structure—the object being to
preserve a sort of dim, yet brilliant and suggestive analogy
to the overpowering structure which called it into exis-
tence—discarding apparent orderliness of method, and
striving to excite in the reader's mind a sense of lustrous
confusion, slowly subsiding into distinctness, and then
developing grand and lovely proportion, harmony, and
system. This result was to be gained, as with the physical
prototype, not all at once—not at first sight, but after
yielding, for a while, to a sense of charming bewilderment ;
—after some effort to discover and adjust relations (at
first lost in a dim vastness) between the myriad parts and
the mighty whole. In pursuance of this plan, the poem,
for such in reality it is, opened with a continuous blaze of
vivid daylight within the Palace—the daylight of physical
splendour and variety—of endless manifestations of in-
tellectual strength, the results of six thousand years of
thought and toil; and when the reader's mind has risen
into the highest regions of proud speculation—typified by
the devout and mighty Sir Isaac Newton, in the act of
discovering the principle of gravitation,—as if he saw the
key of the physical universe placed in his hand—his atten-
tion is suddenly settled on a humble insect—a Bee, the
twin geometer of Sir Isaac, working by such transcendent
mathematical skill as it has taken proud man centuries
to become acquainted with. The Bee, hOwever, is not
only a great engineer and architect, but is seen to be a
member of a perfectly organized political state !—with a
visible system of government, closely and mystically
analogous to our own ! Here the author represents Man
as at first perplexed by the Bee, and then dogmatically
denying it thought or moral sense ;—when he is over-
whelmed by the thought that he himself may at that
moment be the subject of exactly similar speculation to
some sublime Being, discharging grand functions in the
economy of the Universe. He, at length, learns a lesson
of humility and awe, from the little monitor before him—
that each of them has its mission, and appropriate sphere
of action.

The second book is designated " Night in the Crystal
Palace." The glare of day is gone, and the Palace is
deserted by all living men but the poet, around whom is
suddenly seen a ghostly thing of the former occupants of
the earth :
" It is an awful sight—
Man from the grave, around one Man upon the Earth—
Man in eternity, around one Man in Time—
Immortality Niortality surrounding,
Melting my soul away.
They see me not, yet I their presence feel
Fearfully—my ghostly kindreci
The spirits of kings, conquerors, lawgivers, philosophers,
and poets are beheld gazing on the objects about them,
with wonder at the alterations which the people and the
governments have undergone since their day ! At length,
Lord Bacon, as the founder of the inductive system of
philosophy, which has led to such grand results as are
evidenced by the Palace, is seen sitting in shadowy majesty
on his throne, with Aristotle and Roger Bacon on either
hand. The ancient astronomers Chaldean, Egyptian,
and Greek—are observed standing stupified before an
orrery, subverting all their ancient systems! The Tele-
scope, the Microscope, Geology, Electricity, Steam,—all
become gradually known to the amazed spirits. At length
we seem making a sort of progress into past ages, sweep-
ing through the mist of mythology, till we reach patri-
archal times. Again we see the idolatrous gatherings on
the plain of Dora, and then on the plain of Shinar, with
which the poem opens :—We come to Cain, the first mur-
derer, " prince of his bloody race," surrounded by his fear-
ful descendants. Finally, we stand before Adam and Eve, '
dissolved in tenderness and awe—" a son come through
six thousand years to look on" his first parents, who are
movingly told of what has happened to their descendants.
•Light suddenly appears in the eyes of Adam,•telling of a
second Adam ; and we are wafted into the future, and
seem for a moment to realise the Resurrection. At
length, however, the spirits are disappearing, and the
poet is left alone—" even ghost deserted !" The Palace
and its physical objects again become visible, but the soli-
tary tenant is exhausted and disconsolate, oppressed with
a sense of desertion, and he begins to repine at his lot—
appearing to have no personal interest in the economy of
nature—no personal relation with the Awful Author ;
when, at that moment, Nature becomes unexpectedly
visible in the very Palace of Art. A stray Lily is pointed
out by the guardian spirit attending the Past, and whis-
pering to him the sublime and affecting lesson taught,
through the Lily, by the Saviour of mankind—rebuking
vain glory and presumption, raising the meek and lowly,
and succouring the miserable and neglected of mankind
in all ages, to the end of time : the author reminding his
hearers that the Angel of the Annunciation is represented
as bearing in his hand a lily, while telling his holy tidings
to the Virgin.
In the course of his remarks, the learned expositor, in
speaking of some of the attacks made on his book, said,
among other charges, it had been stated that the leading
feature of the " Lily and the Bee" was blasphemy ,• is
charge he was most anxious to be delivered from. Of the
other he said, " These attacks I have borne in silence,
and in a spirit befitting, I hope, the dignity of letters 1"
Mr. Warren, who had been loudly cheered at different
points of his address, resumed his seat amidst the enthu-
siastic plaudits of the company.

Johnson's Lives of the British Poets, completed
by Willi vm Hazlitt. London : Nathaniel Cooke.
A work which promises to combine the mascu-
line and stately grandeur of Johnson wedded to
the winning graces and easy gaieties of Hazlitt,
must needs have many claims on public patronage.
Those claims are greatly increased in number, and
augmented in power, when the united efforts are
employed in rendering us familiar with the mighty
men of yore, whose aspirations found expression
in impassioned song. Johnson's Lives of the
Poets -have long and justly been regarded as en-
titled to a distinguished place in English classical
literature. The biographies, it has been admitted,
are scant in minntiw of detail, but that defect is
more than merely atoned for by the masterly and
philosophically deduced generalisations with which
the Lichfield giant filled in the subordinate por-
tions of his pictures. Inferior artists might elabo-
rate limb, and carefully depict habiliments ; he
transferred the mental visage to his canvas, and
esteemed it of small moment to perpetuate the
cut or colour of the garment in which the body
and its limbs were swathed. His generalisations
of character, however, able as these undoubtedly
are, are not the only claims on public attention
these biographical essays are imbued with ; they
embody, _likewise, canons of criticism, as lucidly
expressed as they are vigorously conceived, and
although it is undoubtedly true that since John-
son's day the functions of the literary critic have
greatly
expanded in variety of application, and
magnified its field of operation, it may be justly
questioned
whether critical study has much en-
larged its comprehensiveness of aim, since that
moralist and scholar enunciated his aphoristic sen-
tences. That Johnson's Lives, as a book con-
taining a biographic view of British poetry, was
sfelt and admitted ; and
incomplete, has been long
shortcomings in this
we rejoice to see that it
respect are to be supplem.ented by one so fully
competent as Hazlitt. It is proposed to complete
this biographic cabinet of poets in four volumes, of
which the first only has as yet appealed. It is a
in
all respects well got np, and pro. miscsto be
creditable addition to our current literature.

The Ballad of Babe Christabel : 1v ith other
Lyrical Poems. By Gerald Masse), . London
David Bogue.
It has been the fashion of not a few who, in the
present day, affect to settle the intellectual claims
of the time, to sigh out that all is naught, and that
we are rapidly degenerating from the giants of the
elder day while others delight to tell us that this
is pre-eminently the age of intellect, and trium-
phantly exclaim, " tha schoolmaster is abroad," 41

A DELIBERATE. OFFENDER.—A little boy, only eight
years old, a short time since fell down a shaft of the North
American Mine, in Pennsylvania, being a perpendicular
distance of 63 feet, and struck upon the back and head of
a Cornish man, who was at work in the bottom of the
ury, gathered himself. up, wet as
shaft. The little fellow having bounded off into a shallow
pool of water, without in,l
he was, and ran up the ladder,
clhe miner. fall chase
behind, threatening to whipfor," said he, "any caw
might ace that he did it on purpcm".

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD, AND GENERAL COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER

LIVERPOOL SPRING ASSIZES.

CROWN COURT.-TUESDAY, MARCH 21.

(BEFORE MR. JUSTICE CRESWELL.)

CHARGE OF BIIRGLA.RY.—Thomas Perry, William
Drinkwater, and Abraham Thornely; all labourers, were
charged with having, on the 18th of January last, burglari-
ously entered the house of Peter Roberts, at Orford, and
stolen a quantity of wearing apparel and other articles.
Drinkwater pleaded guilty. Terry and Thornely were
found guilty ; the former had been previously convicted of
felony. Drinkwater had also been previously convicted of
larceny. Terry and Drinkwater were sentenced to 15
years' transportation. Thornley to be imprisoned for 12
months, with hard labour.
John Lawler, alias Higson, pleaded guilty to a charge
of having at Bolton, on the 10th of February last, broken
into the dwelling house of John McGarry, and stolen two
watches, a watch guard and other property. The prisoner
had been previously convicted of felony. Sentence, four
years' penal servitude.
Joseph Johnson pleaded guilty to an indictment for hav •
ing, at Manchester, on the 27th of January last, together
with a person at present unknown, assaulted Joseph
Clover, and robbed him of his watch. Sentence, six years'
penal servitude.
GAROTTE ROBBBRY AT LIVBRPOOL.—Thomas Brown,
John Brady, Elizabeth Rafferty, and Mary Stanley,
were charged with having, at Liverpool, assaulted Thomas
Bibby, and stolen from him a £lO note, eight sovereigns
and a half, and 6s. and 6d. in silver. All the prisoners
were found guilty. A previous conviction was proved
against Brown. Sentence twenty years' transportation.
CHARGE or PERJURY.—Benjamin Revell, a man of re-
spectable appearance, was indicted for wilful perjury at Ash-
ton. The perjury alleged was comprised in certain evidence
given by him in an action in the County-court at Ashton, in
which he was called as a witness on his own behalf. he
case for the prosecution was supported by the evidence of
a shorthand writer, who had taken notes of the proceed-
ings as they occurred in the County-court at Ashton, and
by Mr. Garside, Mr. Williamson, and several of the
officers of the County-court at Ashton. The prisoner was
committed for trial in 1852, but did not surrender at the
assizes. He afterwards went to America, and was appre-
hended on his return to this country in January last. His
lordship summed up the evidence, observing that the jury
must be satisfied that the prisoner not only made false
statements, but that he did so with the intention to com-
mit wilful and corrupt perjury, Prisoner was acquitted.
BURGLARY AT CHADDEnTols.—Henry Houghton was
charged with having entered the dwelling house of
Timothy Smith, at Chadderton,. and stolen some wearing
apparel, a ring, and other articles. The prisoner was
found guilty, and sentenced to 1.2 months' imprisonment,
with hard labour. _ _ . .

BURGLARY A 7 BOLTo3.T.—Joseph Smith was indicted
for a burglary in the house of Edmund Seddon, at Bolton,
on the night of the 3rd of January last. He was found
guilty, and sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment, with
hard labour.
HIGHWAY ROBBERY AT MANCHENTEE.---PatriCk Pol-
lard, William Corrie, Margaret Brown, and Patrick
Gilligan, were charged with having, at Manchester, on
the 26th of February last, assaulted Jeremiah Carrick, and
robbed him of a purse containing 16s. in silver, a bunch of
keys, a pair of gloves, a pocket handkerchief, and other
articles. All the prisoners were found guilty. Sentences :
Pollard, 6 years' penal servitude; Corrie and: Brown, 4
years' ditto ; Gilligan, 15 years' transportation.
The court rose at a quarter past six.