The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-11-08 00:00:00

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THE BRIDAL DAY.-By L. E. L.

(From Friendiship 's Offering for 1837.)

She leans beside her mirror, in her old accustomed place.
Yet something unfamiliar is on lovely face
She wears a wreath, a snow-white wreath, which yet she never wore—
It gives a paleness to the cheek, unknown to it before.
The maiden goeth to the grove, and of the flowers beneath,
She takes the lily or the rose, to hind her midnight wreath
But of one plant she gathers not, though fair its blossoms he,
Only the bride heti' leave to wear buds from the orange-tree.
Once, only once, that wreath is worn—once only may she wear
The pale white wreath of orange flowers within her shining hair
They wear, upon their soft wan bloom, the shade of coming years ;
The spiritual presence is around of human hopes and fears.
Aye, let her soft and thoughtful eyes upon her mirror dwell,
For, in that long and tender look she taketh her farewell
Of all her 3-outh's uneonsciousness—of all her lighter cares,
And for a deeper, sadder life—a woman's lot—prepares.
She leaves her old, familiar place=the hearts that were her own ;
The love to which she trusts herself is yet a thing unknown :
Though at one name her cheek turn red, though sweet it be to hear,
Yet for that name she must resig,ii so much that has been dear.
It is an anxious happiness—it is a-fearful thing—
When first the maiden's small white hand puts-- on the golden ring ;
She passeth from her father's house unto another's care ;
And who may say what troubled hours, what sorrows wait her there ?
Ah ! love and life are mysteries, both blessing and both blest ;
And yet how much they teach the heart of trial and unrest ;
Sweet maiden,while these troubled thoughts 'mid bridal fancies sweep,
Well mayst thou pensive watch the glass, and turn aside to weep.

THE MUFFLED DRUM.-By MR3. HEMSNS.

The muffled drum was heard
In, the Pyrenees by night,
With a dull, deep, rolling sound,
Which told the hamlets round
Of a soldier's burial rite.

•
But it told them not how dear
In a home beyond the main,
aS the warrior youth laid low that hour,
fly a mountain stream of Spain.

The Oaks of England wav'd
O'er the slumbers of his race.
QM- B•it a pin.. of the lioneeval made moan
a Above his lone place:

When the muffled drum was heard
In the Pyrenees by night,
a With a den, dull, rolling sound,
k Which call'd strange echoes round
Tu the soldier's burial rite.
Brief was the sorrowing. iltre.
By the stream from battle red,
And tossing on its wave the plumes
Of many a stately head;

But a mother—anon to die,
„, And a .ister—loug_to weep,
Ev!n_ then were hreathitrz pra,yer for him.
In that home beyond the deep :
While the mufll:•d. drum was heard
In the Pyrenees by night,
With a dull, deep, rolling sound,
And the dark pines mourned round
O'er the soldier's burial rite,

CONTEMPORARY' PRESS.

LORD GLENELG IN INVERNESS.—One would have
thought that, from past experience, the ennobled secre-
tary for the colonies, under the O'Connell ascendancy,
would hat-e regarded Inverness with feelings the reverse
of friendly.or agreeable. In dial county, he was des-
tined to suffer the most inglorious defeat that ever over-
took a.plaCe...hunting and unprincipled politician. That
was the scene of a galling humiliation indeed; for he was
turned adrift not from any sudden caprice, but after a fair
and deliberate trial. He was put in the balance and found
wanting. The constituency of fnverness marked him
with the brand of an O'C'orinellite and anti-protestant
slave—nor could the balsam of a peerage heal the wonnd
which the verdict of his own countrymen inflicted. With
-what view, then, he should appear ,as a public man before
the people of the northern capital, we cannot comprehend,
unless indeed he intended to remind the world of the fact,
that a liberal 'ministry were compelled by the honest de-
cision of a high-spirited constituency to pitch-fork one of
their chief officials inio the House of Lords, in order to
give him a seat in
.parliament.
Lord Glenelg, however, is not very nice in matters of
this kind, and accordingly he very greedily accepted an
invitation to dinner from the lump of the Inverness
whigs. Such invitations, alas do not often fall in the
way of a Whig minister—and Lord Glenelg was not the
man to throw away a dinner. Accordingly last Friday
a body of individuals assembled to receive his lordship,
when it was resolved to give the affair a political turn,
although originally the party met merely for a convivial
purpose—that of congratulating the noble secretary upon
his creation. Every expedient was adopted to obtain a
full attendance—tickets were given to a number of poor
fellows—all were pressed into the service; but notwith.
standing, the turn out was comparatively meagre and
insignificant.

AS for the speeches delivered by the ennobled secre-
tary, what,could be said by Charles Grant What prin-
ciple has he not advocated? what party has, he not sup-
ported ?—tory, whig, liberal, and radical—everything
by turns and nothing just as long as it suited his interest.
The colleague of Castlereagh, Canning, Goderich, Wel-
lington, Grey, Melbourne—here is a politician of the
true omnibus kidney ! What was Charles Grant twenty
years ago ? The creature of his own interests. What
was he yesterday ? The creature of his own interests.
What is he to day ? The creature of his own interests. •
What will he be to morrow ? The creature of his own
interests; and so will he remain to the end of the chap-
ter. Was there ever a more consistent individual ? The
Vicar of Bray was an ass to Chatles Grant.
We feel as if we were guilty of an act of folly in re-
ferring to any oration pronounced by this Minister of
Clouts—" this thing of shreds and atches." But it
must be remembered that a, Speech from Lord Glenelg
is a rarity—he ffuty be heard ;noting on the treasury
benches, but as he does not, on such occasions, articulate
very distinctly, we ought to be thankful when he indi-
cates his pretended opinions in sounds of an intelligible
order._ He has somehow obtained the reputation of an
eloquent speaker, and we admit that he is by no means
the smallest of the wholesale dealers-in types and meta-
phors--7but to say that he is a statesmanlike or a philo-
sophical speaker would make a gib cat laugh at such
absurdity. We take leave to say that his recent speech
at Inverness was a tissue of the dreariest drivel and the
most threadbare tinsel that were ever patched together
in the shape of a speech.
But what has Lord Glenelg to say for his ministerial
colleagues ? Their great merit in his eyes is that the
Whig-radical cabinet rest their principles on the same
foundation as the cabinet of Earl Grey. Now this is a
merit. which everybody, not an idiot, denies them to pos
secs. Lord Glenelg cannot show- upon what ether
ground it was that Lord Stanley, Sir James Graham,
Lord Ripon, and the Duke of Richmond, left the minis-
try, and were followed by Earl Grey himself. Why
was it that these distinguished individuals opposed the
present ministry during the last session ? But if this
fact will not satisfy Lord Glenelg, what has he
to say
of O'Connell's declaration made at Glasgow, that the
whigs now in power are totally different from the whigs
of four years ago? Yet with such evidence this sleepy-
headed secretary asserts that they are the same ! How
is such drivel to he answered ?
Lord Glenelg touched upon the aPpropriation clause,
and defended it on the ground that its °hied was to af-
ford eduCation.to the Irish people. Lord Glenelg knows
—be must know—that such is not its object. It is in-
tended to take from the Protestant Church a portion of
its revenues, professedly with the ulterior view of de
voting the miscalled surplus to educational purposes—
but the principle cannot come into operation before half
a century. Ilad he said that the. cause was designed to
provide instruction, such as it is, for the next genera-
tion or the one following, there would have been sonic
truth in his statements—which, as it stands, is a gross
delusion. But Lord Glenelg also knows that the oppo-
nents of the appropriation clause have no objection to
provide means forinitructing the Irish people, and that
consistently with a regard to the rights of the Protest-
ant Church. On this point, however, he said nothing.
With respect to the other topics introduced in his dis-
course, they consist of the most vague and general al-
lusiens—ionae of which are so obscure as to be perfectly
incomprehensible. The admirers of taudry declamation
and faded flowers of speech will, perhaps, find something
to praise in his lordship's style—but to us nothing ap-
pears so revolting as the whited sepulchre of O'Connel-
ism, embodied in this set and studied, though vapid ora-
tion.—Edinburgh Evening Post.