The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-01-11 00:00:00

NEW

The following lines, from a poem by the late M Cannin,
appear applicable to present circumstances:—

From mental mists to purge a nation's eyes,
To animate the weak, unite the wise;
To trace the deep infection that pervades
The crowded town, and taints the rural shades
To mark how wide extends the mighty waste
O'er the fair realms of science, learning, taste;
To drive and scatter all the brood of lies,
And chase the varying falsehood as it flies ;
Let patriot warmth awake, and, with bold band,
Expel these vile impostures from the land;
Confounding good and evil,—Neath whose sway
Each patriot passion sinks and dies away
Candour—which spares its foes, nor e'er
With bigot zeal to combat for his friends,
Candour—which loves in see-saw strain to tell
Of acting foolishly, but meaning well ;
Too nice to praise by wholesale or to blame,
Convinced that all men's motives are the same ;
And finds, with keen discriminating sight,
Black's not so black, nor white so very white.
I love the bold uncompromising mind
Whose principles are fixed, whose views defined,
Who scouts and scorns in canting candour's spite
All taste in morals, innate sense of right,
And nature's impulse, all uncheck'd by art,
And feelings fine, that float about the heart
Content, for good men's guidance, bad men s awe,
On moral truth to rest, and Gospeollsavfre
Britain beware; nor let theinsidi
u
Of force despairing, aim
a
deadlier
blow—
Thy peace, thystrength, devilish wiles assail,
And, when her arms are
vain, by arts prevail.
True, thou art rich,art powerful ! Through thine isle
Industrious skill, contented labour, smile.
Far seas are studded with thy countless sails—
What wind but wafts them, and what shore but hails?
True, thou art brave 1 O'er all the busy land
In patriot ranks embattled myriads stand.
But what avails to guard each outward part
If subtlest poison, circling at thy heart.
Spite of thy courage, of thy power, and wealth,
Mine the sound fabric of thy vital health?
Guard we but our own hearts ; with constant view
To ancient morals, ancient manners true—
True to the manlier virtues, such as nursed
Our fathers' breasts, and this proud isle preserved
For many a ruzged age ; and scorn the while
Each philosophic Atheist's specious guile.
Then shall we brave the storm ; in danger's hour
Placing our refuge in Jehovah's power.

Taipa

descends

A STOUT-HEARTED PEOPLE

AN IRISH VILLAGE.

MORALITY FOR THE NEW YEAR. I their treacherous friends who, following the exam-
ple of their first leader, betrayed the cause they
professed to support.

r, the Chronicles of a Clay Farm.
London : Reeve and Co.
Our agricultural readers will no doubt be sur-
prised to learn that the soundest lessons on agri-
cultural science, and yet one of the most amusing
books ever published, will be found with the above
title, but it is nevertheless true. To recommend to
general readers a work upon agriculture for their
amusement, would only elicit a look of inquisitive
wonder. 1-Ve, however, tell the truth when we say
that Cruikshank has illustrated this work in his
best style, yet the illustrations are hardly so humo-
rous as the letterpress. Pleasantry, when in good
taste, is an admirable set-off to a dull subject ; but
when it is accompanied, as in " Talpa," with new
and startling speculations, which are so clearly de-
fined, and bear so strong an appearance of truth,
that they captivate every reader, we must then con-
fess that a good work has been accomplished. The
writer of " Talpa" undertakes the most clayey of
all clay farms, and by perseverance in following the
rules of common sense and the simple indications
of science, eschewing all bigotry to antiquated no-
tions, and setting at nought the sarcasms of his
neighbours, he brings his clayey swamp into com-
plete and profitable cultivation. " Talpa" is no
model farmer, no worshipper of Ltibig, et id genus
omne, but a farmer with sufficient education to ap-
preciate the good and practicable features in the
modern theories of farming, and sufficient perseve-
rance to give a fair trial to the tedious process by
which alone agriculturists can obtain that profit
which their more fortunate brethren in manufac-
tures and trade realise with comparative ease and
rapidity. Talpa's reasons for the failure of the va-
rious kinds of steam-plough are extraordinary, and
carry the strongest conviction of truth to the rea-
der ; whilst the change he advocates must, from its
palpable correctness, be inevitably adopted.

The Dublin University Magazine. Liverpool : Orr.
This ably-conducted and entertaining periodical
commences the new year and the twenty-first of its
existence with goodly promise for the future.
There is a freshness and raciness about it charac-
teristic of its Hibernian origin ; whilst the healthy
tone which is evident almost throughout shows the
determination to dispute the palm which has been
long enjoyed by the capital of Scotland. The num-
ber for January opens with an address for the oc-
casion, entitled " Our Past, our Present, and our
Future," in which its claims are modestly but ear-
nestly put forward. An article headed " Gweedore"
gives an interesting description of one of the wildest
portions of Ireland, which has been converted,
through the judgment and patriotism of Lord
George Hill, into a pattern parish. We quote the
introduction, as a tribute justly due to the enter-
prising perseverance of our Scottish neighbours :

" Set a stout heart to a steep brae," says the Scottish
proverb, and over many a sore pinch, moral and physical,
has the truth that therein lies triumphantly borne our
northern fellow subjects during their toilsome wayfaring
from the barbarism and misery of the first half of the
eighteenth century, to the civilisation and prosperity that
at the present day distinguish Scotland among the nations.
Stout hearts did it all ; and how much was done, is it not
told by Fletcher of Saltoun, on the one hand, and by the
teeming fields of the Lothians, the busy banks and waters
of the Clyde, the factories of Renfrew, the forges of La-
nark, and, better than all, by the schools in every parish
of the kingdom, on the other ? Against the obstacles of
an ungrateful climate, a stubborn soil, popular ignorance,
feudal oppression, and government neglect, the stout na-
tive heart of Scotland set itself, and overcame them all.
" We have no hesitation in affirming," says a competent,
and not unfriendly judge, " that no settled country, of
which we have any authentic accounts, ever made half the
progress in civilisation and the accumulation of wealth,
that Scotland has done since 1763, and especially since
1787." Stout hearts, we again say, have done it all ; and
in application of the moral, we venture to ask our own
dear fellow-countrymen, what there is in the air, the soil,
the nature of the people, or the political condition of Ire-
land, to prevent like influences from pt oducing like effects
within her boundaries ?

The following extract from the same article presents
a vivid picture of the barbarism which prevailed in
some parts of Ireland at only a very recent period :

Throughout the whole parish of West Tullaghobegley,
in the year 1837 (says Patrick M`Kye, a National School
teacher, in a touching memorial to the Lord Lieutenant),
there were, among a population of 9,000, but one cart,
one plough, sixteen harrows, twenty shovels, thirty-two
rakes, and ten iron grapes ; standard weights and mea-
sures were unknown ; when a bargain was made, it was
usually subject to the condition of abiding by the capacity
of Mickey More's pot, or the weight of Fergial Beg's
round beach-stone. There were no more than six cow-
houses and two stables in the entire parish. The stunted
castle, which roamed upon the mountains in summer, in
winter wandered where they listed over the home farms.
The sheep, in addition to their annual general shearing,
were clipped now and then, here and there, whenever a bit
of wool was wanting to make up a batch of stockings for
an approaching fair, giving the " poor animals a very
strange and ridiculous, yet pitiable appearance. A fore-
quarter would be bare to the skin, while the hind was clad
and comfortable ; or the whole neck would be shorn to
the shoulders, where the spoliation generally terminated
abruptly."

•' The Golden Guillotine" is a romantic but well-
told story of the first French Revolution—a theme
prolific with incidents of the most startling charac-
ter. From " A Chapter on Legends," which to
many is always an interesting subject, we give the
following, of a more peaceful character than the
majority of such productions :