The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-12-17 00:00:00

OUR PORTFOLIO—No. XII

Our " horrid climate"—so fertile in catarrhs, rheumatism,
and blue devils—what can be said of it? but what should
prompt the invalid to fly—the mere creature of sky-y influ-
ences to pack up and depart—the devout admirer of nature's
loveliness to hasten to some more genial clime ? Our ances-
tors, the ancient Britons, (we are all true Britons, of course,)
were clothed with skins of beasts, and dwelt in huts which
they erected in the " forests and marshes with which the
country was covered." " And marshes"—mark that !we
quote the words of an eminent historian. England was a
marshy country in " those days ;" and that is not surprising,
if England's climate was then anything at all akin to what it
is in our days. What precious wild-ducks those skin-covered
ancestors of ours must have been with their nests in the
bull-rushes—strong on the wing, too, for, adds our historical
remembrancer, " they shi,fted easily their habitation, when
actuated either by the hopes of plunder or the fear of an
enemy." He has another observation upon them, but it is
almost superfluous after the preceding recitals; it is, that
" as they were ignorant of all the refinements of life, their
wants and their possessions were equally scanty and limited."
Well, the marshes have been drained pretty tolerably, but
there is water enough left upon the surface, we are happy to
say, to preserve a connection between the descriptions of
ancient geographers and the phenomena of modern times.
Our winter still comes—
" Sullen and sad, with all his rising train—
..

Vapours, and clouds, and storms."
Fogs visit us in November. The hail rebounds from our
plate glass in April, and sometimes in June and July ' • and as
to rain, simple rain, we have at all times enough of it—
enough, at least, to keep the umbrella trade from perishing.
Some people talk of the rigours of a Canadian winter;
but though different from, we question if they are greater
than, those of our sea-girt isle. In the country of the St.
Lawrence, it is true, the cold is greater, and at this season
nature assumes her universal snowy mantle • but what then ?
We are assured that the " sky is quite cloudless, the air
bracing ; and, from the absence of wind, in spite of the low
temperature, the cold is not felt to be disagreeable." Canada
is at least as inviting a country to a wandering Englishman
as England must have appeared to an inhabitant of the eter-
nal city in the days of Julius Caesar. We cannot conceive
of anything more terrible than old Albion must have seemed
to a cargo of Italian emigrants, had some speculative Wake-
field of that day been able to get up a company, and induce
a colonial settlement of society in its frame" from the
banks of the Tibur to, let us say, the banks of the Mersey,
and that they had debarked on the Lancashire side in such
another season as the present. Merciful heaven! would not
" Shadows vast—

Deep-tinged and damp—and congregated clouds,
And all the vapoury turbulence of heaven"—
in which we have been involved for months together—have
dismayed them ? Houseless wretches—without coal, without
gas—amid fens and morasses, and darkness almost Cimme-
rian, upon what an inhospitable, gloomy coast, would they
not have deemed themselves cast? Would they have stayed
to hear some soothsayer's predictions of great things here-
after to arise—would they have had an ear or stomach for
such improbable imaginings, while they looked from their
tents upon one uninterrupted and sunless envelopement of
mist—heard the continual howl of storm, or surveyed the
almost hopeless sail to which the plausible, but unreal, des-
criptions of a projector had invited them ? Modern Liver-
pool, had it been drawn for them, would, indeed, have looked
like a very beautiful castle—in the air—a mirage in the de-
sert—conjured up only to deceive and disappoint ; they would
have turned away from it as a delusion, and, most likely,
have fled the scene altogether.
Now see what wonders persevering industry has accom-
plished ! It is not in human power, indeed, to cause every
wilderness and howling waste to blossom as the rose; but
where certain capabilities exist, we may say with our writing-
master's school piece, that " labour overcometh all things."
It is true that our sun is not, like the sun of Italy, overhead ;
neither do we go abroad to bask in his rays, or to enjoy his
light; nor is there anything in his appearance that should
tempt us to worship him, as the Persians do the great lumi-
nary above. No ; our sun is beneath the earth's surface,
and we dig him up—the most manageable of constellations—
just as we want him. With this invaluable body we coun-
teract all the churlishness of nature in other respects, and
can do almost anything. With this we smile at frosts and
imbrious falls, darkness and tempest, and are unenvious of
those who are warmed without labour, and who, stretched
under the open canopy of heaven, are content with existence,
as in itself enjoyment. With this we greet even winter—
" ruler of th' inverted year"—and crown him
King of intimate delights,
Fireside enjoyments, home-born happiness,
And all the comforts that the lowly roof
Of undisturbed retirement, and the hours
Of long uninterrupted evening, know."
In short, it is here that nature has compensated us for what
she has otherwise denied, and, upon the whole, we have rea-
son to be grateful for her favours. It is no forced or extra-
vagant hypothesis to say that Englishmen owe a great deal
to their outwardly ungenial clime. It .supplies
a perpetual
spur to their exertions, and gives vitality to their industry ;
it creates in them that desire for comforts which forms so
fixed a trait in the national character. Nor is this stimulus
in vain : a bountiful Providence has taken care that it shall
not be so; and England is just England—that is to say,
simply with her people the first and finest country on the
face of the earth. Those who rail at our climate are but
shallow people, and we pity their ignorance.

The executors of Dr. Soloman, who died in 1819, after
having acquired a large fortune by his Balm of Gilead, are
contending in Chancery some matters arising out of the
provisions of the will as to the management of the business
of balm•making.
Notice has been given, that application is intended to be
made to Parliament in the nest session for leave to bring in
a Bill to incorporate a company, by the name or style of
" The Farmers' and Gardeners ,Hail-Storm Insurance Com-
pany."—Mark Lane Express.