The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-05-30 00:00:00

WHERE IS THE BRITON'S HOME .'

Where is the Briton's borne?
Where the free step can roam,
Where the free sun can glow,
Where a free air can blow,
Where a free ship can bear
Hope and strength : everywhere
Wave upon wave can roll—
East and west—pole to pole—
Where a free step can roam—
There is the Briton's home I

Where is the Briton's home?
Where the brave heart can come,
Where labour wins a soil,
Where a stout heart can toil—
Where gold or fame is won,
Where never sets the sun,
Where a brave heart can come,
'There is the Briton's home !

-Where is the Briton's home?
Where the mind's light can come,
'Where our God's holy word
Breaks on the savage herd—
Where a new flock is won,
To the bright Shepherd-One,
Where the church bell can toll,
Where soul can comfort soul,
Where Holy Faith can come,
There is the Briton's home?

Where is the Briton's home?
Where man's great law can come,
Where the treat truth can speak,
Where the slave's chain can break,
Where the white's scourge can cease,
Where the black dwells in peace,
Where, from His angel-hall,
God sees us brothers all—
Where light and freedom come-
-There is the Briton's home!

Sin E. B. LYTTON

REVIEWS OF BOOKS,

Turkey, _Russia, the Black Sea, and Cireassia.
By Captain Spencer. London : Routledge & Co.
The belligerent condition of the European states
has evidently acted as a powerful stimulus in un-
locking the stores of knowledge possessed by nume-
rous well-informed individuals relative to the con-
dition, physical and social, of those countries which
form, more or less directly, the scene of our mari-
time and military operations. A desire to possess
accurate information on those points which will
enable intelligent men to form some rational esti-
mate as to the probable duration of the present
war is both natural and praiseworthy, and every
day's experience puts us more and more in the way
of its acquisition. With most probably a natural
flow, the current appears to set strongly in the
direction of Turkey, and the leading peculiarities
of that country and the people inhabiting and
governing it, appear to be objects of general solici-
tude to the civilians as well as to the naval and
military portion of the British population. In con-
tributing to this flood of current knowledge, if
personal experience, aptitude of observation, and a
wish to convey important and exact information,
constitute a claim on public attention, Captain.
Spencer is justly entitled to a favourable considera-
tion from the intelligent reader. He has travelled
through nearly every portion of the Turkish em-
pire, with a deliberate and leisurely pace ; he
understands, and speaks most of the languages of
the country fluently, and sympathises acutely with
the feelings of the people ; and, above all, he mani-
fests a spirit of lively diligence in taking note of
men and things. Passing over his clear delineation
of localities, and his speculations as to their military
and commercial capabilities, we will give as a
specimen of his general style, and of the character
of his interesting book, the following particulars
relative to a remarkable group of men, two of
whom, at the present moment, occupy a conspicuous
position in the public eye, while the third,
though now withdrawn from the scene of turmoil
and contention, is yet deeply interesting from the
bias he threw into the course of Turkish affairs.
These are

words of the editor, who in his introductory remarks
gives the following

A brief sketch of the early labours of a young clergy-
man in a country parish may, perhaps, present few at-
tractions to the general reader. Pastoral visits among
farmers and the agricultural poor, the tedious monotony
of the village school, and plain sermons for plain and
homely people, are subjects containing little of that excite-
ment which more striking, incidents furnish, and which is
the main charm of most modern publications. Neverthe-
less, these subjects possess an intrinsic importance, and
their value will not fail to be appreciated by all those who
watch with anxiety the present aspect of the world, and
estimate as they deserve those deep principles of religion
and morality which are the only sure basis of a people's
happiness. Not religious men only, but philanthropists
and politicians look with well-grounded hope to the efforts
of the parochial clergy to correct the ignorance and de-
pravity which abound in our towns and villages ; and the
present revival of a spirit of zealous self-devotion in the
pastoral work has been hailed by the Church generally as
a providential antagonist to that concentrated evil which
is the natural result of our neglected population. The
subject of our present memoir was eminently endowed
with this ministerial zeal, and with an almost chivalrous
admiration fdr the doctrines and discipline of the Church
of England. He moreover possessed, in a remarkable de-
gree, the rarer grace of personal piety, and a spirit of
prayer which was kept alive by habits of systematic devo-
tion. Of the order and frequency of his prayers, vows,
and intercessions, his manuscript books of private devo-
tion bear a striking evidence. It is these valuable relics
which throw a halo round a character which might other-
wise have been taken for commonplace, and give a saintly
importance to every thing he has left behind. We in-
voluntarily reverence the memory of the man whose
chamber was a well-ordered sanctuary, whose life was
spent in the Divine Presence, and whose last actions were
the result of the highest and most disinterested motives.

OBSERVATIONS ON CLERICAL DUTIES.

The work is faithfully carried out in the spirit
indicated in the above extract. The gentleness of
spirit, yet firmness of purpose which appear to
have constituted leading features in the character
of the Rev. Edward Hughes, are insisted on and
illustrated with a fervour of earnestness which
shows plainly that the editor has entered heartily
into his task, and executed it con amore. The
book will be found charming in its artlessness as
it is unpretending and valuable in the fidelity of
its delineative narrative.

History/ of the Dominion of the Arabs i 4 Spain.
By J. A. Conde ; Translated by Mrs. Jonathan
Foster. London: Henry G. Bohn.

The volume now before us is the first of Dr.
Conde's learned and celebrated work, in which is
given, if not the only certainly the best account of
the Arabic dominion in Spain which is to be met
with in any European tongue. In an introductory
essay, by which the history is opened, the learned
Spaniard commences by remarking on the small
reliance generally to be accorded to the annals of
a people, and the history of events, which are de-
tailed by historians inimical in feeling and adverse
in interest to the parties whose histories they nar-
rate ; glancing incidentally at the faithlessness of
the narratives of Carthagenian civilisation and
achievements as they are given by Roman authors,
and analogically inferring the suspicion attaching
to the Spanish accounts of Arabian rule in the
Peninsula. With a view to doing more justice to
the subject, the author avows his resolution to be
guided by the aid of such Arabian documents rela-
tive to their sway in western Europe as he has
been able to fall in with ; using, in many instances,
the phraseology as well as adopting the views of
the Arabian writers. In doing this it is obvious
that, unless due discrimination be observed in avoid-
ing the Scylla of Spanish prejudice, he will be apt
to run into the Charybdes of Asiatic misrepresen-
tation. Our author seems fully aware of this
difficulty, and declares his resolution to act with
impartiality. He labours with much assiduity,
and no small amount of success, to make out a case
in favour of the Oriental invaders, and shows from
incontestible evidence that Spain owed much to
the learning, the civilisation, and the political rule
of the Arabs. In speaking of that rule, and en-
larging on the learning which the conquerors dis-
seminated among the conquered, he is eloquent
upon the benefits conferred ; and, in an equally
effective strain, he condemns the partial and dis-
torted representations of the early European
writers. To many of our readers the following
observations will be new respecting

COSREW PACHA, HALIL PACHA, AND OMAR PACHA
Cosrew Pacha, one of the most trusted advisers of the
late and present Sultan, to whom we were indebted for
many kind offices, on our first visit to Constantinople,
,was a Circassian slave. After filling in succession the
highest offices in the state up to Seraskier and Grand
Vizier, he died at a very advanced age—it is said, nearly
a hundred. Halil Pacha, his adopted son, who also filled
the highest offices in the state, commenced life as a slave ;
his elevation to the position of son-in-law of Sultan
Malimoud was almost unprecedented even in such a demo-
cratic country as Turkey. We may say the same Of Riza
Pacha, who from being a waiter in a coffee-house gradually
advanced step by step till he also became the son-in-law of
the Sultan. It appears that Hall Pacha, who was the
son of Christian parents, was first a slave to a wealthy
Armenian, then to a Turkish effendi, and afterwards to
Cosrew, who, seeing he possessed very superior natural
talents, had him educated with great care ; and, finding
his conduct uniformly good, and his disposition kind and
;tractable, not only adopted him as his son, but through
his powerful influence with the Sultan prevailed with him
to bestow upon his protigg the hand of his favourite
daughter. Cosrew was an accurate judge of character.
Of this we have another instance in Omar Pacha, who has
also been indebted to him for much of his success in life.
This gallant general who up to the present time has made
the Russians eat more dirt than ever they did before, in
their wars with Turkey, was not originally a slave, it is
true, but he arrived in Turkey a friendless refugee. After
embracing Islamism, he was invested by Cosrew, who was
at that time Seraskier, with the rank of officer in the
Nizam. The penetrating eye of his patron soon discovered
that the young foreigner had more genius, talent, and
enterprise than the majority of the Moslem officers in the
army ; consequently, he never omitted an opportunity of
advancing the interests of a man who he felt certain
would prove a valuable servant of the Sultan in the hour
of need. During our 86our in Constantinople in 1836,
we had frequent interviews with Cosrew respecting the
proposed admission of English officers into the Turkish
army. Omar was at this time attached to the personal
staff of the Seraskier ; and his handsome person, gentle-
manly manners, and the fluency with which he spoke
German, French, and Italian, impressed us with the
opinion that he was a singularly favourable specimen of an
Osmanli. Indeed, we had our misgivings as to the
genuineness of his title to be considered a son of Othman,
grounded on his very superior intelligence, and his Euro-
pean style of walking. When we last saw this very ex-
traordinary man, it was at Scopia, in Macedonia, where
we with some difficulty recognised in the lion of the day
the unknown aide-de-camp and secretary of Cosrew, the
Seraskier. He was then preparing, at the head of a large
army, to take the field against the insurgent Mahometans
of Albania and Bosnia. It was in quelling the insurrec-
tions iu Syria and Albania that he first eminently distin-
guished himself. In Kurdistan he was equally fortunate ;
but the most important service he rendered the Turkish
Government was in subduing the revolt of the beys and
spahis in Bosnia, where, with a very inferior force, he
triumphed in every engagement. In short, throughout
his whole career, he has not only displayed military talents
of no common order, but the tact and ability of an en-
lightened legislator. Ever the friend of the poor rayah,
he became the idol of that long-despised race, and at the
same time retained the attachment of the Moslems. In-
deed, since his advent to power, he has done more to allay
the differences between the members of the many rival
creeds in Turkey than any other man of his day.
, Although a diligent observer of the external
aspect of scenes, circumstances, and situations,
Captain Spencer does not confine himself exclu-
sively to these matters, but speculates with bold-
ness and sagacity on the moral aspect of events,
and deduces conclusions from them with facility
and skill. True, indeed, his partialities seem to
run more in favour of democracy, and his sympa-
thies to be more in unison with democratic action,
than is consistent with sound philosophy ; still he
indicates much shrewdness in political remark.
He looks on the present war with Russia as a
matter which the Czar himself could not control
entirely, or even completely avert ; he looks on it,
in fact, as one of the social necessities of the Auto-
crat's position, as will be seen from the subjoined
estimate of

THE CAUSES OP THE WAR.

The present Czar of Russia, were he in the highest
degree civilised and humane,i could not control a million
of bayonets, officered
winmen who look to their sword as
the means that musty em wealth and honour.
Neither can he curb an ambitious aristocracy and a fanatic
hpeeaopvlene ptoossepsrosedpagwaittlek the amibehef that they are destined by
their own peculiar creed, the only
give
orthodox faith, and laws to the world. Nay, the
enterprise is considered by every true Muscovite as a
to
sacred duty, bequeathed
be tom performi3 by Peter the
Great, and he believes it to
and from oundang h
upon him to
execute as if it were a Comm high.
Captain Spencer declares boldly that the real
strength of the Russian autocrat consists not
much in the seried " million of bayonets" he can
command as in the fears of the 'European rulers,
and their secret sympathy with him in his opposi-
tion to free political institutions, and in eloquent
terms he urges upon the British people to -wage
the war now commenced with energy and power,
as a defence of freedom against barbarism and
despotic power. The book is well entitled to a
patient perusal, and will repay a carefid study.

Four Years of Pastoral Work ; beino. a Sketch
of the Ministerial Labours of the Rev Edward

John Rees Hughes.

London : J. Masters.

The interesting little biographical memoir of
which the above is the title has been edited by the
Rev. Cecil Wray, M.A., incumbent of St. Martin's,
Liverpool, and is remarkable for the kindness of
feeling and the deep interest felt by the reverend
editor towards the subject of the memoir, for whom
he has obviously entertained a sincere affection.
The intention and objects sought by the publica-
tion of such a memoir will be best conveyed in the

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD, AND GENERAL COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER.