The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-02-28 00:00:00

THE LIFE-BOAT'S CREW

An appeal on behalf of the wives and children of tl:e brave
men who were lost in the noble endeavour to rescue the
crew of a ship in distress, during the storm on Saturday,
18th Feb., 1854, off the port of Liverpool.

What noble hearts beat in the breasts
Of that right manly crew ;
INTio to their fellow creatures help.
Through storm and tempest flew.
Who, danger scorning, dared to brave
The perils of the deep—
Beneath whose roaring billows
They are sleeping their last sleep I

They quaii'd not at the storms rude might,
In majesty array'd ;
The surging waves, the roaring wind,
Coubt not make them afraid!
Oh t noble deed, to save a life
The boatmen volunteer;
They part from wives, from children, all
They love and hold most dear!

They part from home, alas! alas!
To see that home no more;—
In vain their wives and children strain
Their eyes along the shore !
They come not, for the angry sea
Has foamed the boatmens grave :
The surging waters seem to channt
An anthem for the brave.

How many aching hearts revere
The memory of the dead ;
For them hoer many sighs are heard,
How many tears are shed.
The widow and the fatherless
Shall mourn and mourn in vain ;
In this life they may never see
Their well beloved again 1

Say, oh ! shall the poor bereaved ones
Unpitied mourn and sigh?
Stall tears, the bitter tears of woe,
Bedim the orphans eye,
Without a hand held out to help,
A heart to sympathise—
To smooth the rugged path of life—
Soothe sorrows As they rise ?

Ah, no, a thrill of sympathy
Will echo through the heart;
Will bid you help, and pity too—
Will prompt the better part.
Ye cannot bring the dead to life,
But ye can give the bread
That would have been so hardly earned
By the now honour'd dead!

Yes, ye can cheer the widow's soul—
Gladden the fatherless;
Deeds which the God of Heaven Las raid
That he will surely blets.
Oh, hasten then—do good, do good—
Heaven will sure approve ;
And conscience give a rich reward
For every deed of love!

Liverpool, Feb. 24, 1554.

LITTLEQUILL.

To eommend the Annals of Tacitus would be now
a senseless task ; but to recommend perusal and
study of the work, in an easily accessible English
translation, to those whose want of early opportu-
nity has made it a sealed book in its nervous
original language, is to perform a task which many
will thank us for. The edition now under review
is one of the series favourably known as Bohn's
Classical Library, to which it forms a valuable
addition.

Household Medicine and Surgery, Sick-room
Management, and Cookery for Invalids. Lon-
don and Liverpool : W. S. Orr and Co.
THE. above is the attractive title, under which
this enterprising firm puts out its second portion
of interesting " Household Handbooks." The
object of the one above-named, the first part only
of which is now before us, is to put into the hands
of general readers such a manual of the healing art
as will render them intelligent observers of their own
bodily functions and constitution, and as'such, more
readily conversant with the means of repairing
breaches in its condition, and of intelligently fol-
lowing the prescriptions of the regular practitioner
by understanding the objects at which he aims,
and by having a general comprehension of the
means by which he seeks to attain those objects.
The various subjects, so far as we have yet seen,
are treated with an easy and succinct plainness
which brings them readily within reach of ordinary
intelligence. This simplicity and lucidity of manner
is well illustrated in the following observations on

REVIEWS OF BOOKS.

The Works of Tacitus. The Oxford Translation
revised. With Notes. London : Henry G.
Bohn.

THIS, which is the first volume of the famed
historical work of the celebrated Annals of Tacitus,
gives, in an agreeable English dress, the nervous
and lucid narration of the great Roman historian.
Commencing with a summary review of the family
history of Augustus, it passes in rapid, but not less
vivid recapitulation, the various incidents of Roman
history, till, on closing the first volume, the reader
finds himself engaged in studying the wild, rapa-
cious, foolish, and headstrong career of Nero, a
public officer whose name is looked on as synony-
mous with all that is vile, selfish, extravagant, and
abandoned in human nature ; a despot in whom is
supposed to have been concentrated all that was
odious in tyranny, shameful in sensuality, bar-
barous in cruelty, revolting in treachery, and
imbecile in cowardly weakness. Such a combina-
tion, indeed, of evil passions and unbridled indul-
gence is popularly attributed to Nero, as to have
acquired for him a notoriety as extensive and last-
ing as it is discreditable to our common humanity.
That such a character is overdrawn may, indeed,
be true ; but after making large allowance for the
overeolouring, there still remains a fearful residue
of uncontradicted accusation. Of his cupidity and
credulous hope, as well as of his boundless and
dangerously vindictive vanity, the following illus-
trations, if not new, may be instructive to some of
our readers, as indicating some of the

ROYAL PREROGATIVES AND AMBITION WHICH RULED
IN ANCIENT ROME.
After this, Nero was made the object of fortune's
sport, through his own credulity and the representations
of Cesellius Bassus, a Carthaginian by birth, and of a wild
and irregular cast of mind ; who perverted a vision of the
still night into a foundation for the most confident hopes :
making a voyage to Rome, he procured access to the
prince by money, and laid before him the intelligence that
there had been discovered on his estate a cavern of im-
mense depth, containing a vast quantity of gold, not re-
duced to the form of coin, but in shapeless masses, as it
used to be in ancient times. In fact, ingots of surprising
weight were lying in one part, and in another were stand-
ing bars of the same metal : treasures which had lain con-
cealed for so long a period to augment the happiness of
the present times. For the rest, to show the probability
of the thing, he suggested that Dido the Phoenician, when
she fled from Tyre, and founded the city of Carthage,
had secreted those treasures, lest the newly-established
people should run riot from superabundance of wealth ;
or the kings of the Nureidians, otherwise inimically
disposed, should be incited to make war upon her by a
desire to get possession of the gold."
In consequence of this, Nero, without sufficient evidence
of the veracity of the man, or the credibility of his story,
and without having sent persons to ascertain whether the
facts were as reported, even heightened the popular ex-
pectation himself, mid despatched persons to convey away
the wealth as though it had been spoil already acquired.
Three-oared galleys and chosen mariners were employed,
to facilitate despatch ; nor during those days did any
other topic engage the credulity of the people, or the dis-
cussions of the wise. It happened also that the quinquen-
nial games were then celebrating, on closing the second
lustmm ; and the poets and orators drew their principal
materials from this source for praising the princi : for
they said;'that not only were the customary fruits pro-
duced, and gold mixed with other metals, but the earth
gave forth her treasures with unheard-of exuberance, and
the gods brought riches and laid them at his feet ; with
such other degrading flatteries as men of the highest elo-
quence and the most abject servility could invent, well
assured of the credulous facility of the prince. •
Meanwhile, his extravagance, encouraged by these
-chimerical anticipations, grew still more excessive ; and
his existing treasures were wasted under the idea that
fresh ones had fallen in which would supply his lavish
expenditure for many years. Nay, he even now made
largesses from this source, and the expectation of riches
was one of the causes of the impoverishment of the state :
for Bassus having made excavations on his own estate,
and on the surrounding lands, to a wide extent, affirming
now this and then another place as the site of the pro-
mised mine, and attended not only by the soldiers but a
throng of rustics engaged to do the work, at length came
to his senses, and, wondering that his dreams should
never have proved false before, and that this was the
first time he had been mocked by one, he escaped from
the anguish of shame and the dangers that threatened
him, by a voluntary death. Some authors have stated
that he was thrown into chains, and soon after released,
his goods being taken from him in lieu of the royal
treasure.
Meanwhile, as the quinquennial games were now ap-
proaching, the senate, to avert the disgrace of the em-
peror's appearing, offered to him " the victory in song ;"
and added "the crown of eloquence," to veil the indecorum
of his theatrical exhibition. But Nero insisting, "that
he needed not the favour and protection of the senate, and
declaring that he was a match for his competitors, and
would obtain the honours due to his talents by the con-
scientious decision of the judges," first recited a poem
upon the stage ; but afterwards, the people importuning
him "to give them the benefiit of all his accomplish-
ments" (their very words), he mounted the orchestra, and
complied with all the laws of the harp : not to sit down
from fatigue ; not to wipe off the perspiration with any-
thing but the garment he wore ; and that no secretions
from the mouth or nostrils should be visible. Lastly,
going down upon his knee, and stretching out his hand in
a supplicatory form to the persons assembled there, he
awaited the voices of the judges with pretended agitation ;
and the populace of the city, for their part, accustomed to
encourage the gesticulations of the stage-players, ap-
plauded him from one end of the theatre to the other, in
measured time, and according to a set form of clapping :
you would have supposed that they were delighted, and
possibly they were, from insensibility to the public dis-
graCe.
But those who had come from remote municipal towns,
and occupied that part of Italy where strictness of man-
ners and primitive simplicity were still preserved; those,
too, who had come from
the various distant provinces in
the capacity of ambassadors, ors, or on private business, could
neither endure this
sight,. nor we re able to_ perform the
degrading task ; for their inexperienced hands soon tired,
and they embarrassed those who understood it, in conse-
quence of which they were often struck by the soldiers,
differen parts of the benches, that
who were stationed in
not a moment of time should be misapplied in discordant
applause or sluggish silence. It is certain that many
knights were trampled th at in making their vcay
through the crowded avenues and the pressing multi-
tude ; and that others, from being on the seats for a
day and a night, without intermission, were seizedseriuswoith
dangerous disease ; for, in truth, they had more
apprehensions if they failed in attending the exhibition,
there being many employed openly, and more secretly, to
note the names and countenances, the alacrity or re-
luctance of the company. The consequence was, that
punishment was at once inflicted on the meaner sort ;
while his resentment against persons of rank was stifled
for the present, and paid off afterwards.
In the above extract we have abundant evidence
of that curious compound of credulous greed,
ignorant profusion, boundless vanity, and mistaken
refinement, which met in constitution of an
Imperial Roman of tin middle period of the empire,

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD, AND GENERAL. COiVIMERCIAL ADVERTISER.

PARLIAMENTARY OATHS BILL.-
TOWN' S MEETING.
DISCREDITABLE PROCEEDINGS.

A BILL having been introduced into the House of Com-
mons by Lord John Russell, for altering the oaths admi-
nistered to members of parliament on taking their seats ;
and in the belief that this bill is a measure fraught with
danger to the Protestant institutions of this country, it
was resolved that the inhabitants of Liverpool should have
an opportunity of expressing their disapprobation of the
proposed alteration, and of adopting a petition to the
legislature againi4 its adoption. In furtherance of this
object, a requisition, addressed to the Mayor, soliciting
him to convene a public meeting, for adopting measures
to carry out these views, in the form of a petition against
the bill being allowed to pass into a law, was presented to
his worship on Tuesday last. The requisition, which
was, within a few hours, signed by two hundred highly
respectable and influential gentlemen, was as follows
We, the undersigned inhabitants of the borough of
Liverpool, valuing the Protestant constitution of our coun-
try, and the privilege of giving free expression to our
sentiments on all important measures brought before the
legislature ; and perceiving that a bill proposing to remove
the only securities for our Protestant religion contained
in the Emancipation Bill, has been read a first time in the
House of Commons, and is announced for the second
reading on the 27th instant, request your worship to con-
vene, at your earliest convenience, a public meeting, for
the purpose of considering the propriety of a petition to
the two Houses of Parliament, deprecating the dangerous
character of the said bill, and imploring that it may not
be allowed to pass into a law."
The Mayor at once complied with the request so gene-
rally and respectfully addressed, and called a meeting, to
take place in the Borough Sessions-house, on Friday, at
twelve o'clock.

The announcement proved greatly exciting to the Radi-
cal-and Popish party. A conjoint opposition was at once
resolved on, and the followinc, circular was extensively
distributed in the course of Thursday

TO THE FRIENDS OF CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS
LIBERTY.

Sir,—You are requested to attend the meeting, called by
the worshipful the Mayor, at the Sessions—house, to-morrow
(Friday), at twelve o'clock, and support the bill proposed by
her Majesty's ,government for dispensing with useless and
offensive oaths. Ilrin; as many of your friends as possible.
—James Aikin, W. Itathbone. W. Earle, John Yates, j-in.,
James Crosfield, Richard Sheila J. R. Jeffery, J. B. Aspinall,
T. Lloyd, James H. Macrae.

Live'rpi)ol, 23rd February, 1854.
In some degree to counteract the effects of this circular,
and to prevent the meeting from being packed by the
opponents of its objects, and in the belief that, as on
several former occasions, adjourning the meeting to the
Amphitheatre, as being larger and more commodious,
would be complied with in this instance, arraagements
were made for, securing the use of the building. The
Working Men's Branch of the Reformation Society, like-
wise, issued the annexed circular :