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

PPROACH TO DEMOCRACY.

It is very well to scoff at the barbarity of feudal times ;
but they had something good in them ; and those coun-
tries, among us, which yet retain something of the feeling,
have not the worst population. It is a great thing for our
amelioration in manners and morals, that we should have
in our sight persons above us ; and even if that " above
us" is a mere idea, we are the better for it. Is not the
general feeling, howsoever in modern times deteriorated,
produced by England's parks and mansions, and refined
men and women, the titled and the gentry, a blessing
bestowed upon the people at large. These things are not
of our making ; they are the growth of time, by the gift of
Providence. What does France now groan for ?—an aris-
tocracy. What is her insecurity ?—the want of a large
landed proprietary. Once gone, how hard to build up
again. The wild fanaticism of democracy in France
demolisbsd that fabric, and divided the lands. What
remains for the court of an empire—what field for the
noblest arts—where, by law, a man is compelled to divide
his property equally amongst all ? Who will build a
mansion, and ornament an estate, even if he could pur-
chase the land for a perpetuity ? You travel widely in
France, and what a contrast to England, as yet possessing
noble residences and perpetuated families ! The demo-
cratic spirit is at work to destroy them here ; the laws of
the last fifty or sixty years have done much to destroy all
this, our visible greatness bringing with it other greatness.
Democracy says, pride of ancestry shall become extinct—
families shall sink—we will entirely abrogate primogeni-
ture—we have virtually done so, by enabling tenants in
possession and tenants in tail to alienate, The operation
is going on surely, and let monarchy itself look to it, if it
can stand safe, left as a mark on the naked hill, with all
the shelter of ancestral trees levelled to the earth. Is
there not now a disinclination to establish a family ? The
man of wealth, who would gladly do so, knows he cannot
secure it to his posterity for two generations. Hence
expenditure,
.which might be making a permanent, a
beautiful reality, will be thrown upon mere temporary
things; it will not be the mansion and the park, but the
furniture—all those things which may be most easily
divided, or turned into ready money be chalked, and
numbered, and packed off to the- readiest
auction-room.
The upholsterer will supersede the architect. It is a sub-
ject well worth the attention of our legislature ; some
check should be given to these facilities of ruin and of
injustice to posterities. or we are running too fast into a
democracy from which there is no return.
A new story is commenced under the title of
" Lady Lee's Widowhood," which bids fair to be
very entertaining. From a long and favourable
notice of the Memoirs of the late Thomas Moore,
edited by Lord John Russell, we extract the follow-
ing just remarks on the

PORTRAITS OF THE LATE DUKE

The portraits of Wellington, in his declining years, give
a most imperfect idea of his noble countenance: to make
him look sagacious, they make him look wily ; all the
grandeur is gone. The sketches published since his death
are an insult to his memory ; they exhibit nothing but an
exaggeration of decrepitude, totally pervert the physiog-
nomy of the statesman and the warrior, and offend the
eye, as much as they vex the memory. The best likeness
of Wellington, the man, is the portrait by Lawrence,
Painted soon after his return from Waterloo ;—a fine,
animated, and intelligent full face ; half length, the dress
simple cloak • the general expression equally speaking
the man of high life and the hero.

It WHIG PATRONAGE OF LITERATURE.
may excite
inquiry why some men fond of problems to start the
dullness—Heger
Toryism, with all its virtues, is partial to
to the young talents
opens its friendships, feelings, or services,
satisfied with tealents which it ought to honour, and is
all the rising
accomplishments
an aristocratic barrier against
have always been wiser of the age. The Whigs
remembered their ellseri in their generation—have always
lords tends to stupidity—that
a circle of dowager
emblems of political decrepitude is
one of the most striking
talent
; and that Holland House
brought more recruits of ireato Whiggism, than all the
temptations, even of the
Treasury, brought to its rival
powers. By some fatality, all
wits of London have
Whigs for the last hundred
been all the showy
writers have dipped their wings in Air T
Whig libations ; even
of manners,
all the brilliancy of fashion, and the
have glittered round the mansions of Whiggi
the "sni ; while, if
a man of talent, destitute of
fourteen quarteringB ~
has been suffered within the folding-doors of Toryisti,:it
is quoted as a condescension. As to the Peel dynasty,
there was no help for enduring that accession from the
loom ; parliamentary workmen mys b had, at whatever
price *,. but even that dynasty rapidly contrived to A
- a-opt
—e;e6l4 Torystyle, and be as solemn, exalted, and exclusive,
as they had been all barons dating from the Conquest.
The number concludes with an ably-written politi-
cal etsay
on the recent " Defeat of the Ministry,"
from which we give the subjoined description of
TAE LEADING PEELITES.
The Peel party,i since the death of its great leader, has
had no recognised head, at
least in the House of Com-
mons. The few able men who have rescued it from
insignificance, are as nearly as
possibele, in point of intel-
lect, on a par with each other.
Graham from this estimate, as a daringexclude Sir James
and determined
adventurer, who fights for his own lad But between
Goulburn, Gladstone, and Herbert, there is
a strong
affinity. The first has the least originality, a
ability of the three ; but he has had the longest the least
and the most extensive parliamentary experience. Gvainl ad-
stone
stone is undoubtedly a man of mark, but his talents have
h
been enormously overrated. He has not, and he nevery
had, a single spark of genius. He can do nothing in the
way of invention, though in fault-finding he displays con-
siderable ingenuity; and he is never capable of appreciating
high qualities of mind in another, because he never yet
has known his own. He has moulded himself on the
model of Machiavelli, but his intellect is muddy compared
with that of the subtle Florentine. Mr. Sidney Herbert
is more impulsive, and the occasional warmth of his
speeches contrasts agreeably with the frigidity and ob-
scurity of his friends; but he has neither depth, nor power,
nor steadfastness of purpose sufficient to raise him above
the rank of a good debater. The three, however, are
notables in an age when notabilities are rare; and, being
subjected to no control, they allow themselves consider-
able license.

The writer indulges in hopes for the future, the
more pleasing from the Conservatives being rid of

their treacherous friends who, following the exam-
ple of their first leader, betrayed the cause they
professed to support.

Talpa ; or, the Chronicles of a Clay Farm
London : Reeve and Co.
Our agricultural readers will no 0
prised to learn that

the sound

übt be sur-

;ons 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
-der. We,'however, tell the truth when we say
:1-shank has illustrated this work in his

that Cruiks'
best style

et 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 Ltihig, et id genus

. .
(mine, 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, he 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 Y " 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 :

A STOUT-HEARTED PEOPLE

" 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 producing 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 :

AN IRISH VILLAGE

Throughout the whole parish of West Tullaghobegley,
in the year 1837 (says Patrick M`Kve, 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 :