The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-01-17 00:00:00

THE PAST.

BY MRS. ACTON TINDAL.

Passatr a possato, e per sempre I—AzELTo.

Tisa Past is past! with many a hopeful morrow;
Its errors and its good works live with God;
The agony is o'er of joy or sorrow;
The flowers lie dead along the path we trod.

She Past is past ! in solemn silence taking
Alike the sunny and the rainy day,
On the live altar of the fond heart breaking
Full many an idol built on feet of clay.

The Past is past! in certain still rotation,
Deadening and loosening, as it traveled by,
Mich hope that bounds in glad anticipation,
Each vived passion acid each tender tie !

The Past is past ! and our young selves departed
Upon the flashing whirl of those fleet years;
Its lessons leave us sadder, stronger hearted,
More slow to 19ve, less prodigal of tears.

The Past is past, and knowledge taught suspicion
To dim the spirit with its foul, cold sunshine;
Tor many a base and dark thing finds admission
Amid the wisdom learn; from life and time.

The Past is past ! and in that twilight valley
Dwell slow repentance and the vain regret;
Fears for the future from those shadows sally,
And hang around the path before us yet.

The Past is past ! and ah ! how few deplore it,
Or would re-live their time had they the power;
Though Nature, sometimes, rseakly wEepeth o'er it
At memory of some wrong, or happier hour.

The Past is past! There's bitter joy in knowing
'Tis gone for ever; dead, and buried deep,
It lies behind, and on life's stream is flowing,
Where the dark waters of the Dead Sea sleep.

The Past is past! in faith and pltience taking
Its lessons, let us lay them on our hearts;
The chain's attenuated links are breaking;
Be earnest I—use the present ere it parts.

REVIEWS OF BOOKS.

Ile History of the Decline and Fall of the
_Boman .kmpire. By Edward Gibbon. Lon-
don : Henry G. Bohn.
A re-publication of the great historical work of
Gibbon at this time of day, and in the peculiar
temper of the times, may, to many, appear an un-
called-for, and to not a few a hazardous enterprise.
In opposition to the views of both the classes
referred to, Mr. Bohn has entered upon the under-
taking, and experience of his unflinching perse•
rerance, added to the native sagacity which has
guided his career, fully warrants the conviction
that he will conduct it spiritedly to a successful
termination. No one knows better than he does
that, to attain success, it must be deserved, and,
in obedience to this dictum, he has set earnestly
about the work of obtaining success for his edition
of Gibbon by deserving it. To the author's text
he adds an extensive collection of variorum notes,
including, among others, those of Guizot, Wenck,
Schreiter, and Hugo ; while the whole is brought
out under the superintendent editorship of "An
English Churchman." The edition, with all its
notes, will be comprised in six handsome and
handy volumes, which will be published at a very
cheap rate. The first volume, which is now before
us, is prefaced by a lengthened preliminary essay
from the pen of M. Guizot, himself no mean
authority on historical subjects, while the acknow-
ledged soundness of his Protestant Christianity
affords sufficient guarantee for every care being
taken that the interests of the Christian faith and
Church are efficiently guarded from the latitudi-
narianism of Gibbon. Besides the prefatory essay
referred to, M. Guizot likewise contributes to the
volume a brief memoir of the life of Gibbon. In
his prefatory essay the learned French statesman
and historian says of the " Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire,"