The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-02-06 00:00:00

SELECTIONS.

ORIGIN OF THE TERM PINCHBECK.-We hear for
certain, that Mr. Pinchbeck, of London, will be in town
this week, with a variety of toys in his curious metal ; as
likewise a curious parcel of jeweller's work, as diamond
rings, both brilliant and roses, stone buckles of all sorts.
He also has lately invented an artificial stone, called the
Pinchbeck diamond, which he sets in gold rings, and so
nearly resembles the rose in all its properties that it has
often deceived the best judges, and is so hard that it will
stand the file, which is allowed to be a perfection that no
one artificial stone ever had before.—N.B. He allows
half-a-crown an ounce for his metal as usual.—Whit-
worth's Manchester Magazine, Oct. 7, 1746.
MALINGERING.—Dr. Gavin mentions, that a man of
the name of Henry Moor Smith, a most accomplished
villain, while in the prison of Kingston, began to spit
blood, had a violent cough and fever, and gradually
wasted away, so that those who visited him supposed that
his death was rapidly approaching. This continued for a
fortnight, and his weakness was so great that be had to
be lifted up to take medicine or nutriment. A turnkey,
unfortunately, however, left the door of the prison open
for a few moments, in order to warm a brick for his cold
extremities; on his return, Smith bad disappeared. On
being again put into prison he feigned cachexia, hrernop-
tysis, and epilepsy, but without success. He confessed
that he pretended to raise blood by pounding a brick into
powder, pu'ing it in a small rag, and chewing it in his
mouth. He contrived to vary his pulse by striking his
elbows, and said he had taken the flesh off his body in t,
days by sucking a copper cent in his mouth all night, and
swallowing the saliva.—Medical Times.
MRS. HEMANS, R. SOUTHEY, AND OTHER PORTS.--
I am quite of your opinion as to the too uniform splen-
dour of Felicia Hemans. She keeps us hovering con-
stantly on the wing, like birds of Paradise, for want of a
perch to repose upon. This cannot be said of the honest
lake poets; you may there find obscure and languid
places, where you may not only perch, but nod, till some
of those beautiful passages which redeem the poppy-
covered waste occur to wake you. Did ever I tell you of
one of said poets we have in town here, indeed one of
our intimates—the most provoking creature imaginable?
He is young, handsome, wealthy, witty ; has great learn-
ing, exhuberant spirits, a wife and children that he doats
on (circumstances one would think consolidating), and
no vice that I know, but, on the contrary, virtuous prin-
ciples and feelings. Yet his wonderful eccentricity would
put anybody but his wife wild. She, I am convinced,
was actually made on purpose for her husband, and has
that kind of indescribable controlling influence over that
wonderful savage the Czar Peter. Pray, look at the last
Edinburgh Review, and read the favourable article on
John Wilson's City of the Plague. He is the person in
question ; and had any one less in favour with them built
such a city in the region of fancy, and peopled it in the
same manner, they would have plagued him most effec-
tually.—What do you think of Lord Byron's latter
poems? The Third Canto of Childe Harold, you find,
has met its full share of admiration here. I, too, admire
it exceedingly, though I think our Indulgent critics pass
lightly over much of false sublime. Sure you must have
read the criticisms in the Edinburgh and Quarterly Re.
view on his poems,—l mean the last productions of that
wayward and wonderful mind. I need not tell you that
the first is Jeffrey's, nor that he has outdone himself in
that exquisite essay, which I am never tired of admiring.
You would also trace Walter Scott in the inferior, though
pleasing and kindhearted criticism in the Quarterly.
After all, though Scott expends a good deal of good sense
in reasoning down, and a great deal of good nature in
soothing down, the angry moods of the illustrious misan-
thrope, he could scarcely expect that he will succeed in
persuading the man to quit what be actually puts on as an
ornament. He is striving to deprive Parolles of his
drum, or a fine lady of her t ouge, and seems to forget that
his lordship, like lago, is nothing if not critical—or
rather, he is nothing if not querulous. When a child
runs away merely to be pursued, and cries merely to be
pitied, it is in vain that you bribe it to come back and be
quiet. Scott would fain infuse as much of his own honey
into Lord B.'s vinegar as would at least make oxymel of
it ; but it will not do. His " Love's Labour lost" re-
minds one of the good-natured David Hume provoking
Rousseau by trying to manufacture a little tranquility for
him.—Memoirs of Mrs. Grant, of Lagpan.

SECOND EDITION.

Standard-office, Half-past Eleven o'clo4c.

THE STATE TRIALS.

Yesterday, at the opening of the court, Mr. O'Connell
(who appeared without his wig and gown which he had
worn every day since the trial commenced) proceeded to
address the jury. He commenced by saying, that he did not
stand as his own client, but that his clients were the Irish
people, whose rights he stood forward to protect. He
was not going to deny or palliate anything he had done,
but the substance of all he had said he was there to vindi-
cate. When the political order of things was restored
every where, Ireland alone wa left without its full
day of retribution. The jury differed from him (Mr.
O'Connell) in religious belief, and that difference was,
perhaps, agagravated by the fact, that he, a Catholic,
had done most to pull down Protestant ascendency.
The prosecution was the strangest one that had ever been
entered upon : the jury had not one or ten facts to try,
but they had to wade through the history of nine months,
and the evidence of the acts as laid before them was raked
up from newspapers ; and it was a monstrous thing to term
that a conspiracy which everybody knew of, and three-
fifths of the people were engaged in. There was not suf-
ficient evidence to support an action for the recovery of
£lO. No conspiracy was proved ; and the Attorney-Ge-
neral had made a long speech, but he had at the close
merely told the jury to go back to the beginning and find
out the conspiracy for themselves, The hon. traverser
then related two or three anecdotes, which he conceived
to be in point, as showing that because the Attorney-
General had taken so long a time in stating the case, there
was really no charge against the travtrsers. The trial was
a ministerial one, to see whether the present ministry were
to retain office, or whether we were to have the whigs again
promising much and doing nothing. (Laughter.) They
could not believe that he, who was to receive that awful
judgment which could not now be much longer postponed,
could enter into a conspiracy. The verdict might impri-
son him, but it could not take from him the conscious
innocence he possessed. If the Attorney-General's doc-
trine of conspiracy were right, the slave-trade would
never have been abolished, and Wilberforce and Clarkson
were as much conspirators as he (Mr. O'Connell). The
hon. gent. then referred to what he termed the " machi-
nery" of the evidence, dividing it into two classes—mon-
ster meetings and newspaper publications. The meetings
were leaal : no disturbance took place at them—no life
was lost there—and there was no evidence brought
forward to show that they led to intimidation. They were
peaceable by design, and were discontinued the moment
a proclamation was issued discountenancing them. He
left the meetings to the jury, as men that must answer
for their verdict before their maker. As to the newspa-
pers he had nothing to do with them—there was no proof
of any connection between him and the newspapers; and
be had frequently disavowed at the association that any
newspaper was the organ of their body. They had circu-
lated newspapers, but the evidence on that point merely
went to show that those who subscribed a certain sum
allocated a part of that money to the choice of a news-
paper, and there was no proof at all that even these re-
ports in the papers had led to any breach of the peace.
The hon. gentleman then went on at great length to show
that his whole life went to disprove that he could be guilty
of such conduct as was attempted to be brought to his
charge. He then read a number of extracts to show as
he conceived how much Ireland prospered under her own
immense
number Parliament, and brought forward an
number of figures and assertions to make it appear that
his country suffered severely from the Parliament sitting
in England, and concluded as follows :—I leave the case
with you—l utterly deny that I have said or done any-
thing to warrant the imputation that I am a con-
spirator. I reject the accusation with contempt. I
acted in open day, in the presence of the government,
of the magistrates, and I said nothing that I would not
expose to the universal world. I have struggled for the
restoration of the parliament of my native country.
Some have succeeded in the attempt—others have failed.
If I succeed or If I fail, it is a glorious struggle to make
—the first land upon the earth possess that bounty and
benefit— what God and nature intended it should possess
—(partial applause.)
The Chief Justice.—Are you going into evidence Mr.
Moore ?

Mr. Moore.—We intend so, my lord ; but at this late
hour there might be a difficulty in getting the witnesses
into court in its present crowded state.
The Chief Justice.—l do not wish to put you to any
inconvenience.

Mr. Moore.—Then, my lord, I think that as the case
has closed so far as the speeches are concerned, that we
might abridge the evibence much by a conference before
any of the witnesses are produced.
The Chief Justice.—Then we will be ready to hear them
to-morrow morning.

The Court was accordingly adjourned until to-morrow
morning at ten o'clock.
Mr. O'Connell was loudly cheered while passing through
the hall, and in the vicinity of the Courts, upon his way
home.