The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-04-09 00:00:00

laughed upon our dark path, and again the dark curtain
fell, just as in the time-annihilating power of thought,
" hope" was hegini.ing to tell "a flattering tale"!
Another round swell of soft light beamed with a be-
nigh witch, ry on our benighted eves, and hope danced
a;ain, and sent =+ wanner pulsation from our heart. Again
a dark period, and then—the angel of light waved its wings
at the tunnel's mouth, and wisAed us joy, and grae fully
unfolded its cel-stial robe around itself and ourself, and
the breath of Heaven again played its refreshing and
thrice-welcome truancy on our cheek.
Our heart grew rea.surred—our fears, retreating, lost
their colossal magnitude, and receded itto midges and
imps of darkness; and our organ of veneration grew ex-
cited to bursting, on once more beholding the April sun-
shine around us ; and we kissed our hand to that sun, and
would have done so to the moon as well, had there b- en a
moon visible at the same time, so that in intention of such
idolatry, performed actually, i. e. constructively, as Lord
Abinger lays down, we have incurred by t his time the cen-
sure of Job for heathenish practices, an.l yet who could
resist the passage of so natural a theology ? Heaven forgive
us, in pity ! Our reluctance to leave this world was a
proper feeling, especially when we considered ourselves
booked for another and not altogether the most agreeable
change from this. The Sun was a type of Heaven, and
as Heaven's ambassador we doubted nor the credentials
of light and love, so we made our salaam to the viceroy,
in token of our loyalty to the viceroy's king ! Was there
anything wrong in this? If there was, gentle reader, we
are glad to find ourselves in the company of poets of all
nations and Persian magi. But it is no use reasoning on
the matter; it was a matter of pure feeling, and—so—we
did. it in our innocence.

On regaining the light, we turned to one of our near-
seated travelling companions ; expressing our own horror
at the nature of our route, we enquired if she had been
alarmed, expecting that what had given us alarm would
in all probability have disturbed the equilibrium of a wo-
man's mind. She calmly replied, that she had not felt
terrified. We then ventured to ask, if she had been this
way before. Her reply was in the negative, and we felt
ashamed of our lesser courage. Waiting a while, think-
ing of our own humbler standing, in being frightened
when a woman could be courageous—we took the liberty
of enquiring if she enjoyed vision in common with my-
self. Judge of our surprise and relief; our self-respect
rose up again, for she told us—she was blind
This L. tunnel is a mortal queer place, and a queer
part of the story is that, as Miss Edgeworth remarks,
asyou enter Ireland, in sailing to Dublin, between two bulls
and a blunder, so you enter this tunnel in the teeth of
contradiction and irony, and you leave it in a witticism.
Thus the village at the mouth is called Littleborough,
which is a lie, for we think nearly two miles of tunnelling
is a great burrow, and the village at the other side is called
Tod-tnorden, which means, if its radicle be German,
Death-Murder.

But we have done with the tunnel, and its dangers are
iescaped. We have been on board ship in a gale, when
" sails never bent before were torn to rags," but this tun-
nel bangs a storm hollow. We don't intend to go down
it again without, Esop-like, taking a lantern in our hand,
if they wont give us the consolation of one in the roof.
On returning on this route the trains have two engines,
one to push up the inclines, as if the carriages themselves,
as well as passengers, felt some degree of reluct +rice to
proceed up hill or down hill to such a " horrid bore"!
Down these inclines we now gladly rattled, " shutting off
your steam" being the war-hawk placard on the road-side
for the engineer. Then the country acquired a romantic
and bold character, and the hills and vvolds of Yorkshire,
on to Normanton, would repay any tourist ; but he must
not forget to " bottle up his courage," whenever " Shut
off your steam" meets his eye. After all, the incline on
the Gloucester and Birmingham line is the greatest of any
in England, we believe. To bestride a town or city or
river or valley, or turnpike, is as easy to those railroads
as to creep like a mole under a hill, or disembowel a
mountain !

Whilst pausing at Normanton, a bumble bee whizzed
past our ear, a train arrived in the central line, with its
whiz of a whistle lasting for a second or two. We endea-
voured to discriminate between the sound of the bee al
our ear and the more distant whistle of the screamer. We
were not a little surprised to find how very difficult it was
to detect one sound from another, as, a priori, one would
have thought would have been quite easy to do. By the
duration of the sound only could we tell. The whistle
came suddenly, so did the sweeping flight of the insect ;
but the noise ceased too smartly, and this cleared up the
doubtful sound, for the hum of the bee we reckoned
should have died faintly away as the insect got more and
more remote from the ear. It was a trifle, but it was a
fact, presenting itself to us ; and it was not a trifle, inas-
much as it led to a train of reflection upon the unjustify-
able and unphilosophical scepticism about facts in nature,
which we doubt because we have never studied them
analogically, and because the guage we test them by is
narrower than the field of the subject to be tested.

NOTICES.

The Manchester KePpsake.
_Edited by William Gaspey.

Manchester : B. Wheeler. Pp. 78.

. -
More poetry from Manchester! Why, the place will
be as famous for its rhyme-spinners as its cotton-spinners
—its weavers of delicate po'.tical fabrics as its manufac-
turers of silks and muslins! Well, the more the merrier.
It is pleasant to find that literature goes hand in hand
with commerce. Althon4h Byron says,
" It fills the pocket, though it clogs the brain,"
the brains of most commercial men are clear enough.
The present brochure (if such it may be termed) cannot
fail to be well received by the lovers of poetry, not only
for its very varied contents, but for its neat and pleasing
appearance. The getting-up is extremely good, and the
typography undeniably excellent. Amongst the contri-
butors we notice that our fair and accomplished towns-
woman, Miss Christiana Weller, is numbered ; a very
fanciful and graceful poem from her pen appearing at
page 72. The other contributors are Mr. Wm. Gaspey,
the editor, (son of the talented author of " Lollard's Lite
of Lord Cobham," and other sterling works,) the Itev.J.
Davies, A.M., T. J. Ousrley, J. B. Rogerson, Ner Gar-
diner, Dr. B 'wring, Lord Joh!' M inners, J. E. Carpen-
ter, Rev. G. Gilfillan, F. Kenipster, Mrs. Criven Green,
Mrs. Caulton, Mrs. Thomas, &c. " The Manchester
Keepsake" is a very creditable production, and the price
places it in the power of every one wishful of making a
gentle friend or dear relative a pretty and amusing pre-
sent, to do so at small cost. We annex the following
from its pages :

THE CH RISTIA'sT MISSION.

BY MAURICE HARCOURT.

Oh, God! the cloud of ignorance
Hangs over Pagan lands;—
Send forth thy messengers of truth
To those benighted strands.
Cammand the dawn of Gospel- ight
Its cheering rays to shed
O'er hearts, untouched by Christian grace,
To Christian virtues dead.

Oh ! may the heralds of thy Word
Its saving power proclaim,
Inspiring Atric's dusky sons
To praise Messiah's name
And. as with n the cottage-homes
O'er-arched by milder tkies,
Beneath the Indian's wigwam rude,
May strains or worship rise.

Grant that the ice-fields of the north,
The prairies of the west,
The trackless deserts of the east,
May have their altars dressed,—
In p ace of flowers. (that might to-day,
To-morrow lose their loom —)
With hearts that, through the Cross, have won
Deliverance trom the tomb.

Lord ! bless the ministry of those
Who seek, in eve' y clime,
For heirs unto Eternoy,
Amid the sons of Time;
And let salvation's standar ' be
On heathen shores untnrl'd,
Until the Sun of Righteousness
Shine over all the world !

Blackwood's Magazine.

The number for the present month is, in our opinion,
one of the best that has appeared for a long time, and this
is saying much for a periodical which is admitted on all
hands to be invariably clever. " The Pirates of Segna,"
a tale of the Adriatic, founded on historical facts, but
wrought up with romantic energy of imagination and
great strength and it dlividuality in the portraiture of cha-
racter is here concluded. We should not be surprised to
see it ere long dramatize d, as it is full of striking incident,
and would furnish ample scope for scenic effect. An ar-
ticle on the slate trade—a review of " Fifty Days on board
a slave vessel, in 1843." by the key. P. G. Hill, Chap-
lain to H.M S. Clei pat a, will be read w th interest, riot
unmingled wi h deep regret and ;et n-hension of toe un- '
accountable mismanagement of some il our own officers
of the racy, in charge of a slave ship captured i ff the
coast of Madagascar, about twelve months ago, by which
54 of the poo - slaves were smothered in the hold in one
night, and so many afterwards died from consequent
suffi,rimr and diseoss, that nearly half of the whole living
cargo (450 in all) perished before they could be landed at
the Cape of G od H pe ! The reviewer properly remarks,
that if this statement a id its consequences be true, the
conduct of the persons by whom it was brought about
(without any ?apparent necessity) ought not to be passed
over without inquiry. A pacer, entitled the " Moslem
Histories of Spain," is WI of iuteresting historical facts—
a succinct and authentic histery in fine of the reign of the
Arabs of Cordova, from the p- riod of their conquest of
that country, and the consondation of their power under
that magnificent and evriiirdinaiy prince Abdurrahroan,
to the expulsion, A. 1).. 1036,
of the last member of that
illustrious dynasts.
and a great portion of Afic
which Iva I ruled Over Andulus (Spain) '
~ fir 281 years. The accoun a
given by the Moslem r °milder of these histories, Ahmed
Al Makkari, of the splendour of toe court and pi1a..f.,.. of
Abdurrahmain,.
,f literature, educaiton,
and the line arts, and his bei.ignant policy, both as a
his eec wrap-went
warrior and a legislator, are extremely curious. "Two
Nights in Soothers, Mexico." .iehi!s the peril, endured,
in flood and held, by two Amer eat s and their compa-
nions, on a j•,urney through a most extraordinary portion
of that reit arkable country. The descriptions of slnie 0'
the sublin e and beautiful sc-nery of the splendid valley of
Oaxaca—neatly 3OO leagues in len_th I.—and of the dread-
ful storm or IA under a-id rain by which the party were
overtaken and nearli e.•gulphed, appear to border on the
romantic, bet, we believe, are neverthrl, ss not exaggera-
ted pictures of the diversified It ditties and el mate of that
extraordinary portion of the American continent. The
next pap r. on " The British Fleet," besides a variety of
historic 1 r •miniseei.ces of the pi eere,s and advancement
of navigation, ttireugh the seiente, discoverit s, and perse-
verance of Britons, embodies a meiricir of the lite and
character of " the g iilant Jerc s." i. cluiii, g accounts of
his psi c pal victor tea. " Altirst it, or the. Met ()its of a
States i a `' ' '
, Is to.,tinued, arid it ea:, s In intete•t—lle
her, be rig left ;.n he, il.n.s ter N in t, ti tie guillotine, frown
which heaven knows 1;ov h• is ti escape. " Ihe 'Two