The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1845-12-16 00:00:00

Etteraturt.

VARIETIES,

Dean Swift says a woman may knit her stockings, but
not her brow ; she may darn her hose, but not her eyes;
curl her hair, bnt not her lips ; thread her needle, but
trot the public streets.
A FRIEND IN NEED.—A gentleman unaccustomed to
üblic speaking, becoming embarrassed, whispered to his
friend, " Quick, give me a word ? " Upon which the
other replied "Yes, yes, what word do you want ?"
A SMALL PRESENT.—" I will give you my head," ex-
claimed a person to Montesquieu, " if every word of the
story I have related is not. true." " 1 accept your offer,"
t. " presents of no small value strengthen

saio the prey
the - -

.Ands of friendship, and should never be refused."
A few days ago a genuine son of the " Gim of the Sae "
was informed by his landlady that in consequence of the
wet harvest and the potato " disease" the loaf would be
np a penny in a day or two. Arrah by St. Patrick," says
he, " and what's that to me ; what care I if it were half-
a-crown ; sure ye know I buy all loafs in pen'orths."
JACK'S CONCLUSION.—" Did you take the note, and
did you see Mr. Thompson, Jack ?" " Ees, Sir." " And
' '" " Why he looked pretty well, but he's
'-,at do you mean ?" " Why,
"1 where my hat wur, and

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CHEAP LITERATURE IN AMERICA.—The Americans I
are certainly a pation of readers, and it is always amusing
to walk the principal streets and see what a large traffic
is carried en in the cheap publications. The " Last of the
Barons " or the " Smugglers"' is no sooner arrived in
New Barons,'.'
than one publisher strikes off 50,000 copies at
3d. each, and a rival printer a better edition at 6d. and Is.
The respective authors, however, need not reckon much
on this cheap immortality ; the books are thrown by as
soon as read, like their halfpenny newspapers ; in a little
time, if you ask where are they, " Echo answers, Where?"
There are no private libraries in America, nor are there
any circulating libraries, fur it is cheaper to buy than to
borrow. The London picture newspapers form an item
also very considerable; and you see " Punch," " Picto-
rial Times," and " Illustrated London News," in the
shop windows for sale as abundantly as they' are in Lon-
don. This is not confined to New York, but pervades
the entire Union, as far as New Orleans; and whilst the
boat was getting up her steam at St Louis, at the junc-
tion of the two mighty rivers Missouri and Mississippi,
we had nearly a dozen boys on board, with great bundles
under their arms, singing out, " Last Lecture of Mrs.
Candle," only one halfpenny ; No. 20 of the Wandering
Jew," and all Bulwer's and James's novels at ls. each!
The boys drive a very lucrative trade in these amusing
wares; one youth told me that he cleared ten dollars on a
capital of only ten dollars.—Rambles in United Slates.
SLIGHT CIRCUMSTANCES.—Sir Walter Scott, walking
one day along the banks of the Yarrow, where Mungo
Park was born, saw the traveller throwing stones into the
water, and anxiously watching the bubbles that succeeded.
Scott inquired the object of his occupation. ' I was
thinking, answered Park, • how ofte r I bad thus tried to
sound the rivers in Africa, by calculating how long a time
had elapsed before the bubbles rose to the surface.' It
was a slight circumstance, but the traveller's safety fre-
quently depended upon it. In a watch the mainspring
forms a small portion of the works, but it impels and go-
verns the whole. So it is in the machinery of human life,
a slight circumstance is permitted by the Divine Ruler to
derange or to alter it ; a giant falls by a pebble ; a girl at
the door of an inn changes the fortune of an empire. If
the nose of Cleopatra had been shorter, said Pascal, in his
epigrammatic and brilliant manner, the condition of the
world would have been different. The:Nl ahomedans have
a tradition, that when their prophet concealed himself in
Mount Shur, his pursuers were deceived by a spider's web
which covered the mouth of the cave. Luther might
have been a lawyer, bad his friend and companion escaped
the thunder storm at Erfurt; Scotland had wanted her
stern reformer, if the appeal of the preacher had not star-
, tied him in the chapel of St. Andrew's Castle ; and if Mr.
Grenville bad not carried, in 1764, his memorable resolu-
tion as to the expediency of charging " certain stamp du-
ties" on the plantations in America, the western world
might still have bowed to the British sceptre. Cowley
might never have been a poet, if he had not found the
Faerie Queen in his mother's parlour ; Opie might have
perished in mute obscurity, if he haci not looked over
the shoulder of his young companion. Mark Otes, while
be was drawing a butterfly ; Giotto, one of the early Flo-
rentine painters, might have continued a' rude shepherd-
boy, if a sheep drawn by him upon a stone bad not at-
tracted the notice of Cimabue as he went that way.—
Asiatic Journal.

HOMAGE TO REVELATION.—The Bible is a book of
facts at least as well authenticated as any in history—a
book of miracles incontestably avouched—a book of
poetry, pare, natural, and, elevated—a book of morals,
such as human wisdom never framed for the perfection of
human happiness. I will abide by the precepts, admire
the beauty, revere the mysteries, and, as far as in me lies,
practise the mandates of this sacred volume; and should
the ridicule of earth and the blasphemy of hell assail me,
I shall console myself by the contemplation of those
blessed spirits, who in the same holy cause have toiled
and suffered. In the "goodly fellowship of the saints,"

in, the " noble army of the martyrs," in the society of the
great, and good, and wise of every nation—if my sinfulness
..I.ft•se.A anti my darkness illumined. at least my

pretensionless admission may be excused, if I err with
the luminaries I have chosen for my guides, I confess
myself captivated by the loveliness of their observations.
If they err, it is in a heavenly region ; if they wander, it
is in -fields of light; if they aspire, it is at all events a
glorious daring; and rather than sink with infidelity into
the dust, I am content to cheat myself with their vision
of eternity. If I err, 1 err with the disciples of philo-
sophy and virtue—with men who have drank deep at the
Fn.•nr~in of human knowledge, but who dissolved not the

ivation in the draught. I err with Ba
dant of nature, fraught with all the lear
and almost prescient of the future

his wea

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yet 100

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r with Milton, rising on an

in theii hats,

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