The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-11-26 00:00:00

SCOTTISH 31IDLAND RAILWAY.

It is a singular circumstance that, upwards of 50 years
ago, the very tine adopted for this railway was pointed
out by tl.e celebrated engineer, Mr. Ainslie, as the best
for a canal. Little did be anticipate that the more con-
venient and expeditious mode of travelling by Railway
would be accomplished, over the very tract of country
which he suggested as so suitable for a canal.
When Mr. Ainslie made his survey, in 1791, he was so
much struck with the level between Forfar and Perth,
that he added in a note to his large map of the county of
Forfar—" There would be no difficulty in continuing a
canal by Forfar, Glammiss, Meigle, &c., to Perth, which,
if done, would be of the utmost advantage to every Pro-
prietor whose lands are adjacent to it, besides going
through a rich and populous country ; but the great
object would be the conveyance of coal, lime, and free-
stone, along the canal, which would be of great service to
the country." A survey was afterwards made by an en-
gineer, and it was found that a canal was easily prac-
ticable.

In 1827 the noblemen and gentlemen of the district
instructed Mr. Stevenson, the eminent engineer (of Edin-
burgh), to make a survey for a Railway from Perth through
Forfar, when he reported that it could be modes° cheaply,
owing to the favourable nature of the country, that the
conveyance of merchandize, coal, lime, and agricultural
produce, would alone be sufficient to yield an adequate
return on the outlay.

The great Landowners have now instructed Messrs.
Locke and Errington to survey the same district ; and
they have reported that, owing to the unusual facilities
alluded to, a Railway of the best construction may be
made between Perth and Forfar for about £9,400 per
mile, and responsible contractors are ready to undertake
the works at the engineers' estimate.
The formation and route of this Railway have there-
fore been maturely considered, and the expected traffic
has been investigated la ith equal care. Toe Tables, which
thew a return of above 7 per cent., were minutely ex-
amined by a Local Committee, who reported, That, if
any error has been committed, the traffic has been rather
tinders:etrd than otherwise ;" and Lord Wharncliffe,
Rho presided at the meeting to which this report was
made, publicly expressed his entire confidence in its ac-
curacy.
It may, therefore, be safely asserted, that there are few
Railways now before the public which have been so care-
fully considered, or which hold out such fair prospects of
return.

SERIOUS COLLISIONS.—About eight o'clock on Thurs-
day evening, an alarming collision, attended with fatal
consequences, occurred on the Mersey, between one of the
Birkenhead steam ferry-boats, called the James, and et
barque Royalist, which arrived from St. John's, N.
day or two ago. The James was crossing the river to
Birkenhead, with about fifty passengers ; and the Royalist
was Nine at anchor off Monk's Ferry. The tide was
coming in at the time, and both vessels met at the bows.
A boat was lying alongside the Royalist, end in the first
moments of alarm a number of Passengers jumped into
her. An atten pt wes made to turn the head of the
steamer to the tioe ; but this inorement only brought her
alongside the barque, and the boat was instantly crushed
between the two. Two of the pieties in the boat reached
the Royalist ; all the others either jumped or were thrown
into the river. Assistance was immediately rendered to
the unfortunate beings in the water, and several were
rescued in a much e:Areusted state. Tce o persons perished :
one a young man named Harrison, brother of Mr. Joseph
Harrison, ironmonger, St. James's-street, and a man
named Fahey.—On the following night the Birkenhead
steamer William Fawcett came in callision on the river
with the schooner Jane, of Douglas. The steamer struck
the schooner about Inithhips, on the larboard side, and
carried away the whole of her bulwarks, foremaintopsail,
and a quantity of her ragging. The steacner• sustained
some injury, but went on to Birkenhead. Fortunately
no lives
.were ,lost. The schooner, in her damaged con-
dition, was put back to the George's Dock, to undergo
the necessary repairs.
Mr. Hassan, a surgeon et Stourbridge, has been com-
mitted to the assizes for trial, on a charge of having, by a
ce urse of ill treatment, caused the death of his wife.

Etteraturt.

P 0 E 'l' R Y.

THE OLD SEAMAN.

(From the Keepsake for 1845.)
You ask me why mine eyes are bent

So darkly on the sea,
While others watch the azure hills
That lengthvn on the lee?
The azure hills—they soothe the sight
That falls along the foam;
And those may hail their nearing height,
Who there have hope or home. ,
But I a loveless path have.trod—
A beacon' as career;
!Ay hope bath long been all With God,
And all my home is—here.
Ile deep by day. the heaven by night,

_ _
Roll onward, swift and dark; -
-Nor leave my soul the dove's delight,

Of olive•brauch or ark.

For more than gale, or gulf, or sand,
Pv..: proved that there may be
Worse treachery on the steadfast land

Than variable sea.
A danger wcrse than bay or beach,

A falsehood more unkind—
'The treachery of a governed speech,
Ancl an ungoverned mind.
The treachery of the deadly mart,
Where human souls are snd ;
The treachery of the hollow heart,
That crumbles as we hold.

Those holy hills and quiet lakes—
Ah I wherefore should I find
This weary fever-fit, that shakes
Their image in my mind.

The memory of a streamlet's din
Through meadows daisy-drest—
Another might be glad therein,
But yet I cannot rest.

I cannot rest unless it he
Beneath the churchyard yew;
But God, I thin':, hath yet for me
More earthly work to do.

And, therefore, with a quiet will,
I breathe the Ocean air,
And bless the voice that calls me still,
To wander and to bear.

Let others seek their native sod,
Who there have hearts to cneer ;
My soul hath long been given to God,
And all my home is-7-here.

NOTICES.

Saint James's, or the Court of Queen Anne. By Wm.
Harrison Ainsworth, ESQ. 3 vols. London : John

Mortimer, Adelaide-street, Trafalgar-square.
Of the works of this eminent novelist we infinitely pre-
fer those in which the writer brings his vast stores of
antiquarian research to illustrate particular localities fa-
mous in the history of our country. These works may
be said to constitute an entirely new style of romance,
peculiar to Mr. Ainsworth, in which the relation of some
contemporary history, or fiction blended with history, is
made the means of conveying, in a more agreeable form
than that of mere antiquarian dissertation, facts connected
with and a description of buildings and places interesting
to his readers, which otherwise would remain a sealed book
to the majority of them, and be accessible to future ages
only through the musty records of the state paper office,
or some similar uninviting source of information, if they
did not entirely disappear as the perishing objects, which
alone bind them to memory, are swept from ken by the
land of time and decay, or the march of-modern improve-
ment. Amongst this class may be ranked "The Tower
of London," probably the best descriptive work of its
kind in any language, .and one which must have re-
quired from the writer the most minute and careful per-
sonal investigation of the locality described. " Old Saint
Paul's" is another of the came class, but of more thrilling
interest, arising, perhaps, mainly from the more striking
period to which it carries us back, viz., that of the plague
and the great fire in London. " Guy Fawkes" partakes
also of this peculiar feature of Mr. Ainsworth's recent
works ; but it carries us over a greater field, and is espe-
cially interesting to us as rescuing from oblivion a number
of the most interesting personages and localities of ancient
Lancashire. We may add to these his striking romance
of " Windsor Castle." -

The novel before us has apparently been a portion of a
design to open up the history and antiquities of another
of our royal palaces—Saint James's. In this, however, if
indeed it was seriously attempted, he does not appear to
have been as successful in finding material of interest as
in some of his former works. But if Saint James's has
furnished little ground for the display of antiquarian lore,
it has supplied the scene for a history of the court in-
trigues and court life of one of the most distinguished
reigns in British history, which the pen of the novelist
has hitherto scarcely visited at all. The literary annals of
that age of illustrious writers—the memoirs of the orna-
ments and, alas ! the disgrace of that reign—of Addison,
Steele, St. John, Prior, and the rest—have been again
and again recorded ; the characters of its statesmen—of
Oxford and Bolingbroke, • Marlborough and Godolphin,
with the ambitious favourite and tyrant of royalty, his
duchess, are upon the page of history. But the character
and habits of the Sovereign herself, and her amiable—
although trifl:ng—consort, Prince George of Denmark,
are little known. They have been cast into the shade by
the brilliancy of the military achievements and of the
literature of the period in which they flourished.
The period of Anne's reign at weich Mr. Ainsworth
introduces us to her court, is the year 1702, when the
Duke of Marlborough was at the znith of his fame, as a
soldier and a statesman, (characters which some envious
detracters of the greatest man in modern day have told
us are not compatible with each other,) and when his
haughty duchess had succeeded in establishing an almost
dominion over, and at the same time arousing the impla-
cable resentment of, her Sovereign, and a determination
on her part of throwing off the yoke imposed upon her.
The, introduction to the palace of a young lady of the
bedchamber, Abigail Hill, a relative of the duchess and of
her artful rival, Mr. Harley, afterwards Earl of Oxford,
is made the means of precipitating that event which ulti-
mately led, as the reader of history knows, of driving in
exile from his native land, whose name with his own he
had immortalized in Europe, the greatest general of his
age. The various intrigues by which this end was at
length attained are vividly described, and the characters
mingling in them, the state of parties, and the loose mo-
rals of the time, which contributed to their success, form
a picture, or rather a series of pictures, well worthy of
study. With t hese, the historical details of his story, the
doings and characters of several inferior actors are skil-
fully wrought up. We have the trial of the celebrated
Dr. Sacheverell, and the high church riots which were the
result. The French adventurer, the Marquis de Guis-
card, with his valet, Bimbelot, and his bravo, Sauvageon,
afford us happy specimens of the kind of instruments with
which the court of Louis intrigued for the restoration of
the exiled Chevalier de St. George, then holding his court
at Saint Germains. The story of the loves of Mrs.
Plumpton and Mrs. Tipping, for the Duke of Marlbo-
rough's favourite and valorous serjeaat, is a gem in its
way, and throws a pleasant relief upon the more serious
incidents of the work, whilst the character cf Proddy, the
Queen's coachman, is inimitable. When we have said
that it deserves to be ranked in the same scale of funni-
ness and drollery with that of the valorous dwarf Zit,
described in his " Tower of London," we have bestowed
upon it ample commendation.
The work is illustrated, with his usual excellence, by
. the inimitable George Cruickshank, who appears, in his
portraiture of the various characters introduced, to have
caught, and keenly relished, the spirit of the author.
We cannot resist extracting the closing incident of the
work :

On the evening of Tuesday, the 27th Ju1y.171,1, Oxford
received a sudden and peremptory intimation from the
Queen to resign the staff into her hands without a mo-
ment's delay ; upon which, though it was getting late, he'
immediately repaired to the palace.
Ushered into the queen's presence, he found Lady Ma-
sham and 'Bolingbroke with her, and their triumphant
looks increased his' ill-dissembled rage and mortification.
Anne looked ill and suffering. She had only just reco-
vered from a severe inflammatory fever, attended with
gout and ague, and had still dangerous symptoms about
her. I-ler figure was enlarged and loose, her brow lower-
ing, her features swollen and cadaverous, and her eyes
heavy and injected with blood. She scarcely made an
effort to maintain her dignity, but had the air of a confined
invalid. On the table near her stood a draught prescribed
for her by her physician, Sir Richard Blackmore, of which
she occasionally sipped.
Moved neither by the evident indisposition.of the queen,
nor by any feelings of gratitude or respect, Oxford ad-
vanced quickly towards her, and eyeing his opponents
with a look of defiance, said, in an insolent tone, and
with a slight inclination of the head—" Your majesty has
commanded me to bring the staff. I here deliver it to
you."
And as he spoke he placed it with some violence on the
table.

" My lord!" exclaimed Anne. " this rudeness!"
" Lord Oxford has thrown off the mask," said Boling.
broke. " Your majesty sees him in his true colours."

" It shall not be-myfault, Bolingbroke," replied Ox-
rd,'bitterly, " if her majesty—ay, and the whole nation
oes not see you in your true colours—and they are
`lack enough. And you, too, madam," he added to Lady
f`li
Masham, " the world shall know what arts you have used."
" If I have practised any arts, my L,.‘rd Oxford, they
have been of your teaching," rejoined Lady Masham.
You forget the instructions you gav ..: me respecting the
Duchess of Marlborough." .
" No, viper I I do not," cried Oxford, his rage becom-
ing ungovernable. "I do not forget that I found you a
bedchamber-woman ; I do not forget that I used you as
an instrument to gain the queen's favour—a mere instru-
ment—nothing more; I do not forget that 1 made you
what you are ; nor will I rest till I have left you as low as
I found you."
"My lord !—my lord I" cried Anne. " This attack is
most unmanly. I pray you to withdraw, if you cannot
Control yourself."

" Your pardon, if I venture to disobey you, madam,"
replied Oxford. " Having been sent for, I shall take leave
to stay until I have unmasked your treacherous favourites.
So good an oppo"rtunity may not speedily occur, and. I
shall not lose it.
" But I do not wish.to hear the exposure, my lord,"
said Anne.
I pray your majesty, let him speak," interposed 80.
lingbroke, haughtily.
" Take care of your head, Bolingbroke," cried Oxford ;
may sanction your correspondence
" though her majesty
with the courts of St. Germain, her parliament will not."
" Your majesty can now judge of his baseness
,and ma-
lignity," said Bolingbroke, with cold contempt, ' know-
ing how he himself has duped your royal brother.i,

" I know it—l knorw it," replied Amie; " and I know
how he has duped me, too. But no more of this, if you
love me, Bolingbroke."
"" Oh that your majesty would exert your spirit for one
moment," said Lady Masham," and drive him from your
presence with the contempt he deserves." •
" If your majesty will only authorise me, it shall be
done." said Bolingbroke.
" Peace ! peace ! my lord, I implore of you," said
Anne. " You all seem to disregard me."
" Your majesty perceives the esteem in which you are
held by your friends I" said Oxford, sarcastically.
' " You are all a ike," cried the queen, faintly.
" What crime am I charged with ?" demanded Oxford,
addressing himself to the queen.
" I will tell you," replied Bolingbroke. " I charge you
with double-dealing, with chicanery, with treachery, with
falsehood to the queen, to me, and to the whole cabinet.
I charge ou with holding out hopes, on the one hand, to
the Elector of Hanover, and to Prince James, on the
other. I charge you with caballing with Marlborough—
with appropriating the public monies—"
" These charges must be substantiated—must be an-
swered, my lord," interrupted Oxford, approaching him,
and touching his sword.
" They shall be substantiated, my lord," replied Bo-
lingbroke, haughtily and contemptuously.
" Bolingbroke, you are a villain—a dastardly villain!"
cried Oxford, losing all patience, and striking him in the
face with his glove.
" Ha !" exclaimed Bolingbroke, transported with fury,
and partly drawing his sword.
`• My lord !" exclaimed the queen, rising with dignity,
" I command you to forbear. This scene will kill me—
oh !" And she sank back exhausted.

" Your pardon, gracious madam," cried Bolingbroke,
running up to her. and falling on his knees. " I have in-
deed forgotten myself."
" Oh! nay head ! my head !" cried Anne, pressing
her hand to her temples. " Mt senses are deserting me."
" You have much to answer for, Bolingbroke," whis-
pered Lady Masham ; " she will not survive this shock."
" It was not my fault, but ll's," replied Bolit.gbroke,
pointing to Oxford, who stood sullenly aloof in the mid-
dle of the room.

" Let Sir Richard Blackmore and Dr. Mead be sum-
moned instantly," gasped the Queen ; " and bid the Duke
of Shrewsbury and the kid chancellor instantly attend
me—they are in the palace. The post of treasurer must
be filled without delay. Lose not a moment."
And Lady Masham ran out to give the necessary instruc-
tions to the usher.

" Shrewsbury and the chancellor—what can she want
with them ?" muttered Bolingbroke, with a look of
dismay.

Oxford, who had heard the order, and instantly divined
what it portended, softly approached him, and touched
his arm.

" You have lost the stake you have been playing for,"
he said, with a look of triumphant malice. "I am now
content."

Ere Bolingbroke could reply, Lady Masham returned
with Sir Richard Blackrn,:re, who chanced to be in the
ante-room, and who instantly flew to the queen, over
whose countenance a fearful change had come.
" Your majesty must be taken instantly to bed," said
Black more.

" Not till I have seen the Dukes of Shrewsbury and
Ormond," replied the queen, faintly. " Where are
they ?"
" I will go and bring them instantly," replied Black-
more ; " not a moment is to be lost."
And as he was abiut to rush out of the room, Boling-
broke stopped him, and hastily asked, " Is there danger ?"
" Imminent danger!" replied Blsckmore.
" The case is desperate. The queen cannot survive
three days."

And he hurried away.
" Then all is lost 1" cried Bolingbroke, striking his
forehead.

And looking up, he saw Harley watching him with a
malignant smile.
" Lady Masham was assiduous in her attentions to her
royal mistress; but the latter became momentarily worse,
and continued to inquire anxiously for the Duke of
Shrewsbury. . .

" Has iour majesty no commands for Lord Boling-
broke?" inquired Lady Masham.

" None whatever," replied the queen, firmly.
At this juncture, Sir Richard Blackinore returned with
the Duke of Shrewsbury, the lord chance,lor, and some
other attendants.

" Ah! you are come, my lords," cried Anne, greatly
relived. " I feared you would be too late. Sir Richard
will have told you of my danger—nay, it is vain to hide
it from me. My lords, the office of treasurer is at this
moment vacant; and if anything should happen to me,
the safety of the kingdom may be endangered. My lord
of Shrewsbury, you are already lord chamberlain and
lord-lieutenant of Ireland ; I have another post for you.
Take this staff," she added, giving him the treasurer's
wand, which lay upon the table, " and use it for the good
of my people."
"As the duke knelt to kiss her hand, he felt it grow
cold in his touch. Anne had fainted, and was instantly
removed by her attendants.
" So," cried Oxford, " if the queen's fears are realized,
Lady Masham's reign is over; while your fate, Boling-
broke, is sealed. You have to choose between exile and
the block."

" If I fly, you must fly with me," cried Bolingbroke.
" No, 1 shall wait, replied Oxford; " I have nothing
to fear."

" So end the hopes of these ambitious men !" observed
the Duke of Shrewsbury to the chancellor ; " the queen
has found they were not to be trusted. Her people's
welfare influenced the last exercise of the power of GOOD
QUEEN ANNE."

The Nature and Treatment of Deafness, and Diseases of
the Ear; and the Treatment of the Deaf and Dumb.
By Wm. DiVton, Surgeon. Illustrated with Frontis- '
piece of Instruments. Churchill, Soho. 1844. Bvo.
This is a neatly-got-out work of 118 pages. The style
is correct and simple, disburthened of that tedious quo-
tation everlastingly from authorities often no longer such,
though paraded like men of straw, to be knocked down
cleverly by the author. Both legal and medical lore are
so burthened with precedents and references, that the
task of selection constitutes one of the most difficult of
literary labours nowadays. However, in this particular,
we congratulate the members of physic in their rapidly
attaining this selecting tact ; whilst their twin brother,
law, is still busied collecting cases and precedents—
ever and anon working their libyrinthical way from misty
folds into the broad glare of truth and justice. Law dare
not yet enunciate a proposition of right in the abstract,
apart from some decision on a case in point by the Lord
Chancellor Woolsack: it is a cripple still leaning on the
crutches provided for it by its foster parent, the middle
ages ;—whilst medicine has dared to be free. Its fetters
of traditional error and wrong-directed judgment broken,
it can discuss a que'ton on its simple merits alone, com-
prehend it in all its relations to other questions, and state
a fact or a principle in nature without deference to any
authority, human or canonised ; and appeal to no tribunal,
even on writ of error, but simply leering it to be tested
by the mirror of truth itself held up in everyjhuman breast
--can go on from the station of experiment to that of
sound Baconian induction, and thence to the terminus,
where truth, arrived at, is to be put in practice—and
then, like the last function of animated being, transmit
the possession of such rower to others, and close its la-
bours in the didactics of the schoolmaster, happy in the
attainment of a portion of valuable truth, and rejoicing
in the self-satisfaction of philanthropic effort of doing
good. Law is at present stopping at the halfway station
of harm's way, if Irish Courts of Queen's Bench and
English law lords are to be taken in evidence. Let her
alone a bit : she is bruised herself %%Ph the awkward
handling of her own weapon; self-interest will be ballast
enough, we trust, to right her, and bring her on safety at
last to the terminus of Good-end, close by the village of
Good-will.
In contrast with the useless tediousness of law, how
pleasant to take up a book without much pretension,
written in earnest simplicity, unsophisticated in its state-
ments, and whose pleasant purport is to amend some of
the ills, or soothe some of the trials, to which our won-
drously-compounded being is obnoxious! And amongst
these infirmities, that of deafness occupies no insignificant
corner in PandJra's box ; and if the modesty of the pre-
sent production, along with its scientific claims, adds but
an hour's instructive reading to the devoted student of
the divine art, or is the means, directly or indirectly, of
procuring benefit to any " who having ears cannot hear,"
so that even one chord of nature's ever-varying and all-
musical Founds, or one dulcet cadence of the human
voice, shall be caught up by the ear beforetime deaf as
the adder (though the adder is not deaf I, yet will it have
accomplished more good than many an act of parliament !
_ •

Standard-office, Eleven o'clock.

COURT OF REQUESTS.

PARKER v. BROWNBILL.

The Commissioner of the Court of Requests having
adjourned the case from Friday until this day, that he
might consider how he should decide upon it, it was ac-
cordingly resumed at nine o'clock this morning. Both
the parties, and several of their friends, were present, but
the att •ndance of others was very meagre.
The Comm ISSIONER said, that before he gave judgment
he wished to put a question or two.
The defendant, being sworn, said, in reply to questions
put, that the application for payment of the promissory
note was first made to his brother-in-law. James Brown-
bill, by Mr. Parker's clerk, on the 2d November. De-
fendant was not himself present, and his brother-in-law
was not now here. He was his brother-in-law, though of
the same name, as they were cousins, and had married
two sisters. He supposed Mr. Parker's-collector had
called on his brother-in-law in mistake.
Mr. Wigge, the collector, being citSd. said, lie had
called on the brother-in-law of defendant on Friday fort-
night, the 9th instant. Ile had mistaken the man, as
both were watchmakers, and both of the same name. He
did not see the defendant about it until Saturday fortnight.
Mr. Parker, being sworn, said he had mentioned the
amount to be due to his collector amongst other small
debts, but he could not recollect the precise day. His
suspicion had been raised (as he before, stated) by the
defendant drawing his attention to the post-mark of the
letter. But he would not have proceeded so hastily
against him, had he not been informed that a member of
the Reform Association had declared that they would
spend £l,OOO sooner than not turn him out of the ward.
He certainly felt hurt at this, and therefore brought the
matter forward.
The COMMISSIONER then proceeded to give his deci-
sion with great slowness of utterance and at great length,
but we can but give the heads of his principal remarks.
i
He said that the court had undivided jurisdiction n claims
of £2, but between £2 and £5 it had a concurrent juris-
diction with the Borough Court, in which last the ques-
tion could be investigated by a jury, and an appeal could
be had to the courts at Westminster. He remarked
on the evidence of the two parties, and quoted several law
authorities as to what constituted bribery and corruption.
There were two modes in which the court might, come to
a conclusion. One was to nonsuit the plaintiff, which
would not prevent him from proceeding in another court
if he thought that advisable ; and another was to give judg-
ment to the defendant, in which case there would be no
appeal, and penalties might he proceeded for,,in the higher
courts. He had come to the conclusion that the case was
one of such suspicion that the plaintiff could not recover
the amount in this court. He had not, however, come to
the conclusion to give judgment for the defendant, for
that would imply that there had in reality been a cor-
rupt transaction and a bribe, and a party could pro-
ceed for the penalties upon that judgment as con-
clusive evidence. If he saw this to be a clear
case of bribery, he should have no difficulty in
pronouncing his decision in that form, which would be
final; but, under the circumstances, he would not pre-
judice the plaintiff by the selection of courts made by his
collector, a person whose conduct in this court he, had
observed to be universally respectable. He should not
therefore give a conclusive judgment, because he con-
sidered it no more than a case of suspicion. The plaintiff
would, by the decision he should come to, have an oppor-
tunity of proceeding against the defendant in another
court, from which an appeal might be had to the superior
courts if any penalty were involved. He then decided
that the plaintiff should pay the costs and be nonsuited.