The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-06-25 00:00:00

Rfttrature.
POETRY.

MEMORY.
BY ROBERT W. THOM, Author of the " Epochs."

(For the Liverpool Standard.)
The hours and the years and the ages depart,
L Like summers from earth, or the guest from our door,
And the dreams of the soul and the hopes of the heart
Are borne from their birthplace to find it no more.

They melt from our life as the dome from the stream,
An instant upreared in the glory of light;
But linger in memory as shapes in a dream,
As earth in the beauty of stars and of night.

'Tis well, for life's uplands are solemn and sad,
And the strength of our manhood is married to sorrow;
And the soul that is wearied would never be glad,
For the shades of to-day are th 3 walks of to-morrow.

But we tread them in calmness, if joy be denied,
' And in courage we wait for the season of rest,
When the oil and the balm are by memory supplied,
And she lulls us to sleep and we dream on her breast,

LORD DENMAN.

(From the Law Times.)

At a meeting of the Home Circuit Mess, held at Kingston-
on-Thames, on the 2nd of April, 1850, at which the accompany-
ing verses were recited by the Poet Laureate, it was unani-
mously resolved that the verses should be printed, and a copy
sent to each member of the circuit, and a copy both of the
verses and of this resolution should be forwarded to Lord
Denman. _

7ilis life was noble ; and the elements
So mixed in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world,—This was a man."

We who have known thee long, and watched thee near,
Forgive your Laureate if he flings away
His motley mask, and dares he brave to-day,
While to the memory of a great career
He yields a homage, feeble—but sincere.
A noble race is ended ; from the noise
Of Life's arena to the tranquil joys
Of wise seclusion, glorious with a crown
Of civic worth and dignified renown
DENNI AN retires, and leaves a lofty name
To the sure keeping of historic fame.
Long shall the name of DENMAN live enshrined
In the fond reverence of the English mind ;
Rich as he was in every manly grace
That stamps the sons of England's hero race;
'True Saxon worth, cast in the stately mould
Of Roman grandeur; stein and lion-souled,
Yet touched by kindlier impulses that move
The hearts, that else. had but admired, to love.
England remembers how in manhood's flower,
The bold assailant of all lawless power,
His voice was lifted loudest in the van
Of those who fought against the trade in man.
England has not forgotten how the rush
Of his fierce eloquence rolled forth to crush
The courtly crew who, to appease the spleen
Of a King's spite, would immolate a queen ;
Nor how, with front erect, he trod the path
Of Justice, heedless of a Senate's wrath;
And, firm for rights our fathers handed down,
Withstood the House, as he had braved the Crown.
Throned on the seat of judgment, he combined
The purest purpose with the widest mind ;
His aim was always Justice; his delight
To render Law commensurate with Right,
And from the breadth of that august domain,
Weed the rank growth of quibbling and chichane.
No zealous votary of the cumbrous lore
That "darkened counsel" in the days of yore;
Not blindly worshipping as things divine
The dust and cobwebs of the legal shrine;
But bent to make,—so taught in Wisdom's school,—
Our laws progressive, like die realm they rule.
His proud demeanour and majestic grace
Suited the height of his illustrious place :
Blended extremes in him we could admire,
MURRAY'S fine ease, and CHATHAM'S generous fire;
Calmly sedate and equably polite
He felt no preference, and he spewed no slight;
Not prone to talk, but diligent to hear;
•
Prompt, and yet patient; firm, but not austere:
Not quick to wrath, but when fit cause arose
To stir his lion-nature from repose,—
Some deed of baseness, cruelty, or shame,—
Swift shot the electric impulse through his frame.
The grave brow lowered ; the eye, so calm and cold,
Flashed sudden fire; and forth in thunder rolled
The voice whose accents clothed with solemn awe
The indignant doom of violated law.
DENMAN farewell ! forgive the attempt to twine
A wreath so worthless for a brow like thine;
But while all others hasten to salute,
Thy name with honour, how can we be mute?
We who have known thee long, and watched thee near,
Dispensing Justice in our narrower sphere;
Who feel thy loss not more to be deplored
On the grave bench than at the genial board,—
That festive scene where thou didst love to sit,
Promoting manly mirth and honest wit,
Where not a guest, howe'er " unknown to fame,"
But heard thy deep voice pledge him by his name,
While proudly through our hearts the feeling ran—
" Others revere the Judge, we love (lee Nan."
Once more farewell ! may every blessing wait
On thy retirement, to a distant date !
Moral' the pleasures of a taste relined,
And all the affluence of a well-stored mind,
And all the affections of a loving breast,
Solace thy age, and sanctify thy rest.
VARIETIES.

.THE WRITTEN WORD REMAINS.—NOW pause for a
moment, to contemplate the duration and triumph of
sacred song, and to observe how it has outlived other
things. David was ambitious to build the temple ; the
Holy Spirit overruled him. He penned his Psalms. His
son built the fabric, which seemed to defy destruction.
The Ark, the Tabernacle, the Temple, the ancient walls
of Zion have vanished away. The sceptre of Judah is
broken—the very ground of Mount Zion has lost its
original aspect—but the songs of Zion, the melodies of
David, and the enraptured strains of the Prophets, have
outlived time and destruction, and the very enemies and
oppressors of Israel sing their songs in strange lands.—
Dr. Gilly.
ORNAMENTS ON STEEL.—Ornaments are now com-
monly put upon steel by the chemical action of
the solutions of the various metals, most of them
being combinations with acids. The steel being covered
with some etching ground, the design is cut through to
the metal, and, the metallic solution being poured upon
it, the metal, or its oxide is precipitated, and a super-
ficial chemical combination is thus effected. Steel
may be gilded by the employment of the ethereal
solution of gold. This is made by taking a neutral solu-
tion of chloride of gold and agitating it with some electrified
ether; the gold is thus separated from the one fluid, and
held in solution by the other. Upon dipping steel into this
the real solution an electro-chemical action appears to
take place, the result of which is that a film of gold is de-
posited upon the metal. In this way " gold-eyed
needles" receive the small coating of the precious metal ;
and many steel ornaments are thus fancifully decorated.
The coating which the steel thus receives is exceedingly
attenuated, and much friction removes it from the surface.
Art Journal.
THE VERACITY OF A RED REPUBLICAN.—Ledru
Rollin, the careful gentleman who in June last so cleverly
escaped his deserts with some uneasy wounds to his per-
son and dignity, has just published a book on the
" Decline of England." As it is brimful of what is
politely called errors, we leave others to point out what
most concerns them, while we exhibit Ledru's veracity
with respect to the Church. This very truthful repub-
lican gravely tells his readers that, during the war carried
on by us against France, our clergy preached from the
pulpit that " to kill a Frenchman wheresoever you meet
him is a deed acceptable to God ;" and that after such
injunctions whole congregations were apt to issue forth
and massacre every Frenchman they could meet ! In
another page we are told that the robbers, vagrants, and
prostitutes in our streets, are often the children of the
poorer clergy, too proud to assume humble and honest
occupations. The English clergy, we, or rather Ledru's
French readers, are solemnly assured, are of such a
grasping nature that they have obtained a power over
succession to property by arrogating to themselves the
decision of all testamentary questions ; while so lax is
the discipline of the Church, that even the widows of
peers are empowered to give an incumbent a dispensation
from residence ! Ledru then informs his French public
that English clergymen are such slaves that they read
the sermon, " in order that the priest may always be able
to place his discourse before the magistrate, if he should
be suspected of having promulgated doctrines contrary
to law ;" and finally—that is, not finally as to Ledru's
assertions, but as to our patience and want of space—that
circumstances sometimes present themselves in which
"the bishops send written sermons to the ministers, with
orders to read them without alteration ."' We should
take Munehausen to be a dull book after the "Deca-
dence de I'Angleterre" of Citizen Ledru
ROSSINI'S HABITS OF PROCRASTINATION.—Rossini's
desperate idleness and habits of procrastination are pro-
verbial. On more than one occasion personal restraint
was resorted to, to compel the fulfilment of his engage-
ments. Thus, at Milan, sentinels were placed at his
door, and no exit allowed him, until he had completed
an opera of which the two first acts were already in re-
hearsal. Barbaja, the celebrated impresario, kept him
for some time prisoner in his palace on the Naples Toledo,
refusing him liberty until he should have composed the
long-promised opera of Otello. Remonstrances were
disregarded by the inflexible manager, so Rossini set to
work, and, with his usual facility, soon sent down a por-
tion of the score, headed Introduzione. This was trans-
mitted to the copyist; but the same evening Rossini ap-
plied for it again, on pretext of alteration. Next morn-
ing another MS. reached Barbaja, inscribed Cavatina.
It followed its predecessor to the copyist, and, in like
manner, was re-demanded for correction. Barbaja glee-
fully rubbed his hands at finding that these revisions did
not delay Rossini, who sent down rage antr page of copy
to the extent of an entire act. But the irritable manager
was like to go distracted when, on applying to the copyist
for the whole score, he found the introduction was all that
had been composed. It had been travelling to and fro
between Rossini and the theatre, and, at each journey,
the incorrigible composer had headed it with a different
title. The trait is characteristic, and strictly authentic.
The same story is told, at greater length, and with some
embellishments, in one of Alexander Dumas volumes of
Italian travelling sketches. Managers, however, found
compensation in Rossini's rapidity for his provoking idle-
ness. When lie did set to work, lie got over the paper at
a gallop ; and, when driven to the last minute, his fertility
and invention were wonderful. Some of his finest things
were composed on the spur of the moment, and in breath-
less haste. The celebrated air Di !anti Palpiti is one of
these. His dinner hour was at hand, when, driven to the
wall by urgent solicitations, he one day sat down to com-
Nsaeut it. His cook, learning that the Maestro was really
to work—no very common occurrence—thrust his
head in at the door, and ventured a supposition that he
had " better not put the rice to boil." "On the con-
trary, boil it directly" replied Rossini, who was hungry.
Before the rice, that indispensable preface to an Italian
dinner, was fit for table, the air and its introduction were
composed. Di tanti Palpiti is still familiarly kaawa as
the Aria dei rizzi.—Blackwood,