The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-09-06 00:00:00

THE MAGAZINES.

To make selections from Blackwood's number for Sep-
tember is a work of no great difficulty, for we had only
extended our reading to the second page of his first article,
"America," (a review of " Hamilton's Men and Manners
in America,") ere our attention was arrested by the fol-
lowing passage :

The French writers have often said that England, by its sim-
ple vicinity, by the example she set of liberal institutions close
to the continental shores, has done more mischief to the adjoin-.
ing states than even by the thunder of her fleets or the terror of
her arms. There can be little doubt that the observation is well
founded. The mania of imitation—the passion for transporting
the institutions of one country to another—of transplanting pn-
vileges and liberties from a nation in one state of civilization to
another, under different circumstances, has done and is doing
More to injure the cause of freedom than all the efforts of tyrants
for its suppression. The effects it produces are of the very
worst kind, because it leads to the formation of constitutions so
utterly absurd with reference to the people among whom they
are introduced, that consequences the most fatal to public hap-
piness may be apprehended-. All the calamities which have be-
fallen the cause of freedom for the last forty years have sprung
from the mania of imitation. The French revolution, with all
the unspeakable horrors with which it was attended, and the
utter annihilation of public liberty in which it has terminated,
arose in a great degree from contagion. It was the Anglo-mania
which first turned the heads of the higher orders, and the ex-
ample of the American revolution which next set the train on
fire, and convulsed the old world with the flame originating in
the new. It is the example of French equality-and licentious-
ness ; of a nation practically invested with all the powers of
sovereignty; of all honours and offices flowing from the multi-
tude, no matter for how short a time or with what ruinous con-
sequences, which has ever since agitated the world, and kept
the revolutionary party everywhere together, from the hope of
one day revelling in similar orgies. The revolutions of Spain,
Naples, and Piedmont, in 1820, all sprung from imitation of the
Spanish revolt in the Island of Leon; and the subsequent de-
gradation of the Peninsula is entirely to be ascribed to the pro-
mulgation of a constitution both in Spain and Portugal, utterly
at variance with their character and interests. In later days,
the explosion of the Barricades immediately overturned Flan-
ders, and put the last drop into the cup which made Polish
misery overflow; and though last, not least, the ancient fabric
of the British constitution has yielded to the shock of foreign
example, and the liberty which had grown up for eight hundred
years under the shadow of native institutions, has been exposed
to the perilous storms of democratic ambition.
Dangers of a similar and still more alarming kind, threaten
the country from the influence of American institutions, ill un-
derstood or misapplied. There is nothing to which the repub-
lican party everywhere point with such exultation, as the ex-
ample of American freedom; and glowing eulogies are periodi-
cally put forth from the press of this land of general equality, to
stimulate the revolutionary spirit of Europe to fresh exertions.
Nor is there wanting enough, in the simple narrative of trans-
atlantic independence, to set on fire cooler heads than the pa-
triots and democrats of modern Europe. The facts of a nation
existing without a monarch or nobles, or public debt, rarely en-
gaged in war, steadily advancing in opulence = without pauper-
rsin in many of its provinces, without a standing army in any;
with an immense commerce, and a boundless territory ; with a
population doubling every thirty years, and public wealth trip-
ling in the same time, are amply sufficient to acconut for the
powerful interest which they have excited in the eastern world,
and to explain the anxious eyes with which the ardent and en-
thusiastic so generally turn to its infant fortunes, as the dawn
of a brighter day to the human race.
There is no example in the history of the world, of the insti-
tutions of one country being transferred to another, without the
most disastrous effects ; nor is a single instance to be found, in
any age, of the successful transplantation of a constitution.
This of itself is sufficient to make the prudent pause, before
they engage in any such attempt. No people have more obsti-
nately persisted in this system of transferring their own institu-
tions to other states than the English; and in every one instance
which they have tried they have experienced a total failure.
Sicily is one of the most memorable instances of their experi-
mental legislation; they thought, when that island was under
their power during the late war, that all that was wanting to
make its inhabitants perfectly happy was to give them the Eng-
lish constitution; and accordingly they forthwith proceeded t o
frame a government for the island, with king, lords, and coin
mons, popular elections, bills, budgets, and all the machinery
of Britishlegislation, which was soon found to be so utterly ab-
surd and impracticable among its inhabitants, that, without
external violence, it sunk to the ground after a few years' exp
riment, and the only trace of it which now remains is the ex-
pression " to!,ebudgetto," a money statement, which has becom e
natural.zed in the harmonious language of the Mediterranean
shores from its Gothic regenerators.
The Spanish Peninsula is another instance of the total failure
of transplanted institutions. In 1812, when English influence
was predominant at Cadiz, a constitution was framed for the
people of Spain, which has been the direct and immediate cause
of the whole subsequent disasters and miseries of the Peninsula;
and subsequently, with the same sanction, a similar constitu-
tion, based on the same ruinous equality, was extended to Por-
tugal. At once, without any previous habits of preparation,
without any inquiry as to its probable working among its varied
inhabitants, they introduced a constitution, of which the basis
was universal stifrage in the election of the tortes. The effect
of such an innovation might have been foreseen, and is now
become a:matter of history. Its effects were not at first conspi-
cuous ; because Ferdinand instantly on his arrival annulled a
constitution which nine-tenths of his subjects felt to be imprac-
ticable; but the moment that the revolt of 1820 re-established
it in both kingdoms of the Peninsula, extreme revolutionary
measures were commenced, the property of the church was con-
fiscated, that of the fundholders annihilated, and nothing but
the invasion of the Duke d'Angouleme, in 1823, prevented the
revival of anarchy in Spain and Portugal, as bloody- as the reign
of terror. The present contest between Don Pedro and Don
Miguel is a legacy bequeathed to the Peninsula by the same
insane measures ; it is the universal suffrage established by our
ridiculous Portuguese constitution, which has set all the revo-
lutionists of the Peninsula on fire; and the contest now raging
on the banks of the Douro is the direct consetpuance of the imi-
tation, by European legislators, of American institutions.

From the second article " The Sketcher, No. 3," we
proceed to make a short extract :
It would be an admirable thing if our universities would es-
tablish professofships of painting—for artists by profession are
too much artists, and each one too much confined to his own
walk ; therefore, such professors should not be professional. I
cannot but think the arts would gain much from an intercourse
with classical literature, and that refined taste, which, if any-
where, is in the very atmosphere of those noble seats of learn-
ing, Oxford and Cambridge ; I cannot but persuade myself,—
and I wish the powerful pen of Christopher would take up the
subject,—that the arts, by such a foundation, would acquire
both strength and polish, and that it would foster true genius,
and elevate the arts, by making it the delight and occupation
of the noble and highly educated, and that it would have an im-
mediate tendency to extinguish the almost desperate vulgarity
that is continually disgracing the English schsool.
Poets are always painters;_ why are not painters always poets?
Poets take their sketches from nature—but how do they em-
bellish? They improve sentiment, where a Professor of Politi-
cal Economy would see nothing but chain acres and naval
stores. Hoit magnificently Milton paints the very creation of
landscape :

•. Rose as in dance, the stately trees, and spread
Their branches hung with copious fruit, or gemm'd
Their biossoms—with high wuods the fields were crown'd ;
With turfs the valleys and each fountain side ;
With borders long the rivers : that earth now
Seem'd like to Heaven, a seat where god's might dwell,
Or wander with delight, and love to haunt
Her sacred shades.".
"The stately trees," like beings of life, "as in a dance"—the
terrene of gods—there is a " Golden Age." But that was the
grand creation, and he composed it, perhaps, after he had heard
the divine music of some Handel, and his mind's eye was gifted.
But what does he make out of our poor degenerate earth, in-
Imbited, by our dwindled, working race? See, here is a pic-
ture—

" Russet lawns and billows grey,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray :
Mountains on whose barren breast
The labouring clouds do often rest :
Meadows trim with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks and rivers wide ;
Towers And battlements it sees,
flosom'd high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The cynosure of neighbouring eyes."

"Where the clouds do often rest"—there is a dash of poetry:
the clouds, you see, are almost sentient things, for they are
made to labour all for man's good, and after dropping fatness
in the valleys, take their rest upon the mountain's barren
breast; and this shows you there is no disturbing wind; but just
sir enough to let the clouds rest and balloon themselves. How
soon he converts all into his own poetical domain—the choicest
iu all his Utopia, the free range of noble thought, magnificent
repose, and gentle love and beauty! And mark the conceal-
nient—he dies not obtrude coarse figures on the eye, but whis-
pers to your ardent imagination of the most perfect beauty in
repose—" some beauty lies" amid battlements " bosom'd high
in tufted trees:"—and. here is the picture ; all must direct their
eyes to this point—for she lies "the Cynosure of neighbouring
eyes." Now, see in his Il Penseroso—
" And when the sun begins to fling
His flaring bettins, me, goddess! bring
To arched walks of twilight groves,
And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves,
Of pine, or monumental oak,
Where the rude axe, with heaved stroke,
Was never heard the nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from their hallow'd haunt.
There in close covert by some brook.
Where no profaner eye may look,
Hide me from day's garish eye,
While the bee, with honey'd thigh,
That at her flowery work doth sing,
And the waters mu rmurirr,.
With such concert as they keep,
Entice the dewy-feather 'd sleep :
Apd let some strange mysterious dream
Wave at his wings in aery stream
Of lively portraiture display'd,
Softly on my eyelids laid.
And, as I wake, sweet musk breathe
Above, about, or underneath,
Sent by some spirits to mortals good,
Or the unseen genius of the wood."
Here you In ,w at once that this is the habitation of nymphs
and dryads, and harnadryads ; and old Sylvanus is curate of
the extended parish, and cares not for his stipend. And yet
you do not see one—but it there is nothing to fright them, you
are satisfied you may be hid in close covert by some brook—
and there you will sleep and dream, and such a dream as only
poets dream. There is no better landscape among the pre-
sentations of the R. A.'s at Somerset House. But Milton can
dash off like Salvator when he pleases, as,
" There under ebon shades, and low-brow'd rocks
As ragged as thy locks,
In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell."

Now it is for such purpose sketchers should sketch, and such
use should landscape-painters make ofAheir studies from nature.
With respect to the other articles, we must content
ourselves with simply observing that they are entitled
"Edmund Burke, Part IV.;" "Nora Boyle;" "Nights
at Mess, IV '•" Northern Lighthouses," and " The
Greek Anthology,"--and that they are all calculated to
sustain the well-earned fame of Blackwood's Maga-
zine.

The Dublin ,University Magazine has in some of its
previous numbers convinced us :—first, thr.; " The Irish
Gentleman" who went on his travels "in search of a
religion" would have acted more wisely if he had re-
mained at home, contented with the honours he bad
gained by the acknowledged superiority of his poetical
talents, exhibited in the art of attiring lewdness, bias
phemy and sedition in the most attractive and gayest,
and therefore in the most seductive garb ;—and secondly,
that in his " Travels"' he unfortunately lost hill-melt' in a
wilderness of " doubt and error," whose foggy atmos-
'there is uniliumined by the solar raw,: of truth. The

number for this month happily furnishes " A GUIDE to
an Irish Gentleman in his search for a religion," which,
if it do not extricate this renowned poet from that worst
of all, a theological labyrinth, will, we hope, be well noted
as a beacon to warn the unwary of its dark and unholy
approaches. " The Guide" consists of some editorial
observations on an admirable work bearing that title,
from the pen of the Rev. Mortimer O'Sullivan, Rector of
Kill y man.

From another article, " The Good Old Cause," we
subjoin the following extract:—
But if religion be indeed, as we sincerely believe it, the
great centre of gravity of our realm, to which all other things
must and will accommodate themselves, the maintenance and
the improvement of the mass of the people in religion and
piety, must, after all, form our grand ultimate security,—our
only certain safeguard against the machinations of the enemy,
and the spirit of change' of violence, and of revolt, which we
see raging on every side throughout the nations. And this is
a security towards which not the noble and the mighty only,
but every man, and even every woman, above the rank of the
labouring classes, may and should contribute. Educate the
people, and educate them in religion and virtue. Lay but this
sure foundation, and the superstructure of peace and happiness.
which may be erected thereupon, will rest upon a rock and
cannot be shaken. Poverty itself will be diminished,—for when
the people are rightly and religiously instructed in their duties,
they will far better understand their temporal as well as their
eternal interests. They will become provident—they will ac-
quire a taste for new comforts along with their new character
and their new attainments. They will be raised in the scale of
civilization and of moral being. The Bible will uo longer be a
sealed book to them. They will no longer be compelled to
take Christianity upon hearsay, or be dependent upon man for
a knowledge of the word and tfie wisdom of God. They will pos-
sess a shield against sin, and a consolation in sickness and sor-
row. Well has it been said, by one of the most eloquent and
fervent Christian writers of the present day, that "every child
untaught to read its Bible is a reproach and a crime to a Chris-
tian people. The uses of a Sunday-school are important even
in point of public order : it accustoms the youthful mind to
regularity, to attention, to obedience, and to respect for supe-
riors. It withdraws the child from the temptations to Sabbath-
breaking, an offence which grows with the growth, and which
is known to be one of the most fruitful sources of public crime.
It often stimulates the parents to knowledge and industry for
the sake of the child ; and it tends powerfully to give both child
and parents a sense of the value of good opinion, of the plea-
sures of personal acquirements, and the superiority of a life of
personal order and good conduct, to the recklessness, degra-
dation, and misery of which the life of ignorance presents such
perpetual and melancholy-, examples.
How applicable, how peculiarly applicable, are these obser-
vations to Ireland, a country in which the best and richest gifts
of God, both physical and intellectual, ate daily and nightly
turned to the worst purposes of the devil.

For still cloth Ignorance
Maintain large empire here,
Dark and mildest amid surrounding light;
Even as within this favoured spot—
Earth's wonder and reproach—
The traveller on his way_
Beholds with Weary eye
Bleak moorland, swampy bog, and lonely heath
In drear expansion spread.
Oh grief, that spirits of celestial seed,
Whom ever-teeming Nature hath brought forth
With all the human faculties divine,
Of sense and soul etdued,
Disherited of knowledge and of bliss,
The creature a of brute life,
Should grope in darkness lost !

And this, too, is the country in which the peculiar wisdom of our
present rulers has seen fit to pronounce a divorce between edu-
cation and religion—to withdraw all aid from a society which
was extending the light of knowledge to tens of thousands of
immortal souls, because it was so illiberal in its views as to
make the Scriptures of truth an indispensable part of its sys-
tem of instruction, and with the elements of human learning to
teach the hope of glory and the means of grace ! It is unne-
cessary to dwell upon the impolicy and evil consequences of
suffering large masses of the community to grow up in utter
ignorance. It is unnecessary to point out the political danger
and the moral guilt. These things are now conceded, even
our enemies themselves being the judges. The only point any
longer disputed is, whether, in a general plan of national edu-
cation, the children should or should not be taught to read the
Bible as the word of God—should or should not be instructed
in the doctrines of true religion, as the guide of life. But if
religion be indeed the only sure foundation of morality and
moral obligation ; if it be indeed the only certain safeguard of
peace and happiness and social order, then the system of
national education shOuld, in order to produce a race of loyal
and peaceable subjects, assuredly include, and indeed almost
limit itself to affording, sound instruction in the Holy Scrip-
tures and the doctrines of religion". The Bible- itself decides
the question, when it tells us to 'Train up a child in the way
he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.' "

Instead of enumerating its general contents, we have
to observe that " Hints from High Places, No. 2;" "Fa.
miliar Epistles from London, No. 2;" and " Fragments of
my Tour," are each good in their way. ADVENA can
and therefore ought to have written something better
than " The Late Fire," if write he must, on a subject
that is, we think, "too grave for a joker" to exercise
his wit upon. As a young periodical, The Dublin Uni-
versity Magazine, from the agreeable variety, general
excellence, and constitutional spirit of its pages, is every
way worthy of the liberal support of the Conservatives
of Great Britain.

THE PUDDLEDOCK ORACLE.
r Franz the Morning Herald.)

DEAR HERALD,—! have observed, for some time past, that an
ancient and venomous beldam, whose indecent freaks in the
neighbourhood of Printing-house-square have long made her be
considered as a public nuisance, calculates very confidently on
the forbearance of your contempt, while she indulges her envy
at your popularity by assailing you with that peculiar ribaldry
in which, it must be admitted, she distances the eloquent fish-
fags who flourish in the classic regions not far from her abode.
I have also observed that your forbearance has made her presume
that she can pelt you whenever she pleases with the filth of Print-
ing-house-square, without being .dragged from her lurking-place,
and compelled, like one of Swift's yahoos, to swallow a portion
of the noisome compound which she so liberally
.flings about.—
She is right in believing that no decent person wishes to soil his
hands in inflicting upon her the retribution of the lea talionis.—
Still the encouragement which she receives, from escaping with
impunity, tends to make her a greater nuisance than ever. If,
however, while you are engaged in more important matters, you
will allow me to administer a few stripes of a rod which I have
tied together for her correction, she will find the "schoolmaster
is abroad;" and, if she cannot improve her taste, which, I am
afraid, low habits have made inveterate, she will find it necessary
to mend her manners. lam not sure whether, in this patriotic
undertaking, I may not incur the risk of something like a state
offence by handling the freakish old damsel rather roughly while
she is under the especial keeping of his Majesty's government,
but, should the Attorney-General file an ex-qfficio to vindicate
the purity of her reputation, I hope you will step forward to de-
fend your humble servant to command,
Constitution-hill, Auy. 31. RIGDUM FUNNIDOS.

EPISTLE FANIILIAR, EXPOSTULATORY, AND HISTORICAL,
TO GOODY AWFUL, alias MOTHER THUNDERER,
OF PRINTING-HOUSE-SQUARE.
Pray, Goody awful, cease thy spite;
In sooth, 'tis sad to see
Thy toothless jaws that cannot bite
Grin so maliciously ;
Thy swaggering air. :--thy bullying prate,
Have made thee as notorious
As any Poll of Billingsgate,
When she is drunk and glorious.
Thou'rt growing weak, my Goody dear!
Although thou look'st so grim;
.4 Piling sale fills up, I fear,
Thy malice to the brim :
The public scorn is hard to bear,
I own, my ancient dame,
And thou bast earn'd of that thy share,
By many a deed of shame.
• Thou'st chang'd thy coat so oft, d'ye see—
Your petticoat I mean—
That weathercocks compared with thee
Are changeless things, I ween.
Pitt, Sidmonth, Perceval, in turn
Were worshipp'd in their day ;
Nor dirty jobs aid "Awful" spurn
When fag to Castlereagh.
The Bourbons, when they sat enthron'd,
By ancient right divine,
And France with rusty fetters bound,
Were patron-saints of thine.
The knight who play'd the gaoler's part
• Had all thy honest zeal ;
He found the key to Goody's heart,
But not a key of steel.
Then Whigs and Whiglings did'st thou cuff,
And wofully belay,
And pelted them with foulest stuff,
While Tories held the sway,
If democrats had then the weed
Of thy abundant grace,
The axe and rope the land had freed
From all the restless race.
When CA.!NING flung his harmer forth
From Gattun's mound so green,
And smote reformers south and north
With sword both bright and keen,
Behind his back, 0 vestal saee
Thou took'st thy loyal stand,
And made reformers feel thy rage,
With venom'd quill in hand.
Then WELLINGTON was called the chief
Of " bullies and of brutes,"
Bespatter'd worse than any thief
That ever wore jack-boots ;
But when the Duke, a Premier stern,
Ruled England with his nod,
Goody fail'd not his worth to learn—
The " brute" became 11er god.
To him she pray'd—by him she swore, -
His toady_, day by day,
And would be still, but change of power
Has changed her hopes to GesY ;
And now, virago-like, she raves
At very name of Tory,
"Brickbats and bludgeons for the knaves
That murdered England's glory !"
And loud her yells for Whis shall be
While they have golden days;
For all who hold the treasury
Are certain of her praise,
'Till overcast by fortune's frown,
And tumbled from on high,
She spurns and cuffs her idols down,
And kicks them where they lie.
Go, nurse thy Simpson—worthy thee
In eloquence and wit ;
Go, rival his absurdity,
And share his benefit;
Or blow up bubbles for the crowd,
As in famed twenty-five ;
'Gainst knaves that lose be fierce and loud,
But fawn on knaves that thrive.

Fc r services thou'st done the State.
Thou should'st have thy reward;
A wreath of flowers of Billingsgate.

And feathered robe, well tarred;
To keep thee sober, decent, cool,
The regimen of old
Be thine—the pond and ducking-stool—
To cure a common scold.

Kean, sitting one night at the back of the front boxes at
Covent-garden theatre, with a gentleman of his acquaintance,
one of the underbred box-lobby loungers of the present day
stood up before him, whose person, being, large, covered the
sight of the stage from him. Kean took fire at this, but ma-
naging his temper, he patted the box-lobby gentleman on the
shoulder with his walking-stick, and with much seems ty civility.
requested of him when he saw or heard anything that was en-
teitainin,;; on the stage to let him and the gentleman with him
know of it, "for yeu see, my dear sir," added Kean, " that at
present we must totally depend on your kindness." This had
the desired effect, and the lounger walked way.

,i;bipping Enteitigence.

TRADE OF LIVERPOOL.

There is scarcely a place in the, world, to which the British flag is
accessible, that a ready conveyance is not afforded from this enter-
prising port : and the following information may be acceptable to our
distant readers. We begin with the United States of America, to
which packets of the most splendid description are despatched as
follows, viz. :
NEw Yonx—On the Ist, Bth, 16th, and 24th of each month in the
year. Observe—There is a regular mail from New York to CANADA,
and by an arrangement between the respective governments, the
American inland postage is not demanded, as formerly, on letters to
be forwarded after the]: arrival in New York.
Pni LAD ELeni A—On the Bth and 20th of each month.

BOSTON—On the sth and 20th, usually.
OTHER PARTS OF THE UNITED STATES—The conveyances are
frequent, but merchants usually send their letters by way of New
York.
H tvI.NNAD—On the sth of each month. Observe—Letters are for-
warded, also, by way of New York.
ISIoNraRAL--On the 24th of each month during the season.
EAST INDIES, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, AND BRITISH WEST INDIA
ISLANDS—There are usually monthly conveyances.
Rio DE JANEIRO—On the Ist and 16th of each month.
OTHER PARTS OF SOUTH AMERICA—Not regular but frequent,
GENOA AND LEGHORN—On the Ist and 16th of each month.
LISBON-6n the Ist and 16th of each month.
Orowro—Every 3 weeks.
NAPLES AND SICILY—Every 3 weeks.
SMYRNA AND CONSTANTINOPLE—Ever 3 weeks.