The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-12-30 00:00:00

THE CLOSING YEAR, 1851 !

THE year 1851 stands on the brink of the grave.
In a few short hours, not days, it will be interred
in the tomb of the past. Regarding is as already
defunct, and remembering the pious maxim—De
,nortuis nil nisi bonum, what word of eulogium,
what sentence of respect or admiration, can we
conscientiously pronounce over it ere committing
it to the narrow house of history, and sending it to
keep company with the thousands that have gone
before ? Alas ! not a word of eulogium—not a
sentence of respect or admiration can we charge
ourselves with pronouncing over the poor remains
of this perishing year. We doubt if even the elo-
quent Bossuet himself, were he alive, could contrive
to compose a decent funeral oration over so ignoble
a subject. And yet this year, which expires so
ingloriously, was ushered into the world with
greater promise, was heralded by louder proclama-
tions and more imposing pomp than any of its pre-
decessors in our time. Its advent was announced
as the dawning of a new era in the destinies of
mankind ;—its coming was hailed as the realisation
of a glorious present, which dreamers of bright
visions declared would completely eclipse the past,
and open the way to a future too brilliant for man's
imagination to conceive in its totality.

The year 1851 was to have witnessed the inaugura-
tion of the grand temple dedicated to Universal Co-
ncord, Fraternity, and United Industry, whose foun-
dations, it was said, were built upon adamant, and
whose duration was to be not for an age, but for all
time. It was to have seen the kindling of new lights
in sciences and arts, which were to shed an all-sur-
passing and magnificent illumination from pole to
pole. It was to have originated the development
of pure elemental principles of right, the reforma-
tion of old ideas, the obliteration of antiquated pre-
judices and of condemned social incongruities, and
the recasting of the whole moral and social fabric
of mankind into a novel and a beautifully-philoso-
phic and comprehensive whole. In England it was
to have been the witness of unprecedented pros-
perity, of superabundant commGrce, of teeming
plenty, and of general contentment, happiness, and
progress towards a yet more advanced state of
human felicity. The " good time coming," which
looms in the misty future about as dimly as does
the mythical golden age in the hazy past, was to

have come in earnest. Moreover, it was to have
been signalised for the complete triumph of the
British Crown over the Tiara of Rome. In short,
1851 was to have been the annus mirabilis which
all historians would hereafter refer to, when dilat-
ing on the regeneration of the human race, as the
date from which it took its start.

Well, in due course the year 1851 was born ; it has
lived its regular period ; it is on the point of expira-
tion. What has been the sum of its achievements?
An elaborately got-up scenic spectacle at home ; a
terribly tragic revolution of blood and violence
abroad ; a general repudiation, throughout the
world, of the new-fangled doctrines of theoretic
freedom in every thing ; a return to old Conserva-
tive maxims; a retrogression to forms and princi-
ples of government more stringent and absolute
than any that has been tolerated for half a century.
The well-bepuffeda temple of Concord has indeed
been inaugurated with extraordinary theatrical
show and glitter, and with gorgeous state cere-
monials ; but the curtain having fallen on the
dramatic exhibition, nothing remains of the flatter-
ing illusion but the vain remembrance. Yet of all
the solid and substantial things which this marvel-
lous year was to have brought forth, the fragile
glass palace was the only one that has been realised.
The brittle crystal shell remains; the ideas and
principles if was designed to inaugurate have been
scattered to the winds. Where is the universal
peace that was to follow this fraternisation of all
nations ? We can discern nothing abroad but
bristling bayonets, hostile armaments, the prepa-
rations of impending and wide-spread contentions

—powers against powers, and peoples against rulers.
Where are those reciprocal interchanges of indus-
trial benefits which were prophesied as certain to
be established in accordance with our example?
We can perceive them not ; on the contrary, we
behold certain evidences that the idea of granting
them is scouted by all the leading commercial
states in the old and the new hemispheres. Con-

fining our view to our own country, where are the
contentment, the prosperity, the grand develop-
ment of resources, the increased pro44ction, the

extended employment, the high moral culture, the
pleasing progress towards perfectibility, so glow-
ingly predicted ? We mark them not. We see
doubt and gloom and perplexity on every counte-
nance. We hear cries for more troops, more
munitions of war, more money for our distant
colonies. We think we can see indications of
increased military establishments, as defences
against possible aggressions, and of course in-
creased taxation, already too heavy to he borne.
We behold a large portion of the empire depopu-
lated and confiscated, and the very pick and choice
of our bold peasantry—from the north, from the
south, from the east, from the west—leaving our
shores. We see our Government falling to pieces
through internal dissensions, which not even the
terror of the external convulsions surrounding us
can restrain. In prospect we have a dangerous
agitation excited by a new scheme of revolutionary
reform, thrown down by a reckless minister in a
moment of desperation. Such, simply and without
exaggeration, is the position in which we find our-
selves at the close of this year which was to hare
worked all but miracles The Roman Emperor wept
because he had lost a day ; we may bitterly weep
because we have lost a year—worse than lost one,
for we have not remained stationary, but have
fearfully retrograded. The captivating words
" fraternity," " disarmament," " retrenchment,"
" prosperity," have all been changed : 1851 bears
on its pall the ominous scrawl—" Revolutions,
wars, taxation, and interrupted commerce."