The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-06-16 00:00:00

THE LIV.ERPOOL STANDARD.

PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF MRS. HEMANS.—I can-
not well conceive a more exquisitely beautiful creature
than Mrs. Hemans was—none of the portraits or busts
I have ever seen of her do her justice, nor is it possible for
words to convey to the reader any idea of the matchless
yet serene beauty of her expression. Her glossy waving
hair was parted on her forehead, and terminated on the
sides, in rich and luxuriant auburn curls; there was a
dove-like look in her eyes, and yet there, was a chastened
sadness in their expression. Her complexion was remark-
ably clear, and her high forehead looked as pure and spotless
as Parian marble. A calm repose, not unmingled with
melancholy, was the characteristic expression of the face;
but when she smiled, all traces of sorrow were lost, and
she seemed to be but " a little lower than the angels"—
fitting shrine for so pure a mind! Let me not be deemed
a flatterer or an enthusiast, in thus describing her, for I
am only one of many, who have been almost as much cap-
tivated by her personal beauty, as charmed by the sweet-
ness and holiness of her productions. If ever poems were
the reflex of the beauties, personal and mental, of their
writers, they were indeed so in the case of Mrs. Hemans.
—Sketches of Poets, Preachers, and Politicians.
ASCENT OF THE HOLY STAIRCASE AT Rom E.—l never

in my life saw anything at once so ridiculous and so un-
pleasant as this sight : ridiculous in the absurd incidents
inseparable from it, and unpleasant in its senseless and
unmeaning degradation. There are two steps to begin
with, and then a rather broad landing. The more rigid
climbers went along this landing on their knees, as well as
up the stairs; and the figures they cut in their shuffling
progress over the level surface no description can paint.
Then, to see them watch their opportunity from the porch,
and cut in where there was a place next the wall! And
to see one man with an umbrella (brought on purpose, for
it was a fine day), hoisting himself, unlawfully, from stair
to stair! And to observe a demure lady of fifty-five or
so, looking back every now and then to assure herself that
her legs were properly disposed ! There were such odd
differences in the speed .of different people too. Some get
on as if they were doing a match against time; others
stopped to say a prayer on every step. This man touched
every stair with his forehead, and kissed it; that man
scratched his head all the way. The boys got on bril-
liantly, and were up and down stairs before the old lady
had accomplished her half-dozen stairs. But most of the
penitents came down very sprightly and fresh, as having
done a real good substantial deed, which it would take a
good deal of sin to counterbalance ; and the old gentleman
in the watch-box was down upon them with his canister
while they were in this humour. I promise you.—
Dickens's Pictures from Italy.
LOVE OF DOGS FOR THEIR HOME.—A Newfoundland
dog of the true breed was brought from that country, and
given to a gentleman who resided near Thames-street, in
London. As he had no means of keeping the animal, ex-
cept in close confinement, he sent him to a friend in Scot-
land by a Berwick smack. When he arrived in Scotland,
he took the first opportunity of escaping, and though he
certainly had never before travelled one yard of the road,
yet he found his way back to his former residence in Fish-
street Hill, but in so exhausted a state that he could only
express his joy at seeing his master, and then died. So
wonderful is the sense of these dogs, that I have beard of
three instances in which they have voluntarily guarded
the bed-chamber doors of their mistresses, during the
whole night, in the absence of their masters, although on
no other occasion did they approach them. * * *
A few years ago some hounds were embarked at Liverpool
for Ireland, and were safely delivered at a kennel far up in
that country. One of them, not probably liking his quar-
ters, found his way back to the port at which he had been
landed from Liverpool. On arriving at it, some troops
were being embarked in a ship bound for that place. This
was a fortunate circumstance for the old hound, as during
the bustle he was not noticed. He safely arrived at Li-
verpool, and on his old master, or huntsman rather, com-
ing down stairs one morning, he recognised his former ac-
quaintance waiting to greet him. A similar circumstance
happened to some hounds sent by the late Lord Lonsdale
to Ireland. Three of them escaped from the kennel in
that country, and made their appearance again in Leices-
tershire. The love of home, or most probably affection
for a particular individual, must be strongly implanted in
dogs to induce them to search over unexplored and un-
known regions for the being and the home they love.—
Jesse's Anecdotes.
CLFOPATRA'S BANQUETS TO ANTONY.—OR her
landing (from the Cyndus) she invited Antony and his
generals to a dinner, at which the whole of the dishes
placed before him were of gold, set with precious stones,
and the room and the twelwe couches were ornamented
with purple and gold. On Antony's praising the splen-
dour of the sight, as passing anything he had before seen,
she said it was a trifle, and begged he would take the
whole of it as a gift from her. The next day he again
dined with her, and brought a larger number of his friends
and generals, and was of course startled to see a costliness
which made that of the day before seem nothing ; and she
again gave him the whole of the gold upon the table, and
gave to each of his friends the couch upon which he sat.
These costly and delicate dinners were continued every
day ; and one evening, when Antony playfully blamed her
wastefulness, and said it was not possible to fare in a more
costly manner, she told him that the dinner of the next
day should cost ten thousand sestertia, or sixty thousand
pounds sterling. This he would not believe, and laid her
a wager she would fail in her promise. When the day
came, the dinner was as grand and dainty as those of the
former days ; but, when Antony called on her to count up
the cost of the meats and wines, she said that she did not
reckon them, but that she would herself banquet on the
ten thousand sestertia. She wore in her ears two
pearls, the largest known in the world, which, like the
diamonds of Eurcpean kings, had come to her with her
crown and kingdom, and were together valued at that
large sum. On the servants removing the meats, they set
before her a glass of vinegar, and she took one of these
pearls from her ear and dropped it into the glass, and
when dissolved drank it off. Plaucus, one of the guests,
who had been made judge of the wager, snatched the
other from the Queen's ear, and saved it from being drunk
up like the first, and then declared that Antony had lost
his bet. The pearl which was afterwards cut in two, was
made into a pair of ear-rings for the statue of Venus in
the Pantheon at home; and the fame of the wager may
be said to have made the two half pearls at least as valua-
ble as the two whole ones.—Sharpe's History of Egypt.

THE TOMBS IN THE CATACOMBS GIVE NO SUPPORT
TO ROMISH SUPERSTITIONS.—When we reflect upon
the trials which awaited the church, and the combined
powers of earth and hell which menaced its earliest years,
it is impossible not to recognise the fostering power of a
heavenly Hand in thus providing a cradle for the infant
community. Perhaps to the protection afforded by the
catacombs, as an impregnable fortress from which perse-
cution always failed to dislodge it, the Church in Rome
owed much of the rapidity of its triumph ; and to the pre-
servation of its earliest sanctuaries its ancient superiority
in discipline and manners. The customs of the first ages,
stamped indelibly on the walls of the catacombs, must
have contributed to check the spirit of innovation soon
observable throughout Christendom : the elements of a
pure faith were written " with an iron pen, in the rock,
for ever ; " and if the church of after-times had looked
back to her subterranean home, " to the whole pit from
whence she was digged," she would there have sought in
vain for traces of forced celibacy, the invocation of saints,
and the representation of Deity in painting or sculpture.
Whatever dates may be attributed to other remains, this
fact is certain, that the Lapidarian Gallery, arranged by
the hands of the modern Romanists, contains no support
whatever of the dogmas of the Council of Trent. Rest-
ing upon this distinction, virtually drawn by themselves,
between what belongs to a pure age, and what to the times
of innovation, we may safely refer to the latter a number
of inscriptions of doubtful date, preserved in the vaults of
St. Peter's, which contain prayers to the Virgin Mary,
and other peculiarities of Romanist theology. The his-
tory of Christendom as well as that of art supplies the
means of fixing the age of many such monuments; for in-
stance, the time of Vigilantius, when some bishops,
moved by his arguments, refused to ordain unmarried
deacons, cannot be confounded with an age in which the
celibacy of the clergy became compulsory : nor can we
easily mistake for the work of a century that knew only
the sign of the cross in its simplest form of two straight
lines, the wretched representation of the passion, in a
crucifix the size of life, smeared with the imitation of
blood, and surmounted by a crown of actual thorns.—Dr.
Maitland's Church in the Catacombs::

AGRICULTURE AND THE FALL OF ROME.—SO general
was the depopulation of the empire in the time of Justi-
nian, that it suggested to many of the emperors the pro-
ject of re-peopling those favoured districts by a fresh
influx of inhabitants. " Justinian H. had a great taste
for these emigrations. He transported half the popula-
tion of Cyprus to a new city near Cyzicns, called Justi-
nianopolis after its founder. But it was all in vain. The

desolation and ruin of the provinces continued, and up to
the very gates of Constantinople, which was maintained
entirely by grain imported at a low price from Egypt,
and cattle from the Tauric Chersonesue." As a natural
consequence of this entire or principal dependence of
Rome on foreign or provincial raising of grain, there was,
on any interruption of these foreign supplies, the greatest
scarcity and even famine in the metropolis. All the vigi-
lance of the emperors, which was constantly directed to
this object, could not prevent this from taking place.
Tacitus says, that in the scarcity under Claudius, there
only remained a supply of fifteen days for the city. Fa-
mine in Rome was frequent under Augustus, Tiberius,
Claudius, and Nero. Claudian laments, that after Egypt
had been assigned to Constantinople, Rome bad come to
derive its subsistence solely from Lybia, and depended
on the double chances of the seasons and the winds.

" Nunquam secura futurt, ----
Semper mops, ventique fidem poscebat et anni."
" When Africa revolted under Gildo, in the reign of
Honoring, Rome," says Gibbon, " was on the brink of
starvation, from which she was only saved by large im-
portations from Gaul." She still depended on her pro-
vinces; domestic agriculture was ruined. Claudian re-
presents the genius of ancient Rome bewailing, in pathe-
tic and eloquent terms, her dependence for food on the
nations she had conquered, in words which all govern-
ments rendering their people dependent on foreign sup-
plies would do well to bear in mind. " Formerly," says
the poet, " my prayers used to be that my legions might
triumph on the banks of the Araxes, or that the consul
might display his eagles at Susa ; now all I ask is a sup-
ply of food to avert the extremities of hunger. The
province of Africa, which furnishes corn to my people, is
under the power of Gildo. He intercepts our supplies
and our food is at his mercy. He sells the harvests whiel:
belong to the descendants of Romulus; he possesses the
fields purchased by my blood. The warrior people which
conquered the world, now dishonoured and in want, en-
dures the miserable punishment of peace; blockaded by
no enemy, they are like the inhabitants of a besieged
town. Death impends at every moment; there remain
only doubtful supplies for a few days. My greatness has
been my ruin; I was safer when my territory was more
fixated ; would that its boundaries were once more at my
gates l But, if lam doomed to perish, at least let me
have a different fate ; let me be conquered by another
Porsenna; let my city be burnt by a second Brennus.
All things are more tolerable than hunger."—Blackwood.