The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-11-04 00:00:00

OLD FRIENDS!

BY MRS. CRAWFORD

Old friends ! old friends! the dear old friends

That time has swept away !
Ah ! what can make the heart amends

For the friends of life's young day ?
Oh I they were the fixed stars of lore,
That never left their sphere,
The beacon lights that shone above
Our life's dark paths to cheer
Old frier
Old friends ! old fr

1 old friends !

,nds t can we forget
len prim^

Those days of

When round our

i hearths we met,

I our merry voice's chime
the old hall ring to the roof with joy

....
As we sang the songs of yore,
Or danced to the strain of the harper boy
On the bright old oaken 11oor.
Old friends ! old frie

Old friends ! old friends 1 as time rolls on,
We miss them more and more;
Those halls are dark where once they shone,
And closed the friendly door ;
While colder seems the stranger's eye,
As we pass on earth's dull way,
And think, with mem'ry's rising sigh,
Of the friends of We's young day
Old friend

old friends 1

LITERATURE

--0---

Booms FOR REVIEW. &c.—New Books, Prints, Music, &c.,
intended for review, may be left at Mr. C. Mitchell's, Red-
lion-court, Feet-street, London, addressed " to the Editor
of the LIVERPOC,LSTANDARD," when they will be forwarded,
and receive attention.

Murray's Reading for the Rail. Essays from the Times,
London : John Murray.

It has often been a matter of regret to all who take an

interest in the conservation of 1

erary productions of

sterling merit, that the brilliant essays, ingenious criti-
tisms, and learned commentaries which appear from time
to time in the principal journals of this country, should
be consigned to oblivion after a day's, or at most a week's
existence before the public eye. Some of these epheme-
ral essays and reviews contain more original thoughts,
lame profound reflections, more wit, mere philosophy,
than one half the books printed, and bound, and placed
in libraries as standard works of reading and reference.
3dr. Murray, with that enterprise which distinguishes him
among publishers, has shared in the regret, and has taken
Steps to remove the cause of it, so far at least as one jour-

mai is concerned. Having adopted a valuable suggestion,
that a series of sound moral and instructive works, in a
convenient and cheap form, was most desirable, he has
/carried it out in the most liberal and enlightened manner,
by preparing and publishing his " Readings for the Rail."
The principle upon which the selection of subjects for this
popular series is founded, is the dispersion of entertaining
information and innocent amusement, such as may super-
sede and counteract the trivial and often immoral publica-
tions at present destroying the taste and corrupting the
=orals of railway readers, more especially the young. The
.first volume of the series is now before us, and contains
eleven essays from The Times, being critical literary pa-
pers of great merit, which have appeared of late in that
Journal. These essays are indeed well worth preserving in
a book form. That on Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton
is very interesting as a brilliant biography of two remark-
able characters ; and that on Dean Swift, Stella, and
Vannessa, is still more interesting as the personal history

of the eccentric, if

not mad Dean, and his two famous
must give an extract from this latter

female friends

t3Bay :