The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-07-02 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

BRONZE.—The Chinese bronze copper in a very supe-
rior manner. This is the mode of the ancients, for urns
and other litt!e vases and ornamented goods :—After hav-
ing robbed the article with the ashes of coal and v negar
in such a manner that the copper is very shining, they dry
it in the sun, then they cover it entirely with the follow-
ing composition :—two mace of verdigris; two mace of
mineral cinnabar; two mace of sal ammoniac; two mace
of the beak and liver of duck ; five mace of alum, well
pounded, well mixed, and moistened sufficiently to make
a paste, which may be spread. (The mace is the tenth
port of a Chinese ounce.) When the article is thus pre-
pared, it is passed through the fire, and washed when it is
cold. It is covered a second time with this composition :
it is then passed through the fire, and it is washed thus
ten times. Tue small pieces thus bronzed are of great
beauty, and lose nothing by being exposed to open air and
rain.—Capt. Pidding's Chinese " Olio."
USES OF EARLY PaINTING.—One of the most im-
portant uses of early printing in England is to be found
in fragments of the Statutes of the Realm, made in the
rust parliament of Richard 111., and in the first, second,
and third parliaments of Henry VII., some leaves of
which exist. That the promulgation of the laws would
soon follow the introduction of the art of printing was a
natural consequence. Early in the next century the publi-
cation of acts of parliament became an important branch
of trade; and a king's printer was formally appointed.
Up to our own time all the cheap •ning processes of the
art of printing had been withheld, at least in their results,
from that branch of printing which was to instruct the
people in their new laws. The statutes were the dearest
of books, and kept dear for no other purpose but to
preserve one relic of the monopolies of the days of the
Stuarts. The abuse 'has been partially remedied.—
Biography of William Caxton.
LovEit's QuanaELs.—Most unhappy in mind to-day;
temper sorely tried, and feelings of resentment at what did
appear unkind conduct in another, were too visibly ex-
pressed in manner and countenance, though I did refrain
from words. Slept last night in very weariness of weep-
ing ; and awakened this morning with a feeling of hope-
lessness ; and ill at ease myselfe, methought every thing
around seemed melancholly ; truth and affection doubted,
shortcomings hardly judged off; this is an unlook'd for
triad. The sun shon brightly through the window, but it
seemed not to shine for me : I took my Bible to read
therein my usuall portion ; and kneeled down to pray,
but could not weep : thoughts of my mother's tender love
arose, and the trust on either side that had been unbroken
between us. Remembering an outward composure must
be attain'd unto, before I could go down to breakfast,
wash'd my eyes, and let the fresh sire blow upon my face;
felt I was a poor dissembler, having had heretofore but
little trouble of heart to conceal : mett my husband in the
corridor with Lord Brooke, and well nigh lost my selfe-
command when be gave me a kindly pre-sure of my hand
as be led me down stairs.—Diary of Lady Willoughby.
THE LEAGUE.—" Why is not the League, and why
will it not be, more influential than it is ?" For this rea-
son—that it does not, it cannot, identify itself with the
working classes. It professes, it longs to do this; but it
fails. It holds out objects that are far from the scope of
the peasant's wishes. It suggests to him means which
his reason does not understand, nor his sympathies em-
brace. Its philosophy is cold, selfish, arrogant. It dis-
claims all protection for all classes; it repudiates all
State interference on behalf of the oppressed ; it comforts
the poor and the aged with " laissez-faire" and union-
houses. It has but one nostrum'; and that nostrum it is
ever prescribing in the frigid language of political eco-
nomy. It forgets the character, the habits, the past asso-
ciations, as it blinds itself to the present condition, of the
peasant. It forgets that the malady under which he la-
bours has been caused by the very medicine which it re-
commends—political change ; that the object of his sym-
pathy has already passed from a good to a bad state; that
the memory of the former clings to him, and hatred of
the latter haunts him. What to the English rustic are
import duties of every kind? What cares he for differen-
tial, ad valorem, or sliding duties ? He only wants to be
well paid and well fed for his daily work ; and he will eat
the bread of toil with content and cheerfulness. He only
asks to be put in the same position as he was more than
ten years ago ; he does not care for free trade either in the
abstract or detail; it is a matter of indifference to him
whether corn pay a tax' to the landlord or the Treasurer,
so long as his wages are sufficient for his support. He has
no predisposition to revile authorities, or to speak evil of
dignities; his sympathies are rather with hereditary power
and transmitted rank ; and it is only when others forget
the duties of station and the responsibilities of wealth,
that he forgets his reverence and submission.

CEIUSAN.—This island is still retained in the hands of
the English, until the Chinese pay the ransom money; it
is about twenty miles in length and ten or twelve in
breadth, at the broadest part. In approaching it, the
view of the numerous islands, which stud the sea in all
directions, is striking and beautiful—here a noble moun-
tain towering above its fellows, there a fertile valley slop-
ing gradually to the ocean, and forming a fine situation
for cultivated fields. This part of the empire is much
more interesting to the naturalist and lover of the beauties
of nature, than those parts of the coast formerly described.
The land, although mountainous, is much more fertile,
and better clothed with trees, although they are but small
when compared with what we are accustomed to see in
England; there are also many beautiful flowering shrubs
on the hill sides, such, for example, as the azalea, which
we prize so much at home, and which here covers many of
the hills, and when in flower early in the year has a gay
and imposing appearance. In Chusan, the camphor and
tallow trees abound in the valleys, and whole forests of
different varieties of bamboo give a kind of tropical cha-
racter to the general scenery. Ido not know anything
more beautiful than the yellow bamboo, with its clean
straight sterns and graceful tops, and branches waving in
the breeze ; it always reminds me of the young birch fo-
rests at home. The tea-plant is also cultivated, in small
patches, everywhere on the hill-sides; but I believe little
or none is manufactured for exportation, but only for the
wants of the inhabitants of the island. The poor people,
or small farmers, generally dry the leaves in the sun, for
their own use ; and I recollect once, when in the cottage
of a native, seeing the good lady of the house go out into
the garden, and gather the leaves of the plants, from which
tea was made for me ; this is certainly the most simple
modeof preparing the beverage.—Letter in the Athenmum.

THE LATE THOMAS CAMPBELL.—With the sole ex-
ception of Rogers—who still lives and flourishes at a most
patriarchal age—Campbell was the only remaining disciple
of the polished but artificial school of Pope. Ibe first
work by which he made himself conspicuous in literature
was the " Pleasures of Hope"--a poem which was written,
we believe, before he had completed his twenty-second
year, and which still maintains its place among our Eng-
lish classics. This brilliant production was followed by
" Gertrude of Wyoming"—a more chaste and elegant,
but scarcely so animated a composition as its predecessor
—" Theodric," the " Pilgrim of Glencoe," and those im-
mortal lyrics " Hohenlindee," " Lochiel's Wanting."
" Ye Mariners of England," the " Exile of Erin," and
the " Battle of the Baltic," which have rendered his fame
as enduring as the language in which they were written.
But Mr. Campbell was not only a poet, he was a prose
writer also of considerable merit, and published succes-
sively lives of Mrs. Siddons and Petraich, together with
" Letters from Algiers," which abound in descriptions of
exquisite beauty. Fora long series of years he edited the
" New Monthly Magazine," to which he contributed many
little poetical gems of the purest water ; and on his s-ces-
sion from this periodical, started the " Metropolitan," rf
which, however, he soon wearied. From an early period
of his public career he enjoyed a pension of £3OO a year ;
was one of the founders of the London University ; and
in the year 1835 had the high honour of being elected Lord
Rector of the University of Glasgow. It politics he was
of the liberal school ; took a warm interest in the affairs
of Poland ; and was on habits of familiar acquaintance
with all the most illustrious spirits of his countr.. As a
poet he would have achieved the highest possible rank—
for his genius was of the first order—had he had more
faith in his own impulses, and obeyed with more boldness
the promptings of his fervid imagination. But he was
fastidious to a degree in his poetical tastes ; and would, at
any time, sacrifice a fine thought to a correct line. His
" Gertrude of Wyoming" possesses all the fine polish of
Parian marble; and the description of the death of the
heroine, and her last address to her agonized husband, is,
of its kind, the tenderest and most touching episode to l,e
found in the wide range of modern English poetry. Mr.
Campbell was born in Scotland, and received his educa-
tion in Edinburgh.
FREE TRADE INEXPEDIENT EVEN IF PRACTICABLE.
—Such a system as the free-traders advocate, if practica-
ble, would be to the last degree inexpedient. What would
be its result? Why, that one country would become
wholly, or in great part, agricultural, and the other
wholly, or in great part, manufacturing. Is this a result
desirable to either? Admitting that a city or small state,
which has no territory which can furnish any considerable
proportion of the subsistence which it requires, like Hol-
land, may do well to attend exclusively to manufactures
and commerce; or a country which, by the rigour of na-
ture, or the remoteness of its situation, cannot attain to
commercial or manufacturing greatness, would do well to
attend exclusively to the cultivation of the productions of
the earth ; the question here occurs—ls such a system
advisable or expedient for a nation which has received
from the bounty of Nature the means of rising to great-
ness in both—such as Great Britain, Russia, or Prussia?
The free-traders would have England sacrifice its:agri-
culture to its manufactures, and Russia sacrifice its ma-
nufactures to its agriculture. Would such a system be-
nefit either? Wculd England be happier or richer, more
stable or more moral, if the already colossal amount of
its manufactures were trebled ? or Russia, if its rising iron
and woollen fabrics were destroyed, and its industry con-
fined exclusively to the slow returns of agricultural la-
bour ? Is it desirable that the zone of tall chimneys,
sickly faces, brick houses, and crowded jails, which at
present span across the whole of England and part of
Scotland, should be doubled and trebled in breadth ; and
the fertile fields of Kent, Norfolk, and East-Lothian be
reduced to vast uninclosed pastures, such ati overspread
Italy in the latter stages of the Roman empire? Or is it
desirable to Russia and Prussia that they should be for
ever chained to the labour of boors, serfs, and shepherds,
and all the vivifying and important effects of commercial
wealth be denied to their exertions? Nature has design-
ed, experience recommends, a very different system.
History tells us in all parts of the world, that it is in the
intermixture of commerce and agriculture that the best
security is to be found for social happiness and advance.
ment, and the most effectual antidote provided to the
evils to which either, when existing alone, is so prone.
Mr. M'Culloch has told us, that the commerce and ma-
nufactures of Great Britain have now risen to such a pro-
digious height, that any further extension of them is un-
desirable, and that no real patriot would have desired
them to have become so extensive as they already are.
Is it expedient, in such a state of matters, to go on in-
creasing the same splendid but perilous system, and to do
so at the expense of the great pillar of national wealth,
security, and independence—the land of the state ?
From Mr. Alison's Pamphlet on Free Trade and Pro-
tection. .