The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1845-09-02 00:00:00

Etttraturr.

VARIETIES.

WIT AND JVDGMENT.—Wit is brushwood, judgment
is timber ; the first makes the brightest ftame, but the
latter gives the most lasting heat.

DEATH OP INFANTS.—As Enoch was translated with-
out passing through death, so the happy spirits of infants
may be admitted into a higher sphere of existence, with-
out passing through the trials of sin or the discipline of
sorrow. Bereaved parents naturally seek for consolation
from this source, to which faith and instinctive reason
would lead them ; and it is a belief which nature has im-
planted in the heart, for consolation under one of the
griefs which affect it most.—Hogg's Weekly Instructor.
ADVOWSON.—Advowson, we need hardly say, is a right
of presentation to a church or ecclesiastical benefice; the
word being derived from advocatio, which signifies in
clientelam reeipere for, in former times, the person to
whom this right belonged was called advocates ecclesice,
because he was bound to defend and protect both the rights
of the Church and the incumbent clerks from oppression
and violence ; hence the right of presentation obtained the
name of " advowson," and the person possessed of this
right was called patron of the Church.
RAVAILLAC.—It will be remembered that part of Ra-
vaillac's sentence condemned h'm to have his limbs torn
asunder by four horses. He was so robust a man that the
horses were actually unable to dismember him. One of
the animals at last fell down through sheer fatigue; upon
which a nobleman who was near the animal alighted from
his own steed, that it might be put in the place of that
which had fallen. When Ravaillac observed this, he had
sufficient strength to cry aloud—'• Alas ! my advisers told
me that in the people I should find supporters ; whereas
I find them ready to aid in tearing me to pieces !"
Church of England Quarterly.
THE BEST SIGHT IN DAMASCUS.—WhiIst I was at
Damascus, I had my quarters at the Franciscan convent
there, and very soon after my arrival I asked one of the
monks to let me know something of the spots that de-
served to be seen : I made my inquiry in reference to the
associations with which the city had been hallowed by the
sojourn and adventures of St. Paul. " There is nothing
in all Damascus," said the good man, " half so well worth
seeing as our cellars ;" and forthwith he invited me to go,
see, and admire the long range of liquid treasure that he
and his brethren had laid up for themselves on earth. And
these, I soon found, were not as the treasures of the mi-
ser that lie in unprofitable disuse, for day by day, and hour
by hour, the golden juice ascended from the dark recesses
of the cellar to the uppermost brains of the friars; dear
old fellows ; in the midst of that solemn land their Chris-
tian laughter rang loudly and merrily—their eyes kept
flashing with joyous bonfires, and their heavy woollen pet-
ticoats could no more weigh down the springiness of their
paces, than the filmy gauze of a danseuse can clog her
bounding step.—Eothen.

SIR ROBERT PEEL ON ORANGEISM IN 1814.'—" I
believe (said the hon. member) the individuals who com-
pose the Orange Society are, generally speaking, as brave,
as high-spirited, and as loyal a class of men as any in his
Majesty's dominions. They may be safely depended
upon in any hour of emergency, for the defence of their
country, from the danger of external attack, or internal
disorder. The hon. hart. (Sir Henry Parnell) may suc-
ceed in making the oath of an Orangeman, or any other
oath, unlawful, but can he hope to succeed in preventing,
by any law, those processions to which he refers ? How

CAN HE HOPE TO MAKE IT AN OFFENCE AGAINST LAW
TO WALK IN PROCESSION ON THE 12TH OF JULY, OR
WEAR ORANGE LILIES, CR TO DRINK THE GLORIOUS
MEMORY OF KING WILLIAM ? He may as well attempt
to expunge the 12th of July from the Calendar! It
would, in my mind, be very unwise to attempt any such
interference; and whilst I say that such interference
would be very unwise, 1 must also declare, that I think it
would be equally ABSURD TO PREVENT LOYAL MEN
FROM COMMEMORATING EVENTS TO WHICH THEY OWE
THEIR LIBERTY, AND THE BLESSINGS THEY ENJOY."—

[From a speech, delivered in the House of Commons;
by Sir Robert Peel, on the 15th July, 1814, extracted by
the Cork Constitution.]

A RAILWAY THROUGH THE WILDERNESS.—A few
years ago it was a fatiguing tour of many weeks to reach
the Falls of Niagara from Albany. We are now carried
along at the rate of sixteen miles an hour on a railway
often supported on piles through large swamps covered
with aquatic trees and shrubs, or through dense forests,
with occasional clearings, where orchards are planted by
anticipation among the stumps before they have even had
time to run up a log-house. The traveller views with
surprise, in the midst of so much unoccupied land, one
flourishing town after another, such as Utica, Syracuse,
and Auburn. At Rochester he admires the streets of
large houses, inhabited by 20,000 souls, where the settler
built his first log-cabin in the wilderness only 25 years
ago. At one point our train stopped at a handsome new-
built station-house, and, looking out at one window, we
saw a large group of Indians of the Oneida tribe, lately
the owners of the broad lands around, but now humbly
offering for sale a few trinkets, such as baskets, orna-
mented with porcupine quills, mocassins of moose deer
skin, and boxes of birch bark At the other window
stood a well-dressed waiter handing ices and confectionery.
When we reflect that some single towns, of which the
foundations were laid by persons still living, can already
number a population equal to all the aboriginal hunter
tribes who possessed the forests for hundreds of mils s
around, we soon cease to repine at the extraordinary re-
volution, however much we may commiserate the un-
happy fate of the disinherited race.—Lyell's Travels.

TILE ALMOST NUN.—The novice, a girl in the bloom of
youth, made her appearance, blushing and turning pale
alternately, at the grate. With downcast eyes, bashfully
and stammering, she made known her wishes. I know
not what demon put it into my head to indulge in my
answer in some of those unmeaning gallantries which in
the ordinary world are addressed without any sin to the
youthful part of the sex. " I cannot but regret," said I,
that you have chosen me for so cruel a service; that it
must be through my instrumentality that so much love-
liness is lost in a gloomy cell. How is it that you long so
early for cloistered solitude, whose darker side you can
hardly yet see in the true point of view, and wish to bid
the world an eternal farewel—a world still so new to you,
and in which, perhaps, for your sake, some true heart is
hopelessly breaking ?" While I was speaking, the young
novice turned pale, the muscles of her face were con-
vulsed, her fingers clutched at the grate, and she burst
into an agony of tears. I was frightened, and beckoned
to the nuns in the background to come to her assistance
and take the poor girl away. I took care, however, not
to listen very seriously afterwards to the entreaties of the
pretty world-renouncer. Four years afterwards, (in
1837,) when I was again a member of the federal diet at
Lucerne, happening one day as I was walking with the
Landammann and ambassador from Zug, to remember
the novice, I inquired what had become of her. " Oh,
the nun ?" cried he. " She is married happily, and is a
happy mother !"—Aulobiography of Heinrich Zschokke.
CURIOSITY OF THE CHINESE.—The greatest cut iosity
was always evinced by the Chinamen to be allowed to
examine our guns and the mechanism of our locks ; but so
great was the contrast between their rusty and antiquated
matchlocks, dnd the superior workmanship of our Lon-
don-made guns, that they seemed perfectly helpless in the
handling of the latter, and, as may be supposed, some
truly awful misadventures were the consequence. One
poor fellow, who was not content with examining the out-
side, must needs peep down the barrels to see how beau-
tifully they were polished, and in doing so he contrived to
let off the gun at the same time, which literally carried
away the whole of his face, killing him upon the spot.
Upon another occasion one of our Chinese attendants,
whom we had engaged to assist us in beating for game, led
by curiosity to examine one of the officers' guns, which
was leaning against the thwarts of a boat from which we
had just landed, contrived to shatter the thigh of one of
his comrades in so dreadful a manner that his life was only
saved by immediate amputation. Nor were the accidents
which might affect the lives of the Chinamen, or even our-
selves, the only reason for our making a determination not
to allow again any of our guns to come within the reach of
these native attendants; as upon one occasion, and not
very long after the two dreadful accidents just related, an-
other misfortune occurred, which, to the two Englishmen
concerned, was a far greater loss than would have been
the whole of the Celestial population. These two sports-
men had been spending the morning shooting near the
coast, and after having placed their guns, ammunition,
game, &c. in a boat which they had hired from a Chinese
fisherman for the purpose of conveying them home, they
turned back to a cottage not twenty yards distant to get
something which they had left; but how great was their
surprise and mortification to discover, upon their imme-
diate return, that the rascally boatman had taken the op-
portunity of decamping with the whole of their guns,
game, and other treasures !—nor did they ever recover
them, or hear to what part of the country they had been
taken.—Pitman's Sporting Magazine.
BEAUTIES OF NATURE.—Suffolk, certainly, might not
appear at first sight to be the place which one would choose
for the education of a great painter. Mountains it has
none ; to the sublimity arising from lake or precipice, or
the desolate expanse of moor and fell, it has no pretension ;
from the spots where Constable chiefly studied, even the
prospect of old ocean was shut out ; the country presented,
as he himself describes it, only gentle declivities, luxuriant
meadow flats, sprinkled with flocks and herds, quiet but
clear streams, villages, farms, woodlands—

.. The slow canal, the yellow-blossom'd vale,
The willow-tufted bank and gliding sail,"

What influence scenery of a higher class might have had
on Constable's mind, it is not easy to decide ; as it was,
the narrow circuit of a few miles round Bergholt, within
which the materials of his pictures are chiefly found, be-
came for him the epitome of English nature ; and he as-
sociated the very ideal of beauty with those quiet nooks
and scenes of tranquillity and amenity, where he had first
exercised his pencil, and amidst which in after life he loved
to linger. And in truth, to a creative mind—for "it is
the soul that sees," and renders back its vision—how
much of beauty, picturesque variety, nay, under certain
aspects and conditions of the atmosphere, how much of
grandeur existed within this narrow circle. A friend of
ours has maintained an-ingenious thesis, that there is no
such thing as a bad day in nature ; though whether, after
the aspect of the present summer, he retains his opinion,
we think may be questioned. Constable certainly held a
similar theory with respect to beauty in landscape. " Ma-
dam," said he to a lady who denounced some object as
ugly—" there is nothing ugly. I never saw an ugly thing
in my life ; for let the form of an object be what it may,
light, shade, and perspective will always made it beauti-
ful." This, indeed, was the talisman with which he
worked; light and shade—the magic of chiaro-scuro ap-,
plied to the simple elements of form which the rich pas-
tures and woods of Suffolk afforded, and a power of exhi-
biting the varied influences and character of the skies,
which, if it has been equalled by Turner, Calcott, and
Fielding, has certainly never been surpassed by any Bri-
tish landscape-painter.—Blackwood's Magazine.