The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-04-12 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

Neither 10s. nor 410 would induce us to insert the mawkish trasl

which has been forwaraea to us Luc ucdu
though we observe many of our contemporaries have been led to
do so, albeit the statements put forward are diametrically op-
posed to the principles they have uniformly espoused on the
subject.
. .
• •

We are directed to caution the public against a man who is going
about selling circular time tables. He is well dressed, lame, and
describes himself as a bookkeeper laid up by illness. He sold one
to a gentleman last week, and soon after came back to borrow
it for a few moments to show to a gentleman in an office adjoin-
ing, as he had not another with him, and lived over the water.
Since this the gentleman has never seen it : of course the man
had previously received payment for it (2s. 6d.)
" W. A. H." calls upon us to notice the doctrines put forth in the
pulpit of St. Martin's-in-the-Field; but we must respectfully de-
cline doing so until our correspondent, or some one with proper
information and evidence, shall have laid the matter before the
diocesan, and if his Lordship refuse to interfere, we may then
have something to say on the subject.
- - - -

The lines subscribed " A. C." are not suitable for our columns

rJ Z.tberpool &tan Dar.

TUESDAY MORNING, APRIL 12, 1842

By our report of the Council proceedings of Friday,
it will be seen that the insidious motion of Mr. Alder-
man Evans has been scouted with precisely the degree
of contempt which it deserved. We are sincerely
pleased with this result. The constituency of the bo-
rough will rejoice at it; but, more than all, we and
they have cause to be delighted with the determined
expression of adherence to the principle upon which
the present system of education in the corporation
schools.is founded, which this cunning proposition of

Mr. Evans has drawn from the Conservative majorit

in the Council

Were we right, we may now ask, when we denounced
the proposition in question to invite the inspectors of
the Government Education Board to visit the schools

of the corporation, as an attempt—a jesuitical attempt—
to obstruct the working of the system established by
the present education committee ? The debate of Fri-
day will sufficiently prove that we were right.
it was viewed and treated by every speaker amongst
the opposition party. The apologetic arguments of the
alderman himself in its behalf were evidence sufficient
of the fact. We were assured, indeed, that the in-
spectors had express directions, when visiting schools
carried on independent of government aid, to abstain
from interference which was calculated to impair the
authority of the committee or the masters. They were
only to advise—to enlighten—to impart their vast ex-
perience—to approve, if approval were merited, or
condemn, if condemnation was just. They were not
to interfere, but to report only; and from that report
it was evidently anticipated that the hands of the op-
ponents of the present system would he strengthened.
From that report, from men notoriously wedded to an
approval of a totally different system, it is evident that
an outcry against the scriptural system in course of
adoption in the schools was to have been grounded.
The virtual direction of those schools was to have been
taken out of the hands of the Council, now that the
Council is conservative ; and the inhabitants of Liver-
pool, as we have before stated, and as was urged by
Mr. Alderman Nicol, were to declare to the world that
they had not amongst them sufficient intelligence, with-
out the aid of a government hoard, to decide upon a
system of education in their schools by which a few
boys and girls might be taught " to read and write and
say the Lord's Prayer"
We cannot part from this subject without returning
our thanks to Mr. Alderman Evans for the compliment
paid to ourselves in his opening speech and in his re-
ply. The worthy alderman, we are glad to perceive, is
a reader of the LIVERPOOL STANDARD. Against
the views which we held in an article upon this ques.
tion on Tuesday last the whole of his introductory re-
marks were pointed; and it was therefore not a little
unreasonable in him to object to the arguments con-
tained in the sensible and manly speech of Mr. Alder-
man Nicol, that he had already met with them in our
columns. If those arguments were just, as the deci-
sion of the Council and the feeling amongst not a few
of Mr. Evans's own friends. proved on this occasion
that they were, we cannot, with due submission to the
alderman, discover that their validity was materially
affected by that circumstance, or that it was at all de-
rogatory to the gentleman by whom they were so for-
cibly and effectively used, that we had, less ably, per-
haps, adopted the same course of reasoning. So pro-
found a philosopher as Mr. Evens might have reflected
that whilst that which is new is not necessarily true,

As such

what is true is, in nine cases out of ten, not new,

Upon mature consideration of all the bearings of the
subject, we are compelled to express our preference
of the Copyright Amendment Bill, as modified by
Mr. Macaulay and Sir Robert Peel, as compared with
the original proposition of Lord Mahon. The instances
in which an author will outlive the forty-two years,
during which his copyright will be protected by the
amended bill, will, we believe, be few; and here, even
the additional seven years' protection, provided for
upon the suggestion of Sir Robert Peel, will answer all
the justice of the case. On the other hand, sad expe-
rience has proved to us how many are those who are
not permitted to enjoy one-fourth of this period upon
earth,—who pour out the passionate feelings of their
souls in a gush of song, or wear away their health and
strength in the production of a work of science or
philosophy, destined to endure for ages,—and sink at
once into the grave, the victims of a too-sensitive imagi-
nation 'or an overtasked and exhausted frame. To such
the protection afforded by the amended measure is
greater in amount, and to sustain and encourage such
it is more required, than the protection of twenty-five
years to reward the few who, having enjoyed the ad-
vantage given by a copyright during a long life, have
failed to realize, from their literary exertions, sufficient
to provide for their descendants when leaving this
earth.

Whilst we cordially approve, however, of this noble
effort to encourage the higher walks of authorship, we
must confess that we are far from being sanguine as to
its immediate effect upon the character of our English
literature. It is a fact, although we are far from ad
miring the spirit in which it was brought forward by
Mr. Wakley, that the reward of modern authorship
has been amply sufficient, in itself, to stimulate talent
and genius to devote thernselves_to_the,production of
works of the highest class. Byron, Scott, Moore,
Campbell, and a host of similar names, have reaped
from the past generation and are reaping from the pre-
sent a rich harvest of fame and profit; but we much
question whether any mere extension of the law of
coypright can render the production of works of
sterling Merit and genius similarly productive in the
Present day. The laughter and applause with which
the buffoonery of Mr. Wakley was received in the
British House of Commons, whilst deriding the pro-
ductions of one of the finest poets of this or any age,
are of themselves sufficient vouchers for the fact that
the tone and temper of the present generation are
little disposed for sympathy with poetry of a high or-
der. A spirit of mingled utilitarianism and effeminacy
has crept over the national mind. Of the English
character it may now well be said, in the words of the
writer whose beautiful strains were on Wednesday
last the object of ridicule to Mr. Wakley and his fellow
insensibles— _ .

A primrose by the river's brim,
A yellow primrose is to him.
Imagination, taste, learning, philosophy, woo the
present generation in vain ; the national drama
languishes, unable to sustain itself against melodrame
and mountebankism ; a taste for the revolting horrors
of the romancist has taken the place of the admiration
which in better days welcomed the productions of the
poet's more chaste imagination ; periodical fripperies
have jostled into obscurity our standard writers, and
whilst the inflated sentimentalities of a Bulwer, or the
Newgate Annals of an Ainsworth, are caught up in
rapture, another " Childe Harold," or even a " Para-
dise Lost," would at this moment, we believe, fall
stillborn from the press.
An extension of the Copyright Act cannot, of itself,
effect the restoration of our literature to a more healthy
state, simply because, to produce such a desideratum,
the national mind must be first renovated. Such a