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A WEEKLY JOURNAL OF POLITICS, LITERATURE AND NEWS.

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EDWA RD WHELAN] This is tene Liberty, when Kccshere dion having to hale the Public, man speak free.——EURIPIDES. [EDITOR anp PUBLISHER. — = aie cw ee = seasiaeeaienetienienieiniiiemntienstineaiemnimment oo earn me RTL EE EE I SRA TE 7 a ee eo A ERE a 8 i acy Sammaliineainats Vou. Vi. CHARLOTTETOWN, PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1857. No. 30.

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Liter

SPRINGS IN THE DESERT.

ature,

I pace the long deserted rooms, Stili striving to recall

The sounds of footsteps on the stairs, Or voices ia the hall.

Along the walks and up the lawn, I wonder every day ;

And sit beneath the mulberry’s shade, W here most we loved to play.

No stir of feet the stillness breaks, No dear familiar tone ;

Since, taking each her separate way, They left me here alone.

To love them, and their love to share Was life and joy to me ;

I was the eldest of the house: My sisters they were three.

As one who marks the bud unfold, A flower of radiant bue,

I marvelled day. by day to find How beautiful they grew.

I knew them pure, and fit for life, if earthly life were given ;

And O I knew, if they should die, Khey were as ft for Lleaven.

Our childhood was a merry tiie ; And griet—if grief we knew— Seemed only seat, like rain, to make

The flowers spring up anew,

We parted ; ove to lordly halls lu foreign climes was led ;

W here love each day seme new deiight O’er her life’s pathway shed.

The other chese a lowlier lot; A poor man’s home to share,

Tv cheer him at his daily toil, And soothe his daily care.

The last and youngest,—where is she ? I thought she would have stayed

To talk with me of Other days Beneath the malberry’s shade.

I le -1 her, as a mother loves; Aud nightly, on my breast

She laid her fair and gentle head, Aud sung herself to rest.

I knew she could not find her peer Among the sons of clay ;

Yet how [| wept, when Angels came To take my flower away!

And years have passed—long silent years— Since first I dwelt alone

Within the old deserted house, Whence so mach love was gone.

I was not, like my sisters, fair, Nor light of heart as they ;

I always know that mine would be A lowly, loacly way.

But they who deem my portion hard, Knows not that welis are found In deserts wild, whose silent stream Make green the parched ground.

There's not a blade of grass—a leaf— A breath of summer air—

But stirs my heart with love for Him W ho made this earth so fair.

And many a lowly friend have [, Or sick, or sad of beart,

Who hails my cominy steps with joy, And sighs when | depart.

No day is ever long; and right Some gentle spirit brings,

To whisper thoughts of other worlds Aud of diviner things.

And if, when evening shadows fall, { sad or lonely feci

I kneel me down in that same room W bere we four used to kneel.

And there I say the evening prayer We four were wont to say ;

The very place hath power to charm All gloomier thoughts away.

I have a thousand memories dear, And quiet joys untold ;

For God but takes his gifts away To give them back tenfold.

—Dickens's Houschold Wards.

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POLITICAL DINNERS.

Dinners, after all, form an important section of our British institutions. Our gracious and accomplished Sovereign sets & royal example to her subjects. At a Cabinet dinner the speech from the throne is arranged—at a Premier’s dinner it is first promulgated. Tue chiefs of the Opposition give dinners; the Chancellor gives dinners ; the Speaker of the House of Commons gives dinners. Every man, who is a man, and not a screw, gives dinners to his friends; and thus it is that soctety among us maintains itscordia! tone. Tf, on the Continent, men dined together at each other’s houses, a8 we do, instead of frequenting table d’hotes and eating- hou-es, there would be siability in the body politic. A philosuphie friend of onrs, whose acute intellect is surpassed ouly by his gastronomic taste, and who has dined sedulously throughout Hurope, once mentione] to us, as a remarkable fact, that he never, in the whole course of his experience, met with a thorough-paced revolutionist who was. in the habit of dining at home, or of giving entertainments. Upon this hint we pondered, an?, on comparing the result of our own observation with his, we found a remarkable coincidence. The Red Republican is, in the proper sense of the term, no socialist. Fle is a lowering, scowling, solitary feeding animal ; and when, in some suspicious eating-house, he meets With others of his kind, they are just as gregarious as hyenas snarling over the carcass of a camel. Their plots are generally divulged by the waiter, whose enmity they have

| positories of London, can fail to be struck by the immense

| excited by refusing him a sou for attendance, or otherwise | sumptuousness—it lay in his eatire abandonment to self, and | Tue Poetic Tempenament.— Poets and artists generally, ‘they peach on one another. The Radical Reformer, who his disregard of the welfare of others. The very dogs were it is held, are and ought to be distinguished by a predomin- _pertains principally to Britain, exhibits his unsocial babits in| more compassionate than he, for they licked the sores of the ance of sensibility ever principle, an excess of what Coleridge

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janother shape. He dines at home, because he finds it econo |

mical to do so, but a deep veil of mystery hangs over the

‘and it might be supposed that he lives luxuriously, but for) the mautterings of the tradesmen he employs, who enani+) mously prouounce him to be a scrub. His servants are) generally procured from the workhouse and after the lapse of a year, they do not appear to have materially improved in condition.

Dinners, therefore, ought to be by all means encouraged, for the well being of the State rests upon the foundation of reciprocal hospitality. If the Government at any future period should deem it expedient to institute a searching in- quiry upon the subject of the general food, we hope they will not overlook this special and important branch. It is doubt- less convenient to have a system of general registration setting forth the number of births, deaths and marriages which occur in the course of the year; bat much more in- teresting would it be to know how many persons in the United Kingdom give dinners in the course of the year, and how many they welcome to their tables. Of what immense value to the historian would be such a return of Roman banqueting compiled during the reign of Augustus? What a flood of light it would throw on social life and manners ? How easy would it be, then, to fathom the true secret of Roman greatness. For it isa very remarkable circumstance that we find hardly any meution of banquets during the iron | period of ancient democracy. That the followers of the 'Graechi did not absolutely starve themselves, we believe; (that they oecasionally met together for a sorry supper, we

allow; but until we have good evidence to the contrary, we /are not entitled to suppose that they did more than eat eggs and apples, and stupify taemselves with Falernian so rough. | that in a more refined age it would only have been used as a gargle. All that, however, came to an end at Philippi when

the Imperial period began ; banquets became general, and in ‘consequence trade expanded. Now, a word or two upon the isubject of luxury, which some people affect to despise, and |} which others select as their favorite topic for railing. | No one who surveys the markets, shops, stores and re-

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‘supply and limitless variety of the produce which is destined ‘for the metropolitan consumption. Every shire cohtributes |its quota of eattle and of grain. No nook or detached islet | is so sterile or remote that # cannot furnish and send some- thing to the London market. Ireland sends acon and eg; |Tberso affords a constant supply of salmon; Orkney of | llobsters, and Zetland of whelks and periwinkles. Pine ‘apples from the West Indies, oranges from the Azores, figs | |from Smyrna and Athens, dates from Egypt, are clusiered | and piled together. France, Spain; Portugal and Germany. |send their wines. China and America alike are laid uuder’ ‘contribution. To convey this supply thousands of ships are |

on the seas—thousands of miles of railway facilitate the! propositio: so elear that it seems absolutely marvellous that |

rush of the locometive. As to the number of individuals | who are direetly wad indirectly evgaged in the husbandry or| | a { culture mecessary to produce that supply, no man can!

jreckon it. Itis not too much to say that the annihilation of | craving after wealth which is one symptom of the age, or]

| that one market would be felt as a more serious misfortuae | jover the ffce of the world, than any physical calamity which | lit is possible to conceive. | The greater part of the employment erises from the luxue! ‘rious habits of the people. If they were content to subsist, | | like Apemaatus, upon roots and water, or even to restrict | | themselves entirely to bread and meat, ruin, destitution and | | beggary would be multiplied fur and wide. It is natural, no | doubt, that the poor man should feel a sensation of cavy whea he gazes on the magnificence of the rich; but let hia |

member that the creation of that magnificence hus given employment and food to hundreds of his fellow-creatures. | The true enemy to bis race is ths hoarder and miser-—the man | who is not luxurious up to the limit of his means. No man ean be blamed for expenditure if he is able to pay for shat he gets.’ Oa the contrary, he is a benefacter; for ho extends the sphere of employment, and maintains the rate of wages to the operative. it wouid be weil for the country if this truth were more generally known and recognised, for there are undoubtedly a large number of affiuent persons who act upon the opposite principle. They deny themselves the en- joyment of everything which caunot be classed as an absolute necessary of life, and they take credit te themselves for doing so. Men of this stamp wear the coat which covered them at the hymenea! altar, until their eldest born is old enough to go to schovl, when Astyanax succeeds to the reversion of ihe threadbare garment, cut down to the dimensions of a jacket. No sight is more profoundly melancholy than the opening of the repositories of a deceased spinster of the Lady Grippy school. Her whole wardrobe, to which no addition has been made since the Rev. Jonas Hungudg:>» disappointed her middle-aged affections, would not fetch three shillings at Rag Fair. Tho scanty pieces of furniture are of the craziest de- scription; the carpet so worn that its pattern is entirely obliterated; the dusters have been darned so often that their original texture has disappeared. Cracked china, brass and glass beads, and one treasured ornament of cairngorm, con- taining the most valuable of her effects; but in one drawer there was a pocket-book of antique form, and in itis dis- covered a deposit receipt of the Royal Bank of Scotland for fifteeu thousand pounds! The lonesome woman has been scraping together, hoarding and eaving, for many years, re- presenting herself all the while to her friends as an object of compassion--doing good, no doubt, in her way, by dis- tributing many tracts and a little flannel to the poor, but never dreaming that it was a Christian duty to foster the in- dustry of things. Poor thing! and yet there must have been some amiable traits in her character. The old woman who has acted as her sole servant on miserable wages for tae last twenty years, bursts into a loud wail as she sees the sacred repositories invaded by the rade hand of a stranger —and is no hypocrite, for with the death of her mistress ber sole tie to earth is severed. Then there is the old cat. so sleek and comfortable, coiled on the rug, and wiuking as if it wondered at the unusual bustle; and the little canary, once so brisk and lively, but now lifeless and dejected, as if it missed the hand that was wont to give it food. A melan- choly scene, of which we will not further dwell! Weill— there is the money now to be used, or it may be, squandered ;

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| class among us, art would soon dwindle and decay.

beggar to whom he sent not a portion from his hoard. — Bui it is wrong to distort the beautiful and kindly parable into a

sessor. A stranger to British society and custems, who

beholds for the first time ove of the stately baronial castles,

seats of our highest nobility, is apt enough to form a false estimate of the influence which is really exercised by the wealth of the owner. He sees the hall filled with liveried servants; he walks through carpeted galleries, upon the walls of which are hung the choicest productions of modern and ancient art; ne scholds the costly furniture, the marble atatues and the bronzes, the ample library and the con- servatories; he pusses through the gardens and _pleasure- ground, and is amazed by the care, neatness and exquisite taste which are every where apparent. He visits the stables ; admires the noble horses and the equipages which are there ; and On comparing his own lot with that of the owner of the priucely mansion, he may lament that the opalcace enjoyed by one man should not be di-tributed among thousands. Such thoughts may occur not only to a stranger, but to many of our own countrymen-who toil for their daily bread ; and the existence of such wea!th in the hands of a few is the most favorite argument in the mouths oi demagogues who preach disaffection to the ignorant. This view has of laic ) cars been adopted by some meu of education, and even talent. Wealth has been denounced as sinful from the pulpit, and the most dangerous doctrines of Socialism have been insinuated as the »*pirations of a fervid philanthropy. Now it is a very easy thing to demonstrate that such views are utterly false, and that, if sincerely entertained, they arise from ©h«!iowness of thought. The fact is, that the owner of that weaita is dispensing it for the generai benefit, He clothes and maiu- tains a large retinue of servants, thereby lessening the pressure on the labor market. The trimness of the pleasure-ground is the result of the eoustant care aud atiention or many gardeners. The equipages have given profit (o tue London coach-makers, and enabled them to pay high wages to their workmen. The costly furniture has benefited the upholsterers and his operatives. Artists have received large sums for the pictures, statues, busts and bronzes. The stocking of the library assists the book-trade and authors—in short, magui- ficence is but another word for munificence, and it scatters its blessings far and wide. The same results would by no means follow if the wealth were subdivided, because wealth alone con give adequate encouragement to artists, and even 460) afozans. A mu may be comfortable iu his circumstances, and yet unable to indulge in such expensive lexuries as pictures, or wrought plate, or other articles of decoration or of taste; and without the existence of a wealthy Wealth rightfully gained or iuherited, and properly employed, even though it be lodged in the bands of comparatively few in- dividuals, tends to the prosperity of the whole nation; a

any ong should have been tempted to dispute it. While saying this, however, we wish it to be understood that we regard with no favor, but the reverse, that inordinate

that reckless extravagance which is another. The pursuit of riches is a great snare, and iu that headlong race way fall down to rise no more, :

SHiscellaneous.

LLIB BLL LLL DLL A POETICAL DUN.

The editor of the Methodist Protestant recently addressed the following lines to his subseribers :

Should you ask us why this dunning, Why these sad complaints and murmurs, Murmurs loud about delinquents

Who have read the paper weekly, Read what they have never paid for, Read with pleasure and with profit, Read of church affairs and prospects, Read of news both home and foreign, Read the essays and the poems,

Full of wisdom and instruction ;

Read the table of the markets, Carefully corrected weekly—

Should you ask us why this dunning, We should answer, we should tell you.

From the printer, from the mailer, From the kind old paper maker, From the landlord, from the carrier, From the man who taxes letters With a stamp from '»°le Samuel— Uncle Sam the rowdies call him ; From tzem all] there comes a message, Message kind but firmly spoken, ‘* Please to pay us what you owe us.’’

Sad it is to hear such message When our funds are all exhausted, When the last bank note has left us, When the gold coin all has vanished, Gone to pay the paper maker, Gone to pay the toiling printer, Gone to pay the landlord tribute, Gone to pay the sable carrier, Gone to pay the faithful mailer, Gone to pay old Uncle Samuel— Unele Sam the pane him— Gone to pay the Wesicrn paper Three and Cael Cetin ?

Sad it is to turn our ledger,

Tura the leawes of this old ledger, Turn and see what sums are due us, Due for volumes long since ended, Due for years of pleasant reading, Due for years of tuilsome !» bor, Due despite our patient waiting, Due despite our constant dunning, Due in sums from two to twenty.

Would you lift a burden from us ? Would you drive a spectre from you? Would you taste a pleasent slumber ? Would you have a quiet conscience ? Would you read a paper paid for! Send us money—send us money,

Send us money—send us money : Send the money that you owe us!

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for her nephew, Jack Littlego, has a decided propensity for the tarf; but we cannot help thinking with a sigh that the poor old deeripit and uncared-for woman, who wow !es in 0 dreary churchyard, might have bad better interest for the, money in the shape of the blessings of her kind. The sin of Dives lay not in bis wealth, or even his

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“1! sp@h water! cooler than erystal—clearer than the ia ‘ g {gzess that’s transposition)—pure as_ woman's heart—sparkiiug as champagne—-and excellent to— potatoes in!” Burke was right—‘ Oaly one step from |

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the sublime to the ridiculous

called the spiritual over what he called the mortal part jof man. A nature built on quicksands, an organization of

nature of the banquet. He never cutertains, so that it is| denunciation of wealth and magnificence, which, duly ad- nervous, languid tempestuous with occasion, a soul falling or very difficult to form an adequate notion of his consumption ; | ministered, are beneficial far beyond the person of the pos-' soaring, now subject to eestasies, and now to remorses—such,

it is supposed, and on no sinail induction of actual instances, is the appropriate constitution of the poet. Mobility, / absolute and entire destitution of principle properly so called, ‘capacity for varying the mood indefinitely rather than for retaining and keeping up one moral gesture or resolution through all moods—this, say the theorist, is the essential thing in the structure of the artist. Against the truth of this, however, as a maxim of universal application, the character of Milton, as well as that of Wordsworth afier him, is a remarkable protest. Were it possible to place before the theorists al! the materials which exist for judging of Milton's personal disposition as a young man, without exhibiting to them, at the same time, the actual and carly proofs of his poetical genius, their conelusions, were they true to their theory, would necessarily be, that the basis of his nature was too solid and immovable, the platform of personal aims and aspirations over which bis thoughts moved and had footing, too fixed and frm, to permit that he should have been a poet, Nay, whosvever, even appreciating Milton as a poet, shall come to the investigation of hia writings, armed with the pre-conceptiou of the poctica! charac- ter, which is sure to be derived from an intimacy with the character of Shakspeare, will hardly escape some fecling of the same kind. Seriousness, we repeat, a solewn and even austere demeanour of mind, was the characteristic of Milion even in his youth. And the outward manifestation of this was a life of pure and devout observance. This is a point that ought not to be avoided or dismissed in mere general language ; for he who does not lay stress on this, knows not and loves not Milton. Accept, then, by way of more particular statement, hisown remarkable words in justifying himself against an inuendo of one of his adversaries in later life reflecting on the tenor of his juvenile pursuits and behaviour. ‘ A certain niceness of nature,” he says, * an honest haugltiness and self-esteem either of what I was or what I might be (which let envy call gyide), and lastly, that modesty whereof, though wot in the title-page, yet here [ may be excused to make some beseeming profession; all these, uniting the supply of their natural aid together kept ine still above those low descents of mind, beneath which he must deject and plunge himself that can agree to saleable and unlawful prostitutions.” Fancy, ye to whom the woral frailty of genius is a consolation, or to whom the association of virtue with youth and Cambridge is a jest—fancy Milton, as this passage from his own pen describes him at the age of 23, returning to his father’s house from the University, full of its accomplishments and honours, an auburn-haired youth, beautiful as the Apollo of a northern clime, sod that beauti- ful body the temple ofa soul pure and unsoiled. Truly, a son for a mother to take to her arms with joy and pride.— Professor Mason. —

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Napouvon I.—The personal appearance of Napoleon, in the last days of his power, is thus described by Lamartine :—

“ The empire had made him old before his time. Gratified ambition, satiated pride, the delights of a palace, a Juxurious table, a voluptuous couch, long vigils, sleepless nights, di- vided between labour and festive pleasure, the habit of riding, which made him corpulent,—al]l tended to deaden his limbs and enervate his faculties. An early obesity overloaded him with flesh. His cheeks, formerly streaked with muscles and hollowed by the working of genius, were broad, full, and over- hanging, like those of Otho in the Roman medals of the empire. An excess of bile mingling with the blood, gave a yellow tint to the skin, which at a distance looked like a ‘var- vish of pale gold on his countenance. His lips stil! preserved their Grecian ontline and steady grace, passing easily from a smile toa menace. His solid bony chin formed an appro- priate base of his features. His nose was but a line, thin and transparent. The paleness of his cheeks gave greater brilliancy to the blue of his eyes. His look was scarching, unsteady as a wavering fame—an emblem of inquietude. His forehead seemed to have widened, from the scantiness of bis thin black hair, which was falling from the moistare of continual thought. It might be said that his head, naturally small, had increased in size to give ample scope between his temples for the machinery and combinations of a mind, every thought of which was an empire. The map of the world seemed to have been encrasted on the orb of that reflective head. But it was beginning to yield; and he inclined it often on his breast, while crossing his arms like Frederick the Great—-and attitude an gesture which he appeared to affect. Unable any Jonger to seduce his courtiers and his soldiers by the charm of youth, it was evident he wished to fascinate them by the rough, pensive, and disdainful character of him- self,—of his model in his latter days. He moulded himse!f, as it were, into the statae of reflection, before his troops, who gave him the nickname of Father Thoughtful. Ue assumed the pose of destiny. Something rough, rude, and savage in his movements revealed his southern and insular origin. The man of the Mediterranean broke out covstantly through tho Frenchman. His nature, too great and powerful for the part he had to play, overflowed on all oecasions. He bore no re- semblance to any of the men around him. Supericr and altogether different, he was an offspring of the sun, of the sea, and of the ba‘tle field—out of his element even in his own bela: and a stranger even in his own empire. Such was at this time the profile, the bust, and the external physiognomy of Napoleon.”

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We wouder whether the Russians will soon again be called upon to measure their prowess with the Western soldiers, or whether the war with the Circassians will satisfy them. The Russians have some good qualities as soldiers; they are patient of hardships, easily fed, docile, and immoveable under fire. But they waut both the vivacity of French and the solid musele of English troops. The military power of Rus- sia has been much exaggerated. Russia would néver have invaded France if English money had not put her armies in motion, in the campaigns of 1814-15. When left to herself she made a poor show in the attack on Turkey, twenty years ;ago. She lost the first campaign, with 100,000 men in the

| field, and would never have crossed the Balkan opposed to a | more warlike people than the Turks.

An editor down south has been puffing his well-water thus : |

Notwithstanding her stupendous exertions in the last war, she was foiled by the valor and resources of France and England ; and every one knows how, fur a succession of years, the Circassians have defeated the picked troops ‘sent against them by the Czar. The remoteness of Russia bas invested ber imsege with « power that she does not really possess.