Liverpool a few years since: by an old stager

But who is this “Goliath of Gath” whom we see approaching, and whom, if he had lived in these days and been a poor man, Barnum would certainly have bagged, and caravaned, and made a fortune out of as a giant? It is Roger Leigh, as kind-hearted a man as ever lived, with an amiable and benevolent smile ever playing upon and irradiating his huge countenance. He was a general favourite, as he walked amongst us like Gulliver among the Lilliputians. And what a character he was at an election! His activity and energy in such times were tremendous. But Roger was rather a paradox in his politics. A Roman Catholic in his religion, he was what was then called “a Church and King man” to the backbone; a Tory of Tories, in days when Tories were not the faint-hearted chickens which we now see them. Poor old Roger Leigh! Like Sir Abel Handy, he had always some scheme on the anvil for getting rich, but we fear that, like the rest of us, he sometimes took two steps backward for one forward. The stone of Sisyphus is the type of most of us. But, rich or poor, successful or otherwise, peace to his memory! We never heard harm of him. He had everybody’s good word. We wish that the world contained many more like him.

CHAPTER X

He who undertakes to be the chronicler of Liverpool society at the commencement, and in the early years, of the present century, must not forget to mention the old and respectable families of Gildart and Golightly. And who is this easy, good-tempered soul, whom the mind’s eye now brings before us? It is Mr. William Rigg, profanely called “Billy Rigg” by his familiars. And who comes next? Henry Clay, frank, jovial, light-hearted fellow, once Mayor of Liverpool, and a generous and hospitable chief magistrate he made. And there goes that veritable ancient, Arthur Onslow, collector of customs, with a name which testifies that family interest was as strong in those days as it is in these. And now, if we go on ’Change, surely this is an original whom we see before us. His name is Brown, but among the gentlemen “on the flags” he is better known as “Muckle John.” A shrewd, sagacious man of business is he, as ever lived; and many were the stories which used to be told of his sayings and doings and somewhat sharp practice in his money transactions. “Mr. So-and-so will be my security to you,” said some gentleman one day to him. “Aye, mon, but who will be the security for the security?” was his retort. In after life we became acquainted with the celebrated “Jemmy Woods,” the Gloucester banker, and it always struck us that he strongly resembled “Muckle John” in many features of his character, especially in crescit amor nummi quantum ipsa pecunia crescit. The cash book seemed to be father and mother, wife and child, comfort and consolation, joy and glory of both of them. But we had reached Great Nelson-street North before we turned back again into the town. A little further on, in Everton, lived Mr. Thomas Hinde, second to none here in his day. The representatives of his family are now to be found at Lancaster. At Everton, likewise, resided Mr. Shaw, the father of Mr. Thomas Shaw; also one of the Earle family; another brother lived then, and long afterwards, at Spekelands. At St. Domingo was the mansion of Mr. Sparling. The country-houses beyond that were “few and far between.” Close to the old London-road, about two miles from Liverpool, lived Mr. Falkner, the Major of the Liverpool Light Horse. A mile or two further out was Oak-hill, the seat of Mr. Joseph Leigh, one of the most pushing and rich of our enterprising merchants, and as fine, handsome looking a fellow as you may meet with in a ten days’ journey. The march of intellect did not advance per railway in those times; and Mr. Leigh, although marvellously at home in arithmetic, compound addition, the rule of three, multiplication and so forth, had not much studied history, poetics, and the other graces, and, as by many they were then thought, exotics of education. Consequently endless were the stories told of his blunders and mistakes in the literary line when he crept up in life, and thought it necessary to come out as a Mæcenas. For instance, it was said that, in ordering his library, he directed that so many feet of books should be placed in it, and that, when asked if he would have them bound in Russia, he answered promptly, “No, in England, to be sure!” On one occasion, a waggish bookseller asserted that he called at his shop and told him that, as Shakespeare was considered to be such a first-rate writer, he must send him immediately any more works which he might publish; while on another, after surveying shelf after shelf covered with books having Tom. for Vol. inscribed upon their backs, he exclaimed, in the highest degree of admiration, “Upon my word, that Tom must have been a monstrous clever fellow.” We, of course, receive such accounts cum grano salis, or to speak in more mercantile phrase, with a little discount, not as absolutely fabulous, but as somewhat highly coloured. Moreover, we have no doubt that, in addition to his own blunders, Mr. Leigh was made to bear all “the tales of our grandfathers” in previous circulation. He subsequently removed to Belmont, a splendid place in Cheshire, when the proud squires of that proud county took up the ball, and coined and circulated all sorts of odd tales about him. In their visits, one with another, they passed from house to house for a week at least, and brought with them an immense retinue of horses and servants. And it was a standing joke for years among them, that, when first Mr. Leigh settled in that part of the country, he told some of them who called upon him that he should be happy to see them at tea occasionally. But as we have also heard this story told against the first Mr. France, of Bostock Hall, who also passed from Liverpool into Cheshire, it may not have been originally levelled against Mr. Leigh. Another laugh, however, against him was, that some village wag, who probably had not been valued at his own price by some of the new inmates of Belmont, inscribed over the lodge gates, where they were found one morning, the following doggerel: —

“In this house there is no beer,In this park there are no deer.And why? Joe Leigh lives here.”

We must, however, recollect that the Cheshire squires had then, and probably have yet, a strong aversion to Liverpool and all its works. Looking at their mortgages, – for in those days a Cheshire squire without mortgages would have been a rara avis indeed, – they had a sort of prophetic feeling that the merchant princes of Liverpool were destined to eat them up, like another Canaan; in other words, to buy the acres of all the wiseacres in the county, and so exterminate the original squirearchy. Hinc illæ lachrymæ. Hence, when they lost the game, they took their revenge in bad jokes which kill nobody, and, indeed, are very harmless affairs, if, as the French proverb has it, Il rit bien qui rit le dernier, he has the best of the laugh who has the last of it. Mr. Leigh had a brother, a very quiet and respectable man. He lived in Duke-street at one time, and afterwards at Roby Hall.

But, in speaking of Everton just now, we forgot to mention William Harper, one of the wealthiest men of his day, a blunt, downright sort of person, a member of the old corporation, and mayor in his turn. He also had made an encroachment on the pride, and trod on the toes, of the Cheshire squires, by buying an estate at Davenham, near Northwich. He had three daughters, co-heiresses, whom, when at school, he never forgot to toast at his own table as “The lasses of Ashbourn.” Some people thought this a good joke, and it was even alluded to in some of the election squibs of the day. But we always admired the old man for it, and looked upon it as an excellent trait in his character. One of them married Mr. Hoskins, or, as he afterwards became, Mr. Hoskins Harper. Another was Mrs. Formby. The third was united to Dr. Brandreth, or, as he was called in his father’s lifetime, Dr. Joseph Brandreth, who, in the second generation, has so well maintained the medical distinction achieved by the first.

But to return from this digression; not far from Oak-hill was Highfield, now the seat of that prince of good fellows, Thomas Littledale, Esq., the chief magistrate of Liverpool, but then belonging to, and the residence of, the Parke family. A fine, glorious, jovial old man do we recollect Mr. Parke. He had three sons, whom we remember; Mr. Thomas Parke, Major Parke, and a third, of world-wide fame and celebrity, Baron Parke, of whom “the gude old town” cannot be too proud, as first and foremost among the legal ornaments of the judicial bench.

Not far from Highfield was Ashfield House, the mansion of John Clarke, a brother of the Recorder, and himself a member of the Town Council, and once Mayor of Liverpool. He was a peculiarly good-looking little man, always well-dressed, rode a good horse, and drove a neat carriage. Further on we arrived at Broad Green, belonging to the Staniforth family. Mr. Ashton, whose sons and descendants still reside in the neighbourhood, lived at Wootton, honoured and respected by all the circle of his friends and acquaintance. At Childwall was the noble mansion of the Gascoignes, which has now passed into the hands of the Marquis of Salisbury, who married the only daughter and heiress of the last possessor, Bamber Gascoigne, who was at one time, as his ancestors had been before him, the member for Liverpool. His retired habits, however, and his literary tastes, interfered with his bringing any very great portion of activity to his duties, and on one occasion, having thereby been brought into collision with some of the merchant-princes amongst his constituents, they renounced their allegiance to him, but still, not altogether repudiating the family name, they selected as his successor his younger brother, the famous General Gascoigne, who, however, was a very inferior person to Bamber. But we shall come to him presently. At Childwall likewise resided Thomas Clarke, whose two brothers we have already mentioned; a man whose good-nature, generosity, and nobleness of soul have seldom been equalled, never surpassed. Mr. Clarke had also a splendid place, Peplow Hall, in Shropshire, now, we rather think, belonging to Lord Hill.

CHAPTER XI

Liverpool society, like that of every other place, has always been divided into sets; how formed, by what mysterious line separated into divisions and sub-divisions, and sections, and cliques and coteries, we can no more tell than we can explain the causes at work to produce the eddies of the tide. There they are, and we must take them as we find them. It is so, always was so, and ever will be so. But, in enumerating the old stagers of half-a-century ago, more or less, we have passed them in review “promiscuously, as it were,” without undertaking the invidious task of cataloguing the particular set to which they individually belonged. Generally speaking, however, they may be placed under three heads: the fashionable set, the wealthy and commercial set, and the Corporation set. But many of those who have been named belonged to all of these sets. There was, moreover, a literary set; but it was numerically very small. Its three principal ornaments were Dr. Currie, Dr. Shepherd and Mr. Roscoe. The latter, who became so world famous at once, and so deservedly, was a remarkable and striking instance of the proverbially small estimation in which prophets are generally held in their own country. It is true that, by a momentary enthusiasm, he was sent to parliament to represent his native town. But it was transient and evanescent, and as speedily burnt out as a fire of stubble. Liverpool never appreciated Roscoe as the rest of the world appreciated him, nor does it now appreciate him as the rest of the world appreciates him, in spite of its feeble talk about his immortal memory, and its weak and mocking attempts to support Roscoe clubs. In any other place, his name would have been what Shakespeare’s is to Stratford, “a household word,” familiar in the mouth of age, manhood and childhood. But it is not so here, and with him. He has a small and decreasing circle of friends, who remember him when alive, and still treasure every word of wisdom which they ever heard from his lips. He has a somewhat wider circle of admirers, who read his works, and find a giant’s hand impressed upon them all. And there are others who profess to read and admire, because they have learned that no badge of ignorance would be thought greater in the literary world than a confession that they have not studied the writings of Roscoe.

But when all these are counted, we still remain convinced that the general public of Liverpool, beginning from the topmost pinnacle of its society, possess a marvellously small knowledge, and as small an appreciation, of the literary remains of this illustrious man. We can give a remarkable instance of this, of which probably the generality of our readers have never heard. Not many years ago, a Liverpool lady, whose literary attainments are of the highest order, was, when in London, asked to meet a very select party combining some of the most intellectual, as well as the most aristocratic, persons of the west end of the metropolis. She was delighted with the company, and they were equally delighted with her, with her stores of information, her lively conversation, her brilliant wit, her sparkling repartee, the tout ensemble which made her the lion, or, speaking of a lady, the star of the day. But at last, unhappily for the moment, the name of Roscoe was mentioned, and she became astonished, confused, and silent as she heard him spoken of with an awe, an admiration, and a reverence due and paid only to minds of the most magnificent calibre. “Take any shape but that,” she might have said, “and I can talk with the best here present.” On this topic, however, she was mute, and her perplexity and annoyance were dreadfully increased when, at every pause, the rest of the party seemed to wait for her opinions and sentiments. “He was a Lancashire man. He was a Liverpool man. She must have visited, as the Mahommedan does his Mecca, with the steps of a pilgrim, every locality hallowed and consecrated by his presence and footsteps. She must have treasured and embalmed in her memory anecdotes of his sayings and doings which had not yet appeared in print; stories of his habits, and customs, and daily life, which enthusiasm had cherished and tradition handed down.” But they laboured under a huge delusion. She was no Boswell, to read from her diary the hourly records of the life of another Dr. Johnson. In fact, she was ignorant on this point, and knew nothing of the man of whom they were speaking.

It may be explained. She was of an ultra-Tory family, with large estates in the West Indies, of which past generations had run passenger ships for involuntary black emigrants from Africa to the other side of the Atlantic. In her home circle, then, as a child, a girl, she had always heard Roscoe spoken of, not as a great philanthropist, not as a first-rate scholar, not as a writer whose books will be read and referred to until the world’s last blaze, but as a busy-body, as a meddler, as a mischief-monger, whose wish and object were to injure and destroy the town and trade of Liverpool. We may not wonder then that her amazement was great, and her perplexity not less, when now, for the first time in her life, she heard what was the public estimation in which her world-celebrated and world-appreciated townsman was held. The mists of local prejudice were at once scattered from before her eyes. She honestly and candidly took refuge in a confession of the truth, and so dissipated the half sneer, half smile of wonder which was gathering on the lips of some of the company. We recollect the circumstance well, and were not more amused than pleased with the avidity with which the very next day our fair friend provided herself with everything written by or of Roscoe, and with the keenness of appetite with which she set to work to devour them as speedily as possible. He is now one of the Dii Majores in her intellectual Pantheon. But we also mentioned Dr. Shepherd, clarum et venerabile nomen, as one of the literary giants of our locality some years since. He was, indeed, and no mistake about it.

We have frequently in our time heard him compared by turns with Theodore Hook and Sidney Smith. But he was, in our opinion, infinitely superior to either of those luminaries in the Metropolitan world of wit; and, had he shone in the same sky, our belief is that their lesser rays would have paled before his greater brilliancy, as the stars go out and tapers glow dull and dim when the sun is up and dazzling us with his glory. Dr. Shepherd was a thorough and solid scholar; an advantage not possessed by either of his rivals. Hook’s education was notoriously deficient. Smith had not accumulated equal stores of learning from his. Hook, when not running riot as a roué, a debauchee, mad with dissipation, and intoxicated with the flattery of the circle in which he moved, never soared to anything beyond the character of a first class Jack Pudding. His practical jokes were those of a boy blackguard. His jokes uttered were almost invariably of the coarsest kind, which derived a momentary zest and relish, not from their own intrinsic value, but from the political excitement which then prevailed, and which they were generally intended to subserve. Friendship has indeed sought, in more than one biography, to rescue him from such a character. But friendship would have been more friendly, so to speak, if it would have allowed him to be forgotten. There is no advocate so eloquent as oblivion for some reputations. With Sidney Smith, again, it was “Figaro here, Figaro there, Figaro everywhere.” His whole life was one long, enduring, universal jest.

He never seems to have been serious. In all his conversations, and most of his writings, puns and points, often not soaring to sparkling antithesis or dazzling epigram, beset you, like “man traps and spring guns,” at every turn in the road, until you become weary and exhausted. Man cannot always be laughing. A perpetual joker must sometimes excite a yawn. But we never found Dr. Shepherd guilty on this head, and in this fashion. He was witty in season, but not out of season. He could be the man of business. He could bring gravity to the discussion of grave affairs, and treat things serious with seriousness. But when in the social circle, and amongst his friends, it was the season for relaxing, then came forth the mighty stream of his wit, rolling like another Mississippi, in its glorious, resistless course, and sweeping all before it, and as remarkable for its point, polish and elegance, as for its strength and poignancy. There were few who could keep the saddle in the intellectual tournament with him. Before that terrible lance, adversary after adversary went down, like chaff before the wind. Nor do we recollect any greater treat than a perusal of the correspondence with which the Doctor used, from time to time, to season our newspaper reading. Upon whatever controversy he entered, he was sure to come off victorious. The very opposite to Mrs. Chick, whose maxim was to carry everything by “an effort,” he never seemed to make any effort at all. It was the very ease with which he crushed the most daring of his foes which was so annoying to them, and so amusing to the spectators. How he would bowl down a whole string of sophistries, which had been boldly set up before the world as so many philosophical conclusions not to be overturned! How he would turn a fallacy inside out! How he would scatter every kind of mystification, and expose every attempt at falsehood and imposition! How he would strip every jackdaw of his borrowed plumes, and raise the laugh against every presuming quack! Yes! He was wit, scholar, philosopher, author, controversialist, all in one, and good in all. But he was something more. We believe Dr. Shepherd’s charity, for his means, to have been something wonderful. We have heard of acts of kindness on his part which would have been pronounced noble had they been performed by the wealthiest of our merchant princes, or the highest in the land. What, then, were they, when done by one of his limited income and resources? His heart was a bank, upon which misery had only to draw, and its drafts were sure to be accepted and honoured. All respect to his name and memory! We know few men who have lived more esteemed; we know of none who have done more good in their time. Let his surviving friends join with us in offering this tribute to one of the giants of the past.

CHAPTER XII

Some people have very strange notions of the duties of the historian and the biographer. They fancy that our part is to suppress or distort the truth, and to substitute flattery for it; that we should deal in sickening and nauseous eulogy only, —

“In sugar and spice,And all that’s nice,” —

and exert our energies in the vain effort to extract sunbeams from cucumbers, or to make deal boards out of sawdust. The child, walking in the churchyard, and reading the epitaphs, exclaimed, “Mother, where do they bury the bad people, for I can only find the good ones here?” But we are not epitaph-mongers, we are not flattery-spinners, we are not eulogy-penners. We are not, we never were, a society of angels, and we take men as we find them. We are not making a collection of fancy sketches, to be all beauties. We are forming a cabinet of likenesses. We took up our pen with this end in view, and we shall continue to work it out. We shall tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” We shall “nothing extenuate, and nought set down in malice,” but state facts as facts, call a spade a spade, and describe men as they were, not as they ought to have been. We have, of course, an object in these prefatory remarks. We have. It seems that certain, it may be well-intentioned, or it may be over squeamish, censors and critics are bombarding us with good advice, to the effect that we ought in chronicling the past to praise everybody; in other words, as we have already hinted, to write epitaphs, not history. But, once for all, we beg leave to state that we are not going to take this advice. We have, however, two propositions to make in answer to it. The first is, that those amiable persons who are shocked by our plain speaking, should just skip our effusions; or, if that does not satisfy them, we will surrender our task and pen and inkstand altogether to them, and allow them to begin with the next chapter, and carry our work to a conclusion in their own fashion, which we doubt not will be infinitely superior to our way of putting our rough notes together, and stating our homely thoughts in homely language. We trust that this offer will be accepted. We would rather be learners than teachers, and shall be delighted to be convinced that every common councilman of the last generation was a Chesterfield and an Adonis, and every merchant a Lindley Murray and an Admirable Crichton, miracles of wit, literature and learning. But we, at all events, are not the Plutarch to record the mythology, not the history, of these impossible prodigies and inconceivable wonders. And now we proceed, until our critics volunteer to supersede us. But, verily, as we return to our work, vires acquirit eundo, it grows upon our hands. When first we undertook it, we had a notion that we could in a brace of chapters dot down all our reminiscences of the times we speak of. But here we are now, in Chapter XII, with as yet no port in view, and scudding along with all sail set over the interminable ocean of garrulity, and with our catalogue of worthies growing into a far greater magnitude than that of Homer’s ships.

“Who goes there?” It is Mr. Birch, afterwards Sir Joseph, the father of our late worthy representative. A noble-looking specimen of the merchant prince and the “fine old English gentleman” was Mr. B., and much esteemed and respected by all who knew him. And look at the tall, commanding figure that now approaches. It is Mr. Brooks, the father of the venerable Rector and Archdeacon of that name. And there were the Walkers, who lived in Hanover-street, and who in their day were the very tip-top of the tip-tops, and the head of all the gaiety and fashion of Liverpool. And there were the Gregsons, ever one of our first and leading families; and the Heskeths, and the Midgleys, and the Caldwells. And Arthur Heywood, then a middle-aged man, has a foremost place in our recollections. And there were the Rathbones, Bensons and Croppers, of that generation, as brave-hearted and active and zealous philanthropists as their descendants of the present day. And there was Hugh Mulleneux, who went through a long life marked by deeds of charity, and who to the last of his life, was one of the most guileless and sterling men we ever met with. And there were the other families of the same name, with a different spelling, Thomas Molineux, William Molineux, and other brothers, of whom we can safely say that we never heard any evil, and knew much good. They had hearts exactly in the right place, and with the right feelings in them. They are worthily represented yet amongst us. Nor must we forget to chronicle the name of old Mr. Yates, whose sons still walk worthily in the steps of their respected sire. And there were Hughes and Duncan, and the celebrated world-famous “Tom Lowndes,” who shot like a meteor across the sky of the commercial world, and who, in the magnificence of his speculations, would have thought no more of bidding for the United States for a cabbage garden, or of undertaking to pay off the national debt at a week’s notice, than he would of swallowing his breakfast. A fine fellow comes next, Mr. Nicholson, or Colonel Nicholson, as we used to call him, a title which, we believe, he bore in the Militia. He was a gentleman, out and out, through and through, every inch of him, in look, in bearing, in manner, in feeling. We never saw, to our fancy, a handsomer man than he was in those days, and amiability sat on every feature of his noble countenance. And how he could skate! How we have by turns laughed, and trembled, and shouted, and clapped our young hands as we have watched him darting along on the St. Domingo pit, and then cutting figures of eight and all sorts of fancy forms and hieroglyphics on the ice, and taking the most surprising leaps, and achieving all kinds of dangerous miracles. But, arma cedunt togæ. The soldier subsequently subsided into the citizen. Mr. Nicholson became a member of the Corporation, and was Mayor of Liverpool. He married one of the Miss Roes, in Queen-square. She was a niece of the celebrated Council king, Mr. Shaw; and their son, having dropped his paternal name for that of his maternal great-uncle, now lives at Arrow, in Cheshire. He has a strong look of his father in his features, and seems to have inherited his kindness of heart and manner. And there go the Harveys, fine fellows every one of them. And there is noble old Rushton, who, like his son after him, our late respected and lamented magistrate, had a head upon his shoulders with something in it, and a heart swelling and flowing, aye, and overflowing, not merely with a river, but with an ocean, of “the milk of human kindness.” Shall we ever “look upon his like again?” Selfishness was not in his nature. He felt for the woes and sorrows of his fellow-creatures, without respect to colour, climate, creed, or country. His sympathies were universal. The earth’s limits alone were their limits. He might have taken for his motto the glorious sentiment which, nearly two thousand years ago, called forth such thunders of applause in the theatre of ancient Rome: