Liverpool a few years since: by an old stager

Sir Harry Mainwaring was another of these antediluvian worthies and wonders. He took the direction of the hounds after the death of Sir Peter. He was a hard rider, and loved his glass of port after the fatigues of the day. At one time his constitution was supposed to be somewhat shaken by these combined labours of love, and his medical adviser was called in. “Sir,” said the doctor, “you are overtaxing your strength in every way. You should go out with the hounds one day less each week; and you must reduce your allowance of wine. You are destroying the coats of your stomach.” “Then, hang me, doctor, if I do not fight in out in my waistcoat,” said the quaint, eccentric old baronet. And truly, medical science was baffled in this instance; for, instead of following the advice of the physician, he added another to his hunting days per week, and doubled his portion of wine, laughed at the doctor, and grew fat and strong. And let us add another story about Sir Harry. It speaks for his heart, and deserves to be told. He called at Hoo-green one day to return a bad five pound note which he had received from the innkeeper at his last visit. “I hope,” he said, “that it will be no loss to you, and that you know from whom you received it?” “Oh yes! Sir Harry, it’s all right; I took it from Mr. – ,” he answered, naming a poor curate in the neighbourhood. They were standing by the fire, and Sir Harry had still the note in his hand. In an instant it was torn to fragments and in the flames, while he said, “Poor fellow! I can stand the loss of it better than he can; and see that you don’t make him uncomfortable by telling him anything about it. He might feel uneasy at being in any way obliged to me;” and in another moment he was on horseback and galloping down the lane. Honour to the memory of this brave old baronet! In this one act, so beautifully done, there was a combination of pure benevolence and true delicacy of feeling which could not possibly be surpassed. It could not have been done more kindly; it could not have been done more gracefully. The heart of the wild huntsman was in its right place.

CHAPTER XXIV

Travelling was both a difficult and a dangerous operation in former days. We do not know when a direct communication by coach between Liverpool and London was first established; but we have been told that some sort of stage was started to Warrington and Manchester in the year 1767. We have indeed read in an old Liverpool Chronicle, January 21st, 1768, that John Stonehewer, a driver of the said stage, had broken his thigh by a fall from the box, a very likely accident in those old-fashioned days of rough stone pavements. Many of our readers must recollect with what persevering tenacity the shaking old road between Liverpool and Prescot was maintained as part and parcel of the British constitution, to the great loss and damage of our more modern coach proprietors, whose vehicles were more tried and injured by the eight miles of paving stones between these two towns than by all the rest of the journey to the metropolis. The surveyors stood by the paving stones to the last. Liverpool always adhered to the old ways, however rough they might be. Macadam, “the Colossus of roads,” as some wit called him, was an innovator; what right had he to make improvements which would militate against the trade of coach-builders and menders? Macadam! What a short reign was his?

“Come like shadows; so depart!”

Hardly had he grasped his sceptre firmly in his hand, and persuaded the people to mend their ways, when another and a mightier magician waved his wand, and all was changed. George Stephenson and railways burst upon us, and Macadam’s meteor flight was brought to a sudden close. The fast man gave way to the faster.

The first coach which we can ourselves recollect travelling by was of a very long shape, and moved at a very slow pace. Its destination was Birmingham, at which we ultimately, after many delays and dangers, managed to arrive. It had many “odoriferous names,” as Mrs. Malaprop would say, among which “the cheap and nasty” was the most prominent and usual. The coachman was a fat man, with a low-crowned hat, and a large nosegay stuck in his button-hole, the very man, we should say, who sat for the picture of old Mr. Weller in Pickwick. What business he had to transact on the road! He seemed to be the universal agent for the universal affairs of all mankind, between town and town, and village and village. And what stoppages, not only at public-houses, but “here, there and everywhere,” had the miserable passengers consequently to undergo! And what universal flirtations he used to carry on with the universal womankind who dwelt by the wayside! He appeared to have reached high pressure or breach-of-promise point with some inmate of every cottage on the road. And then when at last we reached Birmingham, into what universal fleadom we found that we had plunged when we went to bed! We have eschewed sleeping at Birmingham ever since. A Birmingham bed is a perfect “Cannibal Isle,” with a more carnivorous population than can be met with in any part of the globe. There is even less danger of being devoured in New Zealand itself.

But a new era sprang up in the coaching business. The “Bang-up” was started for Birmingham, and the “Umpire” for London. Those were splendid conveyances compared with their slow moving predecessors, combining, as they did, speed, safety, regularity and comfort. They were literally the timekeepers for the several towns and villages through which they passed. They started to a moment, arrived at each stage to a moment, and reached their final destination to a moment. The regularity of the dial could not have been greater. We have heard of the man who boasted that his clock regulated the sun, and truly the old Umpire and Bang-up seemed to regulate the clock. But “where are they now?” An echo answers, “Where?” Enter, as we have said before, George Stephenson, and exit Bretherton. Railways came in and coaches went out. Sic transit gloria mundi. We are all for speed now. The march of improvement first became a run, then a gallop, and now it has increased into a flight, beating wings and the wind. But, nevertheless, it was pleasant travelling in those old days, “All right,” said the guard; smack went the whip; “off she goes!” What a team! How the bits of blood do their work! Even the experienced hands of the veteran Jehu can hardly tame their fire and check their speed. And now the horn blows, we dash into the market-place of some country town, to the delight of the congregated idlers and gazers of the place. What a bustle among the grooms and stable boys. Parcels are handed up and down; the smoking horses are unharnessed; fresh ones put to, all in less time than it takes to tell it. Off again! We sweep at speed past the village green, dogs barking, pigs squealing, geese hissing, children shouting, men huzzaing, women smiling. Through the winding pleasant lanes we go, with their lovely hedgerows on either side, the spire in the distance, the mansion in the park, the glorious old trees, the noble woods, the delicious lakes, the sparkling streams, altogether a landscape of sweetness and beauty which no country but merry England can set before the traveller’s eye. All this, however, was lost to us when the last of the coaches disappeared from the road. We now fly, but we do not see. We are, as it were, shot forth from station to station at a speed becoming the spirit of the age. But one consequence of all this is, that the rising generation know nothing of the old high-ways and by-ways of their country, its many beauties, its shady lanes, its lovely nooks and corners, the sudden turns in our old lines of road which used unexpectedly to open to us the most charming prospect, and then as suddenly to hide it, only to reveal to us some other vision of beauty on the fair face of nature spread before us. These were exquisite treats to us old travellers. We miss them, but we are not regretting. We like to keep up with the pace of the age.

And what early hours our grandfathers and grandmothers used to keep! What an anarchical, chaotical, daring, radical innovator, the very æs triplex circum pectus man of old Horace, was that bold spirit considered to be amongst them who first wrote four o’clock, instead of mid-day, upon his “ticket for soup.” Then came dinner at five, at six, and all hours, until day and night changed places, and late hours and indigestion became triumphant, until wise people learned that the best plan was to lay in a stock of solids at lunch, and then only trifle and coquet with the grand banquet of the evening.

But how different was the style of visiting in those days from what it is now. About five or six o’clock you might see the ladies on a visit to the house of some one of their number, who was giving what was called “a rout” to her female friends. We speak advisedly when we say her female friends, because it was as difficult to press a gentleman into the service on such occasions as to catch an ostrich or a real live rhinoceros. A treasure, indeed, was the man, and a star, and an idol, who would come to these parties. Dr. Gerard, once mayor of Liverpool, was an especial pet with the ladies in St. Anne-street for accepting all their invitations to these meetings. But what was a rout? It was a muster of all her female friends, with the rara avis of a gentleman, if, like Mrs. Glass’s hare in the cookery book, one could be caught by the heroine or lady-hostess of the evening. The custom was to crowd as many guests as possible into a small room, or a large one, as the case might be. As the hour for assembling arrived, there was a tremendous crush of sedan-chairs towards the mansion where the party was given. There were several stands for these old-fashioned conveyances in Newington-bridge. Those ladies who were not so magnificent in their notions, or more moderate in their pocket, might be seen making their way to the festival with what were called calashes over their heads, a reduced form of the covering still raised over gigs on a rainy day. When the party, or a sufficient number to commence operations, had mustered, tea and coffee, rather weak than strong, and bread and butter, rather thin than thick, were handed round. This ceremony performed, the business of the evening fairly began. The lady of the house made up her card tables. Some would sit down to whist, of course, in those old days, long antediluvian patriarchal whist, silver threepences the stake, and nothing more. Short whist had not then come in, with gas, steam railways, and electric telegraphs. But the favourite game with the ladies was one called quadrille or preference. Perhaps they liked it better than whist because it was carried on with more talking. We never could fathom its mysteries. In truth, we never tried to dive into them. All that we recollect of it is, that it went on with a dreadful clamour about the “pool,” “basting,” “spadille,” “manille,” “ponto,” and “basto;” some of which phrases sounded very like Egyptian hieroglyphics turned into language, while others had a sporting smack about them. Indeed we are not certain whether “ponto” is not altogether a fiction or confusion of our memory. When the lady of the house began to tire, or fancied that her company began to flag or look fatigued over their cards, she gave the signal, and in rushed the servants with the trays, on which were spread refreshments of a very mild and innocent character. Ices were almost unknown in those days. Weak lemonade and weaker negus, with jumbles and ratafia cakes, were handed round, and, as they were nibbled and sipped at, Mrs. Gildart would vow that she was nearly ruined by a run of bad luck, which had impoverished her to the amount of two-and-sixpence. Dr. Gerard would meekly affirm that he had had a most delightful evening. Robert Norris would lay his hand upon his heart, and swear that he was always at the service of the ladies. Beau Sealy, still, we are told, a flourishing and vigorous plant somewhere near Bridgewater, would smile one of his demure smiles, and say ditto to Norris, ditto to Gerard. The hostess was delighted; the ladies were in raptures. Who like Norris? Who like Gerard? Who, especially, like Sealy? Sealy being single, as he is single still. By this time all the nibbling and sipping were over. The jumbles, and cakes, and negus, and lemonade had disappeared. The candles were burning low. There was a cry for the calashes, and a rush to the sedans, and “the feast of reason and the flow of soul” were at an end for that evening. And all this happiness, recollect, was achieved before nine o’clock. Our mothers and grandmothers were unrobing for the night before their glasses at the hour at which our modern belles are sitting before theirs, clasping the sparkling necklace, arranging the last curl, and practising the fatal smile which is to do such execution at the Wellington-rooms or some private party. We will not attempt to decide upon the charms of the ancient and modern Houris; but the hours kept by the former were certainly more reasonable and seasonable. They had the advantage of all “the beauty sleep,” which is said to come before midnight.

CHAPTER XXV

There must be many old stagers still surviving amongst us who can remember the two managers of the Theatre Royal, Messrs. Knight and Lewis. The latter was the father of Mr. Thomas Lewis, so well known to the present and last generations. In Tyke and similar characters Knight was unequalled; while Lewis was the best Mercutio ever seen upon the stage. Both were gentlemen, and much liked in society. In those days, moreover, we had occasional visits from the celebrated John Kemble, and his as celebrated sister, Mrs. Siddons, when they were “starring it” in the provinces. Cooke, likewise, the predecessor of Kean in his peculiar line of characters, often appeared upon the Liverpool boards. He was not famous for his sobriety, and one night, being hissed for his usual sin, he rushed forward to the lights, and most unceremoniously told the audience that “he was not there to be insulted by a set of wretches, every brick in whose infernal town was cemented by an African’s blood!” This was a home thrust for our grandfathers. Fortunately for the offender, Lynch-law was unknown in those times, or he might have been the author and hero of a tragedy of his own.

And what glorious singers used to warble in our music-hall in those days! We can just remember them, although singing to us, in our babyhood and childhood, was very like “wasting their sweetness on the desert air.” Among them were Incledon, Bartleman, Braham, the semper florens, then in his prime, if not ever since and always in his prime; Mrs. Billington, and, above all and before all, that wonder of the world, Catalani herself. It is something to say that we have heard this glorious songstress, although then quite unable to appreciate her spirit-stirring and soul-melting notes.

But we forgot to mention Elliston among our list of actors; eccentric, clever, well-educated, well-read, accomplished, amusing, gentlemanly Elliston. He was a prodigious favourite in Liverpool, as much so off as on the stage. He was ever a welcome guest at the tables of our merchant princes, and, by his powers of conversation and amazing fund of information, well repaid all the attentions which he received. His range of characters, both in tragedy and comedy, was a very extensive one. His performance in Three and the Deuce was the perfection of acting, and, however often repeated, never failed to command the rapturous applause of the theatre-going public of Liverpool. A pleasant, agreeable man was Elliston, full of fun, abounding in good stories, and with an encyclopædia of anecdotes at his command. He was somewhat proud of his profession, and his profession was proud of him. It lost nothing when represented in his person.

And now, as we bring our reminiscences to a conclusion, we must not omit to chronicle that, three times since memory and observation dawned within us, we have seen Liverpool overwhelmed by grief and sorrow. The first of these occasions was when the intelligence arrived of the death of Nelson, in achieving the greatest of his great victories, that of Trafalgar. As a sailor, and the chief of sailors, he was an especial favourite in this seaport town. His name was among our “household words.” His life, a thousand romances in one reality, was the popular theme at every table, and round every fire. Wellington was in the bud then, and all the talk was of Nelson, Nelson, nothing but Nelson. When, therefore, the account of his death was received, there was not a man in Liverpool but wished with all his heart and soul that the battle had been unfought, and the victory unwon, and the departed hero yet alive and spared to us. It seemed, so intense was the feeling of regret, as if the destroying angel had again passed through the land, as of old through Egypt, and taken one from every house. Grief was in every family, lamentation in every circle, sorrow on every countenance. These feelings were the more intense in Liverpool, inasmuch as the intelligence of the hero’s death followed close upon a letter from himself, in which he announced his intention, as he had never yet seen “the good old town,” of paying it a visit, as soon as he had “settled his small account” with the French and Spanish fleets, which he was then blockading in Cadiz. How uncertain are the events of this life! We wept the hero dead, whom we hoped to welcome in all the pride and brilliancy of his glory! The envelope containing the letter in which the announcement alluded to was made, hung for many a long year, in a splendid frame, in the dining-room of Mr. J. B. Aspinall, of Duke-street. But there are hero-worshippers yet surviving, who look up to Nelson as their idol. A few months since we entered a cottage in a remote district, far from Liverpool. Our eye at once settled upon an autograph, framed and suspended against the wall. It was Nelson’s handwriting. The owner of the house entered as we were gazing at it, and seeing how we were employed, remarked, “That is the greatest treasure I possess. Nothing on earth should separate me from it while I live.” We looked at the man, who seemed not to have a spark of enthusiasm in his composition on any other subject; but, upon talking to him, we found that his whole soul was wrapped up in adoration of the memory of Nelson. We may not wonder, then, when such a feeling is found to exist now, at the burst of enthusiasm which echoed through the nation during the life, and at the death, of the popular idol; and what a subscription was raised for a monument to the mighty and fallen hero! And what collections were made in all our churches for the widows and orphans of the brave defenders of their country, who fought and were killed on the same day with their glorious chief! But Liverpool was never deaf to the call and inspirations of charity. To the poet’s question,

“Art thou content to be the modern Tyre,
Half pedlar and half tyrant of the world?”

she may proudly and truly answer, that she has ever recognised and acted upon a loftier and nobler mission. Behold her Infirmary, her Blind Asylum, her Dispensaries, her Hospitals, her institutions of every kind, for every form and shape in which woe and want come upon mankind! Freely have her sons of many generations received, and freely have they given. They are not perfect, but selfishness has never been among their faults.

The second time when Liverpool, within our recollection, was struck with distress, but it was altogether of another character, was when the great West Indian merchant, George Bailey, failed. It was thought at the time that nobody could survive the shock. For a season all trade was checked, all credit and confidence paralysed, and “Who next?” was the question of every day in every mouth, as men walked about doubtingly on ’Change, and looked into every new Gazette with fear and trembling.

The third season of consternation to which we have alluded was the actual panic occasioned by the abolition of the African slave trade. Our whole community was terror-stricken, when the cause of philanthropy triumphed in Parliament, and it was decreed that England should no longer play a guilty part in perpetrating and perpetuating the horrors of the middle passage. When this was proclaimed in Liverpool, prophets of woe and evil sprung up in every street. Destruction was about to fall upon us, chaos was to come again, an avalanche was to overwhelm us, or an earthquake to swallow us up, grass was to grow in the area of the Exchange-buildings, our warehouses were to moulder into ruins, the streets were to be ploughed up, the docks were to become fish-ponds, and our mercantile navy, whose keels penetrate to every land, and whose white sails woo the breeze on every ocean, was to dwindle into a fishing vessel or two, or be utterly extinguished. It is true that there were some men amongst us of too sanguine or too sagacious a spirit to believe in these melancholy predictions. They had yet hope or faith in the development of the resources and energies of their townsmen. Among them we must place Mr. Shaw, of Everton, and Mr. Edward Houghton, of Great Nelson-street, both large holders of land in their respective neighbourhoods, who, influenced by an inward and assured conviction that Liverpool, cut off from one branch of trade, had yet a great future before her, calmly “bided their time,” and waited for the period when the town would reach them, and building land at so much per yard would be the cry. Above all Mr. Leigh, the solicitor, one of the shrewdest men of his day, clung to this notion, and boldly speculated upon it. And the result has been, in his case, that his son, Mr. John Shaw Leigh, is one of the wealthiest, probably the wealthiest, commoner in England, able, as some one lately observed in his presence, “not only to buy up a duke, but half-a-dozen dukes, if they were in the market.”

But these far-seeing men were the exceptions. Ruin to Liverpool was the general fear of her inhabitants upon the abolition of the slave-trade. We wonder now, when we look back, that England, and Englishmen, should ever have tolerated and sanctioned the nefarious traffic in human flesh. But, while the trade existed, it had champions and defenders, not only among those who were interested in it, but among classes whose blindness can only be attributed to prejudice, the offspring of habit and custom. Thus, Boswell, in his Life of Johnson, calmly writes, “The wild and dangerous attempt which has been for some time persisted in to obtain an act of our Legislature, to abolish so very important and necessary a branch of commercial interest, must have been crushed at once, had not the insignificance of the zealots who vainly took the lead in it made the vast body of planters, merchants, and others, whose immense properties are involved in the trade, reasonably enough suppose that there could be no danger. The encouragement which the attempt has received excites my wonder and indignation, and, though some men of superior abilities have supported it, whether from a love of temporary popularity, when prosperous, or a love of general mischief, when desperate, my opinion is unshaken. To abolish a status, which, in all ages, God has sanctioned, and man has continued, would not only be robbery to an innumerable class of our fellow-subjects, but it would be extreme cruelty to the African savages, a portion of whom it saves from massacre and intolerable bondage in their own country, and introduces into a much happier state of life, especially now when their passage to the West Indies, and their treatment there, is humanely regulated. To abolish this trade would be, to

‘Shut the gates of mercy on mankind.’

Whatever may have passed elsewhere concerning it, the House of Lords is wise and independent.

Intaminatis fulget honoribus;
Nec sumit aut ponit secures
Arbitrio popularis auræ.”

Such was the hollow and feeble sophistry of such men as Mr. James Boswell, and so fondly and foolishly did they talk.

But not of his opinion was our own noble and immortal Roscoe, who devoted a long life to the cause of philanthropy, and battled for freedom for the slave in every variety of ways, beginning with his poem of “Mount Pleasant,” and ending with his vote for abolition in the House of Commons. But not of his opinion were the Wilberforces, and Clarksons, and Macaulays, and Croppers, and Rathbones, and Rushtons, and Curries, who fought the great battle of outraged humanity, at first, against mighty and tremendous odds, but still struggling on,

“Like a thundercloud streaming against the wind.”

until the popularis aura, public opinion, pronounced in their favour. Then was heard the sic volo, sic jubeo, of the British people; and truly, in this instance, we may say it was vox populi, vox Dei. Justice triumphed. The foulest blot which ever darkened the name of England was removed. The slave-trade was abolished. And what became of Liverpool? Were the melancholy predictions of her prophets fulfilled? Were her docks turned into fish-ponds? Did the mower cut hay, or the reaper gather in his harvest, in her deserted streets? Look round, and see. Compare what she was then with what she is now. Then we counted her inhabitants by tens, now by hundreds, of thousands. Then we talked of her acres, now of her miles, of docks. New channels of commerce sprung up, new fields of adventure and enterprise were discovered in the East and the West, and the far off South. Steam gave an additional impulse to the gigantic energies of trade, the manufacturing districts soared to the miraculous point of prosperity which they have attained, and Liverpool was the main artery through which all the imports and exports of these busy hives of industry unceasingly flowed.

What a different place the town is now from what it was when first we old stagers knew it, and were acquainted with every face which flitted through its streets! So changed, so altered is it! Old streets and old buildings gone, and new ones occupying their places; streets where once were fields; docks where of old were strand, and shore, and forts, and baths; retired villages swallowed up by the insatiable and still growing town; trees, gardens, meadows, corn land, all yielding to the spread of brick and mortar. So marvellous are all these things, that, as we wander through the transmuted scene, losing and finding our way by turns, we know not how to describe the feelings which swell within us;

“We see, we recognise, and almost deem
The present dubious, or the past a dream!”

And what of the future of Liverpool? Has she reached the meridian height of her glory and prosperity? or is she yet in her dawn and beginning? Shall we moralise upon the fate of Tyre, of Carthage, of Genoa, and Venice, and other marts of commerce in bygone days? It was not for such a purpose that we took up our pen. We do not aspire to be prophets. But as yet no cloud is in the sky. All is bright and clear above the horizon; all is fair, promising, hopeful. And when we contemplate “the good old town,” in which we have spent so many happy years, and to which we are bound by so many ties of friendship and affection, we take leave of her with the prayer of the Italian for his country —

“Esto Perpetua.”

notes

1

Since removed, with other premises, for the Central Station.

2

We copy with much pleasure the following note, which appeared in the Albion of the 2nd August, 1862: – “Old Abraham Lowe. —A Subscriber says, ‘The writer of the interesting papers upon Liverpool a Few Years Since has fallen into an error, which I wish to correct. “Old Abraham Lowe, the huntsman,” did not end his days in poverty, but enjoyed a small annuity, which was purchased for himself and wife for their joint lives, by subscription among those who had enjoyed his services for so many years. This fund was, I believe, under the care of the Messrs. Fletcher, of Allerton, by whose kindness and attention the latter days of the veteran were well protected.’”