Indeed, throughout, the work abounds with quaint poetical quotations, and old-fashioned classical allusions to the Aeneid and Falconer’s Shipwreck.
And the anonymous author must have been not only a scholar and a gentleman, but a man of gentle disinterestedness, combined with true city patriotism; for in his “Survey of the Town” are nine thickly printed pages of a neglected poem by a neglected Liverpool poet.
By way of apologizing for what might seem an obtrusion upon the public of so long an episode, he courteously and feelingly introduces it by saying, that “the poem has now for several years been scarce, and is at present but little known; and hence a very small portion of it will no doubt be highly acceptable to the cultivated reader; especially as this noble epic is written with great felicity of expression and the sweetest delicacy of feeling.”
Once, but once only, an uncharitable thought crossed my mind, that the author of the Guide-Book might have been the author of the epic. But that was years ago; and I have never since permitted so uncharitable a reflection to insinuate itself into my mind.
This epic, from the specimen before me, is composed in the old stately style, and rolls along commanding as a coach and four. It sings of Liverpool and the Mersey; its docks, and ships, and warehouses, and bales, and anchors; and after descanting upon the abject times, when “his noble waves, inglorious, Mersey rolled,” the poet breaks forth like all Parnassus with:—
“Now o’er the wondering world her name resounds,
From northern climes to India’s distant bounds—
Where’er his shores the broad Atlantic waves;
Where’er the Baltic rolls his wintry waves;
Where’er the honored flood extends his tide,
That clasps Sicilia like a favored bride.
Greenland for her its bulky whale resigns,
And temperate Gallia rears her generous vines:
’Midst warm Iberia citron orchards blow,
And the ripe fruitage bends the laboring bough;
In every clime her prosperous fleets are known,
She makes the wealth of every clime her own.”
It also contains a delicately-curtained allusion to Mr. Roscoe:—
“And here R*s*o*, with genius all his own,
New tracks explores, and all before unknown?”
Indeed, both the anonymous author of the Guide-Book, and the gifted bard of the Mersey, seem to have nourished the warmest appreciation of the fact, that to their beloved town Roscoe imparted a reputation which gracefully embellished its notoriety as a mere place of commerce. He is called the modern Guicciardini of the modern Florence, and his histories, translations, and Italian Lives, are spoken of with classical admiration.
The first chapter begins in a methodical, business-like way, by informing the impatient reader of the precise latitude and longitude of Liverpool; so that, at the outset, there may be no misunderstanding on that head. It then goes on to give an account of the history and antiquities of the town, beginning with a record in the Doomsday-Book of William the Conqueror.