Liverpool a few years since: by an old stager

by James Aspinall

But we said, just now, that the members of the old Corporation would, from time to time, for the sake of appearances, admit a select Whig or Liberal into their number. This reminds us of a good story, which was circulated at the time, when it was debated among them whether they should or should not elect the present Mr. William Earle. “He is a very clever fellow,” said one of them to a grim old banker, thinking thereby to conciliate his favour and win his support. The eulogy had just a contrary effect. “So much the worse,” replied old money-bags, “we have too many clever fellows amongst us already.” As nobody cried out, “Name, name!” the list of this multitude, this constellation of clever ones, is lost to posterity. And, having mentioned this joke against one of the old Council, let us add another. One day Prince William of Gloucester and his staff of officers were dining with a certain member thereof, who treated them with the best which his house contained and which money could command. When the cloth was drawn, his wines, which were excellent, were not only enjoyed, but highly praised. Being a little bit of a boaster, he perpetrated a small white fib by saying, “Yes! that port is certainly very fine, but I have some better in the cellar.” “Let us try it,” instantly rejoined a saucy young aide-de-camp, amidst the laughter of the company at the alderman being thus caught in his own trap. On another occasion it was said that the presiding genius at a table where His Royal Highness was a guest, thus encouraged his appetite, “Eat away, your Royal Highness, there’s plenty more in the kitchen.” For the honour of Liverpool refinement, be it known that it was not one of our natives who made this speech, so much more hospitable than polite. It was a gentleman of an aristocratic family, officially connected with the town. But taste was not so fastidious, neither was society so conventional, in those days as they are now. The most expressive word was the word used when it was intended to mean warm sincerity, not empty form.

And what a crowd of the county nobility and the gentry were invited to the Corporation banquets in those old days. There was the venerable Earl of Derby, the grandfather of the present Lord. There was likewise the Earl of Sefton, gay, dashing, and agreeable. Mr. Bootle Wilbraham, and Mr. Bold of Bold Hall, then Mr. Patten, were frequent guests at the Mayor’s table. And there was old Mr. Blackburne, who was the county member for so many years in those quiet times of Toryism, when the squirearchy reigned supreme even in the manufacturing districts. An easy-going man, of very moderate abilities, was old Squire Blackburne. He stuck by his party, and his party stuck by him. Many a sugar-plum of patronage fell into the mouths of his family and friends. The Mr. Blundell of Ince, of that day, came frequently amongst us, although, generally speaking, a man of reserved habits, and more given to cultivate his literary tastes than to mix in company. He presented one of the Mayors of Liverpool, Mr. John Bridge Aspinall, with a portrait of himself, half-length, and an admirable likeness. It hung for many years in the drawing-room of the gentleman in Duke-street. Side by side with it was a splendid painting of Prince William of Gloucester, also a gift from His Royal Highness to Mr. Aspinall. Where they are now we know not. But, when dotting down the names of some of the neighbouring gentry who used to look in upon us some forty odd years ago, we must not forget to recall honest John Watkins, “the Squire” of Ditton. Squire Watkins, as many of our old stagers will recollect, was a Tory, if ever there was one in the world. But a noble-souled, true-hearted, generous, hospitable man was he withal, as ever lived, a kind of Sir Roger de Coverley, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot. And what a house he kept! And how he came out in his especial glory on his coursing days, when all the Nimrods and Ramrods in the county assembled under his roof, and did not resemble a temperance society in the slightest degree. Poor old Squire Watkins! Some terrible Philistine once planted a hedge, or built a wall, we forget which, which trespassed, or was supposed to trespass, an inch or two upon his land. It was just the sort of trifle for two people in the country with nothing to do to quarrel about. The feud, or “fun, grew fast and furious.” The squire insisted upon the removal of the encroachment. His opponent refused. Threats followed, defiance succeeded, until, one morning, like Napoleon making his swoop upon Brussels, John Watkins, Esq., took the field at the head of his household troops, the butler, coachman, groom, gardener, etc. At last they arrived on the field of Waterloo. But the opposing Wellington was already there, in position with his followers, himself in front with a double-barrelled gun in his hand. Nothing daunted, the squire, pointing to the encroaching fence which was to be destroyed, cheered on his men to the attack, and the “Old Guard” advanced merrily to the charge. But they were presently brought to a check. “Up Guards!” shouted the hostile Wellington as they approached, while “click” went the cock of his double-barrelled gun, as he raised it to his shoulder, vehemently swearing at the same time that he would shoot the first man who dared to lay hands upon the debatable boundary. The assailants wavered. The squire shouted to them in vain. Even he himself did not like the look of the double-barrelled gun, but, fixing upon John, his butler, to be his Marshal Ney, he encouraged him to the attack. John, however, feeling that “discretion was the better part of valour,” hesitated, when his master again cheered him to the fight with this promise of posthumous consolation, “Never mind him, John; if the scoundrel does shoot you, we’ll have him hanged for it afterwards.” “But please, master,” said John, as wisely and innocently, “I’d rather you hanged him first.” This was too much. There was no help for it. Hugoumont was saved. Napoleon and his forces retreated, baffled and discomfited, from the field. The squire, peace to his memory, fine old fellow, used often to tell this story in after years, never failing to revile poor John for his cowardice, which lost the day. But we always defended John, and turned the laugh against the squire, by gently insinuating that there was somebody more interested in the quarrel, who was even more prudent than prudent John.

CHAPTER XIX.

he Church, in the days we are speaking of, was in a very torpid and sleepy state, not only in Liverpool, but throughout the land. None of the evangelical clergy had then appeared in this district, to stimulate the pace of the old-fashioned jog-trot High Churchmen. Neither had Laudism revived, under its new name of Puseyism. Nothing was heard from our pulpits but what might have passed muster at Athens, or been preached without offence in the great Mosque of Constantinople. In fact, “Extract of Blair” was the dose administered, Sunday after Sunday, by drowsy teachers to drowsy congregations. If it did no harm, it did no good. We do not here speak of James Blair, Commissary of Virginia, President of William and Mary College, etc., whose works, little known, contain a mine of theological wealth. We allude to Dr. Hugh Blair, whose sermons, so celebrated in his day and long after, are really, when analysed, nothing better than a string of cold moral precepts, mixed up with a few gaudy flowers culled from the garden of rhetoric. We have often wondered at the praise beyond measure which Dr. Johnson again and again bestowed upon Blair’s diluted slip-slop and namby-pamby trifles. He not only spoke of them in the highest terms on every occasion, but thus, in his strange way, once exclaimed, “I love Blair’s sermons. Though the dog is a Scotchman, and a Presbyterian, and everything he should not be, I was the first to praise them. Such was my candour.” At all events, as we have already stated, “Extract of Blair” was the pulpit panacea universally prescribed at the beginning of the nineteenth century. And we are bound to add, as far as our youthful recollections go, that the majority of the Liverpool clergy in those days were rather below than above the average of mediocrity.

There were some among them, however, whose names are worth recalling. One of the best preachers in those old times was the incumbent of St. Stephen’s, Byrom-street, the Rev. G. H. Piercy, a fine fellow in every way. He is still alive at his living of Chaddesley, in Worcestershire, to which he was presented through the influence of old Queen Charlotte. His mother-in-law, the wife of the Rev. Mr. Sharp, then vicar of Childwall, had been about the court in some capacity or other, and it was the good fashion of her Majesty never to forget her friends. Mr. Piercy must have reached the age of the patriarchs at least. Then there was the Rev. Mr. Milner, of St. Catharine’s Church, Temple-street, which was removed in making some improvements in that part of the town. Poor Mr. Milner! When not washing his hands, he employed each hour of the day in running after the hour before, and was always losing ground in the race. A kind-hearted man he was, and a pleasant one when you could catch him. He was known as “the late Mr. Milner.” The Rev. Mr. Vause preached in those days at Christ Church. He was considered to be a brilliant star in the pulpit, and was indeed a first-rate scholar, a fellow-student with the illustrious Canning, who made many and strong efforts to reclaim him from a course of life which unhappily contradicted and marred all his Sunday teachings. But, even with regard to his sermons, effective and telling as they were made by style, voice and manner, it was found, after his death, when they passed into other hands, that they were chiefly Blair, with others copied from the popular writers of the day. A clergyman, who was to preach before the Archbishop of York, had the choice of them for the occasion. He picked out the one which seemed to him to be the most spicy and telling, and, confident at the time that it was the production of Vause himself, delivered it with mighty emphasis and stunning effect. When it was over, the Archbishop blandly smiled, praised it exceedingly, and then, to the horror and astonishment of the preacher, whispered, “I always liked —’s sermons,” naming the author from whom it was taken. Never did poor jackdaw feel so much pain at being divested of his borrowed plumage.

One of the ablest men, although a mumbling kind of preacher, in those times, was the Rev. Mr. Kidd, who was for so many years one of the curates of Liverpool, a kind of Church serf, who could never rise to be a Church ruler. He had many kind friends, and at many a table which we could mention a plate and knife and fork were always laid for the poor curate. But he ever appeared to us to be an oppressed and depressed man, with a weight upon his spirits which nothing could shake off. There was indeed a romance attached to his history, although he was perhaps the most unromantic looking person that the human eye ever rested upon. He was a brilliant scholar, when a student at Brasenose College, Oxford, and his hopes and ambition naturally aspired to a fellowship. It was supposed to be within his grasp. But how wide is the distance between the cup and the lip! The principal was unpopular, and some of his doings were severely flogged in a satirical poem which appeared without a name. Its cleverness led him to suspect Mr. Kidd, and, without looking for any other proof of the authorship, he became his sworn enemy, and used all his influence, and only too successfully, to turn the election against him. Some love affair, we have also heard, but this was, it may be, only “one of the tales of our grand-father,” went wrong with him about the same time. So that, altogether, he was thrown upon the world a sad and downcast man, with blighted hopes and blasted expectations from his very youth, and settled down into the curacy of Liverpool, where he saw more than one generation of inferior men, inferior in scholarship, in learning, in wit, in all and everything, promoted over his head. A pleasant, agreeable, quaint and original companion was poor Kidd amongst his intimates, but tongue-tied in a large party. He saw through the hollowness of the world, and despised it. There was nobody like him for unmasking a sham, and reducing a pretender to his real and proper dimensions. And then his chuckling laugh when he had accomplished such a feat, and impaled the human cockchafer upon the point of his sarcasm! And how bitterly he would allude to his curate’s poverty, as, smacking his lips over a glass of old port at some friend’s table, and he did not dislike his glass of port, he would tell us that his own domestic allowance of the same was “to smell at the cork on a week-day, and to take a single glass to support him through his duties on a Sunday.” Poor fellow! Once upon a time, and such godsends did not often fall to his portion, he had married a couple among the higher orders, and received for it a banknote which perfectly dazzled him. Then came the marriage breakfast, then the marriage dinner. He was a guest at both, and perhaps took his share of the good things which were stirring. His way home was through the Haymarket. Another gentleman, whose path was in the same direction, hearing a great noise, came up and found our friend fighting furiously for his fee with a lamp-post, and exclaiming, as he struck it with his stick, “You want to rob me of it, you scoundrel, do you? But come on, we’ll see!” He was a relation of the celebrated Dr. Kidd, who wrote one of the Bridgewater treatises, and who lately died at Oxford full of years and honours.

Another well-known clergyman in those days was the Rev. Mr. Moss, who was afterwards vicar of Walton for so many years. His share of “the drum ecclesiastic” was decidedly the drum stick. But, although a very moderate performer in the pulpit, he had a very good standing in society, and was very much liked in his own “set.” Not over witty himself, never was man the cause of so much wit in others, and often at his own expense. He was known in his own circle as “Old England,” because “he expected every man to do his duty;” that is, he never met a brother clergyman by any chance without seizing upon him, and asking him if he could do his duty on the next Sunday. In allusion to his convivial qualities and bad preaching, somebody once said of him that “he was better in the bottle than in the wood.” This gave him such dreadful offence that he positively consulted his lawyer on the subject of prosecuting the impious blasphemer for a libel. The answer to his enquiry was a hearty laugh on the part of the solicitor himself, with an intimation that he would be laughed out of court also, amidst a shower of jokes about the poet’s description of the Oxonians of that day,

“Steeped in old prejudice and older port,”

and be poked with all sorts of fun about canting, recanting, and decanting. The decanter triumphed, although it was a strong allusion to the original offending joke, and the idea of a prosecution was abandoned.