But we spoke of General Tarleton’s military colleague, the Castor to his Pollux, General Gascoigne. “The old general,” as the latter was familiarly called, was a remarkable instance of how little is required to make a legislator. He had all the unfitness of General Tarleton without his dashing and brilliant exploits as a soldier, to veneer and varnish over the preter-pluperfect common-place of his character. He was an ignorant and illiterate man. This may, perhaps, be ascribed to the early age at which he had joined the army. At all events, his education must have been more in the school of Mrs. Malaprop than of Dr. Syntax. His highest attribute was a species of cunning, which sometimes did for him what greater talent has failed to do for other persons. He was a man of intense selfishness. His gratitude was of that peculiar kind which burns with a white heat glow for benefits to come, but looks with cold and freezing eyes upon favours received. He treated his friends as he did his gloves, that is, he wore out both, and then cast them from him. He constantly forgot his supporters at the last election, to coquet with those who, he hoped, might help him at the next. But such a game could not be played for ever.
General Tarleton was, we said, in his summary expulsion from the representation, the victim of ingratitude. When General Gascoigne’s turn came, he was justly punished for his ingratitude towards so many of his best friends. He had most industriously earned the fate which overtook him. His immediate predecessor in the seat for the borough was his brother, Bamber Gascoigne, of Childwall-hall, whose only daughter and heiress married, at a later period, the Marquis of Salisbury. Bamber was a man of a very different stamp and calibre from his brother. He was a good specimen of the gentleman of the old school, and very much superior generally to the country squires of his day. His tastes were refined and literary. He was a thoroughly educated and well-read person. He was at once proud and courteous in his manner, and aristocratic in his bearing. His habits attached him more to his library than to the arena of the House of Commons, and he, consequently, did not kill himself with toiling in the cause of his constituents. On some occasion, a deputation of our merchants waited upon him to remonstrate upon some alleged lack of zeal in their behalf. The interview was not a pleasant one. The member received the remonstrants with either too little humility or too little courtesy. As they grew warmer, he became colder and stiffer. The end of the matter was that they did not exactly part company in a gale of wind, but, while they gave him notice to quit, they relented so far that they told him that, out of respect to a family which had so long represented the town, they would, in depriving him of his seat, transfer it to his younger brother, the redoubtable general. It was a pity, for he had every quality which the other wanted. The thing, however, was done, and for years Bamber Gascoigne was a stranger to the town for which he had once sat in parliament. He had received a blow, an insult he deemed it, which he could never forget, although towards the end of his life he seems to have forgiven it, and once more, to some small extent, had some intercourse with Liverpool society. Mrs. Gascoigne, his wife, however, as excellent and kind-hearted a person as ever lived, always took a most lively and remarkably fussy interest in our elections. She felt that, if her husband could not retain the representation of Liverpool, still it was a prize worth keeping in the family. It may be that her husband thought so too, but he was too proud and impassive to show it.
But let us return to the “Old General.” In politics he was a Tory, “thorough and thorough.” He never flinched nor wavered, but followed the banner of his party “for better and for worse,” through good report and evil report, to the close of his career. He was once, indeed, dreadfully puzzled when a schism occurred amongst the leaders of Toryism. On that occasion he wrote a letter, said to be still in existence, to a leading friend in Liverpool, in which he thus expressed himself:—“Dear —, I cannot as yet see my way clearly, or make out which section will prevail, and obtain the government. Until that is decided, I shall vote according to my conscience.” It is refreshing to discover even these brief traces of a conscience in a hack politician of the old school. We have already observed that the education of the General had not been too carefully cultivated. He once, in the House of Commons, gave a remarkable proof of his deficiency, to the great delight of the young and waggish portion of our legislators. In some debate, touching the extension of political privileges to the dissenters, one of the orators had dwelt eloquently upon the beauty and loveliness of harmony and union between different sects. Gascoigne rose to do a bit of bigotry for his friends, but, being most singular in his notions of the plural of the word used, thus commenced his reply, “I hate to hear all this cant about the harmony and union which ought to exist between different sexes.” He got no further. A regular “Hurrah” of laughter burst from every corner of the House. On it went gathering strength as it advanced, explosion after explosion, thunderclap after thunderclap, in the wildest confusion. The younger members shouted with glee and merriment. Grave old statesmen held their sides, and were nearly thrown into fits in the vain endeavour to repress their mirth. Mr. Speaker himself, after an idle attempt to check the row, led the chorus until the very mace danced upon the table, and every hair of his wig stood on end in horror at the profanation. Never was such a scene enacted before or since in the House of Commons; and what gave the greatest zest to the whole thing was, that the General seemed to be unconsciously innocent and ignorant that he was the cause of the unusual commotion which was going on. It was the greatest performance of his life. In parting with him, we may as well add here, that, from a quality which we have before ascribed to him, he was called, his name being Isaac, “Cunning Isaac,” both by friends and foes.
In finishing the chapter, we would remark that subscriptions for electioneering expenses were raised in those times after a fashion which, we trust and believe, does not prevail at the present day. The figure written in the list was understood to be the price of the patronage to be received in return. There was a regular scale. This was corruption in its most unblushing and unscrupulous form.
CHAPTER XXIII.
ur shops frequented by the fashionables were “few and far between” in those old times. We had not then reached the bustling age of competition, colossal plate-glass windows, and “selling off under prime cost;” and so, as the Irishman said, making our fortunes by the amount of business transacted. One shop greatly patronised by the ladies was Wilson’s, near the old dock, that is, what was the old dock, but which was most unwisely filled up. The Custom-house now stands where the Jack Park, and the Mary, and the Lovely Nancy once rested on the waters after achieving their homeward voyage, and poked their bowsprits into the windows of the opposite houses, which were inconveniently near. Wilson dealt in all sorts of ladies’ wares, clothing, linen, table-cloths, etc.
At the bottom of Duke-street there was a kind of ornamental or nick-nack shop, kept by a Miss Gregson, who had a monopoly of that line of business. At the corner of King-street and old Pool-lane, now South Castle-street, there was a famous haberdashery and silk shop, presided over by a most respectable person, Mr. Orton. His private residence was in St. Anne-street, opposite to Mr. Boardman, and next door to Mr. Huddleston, whose son, John, lived there in 1790, and lives there still in 1852. There was another in Castle-street, kept by Mr. Bernard or Brennand, almost as celebrated. We remember this one more particularly, as several of the young men who stood behind the counter subsequently embarked as merchants in different lines of business, and were some of them eminently successful. One of them died not very long ago, and is understood to have left an almost princely fortune behind him.
Danson was then, and for many a long year afterwards, our Magnus Apollo in the hair-dressing line. Never was there such a good-natured, polite, kind soul as Danson. He was the most talkative of haircutters, and they are generally a talkative race. What demand he used to be in on the eve of a ball or a great party in those days, when so much stress was laid upon curls and wiggery! Many a good story was told at his expense; but gentlemen of his profession have ever been so martyred. He was said to be of a very inquisitive turn of mind, and much given to fathoming the why and the wherefore of every novelty and mystery which came in his way. This propensity once led him into an awkward scrape. Shower-baths were not as general and everywhere affairs then as they are now. Our Apollo, once summoned to put some lady patroness into curls, had, upon his arrival, to wait some little time in the ante-room. A tall, oblong, curtained sort of box met his eye. What could it be? He cautiously opened the door, peeped and peeped into it, but could make nothing of it. A string dangled from above. And what was that for? Our philosopher, bent upon experiment, took it into his hand; pulled it; and fiz—souse—splash! he was not exactly caught like a rat in a trap, but down came Niagara upon his devoted head, as quick as lightning, and as loud as thunder. The victim screamed; while, to enjoy the sport, in rushed the lady, and the lady’s maid, and the lady’s husband, and Prim, the butler, and John, the footman, and Jane, the housemaid, and Molly, the cook, and Sally, the scullion, and the children, and the lap-dog, and there was such laughing and such barking as human misfortune never called forth before. Merry mourners at a funeral never equalled them in their uproarious enjoyment. There had not been a richer scene since Falstaff was “carried off in a buck basket,” and then, as he described it, “thrown into the Thames and cooled, glowing hot, in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of that, hissing hot, think of that, Master Brook.” It was enough to give a man hydrophobia for life.
Our old stagers must also recollect the Liverpool Hunt of those days, famous, far and wide, for its good riders, good horses, and good dogs. It was a glorious sight to the lovers of the sport to see them turn out when