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.