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.
{38} Since removed, with other premises, for the Central Station.
{160} 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.’”