The following day being dry, we walked out to view the wonders of this
great commercial city of England, Liverpool. The side-paths were filled
with an active and busy population, and the main streets thronged with
heavily-laden waggons, conveying to the docks the manufactures of the
country, or carrying inward the productions of foreign nations. It was
an animating and busy scene.
“This,” said Mr. Hopewell, “is solitude. It is in a place like this,
that you feel yourself to be an isolated being, when you are surrounded
by multitudes who have no sympathy with you, to whom you are not only
wholly unknown, but not one of whom you have ever seen before.
“The solitude of the vast American forest is not equal to this.
Encompassed by the great objects of nature, you recognise nature’s God
every where; you feel his presence, and rely on his protection. Every
thing in a city is artificial, the predominant idea is man; and man,
under circumstances like the present, is neither your friend nor
protector. You form no part of the social system here. Gregarious by
nature, you cannot associate; dependent, you cannot attach yourself; a
rational being, you cannot interchange ideas. In seeking the wilderness
you enter the abode of solitude, and are naturally and voluntarily
alone. On visiting a city, on the contrary, you enter the residence of
man, and if you are forced into isolation there, to you it is worse than
a desert.
“I know of nothing so depressing as this feeling of unconnected
individuality, amidst a dense population like this. But, my friend,
there is One who never forsakes us either in the throng or the
wilderness, whose ear is always open to our petitions, and who has
invited us to rely on his goodness and mercy.”
“You hadn’t ought to feel lonely here, Minister,” said Mr. Slick. “It’s
a place we have a right to boast of is Liverpool; we built it, and I’ll
tell you what it is, to build two such cities as New York and Liverpool
in the short time we did, is sunthin’ to brag of. If there had been no
New York, there would have been no Liverpool; but if there had been no
Liverpool, there would have been a New York though. They couldn’t do
nothin’ without us. We had to build them elegant line-packets for ‘em;
they couldn’t build one that could sail, and if she sail’d she couldn’t
steer, and if she sail’d and steer’d, she upsot; there was always a
screw loose somewhere.
“It cost us a great deal too to build them ere great docks. They cover
about seventy acres, I reckon. We have to pay heavy port dues to keep
‘em up, and pay interest on capital. The worst of it is, too, while we
pay for all this, we hante got the direction of the works.”
“If you have paid for all these things,” said I, “you had better
lay claim to Liverpool. Like the disputed territory (to which it now
appears, you knew you had no legal or equitable claim), it is probable
you will have half of it ceded to you, for the purpose of conciliation.
I admire this boast of yours uncommonly. It reminds me of the
conversation we had some years ago, about the device on your “naval
button,” of the eagle holding an anchor in its claws--that national
emblem of ill-directed ambition and vulgar pretension.”
“I thank you for that hint,” said Mr. Slick, “I was in jeest like; but
there is more in it, for all that, than you’d think. It ain’t literal
fact, but it is figurative truth. But now I’ll shew you sunthin’ in
this town, that’s as false as parjury, sunthin that’s a disgrace to this
country and an insult to our great nation, and there is no jeest in it
nother, but a downright lie; and, since you go for to throw up to me our
naval button with its ‘eagle and anchor,’ I’ll point out to you sunthin’
a hundred thousand million times wus. What was the name o’ that English
admiral folks made such a touss about; that cripple-gaited, one-eyed,
one-armed little naval critter?”
“Do you mean Lord Nelson?”
“I do,” said he, and pointing to his monument, he continued, “There
he is as big as life, five feet nothin’, with his shoes on. Now examine
that monument, and tell me if the English don’t know how to brag, as
well as some other folks, and whether they don’t brag too sumtimes, when
they hante got no right to. There is four figures there a representing
the four quarters of the globe in chains, and among them America, a
crouchin’ down, and a-beggin’ for life, like a mean heathen Ingin. Well,
jist do the civil now, and tell me when that little braggin’ feller ever
whipped us, will you? Just tell me the day of the year he was ever able
to do it, since his mammy cut the apron string and let him run to seek
his fortin’. Heavens and airth, we’d a chawed him right up!
“No, there never was an officer among you, that had any thing to brag
of about us but one, and he wasn’t a Britisher--he was a despisable
Blue-nose colonist boy of Halifax. When his captain was took below
wounded, he was leftenant, so he jist ups and takes command o’ the
Shannon, and fit like a tiger and took our splendid frigate the
Chesapeake, and that was sumthing to brag on. And what did he get for
it? Why colony sarce, half-pay, and leave to make room for Englishers
to go over his head; and here is a lyin’ false monument, erected to this
man that never even see’d one of our national ships, much less smelt
thunder and lightning out of one, that English like, has got this for
what he didn’t do.
“I am sorry Mr. Lett [Footnote: This was the man that blew up the Brock
monument in Canada. _He was a Patriot_.] is dead to Canada, or I’d give
him a hint about this. I’d say, ‘I hope none of our free and enlightened
citizens will blow this lyin’, swaggerin’, bullyin’ monument up? I
should be sorry for ‘em to take notice of such vulgar insolence as this;
for bullies will brag.’ He’d wink and say, ‘I won’t non-concur with you,
Mr. Slick. I hope it won’t be blowed up; but wishes like dreams come
con_trary_ ways sometimes, and I shouldn’t much wonder if it bragged
till it bust some night.’ It would go for it, that’s a fact. For Mr.
Lett has a kind of nateral genius for blowin’ up of monuments.
“Now you talk of our Eagle takin’ an anchor in its claws as bad taste.
I won’t say it isn’t; but it is a nation sight better nor this. See what
the little admiral critter is about! why he is a stampin’ and a jabbin’
of the iron heel of his boot into the lifeless body of a fallen foe!
It’s horrid disgustin’, and ain’t overly brave nother; and to make
matters wus, as if this warn’t bad enough, them four emblem figures,
have great heavy iron chains on ‘em, and a great enormous sneezer of
a lion has one part o’ the chain in its mouth, and is a-growlin’ and
a-grinnin’ and a-snarling at ‘em like mad, as much as to say, ‘if you
dare to move the sixteen hundredth part of an inch, I will fall to and
make mincemeat of you, in less than half no time. I don’t think there
never was nothin’ so bad as this, ever seen since the days of old daddy
Adam down to this present blessed day, I don’t indeed. So don’t come for
to go, Squire, to tarnt me with the Eagle and the anchor no more, for I
don’t like it a bit; you’d better look to your ‘_Nelson monument_’ and
let us alone. So come now!”
Amidst much that was coarse, and more that was exaggerated, there was
still some foundation for the remarks of the Attache.
“You arrogate a little too much to yourselves,” I observed, “in
considering the United States as all America. At the time these
brilliant deeds were achieved, which this monument is intended to
commemorate, the Spaniards owned a very much greater portion of the
transatlantic continent than you now do, and their navy composed a part
of the hostile fleets which were destroyed by Lord Nelson. At that time,
also, you had no navy, or at all events, so few ships, as scarcely
to deserve the name of one; nor had you won for yourselves that high
character, which you now so justly enjoy, for skill and gallantry. I
agree with you, however, in thinking the monument is in bad taste. The
name of Lord Nelson is its own monument. It will survive when these
perishable structures, which the pride or the gratitude of his
countrymen have erected to perpetuate his fame, shall have mouldered
into dust, and been forgotten for ever. If visible objects are thought
necessary to suggest the mention of his name oftener that it would
otherwise occur to the mind, they should be such as to improve the
taste, as well as awaken the patriotism of the beholder. As an American,
there is nothing to which you have a right to object, but as a critic,
I admit that there is much that you cannot approve in the ‘_Nelson
Monument_.’”