The Sun.
London, England, 1856-07-28 00:00:00

Recollections of the last Half Century. By the
Rev. J. Richardson, LL.B. Two vols. C.
Mitchell.
Dr. Richardson, of The Times, is the very man
to fasten upon one, effectually, by Ole buttonhole
when once he has fairly made up his mind to ad-
venture upon the outpouring of his curious and
motley Recollections. All the bassoon playing in
the world can't lure us from his revelations. Like
the Wedding Guest we "needs must hear." The
Rev. LL.B. " hath his will." His Recollections,
too, extend over half a century—the reminiscent
" hearking back" to his teens—and amusing us
with memories of the most motley kind imagin-
able, some Political, some Literary, some Dra-
matic, and others Miscellaneous. A veritable
Olio of Gossip ! A collection of appetising ingre-
dients in the way of amusing chit-chat, com-
prising, among other things (the very title-
page pleasantly forewarns us) "anecdotes and
notes of persons of various ranks prominent in
their vocations, with whom the writer was per-
sonally acquainted." Observe !—" persons of
various ranks prominent in their vocations." Are
they not ? Why, the celebrated confabulation
ranging from Shakspere to tke musical glasses,
was nothing to it. Don't we "hear tell" in the
amazing area of this volunteer Remembrancer,
not of the City merely, but of the Country also
pretty generally—don't we hear tell in this amazing
area sundry marvels uttered almost in the same
breath, about Miss Biffin, that horrible limbless
abortion, who so far appears to have resembled
an elephant, that her principal characteristic
seems to have been her " trunk," and about
"Carotid-artery cutting Castlereagh,
Whose pen-knife cat a goosequill t'other day."
About Liston, the surgeon, and Liston, the far-
ceur About Burke, the Orator, and Burke, the
Deaf Jun ? About the " celebrated clown" (sic in
Index) Mr. Bradbury, and Edmund Kean, the
Tragedian ? The monstrosities both in the way
of unnatural actors and natural phenomena
" figuring away" as George Cruikahank would
have it, in these pages is, according to the expres-
sive phraseology of Samuel Slick of Slickville,
" cautionary—that's a fact 1" Insomuch that the
two volumes appear to us in their way to be in a
manner the Richardson's Show of Literature. In it
don't we have appropriately a tolerable sprinkling,
of the raw head and bloody bones by means of allu-
sion, here, to the murder of Eliza Grimwood, there,
to the suicide of the first Marquis of Londonderry ?
Are we not regaled with allusionsnow to Tom Thumb
the mannikin, now to Jacko the man-monkey ?
Verily the work before us may, without exaggera-
tion, we repeat, be designated simply, but expres-
sively, the Richardson's Show of Literature. Walk
up Ladies and Gentlemen, and you shall see what
you shall see—a full, true, and particular account
of this person, that person, and the other, the no-
torieties, the celebrities, and the monstrosities of
the last half century. You shall hear all about the
Tavern kept in Wych-street once upon a time by
Mark Lemon, the Editor of Punch ! All about
the prigging of rare prints from the British Mu-
seum by Deighton, the Caricaturist ! All about
Beau Brummell's gormandising ! All about
Mr. Frost, the insurgent, and Mrs. Fry,
the philanthropist ! All about Fauntleroy the
forger and other interesting criminals too numerous
to particularise ! All about such people as the Char-
lies and such others as the Resurrectionists ! Dr.
Richardson has a fine eye for a fault, and a won-
derful capacity for nosing a delinquency. Anybody
almost he mentions, he can tell you the weak side of
with astonishing accuracy. If he introduces us to
Dr. Parr, the great Greek scholar, he shows him up
to us in a beastly state of intoxication. If he spe-
cifies among his contemporaries at Eton the
" Poet of Poets," as he has been called,
Percy Shelley, he does so after this exceed-
ing droll fashion : speaking of him as one
the memory of whom " is fast sinking in the obli•
vion it deserves "—adding—" I allude to Shelley
called the Poet." Now this we really take to be
about the funniest thing in all Dr. Richardson's
" Recollections." Here, however, is his sketch of
Shelley "called the Poet"—Percy Shelley, in other
words the " Poet of Poets"—vide the Art. " Shel-
ley " in Charles Knight's Penny Encyclopredia.
Says Dr. R., however, of his illustrious Eton con-
temporary :
" Mr. Shelley commenced his literary labours at a
very early age. He produced, whilst at Eton, a sort of
romance. The bulk of the volume was not very great,
and I believe the price of it was only sixpence. Toe
quality was an exaggeration of raw-head and bloody-
bones' 1‘ on horror's head horror accumulated,' and
hero, heroine, assistants, and subordinates were in turn,
or rather all together, the victims of wilful murder under
the most revolting circumstances. The author was at
this time a wild looking, slovenly, dirty, uncouth hobbe-
dyhoy, and certainly gave no promise of those perfec-
tions which, rightly or wrongly, as people's ta-,te may
decide, his admirers affirmed he possessed."
Droll, that, isn't it? Tumbling down, however,
from the Tritons to the Minnows, we find our Re-
miniscent discoursing, a little later on, not about
the Great Gun (Shelley), but about the editor of
the Great Gun (F. W. N. Bayley)—not about a
poet, but about a poetaster and a little fribbling
humorist : Alphabet Bayley, as he was wont to
be designated. Of whipm, as one of his personal
associates, Dr. Richardson observes facetiously, in
allusion to his decease—that--
" Mr. Bayley sunk gradually in the estimation of the
learned and the unlearned, the patrons and supporters
of literary speculation, became less careful than hereto-
fore of his personal appearance and the respectability of
his associates, was occasionally disfigured with a black
eye, and after a severe attack of yellow jaundice, took
the road to that bourne from which no traveller re-
turns."

A. very droll event for the poor fellow ! It is curi-
ous to remark, by the way, that the individual
who talks of Shelley as a " slovenly, dirty, uncouth
hobbedyhoy," speaks of Barnard Gregory—the
notorious Barnard Gregory of the Satirist news-
paper—thus—" He was gentlemanly and retiring
in his manners, and, having a good fund of
anecdote, was amusing iu his conversation." Dr.
Richardson speaks in very high terms of commen-
dation of this characteristic peculiarity observable
in Mr. Barnard Gregory.—
" One good quality, a quality which, if it were more
generally diffused amongst newspaper writers, would be
a great relief to tke community : in private society he
never talked of the ' shop,' or in less homely phrase, he
never made allusion to his own affairs as connected witli
the publication of which he was the proprietor."
We should think not ! But surely in his abstain-
ing from any reference to a matter of such
infamous notoriety was not surely a quality
in Mr. Barnard Gregory deserving of such
very high commendation. Let Dr. Richardson
think a little over it and answer to himself !
Yet these incongruous allusions to Shelley and
Gregory set aside—the work is full of the ma-
terials of agreeable entertainment. It could
scarcely fail to be so with the last half century as
the broad canvas upon which Dr. Richardson
conjures up bis strange and motley remembrances.
Are they not most strange and most motley these
recollections ? Wait an instant—here is one of
them ! Dr. Richardson is talking of the lamentable
suicide of Lord Castlereagh.
" I recollect," he says, "that shortly before the cala-
mity took place, I had bowed to his lordship in Picca-
dilly, at the very moment he was purchasing a penknife,
in the street close to the White Horse Cellar, front one
of the itinerant dealers in cutlery, who sold such things
to the stage coach passengers, and was trying the keen-
ness of the edge of it on his thumb-nail. It, might be
that he, at that momert, contemplated suicide, and was
providing himself with an instrument for its accomplish.
ment."

There is a street scene for you ! Derry-down-
triangle buying (hard by the White Horse Cellar
in Piccadilly) the penknife with which he was
soon after to cut his throat Dr. Richardson
giving him a courteous bow of recognition as he
passes by, his lordship (the while) trying the
keenness of the edge upon his thumb-nail
Incidentally there is introduced in the
course of the work under notice a deeply-
interesting account of the rise and career of
Thomas Barnes, the Editor of The Times,—illus-
trative memorial anecdotes sprinkling the volumes
here and there in reference to such men as
Morris Barnett, the English-Frenchman ; as Geo.
Colman the humorist, and Geo. Canning the
statesman ; as Ireland, the forger of Shaksperian
balderdash ; as Pierce Egan, the scribe of the
Pugilists ; as
" Jerry Sneak" Russell the come-
dian, and Dan Dawson, the horse poisoner, and
Ned Graves, and Billy Gibbons, and Jemmy
Farrell, and Harry Lee, and Jack Nash,
and Dick Vaughan, mid divers other personages
introduced, with a no less gay familiarity of abbre-
viation. Here they all are—flitting before us
like faces glowering and grinning through the disk
of a phantasmagoria. And thus fitful, varied and
grotesque, are Dr. Richardson's Political, Lite-
rary, Dramatic, and Miscellaneous Recollections.

Captains Stewart and Hyde, of the General Screw
Company, have entered the service of the European ;,tail
Australian Mail Company, the former as superlatsr.
dent, and the Lttter ai commander.
COINAGE.—From a Parliamentary return issued yes-
terday, of all gold, silver, and copper monies coined a,
the Mint from the Ist cf January, 1846, to the 314 of
December, 1855, it appears that 48,577,357 sovereigns
and 10,587,402 half-sovereigns were coined, together of
the value of 53,871,0631. The silver coined in the same
period comprised 216,682 crowns, 2,744,P81 half crowns,
6,731,292 forms, 14,357,066 shillings, 14,559,663 ei-
pences, 5,064,714 groats, 41,580 fourpences, 3,530,861
threepences, 308,880 twopences, and 78,408 pence; to-
gether of the value of 2,214,1511. The copper coinage
comprised 14,891,520 pence, 24,156,381 halfpence,
22,548,564 farthing, and 5,632,416 half-fartbinga, of the
agvezate value of 138,7951,