The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-10-16 00:00:00

NOTICES.

The Lord of the Manor ; or, Lights and Shades of
Country Life. By Thomas Hall, author of " Raby
Rattler," &o. London : William Shoberl, 20, Great
_ Marlborough-street. 2 vols.
. . . .

To give an adequate description of the tale, or of the nu-
merous characters and striking incidents contained in
these volumes, would be a work far beyond the limits of
a newspaper critique. A little explanation, however, will
be required to enable the reader to understand the ex-
tracts which we shall lay before him. The most promi-
nent character, and that which is first sketched for us by
the author, is a youth named Jacky Stratton, a natural
child of a Cheshire baronet. thrown at an early age upon
the world, to live in a far greater measure upon his wits
than upon the means afforded him by his dissolute mo-
ther, now become a Mrs. Brady. His education was of that
heterogeneous description peculiar to many of the Lon-
don urchins. It " embraced a knowledge of the imitation
of birds, cats, old-clothesmen ; chalk drawing of Newgate
martyrs ; street preaching, chanting, whistling double,
still-vaulting, single-stepping, boxing, aEd music. Those
of the road were the driving of a dog-cart and pair, be-
longiug to a neighbouring knacker ; wheeling a barrow
for a green-grocer woman ; and his most rustic accom-
plishment was shooting for cakes with a double-barrelled
nut gun." At the age of twelve we find him introducing
himself into the service and livery of a Dr. Benzoni, one
of the cure-all tribe, to he found so numerous in the me:
tropolis. This worthy is a most graphically painted cha-
racter. The following is the scene which takes glace on
the occasion of

JACKY'S HIRING TO DOCTOR BENZONI

"Vas your mistressh, and the right honourable Mr. William
Kentsh, very goodsh to you, then ?"
" Too much so," said Jacky, lifting his pocket handkerchief
to his eyes, " too much so."
" Wotsh made yon leave for then ?"
"Two of the hest people in the world, theirselves, but all
around their es:ablishment—ah, sad example to one as has had
a very moral trainin'."
" Oh, wotsh, the other servants? too often the waysh in
largsh establishmongs, like Lady Kentsh's : dosh the old
ladysh every get very ill? wantsh doctor? Nervoush diseash.
you see, I cure ; look at my booksh there— the 20.000 edition,'
show her thatsh : soon make her ill : or, perhapsh, the hon-
ourable Mr. William Ketitsh—l shall allow you good percen-
taysh : that will be better than coining into my servish, don't
you see, now? Dosh the honourable Mr. William Kentsh
wantsh to buy a set of diamomish, or gold vatsh ? or—oh, I
have all sort of things for young gentlemansh as ash been male
me presents for my grand cures: isunk ! eh, votsh is your
name ?"

" John Stratford ;—.Tohn Stratford, when I'm hired."
"Ah, very goodsh ; rarer aoodsh. Wells, instead of making
a shervant of vcu, i will make a gentlehomme of you, if you
will shell me those- preshents. It ish of no use, you know,
keeping all the baubles ash the nobility force upon me."
" Oh, I've no doubt I can effectuate sales of all them ere
things ; but 1 should have to do it only in one way."
"Veil, veil, the way, thensh ?" said the doctor, a little im-
patiently.
"You must take me on trial for a fortnit ; and then engage
me for a year ; and the old lady will be so pleased, as well as
little Willy, (ah, that's what she calls him ; I must mind in
future tense,) that there is no knowing what they might do for
me."

Are yon sure the old ladysh will be very ill, then?"
"If she thought it would be better for me."
Esh the right honourable—"

" Remarkably so—"
" Ah, but I means!) fond of the nobility's baubles—"'
"Xc, no. I wouldn't ago to say, for the world, as he would
covet anything as was his neighbour's."
"No ; that ish not what I means. But very fond of buying
themsh ; eh ?"
" Lord bless you! only put me on some good livery; hire
me for a year; try me for a fortnit ; give me lots of crack
vituals, and write me a tearing character: and wont Master
William Kent be pleased ! I suppose references will be given
if required, by me?"
"Mine gotsh—look at that piano-forte; that Madona, there;
that picture, worth a million—"
" I mean of ine—"

"Shtav; thatsh is a carriage knock-and-ring, I'm sure thish
time: you're hired; come to-morrish. Let the right honoura-
ble read that book of mine. Run."

From the impostures practised in this establishment our
hero graduates to the elevated position of man-monkey and
vampire in the Sanspareil Theatre, with the modest sum
of twenty pounds a-wcek as salary, and ultimately em-
barks very prominently in the cmicerns of the Lord of the
Manor. _ .

But who was this w )rthy ? We give the author's de.
scription of the materials of which he was composed.

THE LORD OF THE MANOR BEFORE COMING TO THE TITLE.
It has elsewhere bee.: .Ftitted, that William Kent had a grand-
father, as well as a Cr:,.;-mother Kent; and that his grand-
sire had left home, ant .:rayed from it in a somewhat mysteri-
ous manner. We s, : I begin at the beginning of this. Robert
Kent, the husbarv! Mrs. Kent, was from a good family of
Chester ; the men, of it having been, for a number of years
the principal me:- I:ants in that city, when it was a principal
port. This Robert was brought up to the sea, and eventually
commanded one 61 his father's ships; but, from a somewhat
steady youth, he, upon the death of his father, became a very
gay, if not to say, a profligate man. Suffice it, he soon got
through his patrimony : married and a fortnight after joined
the naval sery ce of his Majesty, in which he was soon appoin-
ted boatswain. His friends bought him off; and, that he
might not do so profligate a thing again, one of them settled
forty pounds a year upon him. By this time, he had several
children ; and, after trying a dozen different pursuits, was
settled down, in his fiftieth year, as a cobbler near the brewery
of Barclay and Perkins—his chief business being to mend for
the gentlemen connected with that establishment, viz. :—the
coopers, brewers, draymen ; and indeed for most of them,
save, of course, the clerks—or the other gentlemen's ladies.
And then, for a few gratuitous stitches in a horse's collar,
should the saddler be out of tile way, or p Ming a buckle upon
a skate-strap in frosty weather—he was the man. His trade,
with as much porter as he at all times liked to swig, which was
at all times vouchsafed to him, with the forty pounds a year—
made him very comfortable. We say him, because Mrs. Kent
kept the whole family by means of the green-grocery store we
have often mentioned. So Mr. Kent, as may be supposed, was
a very jolly old gentleman—that is, not so very old—and par-
ticularly as he had originally been blessed with a very good
constitution—but about sixty.
At this period, however, though surrounded by all these
blessings, he one morning took it into his head to leave his
stall, his wife, his brewery customers, his stout—and the
strangest of all, Billy Kent : for, though lie had a large family
of his own, it was known that he loved his little grand-son the
best of all. Still, away went Robert Kent. The family were a
little surprised, but soon became reconciled, when, in about
two months after, they heard that he had taken up his sojourn
near the Wickes, in his old county of Cheshire. This, too, was
at his sister's—one who, like himself, had not taken the most
prudent course in early life—marrying one of her father's
clerks : who—although an old man—was yet in the same
capacity in one of the great salt-works. He had a tidy salary ;
and, with a few acres of land, a couple of cows, his unmarried
sons in situations, and two of his daughters engaged in busi-
ness, one as a dressmaker, the other in the fabrication of stays
—his means were respectable—the family a tolerably united
one—and all pretty snug.
This most respectable old gentleman becomes, by the
death of his cousin, Sir Joseph Vernon, the heir to his es-
tate in Cheshire, with a rent-roll of some £12,000 a-year,
in which position he endeavours to conduct himself in the
free-and-easy style to be expected from a man of his pre-
vious habits and tastes, but is thwarted in his ultra-libe-
rality, and ruled by a niece of most unamiable character.
By this lady's machinations he is kept in a state of aliena-
tion from his family, until at length their reunion is
brought about by the genius of Mr. Jacky Stratford.
The doings at the hail during the dictatorship of the niece
—the plotting and counter-plotting—are graphically de-
scribed ; but her character is a little too highly spiced
with villainy, and those of some of her family and asso-
ciates are coarse and repulsive. The estate and title,
after a series of attempted outrages, ultimately fall
to a Mr. William Kent, the playfellow and intimate friend
of Mr. John Stratford, and nephew of old William Kent.
One of the most racy characters in the book is a Col.
O'Craizem, an Irish adventurer, whom poor Tyrone
Power would have delighted in pourtraying, full of swag-
ger and lies, with more pedigree than principle, yet not
without a spice of goodness of heart. We are also intro-
duced to a few characters of a more every-day and pleas-
ing description. Amongst these are the family of a Mr.
Walford, an old steward of thd manor, William Kent,
the younger, and some others. Those of the Clough fa-
mily relatives of the Lord of the Manor, possess a degree
of villanv and wickedness rather beyond belief in these
days. Equally repulsive is a Lady Burgoin. We are
brought also by the writer a little too often into the dis-
cussions which take place in gin palaces and other locali-
ties of metropolitan low lite. The following, however, is
a pleasing description of
LIFE AT THE OLD GREEN-GROCERY sum..
The glad news of Johnny's resurrection was carried to the
Vernons. Poor Mrs. Vernon swooned when she was told that
he was in Zn&land, in health, and that he was making his way
to.tligt netthlourhood. Oh I she must see him, even if that
'.ftervalogh.gaier last act. The poor lady—nor were her family
inuclrbllliindl—was almost frantic with delight. William must
:.set off for. the-rendezvous, at once, and at once bring Jacky to
Grovelito, .
And then of him Mrs. Vernon began to tell gentle tales, when
a boy. " Ah! poor fellow, how happy we were, and particu-
larly on a Saturday night, after a heavy day's business, and
lackyPutd conatedvp the copper, and had asked me what silver

and gold I had got; and when I told him, he would begin to
reckon the profits of the day. I could tell at once if it were
above three pounds, from the delight expressed by his eyes;
for that sum was the task. 'that we must do ; more, it we
could; but I should have had a wretched night, ay, and Sunday,
too, if we bad not managed that amount. Well, one. Saturday
night it had got up to three pounds seventeen shillings. This
was a happy night, and we must have something extra to sup-
per : so, after thinking over it a quarter of an hour as to what
the extra should be—one thing not being good enough, another
he could not allow, as being too expensive—it just fell down to
what I saw it would all along, the usual supper of coffee, toast,
and eggs. Indeed, Jacky was fond of his coffee.
"Then he would boil the eggs, and begin to pet a bit—always
pouty after a good day. I would be watching my gentleman,
and at last, when all was ready, he would begin.
" I don't know how it is. Ma'am, but though I've often
brought up youreoffeeto bed,you neverbrought it up to mine.'
"'Always, when you are poorly, my dear.'
" Because 1 am never poorly.'
" ' \Veil, come, Johnny, I will bring it to-morrow morning.'
" How can you do that. ma'am, when you know gracious
well I must bring it to you ?'
" ' Well, I'll bring it to you, after.'
" What! do you want to make a boarding-school girl of me,
the first week of vacation ? I suppose I must get into bed
again, in order that you can make me look anything but a gen-
tleman as can throw every youth in Westminster, if aught like
my own weight?'
" ' Well, well; come and take this egg, and this cup.'
" Still Jacky petted.
" now, 1 see what little baby wants ; it wants its
mammy's egg—the one she has broken for herself. Will it
have it, and her cup, too ?'
"This did it; I would change his cup for mine, and his egg
and toast. Then did Jacky's eyes brighten as did the fire; he
would get up, give me an embrace, and say—
" You know I have had no mother but you.' And then he
would begin to cry, and s.ay be feared I did not love him as well
as Annis, Jane, or little Billy Kent ; but when I did assure him
that I did love him quite as well as my own, and in every way
considered him as one of the family—_ _ .

Then he was the happiest, and the kindest, best mortal
upon earth."
And this reminiscence was finished with a cry ; nor did the
rest of the family refuse to join their mother in these gentle
thinkings of the past.
" I like to hear tales•about Jack," said the squire; "and if
I had my days to go over again, I would have gone to the Royal
Sanspareil every night, to have seen him play the monkey-
umpire."

It would be a great improvement if Mr. Hall could
persuade himself to lay aside some of the peculiar features
of his style of writing. He may write forcibly and gra-
phically without indulging in singularities of language,
and the coinage of words ; and his characters would be all
the more natural if conceived in less heightened and
melodramatic colouring. The scene, for instan7e, in the
old salt mine, is drawn with a force and power of horror
which takes it out of the bounds of probability. There is
nevertheless scattered throughout these volumes evidences
of intimate acquaintance with the human heart, and
especially with human folly and gullibility.

Fraser's Magazine. London : John W. Parker, West

Strand.
THIS month's Fraser contains abundance of highly inte-
resting matter, especially amongst the reviews of new
works. In particular, the article on Huxtausen's Russia
opens out to us a mine of interesting information about
that great country, into the interior of which the author
seems to have been the only traveller who has thus far
extended his researches beyond the beaten track laid down
in the Guide Books. Another valuable article is a notice
of the Poor-law Inspectors' reports on the condition of
the children of the poor throughout England and Wales,
pointing out the great want of industrial schools and pro-
per classification in our Workhouses. The miscellaneous
articles are of average merit. We shall lay before our
readers a few extracts from this number in our next
publication.

SECOND EDITION.

Siandard-office, Ten o'clock, a.nz.

MIRAGES IBELIND.