The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-07-05 00:00:00

40erpool ctatibarb

FROM OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT

MONDAY MORNING

THE almost interminable and consecutive sittings of the

House of Commons give fair indication that a prorogation
is not far off. Already the feathered and finny inhabi-
tants of " muir and loch" may anticipate the beginning of
their end—had they the power. The debate and the divi-
sion in daylight, on Friday morning, on the second reading
of the India Bill, will be among the last of the severe sit-
tings of the session. The debate was not worth half an
hour's purchase ; the best characteristic of it was in the
by no means concealed or suppressed yawns of the young
men in white waistcoats, who came in " fresh" about
midnight (as Mr. GLADSTONE said to one of these the
other evening). The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER
rarely tries his tongue at a pun ; the present one told re-
markably well, for the honourable member alluded to
looked fresh and clean, while, at the same time, from the
manner in which the CHANCELLOR pronounced the word,
he meant it to be taken in the slang sense of the term.
That system is wearing out of use now ; some of the first
statesmen of the present time have come into the house
as " fresh" as the honourable member referred to by Mr.
GLADSTONE, and have been fain to slink up to the gallery
there tosnore itoff. JOHNNIE RUSSELL has sometimes been
funny in that way himself. PEEL, rarely; yet he took his

deira on a pinch well enough ; but he was very cunning

with it ; it was chiefly by his quietude you found out that
he had had a bottle—quietude, and a custom which he
never gave over of rubbing his nose until it became as
Bardolph's. DISRAELI primes himself with the
finest of BELLAMY'S particular old Lisbon, to the extent
often of a whole bottle ; it is, certainly, glorious Port,
well worth half a sovereign a caraffe. When DIZZY
means to play the deuce with an opponent, he takes this
Rod-like liquid freely ; if he means to be extra savage, he
has the dprantor fon plAppa boforo him at onoo I in two
hours he is worth listening to. DISRAELI, however,
comes the moderate dodge now and then ; one glass—lips

red as

smacked—another—then a third—no more. On such
occasions it is not worth the trouble of going down stairs
to hear him ; the full bottle of ruby port befure the ex-
CHANCELLOR is sure sign of mischief. The debate on
tne India Bill, which brought out DISRAELI, was one in
the glass, not the " bottle department "—hence his
speech, though of intolerable length, had only one idea,
one pervading feeling—FAßlAN—delay, delay ; and he
was right, though by no means brilliant. I did not think
there were so many " seedy" members in the house.

Three or four o'clock of a July morning, after a twelve
hours' sitting, takes the shine out of a man as much as a
masquerade amidst the pasteboard splendours of Vaux-
hall. A late Irish Viceroy walked before me in
full twig—tight dress pants, silk stockings, and
lacquered pumps ; a treacherous loop of the silks had given
way, and oh, horrible ! there was the ex-Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland, with his red heel like a potato, making sad
work of grandeur. In the early part of the night, there
was a clever little scene. Tom DUNCOMBE, who begins
to take a little more liberty with himself (Cave Tom ?),
with a deal of mock gravity gave notice that he would, on
the following night, ask if it were the intention of Minis-
ters to do anything for the Jews this session ? " Oh, I
don't want your notice," as good as said Lord JoHN—
" I'll at once answer you—No." Mr. BELL also gave
intimation of the commencement of an attack on the
British Museum, by moving for certain returns in regard
to the never-likely-to-be-finished Catalogue. There is
)t a reading man or woman in or about London—l say
iing of those hacks who make a livelihood out of litera-
,—the boys who crib a defunct author's ideas,—as
ROLD said before the Dramatic Committee, robbing
rdering the author—l say nothing of the large
of the clergy, episcopal and dissenting, who are
elled to run to the library of the Museum, let them
bear their grievance—they are to the manner born. Not
so hundreds of distinguished foreigners—scholars. Talk
of looking for a needle in a bottle of hay—that's easily
and successfully accomplished. Go to-morrow to the
Britism Museum, and ask for a book a little more
recherche perhaps than " Blackstone's Commentaries" or

and c

numbe

" Soyer's Modern Housewife," I'll bet a Spanish dollar,
pillars and all, with Sir HENRY ELLIS, the principal, you
don't get it. Appeal to the working librarian—a worthy
book-worm he is—" Have you look'd at the rides ?" is
his never-failing interrogatory. " Oh, yes, till lam blind
nearly !" is the answer, and there an end. But the
volume sought is not found. I would undertake to eat
every book in the British Museum, should each volume
turn out as " bitter in the mouth" as the book of anti-
quity, if I did not finish that Catalogue in three months.
Hundreds of splendid scholars are at this moment
tumbling in the hayfields, having nothing to do ' • two
score of such men, and the nation would soon have a
catalogue of its unsurpassed collection. However, Mr.
BELL'S motion was agreed to, and we shall see if any good
comes of it.
I notice the areary riehnte nn the Tnorirrie-tour Rill in
the House of Peers, the other, night, chiefly to introduce
JOHN CAMPBELL, Lord Chief Justice of England, to your
readers. JACK, as he is yet sometimes called by his old
acquaintances—most of whom, by-the-by, he has cut,—is
the son of of a decent Presbyterian minister in the unpre-
tending, unambitious town of Cupar, in Fife. He came
to London, a yellow-hair'd vulgar-looking Scottish la'l,
with scarcely a mag ; he had, however, a long head, set
right.on his shoulders, a good constitution, and some ser-
viceable education ! He worked as a reporter on the
Morning Chroincle, when it was a high honour to belong
to that old Whig newspaper. JOHN CAMPBELL will now
meet in the streets of London men who sat alongside of
him in the gallery of the House of Commons " taking
notes," and give them the cut celestial. While JOHN
was receiving his five guineas a week as a reporter, he was
not sleeping ; he entered for the bar, in due time was
called, practised, gave over reporting, and his good for-
tune began to make itself. Sir JAMES SCARLETT was
great at the bar as a counsel, not for knowledge of his
craft, but for his giant way of dealing with matters of fact ;
he had briefs by the bushel, endorsed ten, twenty, fifty,
aye, two hundred guineas ! he could not attend to them
all; he had taken a notion of the "douse" and sagacious
CAMPBELL, asked him to dine with him one day—then
another, and JOHNNIE, like his father, the meenister,
before him, " improved the occasion," cast love-glances
at SCARLETT'S eldest daughter. Thus matters went on.
JOHN CAMPBELL was making several thousands a year;
in a crack he married Miss SCARLETT, and rose rapidly
otherwise. Member of Parliament, Solicitor-General,
Attorney-General, Lord Chancellor for Ireland, and I
don't remember how many other grand characters he
became. Meantime his father-in-law had become Lord
ABINGER, a surly judge, and gave little satisfaction to the
bar ; but that don't signify much, provided just judgments
are given. Lord ABINGER was miserable on the bench ;
poor but rich man, his peace of mind was eaten away,—
daily corroding as the little speck which caused his death ;
he had cancer, or something of that sort, in the eye ; his
father, a West Indian, died of the same disorder. So
thought Lord ABINGER, the son, would be his case. It
was. Painfully I have seen that otherwise burly old lord
take from his waistcoat pocket a small mirror, confronting
it with the deadly spot from day to day, hour to hour,
watching its damning progress. His daughter, made
Lady STRATHEDEN, produced a little family to Lord
CAMPBELL. His eldest son and heir to the title is no
beauty, neither is he scorchingly brilliant. Except on
the bench, Lord CAMPBELL is thoroughly Scotch,—
" land'art," I think, Rome BURNS calls it, as when
he first came to town ; though I am not prepared to
say, that he still takes off his shoon, and sits in a
box at the theatre, in the dog-days, in his stocking-
feet, which I have seen him do. I think also that he
finishes the combing of his hair, such as it is, at home ;
time was when JOHNNIE would walk up the floor of the
House of Commons, combing his head all the way. On
the bench his appearance and conduct are those of a
model judge ; it is clear that he knows the case better
than the barrister who has to argufy, which might cause
the attentive observer to suppose his Lordship was
slightly impatient, which he is not. He likes a glass of
toddy, with such a man as HARRY BROUGHAM; THomas,
Lord DENMAN, though he could give a " merry troll" at
one time, is pow too old and too cold for that sort of
thing. Lord CAMPRELL is terribly wroth about the
Income-tax for Ireland ; he thinks it hard to be com-
pelled to pay income-tax upon fruitless acres, fruitless as
regards rent. He'll have to pay it for all that ; the bill,
with all its " imperfections" on its head, has passed.
Lord CAMPBELL would get rid of his Irish estates, if he
could.

There is an annual gathering of the good and great
at this season of the year, which I rarely good and great
at this season of the year, which I rarely mi I allude
to the distribution of prizes at King's College School,
founded, I might almost say, by old WILLIAMHowLEY'
the late Primate of all England. The primate was
a mild-
mannered man, " quite serene," in the true meaning of
the phrase, though it be sadly perverted by sons of
13Eri AL in midnight street. The archbishop lent a han
ling King's College, beginning with the Bible as
book, because the rival establishment, the Lon.
ity, would have no religion. At the recent
the KING of lIANovEu was present ; he
he pupil of Dr. JELF, the principal of the
KING shook hands with the pupils, with
very one, in short; I began to think he ought to have
)rouzla a wooden hand with him, like old BLUCHER,
wben he was in London. Next to the KING of HANOVER
as a " lion" was—a coal-miner, the greatest mathemati-
cian in the world—Professor HANN. Heaven-born genius
pregnant ! Of all human studies, none comes nearest
our conceptions of the god, than mathematics. Truth
great and inalienable,—but study won't make you a ma-
thematician no more than it can add a cubit to one's
stature. Then it is the more godlike inspiration. HANN
was so attached to mathematics that, while yet a coal-
min er, at work far below the earth's surface, he would

in foun
first cla

don Univers
distribution,

been t.
The

college

ay on his back—inadarkcoal-pit, problemising with
balk. The toil phvsicked pain; he got above ground,
jade himself acquainted with the world, and was chosen
rom among many professors. YOUNG, SEYMOUR (SO-
F ERSET), WELLESLEY (WELLINGTON), and such slips of
:ngland's nobility, take off their bonnets to the once coal.

miner, 11A
There are

persons at all imbued with a love of the
wh did not know more or less of the late
-roc -c St. .yartin's.lane. Himself an
rt, ling to speculate, he bought
ki id picture was unques-
h uaintance with all the old masters ;
...ee of whom he could distinguish as easily as
artistical amongst us can tell an Etty from a
I have made use of the ab.pye abominable

ne arts

~-er of art, and
gels • '

nowledge of a go

tioned, as v,.

,e most o 1

the least

word " speculate, abominable, certainly, in combination
with art. Mr. WOODBURN bought and sold. I remem-
ber him laying out a fortune on the matchless—but by
the pitiful government of the day, disregarded—collection
of the late Sir Taomas LAWRENCE—he i* never called