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

hours he

omes the moderate dodge now and then ; one glass—lips

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 before the ex-
CHANCELLOR is sure sign of mischief. The debate on
the. India Bill, which brought out DISRAELI, was one in
the glass, not the " bottle departrcent "—hence his
speech, though of intolerable length, had only one idea,
one pervading feeling—FAßlAN—delay, delay ; and be
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
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

war, and oh, horrible ! there was the ex-Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland, with his red heel like a potato, making sad
ork of grandeur. In the early part of the night, there
a 3 a clever little scene. Tom DUNCOMBE, who begins
take a little more liberty with himself (Cave Tom !),
h a deal of mock gravity gave notice that he would, on
'ollowing night, ask if it were the intention of Minis-
to do anything for the Jews this session ? " Oh, I
ant your notice," as good as said Lord JOHN—

•er you—No."

I'll at once ans Mr. BELL also gave
ntimation 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
not a reading man or woman in or about London—l say
nothing of those hacks who make a livelihood out of litera-
ture,—the boys who crib a defunct author's ideas,—as
JERROLD said before the Dramatic Committee, robbing
and murdering the aurhor—l say nothing of the large
numbers of the clergy, episcopal and dissenting, who are
compelled 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
rilchP,^he" perhaps than " Blackstone's Commentaries" or
's Modern Housewife," I'll bet a Spanish dollar,
nd 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 7" is
his never-failing interrogatory. " Oh, yes, till lam blind
nearly !" is the answer, and there an end. But the

volun-le sought is not foxind. 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 dreary debate on the Income-tax Bill 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 lad,
with scarcely a 'nag; 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 " douce" 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 SCAR LETT'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 STRATH EDEN, 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, Room BURNS calls it, as when
he first came to town ; though I am not prepared to

, that he still takei off his spoon, and sits in a
boa 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 now too old and too cold for that sort of
thing. Lord CAMPRELL is terribly wroth about the
lnconae-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 miss,—l allude
to the distribution of prizes at King's- College School,
founded I might almost say,
by
old
WILLIAM HOWLEY'
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
1317r1A r. in midnight street. The archbishop lent a hand
g King's College, beginning with the Bible as
-e class book, because the rival establishment, the Lon-
lvereity, would have no religion. At the recent
..ibution, the KING Of HANOVER. was present ; he
caving' been the pupil of Dr. JELF, the principal of the
The KING shook hands with the pupils, with
, in short; I began to think he ought to have
a wooden hand with him, like Old BLUCHER,
nen he was in London. Next to the KING of HANovER.
a " lion" was—a coal-miner, the greatest mathemati-
an in the world—Professor HANN. Heaven-born genius
regnant ! Of all human studies, none comes nearest
ur conceptions of the god, than mathematics. Truth
-eat and inalienable,—but study won't make you a ma-
lmatician no more than it can add a cubit to one's
ure. Then it is the more godlike inspiration. HANN
-o attached to mathematics that, while yet a coal-
at work far below the earth's surface, he would
his back in a dark coal-pit, problemising with
Th 1 physicked pain; he got above ground,
pelf acquainted with the world, and was chosen
many professors. Yoinca, SEYMOUR (SO-
-ci EY (WELLINGTON). and such slips of

in foundin

college

'erF one

he once coal-

miner, HANK

cl with a love of the
or less of the late

__f an
eculate, he bought