The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-04-27 00:00:00

LIVERPOOL HOME MISSION

TO THE EDITOR OF 2'HE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.
SIR,—As superintendent of the Liverpool Home Mission,
in connexion with the British Christian Church Home Mis-
sionary Society established at London, &c., I have deemed
it my duty to refer to a paragraph in your paper of the 23d
instant, headed " Beware of Impostors," and signed J.T. B.
I believe there were two persons from a distance, who had
no connexion with us, or any other society in Liverpool,
collecting for an institution of similar name, very recently ;
but have been given to understand they have left the town ;
and I am of opinion that the article referred to may partially
prevent our home institutions receiving that support which
is essential to their prosperity. jro instance, 1 with some
of our friends) was unanimously requested to wait upon the
merchants, &c., on behalf of its funds; and having taken
one of the missionaries with me, in the discharge of this
duty, we might, by such as do not personally know us, be
supposed to be the individuals alluded to in your paper. I
therefore beg you will have the kindness to give these lines
a place in the next copy of your much-respected journal.
I am, dear sir, your humble, obedient servant,
JOSEPH PEART.
Slanley-crescent, April 23, 1841.

OUR PORTRAIT GALLERY. No. V.

JOHN ROSSON, ESQ.

The subject of our present sketch is one of a fraternity
with which we have not as yet had to do ; one of the chickens
of Mother Jezebel—indeed " the" veriest " Roman of
them all"—and although he might, without any great detri-
ment to society, have been made to wait until he had been
a little better fledged, yet we are unable to resist his pressing
importunities of late to be honoured with our notice. Stand
forward, therefore, most illustrious king of the Protectors ;
and allow us to transfer thy " ambrosial curls" to our im-
mortalizing columns.

Let the reader, who has not bad the felicity of attending
any of the recent gatherings of Whig-Radicalism in Liver-
pool, picture to himself or herself, a rosy-cheeked personage,
about five feet three inches in his stocking feet, with a knot
of fuzzy red hair—some very polite people might call it au-
burn—" steeling" in graceful curls from beneath his hat ;
light blue eyes, which remind us of the " sweet sky blue"
liquid, which, at such seminaries as Dotheboys Hall. they
are in the habit of calling " milk ;" a rotund form, cased in
somewhat gentlemanly garments, a neatly tied cravat, or an
elaborately folded stock, and as many rings and chains of
gold or gilt, as would set up a pedlar in a tolerable way of
business. Place such a man in the balcony of any decent
dwelling, with one hand, cased in unsoiled kid, upon the
railing, whilst the other, in the most affable manner pos-
sible, " saws the air ;" send round the tee-total, or any
band of similar excellence, by Vauxhall-road, Tithebarn-
street, Orange-street, and other equally delectable localities,
playing " Patrick's Day in the morning," to secure an au-
dience of " the boys ;" and you will forthwith have before
you, in all the " pomp, pride, and circumstance" which be-
fits him, the sucking demagogue—the agitator "in petto"—
the man, in fine, of whom Dame Nature swears that
" Her prentice han' she tried on Dan,
And then she made John Rosson, 0 !"

Yes, reader ; you would see in that individual the man who,
at some future day, is destined to carry—not the wallet,
perhaps, but the " Tails' of the illustrious mendicant of the
present day ; to be borne into Parliament upon the RODS of
his fellow-countrymen, and to proclaim there the wrongs
of " nine millions"—by that time they may be twelve mil-
lions " of hereditary bondsmen."

We have ourselves had many opportunities of appreciating
the lofty talents and the rare eloquence which distinguish
this extraordinary man; but above all these, we have been
charmed with the humility and modesty of demeanour by
which they are attended. As an instance of his great kind-
ness of disposition, need we remind our readers of the un-
wearying assiduity with which he—a lawyer, without the bare
prospect of fee or reward—attended the last Burgess Regis-
tration Court; and with what delicate zeal he endeavoured
to inject a little of his own legal profundity into the ear of a
certain whig functionary of that court ? Need we recall to
recollection the suavity of manner with which, on that occa-
sion, he intimated to a certain learned barrister that he was
" a bully," or with what calm dignity he subsequently walked
out of court, with the amicable intent of saving to his wor-
ship—the then Mayor—the trouble and fatigue of ordering
him to be put out I None of these circumstances, we are
satisfied, are forgotten. They ought never to be so, but
combined with his noble exertions as a " protector" of the
rights of the " cellarocracy" of Liverpool, and his efforts to
raise the hod and the lumper's barrow to the same level in
the scale of respectability as other implements of art, ought
to hand down his name for ever as a patriot—a philanthro
pint and a philosopher.

The style of oratory adopted by Mr. Rosson, is one pecu-
liarly the favourite, with the lower classes especially, of his
countrymen—the " flowery" style. He deals largely in trope
and metaphor, wisely remembering, no doubt, that the most
loudly applauded passage in all the addresses of this great
prototype is that, commencing with " great, glorious and
free," and concluding with " first gem of the earth and first
flower of the sea" ;—which our readers will bear in mind is
the Irish version of a passage of one of our poets, which
reads somewhat differently in English ; but as the sound is
all, it is no great matter. Perhaps, indeed, the Irish version
is the more imaginative. The most " flowery" portions of
Mr. Rosson's speeches are, very wisely, borrowed. It is
far better, when a man has an inclination to soar aloft, to
borrow a pair of wings, or a ladder, which has been used be-
fore, than to experimentalize upon new materials at the risk
of a break-down. There :is one habit, however, which we
wish sincerely Mr. Rosson would lay aside. Ott the eve of
any of his great displays he has of late got hold of some musty
book or other with an immense Latin or Greek name, and
learnt a page or two by heart, which on the succeeding day
he introduces to his enlightened bogtrotters, as a " very ap-
posite illustration of the principles for which he has been
contending"—and so forth. Now with all due deference to
Mr. Rosson, the very clap-trap itself is not original. It is
an ingenious device to secure a reputation as a man of exten-
sive reading, adopted years before he was born by the worthy
old lady of Lord-street; and a man of Mr. Rosson's exten-
sive acquirements ought not surely to require the same
bolstering appliances by which that venerable antique is held
together.

We feel bound before taking leave of our subject, to warn
the public against misapprehension, into which they might
possibly fall. There is a common adage—noscitur a sociis—
(which, as it is in Latin, our printer's devil has instructions
to translate for the enlightenment of any whig-radical mem-
ber of the council who may honour him with a call); but this
test cannot be with justice applied to John Rosson. We
must not judge of his talents and his character by those of
the worn-out hacks of whig-radicalism, amongst whom he
herds. He is evidently out of his element when amongst
brawling and ruffianly mobs, whilst they are as evidently in
theirs. He will never become very great as a demagogue,
because he lacks the most essential requirement—vulgarity;
and it is only the strong hold which Rome exercises over her
sons, which induces him, under the supposition that he is
advancing her interests, to bend to his present unclean avo-
cations. Yet, after all, we don't imagine that he will ever
set the Mersey on fire or enact any other similar prodigy;
and we would back a tom-cat of ours to carry in his mouth
all the briefs he has had or ever will have—provided no
wicked wight tempts him to lay down his load with the
prospect of a " chop," for which he has an almost Chinese
negociator's appetite.