The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-04-26 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD, TUESDAY, APRIL 26, 1853.

shouldered, with a piercing grey eye, somewhat moist
and merry when he is lighted up, you see at once that
you have at least found a man—who is not to be trifled
with. Had I had the configurating of his forehead in
clay, T would have made it perhaps of more ample dimen-
sions and less shelving. I would, as a skilful artist, in
other respects certainly, not have increased firmness, lest
it should have approached to obstinacy, but would have
counteracted the rigid indication of the former character-
istic ; in short, made the suaviter in modo take precedence
of the fortiter in re. Yet WINCHILSEA is a splendid
fellow and a fop withal. Two dozen years ago, when he
went into Battersea-fields—where I sometimes go to pick
up groundsel and chickweed for my neighbour's birds—
WINCHILSEA was a buck. He was then thirty-eight years
of age, and adored WELLINGTON ; they had a quarrel on
the Roman Catholic question ; the DUKE was then brisk
at sixty. HENRY HARDINGE, the DUKE'S old etinwrade,
was only forty-four, arid as fiery as a lucifer match, played
the part of second to his Grace. There was little explana-
tion in Battersea-fields, T trow ; but WINCHILSEA stood
like a brick. WELLINGTON affected to fire straight at him
(he didn't mean it) ; in an instant after the DUKE'S fire
FINCH HATTON'S bullet whizzed hid' up in the air, far
away from the now sainted head of WELLINGTON. Had
either party been slain, the survivor would have lived
miserable. WINCHILSEA has been passing his latter
years in quiet, either at Kirby, in Northamptonshire, or
Eastwell-park, Kent; and, barring a flying letter to a
Protestant paper now and then, little has been heard of
him until Monday night last, when he came out in the
House of Peers, like a BOANERGES—son of thunder, as
he is,—when GLADSTONE was talking about his Exchequer
Bill rubbish, which no three men in the house understood
or cared about ; I was one of those, and dropped in to the
Lords, hearing WINCHILSEA'S voice, high, like his glorious
cause, far above all else. He was moving for a committee
of inquiry into the mode of education, practices, &c., at
Maynooth. More than half of his speech was lost, the
commencement of his sentences were so supremely loud,
arid the conclusion so abrupt and low. COLERIDGE,
my memory serves aright, speaking of KEAN (EDMUND),
says something of that great actor's transitions from
"Hyper-tragical to sub-colloquial."
The quotation conveys my meaning. Still the Protestant
Earl's speech appears to read well. You will perceive he
lost his committee and got a commission, or as good, and
I can scarcely find out the difference. Any way, the
existence of that sink, Maynooth, is only a question of
time. It is doomed.

Dropping WINCIIILSEA, let us gossip half a minute
about his son and heir, Viscount MAIDSTONE, now
exactly the same age as his father when he met WEL-
LINGTON with no hostile intention. Lord MAIDSTONE
is in his 38th year, and has copied his father to
a T. The Viscount's Deluge, recent published, has
caused much sport not only among sporting men,
with whom the noble scion is an associate, but in
every circle; it contains some good hits, and more
hum-drum. MAIDSTONE is an independent fellow, likes
to hear his Deluge well spoken of, but says he don't care
a fiddle-stick though it is laughed at. At the West-end
sporting houses—we have two or three yet left—the Deluge
is highly eulogised. Your pugilistic readers, if you have
any, will be gratified to know that HARRY BROOME, after
two hours and a half's hard work, succeeded in bacon-
mauling HARRY ORME the other day, and now has the
champion's belt. I would not give a doit for a fellow if
he could not knock down a blackguard, or know how to
defend himself against one. The education, however, is
horrible !

JAMIE WILSON, "the yellow-hair'd laddie " who
represents Westbury in Parliament, and the Secretary to
the Treasury in the Government, is one of the most
remarkable men of his time. Before noticing his Customs'
Reform speech in the House of Commons on Thursday
night, a few words on his personnel—neither extenuating
nor setting down aught in malice—may not be amiss.
JAMIE, as his honoured name importeth, is free the
" could north," born in 1805, at Hawick, a place famous
in Scottish song and story. Mr. WILSON is now
about 48 years of age, the hey-day of manhood, if
indeed such a man as the honourable representative
ever experienced hey-day joys, save in the divarication
of figures, not of speech but of arithmetic, which
he appears to have at his fingers' ends. It was this
knowledge of figures, and the application of them,
which " transmogrified" Mr. WILSON from a hatmaker
in Holland-street, Black friars, to a financier and a
minister, now living in Hertford-street, Mayfair, one of
the most fashionable localities at the West-end, with a
chateau down in that salubrious county, Wilts. Bravo,
COCKER ! What Mr. WiLsoN's scholastic attainments
are I cannot tell ; he utters himself grammatically enough,
and his dialect has scarcely a taint of Hawick. His out-
ward man is mean in the extreme : he is withal as lean as
a locust, and as hungry—as a Radical. His eyes are the
drollest I have seen ; they have a peering, sorrowing,
doubting, and anxious expression, very painful to note.
If it were not for the queer aspect of the irides, which
appear like two rings, one within the other, surrounding
eyes of great convexity, one would fancy the hon. gentle-
man was ill at ease. The expression given to Mr.
WILSON'S phiz in a late woodcut by Punch comes as
near the truth as caricature can come. For all this, JAS.
WILS3N has been Secretary to the Board of Control, and
now is higher in the range of office, being iu the Treasury.
He has written a good deal which I cannot understand,— ,
perhaps because " my affections do not that way tend."
A number of years ago, he published his " Influences of '
the Corn Laws," " Fluctuations of Currency, Com-
merce, and Manufactures," "The Revenue, or what
should the Chancellor do ?" and so forth. He is
at this moment the editor of the Economist, a weekly
paper. On Thursday evening be had the place of
honour assigned to bins at the table of the House, with
the official oox before him ; which, with good taste, he
did not strike so frequently as some more flashy members
I could name, and who have got the title of " striking
members " bestowed on them. Denuding the hon.
gonf 's speech r r its commercial technicalities, his scheme
of Custom House Reform contains fourteen heads of re-
commendations. Fourteen heads ! This outbark9 Cer-
berus, with his three, all to nothing, reminding one of
the sleepless offspring of Typhon, with its hundred heads.
Mr. WILSON told the House it was not the intention of
the Government to alter the constitution of the Customs
Board at present. I should think not. Let the poor
Commissioners enjoy their thousand or two a-year, with
something else, for doing nothing, a little longer, JAMIE.
Your Radical friends have their own thoughts about his
reservation. Oh ! SAMMY JOHNSON ! great lexicogra-
pher and moralist ! verily you spoke truth when you de-
fined a Whig to be a Tory—when in place. Promotion
among the Custom House servants is in future to be placed
on a fairer basis. The propounder said something about
merits commanding a preference. Time it should. The
seizing officers were to be better looked after, with the
view of doing away with that monstrous temptation to
evil-doing, "direct interest in seizures." Transit by rail
was another good point, and elicited a " hear ! hear ! "
With regard to the Port of Liverpool, in whatever way
the Board of Customs was to be altered, it was resolved
to give to Liverpool a Custom-house, as it were, of its
own,—that is, to have an independent head or functionary
at Liverpool. This is wisely done. The Customs au-
thorities in the large house near Billingsgate have a
shrewd suspicion that the Liverpool mercantile and ship-
ping interests were not likely to wait for their share of
reform until the Greek Kalend period, when the London
Board would set to work and reform itself. Meantime,
you are to entertain and decide all cases of an ordinary
character not above £lOO. These are the chief points of
the new scheme, as I gathered them. Towards the ter.
mination of the hon. gentleman's address, he had " fit
audience, though few ;" there only being about thirty
members in the house, among them Mr. TURNER, who
staid to the last. Lord JOHN RUSSELL and Mr. GLAD•
STONE graced, by their presence, the peroration. The
plan gave satisfaction.

Saturday was a rather busy day at Bow-street police-
office. The Rotherhithe sulphur and saltpetre, smoke
and bounce war rocket, Kosstrrit, and what not people,
the HALES, pere et fils, were brought before the worthy
" beak " to answer the charge of having more powder
about the rat's house in Redriff than the law allows.
HALE'S people contended it was not powder that was
found on the premises. It tasted confounded like it, if my
boyish recollections of the Fourth of June, when GEORGE
M. was king, vindicate the appreciation of a palate still
on the qui vice, though rather elderly. One of the
chemists-analytical—what next, I wonder ? I call him a
working chemist—let out something about the " compo-
sition " not being exactly " good " gunpowder : good or
bad, ignoramus ! the law knows not,—powder is powder,
if it should be as coarsely granulated as onion seed. Mr.
BODKIN, a discreet advocate, M.P., and son of a decent
watchmaker in Clerkenwell, appeared to prosecute for the
Crown, and CLARKSON—tO Mister whom would be ridi-
culous—appeared for the lIALES. The inquiry was con-
ducted with much bonnommie —there is no treason in it—
and I liked to note young HALE, though discharged,
still stick in the dock by his father's side. Decision is
deferred, the po-liti-co part being fixed for next Thursday.
Moonshine ! Some people say there would have been no
inquiry at all, but the " leading journal " having put its
foot in it, GLADSTONE and PALMY are willing to get it
out as clean as possible.
The English metropolitan theatres do not deserve notice
in this communication ; the houses have been but mode-
rately attended during the week : two or three new novel •
ties, however,arepromised,and a rally is anticipated. The
Italian Opera carries all before it, that in Covent garden
being sole temple, is nightly crammed : not an empty
nook to be had. There is not the least appearance of the
elder and more classical interior of Her Majesty's
Theatre being lit up this season. Mr. GYE, the intelli-
gent conductor of Covent-garden, it is stated, has paid
the sum of £5,000 to the chief creditor at Her
Majesty's Theatre, and means to keep it closed, which I
suppose ho can, till the above sum is repaid. I don't
think he can open the house under present exigencies,
though he may have power to keep it closed, and thereby
fill Covent-garden. Guam made her first appearance as
Norma the other evening ; she is thinner—more spirituel
than heretofore, but still splendid in bust and shoulders ;
fit to be admired even by Anchorite, as when CHANTREY
the great sculptor of female anatomy lived, and made his
marble all but breathe ! The cast of Norma was grand ;
TAMBERLIK, the Russian, taking the role of MARIO, the
Kandian. The Puritani is marked for to-morrow, with
MARIO'S first appearance in his fine part of Arturo. Thus
the muse of poor BELLINI is taking the place of " vain
show," which ought never to be permitted in a house with
such artists at the command of the management. BELLINI
died a few years ago, at the early age of 37 ; the same as
that of our own gifted and never-to-be-forgotten llEway
PURCELL. BELL'S' was full of whim ; good-looking,
but delicate; ho put himself to a vast amount of worry
about his dress. The weather in Paris, at the time to
which I refer, a little before his death, was boisterous and
inconstant. BELLINI would sally forth in the morning in
his furred frock ; he had not been out half an hour, anon,
the clouds parted, and there was a blink of sunshine dear
to BELLINI ! Home he ran, doffed the furs, and came
out as light and airy as a zephyr
his
ffur. ; before
wreaansotthhearohhiolud.
hour
you had him back again to
si child-
like
familiar,author
whereverSo n n a
sounds,m u i a,
which nearly every"
delight
yl
gnoteof
d
whichhurti
he lived,a
dyingashte,
not,"woad are heard
redeemedthrougti throughout
u Italiantl e world.
Had
school,now
or living only—moribund—in " sound a
manfury."ndwith h
The
quotation reminds me of that noisy littlee
is
n opera BL
of
huge black beard, VERDI : his opera " Rigoletto" in
rehearsal, and is to be produced forthwith. One work
from EL
severe musical scholars may designate " Sonnambula" as
a
tbNalilawdea worth a thousand such ; and though
,s
will
favouritedbteoaTex
the
ear. w when the strepito
Of VERDI shall have