The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-02-01 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1853.

DEL's divine notes, just to try the effect. They were note!:
worthy of being repeated the next day before the pride
and pomp of the civilized world, when they touched every
ear and heart. The Bishop, at the rehearsal, was anxious
to ascertain the acoustic qualities of a little golden pulpit
he got erected in a corner of the nave. HARPER blew
like an artist. Sir GEORGE SMART applauded like mad,
as I really thought the Bishop would have gone. Mr.
HARPER'S trumpet—mantle, if you wish—is well disposed
on his son. Apparently well and hearty, at Exeter-hall, at
the commencement of a rehearsal the other day, the
father complained to one or two of his confreres of being
ehilly. He was carried home, and died before the per-
formances next day !
In the literary world books enow have made their ap-
pearance since my last communication, many of them
bearing the bloom of the " Minerva press," soon to be
brushed away. Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S new book has
been postponed for a time by that prince of publishers,
RICHARD BENTLEY ; and I really don't know of anything
deserving of " our special wonder," if, perhaps, I except
SOYER'S Modern Housewife. Most of us dine once a '
day ; in the good old Conservative times, one might have
diced twice a day ; however, dining once a day is good,
and I have endeavoured to eat two or three of SOYER'S
recipes before the important meal. Talk of oysters, as a
whet ; a page or two of SOYER touching his stock for all
kinds of soup, his stewed eels, sauce matelote, fowl
pillau, every day before dinner, will get the veriest
valetudinarian such an appetite, that he or she, as the
gender may be, will abandon roasted butterflies for
dinner, and take to tigers, even stuffed with tenpenny

Another, though a different book. I have long much
more admired the " unadorned eloquence" of RICHARD
COBDEN than the soundness of his arguments and cor-
rectness of his views. Argue he cannot, and his mental
vision—save on one, but important, subject—is oblique.
Nor is he very careful to enquire anent the character of the
" facts" he sometimes brings forth, provided the state-
ment of them answers his purpose. I need but refer to
his statistics enunciated on the stage of Covent Garden
Theatre, or more recently to his shipping facts uttered on
the floor of another house, which were easily and speedily
demolished there. Yet RICHARD COBDENiS passing honest,
probably because he firmly believes that he is so. He
makes, however, a sad mess of it when he travels—as he
has a desperate desire to travel—out of his own particular
sphere. I have been incontinently led into these appa-
rently harsh remarks, from a perusal of the Hon. Gentle.
man's Three Letters 1793 and 1853, just out, as the phrase
is. The most superficial thinker,—yea, SHALLOW, must
pronounce this work to be almost entirely beside the
question,—not to the purpose. RICHARD COBDEN is a
man of peace, granted ; let us not however call out in
sacred accents " Peace ! peace ! while there is no peace."
Why expend the capital of the country ? Why tax her
so inordinately to support a standing army of such di-
mensions ? A navy useless,—rotting, indeed, in every sea?
There is to be no war, quoth RICHARD, therefore, down
with the army—down with the navy—to the lowest possi-
ble point. Turn the left-off ships to the purposes of mer-
chandise. LOUIS NAPOLEON invade us ? Pooh ! Non-
sense ! This is the bulk of the THREE LETTERS. There
are other persons who have (happily) more authority
than respected RICHARD COBDEN, who think otherwise.
I do not mean to say—and I know their sentiments—
that they fancy Lotris NAPOLEON, as the next exploit
after his marriage, will try an invasion of Perfide Albion;
not a bit of it ; but they do think, somehow or other, that
both army and navy would be no worse of a " leetle"
touching up, a " leetle" strengthening. To which con-
summation, from twelve to fifteen thousand men are to be
added to our land forces ; and Jack need not be long
ashore for the other. Sergeant Kite may be seen at the
corners of our streets, and his young blades, with
streamers of many-coloured ribbons flaunting from their
hats and caps ; and malgri, we see a deserter " shaking
hands with himself" now and then, walked to quarters
you can tell, from the uniform of his attendants, that he
is only a " fraudulent militiaman," who has taken the ten
bobs, boozed them likely, and run away for no other pur-
pose than that of making himself one of the twelve or
fifteen thousand aforesaid,—"food for powder," as
CHARLEY MATHEWS says.
Of books to come we are promised a few. " What's
in a name ?" is a query put by the gentle JULLIET,
" sweet William's" love-child. I answer, all and every-
thing. The DUKE of BUCKINGHAM and CHANDOS—
poor man—is about making an honest penny by the Me-
moirs of the Court and Cabinet of my old friend GEORGE
IV. The present Duke is unquestionably the finest
man in England, six feet in his stockings, as BEN CAUNT
says—dark in aspect almost to ferocity ; he carries you
back at once to the bang-up feudal times. His father's
personnel was quite different ; immensely obese, yet re-
plete with vitality—a twenty stone man he was, if an
ounce—as nimble as a bee. In the House of Peers, the
old Duke " pitched" right and left into the scaley Whigs.
He was a noble SHAKSPERIAN scholar ; and, when the
Great Seal was in commission under the Whig dynasty
some years since, he smartly twitted the Government,
concluding his biting remarks by quoting the " immortal
WILLIAM," in reference to the pie-bald commission. It
was formed of

"Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
"Wool of bat, and tongue of dog."
What a pity he was so extravagant. His money-agent
u3ed to run down to Stowe, and stay two or three days,
with bis parchment all ready in his pocket, before the
burly DUKE could muster courage to affix his name.
After a fine day's hunting, his retainers welcomed his
return with a hurrah ! having formed themselves into a
lane, as it were, in front of the mansion. When his
grace got near the end of the avenue of dependents,
he threw into the air his hunting-whip ; happy the man,
girl, or boy who caught it ! The parchment was then
signed, and—all the world knows the rest. The
present Plantagenet was lately living in furnished lod-
gings—his old valet's—at a few shillings a week. Another
book is " Three Years of the Private Life of the Duke."
Private life ! Greater than WELLINGTON'S public life ;
and surely that is saying much. WELLINGTON, in private,
followed the amenities—not the ascerbities—of life. Soft
almost to silliness in this regard—and I speak with bound-
less respect for the great man's memory—l have
known him times innumerable take his seat in
the House of Lords at ten minutes to five
o'clock in the afternoon, and remain there till two
o'clock the following morning. Nine mortal hours,
during which time he had four relays of horses in Palace-
yard ; he never allowed his horses to remain more than
two hours out of doors at a time. The old saying,
" Jack's as good as his master," was followed up by the
Duke ; though he sheaved kindness and consideration for
his beasts, he made his man,—tho trusty iron-favoured
groom who led the horse caparisoned with the empty
boots to St. Paul's—remain all the time without flinching.
I remember one raw and gusty morning, about the hour
I have mentioned, a lot of us, peers, commoners, &c.,
were making our way through the carpetted passages of
the House of Lords, giving, of course, THE DUKE prece-
dence ; arrived at the then little shabby Norman gateway,
the Duke was heard to exclaim, " What have you done
with that coat I gave you ?" The honest groom touched
his hat, bundled the Duke into his cab, and was dumb.
The Duke at the beginning of that boisterous season,—
boisterous in and out of doors—had ordered his man an
over-coat with a score of tippets to keep him warm. The
servant forgot to put it on.