The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-10-06 00:00:00

INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRM

Dombey sat in the corner of the darkened room in the
great arm-chair by the bedside, and Son lay tucked up
warm in a little basket bedstead, carefully disposed on a
low settee immediately in front of the fire and close to it,
as if h's constitution were analogous to that of a muffin,
and it was essential to toast him brown while he was very
new.

Dombey was about eight-and-forty years of age. Son
about eight-and-forty minutes. Dombey was rather bald,
rather red, and though a handsome well-made man, too

stern and pompous in appearance to be prepossessing.
Soo w,s very bald, and very red, and though (of course)
an undeniable fine infant, somewhat crushed and spotty
in his general effect, as yet. fin the brow of Dombey,
Time and his brother Care had set some marks, as on a
tree that was to come down in good time—remorseless
twin they are for striding through their human forests,
notching as they go—while the countenance of Son was
crossed and recrossed with a thousand little creases, whicb
the same deceitful Time would take delight in smoothing
out and wearing away with the flat part of his scythe, as
a preparation of the surface for his deeper operations.
D.rmbey, exulting in the long-looked for event, jingled
and jingled the heavy watch-chain that depended from
below his trim blue coat, whereof the buttons sparkled
phosphorescently in the feeble rays of the distant fire.
Son with his little fists curled up and clenched, seemed,
in his feeble way, to be squaring at existence for having
come upon him so unexpectedly.
" The house will once ag tin, Mrs. Dombev." said Mr.
Dombev, '' be not only in name but in fact Dombey and
Son ; Dom-bey and Son !"

PROFESSIONAL QUACKERY

Doctor Parker Peps, one of the Court Physicians, and
a man of immense reputation for assisting at the increase
of great families, was walking up and down the drawing-
room with his hands behind him, to the unspeakable ad-
miration of the family surgeon, who had regularly puffed
the case for the last six weeks among all his patients,
friends, and acquaintances, as one to which be was in
hourly expectation day and night of being summoned, in
conjunction with Doctor Parker Peps.
" Well, Sir." said Doctor Parker Peps, in a round,
deep, sonorous voice, muffled for the occasion, like the
knocker ; " do you find that your dear lady is at all roused
by your visit ?" -

+"Stimulated, as it were ?" said the family practitioner.
faintly, bowing at the same time to the Doctor, as much
as to say, " Excuse my putting in a word, but this is a
valuable connexion." •

Mr. Dombey was quite discomfited by the question.
He had thought so little of the patient, that he was not in
a condition to answer it. He said that it would be a sa-
tisfaction to him if Doctor Parker Peps would walk up

stairs again

"Goa! We must not disguise from you. sir," said
Doctor Parker Peps, " that there is a want of power in
Her Grace the Duchess—l beg your pardon ; I confound
names; I should say in your amiable lady. That there is
a certain degree of languor, and a general absence of elas-
ticity, which we would rather—not—"

" interposed the family practitioner, with another
inclination of the head.

" See,

" Quite so," said Doctor Parker Peps, " which we
would rather not p‘er. It would appear that the system of
Lady Cankaby—excuse me: I should say of Mrs. Dom-
bey : I confuse the names of caes—"

"So very numerous," murmured the family practitioner
—" can't be expecied I'm sure—quite wonderful if other-
wise—Doctor Parker Peps's West End practice—"
Thank you," said the Doctor, " quite so. It would
appear, I was observing, that the system of our patient
has sustained a shock, from which it can only hope to
rally by a great and strong—"
" And vigorous," murmured the family practitioner.
" Quite so," assented the Doctor—" and vigorous ef-
fort. Mr. Pilkins, here, who from his position of medical
adviser in this family—no one better qualified to fill that
position, I am sure."
" Oh!" murmured the family practitioner. " Praise
from Sir Hubert Stanley

" You are good enough," returned Doctor Parker Peps,
"to say so. Mr. Pilkins, who, from his position, is best
acquainted with the patient's constitution, in its normal
state (an acquaintance very valuable to us in forming our
my opinions on these occasions), is of opinion with me, that

nature must be called upon to make a vigorous effort in
this instance; and that. if our interesting friend the
Countess of Dombey—l beg your pardon; Mrs. Dombey
—should not be—" _

" Able," said the family practitioner.
"To make that effort successfully," said Doctor Parker
" then a crisis might arise, which we should both

sincerely deplore."
With that, they stood for a few seconds looking at the
ground. Then, on the motion—made in dumb show—of
Doctor Parker Peps, they went up stairs; the family
practitioner opening the room door for that distinguished
professional, and following him out with most obsequious
politeness.

MR. Vv"AKLEY'S PERSEVERANCE AND STYLE
OF SPEAKING.

(From F,

user's Magazine.)

An amusine instance of Mr. Waitley's determined per-
severance occurred on the last day but one of the session
which has just closed. All the public business hBd been

disposed of ; the paper containing the notices of the pro-
ceedings for the day was, with one exception, a blank ;
and but f.wi, members were present in the house. Among
them were the Home Secretary and his underlings, and a
few members notorious tor their approval of the Poor-
law- Sir George. Grey 00...fia 0heer....44,-ovary now and then,
to turn an anxious eye to the green door, evidently hoping
that some one would or would not make his appearance.
The explanation was found in the notice-paper. The one

Mr. Wakley that he vould bring before the house the
case of the Haydock Lodge Lunatic Asylum. This was
the shadow that darkened their fair prospect of a holiday.
But Mr. Wakley might be persuaded or cajoled into giv-

ing way, or he might not come ; and so the threatened
exposure, which the government bad reason to dread,
might not be made. At length in came Mr. Wakley, who
strode up to his seat with an awful air of determination.
Now,the play began. First some personal fritnd of the
hon. member, and supporter of the Poor-law, began talk-
ing to '-nt it

in a friendly way, urging how inconvenien..
would be thus, at the very last gasp of the session, to
bring forward a long series of charges. But Mr. Wakley
only shook his head and knit his brows, folding his arms
with a sly smile, as much as to say, No, it won't do.
This shot having missed, Sir George Grey went across to
the immovable tribune, and, with the blandest air of aris-
tocratic condescension, put to him how extremely outré
would be his threatened proceeding; that there was
scarcely a house to listen to him ; that the country would
overlook the case ; that the doors of the Home-office
would be open to him ; that every justice should be done,

and so on : but it was of no avail. Even Sir James Gra-
dam could not have succeeded. Then how much less Sir
George Grey ! The honourable member was still obdu-
. .

message came

It was the Home Secretary'

s duty to name the members

iien the list was read, it was observable that the Speaker
pronounced the name of Mr. Wakley with peculiar em-
phasis and unction; for he, too, would not have been
sorry had the honourable member relented. One by one
the members went up to the Lords, Sir George Grey
e himself at their bead •

but Mr. Wakley, who seemed irate
might in some degree receive sanction from the immense at what he supposed a manoeuvre to defeat his object,
figure of the Sphinx, which not being a commemorative flatly refused to stir. He was afraid lest in his absence
monument, more connected with the rites of sepulture, some scheme should be devised to defeat him. Folding
was probably intended to denote the two signs of the Zo- his arms, be stretched himself at full length on his seat,
disc, the Virgin and the Lion, through which the Sun saying, in reply to calls on him to go, " No, no, I shall
passes during the innundation of the Nile. lose my chance I" And there he remained obdurate,
But among all the various modes of sepulture I have alike to the tetchy remonstrances of the Home Secretary
witnessed abroad, perhaps next to the almost unimpaired and the earnest pleading of his friends. Constituted as
grandeur of the Egyptian Pyramids and catacombs should the House of Commons is, it required no ordinary amount
be considered the Etruscan sepulchres hewn out of a rock, of moral courage thus to persist in the discharge of a
which are seen only by torch light, outside the walls of troublesome and self-imposed duty. At last he rose and
Voltera. Here, in this rock, closed in by a single slab of made a speech of several hours' duration, full of extraor-
stone at the narrow entrance, with a pillar of the natural dinary details, and his reward came in due time when the
rock left standing in the centre, you see three tiers of sar- newspaper reports appeared, and it was found that he had
cophsgi, composed of alabaster, marble, and stone, all given a last kick to the Poor-law Commission. A man
with rudely carved, but bold figures of the deceased, de- with such perseverance in a cause where the credit is often
scribing his profession, or her loving, amiable and mater- in inverse ratio to the trouble, must succeed, and deserves
nal quality. The poet is gracefully reclining, with his el- Ito do so.

•
bow leaning on a pile of books; the lawyer_ and senator
pleading. w ith divers other alegorical and illustrative de-
signs. In these rich, but externally unnoticeable land

Mr. Waklev's style of speaking is the most simple and
unaffected. He has been too busily engaged in the bard
work of life to have had much time to bestow on oratory.

lc Etruscans' last his
ges of the haughty Romans, who

meats escaped the raN

He has the appearance of a provincial, and has also the
accent of one; the associations thus excited still further
negative the idea of polish or preparation. You might
fancy, but for the knowledge of passing events, not less
than of subjects of higher order, which his speeches dis-
play. that be was some country farmer suddenly smitten
with a passion for speech-making. The structure of his
speeches is quite inartificial, and the language usually the
most simple and colloquial of every-day life. It is plain.
even homely, without being inelegant ; a manliness of
sentiment and a quiet self-possession in the speaker, im-
part a kind of dignity to the most ordinary expressions.
Mr. Wnkley does not so much make speeches, as deliver
the thoughts which burden his mind on any given subject,
with frankness and sincerity. Even hard words do not
come offensively from him, such is his good,humcur and
the amenity of his disposition. He constantly displays
great shrewdness of perception, unmasking the motives
of opponents with a masterly power, and, at the same
time, with an avoidance of coarse imputation. Yet he
can be sarcastic when he chooses ; but his sarcasm is
more in the hint conveyed, and in the knowing look of
i
face and tone of voice, than n any positively Cutting ex.

little knew

their more humble predecessors, the mcinumental trea-
sures that were tranquilly reposing beneath their warlike
and world conquering tread. It is something to hare
been at the top of that—the loftiest pyramid—to have
gazed from the top of St. Peter's upon the vast Campagna
where the tombs of Crecilia, Metellu of Plautus, the ho-
ratii and Curatii, and a number of other vast sepulchral
monuments, stand in their .lovely grandeur, like giant
skeletons of a departed world ; but you cannot gaze on
the tomb of Nero, the pyramidal monument to Caius
Cestius so near the strangers' burial ground, where Shelly
and Keats, with so many other noble English, take their
last rest in a foreign soil, without feelings of awe and hu-
mility, and how little our modes of perpetuating a recol-
lection of the venerated dead, compared with these, ap-
pear in our churches and churchyards. It is a subject of
congratulation that the custom of interment in Christian
churches, which began in the fourth century, by deposit-
ing the clergy there, is now falling, happily, into disue-
tude ; and it is a consummation devoutly
.to
,be wished,