The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-07-23 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

CHINESE GARDENS.—The Chinese Gardens are of a
peculiar character, and differ altogether from ours in their
arrangements; while the care bestowed on them by their
possessors exceeds any thing of which we could have
formed an idea. To each branch, often even to each leaf
of a tree or a shrub, the utmost pains are taken to give
appropriate turn; and the gardenersmay be seen sitting con-
stantly beside the plants, and employed in binding and
pruning them, in order to accomplish the desired form.
The production of the greatest variety and contrast of
colours is the chief object of the Chinese flower-gardeners.
Strangers to refinement and tender emotions, the Chinese
have no taste for pure and tranquil enjoyment which the
perfumes of sweet-scented flowers yield. It is only in
gaudy colours, and by a marvellous skill in developing
singular growths that the Chinese gardener excels. Long
and straight alleys run directly through their gardens. and
are bordered by low trees of one and the same species.
Citrons and Shaddocks are cultivated assiduously, not
only for the adornment of the gardens, but also for the
well-known Chinese preserved citron. For this purpose
they use chiefly the smaller fruits, three or four inches
long, which are boiled in refined sugar. The larger
fruits of monstrous shape are of the shaddock kind, and
are from six to seven inches long, while the several seg-
ments extend singly in all directions. In the gardens
these odd-shaped fruits, as well as the sweet oranges, with
which whole plots are planted, have a neat appearance, as
they do not allow any trunk to form, but force them at
once to spread into branches. Large borders are to be
seen planted with camellia japonica, and others with cock-
combs, some with white, others with yellow or red flowers.
—Coplain Pidding's Chinese Olio.
LORD ELDON As A WOOER.—After taking his degree
young Scott (afterwards Lord Eldon) continued to reside
as fellow, meaning at the proper age to take holy orders,
and looking to a college living as his ultimate provision
for life; but during the long vacation in the north he saw
at Sedgefield Church a Miss Elizabeth Surtees, and the
sight appears to have determined his career. The lady
was just then of the perilous age—susceptible seventeen—
and reciprocated the tenderness with which she was re-
garded by the embryo Chancellor. Her father, however,
(a banker,) ►ittle foreseeing the fortunes of the suitor,
became alarmed, and to put her out of reach of danger,
, sent her to a relation at Henley-upon-Thames. From
that she did not return until after the vacation had expired,
and Oxford (as the reviewer remarks) " is within an easy
lover's journey of Henley." The following summer John
again visited Newcastle. Among the aspirants for the
lady's hand was a rich old widower, whose suit was se-
conded by the father. It was now John's time to be
alarmed. " Whatever accelerated the romance it galloped
to a conclusion ; for on a moonless night in September,
1772, Miss Bessy trusted herself to a ladder : a postchaise
was ready—the fugitives were safe across the border before
either of them was missed, and married early next day at
Blackshields—not, however, by a blacksmith, nor even by
a justice of peace, but by an episcopal minister." Both
fathers were displeased, but ultimately relented, the gen-
tleman's first, and a small provision made for them, Mr.
Surtees agreeing to pay £lOOO as his daughter's portion,
and Mr. Scott settling £2OOO on his son. They were
then remarried, " in facie ecclesice, in presence of both
families, and set off for the soutb."—Life of Lord Eldon.

BRUMMELL'S TAILOR. Brummell's tailors were
Schweitzer and Davidson, in Cork-street, Weston, and a
German of the name of Meyer, who lived in Conduit-
street. The Stultzes and Nugees, &c., did, 1 believe,
exist in those days; but they were not hen held in the
same estimation as their more fortunate brethren of the
shears. Schweitzer and Meyer worked for the Prince;
and the latter had a page's livery, and on great occasions
superintended the adornment of his Royal Highness's
person. The trouser, which opens at the bottom of the
leg, and was closed by buttons aid loops, was invented
either by Meyer or Brummell—the beau, at any rate, was
the first who wore them, and they immediately became
quite the fashion, and continued so for some years. A
good-humoured baronet, and brother Etonian of his, wbo
followed him at a humble distance in his dress, told me
that he went to Schweitzer's one morning to get properly
rigged out, and that while this talented purveyor of habi-
liments was measuring him, he asked him what cloth he
recommended ? " Why, Sir," said the artiste, " the
Prince wears superfine, and Mr. Brummell the Bath
coating; but it is immaterial which you choose, Sir John,
you must be right; suppose, Sir, we say Bath coating—
I think Mr. Brummell has a trifle the preference."
Brummell's good taste in dress was not his least recom-
mendation in the eyes of the Prince of Wales, by whom
his advice on this important subject was constantly
sought, and, for a long time, studiously followed. Mr.
Thomas Raikes says, in his " France,' that his Royal
Highness would go of a morning to Chesterfield-street to
watch the progress of his friend's toilet, and remain till
so late an hour that he sometimes sent away his horses,
and insisted on Brummell's giving him a quiet dinner,
which generally ended in a deep potion.—Brummell's
Life.

THE COD FISHERIES OF NEWFOUNDLAND.— The
discovery of North America, and the commencement of
the cod fishery on its coast, were nearly contemporane-
ous. As early as the year 1515, numbers of French,
Spanish, and Portuguese ships frequented the banks of
Newfoundland. The English, already engaged in the
fisheries along the shores of Iceland, had not as yet made
a push into those more distant western seas. In the
early part of the 17th century, England began to estimate
the exhaustless fisheries of North America at their real
value, as matter for great national consideration ; and
thus, during the successive reigns of Edward IV., Eliza-
beth, James, and William and Mary, various Acts of
Parliament were passed. and regulations made for their
encouragement and protection. But, notwithstanding
the increased value of the fisheries thus fostered by the
parent state, and carried on by the colonists of New Eng-
land and Newfoundland, both, together, were in magni-
tude less than those followed by the French before the
conquest of Cape-Breton. France, by these fisheries
alone, increased her navy to an extent that rendered it
formidable to all Europe. From the journal of Sir \'.'m.
Pepperell, who commanded the New England troops at
the capture of Louisburg, in 1745, it appears that the
value of one year's fishery in the North American seas,
which depended on France possessing Cape-Breton, was
£1,000,000 sterling. Compared with this, the most pro-
mising phases which the fisheries of the island have as-
sumed, at any time since its colonization by England, are
but melancholy and deplorable. At the present moment
they have reached the very lowest point of depression.
Can nothing be done to breathe into them new life and
vigour ? Are croakers ever to be listened to, and their
lazy, self-seeking, self-indulging policy to be adopted ?
We trust not. A scheme for forming a Joint-Stock
Company to carry on the cod and seal-fisheries from
Louisburg, will shortly be brought under the considera-
tion of our mercantile men, by N. H. Martin, Esq., a
gentleman intimately conversant with the trade of the
Wand ; and we entertain no doubt of its practicability.—
Simrnond's Colonial Magazine.

EARLY IMPRESSIONS.—" I have seen it remarked,"
says Lord Eldon in his Anecdotes Book, (1837,) " that
something which in early youth captivates attention, in-
fluences future life in all stages. I came up from New-
castle
in a coach then denominated, on account of its
quick travelling. as travelling was then estimated, a fly;
being, as well as I remember, nevertheless, three or four
days and nights on the road. There was no such velocity
as to endanger overturning, or other mischief. On the
panels of the carriage were painted the words Sat cito, si
sat bene, [i. e. quick enough, if well enough.] —words
which made a most lasting impression on my mind, and
have had their influence upon my conduct in all subse-
quent life. Their effect was heightened by circumstances
during and immediately after the journey. A Quaker,
who was a fellow-traveller, stopped the coach at the inn
at Tuxford, desired the chambermaid to come to the coach-
door, and gave her a sixpence, telling her that he forgot
to give it her when he slept there two years before. I was
a very saucy boy, and said to him, Friend, have you seen
the motto on this coach ?'—` No.'—` Then look at it ; for
I think giving her only sixpence now is neither sat ell°
nor sal bene.' After I got to town, my brother met me
at the White Horse in Fetter-lane, Holborn, then the
great Oxford-house. He took me to see the play at
Drury-lane. Love played Jobson in the farce, and Miss
Pope played Nell. When we came out of the house it
rained hard. There were then a few hackney coaches,
and we got both into one sedan chair. Turning out of
Fleet-street into Fetter-lane, there was a sort of contest
between chairmen. Our sedan chair was overset with us
in it. This, thought I, is more than sal cito, and it cer-
tainly is not sat bene.—ln short, in all that I have had to
do in future life, professional and judicial, I have always
felt the effect of this early admonition on the panels of the
vehicle which conveyed me from school. Sat eito, si sat
bene. It was the impression of this which made me that
deliberative judge—as some have said, too deliberative ;
and reflection upon all that is past will not authorise me
to deny that, whilst I have been thinking sat cilo, si sat
bene, I may not have sufficiently recollected sat bene, si
sat cito."

APPROACH TO CALCUTTA.—The first view of Bengal-
India gives the longing voyager a dreary pang of disap.
pointment owing to the low, ugly, and inhospitable shores
of Saugor Island, with scarcely a sign of cheering civiliz-
ation, or any tokens of a thickly-populated land. This
desolating appearance, and the corresponding sensation
which it excites in the stranger's breast, arises from the
peculiar circumstance of there being no town at the mouth
of the river, nor any mark of one as far as the eye can
reach. Ariving at Madras, for instance, the city, forti-
fications, and all oppidan appurtenances, burst upon you
while you are yet at sea, and you at once feel that you
are cast among a civilized community ; but Bengal frowns
upon you, and you experience no temptation to explore
her farther. Sail on, however, in the true hope which
should always sustain those adventurous spirits who go
down to the sea in great ships, and you will be richly re-
warded for your primary disappointment. Viewed from
the magnificent bend of the river, denominated Garden
Reach, where the town just opens on the approaching
vessel, the coup d'ecil is one of various and enchanting
beauty. Houses like palaces are studding the bank on the
proper left of the river, and a verdure like that of an eter-
nal summer, renovates the eye so long accustomed to the
glitter of the ocean. Anon, on your left appears the
semi-gothic Bishop's College ; and in front of you, every
moment growing more distant, are beheld a forest of stately
masts, a noble fortress, a thousand small boats new and
undreamt of by the visitant, skimming over the stream ;
the larger vessels of the country, pleasant to look upon
even for their strange dissymmetry and their consequent
unwieldiness ; the green and goose-shaped budgerow lying
idle for hire, and the airy little bauleahs, with ther light
venetian rooms, which seemed fitted for the water-bowers
of lovers in some of the lakes of those sunny isles which
poets are wont to sing of, and where the breezes are never
stronger than can be borne by silken sails. There cannot
be a scene so beautiful, connected with the business and
bustle of life, and the heart of the traveller feels light
within him as he views it. He experiences indefinable
emotions of joy, and he imagines he is in a country in
which he could dwell unrepiningly for ever, voluntarily
debarred from the prospect of ever again beholding the
gloomier shores of England.—Stocqueler's