The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-05-17 00:00:00

OUR PORTRAIT GALLERY.--No. IX

ALDERMAN EVANS, ESQ,

Reader, do not, we pray you, imagine that we are about to
transfer, bodily, to our canvas this giant of "liberalism"—
this beau ideal of senatorial and aldermanic perfection—
" This man—who doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus ; whilst we petty men
Creep under his huge legs !"

We are not about to make the attempt ; for if our ability
were even equal to the task, our gallery has not the space to
accommodate a work of such vast magnitude. In the Coun-
cil rooiu—the scene of his glories—where his genius has

ichieved its proudest triumphs--where mayor, town-clerk

aldermen, et)uncillors and reporters have gazed with awe
upon his lofty brow and his dilating form, as the stream of
eloquence has alternately flowed, bubbled, gurgled, and been
jerked from between his teeth and lips—in that room there
is a vacant frame of ample size, elaborately gilded ; and that
frame, alone, must hold the portrait of which we, in our hu-
mility, shall only endeavour to throw out a few instructions
to the future painter. ,

And first, with respect to the attitude in which we would
have him sketched. If we could place the figure of a Satyr
or of, the god Pan in the position of an ancient Athlete, a
reasonably accurate study would be gained of the alderman,
in one of those proud moments at which we would paint
him. The dexter leg must be advanced and rest upon its
toes, whilst the other must be thrown back upon the heel, in
the position of the hind quarter of " a Tup rampant" or a hen
dancing a cotillion upon a hot griddle. The body must in-
cline back, slightly swaying to one side or the other. One
hand must hold a pair of glasses, as if just removed from the
nose of the owner ; the other must hold a sheet of paper,
on which are the orator's notes. The head, a little thrown
back, must be made pendulous, like that of a Chinese man-
darin we have seen in some tea shop window (if the painter's

art can accomplish such a feat). The eyes must flash with-
ering defiance and proud contempt upon 'somebody, or self-
congratulation upon the sublime person to whose " organi-
zation" they belong; and the features convey the expression
which we have seen in those of an unhappy wight, engaged
in the vain attempt to swallow, entire, a hard dumpling, or
which we can imagine in an orator who has swallowed the
copy of his speech, and is pilling out the words piecemeal.
Such is the attitude and such the expression with which
we would paint the great oracle of the council chamber;
and yet, strange to say, such is not the man, whom an ima-
ginative world, which knows not his organization, pictures
" in its mind's eye" as the redoubtable Alderman Evans!
Some people, we dare say, fancy this " observed of all ob-
servers" endowed with the graces of an Antinous—a winged
Mercury, or an Apollo. The graces of a Welsh goat would
be " more germane to the matter !" People who merely
read the orations, which those ingenious gentlemen—the
reporters—put into his mouth (or rather drag out of it),
would fancy him Demosthenes at least, or Cicero, or the ad-
mirable Crighton; and that they flowed from him—

" like the sweet south
Breathing upon a bank of violets," •
or like " the whisky with exquisite smell," streaming from

the worm of a potheen still. In good truth, they come
from his lips, or from his stomach, or some halfway house
between, more like the gobbling cry which issues from the
throat of that farm-yard champion which ornithologists de-
signate " a male-turkey," and Scotch philosophers, more
appropriately, a " bubbly-jock :" or like the sputtering
stream, which is jerked, by hard pumping, from an old water
engine; the hose of which is leaky and the pipe choked with
a stone.

Again, some people would run away with the notion, taken
from his large words and occasionally terrible looks, toge-
ther with some very significant hints of his valour, which he
is wont at times to bestow upon safe antagonists, that the
worthy alderman is a perfect fire-eater—a fellow who would
" chaw up" a regiment in about three mouthfuls ! A more
erroneous idea cannot be entertained. Alderman Evans,
like another distinguished character, can " look daggers,"
or " speak daggers," but will " use none." He will look a
brace of pistols in your face ; but he has a sensitive dislike
to the pulling of a trigger or the clicking of a lock. He has
not, like Dublin's Lord Mayor, " an oath in Heaven," yet
fame says that he possesses a knack of getting his combative
designs made known to the police, which is equally efficacious
in the prevention of bloodshed,—especially when, in the case
of an invitation to go abroad and save the consequences of
forfeited recognizances, a writ of " ne exeat regno" is duly
prepared to intercept the fire-eater on his way to the coast.
Despite, then, of his occasional Bobadilistns, the world may
depend upon it that the alderman is a man who loves to " eat
his leek," and his words, if need be, in peace.
It has been said of a distinguished statesman, Lord John
Russell, who is known to think no small beer of himself,
that he would at any moment consent to take the command
of the Channel fleet, or the chair of divinity at any of our
universities. The gentleman before us has a similar excel-
lent opinion of his own capabilities. In addition, however,
to taking such a command, he would proceed to take the fleet
itself in pieces, and put it together on a new principle ! He
would remodel all the seamen's jackets, and alter the swing
of their very hammocks. He would think nothing of dam-
ming up the Mersey for six months, and ‘erectiag (leek ware-
houses in its centre, to enable our shipping to discharge under
cover! Find him with the money, and he would build us a
new town of Liverpool, any day, and upon any pattern, with
all the latest improvements ; and would himself perform for
it, gratis, any office, or every office, from that of mayor to
parish beadle!

Notwithstanding many imperfections however—notwith-
standing his total obliquity in political matters—it is im-
possible to deny that Mr. Alderman Evans (how soon he
may be compelled to lay down that august prcehomen 0 is a
distinguished member of his party. He cannot, it is true,
like Mr. Alderman Earle, be styled " the glass of fashion
and the mould of form ;" it cannot be said of him, as of Mr.
Thomas Bolton, that his ancestors were kodmen before the
food; he has not the distingQ air, language, and tastes of a
Thornhill ; he has not the conventicle whine of a Yates ; he
has not, in fact, the presence of anything more majestic than
an antiquated quadruped, met with most commonly on Welsh
mountains ; and yet it would be injustice to his character if
we classed him amongst ordinary every-day men. He pos-
sesses much acumen, much strong good sense, and some
judgment ; but an atom of feeling, of fancy, or of passion, does
not enter into his composition. He is a hard, dry, matter-
offact utilitarian, who would break up the Medicean Venus,
if his kitchenmaid wanted rubbing-stones, or sell the Apollo
Belvidere, for five pounds, to the first shipbuilder who
wanted a figure-head !

Such is the man—such, at least, are some of the phases in
the character of the man—whose portrait is destined to fill
the vacant frame in the council-room—(few men hare filled
more of the time of its occupants)—unless some record of
him, more enduring than that of canvas and oils, should be
thought desirable by his admiring fellow-citizens. Some
people, by the way, fancy that we shall hare abundant
memorials of his talents upon the dock quays, besides not a
few, in the shape of dock liabilities, increased in the carrying
out of his fertile schemes. We ourselves express no opinion
upon the matter. We can always have as much of him as
we wish to contemplate, in the pen and ink sketch which, in
future, will be hung up, No. 9, in our Portrait Gallery.