The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-04-19 00:00:00

THE WAVERLEY NOVELS

Time, which is "a sore decayer" of minor reputations,
would seem but to have matured and mellowed the fame of
Sir Walter Scott ; and that fame, as it has ripened, has en-
larged. Successive editions of his works have poured them-
selves, not only throughout these islands, but over all the
civilized surface of the European and American continents,
rolling on like the waves of the sea, with as rapid an advent,
and almost in as countless numbers. There is hardly a class
of readers conversant with our language to whom his inci-
dents, his characters, his descriptions, his kindly feelings,
and his attractive lore, have not become a permanent delight
and a favourite study.
His family, within these few days, have begun to send
forth his novels in a new impression of some thousands of
copies, called the Abbotsford edition, more interesting and
more perfect than any of its predecessors. The scheme of it
is to illustrate the novels by authentic likenesses of the most
distinguished:historical persons of his dramas, and the most
remarkable objects and places which form their decorations
and scenery. The imagination of Scott, creative as it was,
appeared ever to desiderate some visible object for a ground-
work, some extant portrait, or some living landscape, or
some well-preserved relic, by which it could bridge the airy
space between the present and the past, and transport itself
back into the daily life of the generations gone by. These
germs of his great works are now collected, to accompany
their narrative, and illustrate their conception. " Accord-
• ingly, the real localities of his scenes have been explored ;
the real portraits of his personages have been copied ; and
his surviving friends and personal admirers, as well as many
public bodies and institutions, have liberally placed whatever
their collections afforded at the disposal of the eminent ar-
tiste engaged by the propriatorg. Among these artists are
Wilkie, Landseer, Stanfield, Maclise, Allan, Nasmyth, and
many others whose very names give earnest of excellence.
The promised embellishments are to be in number about
2,000 ; and among these, as Mr. Lockhart says in a note to
one of his friends, which we have chanced to see, " the rea-
der will have the real portraitures of almost all Scott's heroes
from history, of all the castles and towers that haunted his
imagination, and of all the multifarious articles of curiosity
which he delighted in assembling about him, and showing off
to his visiters.
The first number, the only one which has yet appeared,
contains a portion of Waverley, and comprises, among the
landscapes, a view of the Highlands, from the Teith below
Callender, and of the celebrated bildon-hills, the land of
Thomas of Ercildoune. Among the relics we have the ar-
morial bearings of Sir Walter himself, thechair in which he
sate, and the desk in which the manuscript of Waverley was
found ; and among the specimens of costume, the Court
dress of the time of George 11., and the figure, in uniform,
of an officer of the Black Watch. These, and most others of
the engravings, 24 in number, which embellish this first part,
are given from the reality ; others, equally beautiful, are
from fancy drawings, which harmonise with the taste of the
author, and accurately reflect, in the style of their buildings
and figures, the general character of the time to which the
story of Waverley belongs.
The sale of this edition is likely to be an extensive one in

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all quarters of the world; and upon this the family of Scott
have probably been taught by their publisher to calculate;
for it is only by the large demand which may be expected for
such a work that they can possibly he reimbursed for it, at
the extremely low price which they have put on each num-
ber. We doubt not that they have judged wisely ; and we
rejoice in evesy undertaking that widens the sphere of their
great progenitor's reputation, and with it the reputation of
our common country.

His Royal Highness Prince Albert has consented to preside
at the approaching Literary Fund anniversary festival.

THE PATRIOTIC PREMIER.—Sir Robert Peel is a con-
siderable land-owner in Staffordshire, and the right hon. ba-
ronet, in order to become the sufferer himself, rather than
his tenantry should sustain any loss or injury in the event of
his reduced scale of import duties proving temporarily pre-
judicial to the interests of agriculture,. has given instructions
for their rents to be reduced twenty per cent. How widely
different are acts like these to those the country has been ac-
customed to look upon from a " liberal" ministry.
FRACTURE OF A MAN'S LEG BY AN ELEPHANT.—On
Thursday afternoon week, about four o'clock, John Glas-
cott, a groom in the service of Mr. Turner, of Dean-street,
Commercial-road East, London, accompanied by his master
and three children, entered a caravan and booth in a piece
of waste ground opposite Philpot-street, Commercial-road,
in which an elephant has been exhibited for some weeks
past, for the purpose of witnessing the feats of the animal
and other performances. The elephant, which is described
as ten years old, and crne of the most harmless and docile
that has ever been in this country, was marching about the
booth with three men on his back, and perfectly quiet. The
moment the animal had espied Glascott, who at the time had
his child, a boy of about four years old, in his arms, it be-
came exceeding restless and out of temper. This latter fact
was evinced by his bellowing out loudly two or three times,
and then stretching out his trunk wound it round the left leg
of Glascott, lifted him off the ground, and dashed him with
force to the further corner of the booth. On being taken
up, it was found that Glascott had received a severe fracture
of the left leg. He was instantly removed to the London
Hospital.
WHIG PURITY_OF ELECTION.—We have been often name-
fled with the Whig cry of purity of election, knowing that fre-
quently the greatest criminals declaim most loudly against
those of minor degree, in the hope of exciting a veneration
for their own character. In the Ipswich election inquiry,
instituted on a petition complaining of the return of the
sitting members, Messrs. Wason and Rennie, on the ground
of bribery and corruption, Mr. Austen, the counsel for the
petitioners, stated that it would be proved that Mr. Wason
had lodged in the whig bankers of Ipswich, Messrs. Alexander
and Co. three exchequer bills for £lOOO each, just previous
to the election. He would also prove that the several parties
be would mention were also bribed—William Brown, who
resided in London, on his arrival in Ipswich got .£l5 for his
vote ; Joseph Keys, ; a person of the name of Bridges,
£l5 ; two voters of the name of Scarlet got £5 each ; a voter
of the name of Sharman, £4O; Pulling, £10; Smith, £l5.
Bloss, £l5 ; Gibson, £l5. There was also a person of the
name of Johnson in gaol. and for his offence was subjected
to the silent system, He was visited by the barber to the
gaol, who not only got hint bailed out but gave him £5 for
his vote, and he voted for the sitting members. The learned
counsel then read a speech of Mr. Wason, lately delivered at
Ipswich, where he admitted that a person of the name of
Smith, the landlord of the Suffolk Hotel, bribed extensively.
He there said that he would state a fact which brought
bribery home to Mr. Wason himself. A person of the name
of Talbot was at the Suffolk Hotel, when Smith, the landlord,
was offering him a bribe of £25. Mr. Wason drove up in
his carriage, and was told that Talbot had been offered £25,
and shook hands with the voter. The learned counsel, in
conclusion, said that he would prove that the most extensive
acts of bribery and corruption had taken place at the late
election for Ipswich, which he had no doubt would unseat
the sitting members. In the Sudbury election committee
evidence in support of the allegation of wholesale bribery on
the part of the sitting members, both whigs, was proceeded
with. Mr. William Hervey Cross stated that he was a coach-
man. On the day of the last election he was in Sudbury.
His father and brother were voters of that borough. Mr.
Francis Gooday offered £5O if he could persuade his father
and brother to vote for the whig candidates. He mentioned
that offer, but his father and brother refused to accept it, and
voted for the blue or conservative party. Mr. Nicholas
Cross stated that he had been offered bribes, like many other
electors, to vote for the sitting members. The Sudbury
election committee, on Thursday, came to the conclusion
that the sitting members, Mr. Villiers and Mr. Sombre, were
not duly elected, and ought not to have been returned ; and
that the election was a void election, on the ground that gross,
systematic, and extensive bribery had been proved against
the agents of the sitting members : and they came to the fur-
ther unanimous resolution, that, in consequence, the borough
ought to be disfranchised, and that a new writ ought not to
be issued.