The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1853-07-05 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

JOHN—  •er you—No."  I'll at once ans Mr. BELL also gave ntimation of the commencement of an attack on the British Museum, by moving for certain returns in regard to the never-likely-to-be-finished Catalogue. There is not a reading man or woman in or about London—l say nothing of those hacks who make a livelihood out of literature,—the boys who crib a defunct author's ideas,—as JERROLD said before the Dramatic Committee, robbing and murdering the aurhor—l say nothing of the large numbers of the clergy, episcopal and dissenting, who are compelled to run to the library of the Museum, let them bear their grievance—they are to the manner born. Not so hundreds of distinguished foreigners—scholars. Talk of looking for a needle in a bottle of hay—that's easily and successfully accomplished. Go to-morrow to the Britism Museum, and ask for a book a little more rilchP,^he" perhaps than " Blackstone's Commentaries" or 's Modern Housewife," I'll bet a Spanish dollar, nd all, with Sir HENRY ELLIS, the principal, you  . „ don't get it. Appeal to the working librarian—a worthy book-worm he is—" Have you look'd at the rides 7" is his never-failing interrogatory. " Oh, yes, till lam blind nearly !" is the answer, and there an end. But the  volun-le sought is not foxind. I would undertake to eat every book in the British Museum, should each volume turn out as " bitter in the mouth" as the book of antiquity, if I did not finish that Catalogue in three months. Hundreds of splendid scholars are at this moment tumbling in the hayfields, having nothing to do ; two score of such men, and the nation would soon have a catalogue of its unsurpassed collection. However, Mr. BELL'S motion was agreed to, and we shall see if any good comes of it.  I notice the dreary debate on the Income-tax Bill in the House of Peers, the other night, chiefly to introduce JOHN CAMPBELL, Lord Chief Justice of England, to your readers. JACK, as he is yet sometimes called by his old acquaintances—most of whom, by-the-by, he has cut,—is the son of of a decent Presbyterian minister in the unpretending, unambitious town of Cupar, in Fife. He came to London, a yellow-hair'd vulgar-looking Scottish lad, with scarcely a 'nag; he had, however, a long head, set right on his shoulders, a good constitution, and some serviceable education ! He worked as a reporter on the Morning Chroincle, when it was a high honour to belong to that old Whig newspaper. JOHN CAMPBELL will now meet in the streets of London men who sat alongside of him in the gallery of the House of Commons " taking notes," and give them the cut celestial. While JOHN was receiving his five guineas a week as a reporter, he was not sleeping ; he entered for the bar, in due time was called, practised, gave over reporting, and his good fortune began to make itself. Sir JAMES SCARLETT was great at the bar as a counsel, not for knowledge of his craft, but for his giant way of dealing with matters of fact ; he had briefs by the bushel, endorsed ten, twenty, fifty, aye, two hundred guineas ! he could not attend to them all ; he had taken a notion of the " douce" and sagacious CAMPBELL, asked him to dine with him one day—then another. and JOHNNIE, like his father, the meenister, before him, "improved the occasion," cast love-glances at SCAR LETT'S eldest daughter. Thus matters went on. JOHN CAMPBELL was making several thousands a year ; in a crack he married Miss SCARLETT, and rose rapidly otherwise. Member of Parliament, Solicitor-General, Attorney-General, Lord Chancellor for Ireland, and I don't remember how many other grand characters he became. Meantime his father-in-law had become Lord ABINGER, a surly judge, and gave little satisfaction to the bar ; but that don't signify much, provided just judgments are given. Lord ABINGER was miserable on the bench ; poor but rich man, his peace of mind was eaten away,— daily corroding as the little speck which caused his death ; he had cancer, or something of that sort, in the eye ; his father, a West Indian, died of the same disorder. So thought Lord ABINGER, the son, would be his case. It was. Painfully I have seen that otherwise burly old lord take from his waistcoat pocket a small mirror, confronting it with the deadly spot from day to day, hour to hour, watching its damning progress. His daughter, made Lady STRATH EDEN, produced a little family to Lord