Part 16 (2/2)

Get my draft on London cashed.

Write home by the Princess.

Letter bag at Sampson and Wilt's.

Turning over the next leaf, I unfold a map, which in the midst of the British Arms, in one corner displays in st.u.r.dy text, that this is ”A Plan of the Town of Liverpool.” But there seems little plan in the confined and crooked looking marks for the streets, and the docks irregularly scattered along the bank of the Mersey, which flows along, a peaceful stream of shaded line engraving.

On the northeast corner of the map, lies a level Sahara of yellowish white: a desert, which still bears marks of my zeal in endeavoring to populate it with all manner of uncouth monsters in crayons. The s.p.a.ce designated by that spot is now, doubtless, completely built up in Liverpool.

Traced with a pen, I discover a number of dotted lines, radiating in all directions from the foot of Lord-street, where stands marked ”Riddough's Hotel,” the house my father stopped at.

These marks delineate his various excursions in the town; and I follow the lines on, through street and lane; and across broad squares; and penetrate with them into the narrowest courts.

By these marks, I perceive that my father forgot not his religion in a foreign land; but attended St. John's Church near the Hay-market, and other places of public wors.h.i.+p: I see that he visited the News Room in Duke-street, the Lyceum in Bold-street, and the Theater Royal; and that he called to pay his respects to the eminent Mr. Roscoe, the historian, poet, and banker.

Reverentially folding this map, I pa.s.s a plate of the Town Hall, and come upon the t.i.tle Page, which, in the middle, is ornamented with a piece of landscape, representing a loosely clad lady in sandals, pensively seated upon a bleak rock on the sea sh.o.r.e, supporting her head with one hand, and with the other, exhibiting to the stranger an oval sort of salver, bearing the figure of a strange bird, with this motto elastically stretched for a border--”Deus n.o.bis haec otia fecit.”

The bird forms part of the city arms, and is an imaginary representation of a now extinct fowl, called the ”Liver,” said to have inhabited a ”pool,” which antiquarians a.s.sert once covered a good part of the ground where Liverpool now stands; and from that bird, and this pool, Liverpool derives its name.

At a distance from the pensive lady in sandals, is a s.h.i.+p under full sail; and on the beach is the figure of a small man, vainly essaying to roll over a huge bale of goods.

Equally divided at the top and bottom of this design, is the following t.i.tle complete; but I fear the printer will not be able to give a facsimile:--

The Picture of Liverpool: or, Stranger's Guide and Gentleman's Pocket Companion FOR THE TOWN.

Embellished With Engravings By the Most Accomplished and Eminent Artists.

Liverpool: Printed in Swift's Court, And sold by Woodward and Alderson, 56 Castle St. 1803.

A brief and reverential preface, as if the writer were all the time bowing, informs the reader of the flattering reception accorded to previous editions of the work; and quotes ”testimonies of respect which had lately appeared in various quarters--the British Critic, Review, and the seventh volume of the Beauties of England and Wales”--and concludes by expressing the hope, that this new, revised, and ill.u.s.trated edition might ”render it less unworthy of the public notice, and less unworthy also of the subject it is intended to ill.u.s.trate.”

A very nice, dapper, and respectful little preface, the time and place of writing which is solemnly recorded at the end-Hope Place, 1st Sept.

1803.

But how much fuller my satisfaction, as I fondly linger over this circ.u.mstantial paragraph, if the writer had recorded the precise hour of the day, and by what timepiece; and if he had but mentioned his age, occupation, and name.

But all is now lost; I know not who he was; and this estimable author must needs share the oblivious fate of all literary incognitos.

He must have possessed the grandest and most elevated ideas of true fame, since he scorned to be perpetuated by a solitary initial. Could I find him out now, sleeping neglected in some churchyard, I would buy him a headstone, and record upon it naught but his t.i.tle-page, deeming that his n.o.blest epitaph.

After the preface, the book opens with an extract from a prologue written by the excellent Dr. Aiken, the brother of Mrs. Barbauld, upon the opening of the Theater Royal, Liverpool, in 1772:--

”Where Mersey's stream, long winding o'er the plain, Pours his full tribute to the circling main, A band of fishers chose their humble seat; Contented labor blessed the fair retreat, Inured to hards.h.i.+p, patient, bold, and rude, They braved the billows for precarious food: Their straggling huts were ranged along the sh.o.r.e, Their nets and little boats their only store.”

Indeed, throughout, the work abounds with quaint poetical quotations, and old-fas.h.i.+oned cla.s.sical allusions to the Aeneid and Falconer's s.h.i.+pwreck.

And the anonymous author must have been not only a scholar and a gentleman, but a man of gentle disinterestedness, combined with true city patriotism; for in his ”Survey of the Town” are nine thickly printed pages of a neglected poem by a neglected Liverpool poet.

By way of apologizing for what might seem an obtrusion upon the public of so long an episode, he courteously and feelingly introduces it by saying, that ”the poem has now for several years been scarce, and is at present but little known; and hence a very small portion of it will no doubt be highly acceptable to the cultivated reader; especially as this n.o.ble epic is written with great felicity of expression and the sweetest delicacy of feeling.”

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