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- From northern climes to India’s distant bounds—
Where’er his shores the broad Atlantic waves;
Where’er the Baltic rolls his wintry waves;
Where’er the honored flood extends his tide,
That clasps Sicilia like a favored bride.
Greenland for her its bulky whale resigns,
And temperate Gallia rears her generous vines:
’Midst warm Iberia citron orchards blow,
And the ripe fruitage bends the laboring bough;
In every clime her prosperous fleets are known,
She makes the wealth of every clime her own.”_
It also contains a delicately-curtained allusion to Mr. Roscoe:—
_“And here_ R*s*o*, _with genius all his own,
New tracks explores, and all before unknown?”_
Indeed, both the anonymous author of the Guide-Book, and the gifted
bard of the Mersey, seem to have nourished the warmest appreciation of
the fact, that to their beloved town Roscoe imparted a reputation which
gracefully embellished its notoriety as a mere place of commerce. He is
called the modern Guicciardini of the modern Florence, and his
histories, translations, and Italian Lives, are spoken of with
classical admiration.
The first chapter begins in a methodical, business-like way, by
informing the impatient reader of the precise latitude and longitude of
Liverpool; so that, at the outset, there may be no misunderstanding on
that head. It then goes on to give an account of the history and
antiquities of the town, beginning with a record in the _Doomsday-Book_
of William the Conqueror.
Here, it must be sincerely confessed, however, that notwithstanding his
numerous other merits, my favorite author betrays a want of the
uttermost antiquarian and penetrating spirit, which would have scorned
to stop in its researches at the reign of the Norman monarch, but would
have pushed on resolutely through the dark ages, up to Moses, the man
of Uz, and Adam; and finally established the fact beyond a doubt, that
the soil of Liverpool was created with the creation.
But, perhaps, one of the most curious passages in the chapter of
antiquarian research, is the pious author’s moralizing reflections upon
an interesting fact he records: to wit, that in a.d. 1571, the
inhabitants sent a memorial to Queen Elizabeth, praying relief under a
subsidy, wherein they style themselves _“her majesty’s poor decayed
town of Liverpool.”_
As I now fix my gaze upon this faded and dilapidated old guide-book,
bearing every token of the ravages of near half a century, and read how
this piece of antiquity enlarges like a modern upon previous
antiquities, I am forcibly reminded that the world is indeed growing
old. And when I turn to the second chapter, _“On the increase of the
town, and number of inhabitants,”_ and then skim over page after page
throughout the volume, all filled with allusions to the immense
grandeur of a place, which, since then, has more than quadrupled in
population, opulence, and splendor, and whose present inhabitants must
look back upon the period here spoken of with a swelling feeling of
immeasurable superiority and pride, I am filled with a comical sadness
at the vanity of all human exaltation. For the cope-stone of to-day is
the corner-stone of tomorrow; and as St. Peter’s church was built in
great part of the ruins of old Rome, so in all our erections, however
imposing, we but form quarries and supply ignoble materials for the
grander domes of posterity.
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