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Redburn. His First Voyage

H >> Herman Melville >> Redburn. His First Voyage




And on the opposite page, I can just decipher the following:

Dine with Mr. Roscoe on Monday.
Call upon Mr. Morille same day.
Leave card at Colonel Digby's on Tuesday.
Theatre Friday night--Richard III. and new farce.
Present letter at Miss L----'s on Tuesday.
Call on Sampson & Wilt, Friday.
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 sturdy 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 space
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 worship: 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 pass a plate of the Town Hall, and
come upon the Title 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 shore, 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 nobis 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 assert 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 ship 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
title 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 illustrated edition
might "render it less unworthy of the public notice, and less unworthy
also of the subject it is intended to illustrate."

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
circumstantial 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 title-page, deeming that
his noblest 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 hardship, patient,
bold, and rude, They braved the billows for precarious food: Their
straggling huts were ranged along the shore, Their nets and little boats
their only store."

Indeed, throughout, the work abounds with quaint poetical quotations,
and old-fashioned classical allusions to the Aeneid and Falconer's
Shipwreck.

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
noble epic is written with great felicity of expression and the sweetest
delicacy of feeling."

Once, but once only, an uncharitable thought crossed my mind, that the
author of the Guide-Book might have been the author of the epic. But
that was years ago; and I have never since permitted so uncharitable a
reflection to insinuate itself into my mind.

This epic, from the specimen before me, is composed in the old stately
style, and rolls along commanding as a coach and four. It sings of
Liverpool and the Mersey; its docks, and ships, and warehouses, and
bales, and anchors; and after descanting upon the abject times, when
"his noble waves, inglorious, Mersey rolled," the poet breaks forth like
all Parnassus with:--

"Now o'er the wondering world her name resounds, 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 wannest 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.

And even as this old guide-book boasts of the, to us, insignificant
Liverpool of fifty years ago, the New York guidebooks are now vaunting
of the magnitude of a town, whose future inhabitants, multitudinous as
the pebbles on the beach, and girdled in with high walls and towers,
flanking endless avenues of opulence and taste, will regard all our
Broadways and Bowerys as but the paltry nucleus to their Nineveh. From
far up the Hudson, beyond Harlem River, where the young saplings are now
growing, that will overarch their lordly mansions with broad boughs,
centuries old; they may send forth explorers to penetrate into the then
obscure and smoky alleys of the Fifth Avenue and Fourteenth-street; and
going still farther south, may exhume the present Doric Custom-house,
and quote it as a proof that their high and mighty metropolis enjoyed a
Hellenic antiquity.

As I am extremely loth to omit giving a specimen of the dignified style
of this "Picture of Liverpool," so different from the brief, pert, and
unclerkly hand-books to Niagara and Buffalo of the present day, I shall
now insert the chapter of antiquarian researches; especially as it is
entertaining in itself, and affords much valuable, and perhaps rare
information, which the reader may need, concerning the famous town, to
which I made my first voyage. And I think that with regard to a matter,
concerning which I myself am wholly ignorant, it is far better to quote
my old friend verbatim, than to mince his substantial baron-of-beef of
information into a flimsy ragout of my own; and so, pass it off as
original. Yes, I will render unto my honored guide-book its due.

But how can the printer's art so dim and mellow down the pages into a
soft sunset yellow; and to the reader's eye, shed over the type all the
pleasant associations which the original carries to me!

No! by my father's sacred memory, and all sacred privacies of fond
family reminiscences, I will not! I will not quote thee, old Morocco,
before the cold face of the marble-hearted world; for your antiquities
would only be skipped and dishonored by shallow-minded readers; and for
me, I should be charged with swelling out my volume by plagiarizing from
a guide-book-the most vulgar and ignominious of thefts!




XXXI. WITH HIS PROSY OLD GUIDE-BOOK, HE TAKES A PROSY STROLL THROUGH THE
TOWN


When I left home, I took the green morocco guide-book along, supposing
that from the great number of ships going to Liverpool, I would most
probably ship on board of one of them, as the event itself proved.

Great was my boyish delight at the prospect of visiting a place, the
infallible clew to all whose intricacies I held in my hand.

On the passage out I studied its pages a good deal. In the first place,
I grounded myself thoroughly in the history and antiquities of the town,
as set forth in the chapter I intended to quote. Then I mastered the
columns of statistics, touching the advance of population; and pored
over them, as I used to do over my multiplication-table. For I was
determined to make the whole subject my own; and not be content with a
mere smattering of the thing, as is too much the custom with most
students of guide-books. Then I perused one by one the elaborate
descriptions of public edifices, and scrupulously compared the text with
the corresponding engraving, to see whether they corroborated each
other. For be it known that, including the map, there were no less than
seventeen plates in the work. And by often examining them, I had so
impressed every column and cornice in my mind, that I had no doubt of
recognizing the originals in a moment.

In short, when I considered that my own father had used this very
guide-book, and that thereby it had been thoroughly tested, and its
fidelity proved beyond a peradventure; I could not but think that I was
building myself up in an unerring knowledge of Liverpool; especially as
I had familiarized myself with the map, and could turn sharp corners on
it, with marvelous confidence and celerity.

In imagination, as I lay in my berth on ship-board, I used to take
pleasant afternoon rambles through the town; down St. James-street and
up Great George's, stopping at various places of interest and
attraction. I began to think I had been born in Liverpool, so familiar
seemed all the features of the map. And though some of the streets there
depicted were thickly involved, endlessly angular and crooked, like the
map of Boston, in Massachusetts, yet, I made no doubt, that I could
march through them in the darkest night, and even run for the most
distant dock upon a pressing emergency.

Dear delusion!

It never occurred to my boyish thoughts, that though a guide-book, fifty
years old, might have done good service in its day, yet it would prove
but a miserable cicerone to a modern. I little imagined that the
Liverpool my father saw, was another Liverpool from that to which I, his
son Wellingborough was sailing. No; these things never obtruded; so
accustomed had I been to associate my old morocco guide-book with the
town it described, that the bare thought of there being any discrepancy,
never entered my mind.

While we lay in the Mersey, before entering the dock, I got out my
guide-book to see how the map would compare with the identical place
itself. But they bore not the slightest resemblance. However, thinks I,
this is owing to my taking a horizontal view, instead of a bird's-eye
survey. So, never mind old guide-book, you, at least, are all right.

But my faith received a severe shock that same evening, when the crew
went ashore to supper, as I have previously related.

The men stopped at a curious old tavern, near the Prince's Dock's walls;
and having my guide-book in my pocket, I drew it forth to compare notes,
when I found, that precisely upon the spot where I and my shipmates were
standing, and a cherry-cheeked bar-maid was filling their glasses, my
infallible old Morocco, in that very place, located a fort; adding, that
it was well worth the intelligent stranger's while to visit it for the
purpose of beholding the guard relieved in the evening.

This was a staggerer; for how could a tavern be mistaken for a castle?
and this was about the hour mentioned for the guard to turn out; yet not
a red coat was to be seen. But for all this, I could not, for one small
discrepancy, condemn the old family servant who had so faithfully served
my own father before me; and when I learned that this tavern went by the
name of "The Old Fort Tavern;" and when I was told that many of the old
stones were yet in the walls, I almost completely exonerated my
guide-book from the half-insinuated charge of misleading me.

The next day was Sunday, and I had it all to myself; and now, thought I,
my guide-book and I shall have a famous ramble up street and down lane,
even unto the furthest limits of this Liverpool.

I rose bright and early; from head to foot performed my ablutions "with
Eastern scrupulosity," and I arrayed myself in my red shirt and
shooting-jacket, and the sportsman's pantaloons; and crowned my entire
man with the tarpaulin; so that from this curious combination of
clothing, and particularly from my red shirt, I must have looked like a
very strange compound indeed: three parts sportsman, and two soldier, to
one of the sailor.

My shipmates, of course, made merry at my appearance; but I heeded them
not; and after breakfast, jumped ashore, full of brilliant
anticipations.

My gait was erect, and I was rather tall for my age; and that may have
been the reason why, as I was rapidly walking along the dock, a drunken
sailor passing, exclaimed, "Eyes right! quick step there!"

Another fellow stopped me to know whether I was going fox-hunting; and
one of the dock-police, stationed at the gates, after peeping out upon
me from his sentry box, a snug little den, furnished with benches and
newspapers, and hung round with storm jackets and oiled capes, issued
forth in a great hurry, crossed my path as I was emerging into the
street, and commanded me to halt! I obeyed; when scanning my appearance
pertinaciously, he desired to know where I got that tarpaulin hat, not
being able to account for the phenomenon of its roofing the head of a
broken-down fox-hunter. But I pointed to my ship, which lay at no great
distance; when remarking from my voice that I was a Yankee, this
faithful functionary permitted me to pass.

It must be known that the police stationed at the gates of the docks are
extremely observant of strangers going out; as many thefts are
perpetrated on board the ships; and if they chance to see any thing
suspicious, they probe into it without mercy. Thus, the old men who buy
"shakings," and rubbish from vessels, must turn their bags wrong side
out before the police, ere they are allowed to go outside the walls. And
often they will search a suspicious looking fellow's clothes, even if he
be a very thin man, with attenuated and almost imperceptible pockets.

But where was I going?

I will tell. My intention was in the first place, to visit Riddough's
Hotel, where my father had stopped, more than thirty years before: and
then, with the map in my hand, follow him through all the town,
according to the dotted lines in the diagram. For thus would I be
performing a filial pilgrimage to spots which would be hallowed in my
eyes.

At last, when I found myself going down Old Hall-street toward
Lord-street, where the hotel was situated, according to my authority;
and when, taking out my map, I found that Old Hall-street was marked
there, through its whole extent with my father's pen; a thousand fond,
affectionate emotions rushed around my heart.

Yes, in this very street, thought I, nay, on this very flagging my
father walked. Then I almost wept, when I looked down on my sorry
apparel, and marked how the people regarded me; the men staring at so
grotesque a young stranger, and the old ladies, in beaver hats and
ruffles, crossing the walk a little to shun me.

How differently my father must have appeared; perhaps in a blue coat,
buff vest, and Hessian boots. And little did he think, that a son of his
would ever visit Liverpool as a poor friendless sailor-boy. But I was
not born then: no, when he walked this flagging, I was not so much as
thought of; I was not included in the census of the universe. My own
father did not know me then; and had never seen, or heard, or so much as
dreamed of me. And that thought had a touch of sadness to me; for if it
had certainly been, that my own parent, at one time, never cast a
thought upon me, how might it be with me hereafter? Poor, poor
Wellingborough! thought I, miserable boy! you are indeed friendless and
forlorn. Here you wander a stranger in a strange town, and the very
thought of your father's having been here before you, but carries with
it the reflection that, he then knew you not, nor cared for you one
whit.

But dispelling these dismal reflections as well as I could, I pushed on
my way, till I got to Chapel-street, which I crossed; and then, going
under a cloister-like arch of stone, whose gloom and narrowness
delighted me, and filled my Yankee soul with romantic thoughts of old
Abbeys and Minsters, I emerged into the fine quadrangle of the
Merchants' Exchange.

There, leaning against the colonnade, I took out my map, and traced my
father right across Chapel-street, and actually through the very arch at
my back, into the paved square where I stood.

So vivid was now the impression of his having been here, and so narrow
the passage from which he had emerged, that I felt like running on, and
overtaking him around the Town Hall adjoining, at the head of
Castle-street. But I soon checked myself, when remembering that he had
gone whither no son's search could find him in this world. And then I
thought of all that must have happened to him since he paced through
that arch. What trials and troubles he had encountered; how he had been
shaken by many storms of adversity, and at last died a bankrupt. I
looked at my own sorry garb, and had much ado to keep from tears.

But I rallied, and gazed round at the sculptured stonework, and turned
to my guide-book, and looked at the print of the spot. It was correct to
a pillar; but wanted the central ornament of the quadrangle. This,
however, was but a slight subsequent erection, which ought not to
militate against the general character of my friend for
comprehensiveness.

The ornament in question is a group of statuary in bronze, elevated upon
a marble pedestal and basement, representing Lord Nelson expiring in the
arms of Victory. One foot rests on a rolling foe, and the other on a
cannon. Victory is dropping a wreath on the dying admiral's brow; while
Death, under the similitude of a hideous skeleton, is insinuating his
bony hand under the hero's robe, and groping after his heart. A very
striking design, and true to the imagination; I never could look at
Death without a shudder.

At uniform intervals round the base of the pedestal, four naked figures
in chains, somewhat larger than life, are seated in various attitudes of
humiliation and despair. One has his leg recklessly thrown over his
knee, and his head bowed over, as if he had given up all hope of ever
feeling better. Another has his head buried in despondency, and no doubt
looks mournfully out of his eyes, but as his face was averted at the
time, I could not catch the expression. These woe-begone figures of
captives are emblematic of Nelson's principal victories; but I never
could look at their swarthy limbs and manacles, without being
involuntarily reminded of four African slaves in the market-place.

And my thoughts would revert to Virginia and Carolina; and also to the
historical fact, that the African slave-trade once constituted the
principal commerce of Liverpool; and that the prosperity of the town was
once supposed to have been indissolubly linked to its prosecution. And I
remembered that my father had often spoken to gentlemen visiting our
house in New York, of the unhappiness that the discussion of the
abolition of this trade had occasioned in Liverpool; that the struggle
between sordid interest and humanity had made sad havoc at the
fire-sides of the merchants; estranged sons from sires; and even
separated husband from wife. And my thoughts reverted to my father's
friend, the good and great Roscoe, the intrepid enemy of the trade; who
in every way exerted his fine talents toward its suppression; writing a
poem ("the Wrongs of Africa"), several pamphlets; and in his place in
Parliament, he delivered a speech against it, which, as coming from a
member for Liverpool, was supposed to have turned many votes, and had no
small share in the triumph of sound policy and humanity that ensued.

How this group of statuary affected me, may be inferred from the fact,
that I never went through Chapel-street without going through the little
arch to look at it again. And there, night or day, I was sure to find
Lord Nelson still falling back; Victory's wreath still hovering over his
swordpoint; and Death grim and grasping as ever; while the four bronze
captives still lamented their captivity.

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