Читать книгу Liverpool a few years since: by an old stager - James Aspinall - Страница 2

In the year 1852, Liverpool a Few Years Since, by “An Old Stager,” was republished in “a more abiding form” than it had previously assumed in the columns of the Liverpool Albion. The little book sold off rapidly, notwithstanding its being somewhat expensive, as compared with the wonderfully cheap publications of the day, and it is now out of print. It has many a time and oft been suggested that a further and cheaper issue would be acceptable to the Liverpool public, The publisher has, therefore, assumed the responsibility of the present issue; and, learning that such was his intention, I have ventured to “preface” the original preface by a word or two in explanation of the circumstances and surroundings under which the Author penned these sketches.

It is scarcely imparting information, to make known the simple truth that the “Old Stager” in question was none other than the late Rev. James Aspinall, M.A. Oxon, at one time Incumbent of St. Michael’s Church, and more recently officiating at St. Luke’s, and afterwards transferred to the Crown Rectory of Althorpe in Lincolnshire, where he continued to reside until his death in 1861. The “Old Stager” was always a man of great activity of mind and body, and could never be idle. Every moment of his time was turned to some account; and thus the very remote sphere of his parochial and magisterial duties in Lincolnshire never induced the slightest dulness or discontent. With a Church, and a Chapel of Ease three or four miles off, to serve, and with a tolerably large parish to care for, the “Old Stager” was not without considerable clerical duty; and, added to this, he most unwillingly undertook the responsibilities of the magisterial office. Notwithstanding the avocations thus indicated, time was always found for literary pursuits, for receiving and imparting knowledge, for refreshing and renewing his powers of mind, in order to the successful communication, either by voice or pen, of his thoughts and ideas to his neighbours and to the general public. Amid the many written utterances of the “Old Stager’s” ready and comprehensive mind, we must enumerate these notes upon men and things in our good old town, penned with very considerable pleasure to their writer, as being the jottings down of his own personal experiences and recollections of a place and of a people very deeply rooted in the affections of this true son of Liverpool.

We well remember the bright and genial countenance of the “Old Stager,” as he thought aloud upon his old and early associations. Liverpool was his home, as against all other homes. His father had been its chief magistrate so long ago as 1803. His sons, or some of them, had adopted it as their abiding place; and thus, for several generations, this thriving community seemed to the “Old Stager” to smile upon him and upon his belongings, and as a consequence, not at all unnatural, the “Old Stager” felt a devotion to the town, and towards its inhabitants, which kept it and them ever in his grateful remembrance.

C. A.

Liverpool, January, 1869.