Clarke Aspinalt: a itiograpky, By Walter Lewin. (Edward W. Allen.)—Mr.
Clarke Aspinall was not widely known outside a comparatively narrow circle ; but during the whole of his adult life, he was one of the most prominent citizens of Liverpool, and for many of his later years he held the post of city coroner. The book, which is written with Mr. Lewin's wonted good sense and good taste, seems to us a piece of work that was well worth doing; for we have never been able to accept the popular theory which assumes that biography should only concern itself with distin- guished or remarkable people. Such biographies are often the least useful. Longfellow's often-quoted dictum,- " Lives of groat men all remind us We can make our lives sublime,"
is a sentimental violation of fact ; for what is generally known as greatness is more often than not the outcome of endowments or opportunities which are denied to the many, and the record of which is depressing rather than stimulating. On the other hand, such a biography as that of Mr. Aspinall is really useful, bccause it shows what can be achieved by an ordinary man in a common- place position,—a man who was nothing wonderful, and who did nothing wonderful, but who left his world better and brighter than he found it. Unlike most men who attain municipal fame, Clarke Aspinall was not an active politician ; perhaps because, though a sincere Liberal, his ecclesiastical sympathies were all with that Irish type of Evangelicalism which is, in Liver- pool as elsewhere, the theological accompaniment of the most uncompromising form of antiquated Toryism. Hence a division of his sympathies, with the natural result ; but in persistent advocacy and practical aid of all schemes for social amelioration, he was always to the front. He was perhaps the most successful and popular platform speaker that Liverpool has ever known, for his remarkable fluency did not deviate into fatuity ; and his public utterances were always weighted by sturdy common-sense, and lightened by fresh and spontaneous humour. Whether the quality of his humour was so high as Mr. Lewin seems to think, is doubtful. The joke which may fully serve its in- tended purpose when shot out from the platform or the bench, may have lost some of its primal sparkle when transferred to print, and Mr. Aspinall's witticisms in black and white seem to us a little banal. This, however, is a trifle ; and Mr. Lewin's book is an excellent record of the life of an excellent man. The opening chapter, devoted avowedly to a chronicle of the well-known Lanca- shire family to which Clarke Aspinall belonged, and incidentally to a sketch of Liverpool life in the early part of the present century, is delightfully written, and, as a contribution to the social history of one of our great municipalities, is of permanent value. Many much more pretentious biographies are much less worth reading than is this record of an unambitiously useful career.
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