Strange case of "such as seldom"

Question

Excerpt from the book about Paul Morphy and his visit to Birmingham:

The cheers with which he was received were such as seldom came from others than Englishmen.

I'm having a hard time understanding what it actually means. Only Englishmen have the habit of cheering someone the way they cheered Morphy?
And doesn't the grammatical structure of the cheers were came seem a little strange?

Greybeard · Answer

The cheers with which he was received were such (= like those/of a type) as [those which] seldom came from others (= other nationalities) than Englishmen.
The cheers with which he was received were of a type which rarely come from anyone but Englishmen.

fev · Answer

I think your understanding of the sentence is correct, but the grammar is not. Simplifying your sentence might help:

The cheers with which he was received were such as this.

where "this" replaces "seldom came from others than Englishmen".
The information the last part of the sentence brings could be expressed in a separate sentence like this:

Seldom such cheers came from others than Englishmen.

Strange case of "such as seldom"

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