UC-NRLF LANCASHIRE GLEANINGS i LANCASHIRE GLEANINGS. LANCASHIRE GLEANINGS. BY WILLIAM E. A. AXON. MANCHESTER : TUBES, BROOK, & CHRYSTAL, n, MARKET ST. LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO., STATIONERS' HALL COURT. 1883. o w > V ITT : '' ; - .V'i TO SIR THOMAS BAKER, MAYOR OF MANCHESTER, 1880.81, 1881.82, CHAIRMAN OF THE PUBLIC FREE LIBRARIES COMMITTEE SINCE 1864, WHOSE ZEAL FOR THE DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE HAS MADE THESE LIBRARIES A POWERFUL EDUCATIONAL AGENCY, AND WHOSE DESIRE FOR THE PRESERVATION OF THE FLEETING MEMORIALS OF THE PAST HAS MADE THE REFERENCE LIBRARY A STOREHOUSE OF MATERIALS FOR THE LANCASHIRE ANTIQUARY, THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED. 394251 PREFACE. Being too many for me to reckon up or remember, it will be the safest way to wrap them altogether in some Manchester ticking, and to fasten them with pins, (to prevent their falling out or scattering), or tie them with tape, and also because sure bind, sure find, to bind them about with points and laces, all made at the same place. THOMAS FULLER, D.D. inVEN when the historian has told in the most elaborate ^ detail the story of the County Palatine of Lancaster, there still remains much that is noteworthy. There are pleasant byways of family history and biography to be explored, quaint fancies and dark superstitions to be re- corded, and many notable incidents and curious events to be chronicled. In this volume an attempt has been made to indicate some of the characteristics of the past history and condition of the county. "Lancashire fair women," the old proverb speaks of, and these have never lacked their complement of brave men whose valour has sometimes been that of the warrior leading his soldiers to victory, sometimes viii. Preface. that of the sectary scorning the persecutions of the world, sometimes of the inventor struggling against the neglect and greed of his fellows, and sometimes alas ! for the intoler- ance of human nature that it should be so this native courage has been shown by the pale martyr in his sheet of fire. The historical associations of the county connect it with some of the most momentous epochs in the life of the nation, and its halls, farmhouses, and cottages have given soldiers to the field, statesmen to the senate, and preachers to the churches. The manifestations of this quick, vigorous life furnish the subjects of several articles in this volume. The folk-lore and dialect of the county are unusually rich, and the connection of some of its fireside stories and familiar customs with those of other lands have been shown. Some of the articles now reprinted have been read before the Royal Society of Literature, the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, and the Manchester Literary Club ; some have appeared in the Academy, the Manchester Guardian, Notes and Queries, the Palatine Notebook, and various periodicals, whilst others are now printed for the first time. The volume is a selection from much more extensive materials relating to the history and archaeology of Lancashire, and which may possibly be further drawn upon in the future. CONTENTS Page PREFACE vii. NANNY CUTLER, A LANCASHIRE "DINAH BEDE" i THE MOSLEY FAMILY 9 THE EXTRAORDINARY MEMORY OF THE REV. THOMAS THRELKELD 32 SUNDAY IN THE OLDEN TIME 38 TIM BOBBIN AS AN ARTIST 75 ANN LEE, THE MANCHESTER PROPHETESS 79 MASTER JOHN SHAWE 108 TRADITIONS COLLECTED BY THOMAS BARRITT 121 DID SHAKSPERE VISIT LANCASHIRE? 127 THE LANCASHIRE PLOT 130 SHERBURNES IN AMERICA 141 CURIOSITIES OF STREET LITERATURE 145 THOMAS AND JOHN FERRIAR 151 X. Contents. Page TURTON FAIR IN 1789 159 THE STORY OF THE THREE BLACK CROWS 163 LANCASHIRE BEYOND THE SEA 174 MURDERS DETECTED BY DREAMS 180 THE BLACK KNIGHT OF ASHTON 186 ROBERT TANNAHILL IN LANCASHIRE 204 POPULATION OF MANCHESTER 212 A SERMON OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 219 PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD STUART'S SUPPOSED VISIT TO MANCHESTER 224 CONGREGATIONALISM AT EARN WORTH NEAR BOLTON 231 CHURCH GOODS IN 1552 235 THE ESTATES OF SIR ANDREW CHADWICK 241 EARLY ART IN LIVERPOOL 250 THE STORY OF BURGER'S "LENORE" 258 MANCHESTER IN 1791 266 EARLY REFERENCES TO THE JEWS IN LANCASHIRE 271 WHITTINGTON AND HIS CAT 276 "FAIR EM" 280 THE FATHER OF THOMAS DE QUINCEY 285 ORIGIN OF THE WORD "TEETOTAL" 291 ROBERT WILSON AND THE INVENTION OF THE STEAM HAMMER 297 Contents. xi. RALPH SANDIFORD 304 ELIAS, THE MANCHESTER PROPHET 312 WESTHOUGHTON FACTORY FIRE 317 PETER ANNET 3 2 4 SOME OLD LANCASHIRE BALLADS, BROADSIDES AND CHAP- BOOKS 329 GEORGE Fox's FIRST ENTRY INTO LANCASHIRE 336 THE LEGEND OF MAB'S CROSS 343 THE LINDSAYS IN LANCASHIRE 348 THE LIVERPOOL TRAGEDY 357 LANCASHIRE PROVERBS 361 INDEX... 37* LANCASHIRE GLEANINGS. NANNY CUTLER, A LANCASHIRE "DINAH BEDE.' This seemed a strange idea for Methodists, some of whose brightest ornaments have been women preachers. As far back as Adam Clarke's time, his objections were met by the answer, ' If an ass reproved Balaam, and' a barn-door fowl reproved Peter, why shouldn't a woman reprove sin ? ' This classification with donkeys and fowls is certainly not very complimentary. The first comparison I heard wittily replied to by a coloured woman who had once been a slave. 'May-be a speaking woman is like an ass,' said she; 'but I can tell you one thing the ass saw the angel, when Balaam didn't.' MRS. CHILD, Letters from New York. IN Methodist circles the name of Nanny Cutler is still heard, but it may be doubted if the general public have any particular knowledge of a woman who was remarkable among that class of which the Dinah Morris of George Eliot is a type. Ann Cutler was born near Preston in 1759, and the record of her life shows her to have been one of those " fair souls " of whom Carlyle speaks. She grew up a quiet and serious Lhitta'sTiife' Gleanings. girl, but it was not until she was 26, that during the visit of some Methodist preachers, in the phraseology of the sect, she " was convinced of sin," and, after a brief interval, " found a sinking in humility, love, and dependence upon God." She is described as having "a smile of sweet composure, which seemed, in a sense, a reflection of the Divine Nature." The ministry of women was not acknowledged amongst the Methodists of that day, and her evident vocation for prayer and preaching was a source of trouble, and brought her .some reproach. "I cannot," she said, "be happy unless I cry for sinners. I do not want any praise : I want nothing but souls to be brought to God. I am reproached by most. I cannot do it to be seen or heard of men. I see the world going to destruction, and I am burdened till I pour out my soul to God for them." The charm of her praying seemed to be in the intense force of her sympathy for the sinful, and for those who were immersed in the cares and pleasures of the daily life. It was for these that she cried aloud and spared not. Mr. Taft tells us that many were astonished that such great results should be produced by one so weak and in appearance so insignificant. The simplicity of her own daily existence was not without a tinge of asceticism. Her diet consisted chiefly of milk and such herb-tea as in those days was common amongst the country folk. On this simple fare she was able to go through great exertions. She arose at midnight for an in- terval of prayer, and her usual time of rising for the day was at four o'clock, as the light began to dawn. The ascetic spirit was probably also the motive of the resolution which Nanny Cutler, A Lancashire "Dinah Bede? 3 devoted her to a celibate life. Amongst the many papers she left behind was one in which she thus "vowed" herself. In an age when "Methodist" was a term of reproach, and when the vilest slanders were freely circulated, the fair fame of Ann Cutler remained unassailed. She was not gloomy, though but little given to conversation, and some of her "experiences" were of so remarkable a nature, that she forbore, and wisely, to speak of them in public. The manner of mystics all over the world is the same, and it would be an unwise curiosity that would pry closely into the exact nature of what Ann Cutler believed was her continual fellow- ship and union with the Deity. She mentioned the matter to John Wesley, and his reply is interesting and judicious. "WALTON, APRIL 15, 1790. " My Dear Sister, "There is something in the dealings of God with your soul which is out of the common way. But I have known several whom He has been pleased to lead in exactly the same way, and particularly in manifesting to them distinctly the three Persons of the ever blessed Deity. You may tell all your experience to me at any time ; but you will need to be cautious in speaking to others, for they would not under- stand what you say. Go on in the name of God, and in the power of His might. Pray for the whole spirit of humility, and I wish that you would write and speak without reserve to, dear Nanny, " Yours affectionately, "JOHN WESLEY." Lancashire Gleanings. This letter is not included in the collected correspondence of the founder of Methodism, and his diary is defective at this very point, a portion of the record for April, 1790, having been lost. The sect were unwilling to admit women as preachers and teachers, and Ann Cutler had therefore much to endure. Her biographer, the Rev. William Bramwell, says : " She met with the greatest opposition that I ever knew one person to receive, and I never saw or heard of her being in the least angry. She never complained of ill usage. She was sent for by many, both rich and poor ; and though she was exceedingly sensible of opposition, yet she would say : I am not received at such a place ; but the will of the Lord be done." Mr. Bramwell at times thought proper to dissuade her from undertaking the work of a reviva- list, but on some occasions she felt it her duty to go and speak to the people from the full sympathy of her pure and womanly heart. The flock for whom he was labouring had their full share of the benefit of her singular power. It is, of course, known now that Dinah Morris was in a large measure a portrait of Elizabeth Evans, the aunt of the novelist It was while listening to a prayer by Mr. Bramwell, that Elizabeth Evans " found peace." Under the influence of Nanny Cutler there was a great " revival " at Dewsbury, and it spread to Birstall, Leeds, Bradford, and Otley. Nor was her native county neglected. Her last journey was to Oldham, Manchester, Derby, and Macclesfield. From Manchester she wrote an enthusiastic letter to her sister. " The last week but this," she says, "at Oldham, and Delph, and another place, near a hundred souls were brought to Nanny Cutler, A Lancashire "Dinah Bede" 5 God. Many cried for mercy and the Lord delivered them. In this town I cannot exactly tell the number. God has sanctified many ; some preachers and leaders." This was at the end of November and the beginning of December, 1794, and in the following month she went to Macclesfield, and there, in spite of gathering illness, she continued to preach and pray, to visit the sick and to labour in the task to which she had devoted her strong soul. She had a presentiment that the end was not far off. " I long to see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Wesley, Fletcher, and some other dear friends that I have known on earth." Her illness increased, and on the 29th she died, about six o'clock in the winter after- noon. Dr. Aspden, of Blackburn, was with her at the last. " Nanny, how are you ? " he asked. " I am very ill," she replied faintly. "You are, but I trust your soul is perfectly happy." " Yes, it is," she rejoined, " but I cannot so fully rejoice because of the weight of my affliction." " Well, the Lord does not require it, or He would give strength." " Yes," she replied, " He would, glory be to God and the Lamb for ever." These were her last words. Ann Cutler was buried in the graveyard of Christ's Church, Macclesfield, of which that extraordinary man the Rev. David Simpson was then minister. A copper plate was fixed upon her tombstone, with the following inscription : Underneath lie the remains of ANN CUTLER, Whose simple manner, solid piety, and extraordinary power in prayer, distinguished and Lancashire Gleanings. rendered her eminently useful in promoting a religious revival wherever she came. She was born near Preston, in Lancashire, and died here December 2 9th, 1794. & 35- It was probably the memory of Nanny Cutler that led Mr. Bramwell to ask in a sermon that was heard by Elizabeth Evans, "Why are there not more women preachers?" " Because they are not faithful to their call." There are two editions of the biography of this saintly woman. " A short account of the life and death of Ann Cutler," by Mr. William Bramwell, was printed at Sheffield in 1796, and reprinted at York in 1827, with a preface by Mr. Z. Taft, and some additional matter. The mystical element in Methodism was evidenced not only by such lives as that of Nanny Cutler, but by the trance or visions of Elizabeth Dickinson, in the year 1792. This delicate Yorkshire girl who died the year before Ann Cutler, and in her twentieth year, sometimes had the strength given by enthusiasm, that enabled her to address audiences of more than a thousand people. One of her converts was a consumptive girl named Proctor, who died in 1794. As she lay upon her death-bed one of the class leaders who had been watching with her, through the night, was returning home through the darkness of a winter morning. It was about four o'clock, and he was walking over the fields. " Suddenly " (the rest we must give in Mr. Bramwell's words), "a light shone around him, which eclipsed and put out the light derived from his lantern ; he looked up and saw four angels, in company with Betty Nanny Cutler, A Lancashire "Dinah Bede" j Dickinson, whose face he saw as clearly, and knew as per- fectly, as he did while she was living, and she had a golden girdle about her loins. They were flying swiftly in the direction of Miss Proctor's house. The next morning he heard that Miss Proctor had died soon after he left her." A sceptical age must be left to place what interpretation it pleases upon the vision of an enthusiast, overwrought by long vigil at the sick bed of a dying girl. Ann Cutler and Elizabeth Dickinson were not by any means the only Methodist women preachers. " Sister " Ryan, " Sister " Crosby, "Sister" Hurrell, " Sister " Bosan- quitt, (who afterwards became Mrs. Fletcher), Mary Barritt, and others used their talents. John Wesley had a prejudice against the preaching of women, but he acknowledged that in special cases it would be wrong to prohibit them. " I think," he wrote to Sister Bosanquitt, "the strength of the cause rests here, in having an extraordinary call ; so I am persuaded has every one of our lay-preachers ; otherwise I could not countenance his preaching at all." This was in 1 7 7 1 . Mary Barritt preached in Manchester at the close of the last century, and one of her converts has left a somewhat vivid account of the effect of her open-air sermons at Shude Hill. None of these preachers of the gentler sex were more remarkable than a little Lancashire girl of whom Charles Hulbert in "Museum Europaeum" (p. 435) gives the follow- ing account : "Elizabeth Bradbury, who was born of poor parents at Oldham, Lancashire (as far as he recollects, in the year 1798). At the age of nine months she could almost articu- 8 Lancashire Gleanings. late every word in common occurrence; with the sole instruction of her mother. At twelve months she could read, and shortly after learned to write, and acquired some knowledge of the Latin language. At the age of three years she stood upon a table placed in the pulpit of the Methodist Chapel, Middleton, seven miles from Manchester, and preached to a numerous and respectable congregation ; the effect upon the minds of the hearers was most extraordinary, some absolutely fainted from excess of feeling and surprise. She was at this period considered as a prodigy, or rather as one endowed with miraculous gifts. The crowds who came daily to visit her, and the money which was presented to her parents from visitors, prevented their acceptance of numer- ous offers from respectable individuals to take this extraordi- nary child under their protection, and to provide for her education and future happiness. About the year 1803 the editor saw her at the 'Bull's Head,' Swinton, five miles from Manchester, where her imprudent father exhibited her as a prodigy of talent and literature, and induced her to act the preacher for the amusement of public-house company. She appeared equally playful as other children of her years, but seemed remarkably shrewd in her observations on the diffe- rent characters in the company, especially on those who were not quite so liberal in their gratuities as she could wish. The editor requested her to write something in his pocket- book as a proof of her talents, when she immediately wrote her own and her father's name with each hand (right and left) in a most beautiful style. He has had no information respecting her since the above period." THE MOSLEY FAMILY. And to rejoice in ancient blood, what can be more vain? Do we not "'all come of Adam, our earthly father? And say we not all, 'Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed,' &c. ? How can we crack, then, of our ancient stock, seeing we came all both of one earthly and heavenly Father ? If ye mark the common saying, how gentle blood came up, yejshall see how true it is, When Adam dalve, and Eve span, Who was then a gentleman ? Up start the carle, and gathered good, And thereof came the gentle blood. And although no nation has anything to rejoice in of themselves, yet England has less than other. BP. PILKINGTON. Works> p. 125. THE old home of the Mosleys is said to have been the little hamlet of Moseley, near Wolverhampton, where Charles II. found a temporary refuge after the battle of Worcester. From Ernald de Moseley, who was living in the reign of King John, the various branches of the Mosley family claim descent. In the thirteenth year of Edward IV. Robert Moseley had a burgage in Manchester near the bridge. In 1465 Jenkyn Moseley was living at Hough End, between Withington and Chorlton. The marriage of this Jenkyn caused the addition to his coat of arms of or, io Lancashire Gleanings. a fess sable between three eaglets displayed sable. This is still one of the Mosley arms, though the name of the lady by whom the wsfortunate addition was made has long been lost. In due course of nature Jenkyn was succeeded by James, and he in his turn by Edward, who died in 1571, and left three sons. Oswald, whose first wife was a daughter of the Rev. Richard Gerrard, from one of whose relatives he bought the estate called the Garret, near Manchester. He died at Garret Hall in 1622. His only daughter married against his wishes, and his two sons died before him, so that the estate came to Samuel, who in 1631 sold it and went to live in Ireland. Among his descendants were Benjamin Moseley, a Parliamentarian, who was killed at the battle of Worcester ; and Dr. Benjamin Moseley, who attended Charles James Fox in his fatal illness, and was a bitter opponent of the system of vaccination, then just introduced by Jenner. Some of the descendants of Oswald Moseley, of the Garratt, have made their mark in America. His grandson, Francis, was the father of Thomas Moseley, who was Lord Mayor of York in 1687, and of Rowland Moseley, who was High Sheriff of that. city in 1702. We are chiefly concerned, however, with the younger sons of Edward Moseley, of the Hough. Nicholas and Anthony were both men of enterprise and ability. They entered into the woollen trade, which was then the staple industry of Manchester. They were styled " cloth workers." The textile fabrics of the little town were already known far and wide. They penetrated into the snowy regions of Muscovia ; they sailed across the Caspian The Mosley Family. II sea; and they were distributed through the immense territories of the Sublime Porte. The two brothers pros- pered, and as Liverpool was then little used as a port it was decided that Nicholas Moseley should settle in London and superintend the exportation of their goods, whilst Anthony managed their extensive manufactures at Man- chester. Nicholas Moseley was then nearly 50 years of age. In the metropolis his skill and ability marked him out for municipal honours, and in 1599 he became Lord Mayor of London. He stirred up the loyal feelings of the Common Council, and induced them to make liberal provision for the defence of the city against the second attempted inva- sion of the Spaniards, which was then a good deal talked about. Good Queen Bess rewarded his loyalty by a knight- hood, and by the present of a carved oak bedstead and other furniture for the new mansion which he had built on the site of the old house at Hough End. Sir William West, Lord La Warre, who was then lord of the manor of Man- chester, borrowed ,3,000 from John Lacy, of London, and undertook if the sum were not paid by a certain day to forfeit that lordship. The loan was never satisfied, and Lacy became lord of the manor in 1580. He appears to have been acting as agent or trustee for Mosley, to whom the manor was formally conveyed in 1596 for 3,500. He adopted, in the fashion of the age, a punning motto, " Mos legem regit" in compliment, it is said, to his son, then a rising barrister, and dropped the central e in the name. The form Mosley serve to discriminate his descendants and those of his brother Anthony from those of Oswald Moseley, 12 Lancashire Gleanings. of the Garratt. Sir Nicholas Mosley was High Sheriff of Lancashire in 1604, and died in 1612, at the ripe age of 85. A half-length portrait, in an Elizabethan ruff, low felt hat, and official robes, was published in 1795 from a unique print in the collection of Sir John St. Aubyn, Bart. The character of this man has been variously regarded. There is a double epitaph, written by one of his contemporaries, in which he is held up as one who cared not " who was loser so he thereby did gayne," as having 400 in the bed in which he died, and as railing at one of his sons " as though he had been mad" for not following in the same course of money-making as himself, who " lived in miser's name, and died as he began." Naked his beginning, and naked did hee dye : And naked was he Ivvinge, and naked he doth lye. After this not very flattering portrait a change comes over the poet's vision, and he tells us By honest steppes to honour he did tende ; Prosperous his course, and heavenly his ende. To Russia, to Tartasie, France, and Italy, Your home-spunne cloth he yearly made to see. Then follows a complimentary allusion to his appointment as Lord Mayor, and as High Sheriff of his native county, Where he long lived, and eightie-five years spent, And thence with joy to hevenly places went. After the consolatory and, let us hope, authoritative assurance The Mosley Family. 13 of the last line we need only say that a handsome monu- ment was erected in Didsbury Church, in which the old knight is represented in his gorgeous civic robes, whilst beneath are seen his three sons and his first and second wives. It may be observed in passing that the lady, at whose cost the monument was erected, has gracefully given precedence in this portraiture to the first wife and her off- spring. The eldest son, Rowland, in addition to the estates, inherited a lawsuit between his father and some of the inhabitants. Collyhurst was then a depasturable wood, about fifty Lancashire acres in extent, to which the people of this town sent in the autumn their swine to feed upon the fallen acorns. For each animal they paid sixpence, of which twopence was for the swineherd, and the remainder for the lord of the manor. This regulation was enforced with some strictness, as inconvenience arose from the porkers making their way into the church, the churchyard, and into Market-street and the other streets. Sir Nicholas, regarding Collyhurst as waste land, began to enclose and cultivate it. This was resisted, and the litigation was proceeding at his death. A compromise was effected, by which the Mosleys were allowed to enclose, but the Manchester folks had liberty to build cabins upon six acres of the land for the reception and relief of persons infected by the plague, and were also allowed to bury their dead there. In addition, Rowland Mosley agreed to pay a yearly rent of ^10 for the benefit of the poor. This, we believe, is still paid to the Mayor of Manchester. Rowland was nominated for High Sheriff 14 Lancashire Gleanings. in 1616, but died in the same year, leaving a boy only a year old. The second son of Sir Nicholas was Anthony, who appears to have led a somewhat wild and dissolute life. How far his father's harshness may have contributed to his profligacy is not clear. In the vain hope of reforming the rake he was married to a sister of Sir William Hewett, who long survived him, and was buried at Didsbury in 1692. He left an illegitimate son, who commenced an action against the heirs of the family estate, which was productive of much trouble and expense. The youngest son of Sir Nicholas acquired some eminence as a lawyer, and in 1614 was knighted and made Attorney- General of the Duchy of Lancaster. About the same time he bought the Rolleston Estates, and afterwards the manor from the trustees of Lord Mandeville, to whom it had been granted by the Crown. Sir Edward took some very high- handed proceedings in order to enclose Highwood, near Uttoxeter, and his dealings at Rolleston were referred to a special committee of the House of Commons. He appears to have had literary tastes, and the English translation of Lord Bacon's " Historic of Life and Death" was dedicated to him by Humphrey Moseley. He died at the age of 70, at Rolleston Hall, in 1638, and was succeeded by his nephew Edward. This was the son of Rowland already mentioned. Brought up without parental restraint, and having ample means at command, he became one of the " fine young English gentlemen" who ran riot in the reign of Charles I. His marriage with the well-dowered daughter The Mosley Family. 15 of Sir Gervase Cutler for a time restrained the excesses of his life. He was a warm partisan of the royal cause, and in July, 1640, received the patent of a baronetcy from the King. He was high sheriff of Staffordshire two years after- wards, and was commanded by the King to put the Castle of Tutbury into a state of defence, and to enlist the sympathies of his neighbours, so that they might contribute "horses, ammunition, plate, or money" for the royal cause. Sir Edward fortified Tutbury, but found there was a woful lack of zeal amongst the Staffordshire gentry and yeomen. All that he could do was to prevent some recruits from marching to help the Parliamentary forces in Lancashire. When Lord Strange came to besiege Manchester he stayed at Alport Lodge, which belonged to Sir Edward, and was burnt down during the ineffectual attack of the Royalists. Hence the Puritans with grim jocularity observed that " the Cavaliers had been well entertained there ; they had lodged with Mosley, and paid a good round reckoning in smoke and ashes, since which a cooler fire took down their lodging." Alport Lodge was never rebuilt. It is said that Sir Edward furnished in all ^2 0,000 for the royal cause. He took up arms, and with as many recruits as he could muster from his estates joined Sir Thomas Aston, whose forces were defeated at Middlewich by Sir William Brereton. Aston escaped, but Mosley and some other officers were captured in the church, and only liberated upon his pledge not to bear arms against the Parliament. His estate was sequestrated, and a fine, estimated to be a tenth, was levied. This amounted to ,4,874. The pardon for his "delin- 1 6 Lancashire Gleanings. quency" passed the House of Lords in October, 1647. It may easily be supposed that this fine, together with his lavish expenditure in the Stuart cause, seriously embarrassed his fortunes. An awkward event in Sir Edward's life was a capital charge brought against him by a woman, whose attempt at extortion was defeated, though the judge, in acquitting the prisoner, gave him a kindly warning to take heed as to the company he kept thereafter. He died in 1657. His son Edward, the second baronet, inherited a feeble constitution, and died at the age of 27. His will was a source of considerable litigation, but in the end the Rolleston estates came into the possession of the Mosleys of Ancoats. It will be recollected that whilst Sir Nicholas Mosley was busily engaged in commerce in London his brother Anthony was equally engrossed in manufactures at Manchester. Anthony was a diligent and a cautious man. His caution is evidenced by the fact that when elected to the honour for such it was of Constable of Manchester, in 1603, he declined to serve, as compliance would have involved the risk of exposing himself to the danger of the plague, which was then making fearful ravages in the town. His diligence is shown by the fact that he became wealthy enough to purchase the mansion and estate of Ancoats from Sir John Byron and his son and heir, who afterwards became Lord Byron of Rochdale, and was one of the ancestors of the Lord Byron. Anthony Mosley died at the age of 70, and is buried in the Old Church. He had eight children. The eldest of his five sons was Oswald Mosley of Ancoats, who from 1613 to his death in 1630, at the age of 47, acted as The Mosley Family. 17 steward of the Court Leet of Manchester. His eldest son was Nicholas Mosley, who was baptised at the Collegiate Church in 1611, and after his father's death remained at Ancoats to assist his mother in the education of . the remainder of the family. He was an adherent of the Stuart cause, and, like his uncle Francis and his cousin Nicholas of Collyhurst, he became obnoxious to the Commonwealth. After three years' confiscation the House of Commons resolved " that the House doth accept of the sum of one hundred and twenty pounds of Nicholas Mosley, of the Ancoates, in the county of Lancaster, for a fine for his delinquency, his offence being residing in the enemies' quarters ; his estate in fee, sixty pounds per annum, out of which an annuity of twenty pounds per annum payable for one life. He hath likewise twenty pounds per annum in reversion." During the troublous years 1664-5 he journeyed to Chester, Bristol, and Beaumaris, in com- pany with his cousin Nicholas of Collyhurst ; but the object of this journey is not known. One entry in his account books shows the danger and difficulty of com- munication in those days. It runs thus : " December 12, 1649 : Paid my brother Samuel, in full of a bond of his, part of ^"500 left him by my father's will, and which I sent him in gold, to be exchanged in London viz. 82 123. in a girdle" Nicholas had literary tastes, and wrote a book on the " Passions and Faculties of the Soul of Man." From this we find that he was a friend of Ralph Bridecake, Bishop of Chichester, of Samuel Rutter, and of Humphrey Chetham. It was published by Humphrey Moseley, already named, 1 8 Lancashire Gleanings. who had the honour of introducing the firstfruits of Milton's muse to the public. The Restoration was a source of great rejoicing to the Squire of Ancoats. On the coronation day he mustered 220 men, some of them the survivors of a troop he had raised for the King, and most of them " being of the better sort of this place." They carried their own arms, wore rich scarves, and were preceded by forty young boys, about seven years of age, clothed in white stuff, plumes of feathers in their hats, with small swords hanging in black belts, and with short pikes shouldered. After Captain Mosley's company was an array of older boys, with muskets and pikes. Thus, with banners flying and drums beating, they marched to Manchester, where Major Byrom, with a similar retinue, met them. They went to the Old Church, and heard an orthodox sermon from Warden Heyrick. Then there was a grand procession. The boroughreeve and constables, the burgesses of the town, many of the neighbouring gentry, and the warden and fellows of the College marched, preceded by the town music, to the cross, and so to the conduit, from which ran three streams of claret. Here the health of the King was drunk with great enthusiasm. Mosley's loyalty was so overflowing in its character that he had a second procession of his merry men on the ist of May, and, having them in a field, made them a "learned speech," which we may hope they enjoyed as much as the subsequent ceremony of drinking the King's health bareheaded at the cross of Manchester. Nicholas Mosley was placed on the commission of the peace, and, although a strict Episcopalian, he respected the scruples The Mosley Family. 19 of the Nonconformists, and did what he could to soften the misery caused by the ejection of the 2,000 on St. Bartholomew's Day in 1662. Adam Martindale gratefully records that he was engaged by the Squire of Ancoats to teach mathematics in his house, and was paid " nobly." A sister of Nicholas Mosley was the second wife of the Rev. John Angier, another of that band of devoted men. Mrs. Margaret Mosley is described as "a very pious, prudent gentlewoman." They were married, we are told, " very publicly in Manchester Church in the heat of the wars, which was noticed as an act of faith in them both." Amongst the friends of the Mosleys was the saintly Henry Newcome, the founder of Nonconformity in Manchester. His cultivated mind and holy character were lost to the Church of England by the Act of Uniformity. One entry in his diary shows his difficulty about accepting their invitations. At his wealthy neigh- bour's table there would probably be no lack of health drinking. Toasts of this descriptions were sins in the eyes of the more rigid Puritans, and Newcome anxiously prayed that " the Lord would help him to carry so as to occasion the least sin thereby." He went at twelve o'clock, but the company did not arrive until two o'clock. Newcome records with gratitude that he had no occasion either to cross or to comply with the "vanity" of drinking healths, though several were drunk. The party broke up about seven in the evening. Nicholas died in October, 1672, at the age of 61. His younger brother Edward is usually styled of Hulme, 2O Lancashire Gleanings. and became in 1652 one of Cromwell's commissioners for the administration of justice in Scotland. In that capacity he had some trouble over the appointment of Patrick Gillespie as principal of the University of Glasgow, which was opposed by some of the faculty. The Scotch did not enjoy this interference with the ancient order of things, but it is acknowledged that " the decisions of these judges were marked rather by sound sense than by subtleties of legal discrimination, and were long remembered as the fairest and most vigorous dispensations of justice which the nation had enjoyed." The last baronet had entailed the estates upon the son of this Edward, reserving ^7,000 for Nicholas of Ancoats. Ultimately a compromise was effected. The reversion of the Rolleston estate and of the manor of Manchester was secured to Nicholas, whilst the remainder of the estates were still to remain at the free disposal of Edward Mosley of Hulme. The son, for whose benefit the arrangement had been made, died in his twentieth year. Two other sons died before reaching manhood. Under these trials he appears to have sought the consolations which Puritan convictions could inspire. His wife and his only daughter were also fervent in their religious views. His wealthy heiress became the wife of Sir John Bland, who, to gain her, assumed an appearance of piety and sobriety of life that had but little foundation in fact. His object being attained, he cast aside restraint, and but for the prudence of his wife would have squandered every- thing at the gaming table. His sons were equally dis- sipated, and the lands which their mother had brought as The Mosley Family. 21 her dowry were in the hands of strangers soon after her death. Her father, as we have seen, was not a man likely to be an adherent of the Stuarts, and his satisfaction at the revolution which placed William of Orange on the throne was probably increased by the receipt of a knighthood in June, 1689. He died in 1693, at the age of 77. Lady Ann Bland was the chief founder of St. Ann's Church. Her archaeological tastes led her to ornament her seat of Hulme Hall with the altars and other evidence of the Roman dominion which were from time to time unearthed. The foundation of the new church is generally regarded as having been intended as a protest against the High Church views held at the Collegiate Church. It was a time when party feeling ran high, and invaded even the precincts of the assembly-room built .for the recreation of the "upper ten" of Manchester in the 1 8th century. On one occasion Lady Ann is said to have been so annoyed at the eruption of Stuart tartan that, at the head of the ladies who wore the Orange favours, she went into the street and danced in the moonlight in testimony of her loyal affection to the Protestant succession. Lady Ann Bland died in 1734, and the manorial rights passed to Sir Oswald Mosley, who for some time had the man- agement of them. He was the second cousin of the lady of the manor, and the eldest son of Oswald Mosley, of Ancoats and Rolleston. In 1720 the father declined a baronetcy on account of his fourscore and one years, and the honour was accordingly conferred upon the son, who also received " a renewal of the grants of axbearer of Needwood, and sur- 22 Lancashire Gleanings. veyor of woods north of Trent." He did not share the Low Church views of Lady Ann Bland, and disregarded her pacific advice to avoid disputes with the Dissenters, who were strong in the place. As we have seen she, along with her father and mother, had at one time attended the ministry of Newcome. Sir Oswald, although not an illiberal man, was somewhat autocratic in his actions, and was involved in many disputes with the inhabitants of Manchester, who did not relish some of the feudal notions of the lord of the manor. In 1693 he tried to impose a tax upon each pack of "Man- chester wares " in the manor. This attempt was defeated in the law courts. He had troubles also as to the exclusive right to grind corn at the mills on the Irk. The building of a workhouse even could not be managed without much bitter quarrelling between the Whigs and the High Church party to which Sir Oswald belonged. He was a Jacobite, and there is a tradition which connects Ancoats Hall with the fallen fortunes of the Stuart cause. The story goes that before making the fatal attempt to regain the throne of his ancestors the Young Pretender paid a visit in disguise to Manchester in 1744, with the object of seeing and making arrangements with the Jacobites, who were very strong in this district. It is said that a young woman recognised in Bonny Prince Charlie, as he marched at the head of his troops in the " forty-five," a guest who had stayed at Ancoats Hall in the preceding summer, and who went thrice a week to the town to see the London papers at the Swan, in Market- street, where she was a servant, and which was the only hotel boasting such luxuries. This is a very slight founda- The Mosley Family, 23 tion upon which to build. That some guest stayed at Ancoats Hall and hankered after news of the great metro- polis may be conceded : and also that the maid of the inn, when she saw the Young Pretender at the head of his troops, fancied that he was the same gentleman who had endeared himself by the unwonted liberality of half-a-crown. Prince Charles had other matters to occupy his attention, and there is really no historical evidence that he was here at all. At this time Sir Oswald was chiefly resident at Rolleston, where he died in 1751. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Oswald, who spent most of his time at Rolleston and Bath, and on his death in 1757 the title and estates passed to the Rev. Sir John Mosley, a man on whose temperament a bitter disappointment in love had impressed many peculiarities. One was an objection to the removal of ashes from the grate. They were allowed to accumulate until he cast them through the window with his hands. He had a great dislike to womankind, and gave his daily orders to his housekeeper through a grated partition. He was not only owner of Rolleston, but presented himself to the living and officiated without the help of curate until his death in May, 1779, when the second Mosley baronetcy became extinct. The estates, in accordance with the will of the last Sir Oswald, passed to John Parker Mostly, the youngest son of Nicholas, who was the third son of Nicholas Mosley, of Ancoats, already named. John Parker Mosley, when a child, had an almost miraculous escape from small-pox, and, after receiving a good education, was set up by his relatives in the business of a hatter. He was not proof against the temptations of 24 Lancashire Gleanings. the age, and a passion for cock-fighting led to other excesses, and brought him into embarrassments verging upon bank- ruptcy. Upon his promise of amendment his relatives rescued him from this awkward position, and his subsequent career was a justification of their action. Manchester was his home, and before the death of the Rev. Sir John Mosley he took up his abode at Ancoats Hall. A patent of a baronetcy was given him on 24th March, 1781, and in it he is described as of Ancoats Hall, which was, as we have seen, the ancient home of his ancestors. The 24th March, '1782, was a red-letter day in the history of Ancoats Hall. His son Oswald then attained his majority, and the event was celebrated by a ball at which four hundred guests were present. This brilliant assembly included the most notable of the nobility, gentry, and inhabitants of Manchester. In the next month he made good his claim to the monopoly of holding fairs and markets in the town, Messrs. Chadwick and Ackers, who had undertaken at the instance of the mer- chants generally to contest his manorial rights, being defeated in the King's Bench, where Lord Mansfield gave judgment in favour of the lord of the manor. This success did not detract from his popularity, as was shown in 1786, when the baronet served as High Sheriff of Lancashire. An immense procession accompanied him from the Hall, and there was an amount of jollification that long remained a subject of conversation and pleasant reminiscence. This was the end of the connection of the Mosleys with Ancoats Hall. For two centuries it had been their home, but Manchester was throwing out its long arms, and the pleasant gardens and fine The Mosley Family. 25 old Hall were now almost in its grimy clasp. Ancoats Hall was sold by the Mosleys to Mr. George Murray, who pulled down the quaint half-timbered house and erected the present building on its site. It was afterwards tenanted by Mr. William Rawlinson, and later by Mr. Jonathan Pollard. On the top of the roof was " a railed-off compartment, and a superstition prevailed amongst the young people that it was the burial place of some of the early lords of the Hall." Even in the earlier part of the present century the locality had not entirely lost its rural aspect. Where Every-street now stands there was a lane with green hedgerows and ivy- mantled cottages, a place dear to those who were in the hey- day of youth. The lad and his lass were often seen to saunter along the pleasant path of this Lovers Lane. " The locality," says a living witness, " was altogether picturesque ; the lane commanded a sweet variety of scene to the south- east fertile valleys and meadows well wooded. Here and there the gleaming bosom of the Medlock might be seen circling its way, singing a song of peace by many a cottage home, beyond the river undulating land with clumps of trees lifting up their various-tinted heads ; humble homesteads were scattered upon the scene, and smoke, the indication of man's habitation, was seen curling in relief from the quiet glory of the hills which enfold the landscape. The fascina- tion is over the hands of Time and change have been upon it, the scene is faded, the old Hall is no more." (" Patriotism and other Poems." By George Richardson. London, 1844. On the title page is a vignette of Ancoats Old Hall. Mr. Richardson was born in Ancoats in 1804.) 26 Lancashire Gleanings. Sir John, in his old age, was by some esteemed a "Metho- dist," then not unfrequently a term of reproach. In 1796 there was a family gathering at Rolleston, when there were present Sir John and Lady Mosley, two sons and three daughters and their respective wives and husbands, seventeen grandchildren, and an unmarried daughter, Penelope. Sir John died in 1798, at the age of 67. Oswald, his eldest son, of whom we must now speak, pre-deceased him. He married in 1784 the daughter of the Rev. Thomas Tonman, and lived chiefly at Bolesworth Castle, in Cheshire. Her brother was induced to settle in the vicinity. Intemperate habits brought him to the grave at the early age of 22, and his wife survived him only a few months. Oswald Mosley appears to have devoted himself to the concerns of a country life, and was especially fond of fox hunting. Early in 1788 the chase gave rise to a curious discovery. After a run over Peckforton hills the fox took refuge in a cleft of the red sandstone, and was quickly followed by the hounds into this cavernous retreat. The field gathered round in expectation of their re-appearance, but in vain. Two persons were induced by the promise of a handsome reward to explore this mysterious recess, and reported that at a distance of less than twenty yards from the entrance there was a deep chasm over which a narrow plank had been placed. Subsequent examination showed that beyond this frail path there was a room containing decayed furniture and other evidences of having at one time been in- habited. The dogs in their eagerness had fallen into the yawn- ing gulf, whilst sly reynard had passed safely over the plank. The Mosley Family. 27 Notwithstanding his fondness for field sports, Mr. Mosley, of Bolesworth, was of a delicate constitution, and chills caught in his favourite dingle, The Coombes, to which he frequently resorted after the ardours of the chase, may have hastened the disease which finally confined him to his bed. His son narrates the following incident of his last illness : " Although I was strictly prohibited by his medical attendant from entering his chamber for fear of disturbing him, curiosity prompted me to peep within whenever the opening door allowed me an opportunity. One day, while so employed, I saw the female servant who attended on the invalid pouring out some ether from a bottle, which she incautiously brought too near the flame of a candle, and the volatile vapour caught fire. In the moment of alarm she let the bottle fall from her hands, which rolled in its ignited state towards the bed on which my father was lying, and set fire to the curtains. The shrieks of the woman brought speedy assistance, and the flames were soon arrested, but not until the noise and disturbance occasioned by the accident had much interrupted the quiet which had been so strongly enforced as necessary to the sick man's welfare. All hopes of recovery were at length abandoned, and the anxiety of the parent to take leave of his children overcame the scruples of the physician. Young as I was, I well remember being much shocked at the woeful contrast between his then emaciated appearance and his former handsome features. When the nurse pre- sented me to him, he turned his glazed eyes upon me with a fixed stare, while a faint smile played upon his lip, and a slight flush for a moment appeared on his pallid cheek. I 28 Lancashire Gleanings, never again saw my father alive ; but I have some recollection of being taken to touch his corpse, and of my having been with some difficulty convinced that the cold wax-like form then before me was the same body that had been lately animated by a living principle." Oswald Mosley died in 1789, and his wife survived him only a few months. The four orphan children were brought up under the care of their grandfather, Sir John Parker Mosley. The eldest was Oswald, born in 1785, whose account of his father's death we have just quoted. Of the old baronet he has left an amusing account. " My grandfather," he says, " was an early riser, and a great economist of his time. He required me daily to attend him with my morning lesson, while he was undergoing the then tedious but indispensable operation of hairdressing, and upon such occasions my attention was often diverted from the task assigned me by the ludicrous exhibition which was presented to my eyes. I fancy that I even now see my worthy grandsire attired in his dressing- gown and seated in a low armed chair, while his faithful domestic, George Ridgway, plastered with a most liberal supply of pomatum the long locks of hair on each side of his head, preparatory to their being twisted into correspond- ing rows of formal curls above each ear. The tail was then nicely adjusted and bound with narrow black ribbon to with- in an inch of the extremity, the whole length of it being about ten inches. When all the head was put into due order the final addition of hair powder was ejected from an elastic bag with an opening at one end, called a powder puff, while the face was covered with a mask, having apertures filled The Mosley Family. 29 with transparent horn for the eyes to see through. Ladies, both young and old, were obliged to submit to a similar operation, and instances have occurred previously to a fete champetre on the following day, of their sleeping all night in an easy chair, for fear of disturbing by lying down in bed the cumbrous load of powder and pomatum with which their hair had been decorated." Oswald and his brother were sent to Rugby, and afterwards went to Oxford as gentleman commoners at Brasenose College. He took his degree of M.A. in 1806. Although he moved in the best society of the University, he did not look back with any degree of satisfaction to the short period he passed there. He says that at that time "the dissipation of a college life was so dreadful that the strongest constitution was injured by it." His brother, who was beloved by all who knew him for his gentle and benevolent disposition, " had not physical power enough to support its baleful effects," and died at the early age of eighteen. In 1807 Oswald Mosley entered Parliament for Portarling- ton; next year he was elected for Winchelsea, and in 1816 for Midhurst. After the changes caused by the Reform Bill he sat for the northern division of Staffordshire, from 1832 to 1837. He was not perhaps very well constituted for the work of the House of Commons, and regretfully observes that " upon none of the occasions was he enabled to effect the good which he had too eagerly expected as the result of his pursuits, and, with the single exception of having been thereby introduced to many talented and to a few pious men, he found that the rest of his anticipations ended in nothing 3O Lancashire Gleanings. but vanity and vexation -of spirit." He was High Sheriff of Staffordshire in 1814, and for sixteen years presided as chair- man of the quarter sessions for that county. The great changes which had taken place in Manchester made it in- creasingly desirable that the manorial rights should be vested in the Corporation, who alone could adequately regulate the markets and other affairs of the town. Negotiations were opened, and on December 3rd, 1844, an interview took place between Sir Oswald Mosley and his solicitors and the Mayor and Town Clerk of Manchester. Sir Oswald valued the manorial rights at ^2 18,75 5, but offered to sell them for ^"200,000. The Corporation at first offered ^180,000, then an arbitration between that sum and the maximum estimate was suggested by Sir Oswald, and finally the representatives of the city agreed to pay ^200,000. This agreement was concluded at Rolleston Castle, March i2th, 1845. The bargain was ratified by the Town Council, and so, after a possession of 250 years, the manorial rights of Manchester passed from the Mosley family. Sir Oswald Mosley was a man of literary tastes, and even ventured into the field of authorship. " His Short Account of the Ancient British Church " is an attempt to state in a concise form the scattered indications of the existence of Christianity in these islands before the advent of the mission of Augustine. He wrote a " History of Tutbury," which occupies a recognised place in topographical literature. His " Family Memoirs," written in an unpretentious style, and yet not without a considerable amount of individuality, is his best work. In this he has brought together many in- The Mosley Family. 31 teresting notices of the history and varied fortunes of his ancestors. He wrote a sketch of the natural history of the Rolleston district, was one of the founders of the Midland Scientific Union, and an occasional contributor to the Zoologist. In his pleasant grounds at Rolleston he had a study, in which there was a museum of local antiquities and natural history. He was an ardent lover of music, and for fifty years conducted a class of youths at the Rolleston Sunday School. He enjoyed the reputation of one who understood that " property had duties as well as rights," and was liberal in his support of plans which he thought would secure the public good, whilst his gifts in private benevolence were equally generous. He died 25th May, 1871, and was succeeded by his second son, the present Sir Tonman Mosley, who was born in 1813. The Mosleys, although no longer resident in the town of Manchester, have still a considerable stake in its prosperity. Such in outline is the history of that old Manchester family the Mosleys. The record is not without its lights and shades, but for the most part the family were content with the by- paths rather than the main road of history. They cultivated the arts of peace, and their fortunes were bound up with the industry and progress of the locality that in the days of Sir Nicholas Mosley was only " a quick village," but is now the myriad-peopled city of Manchester. THE EXTRAORDINARY MEMORY OF THE REV. THOMAS THRELKELD. Memory, the warder of the brain. SHAKSPERE. AMONGST the worthies of Lancashire we may reckon the Rev. Thomas Threlkeld, for 28 years the minister of a Dissenting congregation in Rochdale, and remarkable for his very unusual powers of memory. He was born April 12, 1739, at Halifax, where his father was minister of a Presbyterian church. Of his early education we have no record, but "after his grammar learning was finished he went first to the academy at Daventry," of which Doddridge was once principal, and afterwards to the academy at Warrington. This institution commenced in 1757, and Threlkeld was a student there soon after the opening. In 1762 he became a minister at Risley, near Warrington, " with a small and plain, but most harmonious, affectionate, and agreeable society of Presbyterian Dissenters." Here he married Miss Martha Wright, the daughter of one of Extraordinary Memory of Rev. Thos. Threlkeld. 33 his congregation. In 1778 he removed to Rochdale, where, after 28 years of ministerial work, he died April 6, 1806. After this brief sketch of Threlkeld's uneventful life we turn to consider his extraordinary acquirements. When he first went to the Daventry academy, he could, on any passage of the Bible being recited, at once, and without hesitation, name the chapter and verse where it was to be found ; and if chapter and verse were named he was able at once to repeat the words. His powers in this respect were often tested by his fellow-students, and were never known to fail. One of his contemporaries at Warrington was the Rev. Thomas Barnes, D.D., then of course only a student. Mr. Barnes, with no thought of testing Mr. Threlkeld's powers, told an anecdote of " a parish clerk, who, having occasion to read the words ' Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek,' sung them out in a manner so ridiculous that no person could have heard him without a smile. Mr. T. immediately replied, ' These verses are in the 83rd Psalm and 7th verse.' And then joined most heartily in the laugh which he had himself unconsciously heightened by the oddness and gravity of his quotation." Dr. Enfield once challenged him to tell the- place of a text upon which he had been preaching. Mr. T. asked for a Bible and found the passage, saying, " Quote fair, sir, and you shall have a fair answer. But I knew that you had confounded two verses together, which stand at a considerable distance asunder. You have joined the 5th and loth verses as though they were one. I knew your trick, and I asked for the Bible that the company might with their own eyes detect you." 34 Lancashire Gleanings. So firmly was Threlkeld's reputation established as a living concordance that in the latter years of his life his clerical brethren ceased to "amuse themselves by these experiments," in which he was uniformly successful. His powers of memory were often tested in other directions, and were never known to play false. As one of the managers of the fund for the benefit of the widows of Presbyterian ministers he was often appealed to on matters connected with the lives of deceased ministers, " and such was the opinion of his accuracy that if the books had been consulted, and had reported differently, the error would have been imputed to the secretary, and not to Mr. T's memory. This was deemed infallible." Mr. Threlkeld was also a linguist. " Nine or ten languages it is certainly known that he read, not merely without difficulty, but with profound and critical skill." There is often a tendency to over-rate the number of languages acquired by individuals, but this statement appears to be made with due deliberation, and a critical knowledge of nine distinct tongues entitles the individual possessing it to rank only one degree lower than Mezzofanti and Sir William Jones. Mr. Threl- keld had books in the following languages, with all of which he is supposed to have had some acquaintance : " English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, with its dialects ; French, Italian, Spanish, German, Welsh, Dutch, Swedish, Gaelic, Manx, Arabic, Portuguese, Danish, Flemish." With the Greek Testament he was as familiar as with its English translation, and could quote and refer to chapter and verse with the same facility. His knowledge of Hebrew was profound. There is an anecdote illustrative of his extreme fondness Extraordinary Memory of Rev. Thos. Threlkcld. 3 5 for the Welsh language, with which he was well acquainted. When Dr. Priestley went to Wrexham to marry Miss Wilkinson he was accompanied by Mr. Threlkeld, who was to act as parent and give the bride away. The marriage service commenced and all went on well until the clergyman inquired who giveth this woman to be married to this man ? when, to the consternation of the marriage party, the deputy-father was nowhere to be seen. A search at once began, and they found him at last buried in a large and lofty pew, where the charms of a Welsh Bible had caused him to forget everything else ! His powers of recollection were not confined to words. Historical dates he remembered with equal accuracy, and was familiar with the details of chronology, heraldry, and genealogy, which were favourite amusements of his ; and he could go through the pedigrees of many distinguished families, trace the succession of all the Episcopal Sees, and in other ways show his remarkable familiarity with family history. " But the most distinguish- ing excellence of Mr. T.'s memory lay in biography." He had long collected all the dates he could, not only concern- ing persons mentioned in history, but of every one of whom he could learn any facts. He had a passion for acquiring dates of events. To know when a person was born or married was a source of gratification to him apart from the importance or otherwise of the person. He revelled in these "smallbeer chronicles," and was always happy in the acquisition of this minute knowledge. His taste for inquiries of this sort must sometimes have been mistaken for a desire to pry into family affairs by those unable to 36 Lancashire Gleanings. conceive of the pleasure to be derived from a simple know- ledge of facts. Mr. Threlkeld in other respects appears to have been a man of fair average abilities. He was extremely modest, and had the simplicity of a child when apart from his books. In fact, from the description we have of him,. he would appear to have been a good-hearted, awkward scholar, as gentle and as ungainly as Dominie Sampson. He was so short-sighted that he did not dare to ride on horseback, because in that elevated position he could not see the ground. The extreme shortness of his sight, no doubt, added to his shyness and helplessness. Dr. Barnes, from whom all these details have been drawn, often tried to discover the method by which his friend was en- abled to command the immense army of facts with which his. mind was stored. " Mr. T. told him that he classed them together by the year, and referred every new entry to that which lay nearest to it. He endeavoured to explain himself by saying, 'The year you have just mentioned was 1631. In that year Mr. Philip Henry was born. I have, therefore, laid up that name along with his ; and they are now so associated that whilst I retain the one I shall not forget the other.'" This explanation does not throw much light upon the matter, beyond the fact that it shows his method to have depended upon the association of ideas. " From his description," says Dr. Barnes, " so far as I could understand it, his mind appeared to be divided and fitted up like a shop, furnished with shelves and drawers for every different kind of articles, so that every new article was immediately referred to its own place, and so joined with those which Extraordinary Memory of Rev. Thos. Threlkeld. 37 stood there before, that the whole row presented itself at once, like soldiers drawn up in a line." This is certainly one of the most remarkable cases of extraordinary memory on record, and it rests upon very good evidence. Dr. Barnes drew up a notice of Mr. Threlkeld, which was read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Man- chester twenty years before that gentleman's death. Dr. Percival, Mr. Thomas Henry, and others who were members of the Society, were also intimate with the subject of the paper, and could confirm its statement from personal know- ledge. The diffidence and humility of Mr. Threlkeld were the reasons why the paper was not printed in the memoirs of the Society. With all his prodigious knowledge, Threlkeld never made any contribution to literature ; his great power served no higher purpose than to excite the astonishment and admiration of a small circle of friends. The statements contained in this notice are made on the authority of the following tract : " A sermon preached at Rochdale, April 13, 1806, on occasion of the death of the Rev. Thomas Threlkeld, minister of a dissenting congrega- tion in that place. To which is added an appendix con- taining some account of the life and character of Mr. Threlkeld, and particularly of the powers of memory, and of the treasures of knowledge possessed by him. By Thomas Barnes, D.D., fellow of the American Philosophical Society. Manchester, printed by S. Russell, Deansgate. 1806." Threlkeld is also alluded to, though not named, in the preface to Priestley's " Index to the Bible," 1805. SUNDAY IN THE OLDEN TIME. Sweet day so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky. GEORGE HERBERT. Of all the days that's in the week, I dearly love but one day, And that's the day that comes betwixt A Saturday and Monday. HENRY CAREY. Sally in Otir Alky. BEFORE the period of the Puritans, the Sunday was not ranked higher in any marked degree than the other festivals observed by the church. A letter of Pope Gregory advises the English clergy to substitute for the heathen feasts some religious festivals. On the days in which the dedication of the churches or the sufferings of the martyrs were memor- ialised, the people were allowed to make booths of the boughs of trees by the church, and to celebrate the solemnity with religious feasting, and no more offer beasts to the devil. (Bede.) Thus originated the wakes and fairs. These in some instances became great centres of trading activity, and in others remained merely exhibitions of rustic festivity. Sunday in the Olden Time. 39 Another occasion for merry-making was the ceremony of the " rush-bearing." The floors were strewn with rushes for the comfort of the worshippers in an age when cushions and hot water pipes were alike unknown in the sacred edifices. This provision against winter cold was made into a festival. The young folk gathered the long rushes, which were piled up high on a cart, that was also decorated with ribbons and plate borrowed from the neighbours, and drawn through the villiage preceded by morris-dancers. Some of these rush- bearings, in name at least, are still maintained, as at Barrowford, Holme, Downham. On the first Sunday in May the high hill of Hambleton is visited by many cele- brants of its fair. Warton rush-bearing was held on the Sunday nearest August 5th. "The wakes" was originally the festival of the saint under whose invocation the parish church was placed. In 1536 order was made that the dedication day should be kept instead. The fair of Weeton, near Kirkham, began on Palm Sunday, and was character- ised by the plentiful consumption of " bragget," a hot, sweet ale made without hops. Hence the name "Bragget Sunday." The last bear-baiting took place in 1790. (Fishwick's "Kirkham," p. 207.) Inglewhite fair formerly began on Rogation Sunday, and every householder of the village had liberty to sell ale from the Saturday preceeding to the Saturday which ended the fair. Another Sunday festival was that known as "merry fair," at Samesbury. The " merry " is the local name of the wild cherry, which grows abundantly in the neighbourhood of the Ribble, and is much appreciated by the younger folk. The humours 4O Lancashire Gleanings. of Turton fair were satirised by a local rhymster of the last century, when the village had thirteen houses at the most. The people worked hard for weeks beforehand in order to have money to spare at this festival. A service in the chapel was followed by the usual amusements, fairings and fights. Social festivals, as Simnel Sunday, Carling Sunday, Palm Sunday, Easter Sunday, were kept up with great spirit. The church was not only the place for public worship, but the scene of many occurrences that would now be thought inappropriate to the sacred edifice. Thus, on Sunday, De- cember 4th, 1474, Nicholas del Rylond came into the parish church of Leigh, and in the presence of the congregation swore that he had never made any feoffment of his lands in Westhoughton, or authorised his son to do so. The vicar of Leigh, after receiving this purgation, solemnly cursed the kneeling man if he had been guilty of perjury, and pro- nounced accursed all those who had aided William Rylonds, the son, in forging this deed. The form of cursing by "bell, book, and candle " must have impressed the rude imagination of the people. The cross was lifted up, the candles lighted, and then the priest in his vestments, by the authority of God Almighty, of the Virgin, of the saints, angels, prophets, martyrs, and confessors, and by the power of "all holy church that our Lord Jesus Christ -gave to St. Peter," de- prived those whom he denounced of all share in the Christian sacraments, and cursed them from the sole of their foot to the crown of their head, sleeping and waking, sitting and standing, in all their words and works, and unless they had the grace of God to amend them here in this life, to dwell for Sunday in the Olden Time. 41 ever in the pain of hell without end. As he reached the close of this tremendous imprecation, the priest closed his book, extinguished the candle, and rang the bell. To the superstitious minds before him it would sound like the knell of a lost soul. (" Lancashire and Cheshire Historic Notes," part 2, p. 161.) In Yorkshire, at the Christmastide, they danced in the churches, crying "Yole, Yole, Vole." (Buckle,. "Miscel- laneous Works," p. 547.) A passage in Dray ton shows that the Lancashire lads and lasses were equally fond of such festal observances : So blyth and bonny now the lads and lasses are That ever as anon the bagpie up doth blow, Cast in a gallant round about the hearth they go, And at each pause they kiss, was never seen such rule In any place but here, at bonfire, or at yule ; And every village smokes at wakes with lusty cheer, Then hey they cry for Lun, and hey for Lancashire. Legal documents were frequently made on the Sunday. On the Vigil of St. Lawrence, 1298, Gilbert fitz Richard de Culchit granted to Hugh de Hyndelegh all his manor of Culchit for life, with remainder, as to one half to his wife Beatrice for life if she should over-live him. Other examples will be found in the deeds relating to Birch and Platt. ("Lancashire and Cheshire Historic Notes," part i, p. 25. Cf. Birch, 202.) After attendance at the early services of the Church, the day was chiefly devoted to honest recreation and manly sports. In 1388 Richard II. enjoins upon his subjects that 42 Lancashire Gleanings. servants of husbandry and artificers shall use the bow upon Sundays and holidays, but should abandon " tennis, football, cartes, dice, casting of the stone, and other importune games." A law of Henry IV. imposed a penalty of six days' imprisonment upon the infringers of this statute. (Neale's "Feasts and Festivals," p. 224.) The day was not thought inappropriate for the execution of important measures of police. Thus at nine o'clock on Sunday night, July loth, 1570, a search was made throughout Lancashire, Cheshire, and other parts of the kingdom, for vagrants, beggars, gamesters, rogues, or gipsies. The search lasted all through the night, and until four o'clock on Monday afternoon, and resulted in the apprehension of 13,000 masterless men. (Baines, 1868, i., 169.) Elections were not postponed if the appointed time fell upon the first day of the week. At Liverpool, the election of a mayor and bailiff is directed by the charter to commence upon St. Luke's Day; and when that day fell upon a Sunday, the election was proceeded with even in the present century. (Parliamentary Paper : Return made by W. Stratham, jun., deputy town clerk, in 1832.) Sunday was also not unusually selected for the perfor- mance of mystery and miracle plays. Several collections of these dramas have come down to us. The Corpus Christi plays sometimes began on the Sunday at "six of the bell." (Sharpe, p. 7.) Weever, who was a Lan- cashire man, tells us that Richard "Marlow was Lord Mayor in the year 1409, in whose mayoralty there was a play at Skinners' Hall, which lasted eight days (saith Sunday in the Olden Time. 43 Stow) 'to hear which most of the greatest estates of England were present.' The subject of the play was the sacred Scriptures from the creation of the world. They call this Corpus Christi play in my country, which I have seen acted at Preston and Lancaster, and last of all at Kendall, in the beginning of the reign of King James ; for which the towns- men were sore troubled ; and upon good reasons the play finally supprest, not only there but in all other townes of the kingdom." ("Funeral Monuments," p. 405.) That the religious teaching of the Mysteries was not very effective is evidenced by a statement of the Rev. John Shaw, an earnest Puritan at Cartmel, who found the people ignorant but willing, and frequently had some thousands of hearers who thronged the church so, that at nine o'clock in the morning he had great difficulty in reaching the pulpit. One day he met an old man, "sensible enough in other things," who was ignorant of all knowledge of God, and apparently devoid of theological information of any kind. When the minister began to explain about Christ to the old man, " Oh, sir," said he, " I think I heard of that man you speak of once in a play at Kendall, called Corpus Christ's play, where there was a man on a tree, and blood ran down," &c. And afterwards he professed that he could not remember that he ever heard of salvation by Jesus but in that play. The accounts of the Shuttleworths of Gawthorp contain many entries of gratuities paid to players and wandering minstrels. They were in especial demand when marriages or other festivities were being celebrated. Gawthorp appears 44 Lancashire Gleanings. to have patronised them freely at the wedding of Ann and Ellinor Shuttleworth. The players of Sir Peter Leigh, of the Earl of Essex, of the Earl of Derby, of Lord Dudley, of Lord Mounteagle, and of Lord Stafford repeatedly visited the mansions of Smithills and Gawthorp between 1586 and 1617. There were also players who were described as of, or from, Preston, Nantwich, Garstang, Blackburn, Chester, Downham, &c. The piper of Padiham, the musicians of Chester, the waits of Halifax, are also mentioned as receiving gratuities. In the early history of the drama, the plays appear to have been "acted upon Sundays only; after 1579 they were acted on Sundays and other days indiscrimin- ately." Thus, in 1589, the Queen's players and the Earl of Essex's players arrived at Knowsley, and on the Sunday following, the rector of Standish preached in the morning, the Queen's men acted in the afternoon, and the Earl's men at night. At Lathom, on Sunday, nth January, 1589, Mr. Caldwell preached in the morning, and "that night the players played." September i3th, Mr. Leigh preached, and the Queen's players played in the afternoon, and Lord Essex's at night. (" Stanley Papers" and " Shuttleworth Ac- counts," Chetham Society.) Dean NowelPs account book shews a gift of i2d. to the minstrel of Sir Thomas Hesketh, of Rufford. Alexander Hoghton bequeathed all his musical instruments and play clothes to his brother Thomas, if he decided to keep players ; and if not, to Sir Thomas Hesketh.* * Thomas Newton, of Chester, in a treatise touching dice play and profane gaming, remarks " Augustine forbiddeth us to bestowe any Sunday in the Olden Time. 45 As an evidence of the rising tide of Puritanism, we find that in 1590 complaint was made that the "popish fasts and festivals" were better observed than "the Sabbath," and that on the latter day, fairs and markets were commonly held in most towns, and wakes, ales, greens, maygames, rushbearings, doveales, bonfires, gaming, piping and dancing celebrated upon it. (Chetham Society, vol. xcvi., p. 2.) We have no records of the acting of Mystery Plays in Manchester ; but one often-cited passage shews that Bradford the Martyr, preaching in the reign of Edward VI., "told the people, as it were by a prophetical spirit, that as they did not readily embrace the Word of God, mass should be said again in that church, and the play of Robin Hood acted there, which accordingly came to pass in Queen Mary's reign." (Hollingworth's " Mancuniensis.") Robin Hood often had a part in the May-day festivities. It is possible that this may have been the "playe of Robyn Hode very proper to be played in Maye Games," which was printed by Copland. The characters are, Little John, Friar Tuck, the Potter (who is represented with a rose garland on his head), and his boy Jacke. As the play ends very abruptly, it may be only a fragment, especially as Maid Marian does not appear on the scene. The sport of the Lord of Misrule is described by Stubbes, the fanatical money for the seeing of stage plays and enterludes, or to give anything unto players therein ; and yet these kind of persons doe, after a sorte, let out their labour unto us, and their Industrie many times is laudable." 46 Lancashire Gleanings. Puritan. The wild heads of the parish having appointed one to be " my Lord of Misrule," he made choice of twenty or even a hundred companions, who dressed in gay- coloured clothes and decked out in scarfs, ribbons, and laces, and hung over with " gold rings, precious stones, and other jewels" have each from twenty to twenty-four bells on their legs, "with rich handkerchiefs in their hands and sometimes laid across their shoulders, borrowed for the most part of their pretty Mopsies and loving Bessies for bussing them in the dark." This gay throng, with their "hobby-horses, their dragons, and other antiques," with pipers and drummers, danced along through the crowd of admiring villagers to the church, "though the minister be at church or preaching." The folk in the church stood up on forms and pews to watch this motley procession, which, leaving the church, proceeded outside, where booths and arbours were fixed. " And thus," exclaims Puritan Stubbes, " these terrestrial furies spend the Sabboth day." Another Puritan states that the maymarrions were men dressed up as women, contrary to Deut. xxii. 5, and that the morris dancers sometimes "danced naked in nets;" and that the custom of young men and girls going on the previous even- ing to fetch the mayboughs was a source of impropriety. (Douce's "Illustrations," p. 584.) Northbrook makes the same accusation. The morris dance is considered to be a modification of a Moorish dance. Peck considers that it was introduced into England on the return of John of Gaunt, but Douce thinks it more likely to have come from the French or the Flemings. Morris dancers accompanied Sunday in the Olden Time. 47 the Robin Hood pageant, but were, at least originally, a subsidiary part of the spectacle. The morris dancers con- tinued to be in favour in Lancashire, but their Sunday sports were remitted to a more fitting day. Ritson copies from the London Star, a notice of the visit of the morris dancers of Pendleton to Salford, on Monday, 3oth July, 1792. (Ritson, R. H., i., ccxxiii.) The honours paid the Queen of the May, whether represented by a male " Maid Marian " or by some rustic beauty elected to be mistress of the sports, is in all probability a survival of the worship once paid to the goddess Flora in the Roman festival. (Douce, p. 590.) The hobby-horse was a structure of pasteboard, counter- feiting the head and tail of a horse, the omitted parts of the beast being covered by a cloth, and the simulated cavalier exerting all his skill in grotesque parodies of equestrian ability. From the horse's mouth was suspended a ladle, for the contributions of the admiring audience. Amongst all but the highest classes, Sunday was the chief time for social festivities. The wedding feasts or "bride ales " were held on the Sunday, and the feasting at them was the subject of many regulations by the Court Leet Jury of Manchester. It was decreed in 1566 that not more than fourpence a head should be paid at these gatherings, and those who exceeded that sum were fined in 305. The wed- ding guests were enlivened by the music of the town waits, and the Court Leet set their face against any attempt to introduce strange musicians, to the prejudice of the pipers of the town. In 1569, exception as to cost was made in 48 Lancashire Gleanings. favour of " ales for highways, bridges, or churches." These " ales " were assemblages for social and business purposes, which sometimes degenerated into dangerous license. It was ordered in 1574, that any person "found drunken in any ale house," should pass a night in the dungeon and pay a fine of 6d. ; and if he were too poor to find this sum, then " the goodman or the goodwife " of the ale house had to pay for him. If the ale seller was found drunk, he was to be imprisoned for the night, "and from thenceforth be discharged from alehouse-keeping." Children and servants frequented the wedding ales, and this was forbidden by fines levied on the fathers and masters. ("Manchester Court Leet Records," Chetham Society.) In 1579, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, Henry, Earl of Derby, Henry, Earl of Huntington, and William, Bishop of Chester, in an assembly at Manchester, issued a procla- mation against "pipers and minstrels making and frequenting bear-baiting and bull-baiting on the Sabbath days or upon any other days; and also against superstitious ringing of bells, wakes and common feasts, drunkenness, gaming, and other vicious and unprofitable pursuits." This cannot have been very operative, for a document probably issued in March, 1589, and signed by J. Byron, R. Shirborn, E. Trafford, and other Lancashire gentlemen sets forth that " the enormities of the Sabothe " are, wakes, fairs, markets, bear-baits, bull-baits, ales, May games, resorting to ale houses in times of divine service, piping and dancing, hunting, and all manner of unlawful gaming. The document then calls upon mayors, churchwardens, &c., to suppress these enor- Simday in the Olden Time. 49 mities by all lawful means. In this year, Robert Asnall, of Gorton, "was slain with a bull at the stake." ("Lancashire Lieutenancy," Chetham Society, p. 218.) The teaching of the Puritans was set forth by Dr. Nicholas Bound, who, in 1595, and again at 1606, issued a weighty treatise, in which the identity of the Sabbath and Sunday was asserted, and the strictest view taken of the obligations of the day, and of the sinfulness of recreation upon it. The insertion of the fourth commandment in the Liturgy, and the prayer of the people that their hearts might be " inclined to keep this law" had paved the way for the Puritan doctrine. It spread with rapidity, and was embraced with great fervour. "On this day," says Fuller, "the stoutest fencer laid down the buckler; the most skilful archer un- bent his bow, counting all shooting beside the mark ; May games and morris dances grew out of request } and good reason that bells should be silenced from jingling about men's legs, if their very ringing in steeples were adjudged unlawful. Some of them were ashamed of their former pleasures, like children, which, grown bigger, blush them- selves out of their rattles and whistles. Others forebore for fear of their superiors ; and many left off out of a politic compliance, lest otherwise they should be accounted licen- tious." Bound allowed cooking of meat on Sundays ; but whilst he denied the lawfulness of the labour of harvest and seed time, he was willing to allow something to the " feasts of noblemen and great personages," since they represent in some measure "the majesty of God on the earth"! The essence of Bound's doctrine, reduced to practice, is that 5O Lancashire Gleanings. " upon the Lord's day we ought to rest from all honest recre- ations and lawful delights." He called upon the civil power to enforce this Sabbath. The Sunday entries in the private diary of Dr. John Dee, Warden of Manchester, are notable, as its latest editor has pointed out, for saying very little about the spiritual condition of the parish over which Dee presided. We find him paying wages and receiving cattle from his Welsh kinsfolk. On Sunday, the 2ist of August, 1597, he records that "The Earl and Cowntesse of Derby had a banket at my lodging at the Colledge hora 4^." The banquet of this period we are told by Wright was " often held in the garden." At the banquet the choicest wines were brought forth, and the table was covered with pastry and sweetmeats, of which our fore- fathers at this period appear to have been extremely fond. Marchpanes or biscuits made of sugar and almonds, in different fanciful forms, such as men, animals, houses, &c., were often provided. There was generally one at least in the form of a castle, which the ladies and gentlemen were to batter to pieces, in frolic, by attacking it with sugar plums. (Wright, "Home of Other Days," p. 471.) Robert Hey wood, in his " Observations," has this verse : Playinge upon the Saboeth dayes To breed distractions in the minde, Yea, full as much and many wayes As worke or worldly thoughts I finde : Then rest thy minde (instead of playe) In God, and sport another day. When James I. in 1617, on his return from Scotland, Stmday in the Olden Time. 51 passed through Lancashire, there was every desire to do him honour, and to give him a hearty welcome. On the i4th of August he came to Carlisle, and thence by Appleby, Whar- ton, Kendal, Hornby Castle, and Ashton, to Myerscough and Houghton Tower. Sir Richard Houghton had induced many of the lesser gentry of the neighbourhood to assume his livery, in order to give greater grace to the festivities. The request was made to Nicholas Assheton and his "brother Sherborne," on Sunday, the ist of June. This remnant of feudal clanship was well understood to be merely a token of good will, and not to indicate any relation of de- pendency. One of those who thus put on Sir Richard's cloth was Nicholas Assheton of Downham, who has left, in the rough memoranda of his diary, some striking pictures of the festivities. Sir Richard went forward to meet the king, but the monarch had made his entrance into the forest of Garstang by another way. He was overtaken by the Lan- cashire gentry with Sir Richard at their head, who stept to the side of the king's coach, and told him that there his majesty's forest began. After the arrival at Myerscough Lodge the king hunted and killed a buck. The next day was marked by more hunting and by a royal declaration, which was afterwards to become famous as the "Book of Sports." When Squire Nicholas listened to "the king's speech about liberty to piping and honest recreation," he had probably very little idea of the controversies and results that would arise from the promulgation of that apparently welcome and well-timed announcement. It is stated that a petition was presented to the king by a great number of 52 Lancashire Gleanings. peasants, tradesmen, and servants of the county palatine, asking that they might be allowed the old liberty of out-door diversions after the services of the church. Where or when this memorial was presented is nowhere stated, nor are its terms extant. Certainly those who disliked the innovations of the Puritans lost no time ; for the king's speech is recorded by Assheton as having been delivered on the first day that his majesty was in Lancashire. The county, it must be re- membered, was equally noted for its "Puritans" and its " Papists," two classes for whom the monarch had a hearty dislike. Bishop Morton's biographer received from that prelate an account of the origin of the "Book of Sports," which is probably as accurate a statement as can now be obtained. The recusants not unnaturally made the most of the differ- ence between the Sundays of the Church before and after the Reformation, and represented Protestantism as a religion of gloom and austerity. The leaders of the recusants hoped "to keep the people from church by dancing and other recreations, even in the time of divine service, especially on holy days and the Lord's day in the afternoon." Mor- ton denounced these Sunday recreations, and endeavoured to repress them in his primary visitation. The Lancashire lads were not so easily to be converted from their old sports, and so some friends of the recusants, or some enemies of the gloom of the Puritan Sabbath, represented his action to the king as a "high grieVance." James I., with all his bad qualities, was no enemy of mirth, and his temperament would lead him to sympathise with the plea for Sunday sports, and hence, no doubt, his rebuke of those who would, as it was Sunday in the Olden Time. 53 then phrased, judaize the Sunday. Their triumph over the ecclesiastics "encouraged some to so much boldness the next Lord's Day after, as even to disturb the public worship and service of God by their piping and dancing within hearing of all those that were at church." Before proceed- ing with the Bishop's narrative, let us see how the King and his suite spent this particular Sunday. Assheton and his fellow-gentlemen servitors offered the lords assembled biscuit, wine, and jelly, as the prelude to a sermon preached by Bishop Morton, after which the company proceeded to dinner. The menu of this repast has survived, and may serve as a contrast to the banquets of more modern times. SUNDAY'S DINNER, THE 17111 OF AUGUST. FOR THE LORDS' TABLE. FIRST COURSE : Pullets boiled capon mutton, boiled boiled chickens shoulder of mutton, roast ducks, boiled loin of veal, roast pullets haunch of venison, roast burred capon pasty of venison, hot roast turkey veal, burred swan, roast, one; and one for to-morrow chicken pye, hot goose, roasted rabbits, cold jiggits of mutton, boiled snipe pye breast of veal, boiled capons, roast pullet beef, roast tongue pye, cold sprod, boiled herons roast, cold curlew pye, cold mince pye, hot custards pig, roast. SECOND COURSE : Hot pheasant, one ; and one for the king quails, six for the king partridge poults artichoke pye chickens curlews, roast peas, buttered rabbits duck plovers red deer pye pig, burred hot herons, roast, three of a dish lamb, roast 54 Lancashire Gleanings. gammon of bacon pigeons, roast made dish chicken, burred pear tart pullets and grease dryed tongues turkey pye pheasant pye pheasant tart hogs' cheeks, dryed turkey, chicks, cold. The dinner was followed, about four o'clock, by a rush- bearing, preceded by " piping." The king was a spectator in the Middle Court of this rustic festival. Doubtless the rush cart would be even more heavily laden than usual with its borrowed finery, and the lads and lasses who frolicked around it in their holiday costume, decked out with garlands and ribbons, would do their best to show their rural merri- ment in its most attractive aspect to the " dread monarch," surrounded by his brilliant courtiers. After this amusement the Court proceeded to supper, which, if less formidable in its character than the dinner, was not merely a ceremonial institution, as this "note of the diet" will show: FIRST COURSE : Pullet boiled capon cold mutton ducks, boiled chickens, baked pullet cold neat's-tongue pye plovers chickens pear tart rabbits shoulder of mutton, roast chicken, boiled cold capon roast veal rabbits, boiled pullet turkey, roast pasty of venison, hot shoulder of venison, roast herons, cold sliced beef umble pye neat's-tongue, roast sprod, boiled curlews baked, cold turkeys baked, cold neat's feet boiled rabbits rabbits, fried. SECOND COURSE : Quails poults herons pease, buttered made dish ducks gammon of bacon red deer pye pigeons wild boar pye curlew dry neat's tongue neat's-tongue tart dried hog's cheek red deer pye. (Nichols, "Progresses of James I.," p. 402.) Sunday in the Olden Time. 55 After supper, the king adjourned to the middle round of the garden, and then, about ten or eleven o'clock, there passed before him a masque of noblemen, knights, and gen- tlemen. There were some speeches, followed by "dancing the Huckler, Tom Bedlo, and the cowp Justice of the Peace." Sometime during this busy day, it is to be pre- sumed, Bishop Morton complained of the profaneness of those whose merriment had disturbed the worshippers at church. The king, whose reputation for piety was all that could be desired, disavowed any intention of countenancing such excesses, and left the offenders to the censure of the bishop, who was content with " causing the piper to be laid up by the heels," and causing one person not named, who was the head and front of the offence, to make public acknowledgment and .penance. Some of the gentry at Houghton Tower, however, still contended that the bishop's action in regard to Sunday observance had been harsh and tyrannical. The chief thing they desired " was only some innocent recreation for servants and other inferior people on the Lord's Day and holy days, whose laborious callings deprived them of it at all other times." James therefore consulted with Morton as to the best way of rinding a medium between liberty and license. The bishop thereupon left Houghton Tower, and proceeded to his own lodging at Preston, and " considered of six limitations or restrictions, by way of conditions to be imposed upon every man that should enjoy the benefit of that liberty." Next day the bishop presented the result of his labours to the king, probably at Lathom House. The British Solomon 56 Lancashire Gleanings. added a seventh condition, and said that he very well approved what had been written, and would only alter it from the words of a bishop to the words of a king. It was issued as a proclamation from the Court at Greenwich in 1618. The king, after reciting "the general complaint of our people that they are barred from all lawful recreation and exercise upon the Sunday's afternoon, after the ending of divine service," expresses a fear that this will aid the Romanists by giving them an occasion to represent that "no honest mirth or recreation is tolerable in our religion," and is further apprehensive that this prohibition barreth the common and meaner sort of people from using such exercises as may make their bodies more able for war." Drunkenness and discontented speeches in ale houses are also named as flowing from this source : " For when shall the common people have leave to exercise, if not upon the Sundays and holidays, seeing they must apply their labour, and win their living in all working days?" The bishop of the diocese was, therefore, required to make the "Puritans and Precisians" to comform to public worship; but those who had been to church were to be at liberty after the close of the service, and should not be prohibited lawful recreation, "such as dancing either men or women, archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any other such harmless recreation ; nor from having of May-games, Whitson-ales, and morris dances, and the setting up of May-poles and other sports therewith used, so as the same be had in due and convenient time, without impediment or let of divine service ; and that women shall have leave Simday in the Olden Time. 57 to carry rushes to the church for the decoring of it according to their old custom. But withal we do here account still as prohibited all unlawful games to be used upon Sunday only, as bear and bull baitings, interludes, and at all times in the meaner sort of people by law prohibited, bowling." This is the essential part of the "Book of Sports," the remainder being a prohibition of recusants and non-churchgoers from participation in the liberty it allowed. Fuller has recorded "what grief and distraction thereby was occasioned in many honest men's hearts." It may be well to quote this document in full, as it has often been misrepresented. " U BY THE KING. " Whereas upon Our returne the last yere out of Scotland, We did publish Our Pleasure touching the recreations of Our people in those parts under Our hand : For some causes Vs thereunto moouing, Wee haue thought good to command these Our Directions then giuen in Lanca- shire with a few words thereunto added, and most appliable to these of Our Realmes, to bee published to all Our Subiects. "Whereas Wee did iustly in our Progresse through Lancashire, rebuke some Puritanes and precise people, and tooke order that the like vnlawfull carriage should not bee vsed by any of them hereafter, in the prohibiting and vnlawfull punishing of Our good people for vsing their lawfull Recreations, and honest exercises vpon Sundayes and other Holy dayes, after the afternoone Sermon or 58 Lancashire Gleanings. Seruice : Wee now finde that two sorts of people where- with that Countrey is much infected, (Wee meane Papists and Puritanes) haue maliciously traduced and calumniated those Our iust and honourable proceedings. And, there- fore, lest Our reputation might vpon the one side (though innocently) haue some aspersion layd vpon it, and that vpon the other part Our good people in that Countrey be misled by the mistaking and misinterpretation of Our meaning : We have, therefore, thought good hereby to cleare and make Our pleasure to be manifested to all Our good people in those parts. " It is true that Our first entry to this Crowne, and King- dome, We were informed, and that too truely, that Our County of Lancashire abounded more in Popish Recusants then any County in England, and thus hath still continued since to Our great regrett, with little amendmet, saue that now of late, in Our last riding through Our said County, Wee find both by the report of the Judges, and of the Bishop of that diocesse, that there is some amendment now daily beginning, which is no small contentment to Vs. "The report of this growing amendment amongst them made Vs the more sorry, when with Our owne Eares We heard the generall complaint of Our people, that they were barred from all lawfull Recreation and exercise vpon the Sundayes afternoone, after the ending of all Diuine Seruice, which cannot but produce two euils : The one, the hindering of the conuersion of many, whom their Priests will take occasion hereby to vex, persuading them that no honest mirth or recreation is lawfull or tolerable Sunday in the Olden Time. 59 in Our Religion, which cannot but breed a great discon- tentment in Our peoples hearts, especially of such as are peraduenture vpon the point of turning; The other inconuenience is, that this prohibition barreth the com- mon and meaner sort of people from vsing such exercises as may make their bodies more able for Warre, and Wee or Our Successours shall haue occasion to vse them. And in place thereof set vp filthy tiplings and drunkennesse, and breeds a number of idle and discontented speeches in their Alehouses. For when shall the common people haue leave to exercise, if not vpon the Sundayes and holy- daies, seeing they must apply their labour and win their liuing in all working daies ? "Our expresse pleasure, therefore, is that the Lawes of Our Kingdome, and Canons of Our Church : which to expresse more particularly, Our pleasure is, That the Bishop, and all other inferiour Churchmen, and Church- wardens, shall for their parts be carefull and diligent, both to instruct the ignorant, and conuince and reforme them that are mis-led in Religion, presenting them that will not conforme themselues, but obstinately stand out to put the Law in due execution against them. "Our pleasure likewise is, That the Bishop of that Diocesse take the like straight order with all the Puritanes and Precisians within the same, either constraining them to conforme themselues, or to leaue the County according to the Lawes of our Kingdome and Canons of Our Church, and is to strike equally on both hands, against the contemners of Our Authority and Adversaries of Our 60 Lancashire Gleanings. Church. And as for Our good peopells lawfull Recreation, Our Pleasure like is, That after Diuine Seruice, Our good people be not disturbed, letted, or discourged from any lawfull recreation, Such as dauncing, either men or women, archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any ohther such harm- lesse Recreation, nor from hauing May-Games, Whitson Ales, and Morrisdances, and the setting vp of May-poles and other sports therewith vsed, so as the same be had in due and conuenient time, without impediment or neglect of Diuine Seruice : And that women shall haue leaue to carry rushes to the Churches for the decoring of it, accord- ing to their old costam. But withall We doe here account still as prohibited all vnlawfull games to bee vsed vpon Sundayes onely, as Beare and Bullbaitings, Interludes, and at all times in the meaner sort of people by law prohibited, Bowling. " And likewise We barre from this benefite and liberty, all such known recusants, either men or women, as will abstain from coming to Church or Diuine Seruice, being therefore vnworthy of any lawfull recreation after the said Seruice, that will not first come to the Church and serue God : Prohibiting in like sort the said Recreations to any that, though conforme in Religion, are not present in the Church at the Seruice of God, before their going to the said Recreations. Our pleasure likewise is, That they to whom it belongeth in Office, shall present and sharpely punish all such as in abuse of this Our liberty, will vse these exercises before the ends of all Diuine Seruice for that day. And We likewise straightly command, that euery Sunday in the Olden Time. 61 person shall resort to his owne Parish Church to heare Diuine Seruice, and each Parish by it selfe to vse the said Recreation after Diuine Seruice. Prohibiting likewise any Offensiue weapons to be carried or vsed in the said times of Recreations. And Our pleasure is, That this Our Declaration shall bee published by order from the Bishop of the Diocese, through all the Parish Churches, and that both Our Judges of Our Circuit, and Our Justices of Our Peace be informed thereof. "Given at our Mannour of Greenwich the foure and twentieth day of May, in the sixteenth yeere of our reigne of England, France, and Ireland, and of Scotland the one and fiftieth." Nicholas Assheton, the Squire of Downham, though fond of field sports and not always abstemious in his habits, was yet a regular church-goer, and accounted a Puritan. On Sunday, September 17, he enters in his diary: "All to church. Mr. Leigh of " Stanish preached. Afternoon copyhold business in hand. Divers gentlemen went into the town with Sir John Talbot. My father lay in the abbey. I to Portfield again." The entry for the following 1 9th July is even further removed from the Puritan ideal : "Sherborne, Starkee, &c., to Clitheroe : staid drinking some wyne : soe to a summer game : Sherburne's mare run, and lost the bell : made merrie : staid untill, &c., 2 o'clock at Downham." Richard Sherburne, who on one occasion was so drunk on a Sunday that he fell and dislo- cated his shoulder, a few days later is found in hot argument 62 Lancashire Gleanings. about the impropriety of the curate of Slaidburne, who administered the Holy Communion without a surplice ! In 1625 an act received the royal assent of Charles I., by which bear-baiting, bull-baiting, interludes, common plays, and other "unlawful exercises" on Sunday were prohibited. It was especially directed against concourses of non-parishioners. In 1633, Charles I., by the advice of Archbishop Laud, reissued the " Book of Sports," with an explanatory preface. This was no doubt intended to coun- teract the growing strength and fervour of the Puritans, but it only intensified their zeal and their hatred of Laud. The impolitic action of Laud, in punishing those who con- scientiously refused to read this document, was one of the causes of his downfall. Ten years later the Long Parlia- ment caused this declaration to be burned by the common hangman. Some of the festivities allowed by the Book of Sports are described with animation in a " country song," preserved by Mr. Blundell :(" Cavalier's Note Book.") Robin and Ralph and Willy Took Susan and Ginnet and Cisly ; And Roger and Richard and Geordy Took Mary and Peggy and Marjory ; And danced a hornpipe merrily : Tired out the bagpipe and fiddle With dancing the hornpipe and didle. But Gilbert and Thomas and Harry, Whose sweethearts were Nell, Nan, and Marie, Took sides against Giles, James, and Richard, Whose wenches were Joan, Jane, and Bridget. Sunday in the Olden Time. 63 The wager was for a wheat cake. They danced till their bones did ache, That Gilbert and Nanny and Nellie Did sweat themselves into a jelly. The lads of Chowbent were there, And had brought their clogs to the bear ; But they had no time to play, They danced away the day ; For hither then they had brought Knex To play Chowbent hornpipe, that Nick's, Tommy's, and Geffrey's shoon Were worn quite through with the tune. The lads of Latham did dance Their Lord Strange hornpipe, which once ' Was held to be the best, And far to exceed all the rest. But now they do hold it too sober, And therefore will needs give it over. They call on their piper then jovially, " Play us brave Roger o' Coverley." The Meols men danced their Cop, And about the may-pole did hop, Till their shoes were so full of sand, That they could no longer stand. The Formby trotter supplied, Who, though that his breeches were wide, Yet would they ne'er give it o'er Till the piper was ready to snore. But Gilbert and Susan and Nanny, With Tom and Dick, Cisly, and many, 64 Lancashire Gleanings. Tripped and skipped full merrily, The music sounding out cheerily. Dick booted, Nel flouted, he shouted " Tak't thee James Pyper of Formby ; Tak't thee, tak't thee, tak't thee, Tak't thee James Pyper of Formby." At length it was time to go, And Susan did hear the cock crow. The maids might go make up the fires, Or else be chid by their sires. Next holyday, they'll ha' their fill At Johnson's o' th' Talke of the hill, Where Bell shall be brought to play. Alack, how I long for that day ! Views opposed to the Puritans were entertained by many in the Church. Thus, Bishop Sanderson allows "shoot- ing, leaping and pitching bar, stool ball," &c., as proper recreations for the " ruder sort of people," who would find no pleasure in the walking and discoursing that would be for men of liberal education "a pleasant recreation." In their zeal to reform the manners of the nation the theatres were closed, the Maypoles became illegal, the fairs, as far as possible, were reduced from festivals to mere market assem- blies, and generally all was done that could be done to dis- courage the old-fashioned amusements, whether on the week-day or the Sunday. How firmly the greater sanctity of the Sunday had taken hold of the English mind is shown in the account which Horrox has left of his famous observation of the transit of Venus in 1639. He began to watch for the phenomenon on Saturday at midday, Sunday in the Olden Time. 65 and continued his watch for more than four and twenty hours, except during certain intervals when he was " called away by business of the highest importance, which could not with propriety be neglected." The business which called away the greatest astronomical genius of his age from the most interesting and important astronomical phenomenon of the century, was that of preaching to the handful of people in the little church of Hoole, where Horrox ministered. Piety would scarcely have frowned if he had neglected her claims on this one occasion for the charms of Science. The Puritans had not only to contend with the opposition of the pleasure-loving, but with the stern refusal of those who out-heroded their masters, and logically insisted that real Sabbatarianism meant the observance of the seventh and not of the first day. Of this temper were John Traske and his wife. She lay in prison for fifteen years "for keeping the Jewish Sabbath and for working on the Lord's Day." Persons of this way of thinking were scattered up and down the country, and being made of good, honest, fanatical stuff, were proof against reproach and persecution. (Cox, i., 431.) The Grindletonians, although strict Puritans, were anti- Sabbatarian in their views, and held that Sunday " was to be observed as a lecture day." Their founder was Rodger Brierley, a native of Rochdale, who died at Burnley in 1637, but whose ministry was at Grindleton, in Craven. He was imprisoned at York, but released, and had a renewed license to preach from Bishop Tobias Matthews. (" Asshe- ton's Journal," p. 95.) George Fox was no Sabbatarian. 66 Lancashire Gleanings. The Quakers found it convenient to assemble for worship on the Sunday, but were careful to show that they enter- tained no superstitious reverence for the day over the other portions of the week. With the Restoration came a different order of affairs. The Cavaliers, who at Breda, in April, 1660, had seen the Duke of York, the Duke of Gloucester, and the Princess of Orange play at nine- pins on the Sunday, whilst the King, their brother, looked on, were not likely to sympathise with the Puritan severity of Sabbath observance. (" Cavalier's Note Book," p. 249.) With reference to the Sabbatarian legislation of that most religious King, Charles II., Buckle observes : " There are a great many laws in this reign for the observance of Sunday, or, as it was ignorantly called, the Sabbath. This could not proceed from Charles, but is an evidence of the existence of the puritanical element." (Mis. Works, iii., 639.) Yet Roger Lowe, a puritanically-inclined trades- man of Ashton-in-Makerfield, in his diary, records on Sundays being measured for clothes, many visits to friends and to the alehouse, where he was sometimes "merry;" much sweethearting, much chapel going ; and some meditations in fields, where he occasionally repeats the sermon. One extract from Roger's diary will give us a picture of a Sunday funeral in 1666: "December 16. I went to the funeral of Ann Taylor, who was married to Ralph Ashton in Abram, and I went fasting from home; so at noon, when we had buried the corpse, and expected according to custom to have some refreshment, and were a company of neighbours sat together round about a table : Sunday in the Olden Time. 67 as John Potter, Tho. Harrison, and others, the Doctor comes and prohibits the filling of any drink till after prayers ; so I came home with Thomas Harrison, and we expected to have called at Newton, but here we were disappointed. But at last, with much vexation, I got to Ashton with a hungry belly ; and honest Thomas Harrison and right true-hearted Ellen the hasty yet all love, did much refresh my hungry palate with a big cup half full, and after that half full again, of good pottage." (" Lowe's Diary," Leigh, 1877.) The Lancashire folk were fond of amusement then as now. A man who exhibited a dromedary in 1662 told Mr. Blundell of Crosby that he found more profit there than in any other county. John Butler the mountebank bore the same testimony. ( " Cavalier's Note Book," p. 97.) The superstitious fear of judgments was, however, still fed by such publications as " A letter from a gentleman in Man- chester to a friend, concerning a notorious blasphemer, who died in despair," &c. It is stated to be " Licens'd January 25th, 1694." It thus commences: "Sir, At Downham, near Clitheroe, in Lancashire, there lived one T. B. (the full of his name, for his surviving relations' sake, is concealed), about thirty-six years of age, well known in that town, at his death especially by the office he then bore of churchwarden. This miserable creature, notwith- standing the good education which his better parents had bestowed upon him, had for a great while indulged himself in an excess of wickedness, but chiefly in a sacrilegious abuse of the Lord's Day, on which he would use any un- 68 Lancashire Gleanings. lawful exercises. Nor did his office restrain him from committing this abomination, but as if he (who should have been first in punishing) prided himself in being the ringleader of the Sabbath-breakers, he would, not only privately and at home, but in the very open streets, revel and sport on that holy day. For this, and his other pro- vocations, it pleased God so to leave him to the devil and himself, that he became guilty of such horrid blasphemy as procured (it is to be feared) his ruin in both worlds. The manner of it take thus." We need not recount the blas- phemy, which is stated to have been uttered "on the 26th day of August, 1694, being the Lord's Day (the day of his sinful excess)," and the account then states that "That night he was struck with much sadness and sighing, which grew upon him every day more than other for that whole week, in which he kept much upon the bed, very listless to speak, or indeed to take any notice of worldly concerns." The account describes his great agony and frightful cries,, and terrible aspect, and concludes in the following terms : "Thus he continued crying out to the great amazement and terror of all the company, all that day, and part of the night ; and the next day he was speechless. And upon Friday, the 7th of September, 1694, he expired in the morning. His body, for several hours after his death, sweating very apparently. And thus have I made you this fearful relation, after which I shall but add my hearty prayers for ourselves, and for all whose ears are made to tingle with this dreadful report, that we may be preserved continually by the Grace of God, from profaning His holy Sunday in the Olden Time. 69 day ; and above all, from vilifying the glorious person of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to forewarn men of the horrid danger whereof this miserable wretch seems to be set up, by divine providence, a terrible and speaking monument. Dear Sir, yours most affectionately. Man- chester, January 3rd, 1694." It may be as well to state that January 3rd, 1694, was some four months after Septem- ber, 1694, the year commencing in March. The diary of Peter Walkden, the Nonconformist minister of Hesketh Lane, shows him to have been frequently in the habit of "refreshing" in the neighbouring public house, both before and after the time of service, in company with mem- bers of his family and congregation. One entry is worth transcribing: "Brother Miller being to enquire after the effects of one old John Miller, a travelling Scot, who died but a few weeks ago at one Widow Hall's in Shire-lane, near Hurst's Green, and I being to preach to-morrow for Mr. Burgess, at Darwen, and brother not knowing the way to Shire-lane, I went with him to it, and we alighted at Widow Hall's and had account of the old man's death and effects thus, viz. : That the old man was found ill in the lane on Friday, and was taken in by some neighbours into the widow's ; that he was paralytic, and insensible all that night ; that he continued so most of Saturday ; that a neighbour took out of his pocket what moneys he had, and in the sight of several witnesses counted it, and found he had i os. in silver and id. in brass; that on the Lord's Day he was sensible and asked for his budget, and told 'em he had silver, but whose he told not ; that he desired earnestly 7O Lancashire Gleanings. to be at a lodging house of his, near Great Mearley ; that they offered to procure him horse and man to conduct him thither, but he refused it on the Lord's Day, saying he would see what to-morrow would produce; and that a neighbour offered to send for a priest or a vicar to him, both of which he refused, signifying to 'em that he was a Presbyterian \ that on Monday he died ; that the overseer and constable, one Adam Thompson, took on 'em to bury him ; priced what he had in goods, silver and clothes, to something above $ ; that the constable procured him a handsome coffin ; that he fetched the rathes from Mitton, and he and the overseer, with horses, went to Mitton and buried him." During the last century, although the Sabbath controversy did not rage with the intensity of a preceeding age, there can be no doubt that a sombre observance of church and chapel going was the ideal ; but that human nature was unable to endure this strong dose of sanctified gloom is evident from the laments over Sabbath-breaking. If the village green was no longer the scene of archery and athletic diversions, the village alehouse had no lack of customers. The denunciation of judgments in this world, and of penal fires in the next, were not strong enough to restrain men. In many cases the old ecclesiastical festivals were still observed. Eccles wakes began on Sunday, and up to the beginning of the present century were distinguished by much coarse festivity, in which bear-baiting, bull-baiting, and smock-racing had a part. At Gorton the wakes ended on a Sunday, on which day the morrice dancers attended the Sunday in the Olden Time. 71 chapel, when an " appropriate sermon " was preached. (Higson's "Gorton," p. in.) It was in Eccles that the members of the earliest recorded of the artisan botanical societies were in the habit of assembling upon the Sunday evening. In 1777, it had forty members engaged in this pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, and similar societies appear to have been popular in many of the South Lan- cashire towns and villages. The danger in their path was, that as no other building was available, the meetings were perforce held in the public house, which offered tempta- tions to excess not always resisted by these sons of science. The botanical societies have rendered good service to science, and after more than a century's existence, show no signs of general decay. Perhaps the oldest existing society is the Manchester Botanists' Association, which has met uninterruptedly for about fifty years. Burke has observed that " lawful enjoyment is the surest way to prevent unlawful gratification." The sports and pastimes of the people may be gathered from the printed instructions issued in 1797 to the Manchester division of constables. The police were informed that alehouse keepers were liable to forfeiture of their licenses unless they fully observed the following recognisances ; " The conditions of these recognisances are such that whereas the above bound alehouse keepers have severally licensed to sell ale for one whole year, from the 2pth day of this present month of September, in the houses wherein they now respectively dwell. Now, if they, or any of them, their, or any of their assigns, or any other person or persons selling ale by virtue 72 Lancashire Gleanings. of the above licenses, shall neglect or fail to keep and maintain good order and rule, or suffer any unlawful games to be used, or disorders to be committed in his, her, or their dwelling-house or houses, or any outhouse, garden, yard, or backside thereto, during the said term ; or shall permit or suffer any mountebank, quack doctor, or un- licensed showman to perform or exhibit upon his, her, or their premises during the said term of his, her, or their license ; or shall permit or suffer any bull-baiting or horse- racing upon his, her, or their premises during the said term of his, her, or their license ; or shall permit or suffer any person or persons to drink or tipple in his, her, or their house on the Lord's Day; or shall permit or suffer any person or persons to continue drinking in his, her, or their house or premises after the hour of nine o'clock at night from Michaelmas to Lady Day, or after the hour of ten at night from Lady Day to Michaelmas ; or if any of them, or any of their assigns, shall surfer or permit any club or society at their respective houses, either for money, cloth, household goods, clocks, watches, or any sort of household furniture ; that then, and in any of the said cases, the recognisance or recognisances of such alehouse keeper so misbehaving or offending, and of his, her, or their surety or sureties, shall be in full force and virtue ; but the recog- nisance of all the said other alehouse keepers, and their respective sureties, shall be void 'and of none effect.'" That some at least of the publicans strove to keep good order must be admitted. Dr. Whitaker, the historian of AVhalley, wrote the following epitaph for a model publican : Sunday in the Olden Time. 73 Here lies the Body of John Wigglesworth, More than fifty years he was the principal Innkeeper in this Town. Withstanding the temptations of that dangerous calling he maintained good order in his House, kept the Sabbath day Holy, frequented the Public Worship with his Family, induced his guests to do the same, and regularly partook of the Holy Communion. He was also bountiful to the Poor, in private as well as in public, and by the blessing of Providence on a life so spent died possessed of competent Wealth, Febr. 28, 1813, aged 77 years. The last quarter of the eighteenth century witnessed the rise of Sunday Schools, which nowhere received greater extension than in Lancashire and Cheshire. Abraham Wat- mough, 1821, published at Rochdale a poem on the Sunday School, in which he probably represents the feeling of the evangelical and methodistical part of the community. The country walks of lads and lasses, and their after refreshment at the inn, are hinted at as the prolific source of vice. A youth who, in spite of paternal appeals (in very indifferent blank verse), persists in a Sunday walk, comes to grief by falling over the rocks : on the ocean shore, Beneath a cliff he lay where ravens croak ; 74 Lancashire Gleanings. Who sunk their beaks carnivorous, deep, and tore His eyeballs from their sockets, bar'd his bones, And gnaw'd his liver emblem of those pains Beyond the grave heap'd up for guilty sons. Mr. Watmough was an enemy of oratorios, balls, and novels. " Perdition seize the page that stains our sons." It is need- less to add that he is intensely Sabbatarian. " Ought it ever to be forgotten," he asks, "that it was on a Sunday evening and at an opera, that the Duke de Berri so suddenly met his fate?" His sole interest in Sunday Schools is as places for the teaching of dogma, and he considers the sanctity of the Lord's day to be violated by the teaching of writing. The proposal to teach arithmetic is branded as profanation. The mistaken views of certain of the Puritans, for some of their noblest spirits were free from them, left an impress on religious thought, on legislation, and on social customs, which is only fading away and giving place to more reasonable sentiments. The opening of the public libraries of Man- chester and Wigan on the first day of the week, are evidences that in the Lancashire of the present day it is felt that the "Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath," and that there is no harm, but great good, in calling in the aid of art and knowledge as handmaids of true and practical religion. TIM BOBBIN AS AN ARTIST. To draw true beauty shows a master's hand. DRYDEN, To Mr. Lee on his Alexander. AT one time it was common to speak of John Collier ("Tim Bobbin") as the Lancashire Hogarth. No more inappropriate designation could have been selected- He lacked not only the artistic skill of Hogarth, but that moral indignation which made the pencil more powerful than the preacher's voice in denouncing sin and folly. Collier rarely deviates into moral purpose. His indignation is chiefly reserved for Church pluralists of whom he had a hearty detestation partly to be explained by the fact (given in his own words) that he was " one of the nine children of a poor curate in Lancashire, whose stipend never amounted to thirty pounds a year, and consequently the family must feel the iron tooth of penury with a witness. This, indeed, was sometimes blunted by the charitable disposition of the good rector, the Rev. H n W n. So this Tim Bobbin lived, as some other boys did, content with water pottage, buttermilk, and jannock, till he was between thirteen 76 Lancashire Gleanings. and fourteen years of age, when Providence began to smile on him in his advancement to a pair of Dutch looms, when he met with treacle to his pottage, and sometimes a little in his buttermilk, or thinly spread on his jannock." The recol- lection of the biting poverty of his father's house still edged his teeth when he drew this Book of Heads, and the most popular composition it contains is, that of " The Pluralist and the Old Soldier." This plate is dated as having been designed and engraved by the author in 1770, and published with the others in May, 1773. It is accompanied by verses stating that A soldier maimed and in the Beggar's list, Did thus address a well-fed Pluralist. Soldier. At Guadaloupe my Leg and Thigh I lost, No Pension have I, tho' its Right I boast ; Your Reverence please some Charity bestow, Hev'n will pay double when you're there you know. Pluralist. Hev'n pay me double ! Vagrants know that I Ne'er give to Strollers ; they're so apt to lye : Your Parish and some Work would you become, So haste aw^y or Constable's your Doom. There is more to the same purpose. These lines are quoted because the entire poem was printed as the descrip- tion of a satirical print, with the same title, published by M. Darly, in 1766, four years earlier than the date assigned for his " invention" by Collier. From his letters he appears to have been painting this picture in 1767. This leads us to speak of the origin of the book. Tim Bobbin as an Artist. 77 Collier was a free-living man, eagerly [looking out for means to cure That eternal want of peace Which vexes public men. Accordingly, he painted altar pieces and tavern signs, but chiefly grotesque heads, which he sold to innkeepers and others. Many of them, it is said, were exported to the colonies. It may serve to show the appreciation of art in Lancashire to say that Collier advertises in his book that: "Gentle- men, &c., may have Plate or Plates, Painted on Canvas or Pasteboard as large as the life, from 55. to 155. a head, by sending their Orders to the Author, near Rochdale." The following extract from the Westmorland Advertiser and Kendal Chronicle of July 2nd, 1825, will show that the profession was hereditary : " Same day (i.e. the 28th ult.) at Rochdale, in his 82nd year, Mr. Thomas Collier, painter, second son of the late John Collier, alias Tim Bobbin, Author of the " Lancashire Dialect," " Remarks on the History of Manchester," &c., being the last of the male branch of the above family ; formerly many years resident in the town of Penrith, in the county of Cumberland." The steady sale which these pictures met with suggested the idea of engraving them, and the result was their publication in one volume. The " Human Passions Delineated" appeared first in 1772, and the book was re- printed in 1773, 1810, 1811, 1820, 1846, 1858, and 1874. The later editions are from the original plates, but they are considerably the worse for wear. The designs for the most part are grotesque and farcical often outstepping the 78 Lancashire Gleanings. modesty of nature, and sometimes mere monstrous libels upon humanity. There are occasional glimpses of better things, but the work is valuable not for artistic merit, which is almost wholly wanting, but for the glimpses it gives of the life of Lancashire a hundred years ago. The picture is not a pleasant one, and suggests an age drunken, un- clean, cynical, and coarse. Undoubtedly there is much of caricature in it, for sodden clowns, lecherous justices, simon- iacal parsons, lustful priests, cowardly generals, foolish men, and women sometimes immodest, and always ungraceful, make up Collier's pictorial world. ANN LEE, THE MANCHESTER PROPHETESS. And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change. Shakspere. THE Shakers, whose communistic villages are amongst the curiosities of America, owe their origin to a Man- chester woman. Prophets are proverbially unhonoured in their own country. The smoky air of Manchester stifled the religious genius of Ann Lee ; the boundless freedom of the New World was needed for its luxuriant growth. On the 2 Qth of February, 1736, the family of John Lee, a black- smith, living in Toad Lane (a name since euphemised into Todd Street), was increased by the advent of a little stranger, to whom the name of Ann was given. Mr. John Owen has kindly given me the following extracts from the Register of Baptisms at the Cathedral : 1734, April 16, Nancy, d. of John Lees; 1735, Jan. n, Peter, son of John Lee; 1737, June 12, Betty, d. of John Lee; 1737, Aug. 21, Joseph, s. to John Lees; 1738, April 16, Thomas, s. to John Lees; 1741, May 10, Katherine, d. of John Leigh; 1741, June, Joseph, s. of John Lees, blacksmith ; 1742, April 4, William, 8o Lancashire Gleanings. s. of John Lees ; 1742, June i, ANNE, d. of John Lee, was privately baptised ; 1742, Feb. 13, Mary, d. of John Lees, taylor; 1743, Sept. 29, Sara, d. of John and Sarah Lee; 1743, Oct. 9, WILLIAM, s. of John Lees, blacksmith; 1746, May, 4, Alice, d. of John Lees ; 1749, March 26, George, s. of John Lees, blacksmith. Like the family records of more aristocratic houses, it is difficult to sort out the different branches of the Lees, but the prophetess and her brother are clearly distinguishable. From the fact that she was privately " christened " when six years old, we may perhaps infer that some serious illness threatened her young life. According to Shaker biography, Ann's parents were hardworking, God fearing folk, who brought up five sons and three daughters in the best way they could as far as their light allowed them. Another state- ment would make it appear that the family were better connected than might have been supposed from their poor estate. One of her uncles is said by Brown to have been a sheriff of London and an alderman of "Aldgate Ward." The same writer states, inaccurately, that General Charles Lee was also her father's brother. The schoolmaster was not abroad, and children were packed off into the fields or the workroom instead of being sent to master the mysteries of the " three R's." So Ann, we are told, was first employed in a cotton factory, then be- came a cutter of hatter's fur, and afterwards a cook in the Manchester Infirmary, " where she was distinguished for her neatness, faithfulness, and good economy." Her ways were not those of other children, she lacked their keen joyfulness, Ann Lee, the Manchester Prophetess. 81 she was " serious and thoughtful," inclined to religious medi- tations, and "often favoured with heavenly 'visions.'" In 1758 she became a member of a sect called Shakers, who were " under the ministration of Jane and James Wardley, formerly of the Quaker order," but who had left that body about 1747. The Manchester Shakers appear to have been a remnant of the "French Prophets," who came into England about 1706. Charles Owen, in a work printed in 1712, alludes to the secret meetings of some "prophets" in Manchester, and to some providential check which they received. In their fits of religious enthusiasm, when the Spirit entered into them, they were seized with violent tremblings, and their contortions gained them the nickname of Shakers. Wardley was a tailor, who removed from Bolton to Cannon Street, Manchester, where he lived with John Townley, a well-to-do bricklayer. Jane Wardley, in the Shaker belief, was "evidently the spirit of John the Baptist, or Elias, operating in the female line, to prepare the way for the second appearing of Christ, in the order of the female." The testimony of this woman and her followers, according to what they saw by vision and revelation from God was "that the second appearing of Christ was at hand, and that the Church was rising in her full and transcendant glory, which would effect the final downfall of antichrist." Another of the Shakers was John Kattis, who was considered by them to be a good scholar. He did not long retain his faith. (Brown^ p. 312.) Four years after joining this society, which numbered about thirty people, Ann Lee was married. The entry in 82 Lancashire Gleanings. the Cathedral registry is " 1762, Jan. 5, Abraham Standerin, blacksmith, and Ann Lees, married." James Shepherd and Thomas Hulme, signed as witnesses, but both bride and bridegroom affixed their marks, being unable to write. There is a pencil note in a copy of one of Robert Owen's publications in the Manchester Free Library, which states that she lived in Church Street, where Philip's warehouse now stands. The press mark of this tract is 17316 (63E. 1 2 7). The Shaker books, however, state, that after the marriage the young couple lived in the house of the bride's father in Toad Lane, during the time they remained in England. The Shaker biography gives the husband's name as Stanley, and states that four children were born unto them, who all died in infancy. To one of these the follow- ing entry from the Cathedral Burial Registry no doubt refers : "1766, Oct. 7, Elizabeth, daughter of Abraham Standley." At the birth of her last child, forceps had to be used, and after the delivery, she lay for several hours apparently dead. {Brown, p. 312.) Her husband, it is said, was a drunkard, and treated her unkindly. In 1766 the Shaker society was joined by John Hocknell, brother of Mrs. Townley, in whose house Jane Wardley lived. Hocknell was a substantial farmer near Maretown in Cheshire, and being zealous for the new faith, he gathered some of the poorer members into his own house, and there supported them. His wife, Hannah, not relishing this large accession of prophets, complained to her kindred (the Dickins family), and her three brothers sought the assistance of a magistrate, and " had John put in prison at Middlewich, Ann Lee, tJie MancJiester Prophetess. 83 four miles from his own house." He escaped from tribula- tion without any danger, and was rewarded by the conversion of his wife, who " became a member of society and continued through all the increase of the work, till she departed this life, in America, sound in the faith of the Gospel, A.D. 1797." (Testimony, p. 616.) They used frequently to meet " at John Partington's in Mayor-town [Maretown], as they passed and repassed from Manchester to John Hocknell's." The small band of believers were looking for the Second Advent, and there seems to have been an impression amongst them that the Messiah would appear in the form of a woman. It had been said of old that the Lord would shake not the earth only, but also heaven. " The effects of Christ's first appearing," says the Shaker Testimony, "were far from fulfilling those promises in their full extent, for in reality that heaven which was to be shaken, had not yet been built, neither did the appearing of Christ in the form of a man fulfil the desire of all nations. But a second appear- ing was to be manifested in woman, which completed the desire of all nations, by the revelation of the Mother Spirit in Christ, an emanation from the eternal Mother." Creed these people do not appear to have had, simply a strong conviction that the great day of the Lord was at hand, and that he would reveal himself in the flesh and lead his people to that peace which he had promised them of old. Amongst this band of simple enthusiasts, the ignorant blacksmith's daughter began to exert a powerful influence. She is described as being of medium height and well-pro- 84 Lancashire Gleanings. portioned. Her fair complexion was lit up by blue eyes, and set off by brown chestnut hair, whilst her mild counte- nance wore an aspect habitually grave. Altogether a solemn-looking, lowly-born, "fair saint." Wifely and motherly cares did not fill up the measure of her life, and the loss of her children may have intensified the morbid enthusiasm to which at all ages she would seem to have been subjected. She was a "seeker after salvation," and, passing through a period of mental struggles, doubts, and perplexities, she " was born into the spiritual kingdom." This new stage of her intellectual history was marked by the evolution of the doctrine that complete celibacy was the true order of the world and essential to individual salvation. She con- sidered it her duty to cry down the " fleshly lusts which war against the soul," and, according to the Shaker book, was imprisoned in consequence. Although the increase of the population was considered a matter of importance, it is scarcely likely that the constables of Manchester would put the mother of four children into jail for preaching celibacy, and accordingly we find it stated further on that the charge against them was that of Sabbath-breaking. There can be no doubt that the dancing, shouting, shaking, "speaking with new tongues," and all the other wild evidences of re- ligious fervour exhibited by Ann and her fellow-believers, would be exceedingly distasteful to her neighbours and lead to occasional displays of brutal intolerance. It may not unnaturally be asked why, if Ann Lee was the woman chosen to proclaim the gospel of celibacy, she should herself have entered into the bonds of matrimony. She Ann Lee y the Manchester Prophetess. 85 became a Shaker in 1758, and a wife in 1762. Clearly she was then unconscious of her great mission. This is con- fessed, for we are told that, although " from her childhood she had great light and conviction of the sinfulness and depravity of human nature," yet, " not having attained that knowledge of God, which she early desired , . . , she, being prevailed upon by the earnest solicitations of her relations and acquaintances, yielded reluctantly, was married, and had four children, all of whom died in infancy." The cause of her marriage, it will be seen, was that which has deluged the world with mediocre poetry the solicitation of her friends. The date of her first imprisonment is said to have been the year 1770, and, whilst "in bonds," her soul was glad- dened by seeing " Jesus Christ in open vision, who revealed to her the most astonishing views of Divine manifestations of truth, in which she had a perfect and clear view of the mystery and iniquity, the root and foundation of all human depravity, and of the very act of transgression committed by Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden." Brown says, that in 1771 she became head of the Society, who joined with her in a " testimony against the lust of the flesh ; " she was taken from a meeting and placed in a dungeon, next day sent to Bedlam, but after some weeks discharged. (p. 312.) From this time her followers gave her the name of " Mother Ann," and looked upon her as the female com- plement of the risen Christ ; or, to quote the exact words of Shakers " from the light and power of God, which attended her ministry, and the certain power of salvation transmitted 86 Lancashire Gleanings. to those who received her testimony, she was received and acknowledged as the first Mother, or spiritual Parent in the line of the female, and the second Heir in the covenant of life, according to the present display of the gospel." (Tes- timony -, p. 620.) If the Shakers endured much cruelty from zealous Sabba- tarians, it must be admitted that they were not eager to avoid giving offence. Thus the Manchester Mercury of July 2oth, 1773, tells us : " Saturday last ended the Quarter Sessions, when John Townley, John Jackson, Betty Lees, and Ann Lees (Shakers), for going into Christ Church, in Manchester, and there wilfully and contemptuously, in the time of Divine service, disturbing the congregation then assembled at morning prayers in the said church, were severally fined ^"20 each." Very probably the non-pay- ment of this fine would be the cause of one of Mother Ann's imprisonments. On one occasion, according to Elder Evans and other Shaker writers, " she was dragged out of the meeting by a mob, and cast into a prison in Manchester. They put her in a cell so small that she could not straighten herself, and with the design of starving her to death, kept her there fourteen days without food; nor was the door opened during all that time. She had nothing to eat or drink, except some wine and milk mixed, put into the bowl of a tobacco-pipe, and conveyed to her, by inserting the stem through the keyhole, once every twenty-four hours. This was done by James Whittaker, when a boy, whom Mother Ann brought up." This is a marvellous narrative, and our Shaker friends must excuse our incredulity. It was Ann Lee, the Manchester Prophetess. 87 never either law or custom to starve people to death for Sabbath-breaking. The nearest parallel we can find is that of the Puritan, who Hanged his cat on the Monday, For killing a mouse upon Sunday. Again, a cell with a keyhole looking into the street, is not a likely arrangement. In point of fact, in the House of Correc- tion, which served as a jail, before the erection of New Bailey, the prisoners were not on the ground-floor at all, but a story higher, and it was a common thing for their friends to pass food through the window gratings to the caged birds inside. This arrangement is shown in the engraving which appears in Proctor's " Memorials of Manchester Streets," p. 13. It is copied from a drawing by Thomas Barritt, and represents the House of Correction as it was about 1776. The older prison on the bridge was doubtless a much worse place, but it will not agree any better with the story. The approx- imate date of Mother Ann's first imprisonment is given as 1770. This semi-miracle is as an example of the law of development. It is not always one has a chance of assisting at the birth of a myth. At another time she was rescued from the raging multitude by a " nobleman," who, living at some distance, " was re- markably wrought upon in his mind" to go to a certain place, which he did, riding "as if it had been to save his own life." According to Elder Evans, the mob once took her before four clergymen and charged her with blasphemy, but she spoke before them " for four hours of the wonderful 88 Lancashire Gleanings. works of God," and "they testified that she had spoken in seventy-two different tongues." Without wishing to dis- parage the linguistic powers of the English clergy of a hundred years ago, it may be remarked that an average of eighteen languages, exclusive of duplicates, is rather too liberal an allowance for four people. The mob, we are further told, took Ann and three of her followers into a valley outside the town, with the intention of stoning them to death ; they threw the stones, but did not succeed in hitting the fair saint," and fell to quarrelling amongst themselves, so she escaped. According to Dr. Dwight she claimed the title of Ann the Word. He adds, that she was confined in a madhouse. The Shaker biography represents her as having been a cook at the Manchester Infirmary, and as this was at that time also a Lunatic Hospital, both statements may be correct. " For two years previous to their leaving England, persecution entirely ceased," says Elder Evans. We have seen that they were in trouble in July, 1773, and "on the 1 9th of May, 1774, Mother Ann, Abraham Stanley (her husband), William Lee, James Whittaker, John Hocknell, Richard Hocknell, James Shepherd (perhaps the witness ' of the marriage), Mary Partington, and Nancy Lee, em- barked for America." The captain was annoyed at their queer religious exercises, and threatened to throw some of them overboard, but a storm springing up, the Shakers assured the seamen that they would not be wrecked although the ship had sprung a leak. They landed at New York, August 6th, 1774. The departure of the young prophetess led to the collapse of the Shakers in Manchester. James and Ann Lee, the Manchester Prophetess. 89 Jane Wardley left the house of their benefactor Townley, and soon found a resting place in the almshouse, where they died; and the other members of the society "who remained in England, being without lead, or protection, generally lost their power, and fell into the common course and practice of the world." (Testimony, p. 621.) The object of this Shaker emigration is by no means clear. They did not at once form themselves into a colony, but divided in search of employment. Abraham Stanley not being a convert to the celibate creed, soon " married " another woman. It is grievous to learn that Abraham never was accounted entirely orthodox. His was a very difficult part to play. The husband of a celibate prophetess would need more discretion than one could expect from a black- smith who could not write his own name. He must have had some faith in her, or would scarcely have crossed the water along with her other disciples. He appears to have maintained an outward conformity to the new faith, and the final cause of his backsliding was a severe sickness, which he suffered in 1775. Through this illness, we are told, Mother Ann nursed him with every possible care. Whilst convalescent, and before strong enough to return to work, he began to frequent public houses, and there made ship- wreck of his faith, in the manner already indicated. Shortly after Mother Ann removed to Albany, and thence to the place then called Neuskenna, but now known as Watervliet. This spot they are said to have selected by the advice of some Quakers in New York, to whom they applied for counsel. (Brown, p. 315.) Here the scattered believers Lancashire Gleanings. united, and a "religious revival" having commenced at Lebanon, N.Y., in 1780, the Shakers increased in number, but were greatly persecuted on account of their testimony against war and oath-taking. A number of them, including Mother Ann, were arrested at Albany. They would not take the oath, because "the Spirit of Christ, which they had within them, both disposed and enabled them to keep every just law, without any external obligation." ( Testimony ^ p. 625.) Their imprisonment was not of a very harsh nature, for their disciples were allowed access to them, and also permitted to minister "freely to their necessities." Through the prison gratings the captive prophets sometimes preached to listening crowds. The problem of disposing of their prisoners seems to have puzzled those who had placed them in jail. Mother Ann and Mary Partington were separated from the rest, and conveyed to the prison at Poughkeepsie. It is said, by Shaker writers, that the intention was to place her on board a vessel which was loading with supplies for the British army, then at New York. This is to say at least very improbable. (Testimony ', p. 626.) At last the treatment of these strange people was reported to the governor, George Clinton, and as there seemed to be no probability that the strong argument of a prison house would overcome their repugnance to bearing arms and taking oaths, he ordered the release of all those who were in bonds at Albany. Upon their release, about the 2oth of December, they represented to him the case of Mother Ann, whose freedom took place about the end of the year. Their general opposition was mistaken for a special aversion to the Ann Lee, the Manchester Prophetess. 91 war of the revolution, and their refusal to take oaths was construed into a feeling in favour of the British arms ; so that the alleged motive for their imprisonment at Albany was that of high treason in communicating with the British lines. There was no evidence in support of this charge, and hence her release by Governor Clinton. (Drake's American iog., Art. LEE.) Twenty years after this event the Governor visited the settlement at New Lebanon, and expressed to the believers there his satisfaction at having released their spiritual Mother from durance vile. (Testimony, p. 626.) In 1781, Mother Ann and the elders went forth upon a missionary tour, visiting the believers wherever they were known, and preaching their peculiar doctrines wherever an opportunity occurred. They gained a number of converts at Harvard, Massachusetts, amongst the " Shadrach Irelands," so named from Shadrach Ireland, their leader. These people had renounced their wives ; but as soon as they became per- fectly free from sin, they might " marry spiritual wives, from whom were to proceed holy children, which were to con- stitute the New Jerusalem or Millennium." The chief of the sect had put away his own and taken a spiritual wife. He said he should not die ; or if he did, he should rise again on the third day. He did die, but he did not rise again on the third day. " In these journeys," say the Shaker Testi- mony, " they were much persecuted and abused by the wicked oppressors of the truth," being sometimes whipped out of the towns. What the world thought of this mission will be seen from the statements made to Dr. Dwight : " In this excursion, 92 Lancashire Gleanings. she is said to have collected from her followers all their plate, ear-rings, and other ornaments which were formed of silver, gold, or gems." Dr. D wight further says : " This woman has laboured under very serious imputations. In a book, published by Mr. Rathbone, he mentions that he found her, and one of these elders in very suspicious cir- cumstances. She professed that she was inspired ; that she carried on a continual intercourse with the invisible world, and talked familiarly with angels. She predicted in the boldest terms, that the world would be destroyed at a given time: if I remember right, the year 1783. During the interval between the prophecy and its expected fulfil- ment, she directed them to cease from their common occupations. The direction was implicitly obeyed. As the earth, however, presented no appearance of dissolution, and the sky no signs of a conflagration, it was discovered that the prophecy had been miscalculated ; and her follow- ers were ordered again to their employments. From that period they have been eminently industrious." Thomas Brown, who had been a member of their society, accuses Ann Lee of being peevish, and repeatedly getting intoxicated; and brings the latter charge also against her brother William. He says, that before 1793, "the men and women, on a variety of occasions, danced naked ; " and that twice, at least, Mother Ann, her brother, and James Whittaker, indulged in a free fight. It would perhaps be unfair to accept all the scandal which Brown chronicles. After repeated denials, however, he obtained an acknowledg- ment that naked dancing had been formerly practised. Flagel- Ann Lee, tJte Manchester Prophetess. 93 lation was practised by the Shaker converts. A man whose daughter had thus been scourged, prosecuted the elder who had inflicted the punishment. Her sister was summoned as a witness. " She went to Whittaker, and asked him what she should say." He answered "Speak the truth, and spare the truth ; and take care not to bring the gospel into disrepute." Accordingly she testified that her sister was not naked. She was justified in giving this testimony, because her sister had a fillet on her hair ! Soon after the return from their journeyings in the eastern states, the little community lost one of its lights. We have seen that Mother Ann's husband refused to bear the Shaker cross, but her brother, William Lee, was a firm believer in his sister's mission. We are told that he was a gay young man, who had been an " officer " in the Oxford Blues. He carried to the grave the scars of wounds received in defend- ing her, and in some respects resembled her, especially in hav- ing " visions." Like many other of the Lancashire artisans he had a good voice, which would be of service amongst those who " praise the Lord with dance and song." He died July 2ist, 1784, aged forty-four years. Brown thus describes him (P- 3 2 3) " Elder William Lee seldom travelled to gain prose- lytes, being severe in his temper and harsh in his manners ; his preaching was not fraught with that mildness and urban- ity, which is necessary to draw the attention and win the affection of the hearers, and render a man beloved. It once happened, as he was speaking to a public congregation, one of the spectators, a young man, behaved with levity and disrespect ; upon this, Lee took him by the throat and shook 94 Lancashire Gleanings. him, saying, " when I was in England, I was sergeant in the king's life-guard, and could then use my fists; but now, since I have received the gospel, I must patiently bear all abuse, and suffer my shins to be kicked by every little boy ; but I will have you know that the power of God will defend our cause." Her followers had proclaimed Mother Ann immortal, but to her also came the grim king. She died at Watervliet, on the 8th day of Sept., 1784, aged forty-eight years and six months. Whatever we may think of her peculiar religious theories, she certainly seems to have inculcated industry and benevolence by shrewd maxims, which were, however, little more than platitudes. Her piety, as shown in the Shaker book, seems to have been eminently practical. " To a sister she said, 'Be faithful to keep the Gospel; be neat and industrious ; keep your family's clothes clean and decent,' &c. Further, * Little children are innocent, and they should never be brought out of it. If brought up in simplicity they would receive good as easy as evil. Never speak to them in a passion ; it will put devils into them. . . Do all your work as though you had a thousand years to live, and as though you were going to die to-morrow.' " On the death of Mother Ann the leadership devolved upon James Whittaker, who "was freely acknowledged by the whole society as their elder." Whittaker was born at Oldham, Feb. 28th, 1751, and is thought to have been a relative of Ann Lee, as his own mother bore the same name. His parents were members of the Shaker society under Jane and James Wardley, and he was brought up under the care Ann Lee, the Manchester Prophetess. 95 of Mother Ann, and was the one who is said to have succoured her when in prison, in the manner already des- cribed. Father James, as he was styled, died at the early age of thirty-seven. In 1786, Ann Lee, the neice of the foundress, abandoned the celibate order to marry Richard Hocknell, probably a son of John Hocknell, one of the original emigrant band. Partington also left the society, but was helped by it in his declining years, notwithstanding this backsliding. Mother Ann prophesied that James Whittaker would suc- ceed her in the ministry, but this seems hardly to have been the case. Father James no doubt influenced the society, but it was an American convert, Joseph Meacham, who became its leader, and organised it on that basis of commu- nity of labour and property which now forms its most distinguishing feature. " His gift of Divine revelation was deeper than that of any other person, excepting Mother Ann." It was he who introduced the greater part of the " spiritualist " portion of the Shaker creed and doctrine. Meacham was succeeded by a female, Lucy Wright, but we need not farther follow the history of the sect. Its interest for us centres in its English origin. In the New England travels of the celebrated Dr. Dwight, he gives an account of a visit, made in 1799, to the Shaker colony at New Lebanon : " It consists," he says, " of a small number of houses, moderately well-built, and kept, both within and without doors, in a manner very creditable to the occupants. Everything about them was clean and tidy. Their church, a plain, but neat building, had a 96 Lancashire Gleanings. courtyard belonging to it, which was remarkably 'smooth shaven green.' Two paths led to it from a neighbouring house, both paved with marble slabs. By these, I was informed, the men enter one end of the church, and the women the other." Their claims to miraculous powers he justly ridicules. They told him that they had restored the broken limb of a youth who then lived at Enfield, but, on enquiry, he found that the use of the limb was lost and the patient's health ruined. The Shaker Testimony contains several cases in which believers had received " a gift of healing." It is not necessary to detail these cases. They are not of great importance, and if we consider the curative powers of the imagination when under the influence of superstitious excite- ment, it will be possible to account for at least some of them without accusing the elders of the church of intentional deception. On being present at one of their meetings for worship, Dr. Dwight was told that both words and tune were inspired. The tune was Nancy Daw son ; and the sounds "which they made, and which they called language could not be words, because they were not articulated. One of the women replied, 'How dost thee know but that we speak the Hotmatot language? The language of the Hotmatots is said to be made up of such words.'" He challenged them to speak in Greek, Latin, or French, but they prudently- kept silent. Brown speaks thus on this topic "Respecting such as speak in an unknown tongue, they have strong faith in this Ann Lee, tJie Manchester Prophetess. 97 gift ; and think a person greatly favoured who has the gift of tongues; and at certain times when the mind is over- loaded with a fiery, strong zeal, it must have vent some way or other : their faith, or belief at the time being in this gift, and a will strikes the mind according to their faith ; and then such break out in a fiery, energetic manner, and speak they know not what, as I have done several times. Part of what I spake at one time, was ' Liero devo jiran- kemango, ad fileabano, durem, subramo, deviranto dia- cerimango, Jaffa vah pe cu evanegalio ; de vom grom seb crinom, as vare cremo domo.' When a person runs on in this manner of speaking for any length of time, I now thought it probable that he would strike into different languages, and give some words in each their right pro- nunciation : as I have heard some men of learning, who have been present, say, a few words were Hebrew, three or four of Greek, and a few Latin." From 1785 until the close of the century, Shakerism ex- erted very little propagandist influence; but in 1801 came the Kentucky Revival, by which the infant church was con- siderably enlarged. Since then its progress has steadily, if slowly, increased, and at the present time is an object of great curiosity to outsiders. The census of the United States supplies some meagre details respecting the Church organisation of the Shakers. In 1850 there were eleven churches, capable of accommo- dating 5,150 persons, and owning $39,500 of property. In 1860 there were twelve churches, which would hold 5,200 persons; the property of the church was $41,000. In 1870 98 Lancashire Gleanings. there were eighteen distinct Shaker organisations, possessing eighteen church edifices, capable of seating 8,850 persons ; the wealth of the church was $86,900. These Shaker com- munities are found in Connecticut, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire, and Ohio. The most important of the Shaker villages is that at New Lebanon. A few passages, condensed from the account of a visit by the correspondent of an illustrated paper to this place, may be permitted : It is a great mistake to suppose that, like Romish monks and nuns, they shut themselves completely out of the world, and are unwilling that "publicans and sinners" should penetrate to their retreats and observe their manner of life. No people, as we can personally testify, are more hospitable, or welcome outsiders with greater apparent pleasure. They will readily show you over their establishments; they will freely explain to you their rules and regulations, taking care to point out the reasons for them ; and they will even admit you to their meetings and religious ceremonies. Of course the man of the world is inclined to ridicule the grotesque postures and movements which he sees in their chapels ; but there is someting so quaint, simple, and sincere in their de- votions, that even if a sense of their propriety did not check the smile or sneer, a sense of respect for their earnestness would. At Mount Lebanon there are three separate soci- eties within sight of each other : they are called the " North Family," "Church Family," and "Second Family." The word " family " betrays the chief social characteristic of the sect. Fancy a hundred men and women living together, Ann Lee, the Manctiester Prophetess. 99 enjoying all things, from the acres of the mutual estate, to the hats, thimbles, and books, in common : no one person owning a title of property himself, for his own particular use and enjoyment ; each labouring for all the others, and for the common weal ; working and taking pleasure in common, confessing to each other, worshipping together ! Neither do the Shakers marry, nor are they given in marriage. They live a strictly celibate life. We are told of husbands and wives who have been converted to Shakerism, who have lived for years in close married communion, and who, having entered the fold of "Believers," separate their bond, live apart each in the quarter of his or her sex, and, seeing each other every day, can only meet and converse as all the other brethren and sisters do. (See Graphic, yth May, 1870.) Shakers are fully aware of their lowly commencement. " The first in America who received the testimony of the Gospel were satisfied that it was the truth of God against all sin, and that in faithful obedience thereunto, they should find that salvation and deliverance from the power of sin for which they sincerely panted. And being made par- takers of the glorious liberty of the sons of God, it was a matter of no importance with them from whence the means of their deliverance came, whether from a stable in Beth- lehem or from Toad Lane in Manchester." (Testimony, p. 609.) From this humble origin has sprung one of the most interesting and peculiar of the phenomena of the New World. "By their works ye shall know them." The testimony of travellers is very strongly in favour of the Shakers. They ioo Lancashire Gleanings. are known as an honest and industrious people throughout the States. With an entire absence of those compelling forces which ensure a modicum of work and order in the outside world, the " Believers " have greatly surpassed in peace and industry those of the outside world. " Order, temperance, frugality, worship these," says Mr. Hepworth Dixon, "are the Shaker things which strike upon your senses first ; the peace and innocence of Eden, when contrasted with the wrack and riot of New York." They are capital agriculturalists, and have a reputation for thoroughness in all their industrial occupations. Every man has a trade ;. every man and woman works with his hands for the good of the community. The doctrine of celibacy has already been mentioned. Elder Frederick Evans, according to Mr. Dixon's report, says "that they do not hold that a celibate life is right in every place and in every society at all times; and they consider that for a male and female priesthood, such as they hold them- selves to be, as respects the world, this temptation is to be put away." This is scarcely historically orthodox, or why should Ann Lee have raised her voice against the sexual law in the streets of Manchester? The Shakers, like the Quakers, have toned down. To-day they seek no converts, but wait for the Spirit of God to bring people into their fold. They are not the fiery missioners of a century ago. They look now for increase to those cycles of religious enthusiasm which sweep over some portions of English and American society from time to time, and are known as revivals. Their communistic views have also been named. Proba- Ann Lee, the Marictietter Prophetess. 101 tioners are allowed to retain their private possessions, but the Covenanters have all things in common. As might have been expected from their history, they firmly believe in the possibility of intercourse with the world of spirits. For them there is no death. The departed surround them in every action of life. They are living in " resurrection order," the seen and the unseen in daily com- munion. Ann Lee is not dead, she has merely withdrawn behind a veil, and her followers can speak with her as when she inhabited a tabernacle of flesh. There is a charm about these mysterious people, offspring though they are of ignorance, credulity, and undisciplined enthusiasm. They have impressed many minds by their seemingly passionless existence, their abstinence and industry, and by their claims of being able to pierce that darkness which hides from us the loved and lost. These feelings have been well expressed in some lines which appeared in the Knickerbocker years ago, and were suggested to their writer, Charlotte Cushman, by a visit to the settlement near Albany : Mysterious worshippers ! Are you indeed the things that seem to be Of earth yet of its iron influence free From all that stirs Our being's pulse, and gives to fleeting life What well the Hun has termed "the rapture of the strife?" Are the gay visions gone, Those day-dreams of the mind, by fate there flung, And the fair hopes to which the soul once clung, IO2 Lancashire 'Gleanings. And battled on ; Have ye outlived them ? all that must have sprung And quicken'd into life, when ye were young ? Does memory never roam To ties that, grown with years, ye idly sever, To the old haunts that ye have left for ever Your early homes ? Your ancient creed, once faith's sustaining lever, The love who erst prayed with you now may never ? Has not ambition's pean Some power within your hearts to wake anew To deeds of higher emprise worthier you, Ye monkish men, Than may be reaped from fields ? Do ye not rue The drone-like course of life ye now pursue? The camp the council all That woos the soldier to the field of fame That gives the sage his meed the bard his name And coronal Bidding a people's voice their praise proclaim ? Can ye forego the strife, nor own your shame? Have ye forgot your youth, When expectation soared on pinions high, And hope shone out on boyhood's cloudless -sky, Seeming all truth When all looked fair to fancy's ardent eye, And pleasure wore an air of sorcery ? You, too ! What early blight Has withered your fond hopes, that ye thus stand A group of sisters, 'mong this monkish band ? Ann Lee, the Manchester Prophetess. 103 Ye creatures bright ! Has sorrow scored your brows with demon hand, Or o'er your hopes passed treachery's burning brand ? Ye would have graced right well The bridal scene, the banquet, or the bowers Where mirth and revelry usurp the hours Where, like a spell, Beauty is sovereign where man owns its powers, And woman's tread is o'er a path of flowers. Yet seem ye not as those Within whose bosoms memories vigils keep : Beneath your drooping lids no passions sleep ; And your pale brows Bear not the tracery of emotion deep Ye seem too cold and passionless to weep ! SHAKER BIBLIOGRAPHY. The following works, with others, have been examined in the prepar- ation of this notice : An Account of the people called Shakers : their Faith, Doctrines, and Practice exemplified in the life, conversations, and experience of the author, during the time he belonged to the society, to which is affixed a history of their rise and progress to the present day. By Thomas Brown, of Cornwall, Orange County, State of New York. "Prove all things, hold fast to that which is good." Apostle Paul. " An historian should not dare to tell a falsehood or leave a truth untold." Cicero. Troy : Printed by Parker and Bliss. Sold at the Troy Book Store : by Web- sters and Skinners, Albany; and S. Wood, New York, 1812. I2mo. New America. By William Hep worth Dixon. Eighth edition. London. 1869. Pp. xii, 448. 8vo. Travels in New England and New York. By Timothy Dwight, IO4 Lancashire Gleanings. S.T.D., L.L.D., late President of Yale College. In four volumes. New Haven, 1822. 8vo. (See vol. iii, pp. 149 169.) Tests of Divine Inspiration; or the Rudimental Principles by which True and False Revelation in all Eras of the World can be unerringly discriminated. "The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." Rev. xix, 10. By F. W. Evans. New Lebanon: published by the United Society called Shakers. 1853. 8vo. Pp. 127. [NOTE. Offered to the public as an explanation of the great enigma paradox of the age spiritual manifestations ; and also as a solution of what has often, and not inappropriately, been designated the "great problem of the age," a social organisation that shall secure "not merely the greatest good to the greatest number," but also " the greatest good to the whole number of its members."] Third Edition. Shakers' Compendium of the Origin, History, Prin- ciples, Rules and Regulations, Government and Doctrines of the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing : with Biographies of Ann Lee, William Lee, Jas. Whittaker, J. Hocknell, J. Meacham, and Lucy Wright. By F. W. Evans. "O my soul, swallow down under- standing, and devour wisdom ; for thou hast only time to live." Esdras. New Lebanon, N.Y. : Anchampaugh Brothers. 1859. I2mo. Autobiography of a Shaker, and Revelation of the Apocalypse, with an Appendix. " The Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God." Inquirers and Booksellers may apply to, or address, F. W. Evans, Mt. Lebanon, Col. Co., N.Y. June, 1869. 8vo. Pp. 162. Religious Communism, A Lecture by F. W. Evans (Shakers) of Mount Lebanon, Columbia Co., New York, U.S.A., delivered in St. George's Hall, London, Sunday Evening, August 6th, 1871 ; with In- troductory Remarks by the Chairman of the Meeting, Mr. Hepworth Dixon. Also some Account of the Extent of the Shaker Communities, and a narrative of the Visit of Elder Evans to England. An Abstract of a Lecture by the Rev. J. M. Peebles, and his testimony in regard to the Shakers. London. 8vo. Pp. 32. Ann Lee, the Manchester Proplietcss. 105 The Kentucky Revival, or a Short History of the late extraordinary outpouring of the Spirit of God, in the Western States of America. With a brief account of the entrance and progress of what the world call Shakerism, among the subjects of the late Revival in Ohio and Kentucky. By Richard McNemar. * * Cincinnati, printed : Albany, re-printed by E. and E. Hosford. 1808. I2mo. Pp. 119. Report of the Examination of the Shakers of Canterbury and En field before the New-Hampshire Legislature, at the November Session, 1848; including the Testimony at length; several extracts from Shaker publications; the Bill which passed the House of Representatives; the Proceedings in the Pillow Case; together with the letter of James W. Spinney. From Notes taken at the Examination. Concord, N. H. : printed by Ervin B. Tripp . . . Main Street. 1849. 8vo. Pp. IOO. [NOTE. This book contains some revelations as to the harsh disci- pline of the children adopted by the Shakers. A boy said to have been beaten to death ; women laid upon their backs on the floor in the public meetings, whilst others walked over them. (P. 17.) One witness said, " I have never seen so much contention and quarrelling, and hard feeling, in an equal number of the world's people as I have seen there." (P. 18.) The following was one of their popular hymn-songs : Of all my relations that ever I see My own fleshy kindred are fartherest from me : How ugly they look ; how distant they feel ; To hate them despise them increases my zeal. How ugly they look, &c.] Testimony of Christ's Second Appearing, exemplified by the princi- ples and practice of the true Church of Christ. History of the progressive work of God, extending from the Creation of Man to the " Harvest," comprising the four great dispensations now consummating the Millennial Church. Published by the United Society called Shakers. Fourth Edition. Albany. 1856. 8vo. Pp. xxiv, 632. A return of Departed Spirits of the highest characters of distinction, 106 Lancashire Gleanings. as well as the indiscriminate of all nations, into the bodies of the " Shakers," or " United Society of Believers in the Second Advent of the Messiah." By an Associate of the said Society. "Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth, both when we wake and when we sleep." Philadelphia: published by J. R. Colon, 203^, Chestnut Street. 1843. 8vo. Entered for copyright by L. G. Thomas. [NoTE. The return of departed spirits is spoken of in 1843 as being " more recently " introduced than the gifts of prophecy. " Disem- bodied spirits began to take possession of the bodies of the brethren and sisters ; and thus, by using them as instruments, made themselves known by speaking through the individuals whom they had got into ; after which they were welcomed to Zion to hear the true Gospel of Christ." Amongst those visitants are named Geo. Washington, William Penn (much admired by the believers, who style him " Father Penn "), Napoleon, Girard, Mahomet, Pope Pius (which ? he had come piping hot from hell, but said it was not a material fire) and several other popes ; all of them acknow- ledged the committal of much crime in their public and private relations, but having repented of it, they had been gathered amongst the faithful. Saint Patrick, Samson, the passengers of the lost steam-ship "President," "whose fate has hitherto been unknown," arrived at Watervliet early in March, 1843, and many others, includ- ing a crowd of " indiscriminate characters of different nations."] A Revelation of the Extraordinary Visitation of Departed Sisters of distinguished men and women of all nations, and their manifestation through living bodies of the Shakers. By a guest of the " Community " near Watervliet, N.Y., Philadelphia : published by L. G. Thomas, No. 27, Sansom Street. 1869. 8vo. [NOTE. In this we have a narrative of the spirit of the deceased sister standing beside its own body, and discoursing through a living sister.] The Youth's Guide in Zion, and Holy Mother's Promises. Given by inspiration at New Lebanon, N.Y., January 5th, 1842. Ann Lee, the Manchester Prophetess. 107 [NOTE. From the above title it will be seen that Ann Lee was an after-death authoress. In this occurs the following poem (?) : God is with me, and I'm with God, And ever was and e'er will be; We have all power to use the rod, To rend the earth and spill the sea. All heaven is at our command ; We speak thereto, it doth obey; And what is earth beneath our hand ? It is but one light ball of clay. Now think of this, ye helpless worms ! Ye little specks of mortal clay ! Since at our word all heaven turns, Dare ye presume to disobey ? Dare ye presume to scoff at God ? And mock and scorn his holy power ? Beware, I say, lest with his rod He smite your souls in that same hour. O little children, could you know The call of mercy unto you, You'd sacrifice all things below, And cast off nature clear from you. The world with its alluring charms Of pleasure, false and vain delight, Its riches, husbands, wives, and farms, Would be disgusting in your sight.] A Brief Sketch of the Religious Society of People called Shakers. Communicated to Mr. [Robert] Owen, by Mr. W. S. Warder of Phila- delphia, one of the Society of Friends. London. 1818. 8vo. Pp. 16. MASTER JOHN SHAWE. He shoots all his meditations at one butt, and beats upon the text, not the cushion, making his hearers, not the pulpit, groan. EARLE'S Microcosmography. A LTHOUGH his autobiography has been thrice printed, -t\. we doubt not that there are many who never heard the name of Master John Shawe, a notable Puritan of the seventeenth century, who was connected as a preacher and teacher with the counties of York, Chester, Derby, and Lancaster. The MS. in which Shawe wrote down the im- pressions of his life has passed out of sight, but that good antiquary, Ralph Thoresby, made a transcript of it, and this, at the sale of his " Museum," was bought by Thomas Birch, and is now in the British Museum. It was printed for private circulation in 1824 for the friends of Mr. John Broadley, F S.A. ; in 1875 it was included in one of the issues of the Surtees Society; and in 1882 it was reprinted, with careful annotations, by the Rev. J. R. Boyle. (Memoirs of Mr. John Shawe, . . . written by himself in the year 1663-4, edited by the Rev. J. R. Boyle. Hull: M. C. Peck and Son. 1882.) Shawe's account of his own life was Master John SJiawe. 109 written for the benefit of a son of his old age, to whom he addresses his narrative with many moral reflections and scriptural applications, which, however pertinent, are some- what tiresome, and invite the exercise of that last of literary accomplishments, the art of "skipping." John Shawe was born at Sikehouse, in the chapelry of Bradfield, in the parish of Ecclesfield, 23rd June, 1608. His father's family were yeomen, who had been in the neigh- bourhood for a century at least. His studious disposition early showed itself, and overcame the desire of his parents to retain with them their only child. Before he was fifteen he had become a pensioner of Christ's College, Cambridge, where he had for tutor Chappell, who was afterwards Bishop of Cork, but had to flee in the Irish rising in 1641. Although Shawe must have had Milton, who was also a pupil of Chappel's, as a fellow-student for five or six years, he has not a word to say of that illustrious Puritan. One cannot but lament that he used his opportunities so poorly, and had so little divination as to what posterity would desire at his hands. He was placed in " a chamber called Lancashire," where he met with sober companions, who preserved him, he says, " from that sad plague and ruin of young scholars viz. : bad company." In his seventeenth year, or there- abouts, he went with some students to the preaching of Thomas Weld, who was then Vicar of Terling, but was afterwards deprived, and went for a time to New England, of whose heretical teachers he wrote a short account. This sermon had so much effect upon Shawe that he was " much taken notice of in the colledge, and much opposed for a no Lancashire Gleanings. Puritane;" but he remained there until he took his M.A. degree in 1630. His departure from the University was hastened, as he frankly admits, by fear of the pestilence which was then "very sore" in Cambridge. His desire to avoid the plague was joined to an earnest wish to become a preacher of the gospel, and his first settlement was at Brampton, near Chesterfield. Soon after his arrival he had to see Bishop Morton in order to obtain a licence. Mprton is perhaps best known to us now as the real author of that Book of Sports which had so strange an influence upon the fortunes of the Stuarts. The Bishop seems to have found in Shawe a young man of mettle, and after a scholastical dispute gave him liberty to preach, and did it in a very hearty and complimentary fashion. In 1632 Shawe married Mistress Dorothy Heathcote of Culthorpe Hall. He was invited to preach before the Devonshire Merchants in London, and a year later was urged by them to accept the ministry of Chumleigh in Devonshire. The custom of these merchants was to main- tain a minister for three years at one place, and then, unless the people were willing to continue him at their own cost, he was removed to another locality. Shawe and his wife with their two children were "tabled" that is boarded in the house of Mr. Roger Skinner. Laud looked with an evil eye upon these mercantile patrons, as he suspected that their nominees were Puritans, if not Nonconformists. This and the necessity of settling the estate of his now deceased father led to Mr. Shawe"s return in the year 1636. He was appointed, by what influence is not named, chaplain to the Master John Shawe. m choleric Philip, Earl of Pembroke, who when Lord Cham- berlain used his staff of office to such purpose that he was said to have broken many wiser heads than his own. This would probably not be a difficult task. He was, it is thought, the only peer who ever sat in the House of Commons, in which assembly he represented the county of Buckingham in 1649. John Vaux, the Lord Mayor of York, was then a Puritan, and it was probably owing to the strength of the party in York that Shawe received the appointment of Lecturer to the church of All Hallows. Archbishop Neile sent for him, and after a preliminary brow-beating, in which he expressed his determination to break Vaux and the Puritans, threatened the new preacher, until he found out his connection with the princely house of Pembroke. This stood him in good stead afterwards, for when his cousin, the vicar of Rother- ham, died, he was offered the living. Lord Pembroke was then at Berwick with the King, whose ecclesiastical innova- tions had excited the ire of the prelate-hating Scotch. When Shawe reached his patron there was an English army on one side of the Tweed and a Scotch one on the other. Matters were patched up, and Mr. Shawe was commissioned to express to Bishop Neile the thanks of Lord Pembroke for the good services of his son, Sir Paul Neile. The Bishop "wept for joy" at the compliment. The peace did not last long, and the English army was defeated by the Scots, "at or near Newburne, August 28, 1640. . . . Whereupon the King and some nobles fled back to York in all haste on the Lord's day." When the treaty was referred to a Com- 112 Lancashire Gleanings. mission for the two nations, Shawe was appointed Chaplain to the English lords, and in that capacity preached before them. The Archbishop, suspecting that Shawe was "no friend to bishops," sent another preacher to Ripon, but on the remonstrance of the Earl of Bedford took him back again. The treaty of Ripon brought Shaw into contact with Alexander Henderson, the famous divine, who endeavoured to make Charles I. into a Presbyterian. The echoes of the civil war were doubtless heard in the vicarage of Rotherham, for not only would a man of Shawe's principles and temper take a keen interest in these troublous times, but, in addition, some of the leading actors, like Stafford and Fairfax, were connected with the district. Shawe was at a dinner at Lady Carlingford's, at Doncaster, when the king enquired of Sir Thomas Glenham, " Cannot I starve Hull? I am told I can take their fresh water from them." "Your Majesty," Sir Thomas replied, "is misin- formed ; for though you may cut off from them the fresh spring that runs to Hull, yet the very haven is fresh at low water, and every man can dig water at his door, and they cannot bury a corpse there but the grave first drowns him ere it buries him." When the King was being deluged with unwelcome petitions at York, Shawe met Lord Mowbray (afterwards Earl of Arundel) who asked him if he were that Shawe who was at Ripon of whom he had heard so good a report from the lords commissioners. This soft impeach- ment being acknowledged, the peer continued "But what are you akin to one Shawe of Rotherham, for we hear at the court as much ill of him?" From which it may fairly Master JoJm S/iaiue. 1 1 3 be concluded that the influence of the Puritan preacher was riot small, and was not exerted in the way that pleased the advocates of the right divine of kings to govern ill. Charles I. raised his standard at Nottingham in August, 1642, and the country was in a flame. Shawe fled by night with his wife to Hull, but Sir John Hotham objected to his presence there and he proceeded to Beverley, where he preached a sermon, which was printed with the designation of "A Broken Heart." This was published because "the watery eyes, atten- tive ears, and tongues of many most begged this." In it there is an allusion to the use of the hour-glass by which the clergy regulated the length of their sermons. He considers the "extraordinary redoubled tides," the storms and strange births reported in various quarters as so many "signs" of the troubles that were now coming upon the nation. What he termed Sabbath breaking "and that with authority," was a grievous offence to this Puritan preacher. Thomason, the bookseller, lent his copy of this sermon to Charles I., who, upon his way to the Isle of Wight, accidentally let it fall into the mud. This soiled copy may still be seen in the British Museum. When Lord Fairfax was at Selby to prevent the royalists, who then held York, from spoiling the country, Shawe preached before him a discourse of " The Two Clean Birds," which was printed, and contains some curious matter. Lord Fairfax was to him " the Joshua of the north." He laments that he is far asunder from his library, which was afterwards plundered. " How have the people of God been scorned and nicknamed a long time, for Waldenses, Hussites, Lollards, Lutherans, Hugenots, Precisians, Puritans, or all in 114 Lancashire Gleanings. one, Roundheads (as a parliament man said well, the word Puritan, in the mouth of an Arminian, signifies an orthodox divine; in the mouth of a drunkard signifies a sober man; in the mouth of a papist signifies a protestant)," &c. He speaks with exultation of the successful stand made by a handful of the people of Rotherham, who successfully repelled an attack of the royalists during sermon time on a Sunday morning. The sermon is otherwise a very laborious, earnest, plain-spoken Puritan discourse. Shawe returned to Rotherham, and when it capitulated to the Earl of Newcastle in 1643 he was one of four persons who were each fined a thousand marks. The royalists sought to take him prisoner, but with a faithful servant he found a hiding-place in the steeple of the church, and though the soldiers came several times into the room the two men remained undiscovered. They succeeded in getting clear during the night, and made their way to Manchester, which was then a stronghold of the Puritans and Parliamentarians. Most of his children remained at Rotherham in the care of his mother, but his wife joined him in Lancashire. Sir William Brereton offered him the living at Lymme, which he accepted, but he kept house in Manchester, riding to Lymme each Saturday and returning on Monday or Tues- day. He was appointed to preach every Friday in Man- chester, which was a sort of city of refuge for the Puritans of Yorkshire, " so that there was a sermon every day in the week, besides 2 or 3 sermons on the Lord's day." For his services he was promised ^50 ; but as he ruefully remarks he " never got a penny " of this offered reward. Whilst on Master John Shawe. 115 a visit to Sir George Booth's at Dunham, he was invited to go for seven or eight weeks to Cartmel to instruct its people, "who were exceeding ignorant and blind as to religion." With the consent of his congregation at Lymme he set forth with the hope of making the people of Cartmel sensible of the need of a settled minister. He went to Cartmel in April, 1644, and soon had a thousand hearers, and preached or catechised seven or eight times a week. The quality of the material he had to work upon may be judged from the following statement of Mr. John Shawe : " One day an old man (about 60), sensible enough in other things, and living in the parish of Cartmell, but in the chap- elry of Cartmell-fell, coming to me about some business, I told him that he belonged to my care and charge, and I desired to be informed in his knowledge of religion. I asked him, How many Gods there were ? He said, he knew not. I, informing him, asked him again how he thought to be saved ? He answered, he could not tell, yet thought that was a harder question than the other. I told him that the way to salvation was by Jesus Christ, God-man, who, as he was man, shed his blood for us on the crosse, &c. Oh, sir (said he), I think I heard of that man you speake of, once in a play at Kendall, called Corpus-Christi play, where there was a man on the tree, and blood ran downe, &c. And after, he professed that though he was a good Churchman, that is, he constantly went to Common-Prayer at their chappel, yet he could not remember that ever he heard of salvation by Jesus Christ, but in that play." This is curious not only as an evidence of the state of 1 1 6 Lancashire Gleanings. religious instruction, but as showing at how late a date the mediaeval miracle plays survived in the North Country. The coming of Prince Rupert's soldiers forced the earnest preacher to flee into Yorkshire, whilst his wife escaped by sea. But Marston Moor followed, when "though all the three generals on the Parliament's side fled, yet their forces won the day," and the Puritans were in the ascendant. Mr. Shawe was appointed Chaplain and Secretary to the Com- mittee which sat at York " for the casting out of ignorant and scandalous ministers." The official records he thought it prudent to destroy after the Restoration. His wife had escaped from Cartmel and made her way to Manchester, from whence Mr. Shawe brought her to York. After a short stay as preacher at Skerringham he settled as minister of the Low Church in Hull, and was afterwards transferred to the High Church, where he was Lecturer for seventeen years. He was promised ,150 and a good house, but he was not paid with that regularity that is desirable in such matters. On the occasion of the taking of the "Solemn League and Covenant " at York by Lord Fairfax, the city and the army, Shawe was the preacher, and " Britain's Re- membrancer," as his discourse was entitled, is especially commended to his "dearly-beloved friends at Lym and Warburton in Cheshire, at Skerringham, to that kind and hungering people after the means of grace at Cartmel and Furnesse in Lancashire, as also to my quondam neighbours of Kendall, and in Westmerland." Master Shawe's success in Hull was not unmixed, and his endeavour to " keep off dogs and swine " from the Lord's supper was not appreciated Master John Shawe. 117 by the persons to whom he applied those not very com- plimentary epithets. He attended the Commission that managed the siege of Newark, and was instrumental in effecting the return of the great guns of Hull to that town after they had done their part in the siege. He also attend- ed the Commission which vainly endeavoured to come to terms with Charles I. at Newcastle, before his surrender by the Scots. Shawe was now involved in disputes with John Canne, who had been a printer, and was the favourite preacher of the soldiers, who had the chancel of Trinity Church, Hull, separated by a thick wall from the body of the structure, in order to have a separate meeting place. Canne denounced Shawe as a turn-coat, who by reason of a " corrupt mayor " could put whom he liked in office as aldermen and sheriffs. " He is," cries Canne, " a most corrupt man, and hitherto countenanced by men as corrupt and rotten as himself." Shawe is not less severe, and quotes a biting epigram which ends : But lay John here, and lay Canne thereabout ; For if they both should meet, They would fall out. In 1651 Shawe became Master of the Charterhouse at Hull, and claims that he released it from a debt of ;ioo, contented himself with ^10 a year payment, increased the number of the almsmen from twelve to forty, advanced the yearly allowance of each man, and otherwise improved the charity. 1 1 & Lancashire Gleanings. During the Protectorate Shawe was sometimes called upon to preach at Whitehall, and if his own statement can be relied upon did so, " with the freedom and plainness of old Latimer." His plainness did not give offence, for his stipend was augmented. He preached several assize sermons at York, two of which are in print. In one of these he leaves it to their " honors to judg whether one post in a weeke, which need not travel on the Lord's-day at all (when no case of necessity, or extraordinary) was not better than two, who travel every Lord's-day, all the day constantly." In 1657 Shawe lost his wife, and to her memory dedicated a sermon, to which he gave the quaint title of " Mistris Shawe's Tombstone"; but this elaborate grief did not hinder his remarriage, two years later, to Mistress Margaret Stillington. The Restoration, which was so disastrous to some of the Puritans, had no terrors for Shawe. He had preached before the two Protectors, Oliver and Richard, and he was present at the coronation of their successor, and appointed chaplain to Charles II. His influence, however, was on the wane, and another, whom Shawe describes as " a drunken beggarly Tosspot," was appointed to preach in his place at Hull, and in 1 66 1 Shawe was inhibited from preaching. He had an interview with the King, who promised to take care of and for him, but insisted on the execution of his order. He also saw the Bishop of London, to whom he confessed that although he had never said anything against Episcopacy or Common Prayer, yet if they had never come in he would never have fetched them. Shaw continued to preach at the Master John Shawe. 119 Charterhouse, to which the people flocked until they were prevented by the soldiers. After some trouble, Shawe was forced to give up his post as Master of the Charterhouse, which he left in 1662 and went to live at Rotherham, where, not being affected by " that black and sad day of Bartholo- mew," he continued to preach occasionally until his death in 1664. The Latin brass which once covered his grave is gone ; but Calamy has given this translation of it : " Here lie the remains of the Rev. John Shawe, M.A. He was educated at Christ College, Cambridge, and was some- time vicar of this Church. He was ever esteemed for his eminent literature, piety, and labour in word and doctrine among the first divines of the age. In administering divine consolation he was a Barnabas, and in wielding divine thun- ders he was a Boanerges. He was translated to the celestial mansions April 19 [1672], aged 65." Shawe's will makes provision for his widow and family, and leaves threescore English Bibles to be given to poor people. During his lifetime he had given a copy of Foxe's " Book of Martyrs " to the church at Bradfield, " and un- feignedly begs God's blessing in y e reading, and all conscien- tious readers thereof." He made a similar donation to Penistone Church. It is somewhat difficult to appraise the character of Master John Shawe. We have chiefly to depend upon his own presentation of the facts of his life, and these may easily have appeared to him in a more roseate hue than they wore to his neighbours. That he was an earnest and able man is evidenced by the important influence he wielded during the I2O Lancashire Gleanings. struggles and successes of the Puritans. That a Boanerges of the Commonwealth should retain any office during the Restoration may have been a sufficient excuse to his enemies to gird at him as a time-server. The freeness with which he dispenses offensive adjectives, although a fashion of those times, is not a pleasant trait. We see him to the greatest advantage in Lancashire, where he appears to have laboured with apostolic fervour amongst a population whose religious knowledge was apparently not very extensive. The worldly strain in his character perhaps makes him in some respects a better type than others who suffered more and had less of temporal success. His life shows how strongly the Puritan preachers, earnest, able, fanatical, superstitious, and too often intolerant, influenced their time, and how great was the power they exercised in moulding the destinies of the nation. TRADITIONS COLLECTED BY THOMAS BARRITT. some call her Memory, And some Tradition. GEORGE ELIOT, Spanish Gypsy, bk. ii. HTHERE is now in the possession of Mr. John Adam A Eastwood, of Manchester, a MS. volume, which is one of the most interesting of the many relics left to us of the " painful " labours of Thomas Barritt, the Manchester anti- quary. He was born in 1743, and died October 2pth, 1820, at the age of 77. He was by trade a saddle maker, in Shude- hill, but devoted a great part of his time to the study of archae- ology. His collection of antiquities was dispersed, but the bulk of his MSS. became the property of the Chetham Library, and have been frequently drawn upon by subsequent writers. Barritt was very far from being a poet, but he was almost as fond of rhyming as Dr. Byrom, and, like him, sometimes selected strange subjects for his poetical essays. The MS. is an elaborate imitation of the illuminated works of earlier ages. It consists of eighteen leaves of parchment, mostly 122 Lancashire Gleanings. backed with paper or cloth. Each leaf treats of a separate subject, and is ornamented by a drawing, sometimes executed in colours. The text is written in characters formed like printed black-letter. The reverses have in some cases inscriptions, which can be read through the cloth on being held up to a strong light. That on the first leaf identifies the writer, and reads, " Composed for my two boys, Valen- tine and Arthur, Thomas Barritt, 1807." That which he had " composed " were two short "poems." The Goose, the Calf, the little Bee, Are great on Earth I prove to thee, And rules the great affairs of Man, Explain this riddle if thou can. Through old worn books I long have por'd, And what old people say, I faithfully relate again, Although a friar grey. With the substitution of the word " saddle maker " for friar, this would not inaptly describe the author himself, and the alteration would not damage the quality or quantity of the verse. The venerable riddle refers to the fact that quills, parchment, and wax, held the world together during many ages. The second leaf narrates the Legend of the Cross, a story dea^r to the mediaeval heart. It asserts that the Rood- tree on (*&vniy grew from a seed of the Tree of Life, which Seth obtained and placed in the mouth of Adam ere he died. Mr. Baring-Gould has given full particulars of this wild fancy in his " Curious Myths of the Middle Ages " (2nd Traditions Collected by Thomas Barritt. 123 series iii.) With the fourth leaf we enter upon the local matter. Its subject is the story of Sir Lancelot du Lake. He was sent by King Arthur to Manchester, there to do battle " against a giant Tarquin was his name." Having duly overthrown the pagan, Dauntless he entered, ranged the castle o'er, Of captives he released three score and four. This tradition is referred to by Hollingworth, writing in the middle of the seventeenth century. "The Rev. Mr. Whitaker," says Barritt, "has some probable and enter- taining remarks in his history of Manchester upon this old tale." That they are entertaining is quite true, but that they are probable is very improbable. The fifth leaf is a tradition to account for the name of the Roodee at Chester. It appears that the rood at Harden [Hawarden] Church, in Flintshire, fell from the loft Upon an aged dame and did her kyll, And human blood the crucifix did spill. The veneration for it was quite dispelled, and, as little cared for as a discarded African fetich, it was knocked about until at last it got into the Dee, and floated down to a meadow near the river. From this same accident a field ys named Rood Dee, a place for games and pastime famed. The sixth leaf recalls the statement made in Higden's Polycbronicon, that the Welsh princes were able to make 124 Lancashire Gleanings. nightingales sing when no one else could accomplish the feat ! We have next an epitaph upon Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, which is said to have been formerly in the Cathedral of Chester. Although my Corps it lies in Grave, And that my flesh consumed be ; My Picture here now that you have An Earle sometyme of thys Cittye, Hugh Lupe by Name, Sonn to the Duke of Brittayne ; Of Chivalrye then being Flower, And Sister's Son to William Conquerour ; To the Honour of God I did edifie The Foundation of this Monastery, The ninth Year of this my Foundation, God changed my life to his heavenly mansion. And the Year of our Lord then being so, A thousand one hundred and two, I changed this life verily The xvii. Daye oijuly. Then comes a dragon story. There was " a dreadful beast called a griffin," which eat up all the cattle that came in its way, to the terror of all the milkmaids round about Lymme. But there is an end to all things, even griffins A youth from Farnworth stout of strength, O'ercame this cruel beast at length ; He slew the monster in his hould, Since then men call him Bold of Bold. And as that family bear a griffin as their crest it would be out-doing St. Thomas to doubt any part of the story ! The Traditions Collected by Thomas Barritt. 125 ninth leaf is occupied with the Black Knight of Ashton. Tradition asserts that the annual ceremony of the riding of the black-lad at Ashton-under-Lyne arises from the remem- brance of a former lord Sir Ralph Assheton who was at last shot by one of the tenants on whom he practised various forms of tyrannical cruelty. The next is the legend of the Eagle and Child, so long associated with the crest of the Stanley family. Then we have a version of the Bewsey tradition, which has been dealt with by other local rhymers. This is followed by a tradition that Henry VII. fled after the battle of Towton to Lancashire, but his hiding-place, near Whalley, was betrayed "by two of Talbot's name," But Henry's curse they say upon them fell, A heavy judgment 'twas as some did tell ; That every other son a fool should be, Of the base treacherous Talbot's family. Henry is generally said to have gone to Scotland after the defeat at Towton, but in 1464 he was a fugitive in Lanca- shire and Westmoreland, and was taken prisoner at Waddington Hall, Yorkshire, in 1465, through the treachery of a monk of Abington. Whitaker has noticed this tradi- tion in his " History of Whalley." The legend of Mab's Cross is that Sir William Bradshaw, of Haigh, having gone on a pilgrimage, was so long away that his wife, by freewill or force, was on the point of being married to another, when he returned disguised as a palmer, and made himself known by a ring dropped into a cup of wine the lady was drinking. Then comes a metrical account of the feud between Sir 126 Lancashire Gleanings. William Atherton and Sir William Button, showing how they stole cattle and horses from each other. " The original deed of arbitration," says Barritt, " is in the possession of Charles Chadwick, of Healey Hall, near Rochdale." The next is a synopis of the prophecies of Merlin ; we have then a leaf headed Prudence and Mercy ; and another containing the farewell to his profession of an old man-at-arms. The last leaf contains the Trafford and Byron feud, which has been printed in Harland's "Ballads and Songs of Lancashire." If Barritt's zeal in collecting prevented him from being critical it is only fair to say that he was not unconscious of the high purposes which even family traditions may serve. He felt that the inheritance of the memory of great deeds should be a potent influence for good. It was in this spirit that Barritt transcribed some lines from Chaucer Thys first stock was full of righteousness, True of his word, sobre, piteous, and free ; Cleane of his ghoste and loved business, Againste the vice of slouthe in honestie. And but his heire love vertue as did he, He is not gentle though he rich seme, All weare he mytre, crowne, or diademe. DID SHAKSPERE VISIT LANCASHIRE? To me it seems as if when God conceived the world, that was Poetry ; He formed it, and that was Sculpture ; He coloured it, and that was Painting; He peopled it with living beings, and that was the grand, divine, eternal drama. CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN. MR. E. J. L. SCOTT, in a communication to the Athenaum, No. 2830, January 21, 1882, gives a letter from Henry le Scrope, ninth Baron Scrope of Bolton (Yorkshire), Governor of Carlisle and Warden of the West Marches, to William Asheby, English Ambassador at the Court of James VI. : "After my verie hartie comendacions : vpon a letter receyved from Mr. Roger Asheton, signifying vnto me that yt was the kinges earnest desire for to have her Majesties players for to repayer into Scotland to his grace : I dyd furthwith dispatche a servant of my owen vnto them wheir they were in the furthest parte of Langkeshire, whervpon they made their returne heather to Carliell, wher they are, and have stayed for the space of ten dayes, whereof I 128 Lancashire Gleanings. thought good to gyve yow notice in respect of the great desyre that the kyng had to have the same to come vnto his grace; And withall to praye yow to gyve knowledg thereof to his Majestic. So for the present, I bydd yow right hartelie farewell. Carlisle the xxth of September, 1589. "Your verie assured loving frend, " H. SCROPE." Mr. Scott continues : " There is no further letter relating to the subject among Asheby's correspondence, but it is very interesting to think that Shakspeare visited Edinburgh at the very time when the witches were tried and burned for raising the storms that drowned Jane Kennedy, mistress of the robes to the new queen, and imperilled the life of Anne of Denmark herself. In that case the witches in Macbeth must have had their origin from the actual scenes witnessed by the player so many years previously to the writing of that drama in 1606." The editor of the Manchester City News> -February 4, 1882, in reprinting the letter, says: "The letter is, however, specially worthy of note in these columns, because it shows not only that Shakspere was in Edinburgh at the period named (1589), but that he and his company of players were summoned to go from Lancashire here spelt ' Langkeshire.' " It may, however, be pointed out that there is other evidence of the Queen's players having been in Lancashire. The Queen's players came to Stratford in 1587, and this, Did Shakspere Visit Lancashire? 129 as Mr. Furnivall says, was probably the turning point in Shakspere's life, though Mr. Fleay holds that he must have left his native place in 1585. He is supposed to have joined this company, but we have no direct evidence of the fact, or of either of the companies called " The Queen's Players" having been James Burbage's company. The first note of Shakspere's connection with Burbage's men, who played at " The Theatre" in Shoreditch, occurs at Christmas, 1593, when, in the accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber, his name appears after that of Kempe and before that of Burbage, in the list of "Lord Strange's servants." The " Stanley Papers," issued by the Chetham Society, contain evidence that the company with which the name of Shakspere is traditionally associated was in Lancashire both before and after this supposed visit to Scotland. The Derby Household Book mentions the visit to the New Park in Lathom of the Queen's players on the tenth of October, 1588, and their visit to Knowsley on the 25th June, 1590, whence they departed on the following day. ("Stanley Papers," edited by F. R. Raines, pt. ii. pp. 51, 82). One would like to associate the princely house of Derby with the name and fame of our great dramatist; and there is sufficient ground for supposing that Shakspere may have visited Lancashire, though the evidence is certainly not strong enough to warrant us in asserting that he did. THE LANCASHIRE PLOT. Hast thou betrayed my credulous innocence With vizor'd falsehood and base forgery ? MILTON, Comus 697. THE town of Manchester was in a state of indignant and feverish excitement on the iyth of October, 1694, being the sixth year of the reign of William the Deliverer. Everywhere groups of townspeople were discussing the all- absorbing topic of the Lancashire plot, for on that day there came to the town four of their Majesties' judges, with every circumstance of pomp and parade, to try for their lives gentlemen of the best blood of Lancashire and Cheshire ; unfortunate prisoners who were accused of having conspired against the Deliverer, of having been guilty of the treason of remaining faithful to the old king, whom the rest of the nation had cast off. The prisoners were brought into town strongly guarded, amidst the sympathetic demonstrations of their neighbours, who were equally liberal of groans and hisses for the wretched informers who were about to do their endeavour to bring them to the scaffold. Lancashire, which in the civil war struck some hearty The Lancashire Plot. 131 blows for parliament, was now a hotbed of disaffection. The old cavalier families, in spite of bitter experience of Stuart ingratitude, remained faithful in spirit to the exile of St. Germains ; and the common people would have no love for King William, who was a foreigner, nor for Queen Mary, who sat upon the throne of her royal father, whilst he wan- dered a weary exile in a foreign land. The accused then would have been pretty certain of sympathy had the public mind been convinced of the reality of the supposed con- spiracy. How much more so, then, when it was shrewdly suspected that the charge had been trumped up by a gang of villains eager for blood-money, and supported by greater rogues anxious for a share of the estates which would be forfeited upon the conviction of their victims ? Nor was the suspicion altogether groundless, for covetous eyes were fixed longingly on these fine Lancashire acres, and the Roman Catholic gentry ran great danger of being defrauded of their inheritance s. In 1693 a commission sat at Warrington to inquire into certain lands and property alleged to have been given to " superstitious uses," i.e., to ascertain whether the Roman Catholic gentry had applied any portion of their estates or income to the promotion of their faith, or the sustenance of its ministers, and if they could be convicted of this heinous crime the property was to be confiscated, and one-third por- tion given as the reward of the undertakers. So confident were these persons of their prey that the plunder was prospectively allotted. As the result of this commission, where the defendants were not heard, the matter was carried into the 132 Lancashire Gleanings. Exchequer Chamber. Here it was pretended that at a meeting at the papal nuncio's house, Lord Molyneux, William Standish, Thomas Eccleston, William Dicconson, Sir Nicholas Sherburne, Sir W. Gerard, and Thomas Gerard, had all promised money or lands for Papish uses. But the accusers had been very clumsy, for the falsehood of each separate item of the accusation was so abundantly proved, that the Government was forced to abandon all further proceedings. When, therefore, in the next year it was bruited about that a plot had been discovered to bring back King James and murder King William of Orange ; that men had been enlisted, commissions received from St. Germains, arms bought and concealed in the old halls of Lancashire and Cheshire, and that those who had by the Warrington inquiry been in danger of losing their broad acres, were now also- likely to lose their lives ; men said, not unnaturally, that it was a base and horrible conspiracy against the Lancashire gentlemen ; and that this was the next move in the iniquitous game begun at Warrington. If broken tapsters and branded rogues were to be encouraged in devoting to the traitors' block gentlemen of rank and estate, whose life was safe ? Such was the state of feeling amongst the crowds which surrounded the Sessions House, opposite to where the present Exchange is erected. It was not until the 2oth that the trial before a jury began. On that Saturday Sir Roland Stanley, Sir Thomas Clifton, William Dicconson, Philip Langton, Esquires, and William Blundell, Gent., were placed at the bar, and, in long verbose sentences, accused both in The Lancashire Plot. 133 Latin and English, generally of being false traitors to our Sovereign Lord and Lady, and specifically of having accepted commissions for the raising of an army from James the Second, late King of England. After the case had been opened, Sir William Williams, their Majesties' counsel, called, as first witness, John Lunt, who was asked if he knew all the five men at the bar ? Lunt, with front of brass, answered that he did know them all. Here Sir Roland Stanley cried out, "Which is Sir Roland Stanley?" Whereupon, to testify how intimately the informer was acquainted with them, he pointed out Sir Thomas Clifton ! Great was the outcry in the court, which did not lessen when the judge bid Lunt take one of the officers' white staves, and lay it on the head of Sir Roland Stanley, and he again indicated the wrong man. Being asked which was Sir Thomas Clifton he unhesitatingly pointed out Sir Roland Stanley. Having thus shown his accuracy he was allowed to proceed with his narrative of the plot. His evidence asserted that in 1689 one Dr. Bromfield, a Quaker, was sent by the Lancashire gentry to the court at St. Germains, to request King James to send them commissions, that they might enlist men for his service. Bromfield, being known as a Jacobite agent, it was determined to employ some one less known, and Lunt was pitched upon for the purpose. So, in company with Mr. Threlfall, of Goosnargh, he came over in a vessel which landed at Cockerham. At the residence of Mr. Tildesley they separated and Threlfall went into York- shire to distribute commissions, whilst Lunt was summoned to attend a midnight meeting of the Lancashire Jacobites, 134 Lancashire Gleanings. held at the seat of Lord Molyneux, at Croxteth. Here the persons now accused were present, and many others, none of whom Lunt had ever seen before. The commissions were delivered, the health drunk of their Majesties over the water, and some little additional treason talked. At this point in the evidence Sir Roland Stanley remarked how improbable it was that he should accept a commission which might endanger his life and estate from an utter stranger. " But," cries Lunt, " I brought you with your commission Dr. Bromfield's letter." Then the judge said to Sir Roland, "You are answered that was his creden- tials ;" but did not think fit to say that Lunt had made no mention in his depositions of this circumstance, which was evidently invented on the spur of the moment to confound Sir Roland Stanley. The judge also observed there was no great matter in Lunt not being able to point out the prisoners correctly. Lunt, thus encouraged by Sir Giles Eyre, proceeded with his veracious narrative swore that the Lanca- shire gentlemen had given him money to enlist men and buy arms ; that he beat up sixty men in London, who were quartered in different parts of the county palatine ; and particularised some persons to whom arms had been sent. In 1691 (about July or August), he was sent to France, to acquaint the Pretender with what his friends had been doing, and to inquire when they might expect him in England. The spring following was named as the happy time when the Stuarts were to be re-established on the English throne. He also named a meeting at Dukenhalgh, when some more commissions were distributed by Mr. The Lancashire Plot. 135 Walmsley, one of the accused. Mr. Dicconson now asked Lunt why he had not disclosed the existence of this terrible plot, or why he had revealed it at all ? Lunt was evidently prepared for this inquiry, and his retort was prompt and crushing. Some proposals had been made to which he could not assent. Being pressed by the Court to be less reticent, and explain his meaning, he said that there was a design to murder King William ; that the Earl of Melfort (the Pretender's friend and minister) had asked him to aid in the assassination ; he had consented to do so, but a Carthusian friar, to whom he had revealed it under con- fession, told him that it would be wilful murder if King William were killed, except in open battle, and he had revealed the plot lest his old colleagues should carry out their wicked project. Such, in brief, was the evidence of Lunt, deviating often from the tenour of his previous depositions, which had been made before he had been under the moulding influences of Aaron Smith, an unscrupulous Jacobite hunter, whose delight and duty it was to manage these little matters, to procure witnesses and favourable juries. Favourable judges were supplied by his betters. And to fully understand the gravity of the prisoners' position it should be recollected that they could not have the assistance of counsel; their witnesses could not be compelled to attend ; they were ignorant of the witnesses to be produced against them ; and, until they stood in the dock, had not heard the indictment against them. Every circumstance was in favour of the crown. Lunt's evidence was corroborated by Womball, a 136 Lancashire Gleanings. carrier, and one Wilson, who had been branded for roguery, as to the delivery of commissions and arms. Colonel Uriah Brereton (who was, it is said, a saddler's apprentice and common sharper) testified that he had received money from Sir Roland Stanley for the service of King James. This worthy Captain Bobadil being asked if he was not poor and necessitous when he received these gifts, cried out, in true ruffler style, " Poor ! That is a question to degrade a gentleman." The remaining evidence we need not go into, save that of John Knowles, who, having been sworn, declared " by fair yea and nay, he knew nout on't." Then, after short speeches by Stanley and Dicconson, the witnesses for the defence were examined. The first half- dozen made some damaging attacks upon the character of John Lunt, representing him as a mean scoundrel, a bigamist, and a notorious highwayman. Then Lawrence Parsons, his brother-in-law, testified that he had been invited by Lunt to aid him in denouncing the Lancashire gentlemen, but had refused the offer of 205. per week and ^"150 at the end, rather than "swear against his country- men that he knew nothing against." Mr. Legh Bankes, a gentleman of Gray's Inn, told how Taafe, an intimate friend of Lunt's, and who was expected to be a witness for the crown, had been to the wife of Mr. Dicconson, and revealed to her the whole design of Lunt, offering to introduce some friend of the prisoner's to Lunt, as persons likely to be serviceable in any swearing that might be needed to hang the prisoners. Mr. Bankes was suspicious of this being a trap; but having been introduced to Lunt, that worthy, The Lancashire Plot. 137 over a glass of ale, very frankly said that he wanted gentle- men of reputation to back his own evidence, and if Bankes would join he should be well provided for. He produced his "narrative of the plot," and Taafe read aloud this manuscript, which named several hundreds besides the prisoners. " Why were these not taken up also ? " inquired Bankes. Lunt's answer was, "We will do these people's business first, and when that hath given us credit we will run through the body of the nation." When the next witness arose, Lunt and Aaron Smith must surely have trembled, for it was their old friend Taafe, who, after adding his testimony to Lunt's villainous character, gave a brief account of that worthy gentleman's career as a discoverer of plots. How the first one he discovered (it was in Kent) came to nothing, as he had failed to find corroborative evidence ; and how he was near failing again from the same cause; how Aaron Smith had edited and improved his original narrative. Lunt wanted Taafe as a witness, com- plained that the men he had hired to swear were blockish, and of such low caste as to carry little weight. Could Taafe introduce him to some gentleman (God save the mark !) willing to perjure his soul, consign innocent men to the scaffold, and receive blood-money from Aaron Smith? Taafe, from some motive not clear, determined to baulk the villainy of his fellow-informer, hence the circumstances narrated by Mr. Legh Bankes, whose suspicions of treachery had prevented a full discovery. Taafe had partially opened his mind to the Rev. Mr. Allenson, who had also distrusted him in a similar manner. In Roger Dicconson, brother of 138 Lancashire Gleanings. the prisoner, he found a bolder and more adventurous spirit. The evidence of Mr. Allenson need not be analysed. He was followed by Mr. Roger Dicconson, who told how he was introduced by Taafe to Lunt, as a proper person to aid in the plan, at a coffee-house in Fetter-lane, when they adjourned to a private room. Dicconson called himself Howard, a member of the Church of England, willing to join in the plot for a valuable consideration. Lunt said that they had gold in for ; 100,000 a year, and that the informants were to have a third of the forfeited estates. He asked Lunt if he knew Dicconson's brother ? and Lunt, all unconscious that he was sitting face to face with him, replied, "Yes; very well, for he had delivered commissions to Hugh and Roger Dicconson about Christmas !" Many more witnesses were examined some of whom established that certain of the prisoners were not in the neighbourhood of Croxteth and Dukenhalgh at the time of the alleged Jacobite meetings at those places ; whilst others gave most damaging evidence as to the utter rascality of Lunt and his chief witnesses Womball, Wilson, and Brereton. The judge, in his summing up, contented him- self with saying that the matter deserved great consideration, in which opinion the jury did not agree, for, after a short consultation, and without leaving court, they returned for each prisoner a verdict of NOT GUILTY. Mr. Justice Eyres then discharged them, with an eulogy upon the merciful and easy Government under which they lived, and advised them to beware of entering into plots and conspiracies against it. Lord Molyneux, Sir William Gerard, and Bartholomew The Lancashire Plot. 139 Walmsley, Esq., were then put to the Bar, but, no witnesses appearing, they were also declared Not Guilty, which gave Mr. Justice Eyres an opportunity for another cynical speech, concluding with these words : " Let me therefore say to you, go and sin no more, lest a worse thing befall you." As they had just been pronounced innocent, the meaning and fitness of his remarks are somewhat questionable. But if his bias prejudiced him against the prisoners, they would have com- pensation in the popular satisfaction at their acquittal. Man- chester went mad with joy. Lunt and his merry men were pelted out of the town, and only escaped lynching by the intervention of the prisoners' friends ; and all concerned in the prosecution came in for a share of popular hatred. The peril which the Lancashire gentlemen thus strangely escaped was a very great one, but the peril which the country escaped was greater still, for had there been wanting the disaffection of Taafe to his brother rascal Lunt, the courage and address of Roger Dicconson, and the honesty of the Manchester jury, England might have seen a repetition of the atrocities of Titus Gates and William Bedloe; might have seen a bigamist highwayman going from shire to shire and fattening on the blood and ruin of the best of her nobles and gentle- men. It is only fair to add that those who believe in the reality of the " plot " may cite the resolution of the House of Com- mons (who examined many witnesses on the subject some months after this trial), that there had been a dangerous plot, and that the special assize at Manchester was justifiable* That resolution strikes one as being more political than 140 Lancashire Gleanings. judicial. A prosecution for perjury against Lunt was aban- doned, because it was understood that persistence in it would bring on the prosecutors the weight of the harsh penal laws. The following books may be consulted on the subject : Histoire de la derniere conspiration d' Angleterre [Par Jacques Abbadie], London, 1696. Jacobite Trials at Manchester in 1694. Edited by William Beamont, 1853 (Chetham Society, vol. xxviii.). I. Abbott's Journal; II. The Trials in Manchester 1094. Edited by Rt. Rev. Alexander Goss, D.D., 1864 (Chetham Society, vol. Ixi.). A Letter out of Lancashire to friends in London, giving some account of the late Tryals there. [By Thomas Wagstaffe], London, 1694. Ainsworth's novel of "Beatrice Tyldesley" relates to these Jacobite Trials. SHERBURNES IN AMERICA. Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 'Tis only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood. TENNYSON, Lady Clara Vere de Vere. f^ ENEALOGICAL studies are increasingly popular in the vJ United States, and one result is that of recording many links connecting the Old and the New World. Mr. James Rindge Stanwood, of Boston, has written "The Direct Ancestry of the late Jacob Wendell, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire," which was printed in 1882. He has prefixed to it a sketch of the early Dutch settlement of the province of New Netherland from 1614 to 1664. Mr. Stanwood is the grandson of Jacob Wendell, who was descendant in the sixth generation of Evert Jansen Wendell, a native of Embden, in East Friesland, who settled in Albany in 1640. Jacob Wendell, who was born in 1691, was the first of that name who removed to New England, and his nephew, Col. John Wendell, has amongst his descendants Wendell Phillips, the famous orator, and Dr. Oliver Wendell 142 Lancashire Gleanings. Holmes, the ever delightful Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. The first Oliver Wendell was born in 1733, and his Christian name was also his mother's maiden name. John Wendell, who was born at Boston in 1731, married in 1778 Dorothy Sherburne, of whose father the following account is given : "The Hon. Henry Sherburne, born April 4th, 1709, a citizen of abundant wealth, prominent station and influence in the province of New Hampshire, who married, Oct. 2nd, 1740, Miss Sarah, daughter of Daniel and Sarah (Hill) War- ner, of Portsmouth. He graduated at Harvard College in 1728, was clerk of the Courts of Province from 1729 to 1739, and from 1745 for twenty-one years representative from Portsmouth to the Provincial Assembly, of which he was Speaker the last ten years. He was delegate to the Colonial Congress at Albany in 1754; in 1765 was made Chief Justice of the Superior Court, and in 1766 was appointed Councillor. He was great-grandson through Henry (born 1674), Samuel (born 1638) of the first American ancestor, Henry Sherburne (born 1611), who emigrated from Hampshire, England, to the Piscataqua in 1632, who was the second son of Joseph Sherburne, of Odiham, Hampshire, died 1621, who was the lineal descendant in a younger branch through Henry (born 1555), of Oxford, Hugh (born 1534), of Haighton, Richard (born 1510), of Bayley and Haighton; Richard (born 1488), of Wiswall, the second son of Sir Richard Sherburne, knight, of Stonyhurst, in the town of Aighton, Lancashire (born 1465) the ninth in regular descent to whom had fallen that princely inheritance." (" MS. of Edward Raymond Sherburne.") Jacob Wendell, in 1815, was concerned with others in Sherburnes in America. 143 establishing some of the earlier mills in New Hampshire. " This undertaking " we are told " was first initiated by some gentlemen of Dover, at what was known as the Upper Factory, where they were at that time spinning yarn and making nails. Isaac Wendell, my father, entered warmly into the enterprise, and enlisted in its interests, and in those of the new mills established at Dover, and subsequently at Great Falls; his brother, Jacob Wendell, and others with his partner, John Williams, of Dover. The location and rise of the Great Falls Manufacturing Company dates from 1823, the Legislative Act granting it incorporation, bearing date June nth of that year. " The inspection of mechanical details in the factory at Dover was intrusted to William Blackburn, an experienced weaver from the city of Manchester, in England, while Isaac AVendell occupied the position of agent, and exercised a general supervision over the interests of the mills. Of the working capacity of these factories, some idea may be gained when we state that the first year (1821) three thousand spindles were put in operation in the wooden mill at Dover (since removed), while the total number operated at both places exceeded thirty thousand. The bricks necessary for these buildings were made on the ground, while much of the iron work needed was furnished by a small furnace erected on the Bellamy river. The mills made shirtings, print cloths, and sheetings, and the annual production was very large. Twelve to fifteen hundred operatives were employed on the corporation, while the amount of money disbursed monthly, exclusive of the cost of cotton, amounted to a 144 Lancashire Gleanings. large sum. In 1825 the Company attempted the manu- facture of woollen cloth and carpets, erecting a mill for that purpose, but it soon relinquished this project, and put the new factory also upon cotton." ("MS. of Ann Elizabeth Wendell.") The mills were ruined, however, in the great panic of 1827-28, and Jacob Wendell lost severely by them. CURIOSITIES OF STREET LITERATURE. Thespis, the first professor of our art, At country wakes sang ballads from a cart. DRYDEN. Prologtte to Lee's Sophonisba. THE ephemeral literature of the streets the account of a great fire, the lamentation for some public calamity, the apocryphal penitential verses of hardened and bloody- minded murderers, the satirical rhymes, the tender and amorous lay has an interest all its own. There are few of us but must confess to having stopped to listen to the mouldy " patter " of the seedy-looking tatterdemalions who, keenly alive to business, occasionally amuse a street crowd by their voluble oratory or melancholy chant. In 1871, Reeves and Turner, of London, published a quarto vol. entitled " Curiosities of Street Literature." This consists of reprints of some choice specimens of the literature by which the flying stationers of former days made a living. From its high price and the small number (456) printed, this work is little known to the general public. As several of the ballads and broadsides have a local flavour, a few words of note may not 146 Lancashire Gleanings. be out of place. " The Liverpool Tragedy ; Showing how a Father and Mother Barbarously Murdered their own Son," is a ballad narrating the story on which Lillo founded his play of " Fatal Curiosity." It is one of these legends dear to the hearts of the people, which has been narrated of many localities, and is dealt with more fully in another part of this volume. " Th' Owdam Chap's Visit to th' Queen " (p. 66) is in the Lancashire dialect, and written upon the occasion of the birth of the Prince of Wales. There is one, entitled " Peterloo," which has at least the merit of brevity : See ! see ! where freedom's noblest champion stands, Shout ! shout ! illustrious patriot band, Here grateful millions their generous tribute bring And shouts for freedom make the welkin ring, While fell corruption and her hellish crew The blood-stained trophies gained at Peterloo. Soon shall fair freedom's sons their right regain, Soon shall all Europe join the hallowed strain Of Liberty and Freedom, Equal Rights and Laws. Heaven's choicest blessing crown this glorious cause, While meanly tyrants, crawling minions too, Tremble at their feats performed on Peterloo. Britons, be firm, assert your rights, be bold, Perish like heroes, not like slaves be sold j Firm and unite let millions be free, Will to your children glorious liberty ; While coward despots long may keep in view, And, silent, contemplate the deeds on Peterloo. A more modern sample of the liberal muse is given on p. 104, "A New Song to the Memory of the late R. Cobden, Esq., M.P." which ends Curiosities of Street Literature. 147 For ever shall his name endure, Tho' numbered with the dead, His name through earth's immortalised, " He got the people bread. " '"Manchester's an Altered Town" occurs at p. 122 : Once on a time this good old town was nothing but a village Of husbandry and farmers too, whose time was spent in tillage : But things are altered very much, such building now alloted is It rivals far, and soon will leave behind, the great Metropolis. O dear O, Manchester's an altered town, O dear O. Once on a time, were you inclined your weary limbs to lave, sir, In summer's scorching heat, in the Irwell's cooling wave, sir, You had only to go to the Old Church for the shore, sir ; But since those days the fish have died, and now they are no more, sir. When things do change, you ne'er do know what next is sure to follow ; For, mark the change in Broughton now, of late 'twas but a hollow ; For they have found it so snug, and changed its etymology, They have clapt in it a wild beast's show, now called the Gardens of Zoology. A market on Shudehill there was, and it remains there still, sir : The Salford old bridge is taken away, and clapt a new one in, sir ; There's Newton Lane, I now shall name, has had an alteration, They've knocked a great part of it down to make a railway station. There's Bolton Railway Station in Salford, give attention, Besides many more too numerous to mention ; Besides a new police, to put the old ones down stairs, sir, A Mayor and Corporation to govern this old town, sir. There's Manchester and Salford old bridge that long has stood the weather, Because it was so very old they drowned it altogether ; 148 Lancashire Gleanings. And Brown-street market, too, it forms part of this sonnet, Down it must come they say, to build a borough gaol upon it. Not long ago, if you had taken a walk through Stevenson Square, sir, You might have seen, if you look'd, a kind of chapel there, sir, And yet this place, some people thought, had better to come down, sir ; And in the parson's place they put a pantaloon and clown, sir. In former times our cotton swells were not half so mighty found, sir, But in these modern times they everywhere abound, sir ; With new police and watchmen, to break the peace there's none dare, And at every step the ladies go, the policemen cry, " Move on there." In former days this good old town was guarded from the prigs, sir, By day by constables, by night by watchmen with Welsh wigs, sir ; But things are altered very much, for all those who're scholars May tell the new policemen by their numbers on their collars. "Luke Hutton's Lamentation" (p. 165), which has been previously printed by Mr. Payne Collier, is a doleful ditty setting forth the sorrows of a highwayman who was " hanged at York" in 1598. The same fate awaited William Nevison, who is said to have performed the exploit attributed to- Dick Turpin by a Manchester novelist. Nevison's ride from London to York was certainly a wonderful feat, if it ever happened at all. The ballad of "Bold Nevison the High- wayman" (p. 169) has often been reprinted. The murder of Mrs. Hutchinson at Liverpool in 1849, by John Gleeson Wilson, is set forth at page 197. The circumstances of that brutal triple murder were imprinted on many memories by their bizarre horror. "The Wigan Murder" (p. 203) relates the "examination and confession of John Healey." Curiosities of Street Literature. 149 John Healey is my name, It was strong whisky did my head inflame, With four companions, at their desire, At Button Pit, near Wigan, To thrust poor James Barton in the furnace flames of fire. The last line, it will be seen, is, if not good measure, at least "pressed down and running over." "The Execution of James Clitheroe, of St. Helens " (p. 208), is a brief prose biography of a gentleman who murdered a paralytic woman with whom he cohabited in adulterous intercourse. " Miles Weatherhill, the Young Weaver, and his sweetheart, Sarah Bell" (p. 215), is a ballad story of a young man executed at Manchester. The poet's sympathy is clearly with the crimi- nal. He had been refused permission to see his sweatheart, who was a servant at Todmorden Parsonage, and in revenge made a murderous attack upon the inmates of the house. Three innocent lives has been sacrificed, And one serious injured all through true love, If they'd not been parted, made broken-hearted, Those in the grave would be living now ; And Miles would not have died on the gallows For slaying the maiden and Parson Plow. ***** And all good people, oh, pray consider Where true love is planted, there let it dwell ; And recollect the Todmorden murder, Young Miles the weaver, and Sarah Bell. "Trial, Character, Confession, and Behaviour of Alice Holt" (p. 223), who was executed at Chester for the murder of her 150 Lancashire Gleanings. mother. The poor old lady appears to have died of an insurance for ^26, a not altogether novel complaint. At p. 213 we have a sympathetic elegy upon Allen, Gould, and Larkin : To God I recommend them, in his mercy to defend them ; May their souls shine in glory upon the blessed shore. Safe within His keeping, where there will be no weeping, Now Allen, Gould, and Larkin, alas ! are now no more, The contents mention (p. 235) an execution paper of John Gregson for the murder of his wife at Liverpool, but this morceau has been cancelled and another attraction substi- tuted in its place. These notes may serve to show how varied and extensive is the literature of the streets, in which is embodied in not too flattering shape the form and pres- sure of the time. THOMAS AND JOHN FERRIAR. Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. SHAKSPERE. AMONGST the gallant soldiers whom Manchester may claim to have reared, a place of honour must be given to Thomas Ilderton Ferriar, and his brother, John Ferriar. Thomas was the eldest son of Dr. John Ferriar, the well- known author of the Illustrations of Sterne. The details of his life are exceedingly scanty. In 1817 he was living in the Netherlands on half-pay as a lieutenant of the 23rd Light Infantry. Here his attention, was attracted to the struggle for liberty in South America. The great name of Bolivar was one that excited the enthusiasm of many young and ardent minds. Amongst those who joined the British Legion, formed to help those striving to throw off the galling yoke of old Spain, was young Ferriar. It was expected that Captain Sturowitz would follow to take the command of these volunteers. The news reached his younger brother, who had also distinguished himself by 152 Lancashire Gleanings. military ardour. John Ferriar at an early age became attached to the commissariat of the British army in the Peninsula, and was present at the battles of Vittoria and Toulouse. He sailed with Sir John Keane in the expedition to New Orleans, and was afterwards sent to Flanders, where he arrived two days after Waterloo. On the conclusion of peace he tried, but vainly, to obtain military employment in India or the colonies. He caught eagerly at the prospect of going to South America, but his letter, asking to be allowed to join the expedition, did not reach Flushing until after the departure of his elder brother. Nothing daunted, he decided to follow, and did so notwithstanding the difficulties that had been thrown in the way of foreign enlistment. When the brothers met near Angostura the first words of the elder were : " Jack, I am heartily sorry to see you here." Both brothers were under the leadership of Paez, and in 1821 the command of the British Legion was entrusted to Col. Thomas Ferriar. The history of the corps is somewhat obscure. Originally, there was, in addition to the English Legion, a battalion of Irish recruits, who had been organised by General D'Evereux. They were under the leadership of an officer who made himself very unpopular, and this led the hot-tempered sons of Erin to break out in open mutiny on St. Simon's day, which was being celebrated as the national feast day. This disaffection probably led to the fusion of the two battalions under the name of the British Legion, or more probably it was formed of the fragments of the various corps of British volunteers who had from time to time joined the Columbian army. Their fighting quality was severely tested Thomas and John Ferriar. 153 at the battle of Carabobo. Of this there is a vivid descrip- tion in a recent work by a Manchester author now unhappily- deceased : "In 1821 was fought the decisive battle of Carabobo, which gave Venezuela to the patriots. The plain could only be approached by the defile of Buena Vista, whose outlet was commanded by the Spanish artillery, backed by strong masses of infantry in two lines of battle, and sup- ported on their flanks by strong bodies of cavalry. The Spaniards had 9,000 men, whilst Bolivar had only 6,000. The royalist position was absolutely impregnable. It was determined, therefore, that Paez should go by a path danger- ous and little known, and attempt to turn the enemy's right. This path winds from the road to San Carlos over a wooded hill, and into a ravine so full of briars that the men had to pass singly through it. The royalists discovered the move- ment of Paez as his men entered the ravine, and four of their best battalions were at once directed against him. Unable to withstand this terrible charge the soldiers of Apure gave way, and it was only by the gallantry and coolness of the men of the British Legion that the fortunes of the day were ultimately turned in favour of the patriots. Filing off under a tremendous fire, they formed in battle array, and, kneeling down, withstood every effort to dislodge them. Not an inch did they yield, although nearly all their officers were killed or wounded, and their desperate resistance gave time for the battalion of Apure to re-form. Afterwards Bolivar called the British Legion ' the saviours of his country.' Re- inforcements under General Heras and the famous body- 154 Lancashire G leaning's. guard of Paez now came on the scene of action ; the royalists, attacked in front and rear, were totally routed and pursued to Valencia, whence, with the shattered fragments of his host, La Torre withdrew to Puerto-Cabello, which was carried by assault in November of the same year." (" Land of Bolivar," by James Mudie Spence, London, 1878, vol. i., p. 132.) The accuracy of this account of the battle is confirmed by various contemporary authorities. Bolivar, whilst giving the chief credit to Paez, speaks in high terms of Ferriar and the British battalion. " El bizarro General Paez, a" la cabeza de los dos batallones de su division y del regimiento de caballeria del valiente Coronel Munoz marchd con tal in- trepidez sobre la derecha del enemigo, que, en media hora, todo el fue envuelto y cortado. Nada hara jamas bastante honor al valor de estas tropas. El batallon britanico man- dado por el beneme'rito Coronel Farriar \sic\ pudo aun distinguirse entre tantos valientes, y tuvo una gran perdida de oficiales. La conducta del General Paez en la ultima y mas gloriosa victoria de Colombia, le ha hecho acreedor al ultimo rango en la milicia ; y yo, en nombre del Congreso le he ofrecido, en el campo de batalla, el empleo de General en gefe del Eje"rcito." (Larrizabal : " Vida de Bolivar," ii. 85.) Mendez, then Minister of War, in his official report to the Congress, stated that " the firmness of the British legion, en- during the fire of the enemy until they had formed, and the intrepidity with which they charged with the bayonet, sus- stained by the battalion of the Apure who had re-formed, and by two companies of sharpshooters who were led by their commander, Lieutenant Colonel Haras, decided the battle." Thomas and John Ferriar, 155 (" Colleccion de Documentos relatives a la vida publica del libertador Simon Bolivar," Caracas, 1826, p. 281, torn, ii.) Baralt and Diaz, in their account of the battle, likewise tell us that the Republicans were giving way, when the English, under the command of Colonel Ferriar, aided them. The Royalists had attacked one battalion of the Republicans with four of their own best battalions, and the issue of the unequal struggle was not very doubtful " when those valiant strangers defiled and formed themselves in battle array." Under a horrible fire, and with an almost incredible serenity, they knelt down upon the earth to take aim, and it was impossible to move them.* General Paez, who was the leader of the battalion of the Apure, has himself borne hearty witness to the help given to him by the British Legion, who, he says, under the command of their high-spirited colonel, Ferriar, were worthy com- patriots of those who a few years earlier fought with so much * El cuerpo republicano al fin logro pasar, pero no pudiendo resistir solo carga que le dieron, se arremolinaba ya y cedia cuando flegaron en su ausilio los ingleses al mando del coronel Juan Ferrier. El enemigo habia empenado en el ataque cuatro de sus mejores batallones contra uno solo del ejercito libertador; sucesivamente podia haberlos contendo y arrollado a todos. Mas aquellos valerosos estranjeros desfilaron y se formaron en batalla baja un fuego horroroso con una serenidad que no parecia criaturas racionales ; despues hincaron la rodilla en tierra y no hubio medio de hacerles dar un paso atras. Muchos alii gloriosamente perecerien y casi todos sus oficiales quedaron heridos, pero el servicio que prestaron no fue por eso menos grande. (Baralt y Diaz : " Resumen de la Historia de Venezuela," Paris, 1841, torn. ii. p. 46.) 156 Lancashire Gleanings. coolness at Waterloo. He describes them as forming in line of battle under the fire of the enemy, and continuing the struggle until their cartridges were all exhausted, and then as charging with the bayonet. (" Autobiografia del General Jose Antonio Paez," Nueva York, 1869, vol. i., p. 206.) The Legion suffered greatly in this battle. Thirty were killed and one hundred wounded ; amongst the latter, Col. Ferriar. Bolivar was overjoyed at the victory by which the Spanish power was broken. The Congress decreed the erection of a memorial of those who had fought in the struggle, and the name of Ferriar was omitted. Ducoudray Holstein says : " In speaking of this decree I must be per- mitted deeply to regret that the glorious death of Colonel Ferriar was not noticed in it. He died at the head-quarters of the British Legion. His merit surely entitled him to a con- spicuous place in one of the four columns of a paper devoted to the fame of those who fought for the liberty of Colombia." ("Memoirs of Bolivar," Eng. edit, 1830, ii., 174.) But the vote of the Congress was, perhaps, immaterial, for, in the confusion which followed, the monument so solemnly decreed in the name of the nation was never erected. The battle of Carabobo was fought on 24th June, 1821. Col. Ferriar was carried wounded from the field, and died at Valencia on the i;th of the following month. The Liberator showed his sense of the loss which Colombia had sustained by following the body to the grave as chief mourner. It was not till the 2pth of the following Sept. that the Manchester public heard of the battle in the pages of the Guardian. In the paper of that date a correspondent Thomas and John Ferriar. 157 describes the victory, adding that Bolivar mentioned the Colonel of the Legion in the handsomest terms. He adds : " The Colonel, Ferriar, whom I knew intimately well, received a ball through his thigh, and the second in command, Lieut.- Col. Davey, was severely wounded." The subsequent death of Ferriar was announced in the Guardian of the ith Dec. as having occurred on the iyth July, of the wound received in the decisive battle of Carabobo. He is described as the eldest son of the late Dr. Ferriar, and as " Colonel in the Colombian service, and Adjutant-General of the army of the Apure : a fearless soldier and an amiable and high-minded gentleman." Aston's Exchange Herald of i8th Dec. also mentions the Colonel's decease and the proposal of the Supreme Congress to erect a public monument to his memory. On the death of Colonel Ferriar he was succeeded by Colonel Young, who soon after resigned, and the command of the British Legion was then given to Colonel John Ferriar. After the departure of Bolivar for Peru he had an opportunity of showing his courage in another fashion. His old leader and personal friend, General Paez, having headed a revolt, against the Liberator, Ferriar assembled his men, and warmly represented to them the duty of fidelity to the republic they had sworn to protect. His appeal was effectual, and on Bolivar's return he did not fail to show his gratitude. Col. Ferriar received a special decoration in addition to that of the Order of the Liberator, which he already possessed. After leaving Maracaybo, where he was very popular, he became military governor of the province of Coro. His fatal illness was a consequence of the pestilential climate of 158 Lancashire Gleanings. Carthagena, where he was in garrison. After a month's dysentery he died on the i8th of March, 1829, at Pasto, near Carthagena. The notice of his death did not appear in Man- chester papers until the following August. Ability, courage, fidelity, these were the qualities dis- played in a remarkable degree by the two brothers; and these, united to a charm of manner, entitled them to the love as well as to the gratitude of the Republicans of South America, for whose liberties they gave their lives. TURTON FAIR IN 1789. Now he goes on, and sings of fairs and shows, For still new fairs before his eyes arose : How pedlars' stalls with glittering toys are laid, The various fairings of the country maid : Long silken laces hang upon the twine, And rows of pins and amber bracelets shine : How the tight lass, knives, combs, and scissors spies, And looks on thimbles with desiring eyes : Of lott'ries next with tuneful note he told, Where silver spoons are won and rings of gold : The lads and lasses trudge the street along, And all the fair is crowded in his song : The mountebank now heads the stage, and sells His pills, his balsams, and his ague spells ; Now o'er and o'er the nimble tumbler springs, And on the rope the vent'rous maiden swings, Capital Jack Pudding, in his party- colour 'd jacket, Tosses the glove, and jokes at every packet : Of raree-shows he sung, and Punch's feats, Of pockets pick'd in crowds, and various cheats. GAY. Shepherd's Week. THE village of Turton, which is associated in our minds with memories of the pious Humphrey Chetham, the founder, has also produced a poet who has left in halting 160 Lancashire Gleanings. rhyme a record of the burning indignation which fired his soul at the enormities of Turton Fair. The title page runs : " A Picturesque Description of Turton Fair, and its Perni- cious consequences. A Poem. By William Sheldrake. Quo, quo, scelesti ruitis ? Hor. Unhappy men ! the path in which you go, Will doutless terminate in endless woe. London : Printed for the Author, and sold by B. Jackson, Bolton. 1789." The work is dedicated to William Cross, Esq., Collector of Excise, Manchester. "I have long thought and am happy in finding you to possess the same sentiment, ' That there are more young people debauched and undone by attending the giddy multitude in dissipation than by the open allurements of the most immoral.' " Plunging into the " Poem," we have a description of the village of " Turton alias Chapel Town " : * * * Thirteen houses are the most Of which the great inhabitants can boast ; A little chapel too, of decent form, And e'en a school to make stiff youth conform. The roads, we are told, "be narrow and knee deep in mud." The people live by agriculture and weaving, and, although generally sluggards, work hard enough for weeks before the fair in order to have money to waste. It was the custom, we are told, of the " by-brewers " (an expressive word) to fix the bough of a tree to their houses as a substitute for a sign. The cattle fair our poet looks upon as simply a pretext. It is quickly over : Turton Fair in 1789. 161 So quick they're driven to the destined field, Poor injur'd innocents compell'd to yield ; Most cruel treatment they must needs endure, Yet their submission makes no lashes few'r ; And still to make these creatures smart the more, With sharpest goads their painful flesh is tore, Till their lank sides are mantled round with gore. The fair seems to have commenced with a service in the chapel, after which * * * The pedlars cautiously prepare Their crazy stalls on which t' expose their ware. At midday the fun of the fair commences Whate'er's their lust, none needs despair to meet With some delightful but envenomed sweet. And the author proceeds to lament the presence of young girls at these scenes, and alludes to "the custom in this neighbourhood to court in the night." The fun and frolic, fast and furious, excites our author greatly, and he declares * * * 'Tis doubtless bad beyond comparing, Unless to sottish Holcombe's curst rush-bearing ; But, as 'twas satiris'd by an abler pen, I'll say but little on that theme again. Yet if reports are true, as prudence tells, The last's unrivall'd and bears off the bells, Because their interludes and tragic play Are chiefly acted on the Sabbath day. Poor soul ! how eagerly they ply their lore, And to their tawdry garlands add one number more. In a footnote he alludes to a poem on rush-bearing. Next M 1 62 Lancashire Gleanings. we have a picture of the rustics, inflamed by liquor, indulg- ing in a free fight, whilst ' Numerous sharpers, skill'd in wily art, Now on the stalls, then on the pocket dart. A rough of the present day need not blush at the following description of his grandfather's prowess : To these base men commence the dreadful fight, Kicking amain, and trembling with delight ; Nor will desist till the red current flows From the burst mouth, and from the flattened nose. The poem concludes with an invocation to the "zealous few " to help him Then we'll the lady of this place bequest To ease our minds and rid us of this pest." Whether Mr. Sheldrake's muse was successful in mitigating the enormities of Turton Fair we know not. THE STORY OF THE THREE BLACK CROWS. Rien ne pese tant qu' un secret. LAFONTAINE. WITTY and wise Mr. John Byrom, when he wrote "The Three Black Crows" to be recited at the breaking-up of the Manchester Grammar School, had prob- ably no other motive than to give a passing pleasure to the friendly audience which would be assembled to hear the young orators of that famous academy. The piece, however, is so whimsically humorous that it immediately hit the public fancy, and became a stock piece wherever there was a de- mand for sly satire couched in facile verse. It still has its admirers, although it must be confessed that younger rivals have arisen and somewhat pushed it backwards into the shade. We quote Byrom's poem in full ; it is one of those good things that will bear repetition : THE THREE BLACK CROWS I A TALE. "TALE ! " That will raise the question, I suppose, " What can the meaning be of three black crows? " 164 Lancashire Gleanings. It is a London story, you must know, And happen'd, as they say, some time ago. The meaning of it custom would suppress Till to the end we come : nevertheless, Tho' it may vary from the use of old To tell the moral ere the tale be told, We'll give a hint, for once, how to apply The meaning first ; then hang the tale thereby. People full oft are put into a pother For want of understanding one another ; And strange amusing stories creep about, That come to nothing if you trace them out ; Lies of the day perhaps, or month, or year, Which having serv'd their purpose, disappear, From which, meanwhile, disputes of every size, That is to say, misunderstandings rise, The springs of ill, from bick'ring up to battle, From wars and tumults, down to tittle tattle, Such, as for instance, (for we need not roam Far off to find them, but come nearer home ;) Such as befal by sudden misdivining On cuts, on coals, on boxes, and on signing, Or on what now,* in the affair of mills, To us and you portends such serious ills. To note how meanings that were never meant By eager giving them too rash assent, * Some local matters were then in agitation in Manchester, particu- larly an application to Parliament for a Bill to abrogate the custom of grinding wheat at the School Mills. (Miscellaneous Poems, by John Byrom, M.A,, F.R.S., Leeds, 1814, vol. i. pp. 31-3. Cf. Manchester edit., vol. i. pp. 48-50.) The Story of the Three Black Crows. 165 Will fly about, just like so many crows Of the same breed of which the story goes, It may, at least it should, correct a zeal That hurts the public or the private weal. Two honest tradesmen meeting in the Strand, One took the other briskly by the hand ; " Hark ye," said he, " 'tis an odd story this About the crows ! " " / don't know what it ts," Replied his friend. " No ! I'm surprised at that, Where I come from it is the common chat. But you shall hear, an odd affair indeed ! And that it happen'd they are all agreed. Not to detain you from a thing so strange, A gentleman that lives not far from Change, This week, in short, as all the alley knows, Taking a puke, has thrown up Three Black Crows ! " "Impossible!" " Nay, but indeed 'tis true ; I have it from good hands, and so may you." "From whose, I pray?" So, having named the man, Straight to enquire his curious comrade ran. "Sir, did you tell" relating the affair, " Yes, sir, I did ; and if 'tis worth your care, Ask Mr. Such-a-one, he told it me ; But, by the bye, 'twas Two black crows, not Three." Resolv'd to trace so wond'rous an event, Whip, to the third, the virtuoso went. "Sir" and so forth ; " Why, yes ; the thing is fact ; Tho' in regard to number not exact ; It was not Two black crows, 'twas only One ; The truth of that you may rely upon : The gentleman himself told me the case." " Where may I find him ?" " Why, in such a place. " 1 66 Lancashire Gleanings. Away goes he, and having found him out, " Sir, be so good as to resolve a doubt? Then to his last informant he referr'd, And begg'd to know if true what he had heard : " Did you, sir, threw up a black crow ? " "Not I." " Bless me ! how people propagate a lie ! Black crows have been thrown up, Three, Two, and One, And here, I find, all comes at last to none. Did you say nothing of a crow at all?" " Crow ! Crow ! Perhaps I might, now I recal The matter over." " And pray, sir, what was't? " " Why, I was horrid sick, and at last, I did throw up, and told my neighbour so, Something that was as black, sir, as a crow." Byrom, it will be noticed, calls this a London story, and it is quite possible that he heard it in conversation, and saw that it offered good materials for the Comic Muse. It was, however, already invested with venerable antiquity, and there are several literary sources from which Byrom might have borrowed the incident which he has versified. The most important of these is Lafontaine, in whose " Fables " we have (livre viii. fab. vi.) the following anecdote of LES FEMMES ET LE SECRET: Rien ne pese tant qu'un secret : Le porter loin est difficile aux dames ; Et je sais meme sur ce fait Bon nombre d'hommes qui sont femmes. Pour eprouver la sienne un mari s'ecria, La nuit, etant pres d'elle : " O Dieu ! Qu 'est-ce ce la ? The Story of the Three Black Crows. 167 Je n'en puis plus ! on me dechire ! Quoi ! j'accouche d'un ceuf ! D'un oeuf ! Oui, le voila Frais et nouveau pondu : gardez bien de le dire ; On m' appelleroit poule. Enfin n'en parlez pas." La femme, neuve sur ce cas Ainsi que sur mainte autre affaire, Crut la chose, et promit ses grands dieux de se taire ; Mais ce serment s'evanouit Avec les ombres de la nuit. L'epouse, indiscrete et peu fine, Sort du lit quand le jour fut a peine leve ; Et de courir chez sa voisine : " Ma commere, dit-elle, un cas est arrive ; N'en dites rien surtout, car vous me feriez battre : Mon mari vient de pondre un oeuf gros comme quatre, Au nom de Dieu, gardez-vous bien D'aller publier ce mystere. Vous moquez-vous? dit 1'autre"; ah ! vous ne savez guere Quelle je suis. Allez, ne craignez rien." La femme du pondeur s'en retourne chez elle. L'autre grille deja d'en center la nouvelle : Elle va la repandre en plus de clix endroits : Au lieu d'un oeuf elle en dit trois. Ce n'est pas encor tout, car une autre commere En dit quartre, et raconte a 1'oreille le fait : Precaution peu necessaire, Car ce n'etoit plus un secret. Comme le nombre d'ceufs, grace a la renommee, De bouche en bouche alloit croissant, Avant la fin de la journee Us se montoient a plus d'un cent. Lodovico Guicciardini has the same incident in his "Detti e fatti piacevoli." This curious collection first 1 68 Lancashire Gleanings. appeared about 1569, and was often reprinted and translated into German and French. In adjuring his wife to secrecy he employs the same comic argument : " Ma guarda, ben mio, se tu mi ami, che non ti uscisse di boca, per che tu puoi pensare che dishonore mi sarebbe se si dicesse che d' uomo io fussi diventato una gallina." M. Louis Moland, from whom this quotation is taken at second-hand, refers also to the ' Contes d' Eutrapel," and to the xxiv. chap, of liv. III. of Rabelais, and to Abstemius. (See " (Euvres Complets de la Fontaine," n. e. par M. Louis Moland (Gamier Freres), t. ii. p. 145.) It is also one of the famous jests of Scogin. It is the 1 2 Qth of the Fables of Abstemius, as we learn from the latest editor of Lafontaine. Lorenzo Bevilaqua was born at Macerata, in the marches of Ancona, about the end of the fifteenth century. According to the fashion of his time he took the Latinised name of Laurentius Abstem- ius. Having been tutor to the Duke of Urbino he was appointed his librarian. He wrote several works, of which the chief is the "Hecatomythium" a collection of two hun- dred fables which has been included in several collections of fabulists. There was a French translation printed in 1572, from which Lafontaine may have borrowed his fable. Bayle gives a curious account of Abstemius and his story of the Five Talents. The story is told in " The Book of the Knight of La Tour- Landry," which was translated into English in the reign of Henry VI., and has been printed under the editorial care of Mr. Thomas Wright. (" The Book of the Knight of La Tour- Landry," compiled for the instruction of his daughters . . . The Story of the Three Black Crows. 169 With an introduction and notes by Thomas Wright, M.A., F.S.A. London (Early English Text Society) : 1868, pp. 96 and 215.) Geoffrey de la Tour-Landry is supposed to have written his book for the instruction of his daughters in 1371 and 1372. The English version gives us the story in the following droll form : " I wolde you wost the tale of the squier that had a yong wiff, in what wise he said and proued her : c Y wol telle you a gret counsaile, but discover me not for no thinge of this that y saie you, for my worshippe liethe therin, and therfor, for the loue of God, telle it not. There is befalle vnto me suche an auenture, that y have leide .ij. eggis.' And she sware, and assured her husbonde, that she wolde never speke therof vnto no creatoure ; but hereupon she thought longe tyme til that she might fynde a way to goo vnto her godsib, 'Y wolde telle you a thing of gret priuete, and ye wille ensure me to holde it counsaile.' And her godsib benight her to do so. ' So helpe me so, my dear godsib, there is befalle a merueilous auenture vnto my husbonde, for he hathe ylaide .iij. eggis.' ' A ! seint Marie,' said this godsib, ' this is a gret meruaile, how may it be ? it is a straunge thinge ! ' but, whaune alle was saide, thei departed. And the godsib that hadde herde the wiffes counsaile, in alle haste she gothe forthe vnto another godsib that she had, and tolde euery worde the counsaile that such a squier had leyde .v. eggis. And in this wise it was reported, furst bi the wiff, and affter bi the godsibbes in counsaile from one to an other, tille alle the centre spake thereof, and that the squier herde of the speche, and how it was renounced that he had leide .v. eggis. 170 Lancashire Gleanings. And thanne he called his wiff vnto hym before her frendes and her kin, and saide vuto her, 'Dame, y tolde you in counsaile such thinge as ye haue discouered and saide it forth in suche wise as now alle the centre spekithe thereof; for there y tolde you that y had leide .ij. eggis, thanked be God and your good report, ye haue encreased hem vnto the noumber of .v. eggis ; and thoughe it be the contrarie of alle that ye haue saide, y feyned such a thing and tolde it you in counsaile, and all was forto preue you how ye wolde kepe myn counsaile as ye behight me to do. Wherin y haue founde you of gret defauute, and not true vnto me.' And hereupon the wiff was so sore ashamed, that she wost not what she might do nor sey, for there was none excusacion in her folye. And bi this ensaumple alle goode women ought to be ware and auised that they discouer not the counsaile of her husbonde, but euer more, as she is ybounde, to keepe his counsaile and fulfelle his comaundement." This translation is more moderate in tone than the original, in which, instead of five, a hundred eggs are mentioned. Mr. Wright says that the story of the squire was rather a favourite story in the middle ages. " A rather different ver- sion will be found in the "Menagier de Paris," torn, i., p. 180." This work I have not seen, and am unable to state in what the difference consists between that and the other versions. Mr. Thomas Wright has printed a Latin version from the "Promptuarum Exemplorum," a collection of stories intended to point the moral of the preacher's sermon, and compiled early in the fifteenth century : " Erant duo fratres, quorum unus laicus, alter clericus. The Story of the Three Black Crows. 171 Laicus saepe audiverat a fratre suo quod mulieres secretum alicujus non poterant occultare. Cogitabat experiri hoc cum uxore sibi dilecta, cui dixit una nocte, ' Carissima, secretum habeo tibi pandere, si certus essem quod nulli diceres ; quia si contrarium faceres, confusio intolerabilis mihi esset.' At ilia, ' Domine, noli timere : unum corpus sumus, bonum tuum est meum, et e converse etiam malum similiter.' Qui ait, * Cum ad privata accessissem ut opus naturae facerem, corvus nigerimus a parte posteriori evolebat; de quo sum contristatus.' Quae ait, 'Laetus esse debes, quod a tanta passione es liberatus.' Mane vero mulier surrexit, ad domum proximi sui ivit, et dominas domus dixit, ' O domina carissi- ma, potero tibi pandere aliqua secreta?' Quae ait, 'Ita secure sicut animae tuae.' Quas dixit, 'Mirabilis casus accidit marito meo nocte ista : accessit ad privata, ut opus naturae faceret, et certe duo corvi nigerrimi a parte posteriori evolabant, de quo multum doleo.' Et ilia ad aliam vicinam narravit de tribus, et tertia de quatuor ; et sic ultra, quod ille diffamatus est quod .lx. corvi de eo evolassent. Ille turbatus de rumore, convocavit populum, cui narrat rem gestam, quo- modo mulierem voluit experire si sciret secretum tenere." (A Selection of Latin Stories from MSS. of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries . . . edited by Thomas Wright, M.A., F.S.A. London: Percy Society, 1842, pp. 104 and 2 39-) The "Gesta Romanorum" is a still earlier collection of tales used by the preachers to render their discourses more accept- able to the flock. It is identical with the one just quoted, which has been purposely left in the original coarseness of 1/2 Lancashire Gleanings. its mediaeval Latinity. In the "Gesta Romanorum" each story is fitted with a most artificial moral. Imagine the preacher after reciting this anecdote saying, " My beloved, the lay- man is any worldly-minded man who thinking to do one foolish thing without offence falls into a thousand errors. But he assembles the people that is past and present sins and by confession expurgates his conscience." It is clear that he found the black crows difficult to turn into religious sym- bols, so he added another incident. "Soon after this, his wife dying, he ended his days in a cloister, where he learnt three letters ; of which one was black, the second red, and the third white." This, as the translater justly observes, " seems merely introduced to tell us in the application that the black letter is recollection of our sins ; the red, Christ's blood ; and the white, the desire of heaven." (" Gesta Roman- orum" . . . trans, by Rev. Charles Swan, revised by Wynnard Hooper. London : Bell, 1877, pp. 226 and 397.) This fancy was, and still is, popular. Thus "Bishop Babington had a little Book, containing only Three Leaves, which he turned over Night and Morning : the first Leaf was Black, to mind him of Hell, and God's Judgments due to him for Sin ; the second Red, to mind him of Christ and his Passion ; the third White, to set forth God's Mercy to him, through the Merits of his Son, in his Justification and Sanctification." (Clarke's "Examples" v. i. p. 540). Another instance of this fancy is " The Worldless Book," which con- tains in succession two pages of black, red, white, and gold. These with the covers make the book. It is a religious allegory in which original sin, redemption, grace, and the The Story of the Three Black Crows, 173 happiness of heaven are symbolised by the colours named. (Cf. Axon's "Smallest Books in the World," Manchester, 1876, p. 6.) As Byrom's library has been preserved, it might be ex- pected to throw some light on the immediate source from which the witty Mancunian borrowed this story. Unfortu- nately, this is not the case. The collection is in every sense curious ; but of the books we have named as containing the fable of the too credulous and too talkative lady it has only one, and that is the edition of Lafontaine's " Fables Choises" printed in London in 1736. This is very unlikely to have been the source, for Lafontaine speaks of eggs, whilst Byrom, like the writer of the "Gesta Romanorum," talks of crows. If we cannot prove each descent, we can at least show that the black crows had been flying about for centuries before they came home to roost at the Manchester Grammar School. Since the preceeding was written, some additional Byrom MSS. have been brought to light, and from one of these which is described by Mr. John Evans in the Manchester Quarterly, vol. i. p. 48, it appears that the story was told to Byrom sometime after 1741 by his friend John Taylor, LL.D., the translator of Demosthenes. They were afterwards greatly enlarged, the original draft having only 54 lines. Whether Dr. Taylor derived the story from a literary source or from oral tradition does not appear. LANCASHIRE BEYOND THE SEA. Be England what she will, With all her faults she is my country still. CHURCHILL. The Farewell. THERE is a pleasant passage in one of the books written by Elihu Burritt, " the Learned Blacksmith," wherein he speculates as to the manner in which the early American settlers gave names to the new homes they created, often in the midst of the wilderness. "A few men," he says, "with their axes, and their wives and children on ox-sleds, would venture out ten or twenty miles into the woods, and set to work building a little hamlet of log houses. Before a child was born in it this infant town must be christened and have a name. I have often wondered how they made up their minds what to call it. Perhaps there was a good deal of earnest talk among them on this point, perhaps some voting, too, with ballots made of pine or white-wood chips, with town names written on them with coal, and then dropped into the old weather-beaten round-topped hat of one of the company. Who knows how many fireside debates, adjourned from house Lancashire Beyond the Sea. 175 to house, took place before this important point was settled ? One of their number, his wife and eldest son, might have been born in Colchester, another father or mother in Chelms- ford, a third in Ipswich, two or three in Reading, and four or five in Lancaster, in England. ' Which of these names shall we give to the town we are building?' That is the question. Can you not imagine the group gathered around the great fire in that snow-covered cabin of logs ? I fancy I can see them now old men with grey hair and thoughtful faces, and strong, hard-handed men in their prime, and young men, and boys and girls, and mothers with babies in their arms, all sitting there in the firelight, some silently dwelling upon sunny memories of the fatherland, while one of the village fathers with his right finger pressed against the centre of the palm of his left hand is trying to show why Lancaster would be a better name than Reading. Why it should be so it would be difficult for us to say if we had now to decide the question. But he knows, or thinks he knows, why. See how his nut-brown face lights up with animation as he grows earnest in the matter. There are other faces that gleam with the same light as he goes on with his argument. The fact is there are more of the company born in old England's Lan- caster than in Reading, and that decides the question ; and Lancaster is the name of this meek little hamlet of huts, planted in the midst of the wild woods, and eyed suspiciously not only by the thieving bears and growling wolves, but also by the Red Indians, who do not like such doings on their hunting grounds." This is, no doubt, the correct explanation of the origin of a large number of those American names of 176 Lancashire Gleanings. places that are identical with those in England. Thus there are at least 15 Readings in the United States, and 29 Lan- casters in the United States and Canada. Even a casual examination of the entries in " Lippincott's Gazetteer of the World," published at Philadelphia in 1883, will show the existence of a Lancashire beyond the sea. In addition to 29 Lancasters there are 18 Prestons in the United States, and there is also Preston Bluff, Preston Cape, Preston Hollow, and Preston Lake. There is no Blackburn, but Oldham occurs in Kentucky, Texas, Arkansas, and Ohio. There is also an Oldham in Nova Scotia. Rochdale, which was for- merly known as Clappville, is a post village in Massachusets. There are three Stockports in the United States. In Pen- dleton, West Virginia, the population in 1870 was 6,455, f whom 6,449 were American born. There are also Pendle- tons in the States of Kentucky, Arkansas, Indiana, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Oregon, and South Carolina. Caton in New York and Catonsville in Maryland are perhaps Lan- cashire reminiscences. Gorton is the name of a station in Minnesota. There is a Standish in Maine, and another in Michigan. Duxbury occurs in Massachusets and in Ver- mont. There is a Crompton in Rhode Island, and at least a dozen Boltons in the United States and in Canada, but our Lancashire town may not have been the prototype of them all. There are eleven Prescots in America. Burnley, in Ontario, is also known by the name of Grimshawe's Mills. Without staying to look for further instances let us see what has been the influence in this particular fashion of the Lancashire Beyond the Sea. 177 two great cities of Lancashire. In England beyond the sea there are fifteen place-names of which Liverpool forms a part. Two are in Ohio, one in Illinois, one in Indiana, one in Oregon, and one in Pennsylvania. Liverpool in the State of New York manufactures over a million bushels of salt yearly. There are two Liverpools in* the Dominion of Canada one is in New Brunswick, and the other is a town and port of entry for Nova Scotia, and is situated on the left bank of the river Mersey. Liverpool Cape is the name of a headland on the south side of the entrance to Lancaster Sound, Northern Canada, and of another headland bounding Liverpool Bay in the Arctic Ocean, immediately south-west of Cape Bathurst. Then we have Liverpool, a mountain range in East Australia; Liverpool Plains in New South Wales, and Liverpool River in North Australia. There are forty Manchesters outside of Lancashire. There is one in California, and another in Connecticut, where they have paper mills, cotton mills, woollen factories, manufac- tories of silk, gingham, and stockinet ; there are two in Illinois, and one in Indiana. Manchester in Iowa seems to be well provided with modern adjuncts, for though its population is only 1,566 it possesses five churches. Manches- ter in Kentucky is noted for its salt manufactories. There is a Manchester in Maine, and the name is borne by a popular seaside resort on the Atlantic coast of Massachusets. Close by, in the sea, is the mass of rocks known as " Nor- man's Woe," the name of which will be familiar to the admirers of Longfellow's "Wreck of the Hesperus." Man- chester in Michigan has woollen and other industries. 178 Lancashire Gleanings. Manchester in Minnesota has a population of 721. There is one Manchester in Montana, and two in New Jersey. Another tiny Manchester is situated in county Oneida, New York, and its population of 158 are provided with a church and an iron furnace. There is one Manchester in North Carolina, four in Ohio, and three in Pennsylvania. The only one in South Carolina, we regret to say, is "a decayed village." A post village in Tennessee is the home of Manchester College. There is another place bearing the name in Texas. Near Manchester in Vermont are the marble quarries of Mount Elias. There is another in Virginia, with several manufactories. There is a Man- chester in Wisconsin. The most important is Manchester in New Hampshire, which stands on the Merrimac River, and is 59 miles from Boston. Its sjgfet is a plane elevated 9oft. above the surface of the river. The principal street, which is looft. wide, extends north and south parallel to the river. The town contains a court-house, sixteen churches, eight hotels, a Catholic orphan asylum, a convent, four national banks, five savings banks, a State reform school, a high school, and a free public library. Two daily and four weekly newspapers are published there. Manchester has several public parks, a system of waterworks which cost $600,000, and a paid fire department, with four steam fire engines. The river here falls 54 feet, and affords great hydraulic power, which is employed in manufactures of cotton and woollen goods. There are five large " corpora- tions" which manufacture sheetings, drillings, delaines, seamless bags, &c. The capital invested in the manufac- Lancashire Beyond the Sea. 179 tures of Manchester is about $10,000,000. There are also manufactures of steam engines, locomotives, linen goods, hosiery, paper, edge tools, carriages, shoes, soap, machinery, leather, &c. The value of the goods manufactured in a year is about $25,000,000. The population in 1850 was 13,932 ; in 1860, 20,107 ; and in 1870, 23,536. There are three Manchester in Canada two are in Ontario and the third in Nova Scotia. The population of these transatlantic Manchesters is not stated in every case, but the twenty-one places about which the information is afforded contain an aggregate population of 151,110. As the narrowest limits of the original Manchester contain 341,508 it is clear that her many namesakes have not yet passed her in the race, but it must be observed that she had a considerable start of them, as the oldest cannot be much over two centuries old, whilst she was in existence nearly 2,000 years ago. It is curious that Lippincott, whilst record- ing such a multiplicity of Manchesters, only registers one Salford in the New World, a post village in Ontario, rejoicing in 100 inhabitants. It may be remarked that the transatlan- tic Manchesters and Salford do not contain as many people as the borough of Salford alone, which has now 176,233 inhabitants. No doubt in some, perhaps in many, instances these names are not direct geographical reminiscences of the Old World, but have been derived from family names. Even if these could be deducted there would still remain a considerable Lancashire beyond the sea. MURDERS DETECTED BY DREAMS. Murdre wol out that scene day by day. CHAUCER. Nonnes Preestes Tale. A VERY extraordinary case of a murder discovered through a dream is given in Dr. John Webster's " Discovery of Witchcraft," a book which was published in 1677. Webster, after quoting a brief notice of the case from Sir Richard Baker, says : " But we shall give it more at large as it was taken from the mouths of Thomas Haworth's Wife, her Husband being the dreamer and discoverer, and from his Son, who together with many more, who both remember and can affirm every particular thereof, the narrative was taken April the i7th, 1663, and is this: In the year above said, John Waters of Lower Darwen in the county of Lancaster, gardener, by reason of his calling jwas much absent from his family : in which his absence, his Wife (not without cause) was suspected of incontinency with one Gyles Haworth of the same town ; this Gyles Haworth and Waters Wife conspired and contrived the death of Waters Murders Detected by Dreams. 181 in this manner. They contracted with one Ribchester a poor man to kill this Waters. As soon as Waters came home and went to bed, Gyles Haworth and Waters Wife conducted the hired Executioner to the said Waters, Who, seeing him so innocently laid between his two small Children in Bed, repented of his enterprize, and totally refused to kill him. Gyles Haworth, displeased with the faint-heartedness of Rib- chester, takes the Axe into his own hand, and dashed out his brains : the Murderers buried him in a Cow-house, Waters being long missing the Neighbourhood asked his Wife for him ; she denied that she knew where he was. Thereupon publick search was made for him in all pits round about, lest he should have casually fallen into any of them. One Thomas Haworth of the said Town, Yeoman, was for many nights together, much troubled with broken sleeps and dreams of the murder; he revealed his dreams to his Wife, but she haboured the concealment of them a long time : this Thomas Haworth had occasion to pass by the House every day where the murder was done, and did call and inquire for Waters, as often as he went near the House. One day he went into the House to ask for him, and there was a Neighbour who said to Thomas Haworth, It's said that Waters lies under this stone, (pointing to the Hearth stone), to which Thomas Haworth replied, And I have dreamed that he is under a stone not far distant. The Constable of the said Town being accidentally in the said House (his name is Myles Aspinal) urged Thomas Haworth to make known more at large what he had dreamed, which he related thus. I have, (quoth he) many a time within these eight weeks (for so long was 1 82 Lancashire Gleanings. it since the murder) dreamed very restlessly, that Waters was murdered and buried under a broad stone in the Cow- house j I have told my troubled dreams to my Wife alone, but she refuses to let me make it known : But I am not able to conceal my dreams any longer, my sleep departs from me, I am pressed and troubled with fearful dreams which I cannot bear any longer, and they increase upon me. The Constable hearing this made search immediately upon it, and found, as he had dreamed the murdered body eight weeks buried under a flat stone in the Cow-house ; Ribchester and Gyles Haworth fled and never came again. Anne Waters (for so was Waters wifes name) being apprehended, confessed the murder, and was burned." This is all the more notable because the narrator was neither credulous nor superstitious, but far in advance of his age. The remarkable narrative of the Miller of Chester-le-street, may be given. It may be found in various miscellanies but is here quoted from the Arminian Magazine for 1785 (P- 3 2 ) : "About the year of our Lord 1632, near unto Chester, in the Street, there lived one Walker, a man of a good estate, who had a young woman, called Anna Walker, his kins- woman, that kept his house ; who was suspected to be with child by him. One night she was sent away with Mark Sharp, a collier, who had been born in Blackburn Hundred , in Lancashire ; and was not heard of for a long time. [It was given out that she had removed into Lancashire.] In the winter, one James Graham, a miller, living two miles Murders Detected by Dreams. 183 from the place where Walker lived, was one night very late in the mill, grinding corn. About twelve or one o'clock, as he came down the stairs from the hopper (the mill doors being shut) there stood a woman upon the midst of the floor, with her hair about her head hanging down, and all bloody, with five large wounds on her head. He being much affrighted, began to bless himself, and at last asked who she was, and what she wanted ? To whom she answered, " I am the spirit of such a woman, who lived with Walker; and being with child by him, he promised to send me to a private place, where I should be well looked to, until I was brought to bed, and well-recovered, and then I should come home again, and keep his house. But, one night I was sent away with one Mark Sharp, who slew me with a pick, such as men dig coals with, giving me these five wounds, and after threw my body into a coal-pit hard by, and hid the pick under a bank. His shoes and stockings being bloody, he endeavoured to wash them ; but seeing the blood would not wash out, he hid them there. The apparition told the miller further, That he must be the man to reveal it, or else she must appear and haunt him. The miller returned home, very sad and heavy, and spoke not one word of what he had seen ; but shunned, as much as he could, to stay in the mill after night, without company ; thinking thereby to escape seeing again the frightful apparition. But one night when it began to be dark, the apparition met him again, seemed very fierce and cruel, and threatened that if he did not reveal the murder, she would continually pursue and haunt him. Yet, for all this he concealed it, until some few 184 Lancashire Gleanings. nights before Christmas, when walking in his garden, she appeared again, and then so threatened him, and affrighted him, that he faithfully promised to reveal it the next morning. In the morning he went to a Magistrate, and made the whole matter known, with all the circumstances. And dili- gent search being made, the body was found in a coal-pit, with five wounds in the head, and the pick, shoes, and stockings, in every circumstance, as the apparition had re- lated to the miller. On this, Walker and Sharp were both apprehended ; but would confess nothing. At the assize following, viz. at Durham, they were arraigned, found guilty, condemned and executed ; but would never confess the fact. There are many persons yet alive (says the relator) that can remember this strange murder, and the discovery of it : and the whole relation was printed, though now not easily to be gotten." A modern instance may fittingly be added. The Mirror for June i, 1844, contains this extraordinary narrative : " A gentleman of veracity, the Rev. H. Alexander, lecturing at Lancaster, stated a remarkable fact which had occurred some years before. An amiable young man, named Hor- rocks, had been robbed and murdered. He was found with his head beaten in, apparently by bludgeons. For many months vigilant search was made for the perpetrators, but all in vain. " One night, an individual who had been on very friendly terms with Horrocks, awoke much disturbed, and told his wife his conviction was that God had revealed to him in a vision that Samuel Longwith, of Bolton, was the murderer Murders Detected by Dreams. 185 of his poor friend. Longwith was a person with whom the dreamer had no acquaintance, and whom he had scarcely ever seen, and lived twenty miles off. His wife told him to think no more about it, but to go to sleep. He did so ; but again woke from the effects of the same dream. He resolved to set out for Bolton instantly, and apply for a warrant against Longwith. " He acted upon this determination ; but the magistrate to whom he applied refused to grant one upon such evidence. Passing through the market place he met Longwith, whom he immediately desired to go to a public-house with him to hear something he had to communicate. There, locking the door, he charged Longwith with the murder. The man was seized, and faintly denied the accusation. In his confusion he said he was innocent, for he did not strike the blow. 'Then jou know who did,' replied the friend of the mur- dered man ; and Longwith was taken up and examined. He prevaricated in his statement, and was remanded for three days ; at the end of which, after many hours' prayer, he con- fessed that he had been induced to join three men in a robbing expedition, when, meeting Horrocks, who made some resistance, his companions murdered him. This con- fession came out before the grand jury, and Longwith was brought to trial. The dream was, of course, not offered in evidence ; the jury felt satisfied, and Longwith was cast. He was doggedly silent after being found guilty, but again confessed his crime just before his execution." According to Mr. Clegg's Bolton Record, Longwith was gibbeted on Dean Moor in 1796. THE BLACK KNIGHT OF ASHTON. Well may it sort, that this portentous figure Comes armed through our watch. SHAKSPERE. A LTHOUGH shorn of some of its former splendours, JLJL and not altogether escaping from the competitive spirit of the age, the ancient ceremony of the " Riding of the Black Lad," is still kept up with great vigour in the borough of Ashton-under-Lyne. On the Easter Monday of 1883, as on most recent occasions, instead of one there were several paraded through the town, and though they could not all claim any great amount of knightly resemblance they were all duly attended by a retinue of merry men, who were importunate in their beseechings for money from the curious throngs that crowded the busy streets. The most important of these " blake lads " was the effigy of a man partly in armour, but with a velvet mantle, which is fastened on the back of a horse. This personage, with men bearing flags and several others collecting money in tin cans, and accompanied by a band of music, marched through the The Black Knight of Ashton. 187 streets, stopping at every public-house on the way. The imitations were not without a tinge of party spirit, one being labelled with the name of the Prime Minister, and another professing to represent that mysterious entity the redoubt- able " No. i." The tradition is that the "Black Lad" is intended to perpetuate the memory of Sir Ralph Assheton, the "Black Knight of Ashton," and the manner of the former celebration is thus described by Dr. Hilbert-Ware : " An effigy is made of a man in armour ; and since Sir Ralph was the son of a second marriage . . . the image is deridingly emblazoned with some emblem of the occupation of the first couple that are linked together in the course of the year. The Black Boy is then forced on horseback, and after being led in procession round the town, is dismounted, made to supply the place of a shooting butt, and, all fire- arms being in requisition for the occasion, he is put to an ignominious death." The shooting, now a " custom more honoured in the breach than in observance," was formerly done near the Old Cross, where the Black Knight is said to receive his death wound from a woman's hand. Formerly, any curious spectator, if respectably dressed, ran great danger of being pelted with clods, or old rags soaked in the water that ran from a pit at the top of Cricket's Lane in the direction of the Old Cross. This barbarous usage is also a thing of the past. The speculations as to the origin of this strange ceremony, which still survives in what is apparently the most modern of towns, have been varied, and although it is tolerably 1 88 Lancashire Gleanings. certain that it is intended to preserve the memory of one of the Asshetons, it is not clear whether it is meant to give him honour or infamy. The family of Assheton took their name from that of the town, which is apparently of Saxon origin. It formed part of the great territory which William the Conqueror bestowed upon Roger of Poictou, and after- wards became a member of the barony of Manchester, whose baron, Albert de Gresley, senex, gave some land in Ashton to his daughter Emma on her marriage with Orm Fitz- Ailward. The manor itself appears to have passed to the son of this marriage, Roger Fitz-Orm de Ashton, who was a benefactor of the Abbey of Cockersand. The lord of Ashton was, however, still under the feudal seigniory of the baron of Manchester, and in 1412 he paid a yearly rent of 22 shillings and one hawk, and a contribution towards the maintenance of the foresters of Horwich and Blackley. The Assheton family early made their mark in history. Sir Robert in 1324 served in the great Council at West- minster, and accompanied Edward III. in his invasion of France. Here he was Governor of Guynes, near Calais, and a few years later reached the important position of Lord Treasurer of England. He was apparently a man whose talents could be adapted to various positions, for after serving a year as Governor of Sandgate, near Calais, we hear of him as Admiral of the Narrow Seas, and his versatility was further shown by his filling the responsible offices of Justiciary of Ireland, King's Chamberlain, and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Apparently he might have taken with some confidence the boasting motto of George Gascoigne, The Black Knight of Ashton. 189 Tarn Marti quam Mercuric. Sir Robert de Assheton was one of those to whom Edward III. entrusted the execution of his last will, and the Lancashire knight appears to have also earned the good will of Edward's successor, by whom he was appointed Governor of Dover Castle and Warden of the Cinque Ports. His son Thomas fought in the army of Queen Phillippa at the battle of Nevill's Cross in 1346, and in the course of that famous fight distinguished himself by securing the royal standard of Scotland. Apparently valour was economically rewarded in those days, for even this exploit did not secure him knighthood, and he still ranked as an esquire when he went with John of Gaunt, " time- honoured Lancaster," to Spain. His uncle, Dr. William de Assheton was the law councillor of the Duke of Lancaster as King of Castile and Leon. A great grandson of Thomas was Sir John de Assheton, who was made a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Henry IV. He was Seneschal of Bayeux and Bailiff of Constance. Baines says that one of Sir John Assheton's exploits is recorded by Froissart. ( * ' Hist, of Lane." ii. 539.) This probably refers to an incident in the year 1370, when Sir Robert Knolles ravaged Picardy. This is told in the following picturesque manner in the translation of Lord Berners : " The lande of the Lord of Coucy abode in peace, for ther was nother man nor woman that had any hurt, the value of a penny, yf they sayd they belonged to the lorde of Coucy. And so at last the englyssh- men came before the cyte of noyon, the whiche was well furnished with men of warre ; ther the englysshmen taryed, and aproched as nere as they might, and aduysed to se yf I go Lancashire Gleanings. any maner of assaut might preuayle them or not, and there they sawe that the towne was well aparelled for defence. And sir Robert Canoll was loged in the abbey of Dolkans, and his people about him : and on a day he came before the cyte, raynged in maner of batayle, to se yf they of the gary- son and comontie of the towne wolde yssue out and fight or nat : but they had no wyll so to do. There was a scottysh knyght dyde there a goodly feate of armes, for he departed fro his company, his speare in his hande, mounted on a good horse, his page behynde hym, and soo came before the barryers ; this knyght was called sir Johan Assueton a hardy man and a couragious : whan he was before the barryers of Noyon he lighted afote, and sayd to his page, holde, kepe my horse and departe nat hens ; and so went to the barryers. And within ye barryers ther were good knightes, as sir Johan of Roy, sir Launcelat of Lowrys, and a x. or xii. other, who had great marueyle what this sayde knight wolde do : Than he sayd to them, Sirs, I am come hyder to se you, I se well ye wyll nat yssue out of your barryers, therfore I wyll entre and I can, and will proue my knyghthode agaynst yours : wyn me and ye can : and therwith he layed on rounde about hym, and they at hym : and thus he alone fought against them more than an hour, and dyd hurt two or thre of the ; so that they of the towne on the walles and garettes stode styll and behelde them, and had great pleasure to regarde his valiatnesse, and dyde hym no hurt, the whiche they might haue done, if they had de lyst to haue shotte or cast stones at hym, and also the frenche knightes charged them to let hym and them alone togyder. So long they fought that at The Black Knight of Ashton. 191 last his page came nere to the barryers, and spake in his language and sayd, Sir coe away, it is tyme for you to depart, for your company is departyng hens : the knight herde him well, and then gaue a two or thre strokes about him, and so, armed as he was, he lept out of the barryers, and lepte vpon his horse, without any hurt, behynde his page, and sayd to the frenchmen, Adue sirs, I thank you, and so rode forthe to his owne company : the whiche dede was moche praysed of many folkes." (Froissart's " Chronicles," trans, by John Bourchier Lord Berners : reprint of 1812, vol. i. p. 417.) For whom did Froissart intend the appellation of Sir John Assueton? Johnes says that the name was "probably Seton." In the edition of the original issued by J. A. C. Buchon the name is given as "Messire Jean Asneaton," which the editor thinks may be intended for Seton or Swinton. The variations in the names are sufficiently perplexing. Thus, " Sir Robert Canoll " in the passage just cited really stands for Sir Robert - Knolles. That either Assueton or Asneaton would be a more probable mistake for Assheton than for Seton or Swinton needs no argument, but if it was the Lancashire knight who did this deed of derringdo it is difficult to explain the description of him, twice repeated, as a Scotch knight. His son was destined to add fresh interest to the family name. The Asshetons, already notable as statesmen and warriors, now produced a famous alchemist. Sir Thomas Assheton being a liege subject of Henry VI., and knowing that the King suffered much from what the Poet Laureate calls that " eternal want of pence that vexes public men," cast about for a method 1 92 Lancashire Gleanings. of remedy. In conjunction with Sir Edmund Trafford he made great efforts to discover the philosopher's stone, and the means by which all " baser " metals might be transmuted into gold. As there was a law of the previous reign against the " undue multiplication of gold and silver " a strange calamity to be averted by the force of law King Henry in 1446 granted his Royal licence and protection to the two alchemical knights, but their laborious experiments did not prosper, and instead of paying his debts by new made gold and silver the King had to pawn the revenue of the Duchy of Lancaster for that purpose. The licence may be worth giving as a curiosity : Rex omnibus ad quos, &c. Salutem Sciatis quod cum dilecti & fideles nostri Edmun- dus de Trafford Miles & Thomas Ashton Miles nobis per quandam supplicationem monstravermt quod quamvis ipsi super certis metallis per artem sive scientiam Philosophise operari vellent, metalla imperfecta de suo proprio genere transferre, et tune ea per dictam artem sive scientiam in aurum sive argentum perfectum transubstantiare ad omnimodas probationes & examinationes, sicut aliquod aurum sive argentum in aliqua minera crescens, expectan- dum, & indurandum, ut dicunt, nihilominus certae personae, illis malevolentes, & malignantes, supponunt ipsos per artem illicitam operari, & sic ipsos in probatione dictae artis sive scientiae impedire & perturbare possunt ; nos, praemissa considerantes, & conclusionem dictae operationis sive scientiae scire volentes, de Gratia nostra speciali con- cessimus, & Licentiam dedimus eisdem Edmundo & Thomae, & ipsorum servientibus quod ipsi artem sive scientiam prae- The Black Knight of Ashton. 193 dictam operari, and probare possint licite & impune absque impetitione nostra vel Officiariorum nostrorum quorumcun- que, aliqua Statuta, Acto, Ordinatione, sive Provisione in contrarium fact : ordinat : sive provis : non obstant : In cujus, &c. Test : Rege apud West : 7 die Apr : 1446. (Baines' "Lancashire," vol. i, p. 406.) A brother of Sir Thomas the alchemist, but born of a second marriage, was Sir Roger Assheton of Middleton, to whose career we shall have presently to return. The heir of the alchemist was Sir John Assheton, who was knighted before the battle of Northampton in 1460, where he fought side by side with the King. His successor, Sir Thomas Assheton, was knighted by Henry VII., at Ripon. John de Assheton, his son, died without issue, and thus the male line became extinct. One of Sir Thomas's daughters married Sir William Booth of Dunham, and was the ances- tress of the Earls of Stamford and Warrington. The history of her descendants, although of great importance, both to the history of the district and of the nation, need not now be pursued, and we return to Sir John de Assheton, Knight of the Bath and Bailiff of Constance. He was twice married ; his first wife, Jane, daughter of John Savile of Tankersley, was the mother of the alchemist, and his second wife, Margaret, daughter of Sir John Byron of Clayton, gave birth to Sir Ralph Assheton of Middleton, who is believed to be commemorated in the annual procession of the Black Lad. Ralph Assheton was a page of honour in the iyth year 194 Lancashire Gleanings. of Henry VI., and in the same year married Margaret, the heiress of the Bartons of Middleton, and thus became lord of that manor. In the reign of Edward IV. he acquired various other dignities. He was Sheriff of Yorkshire, and showed the old righting spirit of his race at the battle of Huttonfield, in Scotland, where he was made a knight banneret for the courage he then displayed. He was under the command of the Duke of Gloucester, who soon after- wards became Richard III., and then rewarded Sir Ralph's devotion to the House of York by the grant of lands formerly belonging to Sir John Fogge, Sir George Browne, and Sir John Guilforde. This was in 1483, and in that year he was entrusted with the functions of Vice Constable of England and Lieutenant of the Tower. There is on record some curious evidence as to the state of Ashton-under-Lyne in 1422. The occupations of the inhabitants were chiefly agricultural, and the largest farm paid a rent of 395. 6d. yearly. The general tenure was by payment of rent twice a year for twenty winter terms. The tenants, besides paying rent, had to make a " yole " present to the lord of the manor, who in return provided a feast at Christmas time, to which all were free, "but the saied tenants and their wifes," stipulates the economical Sir John, " though it be for their ease not to come, they shal send neither man nor woman in their name, but if he be their son other daughter dwellyng with them unto the dinner. For the Lord is not bounden to feed save al only the gud man and the gud wife." It needs no great power of imagination to realise the rude festivities in the hall of The Black Knight of Ashton. 195 Ashton, when the lord of the manor, accompanied by his friends and relatives of the neighbouring gentry, looked down from the raised gallery upon the merry faces that danced and " marlocked " around the yule fire in the great hall. We know the names and trades of many of these rustic revellers. There was Roger the baxter or baker, William the arrow-smith an important craftsman in an age when the Lancashire bowmen were famous for their skill Robert the walker, who may be regarded as a fore- shadowing of the modern importance of the textile industry ; John the slater, and Robin the cropper. Nor must we for- get the buxom charms of Widow Margot and Nan of the Windy Bank, or the more delicate beauty of Elyn the Rose. The antiquaries, however, who do not hesitate to lay sacrilegious hands even upon the fair name of a woman, say that this damsel did not owe her floral appellation to her native blushes. A brother of Sir John Assheton was a Knight of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, and held some land by the yearly payment of a rose. The actual tenant was Richard de Bardsley, and the profits were handed over by him to the Grand Master of the Order, but the rose rent was yearly presented to the lord of the manor, and the girl who performed the office thereby acquired the pleasant name of Elyn or Elynor the Rose. The festivities were not without some danger of degenerating into license, but the revellers were kept in order by " Hobbe the King," one of those ancient lords of misrule whose office was probably no sinecure. The Yule gift was not the only service required from the 196 Lancashire Gleanings. tenants. They had to do a certain amount of ploughing for the lord whether he "be liever in wheat seeding or in lenton [or spring] seeding," and the tenants had to " harrow a day with their harrow in seeding time when they bin charged." They had also to cart turf for him from " Doneam Moss," to shear four days, and to cart corn one day. Hence the old proverb that an unpaid labourer has "been served like a boon shearer." At the death of a tenant his best beast became the property of the lord as a " heriot." " Holy Kirk " also claimed a mortuary, or corse present, which was brought to the church with the dead man's body. The tenants had to grind at the lord's mill, but they had liberty to send their swine to feed in the demesnes of the manor from the end of August till sowing time, if the animals were properly ringed so that they could do no harm. The somewhat servile regulations that have been named would probably apply only to the tenants at will, in addition to which there was a smaller class of free tenants who had probably received or held their land by some military service. Sir John had a further source of income from tolls and fines, and derived some profit from the annual " gyst-ale " of the town, which was managed by Margaret (widow of Hobbe the King), Hobbe Adamson,. Roger the Baxter, Robert Somaster, Jenkin of the Wood, and Thomas of Curtnall. Jack the Spencer paid the lord 6s. 8d. for the privilege of " hobriding." It is to be assumed that Jack, dressed in motley and mounted on a hobby horse, was able to collect enough of money from the admiring spectators to make this a profitable investment. The Black Knight of Ashton. 197 Altogether the gyst-ale yielded Sir John the sum of 205., and the total annual money income of his manor was .36 145. 6^d. In addition to this there would be the value of the presents, heriots, and boon work. Further, the difference in the value of money must be taken into account. Thus when his son married a daughter of Sir John Byron, a settlement of lands and tenements valued at 9 25. yd. was thought to be a sufficient provision for the young couple. The lord of the manor had also jurisdiction even, it is believed, to the power of life and death. A meadow near the town was, until quite recently, known as gallows field. This baronial power, which in the beginning may have been arbitrary, soon took a more regular form in the institution of the great Hall Mote of Ashton, in which the free tenants and tenants at will formed a jury to inquire of trespasses and offences against the real or supposed interests of the town. If any stranger came to do harm the residents on being warned were to arrest him, and any one failing to take part against the interloper, or "resetting," or main- taining, was liable to a fine of 40^., which might be dis- trained within fifteen days. The Ashtonians quarrelled not only with strangers but amongst themselves if we may judge by the provisions against fighting. One who fought with another " in his beginning " was let off for half a mark, but a second offence entailed a payment of a mark, and a third repetition involved a penalty of 205-. These would be very considerable fines, and if rigorously enforced must have prevented many pugilistic encounters. " Any resetter Lancashire Gleanings. also," says Dr. Hibbert-Ware, "was, upon conviction, bound to amend it to the party grieved, and to give the lord the pains set upon him." Finally, there is one entry in this old custumal which must be cited in relation to the Black Knight. " Rauf of Assheton, and Robyn of Ashton, have the Sour Carrguld Rode and stane rynges for the terme of their lives. Rauf of the gifte of John Assheton, Knyghte the elder, and Robyn of the gifte of John Assheton, Knyghte the younger, the farm." The explanation of this is that there was much low wet land in the vicinity of Ashton, which was overrun with corn marigolds (Chrysanthemum segetum), still known in Scotland as " carr-gulds." These were regarded as so- dangerous to the crops that a manorial supervision, known as carrguld riding, was instituted. The two brothers named rode on a certain day in spring over the carr-guld road, and levied fines on the luckless farmers whose lands showed the pretty but objectionable plant.' When the fines were not forthcoming the offenders were placed in the stocks or stone rings. This regulation would never be very popular, and when exercised by the powerful lord of a neighbouring manor would become additionally obnoxious. The tyran- nical manner in which the levies were made is said to have driven the tenants to desperation, and on one of his visita- tions it is traditionally asserted that Sir Ralph was slain. This is substantially the explanation given by Dr. Hibbert- Ware, but others have thought that it was whilst exercising the despotic authority of Vice Constable of England that he incurred the terror expressed in the old rhyme : The Black Knight of Ashton. 199 Sweet Jesu for thy mercy's sake, And for thy bitter passion, Save us from the axe of the Tower, And from Sir Ralph of Assheton. The two last lines were sometimes thus varied : Oh ! save me from a burning stake, And from Sir Ralph de Assheton. On his death the custom of guld riding was abolished, and a small rent was reserved for the purpose of perpetuating, in an annual ceremony, the once dreaded visitations of the Black Knight of Ashton, and though the rent has been lost the custom is sufficiently profitable to survive. It seems somewhat extraordinary that the head of the Assheton family should thus provide for the lasting remem- brance of the infamy of one of his near and distinguished relatives, and this difficulty has led to the suggestion that the ceremony really commemorates the capture of the Scotch standard by Thomas of Assheton. This theory can only be named to be refuted, for whoever was the original Black Knight, he has been remembered only as an object of scorn and execration. Some of the traditions are of outrages that seem to be connected with the droit de seigneur, and a slight digression may be permitted on this subject. The latest investigator is Dr. Karl Schmidt, of Colmar. (" Jus Primae Noctis : eine geschichtliche Untersuchung." Von Dr. Karl Schmidt. Freiburg in Breisgau : Herder'sche Verlaghandlung, 1882.) Before we say anything as to the subject of this book a 2OO Lancashire Gleanings. word of praise is due to its complete and methodical appearance. It is well printed, and in Roman letters, instead of the alphabetical nightmare which too many Germans still affect. The preface gives a list of those with whom the author has been in correspondence and is followed by a table of contents, enabling us at once to perceive the elaborate manner in which the different por- tions of the subject have been classified and arranged. We have then a list of books cited, with an indication of the era of the authors. This extends to thirty-one pages, and, although we shall indicate some trifling omissions, it is certainly the most exhaustive bibliography of the subject that has yet appeared. That of Lon de Labessade is mere child's play in comparison. The text of the book, carefully arranged, concludes with a recapitulation, and is followed by capital chronological, topical, and personal indexes. These may appear trifles, but it is the want of such methods and appliances that hinders the usefulness of many otherwise meritorious books. The real or supposed existence of the droit de seigneur is known to most lovers of literature. It is the motive of a play by Beaumont and Fletcher, and it is the foundation of a once well-known English comedy. There are many allusions to it in Voltaire's polemical writings, and he has also made it the subject of a trifling dramatic work. In the national exhibition at Milan in 1881 there was an oil painting by Signer A. Ferraguti, which was supposed to represent a victim of this infamous law. And now Dr. Schmidt calmly assures us that this law or The Black Knight of Ashton. 201 custom, cited a thousand times to prove the brutality of the Middle Ages and the abject slavery of the poor under the feudal system, never had existence, and that the belief in it is merely " ein gelehrter Aberglaube." The superstition, if not killed, will certainly be scotched by Dr. Schmidt's vigorous attack. His examination of all the evidence usually relied upon shows that it is quite inadequate to support the vast superstructure which has been reared upon it. Hector Boethius appears to be the originator of the belief. In his account of the mythical King Evenus, the contemporary of Augustus in Scotland, he says : " Fecit ad haec plura, relatu indigna, leges tulit improbas omnem olentes spurcitiam : ut licerit singulis suae gentis plures uxores, aliis sex, aliis decem pro opibus ducere. Nobilibus plebeiorum uxores communes essent, ac virginis novae nuptae loci dominus primam libandi pudicitiam potestatem habaret." Boethius died in 1550, and there is no earlier testimony as to the existence of the jus primae noctis in Scotland. That law, which is believed to have extended over a large part of Europe, has left no evidence of its existence in laws, charters, decretals, trials, or glossaries. It is inconceivable that it should have been left undenounced by the preachers, and unsatirised by the poets. But if this utter silence is conclusive against the existence of such law or custom, how shall the general belief at a later date in its existence be explained ? Various causes contributed. There was classical witness to ancient traditions of tyrants who had distinguished themselves by proceedings of the nature which the jus 2O2 Lancashire Gleanings. primae noctis was supposed to legalise. From various parts of the world came reports of travellers as to tribes among whom defloration was the privilege or duty of kings, priests, or other persons set apart for the purpose. Finally, the existence on the part of the feudal lord of a claim to a determining voice in the marriage of his vassals, and to receive payment at the ceremony, is undoubted. To this mercheta mulierum, the fine paid for permission to marry, a grosser meaning has been attached than the words will warrant. Dr. Schmidt has given every passage that is usually cited in proof of the reality of the jus primae noctis^ and his criticism upon them seems to us to be as successful as it is destructive. To the vast array of authorities cited by Dr. Schmidt we may add that the Pascual de Andagoya is very explicit as to defloration by the priests of Nicaragua cf. Schmidt, p. 358 ; Andagoya, " Narrative," p. 33 (Hakluyt Society, 1865). Some analogy may be found between the mercheta and the tax known as Bhet marocha the money given to the zamindar in Lower Bengal on each marriage among his ryots. It is still paid, though now regarded as a voluntary gift ("Mookerjee's Magazine," September, 1872, p. 146). Finally, we may call attention to the curious tract published in 1714 (there were earlier issues) under the title of a " Modern Account of Scotland." It was issued without author's name, but is known to have been written by Thomas Kirk, of Leeds; and on p. 19 there is an apparent reference to the existence of the jus, or at least to the custom in Scotland at that date. Kirk travelled in The Black Knight of Ashton. 203 North Britain in 1677; and a MS. of his notes of travel, the material from which he constructed his bitter attack on all things north of the Tweed, was published in 1832 as an appendix to Thoresby's Letters. A perusal of it does not give one a favourable impression of its writer, and it contains no reference to the jus primae noctis. That was an additional insult thrown in when he compiled his " Modern Account." Returning from this digression it must be confessed that no adequate explanation has yet been offered of the Riding of the Black Lad. Easter Monday is a great holidaytime in the Ashton district, and the advance of modern ideas does not prevent hundreds from regarding with interest and curiosity the degenerate remains of a custom whose origin is lost in the mists of bygone ages. Dr. Hibbert- Ware's "Customs of a Manor in the North of England," printed at Edinburgh in 1822, and reprinted in the Chetham Society series (vol. 74), is the chief authority on the subject. ROBERT TANNAHILL IN LANCASHIRE. He could songes make, and wel endite. CHAUCER. Canterbury Tales : Prologue. THERE are probably many Lancashire men, who are familiar with the fame ( of the "Flower of Dunblane," and who, in imagination, have heard the cold wind blowing keenly on the "Braes of Gleniffer," who are not aware that the singer of them was for a time a workman in the busy town of Bolton. Robert Tannahill was born at Paisley, 3rd June, 1774; he was but sickly in his early years, and the bashfulness of a lame child never forsook him in after life. His parents were not without education, and gave their children the benefit of such school instruction as they could afford. Robert did not distinguish himself except by the rhyming talent which is said to have been shown as early as his tenth year. In 1786 he was apprenticed to his father as a weaver. In 1795 he began his courtship of Jenny Tennant, the nymph who inspired the beautiful song of "Jessie the Flower of Dunblane." The " course of true love did not Robert Tannahill in Lancashire. 205 run smooth." Perhaps the shy poet was not a sufficiently brisk wooer for the lively and beautiful girl. It is said that Jenny Tennant, with the consent of her betrothed, went to a party with another man, and that the moody poet saw the cavalier snatch a kiss at parting. Then it was that he wrote But when I knew thy plighted lips Once to a rival's prest, Love -smothered independence rose And spurn'd thee from my breast. The "Flower of Dunblane" married another, and her descendants in Canada and elsewhere still boast of their beautiful ancestress. The depression in trade and, perhaps, also this disappointment in love, led him to leave his native town. , About the end of the year 1799, in company with his younger brother Hugh, he came to England. They came to Preston, and from thence to Bolton. They tried in vain to find work of any kind. Their small stock of cash was nearly exhausted, and they were contemplating a further tramp when they met with a cheerful individual William Kibble who felt a touch of sympathy for the poor young fellows. He guessed that they were Paisley weavers, told them that he had been one in the past, and offered them the hospitality of a Bolton weaver. Next morning he found work for Robert, and Hugh returned to Preston. Tannahill did not stay long in Lancashire, but in his brief stay he became a favourite with those amongst whom his lot had been cast. It is possible that we may not easily understand the position of the operatives of the Lancashire that was 206 Lancashire Gleanings. then just rising to that industrial activity of which we now see the fruits. If sometimes it had dark days of enforced idleness, there was another side to the picture. Charles Hulbert, writing of this very period, says : " Many families by their industry, then lived happily and dressed genteelly, perhaps much above their station. Hair powder was worn by every one making any pretensions to gentility, and so prevalent was the custom that I have seen it on the heads of well-dressed weavers, fustian cutters, tailors and shoe- makers, and they could not be distinguished from real gentlemen. I remember when living at my Uncle Smiths', about the year 1792, one Sunday evening standing with the youth of the family near my uncle's gate, two well-dressed gentlemen, with long watch chains, and heads loaded with powder, commenced a rude and silly attack on my aunt's maid, which was instantly resented by the whole party, and a neighbour secured the fellows with an intent to deliver them to a constable, when, demanding their names and professions, they declared themselves to be two journeymen calenderers from Manchester, and made a suitable apology. This foolish custom of making their heads like cauliflowers originated with a ballad singer in Paris, who, to obtain notice, powdered his hair." The two brothers were recalled to their home by the news of their father's illness, and they arrived in Paisley somewhere about the end of December, 1801, or early in January, 1802. The poet was not quite silent during his stay in England. In 1800 he wrote a piece not improbably taken from his own experience. Robert Tannahill in Lancashire. 207 A LESSON. Quoth gobbin Tom of Lancashire, To northern Jock a lowland drover, " Thoose are foin kaise thai'rt driving there, They've sure been fed on English clover." " Foin kaise ! " quoth Jock, "ye bleth'ring hash, Deil draw your nose as lang's a sow's ! That talk o yours is queer-like trash ; Foin kaise ! poor gowk ! their names are koose. " The very fault which I in others see, Like kind or worse, perhaps, is seen in me. There is a second piece of the same date : SILLER STANDS FOR SENSE. On a Country Justice in the South. 1800. What gars yon gentry gang wi Jock, An ca him Sir and Master ? The greatest dunce, the biggest block, That ever Nature cuist her ; Yet see, they've plac'd this human stock, Strict justice to dispense : Which plainly shows yon meikle folk Think siller stands for sense. This, says the editor, was "written by Tannahill when he resided in England, in 1800, on a country Justice of the Peace there." The first of these is very slight, and the second, although probably representing only a passing mood of bitterness^ is only one of several examples of a satirical fancy. It is not of course on such trifles that the fame of Tannahill rests, but on the fine lyrics, "Jessie the Flower o' Dunblane," the 2o8 Lancashire Gleanings. " Braes of Gleniffer," and the " Summer Gloamin'." It was not until some years later that the shy bard was induced to send his pieces to the printer. Their popularity soon became great. "Perhaps the highest pleasure" he says, "ever I derived from these things, has been in hearing, as I walked down the pavement at night, a girl within doors rattling away at some of them." He continued a bachelor, lived a quiet, careful, saving life, but his mental strength was sapped, and his death was occasioned by his own rash act. Although he was watched by his relatives, he eluded them, and his body was found in the river on the iyth of May, 1810. After leaving Bolton he kept up a correspondence with his good friend Kibble. Of one letter the following has been preserved : Paisley, i4th March, 1802. Alek, poor Alek is gone to his long home ! It was to me like an electric shock. Well, he was a good man, but his memory shall be dear, and his worth had in remembrance by all who knew him. Death, like a thief, nips off our friends, kindred, and acquaintance, one by one, till the natural chain is broken, link after link, and leaves us scarce a wish to stop behind them. My brother Hugh and I are all that now remain at home with our old mother, bending under age and frailty, and but seven years back nine of us used to sit down at dinner together (I still moralise some- times). I cannot but remember that such things were, and those most dear to me." In another he complains of the printers, who, owing to his poverty, refused to do anything unless he found security. Robert Tannahill in Lancashire. 209 There are two interesting letters from Kibble, who, writing from Bolton, 6th April, 1807, says that he has collected in Bolton and Stockport 26 subscriptions. "I think," he adds, "you may send 30 copies, as I make little doubt but I can part with them." Writing nearly a year later, ist March, 1808, he says, "I have interested myself in your behalf, in regard to your publication as far as my influence can extend, and have got 17 names to my list." He asks for five more proposal papers. " I intend " he says, " to send two to Stockport, as you have more acquaintances in that place at present than in this town our dull trade being the cause of their shifting. Other two to Preston, and another for this town, which shall be in charge of Thomas Wright. I would likewise advise you," continues the kind and shrewd friend, " to enclose two or three of your songs, as I make no doubt it would turn out to your advantage." He then mentions a brother Scot who had sung one of Tanna- hill's songs " at a meeting of the Sons of Comus." Kibble testifies to the badness of trade at that time. Writing in July, he gives a lamentable explanation as to the subscription list. The money received he had given to a messenger, whose arrival at Paisley was by a very leisurely route. Indeed it seems doubtful if he ever reached there, or if Tannahill ever received any benefit from his Lancashire friends. 2 i8s. were sent by this unsatisfactory emissary. Five copies of books were entrusted to a Scotch pedlar, who died of fever at Bradford, in Yorkshire. Kibble had not received a penny for these books. " The Bolton people," he says, " paid me except two copies, which it is doubtful if ever I shall receive, 2io Lancashire Gleanings. and two more at Stockport, which I think are safe." This was not a satisfactory report, and poor Kibble seems to have been painfully conscious of the fact. " You have ever," he says, "since our first acquaintance, possessed a very large portion of my respect and esteem, and I sincerely believe that on your part it was reciprocal, and to lose which would be to me a circumstance truly afflicting, therefore I entreat you to write. I have nothing," he continues, "new to inform you, but what is of a miserable nature; for were I to describe to you the wretched situation of the manufacturing part of this country, you would think I had ransacked the very intricacies of Pandora's box to fill up my description ; too much labour, and almost nothing for it; exceeding dear markets, and every other attendant evil fills up the cup of our misery." This is the last appearance of Kibble in the correspondence of the poet. (The extracts, &c., in this paper are from " The Poems and Songs and Correspondence of Robert Tannahill, with life and notes by David Semple, F.S.A. Paisley : Alex. Gardner, 1875." It is the fullest and most painstaking edition of the poet's works that has or probably can appear.) Mr. James K. Waite, the courteous librarian of the Bolton Free Library, has kindly examined for me the town books and assessment books, but they contain no trace of either Tannahill or Kibble. Neither of them were house- holders of Bolton, or their holding must have been very minute. Thirty years ago the late Mr. G. J. French attempted, but unsuccessfully, to glean some particulars of the poet's stay in Bolton. Yet it is clear that it was Robert Tannahill in Lancashire. 211 not unpleasant, that he found work, made warm friends, and had the sympathy and the admiration of his fellow workers among the Lancashire weavers, and we may be allowed to hope that sometimes his thoughts would go back to the rough but kindly hearts he met in Bolton, even when he was wandering in his favourite locality Amang the brume brushes by Staneley green shaw. POPULATION OF MANCHESTER. Man is the nobler growth our realms supply, And souls are ripened in our northern sky. A. L. BARBAULD. The Invitation. IN the reign of Henry VIII. the antiquary Leland visited Manchester, which he described as being the " fairest, best builded, quickest, and most populous town " of all Lan- cashire. This flattering character we hope it may still claim, although its superiority will naturally be challenged by the great seaport city of Liverpool. There were several baronial surveys of Manchester during the middle ages, but any deductions from them as to the number of inhabitants would require to be very cautiously made. But we may safely say with Mr. Harland that of the mediaeval market town the population consisted of two, or at the most three, hundred burgesses, their families and dependants, some of whom would be the bondmen and bondwomen of their free neigh- bours. Doubtless the introduction of the woollen trade, which is supposed to have been planted in South Lancashire by the end of the fourteenth century, would give a certain Population of Manchester. 213 impulse to the increase of population. In the memorable year 1588 Queen Elizabeth granted a charter to the College of Manchester, in which the population is stated to be 10,000. The later charter of Charles I. in 1635 names 20,000. In both of these cases the figures are in all probability meant to include the entire parish. In 1717 the population of Man- chester was reckoned at 8,000, but even in this instance it is doubtful whether Salford is included or excluded. In 1757 a survey of the two towns showed them to contain 19,839 persons. In 1773 the matter was carefully examined into by Dr. Thomas Percival, and the results of his investigations were communicated to the Royal Society and formed the subject of some interesting comments by Benjamin Franklin. PercivaPs papers appeared in the "Philosophical Transac- tions," vols. Ixiv., Ixv., and Ixvi. They are reprinted with Franklin's remarks in Percival's works. Bath, 1807. Vol. iv., p. i. The later figures in this article are derived from the successive Census Reports. Percival's attempt was a veritable census, and the data obtained showed that Manchester and Salford then consisted of 4,268 tenanted and 66 empty houses, which formed the dwellings of 6,416 families, numbering in all 27,246 souls. The following details are given of the two towns : Houses : Manchester, 3,402; Salford, 866. Families: Manchester, 5,317; Sal- ford, 1,099. Males: Manchester, 10,548; Salford, 2,248. Females: Manchester, 11,933; Salford, 2,517. Married: Manchester, 7,724; Salford, 1,775. Widowers: Man- chester, 432 ; Salford, 89. Widows : Manchester, 1,064 ; Salford, 149. Under 15 : Manchester, 7,782 ; Salford, 1,793. 214 Lancashire Gleanings. Above 50 : Manchester, 3,252 ; Salford, 640. Male lodgers : Manchester, 342 Salford, 18. Female lodgers : Manches- ter, 150; Salford, 13. Empty houses: Manchester, 44; Salford, 26. At this time the population of Bolton was 4,568, whilst Little Bolton, "a suburb of Bolton, including the manor and extending into the country as far as the inhabitants are subject to suit and service," contained 771 people. The present population of Bolton is 105,422. The village of Altrincham contained 1,029 people, whilst it now has 11,249. These and other curious particulars elicited, as we have already mentioned, some comments from Franklin, who, after detailing the method in which a census was under- stood to be taken in China, observes, "Perhaps such a regulation is scarcely practicable with us." Dr. Percival, however, observed that "an enumeration of the people of England would not be so difficult an undertaking as may at the first view be imagined." In 1774 an enumeration was made of the entire parish of Manchester, and the population was then stated at 42,937. From 1773 to 1777 there were built in the two towns 719 houses, of which 151 remained uninhabited. In 1783 there were but 6,195 houses in Man- chester and Salford, and the people were supposed to be over 39,000 in the first named, and over 50,000 in the two combined. At Christmas, 1788, an actual enumeration showed that Manchester had 5,916 houses, 8,570 families, and 42,821 persons. In Salford there were 1,260 houses and an estimated population of 7,566. The people in the two places were a little over 50,000. From this time the number may be said to have increased by leaps and bounds, Population of Manchester. 2 1 5 as will be seen from the following statement of the number of persons at each decennial period : Manchester (including Ardwick, Cheetham, Chorlton, Salford (includ- and Hulme). ing Broughton). 1801 75,275 14,477 1811 89,054 19,939 1821 126,031 26,552 1831 181,768 42,375 1841 235,162 53>2oo 1851 33 5 3 8 2 63,850 1861 338,722 102,449 1871 355> 6 55 124,805 1881 34i 3 5 8 176,233 These figures refer to the district under the control of the Town Councils of Manchester and Salford. By the reform Act of 1832 Manchester and Salford became parliamentary boroughs, and the boundaries assigned to them were not identical with the municipal limits, though those of Salford have since been made uniform. The progress of the parlia- mentary boroughs may be thus stated : Manchester. Salford. 1841 242,983 66,624 1851 3*6,213 85,108 1861 357,979 102,449 1871 383,843 124,801 1881 393,676 176,233 By the census taken in 1881 'the population of the municipal borough of Manchester was returned at 341,508. 2i6 Lancashire Gleanings. There is no reason to doubt the substantial accuracy of these figures ; it would therefore appear that an actual decrease has taken place since the census of 1871, when the people in the same area numbered 351,189. A comparison of the figures will show that whilst municipal Manchester has decreased parliamentary Manchester has increased. This suggests the true explanation. There has been no real diminution, and the apparent decrease is due to the displacement of popula- tion caused by the demolition of cottage property under the powers of successive Improvements Acts, and by the gradual conversion of dwelling-houses in the central portions of the city into buildings used only for business purposes. One result has been a large influx of population into the neigh- bouring borough of Salford, where not fewer than 51,432 persons have been added to the inhabitants in the last ten years; that is to say, the addition made to the people of Salford in the last decade is larger than the entire population of Manchester and Salford a century ago. To ascertain the truth we must discard the arbitrary limitations indicated by local jurisdictions, for the real Manchester is the busy hive of life which extends for miles around, but has its centre in the Manchester Exchange. The two boroughs, with the urban sanitary districts immediately around them, will have a population of 800,000 persons. The increase in rateable value is very remarkable. In 1815 the township of Manchester was rated at ,308,634; Ardwick, 1 1,241 ; Cheetham, 8,651; Chorlton, 19,839; Hulme, 9,422. The townships forming the present muni- cipal' borough had therefore a total rateable value of Population of Manchester. 217 The valuation for the year 1882 is ^2,761, 468. The valuations of the several townships are : Manchester, ,1,803,499; Chorlton-upon-Medlock, ^334,259 ; Hulme, ,298,676; Ardwick, ;i49> 6 33; Cheetham, ^154,069; Beswick, .21,330. Beswick in 1801 had only six inhab- itants, and its rateable value was nil. In 1815 Broughton was rated at ,5,082, and Salford at ^"49,048. The total of ,54,130 may be compared with its present assessment, which is as follows : Salford, .430,747 ; Broughton, ,167,000; Pendleton, .192,335; Pendlebury (part of), jii,no; total, ^"801, 192. London is a word that may be used to indicate very different areas. The City of London contains 6,493 houses and 50,526 people. The city of Manchester has 77,404 houses and 393,676 population. But the metropolitan par- liamentary boroughs contain 432,984 houses and 3,452,350 people, whilst the wider area embraced within the metropol- itan police districts has 645,818 houses and 4,764,312 inhabitants. This greater London extends over the whole of Middlesex and the surrounding parishes in the counties of Sussex, Kent, Essex, and Hertford, of which any part is within twelve miles from Charing Cross, and those also of which any part is not more than fifteen miles in a straight line from Charing Cross. A similar circle drawn round the Manchester Exchange would embrace Ashton, Bolton, Bury, Rochdale, Stockport, Heywood, Gorton, and other populous districts, whose united population will be close upon two million persons. Whilst greater Manchester has about two million people, greater London has over four million inhabi- 218 Lancashire Gleanings. tants. If, however, the problem were put in another form, it is very probable that the district for forty miles round Manchester would be found to contain a larger num- ber of people than any other circle of the same extent in the United Kingdom. In the century which has elapsed since the first attempt to enumerate the people of Manchester and Salford the popula- tion has increased from 50,000 to 569,000 persons. A hundred years has sufficed to transform the already prosperous market town into a metropolitan centre of enormous propor- tions and the seat of an industry of world-wide importance. A SERMON OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. He of their wicked ways Shall them admonish, and before them set The paths of righteousness. MILTON. IT is to be feared that the present age has not that robust appetite for sermons possessed by our forefathers, but even those least tolerant of hortatory literature would look with some interest upon a discourse delivered in their own locality three centuries ago. Amongst the books in the library of the Home Missionary Board in the Memorial Hall, Manchester, there is a small volume of sermons (T. 100), the first of which possesses a special local interest. The time- stained and patched title page reads : " A Godly and Learned Sermon, containing a charge and instruction for all vnlearned, negligent, and dissolute Min- isters : and an Exhortation to the common people to seeke their amendment by Prayer, vnto God. Preached at Man- chester in Lancastershire, before a great and worshipfull audience, by occasion of certain Parsons there at that present, appointed (as then) to be made Ministers. By Simon Har- 22O Lancashire Gleanings. warde Preacher of the worde of God, and Maister of Art, late of New Colledge in Oxforde. At London printed by Richard Ihones, and lohn Charlewood. 1582." The local allusions are not at all numerous, but he did not disdain an appeal to the self-esteem of the citizens : " And therefore, consider (good people) how the Lord hath dealt more mercifully with you of this Towne of Manchester, then euer he did with your forefathers, or then now he doth with any other place about you." (B vii.) Harward does not mince matters but inveighs against the Pope in good set terms, and avows himself averse to those who "patter up prayers," whilst to him the monastic is a "swinish life." Perhaps the following is the most characteristic passage. " It is a lamentable case to consider, how in these dayes, the Deuill hath so bewitched the hearts of so manye, that in all their assemblyes, Feastes and meetinges, they haue nothing almost in their mouthes, but the lyuesof the Ministers, the lyues of the Preachers : And yf they can espye anye faulte in the worlde, then of a Moate, to make a Beame, and of a Hillocke a Mountayne. And looke who of all men, are, the fylthyest Whoremongers, the moste blasphemous swearers, the moste dissolute Gaymesters, the ranckest ruffyans, the moste cruell oppressiours of the poore, the greatest spoilers of the goods of the Church, wherewith the Ministers should doe good and keepe hospitality, they are of all other most busie, in dis- playing the faults of the Ministerie, which is only the deuise of Sathan to drawe them from the consideration of their owne sinnes, least they should repent and Hue : whereas indeede they should first, pluck out the beame out of their owne eyes, A Sermon of the Sixteenth Century. 221 and then should they better see to pluck out the Mote out of their brother's eye. We have a Wallet cast ouer our shoulders in the ende before vs, we putte the sinnes of our Ministers, and of our Neighbours, in the ende, behind vs we put our owne sinnes and then, Non videmus manticae quod in tergo est." (Fvi., vii.). He alludes to the old custom of wearing the badge of a great man. " What greater ioye vnto a poore man, then to shrowde himselfe vnder the winges of some Nobleman or Gentleman, and to weare his Liuerie and Cognisance?" (G.v.) He warns the poor against imitating the attitude of the rich towards the church. " And heere also is a lesson for you of the inferior sorte, that seeing our liuings are so spoyled by impropriations, that they are not able to maintain Preachers amongst you, for ye know, that we have but the chaffe and others the corne, we the parings and others the Aples, we the shels and others the Kernels, and ye see how euery day it waxeth worse and worse so that he now dooth account him happiest which can pill the Church moste, yet ye most not follow their wicked and desperate ensample, but every one contribute something to the maintenaunce of some learned Pastor, to instruct us in the word of God which is able to saue your souls." The most ornate passage is that in which he says : " Then although we neuer heare the worde of God, yet the creation of the world, the skie so trimly azured and richly dect with glistering starres, the lifting up of the sun to be a fountaine of light and heate and earthly generation, the gouerning of the moone, to deuide the monethes, times and 222 Lancashire Gleanings. seasons, the placing of the sande, for the bondes of the sea, by a perpetual decree, that the waues, although they rage and rore, yet cannot ouerpasse it, the giuing of rain bothe early and late, in due season, the vphoulding of the earth in this wide and empty space of the huge round compass of the firmament, the high Mountaines in whose veins are founde so many sweete springs and other innumerable treasures. The Plaines, Valleys, and Medowes, beautified with so many sweete odours, and pleasaunt Flowers, more gorgeously cloathed then Salomon in all his royalty. The ground yielding forth Grasse for the Cattell, and Hearbe for the vse of man, and Wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oyle to make him a cheerful countenance, and bread to strengthen man's heart. The hiding of the treasures of the Snowe and bringing foorth the hoarie Frostes, the couering the heavens with cloudes, and bringing foorth the winds out of their places. The wonderful woorkemanship of God in man, which is as it were //.i/cpoKooyxos a little world." After a sharp reproof to the landlords, he admonished the " bishop not to regard the pittifull and lamentable complaints of those which alledge their charges heeretoofore, and their present pouertie, that vnlesse their sonnes be nowe admitted they must needs take from the Schole, and set them to the Plowe and Carte." He continues with some bitterness, " It is a common use and custome among you, if your children haue any good gifts of nature or any great token of towardlinesse, then to set the to some occupation or to place them in ser- uice with some gentleman, but if they be good for nothing, then to seeke by countenance of letters to make them Ministers A Sermon of the Sixteenth Century. 223 to serue the church of God, so that with the best you will serue the world and God must take that which is left." Our information as to Simon Harward is unfortunately but scanty. There is a notice of him in Wood's " Athenae." The place of his birth was unknown. In 1577 he was one of the chaplains of New College and was in that year incor- porated bachelor of arts, but from what university or college he came has not been discovered. Wood describes his first work as "Two godly sermons preached at Manchester, 1582," but apparently they were also issued separately. Two other sermons (one, if not both preached at Crowhurst), were pub- lished in 1590 and 1592. In the latter year he issued " Solace for a Soldier and Sailor," in which he estimates the " valiant attempts of the noblemen and gentlemen of England, which incur so many dangers on the seas to abridge the proud power of Spain." He published a tract on occasion of the damage done by lightning to the spire of Bletchingley Church, Surrey, in 1606, when a ring of bells was melted. Some other writings on surgery and botany are ascribed to him. He would seem to have been somewhat of a wanderer, for he is heard of at Oxford, Warrington, Manchester, Crowhurst, Bletchingley, and Tanridge, and the place of his death is unknown. PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD STUART'S SUPPOSED VISIT TO MANCHESTER. His fair large front and eye sublime declared Absolute rule ; and hyacinthine locks Round from his party forelock manly hung Clustering, but not beneath, his shoulders broad. MILTON. Paradise Lost. DID the young Pretender visit Manchester in 1744? There is a curious Manchester tradition that " bonnie Prince Charlie" visited Manchester in disguise in 1744. The statement first appeared in Aston's " Metrical Records of Manchester." : In the year Forty-four a Royal Visitor came Tho' few knew the Prince, or his rank, or his name To sound the opinions, and gather the strength Of the party of Stuart, his house, ere the length, Then in petto, to which he aspired, If he found the High Tories sufficient inspired "With notions of right indefeasive, divine, In favour of his Royal Sire and his line. No doubt he was promised an army ! a host ! Tho' he found, to his cost, it was a vain boast : Prince Charles s Visit to Manchester. 225 For when he returned, in the year Forty-five, For the Crown of his Fathers, in person to strive, When in Scottish costume, at the head of the clans, He marched to Mancunium to perfect his plans, The hope he had cherished from promises made Remains to this day as a debt that's unpaid. In a foot-note to this passage, the doggerel chronicler states that "Charles Edward Stuart, commonly called the Young Pretender, to distinguish him from his father, then alive, calling himself James the 3rd, visited Sir Oswald Mosley, Bart, of Ancoats Hall, in the year 1744, and re- mained with him for several weeks : no doubt with a view to see the inhabitants of Manchester and its vicinity who were attached to the interests of his family." The improbability of Prince Charles venturing into England in disguise at the period named is so great, that very conclusive evidence should be adduced in support of the statement if it is to receive general credence. The first thought is, that if the event really took place, some memorial of it would most probably be preserved among the archives of the Mosley family. On turning to Sir Oswald Mosley's very interesting history of his family, we find the incident duly recorded : not however, on the authority of the family, but, as will be seen from the following extract, from a less reliable source : "In the year 1815, a very worthy and intelligent woman died in Manchester at the advanced age of eighty-four years the following anecdote she had often, during the course of thirty years' acquaintance, repeated with the most minute exactness to Mr. Aston .... who kindly commu- Q 226 Lancashire Gleanings. nicated it to me. When she was a girl of thirteen, her father, whose name was Bradbury, kept the principal inn at Man- chester. It occupied the site of a house lately known by the sign of the Swan, in Market Street ; and at that time was the only place where a postchaise was kept, or the London newspapers regularly received, which were brought by post only three times during the week. In the summer of the year before the Rebellion, or, as she used to say, before the Highlanders arrived from Scotland, a handsome young gen- tleman came every post-day for several weeks in succession from Ancoats Hall, the seat of Sir Oswald Mosley, where he was on a visit, to her father's house to read the newspapers. He appeared to hold no communication with any one else, but to take great interest in the perusal of the London news. She saw him frequently, and could not help admiring his handsome countenance and genteel deportment; but she particularly recollected that, on the last day that he came to her father's house, he asked for a basin of water and a towel, which she herself brought up, and that after he had washed himself he gave her half-a-crown In the following year, when the rebel army marched into the town, as she stood with her father at the inn door, the young prince passed by on foot at the head of his troops ; and she immediately exclaimed, ' Father ! father ! that is the gentleman who gave me the half-crown.' Upon which her father drove her back into the house, and with severe threats desired her never to mention that circumstance again, which threats he frequently repeated, after the retreat of the Scotch army, if ever she divulged the secret to any one." ("Family Memoirs," by Prince CJiarless Visit to Manchester. 227 Sir Oswald Mosley, Baronet. Printed for private circulation, 1849, p. 45.) In after years, however, she stated that her father himself owned to her that the handsome young stranger and the un- fortunate prince were the same person. Such then is the very slender foundation upon which the legend is based. In Byrom's " Diary " there is an unfortunate hiatus; no entry is made in the year of the Pretender's supposed visit ; but to make up for this, we have a very graphic diary, kept by Miss " Beppy " Byrom, of events during the Rebellion ; and, amongst other incidents narrated by this lady, we have a very vivid picture of an interview between the prince and the celebrated John Byrom, M.A., F.R.S., and some other inhabitants of Manchester who were shrewdly suspected of bearing no great love to the House of Hanover. If the young Chevalier had really been in Man- chester the year before, he would surely have made some allusion to that event, which was one of a romantic nature, and likely to have impressed itself upon the fair Jacobite whose diary we now quote : "[November] Saturday 3oth, St. Andrew's day. More crosses making till twelve o'clock : then I dressed me up in my white gown, and went up to my aunt Brearcliffe's, and an officer called on us to go and see the Prince ; we went to Mr. Fletcher's and saw him get a-horseback, and a noble sight it is, I would not have missed it for a great deal of money. His horse had stood an hour in the court without stirring, and as soon as he got on he began a dancing and capering as if he was received with as much joy and shouting almost as if he 228 Lancashire Gleanings. had been King without any dispute : indeed, I think scarce anybody that saw him could dispute it. As soon as he was gone, the officer and us went to prayers at the old church at two o'clock by their orders, or else there has been none since they came. Mr. Shrigley read prayers ; he prayed for the King and the Prince of Wales, and named no names. Then we all called at our house and eat a queen-cake and a glass of wine, for we got no dinner ; then the officer went with us all to the Camp Field to see the Artillery. Called at my uncle's, and then went up to Mr. Fletcher's ; stayed there till the Prince was at supper, then the officer introduced us into the room ; stayed awhile, and then went into the great par- lour where the officers were dining ; sat by Mrs. Starkey ; they were all exceeding civil, and almost made us fuddled with drinking the P. health, for we had no dinner ; we sat there till Secretary Murray came to let us know that the P. was at leisure and had done supper, so we were all introduced, and had the honour to kiss his hand ; my papa was fetched prisoner to do the same, as was Dr. Deacon. Mr. Cattell and Mr. Clayton did it without ; the latter said grace for him. Then we went out and drank his health in the other room> and so to Mr. Fletcher's, where my mamma waited for us (my uncle was gone to pay his land-tax), and then went home." There is not the slightest hint in this of the prince's pre- vious visit ; yet these were the leading Jacobites in Manches- ter, and, if any persons could have aided the prince's errand in 1744, they were undoubtedly Byrom, Clayton, and Deacon. If we add to this the fact, that no other evidence has come Prince Charles's Visit to Manchester. 229 to light of this excursion to England, that all historians and biographers have preserved complete silence on the subject, and when we also consider the foolishness, futility, and use- less danger of such an enterprise, we shall be quite warranted in discrediting the Manchester tradition ; at least, until cor- roborative evidence of some sort is produced. Another point of difficulty is, why the town of Manchester alone should have been honoured with this visit. True, it was supposed to have Jacobite tendencies ; but the Scotch were known to be still more devoted to the old family, and no one pretends that "bonnie Prince Charlie" visited any of his Highland friends in the year before the rebellion. The late Mr. B. B. Woodward examined for me the Stuart Papers in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, but they did not definitely show the whereabouts of Charles Edward Stuart during the summer preceeding the Rebellion. It may, perhaps, not be inappropriate to transcribe a song relating to THE MANCHESTER REBELS. A New Song. To the Tune of ' The Abbot of Canterbury,' You have all heard, no doubt, of the Devil at Lincoln, A strange and a terrible Matter to Think on ; But listen awhile, and I'll lay before ye By far a more strange, aye and wonderful Story. Derry down, down, &c. We Manchester Men are so stout, or so righteous, It is not one Demon or two that could fright Us ; 230 Lancashire Gleanings. But where is the Man If wrong, set me right in't That can face a whole Legion without being frighten'd ? That Lucifer's Agents here swarm in the Street, You need only ask the first Non- Con you meet : He'll swear are such Crowds, and they make such a Riot, That Folk cannot go to the Meeting in Quiet. What Marks they are known by 'tis fit to declare, For the Use of the Publick and now you shall hear : Imprimis, their Looks a Thing very essential, Are drest up with nothing but Smiles complacential . And as for their Garb It is not of that Hue Which your common Fiends wear, but Red, Yellow, and Blue, Work'd up with such Art as to drive us all mad In short, my good Friends, 'tis an arrant Scotch Plad. But what's worst of all, and what chiefly perplexes Us here is, in Truth, we have Fiends of both sexes : Here struts the Plad Waistcoat there sails the Plad Gown, Such fashions infernal sure never were known. There's one Thing besides you must know, by the bye, To add to our Plagues, there's a numerous Fry Of young Rebel Imps little Impudent Things, With ' God bless P. C.' on their Pincushion Strings. Now God keep us all from this Infidel Race, Or send to support us a little more Grace : May all Jacobite Knaves be truss'd up in a Lump, That dare, for the future, shout Down with the Rump. Derry down, &c. (A Collection of Political Tracts. Edinburgh : printed" in the year 1747, p. 34,; CONGREGATIONALISM AT FARNWORTH, NEAR BOLTON. No silver saints by dying misers giv'n, Here bribed the rage of ill-requited heav'n : But such plain roofs as Piety could raise, And only vocal with the Maker's praise. POPE. Eloisa to Abelard. MR. SIMEON DYSON, in a small volume issued by Messrs. Tubbs, Brook, & Chrystal in 1881, gives, in a very unpretending style, some interesting particulars as to the growth of "Rural Congregationalism in Farnworth." The first place of worship in the village was an Independent Chapel founded in 1808. An attempt was first made to provide a place where Nonconformists might hold alternate services, but the effort was not successful. After one or two preachers, whose tenure was of a temporary nature, Mr. Joseph Dyson walked on Saturday from Marsden, near Huddersfield, preached three times on the Sunday, and walked back again on Monday morning. In 1813 he became the regular minister of this congregation, most of whose members 232 Lancashire Gleanings. were in a "humble sphere of life," and some "rather in indigent circumstances," but who were anxious to have a settled preacher among them. At the ordination twenty ministers were present, and the cost of providing dinner for them and for the leading members of the congregation did not amount to $- After a time there was added a minister's house and a Sunday school. One of the " teachers" began the task of in- struction when his acquaintance with the alphabet did not extend beyond the letter O ! The constable was in the habit of pushing into the chapel any loiterers whom he encountered, and the author tells us that he has himself seen the birds pop- ping their heads out of the pockets of the pigeon-flyers thus forcibly brought to hear the gospel. The chapel had no warming apparatus, and the women not unfrequently brought with them a warm brick, which was wrapped up in a shawl, and thus made a cozy footstool. Some of the congregation came from a .distance in market carts, and one, a crippled schoolmistress, was brought to chapel in a wheelbarrow. There were no organs used in those days, but " the band on the occasion of the Sunday School Anniversary Sermons generally consisted of six or eight violins, a viola, two or three violoncellos, one double bass, two or three clarionets, two flutes, two bassoons, a large brass serpent and one trom- bone." The Rev. William Jones, after the performance of the "Hailstorm Chorus," from Handel's Oratorio of "Israel in Egypt," grumpily observed, " Now I will try to preach to you after this furious storm." In 1831 the first "treat" to Sunday scholars was given, but was of a very modest character. The first " tea party " was held on the day of the Congregationalism at Farnworth. 233 coronation of William IV., and the task of feeding the 400 who came to it taxed the ingenuity of the ladies, and emptied all the provision shops of the neighbourhood. The Sunday evening lectures given by Mr. Dyson were sufficiently quaint in their titles, "New Cart " and "A Man Better than a Sheep" may be cited. He continued as a pastor until 1855, when increasing infirmities led to his resignation. The old chapel was left for a more modern building, and converted into a Sunday school. Mr. Dyson's jubilee was celebrated in 1863. He died in 1867, and his funeral was conducted by one of the ministers who had ordained him fifty-four years XXX 0000000 C I I I- earlier. Some amusing particulars are given of the customs and mode of living seventy years ago. The "badger's " mode 234 Lancashire Gleanings. of reckoning is explained. Thus stood for a shilling, x for i os., and a straight stroke for a penny, and a horizontal line indicated a half-penny. Each customer had a separate board on which his cabalistic indebtedness was inscribed. This board would indicate an indebtedness of i 173. 9^d. A newspaper was jointly subscribed for by several of the more important inhabitants, and was solemnly passed from house to house. The Halshaw Moor Wakes were the scene of bull-baiting, badger-baiting, grinning through a horse collar and other rude sports. The inhabitants, however, if unlettered, were honest and kindly, and had a native shrewd- ness and a determined love of joking which compensated in some measure for the hardness of their lot. It may be added that this village is sometimes named as the birth place of Abp. Bancroft. The prelate himself states that he was born at Farnworth, in Lancashire, and it has generally been assumed that the important manufacturing district of Farnworth, near Bolton, was meant. Canon Raines thought that Farnworth, near Prescot, was the place, and a writer in the Bolton Journal, in 1877, made some inquiries, and in the Prescot registers found under September, 1544, the entry of "Ric. Bancroft, sone unto John Bancroft, bapt. the xii. day." (See also Notes and Queries, 5th S. vii. 84.) CHURCH GOODS IN 1552. Judge not the preacher for he is thy Judge : If thou mislike him, thou conceiv'st him not. God calleth preaching folly. Do not grudge To pick out treasures from an earthen pot. GEORGE HERBERT. The Temple. SOME Inventories of goods in the churches of Lancashire in 1552, when the pecuniary difficulties of the Govern- ment of Edward VI. led it to sweep up what remained of Church property from the heavy spoliations of former years were printed by the Chetham Society in 1879. Commissions were issued ordering perfect inventories to be taken of all manner of goods, plate, jewels, and ornaments, belonging to any churches, chapels, fraternities, or guilds, with the names of persons who had been known to have acquired any of the property since the date of former inventories. These lists were edited by Mr. J. E. Bailey, F.S.A., who has thrown into his notes and introductions a mass of interesting elucidatory matter. In Salford hundred, which alone is comprised in the present part, the making of this inquisition was entrusted to Sir Edmund Trafford, Sir John 236 Lancashire Gleanings. Atherton, Sir John Holcroft, and Sir Thomas Holt. In a return made in 1563 it was stated that the number of com- municants was 22,000, not including either Manchester or Flixton. The parish church of Manchester was possessed of one cope of black velvet embroidered with branches, one of old green velvet, one of white damask, one of velvet "sangven," one of white satin, and two of russet "wulsted." There was one vestment of red damask branched with deacon and sub-deacon, one of white damask, one of red chamlet, one of green " bowdekyn," one " embraunchet with beares," one of black velvet, and one old white vest- ment. There was a forefront of chamlet for the high altar, another of blue and red silk, another of white, green, and red. There were two altar clothes of diaper, and two of linen cloth. There were two little latten candlesticks, some ornaments for the sepulchre, and two chalices, one of them parcel gilt. In the steeple there were five bells and one little bell. This scanty list is but a type of the others, and indicates pretty clearly that, whilst church and abbey lands were greedily snapped up by the courtiers and gentry, the goods intended for the service of the church did not escape confiscation and " imbezelment" The will of Sir Edmund Trafford, one of the commissioners, records his wish for the restoration of certain church goods that had been bought by his father-in-law. The vestment decorated with bears probably belonged to the chantry of Stanley, warden and bishop. His mother was a sister of the " king-maker" Warwick, whose heraldic cognisance was a bear and ragged staff. Such embellish- Church Goods z>z 1552. 237 ments, though certainly savouring more of pride than of piety, were not uncommon. Walter, Lord Hungerford, in 1449, directed by will that in some vestments given by him " for greater notice " his arms should be wrought. The " ornaments for the sepulchre " were used in the scenic representation of the resurrection, which is still retained in the Greek Church. The bells are mentioned in the will of William Trafford, of Garret (1545), who desired that after his death the great bell should be rung, and that when the body set forward towards the church the great bell only should be rung, and continue until evening. The inden- ture is signed by William Penketh, the parson of Man- chester, who may have belonged to the same family as that " Friar Penker" whom Shakspere mentions. The plate of the church of Manchester was returned as 303^02. in the second year of Edward VI. At Flixton the churchwardens were Taylor and Sherlock. The celebrated Oldfield Lane Doctor came from the first stock, and the mother of Wilson, the apostolic bishop of the Isle of Man, belonged to the second. Of Middleton goods a full inventory, perhaps due to the existence of three chantries, is given. One item shows the distinction between the dresses of the deacon and the sub-deacon, a distinction no longer preserved in the Latin Church. Middleton was one of the three Lancashire parishes that had organs. It had also a pair of rigalls, a small portable instrument with pipes and bellows, and played with the fingers. Ashton Church had also a pair of organs. In 1559 the people complained that the " parson doth no service in the church " a complaint that has been 238 Lancashire Gleanings. repeated in more modern times. In 1563 there were 1,000 communicants and no preacher. The vestments included satin of " Brigges " that is, Bruges ; there was also a banner of green silk, which was probably a processional flag of the description used on Rogation days in the perambulation of parishes. There was a holy water stock of brass. At Radcliffe and other places crosses are named, and they are of the meaner metals, and not, as at Durham or Cambridge, of gold or silver. Radcliffe Church still possessed a Mass-book, although the destruction of such service books was ordered in 1549. At Eccles, which long continued to abound with adherents of the old faith, there was in use a " bell that served the parish for corpses." " Jangling the belles " was a matter of protest as late as 1590. The vicar of Eccles was Thomas Craven, whose illegitimate son made his will in 1591. Bolton is said to have had 5,000 communicants. At Bradshaw Chapel there is still a pre-Reformation bell, upon which is an inscription, " Ave Maria graia appela," probably intended as the Latin equivalent of " Hail, Mary ! full of grace." The gentry of Dean appear to have laid their hands upon some of the church goods. One chalice, with a suit of clothes to say Mass in, is noted as being in the hands of Lambert Heyton, who said they were heirlooms of Heton. The Hultons and Brownes were also implicated. To the Heton family belonged that proud bishop whom Good Queen Bess threatened to unfrock. Occasionally the dialect creeps into these documents, as at Blackrod, where the possession of two "brossen" cruets of pewter is recorded. Church Goods in 1552. 239 In a note, Mr. Bailey has given some new particulars about Lawrence Vaux, a native of Blackrod, some time warden of Manchester, and afterwards a prisoner for his opposition to the Reformation. At Rivington, the birthplace of Bishop Pilkington, there was a Mass-book, a manual, and a Bible. This is the only Bible inventoried in the county. There were also hand-bells for use at funerals. Prestwich is said to have had 3,000 communicants. Its four great bells were recast by Rudhall in the last century. The Oldham inden- ture is signed by Ralph Cudworth. From this stock came the famous author of "The Intellectual System of the Universe." The spelling of "Shay" for the chapelry of Shaw serves to indicate the antiquity of the dialectal pro- nunciation of its name. Richard Smyth, parson," of Bury, was at one time the Pope's " pardoner " in Lancashire. His successor, Richard Jones, was presented for not reading the Gospels, &c. There was also some scandal concerning his churchwardens. In 1563 there were 3,000 communicants. One of the vestments named in the indenture was a white fustian. The fustian trade was then one of the great trades of Lancashire, especially in the neighbourhood of Bolton. Though made here, they retained their names of Milan and Augsburg fustians. This deed contains the earliest mention of Heywood Chapel. Rochdale is shown to have possessed a pair of organs. The communicants are said to have been 5,000. The Rochdale priests, it appears, were not always mindful of their vows either of hospitality or celibacy, for of the vicar of Rochdale in 1559 it was complained that he was non-resident, did not relieve the poor, and did not 240 Lancashire Gleanings. keep hospitality, and Sir William Lapper was reported as guilty of fornication with Elizabeth Lapper. " Sir " continued for sometime after the reformation to be the usual prefix to the name of a parson or parish priest. Different to these un- worthy ministers was John Yates, " dark," of Whitworth, whose worldly goods did not amount to "xxs" and who left of that meagre sum, "vi^. vmV. to the poure folces in Wardle." Saddleworth, although in the West Riding of Yorkshire, was until recently part of the parish of Rochdale. Its church goods were one chalice, two bells, one hand bell, two vestments, and two altar cloths. THE ESTATES OF SIR ANDREW CHADWICK. The mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands. BACON. Essay on Fortune. NEWSPAPER readers will remember that from time to time the faithful chroniclers of the day have recorded the appearance of one or more claimants to the fabulous wealth supposed to be waiting for the heirs-at-law of Sir Andrew Chadwick. With some persons of the same family name as the knight the existence of this vast property and of their right to it became a fixed idea. English and American Chadwicks alike believed themselves entitled to sundry millions. A " Chadwick Association " formed in the State of New York sent an agent to this country to investigate the matter, and a similar English Society has also been at work. The latter society had its headquarters in Manchester, and issued an elaborate report, in which the entire question is discussed with great ability and honesty. The ability is shown by the fulness of the information which has been gathered and the honesty by 242 Lancashire Gleanings. the unpalatable advice given to the claimants, who are warned that they are upon a hopeless quest. (Reports on the estate of Sir Andrew Chadwick and the recent proceedings of the Chadwick Association in reference thereto, by Edmund Chadwick, chairman, and James Boardman, secretary and treasurer. To which is prefixed the life and history of Sir Andrew Chadwick, by John Oldfield Chad- wick, F.S.S., F.R.G.S. London : Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.) The Chadwicks have been known in Lancashire for many centuries. A branch of the family of yeoman standing appear as owners of Carter Place, near Haslingden, a property which they held by a copyhold tenure from the Duke of Albemarle. Ellis Chadwick in 1580 was admitted to this property, and in 1603 the name of his son Robert is entered on the court rolls. The son of Robert was another Ellis who was admitted in 1684, and was then described as " gentleman," and resident in Dublin. Sir Andrew, his son, was entered on the rolls in 1726. It is therefore evident that the Haslingden yeoman's son left his fatherland to settle in Dublin. That some amount of success attended his efforts may be conjectured by the higher social appellation given to him at a time when etiquette was more rigorous in such matters than it is at present. Andrew Chadwick is believed to have been born in Dublin about 1683, but the certificate of his birth or baptism has been sought for in vain. Absolutely nothing is known as to his father's marriage, and an apparently groundless suspicion has been raised as to his legitimacy. Ellis Chadwick died in 1687 The Estates of Sir Andrew Chadwick. 243 or 1688, when he would not be more than 23 or 24 years old. Of the early life of his son there is nothing certainly known, but his youthful experiences had left a bitter taste, for in a codicil to his will, written twelve days before his death, and when he was probably in his 84th year, he speaks of the " base and cruel usage he met with from his relations when he was an orphan." Notwithstanding, he desired ;i 0,000 to be divided amongst those who could prove their consanguinity. Seven days later he revoked this bequest to those whom he describes " as the hungry Lancashire kites to whom I owe nothing either by the ties of blood, gratitude, or natural affection." This revocation is made lest they, he continues, " may attempt to run away with more, contrary to my inclination, than they deserve at my hands or can make good use of." Nothing is known as to the nature of this cruel usage, and the next record we have of the Anglo-Irish boy, left an orphan in his childhood, is that he was knighted by Queen Anne on the i8th of January, 1709-10. Why he received this honour is a mystery. He was one of the Band of Gentleman-Pensioners, but did not apparently enter that corporation until about the period of his knighthood. He was married i4th November, 1718, to Margaret Humfrey, the daughter of a well-to-do apothecary. Lady Chadwick survived her hus- band, and after his death had reason to suspect that he had improperly converted to his own use some property which rightly belonged to her and her sister. The marriage was without issue, but Sir Andrew is conjectured to have had a natural daughter, to whom he left a legacy of .5,000. 244 Lancashire Gleanings. How he acquired his fortune is almost as mysterious as the other parts of his life. In addition to the agency of several regiments he was paymaster of a troop of Horse Guards, and paymaster of a lottery office in the Exchequer. These were doubtless lucrative appointments, but he was also engaged in other business, the nature of which is not known. Between 1717 and 1735 he acquired property in the neigh- bourhood of Golden Square, Westminster. His only recorded visit to Lancashire was in 1726, when he attended the halmot court at Haslingden. In 1719 he had been summoned as a witness in the Duchy Court of Lancaster, but had ignored the subpoena and the subsequent warrant for his arrest, which only ran in the County Palatine. He lived in the latter part of his life at No. 12, Broad-street, employing four servants, each of whom received an annuity. His silver plate weighed 2,378 ounces. In 1765 he made a will, which was informal as to real estate because not witnessed. This he secreted. To the will were added no less than seven codicils the last written within three days of his death, which occurred i$th March, 1768. These documents contain a number of legacies. John Wilkes is named in one as legatee for a few thousand pounds. A few days later this is revoked. Another patriot of the period appears to have had much influence with Sir Andrew. This was a pamphleteer, named Alexander Scott, who is designated in the will to receive ^500. By the first codicil this is increased to ^1,000, and by the sixth to ^2,000, and the whole residue of his real and personal estate. The will also prohibited Lady Chadwick from continuing her The Estates of Sir Andrew Chadzvick. 245 friendship with a Mrs. Glover, whose volubility appears to have offended the eccentric knight. Scott first consented to absolve the widow from the penalties attached to the continuance of this intimacy, but immediately afterwards began a Chancery suit with the object of stripping her of all interest in the residue of the estate. She died in 1783 before the conclusion of the suit, which was eventually decided in her favour. The personal estate of Sir Andrew, amounting to more than ^20,000, was thus disposed of in legacies and in law expenses. The amount of the residue which was received by Scott is not known. Chadwick's will was not sufficiently formal to apply to real estate, but a claimant speedily appeared in the person of Sarah Law, the daughter of his uncle Robert, and she succeeded in satisfy- ing the court, and was invested with the freeholds. Yet at this time there was one nearer in blood alive, in the person of Joseph, the son of James, the eldest of the uncles of Sir Andrew. Some doubt has been thrown on the marriage of this James, but its validity was accepted in a later litigation. Moreover, there was some doubt as to the legitimacy of Sarah Law. That lady, even when in possession, seems to have had some doubt as to her tenure, and conveyed the property to her son-in-law, John Taylor, a blacksmith, of Bury. The representatives of a disinherited son vainly endeavoured to upset the deed of gift. Taylor made an arrangement with Lady Chadwick for the commutation of her dower, and the whole of the freehold property gradually passed by sale and bargain into other hands. Sarah Law died in 1791, and her will confirmed the previous deed of 246 Lancashire Gleanings. gift. The copyhold property at Haslingden was also- adjudged to Sarah Law notwithstanding the objection of her cousin Mary Duckworth, and has since by sale passed into other hands. The free leaseholds were held to be personal property, and passed to Scott. Some other leaseholds were held in trust in the names of Horsey and Campion. Sarah Law could not secure possession, as the leases did not run out until 1847, an d no claim was then preferred by her representatives. In 1840 Mr. John Chadwick, of Westleigh, presented a petition to the Court of Chancery, setting forth his descent from James, the eldest uncle of Sir Andrew. After investigation he was decided to have established his claim, and the leasehold property was secured to him by a judgment of the court. Some of the statements made in the present report tend to invalidate his claim; but an attempt to eject him in 1859 proved a failure, and an un- interrupted possession of more than 30 years is a sufficient bar to any future attempt of the same kind. There is, therefore, at the present moment no property left by Sir Andrew Chadwick which has not been adjudged by the law, with the exception of ^100, with interest accumulating at the rate of 3 per cent, registered at the Bank of England in July, 1768, in the names of Sir Andrew and of the Rev. Samuel Grove. This could only be claimed by joint repre- sentatives of Scott and Grove, as it formed part of the per- sonal estate, and as such followed the dispositions of the will. The numerous Chadwick claimants of the present day are, therefore, in search of a mere chimera. There is no Chadwick estate capable of any further legal distribution. The Estates of Sir Andrew Chadwick. 247 We have said that some doubt has arisen as to the title of the late Mr. John Chadwick, of Westleigh. He descends from James, the eldest uncle, about whose marriage there is some doubt. The grandson Thomas was twice married, and a descendant of this first marriage is now in practice as an engineer. The Westleigh claimant is the issue of a second marriage, and is, therefore, remoter in blood. In addition to this disqualifying circumstance the second union of Thomas Chadwick was one of doubtful validity. He married Betty Hopwood, a " widow," whose husband, like Enoch Arden, turned up unexpectedly some years after he was supposed to have shuffled off this mortal coil. In 1859 the descendant of a younger brother of Thomas Chadwick attempted to gain possession of the lands held by Chadwick, of Westleigh. This was unsuccessful on the ground that the claim was barred by the statute of limitations, and that even if there had been any fraud it might have been dis- covered earlier by due diligence. Another claimant appeared in 1861, but his pedigree was declared by Vice Chancellor Wood to be imaginary. Chadwick, of West- leigh, was only able to obtain possession of eleven houses valued at ; 10,000. He then commenced an action against Messrs. Broadwood, of the Golden Square Brewery, which formed part of the old knight's property. But the defendants, having an affidavit from David Hopwood, half brother of the claimant, as to the bigamous marriage, defied him to proceed, and in effect he abandoned his claim. In 1851 John Stanton, who appeared as a descendant and representative of Sarah Law, filed a bill against Chadwick, 248 Lancashire Gleanings. of Westleigh, which contained allegations of fraud in respect of the same event Mr. Chad wick, in 1855, purchased from Stanton " all his estate and interest " in the property which had formed the bone of contention. Mr. Chadwick died in 1861, and thus left his heirs a two-fold title, one by purchase from the representative of Sarah Law, who a century earlier had been declared the heir-at-law, and the other by the finding of 1842, that he was the heir-at-law. No case of this kind would be complete without a mutilated register, and accordingly a charge was brought that the leaf containing the marriage record had been cut out. This charge was declared to be baseless by the court. Seeing that all the Chadwick property can be accounted for it is somewhat difficult to imagine how the fables as to its vast extent and unclaimed condition arose. Instead of 53 houses in the Golden Square district Sir Andrew has been credited with the possession of 1,009 houses, comprising an entire quarter in one of the richest parts of the metropolis. To this were added the manor of Hampstead, the forfeited estates of the Derwentwaters, and some square miles of county Wicklow, "with rich soil above, and gold mines beneath." Still more preposterous are the statements circulated amongst the American claimants. It is possible that the fight over the personalty of Sir Andrew may have called attention to the existence of an urban property awaiting an heir-at-law. In 1766 Edward Birch and Matthew Martin came into possession of a draft will made by Sir Andrew in 1764. This suggested to them a plot for the forgery of a will disposing of the property to The Estates of Sir Andrew Chadwick. 249 some supposed near relatives in Ireland. The fraud was discovered, and, on their trial, Whatman, the paper manu- facturer, testified that the will dated in 1764 was written upon paper which he had made himself in 1768. They were hung 2nd January, 1772. This tragic case would give still further notoriety to the Chadwick property. The complications of the great Chadwick claim are fully shown in the report already mentioned. Mr. J. Oldfield Chadwick has made the most of the scanty materials for a biography of Sir Andrew. The chairman and secretary of the Chadwick Association have shown both wisdom and courage in advising the abandonment of any further attempt at litigation. The case was submitted to Mr. W. W. Karslake, Q.C., who not only holds that any attempt to disturb the present possessors would be unavailing, but evidently inclines to the opinion that the " Chadwick Association " might be charged with the offence known as "maintenance." As early as 1836 there was a club for the purpose of getting up a case. Later there was a com- bination to oust Chadwick, of Westleigh, with the under- standing that if successful the spoils should he divided amongst the victors. Sir Andrew Chadwick had no kindly feelings towards his relatives, and rarely mentioned them without maledictions. A superstitious mind might see the accomplishment of these curses in the unhappy fate of more than one of the claimants. Perseverance which would have commanded success in the ordinary business of life has been devoted to this lost cause, and has only ended in disappointment and the workhouse. EARLY ART IN LIVERPOOL. Dost thou love pictures ? SHAKSPEKE. SOME interesting particulars as to the early history of art in Liverpool have been privately printed by one who has been a generous benefactor to his adopted city. The volume is dedicated to the donor of the Walker Art Gallery, and is called Exhibitions of Art in Liverpool. With some Notes for a Memoir of George Stubbs, R.A. Privately printed [for Joseph Mayer, Esq., F.S.A.]. 1876. It may be claimed for Liverpool that for a long time, and in a greater measure than other provincial towns, she has had an appreciation of the fine arts. A taste for music was shown so long ago as 1525 when a company of Waits were maintained at the expense of the town. The writer of the volume under notice claims that the festival of sacred music at Saint Peter's Church, in 1784, was the very earliest of its kind in England; but this is an error as there was one in Manchester in 1777. The establishment of the Royal Academy had an imme- Early Art in Liverpool. 251 diate influence upon Liverpool, whose lovers of art determined to make an effort in the same direction. The movement appears to have originated with the drawing masters. The " Academy-room " did not long remain open and the society appears to have expired early in 1770, but in 1773 the pro- ject was revived in a spirited manner, and courses of lectures upon architecture, anatomy, perspective, and chemistry were given. The lecturer on architecture was Mr. Everard, a man of some mathematical power, whose house was the meeting place of a literary coterie. When the " Monthly Review " began in 1749 these friends subscribed for it, "and thus gradually arose the first idea of a circulating library in England" (p. 5). When Everard transformed himself from schoolmaster to "surveyor and architect" an arrangement was made for the accommodation in his house of the library which had grown to 450 volumes owned by 109 subscribers. The " Society of Artists in Liverpool " also met there. The library ultimately grew into the present Lyceum collection, housed in a building which early in the century cost \ 1,000 to construct. In 1774 it was resolved to hold an exhibition of works of art the first held in a provincial town. The master-spirit seems to have been Roscoe, whose influence was beginning to permeate the institutions of the town. As Roscoe possessed the pen of a ready writer and had all his faculties strictly under command, he was apparently appointed laureate, and produced "An Ode on the Institution of a Society in Liverpool for the Encouragement of Designing, Drawing, Painting," &c., in which the muses are represented 252 Lancashire Gleanings. -as leaving their old haunts and seeking freedom in " Albion's ever-grateful isle." Amongst the articles exhibited were designs for beds in the "Palmyrean, Chinese, and Gothic tastes ! " Although the exhibition was a success it had no immediate successor, and the society was dissolved in 1775. The times were not favourable, but when peace returned the institution was remodelled, and in 1783 William Roscoe became its vice-president. The president was Mr. Henry Blundell, of Ince-Blundell, who formed a collection of marbles said to rival that of the Towneley gallery. The writer rightly says : "He who could persuade Mr. Blundell, now living, to deposit his ancestor's collection in some place where students could see it would grant a boon to humanity." The secretary was Mr. Thomas Taylor, a good scholar and a constant friend of Mr. John Leigh Philips, of May- field, whose remarkable collection may have benefited by the advice of the Liverpool connoisseurs. The Mayer MSS. contain some of the lectures given before this society. One of them is a humorous squib directed against picture- dealing. The exhibition took place in 1784, and contained works by the President of the Royal Academy (Sir Joshua Reynolds), Paul and Thomas Sandby, Fuseli, and others, besides the local men. The next was in 1787, and had pictures by Beechey, W. M. Craig, Farrington, Fuseli, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Sandby, George Stubbs, Wright of Derby, the fair Angelica, and others. This sketch of the beginnings of art in Liverpool, now blossoming into a grand fruition, may fittingly be closed by the following Early Art in Liverpool. 253 passage in which Mr. Mayer deals with the influence of Roscoe : " If it be still granted William Roscoe to take interest in those studies which absorbed him during life, he must survey the area of his mundane exertions with serene contentment. He founded no school, gathered no collection of renown throughout the universe ; but he made himself a centre round whom men might collect who found that their humanity could not exist on trade alone. We see by the dumb evidence of catalogues how such unfortunates were regarded before Roscoe's time. The small huckster, the market gardener, or the lawyer's clerk, rejoiced in the title of Mister, but your artist must bear his patronymic naked. If to any one man belongs the credit of raising art to her due dignity in the North of England, that man is William Roscoe. A life may not be wasted though name and works be forgotten. Ros- coe's honour lies not so much in deeds of his own excellent and admirable though they were as in those which he caused others to do. A leading man amongst people who regarded business as the one aim of life and title to respect, he boldly proclaimed another and a nobler ideal. It is not by a right interpretation of his thought that wealthy gentle- men of Liverpool buy pictures at so many hundred pounds per square yard ; but a reformer does what he can, not what he would. There is, perhaps, no city of the world where the social duty of patronising art is now more firmly established than in Liverpool. Great discretion there may not be, but there is great rivalry ; small knowledge, but much ostentation. For the little show which Roscoe devised, with its ' models 254 Lancashire Gleanings. of a ship ' and portraits ' in human hair,' there is now a yearly exhibition under the auspices of the corporation itself, an exhibition of water-colours, and various special exhibitions by the Liverpool Fine Arts Club. Some of these latter as the David Cox collection of last year have excited European interest. Roscoe pursued a better course towards his end than lies in forming a monster gallery. He interested the public, and thus ensured a succession of disciples to labour in the cause after his own decease." The second half of this interesting volume is devoted to a notice of George Stubbs, R.A., an artist whose talents are not sufficiently recognised in the present day. In his own time he commanded prices as high or higher than Reynolds for portraits. Stubbs was born at Liverpool 24th August, 1724. His father, a man in easy circumstances, did not oppose his son's taste for art. After his father's death he became assistant to Hamlet Winstanley, who was then copying the pictures at Knowsley; but they soon quarrelled, as Stubbs wanted to copy some of the masterpieces which his employer had reserved for his own pencil. One result was the determination of Stubbs to copy no master but nature. When he was littte more than twenty our artist went to Wigan, from thence to Leeds, and from thence to York, where he applied himself to the serious study of anatomy, which had been one of the amusements of his childhood. He was asked to engrave some drawings of a very "fine case," whose body had been snatched from the grave by the pupils of the hospital at which Stubbs lectured. He had at that time no knowledge of the engraver's art, but went to a Early Art in Liverpool. 255 house painter in Leeds, who imparted his own rough process of etching on halfpennies with common sewing needles stuck in skewers. With some improvements on this process he etched the plate for the book of his friend Dr. Burton. With the very ingenious motive of satisfying himself that nature is greater than art even at its grandest, Stubbs visited Rome. Having convinced himself on this point he came to Liver- pool, where his mother shortly after died. The success of a picture of a grey mare brought him the advice to settle in London. Thither he went in 1759^ taking with him the drawings for his great work on the "Anatomy of the Horse." These had been prepared from dissections made at Hork- stow, in Lincolnshire. He wanted them engraved : " But the celebrated engravers of the day declined this commission, not apparently, without scorn. Many of the drawings represented entire figures, but others there were showing parts only, a nose, an ear, a leg, and for such work Mr. Grignion, Mr. Pond, and their fellows, had neither habit nor liking. This unanimous refusal obliged the artist to do his own engraving once more, and he set about the task with characteristic resolution. What great success he had is well known, but the publication was necessarily retarded. For Stubbs never broke into the time devoted to his regular occupation of painting, and his etchings were made early in the morning, or after hours. Often he worked late into the night. In about six years, or seven, they were complete, and the ' Anatomy of the Horse ' appeared in 1 766. It was pub- lished by subscription, for Stubbs desired to make himself known, and, as he tells us, this seemed the best means of 256 Lancashire Gleanings. achieving his purpose. 'More than any other thing, the book tended to throw him into horse painting, and to this he ascribes entirely his being a horse painter.' " At a later period he made some interesting experiments in enamel painting. The story of his quarrel with the Royal Academy is thus told : " The elections of Royal Academicians always take place on the loth of Febrary, and it is necessary, after the choice made, for the successful candidate to send a picture for his Majesty's approbation, previously to the diploma being signed. This completes the honour of the election, and qualifies the new member for all duties required by the institution. Whilst Stubbs was considering what picture he should present, whether in oil-colours or in enamel, the season of the annual exhibition arrived, to which many of his works were sent in both styles of painting. He had annexed a suitable explanation of the subjects, in the manner usual ; but his mortification was great to find almost every picture so unfortunately hung, particularly those in enamel, that it seemed like an intentional affront. Most of the quotations sent in were omitted. This treatment was much resented by Mr. Stubbs, and by those patrons for whom the pictures had been painted. He felt it with particular sensibility, and to the time of his death considered it cruel and unjust, as it tended more than any other circumstance could have done to discredit his enamel pictures, and to defeat the purpose of so much labour and study, not to mention his loss of time and great expense. This unkind conduct in the members of the Academy, added to the original reluctance with which Early Art in Liverpool. 257 he suffered his name to be entered among the candidates, determined him with an unconquerable resolution not to send a picture to be deposited in the schools, and more especially not to comply with a law made the following year, obliging every candidate elected to present the Academy with an example of his skill to be their property for ever. Mr. Stubbs always averred that he considered this law unjust, and thought he had reason to suppose it levelled particularly against himself. He regarded it, moreover, as an ex post facto law, calculated to punish an offence committed before the making of the law. Mr. Stubbs, on this account, would never allow that he was less than an Academician elect, waiting only the royal signature : and he was satisfied always to continue in that state." George Stubbs died in London loth July, 1806, and was buried in Marylebone Church. His great merit is the absolute truth with which he drew that which he saw. There was no meretricious ornament for the sake of display, but an accurate transcript of the facts of nature based on the most careful and painstaking study. Although he is now chiefly known when known at all as a painter of racehorses, he was almost the first English artist who painted animals as they are, without either the ignorance or the falsehood too frequently conspicuous before and since his day. It is pleasant to have his memory revived, and Mr. Mayer deserves high thanks for the taste with which he has accom- plished his graceful task. THE STORY OF BURGER'S "LENORE." Die Todten reiten schnelle ! Wir sind, wir sind ziir snelle. G. A. BURGER. IT was in the winter of the year 1773 that G. A. Burger wrote the fine ballad of " Lenore," by which he is now best known. It gratifies at once the cultivated and popular taste, combining, as it does, a wild and picturesque story with the utmost artistic finish in its presentation. The reader sees the supernatural drama pass before his eyes. The fond and weeping Lenore is watching the triumphant return of the gallant army, and seeks in each brave warrior of the triumphal procession the form of her lover. He is not there, but lying stark and dead, one of the victims of " glory." Then, in her despair, she cries : O, mother, mother, what is bliss ? O, mother, what is hell ? With him, with him is only bliss, Without my Wilhelm, hell ! The Story of Burgers "Lenore" 259 Die, die, my light, for ever die ! Quenched, quenched, in night and sorrow lie ! Severed from him to this lone heart, Nor earth nor heaven can bliss impart. Then comes the punishment of this outburst of misery. We hear the tramp of the flying feet of the horse of the spectre bridegroom. Lenore mounts behind the lover restored to her longing eyes, and then through the night they ride beneath the bright moon, past hamlet, town, and castle, until at cock-crow they have reached their destina- tion, not the bridal bed, but the charnel house. The mailed lover changes to a grim skeleton, and the ghosts dance a grotesque fetter dance as Lenore yields up her life. No wonder that a poem so full of weird, unearthly magic should have passed at one bound into popular fame and favour. Burger was a student of our older English ballad writers. He had caught the inspiration of the singers of old England, and in this land he naturally found many admirers. " Lenore " has been translated by Lady Margaret Lindsay Fordyce, and the Hon. W. R. Spencer, by J. T. Stanley, H. J. Pye, William Taylor of Norwich, Sir Walter Scott, Julia M. Cameron, Albert Smith, and a host of others. Not long after the publication of " Lenore " in England, a curious controversy arose as to the origin of the poem. It was suggested that Biirger had drawn his inspiration from the ballad known as the "Suffolk Miracle," which was printed in the "Collection of Old Ballads" in 1727. Several communications appeared in the Monthly Magazine, in 1799, on the subject, and are included in a very curious 260 Lancashire Gleanings. farrago of essays by Mr. Samuel Whyte and his son, E. A. Whyte, published in the last year of the last century. (" Miscellanea Nova, containing, amidst a variety of other matters, curious and interesting, a critique on Burger's Leonora ; in which she is clearly proved of English extrac- tion. A new edition. By S. Whyte and his son, E. A. Whyte." Dublin, 1800, pp. 161, 190.) Whyte, although an industrious student of the history of fiction, had not learned how such legends become localised in diverse places, for comparative mythology and folk-lore were unborn in his days. The poet stated that the idea of the spectral bridegroom and of the midnight flight with the despairing bride, was suggested to him by an old Low German ballad. Herr J. C. Cordes wrote testifying that the poem and tradition alike were current in Saxony. In answer to the suggestion that Burger had taken the idea from the " Collection of Old Ballads," Schlegel stated that he had confined himself to- Percy when studying the older popular poetry of England. Mr. E. A. Whyte, in vindication of his father's theory, insisted that these declarations were of no avail, and that Lenore was the descendant of the Suffolk damsel. With the wider knowledge we now possess of the migrations of popular stories there is not the slightest need to suppose that Burger was either consciously or unconsciously a plagiarist. He found a story embodying a grim superstition, and he worked up its materials with such artistic skill as to transform a vulgar village legend into a masterpiece of poetry. The "Suffolk Miracle" is not without interest and even simple beauty, but its motive is entirely different from that The Story of Burger's "Lenore" 261 of " Lenore." It is a story of thwarted love. A rich farmer breaks off the engagement between his daughter and a poor suitor, who dies broken-hearted. The damsel had been sent to the house of an uncle to be out of the way, and had not been told of her lover's death. One night he comes riding her father's horse, and bringing " her mother's hood and safeguard, too," as a token that she is to be sent home with him. As they ride through the night he complains of headache, and she fastens her handkerchief round his head. At her father's door he leaves her whilst he puts up the horse. Her father, astonished at her narrative, goes to seek the lover in the stable ; but there is no sign 'of him there, although the horse is in a sweat. The sexton is induced to open the grave. Affrighted then they did behold His body turning into mould, And though he had a month been dead, The handkerchief was about his head. The homely rhymes of the English ballad cannot be compared with the vigour and beauty of the German poem, and yet there are many touches of artless pathos that must ever endear the "Suffolk Miracle" to those who "love a ballad i' print." The supposed resemblance between this old story and Burger's " Lenore " would not be referred to here but for a passage in Mr. Whyte's book which serves to show that, both in an oral and in a printed form, the story of the Spectre Bridegroom was current in the neighbourhood of Liverpool, and is, therefore, entitled to a place amongst the 262 Lancashire Gleanings. traditions of Lancashire. Writing in 1799 he says : " My Father, who is near seventy, learned the story from his Nurse's Husband, whose memory even now is respected in his village a village, or rather hamlet, in Lancashire, near the flourishing town of Prescot, where he was honourably interred at an advanced time of life, when my father was a young boy. The good old man had it from a relative of his own, a clockmaker of the name of Eccleston, who was also well stricken in years, and always gave it as a tale of former times. It was printed on a single half sheet, pro- cured at a stall in Liverpool, and stitched up with the Sea- man's Garland, the lamentable History of Jane Shore, Tom Hichathrift, Jack the Giant Killer, and others, for his winter evening's amusement and improvement in reading. Such was the simplicity and taste of that ancient contented neighbourhood. This, though I do not in general esteem hearsay allegations as the most immaculate and decisive, will doubtless carry its due weight in evidence of our story's being of ancient notoriety in England, and at least coeval with, if not prior to, its rival of the Continent, which, if not identically the same, is manifestly of a kindred stock." In a footnote he gives us a glimpse at an old-fashioned Lancashire funeral. The name of the hamlet was Gillor's Green, after which name he places in brackets, perhaps as an alternative designation, "Thill-Horse Green?" "Here the patriarch previously named enjoyed a small patrimony, whence sometime before his decease he removed to a new house he had purchased, directly opposite the great window The Story of Burgers " Lenore" 263 at the east end of St. Peter's Church, Liverpool. He was of the class of labouring men. Let not ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure ; Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile, The short and simple annals of the poor. So sings the pensive Gray, and his idea will not be hurt by a little funeral anecdote On the demise of the venerable old man a quantity of bread and good malt liquor was provided by his widow and sole executrix, of which timely notice was given ; and before the coffin was placed upon the hearse, which conveyed his remains to Prescot, his native parish, pursuant to a clause in his last will so ordering, every person that came forward, man, woman, and child, without exception, receive a twopenny loaf and a pint of ale. A like portion of bread and ale was distributed to the poor of Prescot also ; when, previous to his interment, the full service for the dead was performed by the rector, the Reverend Mr. Quin ; and an excellent sermon preached from Heb. xi. v. 2 2 ; By faith Joseph^ when he died, made mention of the departing of the Children of Israel ; and gave commandment concerning his bones. . . Such were the worthy beings among whom my father received his early impressions." There is a certain perverse ingenuity in advancing a charge of plagiarism in the incidental resemblance of poems which vary so much in motive and treatment as the "Suffolk Miracle" and Burger's "Lenore." A closer analogue is that given by Mr. Robert Hunt as current in 264 Lancashire Gleanings. Cornwall. He very correctly says that " this story bears a striking resemblance to the * Lenore ' of Biirger, which remarkable ballad can scarcely have found its way, even yet, to Boscean." There is an Albanian poem, apparently of considerable antiquity, which bears a curious resemblance in some respects to Biirger's " Lenore." It is entitled " Garentina," and is said also to resemble a legendary Greek poem pub- lished by Passow, and entitled " The Vampire." According to the Albanian ballad, a mother had nine brave sons, and one beautiful daughter who was sought in marriage by many noble lords. The brothers had some objection to each suitor ; but at last there came a cavalier from a distant land. All except Constantine objected, on account of the distance, but he was in favour of the marriage. " If she goes so far," said the mother, " I shall miss her, both for the days of joy and of sadness." He promised to bring Garentina back to her whenever she should desire. So the girl was married and went away. Then the wars broke out ; and one day the poor mother lost her nine sons on the battlefield. The same year saw the death of their nine wives and nine chil- dren. When the jour des marts arrived the mother placed upon each tomb a taper, but two on that of Constantine. " Oh ! my son," she cried, " where is the promise that thou gavest me ? Garentina must also be dead." At midnight Constantine arose from his tomb, which changed into a horse ; and he rode like the wind to his sister's house. Her children were playing in the garden, and told him that their mother was at the village ball. He sought from group to The Story of Burger's " Lenore" 265 group until he found Garentina. Then he placed her behind him on the horse, still in her holiday finery. As they rode through the night she asked, " Why is thy yellow hair like dust ?" " Dear Garentina," he replied, " it is only the dust of the road raised by horse's feet, which has got into thine eyes." When they came to the church Con- stantine disappeared at the door. Garentina continued her way alone to the paternal home. " Open the door, dear mother ; it is Garentina." " Who has brought thee hither, O my daughter?" " Constantine." "Where is he now?" " He went into the church to pray." "Alas! Constantine is dead, and all thy other brothers with him." Then the mother and daughter wept together, and so profound was their grief that mother and daughter alike died of despair. This poem was brought under the notice of the Academic des Inscription in April, 1880, by M. Benloew. ("Journal Officiel," 14 Avril, 1880, p. 4151.) Burger enforces through a savage superstition the duty of resignation to the "awful will." Forbear, forbear ! With God in heaven, Contend not though thy heart be riven ! The older poet seeks not to vindicate the ways of Providence, but ends with an appeal which will have the assent of all true lovers now as then : Part not true love, you rich men then, But if they be right honest men Your daughters love, give them their way, For force oft breeds their lives' decay. MANCHESTER IN 1791. What's past is prologue. SHAKSPERE. HP HE march of change is so rapid that we are almost as A far removed from the world of 1791 as from the era of Elizabeth. In that year the battle of the Nile had not been fought, America was a nation only nine years old, France was occupied in trying Louis XVI. for high treason, Napo- leon was yet an unknown man, Pitt and Fox were in the height of their reputation, Wilberforce was struggling for the freedom of the negro, and Burke declaiming against Warren Hastings. Cowper, the wreck of his former self, was living in 1791, and the grass was hardly green over the graves of Johnson and Goldsmith. The factory system was unknown ; power looms had been introduced into Manchester the year previously but had proved a failure. Market-street was a narrow little thorough- fare thronged to excess if a man and a cart attempted to go down it together : the pillory still stood in the Market-place, and the scold's bridle was in frequent requisition. Manches- Manchester in 1791. 267 ter was already beginning to make itself heard in the political world, and boasted of a "Constitutional Society," which made more noise than any other association in the land. Of this club Dr. Thomas Cooper was the leading spirit; he afterwards emigrated to America, and died full of years and honours in the land of his adoption. Railways, telegraphs, and penny newspapers were unknown, and finally in that year was published a little book whose title is here copied : " A Poetical Satire on the Times." London : Printed for the Author, in the year 1791. 8vo., pp. 80. The collector who found this amongst the literary lumber of a second-hand book shop would expect to find praise or denunciation of heaven-born ministers, and jokes about Fox's passion for gambling, and Selwyn's fondness for execu- tions, but his attention would be arrested by these words : In a fair town where commerce does abound, And wealthy manufacturers are found ; Whose gallant sons withstood the dreadful shock Of combined foes on Gibraltar rock. The " poem " is really a curious satire on the Manchester men and manners in 1791. The Warden of the Collegiate Church is thus neatly por- trayed : At the corner of old Millgate if you stop, You'll see his likeness in the picture shop ; "When for charity the beggarman apply'd, Charity begins at home, the D[octo]r cry'd ! This is an allusion, probably, to Tim Bobbin's caricature of 268 Lancashire Gleanings. the Pluralist and the old Soldier, referred to elsewhere in this volume. Some others of the clergy come in for a share of abuse ; but the writer shows that his denunciations are not the result of blind hatred, by giving this emphatic testimony to the work of the saintly John Clowes, a man who might have passed as the original of Bunyan's Evangelist, had he lived a century earlier. Near St. J[ohn]s Church too you may find, One gentle, good, beneficent, and kind, Brought up in strict discipline's Yigid rules And master of the language of the schools : 'Cause he preaches Christ with energy divine, Some say he to the Methodists incline ; Each day you pass his house you're very sure, To see the welcome beggar at his door ; Thro' charity he acts and not for fame, O ! did our learned prelates do the same. The Manchester Nonconformists, he tells us, are A people which, if they are not bely'd, Are not so fond of Christ as they're of pride. From the parsons to the lawyers, and from the lawyers to the doctors, our satirist proceeds with rapid strides, and is loud in complaints about the management of the Infirmary, and various other matters. Then he spreads his wings for a more adventurous flight, and dilates on the excellencies of Dryden, Pope, Goldsmith, Thomson, &c. After this moderate digression he returns to Manchester in 1791. 269 View Mancunium, the town of fame, And see if it can own a poet's name ; The British Lion, when put into ire, Has rous'd great Neptune, set the seas on fire. (Fortunately there was enough water left to extinguish this novel conflagration.) There is an old story of an Italian malefactor who was- allowed to choose whether he would serve as a galley slave or read through the ponderous History of Guicciardini. He selected the book, but after three months hard labour at it, he returned to his judges with an earnest and piteous request to be sent to the galleys. Had this convict been offered the alternative of reading the productions of Poet Ogden, he would not have had the courage to attempt their perusal. He would have run away from the " British Lion Rous'd," have seen no archness in "Archery," no "Paradise Lost" in " Emanuel," and whould have hoped for a General Deluge to carry them all away. Guicciardini would beat Ogden in size, but for leaden weight, this Manchester bard may be backed against all the tribe of Parnassus. No ship could hope to near port in safety if Ogden's poems by accident got amongst the ballast. From the poet to the players is an easy transition, and so- our hobbling rhymester exclaims : Did I a playhouse mention with your pardons? The house alluded to is near S[prin]g G[arde]ns, Their merits should not make we Christians fret, But Philodramatic says they're no great set, The manager's huge form may please beholders, Like Great Goliath with Herculean shoulders. 270 Lancashire Gleanings. Then addressing the players, our censor with a frown pro- ceeds to take them to task, and sternly asks Do you think, my friends, you never make mistakes? Does each man fill the post he undertakes? To be a player you know requires skill, You are all players if we believe the bill, But one does emulate his namesake king, He speaks distinctly, makes the house to ring, Mr. K does with much judgment play his part, He needs no prompting, has it all by heart ; He is genteel and has a comely face, The heroines of our stage I can't traduce, [Is this an admission that he has traduced the heroes of the stage ?] To run down females would be rank abuse ; A general actress in this house we see, The oft-applauded lady, Mistress T. In Tragedy, great ; in Comedy, no less Plays Widow Brady always with success. This, one feels, is the highest stroke of success. To be "great" in Tragedy is much, to be equally great in Comedy is more ; but what are the qualifications necessary for such trivial successes when compared with the amazing genius the concentrated gifts required for the successful delineator of Widow Brady. Some of our satirist's effusions are very obscure, some of them are very personal, and some of them are slightly indecent. For these reasons our quotations are necessarily few. EARLY REFERENCES TO THE JEWS IN LANCASHIRE. The Jews are among the aristocracy of every land. If a literature is called rich in the possession of a few classic tragedies what shall we say to a national tragedy lasting for fifteen hundred years, in which the poets and the actors were also the heroes. GEORGE ELIOT, Daniel Deronda. Book vi. ch. xlii. The swords are sharply set To slay thy faithful sons ; The chosen of Thy flock With deadly thorns are stung. The maidens, young and fair, With stones are struck to death. From darksome prisons rings Alas ! my children's cry, And chills my frame with dread. They are borne to the stake, And die without regret, Exclaiming, " God is One !" Entombed whilst yet alive, Their souls like incense rise. The blood here sacrificed Brings retribution down. Shake, O earth, and tremble ! Dread the day of justice ! THESE words of the Hebrew poet, Jekuthiel ben Isaac, do but faintly image the despair and indignation of the persecuted Jews, who, in every country in Europe, have 272 Lancashire Gleanings. been the victims of malignant intolerance. The story of the sufferings of the Jews has been told by Dr. Leopold Zunz with a brevity that is most impressive. The record is one that must fill every mind with horror. The Hebrew people passed through a fierce fire. (A translation of Dr. Zunz's essay appears in the " Miscellany of Hebrew Literature." Vol. i, 1872, p. 167. See also the "Status of the Jews in England," by Charles Egan. London, 1848.) The story of the Jews in England is by no means credi- table either to the government or the people. They are said to have been brought by William the Conqueror from Rouen, and soon had synagogues in the chief cities and towns. William Rufus is said to have allowed them to argue in favour of their faith in set disputations with the clergy of the established church. The rapacious King John allowed them to elect a Chief Rabbi. This was Jacob, of London, who had a safe-conduct. The Jews were allowed to hold lands, to settle their own disputes according to the Jewish law, and, generally speaking, were placed on equality with their Christian fellow subjects. In 1189 and 1199 we read of Jews who held land by a statute passed in the reign of Henry III. prohibiting them from holding manors, lands, tenements, or rents, except that in towns they might have houses. The Statute de Judaeismo, which was passed either in the 4th or i8th of Edward I., declared that no Jews should have power to alienate in fee any houses, or rents, or to dispose of them without the king's consent, but they " might take houses, and curtilages, and hold the same in chief of the King, and take lands to farm, continuing to farm them for fifteen years." Early References to the Jews in Lancashire. 273 It has been disputed whether the Jews were or were not banished from England. The kings found them very con- venient persons from whom to raise money. In the seven years ending in the second year of Edward I. the crown obtained more than ^400,000 from them. That monarch might well say that Judaism had been profitable to him and to his ancestors. In the sixteenth year of his reign the Jews throughout the country were arrested, and only released on the payment of ^"12,000. The monarchs robbed, and the people murdered, the unhappy Jews. The coronation of Richard I. was signalised by a massacre at Westminster, which was followed by similar outrages at York, Stamford, Oxford, Cambridge, and other places. Mr. Egan has called attention to the order made in the seventh year of Edward I. that every Jew should wear a yellow badge upon his outward garment, and no Jew should be allowed to depart from England without licence on pain of death. Hence, he argues that they were not banished, but voluntarily with- drew from the kingdom to escape further extortion and inhumanity. The common view, however, is that of Stow, who, in his "Summarie" under the date of 1291 says that the "King banished all the Jewes out of England, giving them to bear their charges till they were out of his Realme, the number of Jewes then expulsed were 15 M. 9 persons." It has been generally assumed that after this date no persons of Jewish faith or extraction remained in England. Thus Mr. J. R. Green says that " From the time of Edward to that of Cromwell no Jew touched English ground." Even that distinguished Hebrew scholar, Dr. M. Kayserling, 274 Lancashire Gleanings, writes, "Since the decree of banishment in the year 1290, Jews had not been permitted to enter the island, and had been completely forgotten. Neither the Lancastrian nor the Tudor dynasty ever considered the question of readmitting them, although their banishment had been a serious detri- ment to the interests of the country." (See the excellent life of Manasseh ben Israel, by Dr. M. Kayserling, in the " Miscellany of Hebrew Literature," vol. 2.) It may be remarked, in passing, that Manasseh was correspondent of Fuller (p. 31) an interesting fact that has escaped even the vigilance of his learned biographer, Mr. J. E. Bailey. It is not quite accurate to suppose that for more than three centuries there were no Jews in the country. Sir James Ramsay has pointed out that there was a Hebrew physician in the service of Henry IV., and that in 1421 Job, an apothecary from Italy, received letters of natu- ralisation on being baptised. There was also Richard " de Cecilia," a converted Jew, to whom Richard II. gave a gratuity. (Sir James Ramsay's letter appears in the Academy, 27th January, 1883, and is followed by others, 3rd February, 1883.) Mr. S. L. Lee has shown that in 1358 Edward III. gave a pension to John de Costello on his abjuration of Judaism, and in 1392 Richard II. bestowed the same royal favour on William Piers. A young Jewess, who turned Christian, was baptised under the auspices of Henry IV. There was a house for Jewish converts, with twenty-two Jews in it, in the early years of Edward. This institution survived until the beginning of the eighteenth century. Early References to the Jews in Lancashire. 275 Lancashire, as a remote, and, in those days, not a great trading county, would be less likely than the great trading centres of London and York to have Jews amongst its in- habitants, and yet there are some slight traces of them in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In the Culcheth deeds, ranging from the reign of Henry III. to that of George II., there are many names of local persons and places. The abstract of these deeds, made by Mr. William Beamont, have been printed in the "Lancashire and Cheshire Historical Notes," vol. i, 1878. Several of them appear to give evidence of the presence in Lancashire of some persons of consider- ation who were either Jews or of Jewish extraction at dates later than the expulsion or withdrawal of that race from England. To a deed executed on the Monday after the feast of All Hallows, 1298, there is appended the name of John le Ju. On the Friday after St. Nicholas' Day, 1322, a deed was executed to which Hugh le Jew was a witness. His name appears in the same capacity to a deed dated Friday in the week of Pentecost, 1324. On the morrow of St. Catharine the Virgin, 1331, the name of Thomas le Jew, the clerk, appears as a witness. On Sunday next before St. Andrew's Day, 1334-35, and on the Sunday after the feast of the decollation of St. John, 1338-39, we have the name of Hugh le Jew. Probably the name of Thomas as a cleric may be held to indicate that these witnesses were all con- formists to the established faith. If other references to the Jews in Lancashire at this early date exist, they have not attracted attention. WHITTINGTON AND HIS CAT. Great London city, thrice beneath his sway Confirm'd the presage of that happy day, When echoing bells their greeting thus begun, "Return, thrice Mayor ! Return, oh Whittington." BISHOP. THAT hero of childhood and pantomime, Sir Richard Whittington, has special claim upon the attention of Lancashire people, for there are some versions of his story which represent him as a Lancashire lad. But of poor Parentage Born was he, as we hear, And in his tender age Bred up in Lancashire. In this form the old ballad appears in the " Collection of Songs and Ballads relative to the London 'prentices and trades," edited for the Percy Society by Dr. Charles Mackay. It is there taken from the " Crown Garland of Golden Roses," 1692. We know that the popular idea of Whittington is, that he was a poor boy of obscure parentage, who was driven by Whittington and his Cat. 277 hardship to seek a fortune in London, where he had to have a cat to keep his garret free from vermin. His master, Fitzwarren, allowed his servants the privilege of sending something for sale when he despatched his ships to sea. Dick having nothing else ventured his cat, which, by freeing the palace of the sovereign of Barbarry of the rats that infested it, brought him in return a casket of jewels, valued at ,300,000. The lucky serving-boy became the lover of his master's daughter, and after marrying her was Sheriff and thrice Lord Mayor of London, and so realised the prophetic intimation of Bow bells, that when he was contemplating flight from the great city had bade him in their chime, " Turn again Whittington, Lord Mayor of London." Such is the tale so dear to childhood, but the antiquaries have had a battle royal over the cat and its master. The actual facts known about Sir Richard are very few. The old ballad makes him a native of Lancashire, and the chapbook says that he was of Taunton Dean, in Somerset, but more prosaic annals declare that he was the son of Sir William Whittington, the lord of the manor of Pantley, in Gloucestershire. It was no unusual thing for a knight's son to be apprenticed to the mercers and other trades. Sir William died in 1360, and his son became an exceedingly rich merchant. He is said to have been Lord Mayor in 1397, 1406, and 1419, and to have also served the remainder of the term of a chief magistrate, who had died during his term of office. Others, however, contend that he was only twice mayor. There is nothing remarkable in Sir Richard being thrice Lord Mayor, for that office was 278 Lancashire Gleanings. often repeatedly held by the same person in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Sir John Blount was seven times mayor, Gregory Rokeslie eight times, and Henry Fitz- Alwyn twenty-four times ! Whittington was elected member of Parliament for the city in 1416, and was knighted by Henry V. He was a mercer, and furnished the wedding outfits for two of the daughters of Henry IV. He married Alicia Fitzwarren, who is supposed to have died some years before him. His great wealth was spent in acts of public spirit and wise liberality. He founded the first city library in the Guildhall ; he aided in rebuilding the nave of Westminster Abbey ; and in the repair of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. He died in 1423. Newgate is said to have been rebuilt under the direction of his will. Hence the proverb, " He has studied in Whittington's College " was applied to those who were imprisoned for not following those habits of industry and honesty by which Sir Richard made his fortune. But what of the cat ? The story is found in the " Facetia " of Arlotto, printed in 1483. It is also known as a house- hold story in Persia, India, Russia, and various other lands. This has been held to be destructive of the truth of the story, but Dr. Lysons argues that it is, on the contrary, a proof that it has some foundation of truth. He refers to the early statues and portraits of Sir Richard, which repre- sent him with a cat. Mr. Besant tries to rationalise the story, and to harmonise its various elements. He does not believe that Whittington, who was the son of one knight and the brother of another, came up to London in any condition of abject poverty, but brought with him a younger Whittington and his Cat. 279 brother's portion, and was apprenticed with the expectation that in due time he would be a freeman of the mercer's company. When his master's ship was sailing, hearing from the sailors how great was the value of a cat in the land to which they were bound, he invested his money in the pur- chase of one. " It was the shrewd venture of a clever boy, and the cat sold well. Then he made other ventures always with profit, and gratefully ascribed his first success to his lucky cat. That seems to me the only rational way out of the story." The reader must be left to form his own conclusions. The existence of many versions of the story does not destroy the possible accuracy of the English one, though it certainly weakens its probability. The early and persistent association of a cat, with the figure of the liberal and large-hearted Lord Mayor, is a striking fact, and difficult to be otherwise explained. One thing, at all events, is certain, that despite the testimony of the ballad writer we cannot claim Whit- tington as a Lancashire worthy. It would be flattering to " local patriotism " to suppose the poet thought that if any one was likely to have worked his way from poverty to riches and consideration, it would be a Lancashire lad. FAIR EM." Yours was the nobler birth, For you of man were made, man but of earth, The son of dust. THOMAS RANDOLPH. In praise of women in general. EARLY in the seventeenth century a comedy was pub- lished, entitled " Fair Em, or the Miller's Daughter of Manchester." This play has been considered by some critics to be an early production of Shakspere. Tieck so regarded it, and, in consequence, he translated it into German. A copy of it in the British Museum was included in a volume of "Shakspere's Works," formerly in the library of Charles II. This circumstance of the bookbinder having placed Shakspere's name on the cover was a hint, which probably enabled the critics to see internal merits giving it a claim to be thought not unworthy of Shakspere in his youth. The belief could scarcely survive a single perusal of the play, which is " flat and unprofitable." It is not stale, however, for the plot is peculiar, and seems original, though it turns upon a conceit one would not be 'Fair Em." 281 surprised to find in some of those Italian novelle which have furnished so many fables for our dramatists. W. R. Chetwood, who reprinted it in his " Select Collection of Old Plays" (Dublin, 1750) says, " I have seen three different editions of it, the first without a Date, and not divided into Acts. The second is 1619, with the acts divided, or with some immaterial alterations. However I have chose to follow that." There are certainly two editions. One is " Fair Em, the Miller's Daughter of Manchester : with the Love of William the Conqueror. A pleasant Comedy as it was Sundry Times acted in the Honourable City of London by the Right Honourable the Lord Strange's servants. London, printed for John Wright, and are to be sold at his shop at the signe of the Bible in Guiltspur-street, without Newgate, 1631." The other, of which there is a copy in the Bodleian Library, was " printed for T. N. and I. W., and is without date." Professor Delius has reprinted the issue of 1631 as a part of his "Pseudo- Shakspere'sche Dramen." In the preface he has some justly severe strictures on Chetwood's falsifications of the text. Of Lord Strange's servants we know very little. In 1581 they would seem to have been mere mountebanks, who performed "sundry feates of tumbling and activity." In 1589 Burleigh directed the Lord Mayor to silence the Lord Admiral's players, and those of Lord Strange. The first were duly obedient, but the others treated his lordship in a very contemptuous manner, and " wente to the Crosse Keys and played that afternoon," for which he committed two of them to the Compter. In 1591 Lord Strange's men were 282 Lancashire Gleanings. at the Rose Theatre, under the management of Edward Alleyn, the founder of Dulwich College. Henslow has left a list of the plays produced there from February in that year to February, 1593. "Fair Em" does not occur in this list, yet, as though to claim still more close connection with the Derby family, the title page bears for vignette, the spread eagle, the badge of La Tremoille. The only statement as to the authorship of "Fair Em" is that made by Edward Phillips in his "Theatrum Poetarum " : "Robert Green, one of the Pastoral Sonnet-makers of Queen Elizabeth's time, contemporary with Dr. Lodge, with whom he was associated in the writing of several comedies, namely, 'The Laws of Nature,' _' Lady Alimony,' 'Liberality and Prodigality,' and a masque called ' Luminalia ;' besides which he wrote alone the comedies of 'Friar Bacon' and 'Faire Emme.'" Langbaine contradicts the statement of Green's literary partnership with Lodge, but is silent as to the authorship of " Fair Em." Knight does not seem to regard the drama as Green's, and from the double plot and structure thinks that it is later in date than Shakspere's death. Mr. Richard Simpson shows that Green was not the writer of "Fair Em," since in his "Farewell to Folly," of which the earliest known edition appeared in 1591, there is a bitter allusion to such "scabbed lads," that if they publish anything in print it is either distilled out of "ballets, or bor- rowed of Theological Poets, which, for their calling and gravity, being loth to have any profane pamphlets pass their hand, get some other Batillus to set his name to their 'Fair Em." 283, verses." This gibe is pointed by two quotations from "Fair Em." (New Shakspere Society's Transactions, 1875, P- 1 6 1.) The play must, therefore, have been in existence in 1591, and we know that a ballad intituled, "The Miller's Daughter of Manchester," was licensed to Henry Carre, 2nd March, 1580-1. (Hazlitt's "Bibliographical Collections," second series, p. 380.) Mr. Simpson refers to the fact that a line in "Fair Em" is identical with one in the " London Prodigal," another drama that has been attributed to Shakspere. He thinks that " Fair Em " was intended to- ridicule Green's story of " Tully's Love," dedicated to Lord Strange uncle by marriage to Charlotte de la Tremoille, whose cognisance is on the title page of "Fair Em." Although it is clearly not Shakspere's, Mr. Simpson is of. opinion " That the follies of the existing ' Fair Em ' are quite insufficient to prove that Shakspere did not write an original ' Fair Em,' to which our present copy may bear the same relation as the 'Hamlet' of 1603, to the authentic ' Corambis,' ' Hamlet.' " He thinks that passages in " Fair Em " and in the " London Prodigal " give the key to the quarrel or rivalry between Shakspere and Greene. There are a few local allusions in the play. Twice the legend of the Trafford, who distinguished himself "like a shepherd," and "with a flail" is alluded to. Manchester, Liverpool, and Chester are mentioned. The play has a double plot, but whatever interest there is in it centres in Fair Em. She is the daughter of a Sir Thomas Goddard, who, by reverse of fortune, has been forced to disguise him- self, and act as the Miller of Manchester. She is courted 284 Lancashire Gleanings. by three suitors Mountney, Valingford, and Manvile. The latter, to whom she has given her heart, is of a jealous disposition. In order to escape their importunities, and to avoid giving offence to her unreasonable lover she feigns blindness with one, and deafness with the other unsuccessful suitor. Manvile rewards her constancy by transferring his affections to Elinor, the daughter of a " citizen of Chester." In the scene which marks the denouement Em declares this before the three suitors, her rival Elinor, William the Con- queror, the King of Denmark, and others. Manvile now wants to return to his fealty, but Em scornfully repulses the inconstant : Put case I had been blind and could not see, As oftentimes such visitation falls, That pleaseth God, which all things doth dispose : Shouldst thou forsake me in regard to that ? I tell thee, Manvile, had'st thou been blind, or deaf, or dumb, Or else what impediments might befall to man, Em would have lov'd, and kept, and honour'd thee, Yea, begg'd, if wealth had failed, for thy relief. The fair lady of Chester, on hearing of Manvile's duplicity, also rejects him. In the end Fair Em is married to Lord Valingford, who alone of the three lovers had shown an unflinching constancy incapable of being moved by mis- fortune. So the curtain drops on the inevitable wedding scene, whilst the inconstant lover, like the fox in the fable, declares Such idle love henceforth I will detest. THE FATHER OF THOMAS DE QUINCEY. Offering to guess at an Author, when he chuses to be conceal'd, is . . . a rudeness almost equal to that of pulling off a woman's mask against her will. MANDEVILLE. A Letter to Dion [Berkeley] occasioned by his Book called Alciphron. By the Author of the " Fable of the Bees." THERE are several interesting references to his father scattered through the autobiographical writings of the opium-eater. In one of them he refers to a book written by the elder De Quincey. This anonymous work has hitherto eluded the search made for it. Mr. James Crossley, F.S. A., however, in an article which appeared in " Notes and Queries." (5th S. iv. 407), called attention to some articles by T - Q , giving a narrative of a tour in the midland counties in 1772, which appeared in the Gentleman's Mag- azine^ of 1 774. It seems very probable that this is the missing work, although " the style would rather seem to indicate the writer to have been a man of mature years and experience," whilst assuming it to have been written by Thomas Quincey, it would be published when he was twenty-one. There is nothing, however, so common in literature, except bad writing, 286 Lancashire Gleanings. as the assumption of an elderly style. Thomas Quincey's success as a business man shows that he must early have acquired a knowledge of the world and a keen power of observation. As strengthening Mr. Crossley's surmise, it may be mentioned that the "Tour" attained an independent exis- tence, and thus might well justify De Quincey's description of his father as an anonymous author. The editor of the Gentleman's Magazine, in the plenitude of his power, made a number of alterations in the MS., greatly to the disgust of T Q , who therefore printed it in an independent form. The title is : " A Short Tour in the Midland Counties of England, per- formed in the Summer of 1772. Together. with an Account of a similar Excursion, undertaken September, 1774. Lon- don : printed by M. Lewis, for the Author : and sold by J. Bew at No. 28, Paternoster Row, MDCCLXXV. Price One Shilling and Sixpence." It forms an octavo volume of 108 pages. The passage referring to his father's book in De Quincey's " Autobiography " stands thus in its original form in Taifs Magazine for Feb., 1834 : " He wrote a book : and though not a book of much pre- tension in its subject, yet in those days to have written a book at all was creditable to a man's activity of mind, and to his strength of character, in acting without a precedent. In the execution this book was really respectable. As to the subject, it was a sketch of a tour in the midland counties of England, in one octavo volume. The plan upon which it was constructed made it tolerably miscellaneous ; for through- The Father of Thomas de Quincey. 287 out the tour a double purpose was kept before the reader, viz., of attention to the fine arts, in a general account of the painting and statues in the principal mansions lying near the line of his route ; and, secondly, of attention to the mechanic arts, as displayed in the canals, manufactories, &c., then rising everywhere into activity, and quickened into a hastier development, by Arkwright and the Peels in one direction, and in another by Brindley, the engineer, under the patron- age of the Duke of Bridgwater....In the style of its execution, and the alternate treatment of the mechanic arts and the fine arts, the work resembles the well-known tours of Arthur Young, which blended rural industry with picture galleries, excepting only that in my father's I remember no politics, perhaps because it was written before the French Revolu- tion." De Quincey was writing from memory, and the fact that he greatly toned down this description of his father's book when he revised these articles for republication may perhaps be taken as an indication that he felt it to be somewhat over- charged. In the "Short Tour " very little attention is paid to any of the fine arts except architecture, but manufactures which were then just rising into importance are often des- cribed. In a preface of eight pages the author descants on the critical sins of the editor, and affirms that " Mr. Corrector, the manufacturer of the periodical work in question," had "taken such liberties with the author's performance as scarcely to leave him the satisfaction of knowing his own meaning Besides as the piece had been honoured 288 Lancashire Gleanings. with much more attention (especially in a certain local situation) than could reasonably be expected, the author was desirous of making, though not an agreeable regale, a less soporific potion for the mental taste of his friends ; and not- withstanding he is confessedly allied to ignorance, is yet unwilling to be the fosterer of untruth." He then proceeds to discuss the right of an editor to alter the phrases and sentiments of his contributors. This is still a burning question, and the echo of this old grievance may not, after all, be uninteresting : " Not every one," observes T. Q., "who attempts to write has genius to render him successful, nor have those who pretend to correct always an ability for the undertaking. I am not qualified for an amender, nor am I, Heaven be praised, a cobbler of the works of others ; but were I obliged to revise the journal of a traveller for instance, I should be cautious how I advanced any thing with the least deviation from truth ; I might, perhaps, in such a case, be scrupulous of asserting that ' we have more wool than we can make up in manufactures,' and without a total deprivation of memory should hardly make the streets of a city well-peopled in one page, and instantly dispeople it in the next; nor would I bestow the epithet of wretched on a village upon which reality and the writer had not dared a stigma : if the buildings of a town were remarked as good ones or neat, I should account it not very proper to say that ' the church, however, is hand- some,' any more than to induct so much modesty into my author as to force him to call his own remarks curious. Numberless incongruities like these, which are to be met with, The Father of Thomas de Qtiincey. 289 would, or ought to, teach me to avoid faults of this nature ; if, through my inadvertency or that of the printer, any mis- takes were found at last, I should not then, I hope, let pride so far obtain the ascendancy over my reason as to refuse a necessary reparation for the detriment, the subjoining a cat- alogue of such errata. Yet, be this as it may, such refusals have actually happened; performances have been corrected whilst they become the distorted shadow of a shade, and, in consequence, writers have been injured and the public insulted." The work gives an interesting sketch of the condition of the parts visited, the writers of guide-books coming in for a share of criticism, and the effect of the enclosure of commons being fully discussed. At Worksop he was told that the ex- pense of making the " navigation " (the canal then being cut) was so great that it would never pay the subscribers. The crooked spire of Chesterfield " disgusted " him. At Derby, he says, the silk mills employ " between three and four hun- dred hands, mostly women and girls, the earnings of the latter being only from twopence to threepence a day." Some of the motive power was obtained by children working inside the wheel ! The second excursion was taken two years later in 1774. He sailed from London to Boston, and he admires the seat at Rufford " of that philosophical and truly patriotic baronet, Sir George Saville," and commends his planting and road- making. The sight of the subterranean canal at Norwood, with the " complication of locks " by which the boats change levels, u 290 Lancashire Gleanings. gives rise to a burst of verse, in which Brindley, the engineer, is coupled with Shakspere as "the darling heirs of fame." On the return journey he notices that " the seventeen miles from Hodsdon to Shoreditch is almost a continual street of good houses or handsome villas of the citizens ; those, while they create a crowded confusion in the landscape, give a sketch of the luxury of the age and of the opulence of this immense city, the most favoured emporium of commerce, the metropolis of the modern world." The book, it will be seen, is a plain and often trivial narrative, marked by an evident desire for accuracy and a praiseworthy minuteness as to the size and " dimensions of remarkable buildings," and only here and there a glimmer of ambition in the style of treatment. The preface shows that under the stimulus of wounded pride the writer could be vigorous and trenchant, and many incidental remarks on enclosures, emigration, and other topics prove him to be a man accustomed to think. It, must, however, be at once admitted that the matter-of-fact style of this work of Thomas Quincey the father if it be his contrasts very strangely with the brilliant power and erratic force of the writings of Thomas De Quincey the son. ORIGIN OF THE WORD "TEETOTAL." Suiting the action to the word, the word to the action. SHAKSPERE. IN the year 1882 the "Temperance Jubilee" was generally celebrated, but in assigning the year 1832 as the origin of the movement for total abstinence from intoxicants it must not be supposed that there were no water drinkers before Joseph Livesey. In every age there have been individuals who, with or without " pledge," have abstained from intoxicants. There were, it is said, in ancient Egypt persons who were bound by oath not to drink of wine ; whilst amongst the Jews there were the Nazarites, Recha- bites, and Essenes, sects and communities who were vowed to abstinence. One of the five commandments of the Buddhists is directed against drunkenness ; and Mahomet, as is well known, forbade wine to all the true believers a prohibition which the Wahabees hold to be applicable also to tobacco, for the smoking of which they have invented the phrase of " drinking the shameful." 292 Lancashire Gleanings. No doubt the teetotal antiquary, whenever he arises, will be able to compile a long list of illustrious abstainers, in- cluding saints and martyrs, as well as prelates and soldiers. Amongst them, along with Archbishop Baldwin, Johnson, and eccentrics like Roger Crab, he would have to mention that Andrew Tiraqueau, who was the author of twenty books, and the father of twenty children, and of whom it was written : Here lies a man, who, drinking only water, Wrote twenty books, with each had son or daughter ; Had he but used the juice of generous vats, The world would scarce have held his books and brats. Towards the end of the last and the early part of the present century the intemperate habits of the people appear to have led to organised efforts to mitigate the evil. The first American Temperance Society is said to have been begun in 1789. Gradually the news of this movement reached the old country, but it does not appear that any organised effort was made until 1829, when a Congregational minister of New Ross, Wexford, Ireland, conceived the idea of transplanting the Temperance Society on Irish soil. The progress made at first was not very remarkable, but after a time associations of this kind arose in various parts of Ireland, Scotland, and .England. By the middle of 1831 some thirty societies were in existence in England, and 100,000 tracts had been put into circulation. The members were pledged to " moder- ation " in the use of intoxicants, or at most to abstinence Origin of the Word " Teetotal" 293 from spirits. The reformers' zeal did not extend to malt liquors, which were still considered innocuous. This was not, however, sufficient for the more ardent and enthusiastic. They began to see the difficulty of denning a hard-and-fast line of moderation. Indeed, as early as 1817 an abstinence society had been formed in Skibbereen, in the county of Cork, and two years later there was at Greenock a Radical Association whose members had likewise pledged them- selves to use no intoxicants. But it seems as though they intended this rather as a protest against the high taxation then levied on many articles. There was also the Bible Christian Church in Salford, of which membership was con- fined to vegetarians and teetotallers. The modern teetotallers, however, date their origin from the ist September, 1832, when, as the result of much discussion in the existing temperance societies, Mr. Joseph Livesey and six others signed a pledge " to abstain from all liquors of an intoxicating quality, whether ale, porter, wine, or ardent spirits, except as medicine." Of the " seven men of Preston," as they have often been called, two broke their pledge, and of the others two still remain in a green old age. These two are Joseph Livesey and John King, who, together with Mr. Edward Grubb, received silver medals at the jubilee. The early teetotallers were animated by a very earnest missionary spirit, and preached their new doctrine with great persistence, and with great success. They travelled far and near in order to propagate their views, and many amusing stories are told of the way in which they were obliged to enlist the interest of their auditors, and of the 294 Lancashire Gleanings. devices they found it necessary to employ in order to secure audiences at all. It was during the Preston race week of 1833 that Livesey, Teare, Anderton, Swindlehurst, Howarth, and Stead started out on the first missionary tour ever undertaken in the interests of teetotalism. They hired a trap, and took with them over 9,000 tracts and a small silk flag bearing a tem- perance motto. In this fashion they visited Blackburn, Haslingden, Bury, Heywood, Ashton, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Manchester, and Bolton, besides halting at villages on the way. Whilst one waved the flag about, another, the fortunate possessor of a good voice, obtained the use of the bell from the village bellman, and announced in stentorian tones the time and place at which the meeting would be held. It was one of the reformed drunkards of Preston who first applied the word teetotal to express total abstinence from intoxicants. Mr. P. T. Winskill, in his recently issued "History of the Temperance Movement," has entered fully into the origin and meaning of the word. Messrs. Livesey and Teare, he says, agree in ascribing the first application of the word to the principles of total abstinence from intoxicating liquors to Richard Turner, one of the early converts, and a zealous though humble and illiterate advocate. In the month of September, 1833, " Dickey " Turner was speaking at a meeting in the cockpit at Preston, when, in his own peculiar way, he used these words, " I'll have now't to do w' this moderation botheration pledge ; I'll be reet down out-and-out tee-tee total for ever and ever." "Well done!" exclaimed the audience. " Well Origin of the Word " Teetotal" 295 done, Dickey ! " exclaimed Mr. Livesey ; " that shall be the name of our new pledge." Mr. Livesey says it is a mistake to suppose, as some have done, that the word arose from the mispronunciation of a stammerer. "The truth is," says Mr. Livesey, " that Dickey was never at a loss for a word ; if a suitable one was not at his tongue end he coined one." Dr. F. R. Lees says " that it is a vulgar error to suppose that he either invented the word or stuttered it forth. The term," he adds, " has been in common use in Ireland and in Lancashire these hundred years, and was familiar to the writer when a lad in that country above forty years ago. It can be found in the literature of England long prior to the Preston movement, in application to various things. Banim, the Irish novelist, employs it. Maginn, in ' Maga,' uses it ; and De Quincey, also a master of English, who probably acquired it in Lancashire, amidst the idioms of which county he spent his early years. Richard Turner used the word because it had an established meaning. It was one of those designations to which children and un- educated persons were apt to give spontaneous expression ; and because it fell in with popular usage and feeling, Mr. Livesey wisely, or unwisely, adopted it as the name of the new society. Dickey Turner is buried in St. Peter's Church- yard, Preston, and the inscription on his grave is, ' Beneath this stone are deposited the remains of Richard Turner, author of the word teetotal as applied to abstinence from all intoxicating liquors, who departed this life on the 2yth day of October, 1846, aged 56 years.'" Mr. Charles Hardwick has informed the writer that he remembers the occasional 296 Lancashire Gleanings. use of the word "teetotal" before it was applied to "total abstinence " from intoxicants. From a statement recently made it would appear that Turner's special use of the word was anticipated. " It appears that in 1819 the Hector Temperance Society was formed in the State of New York on the anti-spirit principle, and that, dissatisfied with this principle as too narrow, some of the members became abstainers from all intoxicants. In 1827 the Lansing Temperance Society was formed, and two pledges were introduced one against distilled spirits, the other against all alcoholic liquors. The first was marked " O. P." (Old Pledge) ; the second " T," meaning total. A goodly number signed the latter, and they were spoken of as "T-totalers" the initial letter "T," and the explanation, " Total," being pronounced as one word. The witness on this point is the Rev. Joel Jewel, of Troy, Bradford county, Pennsylvania, who was the secretary of the Lansing Tem- perance Society, and is now about eighty years of age." (Alliance News, February 17, 1883.) This apparently only applies to the word as written, not as spoken. ROBERT WILSON AND THE INVENTION OF THE STEAM HAMMER. An exquisite invention this. LEIGH HUNT. Love-letters made, of flowers. THE story of the invention of the steam hammer was first told by Dr. Samuel Smiles in his "Industrial Biography," and the narrative has been repeated in the charming book in which Mr. James Nasmyth has recounted his autobiography. The idea of a steam hammer certainly occurred to James Watt, but although he took a patent for it in 1784 the machine he designed does not appear to have ever been constructed. Again, in 1806, Mr. William Deverell obtained protection for a similar mechanical pro- ject, but there is no evidence that it ever took practical shape. In 1837 the Great Britain steamship was in course of construction, and Mr. Humphries, its engineer, who had been unable to find a foundry where they would undertake the forgings required for the paddle-shafts, applied to Mr. James Nasmyth, then at the head of the Bridgewater 298 Lancashire Gleanings. Foundry. The happy thought of a steam hammer occurred to him, and he sent a sketch of it which met with approval, but was not adopted because the screw propeller had proved so decidedly superior to the old system that the enormous engines which Mr. Humphries had designed were set aside. He died of brain fever, " so that neither his great paddle- shaft nor Mr. Nasmyth's steam hammer to forge it was any longer needed." The drawing remained in Mr. Nasmyth's sketch book, but it did not find favour with the English forge masters to whom it was shown. The keen eyes of M. Schneider, of Creusot, however, noticed it on a visit to the Patricroft foundry, over which he was shown by the partner of Mr. Nasmyth, and the latter found it, greatly to his surprise, working at Creusot when he visited that famous establishment in 1840. It is not at all probable that Mr. Nasmyth foresaw the great importance of the new departure he was introducing to the engineering world. He designed the steam hammer to meet a particular case, and it was thought to be applicable only to the largest class of forgings which were not at that time needed with so much frequency as to make it marketable. The utility of the machine was also greatly restricted by the fact that the valve motion was worked only by hand. The special difficulties in the way of providing a self-acting motion apparently proved insuper- able to Mr. Nasmyth, for during his absence in 1842 his. partner applied to the late Mr. Robert Wilson, who was then manager, and afterwards became the principal of the Bridge- water Foundry. This gentleman, after a few days' consider- ation of the problem, produced a self-acting motion which The Invention of the Steam Hammer. 299 gave the steam hammer the importance it now holds as an engineering tool. The career of Mr. Wilson previous to his connection with the invention of the steam hammer furnishes an interesting example of endeavour and achievement. He was born in 1803 at Dunbar, on the east coast of Scotland, where his father was drowned in the third attempt of the lifeboat to save the remainder of the crew of the frigate Pallas, which was cast ashore in December, 1810. Young Wilson* as a boy, was particularly fond of aquatic amusements of every kind, and as early as 1808 his childish attention was called to a matter with which his name has since become in- separably associated. A soldier who was then stationed at Dunbar fitted out a small fishing boat with a pair of side paddles which proved unsuitable where the surface of the water was at all rough. Wilson as a child was an expert sculler, and the thought occurred to him that if something in the nature of a sculling oar could be fitted to the stern of the vessels it would be free from the objections to side paddles. The problem appears to have interested him greatly, and from time to time recurred to his mind. The sight of an undershot water-wheel, and later of a windmill used at Oxwellmains for threshing corn, brought the matter up again. He learned that it reefed and unreefed its own sails, and turned its face always towards the wind. " How this was effected," he says, " I determined to discover, and a few days after I returned to Oxwellmains, taking with me a small telescope to enable me more closely to examine the mechanical arrangement of the windmill. The mill was 3OO Lancashire Gleanings. not working, and I had, therefore, a better opportunity of studying it. I lay down on the grass field in front of it so as to use my knees as a rest for the telescope, and in this position, while engaged in wonder and admiration, trying to follow and account for the various motions which I knew the mill to have, an idea suddenly occurred to me, which rendered it perfectly clear in what way I could modify the sculling oar so as to make it serve as a means of propelling a vessel." This was in effect by putting it in the form of a wind wheel such as that he had before him. He even tried some unsuccessful experiments with a small model, but the matter dropped until 1821, when the difficulty with which the " Tourist," one of the then new steamers, overcame the ground swell in the barbour of Dunbar led to further experi- ments with what young Wilson now termed " rough sea or storm paddles." Soon after his father's death Wilson was apprenticed to a joiner, and removed from Dunbar, which, however, he visited in 1821 and 1825, when he again made experiments with his propeller. The necessities of his daily life did not allow Mr. Wilson to give undivided attention to the problem, but it was one which again and again occupied the scanty leisure of his artisan days. In 1827 he made the acquaintance of Mr. James Hunter, who introduced him to the Earl of Lauderdale. That nobleman asked his son, Captain Maitland, to report on an experiment to be made with Wilson's model. The result was satisfactory, and the Earl promised to try to induce the Admiralty to take up the invention. It was shown at the Dunbar Mechanics' Institution, and in 1828 the Highland Society appointed a The Invention of the Steam Hammer. 301 committee who testified to the success of his plan when tried at Leith in a very heavy sea. The Society granted him ;io, but only on condition of receiving his model, which he very reluctantly gave up. His want of means prevented any further action, but in 1832 Mr. Hunter brought the matter before the Scottish Society of Arts, and a committee, which included Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, reported on it. A silver medal was awarded to the inventor, and the Society, through Sir John Sinclair, called the attention of the Admiralty to the subject. The Woolwich officers to whom it was referred made a brief and supercilious report, and the inventor's hopes were dashed to the ground. He was mortified by this rejection, nor was his mortification lessened when he learned that in 1836 Mr. F. P. Smith had patented an "improved propeller" on the screw plan. The Admiralty, after rejecting Wilson and repulsing Ericsson, adopted the patent of Smith, who eventually received a knighthood. One of the officials who, in 1833, reported against the screw propeller of Wilson, in 1840 reported in favour of the screw propeller of Smith. There can be no doubt that serious injustice was done to Mr. Wilson by ignorance or carelessness of the officers of the Admiralty. This may be affirmed without claiming for him any absolute priority in the invention. The French annals record not only the experiments of Sauvage at Boulogne in 1832, but those of Paneton in 1792, of Dubost in 1746, and of Duquet in 1727, whilst quite recently it has been said that the screw propeller was anticipated by the universal genius of Leonardo da Vinci. 302 Lancashire Gleanings. These early experiments were not, however, lost. In presenting them Mr. Wilson was developing his inventive faculties, and as recently as 1880 the War Department made a grant of .500 for the use of his double action screw propeller as applied to the fish torpedo. In 1832 Mr. Wilson was in business as an engineer in Edinburgh, in the North Back of Canongate, but a few years later he migrated to Manchester, and in 1838 was the manager of the famous Bridgewater Foundry at Patricroft, the birthplace of the steam hammer. We have already stated the nature of his connection with the remarkable tool which has been described by Professor Tomlinson as one of "the most perfect of artificial machines, and the noblest triumph of mind over matter that modern English engineers have yet developed." The relative shares in the invention are concisely stated in a letter written by Mr. Holbrook Gaskell, who was the partner of Nasmyth, and was the gentleman who showed the sketch to the appreciative M. Schneider : " That to Mr. Nasmyth is due the original conception of the direct acting steam hammer I have frequently testified, and am prepared to maintain ; but that either he or any one else had any conception of the great future which awaited his invention I distinctly deny. The hammer was designed, as Mr. Smiles mentions, to provide for a particular exigency. It was thought to be only applicable to the largest class of forgings ; and so rare was the demand at that time for such massive forging that Mr. Nasmyth could not induce any of the proprietors of the great forges of the county to accept TJie Invention of the Steam Hammer. 303 the invention on the condition of patenting it for themselves, and ordering a hammer from him. Seeing that the utility of the machine was extremely restricted by the valve motion being worked only by hand, and, therefore, very slowly, and with much labour, I felt very desirous that it should be made self-acting so that it might be worked at a higher speed, and thereby be adapted to all ranges of forgings from the smallest to the highest. The result was your very beautiful invention of the self-acting motion for which a patent was immediately secured." There is also an equally explicit statement of the foreman of the smiths, Mr. T. M. Crewdson, who forged " every particle of the first efficient self-acting motion ever made," from the drawings and under the superintendence of Mr. Wilson. The first hammer was delivered in August, 1843, to tne Low Moor Ironworks, and continued in use there until 1853, when Mr. Wilson, who was then engineer of that establishment, added to it what is known as the " circular balanced valve," which he then patented. In 1856 Mr. James Nasmyth retired from his active industrial career, but has since been often heard of in the still wider world of science. Mr. Robert Wilson was now recalled from Low Moor, and became the managing partner of the firm of Messrs. Nasmyth, Wilson, and Co. He maintained the world-wide fame of his firm, and, mindful of his own early difficulties, was ready to smooth the path of those who showed talent and industry. He /cKi^2/ died at Matlock, 28th July M and is buried in the pleasant churchyard of St. Catherine's, Barton-on-Irwell. RALPH SANDIFORD. Remember them that are in bonds. Heb. xiii. 3. AMONGST the worthies of Lancashire who have passed into unmerited oblivion we may safely place Ralph Sandiford, who is deserving of at least a passing memory for his courage in pleading the cause of the poor, the oppressed, and the enslaved, at a time when the consciences of professors of religion were in a torpid condition. It is a singular fact that one of the earliest to protest against negro slavery should be a native of Liverpool, which owed some of its early fortunes to the infamous slave trade. Ralph Sandiford was born in Liverpool in 1693. The "Moore Rental" supplies us with a Ralph Sandiford, Bailiff in 1627. Our Ralph's father was John Sandiford, one of whose name was living in Liverpool in 1642, and was one of the Bailiffs in 1646. Two members of the family contemporary with Ralph held successively the office of town clerk. In 1678 Thomas Sandiford, perhaps the Bailiff of that name in 1656, was sworn to the office of town clerk. In 1688 Mr. John Sandiford, who may be Ralph's father, was " presented " for Ralph Sandiford. 305 entertaining strangers ; and in the following year he was sworn one of the council of the town, and succeeded as town clerk. In 1707, however, a number of "high omis- sions and irregular transactions " was charged against him by the Mayor in relation to the Records and other matters, and he was suspended. Soon afterwards he was discharged from his office by a great majority of the Council, but ^40 per annum was allowed him for life. The " Moore Rental" mentions one or more tenants of the name. Nothing is known of Ralph's early days beyond the fact that his parents were members of the Church of England. That respectable and easy-going form of religious life was apparently not intense enough for Sandiford's enthusiastic temperament. The causes which led to his change of religious belief are nowhere indicated ; but it may have been partly due to his proximity to the great centre of American Quakerism. Whilst still a youth he appears to have emigrated to Philadelphia, and quite early in life he joined the Society of Friends. He was engaged in some commercial pursuit, the nature of which is not now known ; but it necessitated journeys to the West Indies, and parts of the then only partially- settled continent of North America. It was in the course of these experiences that he saw the evil and horror of slavery, and had to speak out against it. This he did with no bated breath. He had the usual reward of the prophet, in the scorn and contumely of the Pharisees who were trying to serve God and the Devil at the same time. Sandiford could not understand men who pleaded for mercy and favour from God, and were not even willing to do 306 Lancashire Gleanings. common justice to man. The Friends have always been facile writers, and have, perhaps, in their resort to the written word made up for the intervals of taciturnity which differentiate their religious services from those of other sects. The title alone of Sandiford's pamphlet, in its second edition, is a comprehensive denunciation. It reads thus : " The Mystery of Iniquity ; being a brief Examination of the Practise of the Times, By the foregoing and the present DISPENSATION : Whereby is manifested how the DEVIL works in the Mystery, which none can understand and get the Victory over but those that are armed with the Light, that discovers the Temptation and the Author thereof, and gives Victory over him and his Instruments, who are now gone forth, as in the Beginning, from the true Friends of JESUS, having the Form of Godliness in Words, but in Deeds deny the Power thereof ; and from such we are com- manded to turn away. Unto which is added in the POST- SCRIPT, the Injury this Trading in Slaves doth the Common- wealth, humbly offer'd to all of a PUBLICK SPIRIT. The Second Edition, with Additions." "Remember them that are in Bonds, as bound with them ; and them that suffer Adversity, as being yourselves in the Body" Heb. xiii. 3. "If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him" I. John ii. 15. " He that leadeth into Captivity shall go into Captivity" Rev. xiii. 10. It lends considerable interest to this brown old-fashioned book to know that it was printed by Benjamin Franklin, then an industrious tradesman, probably not dreaming of those forces, internal and external, that were to make him famous. Ralph Sandiford. 307 In an interesting and little known letter Franklin mentions his connection with Sandiford. The letter was addressed to Mr. John Wright, of Esher, a member of the banking firm of Smith, Wright, and Gray, Lombard-street, and is dated Philadelphia, November 4, 1789. Dear Friend, I received your kind letter of July the 3ist, which gave me great Pleasure, as it informed me of the Welfare both of yourself and your good Lady, to whom please to present my Respects. I thank you for the Epistle of your Yearly Meeting, and for the Card, a specimen of Printing, which were enclosed. We have now had one session of Congress, which was conducted under our new Constitution, with as much general Satisfaction as could reasonably be expected. I wish the struggle in France may end as happily for that Nation. We are now in the full enjoyment of our new Government for eleven of the States, and it is generally thought that North Carolina is about to join us : Rode-island will probably take longer Time for Consideration. We have had a most plentiful year for the Fruits of the Earth, and our People seem to be recovering fast from the extravagant and idle Habits which the War had introduced, and to engage seriously in the Contrary Habits of Temperance, Frugality, and Industry, which give the most Pleasing Prospect of future national Felicity. Your Merchants, however, are, I think, imprudent in crowding in upon us such Quantities of Goods for Sale here, which are not wrote for by our's, and are beyond the Faculties of the Country to consume in any reasonable Time. This Surplus of Goods is, therefore, to raise present Money, sent to the 308 Lancashire Gleanings. Vendues or Auction Houses, of which we have six or seven in or near this City, where they are sold frequently for less than prime Cost, to the great loss of the indiscreet Adven- turers. Our New Papers are doubtless to be seen at your Coffee-Houses near the Exchange : in their Advertisements you may observe the Constancy and Quantity of these kind of Sales, as well as the Quantity of Goods imported by our regular Traders. I see in your English newspapers frequent mention made of our being out of Credit with you ; to us it appears that we have abundantly too much, and that your exporting Merchants are rather out of their senses. I wish success to your Endeavours for obtaining an Abolition of the Slave Trade. The Epistle from your Yearly Meeting for the year 1758 was not the first sowing of the good seed you mention, for I find by an old Pamphlet in my Possession that George Keith nearly 100 years since wrote a Paper against the Practice, said to be " given forth by the Appointment of the Meeting held by him at Philip James's House, in the City of Philadelphia, about the year 1690," wherein a strict Charge was given to Friends that they should set their Negroes at Liberty after some reason- able Time of Service, &c. And about the year 1728 or 29 I myself printed a Book for Ralph Sandyford, another of your Friends of this City, against keeping Negroes in Slavery two editions of which he distributed gratis : and about the year 1736 I printed another Book on the same subject for Benjamin Lay, who also professed being one of your Friends, and he distributed the Book chiefly among them. By these Instances it appears that the seed was Ralph Sandiford. 309 indeed sown in the good Ground of your Profession though much earlier than the Time you mention, and its Springing up to effect at last, though so late, is some confirmation of Lord Bacon's Observation that a good Motion never dies, and may encourage us in making such tho' hopeless of their taking immediate effect. I doubt whether I shall be able to finish my Memoirs, and if I finish them whether they will be proper for Publication. You seem to have too high an Opinion of them, and to expect too much from them. I think you are right in pre- ferring a mixed Form of Government for your Country under its present Circumstances ; and if it were possible for you to reduce the enormous Salaries and Emoluments of great Offices, which are at the Bottom the source of all your violent Factions, that Form might be Conducted more quietly and happily. But I am afraid that none of your Factions when they get uppermost will ever have Virtue enough to reduce those Salaries and Emoluments, but will chuse rather to enjoy them. I am, my dear Friend, your's very affectionately, To Mr. Wright. B. FRANKLIN. This letter is printed in The Friend, vol. xvii. No. 195. March i, 1859, p. 41. The publication of this book brought Sandiford into collision with many "personages" in the young state. The Chief Justice threatened him with condign punish- ment if he ventured to circulate it. The threat had not the slightest effect on Sandiford, who cared nothing for conse- quences. The "weighty friends," whose revolting hypocrisy he had unmasked, were equally unable to silence him. He was 3io Lancashire Gleanings. the "still small voice of conscience" in the state, and persisted until 1734 to warn the manstealers and oppressors of their wickedness and sin. They, no doubt, regarded the little man with the keen but benevolent face, as a dreadful bore, who would not let things run in the usual groove, but wanted to square profession and practice, and make religion a part of daily life. " Though he had many enemies," we are told by his biographer, " in consequence of his opposition to slave- keeping, yet it was universally acknowledged that he was an honest and upright man." A disease which determined him to leave Philadelphia proved hopeless. He built a log house about nine miles from the city, on the road leading to the road of Bustleton ; and here he lived in a fashion, which even in those days of plain living and sober dressing, was remarkable. Some extracts from his will are printed by his biographer. They are worth quoting for the light they throw upon his sentiments and circumstances : " Be it remembered that I, Ralph Sandiford, Lower Dublin, in the county of Philadelphia, merchant, being sick in body, but of sound mind and memory, (praised be the Lord), do make this my last will and testament, in manner following : First, I commit my soul into the hands of Almighty God my Maker, hoping through the meritorious death and passion of Jesus Christ, my only Saviour and Redeemer, to be everlastingly saved. Also I commit my body to the earth, to be therein decently buried at the dis- cretion of my executors, herein after nominated. And as to what worldly effects it hath pleased the Lord to bestow upon me, (after my just debts and funeral expenses are truly paid Ralph Sandiford. 311 and discharged) I dispose thereof as followeth : First, I give to the meeting of the men and women of the People called Quakers, at Philadelphia, each ten pounds for the use of the poor. I also give to the Church of England, for the use of the poor, ten pounds. I also give to Joseph Chettam and his sister Hannah each a guinea : also I give to Samuel Harrison of New York, two guineas. I give my brother, James Sandiford, my watch : I also give Phoebe Boyles, ' SewelPs History.' Other bequests are to Mary Peace, his housekeeper, a life estate in the farm, &c., &c., on which he lived, and to Susannah Morris, his servant, a life estate in another plantation which he owned in Cheltenham ; and at their deaths directs all his landed estate to be sold, and the proceeds remitted to his sisters or their legal repre- sentatives, in England, to be equally divided among them." ("Memoirs of the Lives of Benjamin Lay and Ralph Sandiford " by Roberts Vaux. Philadelphia printed : Lon- don reprinted, 1816.) He died at the age of 40 in 1733. He was buried in a field near his own house, and over his grave was set a stone inscribed : In Memory of Ralph Sandiford Son of John Sandiford of Liverpool, he Bore A Testimony against the Negro Trade & Dyed ye 28th of ye 3rd Month J 733' Aged 40 years. ELIAS, THE MANCHESTER PROPHET. Thy voice sounds like a prophet's woe. FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. Marco Bozzaris. In nature's infinite book of secresy A little I can read. SHAKSPERE. ELLIS HALL was the son of a carpenter in Manchester, and was born in the year 1502. In his early child- hood he was noticeable as different from other children, and was teased and persecuted by his brethren on account of the "solitariness, abstinence, and prayer" that marked him even before the age of seven, when he was taken from home to the house that was afterwards that of Gerard, the Attorney-General. Here he was put to the laborious, if not dignified calling of " tournynge of the broche." The scullion boy was not proof against the attacks of love, but having married a wife he looked higher than the kitchen range, and was in a fair way for prosperity as a draper, so that, as he tells us, even when there came a great fall in the value of money, in the reign of Edward VI. his yearly profit amounted to ^"500. Elias, the Manchester Prophet. 313 Whilst giving himself up to the cares of the world, and quite forgetful of his juvenile piety, he had one night what he regarded as a vision, though others might deem it an idle dream. About midnight, as he lay sleepless and pon- dering over " a great accompte," he heard a voice delivering this message : " Eli, thou carpenter's son, arise and make thine account quickly ; fast and pray, for the day draweth near." This invocation was thrice repeated, and then there was a great light, after which he saw the figure of a man in white, with five bleeding wounds. This figure vanished in the heavens that opened to receive him. This vision did not deter Ellis from the prosecution of his calling, but soon he was prostrated by disease, and as he lay bedfast the vision came again, and told him that he was " elect and chosen of God to declare and pronounce unto his people His word." Ellis objected that he was unlearned, but the vision com- manded him to " Write of the revelation that thou hast seen of baptism, repentance and amendment of life, and show it to the magistrates and rulers, and that which thou shalt write shall be put into thy head by the Holy Ghost." Then Ellis was taken first to heaven, and afterwards to hell. The torments that awaited him if he did not amend were shown him, and also the place reserved for him in heaven if he followed God's will were shown to him. He claimed that this journey into the supernatural world was not in the spirit, but in the flesh, and that for two nights and one day he was absent, and not seen of any man. This was from the Qth to the nth of April, 1552. He was commanded to watch and pray for seven years, and to write for three years 314 Lancashire Gleanings. and a half. In this space of time he wrote a small book of " Obedience," and one without a title, known as the " Great Book." After he began the work of composition he ceased to eat fish or flesh, and -gave over the use of wine. He claimed to have written the book on his knees. Ellis Hall went to London in 1562, and in his dress of camel's hair attracted great attention. He called himself " Ely, the Carpenter's Son," and declared that he was the messenger of God, speaking and working by heavenly inspiration. He made his way to Gravesend, and endea- voured to make his way into the Queen's presence chamber. Bishop Pilkington another Lancashire man preached before the Queen in exposure of the claims of the Manchester prophet, who was examined before the Bishop of London on the 1 2th of June, 1562. Then he was brought before the Earl of Bedford ; Lord Clinton, the Lord High Admiral of England ; Lord Cobham, the Warden of the Cinque Ports ; Sir A. Cave, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lan- caster ; and Sir Richard Sackfield, the " Treasurer " of the Queen's Exchequer. The examination was at the Savoy, on the i yth of June, 1562. He gave a straightforward account of his life and visions, and ended thus : " Since wch tyme I have apparrelled my selfe thus as ye see, and goe wolward to thintent to bringe the fleshe in sub- jeceon to the sowle ; neyther have I eten at any tyme this yeare and this halfe any fleshe, but white meat and to the same yntent, and ever senc that tyme have geven myselfe to my former vertuous lyvinge in fasting and prayinge, and ever since that tyme have wrytten and by God's devyne powre Elias, the Manchester Prophet. 315 coulde wryte although but small as I protest before yor honors all that before that tyme I could not wryte. Thus have I ever since settled myselfe to wryte God's holye wyll and contaimdements (sic), and dystrybuted my goods emongs my kynsmen and pore people makinge proclemacon that yf*any mann coulde com unto whome I ought any thinge unto for every pennye I wolde make him double amends. Also that sythens that tyme I have wrytten this booke which I have here brought before yow entendinge (God wyllinge) to delyver the same vnto my prynce before that any anye mann do throughly peruse yt. Neyther have I attayned to this end by any worldlye means. Thus besechinge yer honors all that yf theise my sayings can be provyd false in any pointe, lett me suffer deathe to ensample of all others." There was but little of the law's delay in dealing with heretics, for, on the 26th June he was placed in the pillory in Cheape with this inscription written on a paper over his head, "ffor seducinge the people by publyshyng ffalce Revelaceons." The unfortunate visionary was then taken back to prison, and the last glimpse we have of him is the memoranda made by Stowe : Anno, 1563, the 2yth day of July, beynge Tuesday, Elys Hawll, of Manchester, was whipt at Bedlem by to mynysters or prechars, Philpot, a parson of Sent Myhells in Cornhyll, and Yownge, b parson of Sent Bartylmews ye Lytyll, Fulclres ye comon cryar of London stondyne by. In Anno 1564 (accoumptynge ye yere to begyn ye xxv. of 316 Lancashire Gleanings. Marche), the xxv. day of February, at xj. of ye cloke in ye nyghte, deseasyd the abovesayd Elisens Hawll, and was buryed on Shordche Churcheyarde on ye Twesday, and ye xxvij. day of February, at xj. of ye cloke before none. A curious circumstance about the punishment of the Manchester Prophet is, that he was flogged by two ministers. The data as to Ellis Hall A to be found in Strype's "Annals of the Reformation," vol. i. p. 469; Earwaker's "Local Gleanings," vol. i, p. 72, 84; "Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles, with Historical Memoranda," by John Stowe (Camden Society, 1880). The MS. "Visions of Eliseus Hall," in metre, was in the library of John Parker, son of Archbishop Parker. WESTHOUGHTON FACTORY FIRE. Famine is on thy cheeks, Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes, Contempt and beggary hang upon thy back, The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law. SHAKSPERE. THE year 1812 was one of great suffering for the working classes of Lancashire. The manufacturing districts were hotbeds of disaffection, and there is too- much reason to think that the Government, instead of redressing grievances, encouraged a system of espionage by which the unwary were seduced into overt acts of sedition, and then heavily punished. The simple-minded and suffering people were taught by the spies to lay all their sufferings at the door of authority, and when their victims had been betrayed into treason the informers reaped a bloody harvest. The handloom weavers were exasperated at the introduc- tion of steam power into the mills, which they expected would still further reduce their earnings. There were riots at Manchester, Middleton, and various other places. In some places the mob contented themselves with sacking 318 Lancashire Gleanings. provision shops, in others they burned mills and destroyed machinery. The burning of Westhoughton factory was one of the most lamentable of these deplorable incidents. The heavy war taxes, the depression of trade, and the high price of provisons had brought the weavers to the verge of starvation. Wheat ranged 6 to 7 per quarter, and sometimes families went for whole days without food. The narrative of one of the ringleaders in the Westhoughton affair, who had escaped conviction, has been printed. Of course his name is not given. About November, 1811, he says, midnight meetings began to be held in the neighbour- hood of Chowbent (Atherton), and a brotherhood was formed, bound by oath, with the object of " revolutionising the country." At one of these secret assemblies, held at Clapperfold, March 20, 1812, a man named Sidlow made a violent speech, concluding with a proposal to burn Westhoughton Factory. This was agreed to, and the ipth of April was appointed for the execution of this dreadful project. There were in the throng, however, many " black- faces" as the spies were called, and the magistrates appear to have been fully cognisant of what was going on. The factory was guarded night and day by armed men. On the 1 9th of April there was a gathering on Dean Moor, at which the " blackfaces " are said to have formed a fourth of the assembly. The military were in waiting to "cut up" the assailants. Incited by the spies the weavers set out, and on the road they met a man named Holland Bowden, and in accordance with a resolution to twist or puff (swear or shoot) every one they met he was forced to take their seditious Westhoughton Factory Fire. 319 oath. On their march something suspicious was observed, and the enterprise was abandoned for that night. On the 24th it was, however, carried into effect. They formed in the Market Place, and marched four deep to the factory, which was heavily barricaded. Although the door was cut "almost to matches" they could not force an entrance, and a man was put through a window to remove the fastenings. The cloth was wrapped round the beams, the wooden looms were quickly smashed, and the mill, a few moments earlier a model of cleanliness and neatness, was strewn with the fragments " like swathes of grass." John Seddon then said, "The egg is broken, let us burn the shell." A shovel of fire was placed in a calico " cut," laid down on the floor, and the broken looms piled around it. A hogshead of tallow was rolled into the fire. A number of women danced a reel around the blazing heap. Then the cry was raised, " Every man to his tents, O Israel," and each one tried to get home unobserved. The magistrates appeared on the scene and read the Riot Act, and the Scots Greys were marched to the scene of the disturbance. A number of arrests were made, and the men sent to Lancaster. The rioters, who were placed on their trial, were Adam Bullough, whose age is not given; John Brownlow, 15; William Kay, 33; Abraham Charlson, 16; Bold Howarth, 32; Job Fletcher, 34; John Shuttleworth, 59; Samuel Radcliffe, 35; Robert Wood- ward, 27; Thomas Kerfoot, 26; John Charlson, 34; James Smith, 31; Mary Cannon, 19; and Lydia Molyneux, 15. The men charged with administering the oath to 320 Lancashire Gleanings. Holland Bowden were Christopher Medcalf, 41 ; James Brierley, 30; Henry Thwaite, 24; Joseph Clement, 21 \ William Gifford or Clifford, 40 ; Thomas Pickup, 5 1 ; John Keys, 37 ; John Hurst, 37 ; Peter Topping, 35 ; Joseph Greenhalgh, 22 ; and Samuel Radliffe, 35. Hurst, it is said, went by the name of " General Ludd." This name of terror was doubtless used by various individuals in the different districts that were then in a disturbed condition. Special assizes were opened at Lancaster on the 25th May before Baron Thomson and Sir Simon Le Blanc. The commission was opened on Saturday, and on the Tuesday following, at eight o'clock in the morning, the rioters were charged with setting fire to (or aiding and assisting therein) the weaving mill, warehouse, and loom shop of Thomas Rowe and Thomas Duncough. The trial lasted until eight at night, when Abraham Charlson, Fletcher, Kerfoot, and Smith were found guilty, and the rest acquitted. Those who were found guilty of administering the unlawful oath were Medcalf, Brierley, Thwaite, Pickup, Hurst, and Rad- cliffe, and they were sentenced to transportation. Charlson, Fletcher, Kerfoot, and Smith were sentenced to death. The trial of the Westhoughton rioters was followed by those of the men from Middleton and Manchester, and whilst these were proceeding the Westhoughton men were speculating as to their sentences. " I believe," says the rioter already quoted, " it never entered the mind of any of them that they should get more than three or six months' imprisonment. They were called upon to receive their sentences, and I shall never forget the look of horror on the Westhoughton Factory Fire. 321 face of Job Fletcher. I was getting some dinner ready for him when he went, and he came back in a few minutes ; grasped me by the collar in a frenzied manner. ' O dear, dear,' cried he, * I must be hanged.' Others came in who received the same sentence, and the most heart-rending scene took place that it is possible for the mind to conceive. Some threw themselves on the floor, others tore their hair from their heads, bitterly cursing the witnesses who had appeared against them, and lamenting that they must never more see their families. They were taken from us to the condemned cells, and I never saw any of them more." The fate of these unfortunate persons is briefly stated in the Gentleman's Magazine: "June 13. Eight rioters, who were convicted at the Special Assizes at Lancaster, viz., J. Smith, T. Kerfoot, J. Fletcher, A. Charlson, J. Howarth, J. Lee, T. Hoyle, and Hannah Smith (for stealing potatoes) underwent their sentence. While in confinement they manifested the greatest indifference and unconcern, but were at length brought to a sense of their condition, and died penitent." Hannah Smith was a woman of 54, one of a riotous crowd who stole some potatoes at Bank Top, Man- chester. Howarth, Lee, and Hoyle had, during a riot, broken into a shop in Deansgate, stolen bread, cheese, and potatoes. According to the tradition of the neighbourhood the boy Charlson was a cripple, and was hoisted on a man's shoulders in order to break a window with his crutch. He is described as 1 6 in the reports of the assize, but it has been said that he was in reality only 12 years old. The poor lad, when in w 322 Lancashire Gleanings. the hands of the hangman, cried out, " Oh, mammy, mammy ! " The riot had the effect of calling attention to the want and starvation that was existing, and in the Manchester Mercury of June 16 we learn that "On Saturday week 360 families of the poor inhabitants of Westhoughton were relieved with oatmeal gratis by a subscription in the said township." We have spoken of the spies. One of these, who had achieved infamy in 1801, is said to have had his services overlooked by his employers, and to have been one of those hung at Lancaster in 1812. The spy system was eloquently exposed by Dr. Robert Eveleigh Taylor in his letter on the Lancashire Riots of 1812. There are also references to the subject in Prentice's " Historical Sketches," and Brimelow's " Political History of Bolton." The story of the riot has also been told in a rhyming chronicle : " A Tragedy : the Burning of Westhoughton Cotton Mill in 1812." A poem by John Clough (Bolton, Journal Office, 1882). This includes some lines about the " Snydale Ghost," which, as containing a bit of local folk-lore may be quoted as a relief to the ghastly narrative of the Westhoughton riots. At midnight hour, when all was still, This ghost would wander o'er the hill ; The object of its nightly round Was thought some treasure in the ground. With bated breath, and blanched face, The traveller o'er this lonely place Would fancy in each clump of trees The weird and uncouth form he sees Westhoiighton Factory Fire. 323 Of Worthington, whose wandering lo Was nightly round this haunted spot. The ghost 'tis said was laid at Deane, To come no more whilst holly is green, Or water down a ditch should run, Save once in years of twenty-one. They used to say this was its hire, Till once it came, the barn took fire, And Snydale barn with all its store Burnt to the ground to rise no more. But Snydale Hall may still be seen Where waters run, and holly is green. With a young pullet, it is said, The ghost of Worthington was laid ; Whilst others in these later days Say it was frightened by the Greys, Whose clattering marching on the road Drove it to seek its last abode. PETER ANNEX. Perplext in faith, but pure in deed, At last he beat his music out. There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds. TENNYSON. /;/ Memoriam. PETER ANNET was born at Liverpool in 1693. The only intimation of his birthplace is that given in Evan's " Catalogue of Portraits." He was intended for the ministry among the Protestant Dissenters, but his religious views having changed he abandoned the pastoral career, and after first trying his fortune as a schoolmaster in London he became a merchant's clerk, and afterwards an employe in some public office. He ultimately sacrificed his position and prospects in life by the publication of certain attacks upon the Christian religion. He was a man of marked ability, and his writings deal with a wide range of subjects. As he himself said, " the children of his spirit " were many. One of his earliest known publications was a reply from a deistical standpoint to Sherlock's famous tract, " The Trial of the Witnesses of the Resurrection," which appeared in Peter Annet. 325 1729, and became immensely popular and the subject of a violent controversy. Dr. Farrar considers the tract of Annet's, which appeared in 1744, as the "commencement of the open allegation of literary imposture as distinct from philosophical error which marked the criticism of the French School of Infidelity." Annet was well known in London at the famous Robin Hood Society, of which Burke and Gold- smith were in later years members. As an orator, we are told, " He was to the last degree contemptible, having a tame and lifeless pronunciation, and a mean insipid action." There is a copy of Annet's tracts in the British Museum, containing an autograph note of the author : "I want wisdom to inform my faith; another's faith directs his wisdom. The difference between us is only this I can believe all possible and probable things ; the other can believe all things that he hath been taught, though im- probable and impossible." The titles of the pamphlets in the volume are : Judging for Ourselves ; or, freethinkings the great duty of religion ; 1739. The History and Character of St. Paul examined. Supernatural examined, in four dissertations. Social Bliss considered; 1749. Resurrection of Jesus considered ; 1744. Sequel to the last-named. Annet was the author of a cheap system of shorthand, which exhibits considerable ingenuity. Under the pseudonym of " Meneius Philalethes " Annet published the "History of Joseph considered" in 1774. In the 326 Lancashire Gleanings. same year he wrote a tract on the "Conception of Jesus." His best known work, " The History of the Man after God's own heart," appeared in 1761. This work being anonymous has been attributed to various individuals, and elicited many replies from theologians the best being that of Dr. Samuel Chandler, whose unlucky application of II. Samuel v. 5 to George II., in his funeral sermon for that not too moral monarch, elicited the " History" which has been frequently reprinted, and also translated into French. Voltaire was acquainted with it, but attributed it to a Mr. Hutt, a member of Parliament of whom no one else seems to know anything. In 1761 Annet commenced the Free Inquirer. It was a weekly periodical, but only nine numbers appeared. The Government incited, as some have said, by Archbishop Seeker resolved to prosecute him. They thus ensured the popularity of the work, which had not previously met with any great amount of public support. Annet was charged by the Attorney-General with having published a " Malignant, profane, and blasphemous libel, entitled the Free Inquirer^ tending to blaspheme Almighty God, and to ridicule, traduce, and discredit the Holy Scriptures." Annet was tried, found guilty, and on November 29, 1762, he was sentenced to suffer one month's imprisonment in Newgate ; to stand twice in the pillory, with the words, " for blasphemy," over his head ; once at Charing Cross, and once at the Royal Exchange ; and then to be confined in the House of Correction in Clerkenwell for one year ; to be next remanded Peter Annet. 327 to Newgate in execution of the said judgment, and to find securities for his good behaviour during the remainder of his life, himself in ;ioo, and two sureties in ^50 each ; and to be fined 6s. 8d. He was pilloried at Charing Cross 1 4th December, 1762, and at the Royal Exchange 22nd December. Upon one of the occasions when he was thus exposed, he was exposed to public scorn in the company of a man who had been convicted of perjury. The latter was pelted with stones and dirt, one of the spectators crying out as regards Annet, " Mind and not hurt that honest man who is only a blasphemer." A woman, seeing the words over his head said, " Here's a fine crime ! Don't we blaspheme every day ?" An ineffectual plea for a more merciful sen- tence was made by a correspondent of the Gentleman's Magazine, but others replied in terms that showed how little they understood the folly of punishing those who hold unpopular opinions. It is remarkable that Annet, who was not called to account for the " Life of the Man after God's own heart," should have been indicted for the much less offensive Free Inquirer, which would probably now pass without comment. Annet appears afterwards to have been imprisoned for debt in St. George's Fields, and while there wrote an English Grammar for children. Goldsmith interested Newbery in the prisoner's behalf, and the latter offered ten guineas for the copyright. Annet, to show his gratitude, added that he would write a dedication to it along with his name. This was the very thing that the shrewd tradesman did not want. The irascible author could not see that a 328 Lancashire Gleanings. name only known to the public as that of a pilloried blas- phemer would be no recommendation to a book for juvenile reading. Hence Goldsmith's well-meant efforts failed, and the negotiation came to an abrupt and unprofitable con- clusion. When released from prison Annet opened a school opposite the palace of Archbishop Seeker, but, as he carried his heterodox views into the lessons, it languished, and had to be given up. The Archbishop is said to have relieved him in his distress. M. Sicard, who wrote the notice of Annet in the " Bio- graphie Universelle," tells the following anecdote : On lui demanda un jour qu'il pensait de la vie a venir, il repondit par cet apologue : Un de mes amis, voyageant en Italic, entra dans une ville : il vit une auberge, et voulut savoir si c' tait celle qu'on lui avait indiquee ; il demanda a un passant si ce n' etait pas 1' enseigne de V Ange. " Ne voyez vous pas " lui repondit le passant, " qui c'est un dragon, et non pas un ange ? " " Mon ami," dit le voyageur, " je n' ai jamais vu d' Ange ni de dragon ; je ne sais pas si cela res- semble a P un ou a P autre." Annet died i8th January, 1769. No biography of him has so far been attempted. There are scattered references to him in the Gentleman's Magazine, and other periodicals. Mr. John E. Bailey, F.S.A., has collected materials for an adequate life of this extraordinary man, and has, with his accustomed kindness, allowed them to be examined for this sketch. SOME OLD LANCASHIRE BALLADS, BROADSIDES AND CHAPBOOKS. .... the ballads of the people, That like voices from afar off Call to us to pause and listen, Speak in tones so plain and childlike, Scarcely can the ear distinguish Whether they are sung or spoken. LONGFELLOW. Hiawatha. LANCASHIRE bibliographers, notwithstanding the labour that has already been done, may live in hopes of bringing to light from time to time fresh material for ballad lovers. In Mr. W. C. Hazlitt's " Handbook of Popular, Poetical, and Dramatic Literature of Great Britain to the Restoration " there are several entries of ballads and broadsides that have a distinct local flavour. Thus we have : A caveate to beware of false coseners by a late example of a Lancashire man cosened of v. 1. Transferred to R. Jones in 1579 from H. Denham. 33O Lancashire Gleanings. Strange Newes of a prodigious Monster born in the Township of Adlington, in the Parish of Standish, in the County of Lancaster, the 17 Day of Aprill, 1613. London, Printed for S. P., by S. M., 1613, 4to. This was published by the Rev. William Leigh. A Declaration of a Strange and Wonderful Monster, Born at Kirkham Parish, in Lancashire. London, Printed by Jane Coe, 1641, 4to. This is noticed in Col. Fish wick's " History of Kirkham." An Excellent Ballad, Intituled the unfortunate Love of a Lancashire Gentleman, and the hard Fortune of a young Bride. The tune is, Come, follow my Love. Printed for F. Coles, S. Vere, and W. Gilbertson. There is another edition of this mentioned in the Ouvry Catalogue, No. 58. The Lancashire Lovers; or, The merry wooing of Thomas and Betty, to the tune of Love's Tide, or At home would I be in my own country. Printed for J. Wright, J. Clarke, W. Thackeray, and T. Passenger. A sheet, black letter. The Lancashire Cuckold, to the Tune of Fond Boy, &c. London, printed for I. Blare, on London Bridge. This is a coarse version of the tale of " The Basin." Mr. W. C. Hazlitt has pointed out other variants of the story, which is to be found in the " History of Jack Homer," and is not unlike the old German legend of the "Golden Goose," as told by Grimm. In the second series of the same author's " Bibliographical Collections," published in 1882, by Mr. B. Quaritch, there Some Old Lancashire Ballads. 331 are some further entries that are exceedingly interesting to local bibliographers. Thus, under Lancashire, we have, amongst others, the following : A new northerne songe of a Lancashire lad. Licensed to E. White, 8 Aug., 1588. Lankeshiers lamentacon for the Deathe of the noble Erie Derbie. Licensed to John Danter, n Oct., 1593. A Lancashire man's love for the marriage of the right honorable the Erie of Derbie. Licensed to T. Gosson, 6 Feb., 1594-5- Strange Newes of a Prodigious Monster. . . . 1613. Licensed to Samuel Man, 12 June, 1613. A ballad of a murder in Lancashire revealed by a calfe. Licensed to John Trundle, 12 March, 1614-15. Newes out of Lancashire, or the strange and miraculous revelacon of a murther, by a ghost, a calf, a pigeon, &c. Licensed (conditionally) to John Trundle, 12 September, 1615. A Lancashire wonder. A ballad. Licensed to Thomas Lambert, 2 Feb., 1637-8. We have the ballad of "The Miller's Daughter of Man- chester," which is discussed in another part of this volume, and several entries relating to Charles Benet, the " Wonder- ful Child, but Three Years old," who, says the credible historian, " doth speak Latin, Greek, and Hebrew." Amongst the folk-books chronicled by Mr. John Ashton ("Chapbooks of the Eighteenth Century." London, 1882, p. 74), there is a narrative which takes the name of Liver- pool in vain. The much promising title reads thus : 33 2 Lancashire Gleanings. The Wonder of Wonders, being A Strange and Wonderful Relation of a Mermaid, that was seen and spoken with, on the Black Rock, nigh Liverpool, by John Robinson Mariner, who was tossed on the Ocean for Six days and Nights; Together with the Conversation he had with her, and how he was preserved ; with the Manner of his Death five days after his return Home. Licensed and entered According to Order. A slight quotation may be allowed : " But to his great Amazement, he espy'd a beautiful young Lady combing her head, and toss'd on the Billows, cloathed all in green (but by chance he got the first word with her) then she with a Smile came on board, and asked how he did. The young Man being Something Smart and a Scholar, reply'd Madam I am the better to see you in good Health, in great hopes trusting you will be a comfort and assistance to me in this my low Condition ; and so caught hold of her Comb and Green Girdle that was About her Waist. To which she replied, Sir, you ought not to rob a young Woman of her Riches, and then expect a favour at her Hands ; but if you will give me my Comb and Girdle again, what lies in my power I will do for you." No Sailor could resist such an entreaty and " At her departure the Tempest ceased and blew a fair Gale to South West, so he got safe on shore ; but when he came to his Father's House he found every Thing as she had told him. For she told him also concerning his being left on Ship board, and how all the Seamen perished, which he found all true what she had told him, according to the Some Old Lancashire Ballads. 333 promise made him. He was still very much troubled in his Mind, concerning his promise, but yet while he was thus musing, she appeared to him with a smiling Countenance and (by his Misfortune) she got the first word of him, so that he could not speak one Word, but was quite Dumb, yet he took Notice of the Words she spoke; and she began to Sing. After which she departed out of the young Man's sight, taking from him the Compass. She took a Ring from off her Finger, and put it on the young Man's, and said, she expected to see him once again with more Freedom. But he never saw her more, upon which he came to himself again, went home, and was taken ill, and died in five Days after, to the wonderful Admiration of all People who saw the young Man." In Mr. J. O. Halliwell's Notices of Fugitive Tracts (Percy Society, 1849, P- 35) there is one mentioned having the following title : " A New Prophecy, or an account of a young girl (of Torver, in the parish of Ulverston, in Lan- caster), not above eight years of age, who being in trance, or lay as dead for the space of forty-eight hours ; with an account of the strange and wonderful sight that she saw in the other world." One has a natural desire to catch even a glimpse of the future, and I am sure there are many who would be glad to know what the little Lancashire maiden did see. A further notice of this Katherine Ashton is given in " Chapbooks of the Eighteenth Century " (p. 63). Mr. Halliwell notices a small pamphlet, in octavo, printed in 1772, and called "Good News for England; being a strange and remarkable account how a stranger in 334 Lancashire Gleanings. bright raiment appeared to one Farmer Edwards, near Lancaster, on the i2th of last month." (HalliwelPs Notices of Fugitive Tracts, 1849, P- 8 5-) Gramercy Penny Being a Lancashire ditty, and chiefly penn'd To prove that a penny is a man's best friend, is the title of a ballad in the Pepy's Collection, I. 218. It is attributed to Laurence Price (" The Roxburghe Ballads," vol. i, p. 364, and Chappell's Popular Music, i. 357). Mr. Chappell gives several instances of the fame of the "Lancashire Hornpipes," and of the reputation of the county for fiddlers (p. 135, 240, 534, 546). The "Man- chester Angel" was once a popular song (p. 734). The tune to "Farewell Manchester" is said to have been played when the rebels marched from the town in 1745 (p. 683). As trade songs are not now plentiful in Lancashire we may conclude with the following not unfair specimen of songs that must once have been common. It is taken from "The Manchester Songster," printed by G. Swindells, at Manchester, in 1792. THE JOLLY FUSTIAN-CUTTER. When Adam kept house in the garden of Eden, His wife and himself nought but fruit had to feed on ; The fig-tree alone was their ward-robe we're told, No pockets they needed for silver and gold. Deny down, &c. No cash they e'er wanted, no creditors knew, Whatever they wished for around them it grew ; Some Old Lancashire Ballads. 335 Their clothes knew no cutting, their food ne'er felt knife, Without thought of either they jogg'd on thro' life. Derry down, &c. From that time to this, Sirs, how alter'd the case, Now ctittings the game for food, clothing, and place ; 'Tis cut as cut can all the world thro' we see, But who cut so fairly, yet constant as we ? Derry down, &c. Six days out of seven, from morning till night, For a living we cut ; who can say we're not right ? Tho' many cross-cuts in this life we may find, The long-cut, straight forward 's the cut to my mind. Derry down, &c. One neighbour his neighbour may cut out of place, Such cutting can't honestly look in the face ; The gamester, the cards he may cut to himself, Tho' the stake he secures 'tis but ill gotten pelf. Derry down, &c. The spruce dancing master, as fine as a jay, His capers may cut, and his kit he may play ; We can match him I war'nt, if our work we pursue, Nor the capers alone but the mutton cut too. Derry down, &c. May George sit secure on a peaceable throne, Nor our heart-of-oak standard be ever cut down ; Should the Spaniards again dare to venture a rub, Their whiskers be d d they our Fustians can't drub. Derry down, &c. Long may Fustian Cutters in sweet harmony, United work on, with the Merchant agree ; No strife or contentions arise to appal, Till Death, that sly Cutter, shall cut for us all. Derry down, &c. GEORGE FOX'S FIRST ENTRY INTO LANCASHIRE. And they that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars for ever and ever. DANIEL xii. 3. WE who see the members of the Society of Friends, staid and almost universally respectable and respected, can have little real conception of the time when they were hemmed in by a ring of cruel persecution, and themselves ablaze with fiery enthusiasm. George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, came of godly lineage. His father was called, by his neighbours, " Righteous Christer," and his mother " was of the stock of the martyrs." He was born in 1624, at Drayton-in-the-Clay, in Leicestershire, and in his childhood was remarkable for his quaint unchildish ways, not delighting in innocent play, but rather noted for a gravity beyond his years. When nineteen, he says, " At the command of God, on the pth of the yth month, 1643, I l ft mv relations, and broke off all familiarity or fellowship with old or young." He talked with many pro- George Foxs First Entry into Lancashire. 337 fessors of religion, but obtained no help from them. On returning to his own people some advised him to marry, others to turn soldier. An " ancient priest," to whom he unfolded the troubles which now agitated his soul, pre- scribed, as a cure, tobacco and psalm singing ! Neither remedy suited George Fox. He now began to hold that doctrine of the inner light which is the basis of all mystical philosophy. By inspiration and vision he held that he had attained the truth he had so long sought after. " I heard," he says, "of a woman in Lancashire, that had fasted two and twenty days, and I travelled to see her ; but when I came to her I found she was under a temptation. When I had spoken to her what I had from the Lord I left her, her father being one high in profession. Passing on I went among the professors at Duckingfield and Manchester, where I stayed awhile, and declared truth among them." This was the beginning of the ministry of George Fox in the year 1648. Local tradition points out the stone cross, at Dukin- field, as the place where his public ministry commenced. The cross no longer holds its original position. The base was in the possession of the late Mr. Alfred Aspland, F.R.C.S. He now began to move about the country preaching his new doctrine, reproving sinners, and exhorting rich and poor to the due performance of their duty. His religion was of a very practical kind, and he laid small stress upon accuracy of belief that did not involve Tightness of life. He was the very incarnation of plain speaking, and went right to the heart of things. To take the hat off in honour of a fellow- creature seemed to him a species of idolatry. So he refused 338 Lancashire Gleanings. to render " hat-honour " to anyone, and addressed " thee " and "thou" alike to high and low. He refused to take oaths of any kind. He refused to bear arms or pay tithes. This plain, honest, sober-living countryman, who had no awe of dignities before him, was to be a trouble and a stumbling block to the authorities. There was no common ground between them. He held the witness of the Spirit to be higher than the ruling of the law or the letter of the Scripture. Authority he set at nought, for he felt that he had the certain word of the Lord to deliver to his fellow men. So he went into courts of law and exhorted judges to act justly, he bade publicans not to make men drunk, he declaimed against May games and feasts, he stood in the Market Place and denounced the frauds of the hucksters, he cried out against mountebanks and music, he exhorted schoolmasters and heads of families to bring up the children committed to them in the fear of the Lord. But that which chiefly excited his indignation was what he calls the black earthy spirit of the priests. The church bell had no sweet sound for his ears, but " was just like a market bell to gather people together, that the priest might expose his wares to sale." He was imprisoned at Nottingham "as a youth" who had disturbed the congregation by denying the truth of the doctrine in the parson's sermon. In 1652 occurred a memorable visit to Lancashire. George Fox, coming into the county from Yorkshire, felt " moved by the Lord " to ascend the " very great and high hill " of Pendle. From its lofty summit he saw not only the sea bordering upon the country, but the places where there George Foxs First Entry into Lancashire. 339 was to be a great gathering of the people to his faith. " As I went down I found a spring of water in the side of the hill, with which I refreshed myself, having eaten or drunk but little in several days before." After journeying in West- moreland he came to Newton-in-Cartmell, where the clergy- man did not relish his unasked-for assistance in preaching at the chapel. In consequence, a rude multitude seized Fox guilty of the reformer's usual crime of zeal out of season who hailed him from the church, and finally thew him head- long over a stone wall. In this turmoil Fox spoke to one who was taking notes of the clergyman's discourse. This was John Braithwaite. Soon after we find him at the house of Judge Fell, at Swarthmoor, disputing with a neighbour- ing clergyman. Margaret Fell became a follower, and her husband, though not one of the Friends, always treated them tenderly. How greatly they laid themselves open to the cruelty of their adversaries may be seen from George Fox's narrative of an incident which occurred in 1652. "After this," he says, " on a lecture day I was moved to go to the steeplehouse at Ulverstone, where there were abundance of professors, priests, and people. I went up near to Priest Lampitt, who was blustering on in his preaching ; and after the Lord had opened my mouth to speak, John Sawrey, the justice, came to me and said, ' if I would speak according to the Scripture I should speak.' I admired at him for speak- ing so to me, for I did speak according to the Scriptures, and bring the Scriptures to prove what I had to say ; for I had something to speak to Lampitt and to them. Then he said that I should not speak, contradicting himself. . . . 340 Lancashire Gleanings. The people were quiet and heard me gladly, until this Justice Sawrey, who was the first stirrer-up of cruel persecution in the north, incensed them against me, and set them on to hate, beat, and bruise me. Then, on a sudden, the people were in a rage, and fell upon me in the steeple-house before his face ; they knocked me down, kicked me, trampled upon me ; and so great was the uproar, that some people tumbled over their seats for fear. At last he came and took me from the people, led me out of the steeple-house, and put me into the hands of the constables and other officers, bidding them whip me out of the town. They led me about a quarter of a mile, some taking hold by my collar, and some by my arms and shoulders, and shook and dragged me along. Many friendly people being come to the market, and some of them to the steeple-house to hear me, divers of these they knocked down also, and broke their heads, so that the blood ran down from several of them ; and Judge Fell's son running after, to see what they would do with me, they threw him into a ditch of water, some of them crying, 4 knock the teeth out of his head.' Now when they haled me to the common moss-side, a multitude of people following, the constables and other officers gave me some blows over my back with their willow-rods, and so thrust me among the rude multitude, who, having furnished themselves, some with staves, some with hedge-stakes, and others with holm or holly-bushes, fell upon me, and beat me on my head, arms, and shoulders, till they had deprived me of sense, so that I fell down on the wet common. When I recovered again, and saw myself lying in a watery common, and the people George Foxs First Entry into Lancashire. 341 about me, I lay still a little while ; and the power of the Lord sprang through me, and the eternal refreshings refreshed me, so that I stood up again in the strengthening power of the Eternal God ; and, stretching out my arms amongst; them, I said, with a loud voice, ' Strike again ; here are my arms, my head, and my cheeks.' There was in the company a mason, a professor, but a rude fellow ; he, with his walking rule-staff, gave me a blow with all his might, just over the back of my hand, as it was stretched out; with which blow my hand was so bruised, and my arm so be- numbed, that I could not draw it unto me again ; so that some of the people cried out, ' he hath spoiled his hand for ever having the use of it any more.' But I looked at it in the love of God (for I was in the love of God to them all that had persecuted me), and after a while the Lord's power sprang through me again, and through my hand and arm, so that in a moment I recovered strength in my hand and arm in the sight of them all. Then they began to fall out among themselves, and some of them came to me and said if I would give them money they would secure me from the rest. But I was moved of the Lord to declare to them the word of life, and showed them their false Christianity, and the fruits of their priest's ministry ; telling them they were more like heathens and Jews than true Christians. Then was I moved of the Lord to come up again through the midst of the people, and go into Ulverstone market. As I went, there met me a soldier with his sword by his side ; ' Sir,' said he to me, * I see you are a man, and I am ashamed and grieved that you should be thus abused ;' and he offered to assist me 342 Lancashire Gleanings. in what he could. But I told him the Lord's power was over all ; so I walked through the people in the market, and none of them had power to touch me then. But some of the market people abusing some Friends in the market, I turned me about and saw this soldier among them with his naked rapier, whereupon I ran in amongst them, and catch- ing hold of his hand that his rapier was in, I bid him put up his sword again, if he would go along with me ; for I was willing to draw him out from the company, lest some mis- chief should be done. A few days after seven men fell upon this soldier and beat him cruelly, because he had taken part with Friends and me ; for it was the manner of the perse- cutors of that country for twenty or forty people to run upon one man. And they fell so upon Friends in many places, that they could hardly pass the highways stoning, beating, and breaking their heads. When I came to Swarthmore, I found the Friends there dressing the heads and hands of Friends and friendly people, which had been broken or hurt that day by the professors and hearers of Lampitt, the priest. My body and arms were yellow, black, and blue, with the blows and bruises I received amongst them that day. Now began the priests to prophesy again, that within half a year we should be all put down and gone." He was afterwards imprisoned in Lancaster Castle. Such was George Fox's early reception in Lancashire, and yet he reaped a great harvest in the county that used him so cruelly at first. THE LEGEND OF MAB'S CROSS. If I might look on her sweet face, And know that she is happy. TENNYSON. Enoch Ardcn. ON the road from Wigan to Haigh may yet be seen the remains of the ancient wayside cross, known as Mab's Cross. Connected with it is a legend relating to the ancient family of the Braidshaighs, of the Haigh, from whom the present noble family of Lindsays, of Haigh, are descendants in the female line. Sir Walter Scott, in the introduction to the " Betrothed," has given an extract from an old pedigree roll. This must once more be quoted : SIR WILLIAM BRADSHAGHE, 20. SONE TO SIR IOHN WAS A GREAT TRAVELLER AND A SOULDYER AND MARRIED TO MABELL DAUGHTER AND SOLE HEIRE OF HUGH NORIS DE HAGHE AND BLACKRODE AND HAD ISSUE I N. 8 G 2. OF THIS MABEL is A STORY BY TRADITION OF UNDOUTED VERITY THAT IN SR WILLIAM BRADSHAGE's ABSENCE (BEING 10 YEARES AWAY IN THE WARES) SHE 344 Lancashire Gleanings. MARRIED TO A WELCH KT SR WlLLIAM RETORNINGE FROM THE WARES CAME IN A PALMER'S HABIT AMO- NGST THE POORE TO HAGHE. WHO WHEN SHE SAW & CONGETRINGE THAT HE FAVOURED HER FORMER HUSBAND WEPT, FOR WHICH THE KT CHASTICED HER AT WICH SR WILLIAM WENT AND MADE HIM SELFE KNAWNE TO HIS TENNANTS IN WCH SPACE THE KT FLED, BUT NEARE TO NEWTON PARKE SR WlLLIAM OUER- TOOKE HIM AND SLUE HIM. THE SAID DAME MABEL WAS ENIOYNED BY HER CONFESSOR TO DOE PENNANCES BY GOING ONEST EVERY WEEK BAREFOUT AND BARE LEGG'D TO A CROSS NER WlGAN FROM THE HAGHE WILEST SHE LIUED & IS CALLED MABB x TO THIS DAY; AND THER MONUMENT LYES IN WIGAN CHURCH AS YOU SEE THER PORTRD. AN: DOM : 1315." Tradition further states that he made himself known by dropping into the cup of the bride a ring with which they pledged faith on his departure. This legend is one that forms a characteristic example of the migration of fables and popular stories. The Lancashire form of the legend is given above, and also forms the basis of one of Roby's "Traditions." The same story is traditionally asserted of Sir Ralph de Stayley. Roe Cross, near Stayley, in Cheshire, and the mutilated sepulchral monument in Mottram Church, known as " Roe and his wife," are the local " evidences." ( Gentlcmari s Magazine^ December, 1866.) There is a Devonshire legend that when Sir Francis Drake went on his famous South Sea voyage he asked his wife to wait eleven years for his return. At the expiration of this time she was about to marry a Devonshire squire, but as the The Legend of MaUs Cross. 345 wedding procession was on its way to church " a vast round stone fell on the skirt of her dress," and soon after the sailor-knight returned disguised as a beggar man. A popular ballad still in the north country is that which tells how Sir William Wentworth Blackett, of Bretton, returned after an absence of twenty-one years just in time to prevent the second marriage of his wife. (Ingledew : " Ballads and Songs of Yorkshire.") A similar Derbyshire tradition has been made the subject of a fine poem by Richard Howitt. In the ballad of " King Estmere," given in Percy's Reliques, we have another version of the incident of the disguised knight. The name of Here ward is one that has gathered round it many traditions, and amongst them is one that the Saxon leader recovered for an Irish Knight a Cornish princess, whose father had other matrimonial intentions for his daughter. In this story the ring is given by the princess. (Wright's " Essays," vol. ii., p. 98.) The story forms part of the plot of the romance of King Horn, a very curious mediaeval relic, of which there are at least three distinct versions, two English and one French. The earliest English MS. belongs to the latter half of the thirteenth century, and the French is of about equal anti- quity. The English King Horn was printed for the Early English Text Society in 1866. Rymenhild recognises her long lost lord by means of the ring. There are many variations of the story in the Scotch ballads of Hyndehorn, as may be seen in Professor Child's noble collection of English Ballads." 346 Lancashire Gleanings. Scott, who had the legend of Mab's Cross from the Lindsays, also translated the German ballad of " The Noble Moringer,"who returns from a pilgrimage in consequence of a vision that warns him of the impending remarriage of his wife. He returns and makes himself known by dropping a ring into the lady's cup at the marriage feast. This was the subject of a popular German song in the fifteenth century. Tieck has based a drama upon the subject. There is also an opera by Mr. Marcellus Higgs. The legend has also been localisedat the castle of Sayn on the Rhine. (Snowe's "Legends of the Rhine.") There is a popular chapbook, in which the story is told of Henry the Lion, Duke of Brunswick. The " Heldenbuch," attributed to Wolfram von Eschenbach, who flourished about the beginning of the thirteenth century, is a narrative of the adventures of certain old German worthies, who are supposed to have flourished at an earlier date than the mythical heroes of the Nibelungenlied. In this the adventure with Irving is narrated of Wolfdietrich and the lady Sieghmin. (Scott, Weber, and Jameson's "Northern Antiquities.") There are two or more Norse tales that bear on this legend. One is " Master Tobacco," and the other is that of Halvor and the bride he seeks in Soria Moria Castle. (Dasent's " Popular Tales from the Norse.") Still earlier it is in the saga of Frithiof. The original legend has been made the basis of Tegner's well known drama. The romance of Pontus of Galicia, it is believed, was written by order of Pontus de la Tour Landry, between 1424 and 1450. There was an English translation issued The Legend of MaUs Cross. 347 by Wynkyn de Worde, and one chapter of it tells " How Sydonye knew the pilgrim Ponthus by a ring that she had given him, or he went for to dwell in England." A curious variant of the legend occurs in the Decameron of Boccaccio, and Manni has tried to show that it has an historical foundation. (" Istoria del Decamerone," p. 601.) Finally, we may point out that all these European stories have probably come from the East. The legend of the ring appears in the " Katha Sagit Sagara," which was com- posed in the twelfth century by Somadeva Bhatta, who worked up the tales he found in an earlier collection known as the " Vrihat Katha," for the amusement of his mistress, the Queen of Cashmere. (" Katha Sara Sagara," heraus, gegeben von Dr. H. Brockhaus, Leipzig, 1839.) The Indian story is told with many wild embellishments, and in place of a cup the ring is dropped into the vase, in which a maiden of the lady is drawing water. Thus have we traced this ancient tradition through many forms to which other variants might doubtless be added. The legend is not only widespread, but is one calculated to captivate the young imagination. In its nobler forms it is fit for a poet in his youth, and has charmed the fancy of Tieck, Boccaccio, Tegner, and Scott. THE LINDSAYS IN LANCASHIRE. There is something indescribably sublime in the idea of a race of human beings influencing society through a series of ages, either by the avatar, at distant intervals, of heroes, poets, and philosophers, whose names survive among us, familiar as household words, for centuries after their disappearance, or by the continuous development of genius, wisdom, and virtue, through successive generations, till the name which has been thus immortalised becomes at last, through the experience of mankind, presumptive of worth in the individuals who bear it. ALEXANDER, EARL OF CRAWFORD AND BALCARRES. Lives of the Lindsays. THESE words, though not so applied by their writer, are not without a certain fitness as characteristic of the Lindsays. The house of Lindsay is one of the most famous of the Scottish families, its head being the premier Earl by reason of the Earldom of Crawford, which was created in 1 398. The other peerage titles it holds are those of Lindsay, which dates from 1633; Balcarres, which was created in 1651; and Balniel, which belongs to the same year. These were all dignities of the Scottish peerage, but in 1826 the then Earl of Balcarres was summoned to the House of Lords as Baron Wigan in the peerage of the United Kingdom. The Lindsays in Lancashire. 349 The history of the family has been told by one who added fresh lustre to its annals, and the " Lives of the Lindsays," by the late Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, is perhaps the most important book of its kind. It was commenced in 1831 whilst he was yet an undergraduate. After careful revision it was published in 1849, and at once took its place as one of the most fascinating contributions to family history in the language. The first and unpublished edition was printed at Wigan, and the preface to the second book is dated from Haigh and appeared in 1838. In it the fortunes of the family are traced from the times of the Normans. One of the race, Sir David of Crawford, was one of the stout Scotchmen who replied to the excommunication hurled by Pope John XXII. at the adherents of the national party. " Never so long as one hundred Scots are alive will we be subject to the yoke of England," was their declaration. At the battle of Otterburn The Lindsays flew like fire about Till all the fray was done. They were also amongst the ill-fated warriors at Flodden Field. Their name was further made famous by " Sir David Lindsay, of the Mount, Lord Lyon King at Arms," the great national poet and satirist of the fifteenth century. It was a Lindsay who challenged Bothwell to single combat and forced the beautiful Mary Queen of Scots to abdicate in favour of her son. An Earl of Crawford was one of the Catholic lords who entered into a correspondence with Spain before the Armada. The first Lord Balcarres was a friend 350 Lancashire Gleanings. of Drummond of Hawthornden. In the stormy civil war the various branches of the Lindsays were not always arrayed on the same side. Earl Ludovic was with King Charles when the standard was reared at Nottingham, but Lord Balcarres was a leader of the cause of the Covenant, but he opposed the surrender of Charles I. to the Parliament of England, and afterward sided with the Royalists. The connection of the Lindsays with Lancashire dates from the year 1780, when Alexander, seventh Earl of Balcarres, married his cousin-german Elizabeth Dalrymple, the heiress of the Bradshaighs of Haigh. Earl Alexander served in the war of the American revolution, and had behaved with gallantry at Saratoga when opposed to Bene- dict Arnold. Some time after, when presented at court, the Earl was introduced by the king to this infamous personage. " What, sire," said the Earl, retreating, " the traitor Arnold ? " This led to a challenge, and it was agreed each should fire at a given signal. Arnold fired and missed his man. The Earl walked away. " Why don't you fire, my lord ? " cried Arnold. "Sir," said Lord Balcarres, looking over his shoulder, " I leave you to the executioner ! " He saw military service in various directions, and was the suppressor of a formidable Maroon insurrection which occurred whilst he was Governor of Jamaica between 1795 and 1801. After his return in 1801, he lived chiefly at Haigh, and devoted himself to building up the fortune of his own family and that of his wife, who had brought him the ancient heritage of the Bradshaighs. An accident had lamed him for ever. He found Haigh in ruins, the furniture sold, the land undrained, The Lindsays in Lancashire. 351 the farms in decay, the mines unworked and forsaken. All this was changed by his exertions, and before his death, in 1825, he could say, "The efforts of my life, both in my public and private pursuits, have been successful ; we have once more reared our heads ; a handsome competence has again fallen to our lot and praised be the Author of all good for it ! " To his sister, Lady Anne Barnard, the world owes the pathetic ballad of " Auld Robin Gray," which was written when she was twenty-one. The seventh Earl, James, was born in 1783, and satin the House of Commons for Wigan from 1820-5, but in 1826 was created Baron Wigan in the peerage of the United Kingdom. The Earldom of Crawford was confirmed to him by the House of Lords in 1848. He died in 1869, and was succeeded by his son, Alexander William Crawford Lindsay, the eighth Earl, who was perhaps the most notable of the Lancashire Lindsays. He was sent for education to Eton, and proceeded from thence to Trinity College, Cambridge, at which University he graduated M.A. in 1833. Soon afterwards he visited Italy. In politics he was always a Conservative, but he did not take a very active part in public life; and will certainly be best remembered as a graceful writer and an accomplished art critic and historian. His first work was the " Lives of the Lindsays," already mentioned. The preface to his second book is dated from Haigh, and appeared in 1838. In letters addressed to relatives at home he gives his impressions of Egypt, Edom, and the Holy Land. The East was not then so familiar as 352 Lancashire Gleanings. now, but five editions of Lord Lindsay's book show that he possessed the power alike of observation and description. In 1841 appeared a letter to a friend on "The Evidence and Theory of Christianity." In a second tour to Italy Lord Lindsay revisited many of the most interesting cities and districts of Central Italy. In 1841 he gave to the members of the Bannatyne Club a new and authentic edition of those " Memoirs of the Revolution in Scotland," which were presented by Colin, Earl of Balcarres, to James II., at St. Germains, in 1690. To this he prefixed a biographical notice. In 1846 he published " Progression by Antagonism," an essay which at first was intended as a preface to his work on " Christian Art." The basis of this theory is an analysis of human nature into sense, mind, and spirit, and a correspending classification of individuals as sensual, intellectual, or spiritual. These are capable of further sub-division, but from the clash and conflict of their differing natures Lord Lindsay saw the evolution of a moral law of progress alike for the individual and for societies. This theory he projected alike into the sphere of politics, and of comparative theology. The "Sketches of the History of Christian Art" appeared in 1847. They form only a portion of the work as originally projected, but remain, even as a fragment, a fitting memorial of the learning and taste of their author. They are in the form of letters to a young amateur artist, presumed to have recently started for Italy. This amateur, in whose company the author " spent many a happy day in exploring the pic- torial treasures of Umbria and the Apennines," was the pre- The Lindsays in Lancashire. 353 sent Sir Coutts Lindsay. The work is at once philosophical and historical. The author's theories may be deduced from his memoranda respecting the ideal, the character and dignity of Christian art, and the symbolism and mythology of Christianity, and these are followed by an historical out- line, which begins with Roman and Byzantine art, and con- ducts us through the schools of the Lombards, of Pisano, and of Giotto ; of Sienna, Florence, and Bologna, conclud- ing with a sketch of sculpture and painting north of the Alps. In a postscript he appeals to the rulers of Italy " in behalf of the grand old frescoes which are either perishing unheeded before their eyes, or that lie entombed beneath the whitewash of barbarism, longing for resuscitation." Of this book Mr. Ruskin wrote: "As a contribution to the history of art his work is unquestionably the most valuable which has yet appeared in England." Lord Lindsay's interest in religious speculations was again shown in 1861 by the publication of an essay on " Scepticism, a Retrogressive Movement in Theology." His scholarly investigations were again evidenced by the issue, in 1862, of an essay " On the Theory of the English Hexameter." All the preceding works were printed whilst he bore the courtesy title of Lord Lindsay ; but on the death of the seventh Earl in December, 1869, he became Earl of Craw- ford and Balcarres. In 1870 he published a work on " CEcumenicity in Relation to the Church of England." Another evidence of his interest in archaeological investiga- tions was afforded by his book on the " Etruscan Inscrip- tions," which appeared in 1872. This is an attempt to show 354 Lancashire Gleanings. that the language employed in them is an ancient form of German. The latest literary venture published during the life time of the late Earl was a metrical tale, entitled " Argo, or the Quest of the Golden Fleece." It appeared in 1876, and was written at the Villa Palmieri, near Florence, in the preceding year. In a " Propylaeum," the author gives what is really his own intellectual autobiography. His boyish aspira- tions were ripened by his pilgrimage beneath fair Italian skies, and he "dreamed of a great song, 'Jerusalem Destroyed.'" Then his Egyptian travels turned his thoughts in another direction, and he thought to tell " How Providence works out the mighty epos of mankind." In thus listening to the words of divine philosophy he stopped his ears to the voice of the muse. But for the first time after many years came weariness of heart, and in his villa palace and garden fair, where Boccaccio told the story of the Decameron he looked out upon the world where " all that truth has con- quered seems as lost." The aspect of continental nations, the growth of democracy in England, the lack of " the old enthusiasm that inspired our sires, ourselves the father of this time," all disturbed his spirit. Soon, however, he remembers that "Truth is great, and will prevail that Time truth's harvest sows in every century for the next to reap." Then the long-neglected muse appears, and bids him sing the song of Argo. He married, in 1846, Margaret, the eldest daughter of Lieutenant-General James Lindsay, of Balcarres. From this union sprang one son and six daughters. The Lindsays in Lancashire. 355 The following passage, written in 1875, ma Y fittingly be quoted : My daughters' voices carolling I hear And one comes forth, their mother, who hath been My inspiration since her childhood's hour ; The Beatrice of my life renewed ; My truest monitor, 'tween earth and heaven; Composing all harsh chords to harmony Beautiful more than ever in her prime, In womanhood's completest grace mature Comes forth, to crown the hour with sympathy, With steps sedate and brow of heaven serene, Giotto's full " O " is rounded in my life. If blessing lack I one, I know it not ; God's hand is bounteous, and my cup is full. He died at Florence on the i3th December, 1880. During the last year of his life he was occupied with a work on " The Earldom of Mar in Sunshine and in Shade during 500 Years," and it was left at his death so far complete that, with some necessary revision, it appeared in 1882. It deals in an elaborate and erudite manner with the history of the family, and with some of the peculiarities of the Scotch law as to peerages, which he held to have been violated by the action of the House of Lords in 1875. Other works also remained unfinished. His body, after being embalmed, was buried first at Dun Echt, and, after a crime that has happily had few parallels, was transferred to the resting place of the family in the church at Wigan. He was succeeded in his honours by his son, Lord Lindsay, who represented Wigan in the House of Commons 356 Lancashire Gleanings. from 1874-1880. The present Earl is a distinguished astronomer, and accompanied the expedition which he fitted out at his own expense to take observations of the Transit of Venus at the Mauritius in December, 1874. The intel- lectual tastes of the Lindsays are fittingly illustrated in the noble library at Haigh Hall, where the late Earl gathered together the most remarkable private collection in the county, if not indeed in the kingdom. THE LIVERPOOL TRAGEDY. Murder most foul, as in the best it is ; But this most foul, strange, and unnatural. SHAKSPERE. AMONGST the street ballads of the present century is one, entirely destitute of literary merit, entitled " The Liverpool Tragedy," which narrates the murder of a traveller slain for the sake of his money by a wretched couple, who afterwards find that the victim was their son, who had returned home to share with them his hard earned wealth. The Neue Freie Presse of Vienna, early in June, 1880, gave currency to the following narrative of crime : " Fifteen years ago a young Viennese parted from his mother and two brothers to seek his fortune in America. No news ever came of him ; he was supposed to be dead, and lamented as such. Last month, however, the two brothers received the visit of a stranger, who was no other than the supposed defunct. The delight of the recognition may be imagined, and we may be sure that it was not diminished when the wanderer spread out on the table before his 358 Lancashire Gleanings. brothers' eyes the 300,000 florins which he had brought back with him from America. They would not, however, keep their recovered brother to themselves, and told him that their mother kept an inn in a neighbouring village. It was agreed that the long-lost son should not at once reveal him- self to his mother, but should first go to the place incognito^ and that then, after he had spent two days under his mother's roof, his brothers should rejoin him there to witness his revelation of himself to his mother, and celebrate the reunion of the family by an impromptu festival. But the fifteen years of absence had so changed the son that his mother did not recognise him, and when, before going to his room for the night, the young man begged his hostess to take charge of his 300,000 florins for him, she had no idea who it was that reposed in her such extraordinary trust. Never in her life had she seen such a mass of gold ; she could not sleep for the demon of cupidity gnawing at her heart, and yielding at last to the temptation, she took a razor, crept up to the traveller's room, and severed his carotid artery with a single stroke. The body she concealed in a corner of the cellar. Two days afterwards the brothers arrived, and asked if a strange traveller had not come to the inn. The mother grew horribly pale, and, pressed by ques- tions, ended by a full confession. When told who had been her victim, she ran to deliver herself to justice, crying out in the midst of her sobs, ' Kill me, miserable that I am ; I have murdered my son ! ' " It will strike those who are familiar with a once famous, but now almost forgotten, play, that this narrative, as well as The Liverpool Tragedy. 359 the story of " The Liverpool Tragedy," contains the exact plot of George Lillo's " Fatal Curiosity." Lillo's piece was first performed at the Little Theatre in the Haymarket in 1736, and in the following year it was printed as " a true tragedy of three acts." It was frequently acted, and in 1782 George Colman brought out an adapta- tion of it. In 1784 another adaptation was produced at Covent Garden. It was from the pen of Henry Mackenzie who prefixed the title of "The Shipwreck" to that given by Lillo. The play was the subject of high praise by James Harris, who, in his " Philosophical Inquiries," says, that in this tragedy we find the model of a perfect fable. It was, perhaps, the eulogy of Harris that led both Colman and Mackenzie to avail themselves of the beauties of the piece whilst endeavouring to remove its blemishes. Lillo, it will be seen, calls it a true tragedy. In fact his play was founded upon a pamphlet called, " Newes from Perin in Cornwall, of a most bloody and unexampled Murther, very lately com- mitted by a Father on his owne Sonne (who was lately returned from the Indyes), at the instigation of a merciless Stepmother, Together with their several most wretched Endes ; being all performed in the Month of September last, Anno 1618.," 4to. B. L. The only copy known of this tract is in the Bodleian Library. The event is recorded also in William Sanderson's " Compleat History of the Lives and Reigns of Mary, Queen of Scotland, and of her Son James" (London, 1656), and in Thomas Frankland's " Annals of James L and Charles L" 360 Lancashire Gleanings. (London, 1681). Baker, in his " Biographia Dramatica," has quoted the last named authority. Dunlop mentions the same story as told by Vincenzo Rota in one of the late novelle, written early in the last century, but not printed until 1794. Here the murder is located at Brescia. Dunlop mentions another version, where the tragedy is said to have happened at a Norman inn. He also states that Werner's " Twenty-fourth of February " is founded on a similar incident. Lillo's play has been both printed in Germany, and tran- slated into German in the last century. These circumstances seem to warrant us in supposing that the Viennese horror is due to the ingenuity of some purveyor of news, who, for motives best known to himself, but still not difficult to guess at, has passed off an old tragedy as police news. How accurately he had gauged the public taste may be judged from the fact that his story was copied in a great number of newspapers in Europe and America. London, Philadelphia, Manchester, and Constantinople were alike interested. But had the pamphlet on which Lillo bases his plot any foundation in fact ? The Cornish historians are not, indeed, silent upon the subject ; but all rest their case upon the pamphlet, which has all the air of one of those imaginative news letters in which the writer draws upon his fancy for his facts. If this surmise be correct it must be admitted that in this case his imagination has served him well. LANCASHIRE PROVERBS. Proverbs are the texts of common life. L. C. GENT. Dictionary of English Proverbs. THE excellence of the collection of " English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases," edited by Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt, has been so generally recognised that the new edition, which is "greatly enlarged and carefully revised" (published by Messrs. Reeves and Turner in 1882), will be warmly welcomed by those who delight in those quaint say- ings which are said to preserve the wisdom of many and the wit of one. In addition to what are usually known as proverbs things easy to recognise though difficult to define Mr. Hazlitt includes in his widespread net many local phrases which, from their traditional currency, may be reckoned as part of the unwritten culture of the commonalty. Several of these relate to Lancashire, and were supplied to Mr. Hazlitt by the spontaneous courtesy of the late Mr. John Higson, to Lees, a ripe antiquary, whose death was a great loss to local archaeology. The greater part of these sayings refer to specific places in County Palatine. Some are mere rhymes 362 Lancashire Gleanings. for the better recollection of certain facts or fictions in con- nection with scenery or natural phenomena. Thus : Irk, Irwell, Medlock, and Tame, When they meet with the Mersey do lose their name. These are names of small streams, which, by joining the larger river, lose their separate existence. Similar is the well-known Mytton rhyme : The Hodder, the Calder, the Kibble, and Rain, All meet in a point on Mytton's domain. Another version runs : Hodder and Calder and Kibble and Rain, All meet together in Mytton demesne. A third is of a depreciatory character : The Hodder, the Calder, Kibble and Rain, All joined together can't carry a bean. " As old as Pendle Hill " is a Lancashire method of express- ing the superlative of antiquity, and truly this one of the brotherhood of the " everlasting hills " may well be the symbol of a hoary past. The native is not altogether indis- posed to slightly exaggerate its greatness : Pendle, Ingleborough, and Penigent, Are the three highest hills between Scotland and Trent. Another version runs : Pendle, Penigent and Ingleborough, Are the three highest hills all England thorough. Lancashire Proverbs. 363 " These three hills," says John Ray, " are in sight of each other; Pendle, on the edge of Lancashire; Penigent and Ingleborough, near Settle, in Yorkshire, and not far from Westmoreland. In Wales, I think Snowdon, Cader Idris, and Plinlimmon are higher." Mr. Hazlitt adds : " Grey Friar, in the north of Lancashire, and Whernside. in York- shire, are loftier than Pendle Hill. But in such cases as this, the country folks are sure to maintain the honour of their own, in spite of facts and ordnance surveys." When Pendle wears its woolly cap, The farmers all may take a nap. There is a similar saying as to Old Know, near Rochdale. Another great Lancashire Hill is Rivington Pike, which rises 1,545 feet above the sea level. The weather prophets have not neglected this indicator, and'affirm that If Rivington Pike do wear a hood, Be sure the day will ne'er hold good. Another proverb has given rise to some misconception : Kent and Keer Have parted many a good man and his meer. This is given by Mr. Higson, who observes that these two rivers in Lancashire are "fatal or dangerous to persons attempting to ford them with their horses or mares." Pro- fessor Skeat includes this in his edition of Pegge's Kent- icisms, and explains "Keer" to mean (probably) "care." "The river Kent, at low water, flows in several channels over the sands to the middle of Morecambe Bay. The 364 Lancashire Gleanings. Keer enters upon the sands in a broad and rapid current, rendering the passage over it at times more dangerous than fording the Kent. Many have perished in fording both rivers when swollen, and in crossing the adjacent sands without due regard to the state of the tide." Such is the explanation given in " Lancashire Legends " by Harland and Wilkinson. Lancashire is famous for its mosses, but only that of Pilling appears to have attained proverbial renown. " Never done, like Pilling Moss," is by no means a bad way of expressing a lengthy continuity. Speculation as to the origin of these great sealike wastes must often have entered the mind of the curious beholder. The favourite solution of the enigma would seem to be : Once a wood, then a sea, Now a moss, and e'er will be. There is another saying : " God's grace and Pilling Moss are boundless." Many of these rhymes are satirical allusions to various places and their people : Preston for panmugs, Huyton for pride, Childwall for toiling, And playing beside. Another version runs : Prescot, Huyton, and merry Childow, Three parish churches all in a row : Prescot for mugs, Huyton for ploydes, Childow for ringing and singing besides. Lancashire Proverbs. 365 " Ployde " is a word that has escaped our local glossary- makers. It is interpreted as "merry meetings," although some think that ploughs are meant. There are various rhymes about Preston, of which the best known is : Proud Preston, Poor people ; High church, Low steeple. Mr. Higson gives a version of the same proverb applied to another town :, Proud Ashton, poor people, Ten bells, and an old crackt steeple. Mr. Higson remarks : " This must have originated many years ago, as the church was damaged by a thunderstorm in January, 1791, and the tower rebuilt in 1820-1. No one but an Ashtonian born and bred can pronounce the name of their town as they do. It is between Ash'on and Esh'n." " Like Colne clock, always at one," is a way of saying that a person or thing is always the same. Another proverb given on the authority of Mr. Higson has a very modern smack and was probably applied to the local scene by an admirer of Sir Walter Scott : He who would see old Hoghton right, Must view it by the pale moonlight. Here is a local challenge which has . probably been the prelude to many a well-fought field : 366 Lancashire Gleanings. Th' Abbey Hey bull-dogs drest i' rags, Dar' no' com' out to th' Gorton lads. Miss E. S. Holt has recorded this enigmatical rhyme : Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob Lived in a little house a bit aboon Bacup ; Abr'am delved and Isaac span, And Jacob ran about with a little kitty-can. (Old South-East Lancashire, p. 49.) The good qualities of certain foods is set forth in the following cautious rhyme : In Oldham brewis, wet and warm, And Rochdale puddings there's no harm. " Brewis," it may be necessary to explain, even to some Lancashire readers, is oatcake, or bread toasted and soaked in broth or stew. The word is of Welsh origin. There is a curious saying that In Rochdale, Strangers prosper, natives fail. Which we may hope is accurate to the extent of one half. The following is somewhat enigmatical : " The constable of Oppenshaw sets beggars in stocks at Manchester." This, say Harland and Wilkinson, "may mean that when the constable of Openshaw found Manchester sparks enjoying themselves too freely in his district he could follow them home, and then have them placed in the stocks." A local way of expressing the famous land of Weiss- nichtwo is to say that it is " Neither in Cheshire nor Chow- Lancashire Proverbs. 367 bent." Mr. Hazlitt will, perhaps, allow us to protest against the misprint of " Chawbent." Some of the phrases are mere meaningless nicknames. Thus, Mr. Hazlitt gives "Oldham rough heads, Boughton trotters, Smo'field cossacks, Heywood monkey town." In this, Boughton stands for Bolton. Many others, like " Bury muffs," " Smo- bridge sondknockers," " Middleton moonrakers," &c., might be added to the uncomplimentary list. Perhaps the best known of these is that which draws a nice distinction between "Liverpool gentlemen and Manchester men." "This saying," says Mr. Hazlitt, "which is, of course, a sneer at the inferior breeding of the Mancunians, may be thought to be out of date now, since assuredly there is as much culture at least in Manchester as at Liverpool." Another saying aimed at the Mancunians is : Manchester bred : Long in the arms, And short in the head. The Manchester men may, however, console their offended dignity by reflecting that the same sneer has been addressed to the men of Cheshire and Derbyshire. One of the poets of the hill county has indignantly retorted : I' Darbyshire who' re born and bred, Are strong i' th' arm, but weak i' th' head : So th' lying proverb says. Strength i' th' arm, who doubts shall feel ; Strength i' th' head, its power can seal The lips that scoff always. 368 Lancashire Gleanings. The jealous jade, nor Derby born Where praise wor due pour'd forth bu' scorn An' lying words let faw. But far above the proverb stands, The Truth, that God's almighty hands Ha' welded strength an' mind in one, And poured it down i' plenty on Born Darbyshire men aw. Another " rhyme " throws some doubt on the architectural orthodoxy of the Wigan church builders. " Maudlin maudlin, we began, and built t' church steeple t' wrang side on." "The steeple," says Mr. Higson, "is built on the north side, at the junction of nave and chancel." The vanished glories of Ribchester are set forth in the boast : It is written upon a wall in Rome, Ribchester was as rich as any town in Christendom. "As throng as Knott Mill Fair" and "As thrunk as Eccles wakes " need no explanation. The rhymes as to the Black Knight of Ashton have been noticed elsewhere in this volume. Amongst the many prophetical sayings once current in many parts is the following : When all England is aloft, Weel are they that are in Christ's Croft ; And where should Christ's Croft be, But between Ribble and Mersey ? This is given by Hollingworth, who, writing in the seven- teenth century, identifies the croft as the name given to the Lancashire Proverbs. 369 lands granted by the Conqueror to Roger de Poictou, " inter Ripa et Mersham." Another version is : When all the world shall be aloft, Then Hallamshire shall be God's Croft. This " ould prophesy," as Hollingworth calls it, reappears in the vaticinations of the lugubrious Nixon : " One asked Nixon where he might be safe in those days?" He answered, " In God's Croft, between rivers Mersey and Dee." The meaning of u Beyond Lawrence of Lancashire " is not very apparent, but the phrase itself is an old one. " He has Lathom and Knowsley," is a Lancashire phrase intended to convey an idea of the superlative in personal possessions. The Bab Balladist of these modern days avers that no Saxon can pretend to an " affection for pipes," but it would appear that our ancestors thought otherwise, and both Lincolnshire and Lancashire were celebrated for their bagpipes. " Like a Lancashire bagpipe " is quoted by Mr. Hazlitt from a tract of the iyth century, and in the reign of James I. the name of Thomas Basset, "the Lancashire bagpipe," occurs in the order of a Masque. " He's in a St. Giles's sweat," or, in the vernacular, " He's in a Sent Gheil's swat," although given as current in the county, is not one in which Lancashire men can have any special property, nor is it one that they would desire to claim, for the meaning is " He lies in bed while his clothes are being mended." St. Giles is adopted by beggars as their patron saint. The love of good cheer is witnessed by the old saying : He that would take a Lancashire man at any time or tide, Must bait his hook with a good egg pie, or an apple with a red side. Lancashire Gleanings. "This," says Mr. Hazlitt, "is given with a slight variation in ' Wit and Drollery,' 1661, p. 250, ' He that will fish for,' &c., and it is also in the edition of the same work printed in 1682. It occurs in what is called 'The Lancashire Song,' apparently a mere string of whimsical scraps." There is an oft quoted saying, Lancashire law, No stakes, no draw. A proverb that has often saved a luckless gamester from the payment of his "debts of honour." Another saying about the county that has been curiously verified on several occasions in recent years is "What Lancashire thinks to-day, England thinks to-morrow." Lastly, reserving the best wine for the conclusion of the feast, there is the proverb that declares the beauty of the women of the County Palatine. " Lancashire fair women " is an article of faith with every Lancashire lad, whether he be of the city or of the bleak fell side. There is no danger of heresy to this complimentary creed, so long as one of the race of Lancashire Witches shall exist. INDEX. Abbey Hey bull-dogs, 366 Abington monk, 125 Abram, 66 'Abstemius, Fables of, 168 Adam dalve, 9 Adlington Monster, 330 Advent, Second, 83 Aighton, 142 Albany, 89, 141 Albemarle, Duke of, 242 Aldgate Ward, 80 Alexander, Rev. H., narrative of a murder, 184 Allen, Gould, and Larkin, 150 Allenson, Rev. Mr., on the Lan- cashire Plot, 137 Alleyn, Edward, the actor, 282 Alport Lodge, 15 Altrincham, 214 American Lancashire, 174 American Sherburnes, 141 Ancoats, 16 ; hall, 22, 24, 25, 226 Andagoya, Pascual de, 202 Anderton, Hy., and teetotalism, 294 Angel or dragon, 328 Angier, Rev. John, 19. Ancona, 168 Angostura, 152 Ann the Word, 88 Anne of Denmark. 128 Annet, Peter, Sketch of his life, 324 Apennines, 352 Apparitions, 7, 334 Apple red, 369 Appleby, 51 Apure, 153 Arctic ocean, 177 Ardwick, 215 Arkansas, 176 Arkwright, Richard, 287 Arnold, Benedict, and the Earl of Balcarres, 350 Arlotto's "Facetia," 278 Art, Early, in Liverpool, 250 Artists, Society of, in Liverpool, 2 5I Arundel, Earl of, and John Shawe, 112 Asheby, William, English am- bassador, 127 Asheton, Roger, 127 Ashton-under-Lyne, 51, 67, 125, 1 86, 194, 217, 294 ; Church r 237; Hallmote,i97; Rhymes, 365 Ashton, Black Knight of, 125, 186, 368 Ashton-in-Makerfield, 66 Ashton, John, 331 372 Index. Ashton, Katherine, has a trance, 333 ,, Ralph, 66 ,, Robyn of, 198 Asnall, Robert, killed in bull-bait, 49 Asneaton, Messire Jean, 191 Aspden, Dr., 5 Aspland, Alfred, 337 Assheton, Sir John de, 189 ; Sir John, 193, 198 ; Nicholas, of Downham, 51, 61 ; Sir Ralph, 125, 187, 193, 198 ; Sir Robert, 1 88 ; Sir Roger, 193 ; Thomas, 189 ; Sir Thomas, his Alchemical researches, 192 ; Dr. William de, Councillor to John of Gaunt, 189 Assueton, Sir John, 191 Aston, Joseph, 224 ,, Sir Thomas, 15 Atherton, Sir John, 236; Sir William, 126 Atherton midnight meetings, 318 Augustine, 44 Auld Robin Gray, 351 Australian Lancashire, 177 Bacon, Lord, 241, 309 Bacup rhyme, 366 Bad company, 109 Bagpipes, 369 Bailey, J. E., 235, 274, 328 Baines, Edward, 189 Baker, D. E., 360 ; Sir Richard, 1 80 Balcarres, Alexander, Earl of, and Benedict Arnold, 350 ; Colin, Earl of, 352 ; Earldom, see Lindsay. Baldwin, Archbishop, 292 Balniel, Earldom of, 348 Ballads, Lancashire, 40, 329 Bancroft, Abp., birth-place, 234 Banim uses the word teetotal, 295 Bankes, Legh, 136 Baralt, 155 Barbauld, A. L., 212 Bardsley, Richard de, 195 Baring-Gould, S., 122 Barnard, Lady Anne, 351 Barnes, Rev. Thomas, D.D., 33, 36, 37 Barritt, Arthur, 122 ; Mary, 7 ; Thomas, traditions recorded by him, 121 ; Valentine, 122 Barrow ford, 39 Bartholomew's Day, 119 Barton, Margaret, 194 Bartons of Middleton, 194 Basin story, 330 Bath, 23 Bayeux, Seneschal of, 189 Beamont, William, 275 Beaumaris, 17 Beaumont and Fletcher, 200 Bedford, Earl of, 1 12, 314 Bedlam, 85, 315 Beechey, the artist, 252 Bell, Sarah, 149 Bellamy river, 143 Benet, Charles, wonderful child, 331 Berners, Lord, 189 Berri, Due de, 74 Berwick, in Besant, Walter, 278 Beswick, 217 Bevilaqua, Lorenzo, 168 Bible, 336 Birch, 41 ; Edward, 248 ; Thomas, 108 Birstall, 4 Bishop, 277 Blackburn, 44, 176, 294 Blackburn, William, manages American cotton factory, 143 Black Crows, Three, 163 Blackfaces (spies), 318 Black Knight of Ashton, 186 Blackett, Sir William Wentworth, 345 Index. 373 Blackrod, 238 Bland, Lady Ann, 21 ; Sir John, 20 Blasphemer, death of, 67 Blasphemy, trial and punishment for, 326 Bletchingley, 223 Blount, Sir John, 278 Blundell, W., of Crosby, 62, 67, 132; Henry, 252 Buena Vista, 153 Boardman, James, 242 Bobbin, Tim (see Collier) Boccaccio, 347 ; villa, 354 Boethius, Hector, 201 Bold of Bold Legend, 124 Bolesworth, 27 ; Castle, 26 Bolivar, Simon, 153 Bolton, 81, 176, 184, 204, 209, 210, 214, 217, 231, 234, 238, 239 ; trotters, 367 Bolton, Baron Scrope of, 127 Book of Sports, 51, 57 ,, Wordless, 172 Booth, Sir George, 115 ,, Sir William, 193 Bosanquitt " Sister," 7 Boscean, 264 Boston, 179 Bothwell challenged, 349 Bound, Dr. Nicholas, 49 Bowden, Holland, forced to take an unlawful oath, 318, 320 Boyle, Rev. J. R., 108 Boyles, Phoebe, 311 Bradbury, Elizabeth, the child preacher, 7 Brad field, 109, 119 Bradford, 4, 209 Bradford, the Martyr, 45 Bradshaw Chapel, 238 Bradshaw, Sir William, 125 Bradshaighs, of Haigh, 343, 350 Braithwaite, John, 339 Bells, Church, 238 Bragget Sunday, 39 Brampton, no Bramwell, Rev. Wm., and women preachers, 4 Breda, 66 Brereton, Sir William, 15, 114 Col. Uriah, 136 Brescia murder, 360 Bretton hall, Legend of, 345 Brewis, 366 Bride ales, 47 Bridegroom, Spectre, 261 Bridecake, Bishop, Ralph, 17 Bridgwater, Duke of, 287 Bridgewater Foundry, 298 Brierley, James, a rioter, 320 ,, Rodger, founds a Sab- batarian sect, 65 Brimelow, W., 322 Brindley, the engineer, 287 and Shakspere, 290 Bristol, 17 Broadley, John, 108 Broadsides, Lancashire, 329 Broad wood, Messrs., and the Chadwick Estate, 247 Brockhaus, Dr. H., 347 Broken Heart, 113 Bromfield, Dr., 133 Broughton, 215 Brown, Thomas, 92 Browne, Sir George, 194 Brown family, 238 Brownlow, John, 319 Bruges, 238 Bull-baiting, 48 Bullough, Adam, 319 Barbage, James, an actor, 129 Burger, G. A., Story of "Lenore," 258 Burke, Edmund, 71, 266, 325 Burleigh, Lord, and the players, Burnley, 65, 176 Burritt, Elihu, 174 Burton, Dr., 255 Bury, 217, 239, 245, 294; muffs, 367 Bustleton, 310 374 Index. Butler, John, the mountebank, 67 Byrom, Beppy, 227 Byrom, Dr. John, 121, 163, 227 Major, 18 Sir John, 193 Byron and Trafford feud, 126 ,, J-,48 Margaret, 193 Calamy, 119 Calder river, 362 Caldwell, Mr., 44 Californian Lancashire, 177 Cambridge, 109, ill, 238, 351 Cameron, Julia M., 259 Campion, 246 Canada, 176, 179, 205 Canne, John, 117 Canoll, Sir Robert, 190 Cape Bathurst, 177 Carabobo, battle of, 153 Carey, Henry, 38 Carle, 9 Carling, Sunday, 40 Carlingford, Lady, 112 Carlisle, 51, 127 Carre, Henry, 283 Carter Place, 242 Cartes, 42 Carthagena, 158 Cartmel, 43, 115, 116 Cashmere, Queen of, '347 Caspian sea, 10 Casting of the stone, 42 Cat, 276 Caton, 176 Catonsville, 176 Cattell, the Jacobite, 228 Cave, Sir A., 314 Celibacy, 3, 84 Chaderton, Bishop, William, 48 Chadwick, Sir Andrew, Estates of, 241 j Charles, 126; Edmund, 242 ; Ellis, 242 ; James, 245 ; John, 246 ; J. O., 242, 249; Joseph, 245 ; Robert, 242 ; Thomas, 247 ; Association, 241 ; and Ackers, Messrs. 24 Chandler, Samuel, and Peter Annet, 326 Chapbooks, Lancashire, 329 Chapel Town, 160 Chappell, W., 334 ,, Bishop, 109 Charles I., anecdote, 112 and the Book of Sports, 62 Charles II., 66 Charles Edward, Prince, 22 Charlewood, John, 220 Charlson, Abraham, 319, 320, 321 John, 319 Chaucer, 126, 180, 204 Cheetham, 215 Chelmsford, 175 Cheltenham, Pennsylvania, 311 Cheshire, 26 ; " Neither in, nor Chowbent," 366 ; bred, 367 ; Legend of Roe's Cross, 344 ; Chester, 17, 44, 108, 149, 182 ,, Hugh Lupus, Earl of, 124 Chesterfield crooked-spire, 289 Chetham, Humphrey, 17, 159 Chetham's Hospital, 18, 121 Chetham Society, 129, 203, 235 Chettam, Hannah, 311 Joseph, 311 Chetwood, W. R., 281 Child, Mrs. L. M., i Child, executed, 321 ; preacher, 8 Child, Prof. F. J., 345 Childow rhyme, 364 Childwall rhyme, 364 Chorlton, 215 Chowbent midnight meetings, 318 ,, proverb, 366 Christianity attacked by Annet, 324 Christmastide, 41 Christ's croft, 368 Chumleigh, Devon, no Church Goods in 1552, 235 Index. 375 Churchill, 174 Cinque Ports, Warden, 189 Clapperfold midnight meetings, 3i8 Clappville, 176 Clegg, James, 185 Clement, Joseph, 320 Clifford, William, 320 Clifton, $ir Thomas, 132 Clinton, Lord, 314 George, 90 Clitheroe, 61 Clayton, 193 Clayton, the Jacobite, 228 Clitheroe, James, 149 Cloth, homespun, 12 Clothworkers, 10 Clough, John, narrative of West- houghton riot, 322 Clowes, Rev. John, 268 Cobden, R., Song in Memory of, 146 Cobham, Lord, 314 Cockerham, 133 Cockersand Abbey, 188 Cockfighting, 24 Coffee-houses, 308 Colchester, 175 Collier, John, as an artist, 75, 267 ,, Thomas, 77 J- P., 148 Collyhurst, 13 Colman's adaptation of Fatal Curiosity, 359 Colne clock, 365 Colombia, 156 Commerce with America in 1789, 307 Commons, House of. The Earl of Pembroke a member, 1 1 1 Congregationalism at Farnworth, 231 Congress of 1 789, 307 Connecticut, 98, 177 Constable of Manchester, 16 Constance, Bailiff of, 189 Constitutional Society, 267 Contributors and Editors, 288 Cooper, Dr. Thomas, 267 Cordes, J. C., 260 Cornwall, tradition, 264, murder, 359 Coro, 157 Corpus-Christi, play, 42, 115 Coucy, Lord of, 189 Covenant, Solemn League and, 116 Cowper, William, 267 Cox, David, 254 Crab, Roger, 292 Craig, W. M., 252 Craven, 65 Craven, Thomas, 238 Crawford and Balcarres, Alex- ander, Earl of, biographical notice, 352 Crawford, Earl. See Lindsay Crewdson, T. M., and the steam hammer, 303 Cripple executed, 321 Crompton, 176 Cromwell, Oliver, 118 ,, Richard, 118 Crosby, "Sister," 7 Cross, Legend of, 122 Cross, William, 160 Crossley, James, 285 Crowhurst, 223 Crows, Three Black, 163 Croxteth, 134 Cudworth, Ralph, 239 Culcheth, 41, 275 Culchit, Beatrice de, 41, Gilbert de, 41 Curiosities of Street Literature, 145 Cursing by bell, book, and candle, 40 Cushman, Charlotte, 101, 127 Cutler, Ann, woman preacher, I Cutler, Sir Gervase, 1 5 Dalrymple, Elizabeth, 350 Dancing naked, 92 376 Index. Darley, M., 76 Dasent, Sir G. W., 346 Daventry, 32, 33 David, 326 Deacon, Dr., 228 Dean, 238; Moor, 185, 318 Deane ghost, 323 Death sentence, 320 Dee, Dr. John, 50 river, 123, 369 Deity, 3 Delius, Prof., and "Fair Em," 281 Delph, 4 Denmark, Anne of, 128 De Quincey, Thomas, father of, 285 De Quincey uses the word tee- total, 295 Derby, 4, 108 ; women in the silk mills, 289 Derby, Earl of, 44, 50 ; F., Earl, Lamentation for his death, 331 ; Henry, Earl of, 48; James, Earl of, marriage, 331 ; Household book, 129; House of, 129 Derbyshire, 345 " Derbyshire bred," 367 Derwentwaters, estates of, 248 Deverell, William, patents a steam hammer, 297 D'Evereux, General, 152 Devonshire Legend of Sir Francis Drake, 344; merchants, no Dewsbury, 4 Diaz, 155 Dicconson, Hugh, 138; Roger, 137; William, 132 Dice, 42 Dickinson, Elizabeth, 6 Didsbury, 14, Church, 13 Dinah Morris, I Dixon, W. Hepworth, 100 Dodd ridge, 32 Dolkans, Abbey of, 190 Doneam Moss, 196 Doncaster, 112 Douce, F., 46 Dover, 143, 189 Downham, 39, 61, 144 Dragon or Angel, 328 Drake, Sir Francis, Legend of r 344 Drayton-in-the-Clay, 336 Dreams, Murders detected by, 180 Drummond, of Hawthornden, and first Earl of Balcarres, 350 Drunkenness, fines for, 48 Dryden, John, 268 Dublin, 242 Dubost and the screw propeller,. 301 Duckworth, Mary, 246 Dudley, Lord, 44 Duquet, and the screw propeller, 301 Dukenhalgh, 134 Dukinfield cross, 337 ; George Fox at, 337 Dunbar, 299, 300 Dun Echt, 355 Dunham, 115, 193 Dunlop, John, 360 Durham, 238 Dutton, Sir William, 126 Duxbury, 176 D wight, Dr., 88 Dyson, Joseph, 231 Dyson, Simeon, 231 Earle, Bishop, 108 Early rising, 2 Earwaker, J. P., 316 Easter Monday, 186, 203 ; Sunday,. 40 Eastwood, J. A., 121 Eccles, 71, 238, Wakes, 70, 368 Ecclesfield, 109 Ecclesiastical Commissioners, 48- Eccleston, Thomas, 132 Edinburgh, 128, 302 Editors and contributors, 288 Index. 377 Edom, 351 Egan, Charles, 272 Egg pie, 369 Egypt, 351 Elias, the Manchester Prophet, 312 Eliot, George, I, 121, 271 Elizabeth, Queen, u, 213 Ely, the carpenter's son, 314 Embden, 141 Enfield, 96 Enfield, Dr., 33 Epigram, 117 Epitaphs, 5, 73, 119, 311 Essex, Earl of, 44 "Estmere, King," ballad of, 345 Eton, 351 Evans' Catalogue, 324 Evans, Elder, F. W., 86, 100 Evans, Elizabeth, 4 Evans, John, 173 Evans, Mary Ann, see Eliot, George Evenus, King, 201 Everard, of Liverpool, 251 Eve span, 9 Execution of rioters at Lancaster, 321 Eyre, Sir Giles, 134 Factory system, 267, 289 "Fair Em," 280 Fairfax, Lord, 112, 113, 116 Fairs, 24 Faith and wisdom, 325 Farewell Manchester, 334 Farmer Edwards, 334 Farnworth Congregationalism, 23 1 Farnworth near Prescot, 234 Farrar, Dr., on Annet, 325 Farrington, the artist, 252 Fasting of the Manchester prophet, 314; woman, 337 " Fatal curiosity, 1 ' 359 Fell, Judge, and George Fox, 339 Fell, Margaret, 339 AI Femmes et le Secret, 166 Ferraguti, Signer A., 200 Ferriar, John, 151 ; Thomas, 151 Fines for drunkenness, 48 Fires, incendiary of, 1812,318-321 Fish torpedo, 302 Fishwick, Colonel H., 330 Fitz-Ailward, Orm, 188 Fitz-Alwyn, Henry, 278 Fitz-Orm de Ashton, Roger, 1 88 Fitzwarren, Alicia, 278 Fleay, F. G., 129 Fletcher, Job, 319, 320, 321 Fletcher, Mrs., 7 Fletcher, the Jacobite, 228 Flixton, 236 Flodden Field, 349 Flushing, 152 Fogge, Sir John, 194 Football, 42. Fordyce, Lady Margaret Lindsay, 259 Fox, Charles James, 10, 266 Fox, George, his early experiences in Lancashire, 336, 337, not a Sabbatarian, 65 Foxe's Book of Martyrs, 119 Fox hunting, 26 Fulclres, crier of London, 315 Fuller, Thomas, 49, 274 Funeral, old fashioned, 263 Furness, 116 Furnivall, F. J., 129 Fustian cutter's song, 334 Fuseli, 252 France, 134, 307 Frankland, Thomas, 359 Franklin, Benjamin, on population of Manchester, 213 ; prints anti-slavery book, 306 ; letter describing Sandiford and Lay, 307 Free Inquirer^ 326 French, G. J., 210 French prophets, 81 Friend quoted, 309 Froissart, 189 378 Index. G Gainsborough, the artist, 252 'Garentina, an Albanian poem, 264 Garret Hall, 10, 237 Garstang, 44, 51 Gascoigne, George, 189 Gaskell, Holbrook, and the inven- tion of the steam hammer, 302 Gaunt, John of, 189 Gawthorp, 43, 44 Gay, John, 159 " General Lucid," 320 George II. compared to David, 326 Gentle blood, 9 Gerard, the Attorney- General, 312 Gerard, Thomas, 132 Gerard, Sir W., 132 Gerrard, Rev. Richard, 10 Gesta Romanorum, 171 Ghosts, 323 Gifford, or Clifford, William, a rioter, 320 Gilbert, W. S., on bagpipes, 369 Gillor's Green, 262 Gipsies, 42. Girdle containing gold, 17 Glenham, Sir Thomas, answer to Charles I., 112 Gloucester, Duke of, 66, 194 Glover, Mrs., 245 Goddard, Sir Thomas, the miller of Manchester, 283 Golden goose, 330 Goldsmith, Oliver, 266, 268, and Peter Annet, 325, 327 Goosnargh, 133 Gorton, 49, 176, 217, rhyme, 366 Gould, Allen and Larkin, 150 Gramercy, Penny, 334 Gravesend, a prophet at, 314 Gray, Thomas, 263 " Great Britain " steamship, 297 Greek Church, 237 Greenhalgh, Joseph, a rioter, 320 Green, J. R., 273 Greene, Robert, and " Fair Em," 282 Gregory, Pope, 38 Gregson, John, 150 Gresley, Albert de, 188 Gresley, Emma de, 188 Grey Friar hill, 363 Grignion, the engraver, 255 Grindletonian sect, 65 Grimshawe's mills, 176 Grimm's story of the golden goose, 330 Grove, Rev. Samuel, 246 Grubb, Edward, 293 Guicciardini, Ludovico, 167, or the galleys, 269 Guilforde, Sir John, 194 Guildhall, first library, 278 Guynes, Governor of, 188 H Haigh, 125, 343, 349, 350, 356 Hairdressing, 28 Halifax, 32, 44 Hall, Ellis, Eliseus, Elias or Ely, the Manchester prophet, 312- 3i6 Halleck, Fitz- Greene, 312 Halliwell-Phillips, J. O., 333 Halshaw Moor wakes, 234 Hambleton, 39 Hampstead manor, 248 Haras, Colonel, 154 Hardwick, Charles, on the word teetotal, 295 Harland, John, 212, 363 Harris, James, opinion of " Fatal Curiosity," 359 Harrison, Samuel, 311 Harrison, Tho., 67 Harvard, 91 Harvard College, 142 Harwarde, Simon, his sermon at Manchester, 219 Haslingdon, 242, 246, 294 Hastings, "Warren, 266 Hawarden Church, 123 Index. 379 Haworth, Thomas, 181 Hazlitt, W. C, 329, 330; on English Proverbs, 361 Healey hall, 126 Healey, John, 148 Health drinking, 19 Heart, a broken, 113 Heathcote, Dorothy, marries John Shawe, no Hector Temperance Society, 296 Henderson, A., tries to make Charles I. a Presbyterian, 112 Henry, Philip, 36 Henry, Thomas, 37 Herbert, George, 38, 235 Heretics whipped by ministers, 315 Hertford, 217 Hesketh lane, 69 Hesketh, Sir Thomas, of Rufford, 44 Heton, 238 Hewitt, Sir William, 14 Heys, John, 320 Heyrick, Warden, 18 Heyton, Lambert, 238 Heywood, 217, 239, 294, monkey town, 367 Heywood, Robert, 50 Hibbert-Ware, Dr., 187, 203 Higden's Polycbronicon, 123 Higgs, Marcellus, 346 Highwood, 14 Higson, John, on Lancashire'place rhymes, 363 Hobby horse, 47 Hocknell, Hannah, 82 ; John, 82, 88 ; Richard, 88 Hodder river, 362 Hoghton, 51, by moonlight, 365 Hoghton, Alexander, 44 ; Thomas, 44 ; Sir Richard, 51 Holcombe rush bearing, 161 Holcroft, Sir John, 236 Hollingworth, Richard, 368 Holme, 39 Holmes, Dr. Oliver Wendell, 142 Holstein-Ducoudray, 156 Holt, Alice, trial, 149 Holt, Sir Thomas, 236 Holy Land, 351 Hoole, 65 Hopwood, Betty, 247 ; David, 247 Horkstow, 255 Hornby Castle, 51 Hornpipes, Lancashire, 334 Horn, romance of, 345 Horrox, Jeremiah, 64 Horsey, 246 Hospital, Lunatic, 88 Hotham, Sir John, 113 Hour-glass, 113 Howarth and teetotalism, 294 Howarth, Bold, a rioter, 319, 321 Howitt, Richard, 345 Huddersfield, 231 Hulbert, Charles, 7, 206 Hull besieged by Charles I., 112, "5 Hulme, 21, 215 Hulme, Thomas, 82 Hulton, 238 Humfrey, Margaret, 243 Humphries, F., and Jas. Nasmyth, 297 Hungerford, Walter, Lord, 237 Hunter, James, and the screw propeller, 300, 301 Huntingdon, Henry, Earl of, 48 Hunt, Leigh, 297 Hunt, Robert, 263 Hurrell, "Sister," 7 Hurst, John, 320 Hutchinson, Mrs., murder of, 148 Hutt, a member of parliament, 326 Huttonfield, 194 Huyton rhyme, 364 Hyndelegh, Hugh de, 41 JL Illinois 177 Ince-Blundell, 252 India, 152 Indiana, 176, 177 380 Index. Ingleborough rhyme, 362 Inglewhite, 39 Iowa, 177 Ipswich, 175 Ireland, justiciary of, 1 88 Irk, river, 22, 362 Irwell, 362 Isle of Man, 237 Isle of Wight, 113 Italy, 351 Jack Homer, 330 Jackson, B., 160 Jackson, John, 86 Jacobites, 22 Jamaica, 350 James I. and VI., 51, 127; visit to Houghton Tower, 53 James II. and Colin, Earl of Balcarres, 352 James, Philip, 308 Jameson's Northern Antiquities, 346 Jekuthiel ben Isaac, 271 Jenner, Dr. Lord, 10 Jesus, resurrection of, 324, 325 Jewel, Rev. Joel, on the word teetotal, 296 Jews, early references to them in Lancashire, 271, persecution of, 272 hones, Richard, 220 'oily fustian cutter, 334 ;ohnson, Dr. Samuel, 266, 292 ones, Richard, 239 ones, Rev. William, 232 Jones, Sir William, 34 Joseph, 325 Judaisms, Statute de, 272 K Karslake, H. W., 249 Katha Sagit Sagara, 347 Kaufmann, Angelica, 252 Kay, William, 319 Kayserling, Dr. M., 273 Keane, Sir John, 152 Keer river rhyme, 363 Keith, George, opposes the slave trade, 308 Kempe, William, the actor, 129 Kendal, 43, 51, 116 Kennedy, Jane, 128 Kent, river, 363 Kentucky, 176, revival, 97 Kerfoot, Thomas, 319, 320, 321 Kibble, William, 205 King Evenus, 201 King, John, an early teetotaller, 293 Kirk, Thomas, 202 Kirkham, 39, monster, 330 Knight, Black, of Ashton, 186 Knight, Charles, and the author- ship of " Fair Em," 282 Knott Mill Fair, 368 Knolles, Sir Robert, 189 Knowles, John, 136 Knowsley, 44, 129, 254, proverb, 369 Labessade, Leon de, 200 Lacy, John, 1 1 Lafontaine, 163 Lake, Sir Lancelot du, 123 Lampitt, Priest, 339, 342 Lancashire bagpipe, 369; chamber, at Christ's College, Cam- bridge, 109 ; condition in 1812, 317; cuckold, 330; fair women, 370; gentleman's unfortunate love, 330; George Fox in, 337, 338, 342; hornpipes, 334; lad, 331 ; law, 370 ; Lindsays in, 348, 350 ; lovers, 330; man cosened 329; Plot, 130 ; Proverbs, 361 ; did Shakspere visit it? 127 ; what Lancashire thinks to- day, &c., 370 ; wonder, 331 ; beyond the sea, 174 Index. 381 Lancaster, 43, 108, 175, 319, apparition, 334 ; Fox im- prisoned at, 342 Lancaster, Duke of, 189 Lancaster Sound, 177 Langton, Philip, 132 Lanseng Temperance Society, 296 Lapper, Elizabeth, 240 Lapper, Sir William, 240 Larkin, Allen, and Gould, 150 Lathom, 44, 55, 129, 369 La Torre, 154 Laud, Archbishop, 62, no Lauder, Sir T. D., ?nd the screw propeller, 301 Lauderdale, Earl of, and the screw propeller, 300 Law, Sarah, 245 LaWarre, William Lord, 11 Lawrence, of Lancashire, 369 Lawrence, St., Vigil of, 41 Lay, Benjamin, opposes negro slavery, 308 Laying ghosts, 323 League and covenant, 116 Lebanon, 90 Le Blanc, Sir S., 320 Lee, Ann, biographical notice, 79, 95 > J nn > 79 5 Nancy, 88; S. L., 274 ; William, 88 Leeds, 4, 202, 254 Lees, Ann, 86 ; Betty, 86 Lees, Dr. F. R., on the word teetotal, 295 Legend of Mab's Cross and its variants, 343 Leith, experiments with the screw propeller, 301 Leigh, 40 Leigh, Mr., 44 Leigh, of Stanish, 6l Leigh, Sir Peter, 44 Leigh, Rev. W., account of Adlington monster, 330 Leland, the antiquary, 212 " Lenore," Story of Burger's, 258 Libraries open on a Sunday, 74 Lillo's Fatal Curiosity, 146, 359 Lindsay, Sir David, 349 Liverpool, 150, 177, 212,261,324; Early art, 250; Election of Mayor of, 42 ; Sandiford family, 304 ; gentlemen, 367 ; mermaid, 332 ; Tragedy, a ballad, 146, 357; bay, 177 ; cape, 177 ; mountain range, 177; plains, 177; river, 177 Livesey, Joseph, 291 Local rhymes and sayings, 361 Lodge, Dr., and " Fair Em," 282 London, 80, 217, 257, 277, 278, 3H London, Bishop of, 118, 314 Longfellow, H. W., 177, 329 Longwith, Samuel, 184 Lord's day flight from the battle of Newburne, 1 1 1 Lowe, Roger, 66 Lower Dublin, Philadelphia, 310 Low Moor ironworks, 303 Lowrys, Sir Launcelot, 190 Ludd, General, 320 Lunatic hospital, 88 Lunt, John, 133 Lupus, Hugh, Earl of Chester, 124 Lymme, 114, 116 Lyons, Dr., 278 M Mab's Cross, 125, 343, 346 Macbeth, 128 Macclesfield, 4 Macerata, 168 Mackay, Dr., Charles, 276 Mackenzie's play of the "Ship- wreck," 359 Maginn uses the word teetotal, 295 Maine, 98, 176, 177 Maitland, Captain, and the screw propeller, 300 Man after God's own heart, 326 382 Index. Manasseh ben Israel, a corres- pondent of Thomas Fuller, 274 Manchester, 4, 7, 10, 25, 30, 74, 114, 206, 219, 223, 226, 236, 239, 250, 294 ; barony, 188 ; " Manchester bred," 367 ; old church, 1 8, 86 ; cross, 18 ; " Fair Em" of, 280 ; fairs and markets, 24 ; George Fox in, 337 ; Grammar School, 163 ; in 1791, 266; Infirmary, 80; "Manchester men," 367; popu- lation, 212 ; Prince Charles Edward Stuart's supposed visit, 224 ; power looms in, 266 ; prophet, 312 ; pro- phetess, 79 ; riots, 317 ; 320 ; Warden of the. Collegiate Church, 50, 267 ; St. Ann's Church, 21 ; Shudehill, 121 ; Swan Inn, 226 Manchester's an altered town, 147 Manchester Angel, 334 Manchester beyond the sea, 177 Manchester College in Tennessee, 178 Mandeville, 285 Mansfield, Lord, 24 Maracaybo, 157 Marchpanes, 50 Maretown, 82 Mario w, Richard, 42 Maroon insurrection, 350 Marsden, 231 Marston Moor, 116 Martin, Matthew, 248 Martindale, Adam, 19 Mary, Queen of Scots, 349 Mary II., Queen, 131 Maryland, 176 Massachusetts, 98, 176, 177 Matthe.ws, Bishop Tobias, 65 Mayer, Joseph, 250, 257 Mayer MSS., 252 Mayfield, 252 May, Queen of the, 47 Maypoles, 64 Meacham, Joseph, 95 Medcalf, Christopher, 320 Medlock, 25, 362 Melfort, Earl of, 135 Mendey, 154 Mermaid, 332 Merrimac, river, 178 Merry fair, 39 Mersey, river, 368 Mersey, river, in America, 177 Mezzofanti, 34 Michigan, 176, 177 Middlesex, 217 Middleton, 8, 237 ; Bartons of, 194 ; moonrakers, 367 ; riots, 317, 320 Middle wich, 15, 82 Midhurst, 29 Miller, John, 69 Miller's daughter, 331 Milton, John, 130, 219, 224 ; poems published by H. Moseley, 18; a fellow student with John Shawe, 109 Minnesota, 176, 178 Miracle plays, 42 Misrule, Lord of, 4$ Missouri, 176 Moderation and teetotalism, 294 Moland, M. Louis, 168 Molyneux, Lord, 132 Molyneux, Lydia, 319 Money, fall in value, 312 Monkey town, 367 Monsters, 331 Montana, 178 Moonrakers, 367 Morris-dancer, 39, 46 Morris, Susannah, 311 Morton, Bishop, no; author of the Book of Sports, 52 Moseley, 9 Moseley, Humphrey,Milton's pub- lisher, 14, 1 8 Moseley, Dr. Benjamin, 10 Mosley family, 9 ; Sir Oswald, 225 Index. 383 Mottram Church, 344 Mounteagle, Lord, 44 Mowbray, Lord, 112 Murders detected by dreams, 1 80 Murders revealed, 331 Murray, George, 25 Muscovia, 10 Myerscough, 51 Mystery play, 42 Mytton rhyme, 362 N Nasmyth, James, his invention of the steam hammer, 297 Nantwich, 44 Napoleon I., 266 Need wood, Axbearer of, 21 Negro Slavery, 304-311 Neile, Abp., and John Shawe, ill Neile, Sir Paul, and Lord Pem- broke, in Neuskenna, 89 Nevison, William, 148 New Brunswick, 177 New Hampshire, 98, 1 78 New Jersey, 178 New Orleans, 152 New South Wales, 177 New York, 88, 98, 176, 177, 178 Newark, siege, 117 Newburne battle, ill Newbery, the publisher, 327 Newcastle, 117 Newcastle, Earl of, 114 Newspapers at coffee houses, 308 Newton, 67 Newton, Thomas, 44 Newton-in-Cartmell, George Fox, 339 Nevill's Cross, battle, 189 Newcome, Henry and health drinking, 19 Nicaragua, 202 Nixon's Prophecy, 369 Norman's Woe, 177 North Carolina, 178, 307 Northbrook, J., and the May- marrions, 46 Northampton, 193 Norwood subterranean canal, 289 Nottingham, 113, 338, 350 Nova Scotia, 176, 177, 179 Nowell, Dean, 44 Noyon, 190 O Oath, unlawful, 318 Ogden, poet, 269 Ohio, 98, 176, 177, 178 Oldfield Lane doctor, 237 Oldham, 4, 7, 176, 239, 294 ; Brewis, 366 ; roughheads, 367 Old Know hill, 363 Oneida, 178 Ontario, 176, 179 Openshaw constable, 366 Orange, Princess of, 66 Oregon, 176, 177 Otley, 4 Otterburn, the battle, 349 Owen, Charles, 81 ; John, 79 ; Robert, 82 Oxford, 29, 220, 223 Oxwellmains, 299 Paddles for ships, 299 Padiham, 44 Paez, General, 152 Paisley, 204 "Pallas," wreck of, 299 Palm Sunday, 39, 40 Paneton and the screw propeller, 301 Pantley in Gloucestershire, 277 Parsons, Lawrence, 136 Partington, John, 83 ; Mary, 88 Pascual de Andagoya, 202 . Pasto, 158 Patricroft, Bridgewater foundry, 298 Paul, St., 325 3^4 Index. Peace, Mary, 311 Peck, 46 Peckforton Hills cavern inhabited, 26 Peels, The, 287 Peer, a member of the House of Commons, in Pembroke, Philip Earl, uses his staff of office, in Pendle Hill rhymes, 362, 363 Pendle, George Fox at, 338 Pendlebury, 217 Pendleton, 47, 217 ; in the United States, 176 Penigent rhyme, 362 Penistone Church, 119 Penketh, William, 237 Pennsylvania, 177, 178 Penrith, 77 Pepys, S., 334 Percival, Dr. Thomas, 37, 213 Percy, Bishop, 260 Perin murder, 359 Peru, 157 Pestilence at Cambridge in 1630, no Peterloo, 146 Philips, John Leigh, 252 Phillippa, Queen, 189 Phillips, Edward, 282 Phillips, Wendell, 141 Philadelphia and negro slavery, 305-3H . Philpot, a minister, whipping a visionary, 315 Picardy, 189 Pickup, Thomas, 320 Pilkington, Bishop, 237 ; and the Manchester prophet, 314 Pilling Moss, 364 Pillory, 315, 326, 327 Pitt, William, 266 Plague, 13, 1 6, no Platt, 41 Ployde, meaning of the word, 365 Pluralist and Old Soldier, 76 Poictou, Roger de, 188, 369 Pollard, Jonathan, 25 Pond, the engraver, 255 Pontus of Galicia, 346 Pope, Alexander, 231, 268 Pope, The, Sermon against, 22O Pope John XXII., 349 Portarlington, 29 Portfield, 6 1 Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 141 Potter, John, 67 Poughkeepsie, 90 Preaching by a child, 8 Prentice, A., 322 Presbyterian attempt to convert Charles I., 112 Prescot, 176, 234, 263; rhymes, 364 Preston, I, 43, 44, 55, 205, 209 ; seven men, 293 ; rhyme, 364, 365 Preston Bluff, 176; Cape, 176; Hollow, 176; Lake, 176 Prestwich, 239 Pretender, The, 134 Priestley, Dr., 35 Procter, R. W., 87 Proctor, Miss, 7 Prophecy, Ulverston, 333 Prophet, Elias Hall, 312 Prophetess, Ann Lee, 79 Proverbs, Lancashire, 361 Puerto-Cabello, 154 Puritans and Sunday, 49; at Cambridge, in Puddings, Rochdale, 366 Pye, H.J., 259 Quakers on American slavery, 305, 306 ; and Sunday, 66 Queen of the May, 47 Queen's players, 44, 128 Quin, Rev. Mr., 263 R Radcliffe Church, 238 Radcliffe, Samuel, 319, 320 Index. 335 Rain, river, 362 Raines, Canon, 234 Ramsay, Sir James, 274 Randolph, Thomas, 280 Rathbone, Mr., 92 Rawlinson, William, 25 Ray, John, 363 Reading, 175 Restoration of Charles II., 18 Revelations of Manchester pro- phet, 315 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 252 Rhode-Island, 176, 307 Ribble, 39, 362 ; rhyme, 368 Ribchester, 181 ; rhyme, 368 Richard II., 41 Richardson, George, 25 Ridgway, George, 28 Riots of 1812, 318-321 Ripon, 193 ; treaty, 112 Risley, 32 Ritson, Joseph, 47 Rivington, 239 ; rhyme, 363 Robin Hood, play of, 45 Robin Hood Society, 325 Robinson, John, and the Mer- maid, 332 Rochdale, 32, 33, 37, 65, 73, 176, 217, 239, 240, 294 ; puddings, 366 ; rhyme, 366 Roe Cross legend, 344 Rogation Sundays, 39 Rokeslie, Gregory, 278 Rolleston, 14, 16, 20, 21, 23, 26, 30, 31 Rood Dee at Chester, 123 Rood, Legend of the, 122 Roscoe, William, 251 Rota, Vincenzo, 360 Rotherham, in, 112, 114, 119 Rowe and Duncough's mill burned, 320 Roy, Sir Johan of, 190 Rudhall, 239 Rufford, 44 Rugby, 29 Rupert, Prince, 116 Bl Rush-bearing, 39 Ruskin, John, on Lord Lindsay as an art critic, 353 Rutter, Samuel, 17 Ryan, "Sister," 7 Rylond, Nicholas del, 40 Rylonds, William, 40 Sackfield, Sir Richard, 314 Saddleworth, 240 St. Aubyn, Sir John, 12 St. Germains, 131 Saint Giles' sweat, 369 Salaries of great offices, 309 Salford, 47, 235 ; population, 235 Salford in the New World, 179 Samesbury, 39 Sampson, Dominie, 36 San Carlos, 153 Sandby Paul, 252 Sandby, Thomas, 252 Sanderson, Bishop, 64 Sanderson, William, 359 Sandgate, Governor of, 188 Sandiford, John, Town Clerk of Liverpool, 304, 305 Sandiford, Ralph, protests against slavery, 304 Sandiford, Thomas, 304 Sandyford, see Sandiford Saratoga, Earl of Balcarres at, 350 Sauvage and the screw propeller, 301 Saville, Sir George, 289 Savile, Jane, 193 Savile, John, 193 Sawrey, John and the Friends, 339 Saxony, 260 Sayn on the Rhine Legend, 346 Schlegel, 260 Schneider, M., of Creusot, and the steam hammer, 298, 302 Schmidt, Dr. Karl, 199 Scott, Alexander, 244 Scott, E. J. L., 127 Index. Scott, Sir Walter, 259, 365 and Legend of Mab's Cross, 343, 346, 347 Screw propeller, invention of, 300, 301 Scrope, Baron Henry, of Bolton, 127 Stratford, 128 Second Advent, 83 Seeker, Abp., and Peter Annet, 326, 328 Secrets, difficulty of keeping, 163 Seddon, John, 319 Selby, 113 Selwyn, George, 267 Semple, David, 210 Sermon of the Sixteenth Century, 219 Seton, see Assueton, Sir J, Sewell's History bequeathed, 311 Shadrach Irelands, 91 Shakers, 79 ; bibliography, 103 ; villages, 98 Shakspere, 32, 79, 151, 250, 266, 291,312, 317, 357, and Brind- ley, the Engineer, 290; " Fair Em " attributed to him, 280 ; Did he visit Lancashire? 127 Shaw, 239 Shawe, John, 43; autobiography, noticed, 108 Shawe's, Mistris, tombstone, 118 Sheldrake, William, 160 Shepherd, James, 82, 88 Sherburne, Dorothy, 142 ; Hon. Henry, 142 ; Henry, 142 ; Hugh, 142 j Joseph, 142 ; Sir Nicholas, 132 ; Richard, 61, 142 ; Sir Richard, 142 ; Samuel, 142 Sherburnes in America, 141 Shirborn, R., 48 Sherborne, 51, 161 Sherlock, a churchwarden, 237 Sherlock, Bishop, attacked by Annet, 325 Ships, side paddles and screw propellers, 299, 300 Shoreditch church, 316 ; theatre, 129 Shrigley, Mr., 228 Shuttleworth, Ann, 44 ; Ellinor, 44; John, 319 Shuttleworths, of Gawthorp, 43 Sicard, M., 328 Sidlow, a rioter, 318 Sikehouse, 109 Simnel Sunday, 40 Simpson, Richard, and the author- ship of "Fair Em," 282 Sinclair, Sir John, and the screw propeller, 301 Skerringham, 116 Skinners' hall, 42 Slaidburne, curate of, 62 Slave trade, 266, 308 Slavery, protests against, 304 Smiles, S., and the invention of the steam hammer, 297, 302 Smith, Aaron, 135 Smith, Albert, 259 ; James, 319, 320, 321 ; Sir F. P., and the invention of the screw pro- peller, 301 Smithills hall, 44 Smyth, Richard, 239 Smo'field cossacks, 367 Snow's Legend of the Rhine, 346 Snydale ghost, 322, 323 Solemn league and covenant, 116 South Carolina, 176, 178 Spanish Invasion threatened in 1599, II Spam, 349 Spectre Bridegroom, 261 Spence, James Mudie, 154 Spencer. Hon. W. R., 259 Sports, Book of, 57 Spy system, 322 Stafford, 44 ; Earl of, 112 Staffordshire, 29 Staley, Roe Cross, 344 Index. 387 Stamford and Warrington, Earls of, 193 Stamford, outrages on Jews, 273 Standerin, Abraham, 82 Standish, 44 ; monster, 330 Standish, in the United States, 176 Standish, William, 132 Standley, Elizabeth, 82 Standley, Abraham, 82 Stanley, Bishop John, 236 ; J. T., 259 ; Sir Roland, 132 Stanley papers, 129 Staunton, John, 247 Stanwood, James Rindge, 141 Starkee, 61 Starkey, Mrs., 228 Statuta de Judseismo, 272 Stayley, Sir Ralph de, 344 Stead and teetotalism, 294 Steam hammer, invention of, 297 Stillington, Margaret, 118 Stockport, 209, 217, 294 Stockport, in the United States, 176 Stonyhurst, 142 Storm paddles, 300 Stowe, John, 315, 316 Strange, Lord, 15 Strange, Lord, servants of, 281 Street Literature, Curiosities of, 145 Strype, John, 316 Stuart's, Prince Charles Edward, supposed visit to Manchester, 224 Stubbes, Philip, 45 Stubbs, George, biographical notice, 252 Sturowitz, Captain, 151 Suffolk Miracle, 260 Sunday in the Olden Time, 38 Sunday Schools, rise of, 73 Surtees Society, 108 Swarthmoor, George Fox at, 339, . 342 Swindlehurst and teetotalism, 294 Swine, 13 Swinton, see Assueton, Sir J., 191 Taafe, and the Lancashire Plot, 136 Tabling, no Taft, Z., 2, 6 Talbot family, 125 Talbot, Sir John, 6l Tame river, 362 Tankersley, 193 Tannahill, Hugh, 205 Tannahill, Robert, his residence in Lancashire, 204 Tanridge, 223 Taunton, Dean, 277 Taylor, ancestor of Oldfield Lane Doctor, 237 Taylor, Ann, 66 Taylor, John, 245 Taylor, John, LL.D., 173 Taylor, R. E. , on the spy system, 322 Taylor, Thomas, 252 Taylor, Wm,, of Norwich, 259 Teare and Teetotalism, 294 Teetotal, origin of the word, 291 Tegner, Bishop E., 347 Tennant, Jenny, 204 Tennessee, 178 Tennis, 42 Tennyson, Alfred, 141, 343 Texas, 176, 178 Thill-Horse Green, 262 Thomason, the bookseller, 113 Thomson, Baron, 320 Thomson, James, 268 Thompson, Adam, 70 Thoresby, Ralph, 108, 203 Three Black Crows, 163 Threlfall, of Goosnargh, 133 Threlkeld, Rev. Thomas, Extra- ordinary Memory of, 32 Thwaite, Henry, 320 Tieck, L., 347, and "Fair Em," 280 Tildesley, Mr., 133 3 88 Index. Tim Bobbin, see Collier Tiraqueau, Andrew, 229 Todmorden Parsonage murder, 149 Tomlinson, Prof., and the steam hammer, 302 Topping, Peter, 320 Torpedo with screw propeller, 302 Torver, 333 Toulouse, battle of, 152 Ton man, Rev. Thomas, 26 Tour-Land ry, Geoffrey de la, 169 Towneley gallery, 252 Townley, John, 81, 86 Towton, 125 Traditions, collected by Thomas Barritt, 121 Trafford, E., 48 Trafford, Sir Edmund, 235, 236 ; Alchemical researches, 192 Trafford, William, 237 Trafford legend, 283 Trafford and Byron feud, 126 Tragedy, Liverpool, 146 Trance, 6, 333 Transit of Venus, 356 Traske, John, 65 Tremoille, Charlotte de la, 283 Turner, " Dickey," uses the word teetotal, 294 Turpin, Dick, 148 Turton Fair, 40, 159 Tutbury Castle, 15 Tweed, river, 203 " Twist or puff," 318 U Ulverstone, George Fox at, 339, 341 Ulverstone trance, 333 Umbria, 352 United States Census, 97 Urbino, Duke of, 168 Uttoxeter, 14 Vaccination, 10 Vagrants, 42 Valencia, 154 Vaux, John, the Puritan Lord Mayor of York, 1 1 1 Vaux, Lawrence, 239 ; Robert, 3 Vegetarian prophet, 314 Venezuela, 153 Venus, transit of, 64, 356 Vermont, 176, 178 Vienna murder story, 357 Vinci, L. da, and the screw pro- peller, 301 Virginia, 178 ; West, 176 Visions, 6, 313, 333 Vittoria, battle of, 152 Voltaire, 200, 326 W Waddington Hall, 125 Waite, James K., 210 Waits, 250 Walkden, Peter, 69 Walker, Anna, 182 Walker Art Gallery, 250 Walmsley, the Jacobite, 135 Warburton, 116 Wardle, 240 Ward ley, James, 8 1 Wardley, Jane, 81 Ware, see Hibbert-Ware Warner, Daniel, 142 Warner, Sarah, 142 Warrington, 32, 33, 131,223 Warrington, Earls of, 193 Warton fair, 39 Warwick, the " King-maker," 236 Waterloo, 152 Waters, John, 180 Watervliet, 90 Watmough, Abraham, 73 Watt, James, patents a steam hammer, 297 Weatherhill, Miles, 149 Weavers' sufferings in 1812, 317 Webster's Discovery of Witchcraft, 1 80 Index. 389 Wedding feasts, 47 Weeton fair, 39 Weever, John, 42 Weld, Thomas, converts John Shawe, 109 Wendell, Evert Jansen, 141 Wendell, Isaac, 143 Wendell, Jacob, 141 W'endell, Col. John, 141 Wendell, John, 142 Wendell, Oliver, 141 Werner's "Twenty-fourth of Feb- ruary," 360 Wesley, John, Letter to Ann Cut- ler, 3 West Marches Warden of, 127 Westhoughton, 40 ; Factory Fire, 317; distress relieved, 322 West Indies, 305 Westminster, 244, 273, 278 Westleigh, 246 Westmoreland, 339 West, Sir William, 11 Whalley, 72 Wharton, 51 Whatman, the paper maker, 249 Whernside hill, 363 Whipping, by ministers, 315 Whitaker, T. D., 72 Whittaker, James, 86, 88 Whitehall, 118 Whitemeat, vegetables, 314 Whittington and his Cat, 276 Whittington, Sir Richard, 276 Whittington, Sir William, 277 Whitworth, 240 Whyte, E. A., 260 Whyte, Samuel, 260 Wigan, 74, 254, 343 ; burial place of the Lindsay's, 355 ; Church steeple, 368 ; Murder, 148 ; Baron Wigan, 348 ; ' ' Lives of the Lindsays, "349; Lord Crawford, M.P. for Wigan, 351 ; Lord Crawford created Baron Wigan, 351 Wight, Isle of, 113 Wilberforce, William, 266 Wilkes, John, 244 Wilkinson, T. T., 364 Wilkinson, Miss, 35 William the Conqueror, 188, 272 William III., 21, 131 Williams, John, 143 Williams, Sir William, 133 Wilson, a witness in the Lanca- shire plot, 136 Wilson, John Gleeson, 148 Wilson, Robert, and the invention of the steam hammer, 297 Wilson, Bishop Thomas, mother of, 237 Winchelsea, 29 Windsor Castle Library, 229 Wind -wheels and screw propeller, 300 Winskill, P. T., on the word teetotal, 294 Winstanley, Hamlet, 254 Wisconsin, 178 Woman, a fasting, 337 Womball, a witness in the Lan- cashire plot, 135 "Women of Lancashire fair, 370 Women preachers, I Wood's Athenae, 223 Wood, Vice-Chancellor, 247 Woodward, B. B., 229 Woodward, Robert, 319 W T oollen trade, 10 Wordless Book, 172 Worthington's ghost, 323 Wool ward, dressing in wool, 314 Wrexham, 35 Wright, of Derby, 252 Wright, John, of Esher, corres- pondent of Franklin, 307 Wright, Lucy, 95 ; Martha, 32 ; Thomas, 209 ; Thomas, F.,S.,A., 1 68 Wynkyn de Worde, 347 Y Yates, John, 240 390 Index. York, 65, 108, ill, 112, 113, 1 1 6, 254 ; Duke of, 66 Yorkshire, 41, 194 Yorkshire, George Fox, 338 Young, Arthur, 287 Young, Colonel, 157 Yownge, a minister, whipping visionary, 315 Zunz, Dr. Leopold, 272 Brook, and Chrystal^ Printers, Manchester. 394251 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY